Here, at the TLS, of all places, is a pretty good and succinct explanation of how quantum theory evolved, in the context of the contribution of Erwin Schrodinger. (His complicated love life was mentioned here before in a recent post - it gets a brief mention again in this article, too.)
Wednesday, December 06, 2017
Struggling through Struggle Street
Can't say that I exactly long to watch the SBS documentary/reality TV show Struggle Street, but I did last night, particularly interested because this season it featured a couple of Brisbane suburbs I have passing familiarity with.
I have to say, the four "strugglers" they featured last night really pushed the boundaries of sympathy:
* the 55 year old invalid pensioner woman who was being tossed out of the rented Inala house by the unappealing guy who had let her live with him. The cause for eviction was not well defined, and the bloke himself may well have been obnoxious, but one suspects that her filling up a couple of rooms of a small house with hoarder's quantities of dolls, ceramic butterflies, cheap stuffed toys and general junk might have had something to do with it. She also smokes inside the house (one of the apparent lessons of the show seems to be that no matter how badly off, those in poverty in Australia all manage to pay the exorbitant cost of tobacco), and for recreation she zooms around the suburb's footpaths in her mobility scooter (gifted to her by the Salvation Army) at what looked to be dangerous speed. She has three adult children, who don't live close, and indicated that she had a strained relationship with them due to her "meeting the wrong men" in the past, although there seemed to be details left hanging. (One suspects the men were abusive to her or her kids.)
At least she wasn't a drug addict, but a key theme seemed to be a life of "bad choices", including getting hooked on acquiring junk toys and trinkets because they make her feel better.
* The Melbourne former heroin addict who spent half a day trying to find where he had hidden the rent money, gave up and went to the community housing office to confess he had lost it while on an alcohol (and pot?) bender the day before, only to be told that he had in fact already paid it a couple of days before! He had completely forgotten, and made the observation that maybe he did do too much marijuana. (Well, duh.) He was a cheerful soul, who got out of his recently inherited late mother's car carrying a tall bottle of beer, and complained about his brother who lived in the Mum's house and with whom he was fighting about the estate.
This does not bode well. On the face of it, he will end up with half the value of the house in cash, and I would not have a great deal of confidence that the money won't go up in drugs of one kind or another.
He also indicated that, with his new set of false teeth, he expected to be pulling in the ladies soon. (That's another lesson of the show: no matter how poor and drug addicted your are, you'll be able to "pull" a partner with equally bad judgement. Unless you are actually living under a bridge, perhaps.)
* The most depressing scenario - the ice addicted mother and father of four kids living in a shelter in Inala. Him with biker friends, a criminal history (not sure for what), domestic violence orders, and seizures from his drug use, caught in his car with synthetic marijuana saying he wasn't aware it was illegal. The mother was apparently prone to screaming violent rages from the ice and confrontations with the husband, who was too "controlling". He did sound like a jerk, but she looked so unhealthy and self pitying, I again had trouble with feeling sympathy.
The worst thing of all, in a way, with parents like that is listening to their endless claims that they know they have to get clean and live straight, and they know that if they don't they're ruining things for their kids who they really, really, really love, and knowing they are no where near actually taking action. I don't know how social workers put up with listening to such guff that seems to go on for years before people might finally actually get clean.
And, of course, the other lesson from this is the sad fact that children (usually) still love the parents who they know are self destructive and don't want to be away from them. I did, of course, feel very sorry for them - although I would rather that the 16 year old wasn't already smoking too. (She complained she was sick of being the de facto mother to the two youngest, who looked like well behaved, even if stressed out.)
I'm not sure what exactly is the right way to feel about all of this: it's easy to have sympathy to people who are pure victims of misfortune (ill health, accident, crime); but it is so, so common that poverty is caused or accompanied by things you know can be overcome if sufficiently motivated - drug and alcohol addiction, bad choices in how money is spent, staying with partners who are clearly hurting prospects of improvement.
You can't stop people making bad choices at first, but when it comes to government and charitable intervention, it is with much chagrin that you have to watch the bad choices continuing.
I have to say, the four "strugglers" they featured last night really pushed the boundaries of sympathy:
* the 55 year old invalid pensioner woman who was being tossed out of the rented Inala house by the unappealing guy who had let her live with him. The cause for eviction was not well defined, and the bloke himself may well have been obnoxious, but one suspects that her filling up a couple of rooms of a small house with hoarder's quantities of dolls, ceramic butterflies, cheap stuffed toys and general junk might have had something to do with it. She also smokes inside the house (one of the apparent lessons of the show seems to be that no matter how badly off, those in poverty in Australia all manage to pay the exorbitant cost of tobacco), and for recreation she zooms around the suburb's footpaths in her mobility scooter (gifted to her by the Salvation Army) at what looked to be dangerous speed. She has three adult children, who don't live close, and indicated that she had a strained relationship with them due to her "meeting the wrong men" in the past, although there seemed to be details left hanging. (One suspects the men were abusive to her or her kids.)
At least she wasn't a drug addict, but a key theme seemed to be a life of "bad choices", including getting hooked on acquiring junk toys and trinkets because they make her feel better.
