Am still rather busy atm...but a few notes, including on ghost marriages

*    On the weekend, I found myself watching (for a little while) a livestream of a Australian Asian vlogger fishing at night somewhere in Sydney.   Of course, he was catching fish.  Is my impression correct that all Asian people are naturally good at fishing, or is that an equivalent to thinking they are all great at maths? 

Anyway, watching Youtube videos of people like him who catch stuff easily makes me feel very inadequate as a occasional fisherperson.  Of course, if it's a video that's been editted, they may have gone an hour or more with nothing, but here I was watching a livestream, and he was still catching fish. Yet, this guy just seems an enthusiatic and pleasant (doesn't swear a bit) - and possibly lonely? - bloke who enjoys talking to a camera, so it was hard to be too offended.

*  I am contemplating a trip early next year to Indonesia, specifically to visit Yogyakarta, mostly famous for its ancient temples, including Borobudur.   I think I might have overdone watching Youtube travel vloggers who have been there, though, because while it's good to get information about a place you haven't been to before, watching too many can start to make it feel as if I have seen so much that I don't need to see it in person after all!   It's a bit like the way I blame David Attenborough and his ilk for making so many documentaries about African wildlife over the decades that I feel very disinterested in ever actually visiting the continent.   (I can also blame modern technology, as good looking video is so easy to make now - including with drones - that even the worst vlogger can give you a very clear idea of what a particular site looks like.) 

* Continuing an Asian theme for today, I watched the Taiwanese gay themed comedy/action film Marry my Dead Body on Netflix.   I knew nothing about it, but was just looking for a decent international film to watch, and as this one involved the matter of ghost marriage, it seemed intriguing enough.

I thought it a bit too long, but generally, pretty witty and watchable, and interesting in terms of a reflection on attitudes to gay relationships in Taiwan, which (for some reason I don't really understand*), was the first Asian country to go all in for gay marriage.   (It was also pretty frank about sex generally for a Chinese culture film, not that it featured any sex scenes, but male butt nudity was played for laughs quite a bit.)  I guess you could say it was a little like a gay twist on Ghost, with the addition of some Asian style comedy and action.   I liked that it turned out some family conflict was actually based on a misunderstanding, not actual ill will.   I have a soft spot for conflict stories that are resolved that way - everyone can forgive everyone else, and on we go. 

I read after watching it that it was a big hit in Taiwan, and I'm not surprised.

Anyway, back to the ghost marriage element, which was key to the film.  I couldn't remember having read about it before, but then by coincidence while watching a Chinese vlogger from Singapore the next night, I was reminded that there is a small Taoist temple in Tanjong Pagar, and the signage outside of it features an article explaining that it was known for hosting ghost marriages.  In fact, looking at my phone, I took a photo of this on Christmas Day in 2018, probably intending to read it all later:

 

More information about Chinese ghost marriage can be found at Wikipedia, including this detail that featured in the movie:

In some occasions, the family of a deceased person may choose to use a priest as a matchmaker.^[5] In other occasions, the family may choose to leave out a red envelope with gifts, believing that the deceased person's spouse would eventually reveal themselves.^[6]

The lesson seems to be, if you are of very eligible marriage age in Taiwan or China, don't go picking up random red envelopes found lying around.   (Cleverly, the movie gave a particular reason for the protagonist to be picking one up.)  

I don't know how often ghost marriages still happen in Taiwan - it would seem it is something left to specific temples, I think.   This article from 2017 in Taipei gives an example of an unusual case, but it would appear they still sometimes are pursued.

*  I see there is a very detailed Wikipedia entry about the path the country took on this.  It was ultimately the courts that said the constitution required it, but it seems there was an active political movement towards it before that decision anyway.

Am rather busy atm...

Corny

We went for a drive Saturday, around the Mulgowie/Forest Hill/Lowood/Marburg area. 

 I'm not sure if its the sweet corn capital of Australia, but there was a lot planted in the ground.  (We also bought some fresh cobs from the farmer's market - and I don't know if there is a more delicious vegetable when so fresh, and lightly steamed, with butter and pepper.)

We also found a house at Marburg that sells honey at the road front for a good price, and we were told it comes from her own hives behind the house.  Sweet - literally.

I know that this last winter has been pretty cold, and pretty wet, for South East Queensland, but I didn't realise until driving around that all farm dams would be full.   In fact, Lake Dyer, just outside of Laidley, is really the fullest I have ever seen it, going back several years.   It seems a lot more rain has fallen than I had realised.   (Yes, now that I check, the dams around SE Qld are nearly all at 80 to 90% full - and this is at the end of our normally dryer season.) 

I had also never stopped in Marburg before.  The pub is old (1881) and nothing too fancy inside.  (The bar downstairs is remarkably small - most of the floor space is taken up with a dining room and dining deck.)  But the exterior is in good condition.  I wonder what's upstairs?

Anyway, a nice drive on a nice day.  (The dog came with us too).

Update:  And to round off a long weekend:

Yay!  They Might Be Giants played The Tivoli, and they're still witty and such fun to see.  I'm always surprised at how many people don't know who they are, contrasted with the warm reception they get from audiences with an age range from about 18 to 70.  Seemed to be more females than I expected, too.  

I'm guessing they still have a couple of good albums in them yet...

History corner

 It seems he was a very healthy guy for his age too, since he is said to have been giving cogent interviews last year:

He explained last year in an interview with Jason Morgan, an associate professor at Reitaku University in Kashiwa, for the English-language website Japan Forward, “I’m ashamed that I’m the only one who survived and lived such a long life.”

Asked in that interview if ever thought of visiting Pearl Harbor, he at first replied, “I wouldn’t know what to say.” He then added: “If I could go, I would like to, I would like to visit the graves of the men who died. I would like to pay them my deepest respect.”

 And here he is, from 2023:

 

Put me in the skeptic column

So, some guy has put up a video about his a-mazing discovery that looking at a laser the right way while high on DMT (the hallucinogen with a reputation for causing "machine elves" or other alien-ish entities to turn up as part of the trip) causes people to be able to see the code behind our reality.  Yes, like the Matrix movie:

  

 

I would be a bit less skeptical if he wasn't running a GoFundMe page to finish the documentary he says he's making about it.

