Open Thread 145.25

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

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1,243 Responses to Open Thread 145.25

  1. Le Maistre Chat says:

    In 1930s America, Murder, Incorporated was an organized crime business specializing in homicide for other mobs, as well as general enforcement for New York Jewish boss Louis “Lepke” Buchalter. Founded by two other New York Jewish mobsters, Meyer Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, it was largely composed of Italian-American as well as Jewish gangsters from the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill. Mob bosses all over the United States could call up Murder, Inc. to hire a hitman. The killers were paid a regular salary as retainer as well as an average fee of $1,000 to $5,000 per killing. Their families also received monetary benefits

    What a (morally) bad business model.

    • broblawsky says:

      So this is interesting: $3000 in 1935 US dollars is ~$56000 in 2019 dollars. Meanwhile, the average price of a hit in Australia in 2002 is ~$12700, or ~$13,300 in 2020 US dollars. Law enforcement has gotten substantially better at its job, which should have made prices go up even further, but instead they’ve actually declined substantially in real terms since the 1930s. Is that because Murder Inc kept prices high by acting as a union for its members? Or did some other factor depress prices?

      • eyeballfrog says:

        Perhaps demand has gone down?

      • Protagoras says:

        I think that the improvement in law enforcement has eliminated skilled, professional hitmen. So the modern average is for incompetent part-timers, and so not comparable.

        • John Schilling says:

          If the Australian “hitmen” in question are comparable to their American counterparts, then definitely this. “Murder Inc” was an extreme outlier; criminals who specialized in killing strangers for money have always been unusual and are now extremely rare; usually the job is given to a thug whose specialty is scaring strangers for money, and often they botch the killing part.

          Would be interesting to know the rates for non-Murder-Inc contract killings in the 1930s; that would be a better basis for comparison.

  2. ana53294 says:

    Article (Google search result to avoid paywall) on how companies use the environmental excuse for their penny pinching.

    We have a no takeaway policy because we’re trying to cut down on plastic use.

    […] The more I thought about it, the more the suspicion formed that the restaurant was using a classic eco-excuse, that greenwashing trick of pretending to be green to justify a spot of irksome cost-saving.

    I would have forgotten about this had I not been interviewing a man a short time later about hot-desking.

    He made a living from helping companies to ditch dedicated desks and he wanted to discuss an article I had written that complained about how this penny-pinching ploy cast people out into the noisy, chaotic wasteland of shared workspaces.

    In an effort to explain politely that I was an idiot, he listed a familiar set of arguments for the hot desk. People met more of their colleagues. This improved collaboration and ultimately productivity. Then he told me there was another vital point that I needed to understand: “Carbon emissions.”

    One of the things I like about penny-pinchers like Lidl and Ryanair is that they don’t pretend they do it for the environment. Lidl always charged for plastic bags; they never said it was about the environment. Ryanair’s refusal to print tickets for free, to give meals or drinks during flights, and other things they do to increase flight efficiency, by cutting weight and increasing the number of passengers they carry, is about money, although they probably do help the environment (no more plastic glasses, printed tickets, more passenger miles per litre of fuel, etc.).

    • The version of this that always amuses me is the sign in a hotel, generously offering to not change your towels and sheets every day — as a way of protecting the environment.

      I don’t want them to change my towels and sheets every day — I don’t at home, after all. But it’s something that saves them money being offered as evidence of how public spirited they are.

  3. johan_larson says:

    The US Space Force may not have much, but they do have a Twitter account:

    https://twitter.com/SpaceForceDoD

    • Deiseach says:

      This pleases me because it’s Proper Futurism. All the SF I ever read promised me that in the far-flung days of the 21st century we would have a Space Force as well as flying cars and colonies on other planets.

      We may never get the flying cars but at least we have a Space Force and finally I feel like I am living in the proper kind of 21st century that I was promised! 😀

      • John Schilling says:

        A space force that wears woodland camo uniforms. Jokes about invading Endor aside, uniforms promote institutional identity, and if you have your Space Force wear exactly the same uniforms as the Air Force, you are blatantly signalling that your “space force” is really just a branch of the Air Force without even the separation that sort of exists between the USN and USMC.

        Also, I’m guessing that there will be no provision for enlisting or commissioning directly into the USSF, and “space force” officers will be rotated into Air Force roles (and vice versa) whenever it is convenient to the service.

        • Evan Þ says:

          Give them a little while. It took two years for the US Air Force to get its first uniforms distinct from the Army, and another year or two before airmen were actually wearing that new uniform.

        • johan_larson says:

          I guess the question is what color would be appropriate. The navy has dark blue, the air force has medium blue, meaning the only remaining blue range is light blue, which might look odd. Earth tones like green and brown aren’t really appropriate. White would be a cleaning nightmare. Black would be very appropriate, but the twentieth century happened.

          So what does that leave? Gray maybe?

          • John Schilling says:

            Gray digital camo, to blend with the cubicle walls that will be their primary operating environment for years to come. The dress uniforms can be black, so long as we call it something like “space force gray”; seems to work for the Navy

        • cassander says:

          This is why we need to get them capes ASAP. Also why we can waste no time in re-titling General Raymond as Sky Marshal Raymond.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            In the world of tomorrow, will a Sky Captain be an O-3 like the Air Force or an O-6 like all those SF settings that cut & paste the Navy into space?

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            It’s captains all the way up, from ensign captain, to lieutenant captain, to sky captain, to major captain, to commander captain, to colonel captain, until you hit the marshall rank range.

            And now “Captain” looks misspelled to me. 🙁

          • Nornagest says:

            In the world of tomorrow, will a Sky Captain be an O-3 like the Air Force or an O-6 like all those SF settings that cut & paste the Navy into space?

            And in any case, what’s the pay grade of an Earth Captain, a Water Captain, a Fire Captain and a Void Captain?

          • The Nybbler says:

            The Void Captain gets nothing, naturally.

          • Randy M says:

            Sounds like a job that literally sucks.

        • bullseye says:

          The Air Force also has no logical reason to wear woodland camo. From what I’ve read, the idea is to have the entire military wearing similar uniforms to remind them they’re all on the same team.

          • Another Throw says:

            I thought it was because the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines all fielded new uniforms at around the same time. (I don’t know about the Coast Guard. IIRC, the other two uniformed services use dress uniforms only so are not at issue.) Then three of those services all went back to congress looking for more money to replace their ghastly abominations all at around the same time. Congress was kind of pissed off about it and required any new uniform to be used by all the services.

            I don’t know off hand whether the Marines actually did manage to stick to MARPAT “like a hobo on a ham sandwitch,” I believe the quote was.

          • John Schilling says:

            Has anybody told the Navy and the Marines? Because they seem to be sticking with their own service-specific uniforms for the indefinite future.

          • bean says:

            @bullseye

            Not really. Any drive for standardization among the services is primarily a money thing. From the 80s until around 2000, everyone was wearing BDUs. The Marines started the stampede for unique uniforms with MARPATs, which at least have the virtue of looking good, and were justified as making Marines feel special. The other services started to do the same. Somehow, the Air Force has recently ended up switching to the Army’s uniform from its own uniform. Not sure what the story there was. The Navy has recently replaced the rather absurd blue NWUs with a green-pattern camouflage uniform, which at least doesn’t look idiotic. I wish they’d stop pretending to be a land service, and go with something like the RN’s No 4s, which look good and apparently work very well. They can borrow MARPATs or whatever for anyone who actually needs camo.

            I don’t know about the Coast Guard. IIRC, the other two uniformed services use dress uniforms only so are not at issue.

            The Coast Guard has its own blue working uniform, which the NOAA and PHS both borrow.

          • cassander says:

            @bean

            the number 4s are nice, but we need to find the monsters that keep convincing military services that berets are acceptable headgear.

            the USN has any number of nice looking uniforms, and that’s the trouble. There are… a dozen or so of them? that’s not counting male/female differences which seem more prominent with the navy. It’s absurd and costly and the navy leadership has bigger problems to deal with than playing dressup. I don’t go quite as far as this man does but I will say that:

            (A) the basic principle that far too much time, effort, and money goes into uniforms is correct and we need to stop this nonsense.

            (B) each service should have 2 basic uniforms, service and dress. You can vary the camo pattern and cloth weight to meet various climates, you can vary it by rank, and some MOSes will need specialist gear, but two is the goal. Sexual differences should be minimized, and no soldier that isn’t Scottish should ever wear a skirt.

            (C) Soldiers should dress like soldiers and dress uniforms should only be worn on ceremonial occasions. And no, congressional testimony does not count.

            (D) Once the new system is set up, we need legislation mandating that any future changes to uniforms that are not tactically relevant must be funded entirely through gofundme.

          • bean says:

            I think that goes a bit too far. First, tradition is important to military units. We know this, and uniforms are a part of that tradition. Second, two uniforms isn’t enough. Camo in offices just looks stupid. Let’s go with dress/service/working uniforms. Sure, we’ll cut down some on when you need to wear dress uniforms to roughly match modern suit etiquette, but they have their place. We can look at standardizing working uniforms to some extent based on function (there really isn’t a need for everybody to have their own camo) but those will always be looser.

            Broadly with you on berets, definitely with you on unisex uniforms.

          • cassander says:

            @bean

            camo in offices is silly, but it’s not intrinsically sillier that bright primary color uniforms. I’d be absolutely fine if we could go back to the pre-ww2 tradition of soldiers on desk jobs in DC wearing civilian clothes, but that will never happen, so in lieu of that, I just want to cut things down to manageable levels.

    • bullseye says:

      So, the army has soldiers, the air force has airmen, so what will the space force have? They haven’t decided yet. The obvious answer would be spacemen, but that would suggest that they’re actually in space; also I feel like they’re going to go for a word that isn’t gendered.

      Relatedly, they haven’t decided what the names of the ranks will be. I figure they’ll use the same rank names as the air force, except for the ranks that include the word “airman”.

      • B_Epstein says:

        Spacers?

      • johan_larson says:

        It probably makes sense for the Space Force to distance itself from the Air Force, if only because they will tend to be conflated if they don’t. That suggests they need to invent completely new ranks or borrow from either the army or the navy. Of the two, I’d probably go with the army ranks, since some of the middle and senior enlisted ranks of the navy sound kind of silly. “Master Chief Petty Officer”? “Rear Admiral Lower Half”? Really?

        • The Nybbler says:

          “Rear Admiral Lower Half”? Really?

          This does not mean an Admiral’s butt, but rather indicates the Navy wanted a whole bunch of ranks in the Admiralty and ran out of creative names like “Brigiadier” and “Marshall” (which the land forces got to first). “Rear Admiral” meant (historically) the Admiral that commanded the ships in the rear of the squadron, and “lower half” just means they’re one rank step lower than a plain old “Rear Admiral” (sometimes called “Upper Half”, which again does not mean their torso and head)

          • John Schilling says:

            “Commodore” is a perfectly good and creative name for the O-7 rank in naval service. The United States Navy seems to alternate between that and “Rear Admiral Lower Half” every second generation, for complicated and nigh-inscrutable reasons.

        • anonymousskimmer says:

          https://www.federalpay.org/military/army/ranks

          You think the army ranks are any better?

          “Specialist”, “First Sergeant”, “Sergeant Major”

          E-1 being a “Private”, with E-3 being a “Private first class”, yet O-8 “Major General”, O-9 “Lieutenant General”, and O-10 “General”?

  4. AlesZiegler says:

    So this will sound weird. I am thoroughly impressed by the research you put into this and I also agree on most of your substantive points (one thing I take issue is Pinker ́s and apparently Keegan ́s contention, that without Hitler, there wouldn’t be WWII), but my opinion that Wilson was an abysmally bad national leader remains unchanged.

    As an aside, you didn’t defend any nonWWI related bad things that Wilson did, so let ́s list them again. He was a champion of racial discrimination. He nearly brought US to war with Mexico for stupid reasons (wikipedia page on Tampico incident is unfortunately listed as unreliable, but I do not have better source at hand). He signed on to authoritarian and unnecessary curtailment of civil liberties in the form Espionage Act of 1917.

    There are also more rightwing reasons to dislike Wilson, like that he signed on to creation of central bank and of income tax, and also rightwing critique of League of Nations is slightly different from mine. To be clear, I think that income taxes and central banking are good things, but they exist in almost every developed country and momentum for their enactment in the US preceded Wilson. Also structure of Federal Reserve that Wilson sign on was dysfunctional and totally failed in its task of solving financial panics (see Great Depression).

    So, we are agreement on

    1) Wilson should not have brought US into WWI
    2) The US was far from the only country that rushed into WWI recklessly, and Wilson´s decision for war had broad bipartisan support
    3) Treaty of Versailles was not a sole cause of WWI.
    4) That Treaty was not a sole creation of Wilson, it was a compromise between victorious powers, and if it would be solely dictated by the French, it would be much more punitive towards Germany, whereas if it would solely dictated by Wilson, it would be much more lenient,
    5) Wilson should have, instead of pushing for his utopian scheme of League on Nations, spent his political capital on an issue of easing the burden of war debts in exchange for less harsh terms on Germany.

    To that I might only add two bits of context.

    First, it wasn’t like everyone important in the US was clamoring for war, antiwar sentiment definitely existed. For example Wilson’s Secretary of State and obviously important Democratic Party figure William Jennings Bryan resigned in protest over Wilson ́s ultimatum to Germany delivered after the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. Wilson almost brought US into war right there, if not for the fact that Germany backed down.

    Second, while Treaty of Versailles wasn’t sole cause making WWII inevitable, it was certainly one of its most important causes (I mean of WWII in Europe, of course).

    Where we probably disagree is that overall I think that those facts taken together make Wilson pretty disastrous US president, in fact the worst in the 20th century.

  5. Purplehermann says:

    How large is the American “grey tribe” ? (Just looking for a general estimate)

    • anonymousskimmer says:

      From earlier in the thread: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/01/15/open-thread-145-25/#comment-842465

      About one-in-ten Americans (11%) describe themselves as libertarian and know what the term means.

      • brad says:

        Scott’s narrative on “Grey Tribe” was a lot more than libertarian and some of the other characteristics were a lot more obscure. I mean filk?!? I had to look that up, and I have at least one post in rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan.

        • anonymousskimmer says:

          Okay, then the OPs question may not be answerable.

          About a third of the population won’t identify tribally at all, as the concept of “tribes” is outside of their personal Overton window. So this also comes down to whether tribal membership is based on self-claim, others (who are tribally inclined) lumping you into a tribe whether you identify or not, or some other criteria.

          Regardless, any claims as to numbers are going to be argued about quite a bit.

          Yeah, I only know of filk thanks to an author’s note by C.J. Cherryh (and I used to participate in an email group for Raymond Feist’s novels). I think Scott likely meant these as examples, and not keystones.

    • Plumber says:

      @Purplehermann says:

      “How large is the American “grey tribe” ? (Just looking for a general estimate)”

      Alright, from our host’s list of “tribe” attributes in his I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup post (with numbers and line seperations added by me):

      The Red Tribe is most classically typified by:

      1) conservative political beliefs, 

      2) strong evangelical religious beliefs,

      3) creationism,

      4) opposing gay marriage,

      5) owning guns, 

      6) eating steak, 

      7) drinking Coca-Cola, 

      8) driving SUVs, 

      9) watching lots of TV, 

      10) enjoying American football, 

      11) getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies, 

      12) marrying early, divorcing early, shouting “USA IS NUMBER ONE!!!”, 

      and 

      13) listening to country music

      For individuals meeting all of @Scott Alexander’s “typified” Red-Tribe traits, as a rough guess I’d say 15% of Americans, so millions of people, and for those with at least half of the traits? 

      I’d say that easily the majority of Americans have at least half of Scott’s “Red-Tribe” traits.

      The Blue Tribe is most classically typified by 

      1) liberal political beliefs, 

      2) vague agnosticism, 

      3) supporting gay rights, 

      4) thinking guns are barbaric, 

      5) eating arugula, 

      6) drinking fancy bottled water, 

      7) driving Priuses, 

      8) reading lots of books, 

      9) being highly educated, 

      10) mocking American football, 

      11) feeling vaguely like they should like soccer but never really being able to get into it, 

      12) getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots, 

      13) marrying later, constantly pointing out how much more civilized European countries are than America, 

      and

      14) listening to “everything except country”

      For individuals meeting all of @Scott Alexander’s “typified” Blue-Tribe traits, as a rough guess I’d say 5% of Americans, so millions of people, and for those with at least half of the traits? 

      I’d say that nearly the majority of Americans have at least half of Scott’s “Blue-Tribe” traits.

      There is a partly-formed attempt to spin off a Grey Tribe typified by 

      1) libertarian political beliefs, 

      2) Dawkins-style atheism, 

      3) vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, 

      4) eating paleo, 

      5) drinking Soylent, 

      6) calling in rides on Uber, 

      7) reading lots of blogs, 

      8) calling American football “sportsball”,

      9) getting conspicuously upset about the War on Drugs and the NSA, 

      and 

      10) listening to filk

       – but for our current purposes this is a distraction and they can safely be considered part of the Blue Tribe most of the time

      For individuals meeting all of @Scott Alexander’s “typified” Grey-Tribe traits, as a rough guess I’d say about 20 friends of @Scott Alexander, and for those with at least half of the traits? 

      Still uncommon, maybe a million people  have at least half of Scott’s “Grey-Tribe” traits?

      Frankly other than our host confessing his social isolation I’m not sure what good his concept of “tribes” is, from later posts it seems a confused jumble of socal class, regional differences, and partisan affiliation.

  6. anonymousskimmer says:

    TLDR, did you include Wilson’s support of racial segregation and specifically black inferiority in the US in the calculation? Presumably such support had some effect on US domestic support for Nazi racial policies and racial fascism, which would have lent support for the growth of the same in Germany.

  7. Suppose you qualify for a subsidized student loan but don’t need it. Is there any reason not to take the loan anyway, use it to pay for educational expenses then take the money you would have used to pay those expenses, invest it conservatively, and then achieve one of two outcomes:

    1. If Warren or Bernie cancels the debt, walk away with all the money.

    2. If not, take it and pay it back six months after graduation in full,(there are no early payment penalties) pocketing any interest accrued.

    • Well... says:

      then take the money you would have used to pay those expenses

      So for this to make any sense, you have already be committed to going to school. Or, I guess, to investing a sum money equal to whatever those school expenses would be.

    • The Nybbler says:

      1) You have to have the discipline to do this.

      2) Even conservative investments could lose money.

      I doubt many students are actually in that position, though, except the scions of the very wealthy.

      • The scions of the very wealthy wouldn’t qualify for subsidized loans.

        • The Nybbler says:

          They can declare themselves independent students, though this has tax consequences for their parents.

          • I’m not seeing how it only applies to the children of the wealthy.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Who has the money to pay for college without getting loans? Only the children of the wealthy (who might have to engage in shenanigans to get subsidized loans… but shenanigans are not entirely unknown among that set).

          • John Schilling says:

            Who has the money to pay for college without getting loans?

            Children of the middle class who go to in-state schools and don’t go into fields that expect people to pay for their own postgraduate education.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            To add to what John said, particularly if they have a prepaid college program. In my state when your kid is born you can lock in current college tuition rates and pay a small amount per month until they’re 18.

          • The Nybbler says:

            I was such, but

            1) If I’d gotten loans, my parents wouldn’t have ponied up the money for me to invest

            and

            2) In-state tuition was roughly $2100 ($4280 in 2019 dollars); it was $10,770 in 2019. I think this kind of increase is pretty typical. So it’s quite a bit harder for a middle class family to pay.

          • Well... says:

            Who has the money to pay for college without getting loans?

            Children of the middle class

            I was thinking non-traditional students — i.e. adults who’ve been in the workforce and decide to go back to school.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @Well…

            I had to reduce my hours from 40 to 35 per week. The sub and ubsub student loans helped make up for this reduction in hours as well as the increase in expenses, though even then I was still using credit cards too.

            Perhaps some people can go to school while working and have enough to cover it without loans. But if this is the case, why do they feel they need to go to school anyway, and why would they qualify for subsidized loans (assets count in qualification for subsidized loans)?

            I can only see this as applicable to a non-working spouse, but then would they even qualify for subsidized loans without not actually needing the loan money to pay for college and college expenses?

          • John Schilling says:

            I was thinking non-traditional students — i.e. adults who’ve been in the workforce and decide to go back to school.

            In that case, a fair number of people get their employers to pay for their continued education. The most obvious example being the military, but it’s not rare in the civilian sector.

        • anonymousskimmer says:

          These loopholes are in the process of being plugged, but until then: https://www.propublica.org/article/university-of-illinois-financial-aid-fafsa-parents-guardianship-children-students

          Parents Are Giving Up Custody of Their Kids to Get Need-Based College Financial Aid

          First, parents turn over guardianship of their teenagers to a friend or relative. Then the student declares financial independence to qualify for tuition aid and scholarships.

      • cassander says:

        I doubt there are a lot of people for whom the choice is no loans or lot of loans, but there definitely might be some people who are evaluating how much debt to take on, who could take the debt now instead of spending earned/other money.

    • anonymousskimmer says:

      Where are you getting this other money?

      If it’s from a job, then you’d probably be better off quitting the job and spending the extra time taking a larger load of classes (graduating earlier, or with a dual degree or double major), studying more, or volunteering in your major. If, as The Nybbler says, you have the discipline to do so.

      If its from your parents or some other similar source, then you probably don’t qualify for subsidized student loans. (And wouldn’t your parents be investing this money anyway, likely in a tax-sheltered 401(k) or IRA?)

    • broblawsky says:

      I’m pretty sure that you don’t actually get the money yourself when you get student loans – it gets disbursed to your school.

      • anonymousskimmer says:

        The extra funds not immediately used for tuition get “refunded” to your bank account.

        • Evan Þ says:

          This’s quite intentional; it’s designed for students to buy course supplies like textbooks and laptops, as well as basic living expenses.

  8. Statismagician says:

    Has anybody got a source for US mortality data including country of birth? It’s just occurred to me that tracking raw life expectancy in a country that had a more than 14% immigrant population wasn’t actually all that meaningful in a statistical sense, for which eternal shame upon me. Alas, I don’t work at the place with the billion-record database of health care admin data anymore.

  9. AlexOfUrals says:

    Why isn’t there more (any?) environmental activism against junk mail? How helpful is banning plastic straws compared to banning a sizeable stack of paper from being delivered to every mailbox in the country every week?

    • DeWitt says:

      Different audiences. The preferred audience for banning plastic straws are perfectly decent people. Educate them on the ILLS and DANGERS of plastic straws, and they’ll not mind a ban so much.

      The people sending junk mail likely know what they are doing and aren’t going to stop anyway. A long lost cause if there ever was one.

      • AlexOfUrals says:

        But looks like most of the Americans use plastic straws, and only very limited number of them are interested in sending junk mail, everyone else don’t need any convincing they’ll be happy to see it banned. Although those interested represent many large corporations – are you saying it’s basically lobbyism? Even so, there’s strong movements against many things backed up by lobbies – factory farming, oil industry, personal data collection to name the few.

        • DeWitt says:

          You’re giving me an answer to a different question here. I couldn’t say why it is or isn’t banned, but most activism is aimed at the large mass of people, not a small minority of them. Drinking from plastic straws(or smoking, or what have you) is something many more people are involved in than sending junk mail. Why it’s not banned is a separate matter from what the activists care about.

        • cassander says:

          The people who send junk mail profit by it and care a lot. The people who use plastic straws care very little. Hence, the first group is more politically powerful.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            Which is why I’ve decided to care VERY STRONGLY about plastic straws to compensate!

            (but in all seriousness, paper straws are !#$% ineffective *&^%$# garbage and I hate everything about them and everything they represent*.)

            *To me, they represent the triumph of visible self-flagellation over actual impact analysis.

          • cassander says:

            You’re preaching to the choir. I will absolutely vote on this issue, and there are literally dozens of us who care about the issue that much!

          • The Nybbler says:

            Plastic straws aren’t such a big deal, but plastic bags are. Getting groceries is going to suck even more now. Thanks environmentalists; when I’m dropping all my stuff on the way to the car, I’ll think about you.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            Hey Nybbler. They still sell (10 cents) plastic bags. And these are far heavier duty than the easily ripable plastic bags of yore.

            Or you can shell out some money for heavy duty synthetic cloth bags with pretty pictures on them (or the cheaper ones without the pretty pictures).

            Now everyone has got an excuse to carry around a pretty bag without being considered effete. 😀
            https://www.zazzle.com/art+reusable+bags
            https://loqi.com/collections/bag-collections

          • The Nybbler says:

            I’m never going to remember to carry the reusable bags with me. Even if I remember to put them in the car, I’ll forget to bring them into the store. And paying 10c per bag will make me feel like I’m being cheated and it’s my own fault (for forgetting the bags), so I won’t do it.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            Well I guess this is why you can’t have nice (pretty) things.

            The few times I *now* forget to take the bags from the car to the store I just repack the cart and unpack the cart into the bags at the car.

            The few times I forget to take the bags from home back to the car, I pay the ten cents.

          • Eternaltraveler says:

            They still sell (10 cents) plastic bags

            I buy those heavy duty 10 cent bags that will last 10 times longer in the environment every time and then immediately throw them away. This is what most people do.

            Carrying my own bags everywhere is a pain in the ass. I will not do it. Nor will I participate in any other self flagellation ritual we’re supposed to perform so the environmental gods will show favor to us. It’s too bad groceries cost a dollar more now, but most supermarkets have razor thin margins so it makes sense that they would lobby so heavily for this extra dollar.

          • Clutzy says:

            Yea, the bag thing is among the worst legal development I’ve seen in my lifetime when it comes to causing hassles. Makes checking out like 50% longer. And its not like a learning curve, tellers havent adjusted in the 3+ years since we implemented it.

            Plus, from what I understand, given how consumer habits work, the new bags are as bad for the environment (also they cause a lot of disease if you don’t use them in a way that is worse for the environment) .

          • Eternaltraveler says:

            And its not like a learning curve, tellers havent adjusted in the 3+ years since we implemented it.

            Very true. I show up with a shopping cart full of groceries and before they scan one item up they ask me how many bags I want. I want however many bags it takes to hold all of my groceries which I unfortunately won’t know until we stuff the groceries into the bags and see how many it takes. Nor is it worth the cognitive real estate to develop good estimates of what this may be every time, especially since the person helping you bag tends to put radically different quantities of groceries in each bag each time. The worst are the ones who treat the bags like a precious resource and overstuff them so they break open on the way up the stairs into your house.

      • Secretly French says:

        The people sending junk mail likely know what they are doing and aren’t going to stop anyway. A long lost cause if there ever was one.

        Right so this is literally how crime and punishment works: you just make it illegal to send unsolicited mail. Bam. Maybe it won’t end, but it will diminish and negative externalities can be offset by the fines or whatever.

        • John Schilling says:

          Right so this is literally how crime and punishment works: you just make it illegal to send unsolicited mail.

          But that’s not how representative democracy works. You don’t just pass a law, you have to, well, you know. And, particularly at that “stuck in committee” part, what matters is the integrated commitment of the people who support and oppose the law. There may be a hundred million people who would like to see junk mail banned and a hundred hundred who oppose it, but the average commitment of people in the latter group is literally a hundred thousand times stronger – it’s the core of their very lucrative business model, compared to a minor annoyance for the recipients.

          They’ll pay good money, and lots of it, to make sure you all are distracted by e.g. a campaign to ban plastic straws instead. And you’ll, what? Seriously, having determined right here and now that a law banning junk mail would be a good thing, what are you going to actually do to make it happen?

    • Statismagician says:

      Junk mail is sent not by people, but by marketing departments. These last aren’t susceptible to emotional appeals, and you haven’t got their mailing address anyway.

    • ana53294 says:

      Bitcoin should be even more controversial, and it isn’t. There are reports it consumes ~0.5% of the energy of the world per year, or about Switzerland’s expenses. Shows you how much enviromentalism is about signalling and lowering the quality of our lives (get rid of cars, flights, meat), than it is about actually preventing actual harm to the environment by a mostly useless activity.

      • teneditica says:

        It’s ridiculous to base estimates of the carbon emissions Bitcoin is responsible for on the energy estimates. You can mine bitcoin anywhere you want, including in places that have the potential for renewable energies that would otherwise not get used.

        • John Schilling says:

          And plastic straws can be disposed of in a responsible manner that poses no environmental risk, yet here we are.

        • You can theoretically do a lot of things. What matters is what actually happens in the real world.

        • ana53294 says:

          Actual carbon emissions of Bitcoin production are still ridiculous, though.

          And Bitcoin, unlike a plastic straws, are much less useful. They don’t help disabled people drink. They are even less useful than using plastic straws to avoid removing lipstick, considering it’s mostly used by criminals.

          Besides, even clean energy is not 100% clean. At some point of drilling wells for geothermal, producing and laying cable for offshore, or making a nuclear station, the parts that go into making these things, produced CO2. So anything that increases energy use, even clean energy use, will in the end increase CO2.

          There aren’t that many places that regularly produce a surplus of clean energy. Yes, Germany does it, but the energy is too unstable to reliably run a server farm. Countries just don’t increase energy production over what they could potentially use.

          And even if Bitcoin farming is done in a country with very clean energy, like Iceland’s geothermal energy, it would still be pushing out other, actually useful uses of energy, such as alluminium production, which, when done in Iceland, would reduce CO2 production in comparison with producing it in a country with dirtier energy.

          • John Schilling says:

            Most of the world’s Bitcoin mining is done in China, which generates >75% of its electric power by burning coal.

          • Lodore says:

            And Bitcoin, unlike a plastic straws, are much less useful. They don’t help disabled people drink. They are even less useful than using plastic straws to avoid removing lipstick, considering it’s mostly used by criminals.

            I believe, and can rationally defend, the view that governments have no business regulating my consumption of chemicals that have a lower risk profile than many legal substances. I buy these chemicals on the darknet using Bitcoin.

            My point? I don’t think it’s remotely obvious that Bitcoin have no value, and that citing use by ‘criminals’ is merely point-and-shriek behaviour.

          • albatross11 says:

            Lodore:

            +1

            Look, everyone mining bitcoin and doing any other arguably-unproductive thing with energy is paying for that energy on a market. If the price of energy is too low to force its users to consider the full costs of their actions, there’s a pretty obvious solution. This solution is actually general and doesn’t involve either activists or Congress trying to decide which new technologies should live or die.

          • broblawsky says:

            Can we at least agree that a carbon tax would help address this question?

          • As usual, everyone in the thread takes it as given that CO2 production has a net negative externality.

            Warming generally has positive effects when and where it is cold, negative effects when and where it is hot. Effects on weather are very uncertain — at least one expert concluded that hurricanes would probably become a little stronger and substantially less common. The only two unambiguous effects I can think of are sea level rise, negative but small, and CO2 fertilization, positive and large.

            Suppose, however, that you really do want to reduce CO2. Bitcoin mining has one unambiguous superiority to almost all other uses of energy. You can do it anywhere–transport costs for bitcoin are essentially zero. So if there are places (or, more plausibly, times) where renewables are in excess supply and you let prices reflect that, bitcoin miners have an incentive to do their mining with that cheap power.

          • AlexanderTheGrand says:

            @DavidFriedman

            Can you link to a source that argues against that claim in aggregate? Before seeing any data, I would assume that while there is that calculus, on the whole the positive effects aren’t even close to the same scale as the negative.

          • broblawsky says:

            Arguing that dumping additional energy into a very complicated system will have net-positive effects on the welfare of the fragile creatures within that system is an extraordinary claim, and demands extraordinary proof. At the very least, the precautionary principle says that relying on warming to have net-positive effects is a bad idea.

          • Arguing that dumping additional energy into a very complicated system will have net-positive effects on the welfare of the fragile creatures within that system is an extraordinary claim, and demands extraordinary proof.

            Would you say the same thing for removing energy from the system?

          • The Nybbler says:

            The precautionary principle is a general argument for stasis and should be discarded with great prejudice. If humanity had followed it in prehistory we’d just be another extinct species of savannah-dwelling ape.

          • broblawsky says:

            Would you say the same thing for removing energy from the system?

            Less of this, please. I’d appreciate it if you’d try to debate honestly instead of attempting to set rhetorical traps for your opponents.

          • @broblawsky, it’s a rhetorical trap, but not a dishonest one, like “have you stopped beating your wife?” It’s intended to determine which of these is your claim:

            1. Greater levels of energy is inherently bad, in which case global cooling would be beneficial.

            2. Both global cooling and global warming would be harmful, due to people and nature’s adaption to this temperature level.

          • B_Epstein says:

            @broblawsky Global warming having huge net externalities is insufficient to accept carbon tax as a good idea. Not at all. Any tax at a level high enough to make a substantial difference (say, change a +2 degree trajectory to +1.5) is likely to also cause substantial changes to the world economy and its growth. Those are overwhelmingly likely to be negative and quite likely to be on the order of magnitude of the damages of the global warming itself (at least, the difference in damages between 1.5 and 2 degrees). In fact, IIRC, a number of analyses working with the “consensus” IPCC data found that the damages from the tax are likely to be higher than the projected differences in damages from the climate. They may well be wrong, but I’d say you have to provide at least some support for that claim.

          • broblawsky says:

            it’s a rhetorical trap, but not a dishonest one, like “have you stopped beating your wife?”

            I’m still not interested in having a conversation with someone who’s trying to trap me rather than express their ideas and have an honest exchange of views. I’m not here so you can score points off of me.

            Global warming having huge net externalities is insufficient to accept carbon tax as a good idea. Not at all. Any tax at a level high enough to make a substantial difference (say, change a +2 degree trajectory to +1.5) is likely to also cause substantial changes to the world economy and its growth. Those are overwhelmingly likely to be negative and quite likely to be on the order of magnitude of the damages of the global warming itself (at least, the difference in damages between 1.5 and 2 degrees). In fact, IIRC, a number of analyses working with the “consensus” IPCC data found that the damages from the tax are likely to be higher than the projected differences in damages from the climate. They may well be wrong, but I’d say you have to provide at least some support for that claim.

            I was unable to find any specific study that you’re referring to, so I have to ask: does that assume that the money gained from the carbon tax isn’t invested productively? Because if it’s assuming the money is just being thrown into a big pit, that study seems like a rather dishonest analysis.

            Regardless, the specific question I was trying to address isn’t the question of whether carbon taxes are net-positive for society, but rather that carbon taxes could help address the negative externalities of undesirable economic activities like Bitcoin mining without requiring a flat-out legislative ban.

          • B_Epstein says:

            @broblawski
            Here is one. It uses the climate change economic model of Nordhaus, who recently got a Nobel prize for it. I don’t pretend to understand much beyond the very basics, but the cited numbers are directly from the IPCC report. I doubt they made econ 101 mistakes to argue against a carbon tax.

          • One thing worth noticing about Nordhaus’ results as summarized in the Murphy piece just linked to is how small the costs of the various alternatives are. A benefit of three trillion dollars from following the optimal policy instead of doing nothing sounds like a lot of money — until you realize that it is spread out over the entire globe and a century or so.

            The U.S. government alone spends roughly that amount every year.

          • Dacyn says:

            @broblawsky: I’m kind of baffled as to why you think Alexander Turok is trying to “score points off of [you]”, though I suppose that’s your business.

          • Arguing that dumping additional energy into a very complicated system will have net-positive effects on the welfare of the fragile creatures within that system is an extraordinary claim, and demands extraordinary proof.

            The fragile creatures in question currently live successfully across a range of climates much larger than the projected changes over the next century from AGW. Their ancestors coped with larger climate changes than those projected, although probably slower, with no technology more advanced than fur and fire.

            If you take the precautionary principle seriously, which nobody does, it forbids action to prevent AGW. After all, we are in an interglacial period that has lasted for quite a while, and it is at least possible that AGW is all that is preventing the next glaciation. Hence it is at least possible that doing things to slow AGW will put half a mile of ice over London and Chicago and drop sea level by several hundred feet, leaving every port in the world high and dry. That’s a rather larger catastrophe than anything as plausibly conjectured in the other direction.

            So according to the precautionary principle …

      • +1

        Environmentalism is mostly about signalling ones’ respect for some groups(the men in white coats) and lack of respect for other groups.(Middle and lower-middle class white people.) Thus, California is considering banning gas-powered lawn mowers, no one is considering banning cryptocurrency, which is associated with techies, a group which environmentalists show at least some respect for. Only the socialists are talking about banning private jets, because how else are billionaires supposed to get to Switzerland where they can signal to other billionaires how much they care about the environment?

      • Milo Minderbinder says:

        Is bitcoin/other cryptocurrency mining more environmentally destructive than mining for other valuable commodities (e.g., gold/silver/platinum/etc.)? There isn’t some central bitcoin company polluting to mine new bitcoins, it’s all dispersed. A lot of the coverage I see of cryptocurrency these days all mentions the massive energy expenditure.

      • Noah says:

        This seems like a problem that will solve itself in a few years (with respect to bitcoin specifically), as mining bitcoins becomes that much less efficient over time, unless the costs of computation fall or price of bitcoin rises fast enough to compensate.

        Given how long laws take to pass, it doesn’t seem worth it.

    • mfm32 says:

      Junk mail is a very important business for the USPS. It was ~50% of mail volume in 2012 and contributed $19B of revenue in 2015, probably around 25% of total revenue that year. I would guess its share of USPS’s overall business has only increased since then given the secular decline of first class mail.

      Banning junk mail likely represents an existential threat for the USPS. Losing half of your volume and a quarter of your revenue could be a mortal blow on its own. Forcing the remaining first class and other volume to shoulder the entire fixed cost base of the Postal Service could trigger a cascading spiral as increased costs (translating into higher prices or more subsidies) accelerate the decline of first class and other mail. In addition to the fiscal and social consequences of a USPS collapse, there would be substantial political repercussions, as the Postal Service represents 600,000 relatively attractive government jobs spread across the country. It’s a critical jobs program in many areas, representing one of the top employers in some states.

      So you might not see lobbying or activism against junk mail because it would be ineffective, given the political and other objectives that the USPS serves and the consequences of banning junk mail on the USPS.

      • herbert herberson says:

        I worked for the post office a few months a couple years back and can confirm that, at least internally, everyone is very conscious of this. They didn’t even really like to call it “junk mail” at my training/office, and the phrase “BBM pays your wage” was uttered more than once.

      • albatross11 says:

        And yet junk mail just makes the world a far worse place in pretty much every way. The impact on landfills isn’t actually very important–the world has plenty of places where we can dig new holes and bury waste, and paper can mostly be recycled anyway. But in terms of attention and annoyance and hassle, it’s just another category of spam, and that stuff is a net loss for mankind everywhere it exists.

        • smocc says:

          Except for the one good thing it does, which is allows otherwise self-interested companies to subsidize a free communications service for everyone else.

        • Randy M says:

          Right, this makes me respect the post office less, not junk mail more.

          @smocc–Maybe the solution is to sell ad space on stamps. Just make them bigger.

    • DinoNerd says:

      I’d at least like to see plastic junk mail banned. E.g. the bogus membership cards included in my daily delivery of rubbish advertising products from companies that regard my time as existing solely as something for them to use to acquire money. I sent a serious nastygram to my credit union a month ago after one of their partners sent me a plastic card of this kind – they promised to rebuke the partner, and also not to share my contact information with any more of their partners.

      As a Canadian, I don’t worry about the paper itself – that will either have come from farmed trees, or possibly recycling of previous paper. The carbon cost of (air) delivery to the appropriate city may be noticeable, but the cost of delivery within cities is dwarfed by the cost of one or more members of each household driving an individual car to work every day.

      But if we’re going to ban single use plastics – or better yet, most use of plastic where there are good alternatives available – we should ban all of it. There’s no point requiring me to use a paper bag to carry home products wrapped in 3 layers of plastic, and a bit of irony in requiring me to use paper straws if they are allowed to be sold packaged in plastic wrapping.

      I completely do not understand the priorities of my so called allies, environmentalists who focus on symbolic causes like this, but show every sign of being statistically innumerate.

    • Aapje says:

      @AlexOfUrals

      Why isn’t there more (any?) environmental activism against junk mail?

      There is in The Netherlands. Firstly, you have to understand that there is a self-regulation system of advertising in The Netherlands, where the rules are negotiated between the advertisers and the Dutch Consumer Association.

      These rules have for quite a time included the provision that advertisers have to obey no/no and no/yes stickers on or near the letterbox. The no/no sticker bans the delivery of unaddressed printed advertising, as well as free local papers. The no/yes sticker bans only the former.

      More recently, local governments have been reversing this, where instead of having to opt-out, you have to opt-in (yes/yes stickers). This resulted in several court cases, as this is expected to have a major impact on the number of houses where unaddressed printed advertising can be delivered, increasing costs for this kind of advertising a lot. The opt-in system has been upheld in all court cases. This is all very recent, with many local government waiting for the final decision, to prevent having to pay damages.

  10. Well... says:

    I have a first-grader who is interested in learning chess. I’ve taught her the names of the pieces, how they move, how they’re set up on the board initially, and what the basic objectives are. She’s retained maybe a third of all that. I’m not confident in my ability to teach her properly beyond that, and I don’t have the time to anyway.

    What I have in mind is some kind of app I can put on a tablet for her, or maybe even a standalone electronic device. Books might be acceptable too, though books that are meant to accompany a physical chessboard might be stretching her focus abilities too far.

    And I’d say my budget is around $25.

    Can anyone make some recommendations?

    • theredsheep says:

      I once bought a game of “solitaire chess” for my nephew. It’s a little set of puzzles where you set up a bunch of chess pieces on a mini-board, 4X4, in a specific configuration, and try to have the pieces capture each other in turn until there’s only one left. You have to capture with every move and every setup has only one correct solution that leaves you with only one piece remaining. Don’t know if that’s what you’re looking for, but it does help one cultivate an eye for the pieces’ movesets.

      Hmm, looked it up on Amazon, and it says 8 and up. Might be good for a bright 6yo? There’s an edition available for $17, though: https://www.amazon.com/ThinkFun-Brain-Fitness-Solitaire-Chess/dp/B07PPXRP1S/

    • Statismagician says:

      An app is the wrong choice. Find her someone she can play with, instead – personal connection is vital to getting people interested in abstract pursuits, in my experience. There will at least be plenty of high school students who know about chess and are willing to teach young children in exchange for $25 and a letter of recommendation; this is plenty for any first-grader who isn’t a Hungarian space-alien genius.

      • Conrad Honcho says:

        Electronic stuff is hit or miss. My son loves video games and loves chess, but has almost no interest in playing chess via computer. He’ll play all day with other people though.

        So, Well…, if you get her an app and she’s not interested in it, that doesn’t mean she’s not interested in chess.

        I’m sure there are other kids who are just the opposite, and don’t want to bother with people face to face and prefer playing with a computer.

        • Well... says:

          I know she’d be happy either way. Some of the main advantages of a virtual game would be not having to set up pieces or worry about accidentally knocking them over (or be knocked over by a sibling), being able to easily pause and resume where she left off, being able to see available moves highlighted, etc. Also, a (presumably) vetted learning program might be more effective than some unknown high schooler who maybe isn’t used to working with young kids.

    • Björn says:

      The Fritz & Chesster series is often recommended.

    • Conrad Honcho says:

      My first grade son has been doing competitive chess for about a year and a half now.

      1) Have her join the chess club at school. They will certainly at least teach her how to play, and she’ll have other kids to play with. In my county, the chess clubs at the schools cost money ($125/year), because they’re not just run by one of the teachers. They have an actual chess coach come in and help the kids.

      2) Conrad Jr. also has a private chess coach, and he recommends they use an app called “Chess Kid.” It uses random, sanitized names with no communication between the players so you don’t have to worry about pervs on the internet (although I don’t that’s a big deal). This matches kids up on the internet to play with each other using a ranking system. Basically kid-friendly lichess. The app itself is free for matchmaking and basic vs. AI play, but then there’s advanced features you can unlock like more advanced AI opponents and chess puzzles. They charge $50/year for that simple stuff, but they get it because parents are suckers.

      3) The book series CJ’s chess coach has him on is called “Learn Chess the Right Way” by Susan Polgar. Instructions and puzzles.

      Hope that helps.

  11. What would a new religion look like?

    Before answering that question, I should specify what I mean by “religion”. There are three components:

    1. It has to have to some kind of supernatural force that is at the core of it. So no, liberalism, capitalism, communism, libertarianism, social justice, etc. are not religions. I don’t particularly care about how other people decide to define it, but for the purposes of this question, they aren’t. “Supernatural” is hard to define, but I’ll say it’s something that works outside of our universe and/or doesn’t adhere to the laws of physics.

    2. It needs some kind of rules. They can be moral or they can simply involve proper rituals. The important thing is that they constrain behavior in some way or compel us to do something we might not otherwise do.

    3. It needs to have a sense of reverence. This is hard to pin down clearly so I’ll have to trust you understand what I’m getting at.

    And by “new”, I mean something that isn’t just an offshoot of a previous religion. What counts as an offshoot should be stricter rather than looser. Having similar ideas is not enough to be an offshoot. Having the same symbols and gods is.

    With all that in mind, what would a new religion look like? It’s hard to imagine. People don’t take divine revelation seriously anymore, especially of an entirely new God. So if you want people to take it seriously, they would probably have to use some kind of philosophical/mathematical proof or supposed empirical evidence. It doesn’t have to be something everyone understands, it just needs plausibility. The problem is connecting this thing to a set of rules. It would have to be in our best interest to follow those rules. If you ever watch Star Trek, they have plenty of episodes dealing with this problem, with the solution being, of course, that they won’t follow this entity, regardless of its power. And any new religion should have some features that mesh well with the current culture. It would be pointless to have a prominent Snow God arise on the equator.

    Here’s an idea of what this might look like. Take the simulation hypothesis and from that you get that whatever created the simulation is our God. Use it to explain something like the Fermi Paradox or our incapability of finding a Theory of Everything. We can call this entity something like The Great Coder or just The Coder for short. Robin Hanson speculates that in the simulation world, we would want to be as “entertaining” as possible, to keep the simulation from being shut down. You could get a lot of mileage out of this possibility. Maybe the Coder wants us to be entertaining. Maybe he wants us to aspire to Greatness. Maybe he wants us to expand as far as possible. We don’t know. We could even speculate that the Coder interferes with our lives, and is trying to steer us in the right direction through multiple religious events. What I would do is have the goal be to somehow break out of the simulation. Once we reach the other side, then we will experience something that is basically heaven. What do you think? Do you think there is something more plausible?

    • SamChevre says:

      Just for clarification – was Islam a new religion by your standard, or an offshoot of pre-existing Christianity and Judaism?

      • By the standard I’m proposing, it’s an offshoot. They both believe that the Bible had some truth, that Jesus was an important teacher and as far as I know, Muslims believe themselves to be worshiping the same God. I want to avoid people saying something like “Christianity but with warp drives”, which isn’t that implausible but is too obvious.

        • Joseph Greenwood says:

          Is Christianity a new religion, or an offshoot of Judaism? Is Buddhism an offshoot of Hinduism? Is Hinduism one religion, or several religions?

    • EchoChaos says:

      What would a new religion look like?

      Scientology.

      • Joseph Greenwood says:

        New Age mysticism leaps to mind for me, although it might count as an “offshoot” too.

    • bullseye says:

      UFO cults.

      Come to think of it, I don’t know of any religion, other than UFO cults and Scientology, that isn’t an offshoot of an older religion.

      • Right. In previous millennia, it wasn’t that hard to get people to accept completely different new religions. And even today, people with more “traditional religions” are more receptive. But followers of the Axial Age religions are more culturally resistant to new religions. They’ll do their own offshoots(Mormonism) or they’ll become more secular. UFO cults/Scientology seem genuinely different, but they haven’t really caught on, although that could possibly be that it’s too soon. There does really seem to be some kind of psychological wiring for religion, but once people go atheist, they don’t often go back. So I think as far as the future of religion is concerned, there are three options:

        Either I’m overstating how much people are wired for religion and/or it’s growing pains, in which case, we’ll just all become atheists.

        One of the older religions(or one of its offshoots) makes a comeback.

        Or something new comes along which is more satisfying.

        • EchoChaos says:

          In previous millennia, it wasn’t that hard to get people to accept completely different new religions

          Wasn’t it?

          There are, by your standards, only a few “completely different new religions” ever.

        • theredsheep says:

          Scientology started as a bald pseudoscience self-help method in the fifties or thereabouts; it later took on the trappings of religion to try and dodge taxes, win approval, and hide from the wrath of the FDA. It’s had its heyday, but it’s made a lot of enemies over the years, and it wasn’t the same after LRH died. Now it’s hemorrhaging members. The general consensus of CoS-watchers seems to be that eventually it’ll just stop being viable and David Miscavige (the current “pope”) will scurry off under a rock with as much money as he can stuff in a suitcase.

          Religions in general aren’t made of whole new cloth. Schismatics and syncretists have too many advantages over people making it all up from scratch.

    • Deiseach says:

      I don’t know if it counts as a “new” religion rather than riffing on an old one, but the religion of Humanity from R. H. Benson’s Lord of The World could point in the direction:

      Yet these two, husband and wife after a fashion — for they had entered into that terminable contract now recognised explicitly by the State — these two were very far from sharing in the usual heavy dulness of mere materialists. The world, for them, beat with one ardent life blossoming in flower and beast and man, a torrent of beautiful vigour flowing from a deep source and irrigating all that moved or felt. Its romance was the more appreciable because it was comprehensible to the minds that sprang from it; there were mysteries in it, but mysteries that enticed rather than baffled, for they unfolded new glories with every discovery that man could make; even inanimate objects, the fossil, the electric current, the far-off stars, these were dust thrown off by the Spirit of the World — fragrant with His Presence and eloquent of His Nature. For example, the announcement made by Klein, the astronomer, twenty years before, that the inhabitation of certain planets had become a certified fact — how vastly this had altered men’s views of themselves. But the one condition of progress and the building of Jerusalem, on the planet that happened to be men’s dwelling place, was peace, not the sword which Christ brought or that which Mahomet wielded; but peace that arose from, not passed, understanding; the peace that sprang from a knowledge that man was all and was able to develop himself only by sympathy with his fellows. To Oliver and his wife, then, the last century seemed like a revelation; little by little the old superstitions had died, and the new light broadened; the Spirit of the World had roused Himself, the sun had dawned in the west; and now with horror and loathing they had seen the clouds gather once more in the quarter whence all superstition had had its birth.

      …There were no mediaeval horrors here; and the act of worship demanded was so little, too; it consisted of no more than bodily presence in the church or cathedral on the four new festivals of Maternity, Life, Sustenance and Paternity, celebrated on the first day of each quarter. Sunday worship was to be purely voluntary.

      She could not understand how any man could refuse this homage. These four things were facts — they were the manifestations of what she called the Spirit of the World — and if others called that Power God, yet surely these ought to be considered as His functions.

      For herself the new worship was a crowning sign of the triumph of Humanity. Her heart had yearned for some such thing as this—some public corporate profession of what all now believed. She had so resented the dulness of folk who were content with action and never considered its springs. Surely this instinct within her was a true one; she desired to stand with her fellows in some solemn place, consecrated not by priests but by the will of man; to have as her inspirers sweet singing and the peal of organs; to utter her sorrow with thousands beside her at her own feebleness of immolation before the Spirit of all; to sing aloud her praise of the glory of life, and to offer by sacrifice and incense an emblematic homage to That from which she drew her being, and to whom one day she must render it again. Ah! these Christians had understood human nature, she had told herself a hundred times: it was true that they had degraded it, darkened light, poisoned thought, misinterpreted instinct; but they had understood that man must worship — must worship or sink.

      For herself she intended to go at least once a week to the little old church half-a-mile away from her home, to kneel there before the sunlit sanctuary, to meditate on sweet mysteries, to present herself to That which she was yearning to love, and to drink, it might be, new draughts of life and power.

      …”My dear sir, worship involves a touch of mystery. You must remember that. It was the lack of that that made Empire Day fail in the last century. For myself, I think it is admirable. Of course much must depend on the manner in which it is presented. I see many details at present undecided — the colour of the curtains, and so forth. But the main plan is magnificent. It is simple, impressive, and, above all, it is unmistakable in its main lesson —-”

      “And that you take to be —?”

      “I take it that it is homage offered to Life,” said the other slowly. “Life under four aspects — Maternity corresponds to Christmas and the Christian fable; it is the feast of home, love, faithfulness. Life itself is approached in spring, teeming, young, passionate. Sustenance in midsummer, abundance, comfort, plenty, and the rest, corresponding somewhat to the Catholic Corpus Christi; and Paternity, the protective, generative, masterful idea, as winter draws on…. I understand it was a German thought.”

      Oliver nodded.

      “Yes,” he said. “And I suppose it will be the business of the speaker to explain all this.”

      “I take it so. It appears to me far more suggestive than the alternative plan —Citizenship, Labour, and so forth. These, after all, are subordinate to Life.”

    • Conrad Honcho says:

      There’s a documentary about just such an occurrence running on (and off) Broadway right now. If you have the opportunity, attend a showing of The Book of Mormon.

      • Joseph Greenwood says:

        Or you could read the book! It is not that long, and the Church of Jesus’s Christ of Latter-day Saints will send someone to give you one for free, no strings attached.

        But if Islam doesn’t count as a new religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (colloquially, “Mormons”) definitely don’t. We have some quirks relative to mainstream Christianity, but nothing that differentiates us as much as Muslims.

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          That wasn’t exactly what I was getting at, but thanks for the offer 🙂

          Gigantic, massive spoiler for The Book of Mormon, do not decode if you ever want to see the musical because comedies should definitely not be spoiled: Va gur raq, gur Zbezba zvffvbanevrf jvaq hc univat nppvqragnyyl perngrq n arj eryvtvba. Fb zl pbzzrag jnfa’g nobhg Zbezbavfz orvat n arj eryvtvba, vg jnf nobhg gur cebprff bs perngvat n arj eryvtvba nf qrcvpgrq va gur cynl.

          Cannot recommend the show highly enough, though. I was dying laughing.

          Does anyone know what Mormons think of the play? It’s somewhat offensive, but I think in mostly a good natured way. Probably about as offensive to Mormonism as Dogma was to Catholicism, but I still thought Dogma was funny.

          • smocc says:

            Does anyone know what Mormons think of the play?

            Am a Latter-day Saint, but haven’t seen it. I have Latter-day Saint friends who have seen it and liked it, and friends who have seen it and didn’t like it, and friends who are offended by the whole concept and won’t ever see it.

            My personal take is that I don’t have time for it, in the same way I don’t have time for South Park. I’ve never thought that brand of humor is funny, and it’s certainly not going to add to my spiritual life, so I don’t really see the point. From what I can tell they’re not even making fun of what missionaries are really like; they just kind of made up a caricature and then made fun of that. Where’s the fun in that?

            When I’m in the mood for a quirky, humorous take on the life of missionaries I re-watch Nacho Libre. Jared Hess served as a missionary in Mexico and it shows, both in its underlying morals and in its goofy but loving depiction of rural Mexico.

        • The original Mr. X says:

          Mormonism is polytheistic, whereas Islam is at least monotheistic.

          • That makes Mormonism very different from Judaism.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            Old school Judaism, or that new stuff that came about after Moses (and again after Solomon)?

            Because the old school Israelites weren’t that monotheistic.

          • smocc says:

            I’m sure you know what you mean by this but it is an incredibly misleading statement and I hope you will stop repeating it in such a simplistic form. The word “polytheistic” conjures ancient religions like Greek polytheism or Hindusim, with many gods that each have domain over different, limited aspects of the world and whose interests may conflict and who often disagree and work against each other.

            Latter-day Saint theology has three beings who are so completely unified in purpose and intent that they may at times be referred to by a single title “God.” They worked in unity to create the entire universe. The Son is a distinct person from the Father but is so aligned with His Father’s will that he shares equally in His glory and power. The Son has said that He can’t do anything of Himself, that only that which he has seen The Father do.

            That is so far removed from any other polytheistic religion that using the same word used for it without at least some clarification starts to feel like it must be a deliberate oversimplification or slur.

          • Dacyn says:

            @smocc: The doctrine of eternal progression strikes me as more like polytheism than any theological differences regarding the Trinity.

          • The original Mr. X says:

            What Dacyn said.

          • smocc says:

            @Dacyn Okay, but the concept is still so drastically different from what people think of as “polytheism” that to describe it that way without any clarification is irresponsible. The Greeks didn’t believe that they could become Olympians when they died.

          • The original Mr. X says:

            The Greeks didn’t believe that they could become Olympians when they died.

            Maybe not on the level of Zeus, but divine honours were commonly paid to exceptional individuals in the Graeco-Roman world.

            But this all strikes me as a red herring. Whether or not Mormonism is similar to other polytheistic religions, the idea that God started out as a mortal just like us, with his own God, is at least as big a difference from Christianity as any Islamic doctrine is.

          • smocc says:

            Nor do Latter-day Saints think that they will become Olympians. Jesus prayed that his apostles would be One even as He and the Father are One. If Christ being God by virtue of being perfectly unified with His Father and sharing His glory isn’t the problem, what’s the difference with the Saints who are joint-heirs with Christ being God through the same reasons?

            It’s different than Nicene Christianity, but it’s far more different than ancient polytheistic religions.

            If I am testy about this it is because there absolutely are people out there using “Mormons are polytheistic” as a propagandistic slur, even if you yourselves are not doing it.

          • smocc says:

            As far as relative differences between Islam and Nicene Christianity and LDS Christianity go, sure LDS beliefs about eternal progression are perhaps a radical difference. But a Latter-day Saint could profess the Apostle’s Creed without reservation (except for the Catholic church part) whereas that doesn’t make any sense for a Muslim, I think. Which is a bigger difference? Eh.

            You will see Latter-day Saints often get sensitive about being excluded from “Christianity.” Maybe too sensitive, given how a big part of our claim is that all the other Christian sects are wrong. But misrepresentation, especially the deliberate misrepresentation that happens frequently, is frustrating.

    • DinoNerd says:

      I’m thinking that Gerald Gardner‘s Wicca qualified as a new religion by these standards, back when he first wrote about it. He got many of the ideas from others, and some of the symbols from archaeology, but while he claimed a historical background, that was clearly a mix of misunderstanding, wishful thinking, and outright lying.

      It features a Horned God and Goddess, whose names are secret (initiates only), required rituals (20 or perhaps 32 per year), nudity during those rituals, and a host of other practices. Its theological innovations include the idea that everything works in gendered pairings – a concept probably derived ultimately from Hegel’s dialectic. There’s also a strong hedonistic component: “All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals”.

      These days, every second neo-pagan subscribes to some of the above, along with a large swathe of New Agers. But that’s evidence of sucess, not of the ideas being derivative – later neo-pagans are derivatives of Gardnerianism/Wicca, not the reverse, and often use the same name (Wicca).

    • beleester says:

      Some form of mysticism or psychic powers based on understanding your subconscious instincts. In martial arts and other activities that rely on quick reactions, your gut instincts can sometimes be really surprising. Like, all that “stretch out with your feelings” stuff sounds hokey, but the first time you think “This guy is about to throw a kick” and react without knowing why, it basically feels like you’ve developed ESP.

      Now, this isn’t supernatural on its own, but it’s a fertile breeding ground for false beliefs. It’s easy to jump from “A kiai shout helps you to breathe properly when striking” to “A kiai shout channels your ki to increase power” to “A true master can use his ki to knock people out without touching them.” And martial arts training often comes with various rituals and beliefs that can also form the kernel of a religion – rituals to begin and end a class, ways of paying respect to a master, beliefs about using your skills for a higher purpose, etc.

      It’s not super reliable – that video shows one obvious flaw for martial arts in particular – but if you want to make people feel something supernatural without relying on divine revelation, playing off their unconscious instincts is a great way to do it.

    • John Schilling says:

      As others have pointed out, “new” is a bad qualifier because the usual way to create religions is to at least pretend to be drawing on some ancient tradition but claim that this has been forgotten / corrupted by everyone except your cult.

      “Supernatural” is also a bad qualifier, because “supernatural” is a word basically only applied to other people’s beliefs. To people who hold the belief, whatever it is, the force in question is part of nature, it’s just that everyone else is ignorant of that basic truth. You cite the simulation hypothesis, correctly I think, as a thing that could be the basis of a new religion. To those who believe, the simulators are a perfectly natural concept. To everyone else, they are literally above or outside of the natural universe – supernatural. Word just means, “stuff other people believe that we sensible
      people don’t”.

      With those caveats, Gaian environmentalism is not far from sliding over into a full-blown religion. I’ve seen enough people claiming a connection between global warming and e.g. earthquakes and volcanoes, enough people ascribing high levels of agency to ecological forces, to be fairly confident that what they believe falls into the category of “stuff we sensible people consider supernatural”, even as they insist otherwise.

      Rules, see the other thread about the plastic straws. Reverence, absolutely. It fits.

      • Joseph Greenwood says:

        I would like to push back a little against your definition of (and hence objection to) the word “supernatural”. To me, outside of a philosophical conversation on the nature of reality (where I would want to clarify terms), the term “supernatural” reads as “something that a materialist would disbelieve”. This is a serviceable definition that struggles only with boundary cases like the simulation hypothesis, where some materialists begin appending to or modifying standards materialist claims.

        Would my definition serve in the contexts where you have heard “supernatural”? Or do the people you interact with use it differently?

      • Dacyn says:

        My Catholic parents would be very surprised to learn that “supernatural” is a word “only applied to other people’s beliefs”.

  12. BBA says:

    I did a hasty job packing for this trip (I had a brief but intense illness in the days prior to my departure) and had to pick up a few items here in Norway that I left at home. In particular, I noticed that the deodorant for sale at a local store was mostly of the “roll-on” variety: there’s a rolling plastic ball that picks up the (liquid?) deodorant and applies it to my body. This in contrast to the “stick” type that I use at home in the US, where the deodorant is a soft solid or a gel that is applied directly.

    Wikipedia informs me that the roll-on type is in fact more common in Europe while the stick type is more common in America, but doesn’t offer any theories as to why. I don’t know that one is more effective than the other; it just strikes me as an odd cultural preference with no underlying reason for it. Any idea how or why this came about?

    Also, any other odd cultural differences like this? One that jumps to mind is the alleged Canadian practice of selling milk in bags, although I’ve been to Canada a few times and don’t recall seeing bagged milk anywhere.

    • viVI_IViv says:

      Any idea how or why this came about?

      Patents?

      Other odd differences I’ve noticed: Europeans tend to use front-loading washing machines while Americans tend to use top-loading washing machines. American cars tend to be bigger and have weird metal bars on the bumpers (I don’t even know what they are called).
      And of course the CW things: guns, infant circumcision, death penalty.

      • JayT says:

        I’m curious what metal bars you’re referring to. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of Mad Max? Because that’s in Australia. 😉

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Ok, after a bit of searching on Google images, i figured it out: they are bike racks. Saw them in Seattle on buses and other vehicles, but never with a bike on them.

          I didn’t really visited much of the US but I think in other places bull bars are common on pickup trucks.

          • JayT says:

            They aren’t uncommon on trucks and police cars have them. I was just imagining something like that on a Corolla and that was making me chuckle.

      • Anteros says:

        On my first visit to the States, I found it hilarious that blueberries were sold by the pint.

      • Lambert says:

        Sounds like a waste of perfectly good top-of-washing-machine space.

    • JayT says:

      I didn’t even know that roll-on deodorant still existed. I thought that was a 90’s marketing gimmick that died.

      One of the weirdest cultural difference that I’ve seen in my travels is how hard it is to get a glass of water in Germany. I was there during the heatwave last summer, and I felt constantly dehydrated because I didn’t want to pay the 2 euros to get a tiny glass of water at the restaurant. Their beer is much lighter than I’m used to here though, so it worked well enough.

      • Dacyn says:

        In some cases this is not only a cultural difference: in England and I think in at least some US states, it is illegal for a restaurant to serve alcohol without providing free tap water.

      • Aapje says:

        @JayT

        Germans invented Radler, which is a 50/50 mixture of beer and lemonade. Supposedly, this was first sold to cyclists (fahrradler = cyclist). This is good for drinking in summer if you don’t want to get drunk.

        • The Nybbler says:

          English “shandy” is apparently older than German “radler”.

          • Aapje says:

            It’s not rocket science to mix the two, so perhaps it was independently invented twice. I myself experimented a little with such mixtures as well.

    • Anatoly says:

      Siphonic vs Washdown toilets. Every time I visit the US, I’m surprised again by the siphonic toilets; they’re deeply weird.

      • eyeballfrog says:

        Huh, I had no idea they used different kind of toilets outside of North America.

      • Lambert says:

        Then there’s the Teutonic shit-shelf design.

        Not sure whoever thought that was in any way good or desirable.

        • Buddha Buddhing Rodriguez says:

          Žižek explains:

          In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit disappears after we flush is right at the front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff and inspect for traces of illness. In the typical French toilet, on the contrary, the hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet presents a synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected. […] It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian terms: each involves a certain ideological perception of how the subject should relate to excrement. Hegel was among the first to see in the geographical triad of Germany, France and England an expression of three different existential attitudes: reflective thoroughness (German), revolutionary hastiness (French), utilitarian pragmatism (English). In political terms, this triad can be read as German conservatism, French revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism. […] The point about toilets is that they enable us not only to discern this triad in the most intimate domain, but also to identify its underlying mechanism in the three different attitudes towards excremental excess: an ambiguous contemplative fascination; a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; a pragmatic decision to treat it as ordinary and dispose of it in an appropriate way. It is easy for an academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he is again knee-deep in ideology.

          • The Pachyderminator says:

            Are we seriously being asked to believe that Germans routinely inspect – and sniff! – their own poop before flushing the toilet?

    • bullseye says:

      I’ve used both kinds of deodorant in the U.S. The solid kind has the advantages of not catching my hair and not getting caught up in airport security. The rollon has no advantage that I know of.

      • anonymousskimmer says:

        The roll on lasts forever in a smaller package. The residue is much less (unnoticeable) than the stick kinds I’ve used before, though gel solids have less noticeable residue than opaque solids.

        I use Mitchum unscented roll-on. Back when I was rollerblading daily it indeed lived up to the 48-hour protection claim. It dries on fast, and doesn’t stick to my t-shirts or cause my armpits to feel sticky. Issues I vaguely recall with stick deodorants.

    • b_jonas says:

      I’m a European. We have deodorants in all three methods of delivery: stick, roll-on ball, and aerosol spray. I currently use roll-on. I would weakly prefer stick, because I’ve had a ball fall off a bottle of deodorant once, pouring a large quantity of very densely scented liquid on me, but I care more about the scent than the method of delivery.

  13. Anatoly says:

    Why Evolutionary Psychology (Probably) Isn’t Possible

    Is there much to this critique of evolutionary psychology (itself a summary of a recent peer-reviewed article)?