* The Melbourne former heroin addict who spent half a day trying to find where he had hidden the rent money, gave up and went to the community housing office to confess he had lost it while on an alcohol (and pot?) bender the day before, only to be told that he had in fact already paid it a couple of days before! He had completely forgotten, and made the observation that maybe he did do too much marijuana. (Well, duh.) He was a cheerful soul, who got out of his recently inherited late mother's car carrying a tall bottle of beer, and complained about his brother who lived in the Mum's house and with whom he was fighting about the estate.
This does not bode well. On the face of it, he will end up with half the value of the house in cash, and I would not have a great deal of confidence that the money won't go up in drugs of one kind or another.
He also indicated that, with his new set of false teeth, he expected to be pulling in the ladies soon. (That's another lesson of the show: no matter how poor and drug addicted your are, you'll be able to "pull" a partner with equally bad judgement. Unless you are actually living under a bridge, perhaps.)
* The most depressing scenario - the ice addicted mother and father of four kids living in a shelter in Inala. Him with biker friends, a criminal history (not sure for what), domestic violence orders, and seizures from his drug use, caught in his car with synthetic marijuana saying he wasn't aware it was illegal. The mother was apparently prone to screaming violent rages from the ice and confrontations with the husband, who was too "controlling". He did sound like a jerk, but she looked so unhealthy and self pitying, I again had trouble with feeling sympathy.
The worst thing of all, in a way, with parents like that is listening to their endless claims that they know they have to get clean and live straight, and they know that if they don't they're ruining things for their kids who they really, really, really love, and knowing they are no where near actually taking action. I don't know how social workers put up with listening to such guff that seems to go on for years before people might finally actually get clean.
And, of course, the other lesson from this is the sad fact that children (usually) still love the parents who they know are self destructive and don't want to be away from them. I did, of course, feel very sorry for them - although I would rather that the 16 year old wasn't already smoking too. (She complained she was sick of being the de facto mother to the two youngest, who looked like well behaved, even if stressed out.)
I'm not sure what exactly is the right way to feel about all of this: it's easy to have sympathy to people who are pure victims of misfortune (ill health, accident, crime); but it is so, so common that poverty is caused or accompanied by things you know can be overcome if sufficiently motivated - drug and alcohol addiction, bad choices in how money is spent, staying with partners who are clearly hurting prospects of improvement.
You can't stop people making bad choices at first, but when it comes to government and charitable intervention, it is with much chagrin that you have to watch the bad choices continuing.
Tuesday, December 05, 2017
Scruton all over the shop
In an opening paragraph that I assume will cause hairs to be raised on any free market economist who supported Brexit, Roger Scruton explains why Brexit is good for the English countryside:
The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy was designed to support the small farmer, and it is fair to say it has failed to achieve that purpose. Because subsidies have been calculated by acreage, they both push up the price of land and benefit those who own the largest chunks of it — which means absentee agribusinesses. The CAP is indeed one major cause in the decline of the real rural economy — the economy of the small farmers who live and work in the fields. Leaving the EU is our opportunity to devise a new system of subsidies, one that will achieve what the public really wants from farming, which is not only food, but the two precious attributes that large-scale agribusiness threatens: beauty and bio-diversity.
The Left should be embarrassed, too, but still...
I do get rather sick of the Right going "ha ha Lefties - look at Venezuela - look where your socialism takes countries".
But, admittedly, it was remarkably stupid of any Left wing politician (or commentator) to be endorsing the (to my mind) obviously economically extreme policies of Chavez, and it should be embarrassing to them that some did so.
That said, there is a more-or-less sensible centre to politics and economics, and I don't think you can plausibly argue that embarrassingly short sighted endorsement of Chavez reflected mainstream centre Left economic policy views for the rest of the world.
That rabid Right wingers pretend otherwise (and, in American, carry on like pork chops about, say, universal health care being "socialism" that will lead to the collapse of the country) just shows they can't see the sensible centre either.
But, admittedly, it was remarkably stupid of any Left wing politician (or commentator) to be endorsing the (to my mind) obviously economically extreme policies of Chavez, and it should be embarrassing to them that some did so.
That said, there is a more-or-less sensible centre to politics and economics, and I don't think you can plausibly argue that embarrassingly short sighted endorsement of Chavez reflected mainstream centre Left economic policy views for the rest of the world.
That rabid Right wingers pretend otherwise (and, in American, carry on like pork chops about, say, universal health care being "socialism" that will lead to the collapse of the country) just shows they can't see the sensible centre either.
The Right should be embarrassed - but "culture wars" or something
Jeff Sparrow's examples of Milo's "jokes" at his shows just emphasises what an embarrassment it should be, if they had any sense of shame or brains, that Right wing commentators from Bolt, Cameron to Jones are encouraging this guy's tour. Sure, Bolt had him on his show and apparently told him he's hurting his message by using crude and ugly hyperbole: yeah, that'll really teach him - being MC at his stage shows and then hosting him on TV and saying "I don't really approve of your methods..."