I also don't know if there is any particular reason why a drug that is known for producing one particular trip fairly often (the visiting machine elves ones) should not also have a quirk of making people see numbers when the illumination is right.   I mean, that it should produce a numbers illusion is perhaps less odd than it making it feel like intelligent beings are coming to commune with you.  I think.

Anyway, let's see where this goes.  Hopefully, not just a case of money into this guy's pocket with nothing further.

Depravity corner

It's a topic I don't even like to think about, but it's so astounding to me that people can develop get some sort of seriously perverse pleasure out of this, it seems worth noting.   On the BBC website, this:

One of the ringleaders of a global monkey torture network exposed by the BBC has been sentenced to three years and four months in prison.

Mike Macartney, 50, who used the alias ‘The Torture King’, pleaded guilty in the US state of Virginia to conspiracy to create and distribute animal crushing videos.

Macartney was one of three key distributors identified by the BBC Eye team in a year-long investigation into sadistic monkey torture groups.

The BBC’s reporting led to a nationwide criminal investigation in the US by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

A former motorcycle gang member who previously spent time in prison, Macartney ran several of the most high-profile torture groups, based on the encrypted message app Telegram.

Sadists around the world used Telegram groups to share ideas for specific methods of torture. Those requests were then sent, along with payments, to video makers in Indonesia, who carried them out on baby long-tailed macaques.

Though Macartney collected funds and distributed videos, he was able to show that he had never sent money directly to an Indonesian video maker.

This comes not long after the equally bizarre story of the zoologist guy in the Northern Territory who had a side line in sexually defiling dogs and then torturing them to death for a video fan club.  At least he got 10 years in jail (and, hopefully, the loss of all family contact, forever.)  

I really have no understanding of how men can respond to such material - or not recognize that it is indeed a serious problem to get pleasure that way, and not seek counselling or treatment to stop getting off on it.

 

 

The only Frank Lloyd Wright skyscraper

Well, it's pretty short as far as skyscrapers go, but I didn't know it existed at all.   It has seen better days, though, as this well illustrated NYT article explains.

Bad trips, and Buddhism re-visited

So, last weekend this video, called We Finally Know Why Causes Bad Trips, was recommended to me by the All Knowing Google (YouTube arm):  

 

I have thoughts: 

a.   Even allowing for the algorithmic need for an eye-catching thumbnail, I really don't like this one, as (despite the content in the video itself), it really seems to encouraging people to not take "bad trips" very seriously.   

b.   It does mention ecstasy amongst the list of hallucinogens, which was news to me.   

c.   The video talks about how one of the features of a bad trip can be ego dissolution (or ego death), and that this sensation alone can have lasting negative effects after the drug has worn off.

d.   As usual with any internet content in which someone presents a cautionary note on the use of any recreational drug, it immediately attracts defenders of their habit in comments.   But the range of views in this thread are pretty interesting, mainly because of the two camps - those who say they went through the ego dissolution but found it peaceful or calming (or insightful), and those who said it was a very negative sensation for them which, for some, took months or years to get over.   (You also get the odd person who says they know someone who never was the same again from use of LSD or whatever, and not in a good way.)

Lots of people in comments go on about the basic idea that you should never use a hallucinogen if not in the "right" mood for it, and without being in a safe place with supportive people, etc.   But I still get the feeling that this is no guarantee of a positive trip.

The video explains that some MRI scanning indicates that people undergoing a bad trip (well, it actually mentions ego dissolution) were more likely to have glutamate active in the medial prefrontal cortex.   How useful this knowledge is seemingly anyone's guess - it certainly doesn't indicate any possibility of prediction of a bad trip 

e.   Anyway, the general discussion of ego dissolution got me thinking about Buddhism and its core idea of Anatta, or no self.   It's difficult not to draw a connection there, and while I have mentioned before the possible inspirational role of hallucinogens to Buddhist and Hindu imagery, I'm not sure that it had occurred to me before as inspiring Anatta.   

Anyway, in a broader sense, it is a little hard to understand why the sensation of experiencing loss of self or ego under drugs (or intense meditation, I suppose) should be unpleasant for some, but give a sense of peace to others.

Mind you, as I noted before, Mahayana Buddhism pushes back on the idea of extinction of self in favour of the core of a person being a process that, once enlightened enough, can decide how to manifest in various forms - which I suppose is consistent with reincarnation, it just disagrees about nirvana being an form of extinction.  This was all explained better in this post.   

Once again, though, it brings me back to my old dissatisfaction with the apparent contradiction in Buddhism as a philosophy - how compassion is meant to work in any motivational sense if you're walking around firmly of the view that not only your own life is a barely held together group of sensations, but that's all that is at the core of every one around you as well.  

Google can point me to the response:

By exposing the transparency of self, one opens up to the relational nature of identity, and thereby creates the ground for empathy and engagement.

From the same link (by Stephen Batchelor):

The Mahayana takes the concept of anatta and extends that to the development of compassion for all things, since there really is no separation between self and other. An image that conveys this most beautifully is Shantideva’s concept of the entire world being comparable to a single organism, a body. He says that just as when the foot is in pain, the hand will spontaneously reach out to assuage the pain of the foot, in the same way—if you are no longer inhibited by self-centeredness—you will spontaneously reach out to assuage the pain of others. That metaphor beautifully conveys the central insight of Mahayana Buddhism: Once the self is seen through, it does not just mean liberation, but also that your spontaneous response to others becomes that of a profound empathy. You recognize that who you are is not because of some kind of metaphysical substance or essence that is tucked away inside you somewhere, but rather is determined by the unrepeatable matrix of relationships that constitute your own history.

I kind of get that on one level - and the whole "we are all one" has an appeal in the way it aligns (metaphorically, at least) with quantum entanglement.   But it doesn't seem to me that it makes sense to say that the compassion is a "spontaneous response" in the way alleged.

One day I'll get it - or not!