    • viVI_IViv says:

      Meh, a defeatist position, probably argued for political reasons. If evolutionary psychology is impossible, then how is evolutionary biology possible? Don’t their argument apply to anything?

      • Anatoly says:

        The article (the peer-reviewed one) does talk about why the argument applies to evo-psych but not evo-bio in general, and demonstrates this on specific examples from both. I feel I don’t know enough to confidently judge whether this is convincing, but they do address this.

      • Thomas Jorgensen says:

        Evo-psyc is possible. It is also full to the brim of cognitive hazards, extremely lacking in verifiable evidence or possible experiments, which means it turns into a shit show generator of just-so-stories about how 1950s usa is the ideal society.

        General rule: When you reach that particular conclusion, go back and see were your reasoning process got highjacked by nostalgia.

        For example, I never, ever see anyone argue that our evolved sexual response patterns clearly indicate that the devils threesome was the ancesteral enviorment usual sexual encounter, and that is a position which is one hell of a lot *easier* to defend than the conclusions usually reached. (I dont particularly think it is true. I think it more likely human sexual response patterns are what they are, because with the current setup, women are very strongly encouraged to dump men who are not conscientious lovers like a rotten fruit, which is a decent proxy for “will not be a totally useless father” but I also know I dont actually know what the prehistoric evolutionary incentives were)

        • For example, I never, ever see anyone argue that our evolved sexual response patterns clearly indicate that the devils threesome was the ancesteral enviorment usual sexual encounter

          It’d be a pretty weak argument to make. We know of hunter-gatherer and primitive farmer* groups. Most are either monogamous either for life or serially. A few do weird stuff which allows ideologues to cherry pick and present them as typical, similar to how one could identify Short Creek as a typical social structure for industrial humanity.

          I think it more likely human sexual response patterns are what they are, because with the current setup, women are very strongly encouraged to dump men who are not conscientious lovers like a rotten fruit, which is a decent proxy for “will not be a totally useless father” but I also know I dont actually know what the prehistoric evolutionary incentives were

          Here’s one thing you can do: look at the real world. In farming societies you didn’t see much of “our wedding night was rather mediocre, I’m going to find another man.” For those hunter-gatherer groups which had serial monogamy it’s at least possible to imagine that this happened. On the other hand maybe it didn’t, you could start by reading the anthropological literature on modern hunter-gatherer groups.

          *Where evo-psych really goes wrong is the assumption that farming isn’t our ancestral environment.

          • brad says:

            *Where evo-psych really goes wrong is the assumption that farming isn’t our ancestral environment.

            How many generations does it take to fix a complex psychological trait? Or to put it another way, why farming and not factories?

          • viVI_IViv says:

            People whose ancestors have been doing farming since prehistorical times have adaptations such as more efficient ethanol metabolism. Similarly, people whose ancestors have been doing animal husbandry of milk-producing animals (cattle, yak, sheep and goats) tend to have lactase persistence.

            The Ashkenazim separated from the Sephardim around 800 CE and became prominent intellectuals around 1900 CE, which suggests that about 1,100 years are sufficient to evolve a 7-15 IQ points difference.

            There are no obvious adaptations to industrialism discovered so far.

          • Dacyn says:

            @brad: Wikipedia is being less than helpful here, but I think the answer should be something like log(N)/s, where N is the population size and s is the fitness advantage conferred by the mutation. I think 1% is probably a pretty good advantage, which in a population of a billion means about 2000 generations. Of course, complex traits require multiple mutations so that takes longer.

          • albatross11 says:

            I’m pretty sure it matters a lot that the size of the population was rapidly expanding during that time. The same land can support a tiny number of hunter-gatherers or a much, much larger number of farmers, so the population when up by some huge multiple when agriculture got established.

          • @albatross,

            The world population grew from 4 million to 400 million between 10,000 BC and 1,000 AD. On average it grew .04% a year, or 1.2% every 28-year generation.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Past_population

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Evo-psyc Evolutionary biology is possible. It is also full to the brim of cognitive hazards, extremely lacking in verifiable evidence or possible experiments, which means it turns into a shit show generator of just-so-stories about how 1950s usa godless liberalism is the ideal society.

          Still claims too much.

          General rule: When you reach that particular conclusion, go back and see were your reasoning process got highjacked by nostalgia.

          Or whether it got highjacked by modernism.

          For example, I never, ever see anyone argue that our evolved sexual response patterns clearly indicate that the devils threesome was the ancesteral enviorment usual sexual encounter, and that is a position which is one hell of a lot *easier* to defend than the conclusions usually reached.

          How is it easier to defend? How many people practice devils threesomes?

          • Thomas Jorgensen says:

            Because it blatantly fits arousal patterns.
            Bear in mind, this is very tongue in cheek – I am trying to demostrate you can take biological facts and fit them to about any narrative you like.

            Women have a very elaborate erogenous system, the clit and all the rest are obviously not accidents. But on average, it takes a woman a bit shy of twice as long to get off as it does a man, and then.. she does not noticably wind down. If you try, for a very large percentage of women the upper limit on the length of a sexual encounter is basically your partners patience.
            Contrast this with male response where orgasm is basically a hormonal sledgehammer telling your brain that sex is no longer interesting at all and you should go do something else, Make a snack, sleep, but watching sex happen is foreplay. This is #obviously all a legacy from a history where the usual encounter was one woman boinking 2 to four guys in a row.

          • Pink-Nazbol says:

            But on average, it takes a woman a bit shy of twice as long to get off as it does a man, and then.. she does not noticably wind down. If you try, for a very large percentage of women the upper limit on the length of a sexual encounter is basically your partners patience.

            I’m sure you speak from experience here…

            What you’ve shown here is that it’s possible to take dubious “facts” and then use them to reach dubious conclusions, easier to do if you don’t look for any evidence to falsify your conclusions. See the non-existence of sperm competition in human population, which is what you’d expect if certain cucky fantasies were true:

            https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/sperm-competition/

    • Clutzy says:

      Isolated demand for rigor. Should be more accurately titled, “why psychology (probably) isn’t possible.”

    • Dacyn says:

      Skimming the article, it looks like a lot of it is correct, but then he phrases it in tendentious ways like “evolutionary psychologists have not shown […]” I mean, as a mathematician, I can say that none of you scientists have shown anything. Just made reasonable inferences based on data. The standards of each field are different and that’s OK. It’s worthwhile to point this out regularly so that people don’t get confused, but it doesn’t mean that evolutionary psychology is worthless or anything.

  14. proyas says:

    MSNBC is a news and culture TV network that caters to liberals, and since Donald Trump won the 2016 election, MSNBC’s viewership has gotten bigger than ever. There is probably a link between the two. My guess is that liberals who feel bad about Trump or scared by what he might do are watching MSNBC more because it is comforting to affirm their self-identities and to hear smart-sound people on TV reassure them and reinforce their views. If Trump stopped being President, the sense of urgency and fear would ease, and many people wouldn’t feel the need to watch MSNBC anymore.

    Higher viewership means bigger ad revenues and more money for the people working at MSNBC. That said, isn’t it in MSNBC’s financial self-interest for Trump to win re-election in 2020? Presumably, this will boost the network’s ratings even more, or at least keep them from declining.

    More questions:

    1) Are the people calling the shots at MSNBC aware that the Trump presidency boosts their incomes?

    2) If they wanted to facilitate Trump’s reelection, how would they do so? They of course can’t say anything explicitly pro-Trump since that would confuse and alienate their liberal viewers. This means that, if it decided to pursue its financial self-interest, MSNBC would have to make content that was superficially neutral or anti-Trump, but that somehow produced second-order effects that helped Trump. What kinds of content would do this?

    3) Is it more likely that the people in charge at MSNBC are unaware they are benefiting from the Trump presidency?

    4) Is it more likely that the people in charge at MSNBC are aware they are benefiting from Trump, but that they are choosing to make genuinely anti-Trump content designed to undermine his reelection because other principles are more important to them than making money?

    • John Schilling says:

      1) Are the people calling the shots at MSNBC aware that the Trump presidency boosts their incomes?

      Who do you imagine are “the people calling the shots” at MSNBC?

      MSNBC is owned by NBC, and NBC stockholders do not exercise operational control over the journalistic content of MSNBC. And MSNBC represents about 1.5% of NBC’s total revenue, so NBC stockholders are not going to pocket any great windfall on account of a Trump victory.

      Just about everybody who stands between NBC stockholders and MSNBC’s content-producing journalists is a salaried employee. The indirect incentives that you might think will have them greedily seeking a Trump victory, come riddled with principal-agent problems and non-financial incentives that are going to drive your posited incentive below the noise floor for personal decisionmaking.

      2) If they wanted to facilitate Trump’s reelection, how would they do so?

      They don’t want to, they aren’t going to, and discussing the hypothetical is almost certainly going to generate into “Down with the Liberal Big Media, evil because I just thought up something evil I think they will do”. We’ve all got better things to do with our time than that.

      • Dacyn says:

        Your logic seems to also imply that journalists have no incentive to maximize viewership in general, regardless of whether it comes from a Trump victory.

        • John Schilling says:

          Most journalists are freelancers, stringers, or staff at bottom-tier outlets that everyone expects to be bankrupt in a decade. They’re out to make a name for themselves personally so they can move up, and “make a name for themselves” is strongly correlated with viewership.

          Journalists at large, stable media outlets are motivated and rewarded more by ego and professional reputation, and those are more weakly correlated with viewership. Rachel Maddow gets roughly half the total viewers of Norah O’Donnell, but I’m betting I made the right call in linking to only one of those names. And, despite the viewership differential, they both get paid about seven million per year.

      • albatross11 says:

        My guess is that more-or-less everyone working at MSNBC cares deeply about ratings, and also has broadly liberal/progressive political views. Their choices about what to discuss, how to cover stories, whom to interview, etc., have large and visible and understandable effects on their ratings. They may also have all kinds of harder-to-untangle effects on getting their preferred side into power, but both the incentives and the knowledge they have are much weaker for making decisions that help their side.

        It’s quite possible to me that MSNBC’s coverage helps Trump, in the “no publicity is bad publicity” sense or in the sense of providing Trump supporters plenty of media examples to point out who are unhinged and unfair. But I think it very unlikely that there are many people at MSNBC consciously wanting Trump to stay in the white house.

        • Noah says:

          “no publicity is bad publicity”

          I think that stops applying once you’re sufficiently well-known and on everyone’s minds (e.g. by being POTUS).

    • Conrad Honcho says:

      Epistemic status: these are opinions, not statements of fact.

      1) Undoubtedly.

      2) They should continue doing what they’re doing. When normal people encounter people who have been whipped up into a Trump-Russia-Ukraine conspiracy frenzy by MSNBC they respond the same way normal people responded when they encounter an Alex Jones fan: “this person is unhinged, and all of their ideas are suspect. My appreciation for their political opponents is marginally improved because they seem sane by comparison.” Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.

      3) No, they are aware they are benefiting from the Trump presidency.

      4) They make anti-Trump content because it helps them in the short term (that’s what their audience wants to see). I do not know whether or not they are aware their anti-Trump content helps Trump by providing less-crazy pro-Trump programs with plenty of material to demonstrate how unhinged Trump’s opponents appear to be, making Trump seem normal by comparison. All of this is going to work out well for MSNBC’s bottom line. Deleterious effects on their viewers’ anxiety and depression levels are immaterial.

      • snifit says:

        When normal people encounter people who have been whipped up into a Trump-Russia-Ukraine conspiracy frenzy by MSNBC they respond the same way normal people responded when they encounter an Alex Jones fan

        Yikes. If I remember right, you were flogging John Solomon articles here just a couple months ago as though he were credible. He, of course, was involved in the Ukraine-Biden dirt scheme from the beginning.

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          Please provide evidence John Solomon is not credible on Ukraine-Biden.

          ETA: Here are Solomon’s facts, with references, in his Ukraine-Biden reporting. Which of these are factually incorrect?

          • snifit says:

            I’m having trouble responding. What’s your bar for credibility? You’ve dismissed an entire network as lunatics but you put stock in a partisan reporter working directly with Rudy Giuliani and co.

            The evidence that Solomon is not credible on Ukraine-Biden is that there is no actual wrongdoing. It was a narrative pushed by a hack reporter. It was so incredible that the scheme backfired spectactularly and helped get Trump impeached.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Please cite evidence Solomon is a partisan.

            Define “working with Giuliani” and under what circumstances that would be bad. I googled around to try to find out what you’re talking about and I found a few partisan websites stating Solomon worked with people Giuliani knew to set up interviews with Ukrainians, but I fail to see how that’s bad.

            If Rachel Maddow contacted Adam Schiff’s office to help put her in touch with impeachment witnesses, would that destroy her credibility in your eyes?

            The evidence that Solomon is not credible on Ukraine-Biden is that there is no actual wrongdoing.

            We don’t know if there was wrongdoing because there hasn’t been an investigation. It sure looks fishy. Hunter Biden has a lucrative job he has no business having with a corrupt Ukrainian energy company, despite not knowing anything about Ukraine or energy. The company is under investigation for corruption, and a month after the owner’s home is raided for suspicion of criminal corrupt dealings wrt to the energy company, Joe Biden has the prosecutor who ordered that raid fired. The replacement prosecutor then lets them off with a slap-on-the-wrist tax fine. That sure looks like corruption, and is worthy of being investigated.

            The investigation should be rather simple: have the Inspector General’s Office talk to the six guys with PhDs in Ukrainian Studies in the State Department’s sub-subbasement Ukraine Division and say “how did it become U.S. policy that a specific Ukrainian prosecutor be fired?” If this was all aboveboard then one of them will say “oh, that was totally my idea. We were trying to do good things A, B and C but Shokin kept doing corrupt things X, Y, Z, so here’s the memo I wrote about it. We passed that up to the ambassador and to Obama who agreed with us (here’s copies of the emails), and Biden was simply tasked with dropping the ax.” If on the other hand they say “we have no idea. One day Biden showed up and said ‘Shokin’s got to go, he’s screwing with my kid’s money!'” then that points in the other direction.

            So, you assert no wrongdoing was done.

            1) How do you know?

            2) How did it come to be U.S. policy that Shokin be fired? Specifically, naming names, whose idea was this?

            ETA: Oh, and as to my “bar for credibility,” you need to show me he’s actually made provably false statements of fact. Nobody does this. They just do the “yikes” thing as if incredulity is an argument. It is not. HBC did the same thing last time, saying that citing Solomon was “not a good look” without explaining why it’s not a good look.

          • snifit says:

            The Ukraine experts from the state department did testify as to the whole Ukraine-Biden issue. They said Solomon was wrong. There is no substance his allegations.

            The “Yikes” is because you (rightly) denounce MSNBC for stoking Trump-Russia conspiracies while pushing discredited Biden-Ukraine conspiracies yourself.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            They said Solomon was wrong. There is no substance his allegations.

            Did you read the article I linked?

            “I think all the key elements were false,” Vindman testified.

            Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y, pressed him about what he meant. “Just so I understand what you mean when you say key elements, are you referring to everything John Solomon stated or just some of it?”

            “All the elements that I just laid out for you. The criticisms of corruption were false…. Were there more items in there, frankly, congressman? I don’t recall. I haven’t looked at the article in quite some time, but you know, his grammar might have been right.”

            What specific facts were false? All he’s doing is the incredulity denial that you are parroting. Please tell me what the wrong facts are. Specifically, what is Vindman stating Solomon has wrong in his reporting?

            It’s basically The Shaggey Defense. “Wasn’t Biden.” Do you understand why that isn’t quite good enough? You need to state, specifically, what facts Solomon has stated that are wrong. You just keep saying…nothing really.

            So, one more time: NAME THE SPECIFIC FACTS SOLOMON ALLEGES WHICH ARE FALSE. Can you name even one? A single one?

            Notice I put that in all caps. This is kind of super-duper important. Please, I’m down on my knees begging you, at least find one single fact in the list of supporting facts I’ve linked that are false. If you can’t…do you kind of understand why I don’t find your complete lack of argument convincing? Do you understand why it just sort of looks like what it looks like…that Biden had the guy fired because he was investigating his son’s company? And that’s a little corrupt-ish? And maybe it’s okay to investigate that?

            Just give me something, anything to work with here, besides “Wasn’t Biden.”

          • snifit says:

            The “fact” list is irrelevant. It’s not disputed that Hunter was on the Burisma board, for example. The issue is whether Biden got Shokin fired to protect Hunter and the only “factual” support for that comes from Shokin himself. Are there any documents? Any witnesses? Or just the word of the corrupt prosecutor in question?

            I dont know why you discount the testimony of the state department officials. Not just Vindman, but George Kent, Fiona Hill, and Marie Yovanovitch all testified that Solomon’s reporting was wrong.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            This is like talking to a brick wall. In what way did they say Solomon’s reporting was wrong? Specifically? We understand what “specifically” means, right? It means not just “Solomon was wrong” but “Solomon said A and the truth is !A.” Please tell me what A is.

            Solomon never concluded Biden’s involvement was corrupt. He laid out facts that amount to probable cause to investigate to see if it was corrupt. And remember you’re the one saying he’s “not credible.” Why is he not credible if he’s stated nothing incorrect?

            Remember, you have yet to identify a single false or misleading statement by Solomon, and yet you started with “Yikes,” as if it’s a forgone conclusion anyone thinking Solomon is credible is embarrassingly misinformed. Shouldn’t it be super easy to embarrass me here by pointing out Solomon’s myriad lies and half-truths?

            Are there any documents? Any witnesses?

            That’s the point of having an investigation. You hear a shot. You find the body. The suspect is standing over the corpse with a smoking gun in his hand. The victim was threatening the suspect’s son. Is it maybe a good idea to investigate whether or not the suspect pulled the trigger because the victim was threatening his son, even though there is not currently a document by the suspect specifically stating he killed the guy because he was threatening his son? If somebody said “we should check this out,” would you respond, “Yikes?”

            The investigation into Biden should be very simple: the State Department should produce the documents that show how it became US policy that Shokin be ousted.

            Can we agree on that? There should be nothing wrong with finding the specific State Department technocrats who can lay out exactly how Shokin’s ousting came to be US policy?

            Do you understand I don’t just want a technocrat to tell me “TECHNOCRATS GOOD, SOLOMON BAD” I want them to walk me through the decision-making process on this one.

            Just do that and we’re all good. I can completely believe that Biden is so socially and politically inept that it simply never occurred to him or his staff that this looks like a terrible conflict of interest and he should have recused himself. This is the same guy who keeps awkwardly rubbing children and sniffing their hair. I can totally believe he’s simply inept and not malevolent. But you need the technocrats to explain the process and not just say “nuh uh.”

            And you understand this is not an isolated demand for rigor in the wake of my calling out of MSNBC. Go through the MSNBC “evidence” of Trump being a Putin puppet and I can debunk every talking point. Pick any one you want, Mifsud and Papadopolous, Trump Tower meeting, Ukraine policy in the GOP platform, whatever, I explain specifically how these are misleading narratives.

            But you have nothing.

            Ergo, MSNBC: Alex Jones tier conspiracy nonsense. Solomon: correct purveyor of facts.

          • The evidence that Solomon is not credible on Ukraine-Biden is that there is no actual wrongdoing.

            That’s a conclusion, whether true or false I don’t know, not evidence.

            Conrad linked to a detailed set of claims by Solomon, each of which had links to the evidence supporting it. Do you have evidence showing that those claims are false? Alternatively, and more plausibly, can you point us at someone else who actually rebuts the claims?

          • snifit says:

            What you’re looking for is in those officials’ testimony. I’m not playing keep-away about this. You can read it. I see that major publications like the Washington Post, ProPublica, and Vox all have summaries of the scheme if you google “what did solomon get wrong about ukraine”. You seem to know a lot about John Solomon so I’m just a little surprised you’ve never seen this stuff.

            Solomon was handed a lot of this stuff by Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas on Trump’s behalf. He then interviewed corrupt Ukrainians and reported their word as fact with no corroboration. He printed a bunch of lies.

            I know you were eager to defend Solomon’s “facts” but they’re really just not the point. His credibility is not an open question determined by his list.

          • AliceToBob says:

            @snifit

            I’m not playing keep-away about this.

            It sure feels like you are.

            I just spent ten minutes using your suggested search words and found nothing of substance. All I saw were the same vague claims you’re making: key elements are wrong, he’s not credible, etc. But not a single concrete example. There’s also some other innuendo about Solomon engaging in shady business decisions, yet again there are no details.

            It seems likely to me that you have no evidence to support your claims. Rather you’re just parroting back the vagaries you’ve digested from the media.

            I’m willing to update if you (or anyone) can provide actual details. I’m not fond of reporters, and it wouldn’t surprise me to discover another one is lying. But right now, I feel like snifit is aping a chatbot.

          • @Sniffit:

            Why are you not willing to accept the challenge Conrad offered you when he linked to a long list of claims Solomon made, along with links to what Solomon claims is the evidence for each? If he is really as unreliable as you say, shouldn’t you be able to take any claim you suspect is false and show either that his evidence doesn’t support it or that there is evidence at least as good showing it isn’t true?

            My guess is that the answer is not that you don’t believe what you are saying but that you are not willing to do the work it would take to actually follow up the arguments on both sides and find adequate support for your beliefs.

            That’s entirely understandable — I’m not willing to do it either. But that leaves you in the position of someone asserting, with great confidence, that something is true, when your basis for that comes down to “people on my side say it is true.” One often ends up depending on that sort of information, but can’t you see that there is no reason for the rest of us to take the argument seriously — or to take you seriously when you put your claim as if were based on something more than that?

    • This means that, if it decided to pursue its financial self-interest, MSNBC would have to make content that was superficially neutral or anti-Trump, but that somehow produced second-order effects that helped Trump. What kinds of content would do this?

      Content that was anti-Trump, fit the biases of liberals, and could readily be quoted by Trump supporters as evidence of how unreasonable/dishonest/evil Trump’s opponents were.

  15. proyas says:

    Here’s an analysis of the future technology depicted in the cinematic masterpiece Terminator, Dark Fate: https://www.militantfuturist.com/review-terminator-dark-fate/

    • Viliam says:

      Watching the movie…

      Oh, here comes a Strong Woman(TM) who can win a physical fight with a Terminator. That reminds me of another Strong Woman(TM) I watched recently win a physical fight with people from Superman’s species. Except, in this movie we get an in-universe explanation: she’s augmented. Allright then.

      …okay, finished. My impressions:

      There is this annoying trend of converting male heroes into women (but keeping the villans and robots male, of course — tomorrow we might see Harriette Potter, but no Lady Voldemort), but ignoring this, the movie felt similar to other Terminator movies. Robots, fighting, and a very simple time-travel thing. (I’d say Genisys was an exception here, at that the time-travel thing was a bit more complicated than usual; Dark Fate reverts to the mean.)

      Rating: somewhere between “meh” and “okay”.

  16. johan_larson says:

    Let’s indulge in a counterfactual.

    The Victorians were right. Masturbation is bad for you. Careful social science on the subject, done with large sample sizes, proper control groups, and every attempt to eliminate confounders and isolate causality, has delivered a clear verdict. Masturbation won’t make you crazy or blind, but over time indulging in it tends to lower the capacity for self-control more broadly. And that has serious negative effects on school performance, conformity with the law, social functioning, and in particular lifetime earnings. Students accepted to the Ivy League on average masturbate half as often as high-school dropouts from the same cohort. Harvard, as it turns out, is not full of wankers.

    Now, if all of this were the case, what could, should, and would be done?

    • Machine Interface says:

      Subsidize libido-lowering medications and prostitution, destigmatize the later and present sex workers as doing a vital public service.

    • Lambert says:

      Promoting hookup culture ought to help.

      • johan_larson says:

        “You know what you should do, young man? You should have sex with your girlfriend.” Imagine the ads.

      • Creutzer says:

        On the contrary – people in steady relationships actually have more sex, and hookup culture just leads to a larger undersexed population.

        Nothing should be done that shouldn’t be done anyway. It seems that people nowadays already have shockingly little sex. And we already know that masturbation isn’t as good for people’s mental and physical health as actual sex. But there just isn’t much that can be done.

        • Well... says:

          Hookup culture also seems (to me anyway) to be directly tied to MeTooism as a thing. It’s true, boyfriends/husbands sometimes rape their girlfriends/wives, but there’s none of this “I thought we had a great date.” “Yeah, well I think it was sexual assault” stuff. You’re way more likely to not have a mutual understanding about the motivations and intentions of a stranger than of someone you’re deeply familiar with. I know what mood my wife is in by the way her footsteps sound from the other side of our house.

      • Aapje says:

        @Lambert

        Hookup culture has far greater transaction costs than long-term relationships, as well as having supply/demand issues.

    • EchoChaos says:

      Plausibly or “I’m dictator and can make it happen”?

      Plausibly would be increasing the tax benefit for married children to the point that parents were regularly marrying off their high school students at 14-15 for the benefits, because if you put two horny teenagers together semi-permanently and tell them society approves of them having sex there will be little masturbation.

      • Plumber says:

        @EchoChaos says:

        “…increasing the tax benefit for married children to the point that parents were regularly marrying off their high school students at 14-15 for the benefits, because if you put two horny teenagers together semi-permanently and tell them society approves of them having sex there will be little masturbation”

        Sort of related, from a UK newspaper:

        1,200 more babies due to be born in Denmark this Summer compared to last year

        Denmark’s bizarre series of sex campaigns lead to baby boom
        In 2015 a Danish campiagn titled ‘Do it for mom’ urged people to have children in order to please their parents

        Alexandra Sims
        Thursday 2 June 2016 18:15


        Denmark’s birth rate is set to increase following a series of targetted sex campaigns, including one that called on Danes to “Do it for mom”.

        Last year a string of campaigns were released over national television encouraging Danish people to procreate.

        Company, Spies Travel, released a video with the slogan “Do it for mom” in September 2015 urging people to have children to please their parents and help reverse the country’s aging population.

        “The Danish welfare system is under pressure. There are still not enough babies being born, despite a little progress. And this concerns us all. But those who suffer the most are perhaps the mothers who will never experience having a grandchild,” the advert stated, showing an older Danish woman imagining her future grandchild. 

        Soon after, the City of Copenhagen produced its own campaign calling on people to think about their fertility; with slogans asking men if their sperm was “swimming too slowly?” and women if they had “counted their eggs today?”

        The country’s national broadcaster also aired a programme titled “Knald for Danmark” or “Screw for Denmark”.

        Nine months later reports have suggested that Denmark is set for a baby boom with 1,200 more babies due to be born this Summer compared to last year, The Local reports, citing a report in the Danish broadsheet Politiken.

        Copenhagen’s deputy mayor for health, Ninna Thomsen, told TV2 News the campaigns were not co-ordinated and she did not want to take credit for the imminent baby boom.

        Ms Thomsen said: “You probably can’t ascribe the increase in births to our campaign, but it’s definitely a feather in our cap if the campaign has had a positive effect.

        “It was a bit of a surprise to me that there were so many campaigns on the subject within such a short time. It certainly resulted in people getting plenty of fertility advice.”

        The campaigns stemmed from Denmark’s falling birth rate and aging population.

        In 2014, the national fertility rate was at 1.69, a small increase on 2013 and the first time such an increase had occurred since 2010.

        The average age of first-time parents in Denmark was 29.1 years in 2014, five years older than the average age in 1970”

        IIRC for the U.S.A. in the last 100 years 1956 was the year with the highest percentage of young couples that were married with children [so presumably…], a peak after the previous low in 1940 (which more resembled today’s percentages).

        So just re-create the economic and social conditions of 1956 (Good luck! So much was different than, both policy and world conditions-wise, some portions of such a turn would be supported by Democrats and some other portions by Republicans, but on aggregate there’d be bi-partisan opposition, as too much is different now. For a long time the “baby boom” years seemed the baseline that we’d strayed from, but the more I’ve looked into it the more anomalous they seem from both the years before and after.)!

        • EchoChaos says:

          So just re-create the economic and social conditions of 1956

          That’s a platform I can get behind!

        • rocoulm says:

          Do it for mom

          lmao. Does that work as a pun in Danish too, or is it just a lucky coincidence?

        • So just re-create the economic and social conditions of 1956

          Real per capita income is currently about 3.7 times what it was then. So you are proposing that things would be better if everyone had under a third of his current income.

          Is that really what you want?

          • Lambert says:

            Also Europe and Asia might have objections to being flattened.

          • Plumber says:

            @DavidFriedman,
            Among many other factors, first you’d have to lower per capita income to even less than a third of now, and then have it rise for a good number of years.

            A weird thing about now is that we have been in an economic growth period for some years now, but birth and marriage rates are still down compared to just before the ’08 crash, my guess is that the expansion has to last longer to get over the “shell shock”, but I don’t really know.

            An interesting (to me) factoid is that birthrates among the married have actually gone up a bit the last few years, it’s that the marriage rate still hasn’t climbed back up after the last recession that births are low.

            In absolute terms now is by far richer than 1956, and even more than 1940, but births, church attendance, young marriages (all three correlate) in 2019 were closer to those of 1940 than ’56.

            My guess is it’s related to how optimistic people feel more than absolute wealth, maybe five more years of growth is needed?

          • JayT says:

            I suspect that low birth rates have more to do with marrying later in life than people used to. A very large number of my friends that married after 35 needed to use some form of fertility treatment to get pregnant, and that tends to be a pretty long and arduous process, so they don’t bother with a second attempt. The people I know that married younger tend to have 3-4 kids.

      • johan_larson says:

        I guess the question in that sort of scenario is what happens when the couple that was married at 15 gets pregnant at 16. Or rather, what the society believes should happen. Is the pregnancy aborted? Does one member of the couple (probably the man/boy) pull the ripcord on their education and go find a job to support the family? Do their parents look after the kid until the couple finishes their educations? Or does the state?

        All of these could probably be made to work. But none of them look great.

        • EchoChaos says:

          Traditionally in the cultures that I know of that had widespread teenage marriage (mostly Eastern European and Middle Eastern), it was the parental one, which is why they had more “extended families”.

          The Anglo model of nuclear families pretty much requires getting married in the early-mid 20s.

        • JayT says:

          Make getting a NuvaRing a normal part of a 15 year old girl’s yearly checkup?

          • Gobbobobble says:

            Could always put sterilization drugs in the water and make people ask the Crown Uncle Sam for the antidote

          • caryatis says:

            Yeah, I strongly believe that all girls should be on birth control as soon as physically possible. Why run the risk of unwanted pregnancy when you don’t have to?

          • Deiseach says:

            Yeah, I strongly believe that all girls should be on birth control as soon as physically possible.

            So aged twelve to fourteen when you first start menstruating? I think the side-effects of pumping hormones into the system may not be that great (we already have plenty of such documented, and it’s my understanding that there are women who try and then come off hormonal birth control because of the severe side effects). Ditto with implants and IUDs and so on.

            Let me make you a counter-proposal: all boys to be sterilised as soon as physically possible (hey, it’s easily reversible! especially if some fancy new method gets invented! why shouldn’t male contraception get as many options as female contraception?), after all there can’t be pregnancies if there aren’t any viable sperm, right? And if that evokes an immediate visceral reaction against the proposal, then maybe you understand why “put pubertal girls on the pill” doesn’t sound like a universal panacea from the female side.

          • soreff says:

            @Deiseach

            Let me make you a counter-proposal: all boys to be sterilised as soon as physically possible (hey, it’s easily reversible! especially if some fancy new method gets invented! why shouldn’t male contraception get as many options as female contraception?), after all there can’t be pregnancies if there aren’t any viable sperm, right? And if that evokes an immediate visceral reaction against the proposal, then maybe you understand why “put pubertal girls on the pill” doesn’t sound like a universal panacea from the female side.

            I have a visceral reaction in favor of this proposal.
            Slight tweak:
            Rather than relying on the ability to reverse vasectomies,
            store frozen sperm. This is an old, reliable technology.

            [Ok, I’m biased. I’m childfree, and got a vasectomy myself in 1988.
            I consider it the best single decision of my life.]

          • John Schilling says:

            Let me make you a counter-proposal: all boys to be sterilised as soon as physically possible (hey, it’s easily reversible! especially if some fancy new method gets invented!

            If it truly were “easily reversable”, i.e. a quick outpatient procedure that even poor people can afford without great sacrifice and with say 99.5% reliability, this proposal would be at least as acceptable as the female version and probably more so. I wouldn’t want to make it mandatory, for what should be obvious reasons, but I’d support making it the cultural default recommended by pediatricians (along with circumcision).

            But we aren’t there yet.

            why shouldn’t male contraception get as many options as female contraception?

            Because we are now much more risk-averse about new drugs and medical procedures than we were when most of the current female contraceptive techniques were invented, and things which used to cost say $50 million to develop and test to the FDA’s satisfaction now cost billions.

            And because, back when we could develop new drugs for mere eight-figure sums, we weren’t very good at making men pay the cost of extramarital pregnancies. So there was a much more pressing demand for a “please please please make it so that I don’t get accidentally pregnant” drug than there was for an “It would be cool if I didn’t accidentally knock up some chick” drug.

          • Jake R says:

            Seems like a good time to point out that the Parsemus Foundation is still trying to get RISUG to market, although at this point they’re several years behind their own target dates.

          • Protagoras says:

            Yeah, the reversing vasectomies means there’s still a risk of the girls being impregnated by older men who’ve had their vasectomies reversed, but soreff’s change from reversal to frozen sperm neatly fixes that problem. So I also endorse Deiseach’s proposal of vasectomies for all the boys as soon as physically possible, with soreff’s amendment.

          • soreff says:

            @Protagoras

            Many Thanks!

            [The slogan I have in mind for the proposal is:
            “Store Sperm, and Snip!”]

          • Jake R says:

            @soreff

            I’ve looked into the freeze sperm and vasectomy route. The problem is it’s about $1000 up front and 2-300 a year thereafter. Much cheaper than a kid but a pretty serious hurdle to it becoming the cultural norm.

          • soreff says:

            @Jake R
            Many Thanks! I hadn’t looked into that part of it.
            (I suspect that a typical “Sweet 16” party probably runs more than that…
            But your point is quite valid, for much of the population that is a
            substantial upfront cost. Society-wide, in the U.S., unplanned
            pregnancies are about half of them,
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_pregnancy#United_States_of_America
            and raising a child is a good fraction of a million dollars,
            so I think there should be some way to make the economics work)

            On another facet of this, returning to Deiseach’s:

            I think the side-effects of pumping hormones into the system may not be that great (we already have plenty of such documented, and it’s my understanding that there are women who try and then come off hormonal birth control because of the severe side effects).

            Yes, agreed. Vasectomies are intrinsically safer than
            changing a woman’s endocrinology for decades on end.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @ Jake R

            And that doesn’t include people (men or women) suddenly becoming irreversibly infertile when freezers break, or vials get mislabeled (which also leads to false paternity/maternity).

            It costs proportionately more money to store samples in multiple off-site freezers.

            And store sperm or eggs and your sperm and eggs’ DNA doesn’t have a chance to mutate. Do we really want this as a species? This is one of the benefits of older paternity/maternity.

            It’s far better to just use condoms with spermicide, and have abortions readily accessible as needed.

    • AppetSci says:

      “We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now”

      • Machine Interface says:

        I doubt orgasm is the prime motivator for masturbating. Sexual urges (horniness) are quite distinct from the (often absent) reward for indulging in them.

        • AppetSci says:

          That was just a quote from Orwell’s 1984 but I do think if your nether regions were numbed and stimulation did not release the happy chemicals (neither during the build-up or the “climactic” event) then Big Brother’s neurologists could effectively sever the link between the urge and the genitalia. That would ending masturbation as way to release sexual tension because it would be ineffective. I’m sure that with a bit of ethics-free CRISPR and focused Party funding, those neurologists and biologists could increase your capacity for self-control.

      • Lambert says:

        Abolishing the neurological state of non-orgasm would technically work too.

    • Thegnskald says:

      Nothing, nothing, and a whole bunch of dumb shit.

    • pancrea says:

      Masturbation and sex have similar effects on the body. Are we assuming they’re both bad for you? Someone should probably do a study checking on that, in this hypothetical world.

      We should make sure this information is widely known, including warning labels on masturbation aids. We should take no other action. The government regulates too much stuff already.

    • AG says:

      Opposite direction of leveling equality: mandate masturbation sessions amongst the higher classes. I don’t see the studies finding correlation with feelings of contentment/happiness.

      In a different direction, if school, law, social functioning, and earnings are currently configured to not gel well with masturbation, then it’s more likely that the former, not the latter, are at fault for demanding we go against our nature. Our economic system should be changed such that any behavioral changes influenced by masturbation do not penalize financial and social standings.

    • The Nybbler says:

      I’m going to go with the idea that the healthiest substitute for masturbation is sex. I can’t wait to see the public service ads. Perhaps Nike would be willing to lend their slogan: “Just Do It!”.

    • The Pachyderminator says:

      Restructuring society to allow marriage in the mid-teens is one answer, but that strikes me as implausible even within the hypothetical. Encouraging hookup culture would do the opposite of what we want; that would be like subsidizing bread in order to discourage butter consumption. Another radical possibility is giving pubery blockers to everyone until age 18, but if reality has any sense of dramatic irony at all, that’s just asking for a Children of Men scenario.

      The low-hanging fruit is corn flakes and circumcision banning pornography. Criminalize its distribution and crack down on it like we do on child porn. It won’t eliminate masturbation, but it can only help.

      Also, make this story required reading in all middle schools.

    • Dacyn says:

      In case anybody wanted it: a link to last year’s discussion. Many of the same suggestions were raised.

    • viVI_IViv says:

      Now, if all of this were the case, what could, should, and would be done?

      Ban porn.

    • mtl1882 says:

      There’s undoubtedly an argument to be made in favor of self-control and discipline, but the Victorians were ever-alert to that issue, and masturbation was only one of many things that threatened it. I think we do have issues with instant gratification, and, much more fundamentally, with building healthy habits and character, and on a broader level I think it can and should be addressed. But this wouldn’t be my area of focus.

      (Some) Victorians were absolutely hysterical about masturbation, but self-discipline and healthy relationships got brief mention compared to confident assertions it caused insanity, mental retardation, impotence, infertility, blindness, sexual abuse, death, and everything else. Their “treatments” were even weirder. So I wouldn’t say they were right on the issue in a meaningful sense. But sometimes they were surprisingly insightful about sex–they just managed to conclude that when done solo, it was somehow an entirely different thing. I think they had a theory that it drained a man’s vital energy, impairing his intellect and general health, but that when done “properly,” vital energy was generated and imparted to him by his wife. But even then, they stressed moderation.

  17. Clutzy says:

    So, at the age of 31 I’ve gotten my first real old man injury. I was doing my morning stretching, slipped, and heard a few unsavory cracking noises (like a loud knuckle crack). Now I’m pretty sure i pulled my hammy, and mildly badly. After a day of ice on the bum anyone have any additional suggestions?

    • GearRatio says:

      If you make good money and have good insurance, you might as well get it checked out; don’t take any opiates or anything since it sounds like you are handling it, but if it’s a real injury you might as well not let it get worse.

      Past that, make sure you are eating plenty of calories a day for a bit, preferably from protein. I’m friends with an amateur power-lifter guy, and there’s little question among them but that calorie surpluses aid recovery.

      • Enkidum says:

        If you make good money and have good insurance, you might as well get it checked out

        Since this is a fractional thread, can I just point out how insane this sounds to anyone outside of America?

        • EchoChaos says:

          You get the quality of healthcare you pay for.

          • Enkidum says:

            Well, no. For most people in most of the world, we get the quality of health care that richer people pay for.

            ETA: actually things like physio, which is what Clutzy undoubtedly needs, are often the least likely to be covered. But the idea of not being able to get something checked out? Insanity.

          • Aapje says:

            @EchoChaos

            The US spends almost twice as much on healthcare as the UK, but I don’t see how quality is twice as good.

          • Nick says:

            @Aapje
            Well yeah, you shouldn’t expect it to? Diminishing returns and all.

          • Enkidum says:

            But you should expect its quality to be better. It isn’t, unless you are wealthy.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Aapje

            Health outcomes for white Americans are substantially better than white Britons. Our overall lower health outcomes are because we have substantial minorities with very bad health outcomes.

            @Enkidum

            It isn’t, unless you are wealthy.

            Well yes, that’s what I just said. I’m glad you agree.

          • Enkidum says:

            Well yes, that’s what I just said. I’m glad you agree.

            I do, actually. No disagreement about the facts here, unless its to note that health care for poor white Americans is pretty bad as well (but I think you agree with that). I just think it’s appalling that this is the case.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Enkidum

            I just think it’s appalling that this is the case.

            Why? Life expectancy for white Americans is basically the same as the British, so what is there to be appalled at?

            Most racial disparities are due to things outside the control of healthcare, like obesity in the black community, which is at a horrifying level, and drives diabetes and heart disease, which is the #1 killer of African-Americans.

            Which has better health outcomes, poor whites in Appalachia or poor whites in Scotland? It’s Scotland with their wonderful socialized healthcare and a life expectancy of 75 years compared to 77 in Appalachia.

            And allowing the ultra rich to buy the best of the best healthcare has made America the center of healthcare innovation in the world, which is why Europeans can look down their noses while they buy new and amazing treatments Americans invented for them.

          • Machine Interface says:

            I’m very suspicious of the claim that african-americans, who represent less than 13% of US population, are alone sufficient to explain why the US have the lowest life expectancy in the western world, even lower than several countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America.

            Besides this is a reversible argument: you could argue that the 13% of wealthiest Americans which can afford your price-gouged system are pulling the numbers up and that the overall picture is actually much worse than the numbers subject. I’m not saying that’s the case, but “black people are pulling the average down” sure is a convenient handwave when middle class Americans are literally dying because they can’t afford their insulin anymore.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Enkidum

            My edit window has passed, but one other thing. The US spending twice what the UK spends is misleading for a big reason, which is per capita GDP.

            Healthcare is a service, which means labor cost is a major driver. An American worker just costs more than a British worker, but we have higher income to pay for it.

            In real terms, we spend closer to 40-50% more than the British, which is still not great, but hardly the end of the world in any way given that we have a 40-50% higher income to pay for it.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Machine Interface

            Blacks are 13% and Hispanics are 17%, which is 30% of the country being made up of lower life expectancy minorities. That’s a big deal.

            Feel free to compare. Life expectancy for white Americans is basically the same as European countries.

            I’m not saying that’s the case, but “black people are pulling the average down” sure is a convenient handwave when middle class Americans are literally dying because they can’t afford their insulin anymore.

            This sort of hyperbolic claim is the reason that we can’t have a reasonable discussion. One of my best friends has a type 1 diabetic son and is solidly in the American middle class. While it does cost money (obviously), he is nowhere near “literally dying because they can’t afford their insulin”.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            Which has better health outcomes, poor whites in Appalachia or poor whites in Scotland? It’s Scotland with their wonderful socialized healthcare and a life expectancy of 75 years compared to 77 in Appalachia.

            Source? As far as I know, life expectancy in Scotland is actually 79, in other words two years higher than Appalachia, and indeed slightly higher than the average for American whites overall.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @thisheavenlyconjugation

            Looks like I read the Scottish men’s number as all Scotland. I accept the correction. The poorest Americans have a life expectancy slightly behind their NHS covered cousins in Scotland.

          • Nick says:

            @EchoChaos

            Blacks are 13% and Hispanics are 17%, which is 30% of the country being made up of lower life expectancy minorities. That’s a big deal.

            Hispanics actually have higher life expectancy.

          • GearRatio says:

            While I don’t care to defend or attack various health care systems, I do agree with this last bit:

            which is why Europeans can look down their noses while they buy new and amazing treatments Americans invented for them.

            I’d like super-cheap or free health care all things the same, but I’m reasonably convinced that in the real world what I’d be doing is trading in slightly improved health now (when I’ve got reasonable health and don’t really need doctors, ’cause I’m not quite old yet) for much decreased health when I’m old.

            I have a dead dad who would have died in his early-to-mid 50’s at best instead of his mid 60’s and my name-sake nephew who would have very likely died of leukemia if we had put in reasonable European style health care in the 90’s. That might not be typical, but it colors my opinion on this a great deal. And that’s just people I know, but to the extent that there have to be at least a few more future health situation whose positive outcomes depend on continued progress, I’m OK with it.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Nick

            That’s selection effects from immigrants. Native born Hispanics have a life expectancy in line with their socioeconomic status.

          • Randy M says:

            Are you saying immigrants have higher life expectancy than native born for presumably similar racial demographics? Cultural practices may make an impact (more sugar in diet, say, or more sedentary), but that’s pretty discouraging if true. But then, it’s not like Mexican health care is the reason, right?

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Randy M

            Sickly people don’t emigrate, and immigrants don’t have child mortality dragging down their numbers.

            https://www.prb.org/us-hispanics-life-expectancy/

            In addition, U.S.-born Hispanics’ life expectancy dropped below that for non-Hispanic whites.

          • Nick says:

            No, not good points. @EchoChaos, your linked article doesn’t support your general take, and that quote in particular is misleading. Look at the paragraph it occurs in:

            Hayward and his colleagues offer more evidence on the power of smoking to shorten lives and explain Hispanics’ longer lives.3 They probed mortality differences among Americans ages 50 and older, paying attention to race, ethnicity, and country of birth. When they eliminated all smokers from their analysis, foreign-born Hispanics’ life expectancy did not significantly exceed that for non-Hispanic whites. In addition, U.S.-born Hispanics’ life expectancy dropped below that for non-Hispanic whites.

            If the difference only exists for non-smokers, then it’s not down to a healthy migration effect, it’s down to smoking rates, which are much lower among foreign-born Hispanics and somewhat lower among US-born Hispanics.

            Unfortunately, while I tried looking for the paper to see the actual data, it appears to have been an early version of this one, which doesn’t break things down by smoking at all, and hardly even mentions it.

          • Nick says:

            As an addendum, sorry if that sounds a tad aggressive. It’s nothing personal, EchoChaos! I am just a gigantic pedant.

          • DinoNerd says:

            I just want to register shock that the first explanation of life expectancy differences that come to American minds is race rather than money, and that none of the suggested explanations for such differences involve the medical system treating people differently based on apparant race.

          • Lambert says:

            > differences that come to American minds is race rather than money

            I think it explains a lot about US politics and society.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Nick

            No harm done. My quote was pointing out that native-born Hispanics have a lower life expectancy than Hispanic immigrants for all the expected reasons (children who die at 5 don’t immigrate, people with chronic health problems don’t immigrate) and that once you control for the actual differences between the populations, Hispanics are in fact lower than whites, which I had remembered.

            @DinoNerd

            It is possible that poverty is the reason that blacks have a lower life expectancy, of course, but it’s far more likely lifestyle in my opinion.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Lambert

            Everything is correlated, but black life expectancy at 75.5 years is well below the 77 years for the poorest white areas in Appalachia.

            Blacks on average are richer than Appalachia, so the fact that their life expectancy is still 1.5 years shorter tells us it isn’t just poverty.

            And the reason I tend to go to race first is that it explains a lot more than poverty does for American statistics. If you look entirely at income you miss a lot about American life.

          • Enkidum says:

            I have a very hard time getting round what seems to me to be the massive issue here: if you are poor in the US, you just don’t get health care outside of the emergency ward. If you’ve got terminal cancer, you just die. If you put out your back like @clutzy in this thread, you just suffer.

            I think this is not overstating the situation? I would love to be wrong about this.

            If this isn’t a massive part of the explanation for health outcome disparities between groups in the US, I’d love to know why any rich people in the States bother buying health insurance.

          • Randy M says:

            I just want to register shock that the first explanation of life expectancy differences that come to American minds is race rather than money, and that none of the suggested explanations for such differences involve the medical system treating people differently based on apparant race.

            I would like to register the opposite of shock that in your pointing out the stereotyping at work, you’ve done the same thing and attributed one person’s thoughts to the 330+million person group he is a presumed member of.

            Also, disaggregating the data by race is not the same as assuming the results are due to heredity, but is important to be sure one is making an equivalent comparison.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Enkidum

            if you are poor in the US, you just don’t get health care outside of the emergency ward.

            That’s false. You get free medical care from the government if you are poor.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid

          • johan_larson says:

            Enkidum, that’s not quite right. There is a program called Medicaid that pays for health care for the very poor. It’s not great, but better than nothing.

            As I understand it, the real problem population in the US system is not the very poor. It is more like the working class. The truly poor have Medicaid. The middle class and above have employer-provided health insurance. But the people in between are on their own. They can pay for some care out of pocket, but any serious illness — the kind that requires six figures worth of care — is ruinous.

          • Randy M says:

            I think this is not overstating the situation? I would love to be wrong about this.

            You are wrong about this. I know an at most lower middle class family with multiple cancers–mother and young son. The boy has lived for many years with the cancer, getting numerous treatments. The mother likewise. So at the least, you are making a gross simplification.

            Does it suck that getting sick presents a huge expense to an American family that will impact their lives? Yes, yes it sucks.
            Might some government run system be better on net? It might.
            Are you being hyperbolic? I think so.

            If you put out your back like @clutzy in this thread, you just suffer.

            I do not believe medical science can do much for back pain other than give lots of drugs to numb the sensation. Am I mistaken?

            But the people in between are on their own. They can pay for some care out of pocket, but any serious illness — the kind that requires six figures worth of care — is ruinous.

            I think it’s fair to say that the problem is not that the poor get no medical care; the problem is that needing medical care can make you poor.

          • Garrett says:

            I do not believe medical science can do much for back pain other than give lots of drugs to numb the sensation. Am I mistaken?

            Yes, but it depends upon the cause of the pain.

            If it is a minor strain/sprain, appropriate care and rehabilitation will minimize the time in pain and level of dysfunction. The previously-held idea of simply resting until healed is no longer accepted.

            If it’s a fracture of some kind, understanding the underlying cause (calcium deficiency?) and correcting it may be appropriate. If it is displaced, surgery may be required. Back surgery is of questionable efficacy – get a second or third opinion.

            If it’s related to arthritis or ankylosing spondylitis, treatment can minimize the long-term damage and pain. In this case, it’s not “numb the pain” as much as it is “reduce the inflammation triggering the pain”.

          • Randy M says:

            Back surgery is of questionable efficacy – get a second or third opinion.

            I guess I’m mostly thinking of long term. My mom has had some questionable back surgeries. Little balloons blown up in her vertebrae or something. It didn’t seem to help, but I should ask her again because I haven’t heard the complaints for awhile.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            #1 – if you are a single, able bodied person, many states still don’t cover you, even if you have no job at all. I live in one of them. The two young men living in my third floor bonus room currently don’t have health care. One of them lost their job, the other doesn’t have coverage through work and doesn’t make much money… see #3.

            #2 – With the advent of the ACA, any state that chose not to throw a hissy fit got federally paid for expanded Medicaid coverage that covered everyone up to an income level where subsidized ACA coverage kicked in, making coverage essentially free for the most subsidized rung on the ACA ladder.

            #3 – If your state did join the lawsuit against the Medicaid expansion in the ACA and didn’t expand coverage, you may very well be poor enough to not have health insurance.

          • JayT says:

            The biggest driver of life expectancy differences between the US and Europe is that the US has more deaths from things that aren’t related to the healthcare system, such as accidents, drug use and murders.

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4767002/

          • Machine Interface says:

            Americans literally dying because the price of insulin has been suddenly multiplied by a factor of 500% is not a hyperbole, it’s happening right now, for real. So is Americans having to start go fund me to be able to pay for necessary life saving treatments. So are 2500$ ambulance rides (by all means explain to me how that pays for medical research). So are praticians ordering battery of unnecessary tests just to line up their pockets. That’s the reality of many Americans which you can hear about if you just talk to them.

            The plural of anecdotes is not data, but there sure are a lot of anecdotes outthere of the kind that are surprisingly absent in Europe.

            And Europe medical research is fine, thank you, we produce our own medications (I guess you wouldn’t know since the FDA won’t approve their import to the US).

          • Enkidum says:

            Thanks for reminding me about medicaid.

            (For some reason when I read that sentence it seems snarky – just to be clear, it’s meant as genuine, I had just forgotten about it.)

            I think my point still stands: if health care is anything other than a costly signal, then differences in health outcomes in the US have to be due to shoddier health care for the poor (among other causes). If this is not true, all rich people should immediately quit their health insurance to save needless expenses, or move to a Medicaid-equivalent program immediately. I do not see anyone lining up to do this, ergo I conclude the US has incredibly unequal health care for rich and poor that has devastating impacts on health outcomes.

            Back pain: I have no statistics, but certainly in my case I had crippling back pain, coupled with h pylori – aka ulcers – that flared up whenever I took most useful painkillers, made for an interesting few years. The cure was physiotherapy, which literally changed my life in the course of two weeks. I cannot tell how many people need physio for equivalent problems, but I would assume it is a massive fraction of sufferers, as a lifetime of poor posture and not working out one’s core will have consequences.

            Physio is not covered for all conditions in all Canadian provinces, so I ended up having to pay for that (but it was covered by my workplace insurance, and it was a total of about $1000 for several weeks). The h pylori antibiotics, of course, were free. But even the initial referral would cost people money in the US, which isn’t the case in any other country in the developed world. I flat out refuse to believe that this doesn’t have a massive impact.

          • Americans literally dying because the price of insulin has been suddenly multiplied by a factor of 500% is not a hyperbole, it’s happening right now, for real.

            Blame government regs.

            So are 2500$ ambulance rides (by all means explain to me how that pays for medical research).

            The variable costs pay for the fixed costs, among other costs this includes medical research. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cost is similar in Europe, it’s just hidden from the consumer and they consume fewer ambulance rides.

            So are praticians ordering battery of unnecessary tests just to line up their pockets.

            How would it help the situation if they could just charge that to the government instead of an individual or an insurance company?

          • JayT says:

            Americans literally dying because the price of insulin has been suddenly multiplied by a factor of 500% is not a hyperbole, it’s happening right now, for real. So is Americans having to start go fund me to be able to pay for necessary life saving treatments. So are 2500$ ambulance rides (by all means explain to me how that pays for medical research). So are praticians ordering battery of unnecessary tests just to line up their pockets. That’s the reality of many Americans which you can hear about if you just talk to them.

            There are Europeans literally dying because they don’t have access to the level of cancer care Americans have. Far more than the number of Americans that die from a lack of insulin.

            The plural of anecdotes is not data, but there sure are a lot of anecdotes outthere of the kind that are surprisingly absent in Europe.

            My wife has cancer, and she belongs to a Facebook group of people with the same type as her, and the level of care the Europeans get, especially people in the UK, is shocking to me. They are using procedures that are ten years out of date, and their access to doctors is miniscule in comparison to what we have.

            The fact is, the anecdotes you hear about in the US are outliers. There’s a reason universal healthcare isn’t a particularly popular idea in the US, and it’s because the majority of people are very happy with their healthcare services, and they don’t want to lose it in favor of the substandard care they hear about Europeans getting.

          • I think my point still stands: if health care is anything other than a costly signal, then differences in health outcomes in the US have to be due to shoddier health care for the poor (among other causes).

            This is like saying “if food really contains calories, more expensive food must contain more.” Healthcare can matter without the differences in healthcare by price mattering.

            If this is not true, all rich people should immediately quit their health insurance to save needless expenses, or move to a Medicaid-equivalent program immediately. I do not see anyone lining up to do this, ergo I conclude the US has incredibly unequal health care for rich and poor that has devastating impacts on health outcomes.

            I agree that they should do so. They should also buy cheaper cars as their expensive cars aren’t meaningfully better at transportation from point A to point B than cheaper cars. There are a couple reasons they don’t:

            1. Irrationality/costly signalling.
            2. Non-taxation of health plans are a subsidy for healthcare; the higher your marginal tax rate the higher the subsidy.
            3. Often employers pay most of the costs, so no point in trying to save them money.

            But even the initial referral would cost people money in the US, which isn’t the case in any other country in the developed world.

            Government-run healthcare does not mean free at the point of use. Some countries provide “free” primary care, others don’t.

            https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2019/universal-health-coverage-eight-countries

          • LesHapablap says:

            @Enkidum,

            My experience with physiotherapy was similar. I had ongoing shoulder problems for two years before finally going to a physio, thinking that I would need surgery or steroid shots. The problem was fixed in two or three sessions over a few weeks.

            In later sessions they’ve helped fix my posture and allowed me to strength-train properly. It has been literally life changing and it only cost a few hundred bucks. I think everyone should go to a physio at least once to have their posture assessed and get an opinion on any aches and pains they might sometimes get. Modern life is so sedentary that you’re almost guaranteed to get big benefits seeing a physio.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Quality healthcare.

            Affordable healthcare.

            Universal healthcare.

            Pick any 1.5.

          • Machine Interface says:

            There’s a reason universal healthcare isn’t a particularly popular idea in the US, and it’s because the majority of people are very happy with their healthcare services, and they don’t want to lose it in favor of the substandard care they hear about Europeans getting.

            So substandard that even Greeks live longer than Americans.

            I’m sure the Americans who are getting no healthcare whatsoever are happy to hear that they have the best healthcare system in the world.

          • @Machine Interface

            So substandard that even Greeks live longer than Americans.

            The “even” implies that you should expect them to live shorter due to little spending on healthcare. But the correlation between spending on healthcare and health outcomes goes to zero once you reach the developed country level. So it’s not surprising at all.

          • JayT says:

            That’s my point though. The US system is unequal, but for the people that it works for, which is a large majority and makes up most of the voting populace, it is better than the European systems. So you need to convince ~70% of the population on private insurance that it is a good idea to make their healthcare worse, so that everyone can get care. Good luck with that.

          • John Schilling says:

            I think my point still stands: if health care is anything other than a costly signal, then differences in health outcomes in the US have to be due to shoddier health care for the poor (among other causes)

            “Have to”? It isn’t possible that A: health care is not just a costly signal but something of genuine value and B: that value is largely independent of “shoddiness”. Crudely speaking, it is possible that antibiotics improve health outcomes, the fancy expensive medicines advertised on TV are mostly just signaling, and antibiotics provide the same benefit if dispensed by a concierge physician or an attendant at a shoddy free clinic.

            But your parenthesized hedge I think undermines the rest of your argument. Because it is definitely plausible that violence, despair, recklessness, drugs, alcohol, and poor nutrition cause far more of the observed difference in outcomes than the delta in health-care “shoddiness”. You couldn’t even prove that health care for poor Americans isn’t better than that for poor Europeans from that data, given the amount of noise swamping that small signal.

            You, and too many others in this thread, seem to be claiming nothing more than “it is intuitively obvious that it is shoddy health care and not any of the other things that is primarily responsible for lower life spans among poor American minorities”. And, my intuition is largely the opposite. What have you got beyond intuition, that I should pay you any mind?

          • John Schilling says:

            I’m sure the Americans who are getting no healthcare whatsoever

            This is the sort of hyperbolic exaggeration that convinces me you have nothing to say on this subject that any rational person ought to listen to. You might want to do something about that.

          • Plumber says:

            Here’s a list of Nations by highest to lowest longevity (I don’t know why Hong Kong and Puerto Rico are listed separately), the second number after the first is male life expectancy, the third female.

            Hong Kong 84.894 82.002 87.786
            Japan 84.67 81.532 87.718
            Macau 84.296 81.334 87.23
            Switzerland 83.836 81.928 85.654
            Singapore 83.662 81.574 85.772
            Spain 83.612 80.868 86.302
            Italy 83.568 81.384 85.598
            Australia 83.496 81.558 85.452
            Channel Islands 83.144 81.244 84.968
            Iceland 83.07 81.598 84.546
            South Korea 83.062 79.962 85.988
            Israel 83.04 81.416 84.556
            Sweden 82.874 81.126 84.616
            France 82.728 79.792 85.544
            Martinique 82.614 79.274 85.668
            Malta 82.598 80.788 84.314
            Canada 82.516 80.556 84.446
            Norway 82.484 80.546 84.432
            New Zealand 82.356 80.66 84.032
            Ireland 82.354 80.726 83.948
            Netherlands 82.348 80.672 84.002
            Luxembourg 82.312 80.236 84.394
            Greece 82.308 79.896 84.72
            Guadeloupe 82.2 78.542 85.52
            Portugal 82.11 79.118 84.896
            Finland 81.976 79.178 84.768
            Belgium 81.702 79.412 83.938
            Austria 81.63 79.286 83.926
            Germany 81.412 79.05 83.786
            United Kingdom 81.398 79.71 83.052
            Slovenia 81.388 78.654 84.086
            Cyprus 81.054 79.01 83.084
            Denmark 80.968 79.03 82.916
            United States Virgin Islands 80.654 78.052 83.148
            Reunion 80.638 77.8 84.03
            Taiwan 80.53 77.884 83.262
            Costa Rica 80.376 77.87 82.952
            Qatar 80.304 79.246 82.076
            Chile 80.272 77.88 82.512
            Puerto Rico 80.186 76.64 83.554
            Guam 80.158 76.952 83.572
            French Guiana 80.05 77.146 83.122
            Mayotte 79.544 76.272 83.036
            Czech Republic 79.43 76.82 81.996
            Barbados 79.268 77.904 80.55
            Maldives 79.038 77.654 80.848
            Lebanon 79 77.224 80.93
            Curacao 78.942 75.856 81.684

            United States 78.93
            76.424 81.464

            Cuba 78.886 76.932 80.85
            Poland 78.784 74.892 82.614
            Estonia 78.748 74.38 82.718
            Albania 78.612 77.03 80.252
            Panama 78.584 75.534 81.798
            Croatia 78.558 75.386 81.642
            United Arab Emirates 78.034 77.352 79.374
            Uruguay 77.986 74.222 81.532
            Oman 77.95 76.228 80.406
            Turkey 77.766 74.808 80.622
            French Polynesia 77.72 75.684 79.954
            New Caledonia 77.632 75.04 80.452
            Slovakia 77.586 74.08 80.996
            Bosnia and Herzegovina 77.48 74.982 79.918
            Colombia 77.36 74.61 80.084
            Bahrain 77.352 76.498 78.484
            Thailand 77.194 73.536 80.908
            Ecuador 77.104 74.39 79.916
            Antigua and Barbuda 77.08 75.906 78.178
            Sri Lanka 77.056 73.692 80.326
            China 76.96 74.826 79.274
            Algeria 76.954 75.754 78.208
            Montenegro 76.946 74.516 79.356
            Hungary 76.902 73.288 80.312
            Peru 76.822 74.174 79.568
            Tunisia 76.79 74.782 78.812
            Morocco 76.77 75.51 77.988
            Iran 76.742 75.644 77.952
            Argentina 76.738 73.328 80.048
            Aruba 76.36 73.84 78.704
            Saint Lucia 76.262 74.904 77.646
            Malaysia 76.218 74.29 78.372
            Romania 76.098 72.668 79.556
            Serbia 76.05 73.458 78.66
            Brazil 75.964 72.344 79.618
            Lithuania 75.954 70.358 81.364
            Brunei 75.932 74.792 77.184
            Macedonia 75.864 73.864 77.918
            Kuwait 75.538 74.802 76.652
            Vietnam 75.47 71.388 79.58
            Honduras 75.342 73.036 77.624
            Latvia 75.322 70.288 80.034
            Saudi Arabia 75.216 74.014 76.854
            Mexico 75.152 72.308 77.966
            Armenia 75.142 71.4 78.54
            Bulgaria 75.106 71.624 78.712
            Mauritius 75.06 71.73 78.518
            Belarus 74.774 69.64 79.564
            Belize 74.658 71.708 77.848
            Jordan 74.602 72.908 76.382
            Nicaragua 74.582 71.066 78.056
            Jamaica 74.55 72.93 76.204
            Guatemala 74.384 71.456 77.236
            Paraguay 74.284 72.286 76.432
            Dominican Republic 74.146 71.064 77.432
            Palestine 74.14 72.488 75.852
            Bahamas 73.95 71.668 76.132
            Georgia 73.808 69.394 78.168
            Trinidad and Tobago 73.55 70.91 76.276
            Kazakhstan 73.488 69.112 77.598
            Seychelles 73.47 69.972 77.446
            El Salvador 73.418 68.574 77.916
            Samoa 73.366 71.354 75.532
            Syria 73.216 68.768 78.24
            Cape Verde 73.052 69.598 76.284
            Azerbaijan 73.018 70.49 75.504
            Solomon Islands 73.014 71.306 74.896
            Libya 72.996 70.184 76.028
            Bangladesh 72.718 71.008 74.706

            World 72.632
            70.276 75.068

            Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 72.608 70.348 75.212
            Russia 72.566 67.134 77.784
            Grenada 72.47 70.138 75.034
            North Korea 72.332 68.684 75.8
            Venezuela 72.214 68.476 76.148
            Ukraine 72.092 67.122 76.886
            Egypt 72.06 69.804 74.428
            Moldova 71.928 67.66 76.176
            Bhutan 71.876 71.484 72.304
            Indonesia 71.774 69.622 74.034
            Suriname 71.746 68.526 75.13
            Uzbekistan 71.734 69.566 73.882
            Bolivia 71.588 68.768 74.57
            Kyrgyzstan 71.488 67.466 75.628
            Philippines 71.282 67.316 75.554
            Tajikistan 71.166 68.984 73.474
            Tonga 70.968 69.01 72.966
            Nepal 70.882 69.35 72.324
            Iraq 70.654 68.582 72.736
            Vanuatu 70.546 69.034 72.24
            Sao Tome and Principe 70.434 68.018 72.87
            Western Sahara 70.348 68.688 72.398
            Mongolia 69.942 65.872 74.208
            Guyana 69.93 66.932 73.146
            Cambodia 69.88 67.582 71.976
            India 69.73 68.53 71.038
            Timor-Leste 69.562 67.564 71.7
            Botswana 69.398 66.306 72.192
            Rwanda 69.064 66.862 71.17
            Kiribati 68.462 64.34 72.43
            Turkmenistan 68.24 64.746 71.776
            Senegal 68.03 65.848 70.004
            Laos 68.02 66.224 69.86
            Micronesia 67.928 66.258 69.656
            Fiji 67.526 65.76 69.436
            Pakistan 67.328 66.374 68.36
            Madagascar 67.178 65.546 68.828
            Myanmar 67.168 64.062 70.174
            Djibouti 67.072 65.084 69.308
            Ethiopia 66.706 64.798 68.648
            Kenya 66.696 64.308 69.048
            Gabon 66.448 64.378 68.634
            Eritrea 66.436 64.264 68.676
            Yemen 66.194 64.504 67.902
            Tanzania 65.46 63.632 67.26
            Sudan 65.406 63.55 67.292
            Mauritania 64.994 63.352 66.604
            Afghanistan 64.956 63.498 66.522
            Republic of the Congo 64.58 63.088 66.034
            Papua New Guinea 64.578 63.332 65.918
            Comoros 64.4 62.658 66.208
            Malawi 64.306 61.154 67.45
            Ghana 64.166 63.072 65.284
            Liberia 64.16 62.748 65.574
            South Africa 64.124 60.728 67.652
            Haiti 64.108 61.93 66.292
            Zambia 63.836 60.82 66.816
            Namibia 63.756 60.756 66.548
            Uganda 63.408 61.048 65.65
            Niger 62.528 61.378 63.738
            Gambia 62.228 60.822 63.662
            Benin 61.916 60.342 63.478
            Burkina Faso 61.744 60.89 62.472
            Burundi 61.696 59.872 63.504
            Guinea 61.68 60.914 62.218
            Zimbabwe 61.362 59.652 62.796
            Angola 61.212 58.482 64.1
            Togo 61.17 60.266 62.054
            Mozambique 60.882 57.826 63.69
            DR Congo 60.766 59.224 62.328
            Swaziland 60.006 55.894 64.596
            Mali 59.442 58.652 60.232
            Cameroon 59.39 58.114 60.676
            Equatorial Guinea 58.878 57.866 60.078
            Guinea-Bissau 58.444 56.404 60.358
            South Sudan 57.948 56.454 59.488
            Ivory Coast 57.844 56.642 59.194
            Somalia 57.5 55.822 59.24
            Sierra Leone 54.81 53.948 55.622
            Nigeria 54.808 53.9 55.748
            Lesotho 54.366 51.248 57.61
            Chad 54.348 52.938 55.786
            Central African Republic 53.346 51.164 55.554

            Americans (on average) have shorter lifespans than those of many other nations, but still longer than most. 