And that's even before we get to Leyonhjelm, whose sense of humour I've called immature before, thinking it's worthwhile having the guy give a talk in Parliament House. Here's his comments about that:
And that's even before we get to Leyonhjelm, whose sense of humour I've called immature before, thinking it's worthwhile having the guy give a talk in Parliament House. Here's his comments about that:
'I wouldn't call myself a disciple of him by any means,' Senator Leyonhjelm told AAP, adding he didn't agree with all his controversial views.Yup, just as I had expected...
He expects Yiannopoulos to embark on an 'outrage campaign' to stir up the politically correct.
'I'm expecting to be amused more than anything,' Senator Leyonhjelm said.
Now that's planning ahead
I haven't been visiting arXiv much lately, but here's a paper with someone doing some maths about keeping the Earth going despite the Sun heating up:
I see that the author is from a community college. I have no idea if his math is correct, but I like guys who think big, anyway.
And by the way, this puts me in mind of a short article that I am pretty certain appeared in Omni magazine decades ago, where someone did the back of envelope calculations on the idea of using the Moon as a replacement Sun, if you had Earth and Moon wandering the Universe unattached to a star. The figures, using lots of lights powered by (I think) fusion looked pretty good.
I wonder if any reader remembers that article....
The 'Earth Rocket': a Method for Keeping the Earth in the Habitable ZoneThe method: hundreds of rail guns shooting mass off the planet. Surprisingly, according to his calculations, you could do it in sufficient quantities for a billion years and only have lost 1/16 of the Earth's mass. We'd hardly notice!
The Sun is expected to increase its radiant output by about 10% per billion years. The rate at which the radius of the Earth's orbit would need to increase in order to keep the present value of the Sun's radiant flux at the Earth constant is calculated. The mechanical power required to achieve this is also calculated. Remarkably, this is a small fraction (2.3%) of the total solar flux currently intercepted by the Earth. Treating the Earth itself as a rocket, the thrust required to increase the orbit is found, as well as the rate of mass ejection. The Earth has sufficient mass to maintain this rate for several billion years, allowing for the possibility that the Earth could remain habitable to biological life for billions of years into the future.
I see that the author is from a community college. I have no idea if his math is correct, but I like guys who think big, anyway.
And by the way, this puts me in mind of a short article that I am pretty certain appeared in Omni magazine decades ago, where someone did the back of envelope calculations on the idea of using the Moon as a replacement Sun, if you had Earth and Moon wandering the Universe unattached to a star. The figures, using lots of lights powered by (I think) fusion looked pretty good.
I wonder if any reader remembers that article....
Monday, December 04, 2017
Bitcoin and the contest of ideologies
I see that Lefty John Quiggin is still a complete skeptic on Bitcoin, and that Sinclair Davidson and anyone vaguely libertarian seems to think it probably will work. But re Davidson: as with many people, I suspect, I find the Berg/Davidson/Potts papers they keep promoting (which are more about blockchain than Bitcoin) impossible to understand. They're excited about it, and getting invited to lots of conferences overseas where fellow nerd types seem to spend all day telling each other how it's going to change everything, but the rest of us mere mortals don't understand why the technology, as described, is actually all that revolutionary. However, pro Bitcoin guest pieces have been posted from time to time at Catallaxy, and so I think SD can be counted as a Bitcoin supporter of some hue, anyway.
Stiglitz has also weighed in saying it ought to be outlawed. Libertarians and small government types dismiss him routinely for his other views, so dismissal of his views on Bitcoin are just par for the course for them.
Despite the Japanese government, for some strange reason, giving Bitcoin a credibility boost, I am firmly in the skeptic camp. I can't see the problem that Bitcoin is intended to solve, and the problems of people who seek to trade in the proceeds of crime, avoid tax, or to enable their rogue regimes or companies to have some sort of undercover profit, are not problems that deserve solution (or, the solution will usually deserve prevention by government.) The energy usage to make cryptocurrencies seems extarordinarily wasteful, and the present speculation driven rise only encourages more coal burning.
Libertarians like it because they are prone to fantasies about how good everything can be with no, or next to no, government. But reality is different from fantasy.
The Atlantic had a pretty good article What on Earth is Going on with Bitcoin and it ends with the simplest explanation, which sounds entirely plausible to me:
Stiglitz has also weighed in saying it ought to be outlawed. Libertarians and small government types dismiss him routinely for his other views, so dismissal of his views on Bitcoin are just par for the course for them.
Despite the Japanese government, for some strange reason, giving Bitcoin a credibility boost, I am firmly in the skeptic camp. I can't see the problem that Bitcoin is intended to solve, and the problems of people who seek to trade in the proceeds of crime, avoid tax, or to enable their rogue regimes or companies to have some sort of undercover profit, are not problems that deserve solution (or, the solution will usually deserve prevention by government.) The energy usage to make cryptocurrencies seems extarordinarily wasteful, and the present speculation driven rise only encourages more coal burning.
Libertarians like it because they are prone to fantasies about how good everything can be with no, or next to no, government. But reality is different from fantasy.
The Atlantic had a pretty good article What on Earth is Going on with Bitcoin and it ends with the simplest explanation, which sounds entirely plausible to me:
4. Maybe it’s just this simple: Bitcoin is an unprecedentedly dumb bubble built on ludicrous speculation.
It seems strange to call a currency a bubble. But lacking more specific terminology, bubble seems like the only word that would apply.