Oh, and I suppose I should end in the somewhat rambling entry on ego death, and its connection with religions and hallucinogens, at Wikipedia.  It does end on this note:

Scholars have also criticized Leary and Alpert's attempt to tie ego-death and psychedelics with Tibetan Buddhism. John Myrdhin Reynolds, has disputed Leary and Jung's use of the Evans-Wentz's translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, arguing that it introduces a number of misunderstandings about Dzogchen.^[89] Reynolds argues that Evans-Wentz's was not familiar with Tibetan Buddhism,^[89] and that his view of Tibetan Buddhism was "fundamentally neither Tibetan nor Buddhist, but Theosophical and Vedantist".^[90] Nonetheless, Reynolds confirms that the nonsubstantiality of the ego is the ultimate goal of the Hinayana system.^[91]

  

The malleable world of psychiatric diagnosis

Hey, a decent and interesting article at Slate about an issue I hadn't really been aware of:

Today there are about 3.3 million Americans with a bipolar disorder diagnosis. Many experts think that this figure is an undercount of the true number of people living with the condition. As with any disorder, some diagnosable people are never seen by a clinician. And many patients who wind up with the label of bipolar disorder are initially misdiagnosed with unipolar depression.

But some psychiatrists think that the bipolar diagnosis has actually gone too far—that there is a large contingent of patients who have been slapped with a trendy label, the definition of bipolar having drifted far beyond its original meaning. Research indicates that false positives for bipolar disorder may be alarmingly common. In a landmark study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 2008, more than half of bipolar patients who were reevaluated were determined to have been misdiagnosed. It’s possible that misdiagnosis and underdiagnosis are widespread issues—but the field continues to be divided on whether misdiagnosis is an issue at all.

Perhaps no topic in 21^st-century adolescent psychiatry has been more controversial than pediatric bipolar, a diagnosis that can be applied to kids as young as 5 who have severe problems with emotional control. Critics say the label pathologizes normal but challenging parts of growing up. Proponents say it’s a needed intervention for kids not helped by other means.

No matter their age, when a patient receives the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, they are usually routed toward prescription drugs and can be blocked off from other diagnoses—and therefore other avenues of treatment. Borderline personality disorder, neurodivergence, and ADHD can all be misdiagnosed as bipolar but have vastly different treatment regimens. The first two are often treated without meds.

The rest of the article, about how bipolar diagnoses really had a huge growth phase, but is now getting some pushback, is very interesting.   I hope it doesn't go behind a paywall...

 

 

This and that

*  I can see from my emails (where comments also appear) that for some reason, some comments seem to be being made but are not appearing on the blog.  I have no idea why this is happening intermittently, sorry.

*  I agree with some comments on Twitter, that the devastating floods in parts of the USA at the moment are not attracting quite the attention in the US mainstream press as one might expect.   (I don't know if it's true, but one Youtube video this morning suggested that 1,000 people are still unaccounted for, which likely means the death toll is going to keep climbing.)   Someone else on Twitter said that it seems that as more flash floods are happening everywhere, they seem to be getting less media coverage, and someone else commented it's a bit like school shootings in the US - they don't attract the same length of attention that they used to.  It's the "new normal".  Which is a worry...

* I had no idea until last week's Foreign Correspondent that stealing copper (for sale on an international copper recycling black market) was a gigantic problem in South African cities.  

*  Not that I have ever paid much attention to him, but Gordon Ramsay's "easy" version of how to do chicken cacciatore gives good results.  (I usually add capsicum too.)  He doesn't even swear in the video.

*  Listening to an hour of William Dalrymple talking about the successful trading millennium or so of India was quite interesting.    

*  Speaking of ancient history, this fiction author (Robert Harris) seems well known and popular, but I hadn't noticed him before.   Sounds like his Roman trilogy is well regarded, as someone in comments says Mary Beard recommended them.

*  Everyone is expecting another of those wild swings that Queensland is well known for in its elections.  To an extraordinarily high degree, I reckon, youth crime is an important issue, and to an extent, the matter of indigenous policy.   It will be interesting to see if a "tough on crime" response can be made to work quickly.

Maybe they should just stop trying to make AR glasses a thing?

Did you see some of the videos in the last couple of days showing Zuckerberg trying on the new AR glasses prototype, and showing it being used for some really pathetic uses.  Check out this video:  the game of virtual ping pong looks as lame as lame can be:

 

 

The other use mentioned here - the glasses taking you to a recipe using ingredients that it sees on a counter - this is a case of expensive and somewhat clumsy technology saving all of - what? 20 seconds? - to type in "give me a recipe for a main meal using X, Y & Z"

Apart from some highly specialised industrial uses (say, using AR to help an engine mechanic apprentice find their way around a complicated task), I just see no compelling reason why AR is ever going to be more than a novelty for the home user that quickly wears off.     

Why can't Zuckerberg and his pals see that too?   

Youtube's fiddling with the "recommended" again

I'm guessing that other people may have noticed this:   in the last couple of weeks I have noticed that when I watch a video from a channel I haven't watched before from Youtube's "recommended" list, and then go back to the recommended list, there will immediately be another 3, 4 or 5 videos from the same channel near the start of the list.  Well, perhaps in the first half of the list, anyway.

I find this annoying, because if I find a video particularly engaging, my normal practice is to go to the channel to check out what its usual content is like, and decide whether I should subscribe.   I don't need Youtube recommending that I should watch another video from there immediately - I'm big enough to work out if I should check out the channel's content myself.

First world problem, sure.   And maybe content creators actually like this tactic?   But I find it irritating.

 

 

A certain country's reputation for a mature and relaxed attitude to sex takes a hit

I've been meaning to post about the extraordinary rape case in France, in which a husband of mature age set up a scheme in which his wife would be heavily sedated, and then men invited online to have sex with her.

What seems particularly unbelievable is the number of men willing to participate (83 potential participants, of whom 50 are being tried for rape.)   I mean, France is supposed to be the country where people fall in love and have sex at the drop of a hat, and affairs are (more-or-less) common, with mature couples and friends being prepared to "look the other way" as long as it is discreet and doesn't interfere with family life.   A reputation for what might be called a relaxed, or mature (well, that's debatable, I know), attitude towards sex - and hence a country where happy consensual sex is easy to find.