            Also, this list is very disturbing to me because I don’t like seafood!

          • Garrett says:

            So are 2500$ ambulance rides (by all means explain to me how that pays for medical research).

            I’m not going to dispute that these actually do exist. But notwithstanding special circumstances (outlined below) I’ve never encountered them. As always, YMMV.

            First, looking at the ambulance services I volunteer with (both in suburb-like areas) the cash rate for a call is very roughly $600 + $6/mile for a BLS transport and $1,200 + $12/mile for an ALS transport.

            Second: most negotiated insurance rates are a lot lower than that. The official Medicaid rate (take it or get nothing) is $300 flat for an ALS transport, recently increased from $130. Most insurance pays a lot more. Sometimes the full rate, but usually about half, give-or-take.

            Third: Both organizations are charitable organizations. Both pay so little that almost everybody has a second job. And yet, last time I looked at the numbers, employee salary & benefits were 80% of the budget. So I suppose that EMS in larger cities with wages which could support someone with only a single job could drive up the costs.

            Fourth: If you are poor and don’t have insurance, most ambulance services are willing to work something out with you. They’d much rather get a small amount of money easily than maybe get a lot of money with a lot of effort. It costs money to go to court, put a lien on someone’s house, etc.

            Fifth: There’s a lot of expensive stuff which is carried in an ambulance. Medical equipment is expensive because of the liability/regulation involved.

            Per the official price list I could find, the LifePak 15 cardiac monitor which meets effective minimum requirements for an ALS service is $32,995.00 (Part number 99577-000046 with trending, Sp02, NIBP, 12-Lead ECG, EtC02, Carbon Monoxide, Bluetooth), not including batteries, chargers, supplies, etc.

            About $20,000 for a stretcher. $5,000 for the stretcher mount to secure the stretcher inside the ambulance. $4,000 for a stair chair and ambulance mount. Oh – right – about $150,000 for the ambulance itself.

            Plus a whole pile of misc stuff I’m not willing to price out.

            Then you have insurance, fuel, building operation costs, billing operations, etc.

          • Clutzy says:

            Just to clarify for everyone. I pulled my hamstring (probably), and did not throw out my back.

            Its not nearly as bad as a lower back injury, which I’ve had as a result of sports.

          • hilitai says:

            U.S. resident here, with a close relative who was the recipient of a $1000+ ambulance ride (completely unnecessary, as it turned out). This was in Minneapolis a few years ago.

            I can’t remember how much of it our insurance plan covered, but it wasn’t a whole lot. Fortunately, for us it was just an annoyance rather than some sort of crisis. It did tend to confirm my biases that healthcare here is illogically priced and often quite expensive.

            Accompanying that high price is a fairly gold-plated standard of care; the last time I ended up in a hospital, I was put in a swish private room, the hospital cafeteria had a diverse menu with a chef in charge, etc. If you ignored all the health stuff, it was like being in a nice hotel. (And this is in a little Midwestern town. I visited somebody at the Mayo Clinic once — Jeez, the main lobby there was like the waiting room for Heaven.) Catching glimpses of hospitals on BBC television shows, it looks like they just stash people in corridors and put a curtain around them sometimes.

            My general impression of “European health care” (I realize it varies considerably from country to country) is that it provides about 95% of what American health care does, at about 20% of the price. I would be open to a system a bit more like that, but I do not trust anyone in power to provide such a system. As such, I’ll stick with the devil I know, thanks.

          • theredsheep says:

            With apologies for extending this gigantic response thread even farther, I’d like to point out a factor in health-care quality that hasn’t been mentioned yet (unless I missed it due to the sheer mass of responses to read): Caregiver competence.

            Good hospitals tend to hire hardworking and intelligent staff using up-to-date methods. Bad ones get the leftovers, and stupidity multiplies. A lot of hospital-acquired infections are due to staff simply not following best practices. I don’t have the hard data to back this up, but I’ve had some experience working and learning in American hospitals, and I’ve known nurses in poorer areas to do some astonishingly stupid things. It seems to me that just having a fuller staff of attentive and competent nurses could make an enormous difference.

            Most of the meds used in hospital pharmacies aren’t super-expensive; lisinopril works as well now as it did decades ago when it was invented, opiates and NSAIDs are mostly cheap, albuterol and duoneb went generic long ago. There are expensive supermeds, yes, but they don’t account for the bulk of what’s dispensed.

            I don’t know about surgical procedures and can’t comment. But sensible hospital staff might be somewhat less likely to, for example, look at a child’s low weight for his age on a chart, assume it was given in kilos instead of pounds by mistake, and dose opiates accordingly without confirming. My nephew nearly died that way.

          • Randy M says:

            I visited somebody at the Mayo Clinic once — Jeez, the main lobby there was like the waiting room for Heaven.

            I suspect, as complimentary as you intend the comparison, they aren’t going to put that on the ad copy.

        • Clutzy says:

          Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing where the nationalized healthcare systems perform most horribly? By the time I’d get an appointment with a physio in a nationalized system the issue would have resolved itself, or I would have already been able to conclude on my own that it would not.

          • AlesZiegler says:

            In Czech nationalized system, no. You would most likely found a doctor easily.

          • John Schilling says:

            He’s not asking about finding a doctor. He’s asking about finding a physical therapist, a medical specialty whose practitioners are not doctors. The general reputation of nationalized medical systems is that they are good at arranging for sick/injured people to be treated by a generic doctor, but that specialized care requires dealing with enough bureaucracy that many conditions will have run their course (for better or worse) before the first visit with a specialist.

            If the Czech system has found a way around that problem, that would be good to know.

          • AlesZiegler says:

            @John Schilling

            Good point, I should say that a market for physiotherapy not covered by nationalized insurance exists in Czechia (partially advertised to foreigners as you could easily google them in English), but when I had an injury few years back, I got a paper (yes, system is not exactly technologicaly advanced) from a doctor certifiyng that I have a legitimate claim on so and so services covered by national insurance, and then I had a task to find therapist myself, which turned out to be easy (I googled them and about third one was acceptable), with the help of google. It is true that my sessions were scheduled on some awfuly early morning hour before work, as opposed to after work which I would prefer, and generaly medical system here isn´t too convenient, but people not being able to get physical therapy due to rationing doesn´t seem to be massive problem.

            John Schilling

            Good point, I should say that a market for physiotherapy not covered by nationalized insurance exists in Czechia (partially advertised to foreigners as you could easily google them in English), but when I had an injury a few years back, I got a paper (yes, system is not exactly technologically advanced) from a doctor certifying that I have a legitimate claim on so and so services covered by national insurance, and then I had a task to find a therapist myself, which turned out to be easy (I googled them and about the third one was willing to accept me), with the help of google. It is true that my sessions were scheduled on some awfully early morning hour before work, as opposed to after work which I would prefer, and generally medical system here isn’t convenient, but people not being able to get physical therapy due to rationing doesn’t seem to be a massive problem.
            On the other hand, our medical system is underfunded, especially after the recovery from the recession, since “insurance” payments (which are taxes in all but name) were not raised in many years despite nontrivial inflation, and sometimes you could read in the media that public insurance corporation is having a dispute with some gravely ill patient requiring prohibitively expensive care.

            Probably issues which affect lots of people tend to be prioritized at the expense of those which affect only a few. Of course Czechia is relatively poor compared to the US, so resources available all around are limited.

          • LesHapablap says:

            Here in New Zealand we have a mixture of public and private health care. Problems I’ve had that required a physio were covered under ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation), which meant that my visits were $30 instead of $100. Scheduling an appointment with the physio is identical either way, and the physio herself does the paperwork to apply for ACC, which doesn’t seem to hard.

            ACC is funded by payroll taxes among other things and is pretty damn expensive, but it is a nice safety net for accidents and probably contributes to an outdoorsy and adventurous culture here in NZ.

            For more complicated procedures, like my boss’s recent hip replacement after a botched hip replacement, private insurance works a lot better (faster) than the public option.

          • As best I can tell, the one unambiguous fact in these arguments is that U.S. healthcare is substantially more expensive than healthcare elsewhere.

            It’s also true that U.S. life expectancy is shorter than life expectancy in many other developed countries, but that leaves the cause open.

            The claim I have heard, specifically with regard to NHS (U.K.), is that the survival rates for a list of serious illnesses, such as cancer, are substantially worse than they are in the U.S. Whether that is true I don’t know — someone else here may.

            I did, some years back, look into the basis for the common claim that the quality of U.S. health care was poor, which came from a WHO report, and concluded that it was very weak. Details here.

    • LesHapablap says:

      Go straight to a physio. Physios are awesome.

      • Clutzy says:

        Yea, I’ll schedule one soon if its not back to 100%, was looking for some more easy to do advice though. After 24 hours I feel like I could probably play on Sunday if I was in the NFL and had their trainers with Toradol.

    • salvorhardin says:

      More stretching, but of the right kind, and probably eventually yoga too. The good thing about going to a physical therapist, as some others have already recommended, is that they will tell you just what stretches to do to actually target your injury and make it better and not worse.

      • Clutzy says:

        I was doing a yoga pose when I hurt it! That said, Its already almost painless in normal range of motion.

  18. John Schilling says:

    Woodrow Wilson was not the sole author of the Treaty of Versailles settlement; the net influence of French PM Clemenceau, British PM Lloyd George and Wilson’s domestic political opponents on the final settlement was considerably greater than President Wilson’s individual influence

    Except that those people had influence only because Wilson gave it to them. And saying that Clemenceau and George did a Bad Thing, doesn’t mean Wilson didn’t also do a Bad Thing.

    The Treaty of Versailles was a Bad Thing. It was bad because it was drawn up by a bunch of supremely vindictive people who were looking to dish out punishment without regard for the consequences, and it was a Bad Thing because those supremely vindictive people were also basically good people representing basically good countries that weren’t going to keep up the vindictive punishments – but the punished were damn well going to hold their grudge. The treaty had One Job, prevent resurgent German militarism from unleashing a World War, and it failed. And it hurt the innocent and guilty alike on its way to failing to do any good. It was a bad treaty.

    And, of course the British and French were going to be a bunch of vindictive assholes in 1919. They’d just been through four years of bloody war and had payback at the top of their agenda. But, left to their own devices, they would not have had the power to execute much in the way of vengeance. It took Woodrow Wilson to give them the sort of decisive victory that would let them impose a blank-check armistice on Germany, and Wilson did nothing but back them every step of the way as they did the obvious thing.

    A policeman who delivers a bound and gagged criminal to his victims and says “have at it”, is a murderer even if he isn’t the one putting boot to face until respiration ceases. Wilson, like so many presidents, appointed Team America as the World Police, and when he got his victory he abdicated himself of the responsibility.

    And, Wilson’s domestic political opponents? Accounting for the power of one’s domestic political opponents to confound one’s plans is part of the job if you’re going to be a President. A president whose singular accomplishment falls into ruin because he isn’t willing to make the compromises necessary to have it succeed, is not a good or successful president.

    The one thing that might have made American involvement in World War One into a real and lasting victory, would have been a League of Nations that wasn’t a joke. A league backed by the wealth and might and geographic invincibility of the United States. The only thing Wilson had to do to make that happen, was to compromise on the bit where Geneva gets a blank check to declare war on behalf of the United States without Congress having any say. He didn’t, and so it didn’t, and the rest is history.

    Uncompromising failure is still failure.

    • The original Mr. X says:

      Agree that Wilson should have foreseen domestic opposition to the League of Nations, and either found some way of getting it passed in the Senate, or come up with some other way to ensure world peace.

      Disagree that Britain and France were motivated only, or even primarily, by vindictiveness. The traditional way of preserving peace in Europe was by preventing any one country from getting strong enough to kick everybody else around. A unified Germany threatened this balance of power, so trying to weaken Germany was in line with traditional European strategic thinking. It’s also worth pointing out in this regard that the political situation in Germany seems to have settled down until the Great Depression came along, so the rise of the Nazis is more plausibly linked to that than to Versailles; and that the Allies treated Germany considerably more leniently at Versailles than the Germans treated the Russians at Brest-Litovsk, or were planning to treat France in the event of a victory on the Western Front. For that matter, the Allies treated Germany considerably more leniently than they would treat Germany or Japan after WW2. So I don’t think Versailles was “supremely vindictive” by the standards of twentieth-century diplomacy, whatever butthurt 1920s German fascists might have said.

      Strongly disagree that “it took Woodrow Wilson to give them the sort of decisive victory that would let them impose a blank-check armistice on Germany”. There were never many American soldiers in WW1 compared to British or French, and the back of the German army had been broken during the Spring Offensive before American troops started arriving in large numbers. Without American involvement, the war might have lasted a bit longer, maybe until 1919, but the end result would still have been the same.

      • AlesZiegler says:

        Strongly disagree that “it took Woodrow Wilson to give them the sort of decisive victory that would let them impose a blank-check armistice on Germany”. There were never many American soldiers in WW1 compared to British or French, and the back of the German army had been broken during the Spring Offensive before American troops started arriving in large numbers. Without American involvement, the war might have lasted a bit longer, maybe until 1919, but the end result would still have been the same.

        That is unlikely. If I remember correctly, in the last months of the war, American troops formed something like 20 % of Allied fighting strength on the Western front, which is not a trivial number, I think slightly smaller but comparable to British strength, and their numbers were set to grow if the war would continue. Moreover, this understates their impact on the battlefield, since American soldiers were cream of the crop of their nation in terms of martial prowess, while a large part of good French and British soldiers were dead or crippled and their armies were filled with unenthusiastic recruits. That addition of American manpower to Allies was absolutely crucial, since at the start of the fighting season of 1918 (fighting on the Western front didn ́t stop but decreased in intensity during winters) Germans actually outnumbered Allies for the first time since the first few months of the war. Allies started to outnumber Germans again in June, thanks to American reinforcements.

        Without American aid, Entente powers would also be in far worse financial situation.

        I agree that German army was fatally broken by Spring Offensives of 1918, and that Americans had only minor involvement with them, but those offensives likely wouldn’t have happened had the US not entered the war. They were daring or desperate attempt by Germany to win the war before Americans arrive in force.

        Allies were able to impose such harsh conditions of armistice on Germany, because German army (and navy) in November 1918 was in a state of total collapse. And that collapse was mostly a matter of soldiers and sailors losing the will to fight, surrendering themselves to the enemy, deserting or outright mutinying. Would that happened without huge losses among best soldiers in Spring Offensives? Probably yes, but somewhat later. Would that have happened without soldiers knowing that they are no longer fighting an enemy of approximately equal strength, and that superior American manpower will inevitably fall on them like a ton of bricks? I find that unlikely.

        Now, this does not mean that without an American involvement, Central powers would won the war. British Empire in 1918 still had large untapped resources that would most likely by deployed. But peace would in all likelihood be based on some sort of compromise, not on a total victory of one side over the other.

        • The original Mr. X says:

          American soldiers in 1917/18 might have been the “cream of the crop”, but they were also inexperienced in trench warfare and made many of the same mistakes that the British and French had got out of their systems in 1914/15.

          The German army was outnumbered by the Allies by the end of the Spring Offensive, and hence before large-scale US reinforcements started arriving.

        • bean says:

          American soldiers in 1917/18 might have been the “cream of the crop”, but they were also inexperienced in trench warfare and made many of the same mistakes that the British and French had got out of their systems in 1914/15.

          In some ways, this was actually a good thing. The cream of the German Army was annihilated in the Spring Offensive (which I’ve heard described as concentrating the remaining veteran soldiers in special units which could advance, but which couldn’t be replaced when they were destroyed) and what was left afterwards was a shadow of its former self. The German Army of late 1918 was easily pushed out of positions the German Army of 1915 or 1916 could have held forever, and the aggressiveness of the Americans made that a lot easier.

        • AlesZiegler says:

          @The original Mr. X

          American soldiers in 1917/18 might have been the “cream of the crop”, but they were also inexperienced in trench warfare and made many of the same mistakes that the British and French had got out of their systems in 1914/15.

          That is true, but see what bean says above, and great value of American units was that after training in so called “quiet” sectors of the front they were judged suitable to be deployed to heavy combat zones, whereas a large part of French army, which formed, I think, still an absolute majority (or close to it) of Allied combat strength, was holding quiet sectors.

          Also, it was widely expected that Americans will learn from their mistakes, and, to be clear, argument that the US was indispensable in winning the war rests on an assumption that German behavior was influenced by expectations of future American strength – first, in launching Spring Offensives and second in demoralization and breakdown of the army, which started in August 1918.

          The German army was outnumbered by the Allies by the end of the Spring Offensive, and hence before large-scale US reinforcements started arriving.

          According to this graph, it happened by June, which is an end of spring, alright. I am not going to bother with trying to find precise composition of reinforcements up to June, many of them were probably British, and I think that it is plausible that even without American aid, Allies would soon again outnumber Germans. But their advantage would be slight and hardly decisive.

        • cassander says:

          @bean

          not just the veterans. By 1918, simply coming up with physically able men in the right age groups was getting tough for the germans. By some estimates, they sent pretty much everyone under the age of 30 from the eastern front and still couldn’t fill out the divisions the way they wanted to for the spring offensive.

          @AlesZiegler says:

          and, to be clear, argument that the US was indispensable in winning the war rests on an assumption that German behavior was influenced by expectations of future American strength – first, in launching Spring Offensives and second in demoralization and breakdown of the army, which started in August 1918.

          not just the demoralizataion of the germans, the moralization (for lack of a better term) of the british and french. Petain puts down the mutinies by promising there wouldn’t be any more bloody offensives, and he can keep that promise only because the US shows up.

        • The original Mr. X says:

          @ Bean:

          In some ways, this was actually a good thing. The cream of the German Army was annihilated in the Spring Offensive (which I’ve heard described as concentrating the remaining veteran soldiers in special units which could advance, but which couldn’t be replaced when they were destroyed) and what was left afterwards was a shadow of its former self. The German Army of late 1918 was easily pushed out of positions the German Army of 1915 or 1916 could have held forever, and the aggressiveness of the Americans made that a lot easier.

          I’m not so sure about that. It’s been a bit difficult finding proper breakdowns of how many casualties each Allied army inflicted in the Hundred Days, but looking at prisoners taken, it seems that the British took 188,700 POWs and 2,840 guns, as opposed to a combined French and American total of 196,700 and 3,775, respectively. (I couldn’t find separate figures for the French and Americans, unfortunately.) Unless there’s some huge mismatch in killed or wounded figures, it looks like the BEF was the best-performing of the Allied armies in this particular campaign.

        • bean says:

          @The Original Mr. X

          I’ve heard some very good things about the BEF in 1918, but this definitely isn’t my area of expertise. That said, I’m not sure prisoners is a good metric, because it depends more on being able to trap the enemy in a position they can’t get out of than anything else.

        • The original Mr. X says:

          Sure, it would have been better to have other statistics (like kills inflicted) to compare. Unfortunately all the sources I’ve been able to find just talk about German casualties as a whole, without specifying how many were inflicted by each Allied army.

          That said, if the British are able to trap their enemies and force their surrender, that probably speaks well of their doctrine and execution, insofar as surrounding and enemy and forcing him to surrender is generally safer and less wasteful of lives and materiel than annihilating him in a big frontal assault.

        • AlesZiegler says:

          So, I am not disputing that from four armies holding independently sectors or the Western front during the Hundred days (let’s not forget Belgians), British were probably strongest, in a sense that they were most difficult for Germans to counter. That is why their sector got assigned most ambitious objectives, which in turn explains that large number of prisoners. It should be noted that their sector was also reinforced by some American and I think French divisions.

          This however does not invalidate my larger point, that it is difficult to imagine decisive Allied victory without American involvement.

      • John Schilling says:

        There were never many American soldiers in WW1 compared to British or French, and the back of the German army had been broken during the Spring Offensive before American troops started arriving in large numbers.

        The Spring Offensive did not “break the back” of the German army; that’s just hyperbole. It did eliminate the German army’s ability to conduct major offensive operations, and thus ruled out the possibility of Germany conquering France. It did not eliminate the ability of the German army to conduct an effective defense, particularly along fortified lines.

        And it did qualitatively greater damage to the British and French armies, which were not in hugely better condition to begin with. Remember, attempting to replace British casualties from the Spring Offensive resulted in a literal Civil War in the United Kingdom – one which the UK would ultimately lose in spite of Germany no longer being in the picture.

        What destroyed the ability of the German army to defend Germany, were the allied offensives that followed the Spring Offensive. Those were conducted by roughly two million each American, British, and French troops, with the Americans being fresh but now combat-experienced while the British and French (and Germans) were combat-exhausted. The French borrowed American divisions to spearhead the attacks in their sectors. The British, who did not, managed to advance mainly when the Germans pulled off troops to deal with Franco-American attacks.

        From there, the physical occupation and conquest of Germany was inevitable. Just the failure of the Spring Offensive, against just England and France, no.

        Without American involvement, the war might have lasted a bit longer, maybe until 1919, but the end result would still have been the same.

        Without American involvement, 1919 sees a stalemate on the Western front and, as noted, civil war in the dubiously United Kingdom. With no great danger of Germany being overrun, the Germans are unlikely to call for an armistice on allied terms. Probably the Kaiser isn’t forced to abdicate. Quite possibly we get something like the end of the Korean war, where everybody is too piously dissatisfied with the status quo to call it “peace” but nobody is willing to continue actually fighting over it. Or maybe a treaty, but not Versailles.

        • The original Mr. X says:

          What destroyed the ability of the German army to defend Germany, were the allied offensives that followed the Spring Offensive. Those were conducted by roughly two million each American, British, and French troops, with the Americans being fresh but now combat-experienced while the British and French (and Germans) were combat-exhausted. The French borrowed American divisions to spearhead the attacks in their sectors. The British, who did not, managed to advance mainly when the Germans pulled off troops to deal with Franco-American attacks.

          The British captured 188,700 out of the 384,500 POWs taken by Allied forces during the Hundred Days (49%), and 2,840 out of 6,615 guns (43%). In other words, the British took almost as many prisoners and guns as the other Allied armies put together, which is hardly consistent with the idea of the BEF as a combat-exhausted force freeloading off the French and Americans.

    • John Schilling says:

      I think that Clemenceau and Lloyd George had considerable independent influence as heads of states that had deployed massive armies and suffered massive losses by the end of the war. No settlement would have been reached without Britain and France as parties to the agreement.

      Right, but no settlement would have been reached without Germany as a party to the agreement as well.

      Going into a negotiation with the position, “There will be no agreement without our consent, and we will not consent to anything less than X!”, does not guarantee X. If the other necessary parties have the power to deny X, and if X would cost them too much, then X doesn’t happen and there’s no agreement. Or perhaps someone shows more flexibility than their pre-negotiation posture had suggested.

      Absent a United States Army willing and able to march into Berlin, Germany has the power to deny anything resembling Versailles or Wilson’s 14 points. And given the obvious cost to Germany of that settlement, they will. Clemenceau and George can be as pious as they like in demanding Germany’s nigh-unconditional surrender, and it will have all the effect of Wilson’s piously demanding the US Senate ratify the League of Nations charter as written.

  19. Thomas Jorgensen says:

    …I need a reality check on something, and this is probably as good a place for it as it gets. I routinely come across the claim that US libertarianism is nothing other than crypto-republicans – that is, people call themselves libertarians, and then go out and vote for republican politicians who.. kind of are anathema to everything libertarians claim to stand for. That it is, basically, a cloak of social acceptability with no actionable content.

    So, question: Is there anyone here who proclaims themselves libertarian without, in fact, consistently voting and donating R?

    • John Schilling says:

      Here. I usually vote Libertarian; when I can’t or won’t do that I usually vote for divided government.

      Also, it’s the bureaucracy that is anathema to everything libertarians stand for. Republican politicians are anathema to maybe two-thirds of the things libertarians stand for; Democratic ones to a different two-thirds, and if I can’t at least signal my support to a good Libertarian I’ll gladly set the Republicans, Democrats, and Bureaucrats against one another.

    • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

      Does “kind of libertarian leaning, and too busy to bother to vote, but conflicted about which way I’d vote if I did” count?

      And I think “anathema to everything libertarians claim to stand for” is a bit unfair. There are currently two parties that actually get elected, and neither of them is terribly aligned with libertarian values. But, the Republicans at least make noises about cutting taxes and shrinking the size of the government. This comes at the cost of their traditionalist opposition to drugs, LGBT rights, etc. (though some libertarians may be on board with “freedom of association” trumping “freedom from private discrimination”). However, the other side is debatably much worse from a libertarian perspective–the more socially permissive policies of the Democrats come at the cost of their explicit support for more taxation, spending, regulation, and now full-on socialized medicine.

    • Well... says:

      I would guess the origin of this notion is from people who want to vote for Republicans (and usually do when push comes to shove) but consider themselves more socially liberal (and lately, more fiscally conservative) than what you typically hear from official GOP affiliates, so end up saying “I’m a small-ell libertarian” when you talk politics with them.

    • Nornagest says:

      I think it’d be fairer to say that there’s a population of self-IDed libertarians — not the whole movement, probably not even a majority, but a good chunk of it — who are basically burned Republicans. They’re still culturally Red Tribe, but they’ve grown disillusioned with the GOP, usually over compromises on Red Tribe values of self-sufficiency, self-determination, and freedom from corruption and wanton government interference, and they’re looking for a political label that more closely matches those values. On a personal level they’ll probably say they don’t like e.g. drugs or gay marriage, but don’t think the government should be in the business of regulating them.

      But, because they’re culturally Red Tribe, they’re still reasonably likely to take into account a claim to honor that culture when they’re voting, if no better way of deciding presents itself. That’s a fairly stark contrast with Silicon Valley techno-libertarians or with whatever’s left of the Libertarian Party’s old hippie wing, but I’m not going to call them fake for it.

    • Matt says:

      The opposite, here.

      I claim to be Republican but I vote Libertarian every time I see it on the ticket. If no Libertarian is present, though, I vote for the Republicans, and on most Rep vs Dem issues (not all) I take the Rep side. When Libertarians disagree with Republicans, I tend to agree with the Libertarians.

      Isn’t it all a spectrum, though?

      I stopped donating to politicians of any stripe, though.

      • aristides says:

        I am in a similar boat. I’ll proudly claim to be a Republican, but the only presidential candidates I have voted for are Obama and Johnson. Congress I still vote R across the ticket. But honestly, if you only look at Congress, Republicans are the experts at making sure government does nothing, so short of tactically voting for divided government, it is the most libertarian option. Republican Presidents have a much worse track record.

    • brad says:

      I don’t know if I’d go that far, but some time in the Bush administration it seemed like every Republican that wasn’t devoutly Christian started calling himself a libertarian. But even leaving aside voting patterns (spoiler: libertarian candidates never seemed to be able to capitalize on all these self professed libertarians), in debate the new style libertarians only ever wanted to talk about guns and cutting taxes—on which topics there was and is zero light between them and bog standard republicans. Even if you could pin one down on being technically, I guess in favor of e.g. open boarders or legalizing sex work it wasn’t something they were going to argue with Republicans about, they needed to save their energy to argue with liberals about guns and taxes.

      • quanta413 says:

        libertarian candidates never seemed to be able to capitalize on all these self professed libertarians

        There aren’t that many self-professed libertarians so there is nothing to explain here. If the number of self described libertarians exceeds 5% in national surveys (on average) I’d be surprised and if it exceeds 10%, my mind would be blown.

        I guess in favor of e.g. open boarders or legalizing sex work it wasn’t something they were going to argue with Republicans about

        Open borders isn’t a core libertarian position. Minarchists don’t have to be pro open boarders. Ancaps sure, but I don’t think most libertarians are ancaps.

        It’s hard to see how you could not be for legalizing sex work and still be considered libertarian though. But very few people are in favor of that so why try pushing that issue? You don’t lead with a guaranteed loser.

        I’m pretty sure the libertarian party platform is for both those things though or very close to it. It was last time I checked (as well as more guns and less taxes).

      • Garrett says:

        on which topics there was and is zero light between them and bog standard republicans

        I disagree. Republicans pretty much never do anything to substantially improve gun rights or cut spending. Republicans are fine with spending as long as it’s done through debt rather than taxation.

        • brad says:

          Which Libertarian Presidents appointed Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Roberts, and Alito (the Heller majority)?

      • John Schilling says:

        in debate the new style libertarians only ever wanted to talk about guns and cutting taxes—on which topics there was and is zero light between them and bog standard republicans.

        You never encountered any “new style” libertarians who wanted to talk about legalizing / ending the war on drugs? That’s weird. Or possibly you were encountering libertarians in contexts where that wasn’t a debatable issue, e.g. because most everyone else was a progressive-ish liberal and there wasn’t anything to debate.

        But, drug legalization has enough support among libertarian-leaning Republican politicians that it isn’t going to be a strong driver for voting Democrat for anyone who isn’t single-issue on that matter.

        • brad says:

          In my recollection the marijuana obsessed libertarian pre-dates the secular Republican libertarian. At least online.

    • Tarpitz says:

      I claim to be a kinda-sorta-libertarianish, don’t live in America, and either vote Conservative or spoil my ballot.

    • sandoratthezoo says:

      I call myself libertarian and have voted Democratic in the past several presidential elections, third party in Congressional races, and usually split among the parties for other races.

    • quanta413 says:

      In general elections, I usually vote for a libertarian when available, and if that’s not an option I usually attempt to vote for gridlock after that at whatever level I’m voting at (I don’t really see much difference between democrats and republicans on things I care about so I figure less will happen if they’re closer to even in power).

      I’ve voted for democrats more often than republicans.

      I register as a member of whatever party I think will be most relevant. In 2016 I registered Republican to vote against Trump in the primary. Now that I live in California, I think I’m a registered Democrat (but I don’t remember getting my voter registration card in the mail… which I suppose I should look into. I might be forgetting something).

    • RMECola says:

      Libertarian, don’t really vote much but my sympathies more often than not lie with Republicans, though frankly both parties are disappointing.

      The way I always framed it, there are more institutional/constitutional barriers to the aspects of the Republican agenda that make libertarians nervous. Things like obscenity and pornography bans, forced prayer in public schools, and bans on abortions are more or less settled issues, or at least ones I don’t foresee changing anytime soon. The Democrats, on the other hand, have a whole slew of terrible government policies and regulations that can go through with relative ease.

      I’ll admit this is a bit dated considering the new wave of Marco Rubio/Tucker Carlson Republicanism which is just as interventionist as the Democrats. At this point it’s looking like libertarian ideas are hitting a low point in influence.

    • Trofim_Lysenko says:

      I’m somewhere in the libertarian-conservative space. Voted Gary Johnson in 2012 and 2016, but wasn’t impressed by Barr or McCain in 2008 and ended up voting Boston Tea Party in 2008, probably one of a few hundred to do so. On the other hand I’ve voted for Republicans to other offices more than I have Democrats. For reference, this year I plan to either stay home or spoil my ballot with a NOTA write-in, I haven’t decided yet.

      I think it’s worth noting that this cliche is somewhat muddled by lack of ballot access and candidates (which in turn is due to electoral structure and ballot access). “If you make a self-professed libertarian choose between a republican and a democrat, most of them will vote for a republican if they bother to vote at all” isn’t any more shocking in a FPTP system with two competing big tent parties, any more than “If you make a self-professed socialist/social democrat choose between a republican and a democrat, most of them will vote for a democrat if they bother to vote at all” is.

      Remember, the average voter is:

      A) profoundly ignorant of candidates beyond whatever sound bites made it into the news cycle or (these days) social media posts went viral.

      B) not deeply concerned with ideological or philosophical purity. “This guy sounds a bit more like my kind of guy than that guy” is sufficient criteria for 99.99+% of voters.

      Combine that with the primary choices being a party that is pretty openly hostile to libertarian principles right on down the line as a matter of policy and says so, and a party that is hostile to libertarian principles half the time, indifferent another third, and actually sort of friendly on a few issues, but CLAIMS to be much more friendly to libertarian principles as part of its public identity, and it’s not hard to see how you can get a lot of people willing to pull the lever for that party.

      Doesn’t really tell you much about what their voting behavior would be if we had a system where third parties were in any way meaningful.

    • salvorhardin says:

      I’ve been strongly libertarian for most of my life, though I don’t usually identify as one these days because I think team identifiers are intellectually corrupting– but I’m still much closer to libertarian than to any other major label. I rarely vote Republican and when I do it’s usually for sacrificial-lamb Republican candidates in my heavily Democratic district who are, well, pretty damn libertarian. The two times I voted other than Libertarian for President it was for Democrats.

    • Clutzy says:

      I’m a lean Libertarian. I’ve never voted for someone who became president.

    • Jake R says:

      I vote libertarian when I bother to vote, which I usually don’t for rational ignorance reasons. That said, I grew up in a Republican household so I tend to have more of a visceral reaction towards people saying positive things about Democrats or negative things about Republicans. This is true even when I completely agree with what they’re saying. It turns out tribal “us vs them” affiliations run deep and aren’t easy to shake. I do try to recognize when this is happening and ignore it though.

    • JayT says:

      In the 1970s and 1980s the Republican party had economic issues, trade issues, immigration issues, guns, and regulation issues largely in common with Libertarians. The Democrats had social issues (though back then even the Democrats were against things like drugs and gay rights), so the Republican party was the obvious place for Libertarians to go if they wanted to feel like they were voting for someone that had a chance. Then, by the 90s there were a lot of people that agreed with the Republicans on economic issues, but they weren’t religious, so they called themselves Libertarian.

      Today, the Trump-lead Republican party has very little left in common with Libertarians, but old habits die hard, and it’s not like the Democrats are rushing in a Libertarian direction either, so a lot of Libertarians still vote Republican. I expect that support to fade away, especially if the Democrats become the free trade party.

      • The Nybbler says:

        The Republicans have taxes and guns (though wishy-washy on that as usual), and are better on regulation. The Democrats have…. nothing? On a state level SOME (D) parties have weed and other War On Drugs things, but in NJ we don’t even have that.

      • and it’s not like the Democrats are rushing in a Libertarian direction either

        It was asserted upthread that about ten percent of the population identify as libertarian in some sense. That raises a question I’ve been interested in for a long time: Would it be possible for the Democrats to pull those people into their coalition by some set of policies that wouldn’t drive away a noticeable number of their own supporters?

        They don’t have to be very libertarian — more libertarian than Trump is a pretty low bar.

    • teneditica says:

      US libertarianism is nothing other than crypto-republicans

      You could make similarly ridiculous claims for many groups. Are marxists crypto-democrats? I guess marxists tend to vote democrat, but that doesn’t mean marxism is not a meaningful ideology in its own right.

      republican politicians who.. kind of are anathema to everything libertarians claim to stand for.

      Pretty obnoxious, to take an inflammatory claim and just presuppose it in your question.

      • rocoulm says:

        You could make similarly ridiculous claims for many groups. Are marxists crypto-democrats? I guess marxists tend to vote democrat, but that doesn’t mean marxism is not a meaningful ideology in its own right.

        True, but the US does have a, uh, “prominent” Libertarian party (at least in the sense that major elections frequently have candidates nominated from it, even if they rarely win), while, as far as I know, no such Marxist equivalent exists.

        • teneditica says:

          Isn’t that an argument against libertarians being crypto-republicans?

          • rocoulm says:

            If you have a self-proclaimed Marxist who votes Democrat, you can’t say “You’re no Marxist! If you were you’d be voting for the Marxist party candidates!” because there is none.

            If you have a self-proclaimed Libertarian who votes Republican, you can say “You’re no Libertarian! If you were, you’d be voting for the Libertarian Party candidates!” because there is one.

            Obviously, this is leaving aside the pragmatic issues of voting, like whether you factor in “electability” and whatnot. Also, admittedly, the existence of a Libertarian party itself does suggest there is a significant number of “True Libertarians” (whatever that is). But the Republican party consistently capturing the “Libertarian” voters, who have the chance to vote for Libertarians but don’t, seems like some evidence in favor of Thomas’s position, at least more so than an equivalent relationship between Democrats and Marxists.

        • quanta413 says:

          The green party is more marxist tinged than the democratic party (at least recently). So you’d still think a marxist would vote for the green party not the democrats if they were just voting for the best available option.

    • Rebecca Friedman says:

      Hi! I only donate to one political charity, and I’m pretty sure Institute for Justice is as Libertarian as they come. (I don’t donate to election campaigns.) Voting is more complicated, because the California Republican Party frequently runs people who are actually libertarians, and I vote for Libertarian —> “Republican” who mysteriously seems to have no problem with drugs or gays (outside maybe freedom of association issues) but wants California to tax less and spend less and deregulate at least somewhat —> whichever democrat/non-libertarian republican looks least bad, for local elections. But I voted Libertarian in every presidential election in which I’ve voted. If I lived in a red state, I suspect I’d reverse the pattern – Democratic candidates would be less extreme, Republicans more so (and probably not in my direction), and there you go.

      Do you know what state(s) your sources are reporting this behavior from?

    • eigenmoon says:

      I’ve never been to US but let me tell you about my all-time favorite political party: Girchi. This is a party of Georgia (with Tbilisi, not Atlanta).

      Georgia has mandatory conscription but makes exceptions for priests of registered churches. Girchi has registered a church – Christian Evangelical Protestant ‘Biblical Freedom’ Church of Georgia – seriously, the government refused to register them under a shorter name – and ordained everyone.

      Tbilisi has passed a bunch of restrictive laws on taxis. In response, Girchi created an educational service “Shmaxi”. The education consists of viewing lectures of Milton Friedman while being driven from point A to point B. The payment is proportional to the time being educated, not to the distance, so technically it’s not a taxi service.

      Currently Girchi has organized a brothel in their headquarters just because it’s illegal.

    • FormerRanger says:

      I used to think of my self as a libertarian (never capitalized, though). I don’t consider myself a member of any party. My state is one of the bluest in the nation, with overwhelming majorities of Democrat officeholders in the legislature. Except on rare occasions Republicans (much less Libertarians or any other third party) don’t get elected to anything. However, if you aren’t registered in a party, you can vote in any primary, and I do that, though most of the action is in the Democratic primary.

      I am very down on the national Republican Party after the experience of the Obama and Trump administrations. Most Republican Senators and Congress-things are members of the “corporate party.” I’m even more down on the Democrats, most of whose members appear to have been driven mad by Trump. They are quite explicitly are in favor of rewriting the Constitution, and changing the demographics of the country to achieve (they hope) a permanent super-majority consisting of the hard left, the “tech bros,” and bolstered by open-borders immigration.

      I voted for Clinton in 2016, in spite of her being the actual embodiment of everything that is wrong with the government, because I thought Trump was a buffoon. He is still a buffoon but the Democrats have become even worse. I can’t imagine ever voting for a Democrat again unless they regain sanity. I will probably vote for Trump.

    • Erusian says:

      I like to bring up the Koch Brothers who, despite being Democratic boogeymen, donated to Democratic politicians in support of gay marriage, against police brutality, and for prison and sentencing reform. They were involved heavily in the recent Florida initiative to return voting rights to felons, adding two million mostly minority voters to the polls. They harshly criticized the former (Republican) governor for how he handled the system, which excluded most voters and led to a (failed) discrimination lawsuit. They’re also pro-immigrant, in fact they’re more extreme than the Democrats on this issue.

      So there’s a mainstream, powerful, libertarian institution and action network that appears to be more guided by principles than party. I tend to find their claim that they’re pushing for libertarian values and just see the parties as vehicles pretty credible.

      It’s true the majority of their money goes to Republicans but they’re not as mainstream bog-standard Republican as (say) the Mercers. They will give to Democrats where they feel the Democratic policy is more libertarian. They will withhold money from Republicans who they don’t feel are libertarian enough (like Trump, who received $0 from the Kochs).

      (Also, I do understand why the Democrats don’t like them: They opposed Obama’s healthcare law, they oppose public transportation, they oppose welfare in general, they support lowering taxes. But they’re pretty consistently fiscal/bureaucratic conservatives and social liberals, which is my understanding of libertarianism.)

      • salvorhardin says:

        You forgot climate change. The single biggest reason to dislike the Koch brothers (and I agree with you about all the good libertarian stuff they do) is their pushing of climate denialism, and opposition to holding polluters accountable for their negative externalities generally, in order to protect their business interests.

    • achenx says:

      If we’re posting anecdotes here: I’ve considered myself libertarian for a very long time. I voted the LP candidate for president in 00/04/08/16, but I did vote for Romney in 2012. For Congress and state elections, in the 00s I voted for all of LP, R, D, and Independent candidates at various times, depending on the specific candidates, but I gave up on the Democrats around 2008 and don’t think I’ve voted for one since. So election choices come down to “is the Republican worth voting for”, but the answer is often “no”, and that’s becoming the case more often. (My state Republican party has not been great at the best of times, and it is no longer the best of times for them, so I’m seeing way fewer Rs that I would vote for.) At this point I’m close to giving up voting altogether.

      Also, I would sooner set my money on fire than donate it to a politician.

    • Jon S says:

      I’m a lot less libertarian than I used to be, I’m somewhere between typical Libertarian and Democratic positions at this point. When the Democratic party sends me surveys I feel like I disagree with 90% of what they’re trying to do, but I think I agree with them in more areas that aren’t their priorities at the moment.

      Over the last 11 years I’ve built up a visceral loathing for many leaders of the Republican party. I’m not sure whether I’ve ever voted for a Republican for national office, and (barring a Trump-like-candidate running as a Dem) I probably won’t any time soon.

    • Pdubbs says:

      Through my early 20s I called myself a libertarian and voted D every time I cast a vote because I cared more about staying out of war, incarcerating fewer people, and gay marriage than I did about tax cuts and the abstract idea of reducing the size of the government. Since then I’ve realized that I believe in social welfare and just identify as a liberal.

    • Yes.

      When I vote in a presidential election, it’s for the libertarian candidate.

      I’ve probably voted for Republicans for lower level offices from time to time, but the last time I can remember voting for one for congress it was because the Democratic candidate’s campaign sent me a list of all the terrible things the Republican candidate was in favor of. I was in favor of all of them, so felt obliged to vote for him.

    • sentientbeings says:

      I am a libertarian and a Libertarian, and I do not consistently vote for or donate to Republicans.

      I also know quite a few other libertarians of either sized “L,” and I don’t think a single one of the matches your crypto-republican description.

      That doesn’t mean none exist, of course, but I think the idea of it being dominant pattern, let alone “nothing other than,” is wildly incorrect.

    • SamChevre says:

      Here.

      But it’s not quite fair: when it matters, I vote R vs D–but it almost never is both that choice AND matters, so I generally vote third-party, or for the best Democrat. (I’m in a very Democratic city and state.)

      In LadyJane’s useful typology, I’m a Paleo-Libertarian: I’m much more concerned about freedom of association and rule of law (vs arbitrary punishment) than about further increasing immigration or legalizing prostitution. In my ideal world, heroin would be legal, but heavily stigmatized; so would sex outside of marriage. Both would make it harder to get a good job or live in a nice neighborhood–similar to the current disadvantage of being a heavy smoker who is habitually crude in his references to women.

      • anonymousskimmer says:

        Are you against sex outside of marriage, or sex outside of a committed relationship?

        • SamChevre says:

          I think the answer is “outside of marriage” – the key facts are that’s there’s consent to the relationship given publicly on-the-record, a reasonable expectation of permanance, and a male-female pairing. Relationships meeting those criteria have significantly better outcomes for both participants and children. A committed relationship that met those criteria would look incredibly like marriage.

    • I vote for Libertarian Presidential candidates and often vote Democrat in local elections because the local Republicans can’t get their act together enough to respond to candidate questionnaires. However, my votes in Congressional elections tend to be for Republicans.

    • albatross11 says:

      I’m more-or-less libertarian. Like John Schilling, I’ll often vote for divided government or for individual candidates. Also, while I have voted Libertarian in most presidential elections, I voted for Kerry in 2004 and Obama in 2008, in reaction to the IMO horrifying policies of the Republicans under George W Bush. Then Obama got into office and carried most of those policies on with better grammar, and I repented of my previous support for Democrats and went back to voting Libertarian. I live in a complete non-battleground state, so this is all sending a message stuff–if my state is in play, the Republicans are winning a landslide.

    • Anteros says:

      I self-identify as libertarian, but have only voted once and I voted green.

    • Caliban says:

      Happy to be the exact counterpoint. If you count up my voting history I’m very close to evenly split between Dems and Reps (if you count presidential elections I am exactly split, but if you also include all congress and state/local I probably have closer to a 60/40 split R/D). I grew up in very conservative area and would probably be a “natural Rep by background,” but I care a lot about libertarian ideals (although don’t identify as a capital-L Libertarian). Nearly every time I’ve voted Dem it has been because I think the Rep alternative has too much authoritarian-ish tendencies vs the Dem counterpart. Of course I am frequently disappointed by how candidates actually behave/vote once they are in office. I often find voting a very disappointing experience of “just try to choose the least bad candidate” in line with my ideals.

    • Thomas Jorgensen asked:

      So, question: Is there anyone here who proclaims themselves libertarian without, in fact, consistently voting and donating R?

      The answer seems to be that almost nobody here who proclaims himself libertarian consistently votes and donates Republican.

      Perhaps I missed it, but you don’t seem to have offered any reaction to the evidence you asked for. Is your conclusion that your beliefs about libertarians were wildly mistaken? That your beliefs were confirmed, refuting the beliefs of other people who had made the claim you asked about? That libertarians on SSC are very different from libertarians elsewhere?

      Curious minds would like to know.

      • Dacyn says:

        The answer seems to be that almost nobody here who proclaims himself libertarian consistently votes and donates Republican.

        Thomas Jorgensen didn’t ask for positive examples, so it’s plausible some didn’t comment because they felt they wouldn’t be relevant.

  20. Plumber says:

    Full disclosure: I don’t think I learned the term “cancel culture” until this year either, but I found this Captain America/Rip Van Winkle-ish exchange (edited for space) to be charming: 

    Presidential candidate Senator Sanders: “… if you have young people, who are generally speaking quite progressive, vote at the same rate as older people vote, we will transform this country, and without any doubt I will be the president of the United States.

    New York Times staff: We have a few questions along this line actually, yeah.

    Sanders: I knew I jumped the gun on you there.

    NYT: Speaking of young people, recently President Obama made remarks around cancel culture and this idea ——

    Sanders: Around what?

    NYT: Cancel culture. Cancel culture.

    Sanders: Cancel culture.

    NYT: Are you aware of that phrase?

    Sanders: Help me out a little bit. Give me a hint.

    NYT: So cancel culture essentially is often attributed to younger people, millennials, and this idea that if you put out a critique of a public figure and call for either their resignation or for their cancellation, that sort of thing

    Sanders: Oh, I see.

    NYT: Where do you stand on this? Is that something you’re concerned about in terms of the way it’s kind of energized a certain segment of the mainstream?

    Sanders: I think you got a Twitter world out there. And the critique has been made, which I think has truth to it, that the Twitter world does not necessarily reflect what the American people are or even where most Democrats areThe appeal that I make to young people is two-fold. First of all, the good news is, and it is very good news, is that our younger generation today is the most progressive young generation, I suspect, in the history of this country[…]

    […]you’ve got a great generation of young people out there. Problem is that many of them do not vote or get actively involved in the political process. And the appeal that I make in virtually every speech that I give is to say, it’s not good enough for you to be here at a rally. What you’ve got to do is tell your friends who can’t afford to go to college, “We’re going to leave school in $50,000 of debt. We’re worried about climate change. We’re worried about racism. You know what? Don’t moan and groan, you’ve got to get involved in the political process.”

    So I suspect the president is right. That’s not enough to send out an email or a tweet or whatever it may be[…]

    […]And I think by participating in the political process, they can bring about some change.

    NYT: Senator, since we live in a Twitter world, I’d love to ask a couple of lightning-round questions about your use of technology.

    Sanders: Oh, God!

    NYT: I know. I’m the geek squad. Do you personally use any social media?

    Sanders: Yeah, I have. Most of the stuff that comes out — let me answer — I’m sorry, it’s not going to be in 12 characters. It’ll be a longer answer.

    I am not a geek, but I understood way back when the power of social media. And that is why my Senate office, you could check it out, I can’t remember exactly, I think we have more followers on my Senate office than probably almost all the Democratic senators combined. And while I worry very much that Trump has 60 million followers on Twitter, we, I think, have reached the 10 million level.

    So I take it very seriously. Have I tweeted? I sure have.

    NYT:  What about you personally?

    Sanders: Yeah, I have, absolutely, every now and then. Not so much lately, but when I had the time I did. Yes, I did.

    NYT: Do you have a Mitt Romney-esque sort of secondary.

    Sanders: No.

    NYT: No lurker accounts?

    Sanders: Nope.

    NYT: What’s an —

    Sanders:As a senator, and as the candidate, I could use my own official place.

    NYT:  Fair enough, fair enough. What’s an app on your phone that you have that might surprise people?

    Sanders: Nothing.

    NYT: Do you have any apps on your phone?

    Sanders: I look at — No, I was asked by your Instagram people when I walked in here. I read a lot, including The New York Times and The Washington Post and The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and some progressive publications. So I go to them in my own way.

    NYT: I ask because these products play massive roles in people’s lives, as well as the devices. I mean, one issue that we’re all thinking about all the time is security, especially as a candidate. I mean, do you have two-factor authentication set up on your phone?

    Sanders: There is a woman in my office whose name is Melissa who drives me crazy and gets angry at me all the time. Again, we take that issue very seriously, and she works on my phone and my iPad, my computer, as she does for the whole office[…]”

    Along with “No malarkey”, I’m now also on board with “Help me out a little bit. Give me a hint” as a campaign slogan! 

    I love this, forward to the 20th century!

    • Statismagician says:

      I kind of want ‘I’m a US Senator, I refuse to discuss something as trivial as whether or not I have MFA set up with you’ to be a fair answer to this kind of question, but also I want the Senator to have some clue how apps work if he wants to go regulate them. It’s an interesting tension.

    • Mark V Anderson says:

      Along with “No malarkey”, I’m now also on board with “Help me out a little bit. Give me a hint” as a campaign slogan!

      Yes I like this response too. I think it’s a good thing when a political candidate admits he doesn’t know something and asks about it. Maybe it’s even a good thing that Sanders doesn’t know what cancel culture is. Of course I still think the flap about Alleppo in 2016 was an extreme over-reaction, so take this as you will.

      Not that I would ever support Sanders, but he comes off good here.

      • gbdub says:

        I don’t think it’s a good thing at all – here’s a guy whose whole pitch is “hey young people, get out and get involved and vote (for me, natch)” who, at least in this exchange, doesn’t seem to have done much to actually understand young voters. It makes the rest of the praise he has for them ring hollow (and frankly a bit presumptuous).

        Twitter is not that hard. Being ignorant about it (especially when it is a preferred hangout of key demographic of his support) isn’t cute, it’s lazy.

        He sounds like an old man. Which is what he is, but there’s a fine line between “elder statesman” and “old man yells at cloud” and Bernie often seems to be on the wrong side of it.

    • albatross11 says:

      Warm fuzzies for Melissa, the security person who’s trying to browbeat Sen Sanders into using 2FA!

      • Evan Þ says:

        Hurrah hurrah hurrah!

        Seriously, if he’s concerned about unethical people (whether The Russians or anyone else) trying to sabotage his campaign, enabling 2FA should be one of the first things he does.

  21. The original Mr. X says:

    For whatever reason, after a while people really, really don’t liked being ruled over by foreigners, even if those foreigners are relatively competent governors. People are “irrationally” willing to sacrifice a lot of blood in defense of the ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods.

    There are plenty of historical examples of states which ruled over foreign populations for considerable periods of time without facing constant rebellions. I suspect that “people really, really don’t like being ruled over by foreigners” is a contingent modern fact caused by the rise of nationalism and similar ideologies, and perhaps also by the greater role modern governments play in their subjects’ lives, rather than something inherent to human nature or the nature of imperialism as such.

    For whatever reason, it takes time for this sentiment to build.

    Again, I suspect that this is because it takes time for Western ideologies like nationalism to spread far enough in the colonies for anti-colonialism to take off as a major force. FWIW, in ancient Rome the pattern was generally the other way round: rebellions tended to occur in the first generation or two after the initial conquest, after which people settled down and accepted the new situation.

    • The original Mr. X says:

      Indeed, but I think, at least based on the evidence that I’ve seen so far, that it seems to consistently take off eventually in different regions and times.

      It’s taken off in the modern era because Western ideas and viewpoints have spread worldwide. Even anti-colonial independence movements were often justified using Western ideologies like Marxism. I don’t see why we should appeal to some vague change in the nature of empire or Whiggish notions about societies converging on modernity, when direct Western influence is both an extremely well-attested phenomenon in many different fields and sufficient to explain the rise in nationalism.

      Getting back to Wilson himself, he was in favour of nationalism (or “freedom for oppressed peoples”, or whatever he called it). So insofar as his actions helped to spread nationalistic ideals, he also shares the blame for the various nationalism-related atrocities which have occurred over the last century.

  22. Deiseach says:

    While I’m quoting Chesterton, after reading that “psychiatry yes or no?” exchange, let me say I feel you, Mr. Moon!

    “Do you, perhaps,” inquired Pym with austere irony, “maintain that your client was a bird of some sort — say, a flamingo?”

    “In the matter of his being a flamingo,” said Moon with sudden severity, “my client reserves his defence.”

    No one quite knowing what to make of this, Mr. Moon resumed his seat and Inglewood resumed the reading of his document.

  23. GearRatio says:

    What are some good, comprehensive lists of major airline crashes/tragedies?

  24. bean says:

    An interesting post, if not one I can completely agree with. The biggest thing you neglected was the Stab-in-the-back myth, which dated back to even before Versailles was signed. A lot of Germans (and a few people even today) believed that the Germans didn’t really lose the war, which obviously contributed to the interwar feelings against the allies. A big part of Allied policy during WWII was making sure that neither Germany nor Japan was in a position to think the same thing postwar. (This drove the big emphasis on unconditional surrender, and rightly so.)

    This is a vital fact in considering the different legacies of WWI and WWII. WWII ended unambiguously. The Allies won, full stop. We occupied Germany, and while we didn’t occupy Japan, there’s no question that we were the victors there. So at that point, we can kind of do whatever we want postwar, be that demand a lot of money or help them up and rebuild them in our own image. WWI looks to have ended ambiguously because the Allies called it off a little bit too early. The big problem came from them trying to impose the sort of terms you get from unambiguous victory on a population that hadn’t been sufficiently convinced they’d been unambiguously defeated.

    There are two ways to solve this. Either you make sure you win an unambiguous victory, or you go easy on them. Unfortunately, Wilson’s presence among the Allies meant that they split the difference and kind of got the worst of both worlds. There was some revanchism among defeated powers from earlier European wars (the Napoleonic and Franco-Prussian Wars spring to mind) but in both cases the defeat was entirely unambiguous. Note that the reparations at Versailles were very similar in GDP terms to those France was saddled with in 1871. In that case, France essentially said “well, I guess this is what we owe them” and paid them off. Germany was entirely capable of paying. They just weren’t willing to do so.

    • Lambert says:

      What about the end of the Eastern Front of WWI?
      I see the argument thrown about that Versailles was no worse than Brest Litovsk.

      And it seems that Trotsky had his own Dolchstoßlegende, blaming the bourgeoisie etc. for surrender to the Central Powers.

      • baconbits9 says:

        What about the end of the Eastern Front of WWI?
        I see the argument thrown about that Versailles was no worse than Brest Litovsk.

        Wasn’t Russia planning on belligerence at the onset of WW2?

      • bean says:

        What about the end of the Eastern Front of WWI?
        I see the argument thrown about that Versailles was no worse than Brest Litovsk.

        A good point. It’s just that the Russians turned their rage inward instead of outward. Also, they got most of the territory back after Versailles.

        @baconbits9

        I assume you’re referring to Viktor Suvrov’s infamous “Icebreaker” theory, which is essentially bunk.

        • baconbits9 says:

          Didn’t Germany and the USSR sign a pact to divide up Eastern Europe between them in 1939? Didn’t Stalin invade Poland and then Finland?

        • bean says:

          Ah. Yes, they did, although in neither case does the cause really run to Brest Litovsk. The territory they took in Poland was originally given to Russia at Versailles, and taken by the Poles from the chaos that was early Soviet Russia. Finland also broke away during said chaos, and Stalin was concerned about the defenses of Leningrad. Overall, I’d say that Stalin’s actions look generally like those of a paranoid opportunist, while Hitler’s are a megalomaniac revanchist, a very different thing.

    • bean says:

      I’m not an expert on what the Germans were thinking at the end of the war, but from what I can recall, there was probably some of both. The country was on the brink of collapse from internal revolution, the Kaiser had just been deposed, and so on, but the nature of the situation wasn’t totally obvious to the man on the street. For that matter, Ludendorf was flip-flopping between “all is lost” and “we still have a chance” right up until the end. I suspect a lot of the Germans believed that Wilson’s positions would be the ones the Allies adopted through the power of wishful thinking, and thought they could help by agreeing to the Armistice when they did. When this didn’t happen, we started to see attitudes towards the end of the war change a lot. If the Allies had parked a couple of armies on German territory and then agreed to talk, the outcome might have been different.

  25. DragonMilk says:

    So the outside counsel for our firm has begun adding “pronouns” to their signature block in e-mails. That is after name, there was a, “Pronouns: he/him/his”

    Being nosy, I asked if this was permanently part of their sig block. I was told, “yes that is part of my signature block. Although not implemented on a firmwide basis yet, [redacted], like many organization now, is encouraging us to list pronouns in our signature as a way to promote inclusion for the LGBTQ community.”

    All else equal, I would actually choose a different firm if given the choice due to this woke pandering. For those that may be Q, I’d feel like this position may actually backfire as they may be feeling like a potentially offensive, “Pronouns: she/him/their” I certainly doubt that the net effect is inclusion any but one letter of the five, and symptomatic of this recent fixation on trying to justify T is being beyond a totally an ok thing to get with the program/trendy.

    Finally, on the margin, if there are more socially conservative clients being served, such a thing borders on morally objectionable as business is being mixed with what many consider to be a mistaken ideology.

    Has anyone else found this pronoun thing pop up in their work e-mails? I’m curious how far the, “like many organizations now” thing extends

    • EchoChaos says:

      I have never seen this.

      • DragonMilk says:

        I’ve heard that law schools, like their younger college cousins, are increasingly a liberal bubble, so maybe it’s extending to the profession as well. I will say that this is a top 10 law firm, which is why I wonder how mainstream it’s becoming.

    • Deiseach says:

      I demand the right to include my blood group. Seeing as how there are estimated 6% AB+ globally, which beats out the estimated percentage of transness (at the moment), it’s demonstrably more important information that everyone should be compelled to know! After all, sharing antigen types promotes inclusion of the shy and bashful 0.36% AB- types to be out and proud!

      My view on this is that if you have to tell me your pronouns so I won’t call you the wrong thing, then you’re failing at passing as your desired gender so much it doesn’t matter if you tell everyone “Call me ma’am”, they’re going to think “that’s a guy in a pink tracksuit and hoop earrings” rather than “what a perfect example of a truly feminine lady” anyway.

      • jermo sapiens says:

        My view on this is that if you have to tell me your pronouns so I won’t call you the wrong thing, then you’re failing at passing as your desired gender so much it doesn’t matter if you tell everyone “Call me ma’am”, they’re going to think “that’s a guy in a pink tracksuit and hoop earrings” rather than “what a perfect example of a truly feminine lady” anyway.

        Precisely.

        My understanding of the thinking behind pronouns is that if everyone is forced encouraged to advertise them, it makes trans people more comfortable in advertising their pronouns. This is ridiculous on a number of levels.

        Putting 99.9% people through an awkward, artificial, and useless social ritual for the comfort of 0.1% is not going to happen, and is a sure way to increase animosity towards that 0.1%.

        Besides, in most cases where I’ve seen pronouns advertised is was not by trans people but by woke SJWs advertising their wokeness more than their pronouns.

      • baconbits9 says:

        My view on this is that if you have to tell me your pronouns so I won’t call you the wrong thing, then you’re failing at passing as your desired gender so much it doesn’t matter if you tell everyone “Call me ma’am”, they’re going to think “that’s a guy in a pink tracksuit and hoop earrings” rather than “what a perfect example of a truly feminine lady” anyway.

        I think this is entirely the wrong reasoning for the more or less correct position. The issue is largely that if your identity depends in large part on how other people perceive you then you don’t have control over your own identity. One of the least healthy responses to struggling with your identity is to demand that other people confirm it for you, in a similar way to lavishing praise on a person who is depressed doesn’t generally help their depression, or focusing on how an anorexic actually looks doesn’t do a whole lot of good in fighting anorexia.

      • Ventrue Capital says:

        I demand the right to include my blood group. Seeing as how there are estimated 6% AB+ globally, which beats out the estimated percentage of transness (at the moment), it’s demonstrably more important information that everyone should be compelled to know! After all, sharing antigen types promotes inclusion of the shy and bashful 0.36% AB- types to be out and proud!

        I believe there’s a legitimate reason why people don’t include their blood group in their signatures: because it’s not relevant. Your blood group (normally) doesn’t make any difference to how I converse with or about you. Nor does my knowing about your allergies to medications, or other health conditions.

        OTOH, “AB+” or “AB-” is very appropriate for, say, a MedicAlert[TM] bracelet, or hospital inpatient bracelet. So are”Penicillin allergy” and “Diabetic.”

        I’m on a Discord server which is about religion, and my religious preferences are quite relevant, so I have the roles “Jewish,” “Anglican,” and “Catholic.” But on the several libertarian and other political servers I’m on, those usually aren’t relevant.
        And on some servers I list my Enneagram and MBTI temperament types, while on all of them I list my time zone, so people will know when I am likely to run and/or play in roleplaying games.

        • Randy M says:

          I’m on a Discord server which is about religion, and my religious preferences are quite relevant, so I have the roles “Jewish,” “Anglican,” and “Catholic.”

          On a tangent, what does that mean? That’s what you want to discuss? Surely you don’t claim to be all those at once?

          • acymetric says:

            One could certainly have heavy exposure to all three when the grew up, though (parents of different religions, with extended family of primarily another, or parents changed religions at some point, etc).

          • Nick says:

            As I recall Ventrue is Anglo-Catholic, which is to say, Anglican. I’m not sure what he means, either.

          • Ventrue Capital says:

            I was raised Jewish, including being bar mitzvah, and I’m still very proud of my ethnicity/culture.

            After college I was baptized Episcopalian.

            I consider myself “Anglo-Catholic” which in my case means “very High Church” Episcopalian — “Smells, bells, there really is a Hell” and Nulli Tunica, Nulli Calci, Nulli Salus — and moving slowly towards Rome.

            Also possibly relevant here: I’m MBTI temperament type ENTJ, and Enneagram temperament type SP 1w2.

            Who else here knows their temperament type (either Enneagram and/or MBTI)?

          • Tarpitz says:

            Who else here knows their temperament type (either Enneagram and/or MBTI)?

            INTP. I believe SSC readers (or at any rate ones who take the survey) are NT at truly preposterous rates compared to the general population.

          • edmundgennings says:

            INTJ
            I love the “Smells, bells, there really is a Hell” line. English wordsmithing is certainly an Anglo Catholic talent.
            Also does Nulli Tunica, Nulli Calci, Nulli Salus contextually mean “without the shroud and the empty tomb, no one is saved”?

          • Aapje says:

            @Ventrue Capital

            What do you want to signal with “Jewish,” “Anglican,” and “Catholic?”

            That you can speak with authority on all these religions?

            I personally would just be confused if I encountered this.

          • Joseph Greenwood says:

            I got INFJ when I took the test today. I got ENFJ last time, which I think is more correct. I am 8w9 (that’s 8 with a 9 wing, right?) on the enneagram.

          • acymetric says:

            Is there a…free place to take Myers-Briggs?

          • rocoulm says:

            @acymetric

            https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test is a well-known one, but I have no idea if these sorts of sites are looked down on as “unofficial” like free IQ tests are.

          • Nancy Lebovitz says:

            I’m probably enneagram 1 with a 9 wing, but what is SP?

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @Nancy Lebovitz
            SP is short for “self-preservational” in the instinctual variants typing system. A truly orthogonal-to-the-enneagram motivational typing schema commonly used by Enneagram practitioners to flesh out the Enneagram types and motivations. The other two types are “sexual” – abbreviated SX (inter-relational, really, but that doesn’t start with the letter S), and “social” – abbreviated “SO” or “SOC”, cause the socials just have to have an extra letter over the other variants 😛 .It is frequently recognized as a continuum like the Enneagram, so where Enneagram types are often described along with the wing type, one can describe oneself Instinctual variantly by saying SP/SX (SO-last implied), or as I did SP-first, SO-last (sexual middle implied).

            @Ventrue Capital

            Enneagram: 5
            Instinctual variant: self-preservational first, social last
            MBTI: I don’t know what the heck Myers and her daughter did to Jung’s typology, or what Augustinavičiūtė (copy-and-pasted) did to it, but I don’t like it. Jung himself would have called me an introverted thinker.

            Edit to add to everyone: Tests are crap (possibly even worse than typical self-reports). You need to read and understand, as best you can, about all the types or factors in a particular system to have the best chance at placing yourself and others in that system.

          • Nancy Lebovitz says:

            Psychetypes by Malone gives an interesting theory about the personality types– that they think of time and space in very different ways.