Even if one buys the argument that blockchain is brilliant, cryptocurrency is the new gold, and bitcoin is the reserve currency of the ICO market, it is still beyond strange to see any product’s value double in six weeks without any material change in its underlying success or application. Instead, there has been a great and widening divergence between bitcoin’s transaction volume (which has grown 32 times since 2012) and its market price (which had grown more than 1,000 times).
The article goes on to note that maybe something good and dramatically different comes out of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, just we don't really know what it will look like yet. We'll see, but for the moment, I'll remain a blockchain skeptic too.Surveys show that the vast majority of bitcoin owners are buying and holding bitcoin to exchange them for dollars. Let’s be clear: If the predominant use case for any asset is to buy it, wait for it to appreciate, and then to exchange it for dollars, it is a terrible currency. That is how people treat baseball cards or stamps, not money. For most of its owners, bitcoin is not a currency. It is a collectible—a digital baseball card, without the faces or stats.
Sunday, December 03, 2017
Nazis, music and a dog
Courtesy of my daughter's involvement in the Queensland Youth Orchestra, we were offered a few free tickets to a performance this evening by Camerata - a youthful Queensland chamber orchestra - at the Performing Arts Centre.
I haven't seen them before, and assume that most of their shows are straight music. But this one, at least, was sort of a mini play, The White Mouse, telling the story of famous World War 2 resistance fighter Nancy Wake.
It was pretty terrific: 2 actors on stage, one playing Wake, the other a guy playing several men in her life; they both address the audience and re-enact key events while the orchestra was also on stage for the many musical pieces interspersing the story.
A dog makes a brief appearance too. As does a female singer with a couple of French songs, and the show ending on (of course) Je Ne Regrette Nien. The orchestra themselves were great, making you realise just how much musical talent there is in the world, when a place like Brisbane can produce this.
To be truthful, while I had read some articles about her in the newpapers years ago, there wasn't a lot I could recall in detail about NancyWake, and my teenage kids unfortunately had never heard of her. This was a really good way for them (and me) to learn about her: told with verve, humour and minimalist but effective staging. A fair bit of "strong language" too - Nancy apparently swore like a trooper - but hey if it's accurate to her personality, I don't mind. I wonder how much swearing there is in her autobiography?
As far as I can tell, though, this show has only been performed twice - once in Toowoomba, and once in Brisbane. A great effort, yet a relatively limited audience. At least half of the audience in Brisbane gave it a standing ovation. I reckon they ought to take it to all the capital cities, at least.
I haven't seen them before, and assume that most of their shows are straight music. But this one, at least, was sort of a mini play, The White Mouse, telling the story of famous World War 2 resistance fighter Nancy Wake.
It was pretty terrific: 2 actors on stage, one playing Wake, the other a guy playing several men in her life; they both address the audience and re-enact key events while the orchestra was also on stage for the many musical pieces interspersing the story.
A dog makes a brief appearance too. As does a female singer with a couple of French songs, and the show ending on (of course) Je Ne Regrette Nien. The orchestra themselves were great, making you realise just how much musical talent there is in the world, when a place like Brisbane can produce this.
To be truthful, while I had read some articles about her in the newpapers years ago, there wasn't a lot I could recall in detail about NancyWake, and my teenage kids unfortunately had never heard of her. This was a really good way for them (and me) to learn about her: told with verve, humour and minimalist but effective staging. A fair bit of "strong language" too - Nancy apparently swore like a trooper - but hey if it's accurate to her personality, I don't mind. I wonder how much swearing there is in her autobiography?
As far as I can tell, though, this show has only been performed twice - once in Toowoomba, and once in Brisbane. A great effort, yet a relatively limited audience. At least half of the audience in Brisbane gave it a standing ovation. I reckon they ought to take it to all the capital cities, at least.
Tom, a Mummy and technology (not necessarily in that order)
So, last night, due to another offer from Google Play on my TV for an "any movie" hire for .99 cents, we watched the widely panned "The Mummy".
[On a side note: I feel very sorry for anyone who might have invested in DVD hire vending machines, thinking there would be a market for them after the disappearance of video hire shops. I mean, I hired perhaps less than 10 times from a DVD machine myself, and thought it was a pretty good system. Then I bought a Smart TV (Samsung - it's excellent), got the NBN connected (it works well at very acceptable cost), subscribed to Netflix, and now I just don't see much incentive to ever hire a DVD again. If there is nothing we want to watch on Netflix, Google Play hire for even quite recent movies is usually around $6, and I don't have to drive to return the DVD.
Have I mentioned how sorry I feel for newagents, too? And what is it with the occasional surviving one that stocks crappy, kitchy gift items? Have you ever seen anyone in a newsagency buying a porcelain angel, or cat, for someone's gift? I don't believe I have ever seen anyone even looking at the crap gift shelves. It's one of life's mysteries...]
Back to the story: surely The Mummy was worth .99 cent hire? Yes, actually, I think I would go as far as to say it was worth a $4 hire. Maybe not $5, but a solid $4.