Not the country of scores of desperate and hard up men online looking for invitations to have sex with a sleeping wife!   I mean, what's the appeal of sex with an inactive partner anyway?  

I had wondered whether some of the accused would claim that they thought she was just acting and part of the "game" when she was sleepy or groggy during sex, and it would seem from the report I have linked to, some are trying it on.    Yet it seems the husband himself has pleaded guilty, so I don't know that his take on what happened is going to help anyone.

Meanwhile, in Queensland we've just had the law changed to put a positive obligation to know there is consent to sex.   The government website gives these illustrations of when there will be a problem:

The new consent laws outline some of the circumstances where there will be no consent. These include where someone…

• did not say or do anything to communicate consent;
• does not have the cognitive capacity to consent;
• is so affected by alcohol or another drug they are incapable of consenting or withdrawing consent;
• is unconscious or asleep;
• participates in the act because of force, a fear of force, harm of any type or a fear of harm of any type, whether to the person or another person, animal or property, and regardless of whether it was a single incident or part of a pattern of behaviour;
• participates in the act because of coercion, blackmail or intimidation, regardless of when it occurs or whether it is a single incident or part of an ongoing pattern;
• participates in the act because the person or another person is unlawfully confined, detained or otherwise deprived or their personal liberty;
• participates in the act because the person is overborne by the abuse of a relationship of authority, trust or dependence;
• participates in the act because of a false or fraudulent representation about the nature or purpose of the act, including about whether the act is for health, hygienic or cosmetic purposes;
• participates in the act with another person because the person is mistaken about the identity of the other person  or participates in the act with another person because the person is mistaken they are married to the other person;
• is a sex worker and participates in the act because of a false or fraudulent representation that the person will be paid or receive some reward for the act;
• participates in the act with another person on the basis that a condom is used for the act and the other person does any of the following things before or during the act: does not use a condom; tampers with the condom; removes the condom; or becomes aware that the condom is no longer effective but continues with the sexual act (‘stealthing’).

I can imagine that this will cause some difficult cases in future, if the law survives a change of government. 

A very, very comedy career

Apropos of nothing, have a look at this obituary in The Guardian about a British comedy writer, director and occasional performer who worked on an extraordinary number of shows since the 1960's with an extraordinary range of comedians.   

I think it must be fairly rare to find someone who can work with so many different types of comedian?

Given the current state of British comedy, which I think has been pretty dire for quite a long time (with only rare exception), we need more like him. 

Musing about the American election

It seems to me that this is surely one of the most difficult Presidential election to predict with any great certainty because of so many factors pulling in different directions:

*   national polling and enthusiastic rallies indicate high motivation for Democrat supporters to get out and vote - particularly for women, for whom the gap between support for Trump and Harris is so wide;

*  on the other hand, the US papers are full of stories of different Republican states cutting out large numbers of registered voters off the voter enrolments,  and it seems very hard to know how many of those were "legitimate" (deceased people, for example), and how many are real acts of disenfranchisement that might have a disproportionate effect on Democrats;

*  on the third hand, it's hard to see a Trump/Vance campaign tactic that is working for them - I think we can safely say that the attack on Haitians has not gone well, given the amount of mocking on line it has generated, not to mention the Republican Governor of Ohio saying he's "saddened" by it in a column in the New York Times!   It's clear they don't want Trump coming to town to stir up more trouble unnecessarily, and I expect it won't happen;

*  there are also very odd things like Georgia saying every vote has to be counted by hand, with likely delays in declaring the winner and that providing time for dubious legal challenges, and other states reducing dramatically the number of voting places.   Again, you would have to suspect that these work against Democrat voters, who are more likely to be younger workers who need the most convenient time and place to voter due to their working hours.   Older Americans, who are more likely to vote for Trump, can more easily waste time getting to a voting booth.   But how big an effect can this have?

I think everyone can agree - this American system of leaving voting arrangements up to each individual state is just a crazy mess.   If they can't bring themselves to have a national electoral commission to run elections uniformly across the nation, can they at least do something that seems so obvious to Australians watching:   mandate nationally that voting day is a Saturday, where working hours and time to access a polling station is much less likely to be a problem for most people?  

Update:  One other thing I forgot to mention - the Democrats apparently have a heap more money to spend on advertising, and we've been reading for months about the Republicans being poorly organised in many states.  But as I just don't understand the complicated system there (the parties seem to have to do so much work just to get people registered to vote and then to vote) I don't know how important these factors are.

Should I go to the Ninth?

I see that the Queensland Symphony Orchestra is putting on Beethoven's 9th Symphony in November.  It seems to me that it is pretty rarely performed these days, and I suspect the orchestra knows that putting on the infrequently played big classics attracts an audience, as they have 3 performances for sale - on two evenings and a Saturday afternoon.   Actually, I see now that they are not doing a Christmas performance of The Messiah this year (they did it at Easter instead), so they are probably seeing if the semi-religious reputation of this piece is a successful replacement.   Still, they would only do The Messiah once at Christmas, so running the 9th for 3 performances is still pretty surprising to me.

Should I go?   I'm not at all familiar with it, apart from having heard the orchestral version of the "Ode to Joy" final movement a couple of times.   (Even then it was probably only on TV.  I remember watching it with my late father, probably as a teenager, and both of us being a bit disappointed that it's not really much like the sped up 3 minute pop versions that have been popular over the years.)

The question is therefore what are the other three movements like, and should I listen to them before the concert, as I did when I had years - due to Covid - to get ready for the Ring Cycle.  

I see from Googling the topic that not everyone enjoys it - there is a Medium essay about a person who complained about 100 years ago that its popularity is undeserved (although by the end, it sounds like it was a bit of a troll too):

On July 21st, 1927, an anonymous person going under the name “J.M.C.” sent a scathing review of a recent performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony by the New York Philharmonic into the newspaper The World. In this review, JMC begins by describing how bored the audience looked while the piece was being performed, with many members supposedly whispering, looking around, and reading through the programs. JMC’s claims don’t end here, as they then assert that the piece is simply one that “everybody praises and nobody likes” and that it is only famous because people see it as profound because of its religious themes, especially given that he did not believe that Beethoven was not particularly religious otherwise. They maintain that people only go to concerts because of a feeling of religious obligation and the idea that they must conform to those around them. They end, quite exaggeratedly and obviously satirically, with the statement “I move you that a law be passed making performances of the Ninth Symphony illegal. It is an affront to the memory of Beethoven to keep playing it over year after year”.