            From memory: Time can be thought of as an even progression from past to future, as the present being the most important thing, as intense snapshots from the past as most important, or as future possibilities being most important. For space, boundaries can be very important or not.

            All the types are healthy variation and can lead to high achievement.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            Very interesting, thank you, I’ve bookmarked that link to search for the book at the library at some point.

      • helloo says:

        Be careful – there are some places like South Korea, that place blood type as an important identifying marker. wiki link
        The analog is generally made to astrology sign or zodiac animal, but possibly a better one would be age.

        And yes, people sometimes do put “I am a X-blood type” on their resumes/business card/profiles. Generally when it is “good”/they can make the stereotypes relevant, but asking for someone’s blood type is a thing.

        I’m not sure if it’ll make sense for a South Korean law firm to require it, but for a dating app? Yes, that is a field which may be required (and possibly embarrassing/reluctant to be filled for some).

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          Thanks, I’ve always wondered why in some Japanese games when they give you character bios they’ll include things like height, weight…and then also blood type. I guess that’s it.

    • GreatColdDistance says:

      I am in the law sphere and I’ve seen this an increasing amount recently. To be completely honest I don’t really have much quarrel with it, it seems very much harmless in itself. Adding a line to your email signature just seems like such a small thing, and if it makes the rare person feel included then I suppose it’s a good thing.

      Listed pronouns also has uses beyond trans individuals. As someone who’s been sending out application emails to lots of people who I’ve never met before I can tell you listed pronouns can really help when emailing someone with an ambiguously-gendered name.

      • Jake says:

        It’s not just limited to ambiguously-gendered names either. I work remotely with a lot of people from different countries that may have names that are 100% gendered where they live, but I do not share the cultural background to determine that, so I’ve definitely mis-gendered people accidentally over e-mail/messaging. It could definitely help prevent some cross-cultural faux pas, without having anything to do with LGBTQ issues (though I will admit that it definitely comes across as a political statement.)

        • DragonMilk says:

          To me that’s like citing people getting sunburn as a reason to force all people to avoid the sun entirely when the real reason is that albinos want to feel included.

          Those with ambiguously gendered names have always been free to clarify their gender. My question explicitly confirmed that it’s for LGBTQ inclusivity.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            Eh, seems like a sort of curb-cut effect to me. The original intention of the policy is trans inclusivity, but it has the fortuitous side-effects of helping to clear up ambiguities in non-gendered or foreign names.

            And I think you’re making this out to be a much bigger inconvenience than it really is. Even if the policy becomes mandatory, I suspect you will take two minutes to add one unnecessary line to your signature, be mildly annoyed for a week, and then promptly forget about it because who spends time reading their own email signatures?

          • DragonMilk says:

            It’s not at all a matter of inconvenience. It’s a matter of signalling and attempting to legitimize something that much of the population considers to be morally wrong.

          • acymetric says:

            Does it really promote inclusivity though? Seems like it is more likely to single out people with non-standard pronoun preferences and make them stand out more than anything else (potentially making it easier to casually discriminate against them).

          • hilitai says:

            “I suspect you will take two minutes to add one unnecessary line to your signature, be mildly annoyed for a week, and then promptly forget about it”

            Or, you will see it every time you send an e-mail, and be quietly reminded that you are being forced to do it against your will by someone with power over you.

          • BlackboardBinaryBook says:

            don’t really have much quarrel with it, it seems very much harmless in itself. Adding a line to your email signature just seems like such a small thing, and if it makes the rare person feel included then I suppose it’s a good thing.

            Yes, this.

            listed pronouns can really help when emailing someone with an ambiguously-gendered name.

            As someone with an ambiguously-gendered English name, I approve this message.

            cross-cultural faux pas

            Yes, this too.

            To me that’s like citing people getting sunburn as a reason to force all people to avoid the sun entirely when the real reason is that albinos want to feel included.

            To me it’s like citing all people being capable of getting sunburned to advise (not require) using sunblock. Albino people feeling included may have been the impetus for the idea, but it’s still a harmless, low-effort act that can help people (even beyond to the original target population).

      • DragonMilk says:

        Suppose a white woman claims to be trans-racial and identifies as black. She goes beyond blackface and tries to go for melanin treatments for her skin, and on all forms for job applications and other fields, she puts African-American down as race.

        And then a company decides it’s a great idea to be racially inclusive and mandate that sig blocks include race, and it happens to be the company she works for, which say has 10% actual black employees.

        Given melanin pigmentation and associated racial differences are much less impactful than that of sex, how would you react to a Ms. Gertrude Andersson having a sig block that specifies, “Adjective: African American”?

        To that end, without this particular individual in mind, how would you react to a company mandating that employees specify their race on e-mails, ranging from, “Adjective: Arabic” to “Adjective: Spanish/Liberian/Irish/Seminole/Other African Tribes”?

        If these folk truly are race and sex blind, why are they mandating it to be pointed out for the sake of being “inclusive”?

        • GreatColdDistance says:

          Without opening the can of worms that is hypothetical trans-racialism, I think this objection fails because in the English language race has nothing to do with how I address someone when speaking to or about them, whereas gender very much does. Pointing out your race in an email signature is therefore completely useless and unnecessary, whereas pointing out gendered pronouns is helpful and useful. This roots back to the very structure of our language, far before woke-ness.

          This is why I’m willing to bet that no woke company has ever even considered suggesting employees identify their race in emails in this way.

          • DragonMilk says:

            The policy is explicitly due to the T in LGBTQ. Those with ambiguously gendered first names have lived their lives just fine without companies mandating that all employees put down their pronouns. Because the policy just so happens to solve another non-issue doesn’t make mandating it for all more palatable.

          • GreatColdDistance says:

            The policy is explicitly due to the T in LGBTQ.

            I will concede this. Fundamentally, your position on this comes down to how much you want companies encouraging people to be inclusive of trans people. I think that the costs of adding such a line to your signature are basically nil, and the benefits of inclusion are significant to the small but real portion of the population benefited. Depending on your position on the broader issue of trans rights, you may feel differently.

            However, just because people have lived their lives without something doesn’t mean that it isn’t helpful to have it, and I hold by my position that people with ambiguously-gendered names are also helped by such labels. As I said, I have personally be helped by such signatures in my job search this year, so these gains are not hypothetical. This still counts as a further point in favour of adding pronouns to your email signature, even if it is not the fundamental justification.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            I think that the costs of adding such a line to your signature are basically nil

            I strongly disagree with this. Pledging allegiance to SJWs might not cost you much money, but it will cost you your soul.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @jermo sapiens
            It’s hardly “pledging allegiance to SJWs”–think of it as a wonderful opportunity to proudly proclaim that you continue to use the pronouns that match your chromosomes!

            In all seriousness, though, I don’t think adding a line to your email signature is “selling your soul” any more than attending mandatory company-wide “sensitivity training” or whatnot. If you chose to add pronouns to your signature, it would be an act of alliance with the trans community; but the fact that it’s mandatory strips it of any personal meaning.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            If you chose to add pronouns to your signature, it would be an act of alliance with the trans community; but the fact that it’s mandatory strips it of any personal meaning.

            No, absolutely not. It would be an act of alliance with the woke SJWs. Trans people are the tokens being used by the woke SJWs currently, but you should not conflate the two. There are many trans people (I believe it’s the majority of trans people, but that’s just a hunch) who oppose the SJW agenda and just want to go on with their lives without becoming a nuisance to everyone else.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @jermo sapiens
            Ok, I’ll grant that many people in the trans community aren’t actually advocating for mandatory pronoun disclosure. Substitute “vocal social justice / trans activists” for “the trans community” in my argument.

          • Ketil says:

            Without opening the can of worms that is hypothetical trans-racialism, I think this objection fails because in the English language race has nothing to do with how I address someone when speaking to or about them

            Isn’t there a certain n-word that is deemed (more) acceptable only if used between two persons of a certain race? (Sorry, I get all my knowledge of American culture(s) from Hollywood. I do hope I’m right, though, adding adjectives to lawyer’s cards would lead to some interesting legal exchanges. Why is law dominated by white man’s culture? Decolonize law NOW!)

          • Ketil says:

            The policy is explicitly due to the T in LGBTQ. Those with ambiguously gendered first names have lived their lives just fine without companies mandating that all employees put down their pronouns.

            In olden days, people would signal gender in writing (and formal speech) by prefixing “Mr.” or “Miss/Mrs”, later “Ms.”. So there’s already a mechanism in place, and I would argue it’s for the Q, i.e. people who identify as no-gender, both-genders, or different-gender. The T’s are usually quite insistent on one of the more traditional ones, I think.

          • albatross11 says:

            Not just gender, but also marital status. Ms. was a new construction to avoid disclosing martial status in a title; previously it would be Miss or Mrs.

          • Joseph Greenwood says:

            As an aside, why is there a distinction between Miss and Mrs. but no corresponding bifurcation of Mr.?

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Joseph Greenwood

            Because traditionally men are the pursuers, so signaling if they were available to be pursued was valuable to women.

          • albatross11 says:

            No idea. Language and cultural conventions are weird.

            In Spanish, you also have a formal and informal version of you (we had it in English a long time ago but lost it), and you can refer to someone as “Don X” or “Doña X” when they’re old and important–I can’t think of an equivalent in English.

          • Randy M says:

            In Spanish, you also have a formal and informal version of you (we had it in English a long time ago but lost it), and you can refer to someone as “Don X” or “Doña X” when they’re old and important–I can’t think of an equivalent in English.

            I don’t know if Spanish society is different in valuing youth less, but that sounds like a minefield in America. “Does this person care more about being high status or young?”

          • ana53294 says:

            @Randy M

            It’s also a minefield in Spain. Sometimes even me letting 60+ year olds a seat in a train can be offensive (mostly for men).

            Treating people in respectful you is only something done in customer service phone calls (where everybody gets treated with “usted”, and Don/Doña irrespective of status or age). It’s also used by politicians in Congress and debates. In court, when addressing the judge. With old professors in university.

            But mostly, in day to day life, I never address anybody with the respectful you, because it’s more likely they’ll get offended than not.

          • In English, the familiar/intimate (thee/thou) has gone out of use, and the “respectful” (you) has taken over. I think that’s the case in German and French as well.

            But I still sometimes use the familiar to my wife.

          • Ms. Morgendorffer says:

            @DavidFriedman
            Today, in more than you wanted to know, spawning from a thread that does not call for it, a digression prompted by your mention of the evolution of french formalism in addressing people.

            In french the respectful “you” has taken little by little over the familiar form since the 4th century and is still very much in use. The respectful way to address someone is the use of the 2nd person plural (‘vous’ so the practice is called ‘vouvoiement’ as opposed to ‘tu’ / ‘tutoiement’) and is used to mark your respect (duh) of and/or signal a wish to keep some kind of social distance with your interlocutor (ie keeping coworkers from becoming too familiar).
            In practice you’ll use the formal way when talking to anybody except (and those are strict rules as in you’ll very rarely see any deviation from them):
            -People you’re familiar with
            -All kids (pre teen)
            -All animals
            -All objects for those of us who are into that
            -People you wish to show disrespect to / your authority (a-holes, high schoolers, both)
            -People who can’t hear you (no, not the deaf ones but the driver of the car behind you or the talking head on TV)
            -Teens when you’re a teen (and I can tell you that when teens start to address you with ‘vous’ which happens around 20, you suddenly feel old and rejected)

            An interesting exception (we’re talking french language, of course there are exceptions!) is the use of the respectful form between kids and parents. This was the norm before the french revolution and has rapidly disappeared since, but you’ll still find families where this formalism is upheld today, more by respect for family tradition than for social class reasons (but I guess there’s a fair bit of correlation between the two).
            Apart from this not-so-recent change, the other current change in tu/vous use I see today goes in the other direction than what you’re suggesting: a tendency to promote the casual form in some companies as part of their corporate culture to foster a sentiment of belonging.

          • albatross11 says:

            ana:

            I’ve noticed there are differences between countries on Usted/tu–Spain and Mexico are pretty different!

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @Ms. Morgendorffer
            You forgot one–IIRC, God is also addressed with “tu”.

          • Ms. Morgendorffer says:

            @VoiceOfTheVoid From what I knew ‘tu’ was used when addressing Jesus, and ‘vous’ when addressing Marie or God, but I went back to check and there have been developments from the second ecumenical council of the Vatican (1962): all recent prayer translations do use ‘tu’ for God. It seems that it was done to close some gap with protestant believers’ use of ‘tu’ but I did not find more detailed explanations. Thank you for pointing that out.

        • aristides says:

          I know a few EEO lawyers that would love to pass their cards around at that workplace.

        • anonymousskimmer says:

          This link belongs here: https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html

          A Person Paper on Purity in Language
          William Satire (alias Douglas R. Hofstadter)

          First paragraph:

          It’s high time someone blew the whistle on all the silly prattle about revamping our language to suit the purposes of certain political fanatics. You know what I’m talking about-those who accuse speakers of English of what they call “racism.” This awkward neologism, constructed by analogy with the well-established term “sexism,” does not sit well in the ears, if I may mix my metaphors. But let us grant that in our society there may be injustices here and there in the treatment of either race from time to time, and let us even grant these people their terms “racism” and “racist.” How valid, however, are the claims of the self-proclaimed “black libbers,” or “negrists”-those who would radically change our language in order to “liberate” us poor dupes from its supposed racist bias?

      • Mark V Anderson says:

        Adding a line to your email signature just seems like such a small thing,

        I want to push back on this a bit. We already have the situation where many consulting firms add a long spiel to the end of every e-mail about how they have no liability for any comments made on their e-mails. Adding this bit does make it more difficult to converse back and forth with e-mail. Yes, a couple more lines is a small thing, but it is a slippery slope and I hate to encourage more of this CYA stuff.

      • gbdub says:

        In an email exchange, it might make some trans people stand out more, if they go by a gendered name that doesn’t typically align with their identity.

        Or it could be helpful for everybody who has a technically gender neutral but in practice usually gendered name (e.g. Tracy, Kelly, Alex)

      • hilitai says:

        But if you’re responding to someone in an e-mail, you would address them by their name or title, not by a third-person pronoun, correct? I can’t see any case where the pronoun information is actually useful in communication.

        • Dacyn says:

          It could be a group email thread, and maybe you want to talk about someone without directly responding to them. I found an example in my email from last week, so this is not that uncommon.

    • Ouroborobot says:

      Some of our HR people have started putting their pronouns into their email sigs. So long as it’s not required, I don’t see why this should bother me much. It seems to be a voluntary thing cooked up by the individuals doing it. No way am I wading into that minefield at work.

      • DragonMilk says:

        My understanding is that it will be mandatory. And thus an extension of the intolerance of the tolerance police.

      • Viliam says:

        So long as it’s not required, I don’t see why this should bother me much. It seems to be a voluntary thing cooked up by the individuals doing it.

        It’s perfectly optional, of course. And so is your promotion.

        In effect, this means that in your company, certain people publicly disclose their political affiliation. Presumably because they expect it to be somehow useful for their careers.

    • SamChevre says:

      My employer (large, established company, finance, northeast) is pushing it and most of my colleagues do it. I must admit to finding it handy with colleagues with non-European names.

    • voso says:

      The vast majority of my office’s clients are universities, and it seems to be decently common among the emails I get from them. (~25%)

      I definitely get the feeling that it’s the decision of the person and not the university for most of these, although I have no real way of verifying that.

    • FrankistGeorgist says:

      Never seen it working with banks, finance, and tech companies.

    • broblawsky says:

      I’d argue that lawyers have an ethical obligation, and significant practical interest, in making their firms as welcoming to potential and current clients as possible.

      • jermo sapiens says:

        I agree. And putting pronouns in your signature line is a great way to tell the about 90% of the population which is non-woke that they are not welcome.

        • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

          about 90% of the population

          [citation needed]

          It looks to me like the American population’s opinion on transgender acceptance is pretty evenly split.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            Yes, that was an exaggeration. But I’ve seen the 90% figure somewhere (it might have been 85%), with respect to people who oppose SJWs. As I mentioned to you above, dont conflate SJWs with trans. Also, dont conflate SJWs with “transgender acceptance”.

            I have nothing but love and respect for people who suffer from gender dysphoria. At the same time I despise and oppose SJWs with every fiber of my being.

            I understand that the kerfuffle about pronouns is ostensibly a way to help make trans people feel comfortable. I’m pretty sure some people really do believe that. But for SJWs in general, I believe it’s about power.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @jermo sapiens

            Apologies for my conflation above, I should have been more careful. You’re right, the most vocal activists don’t necessarily speak for the entire community.

            At the same time, I’m not surprised that 90% of people oppose [term coined to criticise the actions of a particularly objectionable segment of a group]. I suspect you still might get majority disapproval of “social justice activists”, though I’d guess it’d be more around 60-80% disapproval rather than 80-90% (open to changing my mind on that if you find an actual study, I couldn’t find quite what I was looking for with a couple minutes of googling).

            Similar objections to studies finding that ~90% of americans think “political correctness is a problem”–coin a word with negative connotations, ask people whether they think it’s bad, what kind of responses do you think you’re going to get?

            And while some people are definitely using LGBT etc. activism to play power games, the people I know and care about who talk about this stuff are trans people who really do feel intensely uncomfortable when misgendered, and cis people who really care about make the world a more hospitable place for trans people.

            Honestly I’m pretty lukewarm on “hi these are my pronouns”, but I’m fully in favor of referring to people by the pronouns they ask you to use–not sure if that’s part of what you’re referring to by “kerfuffle about pronouns”.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            [term coined to criticise the actions of a particularly objectionable segment of a group]

            I believe this was discussed here before but I forget what ultimately came of it. I do recall that in my experience SJW was used by SJWs to describe themselves. Were they taking back a term of abuse? If so, they didnt take it back for long. But their behavior is generally not appreciated, in that SJWs are characterized by their desire to impose weird new rules on everybody, and canceling anyone who deviates from their religious dogma.

            Similar objections to studies finding that ~90% of americans think “political correctness is a problem”–coin a word with negative connotations, ask people whether they think it’s bad, what kind of responses do you think you’re going to get?

            Political correctness has a negative connotation because people generally dislike those who raise their personal status by policing the behavior of others. Not because of the term itself.

            the people I know and care about who talk about this stuff are trans people who really do feel intensely uncomfortable when misgendered, and cis people who really care about make the world a more hospitable place for trans people.

            Absolutely. Which is why it’s important to separate the annoying behavior of SJWs from the legitimate demands of trans people. Having trans people being treated respectfully is obviously legitimate. Having everyone introduce themselves by saying their pronouns is not.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @jermo sapiens

            Yes, it was initially their term and was repurposed almost immediately as a term of derision against them.

          • And “politically correct” was, I think, a negative term coined by some leftists to criticize other leftists, but then went into common use by non-leftists to criticize leftists.

          • Dacyn says:

            @jermo sapiens: I object to PC primarily because it is people policing speech based on ideology, not because it involves status games.

          • cassander says:

            @davidfriedman

            My understanding of the history is that politically correct was originally coined as an unironic term used in the sense of “The politically correct line on this issue is X” and it later morphed into a term of abuse. But I don’t remember my source for that.

          • Mark V Anderson says:

            The way I’ve heard the source of “politically correct” is it was a Marxist thing. When an issue came up that created disagreement within the party, the way to resolve that was through the dialectic of discussing the thesis and antithesis. At some point the party came to an official conclusion as to the right answer, whether it was democratic within the party, or determined by the leaders, or whatever. But once this decision was made, it was the obligation of all party members to agree with the final answer, regardless of their original position, for party loyalty reasons. These final decisions were called “politically correct” positions. I don’t know if this phrase were ever used in a positive sense outside of Marxists, but it was certainly not nearly as popular amongst leftists as a good thing as it is now amongst rightists as a bad thing.

        • BBA says:

          Of that 90%, I estimate only something like 10-15% are either actively bigoted or crotchety enough to complain about something so minor. The remaining 75-80% will shrug and go along to get along.

        • broblawsky says:

          How confident are you that preferred pronoun signaling turns off more people than it attracts? I ask because my intuition is that the vast majority of people will either appreciate it (because they’re part of the 62% cited in @VoiceOfTheVoid’s link) or not really care (because while they may be less accepting of transgender people, they aren’t particularly invested in the idea).

          • John Schilling says:

            (because they’re part of the 62% cited in @VoiceOfTheVoid’s link)

            Objection: The cited 62% are all the people who are “more supportive of transgender rights than they were five years ago”. That includes people who simply want transgender people left alone to go about their business without any special accommodation, and people who support some public accommodations for transgender individuals but not broad mandates on private use of pronouns. It does not follow that the 62% cited in Void’s link will necessarily or even likely appreciate this measure.

            By analogy, the number of people who support gay marriage is larger than the number of people who support forcing private bakers to make wedding cakes for gay marriage.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @John Schilling
            I agree, the first metric analyzed in my link is pretty meaningless without a base rate, but if you scroll down you’ll see nearly-evenly-split opinions on a number of different questions re: trans rights / acceptance. I avoiding picking out one statistic in particular because I don’t think any one specific question they ask is a sufficient proxy for general support of trans rights.

          • Lambert says:

            Obligatory Sir Humphrey on opinion polls.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA

          • John Schilling says:

            I avoiding picking out one statistic in particular because I don’t think any one specific question they ask is a sufficient proxy for general support of trans rights

            But they’re almost all about negative rights for trans people. A ~60% majority of Americans believe that trans people have the right to not have other people give them any guff about being trans, roughly speaking. Support for positive rights, is almost always lower than support for negative rights because now you’re imposing a burden on other people.

            I don’t see anything in that survey that addresses positive rights to transgender people. For gay and lesbian people, they get ~65% for positive rights whose burdens would fall only on licensed professionals and ~55% for positive rights whose burdens would extend to small business owners. Extrapolating, that almost certainly gives less than majority support to positive rights whose burden falls upon everyone including the respondent. And that’s for gays and lesbians, who I think are well ahead of the transgendered in winning general public acceptance.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @John Schilling
            I guess that’s true. I will point specifically to the 40% of Americans who “think there is a range of many possible gender identities”–though that question is not specifically asking about pronouns, I highly doubt anyone in that group would be turned off by a “he/him/his” signature.

          • Tarpitz says:

            I will point specifically to the 40% of Americans who “think there is a range of many possible gender identities”–though that question is not specifically asking about pronouns, I highly doubt anyone in that group would be turned off by a “he/him/his” signature.

            I for one am reasonably persuaded that gender is more accurately modeled as a multidimensional space containing two rough clusters and some points that do not fit particularly well in either cluster, but would certainly find a gender-specifying signature to amount to a declaration of tribal hostility, and an aesthetically displeasing one at that. I’m not actually a counterexample to your claim, because I’m not American, but I would be staggered if there weren’t Americans who felt similarly.

            ETA: I am in favour of using people’s preferred pronouns when addressing them. It’s the listing in bios and signatures I can’t stand. My quarrel is with wokeness, not trans people.

          • nkurz says:

            @VoiceOfTheTheVoid:
            > I will point specifically to the 40% of Americans who “think there is a
            range of many possible gender identities”–though that question is not specifically asking about pronouns, I highly doubt anyone in that group would be turned off by a “he/him/his” signature.

            I am American, “think there is a range of many possible gender identities”, and am strongly turned off by “he/him/his” signature lines. This may well be a minority position, but it definitely exists.

            I find it difficult to say exactly what bothers me about these lines, but I think it’s mostly that I would prefer de-emphasizing gender in language rather than making attention to it mandatory. I would feel similarly negative toward a norm for racial or religious id lines.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            This may well be a minority position, but it definitely exists.

            Or this may well be a majority position.

          • broblawsky says:

            ETA: I am in favour of using people’s preferred pronouns when addressing them. It’s the listing in bios and signatures I can’t stand. My quarrel is with wokeness, not trans people.

            This confuses me: how do you expect to be able to use people’s preferred pronouns if they don’t tell you? Aren’t they simplifying the question by telling you up front in their signatures? It seems like you’re assuming that someone who lists their preferred pronouns in their email is an SJW, but they could just as easily be an actual trans/queer person, someone with a gender-ambiguous name, or just someone following company policy without thinking about it.

    • BBA says:

      I think we’re approaching an inflection point from “only activists put pronouns in their signatures/bios” to “only bigots leave them out.” I’ve actively refused to list my pronouns, for my own reasons, but as my own reasons grow indistinguishable from bigotry, I expect I’ll give in and start listing them eventually. Besides which, on some level, I suppose I am a bit of a bigot, and it’s something I need to personally overcome.

      • DragonMilk says:

        Ironically, those mandating the pronouns fit the actual definition of bigotry, “intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.”

        Seriously considering a 5-year old retort of, “no you’re the bigot!”

      • Dacyn says:

        I can imagine leaving them out in solidarity with the “bigots”.

      • Lillian says:

        I know several transwomen who hate listing their pronouns on the level of “actively makes them disphoric” because it interferes with their ability to know if they’re passing or not. To them, if they’re not being seen and treated as women by others it feels like deep personal failure of being. Consequently the idea that others might only be treating them as women not because they see them as such, but because they’re being forced to by social pressure, is deeply anxiety inducing. I guess they’re bigots for wanting to be themselves.

        • Aapje says:

          There is a conflict between “there shouldn’t be a femininity/masculinity requirement to be considered a (wo)man” and “people should judge based on current levels femininity/masculinity, rather than what people were born as.”

        • BBA says:

          Ugh, “Latinx” all over again. I’m not going to wade into internecine disputes in the trans community, that stuff makes Israeli politics look straightforward.

          Instead I’m just going to go on the rule that whatever makes me personally feel the most uncomfortable is most likely to own the cons. That’s what this is really all about, right? If you can’t figure out how to win, you can at least make the enemy lose.

          • Lillian says:

            Sounds like you have made yourself something akin to an ideological suicide bomber. This doesn’t strike me as healthy.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            Well yeah, did you see the avatar, dood?

          • Statismagician says:

            Have you, umm, considered that this attitude may be part of the problem? I generally try not to be part of my own radicalization except when on Gallifrey.

        • caryatis says:

          Thing is, though, people ARE only treating trans individuals as their desired gender because of social pressure. It’s rare that MtF trans people actually look like women.

          • hls2003 says:

            By definition, only the ones you know about.

          • Nornagest says:

            Without taking a stance on the broader issue, something like half of the openly trans people I know, I’ve known since before their transition. And it’d be a lot more than half if I didn’t have connections in the rat scene.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            I think they’re doing it because they’re nice people. The first transwoman I met was back in ~2007, and she was a mildly popular figure in our state photography guild, because she was a skilled photographer. This was before the trans rights movement was anything anyone knew about, and everyone treated her as a her, and zero people were grumbling behind their backs about having to “pretend this man is a woman” because of the…nonexistent social pressure to act one way or the other. People acted this way because they were nice people and she was a nice person.

          • Lillian says:

            @caryatis
            As hls2003 says, there’s something of a toupée fallacy going on. This is exacerbated by the loud trans activists for some reason almost never being the ones who pass, let alone pass well. So it’s like if a bunch of people with bad toupees had gotten together to loudly demand that everyone acknowledge their hair as real, while all the folks with the good toupees just stay quiet and are content to lead their lives. It tends to lead to some pretty warped perceptions of just how good toupees can be. It also means that the good toupee havers don’t tend to be part of the conversation, though there are exceptions.

    • AlexanderTheGrand says:

      On a related note, I could imagine that question being really stressful for someone who undecided on their pronouns, or someone who would prefer not to advertise their gender identity.

      It could make a private choice public, or force the issue with someone before they’re ready.

      Would anyone with more firsthand experience with transitioning (either you or someone close) like to comment?

      • honoredb says:

        It’s probably actually helpful then to have like 20-50% of people not specify pronouns–means you won’t stand out either way.

        Having a norm like “if you sometimes get misgendered and hate it, put your pronouns in your signature, otherwise flip a coin and put your pronouns in if it comes up heads” would remove the signaling value, for better and for worse, while still accomplishing the main goal.

        There are cis people who really hate getting misgendered online, so I agree that there’s a curb cut principle at work here.

        • caryatis says:

          The better solution would be for people to stop obsessing over “””misgendering.””” It doesn’t hurt you in any way, it’s an innocent mistake, so just move on.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            The trans people I know are very understanding of accidental misgendering (for which I am very glad, since I tend to screw up quite frequently for about a month after a friend comes out to me as trans). That being said, “doesn’t hurt you in any way” isn’t quite true; I get the impression that it’s mildly hurtful on approximately the level of forgetting someone’s name.

            Intentional misgendering is a different story, and is (I think rightly) perceived as incredibly rude and offensive.

          • Dacyn says:

            @VoiceOfTheVoid: The trans people I have heard talk about it, it is something like: I want people to perceive me as my desired gender. If they say pronouns contrary to that, it reminds me that they don’t perceive me as I like, which makes me uncomfortable. If they are intentionally making me uncomfortable, that makes me even more uncomfortable.

            The issue is that while you may not want to be reminded that someone perceives you differently from how you want, it is a fact of life and ignoring it is not going to make it go away. I agree that going out of your way to point it out should be considered rude, but merely not choosing to actively hide the fact seems different.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @Dacyn

            The issue is that while you may not want to be reminded that someone perceives you differently from how you want, it is a fact of life and ignoring it is not going to make it go away.

            I don’t think that most trans people are “ignoring it” hoping to “make it go away”–rather, many of them are taking simple to drastic measures to be perceived as their preferred gender.

            I agree that going out of your way to point it out should be considered rude, but merely not choosing to actively hide the fact seems different.

            What do you mean by “not choosing to actively hide the fact” (let’s say, e.g. in reference to a trans woman who you think looks male)? Continuing to address the person as “he”? Or using “they” and/or avoiding pronouns altogether?

          • Intentional misgendering is a different story, and is (I think rightly) perceived as incredibly rude and offensive.

            Does “intentional misgendering” mean making a point of using the pronoun the person doesn’t want, or merely using that pronoun even though one knows the person doesn’t want it?

            The latter isn’t, in my view, rude at all, any more than failing to agree with some other view someone wants me to agree with. It’s rude if I’m an atheist, someone I am talking with is a Christian, and I make a point of saying that Christianity is a stupid set of beliefs. But it isn’t rude if I avoid saying things that (falsely) imply that I believe in Christianity, and it still isn’t rude if, in a context where some statement on the subject is obligatory, I make it clear that I don’t believe in Christianity.

            Similarly here. If someone self-identifies as female and I see the person as male, going out of my way to say so would almost always be rule. Not saying things that imply that I see the person as female is not rude, and demanding that I say such things is.

            Mostly I can avoid the problem by not using gendered pronouns at all, as in the second sentence of the previous paragraph. But that depends on enough verbal facility to rephrase one’s thoughts on the fly, and there isn’t always a convenient way to do it.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @David Friedman

            “They” has always, always been used as a singular pronoun in the modern English language. You can always use that instead of a gendered pronoun, even for the people who prefer a gendered pronoun, without being rude, in those rare occasions when you can’t think of a non-pronoun way of referring to them.

            So yeah, both of the situations you describe as possible interpretations of “intentional misgendering” are rude, as they are both easily avoidable by a person with your apparent verbal intelligence.

            Sometimes people are unintentionally rude. But even in these situations it’s generally best to try to learn from your mistake and do your best to not make it again. Yes, this will take time, especially with entrenched behaviors.

          • @anonymousskimmer:

            There are examples going far back of “they” being used as a gender indefinite pronoun but I strongly dislike the practice, for reasons not of precedent but of the logical structure of the language, and I’m not willing to do it.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            Okay, you have that ability. But anyone saying that the English language has a logical structure is reaching, at best, and off their rocker, at worst. Anglish, maybe, but it’s been a bit over a millenium, and quite a few conquests since Anglish was the English language.

          • Dacyn says:

            @VoiceOfTheVoid: By “ignoring it”, I mean that they argue people should use their preferred pronouns because the reverse causes dysphoria, not because it encourages others to see them a certain way. (They may argue both but my point is that they are independent.) My claim was that the reason it causes them dysphoria is that it reminds them that they are not perceived as their preferred gender. This seems to me like they want to ignore this fact.

            I wasn’t trying to imply that trans people think that ignoring something is going to make it go away, just using the fact that it won’t as part of my argument.

            Regarding what I mean by “not choosing to actively hide the fact”, DavidFriedman’s comment basically covers it.

          • The original Mr. X says:

            “They” has always, always been used as a singular pronoun in the modern English language. You can always use that instead of a gendered pronoun, even for the people who prefer a gendered pronoun, without being rude, in those rare occasions when you can’t think of a non-pronoun way of referring to them.

            That’s only half true. “They” has always been used as a singular pronoun for an indeterminate person (“If anybody comes looking for me, tell them I’m on my lunch break”). It hasn’t always been used as a singular pronoun for a known, specific individual.

          • Rebecca Friedman says:

            “They” has always been used as a singular pronoun for an indeterminate person (“If anybody comes looking for me, tell them I’m on my lunch break”). It hasn’t always been used as a singular pronoun for a known, specific individual.

            This. If someone responds to “Where’s Becca?” with “they’re in the kitchen,” in the dialect I’m familiar with, that translates to “Becca is trans and prefers gender-neutral pronouns (and also is in the kitchen).” Since this is dramatically untrue, I would be pretty irritated. While I can’t speak for others, I would expect a trans person who didn’t prefer gender-neutral pronouns to be similarly unhappy – likely more so than if someone simply dodged his/her pronouns, though that’s a guess based on how friends react. So possibly we just have very different bubbles, but at least in my social bubble,

            You can always use that instead of a gendered pronoun, even for the people who prefer a gendered pronoun, without being rude, in those rare occasions when you can’t think of a non-pronoun way of referring to them.

            … is not true and will make things worse.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            You people do you.

            But I don’t see how anyone is interpreting a preference for they/them/their as “trans”, given it’s literally gender-neutral, not trans-gender (or the “Q” part of LGBTQ, not the “T” part, as someone pointed out earlier).

          • Dacyn says:

            @anonymounsskimmer: Nonbinary people are usually considered trans (except for intersex nonbinary).

            Incidentally, I’m not familiar with the term “queer” but Wikipedia tells me that all LGBT are queer, so it’s not really a separate “part” of LGBTQ.

          • Dan L says:

            @Dacyn:

            “Queer” is effectively a catch-all category for describing people ill-served by the standard categories. Depending on context “standard” might only include cishet men and women, or it might include all gender binaries or something else altogether – if this sounds squirrley and vague, that’s because it is. Probably unavoidably so, given the contradiction inherent in the definition.

            You’ll occasionally see people preferentially identify as “genderqueer”, which functionally is about the same as identifying as nonbinary. YMMV, but literally none of the people I know who preferentially identify as nonbinary could be accurately describes as trans. Most trans people will acknowledge that they probably count as nonbinary or queer, but with varying levels of reluctance.

          • Dacyn says:

            @Dan L: So “queer” can mean either “non-cishet” or “non-cishet and also non-LGBT”, or something else entirely? Fair enough. What would be an example of queer under the second definition?

            YMMV, but literally none of the people I know who preferentially identify as nonbinary could be accurately describ[ed] as trans.

            I only know one which is Ozy, who describes themselves as trans. I guess I don’t know whether this is a substantive difference between them and the people you know, or only a terminological one.

          • My impression is that “queer” in such contexts used to mean homosexual, but it sounds as though the meaning has broadened out since.

          • brad says:

            I don’t have a survey, but I suspect that more people prefer the singular pronouns than singular they. So using they as a default is more likely to disregard people’s preferred pronouns than using perceived gender singular pronouns. But somehow our preferences don’t count.

          • Dacyn says:

            @brad:

            But somehow our preferences don’t count.

            And if the speaker defers to the preferences of the referent, you might as well say that the speaker’s preferences “somehow don’t count”. I can understand (though don’t completely agree with) the argument that if a choice of pronoun has bearing on the perceived gender of the referent, they likely have more at stake than the speaker. I don’t see why that is true if the choice is between two gender-neutral pronouns.

          • Dan L says:

            What would be an example of queer under the second definition?

            It’s ultimately a category that defies broad categorization, but to describe an individual I know: biologically female, no intention to transition, romantically attracted exclusively to men, sexually flexible, aesthetic choices (incl. fashion and presentation) are androgynous leaning male, gendered hobbies are a scattershot leaning male, she/her pronouns. In a different era she could easily pass as a heterosexual woman without social friction and “tomboy” is probably ~80% accurate, but she feels uncomfortable in an exclusively female gender role and as an outside observer I am inclined to agree. That list of adjectives isn’t ever going to get a consolidated label, so she identifies as queer and probably will stay in that bucket for the foreseeable future.

            My impression is that “queer” in such contexts used to mean homosexual, but it sounds as though the meaning has broadened out since.

            There was a time when its primary use was for homosexuals, yes. But as homosexuality becomes included in the mainstream, a label that definitionally refers to the fringes is going to change targets – and in a milieu that highly prizes inclusivity, it’s bound to either retreat to the otherwise uncategorizable or overlap with its own antonym. In practice, a little bit of all the above.

          • brad says:

            And if the speaker defers to the preferences of the referent, you might as well say that the speaker’s preferences “somehow don’t count”. I can understand (though don’t completely agree with) the argument that if a choice of pronoun has bearing on the perceived gender of the referent, they likely have more at stake than the speaker. I don’t see why that is true if the choice is between two gender-neutral pronouns.

            The choice isn’t between two gender neutral pronouns, it’s between the male singular and the neuter plural. I prefer to be referred to by the male singular given that I’m both a man and one person. You are free to disregard that, of course, but in that case I’m unlikely to care even the slightest bit about *your* preferred pronoun. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @DavidFriedman (and @Dacyn as well)

            Does “intentional misgendering” mean making a point of using the pronoun the person doesn’t want, or merely using that pronoun even though one knows the person doesn’t want it?

            I am definitely including the latter when I refer to “intentional misgendering”. I think an illustrative example might help clarify my point:

            At a coffee shop, you run into your friend Bob, who introduces you to someone you haven’t met before. “Mornin’! This is my friend Charlie.” Charlie looks a bit androgynous, but you read them as male. After the pleasantries, the three of you sit down and start talking over coffee. At some point you refer to Charlie as “he”. “Oh, it’s ‘she’,” Charlie corrects you.

            As I said last time we talked about this, a quick “Oh, sorry” followed by continuing the conversation while avoiding gendered pronouns altogether would not (and IMO should not) be perceived as rude.

            But let’s say the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet, and you decide that you’re too tired to deal with this nonsense and will just continue to use the pronoun that you naturally associate with Charlie as it comes up in your thoughts.

            Empirically, if you do this, Charlie or Bob will interrupt to correct you (probably with a simple “She.”) each time you refer to Charlie as “he.” If you apologize with a quick “oh sorry” each time, Charlie might politely excuse themself after a bit, maybe 5 times or so, and Bob might give you a brief explanation of transness afterwards. If you forgo the apology and simply keep talking, Charlie will leave much sooner and Bob’s lecture may be significantly less polite. If your subsequent response is unapologetic, Charlie will likely avoid interacting with you in the future, and Bob may do so as well.

            Now if I understand you correctly, you think that Bob and Charlie are the ones being incredibly rude by interrupting and lecturing you. Does this change if it turns out Charlie is not trans but actually a biological female who due to the genetic lottery happens to look somewhat masculine? Would you be more willing to use Charlie’s preferred pronouns in that scenario? If so, then there’s already more to your use of pronouns than just describing your initial or subconscious impression of the referent’s gender.

          • In your hypothetical I would probably conclude that Charlie was probably female and either use she/her or, if I felt seriously uncertain about it, try to avoid gendered pronouns. I certainly wouldn’t keep using he/him and apologize each time — that’s silly.

            If I thought it obvious that Charlie was male I would probably avoid gendered pronouns but certainly would not use she/her. If I used he/him because I wasn’t thinking about how not to fast enough, I probably would not apologize.

          • Dacyn says:

            @brad: Ah sorry, I misread your comment: me and Dan L were talking about nonbinary people (who could have a preference for certain singular neuter pronouns) and I didn’t realize you were bringing the discussion back to binary people. Anyway, what you wrote comes across as slightly hostile but I would imagine if someone doesn’t use the pronouns another person prefers, it’s because they don’t agree with the notion that people should always use the pronouns preferred by the referent, so they wouldn’t expect you to accommodate them if they had any preferences on what pronouns you use for them.

            @VoiceOfTheVoid: Yes, I think it is rude to present a difference of ideology as though you are correcting somebody on a factual matter.

          • brad says:

            @Dacyn

            I come across a fair number of people that use they by default yet still profess to care about the preferences of the referent, at least when the referent is in some way gender queer. YMMV.

          • Dacyn says:

            @brad: I don’t know exactly what you are referring to but it is possible to care about something without believing that it should be the overriding consideration in every case.

            Also, I’m not sure what your counter-recommendation is. People should use “he” by default” Or “he/she”? Or one of the nonstandard pronouns?

          • brad says:

            For the situation with a concrete, non-anonymous referent, people ought to use the singular pronoun that best matches the gender presentation of the individual in the absence of more information. That was universal practice until about 10 years ago.

          • Dacyn says:

            @brad: Here are three possible pronoun policies:

            1. If someone prefers a pronoun, use it.

            2. Use the pronoun corresponding to the gender you perceive someone as, taking into account pronoun preference but not treating it as the overriding factor.

            3. Use the pronoun corresponding to your beliefs about their physical sex characteristics.

            You sound like you are advocating for (2) although I suspect you may really be advocating for (1). In any case, all three of these policies were basically indistinguishable “until about 10 years ago”, so I don’t see how you can say any one of them was “universal practice”.

            @VoiceOfTheVoid: To expand on my earlier response, here is an example of an interaction I would consider “not rude”:

            Alice: Charlie […] he […]

            Bob: “she”

            Alice: *blinks*

            Bob: Uh, she is kind of bothered when people say “he”.

            Alice: Ah… sorry, I don’t mean to offend but I’m not comfortable/it goes against my religion/whatever to use “she” to refer to… Charlie…

            [maybe some ensuing discussion after which hopefully they can agree on either Alice or Charlie making concessions for the other, or come up with plans to not spend too much time together, or whatever… the point being that the next time this comes up, it may make people uncomfortable but at least we can treat it as a “done topic” and not get sidetracked]

            I do think that there should be “safe spaces” where people are expected to use preferred pronouns and so on, I just think that in a general setting, you have to recognize that there are different possible viewpoints, and the notion of rudeness should be adjusted to that.

    • The Nybbler says:

      There’s been a bit of controversy about this at my workplace (tech). Currently, only a very few people include them, but if you speak against it you’re signing your own pink slip.

    • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

      I’ve thought about this a bit more, and I’ve decided that there’s a real case to be made against the inclusion being mandatory.

      I am fully and unequivocally in support of those who voluntarily choose to put their pronouns in their email signatures doing so. The straightforward purpose is clarifying what pronouns to address the sender with (which I’ve had problems with–almost replied to the woman with a gender-ambiguous name emailing me about my new job with “Hi Mr. so-and-so,” before I thought twice and went with their first name). The other purpose is signaling support of the people who think we should introduce ourselves with our pronouns, and/or signaling support for trans acceptance in general. I’m ambivalent toward the former and actively in favor of the latter, so this doesn’t bother me. (I personally don’t put them in my signature, mainly because my full name makes my gender pretty clear to anyone familiar with English names, so it would be pretty redundant. I also try to avoid signalling political opinions to people I’m interacting with in a business or academic context.)

      For the same reasons, I am mildly in favor of encouraging people to voluntarily include pronouns in their signature. If everyone at my research lab or internship started putting their pronouns on their emails, I would probably jump on the bandwagon.

      However, after thinking it over and hearing @DragonMilk and @jermo sapiens ‘s objections to my initial thoughts (as well as others in this thread), I am mildly opposed to pronouns in an email signature being a mandatory requirement. It would be quite useful for the practical purpose of clarifying ambiguously gendered email senders, but you can’t really decouple that from the political signalling. If I receive an email signed, “Jane Doe, she/her/hers”, I will assume that Jane almost certainly supports trans rights in general and calling people by their preferred pronouns in particular. Though I support this position, some people clearly do not. I believe that you can’t mandate true acceptance, and that people should not be forced to profess beliefs they disagree with. While “he/him/his” isn’t explicitly a political statement, it will almost universally be interpreted as political signaling by people unaware of your firm’s policy, and I’m not comfortable with that being mandatory.

      I do still think that you’re making it out to be more of a terrible injustice than it really is. Yeah, some clients may end up with mistaken opinions about your politics, but I stand by my statements that it won’t really have a noticeable effect on your life, and that complying with mandatory policies isn’t selling your soul to “the SJWs”.

      • jermo sapiens says:

        I do still think that you’re making it out to be more of a terrible injustice than it really is. Yeah, some clients may end up with mistaken opinions about your politics, but I stand by my statements that it won’t really have a noticeable effect on your life, and that complying with mandatory policies isn’t selling your soul to “the SJWs”.

        Assuming you’re not a devout christian (or even if you are), would you be comfortable including a line in your email signature that said “Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior”? This is what it feels like to me. It’s not going to cost you money, nor affect your life significantly, just accept the directive from Chick-Fil-A HQ or Hobby Lobby, and comply with the policy please.

        • CatCube says:

          Yeah, this is how I feel whenever this comes up. “It’s just words, right? Yeah, you may not believe it, but all they’re asking you to do is say simple words, not take any actions.”

          My question would be if I could then count on the speaker to argue for children being required to say the Pledge of Allegiance–or, more controversially, the Apostle’s Creed–before school every day. After all, it doesn’t matter if they believe it, it’s just making them say some words, right?

        • Chalid says:

          Eh, objectively I don’t think that is any worse than kids pledging allegiance to One Nation Under God in school, or using currency with In God We Trust written on it.

          • Randy M says:

            I’ve grown less fond of the pledge of allegiance as I’ve thought about it. For the money, though, it isn’t like you necessarily agree with everything you own, and approximately no one would mistake using American dollars as a sign of fidelity God. Admittedly I would dislike using “Hail Satan” dollars, but it’s not because people would think I was a Satanist.

          • Chalid says:

            True, the offense is lesser with money, but on the other hand money is far more ubiquitous.

        • EchoChaos says:

          Assuming you’re not a devout christian (or even if you are), would you be comfortable including a line in your email signature that said “Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior”?

          While I’ve never seen the pronouns, I work with several people who put their favorite Bible verse in their signature.

          I don’t, but it wouldn’t bother me if it was required because I do have a favorite Bible verse (Deuteronomy 32:41), but I think we can all understand why that would be an issue?

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Okay, that would be hilarious in an email sig, while probably violating other company policies.

          • Nick says:

            Someone at my company put Proverbs 21:19 in an email and was very quickly informed to apologize.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Conrad Honcho

            Okay, that would be hilarious in an email sig, while probably violating other company policies.

            I do try.

            @Nick

            Someone at my company put Proverbs 21:19 in an email and was very quickly informed to apologize.

            To be fair, that’s probably due to the content of the verse rather than because it’s from the Bible.

          • Dacyn says:

            I think being required to put a favorite Bible verse in your email signature is more analogous to the pronoun thing than what u/jermo sapiens suggested. It is (probably) not actually forcing you to say anything you don’t believe in (presumably there’s some pronouns or Bible verse that you agree with) but it makes you say something within a framework that assumes things you disagree with.

        • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

          I think that’s a good deal more explicit than the pronouns, but I definitely see what you’re getting at. Even if (as Dacyn suggests below [above? threading is confusing]) it’s just a mandate to include my favorite Bible verse, it would still make me uncomfortable. Whether it would be enough to make me consider quitting or risk being fired by opposing the policy, depends on how much I need/enjoy the job. But regardless, it would be a clear signal to me that the company’s culture (or at least, the culture HQ is trying to push) does not align with my own values. This could however be mitigated if everyone I personally worked with agreed that the policy was dumb and somewhat discomforting.

          ETA: So upon further reflection, I revise my opinion on mandatory pronouns from “probably not that terrible of an injustice” to “maybe actually kind of terrible” for two reasons: First, thinking more about how much I dislike forced political speech. Second, the argument people have made elsewhere in this thread that mandatory pronouns may actually make the situation worse for people who are questioning their gender and thus would like to leave it ambiguous (or at least avoid stating it outright). Or for that matter, anyone who would like to leave their gender ambiguous for whatever reason.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Just as with the pronoun policies, it wouldn’t really be “your favorite Bible verse”. It would be “a bible verse management accepts”. Anyone at an SJ-aligned company who tries to use attack helicopter related pronouns is going to get shot down, obviously. Zeke 23:20 isn’t going to play at the Bible-thumper’s. And they’d probably carefully examine anyone using Leviticus 19:27 (“Ye shall not round the corners of your heads.”)

      • Conrad Honcho says:

        I’ve thought about this a bit more, and I’ve decided that there’s a real case to be made against the inclusion being mandatory.

        Yes. The 1.5* trans people I’ve met in my life I referred to by their preferred pronouns. They were nice people doing their best to deal with an extremely challenging problem in their lives. I will gladly be as polite to those individuals as I would anyone else. But pass a law that says I must refer to a dude in a dress with a thicker beard than mine as “she” or suffer the full force of law and I’mma fight you.

        * one began to transition and then stopped and went back so I’m not sure where they place in terms of trans or cis.

      • Deiseach says:

        Well, today I got my first example of someone including their pronouns in their email signature line. Yes, here in Ireland.

        And I really don’t understand what the hell purpose it served other than signalling “I am holding The Correct Views”. Now, this person is a Health Promotion Officer involved in a new Foundation Programme in Sexual Health Promotion, so they’re signaling “I am up to the very latest date on the very most correct way of teaching teens about sex” and sure, they’re a government education body so they have to be ultra-correct about inclusivity and sensitivity and the whole nine yards, so it’s probably ‘not officially but in practice’ mandatory to share your pronouns.

        But it’s no damn use to me. I’ll never meet this person, talk to them on the phone, or contact them by either email or post. Also, they have a traditional gendered name so I didn’t need their pronouns. There was absolutely no information transmitted apart from Virtuous Signalling. It’s as irrelevant as putting your blood group in the line.

        I did think of the ambiguous names, and foreign names, but you know – we used to have a way of distinguishing which went with what, but it got thrown out in the name of “sexism” and everyone pretending a fake intimacy of first names from perfect strangers instead of addressing people you didn’t know by title and surname. Why not go back to “Mr/Ms Smith” instead of “Hi, you never heard of me before, but call me Pat!” if it’s so vitally important that I know a total stranger two hundred miles away likes to present themselves as a particular gender?

        The only mainstream reason to do this is normalisation, the same way gay rights were achieved: it’s normal to be gay every bit as much as straight. Now we’re being fed it’s normal to be trans every bit as much as cis. That’s what the pronouns racket is all about.

        Because if it’s to encourage people to share their pronouns so nobody will be left out, why don’t we include “Jasmine – straight” or “Susan – bi” in the same way? Well, we were told it’s nobody’s business what orientation you are and that would be making non-straight people stand out as freaks and exceptions.

        If I’m meeting someone face-to-face for the first time and they walk in dressed in a skirt and makeup and say their name is “Isabella Queen”, I’ll assume they’re female (unless they’re pretty obviously A Bloke In A Dress) and I’ll say “she/her” to Isabella (even if she’s clearly A Bloke In A Dress) because don’t rock the boat. I don’t care if she’s cis/trans/gay/straight/likes to dress up as Optimus Prime on the weekend, it’s nothing to do with my work. All I want is to work with her on getting the paperwork through for the scheme to fund us for mandatory staff training. Her pronouns don’t matter a good goddamn about that.

        Seriously, from now on if I get the “my pronouns are – ” business (and like I said, today was my first instance in the wild!), I am going to make assumptions:

        (1) This person is woke and signalling it like nobody’s business

        or

        (2) This person is trans and needs to try really hard because they’re not convincing as their identified gender

        You may as well go the whole hog and put “Sheila – she/her, trans” in the line because that’s what it’s all really about: mainstreaming and normalisation.

        • Plumber says:

          @Deiseach >

          “Well, today I got my first example of someone including their pronouns in their email signature line. Yes, here in Ireland…”

          Please keep reporting, I’m curious how fast the new thing spreads.

          My wife says she’s gotten one of these with one of our sons school e-mails, but I haven’t noticed any yet.

          I have noticed the spread of “All gender restroom” signs, yeara ago there’d be “Men’s”, “Women’s”, “Family” (large single stall restrooms with a door lock and a diaper changing table), and single stall “unisex” restrooms, but around 2015 the San Francisco Public Defenders building put up “All gender” signs on their single toilet restrooms, which led to such descriptions as “The leak is in the all-gender-restroom that has the urinal”, starting in 2017 other single toilet restrooms got so labeled, no biggie (except to my wife who said that what had previously been “women’s” became “further”), but then private industry customer and employee multi-toilet restrooms became so labeled, typically now with a lock on the door, effectively making them just one stall and increasing wait times (what the hell Walgreen’s!), if they changed the building code so there’d be more new single stall restrooms that could have spiffy inclusive sigbs than fine, but not grandfathering in the multi-stalls is idiotic, it started in a government building, and you lost a couple restrooms that allowed a toilet and a urinal to be used at the same time, but most of the multi-toilet restrooms are still seperate men’s and women’s in City buildings, but now retailers have decided to be “inclusive” by greatly increasing wait times.

    • A Definite Beta Guy says:

      Uhhhh……I work in a factory. With a lot of immigrants that are in their 50s or older. Our hourly employees are still shocked that men cook, like cooking, and do not immediately divorce their wives if they have to cook.

      Suffice to say, we do not kneel pronouns are not a practice at my place of work.

      • Machine Interface says:

        That’s the one thing I really don’t get about traditional culture. I have very few if any of the qualities associated with a traditional “manly man”, but at the same time, I would never see my ability to cook a full meal (and no, boiling pasta and pan-frying a steak don’t count as “cooking a meal”) as a faillure of masculinity. What do all these Real Men do when their wife die? Live of toasted bread and canned tuna for the rest of their life?

        • John Schilling says:

          What do all these Real Men do when their wife die? Live of toasted bread and canned tuna for the rest of their life?

          Traditionally, Real Men are in charge of all cooking that occurs outdoors, and Real Women are in undisputed charge of the kitchen. That does suggest one possible solution to the dilemma.

          Otherwise, Real Men will have to remarry, eat at restaurants, and/or eat food that does not require cooking. But note that “nuking” “cooking”.

          • Lambert says:

            Are there any Halakhic loopholes that ritually designate an indoor area ‘outside’?
            It’s the kind of thing that’s at least as plausible as Eruv.

          • The Nybbler says:

            When my father was required to cook meals in the winter, he used an indoor electric grill. He’s a convert but probably did not consult any rabbis on this practice.

            Oddly, while his father didn’t cook while my grandmother was alive, he was perfectly capable and did cook after she passed. And I can cook OK, though I prefer grilling to the point that I’ll do it in the winter and occasionally shovel snow to get to the grill.

        • Thomas Jorgensen says:

          They die, is what they do.

        • DeWitt says:

          Places in which Traditional Culture is still a thing have even bigger mismatches in male/female mortality rates. The smoking and drinking is kind’ve a big deal.

        • The original Mr. X says:

          Get their daughters to cook for them, I assume.

        • AlphaGamma says:

          I’m reminded of a story I heard recently- Butterball turkeys have a customer service helpline on the package, for questions from “how long does a frozen turkey take to thaw?” (the most common) to “my Chihuahua is stuck inside the turkey, how do I get it out?” (they managed, the dog was OK, I’m less sure about the turkey). It used to be staffed entirely by women, but they recently hired some men after finding out that 1 in 4 of their calls were from men.

          From the NYT article:

          Almost all of the experts have that one deeply meaningful call. It came for Bill Nolan in 2016. He’s a chef and retired culinary educator whose other job involves preparing meals for a group of priests. He is relatively new — one of only a few men on the talk line, which didn’t hire its first until 2013.

          Mr. Nolan picked up a call from a widowed man the day before Thanksgiving. “He said his wife was gone, but he wanted to make that first Thanksgiving meal without her for his family,” Mr. Nolan said.

          Tears came to his eyes as he told the rest of the story. Although the average call is about three minutes, he spent almost a half-hour with the man, coaching him through a simple Thanksgiving meal.

          “I mean, here was this guy in a house by himself who called us to help,” Mr. Nolan said. “We don’t cure cancer and we don’t save lives, but maybe that guy had a good meal.”

          • EchoChaos says:

            @AlphaGamma

            Thanks, that’s a great story.

          • Paul Zrimsek says:

            If I were the sort of old-school guy who’d be calling a helpline to find out what to do with a turkey instead of looking it up on the internet, I’d find it a lot more reassuring to hear a woman’s voice explaining it to me.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Gotta find that guy girl cutting onions outside my office…

        • A Definite Beta Guy says:

          Yeah, they basically go out to local bars, they eat grilled meat, they eat pizza, they eat boxed potatoes, etc.

          Also, they have extended families, so daughters, daughters-in-law, sisters, aunts, mothers, etc.

          Also, they usually don’t live longer than their wives, because they eat like crap, drink a ton, and smoke like chimneys.

    • Well... says:

      I had a blog post where I tried out some pronoun requests in this vein. The one I would use in your situation is:

      Your Honor/His Honor/His Honor’s

    • viVI_IViv says:

      So, trolling ideas…

      Pronouns: Epstein/didntkill/himself
      Pronouns: only/two/genders
      Pronouns: build/the/wall
      Pronouns: Brexit/means/Brexit
      Pronouns: ok/tobe/white
      Pronouns: Islam/right/aboutwomen

    • sandoratthezoo says:

      Only barely related: there is no need to list the accusative and possessive versions of your pronouns unless you use pronouns other than she, he, or they. And probably not then. And also probably I’m not going to use your pronouns if they aren’t she, he, or they.

      • drunkfish says:

        “he/him” is both fewer characters and a bit less aggressively woke (in my opinion) than “pronouns: male”, and accomplishes the same goal. If I just stuck “he” in random places it would often be confusing, but the convention of sticking a slash in there, even if it does originate with the xe/xim/xeirs of tumblr, is pretty useful for signaling “I’m talking about my pronouns”. I never do “his” though because that does feel silly.

        • Randy M says:

          Speaking of accomplishing the same goal: “Mr. Randy M.”
          That works for all traditional pronouns, unless for some reason you want to mix and match, which I don’t really see why this should be honored.

          The other problem is for Dr., etc. which is gender neutral and thus doesn’t clue one in on the preferred forms of address. The solution, of course, is more gendered language. Either something like Drs. or the more elegant “The Lady Dr. Randi M.”

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            My department actually has two professors who are married, commonly referred to by us students as “Dr. Mr. Smith” and/or “Dr. Mrs. Smith.”

          • Deiseach says:

            The other problem is for Dr., etc. which is gender neutral and thus doesn’t clue one in on the preferred forms of address.

            Eh, I think that if you’re dealing with a stranger (someone you’re only communicating with by email or post) and are unlikely to ever meet them face to face, then “Dr Smith” is perfectly fine as a form of address – you’re unlikely to proceed to the stage of “Dear Randy/Randi” and if you do, you’re unlikely to be referring to them in the third person directly, whatever about other parties (“I was talking to Dr Smith, he/she thinks we should…”). Unless Dr Smith is coming down to the office to meet you all, it won’t make much difference if you think he’s a she or she’s a he.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            “Lady” is also a first name. While “Doctor” (or variations) is also a last name, I do not believe it is a first name.

            Though yeah, it’s highly unlikely for a man to have “Lady” as a first name, the attendant pronouns may not be preferred.

    • Ketil says:

      So the outside counsel for our firm has begun adding “pronouns” to their signature block in e-mails. That is after name, there was a, “Pronouns: he/him/his

      Being nosy, I asked if this was permanently part of their sig block

      Back under your rock, you evil sexist fascist bastard, you!

    • LesHapablap says:

      I’ve never seen this.

      People don’t like it because it is a broad political statement masquerading as support for a tiny minority. Social pressure to put political statements in your work signature should be resisted. It is completely inappropriate.

      • smocc says:

        It’s this for me.

        The school I teach at has a couple (literally two, I think) of gender-queer students, and I am happy that they are included and feel safe. I’m also fine with the one bathroom that’s been labelled all-gender for inclusivity (though I would never use that one myself). It hasn’t come up yet, but I’ll probably use whatever pronouns they ask me to.

        But when the administration asked the faculty to write their pronouns on their nametags at the faculty inservice I did not because it felt like being asked to affirm something I disagree with pretty strongly: I think that gender has real aspects to it and gender roles should not be entirely up to personal choice.

        There’s a difference between being inclusive and forcing everyone to agree. My school is a Jewish school and I’m a Christian but I don’t ask the other teachers to affirm the divinity of Christ to make me feel included. That’s what the pronouns thing feels like to me.

        • Deiseach says:

          If you’ve got two gender-queer students, how does “Hey, I’m a cis het woman, my pronouns are she/her” (and the male equivalents) for the rest of literally everybody help them? Everyone knows that Susan is a woman, so her introducing herself with “preferred pronouns she/her” does nothing. The students then introducing themselves with “preferred pronouns he on Tuesday and she on Wednesday/they, them/neutrois” doesn’t do anything except make them stand out. ‘That weird girl who pretends she’s a guy’ now being ‘I know now to call that weird girl who pretends she’s a guy ‘he/him” doesn’t seem much of an improvement to me, but granted, I’m old and stuck in my ways.

          Maybe for the students, “oh so that ambiguous person I wasn’t sure about is a he/him or she/her person” does work, but on the other hand, what’s the gender-queer advantage there to be pinned down to one expressed gender?

          It’s a nice idea and I’m not against inclusiveness and making people feel safe, I just honestly do not see the use or value in the majority of people who are confirming with their assigned gender affirming “yes indeed, you can use the pronouns commonly and historically used with my gender for me” or how it is going to do anything for the “use pronouns for my chosen not biological gender” people to make them fit in as “treat me like an ordinary woman/man, not as Special Exception Trans Not Real Woman/Man”. You look like a woman, you say “use she/her” for me, I was going to do that anyway – the only thing, as people have said, is that this clarifies matters in cases where you’re going on an ambiguous/foreign name and don’t speak to or see the person in question. And as said elsewhere, we used to have means to indicate ‘preferred gender identity’ by “Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms” but that got scrapped in the name of preventing sexism and tearing down hierarchy.

          Now we’re introducing new sexism/hierarchy but from the progressive side. I see this as regressive, not liberation.

          • mtl1882 says:

            If you’ve got two gender-queer students, how does “Hey, I’m a cis het woman, my pronouns are she/her” (and the male equivalents) for the rest of literally everybody help them?

            My understanding is that they want to make this a universal thing, so that people whose gender is ambiguous or who use “they/their/them” etc. don’t have to go out of their way to address the issue. I don’t believe this will realistically become adopted to the point were it is a default part of every introduction, but that is the idea. In one sense, it is similar to increasingly common practice of asking everyone if they have a food allergy or special dietary needs at a restaurant or before a function. I also agree it is awkwardly regressive, for the reason you point out: this isn’t really a new issue—we used to use titles that served the a similar function, but the labeling seemed awkward after a while. Doing (M) (F) or (Th.) in a signature seems like it might be the clearest and least intrusive option, as it would help a lot with ambiguous names.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            Doing (M) (F) or (Th.) in a signature seems like it might be the clearest and least intrusive option, as it would help a lot with ambiguous names.

            This is the kind of thing that only develops after the more verbose expression of pronouns in signatures becomes so commonplace that it’s expected. Then the shorthand can be easily interpreted. But absent a “long form” that is commonly understood, the short form is essentially meaningless.

    • aristides says:

      Not yet, but my signature block is already 15 lines long, so I won’t be surprised if they add another. Actually will be more useful for people with gender neutral names, like Riley, which are more common than trans people. I’ve often used the wrong Mr. Ms. on people for that reason. I consider myself pretty conservative, but I admit, that doesn’t bother me.

      • Deiseach says:

        Actually will be more useful for people with gender neutral names, like Riley, which are more common than trans people.

        Reilly is a surname but I suppose we have to make exceptions for weird American mangling of spelling and using surnames as first names and so forth 🙂

        I admit, I’ve been interested to see how “Robin” has shifted in my lifetime from being a male name to “if it’s Robin it’s a girl” and particularly so if it’s spelled “Robyn”. Other names have gone the same way, I guess it has to be the equivalent of Shirley, though that change happened due to ‘craze for using name popularised by smash-hit novel’ thanks to Charlotte Brontë – the Victorian equivalent of Daenerys!

    • bzium says:

      Aside from the problems with forcing people to affirm an ideology they might be opposed to, there’s also a problem that this is effectively conscripting every single trans individual into the SJW army.

      Somebody might be hesitant to come out, or uncertain about their thing. And now they’re given a hard choice of conspicuously denying their thing or saying “I’m trans, fight me” with every online interaction.

      Measures to protect some class of people from discrimination typically include the discouragement or outright prohibition of demands to disclose whatever traits are to be protected. For example, “woke” surveys or registration forms might include a “refuse to answer” option on questions about gender, race, nationality, religion. And I think you’re not supposed to be asking about those things in job interviews.

    • FormerRanger says:

      If your pronouns are conventional, there is some minor benefit from being able to address mail to “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or “Ms.” (Leaving aside the people who will freak if they have Ph.D.’s and you don’t address them as “Dr.”) However, most of the warfare is about unconventional pronouns, many of which do not reveal the actual or declared gender of the user, or at best require a trip to Urban Dictionary to figure out what they might mean. So the whole thing is political/social trolling and performative wokeness. If you work for a “woke” law firm, you have bigger problems than what pronoun to use.

      • Dacyn says:

        However, most of the warfare is about unconventional pronouns, many of which do not reveal the actual or declared gender of the user, or at best require a trip to Urban Dictionary to figure out what they might mean.

        As far as I can tell, with regards to gender all unconventional pronouns mean basically the same thing as “they/them”. If someone wants to further declare an unconventional gender, they have to do that separately.

    • achenx says:

      I work for one of the Big Four accounting/consulting firms. The internal tool for generating a signature has “pronouns” as an option to include, but I’ve only seen a couple people actually use it.

    • DinoNerd says:

      Not in our work emails, but our internal directory encourages people to list their preferred pronouns. Many of my coworkers, not being especially “woke” about gender variance, happily assumed that the purpose was to clarify things for people who didn’t recognize (and thus couldn’t properly gender) a coworker’s name. (Yes, we hire a lot of immigrants.)