It's hardly perfect, but it's not as bad as people say. It looks expensive, has some good action, Tom Cruise running (as Honest Trailers says, it's in his contract for every movie - "must have running sequence") and I even liked some story elements. (The use of mercury to contain a Mummy).
On the downside, it does this strange thing where at the beginning, it feels too simple a story, and then towards the end, too complicated. I don't think anyone quite understood the curse thing, and what exactly was going on with Cruise's flashbacks (I thought reincarnation was being suggested at one point.) Maybe it would make more sense on a second viewing, but the screenplay was definitely flawed. What was Tom meant to have become by the end? Surely there could have been a better hint than the murmuring explanation of a very tubby looking Russell Crowe. No doubt it was going to be explained in a subsequent movie in the Dark Universe, which I see Universal has now abandoned completely!
On another minor note: it was probably a mistake to have Dr Jekell as a key figure in this film, without giving some of his backstory to a young audience. My son didn't even know the character from fiction, which is a bit of a worry, but I would be sure he would not be alone.
Anyway. You could worse than watch this movie. If you like Tom Cruise, generally, I don't think you're going to hate it.
And speaking of Tom, I'm feeling sorry for him having two underperforming movies this year: the one I just discussed, and the much better reviewed (actually, well reviewed) American Made. The latter seemed to have some sort of marketing fail, to me. I'll watch it soon.
But as for proof that Tom is actually a good actor, I reckon that this performance with Conan O'Brien is not only funny, but actually a convincing bit of performance by Tom. Watch it if you haven't before:
[On a side note: I feel very sorry for anyone who might have invested in DVD hire vending machines, thinking there would be a market for them after the disappearance of video hire shops. I mean, I hired perhaps less than 10 times from a DVD machine myself, and thought it was a pretty good system. Then I bought a Smart TV (Samsung - it's excellent), got the NBN connected (it works well at very acceptable cost), subscribed to Netflix, and now I just don't see much incentive to ever hire a DVD again. If there is nothing we want to watch on Netflix, Google Play hire for even quite recent movies is usually around $6, and I don't have to drive to return the DVD.
Have I mentioned how sorry I feel for newagents, too? And what is it with the occasional surviving one that stocks crappy, kitchy gift items? Have you ever seen anyone in a newsagency buying a porcelain angel, or cat, for someone's gift? I don't believe I have ever seen anyone even looking at the crap gift shelves. It's one of life's mysteries...]
Back to the story: surely The Mummy was worth .99 cent hire? Yes, actually, I think I would go as far as to say it was worth a $4 hire. Maybe not $5, but a solid $4.
It's hardly perfect, but it's not as bad as people say. It looks expensive, has some good action, Tom Cruise running (as Honest Trailers says, it's in his contract for every movie - "must have running sequence") and I even liked some story elements. (The use of mercury to contain a Mummy).
On the downside, it does this strange thing where at the beginning, it feels too simple a story, and then towards the end, too complicated. I don't think anyone quite understood the curse thing, and what exactly was going on with Cruise's flashbacks (I thought reincarnation was being suggested at one point.) Maybe it would make more sense on a second viewing, but the screenplay was definitely flawed. What was Tom meant to have become by the end? Surely there could have been a better hint than the murmuring explanation of a very tubby looking Russell Crowe. No doubt it was going to be explained in a subsequent movie in the Dark Universe, which I see Universal has now abandoned completely!
On another minor note: it was probably a mistake to have Dr Jekell as a key figure in this film, without giving some of his backstory to a young audience. My son didn't even know the character from fiction, which is a bit of a worry, but I would be sure he would not be alone.
Anyway. You could worse than watch this movie. If you like Tom Cruise, generally, I don't think you're going to hate it.
And speaking of Tom, I'm feeling sorry for him having two underperforming movies this year: the one I just discussed, and the much better reviewed (actually, well reviewed) American Made. The latter seemed to have some sort of marketing fail, to me. I'll watch it soon.
But as for proof that Tom is actually a good actor, I reckon that this performance with Conan O'Brien is not only funny, but actually a convincing bit of performance by Tom. Watch it if you haven't before:
Friday, December 01, 2017
Super eruption worry
I think I saw a headline about this somewhere earlier in the week, but here's the summary at Nature:
Civilization-threatening super-eruptions may happen about every 17,000 years — more frequently than previously thought.
Jonathan Rougier of the University of Bristol, UK, and his colleagues analysed a database of 1,379 large volcanic eruptions from the past 100,000 years. They found that, in some cases, the magnitude of a large eruption had been rounded down, making it seem smaller than it actually was. They also concluded that the database is missing some eruptions.
By accounting for more and bigger eruptions, the team calculated that the recurrence rate of super-eruptions, which spew at least 1,000 gigatonnes of ash and rock into the air, ranges between 5,200 and 48,000 years, with a best guess of 17,000 years. Earlier estimates had placed this between 45,000 and 714,000 years.
The most recent super-eruption occurred in Taupo, New Zealand, 25,600 years ago.