On the other hand, someone on Reddit writes:

The Ninth embodies the best of Beethoven's work. It's a musical journey that enraptures you. I first listened to it when I was 12 and just beginning to explore "classical" music. At the time, I thought the Ninth Symphony was just the Ode to Joy melody. To my surprise, when I popped the CD in and started listening to the first movement, I heard something altogether different. It was one of those pieces that forced me to sit down and listen intently, partly because I was looking for the melody I had originally wanted to hear, and partly because I was so intrigued by the music and its twists and turns as it developed and recapitulated themes throughout in ways that still surprise me when I listen now.

 I think I should probably go see it....

The blogger then wrote this

There's a somewhat interesting article at the Washington Post about intellectual humility, and how it's generally a good thing.

But this paragraph is what prompted the post title:

Step outside yourself. In a 2021 study, Grossmann and his colleagues assessed 149 adults who wrote diary entries about the most significant thing that happened that day for a month. But some participants wrote in the third person, from a less egocentric perspective, while the control group subjects wrote in the first person.

After the month-long experiment, those who wrote in the third person had more growth in wise reasoning, including intellectual humility and open-mindedness, compared with pre-diary assessments.

And they were later less likely to report negative feelings about the people who they felt transgressed against them, Grossmann said.

 

 

 

Slow to learn

Without going into the question of the morality/legality of this type of operation....:

Second wave of Lebanon device explosions kills 20 and wounds 450

.... I find it a bit hard to credit that any male in Hezbollah thinks it's a good career move to work for them.  They are outsmarted and successfully targeted by Israel no matter where they are.   

It's probably also the first time the equivalent of a supply officer - usually the last person in a military organisation you would expect to be in major trouble - to be fearing for his life.  (From the boss, I mean.)

Floods everywhere

 The New York Times notes something I had been meaning to post about:

Chad. Vietnam. Austria. The American South.

In very disparate regions of the world, extreme rainfall in recent weeks has killed thousands of people, submerged entire towns, set off landslides and left millions without power. It’s a harbinger of the wild weather events that are a hallmark of climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, and it is highlighting the need to urgently adapt, in rich and poor countries alike.

Bursts of extreme rainfall are making both coastal and riverine flooding more dangerous and unpredictable.

“Extreme events are getting stronger everywhere, so we should expect floods to be bigger regardless of where we are,” said Michael Wehner, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “There is no question that these kinds of floods all over the world are getting worse.”

Sorry to mention again, but I started saying years ago that increased flooding was likely going to be the first effect of climate change as a really bad thing (economically and socially) that really caught people's attention.  

Today I learned -- WD-40 was for rockets

I can thank a random-ish recommendation from Youtube for this - a short explanation that WD-40 was created for a specific need for the Atlas missile/rocket.  The video also features an explanation of the very odd design of the Atlas rocket which I hadn't realised before.  (I always thought it was a cool looking thing, though, with the side guidance thruster/rockets.  It looks very inspiration for Thunderbirds designs, I reckon.)  Enjoy:

The ridiculous Trump supporters

Chait explains it pretty well in a column that's free to read for a limited time.  [Oh, I just checked, it seemed behind a paywall again (at New York Magazine).  Sorry.  Lucky I grabbed these bits when I did]:

Numerous conservatives have responded to the Sunday incidents by reminding their audience of Trump’s remarks from the debate, which they treat as prophetic. What Trump said was, “I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy. I’m a threat to democracy. They’re the threat to democracy.”
The very remarks they are citing include Trump calling his opponents a threat to democracy gives the game away. The fact that they’re proud of this line, rather than embarrassed by it, reveals the utter lack of principle behind it. “What will it take for these demented partisans to lower the temperature?” demands Devine with a comical lack of self-awareness.....

The Trumpist notion that any political or journalistic activity disadvantageous to Trump is a form of subversion is itself evidence of his authoritarianism. Trump has advocated for this idea consistently since his appearance on the political scene, describing all of his opponents as criminals, denouncing peaceful protesters as mobs, and calling any reporting he dislikes “election interference.” He does this so routinely it barely even attracts notice anymore. In recent weeks he bizarrely claimed Harris was using artificial intelligence to fake the appearance of a crowd at her rally and demanding her disqualification (“She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE”). He has said criticizing judges who issue favorable rulings for him ought to be a crime (“Playing the ref with our judges and justices should be punishable by very serious fines and beyond that”). Needless to say, Trump does not believe it should be a crime for him to denounce judges who make rulings of which he disapproves.....

Supporting liberal democracy requires simultaneously affirming the right to engage in legal, peaceful activity while opposing violent and criminal actions. Trump upholds neither side of the equation. He considers all speech or political activity against him to be criminal and any activity on his behalf, whether or not it is illegal or violent, to be legitimate. He believes all these things because he is an authoritarian at heart. The impulse to stop his critics from accurately describing his political project is not a defense of democratic norms but the precise opposite.

 I think it could be put more succinctly, though:   it's rank self serving hypocrisy by people with zero self awareness.

Some decent Twitter humour

The "every legal scholar" bit

An explanation of the Trumpian exaggeration lie regarding liberal scholars who wanted Roe overturned.

On psychics

This documentary, described in the article as a sympathetic take on why people see psychics (and why psychics do what they do), sounds pretty interesting to me.   I assume it will turn up on one of the streaming services pretty soon.

On reaching the "Beatle" age

That would be - 64.   It's a number that makes it difficult (very difficult!) to cling to the idea that I'm merely "upper middle age", and a recent bout of unexplained shoulder bursitis in a joint that has never had a problem before makes the gradual deterioration of bits and pieces of the body undeniable.

But hey, lots of things still interest me, the family is (mostly) healthy and (mostly) happy, and (maybe) there's another 25 - 30 years of relative good health, and thinking about stuff, to go.   (That's how long most on my mother's side have lived, anyway.  Not all in the greatest of health, though.)