    • mtl1882 says:

      It’s becoming increasingly common, in a variety of places. Where I worked, it was optional, and I didn’t do it, because it seems like useless signaling. I don’t have any issue with using someone’s preferred pronouns, and it isn’t a political or ideological thing–it’s more like a natural aversion to corporate trendiness. And all you have to do is identify your own gender, so it’s not like you are being forced to refer to others in a certain way, though of course that is expected by organizations that suggest including this. I understand the argument about how it’s the right thing to do because it allows everyone the chance to identify their preferred pronouns without standing out, but I don’t believe that declaring this everywhere will ever become the norm (and people so rarely read even the most basic info that they are probably not going to check this), and at this point it probably produces more backlash than benefit. But dealing with it as a moral issue, even if I did object to it on a deeper level, it seems nowhere near as problematic as the dishonesty and power games of many other types enforced corporate posturing/redefinition.

    • anonymousskimmer says:

      Yes. It’s showing up (large, multi-department government organization with a chief diversity officer).

      I find it weird (and slightly off-putting in a “are you expecting other people to do this as well?” way) with the people whose pronouns match their names and observable gender, but it makes things clear with the they/them/their person with the ambiguous name and physical style choices. The first time I noticed it was in an email from this they/them/their person, with a pdf explanation attachment. This was about a year ago.

      It was odd, but not off-putting when the man with the thick pony tail and beard stated “he/him/his” before his talk at a large meeting.

      I believe we have some actual transgender people in the larger organization, but as their physical appearance matches (as best as possible) what their presumably chosen pronouns would be, I don’t see the point. This only makes sense to me for the they/them/their people.

      I believe I’ll eventually get used to it, but won’t adopt the practice.

      • Mark V Anderson says:

        This only makes sense to me for the they/them/their people.

        Yeah this is what worries me. Are there really they/them/their people? I will NOT refer to one person as them. I’ve noticed people doing that on SSC and it invariably confuses me, as it takes me a minute trying to figure out what group they are talking about.

        • brad says:

          I strongly dislike that one too. And try as I may I can’t see how it is necessary. I can see how one could insist on ‘he’ or ‘she’, I can even see how one could find either unsatisfactory but I can’t see how someone could psychologically need they/them/their. I’m open to negotiation here, but insisting specifically and only on that seems unreasonable.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            What of the new formulations, like “xir” or “xe?”

          • brad says:

            I’d take it over ‘they’. I understand that singular they has long been a part of the English language, but not with a specific person as an antecedent.

            It grates on me. If we are going to have a new concept—non-gendered, singular pronoun for a specific person with a non-binary identity—let’s have a new word.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            “They” is actually relatively easy to get used to using in an Internet context. I say this as someone who has a hard time referring to the kids who come over to my house using “they” when they present as “he” or “she” to my eyes. And yes, that means I know multiple people who prefer “they” as their pronoun.

            All you have to do is substitute “they” in cases where you use the default male. In man cases you don’t know the gender underlying the moniker. For example, as an aside, Le Maistre Chat identifies as “she”, iirc. So just stop assuming you know the gender of anonymous people, and “they” immediately pops out.

          • brad says:

            It works decently well in the case of HeelBearCub, because that’s analogous to the historical usage for an unknown person.

            E.g. from wiki:
            “If anyone tells you that America’s best days are behind her, then they’re looking the wrong way.”

            But with a concrete, non-anonymous person of known gender it is an utter disaster.
            “Former President Obama went sailing today. They nearly fell in the water when waiving to the crowds.”

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @brad:

            “Former President Obama went sailing today. They nearly fell in the water when waiving to the crowds.”

            “Former President Obama was devoured by wolves today. They were the senseless age of 83.”

            (And yes, my handle is a fairy tale character whose name is gendered French. Oh well.)

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            “Former President Obama went sailing today. They nearly fell in the water when waiving to the crowds.”

            Honestly all of this is bad. A person is on a sail craft of some sort, and you refer to them as “nearly falling” while “waving” to the crowds. Immediately mental imagery of the sailing craft bobbing from sudden waves while Obama is handwaving.

            I also think it’s more clear if the second sentence started with “The former president nearly”, as even a “he” is slightly weird when used as a pronoun after such an introduction.

            You’ll get used to the new use of they. If you’re willing to.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @Mark V Anderson and @Brad
            It might help if you think of a groups of people with “he” as the pronoun as “hes” or “guys”, and a group of “shes” as “shes” or “gals” (though the women I know dislike the word “gal” and are fine with a gender-neutral “guys” for a group of women or mixed genders [though I’m still ??? on this usage, and prefer “people”]).

            Thus a group of people with “them” as the pronoun becomes a group of “thems” or “those”, with “them” as the obvious singular.

          • brad says:

            @anonymousskimmer

            Immediately mental imagery of the sailing craft bobbing from sudden waves while Obama is handwaiving.

            That was the intent of the sentence. You were supposed to picture him standing on the deck of a smallish sailboat waiving to crowds on the shore while the boat heads towards a big wave. What can I say, I was feeling whimsical.

            You’ll get used to the new use of they. If you’re willing to.

            I don’t especially wish to. In the case of transgendered people wanting the other singular pronouns, there is a claim that deep psychological pain is being pitted against my linguistic discomfort. Fine, I’m willing to make way there. But in the case of singular they it’s a preference on one side vs a preference on the other side, and I see no particular reason why mine should lose.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            The “they” I know goes to lengths to dress and personally style themselves (including hair) in an ambiguous way. Presumably they only do this because otherwise they would experience psychological pain.

          • brad says:

            I’m willing to avoid he or she is cases where requested. I don’t believe that anyone has a deep psychological need specifically for singular they.

            Incidentally, supposing our former President’s preferred pronouns are he/him/his have I misgendered him above?

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @Brad
            You can’t imagine a person having a deep psychological aversion (equivalent to disgust) to the sex (or at least sex-role) implications inherent in the she/he gender dichotomy itself? And wishing to avoid such implications with regards to how others address them?

            Based on the spelling, I genuinely believe this person changed their first name, because such a spelling (and consequent pronunciation) is intermediate between feminine and masculine versions of the root name. Changing a first name is a pretty radical thing to do.

            Incidentally, supposing our former President’s preferred pronouns are he/him/his have I misgendered him above?

            I don’t believe so, but I don’t have a boat in this race. 😛 He, however, was never “our” president. He was president of the United States, not president of us (I write this as a US citizen).

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            I don’t want my wife to take my last name (as compared to us inventing a de novo last name together) due to the incest implications of having sex with a person with the same last name that I was born with. Though I have no problem with other couples sharing the same last name (as it doesn’t prompt me to consider myself in an incestuous relationship).

            This makes me weird, but I’m glad my preference is now allowed by the law and larger society. I don’t like thinking of incest when thinking of my wife.

          • b_jonas says:

            > Le Maistre Chat identifies as “she”

            Yes, that one confused me too when I found out about it some months ago.

          • Presumably they only do this because otherwise they would experience psychological pain.

            Or because the person prefers to do that. That’s the normal implication of someone doing something. Is that equivalent to “experiences psychological pain”?

            “You have to act the way I want you to because otherwise people will experience psychological pain” reduces to “you have to act the way I want to because other people want you to act that way.”

            Which I mentally label as “passive aggressive aggression.”

          • brad says:

            You can’t imagine a person having a deep psychological aversion (equivalent to disgust) to the sex (or at least sex-role) implications inherent in the she/he gender dichotomy itself? And wishing to avoid such implications with regards to how others address them?

            I said I’d be willing to avoid both he and she. It’s the insistence on they and only they I find unreasonable.

            I don’t believe so, but I don’t have a boat in this race.

            Why not? Why is using he when someone prefers they a major insult, but someone using they for me, when I prefer he, not a major insult?

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            I said I’d be willing to avoid both he and she. It’s the insistence on they and only they I find unreasonable.

            A lot of actual theys might find this perfectly agreeable.

            Why not?

            Because in this particular example you’re using “they” to refer to former president Obama solely as an example, not as a literal referent during a discussion about Obama.

            Because in this example you expressed that you don’t know which pronouns he actually prefers, thus you don’t know.

            Because you aren’t trying to insult Obama with this pronoun use.

            Because some politically-incorrect monarchists and psuedo-monarchists think it appropriate to refer to a head of state in the non-gendered plural (or at least for said head of state to refer to themselves in the non-gendered plural), and have so for hundreds of years. Though as a firm democratic republican I reject this politically incorrect idea.

          • Mark V Anderson says:

            It might help if you think of a groups of people with “he” as the pronoun as “hes” or “guys”, and a group of “shes” as “shes” or “gals”

            Sorry I don’t follow this at all.

            In English plural third person is they. Pronouns are often confusing already, so it is very useful to know singular vs plural. I think it is a very bad idea to lose this distinction for the tiny portion of the population that doesn’t seem to want to choose either male or female.

            By the way, some months ago I suggested in an SSC comment thread that we all start using a non-gendered third person pronoun like ze. But I got only disagreement. I will continue to he for unknown genders as is standard English, until the community comes up with a better solution.

            Edit: I do want to clarify that I don’t like gendered pronouns at all. In most cases when I refer to another person, the gender doesn’t much matter, so it is usually more of a pain than a help to have to find out if the person is a he or a she first. So changing to ze would be very beneficial, and more than to just transexuals.

            Society added the Ms. designation to the possibilities of Miss and Mrs. when I was a kid. That was a great improvement over the previous state, and so it was accepted very quickly by the general populace. Using they for singular is not an improvement, which is why there is much resistance.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @Mark V Anderson

            Yours is a very informative (to me) response.

            “Those people” is also acceptable English third person plural.

        • ana53294 says:

          I haven’t seen “they” used for anything other than a neutral third person of an unknown gender. It makes things less awkward than using he/she.

          And not assuming the gender of the average voter, citizen, teacher, lawyer, nurse, or whatever, is not because of trans-activism, but because it is seen as inconsiderate to use the default “he”, since women are half the population.

          I don’t understand this obsession with third person pronouns. If you know a person, you can always be formal and refer to them by their name, or by their surname and profession.

          • soreff says:

            >you can always be formal and refer to them by their name, or by their surname and profession.

            re surname and profession: almost always…
            I recently had an appointment with a physician’s assistant.
            It wasn’t exactly correct to call her “Dr.”, and I wound up
            explicitly asking what honorific I should use.
            She said to use her first name.

  26. meh says:

    People have started ranting about youtube below and I thought it deserved its own top level. Is there any doubt how much we will cringe at youtube 25 years from now?

    The pre video ads are awful
    The video titles are awful
    The video thumbnails are awful
    The video content is awful

    (with some exceptions)

    • Conrad Honcho says:

      Absolutely! Except for the channels I like, obviously.

    • Randy M says:

      The constant reminders to hit like so the Youtube algorithm will promote the video are awful.

      • Conrad Honcho says:

        I can’t blame them, though. That is how they make a living so they can keep giving me the video game reviews I appreciate so I know which games are good. 80% of the time I forget to hit the like button until the guy reminds me.

        • baconbits9 says:

          It’s a prisoner’s dilemma situation though. If no one pushes the ‘mash that like button’ narrative then every video will get a roughly proportional rate of likes to views that it deserves. One guy getting an extra 5-10% total likes by asking for them breaks the norm and now everyone has to do it to keep the ratios right, despite it taking time and making the content worse.

        • Randy M says:

          No, but the post was about awful aspects of Youtube, not faults of Youtube uploaders.
          I think there’s some quite good things on Youtube, from short comedy sketches (Door monster, for instance, or Ryan George) to game reviews or podcasts (for instance Shamus Young has a channel, or for another realm, MtG limited resources)–although I’m starting to get I bit tired of the incessant product hype on the medium.

          I’m sure there are lots of awful videos, but it’s easy enough to avoid those.

    • baconbits9 says:

      Is there any doubt how much we will cringe at youtube 25 years from now?

      Didn’t people cringe at how many commercials were filling the airwaves 25 years ago? How TV shows started cutting out the credits (or shoving them into a box while they started the next show or ran an ad in the bulk of the scree) and trimming bits and pieces of syndicated shows to fit more commercials in? Or how the Super Bowl became more and more about the ads every year for years on end?

      I think this is just the model that we are under.

    • Milo Minderbinder says:

      YouTube is an insanely varied platform. If all you’re seeing is trash, well, stop watching trash. That seems to address problems 2-4. As for bad ads, they don’t seem better/worse than TV advertising.

      • meh says:

        I’m not really trying to solve a problem, just commenting on society and culture.

        As surprising as it sounds, the stuff I watch is stuff that I find worthwhile. This only addresses item #4 though, since I see upcoming video titles and thumbnails, and even for content i find worthwhile, titles and thumbnails are creeping toward cringey.

        • AG says:

          Simply only watching good stuff isn’t sufficient. You also have to be actively pruning your suggestions by marking a bunch of stuff as “not interested.”

      • metacelsus says:

        Amen! I recently was shown a Youtube video by a friend who didn’t use it, and there was an ad every 2 minutes. It was incredibly disruptive. I don’t know how people manage without adblock.

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        Honestly, I’m torn. A number of the channels I watch clearly put time and effort into making high-quality content, and I’d feel bad about consuming that content without at least providing them with the ad revenue from my views (miniscule as it is). I think it’s kind of a giant prisoner’s dilemma–any individual is better off by using adblock, but the more people that use it, the less incentive the creator has to continue making high-value content.

        However, I have at times been annoyed enough at the 8 ads over the course of some 10-minute videos (2 preroll ads, 3 midroll ad breaks with 2 ads apiece) that I’ve fired up my adblocker for the following hour or so of YouTubing. It often seems as well like the channels which produce the best content are the least likely to pepper their videos with midrolls (and correspondingly more likely to ask for Patreon donations at the end).

        I would totally use an adblocker that left preroll ads alone but blocked midrolls (or even just blocked midrolls more frequent than one/10 minutes)–does anyone know if this exists?

        • AlexanderTheGrand says:

          Have you considered asking the creators to set up patreon accounts, and donating directly? If they do, you’d be giving more and it’d cost you less!

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            Unfortunately I’m in the “pre-significant money making” phase of my life, and I’ve been specifically told by CGP Grey to Save. My. Money.

            …geez, Algorithm, I open up YouTube to search for the CGP Grey clip and the first thing you serve up is “Why You Should keep Adblock! – Virus Investigations 46“. You’re too smart for your own good.

            (also, looks like his initial Patreon video with the Ad Fairy and the “SAVE. YOUR. MONEY.” have been memory-holed :-/ )

    • Statismagician says:

      I mean, it’s a free service with a lot of content I both enjoy and couldn’t get otherwise. Ads, when they aren’t handled by web plugins, can usually be skipped after like 5 seconds. Titling, thumbnail selection, and content quality all vary by creator, so I just… don’t watch things I don’t like? Am I missing something here?

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        pfft, being satisfied with the things you enjoy? That’s no fun. Complaining about how [people in control of beloved platform or franchise] have ruined [beloved platform or franchise]–now that’s a good time!

      • meh says:

        Well, I wasn’t trying to solve any particular problem, or trying to fix youtube for me because it’s making my life worse. It is just discussion about society and culture.

        just… don’t watch things I don’t like

        If we all agreed this was an adequate solution, 95% of the culture war would be solved 🙂

    • chrisminor0008 says:

      I agree with you 100%. Unfortunately there is some great content on Youtube, but the entirety of Alphabet’s contribution is contra human fourishing. So I made my own platform.

      Every couple hours, my server queries about 50 of my favorite channels for new videos, downloads them using youtube-dl, repackages them into a video podcast format, and my phone syncs them. It’s all of the great content, but none of the garbage (ads, recommendation algorithm, comments, data usage/offline viewing).

    • Well... says:

      A word about top 10 list videos (those ones that seem like they’re made by robots) and certain “how to” videos (the ones without any voiceover): why the hell do they always have that annoying electronic music in the background?!

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        Cause it’s royalty-free?

        …wait, just remembered Kevin MacLeod exists, never mind that’s no excuse.

        • Well... says:

          Exactly. There’s plenty of other music that’s royalty-free, and in many of these types of videos no music is needed anyway. And yet it gets added…

    • aristides says:

      I pay to watch Hulu, and it has more adds per minute. I’m glad to have YouTube as a supplement. If I cringe looking back 25 years ago, it’ll only be because a better free video streaming platform appears, and it’ll still probably have ads. Pl us the content is still better than 90% of reality TV.

    • DragonMilk says:

      Are you watching from phone or PC?

      My adblock on phone being unable to block youtube ads causes me to mainly watch it on PC. I think it’s great for listening to music (my original reason of getting adblock when symphonies were being interrupted by commercials), and my goto method for watching games…that is computer games.

      I’m an avid fast forwarder and like that the right arrow key produces +5s

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        Protip: J-K-L is back 10 seconds, play/pause, and forward 10. For some reason K is more reliable than spacebar.

  27. johan_larson says:

    There are lots of places online to play traditional card games like Hearts and Spades. Unfortunately many of them to have problems, such as lower numbers of players, obnoxious ads, support for only a few games, or odd choices of game rules and variants.

    What sites provide good experiences for players of traditional card games?

    • SamChevre says:

      Are you looking for playing against other players, or against the site?

      Against the site, BridgeBase is great for Bridge: I’ve never used it for live games. LiChess is good for chess, similarly.

    • Nick says:

      For solitaire card games, I like classicsolitaire.com, e.g.

    • johan_larson says:

      After a bit of looking around, cardgames.io looks pretty good. It has a decent assortment of games, the variants are well-chosen, and I can get the ads out of the way by resizing the window. You can only play against bots, though, and the graphics are lackluster, but I can live with those limitations.

      https://cardgames.io/

  28. acymetric says:

    When looking at mutual fund investments (say, for a 401k) how valuable are the Morningstar ratings as a rule of thumb for which options to choose?

    • Jon S says:

      Those ratings are better than choosing a fund completely at random – they’re slightly correlated to factors like expense ratios, which will meaningfully affect your future performance.

      For whatever class of fund you’re interested in investing in, generally the Vanguard version is the best option if it’s available to you. Otherwise, doing what you can to choose a fund with a low expense ratio is most of the battle.

      • acymetric says:

        So, say I have 2 Vanguard options, would I want to just pile everything up there, or should I still diversify somewhat with some of the other available funds (understanding that the funds themselves are obviously already diversified), but still looking for low (just not Vanguard low) expense ratios? I do have the Vanguard funds as two of my primary investments currently.

        From what I can tell for the most part all of our (fairly limited) options have at least reasonable expense ratios and management fees, although obviously Vanguard blows them out of the water there.

        • Doctor Mist says:

          Depends which Vanguard funds you have access to. If they include broad stock index funds, like VFIAX (S&P 500) or VTSAX (total stock market), then buying any other equity fund is not diversification, but either redundant (if it’s somebody else’s broad-based fund) or a bet on whatever that fund specializes in (say, small-cap, or biotech, or whatever). You may feel like placing such a bet, but don’t call it diversification.

          But you don’t get coverage in the international markets via either of these, so including an international fund for maybe 20% of your total is probably sensible, assuming you are maxing out your contribution. (Note that there is a distinction between “international” funds and “world” funds; the latter might still be half U.S.)

          Depending on your age, a diversified bond index fund like VBILX would be a decent hedge. But I’m guessing you’re on the young side since this all seems fairly new to you. There’s an old rule of thumb that says to subtract your age from 100 and that’s the percentage you should be in stocks rather than bonds, but of late I’ve read people who say it should be more like 120 minus your age.

          Short answer: Vanguard funds in 401(k)s tend to be broad index funds, so there’s quite a good chance that my answer to your question is: Yes, just pile them all up there.

          And read Bogle’s Little Book of Common Sense Investing.

    • DragonMilk says:

      Why are you considering mutual funds rather than index funds, which generally have lower expense ratios?

      • acymetric says:

        Mostly because I shouldn’t have said mutual funds, I meant funds/investment options for my 401k generally. I probably should have just said “when looking at 401k investment options”.

      • Doctor Mist says:

        Index funds are mutual funds.

  29. Le Maistre Chat says:

    Since this is a hidden OT: what do y’all think was the psychology behind early sexual activity/marriage in the past?
    As David Friedman pointed out in another subthread, traditional Jewish law let a woman who was barely bat mitzvah age get married even without parental consent. This opens up the possibility that men of all ages were legitimate sex partners for such a young woman,[1] and I think that’s objectively weird. In pre-industrial societies, teenage girls were physically more childlike than today, not less. Studies tend to claim that average first menstruation happened at 14 in Classical and medieval Europe, It doesn’t seem psychologically normal for grown men to be attracted to girls before they’ve developed secondary sexual characteristics. Of course maybe these were almost all “Romeo and Juliet” marriages, where the girl of 13 paired off with a boy who was no more than 3 years her senior. These sort of marriages were endemic among early modern Hindus, only becoming low status in the latter part of the 20th century.[2] “Hey, a girl! Who I can legally have sex with!” would be all a psychologically-normal teenage boy needs, right?

    [1]Ceteris paribis. A monogamous culture would change such a simple assumption dramatically because most eligible mature men would already be taken.
    [2] A 1929 law set the female age of consent at 14 and male at 18, but backlash required the British to pass another law saying it didn’t apply to Muslims. And nobody thought any less of Gandhi for having married at 13.

    • Jaskologist says:

      When Augustine was 31, Monica arranged a marriage for him to a wealthy heiress. But she was two years too young to marry, at a time when the legal minimum seems to have been 12, so they had to wait (ultimately the wedding was called off). Augustine doesn’t seem to find the age gap notable in itself.

      Yet the matter was pressed forward, and proposals were made for a girl who was as yet some two years too young to marry. And because she pleased me, I agreed to wait for her.

      (He didn’t actually wait.)

      Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied. My mistress was torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, and my heart which clung to her was torn and wounded till it bled. And she went back to Africa, vowing to thee never to know any other man and leaving with me my natural son by her. But I, unhappy as I was, and weaker than a woman, could not bear the delay of the two years that should elapse before I could obtain the bride I sought. And so, since I was not a lover of wedlock so much as a slave of lust, I procured another mistress–not a wife, of course.

      -Confessions, Book 6, Chapters XIII-XV

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        Note that Augustine goes on at length about his greatest sin of lust, having sex with the same mistress from the time he was 17 to 31 (what a hedonist!). When he consented to his mother’s matchmaking “because she [the underage heiress] pleased me”, it’s not clear that “pleased me” refers to any erotic connection with such a young girl. It could refer entirely to liking her as a person/liking marrying within his social class. He dealt with his inability to be celibate by taking another grown mistress.
        The most we can say is that he didn’t see anything immoral or strange about the law saying he could have sex with a 12-year-old girl after a marriage ceremony.

        • Secretly French says:

          it’s not clear that “pleased me” refers to any erotic connection with such a young girl

          I would go further than this, and say that if in such a text you read “because she pleased me” and discount the reading “because she was to my liking”, and instead settle on the reading “because she sucked my dick real good”, you are an ignorant degenerate villain who would have been better off illiterate. But then, I am a provocateur.

    • Jaskologist says:

      I’ll note that when you read a lot of old writing they tend to take for granted that women are more child-like and foolish in their reasoning, which makes a lot of sense if they were typically 30 year-olds paired with 16 year-olds.

      • Statismagician says:

        Huh – that’s a really good observation, thanks for sharing.

      • theredsheep says:

        I would note that the presumption of feminine imbecility continued well beyond the period of gross age disparities. When I watched Casablanca, I was struck by the way it assumed Ilsa was effectively incapable of meaningful moral courage or agency. She thought her war-hero husband was dead, so instead of continuing his struggle, she fled the country, started an affair with someone she just met, didn’t mention her dead husband to this man, and left without a word of explanation when she discovered her husband was still alive.

        It is allowed that this is not good behavior, but they minimize it, and Rick’s resentment is presented as unjust. Her own husband, when he finds out it happened (she didn’t tell him either), says, “you were lonely, weren’t you?” As if she were a child. She was off porking some dude in Paris while he was in a prison camp, but she was wonewy. There’s nothing wrong with her chiding Rick for not putting himself at risk to help a woman who betrayed him, because a woman’s role is to encourage a man to do his manly duty. At the end, she has to be told not to betray her husband again, knowingly this time, and stay with Rick, and she complies; this is one of the most memorable scenes in cinema, in spite of its resting on the assumption that the female lead is a morally terrible person.

        • John Schilling says:

          [Ilsa] thought her war-hero husband was dead, so instead of continuing his struggle, she fled the country

          Perhaps not the best example, insofar as her husband’s particular struggle had been conducted at a five- or six-sigma level of excellence. If e.g. Werner von Braun had died in 1960, I suspect very few people would ask “Now how is Maria going to contribute to the space program?” nor consider it infantilizing to suggest that she might pursue romance, remarriage, or some other ordinary pursuit outside the realm of rocketry even though she could have done something for NASA.

          • theredsheep says:

            Giving up and running is the most defensible thing she does, beyond going back to her husband which was the one unequivocally correct part. I can see how she’d conclude it was hopeless and run like hell. But the part where she never mentions this incredibly brave man she married, or any part of his struggle, to the man she shacked up with a fairly short time after she thought said hero was dead? Germany took the Sudetenland in October 1938, and took over Paris in June 1940. She can’t have heard her husband was dead much more than six months before she was partying with Rick. Not cool, Ilsa.

          • John Schilling says:

            She can’t have heard her husband was dead much more than six months before she was partying with Rick. Not cool, Ilsa.

            Ah, so the complaint is about not observing the culturally appropriate mourning period.

            That seems inconsistent with the complaint about lack of agency, though, and embarking on an “illicit” romance seems quite agent-y.

      • Ketil says:

        I think the age difference can be more a matter of men marrying late than women marrying early. In many cultures, man can marry when he has the means to support a family. This is likely a later point in life than being able to cook food or mend clothes, or whatever passes for a woman’s role. And when marriages are arranged by the family, it is probably a good idea to marry off daughters before they start having ideas about boys, and runs off with some smooth talking undesirable.

    • AG says:

      The two questions in the case of the last two paragraphs are
      1) Has the rate of obstetric fistula increased over time, and
      2) Has the age of the husband in these cases increased over time

      As LMC surmises, perhaps in the past the young age of the brides went along with a younger age of the grooms, as elder men were already married or killed off, and that reduced the health risks, as the power imbalances from brain development weren’t as large.

    • Just because they get married before they are menstruating doesn’t mean they are having sex. The purpose of marriage before the last 200 years was about practicality. You join your house with this other family so you can some kind of economic/political benefit. Since the parents would have a substantial influence, getting their son laid wasn’t the most prominent concern they had.

      I would also question the premise. How common was it for a girl to get married before entering puberty? Just because it was possible doesn’t mean it was normal.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        I would also question the premise. How common was it for a girl to get married before entering puberty? Just because it was possible doesn’t mean it was normal.

        The data point that brought this up was David Friedman saying that traditional Jewish law let a woman contract a marriage without parental consent at only 12 1/2.
        I can see hormone-raging pubescent girls wanting to secure a mate. I can see setting low ages at which parents may contract marriage alliances for their daughters. But marriage before physical maturity without the parents arranging it struck me as a weird situation.

        • The Nybbler says:

          I believe traditional Jewish law also includes required physical maturity markers, though they use weird ones (pubic hair or breast development) rather than what would seem to be the obvious one.

      • Purplehermann says:

        Depends on the era. (My knowledge comes from the Talmud and its commentators, not normal historians.)
        There were periods where the father generally married his daughters off when they were younger, though the Talmud states that you should not marry your daughter off before she comes of age (as she may resent the marriage later).
        The Talmud writes of girls marrying at 12 as though it was perfectly normal.
        In jewish law 12 and 13 are the cutoff ages for adulthood for females and males respectively (adulthood is based on when people generally hit a mental milestone that allows the to see them as fully conscious thinking agents and coincides with the beginning of puberty)
        and adults can get married. People didn’t like being unmarried supposedly, so I think girls did marry at 12-13 commonly at some points in history.

    • Plumber says:

      @Le Maistre Chat >

      “…what do y’all think was the psychology behind early sexual activity/marriage in the past?…”

      From my reading of various “Daily Life in” and “Time Traveler’s Guides to” popular history books is that early marriage in the past was hardly universal.

      The early and widespread marriage and birth rates of the 1950’s and ’60’s was a bit of an anomaly, in the previous decades of the 20th century city dwellers had less and later marriages compared to the immediate post war era (rural area dwellers on the other hand had even more kids, except during “Depressions”/”Panics”.

      In Medieval and Tudor England the nobility tended to have earlier first marriages than most of the population, girls in their teens, boys in their early 20’s, the vast majority of the population was rural peasantry and yeoman who’s first marriages tended to be in their mid 20’s.

      The urban artisan and merchant class women tended to marry in their mid 20’s, and men in their late 20’s and early 30’s (after they were no longer apprentices and journeymen and had attained “master” status and their own shops).

      They’re Elizabethan era documents of complaints about the “scandal” of urban apprentices “taking wives before becoming masters”, but relative to before and after the Elizabethan era had higher wages, by the time of Restoration era England marriages seem to be later and kess again.

      In contrast Medieval and Renaissance Italy had earlier girls first marriages for city dwellers, and the Italians thought that the English custom of sending their kids into “service” of other households when they were nearly teenagers was weird.

      Not hard to see continuities, English speaking professional class Americans marry later than other Americans now, just like the medieval urban artisan and merchants, and the English upper class still have boarding schools.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        In Medieval and Tudor England the nobility tended to have earlier first marriages than most of the population, girls in their teens, boys in their early 20’s, the vast majority of the population was rural peasantry and yeoman who’s first marriages tended to be in their mid 20’s.

        The urban artisan and merchant class women tended to marry in their mid 20’s, and men in their late 20’s and early 30’s (after they were no longer apprentices and journeymen and had attained “master” status and their own shops).

        Yeah, I’ve read this about England too. Nobility were “set” economically and could afford to start having children early. Everyone else, farmer or urban, not only waited until the woman’s body was mature (20 according to the authority of Aristotle) but on average couldn’t arrange the economic conditions to start a family before the couple’s mid-20s.

      • John Schilling says:

        The Hajnal line may be relevant here. TL,DR Western European women have historically married in their mid-twenties whereas Eastern European women (and a few other clusters) married in their late teens.

        My (tentative) understanding is that the Eastern norm was for couples to marry when the woman was old enough to bear and raise children, with this often beginning in an extended-family household, whereas the Western norm was for couples to marry when the prospective husband was old enough to maintain his own independent household. In both cases with roughly same-aged partners being the norm.

        This explains lower marriage ages for the nobility, who are financially secure from the start. It also explains the anomalously low marriage ages in the US in the 1950s and 1960s, as that was a time of unusual prosperity in the United States when even a young man could fairly easily maintain a household that his bride’s parents would find acceptable.

    • Deiseach says:

      At this age, girls are a decade away from mental maturity (chapter 21 explains why mental maturity occurs around age twenty-five).

      Well bless my soul, if kids aren’t mentally mature until they hit 25, then nobody should be having sex before then. So are we gonna see all those “put 14 year old girls on the pill without their parents’ knowledge” activists rebuked?

      Personally I think the age of adulthood being 21 was sensible, and I don’t know why the push for first 18 and now 16 as the legal age of “you’re all grown-up”, but I really think that sentence is trying to eat your cake and have it. I have a feeling the author so exercised over 15 year old Yemeni girls being married off would be equally offended by “15 year olds should not be able to tra-la-la off to be fitted for an IUD” because that is hampering their natural and normal human right to get their rocks off.

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        With modern contraception, having unwed sex is a far smaller commitment than marriage. More importantly, whether the teenage girl herself is actually seeking out the encounter is a huge factor. I suspect that the thirteen-year-old Yemeni girls have little or no say in when they are married off, who they are married off too, and when their new husbands can start having sex with them. Fourteen-year-olds having safe, consensual sex with other fourteen-year-olds is in no way comparable to fourteen-year-olds being forced into arranged marriages with whatever man will give their parents the highest bride price.

        • hls2003 says:

          Fourteen-year-olds having safe, consensual sex

          In many or most U.S. jurisdictions, it is legally impossible for fourteen-year-olds to have “consensual” sex with anyone of any age. The rationale typically given for this law is the judgment that it is practically impossible for such sex to be “safe” (whether physically, emotionally, or developmentally).

          So I think this is begging the question.

        • Dacyn says:

          @hls2003: I don’t think using the common definition of a word rather than the technical one constitutes begging the question. Of course, you can debate whether a fourteen-year-old’s consent (in the common sense) is important.

        • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

          @hls2003
          Perhaps I should have said “protected” rather than “safe”–what I meant was, using some form of birth control and ideally STD protection (eg condoms), and having a partner who will stop if you say “Ow, stop, you are literally tearing apart my vagina.” And even if one is under the legal age of consent, there is a blindingly clear difference between “hey bb come over my parents aren’t home” and getting raped by a sex abuse ring–or by a man your parents forced you to marry.

        • Aapje says:

          @VoiceOfTheVoid

          Married monogamous people are not commonly very concerned about STD’s.

        • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

          @Aapje
          True; I still hold that marriage is overall a vastly larger commitment than casual sex, with the potential to have a much worse effect on one’s life.

        • Aapje says:

          Marriage or other more secure long term relationships can have huge upsides.

          Also, casual sex can have immense consequences.

        • Also, casual sex can have immense consequences.

          Most often tiny immense consequences.

        • b_jonas says:

          Re hls2003.

          In most of the U.S., if you have sex with a fourteen year old, if they later decide that they don’t like you for any reason, they can then sue you that you have raped them. But in most of the U.S., if you sell someone a cup of coffe, if they later decide that they don’t like you for any reason, they can sue you that you have scalded them with hot coffee. The U.S. just works that way. This doesn’t mean that having sex with a fourteen year old is necessarily unsafe, any more than a cup of hot coffee is necessarily unsafe.

        • John Schilling says:

          if you have sex with a fourteen year old, if they later decide that they don’t like you for any reason, they can then sue you that you have raped them.

          They can also have the police, etc, throw you in jail for a decade or so for having raped them. And the word “sue” does not apply to any part of this process.

          This is rather different than the case for a cup of coffee that does not meet one’s standards.

        • Aapje says:

          @b_jonas

          1. The US doesn’t work that way (the famous hot coffee case actually involved the sale of abnormally hot coffee)

          2. Statutory rape doesn’t require the 14 year old to not like you. Many a person has been convicted for sex that the alleged victim still liked. Some of them even married the convict.

      • Theodoric says:

        In the US, I think the push to lower the age of adulthood from 21 to 18 came because one could be drafted into the military at 18.

    • People in the world’s more conservative countries enforce three forms of gender inequality. These cultures reduce women’s freedom in: (1) sexually attracting male strangers in public, (2) choosing a spouse, and (3) divorcing.

      As opposed to more liberal cultures, where it’s very easy to dissolve the marriage decree itself but very difficult to dissolve the financial obligations associated with it. In their mind, you get more freedom…

    • Aapje says:

      @Atlas

      That is a very biased excerpt.

      For example, conservatism also restrict men’s freedom to attract women and to choose a wife, to great frustration of many men in restrictive countries. It’s just the typical framing where control of both men’s and women’s reproductive behavior is portrayed as only controlling women*.

      * Note that if you control women’s reproductive behavior, you pretty much automatically control men’s reproductive behavior and vice versa.

      Another example of bias is that the excerpt strawman’s the desired conservative outcome, completely ignoring goals like ensuring that fatherhood is clear and that there is a provider for the kids.

    • Purplehermann says:

      In jewish mishna (which is pretty old) pirkei avot it is written that men should be married by 18, and the Talmud praises marriage by 13 for males.

    • aristides says:

      Look at how different the ideal women has looked over the last 100 years. There is a lot of variation that is culturally dependent. My belief, is that men will find attractive what their culture tells them to, up to a certain point. Psychologists consider attraction to pubescent girls normal, even today, even if the relationship is psychologically damaging. If you grow up in a culture that sexualize a girls still going through puberty, the average man will find them attractive.

      I will add that through most of human history, 14 is the common age at first marriage. In a society where virginity is the most important quality, it makes evolutionary sense to marry the girl as close to the age they are first able to have sex, if not earlier, to make sure no one beats you to her.

      • Randy M says:

        Psychologists consider attraction to pubescent girls normal, even today, even if the relationship is psychologically damaging.

        Leaving aside the obvious physiological difficulties if the teen was not fully matured, which is reason enough for some delay, I wonder just how psychologically damaging a stable peer marriage would be for a, say, fourteen year old.
        Sex is obviously psychologically impactful, but it seems less stressful or demanding than the sexual competition that usually precedes marriage. Being rejected, overlooked, or even competed for doesn’t seem more psychologically healthy than making a commitment and settling into predictable marriage roles.
        Now obviously the fail case of a bad marriage is worth waiting until there is more discernment to apply to the selection process given that we don’t force youths to rely on the judgement of elders in such major decisions. So it might be a moot point in our society. And also, by specifying peer marriage, I’m excluding being married away to much older men or sold or whatever.

        • Nick says:

          Well, being teenagers, they’d still make really stupid decisions. I don’t imagine they could manage their own household well without help from their parents.

          • Randy M says:

            And by and large, I don’t think they should be necessarily expected to try, but the question was more about the relationship–and sex itself–than independence.
            And in the past, managing your household was pretty different than currently.

    • mtl1882 says:

      It seems a lot of of it had to do with practical circumstances, with girls needing to secure future support, whether arranged by parents for royal children, or done out of desperation by a poor girl with no options, either by her parents or on her own accord. They didn’t necessarily sleep together right away, but could help with the household. Men wanted a “pure” woman, one who didn’t have STDs, and in some places women were rare. Some girls develop early, so maybe they were the ones marrying. Also, people didn’t live long, and women were considered dependents in a way that meant having a child-bride was less weird than it would be in a culture in which you are supposed to seek a “life partner” relationship. Once societies got beyond a focus on basic survival, this seems to have become much rarer in most cases. I think it still goes on in parts of the world that are focused on day-to-day survival. As others have mentioned, childbirth at that age is often dangerous, so it’s unlikely to stay popular in a society with some level of comfort, or at least be replaced with a long engagement.

    • b_jonas says:

      Gwern argues in “https://www.gwern.net/Questions#physical-beauty” that before modern times, humans were less often beautiful than now, and more importantly for us, that their appearance aged more quickly than now. This suggests that a 20 year old person from the 18th century might be physically unattractive, and so would be less valuable on a marriage market. That, I think, may explain at least part of why marriages in earlier ages were common.

      But sure, the more obvious part of it is how in our time, many people study in colleges for an extended time, and want to marry only afterwards.

  30. A Definite Beta Guy says:

    This is going to come across as a crappy post compared to your effort post, but the criticism of the Treaty of Versailles has come to strike me as a very elementary view of inter-war relations. Particularly that one quote (you all know it!) from a French general, that actually implied the settlement was too generous to Germany (when people instead argue that Germany was instead harshly treated and this led directly to WWII).

    As you point out, the world stabilized a lot in the 1920s, and there’s no particular reason “The New Normal” couldn’t have been sustained. Germany’s initial inability/unwillingness to pay reparations led directly to the occupation of Ruhr, which led to the hyper-inflation, but this ended by the mid-20s. The West granted both the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan to lessen the burden of reparations and allow the German economy to grow. Locarno was formalized in 1925 to settle Western borders (implicitly leaving Eastern borders up to negotiated resettlement).

    To the extent that early post-war diplomacy sucked, it was largely French unilateral decisions. To the extent that we wandered into WWII, it’s less the direct result of the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919 and more the result of Western fecklessness in the face of early Nazi treaty violations. If we’re judging the effectiveness of policy based solely on how “nice” we were, Germany after WWII was treated like utter crap: subjected to possibly permanent military occupation, divided among the victorious powers, its people ethnically cleansed, and still subject to economic reparations (though they wouldn’t start up again for nearly a decade).

  31. Machine Interface says:

    Tallying up the answers to the “your favorite movies of the 2010s” question in the previous open thread, here are all the films that have received at least 3 mentions:

    Arrival (6)
    Mad Max: Fury Road (6)
    Inception (6)
    The Grand Budapest Hotel (5)
    The Martian (4)
    Into the Spider-verse (4)
    Blade Runner: 2049 (3)
    Interstellar (3)
    Moonrise Kingdom (3)
    The Tree of Life (3)
    Her (3)
    Ex Machina (3)
    The Handmaiden (3)
    The Wolf of Wall Street (3)
    Edge of Tomorrow (3)

    • Plumber says:

      @Machine Interface,

      I’ve seen five of the movies on that list; and I almost remember what happened in four of them!

      • Machine Interface says:

        I’ve seen seven: Arrival, Fury Road, Inception, The Martian, Blade Runner 2049, Interstellar and The Tree of Life. I liked them all except Interstellar, which I found too long and stuffed with corny melodrama — as far as recent “somewhat-hard-scifi space films with a psychological dimension” go, I much prefer Ad Astra, but I’m aware that I’m very much in the minority in this (at least as far as the general public is concerned; cinema critics seem to be more in agreement with me).

    • A Definite Beta Guy says:

      Not surprised by most of these. I still don’t get Mad Max and I never liked Inception, and Ex Machina didn’t work for me…

      But Wolf of Wall Street grew on me, and Edge of Tomorrow was surprisingly good. Maybe I just went in with low expectations.

      Arrival was freakin’ awesome, and Into the Spider-Verse is probably the best Spiderman movie ever made (close second being Spiderman 2).

    • beleester says:

      I’ve seen 9 of these! I feel cultured. Or at least in-tune with the SSC culture.

  32. Aapje says:

    The League of Nations/UN might create peace…or peace might create/empower the League of Nations/UN. I lean a lot more towards the latter being the dominant force, especially since adherence to the world order seems in large part voluntary. The US/Russia/etc do go to war without UN approval, if they so please.

    So Wilson’s trade for the illusory pacifying force of the League of Nations, at the expense of the actual pacifying force of normalizing Germany’s position in the world, seems like a very poor choice.

    For whatever reason, after a while people really, really don’t liked being ruled over by foreigners, even if those foreigners are relatively competent governors.

    This can be fairly easily be explained by a combination of people really liking to have their own culture, as well as unilateral or lopsided sacrifice* requiring a sense of comradery (which in turn is often based at least in part on culture).

    This is also why globalism is dangerous. The bifurcation between elite internationalist culture and commoner local culture reduces the willingness for either to sacrifice for each other (or even thinking that they do so, when they don’t, really). Historically, the elite was small and thus susceptible to revolution. In modern times, the elite is quite big, with current wealth and technology enabling a globalist lifestyle for many. On the other hand, democracy means that a ‘revolution’ can happen in the voting booth.

    * Note that this can exist both at the group or individual level.

    It used to be that one empire often followed another. But, in the Americas, in Europe, in Africa, in the Middle East, in East and South Asia, over the past couple hundred years empires have fallen and been replaced with independent states. The fact that this has occurred at different times and on different continents makes me suspect that it is the result of convergent evolution rather than contingency.

    People keep trying to build an empire, though. The Soviet Union, the Third Reich, the EU, China. It may be cyclical.

    • Statismagician says:

      Russett and Oneal are, flatly, doing statistics wrong; regression is an inappropriate tool for something so obviously and trivially multicollinear as post-Vienna Congress international relations. I don’t have a worked-out position on the drivers of world peacefulness, but even if they’re right, their method is bad and they should feel bad.

    • Aapje says:

      @Atlas

      92% of Hong Kong is Han Chinese and 97% of Taiwan. I guess that means that both places are happy with Chinese rule…

      Note that the Soviet Union and China have/had the goal to destroy local culture.

      I also think that the EU isn’t exactly an empire the way that the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany were.

      No empires are exactly alike. They all seem to have their idiosyncrasies.

      Ultimately, I also think that there is a spectrum. An elite with a certain subculture ruling over the rest of society with substantially different subculture(s) can be a lot like one country with one culture ruling over another country, but it is also different. Democratic power of the ruled can range from 0 to total control. Protections for minorities can differ, etc.

    • EchoChaos says:

      @Aapje

      And the first rebellion against the British Empire wasn’t the Africans, Indians, Asians or natives, but the Thirteen Colonies, which were pretty much exclusively Anglo of some stripe and led by the Cavaliers and Puritans, who were the most English Englishmen ever.

    • The original Mr. X says:

      And the first rebellion against the British Empire wasn’t the Africans, Indians, Asians or natives, but the Thirteen Colonies

      *cries in Irish*

  33. Chris Phoenix says:

    TLDR: Don’t “lie” or oversimplify, especially about science.

    On a recent open thread, Woah77 defended telling “lies to children” in science – that is, giving students inaccurate/approximate models and then, hopefully, correcting them later.
     
    I’m posting this to emphatically disagree with this approach. True story: I was told without qualification that light and heavy objects fall at the same rate. When I first read The Rolling Stones by Heinlein, in which he describes a spilled cup of coffee falling slowly on the Moon, I knew right away that he must have made a mistake. The reasoning is simple and impeccable: Drop the Moon on the Earth, switch perspectives, and shrink the Earth to a coffee cup.

    From any falsehood, no matter how trivial, one can derive (almost?) any other falsehood. This is extra-important in science, where so much is counterintuitive. Thus, my claim: In science pedagogy, the only appropriate approach is to always warn that a simplified or limited scientific model is approximate. If that means you have to say, “This entire field is approximate because we can’t describe it exactly” then you must say that.

    Another true story: I took a sociology class at Stanford which focused on the incest taboo. The professor claimed that a high rate of albinism in a small population was not related to inbreeding. I objected that this made no sense. He defended his claim, showing me the equation he used to support it. I distrusted the equation. I had to look back through a chain of three references before I found a simplifying assumption in a derivation which rendered the derived equation inapplicable. A Stanford professor was flat wrong in a major claim that he was teaching – worse, he did not apply common sense even when questioned – because he trusted a simplified and inaccurate model to be fully accurate.

    • Ouroborobot says:

      There are lies, there are errors, and there are simplified models that only approximate the underlying mechanisms. One of these is not like the other. Woah seemed to be saying there is nothing wrong with the last one, and I agree with that. Having different “resolutions of knowledge” is useful for easing into advanced concepts, and shorthand approximations are often good enough when a deeper level of knowledge isn’t needed. I don’t think my education was any worse for having been given the impression when I was a child that electrons orbit atomic nuclei like little moons rather than being taught about probability amplitudes and wavefunctions and whatnot. It would be pretty difficult to teach basic optics if we had to go straight to quantum electrodynamics. And knowledge of newtonian physics is still useful without knowing anything about relativity. Attach a disclaimer to them, meh, sure I guess. But I’m not sure I see the problem you are seeing, and I’m struggling to imagine how what you are suggesting would even work.

      • Radu Floricica says:

        I think it’s related to the unconscious bias of replacing a difficult question with an easier one and answering that, then thinking you’ve answered the original question. Softer sciences are extremely vulnerable to that, because they can be treated mathematically only with a pretty large number of simplifying assumptions. Plus it’s a matter of incentives and status – if sociology professors would almost always say “I don’t know” it would hurt them. It’s easier, psychologically and practically to say “we have a formula for that”, even if it’s useless. I’d go as far as to say that a good part (over half?) of mathematical formulas in related sciences are useless in practice because they treat too narrow cases.

    • fibio says:

      The professor claimed that a high rate of albinism in a small population was not related to inbreeding.

      Good grief. I did a lot of genetics courses at uni and that kind of statement would get you laughed out of the room. What else could be inflating the observed rate of a rare gene? Unless the population was living in an old nuclear power plant 😛

    • Enkidum says:

      the only appropriate approach is to always warn that a simplified or limited scientific model is approximate.

      This is true of literally every scientific field, period. Except perhaps particle physics, if and when it gets finished.

      As @ouroborobot (that’s a really hard word to type), “there are simplified models that only only approximate the underlying mechanisms” – what they didn’t note is that this is effectively all models.

      So you could just add a blanket disclaimer to all fields, but you could also just take it as given.

    • B_Epstein says:

      “Oversimplify” is bad, of course – that’s why it begins with “over”. But the other side of the coin seems to me to be at least as damaging. A (non-degenerate) triangle can be defined as the boundary of a simplex created by the convex combination of three (non-collinear) points in the plane. That’s a useful definition in some contexts. I can imagine Grothendieck preferring it to “three straight segments glued together in a loop, see – like this”, even with the latter properly formalized. Which one is more suitable as the first definition a child shall ever hear? And should that first definition be accompanied by a lecture on epistemological humility?

      • Dacyn says:

        A definition can’t really be a lie because its purpose is to introduce a new concept rather than state a fact. But it can also be interpreted as an implicit claim (which by the way has been false for many definitions in math classes I have taken) that this is how the word is usually used. Since it is in fact the case that the word “triangle” is used to refer to the objects that the child learns to call triangles, the implicit claim is valid in this case. So there is no lie implicit or explicit, regardless of whether the same concept might be defined differently in another context.

        • B_Epstein says:

          That was an example of insufficient simplification.

          • Dacyn says:

            Okay, simplifying: The answer to the second question in your previous comment is “no”, because there’s nothing to be epistemologically humble about here. The kid’s triangle definition is great!

          • Joseph Greenwood says:

            What about saying that a real number is a decimal expansion like 34.1293629262…?

            This is a thing which people say, which is a simplifying assumption, which leads them to assert other wrong things! Mainly, they start asserting 0.9999999… < 1, which is obviously false if you consider a real number to be an equivalence class of Cauchy sequences.

          • Dacyn says:

            @Joseph Greenwood: That’s an interesting example, I think usually people first say something like a real number is a point on the number line or something, and then treat decimal expansions as representations. Which is true, but can still mislead people into the mistake you mentioned if you don’t also mention that the representations aren’t unique. So I don’t know if it’s exactly a lie-to-children.

    • woah77 says:

      As others have pointed out: I was defending simplified models. Also have others have pointed out: all models are simplified models. Now someone, somewhere definitely needs to point this out. Maybe even regularly. But it doesn’t need to be said before each and every model because at some point it’s a given.

      Another (non-science) example is teaching children (teenagers) to drive. “Here’s what you do when…” is a simplified model. It’s a basic rule to keep you from locking up and making things worse/more unsafe. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do/thing that will keep you going towards your destination. Largely that isn’t explained at the onset of teaching because until the child has started driving, the right instructions just don’t make sense.

      This is true, in my experience, for most of science. Lots of behaviors are counter intuitive, and the simplified models don’t cover them not to lie to you, but because if you try to explain the more complicated behavior before the student is ready they end up with an even worse idea of how things work. A simplified approximation is (usually) better than a truly flawed deeper understanding which is not even wrong.

    • Light and heavy objects do accelerate at the same rate, it’s just that a really heavy object (a cup with the mass of the Earth) will pull the planet “up” as the planet pulls it “down.”

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        Light and heavy objects do accelerate at the same rate when at the same distance from the same object. 9.81 m/s^2 is the acceleration due to gravity at the surface of the earth, and doesn’t apply for coffee cups falling on the moon (for which there would be a lower local acceleration due to gravity, because of the moon’s smaller mass).

        • acymetric says:

          I feel like the confusion about a coffee cup falling slowly on the Moon is probably the result of the OP misunderstanding what was being taught, not the wrong thing being taught.

        • Yes. I interpreted OP’s point to be that if you have a coffee cup with the mass of the earth and drop it on the moon, it will accelerate toward the moon faster than an ordinary coffee cup, which is not correct.

          • drunkfish says:

            No that’s absolutely correct. Or more specifically, the earth-mass-cup will approach the surface of the moon faster than the coffee cup will. The reason is really that in addition to the moon pulling in both cups, the earth-mass-cup pulls the moon toward it quickly while the coffee cup only imparts a negligible acceleration on the moon.

            The acceleration of both cups are equal, but the rate of approaching the surface of the moon is different because only one of them (meaningfully) moves the moon.

    • aphyer says:

      Is it acceptable to teach children Newtonian mechanics, despite it being incorrect, just because it is good enough for estimation purposes at low velocities? Or must we jump straight to teaching them relativity?

    • eigenmoon says:

      Here’s a non-oversimplified definition of natural numbers. Feel free to teach it to 7-year old children, surely they will appreciate getting the full picture without lies.

      First of all, while most disciplines of mathematics define 0 not to be a natural number, some do, especially those that would concern themselves with defining natural numbers. So we’ll assume that 0 is a natural number.

      One could in principle say that every set with fixed elements 0 and 1 and operations + and * is a natural number set if it obeys Peano axioms. But that leaves out the question why at least one such set exists. Here’s where things get tricky, because the construction of natural numbers will vary depending on what you can construct them from.

      Probably the purest construction, meaning that it uses the least assumptions about the underlying logic, is Church numbers: a number is a function of two arguments that applies its first argument to its second argument that amount of times. For example, 3(f, x) = f(f(f(x))). This is all very nice but there’s no way to test if a given thing is a natural number. That is kind of a problem.

      If the underlying logic is constructive, it should explicitly support some kind of variable-size constructions, then natural numbers can be easily built from that. For example, if one can do recursive type definitions with constructors, you can just define a type N to be generated by constructors 0: N and S: N -> N. This however feels like a cheat because instead of actually explaining what natural numbers are we’ve simply applied a facility of the meta-language that is much more powerful to begin with.

      Here’s a classical construction from sets. It also feels like a cheat because onthological foundations of sets are much shakier than those of natural numbers, plus we have to fiddle with the infinity axiom. Yet it’s an actual construction rather than complete piggybacking on the meta-language. Here goes: 0 is the empty set, S(x) = x U {x}; that means 1 = {0}, 2 = {0, 1}, 3 = {0, 1, 2} etc. Define a predicate P(x) to be 0 in x /\ forall y in x, S(y) in x. Every set that satisfies P contains all natural numbers; we need an intersection of all such sets.

      But first we need at least one set satisfying P. Here comes the trick: we need some kind of infinity axiom (“at least one infinite set exists”) and we just choose to have the infinity axiom in this form: there’s at least one set satisfying P, denote it Inf. Now we just need to intersect all subsets of Inf satisfying P, and that will be the set of natural numbers.

      • Enkidum says:

        Here’s a non-oversimplified definition of natural numbers. Feel free to teach it to 7-year old children, surely they will appreciate getting the full picture without lies.

        roflcopter

      • Dacyn says:

        Every child who knows how to count [1] knows what the natural numbers are. It is not necessary to define them. If you do want to define them, you need to take account of the fact that definitions of things in terms of other things can only take you so far: you have to start with a concept that isn’t defined at all but only presented. Standard pedagogy takes the natural numbers as the first such concept, and I believe this is the correct decision. Mathematical logic then takes the von Neumann universe of sets as the second such concept, and then claims to be able to reinterpret the first concept within the context of the second [2]. This is what you last “definition” is: it is only a definition insofar as you already take the von Neumann universe for granted; but it is not clear why you shouldn’t instead just take the natural numbers for granted, as children do.

        [1] Here I mean “knows how to count and is confident that they would be able to count arbitrarily high”.
        [2] I have issues with both the von Neumann universe itself as well as its claim to be capable of expressing the concept of natural numbers.

        • eigenmoon says:

          Every child who knows how to count knows what the natural numbers are. It is not necessary to define them.

          I strongly disagree with this. Every child knows that natural numbers are tools used by humans to count things. But what does it mean to say that there are infinite amount of natural numbers if there are only finite amount of humans and each one can only think of a finite amount of numbers? There is a massive jump from numbers as special counting phrases that exist only when a human utters them to numbers as abstract ideas hanging immutably in some sort of Plato’s world of ideas regardless of whether humans are still alive or not. It’s not clear whether such a jump should indeed be taken, but if you don’t do it, you can’t get to regular classical mathematics, and if you do, you’d better come up with some explanation as to why you assign ontological reality to imaginary tools that help you count. There’s no way that children can just navigate out of this naturally.

          • Statismagician says:

            Except that they do, trivially, all the time and without particular prompting. ‘My favorite color is blue’ has already made the same progression to ontological reality of what’s encountered only as an inherent quality. I confess I haven’t tried to have a lot of complicated mathematical discussion with small children, but I don’t expect this would be a problem if I did.

          • Dacyn says:

            @eigenmoon: What you say now has little to do with the content of your previous comment, which did not mention explaining Platonism to children but rather delved into technicalities that are wholly irrelevant to the philosophical issues.

            In any case, I agree with Statismagician that the abstraction of numbers (or words more generally) from their instances is a step that children find natural, even if Platonic ideas about “independent existence” are not as clear. In fact, I don’t really agree with Platonic ideas [1]; I think that “numbers we could say, if we had time to say them” is a good definition of abstract natural numbers, and hypotheticals aren’t usually said to exist.

            [1] Actually I think that “existence” is a word that needs to be tabooed in these kinds of discussions, so I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with Plato here.

          • eigenmoon says:

            @Statismagician
            That this jump is psychologically easy for children doesn’t mean that they understand all the issues involved. It is also easy for children to assert the ontological reality of sets. But that doesn’t mean they can tell you whether you should pick the axiom of choice or the axiom of determinacy and why (they’re both nice, but incompatible).

            @Dacyn
            delved into technicalities that are wholly irrelevant to the philosophical issues
            Whether your underlying logic is constructive or classical has everything to do with the philosophical issues, because those logics stand on different philosophical grounds.

            Actually I think that “existence” is a word that needs to be tabooed
            But mathematicians talk about existence all the time! Let’s suppose that we have a predicate P over natural numbers and we’ve driven an assumption “forall x, not P(x)” to contradiction. Thus, says classical math, there exists a number satisfying P. But wait! How does it exist if we don’t have it yet?

            At this point the constructivists would admit that the number doesn’t exist yet, while the formalists will assert that mathematical existence is just a word and has nothing to do with any kind of philosophical existence. But children aren’t taught any of that cop-outs.

            “numbers we could say, if we had time to say them” is a good definition of abstract natural numbers
            OK! But what you just did has massive consequences for calculus. In classical calculus, a real number is an actually infinite array of digits, which is only possible because the set of possible indices into that array – the natural numbers – is also actually rather than potentially infinite. But in your approach a real number can only unfold potentially, like a program that prints as many digits of pi as it can, because we don’t have infinite time to print all of those digits at once.

            Now if you have two real numbers, x and y, in classical calculus it’s either x = y or x =/= y. But we’re not in classical math anymore, and x and y are just digit-printing programs, so we have a third option, denoted x#y, meaning that x and y have so far produced identical digits but maybe we’ll see a difference in the future. And at this point most mathematicians close the book on constructive calculus and convert to Platonism.

          • Dacyn says:

            @eigenmoon: First of all, I hope I didn’t come across as too combative in my previous comment. Anyway:

            But that doesn’t mean they can tell you whether you should pick the axiom of choice or the axiom of determinacy and why (they’re both nice, but incompatible).

            Axioms are not the same thing as concepts. If a child has a concept of sets [1], it may or may not be true that the axiom of choice holds for his concept, but just because he does not know which is the case does not mean he does not know the concept. For example, we don’t know whether the Riemann hypothesis (which can be stated in Peano arithmetic) is true, but it would be silly to suggest that this means we don’t know what a natural number is.

            [1] I do think that this is more questionable than that he has a concept of numbers, can explain further if you are interested

            Whether your underlying logic is constructive or classical has everything to do with the philosophical issues, because those logics stand on different philosophical grounds.

            You seem to be assuming that the child needs to be explicitly doing logic in order to understand what a natural number is. The reverse is true: it is impossible to define mathematical logic without already having a concept of natural numbers.

            But mathematicians talk about existence all the time!

            The reason I say existence needs to be tabooed is that different groups of people tend to mean different things by it. Mathematicians as a group are uniform enough that they don’t need to taboo it, they’re not trying to do philosophical discussion.

            At this point the constructivists would admit […]

            I agree, but I don’t think it means that they have different concepts of what a natural number is, they just disagree as to how to reason about them.

            But what you just did has massive consequences for calculus.

            Sure, I didn’t claim people understood calculus the first time they are introduced to it. I agree that one’s more complicated.

            Now if you have two real numbers, x and y, in classical calculus it’s either x = y or x =/= y. But we’re not in classical math anymore, and x and y are just digit-printing programs, so we have a third option, denoted x#y, meaning that x and y have so far produced identical digits but maybe we’ll see a difference in the future. And at this point most mathematicians close the book on constructive calculus and convert to Platonism.

            My impression is there are more formalists than Platonists, but I don’t know. Anyway, I actually take a middle route between Platonism and constructivism, which is called predicativism. I think for any two digit-printing programs, there’s a fact of the matter as to whether they will produce identical digits eternally. But on the other hand, I don’t think there’s necessarily a fact of the matter about whether “all real numbers” have some property (and in fact I think the notion of a real number is open-ended in the way the notion of a natural number isn’t).

          • eigenmoon says:

            @Dacyn
            I hope I didn’t come across as too combative in my previous comment.
            No no, we’re having a very calm discussion, while the CW rages all around us 🙂

            Axioms are not the same thing as concepts.
            Sure, but the question “what is it?” is closely related to the question “what can we do with it?”. If not just theorems (like Riemann hypothesis) are in flux, but axioms too, I have to question whether there’s really a concept behind it as opposed to a mere wishlist of properties that would be nice to have. In NBG set theory there are two kinds of objects, sets and classes, that are conceptually close but not quite the same. There have to be different concepts behind sets and classes, otherwise how could they end up within the same theory and be different? Maybe we can concoct a theory that has both axiom-of-choice and axiom-of-determinacy sets. Such a theory probably wouldn’t be very useful but wouldn’t it show that axiom-of-choice and axiom-of-determinacy sets aren’t exactly the same concept?

            You seem to be assuming that the child needs to be explicitly doing logic in order to understand what a natural number is.
            Not explicitly but yes. In order to count, the child needs to grasp the one-to-one correspondence between unary and decimal representations. The child doesn’t formally prove it but there’s some reasoning going on there. Here I’m with constructivists in thinking that this reasoning, despite not being formal, is in fact constructive logic.

            I don’t think it means that they have different concepts of what a natural number is, they just disagree as to how to reason about them.
            This statement is tricky, because for a particular natural number, such as 10, they have the same concept of what it is, but for N – the collection of all natural numbers – they have different concepts.

            As I’ve said above, the question of “what is it?” is closely related to the question “what can we do with it?”, and the question “how can we reason about it?” is not far away either – I’d venture to say it’s a part of the “what can we do?” question. So just as before I’ve treated axiom-of-choice sets and axiom-of-determinacy sets as two close but different concepts, I treat natural-numbers-as-created-by-us and natural-numbers-as-discovered-by-us as two slightly different things, and which one we’re dealing with depends on things like whether “not (forall x, P(x)) -> exists x, not P(x)” is a valid move or not.

            This is not really important though, and can be regarded as a hair-splitting difference. The more substantial disagreement is whether natural numbers or some kind of constructive logic comes first.

            I actually take a middle route between Platonism and constructivism, which is called predicativism.
            Interesting! I’m going to read Feferman’s overview.

          • Dacyn says:

            @eigenmoon:

            If not just theorems (like Riemann hypothesis) are in flux, but axioms too, I have to question whether there’s really a concept behind it as opposed to a mere wishlist of properties that would be nice to have.

            But an axiom system is exactly just that: a wishlist of properties. If there is no “meat” to your concept other than axioms, that is when you should start being worried that there is not really a concept behind it.

            And the question of which set of axioms should be used to describe the von Neumann universe is very much in flux.

            There is a sense in which you are right: someone doesn’t really understand the concept of “proving things in ZFC (or PA)” without training. But the reason that these concepts developed was as a way of formalizing our intuitions about notions we already had. But our intuitions about these notions are not part of the notions themselves.

            Not explicitly but yes

            You seem to have missed my point, which is that if the child’s reasoning isn’t explicit, then it’s not clear why the child needs to understand his own reasoning in order to count as understanding the object-level concept. After all, there’s plenty of things about how our minds work that we don’t understand that are relevant to e.g. science, but no one says this means we don’t understand science.

            axiom-of-choice sets and axiom-of-determinacy sets

            I have no idea what this could possibly mean. You seem to be saying that there are two kinds of sets, and that one of those collections satisfies the axiom of choice and the other satisfies the axiom of determinacy. But how are these collections produced, if not according to the von Neumann method? And if they both are, then should not the two collections be the same?

            As I’ve said above, the question of “what is it?” is closely related to the question “what can we do with it?”, and the question “how can we reason about it?” is not far away either

            For the record, I disagree with the connotations of this sentence, hopefully the above explains why.

          • eigenmoon says:

            @Dacyn
            But how are these collections produced, if not according to the von Neumann method?
            I’m not quite comfortable with treating von Neumann’s universe as a method of producing sets, since it’s indexed by ordinals and you only get ordinals from sets to begin with. But if we really have to produce sets this way, then determinacy-compliant sets switch to Gödel’s universe somewhere around R. Von Neumann’s universe depends on Zorn’s lemma, which is equivalent to the axiom of choice, but the axiom of determinacy prevents R from being well-ordered, thus breaking it out from Von Neumann’s scheme.

            If there is no “meat” to your concept other than axioms, that is when you should start being worried that there is not really a concept behind it.
            And I am indeed worried that there’s not really a concept of sets other than “let’s have something that’s like finite sets except possibly infinite”!

            then it’s not clear why the child needs to understand his own reasoning in order to count as understanding the object-level concept.
            All right, when you put it like that, I agree with you.

          • Dacyn says:

            @eigenmoon:

            I’m not quite comfortable with treating von Neumann’s universe as a method of producing sets, since it’s indexed by ordinals and you only get ordinals from sets to begin with.

            For the purposes of defining sets via the von Neumann universe, ordinals don’t come from sets: they are just suppose to be the extension of natural numbers where instead of only two construction operations “zero” and “increment”, there is a third construction operation “limit”. I agree it is sort of nebulous what does “limit” mean, which is one reason why I don’t think that the notion of (infinite) sets as usually presented is coherent. It seems you don’t disagree with me on this.

            A terminological point: what you call “axiom-of-choice sets” and “axiom-of-determinacy sets” are usually called “sets” and “constructible sets”, respectively. I don’t think your names make much sense, since satisfying choice or determinacy are properties of collections of sets, not of sets themselves, e.g. every constructible set is a set, but it sounds silly to say that every axiom-of-determinacy set is an axiom-of-choice set. That’s why I was confused when you started talking about them, but it looks like we’ve cleared it up now.

          • Dacyn says:

            (correction: “constructible” -> “R-constructible”)

    • The Nybbler says:

      The “lie” that objects fall at the same rate is a reasonable approximation in most real-world conditions. I don’t think that the fact that this resulted in you mistakenly thinking an SF story was wrong when it was right is enough to argue against teaching the approximation. The best models we have are rather complex and hard to teach; you certainly don’t want to have to get into Lorentz transforms or General Relativity when teaching basic physics. So you have to simplify, and starting with a model that handles only small objects in a constant gravity field seems reasonable enough.

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        I think that breaking out general relativity would be excessive, but in this case a disclaimer of “this is the acceleration due to gravity at the surface of the earth, it would be lower on the moon and higher near Jupiter” would be in order.

        • Jake R says:

          The one that ticked me off was that they assume away air resistance. If both objects are dropped from high enough to reach their terminal velocities, all else being equal, the heavier one will hit the ground first! My intuitions were right all along, dammit!