A pretty serious letter for some psychiatrists to be writing
I'm surprised that he's prepared to go as far as he does in this letter, as the position of the author would indicate he's got some credibility in the profession. From the NYT:
I am the editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” We represent a much larger number of concerned mental health professionals who have come forward to warn against the president’s psychological instability and the dangers it poses. We now number in the thousands.We are currently witnessing more than his usual state of instability — in fact, a pattern of decompensation: increasing loss of touch with reality, marked signs of volatility and unpredictable behavior, and an attraction to violence as a means of coping. These characteristics place our country and the world at extreme risk of danger.Ordinarily, we carry out a routine process for treating people who are dangerous: containment, removal from access to weapons and an urgent evaluation. We have been unable to do so because of Mr. Trump’s status as president. But the power of the presidency and the type of arsenal he has access to should raise greater alarm, not less.We urge the public and the lawmakers of this country to push for an urgent evaluation of the president, for which we are in the process of developing a separate but independent expert panel, capable of meeting and carrying out all medical standards of care.BANDY X. LEE, NEW HAVENThe writer is a forensic psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine.
Meanwhile, the outstanding hypocrisy of Republican politicians, who have fallen into line with the Trumpian "attack the media" response to concern about just how crazy he is to continue making repeated lies and incendiary tweets is just appalling. Latest example, Lindsay Graham:
What a difference a year makes.Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Thursday said he is fed up with the media’s portrayal of President Donald Trump. “What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy as some kind of kook not fit to be president,” Graham told CNN. “It’s pretty frustrating for most Republicans, quite frankly, that it’s 24/7 attack on everything the president does or thinks. It gets a little old after a while.”This is very different from the stance Graham took in early 2016, when Trump was running for president in the Republican primary. Back then, Graham, who supported Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign at the time and had previously run in the primary himself, called Trump a “kook” and “crazy” in an interview with Fox News. He said his party had gone “batshit crazy” because it was backing Trump. He also tweeted that Trump is “not fit to be President of the United States.”
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Being affable isn't enough
In media appearances, I've usually found Senator Sam Dastyari affable enough, and pretty quick witted. But I've said before that his cosying up to the inflexible, immature, ideologue of an accidental Senator with a myriad of bad ideas (David Leyonhjelm) in his already forgotten "Nanny State Enquiry" was a big warning sign of a lack of judgement. Sam's reasons for being deputy chair on the enquiry:
Sam's latest problems confirm he's just to unreliable to be a Labor Senator, or even an independent one. The summary:
And finally, in a very, very rare event, I will approve one of Chris Kenny's tweets on the topic, because it is genuinely pretty funny:
Up and coming Labor Senator Sam Dastyari has agreed to be the inquiry's deputy chair because he said it would "provoke a fascinating moral debate"....just sounded like insincere posturing to me. I presume it was involvement in that which also means Sinclair Davidson, who has such a political tin ear that he thought Bronwyn Bishop was a good speaker, became a Sam supporter.
"This is probably going to be Australia's largest ever inquiry into vice," Senator Dastyari said.
He said the issues being examined range from "reasonable to ridiculous" but declared Australians who "hold majority views" should always be prepared to "justify the case for regulation".
Sam's latest problems confirm he's just to unreliable to be a Labor Senator, or even an independent one. The summary:
Dastyari took money for himself from a Chinese businessman and Labor donor, Huang Xiangmo, who Labor (and the government) had been warned had links to the Chinese government. He disavowed the Australian government position, and the Labor position, on Chinese expansionism at a press conference, standing alongside Huang. He misled the public about the nature of those remarks. And he warned Huang his phone could be tapped, and, when visiting his house, suggested they talk outside and leave their phones inside in case they were being bugged by ASIO.I don't see why the public, or Labor, should ever trust him again. He has terrible judgement and has made himself look eminently bribe-able. He should resign. Some corporate dill will soon enough employ him to act as their talking head.
And finally, in a very, very rare event, I will approve one of Chris Kenny's tweets on the topic, because it is genuinely pretty funny:
Really despicable
Trump is a gullible Grade A conspiracy monger about the nuttiest things, who doesn't have the common sense to keep his suspicions to himself (if he does genuinely believe some of them - who knows?), but tweets them out because he senses political advantage.
I would have to say, though, that his latest one, calling for Joe Scarborough to be investigated for a death that has plainly never been a mystery (and for which there is no evidence at all of sexual impropriety - read Scarborough's explanation of how little he ever had to do with this intern) would have to be the most despicable thing he has done to try to hurt a critic.
It is hard to believe he maintains supporters anywhere - but that's the idiotic culture wars for you.
Update: yes, it is interesting to note that the original conspiracy mongering about Scarborough came from the left - including Michael Moore. That was equally despicable, but they (Moore and Moulitsas) were never the President of the United States.
Update: in The Atlantic, covering recent revelations of ridiculous claims being made by Trump in private, as well as via twitter, David Graham says its time everyone stopped giving him any benefit of the doubt:
I would have to say, though, that his latest one, calling for Joe Scarborough to be investigated for a death that has plainly never been a mystery (and for which there is no evidence at all of sexual impropriety - read Scarborough's explanation of how little he ever had to do with this intern) would have to be the most despicable thing he has done to try to hurt a critic.