I have felt a bit odd lately thinking that I am of an age at which I feel I can write off ever visiting certain places - Africa has never held much interest, for example, although that new museum in Egypt does look good.   I guess if you live forever, you would just never write off a continent as a place you would never visit, like I am starting to now.

So, what am I trying to say - getting into my 60's has finally made me start to think that I'll die one day?   Yes, I suppose that's true, which seems a bit of a downer on which to end a birthday post.  Instead, I can amuse myself by imagining that AI has probably already reached a good enough level that, if fed this entire blog, a reasonable simulation of me could go on blogging forever.  Or, at least, until Google stop supporting Blogger...:)

The debate

I can't watch the Trump/Harris debate (just winding up now as I type), but on Twitter and elsewhere, it seems Harris supporters are very, very happy with her performance.   I think I can safely say that Trump clearly has not won when, according to a couple of the Hot Air staff, this will be seen as a draw.  (That is, they're not bragging about a Trump triumph - the best they think they can say is "draw".)

This is good, and something of a relief.  

Update:  the TV coverage I just saw from the US is very clear that Harris won.   Also, the Taylor Swift endorsement is attracting attention.   Trump needs to start looking for apartments in Moscow, I think.

A sweet night of baroque

After going to the Ring Cycle last year, I'm no longer afraid of going to a concert of arias in a language I don't understand, and for some reason (slow sales, presumably), QPAC emailed a few weeks ago offering cheap but good seats ($59!) in the concert hall for the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra's "Handel's House".  I went (with my wife) last night.

I've a soft spot for Handel, and baroque music generally, which, now that I think of it, may be partly due to Lurch playing the harpsichord in The Addam's Family!

While being vaguely aware of the ABO, I've never seen them before, and they were great.   The concert featured a guest Japanese soprano singing Handel arias I was unfamiliar with, but her voice was pure and she looked lovely.  I went to the concert with modest expectations, but it was better than expected.

The arias were broken up with other pieces, included a Vivaldi concerto and one a violinist/composer I never heard of before - Pisendel.  I see that he was a contemporary of Handel, Bach and Vivaldi, and his violin concerto last night was lively and immediately likeable.   

Should I mention the guy one seat away from me who was continually using his phone during the first half?   Sure, he had the light on (probably) as low as possible, but I could see he was actually texting in the middle of the concert.  Then would stop.  Then a few minutes later turn the phone on again.  And he was in about mid 30's - absolutely old enough not to have the fried attention span of every single person under the age of 30.  The problem for me is, once noticing the fidgeting fingers out of the corner of my eye, it was impossible to stop noticing it.

Anyway, it was dealt with by an usher in the second half.  I managed to get my way without any direct confrontation.  Yay.   

But back to the concert.  I see now that it has already played in Sydney and got good reviews, so my musically uneducated gut reaction was pretty accurate.  Yay, again.

Back to the Monkey King

I explained back in 2020 that I had started reading an abridged version of Journey to the West, but I confess, I kept forgetting to go back to it and may have stopped at about 90 pages in.   I was reading it on Scribd, which I wasn't using enough to justify the subscription, so cancelled it.   

But Sun Wukong keeps appearing on Twitter ads at the moment because of a high profile Chinese video game that's just been released, and I thought I should go back to the book and resume the story.  I found via nefarious means a downloadable copy of the same abridged version in epub format and have started again.

(Incidentally, I was reading books on my cheapo Lenovo tablet using Google Books, but I had this bad feeling that you can never trust Google to keep a service going, and didn't really understand where it was storing the books anyway, so I looked at other reader apps for Android.  Turns out there are plenty, and I have been using eBoox, which seems fine.  It goes and finds books whereever they have ended up in your tablet's drive, which I like.)

So, this is all preamble to noting that Youtube referred me to a young Chinese woman's channel in which she visits various scenic spots, and again makes me annoyed that so much of the landscape there looks fantastic but I am not sure I am up to visiting it out of concern of accidentally ending up in jail for 3 years for something inconsequential.   (Incidentally, I wonder what will happen to Western tourists in China if ever they start an invasion of Taiwan.  That worries me, too.) 

And now for the Monkey King connection:  this video she did, of a truly spectacular waterfall seemingly in the middle of nowhere, reminded me of his initial home in the "water curtain cave" - the entrance to which was concealed behind a waterfall:

Just gorgeous, although there seems a good chance of spraining your ankle while walking the rough path to get to this particular viewing site.    

While Googling around this topic, I came across this Journey to the West information site, which explains the appeal of the character generally: 

...Sun Wukong can be used as a great model for positive ambivalence in media, moving away from set limits of a single stereotype and rather being a constant motion of new ideas and new identities. Monkey has been changed from a mischievous monkey to a revolutionary hero to a post-modern rebel against authority throughout the years. But even throughout the constant changes and interpretations, people never lose sight of what the nature of Sun Wukong is: rebelliousness, variability, optimism, and persistence. 

Monkey is a transcending character as he is able to mediate contradictions within his own design, one being his gold-banded staff, a symbol of breaking barriers, and his golden filet (fig. 3), a symbol of limits. These two simple but prominent pieces of iconography immediately tell audiences who the character is supposed to be and what they are about.

Seems a fair take.  In one other post, we get this, much more hair-raising, bit of information:

The earliest mention of the name “Sun Wukong” that I’m aware of appears in an early-15th-century zaju play. It depicts the character as a sex-crazed maniac who kidnaps a princess to be his wife, tries to seduce Princess Iron Fan, and later gets erectile disfunction when his golden headband tightens while trying to have sex with a young maiden in the Kingdom of Women.

But, apparently I can expect no sudden shock of sexual antics in Journey:

He serves as a physical manifestation of the “Mind Monkey” (xinyuan, 心猿), a Buddho-Daoist philosophy denoting the disquieted thoughts that keep Man trapped in the illusory world of Saṃsāra (see the material below figure three here). This phrase is also surprisingly associated with sexual desire.

Despite the association above, Monkey shows no interest in sex throughout the entire novel. This may be a response to the highly sexualized Sun Wukong from the zaju play.

So, there you go.   I should do some work now...