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            That’s true. I understand why they do it, though–once you’re trying to account for air resistance, your equations get a lot more complicated and need calculus to be solved.

          • woah77 says:

            Air resistance depends on (if I recall correctly) surface area and shape of the colliding face. The heavier one will only hit the ground first (by any significant margin) if the air resistance on the lighter object is substantial enough to counter the force of gravity. For example: A feather will fall slower than a bowling ball, but a penny will likely fall faster than an umbrella. However, a penny does not fall faster or slower than a half dollar coin, which is based upon the force of gravity, since air resistance will be rather similar, even though the half dollar is at least twice as heavy.

          • Jake R says:

            @woah77

            Yes, that’s why I said all else being equal. Specifically, the example I was given in physics class was a basketball and a bowling ball. That is, two spheres of roughly equal radius but very different masses. You’d think the bowling ball would hit faster, but actually they hit the ground at the same time! Isn’t that fun and counterintuitive, yay physics! Except they don’t because air, and that seems like a pretty important caveat if we’re trying to calibrate intuitions.

          • woah77 says:

            Well that’s the difference between teaching physics and calibrating intuition. Teaching physics, which to actually use simple models needs to be done in circumstances that simply aren’t accessible easily, is about demonstrating principals related to the equations you are learning. In the mentioned example: That gravity pulls on all objects within it’s influence equally. That doesn’t mean we can really isolate out other factors, and understanding the other factors and their magnitudes is what separates intellectual physics from engineering.

            What I find far more unforgivable is the amount of time engineering classes spend not accounting for those factors, because much of the time it isn’t precision of physics calculations I care about, but the magnitude of externalities (noise, air resistance, nearby magnetic fields, etc). It is entirely accurate to say that a bowling ball and a basket ball will fall at the same speed +/- a noise factor that has a magnitude of x, which a simplified model will ignore (because assuming a vacuum makes the noise factor 0), but an engineer really cares about.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Even Physics 101 air resistance includes a term based on velocity and a term based on the square of velocity. Which makes it not only a differential equation, but a non-linear one, and no one wants to solve that.

          • Jake R says:

            @The Nybber

            The only equation for drag force I’ve seen is proportional to v^2 only. I’m not familiar with any polynomial equations for drag. I haven’t had to use it in a long time though.

          • Lambert says:

            There’s parasitic drag and skin friction drag.
            I think one’s linear and the other quadratic.
            But it really depends on Reynolds number and stuff.

          • smocc says:

            The AP physics curriculum and other many other college-intro-level physics curricula teach drag as linear in velocity. They do this entirely for pedagogical reasons; it’s a nice first introduction to Newton’s 2nd law as a differential equation because it yields the easiest possible non-trivial differential equation.

            Drag is actually linear in velocity in the limit where the Reynolds’ number becomes zero, but there are very few real-world situations that match that.

            I teach my students the next most true thing, where drag is proportional to the square of the velocity. But even that isn’t quite really true because the drag coefficient is a non-trivial function of the Reynolds’ number, giving real drag a non-power-law dependence on velocity. (For example, the transition between laminar flow and turbulent flow changes the drag coefficient quite a bit, which is why golf balls have dimples.)

          • John Schilling says:

            Skin friction drag is included in parasitic drag, which is the sum of skin friction drag and form drag. You may be thinking of parasitic vs induced drag, which are often considered separately. But for an object of fixed mass and geometry moving through anything resembling sea-level air at any reasonable velocity and in a fixed orientation, all three forms of drag (form, friction, and induced) will scale with the square of velocity.

            The reason for treating induced drag separately is that induced drag is induced by generation of lift, so there is a common and important set of problems where the rule is not “fixed orientation” but “as velocity changes, I will tweak orientation so that lift remains equal to weight”, which changes induced drag significantly(*). But this isn’t generally relevant to falling objects.

            There’s also wave drag, which is a messy function of Mach number, not relevant to falling objects unless they fall really fast.

            General rule of thumb: In ordinary fluids, for anything that isn’t an airplane and/or at least transonic, drag scales as the square of velocity.

            * Induced drag actually decreases with velocity, if lift is held constant.

          • Jake R says:

            Well TIL a lot more about drag. Either way I’m not saying you have to teach differential equations to explain the physics of a dropped object. I would have just appreciated a “while gravity accelerates both objects equally, heavier objects push through the air better and so actually do tend to fall slightly faster.”

    • Deiseach says:

      I took a sociology class at Stanford which focused on the incest taboo

      A Stanford professor was flat wrong in a major claim that he was teaching

      Well, the answer is in the question. If that had been a biology class, I’d be shocked to the marrow of my bones. Sociology? What did you expect going in? 🙂

    • Chris Phoenix says:

      I am amazed at how many people thought I was saying “never teach simplifications.” Of course, it’s possible that a lot of people understood me, agreed with me, and didn’t bother to reply, so the apparent massive lack of comprehension may be an illusion.

      What I said was “never teach simplifications without acknowledging that they are simplifications.”

      I was amused and intrigued to see that an engineer said (I’m paraphrasing) “It’s OK for science, but simplifications really suck in engineering.” I would have said the opposite: In engineering, you just have to get a close-enough answer, and you know you’re always approximating because you’re dealing with real-world things. Apparently I would have been wrong – which may generalize to demonstrate that simplifications are perceived as harmful in fields one cares about.

      On the topic of how frequently to disclaim: Consider that basic physics instruction often says things like “If these wheels were frictionless, this thing would go forever from one push” and “These ballistic equations ignore air resistance, of course.” So disclaimers are often given when necessary to preserve the teacher’s credibility.

      The ugly flip side may be that disclaimers are not given when the teacher thinks the student will never discover the error. Do pendulums have the exact same period regardless of amplitude? No, they do not, and occasionally you’ll hear this acknowledged. Do objects of different masses dropped at different times in a perfect vacuum hit the ground at the same time? No they do not, but you’ll almost never hear that acknowledged.

      Something presented as a perfect mathematical equality needs a disclaimer whenever that inequality is not perfect. This becomes more true, but less likely to happen, as the inequality gets closer to perfection.

      And yes, I tell my three year old, “It’s empty – except for air, dust, and bacteria, of course.” Even there, I’m breaking my own rules – I only rarely remember to mention other biomatter, and I don’t think I’ve ever thought to mention the likelihood of a monolayer of water. But at least she knows “empty” is an approximation!

      • Enkidum says:

        I agree it would be nice to specify what we do know about what we don’t know, or the unrealistic assumptions of our models. I was going to say “this isn’t done enough in fields like economics” but then I realized I’ve never taken an economics class so I couldn’t tell you if that’s true, though it is my impression. I think many people would say it’s not done enough in, e.g., psychology, but in psychology classes I’ve taken that involve formal math, the limitations of the models were explicitly mentioned.

        I think that you’re coming from a perspective where we have “better” models available, and are just teaching the simplified version because it’s easy (and in many cases, like Newtonian mechanics, good enough for all practical purposes) but this is not the case in most fields that I’m aware of. The map is not the territory, but it’s all we’ve got.

        But repeated reminders of the limits of human knowledge are important, I suppose.

        • Lambert says:

          I think everyone teaching this stuff starts off with a big list of assumptions every time they present a new model.

          The problem is when those sudents get out into the real world and forget that Black-Scholes is only valid under circumstances, FKM’s physical properties change when it’s cold, software has bugs etc.

  34. BBA says:

    A couple of years ago I went to Oregon to see a total solar eclipse. An amazing experience, for which photographs don’t do real life justice.

    Today I write to you from Tromsø, Norway, where earlier tonight I went out to see the Northern Lights. This struck me as the opposite experience – real life doesn’t do the photographs justice. Although going out there to take those photographs and seeing those dim streaks in the sky come to life in an exposure of a few seconds was still quite an experience.

    • FrankistGeorgist says:

      Interesting, I was thoroughly unimpressed by the eclipse but found the northern lights particularly haunting. Something about the movement of light (Which was faster than I expected) not being accompanied by sound. A bit like seeing lightning without accompanying thunder, but more wistful and eerie.

      Did the sky darken during the eclipse for you? I was in Idaho and supposedly in the path of totality but it seemed like got-a-little-cloudier darker not day-turned-to-night dark and I wonder if I was farther off the path than I realized.

    • EchoChaos says:

      I traveled all the way to Wyoming to see the most recent eclipse and it was incredible. One of the most awe-inspiring natural phenomenon I’ve ever seen. Worth all the hours of travel for a few minutes.

    • TripleS says:

      How dare you insult the aurora borealis? Once in college I had the privilege of seeing a magenta display of lights that were so implausibly active as to be more like fireworks. I challenge you to fisticuffs at dawn, which in honor of my northern comrades I hereby define as 1:10 PM AKDT on the 23rd of this month.

    • Enkidum says:

      The northern lights are very variable. I’ve seen them many times as little glow-y wisps in the sky (in and around Ottawa), but once, around 1990, my dad woke us up at midnight and brought us out to see probably a good quarter of the sky pulsing between green and red. As good as anything I’ve ever seen a picture of. But I’ve lived at the southern end of northern lights territory for most of my life, and that’s the only time I’ve seen anything like it. Up north they’re much more common, but presumably not that crazy most nights.

      • jermo sapiens says:

        you live in Ottawa? I’ve seen the Northern Lights here only once. I used to play hockey with a bunch of guys between 11-12, and after the game we’d have a beer in the parking lot and one time we were treated to the Northern Lights during our beer. It was great.

        • Enkidum says:

          Left years ago, Toronto these days. But yeah, a couple of winters I was doing a lot of driving out of town late at night, and I saw faint ones maybe 10 times.

          • Nick says:

            Possibly stupid question: how much is their visibility affected by light pollution?

          • Enkidum says:

            Not stupid, I suspect a lot. Now that I think about it I’ve pretty much only seen them outside of the city proper, and as they were always very faint (except for that one time) it’s not surprising.

          • Mark V Anderson says:

            Yes I assume I have never seen northern lights because of living in a city. I live in Minneapolis, which is at about the same latitude as Ottawa. I have never seen Northern Lights, and I’ve never heard of anyone else seeing them in the city. I also see about 5 stars on a clear night. jermo, were you outside the city when you saw them, or at least on the north side?

            Edit: It just occurred to me, are there Southern Lights? The southern part of New Zealand is as far south as I am north. Kiwis, do you have Southern Lights?

          • jermo sapiens says:

            jermo, were you outside the city when you saw them, or at least on the north side?

            I was near downtown, which is somewhat the north side. Keep in mind I saw them once and I’ve lived my whole life in Ottawa, and I’m 43.

            Yes, there are southern lights. Aurora Borealis = northern lights. Aurora Australis = southern lights.

    • Lambert says:

      You need to prepare the flm with a special emulsion, presumably containing the oil of the Lop Nor rose.

    • SamChevre says:

      I’ve seen a couple partial solar eclipses, and one total (2017, in Tennessee). The difference was incredible–a partial eclipse is amazing but not that spectacular, but the total eclipse was incredible.

      • Evan Þ says:

        I agree. I’ve also seen two partial eclipses and the 2017 total. The total eclipse was totally incredible, especially since we could see solar flares dancing around the eclipsed sun.

    • Another Throw says:

      The Northern Lights are highly variable. Usually very very dim. Occasionally bright enough to read a newspaper by. (Honestly, I think the widespread havoc would be worth it, but maybe that’s just me. What’s a couple trillion dollars in damage in the US alone between friends?)

      Photographs have the advantage of much larger apertures than the ~7mm of your pupil and longer exposure times than the persistence of vision. Also you only ever see the really good ones, kind of like all your friend’s lives on FB.

    • b_jonas says:

      Have you ever went to a place far from city lights to watch a meteor shower? Did it live up to the hype?

      Have you watched the rings of Saturn through a telescope?

  35. Silverlock says:

    Looking for a game recommendation again. (Ignore all those games in my Steam library that I have never played. They are not the games you’re looking for.) Anyway, I am finishing up Return of the Obra Dinn — which is a masterpiece, by the way — and it has my appetite whetted for another such game . . . except that there isn’t another such game that I know of. Does anybody have a recommendation for another detectivey sort of game to load onto the ol’ desktop? Lovecraftian elements are a plus but not a requirement.

    I have already played and enjoyed Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened, so no point in suggesting that one.

    I really do feel the need to plug Obra Dinn, though; it was excellent.

    • Pepe says:

      Have you played Disco Elysium already?

    • Enkidum says:

      Agreed on the excellence of Obra Dinn.

      Other games that you might enjoy:

      Papers Please by the same guy (Lukas Pope) is worth playing, a dystopian paperwork simulator (but not a detective story).

      Her Story is a detective story (well, a police interrogation story, I guess) with an interesting interface and a cool ending that you can blink and miss, but has some silliness in both the mechanics and overall plot (Obra Dinn has silliness in spades, but it somehow got a much stronger suspension of disbelief from me, at any rate). Her Story won a lot of awards, as did Obra Dinn, but I think the latter is simply better, on many levels. However I enjoyed both.

      The Blackwell series, which are five in a series of traditional point-and-click games with an over-arching plot about supernatural detective work. They pretty much just get better as they go along, but are decent from the first one (and the plot really is important-sh).

      The Witness, a great puzzle game by the man who made Braid, just as ambitious and much, much bigger. It teaches you a quite complex language formed entirely from drawing lines on grids.

      Any of those work?

      • TripleS says:

        Seconding *Blackwell*. If you’re underwhelmed, read/watch an LP of the first one to get the story and then do the rest. They’re all so good.

      • Silverlock says:

        I have The Witness and got most of the way through it before putting it aside at some point. I should pick that one back up. Thanks for the Blackwell rec (and second from TripleS). I will look that one up.

        I started watching an LP of Disco Elysium and it looked pretty good, although it had teenage-boy-watch-how-cool-I-am levels of profanity for some reason.

        I will need to look up Her Story. I hadn’t heard of that one.

        Time to start wishlisting some more stuff on Steam!

        • TripleS says:

          Disco Elysium tones back on the swearing; the worst offenders are the two kids throwing rocks, and at least their actions are realistic (because they’re going through the very teenage phase you describe, though a bit younger than that). Most everyone else will at least speak civilly enough unless you’re specifically working to rile them up.

          • Deiseach says:

            Yeah, Cuno is feral. I wouldn’t even call him a street kid because that implies some level of socialisation; when you get his backstory you realise why he’s the way he is, but honestly: from your first introduction to him and what he’s doing, how else would you expect him to talk?

            I’m glad you liked Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. I enjoyed that game (even the parts where I was going “Oh no, I know what’s coming up is going to be horrible“) and now I’m waiting to get The Sinking City, just need to clear some time to play it once purchased 🙂

        • acymetric says:

          Does LP have a different meaning when talking about gaming?

          • Ms. Morgendorffer says:

            “Let’s Play”, a video of somebody playing and commenting on the game.

          • acymetric says:

            They should have picked something with a different, less saturated acronym 🙂

          • fibio says:

            LP had very little other meaning for people who watch you-tube gaming.

          • acymetric says:

            Ugh.

            Just give me a couple written reviews and an ascii walkthrough from gamefaqs please 😉

          • CatCube says:

            LPs are actually quite a bit of fun if you a) like the streamer and b) don’t care about spoilers (or have played the game). Think of it more like watching a sports game vs. playing; both are fun in different ways.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Eh. I’m torn about LPs. There are things I believe are worth watching on YouTube/twitch wrt to vidya:

            1) Game reviews.

            2) Tutorials/walkthroughs/hints.

            3) Competitions/tournaments.

            4) Speedruns.

            After that, I don’t mind occasionally watching someone who is exceptionally good at a game, like you said, it’s sort of like watching sports. I like watching football because I appreciate the athleticism of the players.

            All of these require some sort of expertise or excellence.

            But then there’s this whole class of people who aren’t particularly great at the game, but just talk a lot while playing to try to make it sound exciting. It bothers me when my son watches those people and I’ve been discouraging him from doing so.

            About the only thing that my kids wanted to watch on Youtube that I banned them from was toy unboxing videos. I think there’s a special place in hell for the people who make those. It’s like porn…for children…that sounds wrong, but you know what I mean. It’s all “here’s the dopamine hit of getting a new thing but you don’t actually get the thing!” LPs where the game is lame or the streamer is not an expert at the game and is just fumbling his way through it while talking excitedly are one step up from the toy unboxing videos. They bother me in a way I cannot fully articulate.

            That said, I will often leave a streamer running on one of my monitors at work. I’ve watched, or glanced over at, guys playing a full 30 hour campaign of Total War: Warhammer II or BattleTech. That said, in cases like that, the players were excellent, and I picked up quite a few tricks.

          • Lambert says:

            There’s also the ones that are really more of a podcast but with a game going on at the same time.

            And sandboxy games where the divergent nature of the game means that the LP doesn’t ‘consume’ a certain chunk of the game’s replayability value.

          • fibio says:

            But then there’s this whole class of people who aren’t particularly great at the game, but just talk a lot while playing to try to make it sound exciting.

            Some Youtubers are a lot closer to a one man radio show than a sports star. They have their own charm and I kind’of respect the skill to hold a hour long conversation with empty air. They’re not what I search Youtube for, though.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            My time spent watching LPs decreased drastically when I got a laptop and the ability to just buy games and play them.

            Though it’s ticked back up recently. First due to Carlsagan42 (Mario Maker 2 streamer and biology PhD), whose main schtick nowadays is playing troll levels in SMM2. Getting trolled is frustrating; watching a charismatic streamer getting trolled is comedy gold.

            Second, CallMeKevin and RTGame (contrary to popular belief, studies suggest these might be two separate people) in the genre of “Irish youtubers who play video games and don’t take them seriously”. Examples: Sims 4 but I need more slaves in the basement; When City Planning in Cities Skylines creates a city with only one road, from Kevin and RT respectively.

            Is watching these a good use of my time? Absolutely not. Do I have better things I could be doing? Doubtlessly. Will I continue to watch them (not every upload but when they pop up in recommended) regardless? Yeah, they’re hilarious!

            ETA: My sincerest apologies if anyone happens to click one of those links and spend the next 5 hours working though one of the backlogs.

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          Time to start wishlisting some more stuff on Steam!

          During the Game Awards Her Story was on sale for $1, so I picked it up, but haven’t started it yet.

          Right now I’m about halfway through Dragon Quest XI: Echos of an Illusive Age Definitive Edition S. And I was a very good boy this year so Santa brought me a new racing wheel (Thrustmaster TMX Pro) so I’m catching up with Forza Horizon 3. And occasionally popping into Battletech because, ya know, stompy robots.

    • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

      Not a detective game, but you might enjoy the puzzle-platformer Fez, especially going for 100% by learning to translate the strange alphabet.

      • Enkidum says:

        That reminds me, I need to get further through Fez.

        If we’re talking about puzzlers, as well as The Witness I mentioned above, there’s things like AntiChamber and The Talos Principle, neither of which I’ve played (but both of which I own mumble mumble backlog).

        • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

          I’ve played through about half of each of those before losing interest, might boot one or the other up again. Or Fez, for that matter–I beat about 98% of the game but got stuck on the final two challenges.

          (and my loss of interest is actually not a point against any of them–I often get really into a game and play it near-constantly for about a week, to the point where I’ve tired myself out from it and forget it exists for 3 months.)

        • Nick says:

          I’ve played through The Witness and The Talos Principle. Both good games, but while The Witness is a bit harder to get into, I like it a lot more.

    • Enkidum says:

      Similar in terms of both having heavy debts to Lovecraft (moreso in the case of Sunless Sea), but other than that they’re very different games, with nothing really in common other than their indie-ness.

    • Ninety-Three says:

      To go old timey: The Last Express is a classic “talk to people, investigate the mystery” game set on a train, with the neat gimmick of taking place in (accelerated) real time where the NPCs go about their own schedules and stuff happens on its own.

    • dodrian says:

      The one that comes to mind is gone home, where you have to explore your house and discover why none of your family members are there to greet you from your return back from study abroad. It’s well done, though being super vague as to try not to spoil anything I did find one of the subplots to be very teenager.

      A favorite of mine is Braid, which is centered around the unique mechanic of being a platformer where you can go back in time to fix your mistakes (and is really brilliant in that respect), the other aspect of it is figuring out the puzzle of your relationship with the princess as told via cutscenes.

    • Ms. Morgendorffer says:

      Lovecraftian or adjacent:
      I have no mouth and I must scream – oldie but still great
      The cat lady – a very good point and click with some horror and great atmosphere
      Puzzle:
      Braid – time manipulation based puzzles, I really enjoyed that one.
      Baba is you – a meta take on puzzles. Very interesting but can become tedious when the complexity goes up and it’s not much about finding the clever idea but solving the logistics using the clever idea.
      Detective:
      L.A. Noire – was a decent detective story-driven game with dowsides but still enjoyable.
      Blacksad – didn’t get to play it yet but saw some streams, seems to fit the bill.
      Disco Elysium – already mentionned above but seriously, great everything 11/10 GOTYAY.
      None of the above but still present some kind of reflexion with a good interactive story (ie not a David Cage production) and may scratch your itch:
      H_a_cknet (without the underscore, its name seems to trigger the great filter here)- I guess being a bit familiar with unix is necessary, but you try to get to the murderer of your friend through hacking stuff, was very good.
      Red strings club – choice based game with engaging characters and good exploration of interesting ideas.

      • Ms. Morgendorffer says:

        Right ! 999 is a fantastic game, and since we’re starting to tread on VN territory let me add some Phoenix Wright, Danganrompa and Steins;Gate to the mix (If you try 999, I reaaaally recommend you doing it on a DS or emulator, the port is criminal).

    • voso says:

      I unfortunately feel like I fucked up my own experience with Obra Dinn, on a couple fronts (No, I didn’t read spoilers or anything like that). While I understood that I would have to make guesses and assumptions, I was way too conservative in doing so. An incredibly light spoiler, from the beginning of the game (but still rot13ed):
      Gur pncgnva orzbnavat gur snpg gung ur unq gb fubbg uvf oebgure-va-ynj. Hasbeghangryl, V unq gur thg rkcrevrapr bs: “Guvf vf jnl gbb boivbhf gb or gur thl ur whfg fubg va gur ynfg fprar! V fubhyq jngpu rirel fprar orsber V pna pbapyhfviryl cebir gung ur jnf gnyxvat nobhg uvz va cnegvphyne, sbe nyy V xabj, ur pbhyq unir fubg znal crbcyr guebhtubhg gur fgbel.”

      This leads into mistake number two: for some reason or another, I didn’t guess a single fate until after I had watched every death scene, this basically made me spend way too long on the game for zero real purpose. I guess for some reason that just felt like a natural progression, although looking back it does seem like the game drip-feeds you a reasonable amount of things you can actually solve then as you go through the scenes for the first time.

      Don’t get me wrong, I really did enjoy the game, but it did feel short of “masterpiece” level, and I really think that was more of how I played it than anything else. Which is a damn shame, since this game sets a record for “least replay value”.

      • MorningGaul says:

        I’m currently feeling a bit of the same.

        Gur svefg fprar frrzrq boivbhf rabhtu gb zr, ohg nsgre guvf, v’ir orra jngpuvat n tbbq 20 qrnguf (xenxra nggnpx, pnaba qrgbangvat, crbcyr xvyyvat rnpu bgure naq syrrvat/obneqvat sebz n fznyy obng, fcvqre-zbafgre nggnpx), naq unir bayl orra noyr gb qrqhpr bar be gjb qrnguf jvgu qrprag pbasvqrapr.

        I kinda whish navigating the diary was easier and allowed me to jump at will into scenes, instead of going through the motion of finding the corpses and then finding the door to leave.

      • LesHapablap says:

        I am not a gamer at all and tried to play Return of Obra Dinn. I found it interesting at first but got bored after a few hours. It just became tedious work to me and I was annoyed that there was no way to take my own notes in the diary.

        Disco Elysium I bought after the recommendations here. Very interesting, hilarious at times, though I made the dumb mistake of spending money on useless stuff early on which slowed the game way down. Reminds me of the old Tex Murphy games I played as a kid, Under a Killing Moon and Pandora Directive, which I loved.

    • wkfauna says:

      The best adventure game mysteries for me are still the original ones — Laura Bow 1 and 2.

      More recently I really liked Why Am I Dead at Sea, it’s a quirky game with original mechanics and an excellent mystery to solve. Contradiction also had some interesting mechanics and was quite fun.

      A few days ago I started playing The Painscreek Killings. I don’t have an opinion on it yet but it could be of interest to you.

      Shadow of the Comet, another oldie, is Lovecraftian. I could never get past some annoying game mechanics but you may enjoy it more than I did.

    • Robin says:

      I’m currently playing Thimbleweed Park with my son. It’s by Monkey Island’s Ron Gilbert, funny and enjoyable; although the detective work is maybe not as much in the focus as you might like it.

    • helloo says:

      Outer Wilds (NOT Worlds) is another recent popular indie puzzle/mystery game.

      Very different tone than Obra Dinn though.

      It’s centered around exploration, space, time loops, and marshmallows.
      And though you die a lot, it’s still rather soothing more than murdery.

      This video goes through a number of oldish detective games that use more “intuitive” designs. For example it mentions Blackwell and also one I’ve never heard of before The Shivah which also uses search mechanics.

    • Silverlock says:

      Yeah, I own Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies and enjoy them both (and I am a sometime Fallen Londoner, to boot) but as Enkidum says they are much different from Obra Dinn. I very much enjoy the quality of writing in those Failbetter games.

  36. hash872 says:

    I had one additional argument that I wanted to make about circumcision, that I didn’t really see made or emphasized enough. The only remotely plausible arguments for circumcision are sexual- lower rates of STD transmission, etc. (The penile cancer stuff just seems to be vanishingly rare).

    The issue is that sexual activity is an adult or at least late teenage activity- not a children’s one. This is where analogies to vaccines, making kids see the doctor, making them do their math homework, eating their vegetables, having an early bedtime etc. sort of break down. A vaccine protects a child almost immediately- get it at age 4, you’re protected at age 4. A 4 year old should not be engaging in sexual activity, so ‘oh well it protects against STDs’ is a non-sequitur. Circumcision is theoretically protecting…. a future adult 16-18+ years down the road. You’re not really making the decision for a child, you’re making it for an adult- just a future adult. I see this as ethically improper.

    If circumcision really offers that many benefits, then the male in question is certainly free to get it done when they’re 16+ years old and sexually active, after weighing the benefits. It’s not something an adult should be deciding for a future adult a couple of decades in advance, if that makes sense

    • NoRandomWalk says:

      I think the ‘standard counterargument’ is the procedure is a lot more minor when done as an infant than an adult.
      But setting that aside, isn’t all the ‘interest’ in the topic evidence that it’s not about the health stuff at all, it’s all culture? We don’t do/not do things with similar positive/negative side effects. We do it because it’s the norm, and not doing it would make us feel like less a part of the social group/less connected to our children who we’d like to be part of our tribe, etc.

      • hash872 says:

        I think the ‘standard counterargument’ is the procedure is a lot more minor when done as an infant than an adult

        It’s a permanent modification to one’s genitalia, there’s nothing ‘minor’ about it when looking at a person’s whole life. Some adults do choose to get circumcised for religious reasons (wasn’t there one person in the thread saying that they’d done so?) I agree that it would not be a very popular- especially compared to just wearing a condom?- but that’s sort of how making one’s own choices in life goes

      • NoRandomWalk says:

        Umm. The significance of ‘modifications to genitalia’ is completely cultural. It seems society where it is common has succeeded in socializing circumcised men to think it is ‘normal’ and ‘not a big deal,’ with a few vocal exceptions. So, I consider it a minor procedure. My entire point (well, claim) is that it’s not a medical question, it’s a cultural one.

        Medically, if done as an infant it really is minor in the context of health effects. As a young adult less so.

        • acymetric says:

          Not only do most of them see it as normal, or not a big deal, I would guess a significant amount, maybe most as well, actually have a preference for being circumcised and are glad that they were.

          • The Pachyderminator says:

            I’d guess that most circumcised and uncircumcised men have a preference for their current state, simply because it’s what they’re used to and the idea of changing their genitals is unappealing.

          • eyeballfrog says:

            Kind of sucks for those who aren’t OK with it, though.

    • Eternaltraveler says:

      An newborn infant isn’t really a person. Its a living thing in the process of becoming a person. There is little to no agency. There can’t be consent for anything you do for a newborn, including changing their diapers, feeding them or forcing them to sleep on their backs against their tiny amount of will.

      It is the parents job to create the best person they can. And that process of creation is far from complete when they are born. It seems reasonable to me that part of creating the best person you can may include creating one with a lower risk of STDs and a lower chance of spreading those to others. Especially given the fact that it is an extraordinarily low risk procedure.

      No person consented to any part of their creation process. How could they?

      • hash872 says:

        Your first paragraph is all irrelevant as we’re discussing an adult, not an infant, as mentioned. Taking your second paragraph literally, the parent should also choose the child’s future spouse/all sexual encounters, their career, where they live, their financial choices, what they spend money on vs. how much they save every month, etc. I mean, I could’ve used adult guidance in my 20s on how to save for retirement vs. how much I spent on entertainment- why not remove that choice from 20somethings altogether?Why stop at genital disfigurement for a maybe statistically significant change in STD transmission rates?

        I mean, that’s all the same logic as goes into female genital mutilation as well (which I found surprisingly underdiscussed in the original thread). Developing country parents genuinely believe that FGM is a benefit for girls- should this be permissible in your ethical system as well? What if some minor benefit is found for FGM, like lower rates of yeast infection or something? OK for you?

        • Eternaltraveler says:

          Taking your second paragraph literally,

          None of what you say after this follows in any logically coherent fashion. An adult has agency. That adult, however, has no agency in regards to the process that created them. Once they exist they should take control of their own lives to an increasing degree. This process is called “growing up”.

          FGM

          Male circumcision does have benefits and doesn’t appear to actually have the harms it’s opponents rave about. FGM is simply not comparable to male circumcision as much as some would like to conflate the two procedures.

    • John Schilling says:

      The only remotely plausible arguments for circumcision are sexual- lower rates of STD transmission, etc. (The penile cancer stuff just seems to be vanishingly rare)

      When I tried to do consequentialist math in the original discussion, it looked to me like long-term complications from childhood urinary tract infections might be the largest term in the equation, but I didn’t have high confidence in the numbers I could quickly find on that. But it does seem to be at least a “remotely plausible argument”, and if so it is one that is wholly nonsexual and favors infant rather than adult circumcision.

    • SamChevre says:

      I think the HPV vaccine would be a counter-example–and it’s standardly recommended.

    • GearRatio says:

      I didn’t circumcise my kids, don’t super care about circumcision as a thing one way or the other. But I would say threea couple things about this argument:

      1. I make a ton of decisions, daily, that are me making changes to the adults my future children will be. I’m putting stuff in them – ideas on religion, morality, ethics, what makes a person stupid, what makes a person smart, what’s important, that they won’t fully be able to shake as adults, most of which are honestly a ton more impactful to them in a practical sense than circumcision has ever been to anybody I ever talked to about it.

      Making your kids in large part who they turn out to be is what parenting is no matter how you do it; unless your arbitrarily prioritize body modification more than any other parenting effect on eventual adult versions of kids, it would be a stretch to say it’s even 1% of the effect.

      2.

      If we came to an agreement that this is a dead wash, or perhaps that there are minor harms outweighing the benefits, I still wouldn’t ever stop fighting for people to be able to circumcise their kids for the simple reason that I don’t want a cultural norm that allows that much power into parent’s lives with such little justification.

      Here, if we were to allow a ban, we’ve basically accepted this as a valid argument: “I can’t prove serious harm from this, but I still don’t like it. What I’m going to do is suddenly declare that this act is inherently monstrous even without me adequately justifying why so I can control your childrearing”. What couldn’t be banned under this rationale?

  37. Bobobob says:

    Where do new jokes come from?

    My kids got me a “Dad Joke Book” for my birthday, and I was surprised to find a pretty basic and pretty funny joke I hadn’t heard before:

    What do you call a nose with no body?
    Nobody knows!

    Is anyone else familiar with this joke? Is it possible that it’s relatively new and no one had ever thought of it before? Or have I just managed not ever to hear it in my over five decades on earth?

    • Aftagley says:

      Where do new jokes come from?

      People think them up. I’ve thought up a few jokes myself. Some of the time it turns out that someone else has also independently thought of them, sometimes not.

      What do you call a nose with no body?
      Nobody knows!

      This reminds me of the old standby:
      “what do you call a deer that can’t see?”
      “No-Eye-Deer”

    • Noah says:

      Where do new jokes come from?

      There’s an Asimov short story about that (warning: the wikipedia article spoils the story):

    • theredsheep says:

      N Pngubyvp noobg znxrf n yhapu qngr jvgu na byq pbyyrtr sevraq, jub unf tbar ba gb orpbzr n fgngvfgvpvna. Ur gryyf uvf sevraq gurl’yy zrrg hc ng 12:30, naq vasbezf uvf fhccbeg fgnss ng gur zbanfgrel gung gurl’yy or tbar sbe n ovg. Gb uvf fhecevfr, ubjrire, uvf fhobeqvangrf ner rkgerzryl ubfgvyr gb gur vqrn bs uvf yrnivat gur zbanfgrel, rira sbe n yvggyr ovg, gb pbafbeg jvgu na bhgfvqre. “Guvf vf n qernqshyyl frphyne npgvivgl.” “Nera’g lbh fhccbfrq gb phg gvrf jvgu gur bhgfvqr jbeyq, Sngure?” “V urne znal npnqrzvpf ner ngurvfgf.” Gur jbegul noobg nethrf jvgu gurz sbe n ybat gvzr, riraghnyyl tbvat onpx gb dhbgrf sebz Ndhvanf gb pbaivapr gurz gung, ernyyl, vg’f bxnl sbe uvz gb qb guvf. Va gur raq, gurl tehqtvatyl nterr, ohg vg’f nyzbfg 1:00 orsber ur trgf bhg gur qbbe.

      “Jung unccrarq?” uvf sevraq nfxf uvz ng gur erfgnhenag. “V gubhtug lbh’q or urer ng 12:30.”
      “Gung’f jung V gubhtug gbb,” gur noobg fnlf, “ohg V unq gb hcqngr zl cevbef.”

      I’ve no idea if anybody else has made up this same dumb joke before, but it came to me about a week ago and I’ve been waiting for a chance to tell it. I ROT13’d it just to keep people from seeing the punchline first by skimming up and down. This was probably not necessary, given the quality of the joke, but oh well.

    • Dino says:

      Witty folks come up with new jokes all the time. Some of my band rehearsals devolve so much I think we’d be better off trying to be a comedy team.

      Did you hear about the alcoholic choir that decided to use tempered tuning? They’re following the 12-step program.

      Thanx for reminding me about the Far Side cartoon idea I want to send to Gary Larsen. A pair of 40 foot tall little old lady ducks by the pond in the park – one of them has a bag of donuts and is tossing them to the crowd of humans gathered around scarfing them up. Caption – “Now Delores, you know that’s not good for them.”

    • roystgnr says:

      Where do new jokes come from?

      I make them up, and tell them to my kids. If they’re good, my kids repeat them at school, and eventually they get passed along to your kids. If they’re bad, my kids groan and hit me, and I repeat them at home, because I do not give in to terrorism.

      • Bobobob says:

        There’s a scene in “The Sandman” where William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe are walking down the street and they randomly improvise a piece of doggerel for a passing child:

        Remember, remember!
        The fifth of November,
        The Gunpowder treason and plot;
        I know of no reason
        Why the Gunpowder treason
        Should ever be forgot!

        That’s clearly how these things start.

      • Bobobob says:

        I liked self-referential humor even as a kid. My favorite joke was:

        What’s big, red, and eats rocks?
        A big red rock-eater!

    • honoredb says:

      I was very proud as a kid of coming up with this one:

      Knock knock!
      Who’s there?
      Emergency!
      Emergency who?
      Emerge, and see!

      Google suggests that it’s still not out there, decades later…I guess the space is bigger than it seems.

      Also, thinking about the joke now it’s just a little too complicated. Like it fits the formal structure of a knock knock joke fine, but it uses a word, “emerge,” that isn’t reliably in the target audience’s vocabulary, and there’s the sub-joke that the person answering the door is misunderstanding “emergency” as a name, and by the end you feel like there’s an actual story being told but it’s too ambiguous to understand clearly what it is.

      • Dacyn says:

        I don’t think it exactly fits the formal structure of a knock-knock joke, you’re usually expected to add something to the end for the punchline. (Or make a pun on the “who” in the response, for subversive knock-knock jokes.)

        • Noah says:

          How about

          Knock knock!
          Who’s there?
          Emergency!
          Emergency who?
          Emerge, and see for yourself!

          • Dacyn says:

            Oh yeah, that’s better, I like it 🙂 When spoken I think you should pause at the comma, to make it clear what the pun is.

  38. AlesZiegler says:

    I am curious about the history of interaction between so called rationalsphere and so called sceptical movement. It seems that both have overlapping goals to such an extent that rationalists might be reasonably called an offshoot of sceptical movement.

    • Dacyn says:

      It looks sort of like what EY calls “traditional rationalism” (see e.g. here), in which case it seems fair to describe the rationalist movement as an offshoot of it.

  39. FrankistGeorgist says:

    So what’s everyone’s thoughts on the end of the US-China Trade War?

    • DragonMilk says:

      What end? This is a temporary ceasefire

      • broblawsky says:

        Very temporary, I suspect.

      • FrankistGeorgist says:

        Do you believe the deal will be thrown out, or that it doesn’t establish a baseline/status quo to work from moving forward?

        • Aftagley says:

          The trade war was started based on the assertions (true, IMO) that China is using unfair trade practices, is stealing intellectual property and is forcing non-Chinese companies to cede control when operating in-country.

          This deal, as far as I can tell, is China agreeing to purchase more agriculture products. Something they only need to do because China scaled back purchasing following the start of the trade war. If this ends up being the “final deal” we just flushed a couple billion dollars down the drain for no perceivable benefit.

          For the US, at least, this isn’t a deal, it’s an acknowledgement of defeat.

        • DragonMilk says:

          It’s a tale of two scapegoats

          On the US side, globalization means that manufacturing has permanently left for developing nations, and today’s manufacturing is much more capital rather than labor intensive (robots). Many US towns have not yet come to terms with this (see high school and college graduation rates) and voters of formerly industrial towns rightly feel like politicians led them astray with free trade rhetoric. Net positive could and was a lot of pluses and minuses

          On the China side, there’s the legacy of a century of humiliation. Before the opium wars, the Chinese emperor wanted nothing from the British but money because there was nothing the British could offer. They learned the hard lesson of industrial revolution/modernization and they’ve raced to embrace it in the latter half of the 20th century. Led by an authoritarian government that needs to show economic progress to justify its rule as a sort of modern day mandate of heaven, it will play games with trade rules (WTO) and has dug itself in a deep debt-fueled hole where trillions are at risk if the bad loans eventually default.

          Frankly, the average Chinese worker works much harder than the average American worker. If one thinks there’s actually room to debate this, they are deluded. Hardship breeds better work ethic than sloth. Were China to have the same tech to make its workers as productive as US workers, the US would have no chance economically from a labor perspective.

          And so China chooses to “steal” to catch up as they’ve been stolen from for centuries, where it’s a matter of different views of IP. In many cases, western companies were short-sighted and have openly handed over secrets in search of profits (German rail).

          And so the trade war started with the US calling BS and for the first time actually going beyond speaking by enacting a lot of tariffs. Beyond supply chain disruption, this “trade war” is just the prelude to a bigger struggle ahead. The US is resource rich with a populace that is largely soft and complacent, relying on capital to drive productivity. China has a mandate to do better for its people, as the vision presented is, work hard, you’ll be prosperous, and continue to support the State as we re-take our rightful place in the world order.

          So yeah, I don’t care for the details of this particular deal much at all. It’s an election year and Trump needs a stable economy to re-arm, while China will take the time to strategize on next steps and shifting away from dependence on US.

          • EchoChaos says:

            Frankly, the average Chinese worker works much harder than the average American worker. If one thinks there’s actually room to debate this, they are deluded.

            I’ll debate this!

            The average Chinese works 46 hours a week, versus the average American working 47 hours a week.

            https://www.statista.com/statistics/732805/average-working-hours-china/

            https://news.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-hours.aspx

            Now, you may mean that the actual work being done is harder or better during that time, but in fact US productivity is not in decline for the work of those hours and continues to rise (although it fell mildly this last quarter).

          • DragonMilk says:

            I’m calling BS on these stats.

            Take 996, or residents in the US. Institutions will provide one set of hours, but once you got people salaried, many places work them for much longer.

            And there are many more of those places even %wise in China than the US. The six-day work week is simply not the norm in the US.

            And this doesn’t get into the actual work being done which is much more subjective.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @DragonMilk

            Because some Chinese tech companies run people into the ground, therefore statistics across all of China are incorrect?

            That’s like saying that because Amazon tech workers average 60 hour weeks Americans work much harder.

            To be clear, I’m not doubting that some Chinese do in fact work 72 hour weeks. That’s almost certainly true. But it’s not normative and the statistics back that up unless you have other nationwide statistics.

            It also doesn’t prove that it’s sustainable or that they can pass us. Japan has a famously exhausting work schedule (that is actually backed by data), but their productivity, despite great technology, has never come up to the level of the United States.

          • Aftagley says:

            Frankly, the average Chinese worker works much harder than the average American worker. If one thinks there’s actually room to debate this, they are deluded. Hardship breeds better work ethic than sloth. Were China to have the same tech to make its workers as productive as US workers, the US would have no chance economically from a labor perspective

            This seems self-defeating. If the sloth comes from the technology that enables greater work effeciency, then increasing the technology should drag individual “work hardedness” (however you measure that) down to the mean.

            And so China chooses to “steal” to catch up as they’ve been stolen from for centuries, where it’s a matter of different views of IP.

            This false comparison is bananas. The use of paper or gunpowder or whatever spreading out from the Han Empire during historical antiquity is not equivalent to a Chinese hacker cracking into a server to steal semiconductor designs.

            In many cases, western companies were short-sighted and have openly handed over secrets in search of profits (German rail).

            Sure, but in many more case, state resources have been allocated to helping auspiciously private businesses steal technical secrets from foreign rivals.

          • broblawsky says:

            The average Chinese works 46 hours a week, versus the average American working 47 hours a week.

            That’s the average worker, not the average worker in manufacturing. The average American manufacturing worker has a 41.4 hour work-week, as of December 2019. I don’t know what the average Chinese factory worker weekly hours are, but based on the prevalence of the 996 system in my experience with Chinese companies, I’m guessing it’s substantially higher than the 44.7 hour official average.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @broblawsky

            That article was also linked by @DragonMilk and my response is the same. That points to tech companies, not manufacturing primarily.

            In fact, in manufacturing you very much don’t want people working 12 hour shifts because that’s how you lose trained workers to accidents.

            https://www.ft.com/content/d5f01f68-9cbc-11e8-88de-49c908b1f264

            This article says the same:

            Manufacturing sector working hours are declining: you are not seeing the same level of excessive overtime that you used to

            Note that the survey isn’t pure propaganda, because the Labour Dynamics Survey does show that 40% of Chinese are working 50 hours a week or more, which is more than the legal limit.

          • DragonMilk says:

            Also, another source says the Chinese 46 compares to a US 34 hr/week regarding average

          • broblawsky says:

            That article was also linked by @DragonMilk and my response is the same. That points to tech companies, not manufacturing primarily.

            In fact, in manufacturing you very much don’t want people working 12 hour shifts because that’s how you lose trained workers to accidents.

            The 996 system originated in manufacturing, before it was adopted by tech companies. Part of the reason why it’s so bad for tech workers is that it’s designed for companies that maintain dormitories for workers, to eliminate commutes; tech companies don’t do that. Instead, workers have to deal with 60- to 90-minute commutes on the way to their 10-12 hour workdays.

            Manufacturing sector working hours are declining: you are not seeing the same level of excessive overtime that you used to

            Note that the survey isn’t pure propaganda, because the Labour Dynamics Survey does show that 40% of Chinese are working 50 hours a week or more, which is more than the legal limit.

            The ‘legal limit’ is a joke; nobody takes it seriously.

          • DragonMilk says:

            @EchoChaos

            This may be an unfair comparison, but Exhibit A of comparing output of Chinese workers vs. US workers when there’s an even technological advantage is construction.

            Subways in China are being built rapidly. while there is little enthusiasm to waste billions in the US for the same.

            Sure, it may be a management problem. My claim is not that a Chinese worker inherently works harder than an American worker. It is that whatever the reason they do, they do. That reason may well be brutal management. It may be social pressures. But at the end of the day, you’re not going to get that kind of productivity out of American workers. Infrastructure is an area where the US is phenomenally bad, even in comparison to other developed nations, but think of all the stereotypes of sweatshops, mines, and other laborers – these stereotypes developed for a reason. Heck, even the US railroads were built largely on the back of Chinese labor.

          • DragonMilk says:

            @broblawsky

            Totally agreed on 996. When I visited China in 2006, a textbook reading was profiling three Chinese workers. The blue collar one used the phrase roughly translated as, “a glorious death is not preferable to a lousy life” to describe the exhausting 996 schedule at the plant.

            I don’t recall the 2nd guy, but the 3rd was talking about clay or iron pots (private industry vs. government job) about how little of a safety net there is to venture out to the private side, and he’d stick with the iron pot.

            All in all drew a dreary picture of a land of too many people for too few jobs, and hence the ability of managers to drive those who did have jobs to work much harder than say a place like the US (for those that point out low official unemployment rates, take a look at the respective labor force participation rates. You have to be looking for work to be counted in the unemployment rate, and those who won’t put up with 996 won’t bother looking).

          • An Fírinne says:

            @Aftagley

            This false comparison is bananas. The use of paper or gunpowder or whatever spreading out from the Han Empire during historical antiquity is not equivalent to a Chinese hacker cracking into a server to steal semiconductor designs.

            Ah but did they have permission from the Chinese creator to steal their gunpowder and paper? I don’t think so.

          • Lambert says:

            Gunpowder would’ve been out of patent by 924CE anyway.

          • Were China to have the same tech to make its workers as productive as US workers, the US would have no chance economically from a labor perspective.

            I do not understand this claim.

            Suppose the Chinese workers work 18 hours a day, hard, with great skill, and have access to the same tech. That would make China richer, but why would it make American poorer?

          • ana53294 says:

            Frankly, the average Chinese worker works much harder than the average American worker.

            My cousin is an engineer working for a Spanish company. He is frequently sent to China to help them with setting up machinery. He told us that he saw Chinese people sleeping on the factory floor during work (and it’s even more frequent in offices, etc.). Graduate Chinese students keep napping on their desks in my university.

            Sleeping while on the clock is not something Spanish workers do, despite Spaniards not being known for their hard work ethic.

            And the productivity of a Chinese worker per hour is at least 5 times smaller than the US worker’s.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @DragonMilk

            This may be an unfair comparison, but Exhibit A of comparing output of Chinese workers vs. US workers when there’s an even technological advantage is construction.

            Nobody is arguing that the US doesn’t have cost disease, but Chinese construction is notoriously slapdash and error-prone. Just google “Chinese construction collapse” and you will get dozens of articles about huge numbers of failures. Even deaths, as their death rate in construction is huge as well.

            Fast and bad doesn’t mean “working harder”.

            @broblawsky

            The ‘legal limit’ is a joke; nobody takes it seriously.

            I completely agree. But with the 46 hours a week average we’re all talking about, we need to see if it’s Chinese government propaganda or not, as with all data out of China.

            To both:

            Note that “being in the office” does not equal either working hard or productivity, as we’ve found out comparing the US to Japan. Japan used to have (and still does to some degree) the same overtime work culture that China had, but despite having great tech compared to China and even superior to the US in some cases, their productivity has simply never matched American productivity.

          • DragonMilk says:

            @ DavidFriedman

            Over the past 30 years, free trade has made US as a “whole” better off, but due to the inflexibility of retraining for the manufacturing base in the US, blue collar workers laid off have found it hard to adjust. This is what I’m alluding to for the net positive being a lot of plusses and minuses. Loss is felt more acutely than marginal consumer gains, and Trump’s election is a sign of that.

            My contention that more and more job sectors would be similarly hit going forward if China had the same technology (really, capital too).

            And @EchoChaos, if you are to custom make virtually any manufactured good today (a suit, Christmas ornaments, board games), chances are you turn to China. The cost comparison is bonkers. Even if Southeast Asia has lower “wages”, you can do a quick scan of news articles to see that Vietnam is not as reliable in terms of time or quality.

            This is the crux of what I mean by Chinese workers work harder. Maybe they’re catching naps due to exhaustion from slavish hours. Maybe embezzlement causes bridge collapses internally. But the overall effect is dramatic price undercutting in both construction and manufacturing. Extend that to other sectors, and more people get worried.

            At least that in my understanding is the fear. Maybe the slavish 996 schedule causes enough social unrest when wages won’t catch up fast enough. Maybe it turns to 975 when actual capital is infused. But that is the fear of at least the manufacturing base in the US, and more sectors.

            Personally, automation overall rather than human labor drives a lot of this effect, but it’s must easier to blame people than robots.

          • broblawsky says:

            I completely agree. But with the 46 hours a week average we’re all talking about, we need to see if it’s Chinese government propaganda or not, as with all data out of China.

            To both:

            Note that “being in the office” does not equal either working hard or productivity, as we’ve found out comparing the US to Japan. Japan used to have (and still does to some degree) the same overtime work culture that China had, but despite having great tech compared to China and even superior to the US in some cases, their productivity has simply never matched American productivity.

            Judging the degree to which superior American labor productivity is due to some kind of advantage in American “grit” and the degree to which it’s the product of superior technology, workplace organization, or even just the value-added nature of the industries in the two countries is impossible to judge, at least for me. I just don’t think there’s any case for saying that American workers are significantly harder-working than Chinese workers; I don’t mean this as a judgment against Americans, because I firmly believe societies should allow laborers to have lives outside of work. We shouldn’t confuse our moral intuitions about “laziness” with what’s good for us as a society.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @broblawsky

            The initial statement I was pushing back on was (paraphrased) “the average Chinese worker works so much harder than the average American that it’s not debateable.”

            That’s simply false. It’s certainly debatable and plausibly even in favor of Americans.

            The secondary assertion that once they have the same tech as us they will be obviously ahead has been similarly challenged by the same comparison with Japan.

            I fully agree with lives outside work being good and beneficial both to workers and as humans and I try to avoid pushing overtime on the workers I manage.

          • Frankly, the average Chinese worker works much harder than the average American worker. If one thinks there’s actually room to debate this, they are deluded.

            If you’re talking about physical presence at work, they are harder-working. If you’re talking about willingness to accept harsh conditions, Chinese are harder-working. But if you mean ability and willingness to be productive in conditions of identical training and technology, what you use to conclude that “the US is resource rich with a populace that is largely soft and complacent, relying on capital to drive productivity,” I dispute it. There’s working hard and working smart. I don’t know about the Chinese, but I’ve heard horror stories about Indian programmers. I’m sure they work longer hours than Americans in worse conditions. They might strike you as inherently tougher. They also are known for producing very shoddy code.

    • An Fírinne says:

      I find it amusing that American arrogance and narcissism made America believe nobody could challenge it. Lets not forget that the US has had a huge hand in creating modern China.

      • Laukhi says:

        I find it amusing that American arrogance and narcissism made America believe nobody could challenge it.

        You seem to make a lot of mention about American arrogance and narcissism. Is it really the case that anybody who had put the least bit of thought into it thinks that China doesn’t have the capability to be a threat to the United States? It’s plain enough to see.

        • An Fírinne says:

          Clearly Nixon and the others never suspected it. Otherwise they wouldn’t have propped them up.

          • Noah says:

            They probably considered it possible at some point in the future (keep in mind that it took 40 or so years), but valued having a stronger counterweight to the USSR now more.

    • Aapje says:

      This trade deal is phase 1. Difficult topics have been moved to phase 2. Things can easily deteriorate again if progress on phase 2 stagnates, which is likely.

  40. NoRandomWalk says:

    The collab about calorie restriction got me curious, so I’ve been trying fasting (since just reducing calories on average would make me quite miserable). Am currently on the 3rd day of my 2nd 3-day water fast, deciding if should extend to 5.

    One thing I’m confused about is the mechanism by which fasting/calorie restriction might increase lifespan (i’m young and mostly healthy so don’t care really about autophagy, ketosis, etc).

    Has anyone done any research on what length/frequency of fasting is plausibly ‘better’ for longevity reasons?

    • jermo sapiens says:

      One thing I’m confused about is the mechanism by which fasting/calorie restriction might increase lifespan (i’m young and mostly healthy so don’t care really about autophagy, ketosis, etc)

      .
      No research. But my brother who is an internist tells me that insulin is released whenever you consume stuff, and insulin is responsible for aging (rough approximation of what he told me, there are certainly various caveats to this).

    • Nick says:

      Tagging @Anonymous who used to talk about this a lot.

    • DragonMilk says:

      I started weekend fasts (work is a barrier) a couple years ago after watching The Science of Fasting on Amazon.

      My understanding is that unfortuantely, it’s not til day 4 or 5 that the body switches to burning fat rather than causing muscle atrophy…if I ever have a stretch of unemployment I shall try my two week fast (water only, exercise).

      The problem I foresee there is that I will be cooking food for my wife….and not eating it? A true test of self-discipline!

      • Vitor says:

        I’m doing weekend fasts regularly and am seeing great results: lost 6kg over 4 fasts (1/month), and am not seeing any muscle loss (subjectively, I’m not doing any body fat % measurements or anything).

        The body adapts to a fasted state in 48-72 hours AFAIK, and even before that, I don’t think that the body burns proteins preferentially over fats. I’d like some definite confirmation of this, but the burden of proof clearly lies on those who claim that your body will consume its own structural elements before the fat stores that literally evolved to provide calories for survival when none are otherwise available. This is known to be false for long term fasting, and I would be very surprised if it was strongly true for short fasts. After all, losing fat while preserving muscle is clearly possible on long term calorie restriction without fasting, and the first 2-3 fasting days should be relatively similar to that state.

        Keep in mind that you use up your glycogen reserves in the first 24h of fasting. This will look like losing muscle mass, but is not permanent. I guess a lot of bad anecdotal evidence stems from this fact.

        • DragonMilk says:

          I actually did weekend fasts for 5 weekends to lose 32 pounds for a weight loss competition. This was actually rather unhealthy as the winner weighed more than I started with despite being a similar height (6ft). Went from 178 to 146.

          I didn’t have muscle mass to begin with, but I did fear that any little muscle I had was atrophying due to the duration of the fast. My understanding was that short term, muscle is easier to burn than fat, and the fat-burning doesn’t really kick in until day 4 or 5. It’s the intermediate step that could be potentially harmful.

          • Vitor says:

            I understand that muscle being easier to burn than fat might be the case, but I’d need to see really strong evidence before I stop doing the one thing that actually makes me lose weight in a sustainable manner.

            2 further thoughts:

            First, fasting every weekend sounds very radical, it’s probably not enough time for your body to recover nutrients/electrolytes/etc (1/week might be ok if it’s only 24h). The net result of switching from fasting to not fasting so often might indeed be bad. I’m pursuing long-term goals, I don’t care if it takes 3 years for me to lose the weight, so I settled on 1/month as a reasonable frequency, both physically and mentally.

            Second, when I do a weekend fast, I mean 72 hours of fasting. My last meal is on thursday evening. I don’t eat breakfast anyway, so I only have to skip friday lunch at university, and go home an hour or two earlier. I break the fast sunday evening, so my stomach is already back to normal for monday lunch, which is important because I have less control about exactly what I eat when I’m out of the house.

            I wouldn’t do regular 48 hour fasts. The effort just seems to much for one less day of results, and 48 is as hard on your body as 72 (IME, subjectively).

  41. Well... says:

    Anybody else read/listen to that “I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter” thing someone linked to a few OTs ago?

    I’m about 45 minutes into the audio version and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I think the writing is very strong, and it’s interesting (though sometimes confusing), and the “arguments” are interesting too, but not altogether compelling. I guess because to me sexuality has so much to do with reproduction, and to this author it apparently is all or mostly about communication and identity. So far I don’t think the author has mentioned reproduction or children once.

    • Well... says:

      Weird, when I went to link to it again at Clarkesworld, it looks like it was taken down.

      Searching for it, I learned the title of the story is an oldish trollish meme, so maybe there was controversy.

      • Aftagley says:

        I’ll admit, that’s why I bounced hard off the story in the first place. Maybe I should have, but I couldn’t mentally separate stupid meme from the creative output. Michelangelo could come back from the dead and make a portrait of Pepe, and I wouldn’t care to see it.

        • jermo sapiens says:

          Michelangelo could come back from the dead and make a portrait of Pepe, and I wouldn’t care to see it.

          This is exactly the attitude Pepe-trolls want you to have. They understand the effect they have, and their capacity to turn anything toxic like for example the ok hand gesture. And they want to turn as many things as possible, specially things liberals cherish, into a white nationalism symbol.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            I don’t think the WN or 4chan trolls or whatever ever intended to turn Pepe into a racist symbol. Pepe was used by everyone: he’s essentially a blank canvas. But then Hillary’s campaign, and Rachel Maddow saw that there exists a Nazi Pepe (in addition to Christian Pepes, and Muslim Pepes, and Jewish Pepes…) and said “oh, this means Pepe is a nazi thing.”

            I call this “The One Drop Rule of Nazism.”

          • jermo sapiens says:

            I call this “The One Drop Rule of Nazism.”

            Yeah absolutely. It’s similar to the one drop rule of dog shit. Dog shit + one drop of wine = dog shit. Wine + one drop of dog shit = dog shit.

            But back to the main point, when Maddow et al. declared Pepe to be a Nazi, they inadvertently gave enormous powers to the 4chan trolls and the trolls noticed.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Sure. The OK symbol thing was entirely a forced meme. They also tried to say the peace symbol (index and middle finger spread like a ‘v’) meant “two genders” and the thumbs up was really a “14” for the “14 words of white nationalism” (one thumb and 4 fingers) but only the OK symbol took off.

          • Aftagley says:

            My memory of internet culture from 2014-2016 is that pepe originally started out widely used, but then was strongly embraced by the 4chan set, who then exported it to the online-native segment of the alt-right. If my recollection is correct, well before the normies on the left started picking up on Pepe other people online had already stopped using the image out of distaste for it’s growing right-wing connotation.

            That’s not to say that your theory is incorrect, but it didn’t start from tastemakers on the left saying that pepe was now banned, it was an organic reaction. To put it another way, a bunch of people were minimally attached to the Pepe meme and used it; then a subset of that population became VERY attached to the meme so everyone else who didn’t want to be associated with it stopped using it.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            To put it another way, a bunch of people were minimally attached to the Pepe meme and used it; then a subset of that population became VERY attached to the meme so everyone else who didn’t want to be associated with it stopped using it.

            So would that make the Pepe images discarded by everyone on the internet but white nationalists Rare Pepes now?

          • Frog-like Sensations says:

            So would that make the Pepe images discarded by everyone on the internet but white nationalists Rare Pepes now?

            I can’t speak for other communities, but Pepe is still a mainstay in the form of emotes on twitch. The original is the FeelsBadMan emote (a sad looking Pepe that is used to express sorrow), which has many offshoots both generally and for specific channels. These emotes have absolutely no right-wing connotations on twitch.

            I think the general lesson is that the internet is a very big place, and it’s always dangerous to assume that the obsessions of both sides of the social justice wars have been fully absorbed by everyone else.

      • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

        I think reading it without the context of the meme must be very interesting. It sounds to me like you might be confusing the views of the author and the viewpoint character, and also gender identity and sexuality (as the narrator mentions, they’re definitely related but not synonymous).

        • Well... says:

          I don’t know if I’m confusing the author’s views with those of the character, because I don’t know anything about the author. I can’t find anything else she’s written.

    • Lambert says:

      I was going to but then John Schilling linked to Skin Horse and now it’s suddenly the better part of a week later.

  42. EchoChaos says:

    So the Democrats had a debate last night that I didn’t watch, and the big story is that Bernie and Warren are going after each other pretty hard.

    Is this a mischaracterization based on biased news media reports who want to report on progressive infighting, is it real, is it overinflated?

    I’d love to hear from the progressives on the board what they think. Obviously I won’t vote for either, but I like knowing.

    • mitv150 says:

      not a progressive, and curious as well, but…

      It looked like they didn’t go after each other so much at the debate, but if I were a Bernie fan I’d be pretty unhappy with the moderation during that segment.

      Moderator: “Sen. Sanders, did you say this bad thing to Sen. Warren?”
      Sanders: “No I did not.”
      Moderator: “Sen. Warren, how did you react with Sen. Sanders said the bad thing?”

      • acymetric says:

        I missed the debate, but if that is an accurate representation of the conversation, that would be pretty annoying.

        • jermo sapiens says:

          The clips are all over the internet. I didnt watch the debate but I saw this clip. @mitv150’s recollection is correct.

          To be slightly more accurate, though, I believe this is how it went down:

          Moderator: Sen. Sanders you deny saying that a woman cant win the presidency?
          Sanders: That’s correct.
          Moderator: Sen. Warren, how did you react when Sen. Sanders said that a woman cant win the presidency.

    • Skeptic says:

      Warren’s campaign leaked to the press that Bernie had said a woman cannot win the presidency against Trump.

      Bernie adamantly denied it. Then Warren basically called Bernie a liar. Moderator at the debate treated it as a confirmed fact for some reason.

      Occam’s razor says Warren is slipping in the polls and this was her play at winning back supporters from Sanders.

      Edit: at the end of the debate Warren refused to shake Bernie’s hand. Keep in mind this supposed conversation happened 2 years ago.

      • acymetric says:

        It seems like alienating Sanders voters is the worst possible move by Warren (who is going to need pretty much all of Sanders’ supporters to secure the nomination, IMO), unless she really believes people are going to ditch Bernie en masse over this.

        They had smartly (prior to this) had a sort of agreement not to go after each other too hard.

        • baconbits9 says:

          She has not shot at the nomination if Sanders is still around and getting votes, her best shot at winning is Bernie dropping out now/very soon or trying to be the brokered candidate at the convention.

      • Aftagley says:

        Bernie adamantly denied it. Then Warren basically called Bernie a liar. Moderator at the debate treated it as a confirmed fact for some reason.

        Occam’s razor says Warren is slipping in the polls and this was her play at winning back supporters from Sanders.

        Well, the sourcing I saw on that was 4 people, all of them attesting to have been told contemporaneously, 2 of them apparently told directly by Warren. Warren’s campaign has also obliquely confirmed this story, I’d say claiming that Occam’s razor implies a grand conspiracy of lies is unsupported.

        Keep in mind that this was in the aftermath of 2016 in which a bunch of people were claiming that Hillary’s campaign “proved” a woman couldn’t win the presidency, so it’s not farfetched that a politico could think this way. Also keep in mind, Bernie has a pretty spotty history with women and this statement seems believable.

        Edit: at the end of the debate Warren refused to shake Bernie’s hand. Keep in mind this supposed conversation happened 2 years ago.

        No, it happened in Dec 2018. That’s one year and one month ago.

        • acymetric says:

          It doesn’t require a conspiracy at all. There aren’t 4 sources, there is one (Warren). Warren tells 2 people Bernie said something he didn’t say, and they tell 2 more people, and now we have four “sources” (but really we only have one, Warren). I don’t see any conspiracy there, or need for one. It isn’t even necessary for Warren to have outright lied or misconstrued what Sanders said, she might have misunderstood him herself and truly believed it.

          Edit: at the end of the debate Warren refused to shake Bernie’s hand. Keep in mind this supposed conversation happened 2 years ago.

          No, it happened in Dec 2018. That’s one year and one month ago.

          Still seems weird that she had no problem being chummy for that year and then suddenly this leaks and she gives him the cold shoulder (as though this is the first she’s hearing it and she is outraged). Political stunt from Warren is at least a reasonable possibility even if you don’t think it is the most likely explanation.

          • Randy M says:

            It doesn’t require a conspiracy at all. There aren’t 4 sources, there is one (Warren).

            This is similar to the discussion we had about the meaning of corroboration during the Kavanaugh affair.

          • Aftagley says:

            There aren’t 4 sources, there is one (Warren).

            On one level, yes. On the other, memory degradation exists and people are fallible. Assume you have two equally trustworthy people, both are asked to recall something only they would know from a year ago. One person says one thing happened, the other says something else happened. Person A, however, has 2 other people whom they directly told about the series of events when they happened (or took contemporaneous notes) – to me this makes person A’s account more credible.

            My use of the word source wasn’t for the underlying allegation, but for the news articles reporting it. Credible organizations report that they have confirmed with four separate people that, following a meeting in December 2018 Elizabeth Warren claimed Bernie said a woman can’t win the presidency.

          • mitv150 says:

            Credible organizations report that they have confirmed with four separate people that, following a meeting in December 2018 Elizabeth Warren claimed Bernie said a woman can’t win the presidency.

            This is an important point. Warren’s contemporaneous claim of Bernie’s statement is evidence that this is not a new claim being made for the purposes of politics. The four witnesses to Warren support (relatively strongly) the notion that she did not just make up a lie now.

            Depending on your read, the fact this supposedly happened some time ago and nothing further was said at the time supports (relatively weakly) the notion that she was not outright lying at the time. This second aspect is debatable, but will be convincing for some.

          • Clutzy says:

            On the other side of the ledger, however, is you have to account for Warren’s extreme habit of puffery, and the fact that even normal people misremember things about conversations in a way that better suits your worldview. I think there is probably no chance Bernie said what is alleged. What he might have said, which Warren then reports as this is something like:

            Trump already beat a woman.

            You (Elizabeth Warren) can’t beat Trump.

            To beat Trump you have to be tough (or another perceived masculine trait).

            Or anything along those lines. Warren has taken perfectly normal statements before and perceived them as wildly sexist, and in other ways to advantage herself. She did write for the Pow Wow Chow cookbook after all.

        • Skeptic says:

          1. My mistake on the date. Thanks

          2. Whether it’s a year or 2, the point is that it’s not something that just happened

          3. I have no opinion on the veracity. The leak to the press was a purely political move. It doesn’t make it a grand conspiracy, the Occam’s razor conclusion is that it’s a political move by a campaign in decline

          • Aftagley says:

            2. Whether it’s a year or 2, the point is that it’s not something that just happened

            Yeah, in retrospect that was a pedantic correction. If any offense was taken please know it wasn’t intended. I just meant it to imply that this happened just as the primary was starting, not well in advance of a primary.

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          I’m leaning towards “Bernie never said this thing and Warren is lying” because I find it impossible to believe that Elizabeth Warren would take that kind of insult and then be chummy with Bernie for the next two years.