It is hard to believe he maintains supporters anywhere - but that's the idiotic culture wars for you.
Update: yes, it is interesting to note that the original conspiracy mongering about Scarborough came from the left - including Michael Moore. That was equally despicable, but they (Moore and Moulitsas) were never the President of the United States.
Update: in The Atlantic, covering recent revelations of ridiculous claims being made by Trump in private, as well as via twitter, David Graham says its time everyone stopped giving him any benefit of the doubt:
Trump’s insistence on debunked arguments about Obama’s place of birth and about widespread voter fraud were once viewed as political posturing. For his critics, this kind of behavior was demagoguish, immoral, appalling, and divisive. For his defenders, it was perhaps a little boorish, but then again all is fair in politics; besides, they liked his willingness to throw a punch. Either way, the shared assumption for many (though by no means all) observers was that Trump was being disingenuous.He's probably right.
Since then, however, the president has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s not just posturing, and it’s not simply a cynical ploy. Trump isn’t being hypocritical simply for sport or political gain. His bigotry isn’t just an act to win over a certain segment of the population. Of course it wasn’t: Trump has been demonstrating that since he arrived in the news, settling a case alleging that he had kept African Americans out of his apartment buildings, up through his demand to execute the Central Park Five. He isn’t spreading misinformation just to twist the political discourse—though he may be doing that—but because he can’t or won’t assess it. It is not an act.
All of this has been clear to anyone willing to see it for a long time, yet some people have convinced themselves it’s merely an act. That includes the Republican members of Congress who shake their heads but try to ignore the tweets. It includes the senator who chuckles at Trump’s enduring birtherism. And it includes the White House staffers who, according to The Times, are “stunned” to hear their boss denying the Access Hollywood tape. It’s stunning that they’re still stunned.
Yglesias sounding sensible, again
He argues here that the fundamental problem with the GOP tax plan is not cutting corporate tax per se, but cutting it way too far than anyone ever thought was necessary or wise.
The GOP and its divorce from reality
Yes, the first tweet shows their pure denialism - or perhaps more accurately, plain lying; the second tweet just makes no common sense; except, perhaps to those ideologically determined to get to limited government, no matter how the economy and society is hurt getting there. (I suppose that in their lizard brain, limited government is always good for the economy. Eventually. Roadkill on the way doesn't matter. Just like Laffer said Kansas would all work out if you only gave it another 10 years. Yes, 10 years while education was defunded, highways unrepaired, etc.)
Update: this lengthy explanation at Slate at how the Kansas experiment went wrong, yet the GOP seems determined to try it again at a national level, is very good.
Update 2: when even columns in the WSJ are raising the same concerns as Slate, you know there is something to it.
Update: this lengthy explanation at Slate at how the Kansas experiment went wrong, yet the GOP seems determined to try it again at a national level, is very good.
Update 2: when even columns in the WSJ are raising the same concerns as Slate, you know there is something to it.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Milo's numbers
The professional troll Milo is best ignored, but the SBS report on his first, vacuous, Australian press conference says:
Yiannopoulos has sold 10,000 tickets for his speaking tour of Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, the Gold Coast and Adelaide.I find those numbers a little bit hard to believe, actually. I presume they have come from his own publicist (or his own mouth?)
Same sex marriage by the numbers
The Economist gave some numbers for gay marriage in an article recently:
Actually, it's really hard to track down more up to date figures for same sex marriage in the UK. The obvious website that should cover it is not accessible at the moment.
One possible explanation for the nonchalance is that the number of gay marriages has been fairly small. When they were legalised in Britain in March 2014, the government expected more than 9,000 gay weddings in the following year, but fewer than 6,000 took place. “It hasn’t taken off as I would have hoped,” says Emma Joanne of Shotgun Weddings, a photography firm based in Brighton, Britain’s gayest burgh. American polling data suggests that just one in ten lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults are married to somebody of the same sex. Many gay people are young, and young people seldom marry, regardless of their sexual leanings.Not sure I would read too much into what happens in the Netherlands, but it is a little surprising that the gay males were divorcing less than straight couples.
Women have been keenest to go down the aisle. In Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands, marriages between women outnumber marriages between men. Women’s unions are also more likely to break down. In the Netherlands, which legalised same-sex marriage in 2001, 82.1% of opposite-sex marriages joined in 2005 were still intact in 2016, compared with only 69.6% of marriages between women. Gay men were the commitment champions: 84.5% of their marriages had endured.
Actually, it's really hard to track down more up to date figures for same sex marriage in the UK. The obvious website that should cover it is not accessible at the moment.
Just because!
One other observation: watching both the path of the Republican tax bill in the US at the moment ( which has many, many problems) and the way Brexit has gone (a huge "divorce settlement" of £50 billion, and that's with lots of important stuff still to be negotiated), it is extremely hard to give any credit to the way the Right/conservatives deal with policy now.
It all seems to be a matter of wanting to get their way again, never mind the details. Nothing seems properly considered and honestly debated. (Of course, Britain finds itself it in the very weird situation of Labor also supporting some sort of Brexit - it's like political and economic common sense has left the land.)