Update:   It's hard to resist the temptation to follow the link to an article about Sun Wukong's lack of interest in sex.   And here it is:   

Lust, Caution, and Enlightenment
A Reexamination of Su Wukong’s Sexuality in Xiyou ji 

The abstract does make it sound an intriguing read, especially since I have posted before about how some Buddhists have thought sex (even of the pederast kind) could sometimes bring horny people to enlightenment:

The formation of the character of Sun Wukong has remained one of the most controversial issues in the field of Xiyou ji studies. While acknowledging that different strands might have fed into the image of Sun Wukong in the sixteenth- century novel Xiyou ji (Journey to the West), this paper calls attention to complex and sometimes contradictory representations of Sun Wukong’s sexuality and explores the mechanism of displacement that subtly operates in the novel and reveals itself through such representations. It further demonstrates the dual function performed by the displacement of Sun Wukong’s sexuality: on the one hand, it connects Sun Wukong to the image of the lustful ape in the white ape tradition; on the other hand, such displacement allows him to utilize and transcend his desire by experiencing the process of awakening to kong 空 by means of se 色 on his path to enlightenment. Therefore, a reexamination of Sun Wukong through the lens of sexuality helps draw together these two seemingly separate aspects and reveals a narrative in which Sun Wukong’s sexual desire not only encodes his hidden past associated with the white ape tradition but also generates significant meaning in light of the Buddhist context, that is, the notion that erotic encounters and fulfillment of sexual desire can be integrated into the Buddhist journey to enlightenment.

 Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a free copy of the paper on the net.  Must look harder...

Not a great start to the week

I see lots of depression on US twitter about the latest NYT poll indicating Trump improving slightly in the polls, to be nationally 1% higher than Harris in popular vote.  

It could just be me with an invalid hunch, but if the battleground States are pretty much tied, as the polls indicate, I would have thought that Democrat enthusiasm to get out and vote may still win the day.   

But it's hard not to disagree with this sentiment:

It's also a worry that so much weight is being put on the "debate" this week - mainly because Trump benefits from the "he's special" status he gets from his followers and the media - he is never held truly accountable for the ridiculousness of what he says, unlike the Democrat side.

Anyhoo:   I am also waiting for the counter to this silliness from Musk:

 I'm betting there is absolutely no way that crewed missions to Mars are going to be ready in that timeframe, due to life support systems for a colony being in no way ready for another 20 or 30 years.   (That's my hunch, anyway.)

Trump and tariffs - just ridiculous

If there is one thing as clear as day, and has been for years (do a Google search), is that no one has been able to get into Trump's head how tariffs work!     

He repeated it again in an answer he gave yesterday to the Economic Club of New York, which apparently was a room full of people too polite to follow up his answer with "Sir, that first part, about tariffs - is just plain wrong":

Some Twitter people are legitimately complaining that the NYT "sane washed" his answer: 

Even the Washington Post doesn't make it clear the fundamental problem with Trump's answer with this headline:

Trump offers confusing plan to pay for U.S. child care with foreign tariffs

while The Independent offers a blunter assessment in the link to its report, but didn't explain it properly in the actual article:   

It takes someone in comments at the WAPO to make the obvious point, and I find it incredibly annoying that journalists do not automatically make it whenever Trump says "foreign governments pay tariffs":

Indeed.   It seems the Los Angeles Times is the one outlet that makes the point bluntly, even though the article itself is behind a paywall.   (Incidentally - the LA Times digital access for $60 - US - for a year is one of the best value online subs around - I'm seriously tempted.)   Anyway, from the Google search:

It's very frustrating to think that MAGA people don't understand that their cult leader doesn't understand - because they won't read the MSM, and the Fox News's of the world won't make the point because it would be too embarrassing to tell their audience.

Twitter is awful now (continued)

This morning, the "For You" side of my Twitter featured tweets of the photo of the extended Walz family* wearing "vote Trump" T shirts about every 15 or so tweets, I reckon; yet I would have scrolled about 60 tweets before I even saw mention of the Georgia school shooting.   And it continues to be barely mentioned.   But now that I check - I just got an Alex Jones tweet about vaccinations in my "For You" column!! 

As so many now lament, Twitter used to be good for quick comments and links to stories about breaking news, even at the local level.  If you were sitting in a big storm and wondered how other parts of the city were going, you could search and expect to get a dozen or two recent tweets from fellow residents commenting on it.  Now, that hardly works.  

And no competitor has taken its place in that role.  Sad....

*   By the way, I discovered later in the day that this was a gigantic nothingburger - the family were "distant cousins" - descendants of Tim Walz's grandfather's brother - and Walz's sister said they didn't know them at all when growing up.   

A pretty rare Wordle

I don't play it every day, and have never before posted about any particular game, but the steps on the way to the solution today seem pretty unusual to me: 

Wordle 1,173 3/6

⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Encouraging news

The Guardian:

Mobile phones are not linked to brain and head cancers, a comprehensive review of the highest quality evidence available commissioned by the World Health Organization has found.

Led by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (Arpansa), the systematic review examined more than 5,000 studies from which the most scientifically rigorous were identified and weak studies were excluded.

The final analysis included 63 observational studies in humans published between 1994 and 2022, making it “the most comprehensive review to date”, the review lead author, associate prof Ken Karipidis, said.

“We concluded the evidence does not show a link between mobile phones and brain cancer or other head and neck cancers.”

Published on Wednesday, the review focused on cancers of the central nervous system (including brain, meninges, pituitary gland and ear), salivary gland tumours and brain tumours.

The review found no overall association between mobile phone use and cancer, no association with prolonged use (if people use their mobile phones for 10 years or more), and no association with the amount of mobile phone use (the number of calls made or the time spent on the phone).

“I’m quite confident with our conclusion. And what makes us quite confident is … even though mobile phone use has skyrocketed, brain tumour rates have remained stable,” said Karipidis, Arpansa’s health impact assessment assistant director.

 

Seriously, what is up with white American men?