          I’m not a fan of her politics, but Liz Warren is not a pussycat. I think if anyone, Bernie Sanders or not, said to Liz Warren’s face, “you can’t win the election because you’re a woman” she would have bitten that person’s head off, and justifiably so.

          And aside from being Elizabeth Warren, she’s a grown woman and sitting U.S. Senator, not a little girl discouraged because the mean boys on the playground said “girls can’t be doctors” or fighter pilots or presidents or whatever.

          I don’t think it was a good idea for her campaign to force this issue now, because it’s probably going to hurt her more than it’s going to hurt Bernie. But Warren also has a history of making obviously foreseeable campaign errors, like releasing the DNA test.

          So combine:

          1. That doesn’t sound like something Bernie Sanders would say.

          2. I don’t believe Elizabeth Warren would take an insult like that lying down for two years.

          3. Warren has a history of being flexible with the truth.

          4. Warren has a history of making ill-advised campaign stunts.

          And conclude it’s likely that Warren simply lied.

          • albatross11 says:

            Why would Warren have been offended by the alleged comment? I know lots of people on twitter and TV can’t tell the difference between “I think X is true” and “I want X to be true,” but Elizabeth Warren certainly knows the difference.

          • acymetric says:

            Entirely possible that she wasn’t, which makes her letting this get out, and then playing it up, all the worse of a look.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Why would Warren have been offended by the alleged comment?

            Perhaps I misjudge the fairer sex, but I thought they hated hearing “girls can’t do X.” And say that to an avowed feminist and I’m pretty sure you’ll get a nuclear reaction.

            Could some of the female members of the commentariat let me know if it’s me or albatross11 who’s off base here?

            The only way I could see Bernie saying it and not getting a nuclear response would be if he were commiserating, “it sure is terrible this country is so sexist that it’s much harder for a woman to win the presidency.” And if that were the case, as acymetric says, it’s also lousy of Warren to pretend he was making the insult instead. And Bernie says he said nothing of the kind, anway.

          • Ketil says:

            Why would Warren have been offended by the alleged comment? I know lots of people on twitter and TV can’t tell the difference between “I think X is true” and “I want X to be true,” but Elizabeth Warren certainly knows the difference.

            And further, it isn’t a statement about Warren, it is a statement about the voters. The allegation is that some people will vote Trump over Warren because he is a he and she is a she. Since when did it become unacceptable to Democrats to brand Trump voters as sexist?

            A sensible response shouldn’t be that Sanders is sexist, but that he is wrong. That the voters are smarter than that, and I have a plan, etc. A positive spin, rather than bickering that will just make people support Biden instead.

            [Edit: Ah, Randy M. already made this point below. Whops.]

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            And further, it isn’t a statement about Warren, it is a statement about the voters.

            That’s one interpretation. Another valid interpretation of “girls can’t win” is “girls can’t sell their ideas to the voters” or “girls don’t have ideas the voters would go for.”

          • Nick says:

            That’s one interpretation. Another valid interpretation of “girls can’t win” is “girls can’t sell their ideas to the voters” or “girls don’t have ideas the voters would go for.”

            Warren seems to agree with the latter, since she abandoned the ideas in her The Two-Income Trap to ape Bernie’s platform.

      • Randy M says:

        How is this a big deal? Isn’t the progressive view that Sexism is still a serious problem in America? Or are they reading it as “a woman wouldn’t have the balls to go after Trump like I would?” This seems too stupid to charitably attribute to anyone, given many of Trumps critics have been women, from Omar to Pelosi to various celebrities.

        So it seems like he is saying something more about America than about any give woman. Bernie should just say, “That was my read on the electorate, but if Senator Warren gets the nomination, I sure hope the American people prove me wrong, and I know she would work just as hard as I will to earn those votes.”

        This seems only slightly worse than “binders of women.”

        • jermo sapiens says:

          Bernie denies saying it, and from my perspective I tend to believe Bernie far more than the 1/1024th native. It’s out of character for Bernie to say that, and Warren is obviously quite comfortable with lying.

          • Randy M says:

            Okay, and you don’t want to set a precedent of admitting to what you don’t believe you said.

            But is the statement really supposed to be insulting to Warren? I guess in the current year, one cannot make a statement with the words “A woman can’t” in them no matter who bears culpability for that?

          • jermo sapiens says:

            But is the statement really supposed to be insulting to Warren?

            The statement is supposed to disqualify Bernie.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            because saying a woman cant win the presidency is Wrongthink.

          • NoRandomWalk says:

            No, it’s not wrongthink. Many folks in the democratic party has been saying the electorate is biased against women for the past two election cycles. I can’t put it into words why it would be bad for Bernie to think it in a way that is logically internally consistent, however; I just understand that a lot of folks engaged in politics operate under this assumption (or claim to).

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            But is the statement really supposed to be insulting to Warren?

            Yes? Because a campaign is about two parties: the electorate and the candidate. Saying a woman can’t win the election says something about the electorate, but it also implies the candidate is unable to work hard enough or run the campaign well or whatever.

            It’s also obviously false: winning the presidency is like winning a whole bunch of senate races. Many women have won many senate races, ergo a woman can win enough states to get enough electoral votes to win the Presidency.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            No, it’s not wrongthink.

            It is for some people. I understand what you’re saying that the statement is a comment on the electorate, and not on the capacity of women in general. But the Democrats are not actually in agreement that their candidate should be a man to appeal to a sexist electorate.

            Also, the implication of that statement, if Bernie said it to Warren was “you should not run because you’re a woman, you should support me instead because I’m a man”. And THAT is wrongthink.

          • Randy M says:

            Yes? Because a campaign is about two parties: the electorate and the candidate. Saying a woman can’t win the election says something about the electorate, but it also implies the candidate is unable to work hard enough or run the campaign well or whatever.

            Saying “A woman can’t be CEO in this company” may be saying something about all women, or it may be saying something about the company, or both. I think if the average Democrat said it, mostly people would take it as an indictment about the company, but maybe the speech codes are looping back around to interpreting it as insulting to ever use ‘woman’ and ‘can’t’ in the same sentence.

            It’s also obviously false

            A lot of obviously false things are said in the realm of gender politics. Some things that are obviously false to some people are practically required.
            To date, no woman has been elected president, so it’s not proven false.

          • meh says:

            If the following were the quote, would it be weighted the same?

            “An atheist can’t win the presidency”

        • pansnarrans says:

          My best gut guess is:

          1) He said it, or something like it, but in a way that wouldn’t offend Democrats in context. Like “this country is too sexist to let a woman win”.

          2) She honestly misunderstood or has twisted the meaning. Either way, the accusation to him feels technically true, but dishonest.

          3) He doesn’t want to explain the context, because that comes across as “Um well, what I meant to say was…” He’d prefer that she inform the public of the context.

          4) She’s angry because it’s true, but not honest, so from her POV he just lied when he said he didn’t say it.

          • acymetric says:

            Seems plausible.

          • Ms. Morgendorffer says:

            Given the altercation that ensued:
            https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1217619917538844673
            I’m siding with your guess here.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            That altercation shows how much more judgment Bernie has than Warren. She just walks up to him and confronts him with a mic on her. Bernie just says calmly “let’s not do this now”. She, on the other hand, cant contain her anger at him and doesnt care that there’s a camera on both of them and they’re still wearing mics. I think this is the end of the Warren campaign.

          • acymetric says:

            doesnt care that there’s a camera on both of them and they’re still wearing mics.

            Disagree, I suspect she very much cared that there were cameras/mics on and that’s why she did it.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            Disagree, I suspect she very much cared that there were cameras/mics on and that’s why she did it.

            Yeah maybe. That’s even worse.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        Occam’s razor says Warren is slipping in the polls and this was her play at winning back supporters from Sanders.

        So you think it’s
        Warren: Hmm, Bernie is beating me in the polls. Better call him a bro and therefore sexist again. That’ll finish him off!
        ?

        • Skeptic says:

          From the campaign that included both:

          -Take a DNA test showing 1/1024 Indian ancestry, when her story was “grandparents had trouble marrying because one was Indian” and then produce a video of it

          -Release a “ill get myself a beer” video on social media

          Yes, I’d say that’s pretty much par for the course. The only reason to leak this to the press would be for a perceived political gain

      • baconbits9 says:

        Occam’s razor says Warren is slipping in the polls and this was her play at winning back supporters from Sanders.

        Doesn’t say anything about it being a lie or true, but the timing of it certainly points to it being released specifically as a tactic.

    • NoRandomWalk says:

      The transcript literally was:
      PHILLIP: So Sen. Sanders — Sen. Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you’re saying that you never told Sen. Warren that a woman could not win the election?
      SANDERS: That is correct.
      PHILLIP: Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?
      https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/01/14/democratic-debate-transcript-what-the-candidates-said-quotes/4460789002/

      After CNN’s contributor leaked the questions from the CNN debate to the hillary campaign in 2016, you’d think they’d try better to avoid the appearance of bias.

      • Thegnskald says:

        Nobody could win there. Warren pulled the “Everyone loses” switch. Doesn’t even matter whether or not it happened, doesn’t matter what Sanders meant by it if it did. It’s just more gasoline on the flames of the infighting.

        And CNN had to take her side because #BelieveWomen. They couldn’t ignore it for the same reason.

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          Are you talking about the publishing of the story or the question from the moderator? The moderator could have just said, “Senator Warren, how do you respond to Senator Sanders’ denial?”

          • Thegnskald says:

            I think that would be treated the same as denying it by a significant portion of viewers.

            (My guess would be the question was written in advance, without knowledge of how Sanders would respond, giving CNN time to consider the fallout however they framed the question.)

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            Okay then, “Senator Warren, your response?” Works just as well as if Bernie had said “yeah I said it and meant it” or “I said it and I’m super sorry” or “nope, didn’t do it.”

          • Gobbobobble says:

            Or just ask Warren first?

          • Dacyn says:

            @Gobobobble: It is also fishy if you first ask Warren a question implying that Sanders did say the thing, then ask Sanders if he said the thing (implying you are not as confident that he did as is suggested by your first question). You need to find a way to ask Warren about it in a way that doesn’t imply anything.

    • Plumber says:

      @EchoChaos >

      “…is it real”

      (Epistemic status: I barely watched the debate, as I took a shower and cared for the little one while watching “Blippi” and ‘Wild Krats’ while my wife watched it, so my impressions are second hand from my wife, pundits, and ‘highlight’ clips)

      It looked real, also besides the heat said-she said there was a policy disagreement between Sanders and Warren over the NAFTA replacement deal (Warren says approve then fix later, Sanders says no deal is better than a bad deal).

      “is it overinflated?…”

      If they continue than the Sanders/Warren “truce” is over, so potentially significant.

      Since the way the Iowa caucuses work candidates want to not tick off other candidates supporters ’cause second choice matters, but in the last 48 years there’s been only three tickets to the nomination out of Iowa, and Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders, and Warren have been polling about the same there, and someone has to lose that musical chairs game, New Hampshire (if precedent holds) will show which two go on, and the nominee will likely be clear after California votes on March 3rd, unless there’s a repeat of ’80 and ’16 with a ‘moderate’ (probably Biden, but maybe Buttigieg or Klonbuchar) vs. a “liberal” (probably Sanders, but maybe Warren).

      Right now I put the odds at:
      55% chance that Biden wins the nomination, and a 40% chance the general election,

      Sanders I’d say has 20% chance at the nomination

      Buttigieg at 15% chance for the nomination,

      and

      Warren a 15% at the nomination

      I think any Democratic Party nominee has at least a 30% chance at winning the general election.

      • The Pachyderminator says:

        55% chance that Biden wins the nomination, and a 40% chance the general election,

        You mean 40% conditional on winning the primary, or 40% overall?

        • Plumber says:

          @The Pachyderminator,
          Both really, I think Biden has the best chance compared to any other Democratic candidate, but he still has the headwinds of relatively not many Americans are out-of-work, feel poorer due to inflation, are held hostage by foreigners, and/or are comming home in body bags.

          There’s not much Biden (or any Democrat) may do to increase their chances (nor was there much any Republican could do in 2008) except keep appearing trustworthy, the election will turn on how Americans perceive conditions, and how sane or erratic Trumo seems, I actually thought Trump had a better chance at re-election before this stuff with Iran as Americans are weary of war.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            Teeeechnically speaking, if you think he has a 55% chance of winning the primary, then a 40% chance of winning the general election conditional on winning the primary translates to a 22% overall chance of him winning the general election. Conversely, a 40% overall chance would mean you think he has a 73% chance of winning if given the nomination. I suspect you meant the former?

    • BBA says:

      Speaking as a progressive, I’m starting to see the appeal of the Biden campaign for the first time ever.

      Enough with all this malarkey.

      • Plumber says:

        @BBA says:

        “Speaking as a progressive, I’m starting to see the appeal of the Biden campaign for the first time ever.

        Enough with all this malarkey”

        Welcome to the fold!

        I’ll list the reasons:

        1) Remember when it seemed* that Americans didn’t hate each other so much?

        Wouldn’t it be nice to be that way again?

        2) Who’s a plausible candidate that doesn’t inspire fear and/or hatred in a lot of the electorate?

        Let’s elect such a candidate!

        *I was a child in the ’70’s and a teenager in the ’80’s and sometimes remember those times as not so united either, but sepia toned backwards glances tell a different tale!

        • fibio says:

          1) Remember when it seemed* that Americans didn’t hate each other so much?

          Pepperidge Farm remembers…

    • Aapje says:

      Rolling Stone is making a pretty good case that CNN was trying to manipulate public opinions.

      CNN:
      – almost certainly coordinated with Warren to publish a story on this shortly before the debate
      – wrote the story in a deceiving way, presenting a she said/he said story as if Warren had independent witnesses on her side and her accusation was factually true
      – speculated that Warren would be unwilling to call out Sanders fiercely enough during the debate, suggesting that Klobuchar might profit by attacking Sanders hard (there is a Dutch saying: when two dogs fight over a bone, the third runs away with it)
      – presented the accusation as proven during the debate by asking questions that assumed it to be true, even right after Sander denied it
      – asked Warren ‘how did it make you feel’ during the debate, which is hard to answer without looking weak, while immediately after, asking Klobuchar a question that almost seems setup to allow for a heroic statement (“What do you say to people who say a woman can’t win the election?”)
      – praised Klobuchar in the very first comment of Anderson Cooper’s wrap-up show

      This really seems like textbook ‘manufactured consent’ by CNN, who appear to really favor Klobuchar and hate Sanders.

      Jacobin has an interesting story about why Klobuchar is so much more beloved by pundits than by actual voters (basically: she is fiercely status quo, she has identities that should win if people vote merely by identity politics and she loves talking down to people). I can see why this resonates with a lot of top tier people in the media.

      The most amazing comment is by Nate Silver:

      Klobuchar probably has one of the best electability arguments in the field, so the fact that she’s tied for last [in my poll] is a sign that voters don’t really think about electability in the same way that political analysts do

      It really speaks to disconnect between the analysts and voters when pundits say ‘best,’ but actual voters say ‘worst.’ It also suggests that when the media makes decisions on how to report on candidates or who to invite, based on their ‘electability,’ they may introduce immense bias. After all, they aren’t just overestimating number 2 in the polls a little or underestimating the number 1, but they are hugely overestimating some candidates and underestimating others (see the initial reaction to Trump).

      • EchoChaos says:

        One problem is that the pundits, the Democratic primary voters and the general election voters are three different groups with three different opinions on what they want in a President.

        The pundits are guessing that the third group will like Klobuchar most even though the second group likes her least, which is a reasonable statement to make.

        It can be wrong as with Trump, but at least it’s reasonable.

        • Aapje says:

          The pundits were mostly wrong about the primary Republican voters and they were mostly wrong about the general election voters in the Hillary vs Trump general elections.

          When these people are very wrong AND are using their power to surreptitiously favor or disfavor candidates, then they are manipulating elections, possibly quite severely. I don’t think that this is reasonable behavior.

          • EchoChaos says:

            The pundits were mostly wrong about the primary Republican voters and they were mostly wrong about the general election voters in the Hillary vs Trump general elections.

            Yep. They really had egg on their faces.

            When these people are very wrong AND are using their power to surreptitiously favor or disfavor candidates, then they are manipulating elections, possibly quite severely. I don’t think that this is reasonable behavior.

            I think the use of power part is bad whether they’re right or wrong.

            For example, last time they were correct about Democratic primary voters, who did prefer Hillary to Bernie, but used their power to surreptitiously favor her.

            I think the “and” you’ve put there is entirely unnecessary. It’s only the second part that isn’t reasonable.

      • AliceToBob says:

        From the Rolling Stone article:

        CNN bid farewell to what remained of its reputation as a nonpolitical actor via a remarkable stretch of factually dubious reporting, bent commentary, and heavy-handed messaging.

        This is from the same organization that reported the UVA/Jackie Coakley false rape case, isn’t it? I’m skeptical that I can trust anything they report.

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          This is by Matt Taibbi, though. I disagree with his politics, but I’ve never seen him falsify anything, or fail at due diligence. He is one of the few respectable journalists.

          Then again it’s highly probable I only like him because he’s a liberal who craps on the same people I like crapping on: the media and the TLAs.

          • AliceToBob says:

            @ Conrad Honcho

            My disdain for that Rolling Stone article is such that I feel any respectable journalist should have left RS after that story disintegrated, or at the very least offered their criticism of the actors involved.

            Instead, I see Matt Taibbi expressing that he’s “mortified” by story’s unraveling, but defending Will Dana and the fact-checking process at RS.*

            Also, if the Wikipedia article on Tabbi is to be believed, then he also appears to play fast and loose with the truth, in addition to blaming poor decisions on drugs.

            These things don’t inspire trust in his judgement, and it would only worsen my opinion of RS were that possible.

            ——–
            * There is a Huffpost article on this. I don’t like them either, and I won’t give them a link. I’m only looking at several of Tabbi’s tweets posted there.

          • SamChevre says:

            I’m the opposite: Matt Taibbi is responsible for what I consider the single most misleading account of the mortgage loan crisis of 2008-2009–the “robosigning” account, which in 10 years of paying attention I’ve seen no account anywhere to substantiate. (Go to the second link and search down for my name.)

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        Is it telling that my first reaction (having not watched more than a few minutes of any of the debates) is, “remind me who Klobuchar is”?

    • proyas says:

      I saw that part of the debate. My theory is that Warren is misrepresenting something Bernie actually said to her in order to damage him politically. He probably said something like “Trump has stirred up so much sexism in this country that I doubt a woman could win in 2020,” and Warren is only repeating the “I doubt a woman could win” part to make him look bad.

      CNN was and still is wrong to treat the accusation as a fact, though, and I think the moderators should have pressed Warren for more details at the debate about what exactly Bernie said, and under what circumstances he said it.

      • Conrad Honcho says:

        If that’s the case, Bernie lied when he said he never said it. Or, he could simply not remember details of an otherwise unremarkable conversation from a year ago.

        Regardless, the whole thing is basically an own goal by Warren and CNN. This damages her (somewhat), CNN (somewhat), Democrats in general (slightly), feminism in general (slightly), and probably doesn’t do anything to Bernie. It was a terrible choice by all parties to run with this.

        • proyas says:

          If that’s the case, Bernie lied when he said he never said it.

          Bernie might have a lawyerly comeback to that like: “I’m not lying if I deny saying something that in spirit I never said.”

          I agree the whole thing is a gutter political move and shouldn’t have been done.

          • Nick says:

            Bernie doesn’t seem like the type to use lawyerly comebacks. That’s something I actually like about him.

  43. DragonMilk says:

    Given the high cost of tuition to students in the US, does anyone have a spreadsheet of a what a college budget looks like? The Finances pages of universities don’t give too much of a breakdown, particularly operationally.

    My latest pet brainstorming of a worthwhile career switch is running a bachelor’s program where the focus is on employment. For its cost, the typical college experience doesn’t seem conducive to actually preparing students for the workforce well. I’d center my program around recruiting medium sized businesses as sponsors and above offering 4-year post-graduate “apprenticeships” that lead to a salary of 100k+ after those four years and those four years paying the tuition for the 4 years in college.

    The fields of study would center on computer science, finance, operations, and logistics. Summer internships that help offset the non-tuition expenses would also be a prominent feature. Goal would be to recruit high school students with great aptitude and attitudes with the pitch of, “if you keep up your current pace, you are guaranteed a job and the company you work for will pay your debt over four years, with a 100k+ offer at the end of it.

    …But all this has to start with understanding what it takes and costs to run a university! A core question is whether existing colleges can be reformed, or if one should start from scratch by purchasing one of the colleges that are shuttered and for sale

    • The Nybbler says:

      Honestly there’s not a lot of point of doing that for computer science. The reasonably savvy student can find a school where tech companies select a lot of interns from, go, get internships, and get their $100k+ job (or if not $100k, certainly something which will allow them to pay off any debt quickly). The college to employment system is stupid and broken but CS is one of the places it’s least broken. So you might want to concentrate on other fields (I’ll let those with knowledge discuss those).

      • DragonMilk says:

        I agree, but in order to meet the 100k promise, computer science is a career path that accomplishes it readily, and the goal is to focus more directly on work while lowering costs for the students.

    • Jake R says:

      In accordance with internet commenting tradition I have no answer for your main question, merely a tangentially related observation. Bryan Caplan has put forward that the primary value of college education to employers is signalling. Specifically, signalling intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity. I can imagine alternative methods of signalling intelligence and conscientiousness, but coming up with an alternative method of signalling conformity seems almost tautologically difficult. Focusing on programming will help here since that industry has been more willing than most to tolerate non-conformity, but it’s still an obstacle you will have to overcome

      • DragonMilk says:

        That’s why I’m hoping to get employer buy-in at the outset for, “here’s some capable high school students. We’ll take the next four years to shape them into model entry-level workers. They will work 4 years for you in order to pay back their cost of college, and at the end of 4 years, 100k is at the end of the day a market wage for someone competent with 4 years of work experience in your industry.”

        And so I’d focus on industries where the last sentence is true.

        • Plumber says:

          @DragonMilk says:

          “That’s why I’m hoping to get employer buy-in at the outset for, “here’s some capable high school students. We’ll take the next four years to shape them into model entry-level workers. They will work 4 years for you in order to pay back their cost of college, and at the end of 4 years, 100k is at the end of the day a market wage for someone competent with 4 years of work experience in your industry.”

          And so I’d focus on industries where the last sentence is true”

          Change it to five years, and it is true already

          There’s three ways to become a Journeyman union plumber that I know of:

          1) Times are booming and all “A” list plumbers who want to work are working, you have non-union work experience as a plumber, you go to the Hall, submit your name to the union, get hired off the “B” hand list, work long enough and you become an “A” hand who gets hired before “B” hands.

          2) You work for a non-union contractor, they get a big job and decide to hire union hands to quickly “man-up”, you’re ‘grandfathered in’.

          3) They way most do; you submit documents to show that you’re a high school graduate who is legally allowed to work in the United States (U.S.A. birth certificate or “green card”), take a series of tests and possibly an interview (different union locals weigh the tests differently, San Jose just went by test results, Vallejo did pass/fail on the tests, and then decided based on the interview), then work 9,000 hours as an apprentice paid a fraction of the journeyman wage (increasing a bit about every six months) while attending five years of night classes (no tuition, summers off), you must pass your classes and be rated well by a supervisor designated by your employers, if you’re rated “below average” you must appear before a committee half selected by the employers and hald selected by the union and they decide if you may continue as an apprentice, then pass a series of written and hands on tests to “turn out” as a Journeyman with a full time (about 2,000 hours in a year) pre-tax wage of about $100,000 annually in Santa Clara and San Francisco counties, less in other areas of California.

          • DragonMilk says:

            The slight difference here is that rather than earn while you learn, your earnings don’t really start until after you learn, so in a sense it’s 4+4 rather than your 5.

            Which is to say, completely feasible!

    • Aftagley says:

      I feel like applicant quality is going to be a problem for you. High school students with great aptitude and attitudes who are interested in pursuing a career in those fields (or those who are focused on potential earnings more than a specific field) aren’t going to be hurting for options. They’ll likely be able to get into prestigious colleges and get enough scholarships so that they aren’t assuming much debt. They’ll likely know their potential and won’t want to assume whatever risk is associated with linking up with your business when they could just go to a good school and get a good job that way.

      To put this another way, what do you have to offer your average high-performing high school student that makes your product better than just going to regular college and getting a STEM degree?

      • DragonMilk says:

        Cost of college covered (via the 4 year post-college work), no forced wasted time on course requirements not relevant to the career in mind, and guaranteed job placement if GPA threshold is maintained, and the 100k+ salary at the job after year 4.

        Thinking back to high school, a lot of the smartest kids weren’t really that compared when it came to college choices/careers. The #3 or #4 in the class ahead of me just ended up going to a state university and ended up in the Navy. Not knocking either, but if you already were going to go to the Navy, you may not want to incur the cost of four years of tuition for it.

        So high schoolers that don’t want to incur a lot of debt, would otherwise have to work while in school, or would otherwise not really want to pay up for a “liberal arts” education and much prefer a career-oriented one would benefit. I’m not going for the top 1% of high school students – moreso the top 10% of SAT scores, for instance, which is a mere 570/600 verbal/math.

      • The main problem is the time. Why does it need to be four years? If it was one year, then I could see some post bachelors graduates try to use it.

        • Statismagician says:

          ^This. Since we’re not going to do a real liberal arts* education, there’s something to be said for going all the way to the specialized technical course side – but then it doesn’t take the same amount of time. Related; if we’re going to throw out all the stuff that grants institutional prestige, why am I paying you instead of just doing Kahn Academy courses, again?

          *In the classical, indivisible sense, not the ‘B.A. in Ethno-Cultural Underwater Basket-Weaving Studies’ one.

        • DragonMilk says:

          I totally agree – if there’s a way to reduce the time and still be accredited as bachelor’s producing, I’m all aboard!

  44. jermo sapiens says:

    So another muslim grooming scandal has been exposed in Great Britain. Note that the linked article being from the Guardian does not mention “muslim” or even the British euphemism “asian”. This is part of the problem.

    I think this highlights a major issue with immigration that is not talked about. I dont mean the behavior of the perpetrators, which is obviously disgusting, nor the fact that the perpetrators were muslim. Every population will have its share of extremely bad actors.

    But typically, a population’s share of extremely bad actors is universally condemned by society and the authorities have no difficulty investigating and prosecuting such disgusting and hateful crimes. But here, the problem is that the authorities are afraid to appear racist or inflame racial tensions, or other such nonsense. This points to the fact that the West (or at least specifically the UK) is not mature enough to receive foreigners in large numbers. The problem is not necessarily the foreigners, the problem is with the host population’s inability to deal with bad actors within the foreigners. This is not an isolated incident, it happened in Rotherham, and in Manchester, and probably many other places too. In both known cases, it was the liberal attitude of the authorities which turned a crime into a scandal of national proportions.

    • Le Maistre Chat says:

      This points to the fact that the West (or at least specifically the UK) is not mature enough to receive foreigners in large numbers

      You don’t say.
      — on further thought, I don’t think that’s fair. The problem in Manchester mentioned in the article involves “Multiple rapes of vulnerable young children – 11- and 12-year-olds – deserve action and those who should take that action are senior police officers.”
      Muslims believe that Muhammad had sexual intercourse with a 9-year-old girl, and as the Perfect Man that forms a legal precedent for believers. For all we know, the base rate for rape of young children among non-Muslim immigrants is something tiny like 1/million. The big difference between Muslim immigrants and the rest is that Muslims believe in Islam.

      • jermo sapiens says:

        Muslims believe that Muhammad had sexual intercourse with a 9-year-old girl, and as the Perfect Man that forms a legal precedent for believers.

        I’ve heard that. But I suspect what’s happening specifically in the UK is more of the “infidel whores are not worthy of respect” type treatment, than an emulation of Muhammad’s behavior.

        For all we know, the base rate for rape of young children among non-Muslim immigrants is something tiny like 1/million.

        Sure. But whatever the crime is, when police start making enforcement decisions based on whether they will appear racist, or because the relationship with this or that community is shaky, the problem is with the police and/or whatever cultural attitudes leading the police to behave like this.

        • Le Maistre Chat says:

          But whatever the crime is, when police start making enforcement decisions based on whether they will appear racist, or because the relationship with this or that community is shaky, the problem is with the police and/or whatever cultural attitudes leading the police to behave like this.

          Yeah, absolutely. The way the police act toward non-native Britons is so unconscionably screwed up that it needs to have an effect on immigration policy until they form a habit of bringing down state power on everyone equally. But if all or a subset of non-Muslim immigrants are really well-behaved, it would be a net harm to punish them for the police and political culture’s Woke incompetence. So I’d appreciate actual data.

      • Muslims believe that Muhammad had sexual intercourse with a 9-year-old girl

        to whom he was married.

        Under Islamic law, sexual intercourse with a woman you are not married to (and who is not your legal concubine) is a crime, capital if the offender has had past opportunities for legal intercourse (i.e. has been married or had a legal concubine).

        So unless the modern offenders were married to their victims, their behavior was seriously wrong from a Muslim perspective.

        Note also that traditional Jewish law contemplates marriage at ages far below modern age of consent — requiring parental consent if the woman is less than twelve and a half, otherwise not requiring it.

        • Le Maistre Chat says:

          Under Islamic law, sexual intercourse with a woman you are not married to (and who is not your legal concubine) is a crime, capital if the offender has had past opportunities for legal intercourse (i.e. has been married or had a legal concubine).

          So unless the modern offenders were married to their victims, their behavior was seriously wrong from a Muslim perspective.

          Sure, so it’s not exactly clear why the British Muslim rape gangs think this is OK, beyond a vague “infidel women are whores unworthy of respect.”

          Note also that traditional Jewish law contemplates marriage at ages far below modern age of consent — requiring parental consent if the woman is less than twelve and a half, otherwise not requiring it.

          I don’t know about Israeli and very insular Orthodox communities (fairly obviously), but the Jews I know would disagree with that so much. Traditionally they could also marry a first cousin, but I don’t know any who don’t find cousin marriage as gross as Catholics do.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            Likewise, not a single Muslim I know would support marriages to 9-year-olds in the modern day in any way, shape, or form.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            Likewise, not a single Muslim I know would support marriages to 9-year-olds in the modern day in any way, shape, or form.

            Is this an American context? I’ve heard that the US has the best results assimilating Muslim immigrants.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @Le Maistre Chat
            Yes; though I suspect (without particular evidence) that you would get similar responses if you asked immigrants to Britain.

            …Jesus Christ, the age of majority for females in Iran is only 9. (and at “physical signs of puberty” for Saudi Arabia). That makes me less sure of my conclusion for immigrants from those particular countries, though I still do suspect that people fleeing them and immigrating to Britain would have more liberal views than the Sharia governments of the countries they’re fleeing.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            It’s also true in a British context, although I doubt me saying so will stop you spouting ridiculous offensive bullshit about British Muslims.

    • Dan L says:

      Note that the linked article being from the Guardian does not mention “muslim” or even the British euphemism “asian”. This is part of the problem.

      You linked an article about a comment about a report about an investigation of a crime. The third sentence of that article linked back to an earlier article about that report about that investigation about that crime, which does in fact reference the race of both the perpetrators and victims.

      If you are making the case that the race (religion?) of the perpetrators is so obviously the dominant factor that it must be discussed at all meta levels of commentary, you need to at least address the alternate theory explicitly presented in both articles: might Britain have a class problem?

      • jermo sapiens says:

        The third sentence of that article linked back to an earlier article about that report about that investigation about that crime, which does in fact reference the race of both the perpetrators and victims.

        Fair enough. It’s still special treatment. Reverse the races and EVERY article in the Guardian would mention the races of both the perpetrators and victims.

        If you are making the case that the race (religion?) of the perpetrators is so obviously the dominant factor that it must be discussed at all meta levels of commentary

        That is not the case I intended to make.

        might Britain have a class problem?

        Of course it does. And different classes have very different experiences with immigration. Posh Eton graduates can look down at the stupid racist football hooligans who oppose immigration because Posh Eton graduates’ daughters arent being groomed by asian gangs.

    • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

      But typically, a population’s share of extremely bad actors is universally condemned by society and the authorities have no difficulty investigating and prosecuting such disgusting and hateful crimes.

      That’s a nice thought, but unfortunately not true. Ignoring and refusing to believe victims of child sex abuse is the exception not the rule, especially when the victims come from vulnerable backgrounds (which is why abusers of all kinds target those in particular). I’m sure Nazir Afzal (who prosecuted the Rochdale grooming gang, overturning a previous decision not to) was correct when he said that fear of appearing racist was one factor in the failures on the part of the police and social services, but it wasn’t the most important one. Policemen and social workers would’ve dismissed victims as prostitutes regardless of the perpetrators ethnic/religious backgrounds, in keeping with victim blaming behaviour in e.g. Jimmy Savile’s case or Catholic clergy sexual abuse.

      • jermo sapiens says:

        I’m sure Nazir Afzal (who prosecuted the Rochdale grooming gang, overturning a previous decision not to) was correct when he said that fear of appearing racist was one factor in the failures on the part of the police and social services, but it wasn’t the most important one.

        That’s a fair point. But really, unless you know something I dont about this case, we dont know exactly what reason was the most important. Regardless, having another reason not to prosecute such crimes is hardly an improvement. And as far as I know, the victims were believed in this case.

        Also, having foreigners come in large numbers to a new country is already a risky proposition. The fact that some of the foreigners engage in terrorism and some engage in the systematic rape of young local girls, while police look the other way but will arrest you for politically incorrect opinions on social media is a worst case scenario for race relations.

        • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

          And as far as I know, the victims were believed in this case.

          Victims were routinely dismissed as liars, or dismissed as “promiscuous” and therefore not deserving of protection (because of awful misogynist attitudes). This is what happens in most cases of child sexual exploitation, why wouldn’t it happen here?

          while police look the other way

          If you’re asserting that racists will be upset by the police ignoring CSE by Mirpuri Muslim men but not by the police ignoring CSE by white men (and not making any claim about the respective levels of wilful police ignorance) then I would agree with you. But we shouldn’t let racists dictate policy, both on principle and because there simply aren’t that many of them. If you’re asserting that there was a large difference in levels of wilful ignorance on the part of institutions such as the police, then you need to provide evidence for that. The occurrence institutional failure in cases of CSE by Mirpuri Muslim men is not sufficient, since sadly that is common in all instances of CSE.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            I dont completely disagree with what you’re saying. I would hope that authorities at least here in Canada dont dismiss victims as liars, but I couldnt tell you. The fact remains that cases coming out of the UK seem to all be of the muslims grooming white girls type. Why would that be the case, considering that the absolute number of white abusers is probably greater than the absolute number of muslim abusers. Something doesnt add up.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            Also of note, in the UK, if you are convicted of sexual abuse, you will have a shorter sentence if your victims are white.

            So, while I do share your concern that CSE victims in general are badly treated by the system, there is definitely an imbalance against the majority in favor of muslims.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            The fact remains that cases coming out of the UK seem to all be of the muslims grooming white girls type. Why would that be the case, considering that the absolute number of white abusers is probably greater than the absolute number of muslim abusers.

            I’m not sure what your point is here. Are you assuming that the majority of men in grooming gangs are white, and asking why the majority of media attention goes to Pakistani Muslim men? Or are you saying that the difference in media attention is a reason to believe that Pakistani Muslim men are disproportionately in grooming gangs?

            Also of note, in the UK, if you are convicted of sexual abuse, you will have a shorter sentence if your victims are white.

            That link and other reporting of that case does not justify your general claim. But even considering that case specifically (which the popular reaction suggests was not representative), if you read the appeal case transcript the judge specifically rejects the claim that race of the victims was an aggravating factor.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            Also of note, in the UK, if you are convicted of sexual abuse, you will have a shorter sentence if your victims are white.

            Holy s***. The UK has become one of the most evil and mendacious governments to call itself a democracy, possibly the worst where “Democratic” didn’t mean “one-Party rule by the Communist Party.”

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            But even considering that case specifically (which the popular reaction suggests was not representative), if you read the appeal case transcript the judge specifically rejects the claim that race of the victims was an aggravating factor.

            The popular reaction being anger does not actually suggest that the case was not representative. There’s no reason to jump to the conclusion that the public couldn’t react with anger each time a judge does something that judges do regularly.
            What is the judge’s justification for their action in the transcript?

          • jermo sapiens says:

            I’m not sure what your point is here.

            I’m saying that in Rotherham, in Manchester, in Oxford, and elsewhere in England there are reports of Asian grooming gangs abusing young English girls. In each of those cases the reports suggest that the ethnicity of the offenders is a reason why the authorities failed to act.

            You seem to suggest that authorities fail to act in most cases of CSE. Maybe. If so, where are the corresponding scandals? And why is it always muslim grooming gangs that make the news?

            the judge specifically rejects the claim that race of the victims was an aggravating factor.

            Yes, you are correct. And then the judge says that the longer sentence was justified because she is in this “particular community”. So it’s not because she’s asian that her offender got a longer sentence. No, how dare anyone think such a thing! But her offender got a longer sentence because she’s in the asian community. Sounds legit.

            In this regard Her Honour Judge Cahill was, entirely
            properly, having regard to the particular harm caused to the
            victims by this offending. As it happened, that harm was
            aggravated by the impact on the victims and their family
            within this particular community.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            What is the judge’s justification for their action in the transcript?

            Judge’s decision is here.

            As I said in another comment, the sentence was longer because of greater harm due to being in the asian community. So, dont go having any unapproved thoughts that this judge is treating people differently based on the race of the victim. That would be wrong. No, the judge is deciding that depending on your community (which is a proxy for race), you may suffer differing degrees of harm from being raped as a child.

            As it happens, the judge thinks that people within the white community suffer less harm than people within the asian community when raped as a child. It’s probably science or something, not anything we lowly rubes can understand.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @jermo sapiens:

            As it happens, the judge thinks that people within the white community suffer less harm than people within the asian community when raped as a child. It’s probably science or something, not anything we lowly rubes can understand.

            Oh, OK. So it’s just that the British are ruled by a government that thinks native children suffer less from being raped than the children of some or all immigrants do.
            It’s mind-boggling that the native British haven’t overthrown their government.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            Mr Justice Walker said it was proper for paedophile Jamal Muhammed Raheem Ul Nasir to have been given a tougher than normal sentence because his victims were Asian.

            Ul Nasir, 32, carried out sex attacks on two young girls and was jailed for four years at Leeds Crown Court in December last year. He was convicted of two counts of sexual assault on a child under 13 and four counts of sexual activity with a child.

            The kicker is that sexually assaulting children with tougher sentencing circumstances still only costs you 4 years.

            If he’d chosen his victims better, with good behavior he could’ve been home by Christmas!

          • John Schilling says:

            It’s mind-boggling that the native British haven’t overthrown their government.

            Says someone who hasn’t been following the news for the past 1-3 years :-)

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            Says someone who hasn’t been following the news for the past 1-3 years 🙂

            Har har. The native British voted on a referendum to end the European Union’s rule over the United Kingdom, but the government of the United Kingdom itself is oppressing and failing to protect them and they don’t seem willing to able to do anything about it. Does voting in Boris Johnson remove these evil judges from power, or make it legal to criticize Islam on the internet?

          • John Schilling says:

            Does voting in Boris Johnson remove these evil judges from power, or make it legal to criticize Islam on the internet?

            What’s the big hurry? He’s had a majority government for barely a month now, and I believe it is traditional to give new heads of government at least a hundred days to make their mark.

            More seriously: replacing a broad judicial bench takes at least a decade, unless you’re willing to go with the bloodier definitions of “revolutionary”. Legislative changes, usually a year-plus unless that particular piece of legislation is one of your top priorities. Making it quietly known through the relevant circles that any Crown prosecutor who pursues an insulting-Muslims case is spiking his future career prospects, can happen fairly quickly but not obviously.

          • ECD says:

            Except what it actually says is:

            “The remaining point taken by Mr Shafi is that the judge had, he submitted, regarded the offending as aggravated because of the victims’ ethnic and religious origin. This point is, with great respect to Mr Shafi, a misconception. In her sentencing remarks the judge observed that J was finding it difficult at school because her friends knew what had happened, leading to problems and shame for her. In relation to G, the judge observed that she had had difficulty as a result of what the applicant had done to her. This had caused G to behave completely out of character: she had previously been a young girl doing well at school, and now was not doing as well as expected. For the family as a whole there had been enormous implications. The father had said that he and their mother were struggling and felt socially isolated because, within their particular community, it brought great shame on the whole family when things like this happened. He was also concerned about the future marriage prospects for his daughters. The applicant, coming from this community, knew only too well the effect upon the children and their family and this was an aggravating feature.

            In this regard Her Honour Judge Cahill was, entirely properly, having regard to the particular harm caused to the victims by this offending. As it happened, that harm was aggravated by the impact on the victims and their family within this particular community. ”

            That harm is not, at least from this ruling, somehow limited to people within that community, that merely was part of the source of the additional harm for these victims. I would assume (absent countervailing evidence) that other victims could have other, additional harms, caused by their own communities, or their own psychology, their own physiology, or the specific cruelties and crimes of their attackers.

            And for crying out loud if your narrative of the world really somehow is that the majority population and ruling ethnic group of a nation has become so ‘self-hating’ that they’re just looking to ignore the harm to their own children, consider that maybe you are just wrong.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            And for crying out loud if your narrative of the world really somehow is that the majority population and ruling ethnic group of a nation has become so ‘self-hating’ that they’re just looking to ignore the harm to their own children, consider that maybe you are just wrong.

            I would really love to be wrong on this. But all the evidence does point to the fact that the elite portion of the “ruling ethnic group of [Great Britain]” hates the non-elite portion of the “ruling ethnic group”, to the point of letting foreigners motivated by religious hatred systematically rape their daughters.

            It’s not that the British police is incapable of enforcing the law. Tweet that there are two genders and you’ll have a constable at your door asking for your loicense to tweet. They can enforce the law. They choose not to in the case of muslims raping young English girls.

            Please, show me that I’m wrong. That would be fantastic.

            As for the ruling, I’m sorry but it’s an abomination and a further example of the white elite showing their hatred of the white working class. “Community” is not synonymous with ethnicity, but in 99.9% of cases, your ethnicity correlates with your community. If being part of a community means people who rape you will have a longer sentence, for all intents and purposes the law is favoring you on the basis of your ethnicity.

            I’m all in favor of mitigating/aggravating factors in sentencing, but judges presuming to measure the harm done to a victim by sexual assault like this is just bad law and prone to abuse. How much harm does sexual assault do to a victim? How about a fuckton, for every ethnicity, and leave it at that.

          • Conrad Honcho says:

            It’s probably science or something, not anything we lowly rubes can understand.

            jermo, this is the kind of snark I got banned for. You might want to tone it down before the next Reign of Terror. Getting banned from this place sucks.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            What @jermo sapiens said. I’ll consider that maybe I’m mistaken when the rulers of Britain beseech me in the bowels of Christ. But for now there’s too much evidence that white rulers favor Islam over Christianity and “Asians” over white people socially inferior to themselves.
            It’s infuriating that these actions are taken by the government in a so-called democracy, that little girls born into the white working class get raped and their rapists systematically get away with it while one main Party is named “working class” and Islam is favored over traditional Christian culture when the other is literally named Conservative. As Zoroaster would put it, the authorities are serving the Lie.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            Islam is favored over traditional Christian culture

            If you cared about children being abused you would support this. Catholic priests in the UK are much more likely to abuse children than Muslims.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @thisheavenlyconjugation

            That is a completely unfair and misleading comparison since Catholic priest rapists are a tiny part of all Catholics, just as the rape gangs were a tiny part of all Muslims.

            The proper comparison is all Catholics to all Muslims.

            Of course, by English tradition both ought to be expelled.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            You might want to tone it down before the next Reign of Terror.

            Fair point. I did regret writing it in that tone. I think the topic is extremely serious and warrants actual outrage, and it’s fascinating and infuriating to see people justify blatant discrimination in favor of muslims, but one of the main benefits of this comment section is the tone, so apologies to all, I will do better.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            If you cared about children being abused you would support this. Catholic priests in the UK are much more likely to abuse children than Muslims.

            How angry would you be if a network of Catholic priests were abusing young non-catholic children, the authorities knew it, but chose to let it happen so as to not be accused of anti-catholic bias?

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @thisheavenlyconjugation:

            If you cared about children being abused you would support this. Catholic priests in the UK are much more likely to abuse children than Muslims.

            There are only 3,000 diocesan Catholic priests in England and Wales. Even including non-diocesan priests and Scotland, you’re talking about 4,000-4,500 men. Nine years ago, during the last census, there were 2,516,000 Muslims in the UK.
            You want to take back the insinuation that I don’t care about children being abused?

          • The original Mr. X says:

            @ This Heavenly Conjugation:

            If you cared about children being abused you would support this. Catholic priests in the UK are much more likely to abuse children than Muslims.

            [citation needed]

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @EchoChaos
            Why can’t we just get rid of the Catholic priests, without getting rid of all Catholics?

            @Le Maistre Chat
            If you’re going by total numbers of abuse cases then as per the silly irrelevant liberal comment that often gets made about this topic, “since white people still commit the majority of abuse” we should obviously get rid of them.

            @The original Mr. X
            To quote jermo sapiens, “all the evidence points to it”. Except in this case that’s actually true. Go and count cases on Wikipedia if you want, Le Maistre Chat has helpfully provided the relevant denominators. It’s not my job to educate you!

          • Dacyn says:

            @thisheavenlyconjugation:

            Why can’t we just get rid of the Catholic priests, without getting rid of all Catholics?

            This may be tangential, but this reads to me kind of like “why can’t we just get rid of all the Qurans, without getting rid of all the Muslims?” I mean you can, but they won’t be happy about not being able to practice their religion anymore.

            In any case, I don’t see why one would want to get rid of all Catholic priests rather than just the rapists. (Nor why “getting rid of group X” is an appropriate framing of the issues here.)

          • The original Mr. X says:

            To quote jermo sapiens, “all the evidence points to it”.

            All the evidence I’ve seen suggests that Catholic priests abuse at about the same rate as priests/ministers in other Christian denominations, which in turn is lower than the rate of abusers in the general population. So even if there’s some contrary evidence out there that does suggest that Catholic priests are unusually abusive, I can quite confidently say that “all the evidence points to it” is, in fact, false.

            Go and count cases on Wikipedia if you want, Le Maistre Chat has helpfully provided the relevant denominators.

            Seriously? Aside from anything else, why on earth should I suppose that Wikipedia provides a sufficiently complete list of cases to form the basis of a reliable comparison?

            It’s not my job to educate you!

            And it’s not my job to do the hard work of proving your claim for you because you can’t be bothered to.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @Dacyn
            Hey, I didn’t rule out getting new priests! And if Qurans start attacking people I’ll be the first to call for their destruction.

            @The original Mr. X
            You mean evidence from people like this Catholic university professor, who makes the incredible claim that 8% of the adult male population have “sexually engaged with minors” in a way that is clearly supposed to be comparable with clerical sexual abuse?

            Aside from anything else, why on earth should I suppose that Wikipedia provides a sufficiently complete list of cases to form the basis of a reliable comparison?

            You don’t need to make any such assumption. Even making the very generous assumption that Wikipedia exhaustively lists all the clerical abuse cases, you simply have to note that it lists more than 10 and divide by the relevant denominator to get a rate that implies the must be order of magnitude underreporting for general child sexual abuse and grooming to be at a comparable level as Catholic priest abuse.

          • who makes the incredible claim that 8% of the adult male population have “sexually engaged with minors” in a way that is clearly supposed to be comparable with clerical sexual abuse?

            Why is that incredible?

            I don’t know if it’s true, but in the U.S. the average age of first intercourse is reported as 16.8 for men and 17.2 for women.

            There are eleven U.S. states where the age of consent is 18. Things are complicated somewhat by the existence in some states of exceptions where both parties are young, but I think those numbers strongly imply that considerably over 8% of American men have had intercourse with someone under the age of consent in their state, even if you only count the cases where doing so met the legal requirements for statutory rape.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @DavidFriedman
            It is certainly very credible that at least 8% of adult men have had sex in which all parties were under the age of consent, which is why I ended the sentence with “in a way that is clearly supposed to be comparable with clerical sexual abuse”.

          • The original Mr. X says:

            It is certainly very credible that at least 8% of adult men have had sex in which all parties were under the age of consent, which is why I ended the sentence with “in a way that is clearly supposed to be comparable with clerical sexual abuse”.

            Statistics for clerical sexual abuse generally include consensual relationships with minors as well.

          • @thisheavenlyconjugation:

            I must have been unclear. My point was that something close to 50% of American women had their first intercourse when below the local age of consent and I thought it unlikely that almost all of them had only had intercourse with partners also below the age of consent. So I think 8% is a low estimate, although not impossibly low, for the percentage of adult American men who had committed statutory rape.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @DavidFriedman
            That is also certainly true, and again covered by “in a way that is clearly supposed to be comparable with clerical sexual abuse”.

            @The original Mr. X
            Then they are incomparable with statistics for the general population, since priests can’t be 19 year olds with 17-year-old girlfriends.

          • The original Mr. X says:

            Then they are incomparable with statistics for the general population, since priests can’t be 19 year olds with 17-year-old girlfriends.

            Why not? Nineteen would be young for a priest nowadays, but the article you linked to states that “30 years ago, most priests entered seminary during high school”, and there’s no reason why a priest can’t have a consensual relationship with a 17-year-old.

          • That is also certainly true, and again covered by “in a way that is clearly supposed to be comparable with clerical sexual abuse”.

            What do you consider the defining characteristic of clerical sexual abuse? I was assuming it was adults having sex with underage partners.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @DavidFriedman

            Most people aren’t raised to see all adults as protective authority figures that one is expected to periodically recite one’s sins to.

            The equivalent in secular terms would be a police person or legal person, and most likely a teacher.

        • Dan L says:

          But really, unless you know something I dont about this case, we dont know exactly what reason was the most important. Regardless, having another reason not to prosecute such crimes is hardly an improvement. And as far as I know, the victims were believed in this case.

          There’s an article discussing the whistleblower’s thoughts here, including a contradiction of your presumption.

    • The original Mr. X says:

      There’s another factor, as well as racism, that probably plays a role:

      As Norman Wells of the Family and Youth Concern charity argued in his book Unprotected, the most fundamental issue is the idea commonly accepted by policy makers that children should be assumed to be making autonomous decisions about sex and drugs, and should be allowed to do so, however disastrous the consequences are likely to be.
      What we hear again and again from the social workers in these cases — social workers who were in many cases the primary caretakers of the victims — was that they regarded the girls’ liaisons as consensual. In English law, as elsewhere when an adult has sex with a person under a certain age (16 in England), consent is legally irrelevant. It is rape.
      The social work mindset, however, reflected in sex education materials and official guidance, and parroted by the police, is that if the rapist is reasonably young, or if the victim does not complain, the matter should be ignored.

      (Source.)

  45. When analyzing notional worlds, they can be divided along an axis of superior/inferior:

    Less war / more war
    More morality / less morality
    Universalist morality / particularist morality
    Stable / unstable
    Competition based on merit / competition based on other factors
    Democratic government / autocratic government
    Beliefs based on evidence and experiment / beliefs based on myths and “common knowledge”
    Interested in gaining and preserving knowledge / Uninterested in gaining and preserving knowledge
    Interested in knowledge “for its own sake” / Interested in knowledge as a means to an end
    Connected world / poorly connected world

    Our world is clearly superior to that of our ancestors. Yet science fiction portrayals of the future tend to be inferior. Inferior worlds are in a sense more interesting than superior worlds. But our superior world would certainly be of interest to our ancestors. What are works of science fiction which portray superior worlds?

    • Jiro says:

      Our world is clearly superior to that of our ancestors.

      This is not obvious. The world has improved in some measures and gone down in others.

      • Matt M says:

        This is not obvious. The world has improved in some measures and gone down in others.

        Can you provide a couple examples in which the world is worse than it was for people living 200+ years ago?

        Note: To be fair, you must compare people of similar power/status/socioeconomic groups then vs now.

        • Well... says:

          One aspect that often gets pointed to is how ungrounded people are today. If you’ve grown up in a household with your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and your extended family are all within walking distance, I imagine you probably have a much stronger sense of pride and meaning in who you are. This might manifest in lower rates of anxiety and depression.

          Also, people back then probably had fewer allergies.

          • B_Epstein says:

            This depends on when and where is “back then”. A lot. A male in 1800 France had decent odds of dying in a foreign field in the Napoleonic wars. He knew that. How grounded and meaningful did he feel about it? He might feel patriotic, but nationalism and nationalistic pride are typically described as having greatly increased in the last 200 years.

            Go further on in time and enjoy the depression-free Black Death depopulating said household.

          • Aapje says:

            This feels cherry picky. A French man would not be conscripted in 1785, nor would a man be conscripted in pretty much every country other than France in 1800.

          • B_Epstein says:

            For sure. Honestly, I just thought “what was going on ~200 years ago?”. But it does show there’s quite a range of “back then”s. It’s pretty easy to pick some other cherries, too. Perhaps you want to go back to late medieval times (say, 1200-1400) to any place undergoing a Mongol invasion and get …grounded (sorry, sorry)?

          • Well... says:

            To be clear, I’m not saying that having a sense of groundedness in one’s family and identity makes up for the horrors of 18th century war or medicine etc.; rather, it’s one specific (and perhaps isolated) aspect in which many people would say life was probably “better” back then.

          • B_Epstein says:

            Of course, and I apologize if it seemed like I was accusing you of this. But my point is also not merely decrying those horrors – it’s that one’s family and other identity circles were so fragile and so frequently swept away that it’s not clear to me that a typical person was more grounded “back then”.

        • Enkidum says:

          Obesity, physical strength, etc. Consequences of the working poor/middle class (aka the vast majority of people) doing less physical activity).

          Visual acuity. For both rich and poor (likely more for rich than poor), a consequence of children spending less time in outdoor light when their visual systems are developing.

          Knowledge of how the tools one uses in daily life work.

          Knowledge of the natural world – not scientific, but experiential/predictive in an immediate sense (e.g. “where can I find this plant/animal?”)

          • jermo sapiens says:

            Obesity, physical strength, etc. Consequences of the working poor/middle class (aka the vast majority of people) doing less physical activity).

            Also, this could be a consequence of our advances in medical science. Specifically, whereas 200 years ago, many children died young, now most make it to adulthood. Presumably the ones that died young were weaker and less healthy than the ones who survived.

          • Enkidum says:

            I suppose that could be, but there’s a pretty direct correlation between exercise and physical fitness, and we know that exercise has drastically decreased over the past few decades alone.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            It’s probably a combination of things. I agree with you about exercise.

          • Enkidum says:

            Fair. I hadn’t thought about childhood mortality and that’s obviously an important consideration.

          • Thomas Jorgensen says:

            The visual acuity, and hell, also just a lot of the depression could be fixed by just building indoor lightning with sufficient lumens. LEDs are very energy efficient, going to a standard lamp being north of ten thousand lumen would not particularly break anyones electricity bill.

          • Enkidum says:

            I think it’s unclear how much of the visual issues are due to wavelength deprivation, which could be solved by lights, as you say, and how much is due to spending too much time focussing at a small range of distances. (This wouldn’t just cause acuity issues, but could also contribute to strabismus, amblyopia, etc)

            But yeah, better combos of LEDs would solve a lot of this.

          • Orion says:

            Replying to the jerm/enki subthread above about exercise and obesity

            Jermo:…200 years ago, many children died young, now most make it to adulthood. Presumably the ones that died young were weaker and less healthy than the ones who survived.

            Enki: I suppose that could be, but there’s a pretty direct correlation between exercise and physical fitness

            Although there’s a strong correlation between health and exercise, I’m increasingly of the opinion that there’s a strong component of reverse causation — poor health may be causing lack of exercise just as often as lack of exercise causes poor health. There are a lot of under-diagnosed conditions that cause chronic fatigue, joint pain, and so on, which can strongly disincentivize exercise in people who look superficially healthy.

          • Enkidum says:

            poor health may be causing lack of exercise just as often as lack of exercise causes poor health.

            Another good point. Turns out real life is complicated. Who knew?

        • Randy M says:

          It seems that it is harder to find a mate and there is less satisfaction with romance in general.

          It may be the case that this is talked about more than it actually effects most people, perhaps because media/social types are more embedded in a transient milieu–in more ways than one–but if it is an extensive change, it’s regrettable because to many people this is a significant aspect of their lives.

          Perhaps in the past people found mates quicker due to social pressure but were unhappy with them more often. Hard to measure.

          • Nick says:

            Not quite romance, but I suspect that moral panics over stranger danger and related things have made parenting more stressful and anxiety-inducing. And with both parents working they’re probably spending less time on net with their kids, too.

          • Randy M says:

            Those, and the increasing pressure to get one’s children into a prestigious school that makes every B+ an existential crisis.

          • meh says:

            Is this compared to 200 years ago, or 40 years ago?

          • Randy M says:

            Is this compared to 200 years ago, or 40 years ago?

            To be honest, it’s not really a comparison to a specific. There’s a lot of talk about modern trends that make finding a date/mate difficult, but I’m not sure how far back to go before things are different and also if there weren’t countervailing trends, like the difficulty of travel.

            It’s second-hand for me, anyway, since I didn’t have a great deal of difficulty, but I’m just pointing out that if people are having trouble here–and they seem to be–then it’s a significant drawback.

        • Jaskologist says:

          Metrics we do worse on:
          * Average # of grandchildren a person will live to see.
          * Likelihood of having a first marriage that lasts until death do them part.

          • Jaskologist says:

            * Number of close friends after age 30.

          • meh says:

            * Average # of grandchildren a person will live to see.

            My instinct says this is wrong. How are you calculating this?

          • B_Epstein says:

            “* Likelihood of having a first marriage that lasts until death do them part.” – Is it obviously a good thing? How bad a typical marriage used to be? How frequent was domestic abuse? (Those are not rethorical questions. Also, I ignore the religious arguments here – though they may be persuasive to, well, religious people).

            “* Number of close friends after age 30.” – Citation needed. If you qualify and say “percentage of close friends among surviving acquaintances”, then perhaps. Otherwise, my intuition is against it (comparing to 200+ years ago). Literally 100% of people that used to be my friends at any point and that I know anything about are alive. Would this be true 200 years ago?

          • Randy M says:

            Literally 100% of people that used to be my friends at any point and that I know anything about are alive.

            I believe this part is more related to the issue Jaskologist is raising than lifespan.

          • B_Epstein says:

            I may have been unclear. I was talking about the set of people I was (or still am) friends with at any point in my life. It’s certainly plausible that many more of these relationships would be in a better shape, as Jaskologist suggests, among the survivors. So we have two opposing dynamics going on, and to me it’s not clear that one dominates the other. Remember that we’re talking about people making it to 30. In a world with a life expectancy between 30 and 40, I’d bet on lifespan is the main factor determining the number of close friends after age 30.

          • Nick says:

            This seems like a weird point to me to raise. Life expectancy once you reached, say, 12 was quite good. Folks didn’t have many friends or family dropping dead at 30.

          • B_Epstein says:

            Working off these numbers, in 1700 England, 24% died between 7 and 16. Not irrelevant to number of lifelong friends. For instance, I’d say I’ve met over 80% of my good-to-close friends (that is, the people who are my good-to-close friends after 30) in that time period. Sure, once you’ve both reached 30, your life expectancy was 59 – but first, you had to make it! Chances for both of you doing so were way below 50%. And then, after a few years, yes – folks did have people dropping dead (or killed) around them.

            It seems fair to claim that the ability to form life-lasting relationships at adolescence was severely impaired by life expectancy. The ability to meet people at age of 16-30 and to make it to 30 both was also non-trivial and then – yes, if two people met at the age of 30 , they had decent chances to enjoy quite a few years of friendship. But if you had ten good friends at the age of 30, I think you could expect to lose some of them pretty fast. Not to mention people only meeting each other at 30 (and then becoming good friends!) was less likely in a more localized world.

            I may well miss something, or the numbers may just work out fine for Jaskologist’s claim, but it sure isn’t self-evident that the claim holds – or that life expectancy isn’t a major player.

          • Orion says:

            replying to the B_epstein subthread:

            in 1700 England, 24% died between 7 and 16. Not irrelevant to number of lifelong friends. For instance, I’d say I’ve met over 80% of my good-to-close friends (that is, the people who are my good-to-close friends after 30) in that time period.

            This might be where your intuitions are diverging from some other readers. I’m 30 now, and I met 0% of my current friends before age 16.

          • B_Epstein says:

            Replying to Orion:

            [Using data from here and assuming mortality among members of a group of people is independent – wrong but probably fine at first approximation. Also being extremely generous in using ~1850 as “back then” and not extrapolating to 1700]

            OK. First the bunch of people under consideration had to survive till age 30. Let’s consider ten people, all making a cluster of great friendship. The odds of all them even surviving to meet each other at the age of 30 have increased from ~0.007 for people born around 1850 to ~0.73 for people born in 1990. That’s an increase by over a hundred times, just from mortality changes. Having happily and enormously fortunately survived until the age of 30, the group then tries to make it to 40. Odds for 1851+30, conditioned on survival to 30: ~0.43. Same for 1990+30: ~0.81. Almost doubled purely by mortality. The ratio for 50 is ~11.6 increase in likelihood.

            To put it simply: “back then” you simply wouldn’t meet most of your best friends. They wouldn’t make it. If they did, at least one of them would die before 40 and two more between 40 and 50. And this doesn’t even begin to take into account the increase in the opportunities to meet people all over the world, the ways to keep in touch over the years, the sheer increase in population allowing for more people eligible as close friends…

            It’s really not about intuitions. The more I prod the original claim, the less it and Nick’s objection hold water.

          • meh says:

            @B_Epstein
            The mortality difference is also why I found the #grandchildren claim hard to believe. not sure how OP calculated this.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            There are opposing factors of fewer children and less child mortality in the modern day than in the past; I’m not sure which dominates.

          • hls2003 says:

            On the “more grandchildren on average” issue, how is this even controversial, at least for most of the industrialized world?

            Just look at rate of population growth (note that this map does not appear to be adjusted for immigration). If the overall rate of growth used to be generally higher in earlier times, then the statement is true. Given that current rates of non-immigration growth in most of the industrialized world are slowing or reversing due to sub-replacement birth rates, this seems obvious.

            Surely there are times when it’s false in the past, mostly when death rates rose. Like during the Black Death. But on the whole, the West’s population surely grew faster many years ago than today, which by definition means that more grandchildren are surviving. Since the population today is much larger than it used to be, that means significant historical expansion, while current rates of expansion are low.

          • B_Epstein says:

            Using this again, in 1700 England ” of 100 live births, 60 would die before the age of 16.” Around half of the survivors would be male. To give birth to a few (surviving) children of their own, the daughters would have to survive till 24-26 at the least. At which point the grandparent-to-be would be, say, 48. Which already excludes more than half of the population. And then many of those children would actually die in infancy (36% before the age of 6). I’d sum it up as basically no common person enjoying watching more than a grandchild or two live beyond 6.

            Two caveats: first, none of the above applies to aristocrats. They lived longer and in much cleaner conditions, with much higher children survival rates. Second, 1700 England was a nightmare. In New England, by comparison, 7-8 children reached the age of 21. I’d argue, though, that New England was the exception rather than the rule.

          • B_Epstein says:

            @hls2003 the proposed metric was grandchildren one lived to see. Also, we’re talking at least 200 years ago. Most of the population (by far) had not yet occurred then.

          • meh says:

            @hls2003
            If both birth rates and death rates are higher, it is possible to have higher population growth and lower Average # of grandchildren a person will live to see.

            If we use extreme values just to show this:
            Scenario 1: imagine every year there are 10,000 births, and 9,995 die by 6.
            Scenario 2: every year there are just 2 births, but they both will live to 75.

            In scenario 1, there is higher growth, but also much lower ‘Average # of grandchildren a person will live to see’

          • Jaskologist says:

            That pdf gives an average of 7-8 children children in 1700 New England reaching age 21 in a family. Assume 1-2 of those become confirmed bachelors. That gives 6*7.5 = 45 expected grandchildren.

            Current US Fertility rate is 1.72. New England is actually the lowest in the country, but let’s use the higher number anyway and assume they all survive, giving us almost 3 expected grandchildren per couple.

            If a 1700 New Englander survives to see even 10% of their grandchildren, they win this contest. With an average life expectancy of early 60s, I think they come out far ahead.

            These may well be cherry-picked numbers, but I can at least honestly say that you picked them and not me. People in the past didn’t have to live very long to beat our current sub-replacement reproduction rate, but even back then they usually out-lived their childrens’ fertility.

          • Jaskologist says:

            It occurs to me that I’m cheating by only counting people once they’ve already formed a family, so if somebody can think of a good way to account for all the dead babies who don’t have kids, do please adjust those numbers.

          • meh says:

            @Jaskologist
            right, I think there is a denominator problem in your calculus (which reminds me of average utilitarianism)

          • B_Epstein says:

            @Jaskologist

            Yes, I wrote explicitly that my analysis was focused on England, not New England. I also wrote that England seems to be more representative and I stand by it – unless proven otherwise. So you can’t yet honestly say that you didn’t cherry pick the numbers.

          • B_Epstein says:

            Let’s take a look at France and Germany.

            Mid-18 century France: “half of all children died before age ten, and life expectancy was just 25 years.”

            Germany around 1740: ” rather high life
            expectancies around 32 years which are quite probably brought about by an underregistration of deaths. ” Going a bit further back in time, every few decades, everybody died – well, not everybody, but e.g. the population dropped from 14M in~1620 to 6M in 1650. The only decades between 1650 and 1820 with consistently positive (frequently not by much) growth rate were the 1700s, 1710s and 1780s.

            This supports my claim – New England was exceptionally exceptional (and we also know from Scott’s Albion review that its culture was unique – and didn’t last long). Other typical Western societies were like England or worse.

          • hls2003 says:

            the proposed metric was grandchildren one lived to see

            That’s my fault, I skimmed the thread and didn’t catch the caveat. I agree that this would complicate the issue, since you would have to assess likely age of death of the older generation. At the margin, if everyone was euthanized at age 30 after siring / bearing 10 children, of course they would see zero grandchildren despite having a lot of descendants. So I concede that’s a more complicated question than “surviving grandchildren,” which I read it to be.

        • meh says:

          200+ years ago?

          Note: To be fair, you must compare people of similar power/status/socioeconomic groups then vs now.

          IMO most of the examples are ignoring these 2 requirements.

        • Tarpitz says:

          You are rather assuming a human-universalist, welfarist view of what constitutes a good world. Someone with other views might not be comparing people’s quality of life at all.

          Granted, human-universal welfarism is a rather more mainstream position than Alexander Turok’s baldly asserted list of pairs of superior and inferior things.