It seems, I think, to all be tied up a churlish reaction to the culture wars - "you Lefties have had your way for too long, with your feminism, gay rights, transexual rights, climate change scaremongering, anti-smoking campaigns, and wanting to take my tax money for your so called health care and social safety net. Enough of that - we're bringing in new policies because - they're not your policies. No body cares about the details, losers."
It all seems to be a matter of wanting to get their way again, never mind the details. Nothing seems properly considered and honestly debated. (Of course, Britain finds itself it in the very weird situation of Labor also supporting some sort of Brexit - it's like political and economic common sense has left the land.)
It seems, I think, to all be tied up a churlish reaction to the culture wars - "you Lefties have had your way for too long, with your feminism, gay rights, transexual rights, climate change scaremongering, anti-smoking campaigns, and wanting to take my tax money for your so called health care and social safety net. Enough of that - we're bringing in new policies because - they're not your policies. No body cares about the details, losers."
A sporting observation
I can never envisage developing an interest in cricket, but it's unavoidable noticing some media commentary on the game at times.
I have recently released, listening to some fans of the sport talking about the recent Ashes First Test in Brisbane (I think that's what it was - I often would not even know which match is what in what series even if I see something is on), that cricket fandom seems to have devolved into perpetual whingers - unhappy about the players, the pitch, the team management, the weather, how it's nothing as good as it used to be, etc etc. And this general air of dissatisfaction with the state of the game seems to have been hanging around, more or less, for years now.
I'm really not sure why they are still devoted to following a game that can take up such an investment in time if they find so much to complain about in it...
I have recently released, listening to some fans of the sport talking about the recent Ashes First Test in Brisbane (I think that's what it was - I often would not even know which match is what in what series even if I see something is on), that cricket fandom seems to have devolved into perpetual whingers - unhappy about the players, the pitch, the team management, the weather, how it's nothing as good as it used to be, etc etc. And this general air of dissatisfaction with the state of the game seems to have been hanging around, more or less, for years now.
I'm really not sure why they are still devoted to following a game that can take up such an investment in time if they find so much to complain about in it...
Your bit of Kant for the day
I didn't realise how much Kant was "into" anthropology (or at least, what might be called anthropology in his day). From an article at Philosophy Now:
Kant suggested that the most important question in philosophy was not that of truth (epistemology), goodness (ethics), or beauty (aesthetics) – the topics which so fascinate academic philosophers – but rather the anthropological question, ‘What is the human being?’ He also suggested that this question could only be answered empirically, and not by resorting to, say, metaphysics. This implies, of course, that we can learn more about the human subject by studying anthropology (ethnography), sociology, psychology, ethology, and now evolutionary biology, than by engaging in speculative academic philosophy about human beingness, in the style of Husserl, Heidegger, or Derrida.....Interesting, somewhat...
Through his philosophical writings and with regard to his profound influence on subsequent scholarship, Immanuel Kant has rightly been acclaimed as one of the key figures in the history of Western thought. He had a deep interest in the natural sciences, particularly physical geography, but what is less well known is that he also gave lectures in anthropology for more than twenty years. We are told by his student Johann Herder that the lectures were in the nature of hugely entertaining talks. At the age of seventy-four Kant published Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798). (By ‘pragmatic’, he meant the use of knowledge to widen the scope of human freedom and to advance the dignity of humankind.)
In this seminal text Kant suggested that there were three distinct, but interrelated, ways of understanding the human subject: firstly as a universal species-being (mensch) – the “earthly being endowed with reason” on which Kant’s anthropological work was mainly focussed; secondly as a unique self (selbst); and thirdly as part of a people – as a member of a particular social group (volk). (Notwithstanding the last element, Herder always insisted that Kant, with his emphasis on universal human faculties such as imagination, perception, memory, feelings, desires and understanding, tended to downplay the importance of language, poetry and cultural diversity in understanding human life. But as a pioneer anthropologist, Herder also emphasized that anthropology, not speculative metaphysics or logic, was the key to understanding humans and their life-world, that is, their culture.)
Long ago the anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn, following Kant, made a statement that is in some ways rather banal but which has always seemed to me to encompass an important truth. Critical of dualistic nature-culture conceptions of the human subject, Kluckhohn, along with the pioneer psychologist Henry Murray, suggested that every person is, as a species-being (a human) in some respects like every other person; but they are also all like no other human being in having a unique personality (or self); and, finally, that they have affinities with some other humans in being a social and cultural being (or person). These three categories relate to three levels or processes in which all humans are embedded; namely, the phylogenetic, pertaining to the evolution of humans as a species-being; the ontogenetic, which relates to the life history of the person within a specific familial and biological setting; and, finally, the socio-historical, which situates the person in a specific social-cultural context. So Kluckholm, not unlike Kant, thought human beings need to be conceptualized in terms of three interconnected aspects: as a species-being characterized by biopsychological dispositions and complex sociality; as a unique individual self; and finally, as a social being or person, enacting social identities or subjectivities – which in all human societies are multiple, shifting and relational. For an anthropologist like Kluckhohn the distinction between being a human individual and being a person was important, for many tribal people recognize non-human persons, while under chattel slavery, the law treated human slaves not as persons, but rather as things or commodities.
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