I really find this hard to comprehend:

While the overall numbers are essentially unchanged from before the convention, the gender gap has widened. Harris leads by 13 points among women, 54-41 percent, while it’s Trump +5 points among men, 51-46 percent, for an 18-point gap. (The Trump-Harris difference among men is not statistically significant.) Pre-convention, Harris had been a slight +6 points among women and a non-significant +3 among men, a 3-point gap. The gender gap now is more in line with recent elections, an average of 19 points in exit polls since 1996.

Much of the moves among women and men have occurred among white people. White women have gone from +13 points for Trump pre-convention to a virtual dead heat (Trump +2) now;  white men, from +13 points for Trump before the convention to +21 points now.

I mean, I think this would freak me out a bit if travelling in the USA - knowing that if I ever get into a conversation with a white male, the odds are extremely high that they will be intending to vote for Trump!

You could make out the case that the problem is pretty much white people generally, to be honest.  This is from exit polling at the last election:

But I just don't see how it is possible to interpret the massive jump in polling support amongst white males since Harris was the candidate as anything other than residual sexism.   (Come on, if she was an appalling candidate in all respects, she wouldn't have jumped significantly with white women.)   

Here's a good article from the New York Times in 2020 that seeks to explain the massive gender difference.  Some extracts:

When Ronald Reagan defeated the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter, in the 1980 presidential election, exit polls showed that women favored him by a slim 2-percentage-point margin but that he won the male vote 55 to 36 percent. The last time the gender gap was that big was the 1950s, but at that point — and traditionally — it was women who were the more conservative voters, which was largely attributed to their greater religiosity.

Polling is consistent that women are more likely to favor government spending on social issues, and that is likely one reason the gender gap emerged in 1980....

Some argued that the gender gap emerged because women were voting in their self-interest. But the sociologist Martin Gilens, now the chairman of the public policy department at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, took issue with that idea.

In a paper published in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology late in Mr. Reagan’s first term, he wrote, “I do not believe that ‘women’s issues’ such as the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) or abortion, nor economic conditions such as the growing number of impoverished women, are primarily responsible for the gender gap, though they may play a part.” Instead, he continued, “I think the gender gap reflects traditional differences in male and female values and personalities, differences such as men’s greater competitiveness and concerns with issues of power and control, and women’s greater compassion and nurturance, rejection of force and violence, and concern with interpersonal relations.”

The language is a bit dated, but much of the research since has come to similar conclusions. A 2012 report from what is now the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University reviewed polling results and summed up the issues dividing male and female voters.

Women, it found, were more likely to favor an “activist role for government” and were more supportive of guaranteed health care, same-sex marriage and restrictions on firearms. They were more likely to favor legal abortion without restrictions, though polls sometimes show fairly equal support among men and women on abortion.

Men’s political views were shaped by a more individualistic attitude, the report found — a feeling that government should not help so much.

The piece also then notes that the parties have "branded" themselves in (what I suppose you could call) gendered ways too:

You can make an argument that, rather than men and women having changed their ways of thinking over the past several decades, the two major parties have basically branded themselves by gender, as well as by race. The hundreds of million of dollars spent each election cycle to “energize the base” serve to herd voters into their respective tents. Once inside, they hear messages that reaffirm and cement their party identity.

The Republican Party is for white men and people who think like white men. “We see it in poll questions that ask, “Is America getting too soft and feminine?” Dr. Deckman said. “Those who answer ‘yes’ lean strongly Republican.”

The Democratic Party is the party for women and for people of color, who are even more dependable Democrats than women. It is also, increasingly, the party of the college educated: In a late September Washington Post-ABC News poll, Mr. Trump led Mr. Biden by a modest 8 points among white men with a college degree, but by a whopping 39 points among white men without a college degree. In other words, white college-educated men are beginning to vote more like women and people of color.

Towards the end, some straight talking:

The gender gap cannot be completely differentiated from rank misogyny. Some would argue that it is misogyny. At the very least, it is a sign of our nation’s broken culture that men and women cannot agree on fundamental moral questions: The importance of integrity and common decency. The humane treatment of society’s most vulnerable. The worthiness of a man to lead our nation who apparently paid hush money to a porn star.

Anyway, while MAGA types always go on about how it could take a civil war to sort out America, I might be starting to agree; except it shouldn't be one between Democrats and Republicans - it just needs to be one that's pretty much a race war - Blacks, Hispanics and Asian against white - particularly white males - and especially if they never went to college!  

Unfortunately, that's probably also the category most likely to have an arsenal at home ready for such a war.  But they aren't so smart - some nerdy Asian American military leadership can probably put together a pretty good home made drone war against them.   But then again, Musk would naturally want a leadership role in the incel Army.  I don't know that he would be much of a military leader though - he might flame out on ketamine or something.

Apart from that, I don't know how this terrible situation in the US is going to change.  No doubt, some aerial bombing of Fox News and Newsmax would surely help.  Especially if it is by female pilots...

Update:   Further to the discussion in comments about how much it might be a "culture war" related issue of how masculinity is perceived, the thing that I don't get is why it seems to be primarily a white male thing.   Why would white men be so disproportionately insecure in that way?   I mean, Black and Latino men as a group generally have a reputation for macho type masculinity, yet the exit polls indicate it doesn't affect their voting in the way it does white men:

So, if I am reading these correctly, about 80% plus of Black men voted for Biden, 60% of "Latinex" men and 68% of Asian Americans.   Compared to 40% of white male voters!

One partial explanation might be that the macho-est of macho Black and Latino men might not vote at the same rate as white men?  This article does indicate that Black men vote at lower rates, but doesn't explain by how much, and it wouldn't seem likely to account for it   

So, as the title of the post says....why white men in particular??

Update 2:   A few related jokes from the late night shows:

“Forty-eight percent,” Stephen Colbert said, referring to a recent USA Today survey in which Harris led Donald Trump, 48 percent to 43 percent. “That really restores my faith in almost half of humanity.”

“Harris is particularly popular with women, while Trump is ahead among men, leading some to call this ‘the boys versus girls election.’ And, remember, many Trump voters are not vaccinated against cooties.” — STEPHEN COLBERT

“A new poll found that Harris has widened her lead among women to 13 points. Thirteen. Trump heard the news and was like, ‘Was it everything I said?’” — JIMMY FALLON