      • I meant our distant ancestors 200+ years ago.

    • eyeballfrog says:

      Star Trek comes to mind.

    • mitv150 says:

      The “Culture” novels of Iain M. Banks mostly do.

    • Dacyn says:

      According to this categorization, I would say the modern world has:

      Less war / more war : I don’t know
      More morality / less morality : A different type of morality, judged “better” by our standards, but I don’t think it is more or less
      Universalist morality / particularist morality : More universalist
      Stable / unstable : At least parts of it are more stable
      Competition based on merit / competition based on other factors : Don’t know
      Democratic government / autocratic government : More democratic
      Beliefs based on evidence and experiment / beliefs based on myths and “common knowledge” : More belief based on evidence
      Interested in gaining and preserving knowledge / Uninterested in gaining and preserving knowledge : Interested in preserving different types of knowledge, and better tools to do so; don’t know about more interested overall
      Interested in knowledge “for its own sake” / Interested in knowledge as a means to an end : Don’t know
      Connected world / poorly connected world : More connected

      So, probably improving on average (leaving aside whether the choice of attributes is representative) but by no means along all attributes.

      • Thegnskald says:

        When you get back down to it, this is just a list of modern values. It isn’t interesting if modern society is “superior” at it’s values than a historic society that didn’t share them.

        • Dacyn says:

          I don’t think that stability or connectedness are particularly modern values, but generally I agree. I was trying to take Alexander Turok’s post at face value: if these are the things he considers to be superior, then is modernity superior according to that definition?

    • AlexOfUrals says:

      Frederick Pohl’s Gateway and most of Strugatsky brothers’ works are outright utopian. Folks in Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga, Niven’s Known Space, and Karl Schroeder’s Lady of Mazes seem to have it considerably better than ourselves on average – in large parts because of increased/indefinite lifespan, – although it’s not stated clearly and some people may disagree (in the first example, probably the author himself would).

      • roystgnr says:

        Gateway, utopian? Maybe if you count the later sequels? The original is the story of a food shale miner (like coal mining, but dirtier and also the only thing standing between humanity and mass starvation) who wins the lottery but who still can’t afford a comfortable life without using that to bankroll a high-pay high-mortality-rate astronaut job first, and whose eventual “success” is so emotionally crippling that the whole book is told via the framing story of his later psychoanalysis sessions.

        • AlexOfUrals says:

          You’re right, bad wording on my part, I meant the whole universe in the series. It’s definitely not utopian at the beginning, but it gets there eventually, and the end result is described in some details, and if I remember correctly the action continues for some time after that point.

    • C_B says:

      Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series is an obvious example of utopian scifi, though it goes out of its way to portray its society as having made difficult compromises and given up important things of value in order to achieve its generally-better status quo. Here’s the author and a Tor blogger talking about utopianism in the series.

      If you’re interested in this stuff, you should definitely give Too Like the Lightning a read (and the rest of the series if you enjoy the first one). It’s a difficult work to recommend without caveats because Ada Palmer has made a lot of very weird stylistic choices in writing it that won’t appeal to everyone, but it’s probably my favorite thing I’ve read this decade.

    • John Schilling says:

      What are works of science fiction which portray superior worlds?

      Star Trek before it turned into just another outer-space shoot-em-up, so probably midway through DS9.

      And a fair bit of classic written SF, e.g. most of Asimov (“Foundation” being an exception because of the explicitly apocalyptic setting), most of Clarke, about half of Heinlein, most of Niven’s solo works, probably half of Anderson and Piper, others too numerous to mention, and many of those that fall short do so only because the author built a “better” society by your standards and then threw in a big war as a drama source.

      More recently, Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga.

      • Statismagician says:

        Even Foundation has a big helping of… I don’t know, optimism, I guess, about expertise and technology generally. Psychohistory would be obviously silly, adopted anyway, and directly responsible for [omnibad] by Chapter 2 if we were reading 2020’s Foundation, instead of just becoming gradually less accurate due to butterflies.

    • sharper13 says:

      Speaking as a writer who’s tried in the past, it’s really difficult to write an interesting utopia. Stories are about conflict. Conflict comes from doing bad things to characters the readers care about. Resolution is about the characters getting what they deserve from how they choose to deal with that conflict.

      Writing about a future in which things are better makes all of that much more difficult and less plausible to the reader. The job of a setting is to produce interesting (generally in the Chinese sense of the word) characters and throw them into natural-seeming conflict within that setting.

      That’s the main reason SF tends to portray “inferior” worlds. It’s because a positive world is in the end just a setting which isn’t doing it’s job in the story.

  46. moonfirestorm says:

    So World of Warcraft has just released its 8.3 patch, and one of the things in the patch is an improvement to the Auction House.

    It does a lot of good things like consolidating identical items so you don’t have to deal with that guy who posts 4000 1-item stacks of something you need 200 of. But it has one feature I just don’t understand: for identical items listed at the same price, it follows last-in, first-out order. If I have a stack of ore listed at 5 gold each and someone else later posts more ore at 5 gold, a player who chooses to buy ore at 5 gold will buy that player’s ore before they’ll buy mine. Can anyone (perhaps David Friedman, if I could be so lucky) explain the implications of this?

    I’ve seen people say that this is to combat undercutting: it’s really common to list items at an incredibly tiny amount lower than the current lowest price so that players sorting by price will see the lower prices first and buy them first. But this fix seems to just guarantee that those players will be able to be bought first, even if they list at the same price. You’ll still be “sniping” other people’s sales by putting your stuff out front: in fact, you’ll do that more often than you used to, because you don’t even need to take time to adjust your price.

    The only thing that makes sense to me is that they’re trying to prevent downward price pressure on items, and I don’t know why that’s desirable or what that will do to the markets.

    • Aftagley says:

      Well, it will almost certainly make life harder for the mega-sellers. Assuming you’re a big enough player to corner a market, last-in first-out would give you effectively indefinite control (at the chosen price point). New players trying to enter the market would be forced to undercut or never have their product sold. This feels bad, since you’re either making less money OR never having your auctions go through. Since presumably smaller players are less established in WoW, Blizzard is more encouraged to help them out (since there’s a greater chance they’d leave, whereas your guy who owns all the copper ore on the server is probably in it for the long haul.

      First-in First-out solves this problem – you’re average leveler who lists one or two stacks of copper gets his product sold quickly since he’s selling a small amount.

      • moonfirestorm says:

        Did you mix up LIFO and FIFO in your post? LIFO is what Blizzard is doing, but your wording suggests that that’s what mega-sellers would want.

        I think it’s a fair point, and I hadn’t really internalized that consolidating auctions makes the stance on which auctions get sold first a lot more important. I don’t actually know what the default sorting order did before.

        It seems like it would also favor people who spend more time on the market, though: the casual player could put his stack up only to have it buried by players who are staggering out their posts to ensure they’re at the top of the stack during peak buying hours.

        And if high-volume sellers are regularly putting more stock up as they get bought, he might never get to the top of the stack, where FIFO would at least let him have his place in line and get his sale if the buy volume is high enough.

        • Conrad Honcho says:

          It seems like it would also favor people who spend more time on the market

          That’s always been the case, and I don’t think there’s a way to fix it or a need to fix it: if you want to spend more time managing your auctions you should be probably get a greater reward for it.

          I haven’t played since Cata because fuck pandas, but back in the day I was one of if not the richest players on my server, and I logged in many times a day to cancel my auctions and relist to undercut the other guys who were doing the same thing. All of this was automated with mods (even after they changed it so you had to make individual clicks…you just spam clicked or used a turbo button mouse macro).

        • Aftagley says:

          Did you mix up LIFO and FIFO in your post? LIFO is what Blizzard is doing, but your wording suggests that that’s what mega-sellers would want.

          Yep, my bad. Consider the words reversed, please.

          It seems like it would also favor people who spend more time on the market, though:

          Only for products that are expected to spend a long time on the market OR for players who are posting substantial stacks of commodities. I’m talking about the guy who posts one full stack of copper ore that he got while going through the barrens and now wants to throw it up on the AH to make some quick gold – assuming there’s enough churn his single stack is likely to be bought before it gets buried by the sharks…. maybe.

    • Thegnskald says:

      Thinking about it for a while, it means that the most recently active seller makes the sale.

      Which means the system is likely to give gold to the player who is online and thus is more likely to spend it immediately on something else.

      • Aftagley says:

        Which means the system is likely to give gold to the player who is online and thus is more likely to spend it immediately on something else.

        Actually, thinking about it. It also encourages people to log in more often so as to ensure their stack is still at the top of the pile. Is total number of logins a metric the Blizzard wants to optimize?

        • moonfirestorm says:

          They’re using “monthly active users” in place of subscribers now in their stockholder calls, but it doesn’t seem like this method helps with that. You log in once to list your auction the first time, and that puts you on the MAU list. Logging in a second time shouldn’t change anything.

          Could be a sort of “loss leader” though: you log on to check your auctions, and oh huh, new world quests are up, might as well do a few of those… and before you know it you’ve played for 4 hours, and that factors into your decision on whether or not to renew your subscription.

          Warlords of Draenor was a huge down point for WoW, and the lesson they learned from that was “players need stuff to do when they log on”. Since then they’ve sort of overreacted in classic Blizzard fashion by giving you a ridiculous number of things to do. I could buy that they’re trying to get you to check the AH three times a day instead of once as part of that.

          • EchoChaos says:

            It also could be similar to phone games where they prioritize bringing people back multiple times over a day in order to habituate you into logging in at regular times.

    • cassander says:

      what’s wrong with undercutting, exactly?

  47. Thegnskald says:

    Question for libertarians:

    What is ownership, and how is it distinct from law specifying what ownership is?

    (I don’t need the moral argument for why ownership is valid. I want to know what ownership actually means, independent of the legal concept. And if the legal concept is ownership, that is fine, but I think it invalidates libertarianism.)

    • Erusian says:

      Not a libertarian, but: an act, state, or right of possessing something seems like a fairly robust definition. Of course, that means you can own something illegally, which seems to point out a pretty clear distinction between ownership and the law. And you can own something illegally. That seems trivially true to me, though I could explain that if it seems counterintuitive.

      Honestly, if you want to interrogate libertarianism, interrogating the idea of property seems more fruitful.

      • Thegnskald says:

        Property is just the package deal of ownership and a thing that is owned. And defining ownership to be possession seems mildly recursive, unless it is used in the “in one’s possession” sense, which is to, carried on one’s body or otherwise close at hand.

        • Erusian says:

          In that case, you believe libertarianism fails because you have an incredibly simplistic view of what ownership, property, and possession are. I need to go now but I’ll return later with some more robust examples and philosophies that acknowledge the deeply important distinctions (including some very far left ones).

    • Jake R says:

      David Friedman’s essay A Positive Account of Property Rights is the long form answer to this exact question.

      • Thegnskald says:

        If I understand it’s definition correctly, ownership is a social contract, which seems to undermine the ethical underpinnings of libertarianism; in particular, it doesn’t do well to justify the idea of theft as violence, when theft is thus just somebody who doesn’t agree to the contract.

        Mind, this works if non-violence is itself part of the contract, rather than an independent principle. But then you lose substantive ethical justifications for libertarianism generally, since the state as it is, is in a sense our common social contract.

        • Jake R says:

          I don’t think it does anything for ethical justifications, and you specifically mentioned that you weren’t interested in moral validations. The point is that ownership is useful. The libertarian question is whether the addition of a State to the situation increases or decreases that usefulness.

          • Thegnskald says:

            I am not interested in moral validations of ownership, but rather a specification of what it is. It may matter to an ethical libertarian.

            And utilitarian libertarianism is maybe viable, but is more an assumption than a political belief, per se. That is, if libertarianism devolves into a question of, basically, whether any given law is helpful or harmful, it isn’t really libertarian anymore, is it? Libertarianism in that sense is just a default assumption of harmful, and in a universe where all laws are helpful on net, such a libertarianism is indistinguishable from authoritarianism.

          • Jake R says:

            @Thegnskald

            I would say it’s not a default assumption of harm but an observation of net harm. We don’t have a system that only produces helpful laws, nor has there ever been one. That’s not an option. Advocating that the State do fewer things seems like a slightly less quixotic position to me than advocating that the State do only helpful things while refraining from harmful ones.

            For the record I also think libertarianism is the more ethical position, but I recognize that this is largely based on moral intuition and therefore not a great subject for debate. For example, my moral intuition tells me that taking things that don’t belong to you is wrong. I would expect this intuition to be shared by the overwhelming majority of people. However it also seems intuitive to me that taxes, asset forfeiture, and eminent domain fall into the category “taking things that don’t belong to you.” This intuition is much less common. I’m not saying such a topic could never be debated but it’s more philosophical work than I’m willing to put in.

          • Thegnskald says:

            You don’t observe the government doing things right because why would those things be raised to your attention, however.

            As a society we don’t really spend much time on what goes right.

          • Jake R says:

            @Thegnskald

            I would say that it’s also very hard to know which things that go right would have gone right anyway, whether the government interfered or not. But now we’re debating whether government is a net benefit or net harm, which is the very core of the debate. At any rate I don’t find David Friedman’s description of property rights to undermine my ethical intuitions.

    • baconbits9 says:

      I’m a libertarian and I think about it this way:

      Ownership basically means that you have the highest claim over something, which starts with your body. Outside of a few exceptions it is obvious where your body stops and that you control its actions far more than anyone else can, which confers rights and responsibilities on your actions. This recognition here covers the basic concepts of property, if there is a tree on a piece of land that no human has ever seen then there is no basis for anyone to argue that they have a higher claim than any other human to that tree. The first person to then see that tree has some basis for a higher claim than anyone else, and the first person to use the tree in some way definitely has a basis for a higher claim. This leads us to property as a concept, I am the first person to see and use X, which gives me a higher claim on X than anyone else, therefore I have veto power over how X shall be used.

      • jermo sapiens says:

        And do you enforce your property rights yourself or do you defer to a sovereign power for enforcing it?

        • GearRatio says:

          I would usually argue that it’s not generally legal to do the first so it’s not generally possible to do the second in a meaningful sense.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            Really? If you have intruders on your property, you can call the cops. And the cops are the agent of a sovereign power (ie the government). Also, in many places (eg Texas), it’s legal to use force to get someone off your property.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @GearRatio

            Are you American? In most of America, even in very liberal states, using force, even lethal force, to defend your own property is legal.

          • GearRatio says:

            Jermo and Echo:

            About 3.5% of crimes where the goal is to take property before we get into finance-and-fraud type stuff are robbery. Those I can defend myself in almost anywhere in the US.

            The rest are larceny, burglary and auto theft. In all three cases, the usual tactic is to try and take things in such a way that I’m not aware of it. My bikes don’t get stolen while I’m on them and my house doesn’t get broken into while I’m in it. I’ve been stolen from a dozen-to-dozens of times; exactly none of them have I been present for it. But more than once I’ve known who did it.

            The amount of states where I can take a gun to a guy’s house who I’m pretty sure took my wife’s jewelry and threaten his life until he gives it back is 0. Ditto the amount of states where I can shoot a shoplifter who is getting away with my stuff; you can’t even do that in Florida.

            100% of ways people take property outside of the crimes above don’t allow me to use physical force as a solution. If I’ve been defrauded, I’m not allowed to use any level of physical force. If I’ve been wrongfully charged for something? No options but the state. If somebody charged me for a large soda when I only got a small and won’t refund me, I can’t punch him.

            So there’s this tiny (IMO, I can be disproved on this) amount of times where it’s possible for me to defend my property legally because I’m present and it’s at my house on on my body and I’m in the right state, and then all other theft, fraud, etc. that I’m never allowed to address by myself at all.

            If I’m wrong on the numbers here (very possible) I’d gladly adjust to “there’s a lot of ways and situations in which I’m not allowed to defend my property”.

            And I want to be clear that I don’t want shoplifters shot – I think the situation where the police pretty much ignore all property crimes that don’t happen to rich or cars people is better than a bunch of people capping each other all the time.

          • Dan L says:

            @ EchoChaos:

            Are you American? In most of America, even in very liberal states, using force, even lethal force, to defend your own property is legal.

            I don’t have a clean list of states in front of me, but IIRC that isn’t true – most states condition use of lethal force on reasonable belief of bodily threat. Very few places will let you shoot a fleeing purse snatcher in the back. (But quite a few won’t convict you, either.)

          • The Nybbler says:

            I believe Texas lets you shoot the purse snatcher, but only at night.

          • EchoChaos says:

            I typed this up before and something ate it. Let’s try again.

            @GearRatio

            Practically correct but legally wrong. It is entirely legal to retrieve stolen property as long as you do so without breaking any other laws. Now, for pratical reasons because the police will get a writ from a judge allowing them to break more laws than you can, you should defer to them.

            But in the car theft example, if you saw your own car parked in a public lot while the thief was in a restaurant and you had a spare key, you could get in it and drive home with no consequences. If he tried to stop you, you could use force.

            The reason you can’t go to a man’s house and hold him up is because you are committing crimes of your own in doing so. You could ABSOLUTELY stop him on a public road and take the jewelry back and use force if he didn’t give it back.

            Again, legally, not practically. Practically it is wisest to wait for the cops because you don’t know the law as well and might accidentally screw up.

            @Dan L

            Again, once something goes before a jury, anything is possible, but New York (to use a big blue state example) you would in fact be justified in using force, and if they try to stop you, you can escalate to lethal force.

            From NYPL Article 35:

            4. A private person acting on his or her own account may use physical
            force, other than deadly physical force, upon another person when and to
            the extent that he or she reasonably believes such to be necessary to
            effect an arrest or to prevent the escape from custody of a person whom
            he or she reasonably believes to have committed an offense and who in
            fact has committed such offense; and may use deadly physical force for
            such purpose when he or she reasonably believes such to be necessary to:
            (a) Defend himself, herself or a third person from what he or she
            reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical
            force; or
            (b) Effect the arrest of a person who has committed murder,
            manslaughter in the first degree, robbery, forcible rape or forcible
            criminal sexual act and who is in immediate flight therefrom.

          • Dan L says:

            (to use a big blue state example)

            As an aside, this isn’t a particularly helpful framing – the general trend with gun control legislation is that the state level tends to be quite liberal while the restrictions act on the municipal level. New York State has pretty typical legislation, but New York City is extremely restrictive.

            From NYPL Article 35:

            That’s actually a case where the direct use of lethal force to defend property is forbidden – the escalation is a necessary step of the process. Looking further through the NY Penal code I see an additional exception for arson, but in general if you have the option to use some less than deadly force and you go for the kill anyway, you’ve committed a pretty serious crime.

            It gets tricky when you’re in a situation where the only force available to you is lethal force, because then it really comes down to the minutia of state law. That’s an irresponsible place to find yourself if you have the ability to plan ahead otherwise. (This was a favorite topic of my old CCW instructor.)

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Dan L

            I am not a lawyer, but I read:

            … may use deadly physical force for such purpose when he or she reasonably believes such to be necessary to:

            (b) Effect the arrest of a person who has committed murder,
            manslaughter in the first degree, robbery, forcible rape or forcible criminal sexual act and who is in immediate flight therefrom.

            as entirely supporting using deadly force (under the reasonable person standard, which is typical) to stop a purse snatcher, who has committed by definition robbery.

            That’s an irresponsible place to find yourself if you have the ability to plan ahead otherwise. (This was a favorite topic of my old CCW instructor.)

            I don’t disagree even slightly. I’m just pointing out that using deadly force to protect property is legal in most of the USA.

          • brad says:

            FWIW the fleeing felon is a product of the time when all felonies were capital crimes.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @brad

            Interesting, especially since they still enumerate the crimes. I didn’t know that. Thanks for that bit of information.

          • Dacyn says:

            @EchoChaos: A purse snatcher has only committed larceny, not robbery.

          • Another Throw says:

            @Dacyn

            Case law might say differently, but physically snatching a purse from a person sounds a hell of a lot like:

            NY Penal Law:
            S 160.00 Robbery; defined.
            Robbery is forcible stealing. A person forcibly steals property and
            commits robbery when, in the course of committing a larceny, he uses or
            threatens the immediate use of physical force upon another person for
            the purpose of:
            1. Preventing or overcoming resistance to the taking of the property
            or to the retention thereof immediately after the taking; or
            2. Compelling the owner of such property or another person to deliver
            up the property or to engage in other conduct which aids in the
            commission of the larceny.

          • Dacyn says:

            @Another Throw: If the victim notices before the thief gets the purse and then puts up a fight, I understand that would be robbery, but not if they manage to snatch it unawares. At least if I am interpreting those definitions correctly.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            I suppose some purse snatchers are grabbing a purse that’s not around an arm or shoulder, or clutched in a hand, so there would be no overcoming resistance in those cases. But the mental idea I have of a purse snatcher is of someone forcibly taking it from someone’s shoulder and arm.

            To take it from a shoulder or arm necessarily implies overcoming resistance of some sort, if only friction (taken from straight down an outstretched arm).

          • Another Throw says:

            When I said “physically snatching a purse from a person” I meant to imply that the purse was on a shoulder or in hand. Like anonymousskimmer, this is what “purse snatching” makes me think of. Swiping it from, e.g., a table during an unguarded moment and making off unopposed seems to be a clearly different thing (and clearly larceny). It looks like the news, at least, uses “purse snatching” for both, though, so I’ll concede it is ambiguous which someone means in any given instance.

            To my eyes, snatching a purse from someone’s hands/shoulder involves using physical force (Yowza! Clearly robbery.) upon that person in order to overcome their resistance. A quick search didn’t turn up a handy definition in NY law for physical force, which would clear up the question in more borderline cases.

      • Nick says:

        Don’t really have a dog in this fight, but: I’m not sure how putting it in terms of claims is meaningfully different from putting it in terms of rights (whether conferred by positive law or nature). Was that intentional? Do you think you could rephrase this tabooing both “right” and “claim”?

        • baconbits9 says:

          Lets say everyone on earth has equal rights to a tree in the first example I gave. The first person who then uses that tree in some way has violated the rights of every other human being on the planet. If you logically follow virtually every philosophy about rights, with the exception of explicit ‘might is right’ camps, then the first user of that tree owes restitution to every person on the earth to compensate them. It takes some gymnastics to get to ‘I have a right to cut down and use this tree’ without denying someone’s right to do the same. You can however have no claim on the tree, and have everyone else have no claim on the tree, and have the act of cutting down and using the tree confer a claim to you without denying any other claim. You can start from a baseline of zero claims and get to acceptable behavior without violations which is tricky to impossible to do with rights.

          Rights also fall into a weird space with children. When do we grant children rights, and what is their status before those rights? Under most definitions of rights you have to argue that children have rights but can’t enforce them, while under a claim you can have the parent hold a higher claim on the child for a period while having the child’s claim eventually supersede their parents without contradicting the base definition.

          Do you think you could rephrase this tabooing both “right” and “claim”?

          Not a good enough writer/thinker to do so.

    • Guy in TN says:

      Here’s something that I’ve always found weird.

      Every political philosophy proposes a theory of entitlement when it comes to property (i.e., a theory of when property is “just”). Libertarian’s theory of entitlement is typically based on whether the property adheres to the process of initial acquisition via “homesteading” followed by voluntary exchange (although some like Friedman have proposed other forms of initial acquisition).

      But other political philosophies use separate standards for justice. A Marxist might say that justice is when each worker is distributed the true value of their labor, once you add back in what is removed via the rents of private property ownership. Democratic socialists, traditional conservatives, and everyone else, also have their own particular theories of entitlement. Some rely on looking more at the process (libertarians) while others are more concerned with the outcome (SocDem), but they are all theories of justice the same.

      The thing is, these are all normative theories. When, for example, someone on the left argues that access to medicine should be free for the poor, they are typically under no illusions that their theory of entitlement is actually a descriptive statement of some aspect of the world. No one says “Medicine is free for the poor. It’s their medicine, in an objective sense. By charging for it, you are simply taking away what already theirs, committing theft.” That would be obnoxious…question-begging…and rhetorically arrogant in the assumption that their theory of entitlement is the correct one.

      But there is one political philosophy (and yes, rake me over the coals for painting in broad strokes here) that just can’t seem to help itself from constantly slipping into descriptive language when describing their theory of justice. One philosophy that, in a debate, I rather constantly need clarification on whether my interlocutor is talking in the descriptive or normative sense.

      (Attempts to re-frame the normative claims as descriptive ones are transparently ideologically motivated. “No, no, the homestead theory isn’t a normative statement, it’s merely a descriptive statement of how property works.” Right right, and my theories of entitlements are also just descriptive statements that happen to line up perfectly with my normative ones as well. We can do this all day long.)

      The burn-it-all-down side of me suggests that one way to combat this, would be if every political philosophy adopted the same rhetorical strategy. Just call “property” whatever your theory of entitlement is. Of course, we will barely be able to communicate with each other, since no one will know what “property” means without first figuring out what normative theory each person is using. But at least this would expose for everyone what is really going on here.

      • Thegnskald says:

        So what do you think ownership is?

        • Guy in TN says:

          Ownership is whatever the strongest authority says it is. In our case that would be the state, but in other societies that authority could come by a different name.

          I don’t find non-legal concepts of “property” to be a useful framework, as it is generally deployed more to obfuscate than to clarify.

        • Guy in TN says:

          And before someone says “Ownership is defined by the state? Aren’t you just smuggling in your normative claims like you complain that libertarians do?”, I should note that I think the state’s property claims are very often unjust.

          Slavery? That was property, enforced by the state. Monarchism? That’s property. When the state drafts people to fight in imperial wars? They are claiming temporary property over your body.

          I mean, socialism’s whole thing is that they are against private property, right? As in, they acknowledge that the owner’s claims exist, and they are opposed to it. They say “abolish private property”, not “private property doesn’t exist.”

          There is no symmetry here.

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        When, for example, someone on the left argues that access to medicine should be free for the poor, they are typically under no illusions that their theory of entitlement is actually a descriptive statement of some aspect of the world. No one says “Medicine is free for the poor. It’s their medicine, in an objective sense. By charging for it, you are simply taking away what already theirs, committing theft.”

        Actually, I think some of the current rhetoric on the left gets pretty close to this, with statements to the tune of “Healthcare is a basic human right”[1] or “We can’t allow insurance companies or Big Pharma to continue denying people access to healthcare”[2]. Though the official campaign sites seem to be careful to avoid saying it outright, I get the impression from a lot of pro-Medicare-for-all rhetoric that there’s a worldview in which people would be able to see any doctor they want and stay in hospitals without going bankrupt, if it weren’t for those meddling insurance companies.

        [1] Actual statement on Sanders’ and Warren’s campaign sites
        [2] Not an actual statement on any campaign sites I could find, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard people say things like this

        • Guy in TN says:

          I know this comes across as a shallow unfalsifiable analysis, but it just seems to be deployed by the left more as a rhetorical flourish rather than an attempt to objectively describe the situation.

          “Healthcare is a human right”, read literally, is definitely a descriptive statement, but that seems to be as far as the framework goes. I don’t see Sanders or Warren saying that property literally belongs to the poor, and was stolen by the rich, the same way I see libertarians talk about taxation and welfare. (e.g., there’s no grand theory of descriptive property in the sense of baconbits9’s post above)

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            Fair enough. My defense of the libertarians is that, within the Overton window, no one really disagrees with their descriptive claims about property existing and ownership being a valid concept. (Marxists of course would not agree, but they’re an extreme fringe viewpoint within mainstream US politics.) Supporters of taxation and eminent domain generally say, “The government is allowed to take a portion of your income or your property under certain circumstances”, not, “Your income/house is not really your property.” There’s agreement that the money/land initially belongs to you; the disagreement is on whether the government should have the authority to reverse that situation and transfer ownership of your property to itself.

          • Guy in TN says:

            My defense of the libertarians is that, within the Overton window, no one really disagrees with their descriptive claims about property existing and ownership being a valid concept.

            To keep my post from being too rambling I decided not to go into my theory of why the discourse is this way, or why this is an effective rhetorical strategy on the libertarian’s part.

            But we’re in agreement here, interestingly. Basically the entire scope of US political discourse operates with the assumption of, if not explicitly libertarian, at least liberal values, with deviations from the norm being just that: deviations. With such a deep cultural background going back the to very founding of the nation, and reiterated by most politicians save for a brief period in the early-mid 20th century that is largely forgotten, it can become easy for a libertarian to forget that how property norms are and how they ought to be should be very different questions. After all, at least for the more moderate liberal/libertarian, the answer to “how things are” and “how things ought to be” have largely been the same over the past 30 years or so, save for a few hiccups along the way.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            With such a deep cultural background going back the to very founding of the nation, and reiterated by most politicians save for a brief period in the early-mid 20th century that is largely forgotten, it can become easy for a libertarian to forget that how property norms are and how they ought to be should be very different questions.

            I think the basic concepts of property and ownership go back a heck of a lot further than the founding of the US. And though I agree that we should be careful not to conflate our is’s and oughts, I think it’s reasonable to give a system that’s existed since prehistory a presumption of usefulness for Chesterton’s-Fence-esque reasons. It shouldn’t be an insurmountable presumption–there are a number of really terrible practices that have been around since prehistory–but I do think the burden of proof should be on the person advocating overthrowing the system.

          • Guy in TN says:

            I think the basic concepts of property and ownership go back a heck of a lot further than the founding of the US.

            Sure, but in early Europe “property” meant that “the King owns everything within these borders”, which isn’t exactly what libertarians have in mind. If that was the world in which libertarians inhabited, I think they would probably be more careful about this.

            (The existence of money isn’t particular persuasive as a contrary – even the DPRK has a form of currency.)

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @Guy in TN

            (The existence of money isn’t particular persuasive as a contrary – even the DPRK has a form of currency.)

            I guess your modus tollens is my modus ponens. The existence of any form of trade and money within North Korea is evidence to me that the people there still have basic concepts of personal property ownership, despite the completely broken centrally-planned economy.

            This does highlight an important distinction, which John Schilling defines below, between social ownership and legal ownership. North Koreans have the former–else money and transactions would be meaningless–but probably not the latter. (That is, I would be surprised if the DPRK gov’t consistently upheld or enforced property rights in any reliable way.) I think similar is true for the early European societies you mention. Yes, the king could come seize your chickens if he wanted to, but in practice he won’t; and on a day-to-day basis you can trust your neighbors not to steal your chickens and possibly help you punish anyone who does. The legal concept of property reinforces the social concept of property in our modern society, but is not necessary for its existence.

          • Sure, but in early Europe “property” meant that “the King owns everything within these borders”

            I think you are confusing early Europe with late Europe, i.e. absolute monarchy.

          • Lambert says:

            De Jure, William the Conqueror owned all the land in England.

            But, of course, the feudal notion of land ownership is rather more complex than what we see today, with multiple layers of tennancy.

          • baconbits9 says:

            “Healthcare is a human right”, read literally, is definitely a descriptive statement, but that seems to be as far as the framework goes. I don’t see Sanders or Warren saying that property literally belongs to the poor, and was stolen by the rich, the same way I see libertarians talk about taxation and welfare.

            e.g., there’s no grand theory of descriptive property in the sense of baconbits9’s post above

            Warren/Sanders and the US left run more or less on the platform that property is the US governments to distribute as it sees fit. If something is unconstitutional it should be reworded until it will pass the courts, not abandoned. Warren might not specifically say that billionaires have stolen from the poor, but she will specifically say that it is wrong that billionaires have the amount of wealth that they have and that some should be redistributed to the poor. It is neither the billionaires nor the poor’s property, but that of the US government to distribute as it sees fit, which IS a grand theory of property, it is just a wildly unpopular one in the US. At times and places it has been more popular and people have run under such a banner explicitly.

          • Guy in TN says:

            It is neither the billionaires nor the poor’s property, but that of the US government to distribute as it sees fit, which IS a grand theory of property, it is just a wildly unpopular one in the US.

            So wildly unpopular that Sanders is about to win the Dem nomination!

            Sarcasm aside, I’m pretty sure that neither Sanders nor Warren have claimed that all property is literally owned by the US government. They (with some exceptions) generally keep a healthy distance between their is’s and their ought’s- i.e., arguing that we should change the property distribution, rather than arguing that their preferred property distribution simply is.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Guy in TN

            So wildly unpopular that Sanders is about to win the Dem nomination!

            Well, he’s running 8 points behind the centrist candidate. Even among Democrats his view isn’t the majority.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Sarcasm aside, I’m pretty sure that neither Sanders nor Warren have claimed that all property is literally owned by the US government. They (with some exceptions) generally keep a healthy distance between their is’s and their ought’s- i.e., arguing that we should change the property distribution, rather than arguing that their preferred property distribution simply is.

            They also don’t include subtext in every speech about how their proposed policies will have to be ratified by congress, should we assume that they think the president can decree everything by fiat?

          • Guy in TN says:

            This is a discussion over rhetoric, not assumptions…?

          • Guy in TN says:

            It is neither the billionaires nor the poor’s property, but that of the US government to distribute as it sees fit, which IS a grand theory of property, it is just a wildly unpopular one in the US.

            Is your argument that Sanders/Warren (and socialists in general), secretly believe that all property belongs to the US government, they just don’t ever talk about it, even among themselves?

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @Guy in TN
            I feel like this discussion is becoming somewhat ungrounded, could you give us an example of a libertarian argument that you find objectionable? Doesn’t have to be an actual quote, necessarily, just the kind of statement that you recall libertarians making that you think conflates is’s and oughts.

          • Guy in TN says:

            I feel like this discussion is becoming somewhat ungrounded, could you give us an example of a libertarian argument that you find objectionable? Doesn’t have to be an actual quote, necessarily, just the kind of statement that you recall libertarians making that you think conflates is’s and oughts.

            Yes I can, and I’ll do my best not to make this too stawmannish. (I understand that the more nuanced libertarians don’t make these conflations, so this doesn’t apply to everybody.)

            “People own what they have voluntarily traded for on the marketplace”

            “You own the fruits of your labor”, or “the initial acquisition of property is derived from mixing labor with natural resources”

            “Taxation is theft”

            Most statements that use the term “self-ownership”

            For all of these, the normative goals of libertarianism regarding property are simply rhetorical assumed to be true. It’s not that this is how they think the world should be, but this is how the world is, and I must be simply misunderstanding the objective nature of reality if I disagree.

            But you do not, actually, legally own anything you trade for on the marketplace, nor the entirety of fruits of your labor. And taxation is not legally theft. And you do not legally own yourself in any meaningful libertarian sense. (And, to bounce off John Schilling, you don’t socially own these things either)

            Every one of these statements would be better off phrased as an “ought”. And sometimes they are- I don’t mean to paint to with broad of a brush here. But all too often they are not. If every other political philosophy adopted the same tactic, of describing their preferred property norms as an “is”, imagine the chaos.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @Guy in TN
            Oh yeah, most if not all of those seem like they’re pretty egregiously disguising normative statements as descriptive. Taxation goes back about as far as money itself–it’s quite deceptive to pretend that owning the entirety of the fruits of your labor is the norm. On the other hand, even if that particular kind of fallacy is mostly unique to some libertarian circles, they’re certainly not the only political view that sometimes supports itself with bad arguments.

            My suggestion, then, is to find more intellectually honest libertarians to argue with. Might I suggest our own David Friedman?

            (P.S. If you put an ‘@VoiceOfTheVoid’ at the top of your max-comment-depth replies to me, I’ll get an email notification)

          • Guy in TN says:

            @VoiceOfTheVoid

            On the other hand, even if that particular kind of fallacy is mostly unique to some libertarian circles, they’re certainly not the only political view that sometimes supports itself with bad arguments.

            I agree, its not unique to libertarians. You gave one good example in “healthcare is a human right” of the left slipping into the same bad form of argumentation.

            My suggestion, then, is to find more intellectually honest libertarians to argue with. Might I suggest our own David Friedman?

            Ha! Me and David Friedman have been debating in the comments section for so many years now, at this point I imagine we have almost grown tired of each other. He is one of the most intellectually honest libertarians I know. I still think he’s wrong about most things, but he is usually wrong for far more respectable reasons than most. We do find the occasional common ground though, for example on immigration.

          • John Schilling says:

            Taxation goes back about as far as money itself–it’s quite deceptive to pretend that owning the entirety of the fruits of your labor is the norm.

            Why are these things even connected? Taxation is just an obligation to pay some sum of money, and obligations to pay money do not generally void property rights.

            Elmer J. Fudd is a millionaire. He owns a mansion and a yacht. These things are generally considered property. Fudd sits down and orders a meal at a three-star restaurant. He is now obligated to pay a couple hundred dollars to the restauranteur. On his way home, he drunkenly rams his yacht into someone else’s fishing boat. No one is hurt, but he is now obligated to pay several tens of thousands of dollars to the fisherman.

            His yacht is still his property. His mansion is still his property. His millions, all of them, are still his property. He will eventually have to pay his bills, but when he does all his remaining money will still be his property. This is how such things are normally understood to proceed. Financial obligation does not intrinsically void property. We do not say, “because you owe a debt, all the things we otherwise would have agreed that you owned, aren’t really yours”.

            So why does a debt or obligation to a government, void even the concept of property? It is possible to owe taxes without owning property, or to own property without owing taxes, and it is possible to pay taxes without giving up property. But somehow the opponents of private property aren’t immediately laughed off the stage when they say “because you owe some taxes, all of your property really belongs to the state” the way they would be if they claimed that Fudd’s mansion belonged to the restauranteur.

          • Guy in TN says:

            They key word that connects the two is “entirety”.

            “Owning the entirety of the fruits of your labor is the norm” is an absolute claim. However, the contrary claim need not be itself absolute. You correctly note the absurdity in the conclusion of “therefore, all of your property really belongs to the state”. But that’s not something I’ve proposed, or anyone has proposed, in this thread. The percent that belongs to the state is the percent the state claims in taxes.

            If the state imposes an claim of ownership on some portion of the money (via taxation), then that portion of the money you can no longer claim to own. It renders the argument of that one owns the entirety of the fruit of their labor as factually incorrect (assuming we are using “ownership” in the legal or social sense).

        • mitv150 says:

          Yes?

          ETA: Responding to baconbits9: should we assume that they think the president can decree everything by fiat?

          but i got the nesting wrong

      • Aftagley says:

        The thing is, these are all normative theories.

        For me, learning about and really getting familiar with the concept of contraband from the perspective of the state was what led me to this realization.

        When I first learned about it, it kind of floored me. It wasn’t just that this product was illegal to possess, it was that this particular product was incapable of being owned. If someone tries to own it, the state has the self-proclaimed right to disabuse them of that particular fallacy, by force if necessary.

      • Paul Brinkley says:

        My idealized sense of property is similar to that of baconbits9, except that first to see something is not enough – you have to begin using it. (“Mixing in your labor with the land”.)

        Property is a cleaner concept when applied to objects that are produced. If you make a hammer, you own it by default. That is, of course, according to some rule, and that rule has to be universally accepted – if someone else ignores that rules and comes over and wrests your hammer from your grasp and you can’t wrest it back, then guess what, they own it, regardless of the rule. Rules like this only make sense when either everyone abides, or there’s a central pool of people willing to physically enforce it on everyone (including themselves).

        So yes, in my view, property and ownership are normative concepts. However, they happen to solve a real underlying problem, too.

        If you can take my hammer and thus own it, that deprives me of the incentive for having made that hammer in the first place. If I think you can come along any time and take my stuff, no matter how strong I am, I’ll ultimately respond by refusing to produce anything you can take. If I’m good at making stuff, you’ve now deprived yourself of a source of wealth, since I’m no longer applying that skill. Any society of people who take stuff by force will eventually squelch any urge to make anything, including tools, unless they can be somehow concealed. A society of people who agree to let each other keep property maintains that incentive to create property. Augment that society with a trade feature and the result is a lot more wealth per person.

        Property and ownership, then, are normative solutions to the real problem of preserving the incentive to create wealth. Simple as that.

        Viewed that way, I tend to assess proposals for transferring anything of value, in light of whether they’ll kill that value-producing incentive. Consequently, any call to forcibly transfer goods from A to B won’t result in B being richer, but rather in A not producing those goods next season. (E.g. a hike in the tax rate on capital gains will cause people to stop gaining capital, or to flee.) The only time it won’t is when A likes B enough to have done it without force.

        • Guy in TN says:

          I don’t know how interested you are in getting “in the weeds” on this, but doesn’t your “no incentive” argument only apply to tax rates of 100%?

          For example you say:

          E.g. a hike in the tax rate on capital gains will cause people to stop gaining capital, or to flee

          I don’t see how this is true? There’s still an incentive to gain capital, even if the tax rate is raised. Take income, to make things simple: All else equal, would I rather make $100,000 and be taxed at 50%, or make $40,000 and be taxed at 0%? I would definitely want to do the former.

          While in theory the state could certainly structure tax rates such that a gain in income actually makes you worse off, by using marginal tax rates this essentially never happens in practice.

          • Evan Þ says:

            by using marginal tax rates this essentially never happens in practice.

            But see the benefits cliff, where at some margins exactly this does happen.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            Even if sub-100% taxation doesn’t fully eliminate incentives to gain capital, it does decrease the incentives.

          • Guy in TN says:

            Even if sub-100% taxation doesn’t fully eliminate incentives to gain capital, it does decrease the incentives.

            That’s a true, but less interesting, claim. Since now, forcibly transferring from A to B can make B better off.

            If I make the assumption that a dollar owned by a poor person is worth more utility than a dollar owned by a rich person (an assumption that some, like David Friedman, contest, but one that seems highly intuitive to the general public), then it is reasonable to hypothesize that a certain level of transfers could decrease total production (and total economic value) while increasing net utility.

            (But if you make the contrary assumption that a dollar is worth the same utility to a poor person as a rich person, this would not be the case)

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            [F]orcibly transferring from A to B can make B better off.

            It makes B better off after the first transfer. The second transfer makes B better off than before the first transfer, but not as good as right after the first transfer, because A has now adjusted to the fact that transfers are happening, and has arranged for there to be less to transfer.

            This trend continues through subsequent transfers – the longer they continue, the less transferable wealth A arranges to have available. Over time, the system settles out when B is as well off as they originally were before transfers and A is much worse off, or when A has found a new equilbrium where they’re willing to allow some transfer in return for keeping the remainder, provided the transfer rate is not increased further.

            This is aggravated by the fact that A may have been investing in C before transfers began, making C better off. Transfers to B make investments in C untenable on the margin, resulting in C being worse off, possibly by more than B was made better off. The utility drop can get worse still if this blocks C from being wealthy enough to begin investing in D, and so on.

            It’s possible that B will now be wealthy enough to begin investing in D instead, but if so, that was because B would have been a C all along, and A would’ve been investing in B without need for a forced transfer.

          • baconbits9 says:

            If I make the assumption that a dollar owned by a poor person is worth more utility than a dollar owned by a rich person (an assumption that some, like David Friedman, contest, but one that seems highly intuitive to the general public), then it is reasonable to hypothesize that a certain level of transfers could decrease total production (and total economic value) while increasing net utility.

            Only with extraordinarily dubious assumptions, you have skipped over the entire act of transfers and assumed no negative costs/consequences associated with them.

          • Guy in TN says:

            @Paul Brinkley

            but not as good as right after the first transfer, because A has now adjusted to the fact that transfers are happening, and has arranged for there to be less to transfer.

            I don’t see why? There’s still an incentive for A to produce- its the money A gets to keep. This is why people are generally happy when they get higher salaries, even if they have to pay higher taxes as a result. This seems very trivial to me, perhaps I am missing something obvious?

            @baconbits9

            you have skipped over the entire act of transfers and assumed no negative costs/consequences associated with them.

            No, I haven’t assumed anything in regards to the utility costs of transfers, I simply didn’t mention them. Feel free to factor them in, it doesn’t change the underlying point.

          • baconbits9 says:

            No, I haven’t assumed anything in regards to the utility costs of transfers, I simply didn’t mention them. Feel free to factor them in, it doesn’t change the underlying point.

            It does change the underlying point, you didn’t claim that it was technically possible to come up with a solution with a net gain in utility, you made that statement that IF you assume X then it is “reasonable” to conclude Y, which is not at all reasonable since you need to assume X (different marginal utility functions) plus Z (the efficiency of the transfer mechanism). You can’t solve a 3 body system by looking at 2 of the bodies only.

          • Guy in TN says:

            Here’s what you wrote:

            you made that statement that IF you assume X then it is “reasonable” to conclude Y

            Here’s what I wrote:

            then it is reasonable to hypothesize that a certain level of transfers could decrease total production…

            I don’t know how you got from “hypothesize that something could happen” to “conclude that it will happen”.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            @Guy in TN

            Even if sub-100% taxation doesn’t fully eliminate incentives to gain capital, it does decrease the incentives.

            That’s a true, but less interesting, claim. Since now, forcibly transferring from A to B can make B better off.

            I agree. This is demonstrably true–taxation and social welfare programs have existed for years, and though there are tax avoidance strategies, you certainly don’t see the amount of revenue generated by taxation trending towards zero.

            Whether it makes society overall better off is a more complex question, and depends on the marginal value of a dollar to each party as well as the efficiency of the transfer and the various new incentives created for both parties.

          • Guy in TN says:

            The “social ownership” approach is interesting to me. It’s a similar argument that I have seen both Michael Huemer and Bryan Caplan make at various times.

            The basic outline: there is a distribution of “property” that is defined by law, and there is distribution of “property” that is the defined by the collective consensus. Or as John Schilling says, its “what your neighbors believe” vs. what the police and courts believe.

            This understanding of “social property” is a reasonable definition. It is a descriptive statement, and open-ended such that it doesn’t necessarily conform to any particular ideology, libertarian, socialist, or otherwise. After all, the collective consensus could theoretically believe anything.

            Or at least, a good faith understanding of the definition ought to be open to the idea that the collective consensus could believe anything. In practice it seem to be deployed as “social property is determined by the collective consensus (and by the way social consensus is libertarian)”. But that last bit is where the whole persuasive aspect of the argument is!

            Let me quote some examples of this is action.
            Caplan:

            if someone else shows up on the island, the new arrival seems morally obligated to respect that property.* This isn’t just “seems to me” or “seems to libertarians”; it’s “seems to almost everyone other than self-conscious socialist philosophers.”

            Huemer:

            It is of course laudable to run a charity to aid the poor; what is not permissible is to collect contributions by force and to imprison noncontributors. One need not give a theory of why this is wrong nor argue that it is wrong, because it just seems wrong to nearly everyone, regardless of whether one is leftwing, rightwing, libertarian, or other, and this appearance suffices for justified belief, in the absence of specific grounds for doubt.

            And John Schilling:

            Legal ownership, in stable societies, tends to follow pre-existing patterns of mental, physical, and social ownership, and those tend to follow fairly universal patterns across human cultures. If it’s in your pocket, it’s probably yours. If it was abandoned or idle and you claimed it, it’s probably yours. If you created it, it’s almost certainly yours. If it was once someone else’s and they chose to give it to you, it is almost certainly yours.

            Why assume any of this? Could any other philosophy get away with just asserting, without evidence, that most people already agree with its underlying tenets?

            Does the fact that every democratic society, often in cases of direct popular referendum, chose to implement a system of taxation count for nothing?

            (And even if I had polling that showed that most people agreed with some underlying aspect of socialist philosophy, would you find that to be a very convincing argument?)

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            I don’t see why? There’s still an incentive for A to produce- its the money A gets to keep. This is why people are generally happy when they get higher salaries, even if they have to pay higher taxes as a result. This seems very trivial to me, perhaps I am missing something obvious?

            What I see you missing is the part where people have to work or trade something for those higher salaries. Maybe they’re burning more calories, or working longer hours, or commuting further, or accepting more health risk, or training for longer in school first. If the taxman declares 33% of their wealth is forfeit, they’re going to recalculate whether that extra salary is worth all that sacrifice.

            How would you feel if you chose to stay in college four more years to get that more lucrative master’s degree, and took on $200000 more in loans to get that $25000 in expected salary, figuring it’ll take eight years to pay off, only to have the taxman declare the rate on your higher salary ought to be raised to 40%, and now it’ll take over twelve years? Or how about busting 90-hour weeks? Commuting so long that you see less of your family than you’d like? Risking high blood pressure or hypertension?

            The trades here often aren’t simply between “90% of my $60K salary” and “60% of my $120K salary”. More often it’s between “90% of my $60K salary” and “60% of my $120K salary, minus all that extra crap I had to do to get that $120K”.

          • Guy in TN says:

            @Paul Brinkley

            More often it’s between “90% of my $60K salary” and “60% of my $120K salary, minus all that extra crap I had to do to get that $120K”.

            There’s the weaker claim: “this trade-off exists”.

            And then there’s the stronger claim: “this trade-off exists, and people are always going to choose the less work/less taxes/less income lifestyle over the more work/more taxes/more income lifestyle.”

            You’re making a case here for the weaker claim, which I don’t deny. But I don’t see a case here for the stronger claim.

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            You’re making a case here for the weaker [“this trade-off exists”], which I don’t deny. But I don’t see a case here for the stronger [“this trade-off always occurs”].

            Okay, I’ll concede on the stronger claim. Just like I’ll concede on the claim that crime never pays, since obviously, sometimes it does.

            Now what?

    • Dacyn says:

      Eh, I am a slave to Wikipedia:

      Ownership is the state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property

      Dropping “rights” and “property” as too normative, we get that ownership is the state of exclusive control over something. I think this seems right, as long as “exclusive control” is measured not just according to what other people could do, but what they intend to do or what we expect them to do.

      It seems then that depriving someone of ownership is wrong primarily because, having control and having expected to keep it, they may have made plans around it. And if you steal something from someone, it would be right to give it back not because they are the “rightful owner”, but because it would compensate the harm done to them by stealing it. (I am ignoring the possible presence of the state for simplicity here.)

      [Epistemic status: never thought about this before and formed my views five minutes ago, but maybe they are right]

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        That also partially explains/justifies my gut reaction that taxation is acceptable while theft by individuals is not, and eminent domain is usually not. Taxation is predictable and regular, and deprives you of control over something maximally fungible. Theft and eminent domain are unpredictable and unexpected, depriving you of a particular thing that you may not be able to effectively replace, without the warning you need to plan around it (in the case of theft at least).

        • Dacyn says:

          I don’t think my position necessarily implies tax is acceptable: essentially it is saying that you only own your post-tax income. But your employer paid the amount of your pre-tax income. Somewhere in there, you + employer started out owning a certain amount, and ended up owning less, through what was supposed to be a transaction that only concerned the two of you. The question is then whether this is acceptable.

          • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

            True, it doesn’t necessarily imply that tax is acceptable; I do think it helps explain why taxation feels more acceptable than e.g. actual property theft. Also, why piracy is morally dubious but not as bad as stealing a physical CD: You’re using intellectual property in a way the owner doesn’t approve of (that is, consuming it without paying them for it), but you aren’t completely depriving them of the property (they can continue to sell it to those who are willing to pay for it).

    • John Schilling says:

      Ownership is, roughly speaking, the ability to use a thing as you see fit and to bar other people from using it without your permission. Extending the concept outward from the ego, we pass through:

      Mental ownership: You believe that you should be able to use the thing and bar other people from using the thing, and as humans are loss-averse you will put more effort into maintaining control over that thing than other people will put into securing control over a thing they don’t believe they own.

      Physical ownership: You have objectively greater control over the thing due to some physical asymmetry, likely one you have deliberately arranged due to your mental ownership. It’s in your pocket, you have the only key, you know the password, etc.

      Social ownership: Your neighbors believe that you should be able to use the thing and bar other people from using the thing, will not interfere with your use of the thing or attempt to use the thing without your permission, and will express their disapproval of anyone who openly violates this norm. Possibly by beating them up and giving you back your stuff.

      Legal ownership: Like social ownership, but with police and courts rather than random neighbors.

      Legal ownership, in stable societies, tends to follow pre-existing patterns of mental, physical, and social ownership, and those tend to follow fairly universal patterns across human cultures. If it’s in your pocket, it’s probably yours. If it was abandoned or idle and you claimed it, it’s probably yours. If you created it, it’s almost certainly yours. If it was once someone else’s and they chose to give it to you, it is almost certainly yours.

    • Lambert says:

      It’s a Nash Equilibrium?*

      One of the things common to property disputes of all kinds nowadays is that the real winners are the lawyers. And they have a much less sweet deal than people tend to think. Before this, the costs of claiming a disputed property were paid in blood.

      That is to say: property is a way of deciding who gets stuff without playing a big negative-sum game. In either Selfish Gene or Blind Watchmaker (It’s a long time since I read them, OK), Dawkins remarks that the notion of territory falls out as a Nash equilibrium as a way to pre-emptively settle conflicts over which animal gets to use a certain area. The notion of real estate follows and thereafter personal property.

      *Epistemic status: Insomnia-fueled ramble; more positive than normative
      Allignment: Lawful neutral

    • eigenmoon says:

      Something existing in consensus reality is ownership if it provides certain possibilities, which were formalized for the sake of programmable blockchains as the ERC20 specification. Namely, there’s an obvious fundamental operation of giving what you own to somebody in which case you no longer own it and he does. There’s also a less obvious fundamental operation of permitting somebody to take it, in which case you still own it until he does take it. With those two, you get something that is broadly agreed to be pretty much ownership.

      However, just because something’s on a blockchain doesn’t mean it’s decentralized. For example, the $-pegged token DAI is ERC20-compliant as of now, but it’s programmed to obey its government, the Makers, who can change it as they wish. Is ownership of DAI really ownership?

      That’s not an abstract question. Some time ago Scott suggested joining a prediction market, and there’s pretty much only one usable: Augur. From 1 January 2020, Augur uses DAI as its main currency. So all rationalists who want to use their Bayes kung-fu in a prediction market should ask themselves: how safe it is to own DAI?

      Regardless of the precise answer to this question, it seems to be clear that adding a government such as Makers actually harms ownership, makes it less… ownershippy. I think this observation is very libertarian. The irony here is that Ethereum itself has a government. Oh, well. I’ll worry when Vitalik says something along the lines of “We should be happier to have a job than to have our savings protected” ((c) ECB Boss Christine Lagarde).

      But – I hear statists protesting – isn’t a programmable blockchain basically a legal framework? Well, yes – as is the ruleset of any board game – and no, as in no armed goons will show up to beat you if you don’t want to play. While you can in principle have a consensus reality system based on “soft” things like honor – such as hawala – systems based on precisely defined rules are more useful in the digital age.

  48. GearRatio says:

    Question for the crowd:

    Imagine all the all the arguments you have had that you feel a casual observer would think you had won (or, at least, outperformed your opponent/opponents). What percentage of those arguments do you think you won because you were right or had better evidence/sources at hand, and what percentage do you think you won because your rhetoric skills were more developed or your personal style overwhelmed your opponent’s?

    Edit: Thegnskald points out I’m probably misusing the word “rhetoric”. You could probably sub in something like a combination of charisma/argument skills/verbal skills/social standing; basically all your resources that aren’t evidence/sourcing/being correct so much as “being good” at winning arguments, even from a weak position.

    • Thegnskald says:

      I think this assumes rhetoric and evidence are distinct.

      ETA:

      That probably doesn’t provide much thought to work with. I’m writing more ETA, one moment

      Further ETA:

      In the other thread, I commented that obviousness is prior to data. This is an important point before I continue; in order to write data down, you must be able to understand the information coming into your brain, and parse it into numbers, or else be able.to tell a machine how to do the same thing.

      The process of converting incoming information, which I’ll call qualia, into data, is inherently an interpretive process. The universe doesn’t provide the numbers we use to formulate data; we must devise methodologies to do this. We have to agree on those methodologies. Agreement is reached through debate and argument.

      What we call evidence is something we have -agreed- to call evidence. All evidence begins with argument, with rhetoric. Reality provides neither numbers, nor a translation book between itself and those numbers.

      So to begin with, evidence is just several hundred year old rhetoric, when people managed to argue each other into something that kind of worked.

      Setting aside whether it still works, and whether or not the idea has been hacked and abused in this age of replication crises, we now have another issue: Once we have evidence, what do we have evidence of?

      Rhetoric enters the fray once more, because just as reality provides no translation key by which we transform qualia into numbers, it also provides no key by which we can transform numbers into anything else. See the myriad interpretations of quantum physics.

      The idea that evidence answers questions, and rhetoric has no place, ignores the nature of questions themselves, and how answers are produced from those numbers.

      Any non-trivial argument cannot avoid “rhetoric”. If you think you argue using evidence alone, you don’t understand the process you are using.

      • acymetric says:

        I don’t think there is really any meaningful connection between the two, other than that sometimes rhetoric might make use of evidence (or it might not). Are we using different definitions of what rhetoric is here? I’m pretty sure mine (and the one GearRatio probably had in mind when he wrote the post) is the most typical one.

        • Thegnskald says:

          Logos is a type of rhetoric. We often use the word now to describe non-logical arguments, but argument of any form is rhetoric.

          • acymetric says:

            The question is “did you win your argument by virtue of your solid evidence, or as a result of rhetorical skill” and seems perfectly valid even after reading your longer post.

            I also somewhat disagree with how you characterize evidence, you seem to be assuming it means “statistical evidence” (I’m drawing this from your use of terms qualia, data, and numbers when describing what evidence is) but there are many other types of evidence that are not related to numbers at all.

      • GearRatio says:

        To be clear: I’m not asking something like “When did you win using stupid words without any evidence as opposed to evidence without any stupid words?”. What I’m trying to ask is something close to “When did you win despite being wrong?”.

        It occurs to me that this question might parse into nonsense if someone doesn’t believe in objective truth. I’m not at all sure if that’s what you are saying above, but to the extent it is you could sub in this:

        “How many times have you won an argument where you had a strong suspicion then or later that you were actually wrong?”

        • EchoChaos says:

          There are certainly things that I have won arguments about that I have later come to the other side.

          I was in the military and vocally for the Iraq War in 2003, for example. I’ve since realized that it was a pretty big mistake that made the Middle East noticeably worse off.

          I don’t know that I’ve ever “won” an online argument for something that I didn’t believe at the time was right because I don’t tend to argue vehemently for things I don’t already believe pretty strongly.

        • Thegnskald says:

          I believe in reality. I don’t know if I would call it “objectively true”, it just is; the ideas of objectivity and truth don’t really apply. Those are descriptors of our entirely subjective and inherently incomplete perceptions of reality.

          Or, to frame that differently, I think what you call objective truth exists, but any claim to it is entirely rhetorical.

          In the sense of reference to that objective truth, I am always wrong.

    • Well... says:

      I consider myself a pretty slow and easily-confused off-the-cuff thinker, so if I won an argument with someone it’s because I just knew the topic better and had more experience arguing my own points and articulating the best counterarguments to my opponent’s.

      This isn’t mutually exclusive with charisma, though. There have been times where the other person was so uncharismatic he shut down completely, but later I was left with a nagging sense that had he had the cojones to speak up he might have put my arguments to bed. In those instances I never felt like I “won”, just like I’d sort of been overpowering.

      Similarly, there’ve been plenty of times where I kept kept my mouth shut and let the other person walk away feeling like he schooled me, when really I knew everything he said was bogus but I just didn’t have the energy or the confidence — or in some cases the ruthlessness — to out-grandstand him, especially in front of others.

    • aristides says:

      I used to compete in mock trial. There, 100% of the arguments you win are because of rhetoric. The fact pattern is neutral, so that is basically all there is to it. In my day to day life, I choose whether or not to use the rhetorical tricks I learned in arguments. I never do that with my wife. Using those skills is an easy way to win the battle, but lose the war and get divorced. At work it depends on what the goal is. My workplace stresses fairness and doing the right thing. Usually, I avoid using those rhetoric skills. But occasionally, I have to fight off the union or a lawyer, and all my rhetorical tricks come out. I still think the underlying evidence is what wins 95% of the time, but the 5% of the time rhetoric matters, tends to be on the more high profile cases.

      • AG says:

        Same here, but with a cross examination debate experience. Part of it, though, is that learning the jargon and such genuinely gives you mental tools to evaluate the situation more effectively than someone who doesn’t have the background. Knowing the tricks can help guide one to a more truthful position in the first place, because most people are bad at getting and sorting through underlying evidence. That’s why things like root cause analysis have to be separately trained, most people don’t naturally learn to think like that.

  49. johan_larson says:

    Our friends with the giant spaceships find the human custom of gift-giving utterly charming, and would like to participate. Unfortunately they are not quite sure what to get us, so they have let it be known that wishes conveyed through this forum are quite welcome.

    So, what do we want from our Death-Star buddies?

    • Jaskologist says:

      Translated physics and philosophy books from their world.

    • Jiro says:

      This question could mean several things, such as “what do we ask for to maximize the benefit from the gift unconditionally”, “what do we ask for to maximize the benefit for the gift, that is still polite to ask for”, “what do we ask for to maximize the benefit of the gift bearing in mind that we have to give a reciprocal gift”, or “what do we ask for, that would have traditional gift properties such as being personal and not something we’d get ourselves, but not too expensive”. If you can clarify, you may get better answers.

      • Randy M says:

        “what do we ask for, that would have traditional gift properties such as being personal and not something we’d get ourselves, but not too expensive”.

        Aww, they carved “Yay Humans!” into the moon with lasers! How sweet. Yeah, no, that’s much more thoughtful than a gift certificate to Colony Ships R Us. We probably wouldn’t even have gone out to redeem it.

      • johan_larson says:

        I mean, it’s hard to know. Our friends are a bit quirky. One day they give us a kilogram of anti-matter — a damn near priceless gift. The next they’re making plans to kill half of us. :shrug:

    • Randy M says:

      Oh, I know! A trustworthy pledge to support Earth’s local sovereignty militarily and in whatever galactic political decision making bodies exist. It’d be nice to have someone else keeping greedy colonizers or planet consuming aliens at bay.

    • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

      There’s probably a better answer, but…I’d like a giant spaceship, please. Honestly I’d be happy with a merely large spaceship, or even a moderately-sized spaceship!

    • Gobbobobble says:

      A Red Ryder BB gun

    • bean says:

      The facilities for producing spaceships, even small ones, along with appropriate training to allow us to use them.

      • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

        Teach mankind to fashion spaceships, and you feed their curiosity for a lifetime.

        • bean says:

          It’s not curiosity I’m trying to satisfy. It’s not even really the ships I’m after, cool though those are. It’s the industrial knowledge we’ll get out of being able to build them.

    • Aapje says:

      Alien porn?

      Seriously though, their tech.

  50. metacelsus says:

    An . . . interesting . . . paper came out today in ACS Nano: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.9b00184

    It seems graphene doping is just a bunch of overhyped crap.

    If we follow the claims of previously published doped graphene for electrocatalysis articles regarding “metal-free catalysis”, one can envision an era in which guano- doped graphene is used instead of platinum in fuel cells and electrolyzers, with huge societal impact not only in clean energy production and a cleaner environment but also on rural economies as guano once again becomes a valuable and highly sought-after product.

    • acymetric says:

      Anyone interested in a brief cliffnotes/ELI5 explanation of what graphene doping is (or was supposed to be)?

      • SamChevre says:

        Please: it sounds interesting and important, but I’m not a chemist.

        • acymetric says:

          It occurs to me that was worded somewhat poorly. I should have said “Anyone interested in providing a brief cliffnotes/ELI5 explanation”. I’m in the same boat as you.

      • rubberduck says:

        (Disclaimer: not my area of expertise)

        If a material can conduct current, it is because the (valence) electrons can travel freely throughout the material. Whether or not this occurs depends on how the electrons in the material are structured. The electrons can essentially occupy energy levels. The highest energy level is furthest from the nuclei, and these electrons are the easiest to remove from the atom. Additionally, there are higher, unoccupied levels, which a lower-level electron could occupy if (for example) it absorbs light of a specific wavelength and gets excited.

        The gap between the highest electron-occupied level (called the valence band) and the lowest unoccupied level (called the conducting band) is called the band gap. How conductive a material is depends on the size of the band gap. A conductor (e.g. bulk metals) has a band gap of zero or near-zero. A semiconductor has a small band gap and an insulator has a large band gap.

        Most organic materials are insulators and have tightly bound electrons. Graphite and graphene both owe their conductivity to their delocalized electrons- basically, the electrons can travel freely between all the aromatic rings. However, there is interest in increasing the conductivity further, which is where doping comes in. A dopant reduces the band gap of a material, by either raising the energy of the valence band or lowering the energy of the conducting band. In theory, you could have a material with the conductivity of bulk metals but with only a 1-atom thickness, which would have a lot of applications, and you’d expect the different electronic properties to modify the catalytic activity (as in the paper) as well.

        • broblawsky says:

          In the case of doping, catalysis is usually the primary concern – and catalytic properties are heavily influenced by even the tiniest synthesis process differences, because catalysis isn’t just influenced by what dopants you put in and how much of them are present, but by how the dopants are placed in the (normally six-membered) C rings:
          – substituting for a C atom in a ring (graphitic)
          – substituting for a C atom in a ring but not bonded to a nearby ring
          – forming a five-membered ring
          – triple bonded to a carbon atom at a zigzag edge
          – bonded to a C atom and an O atom

          Dopants can potentially have any of these configurations, and can potentially be distributed among any of these or more depending on synthesis conditions, all of which impacts catalysis. This makes getting consistent catalytic properties nearly impossible.

          • rubberduck says:

            Interesting, thanks.

            I was familiar with doping in the context of conductive polymers, where my understanding was that the dopant-material interaction is either a) charge transfer or b) some molecular orbital thing, and which one you get depends on which materials you have. It certainly wasn’t a chemical reaction resulting in covalent bonding, as you describe it. Does graphene doping as you describe it have the same result (lower band gap) or is it something entirely different?

          • broblawsky says:

            Yeah, doping messes with the density of states. The precise mechanism by which this impacts catalytic properties is something I don’t understand, though.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            Yeah, doping messes with the density of states. The precise mechanism by which this impacts catalytic properties is something I don’t understand, though.

            I’ve been watching this chemistry class from MIT on youtube and they discuss this specific point. They specifically discuss dopants in silicon around the 25 minute mark of the linked video but the whole lecture is very good.

        • acymetric says:

          Thanks!

    • VoiceOfTheVoid says:

      I’m a bit confused as to what the point is. Is the satire of improving the electrolytic properties of graphene with literal chicken sh*t supposed to show that doping with anything will work, and that papers attempting doping with various complex chemicals are superfluous? Or is it trying to make a mockery of the field entirely, and argue sarcastically that graphene will never be a good substitute for e.g. platinum in catalytic converters no matter what you dope it with?

      • beleester says:

        I think it’s saying that the papers that show improved results from doping are probably bunk, because they were able to show improvements from something that shouldn’t have improved the results. The introduction points out that many of the doping materials studied in previous papers had contradictory effects – “It apparently did not matter whether the doping atom/group was electron-donating or electron withdrawing, the effect was always claimed to be electrocatalytic.