1. Showed apartment to someone interested in the vacant room, referred to two mystery doors in the house which lead to who knows what...
2. Got an appointment to drop car off for repair and inspection tomorrow
3. Watched my first episode of Entourage with some of my roomies--mentioning I heard Ari Gold is based off of Ari Emmanuel, Rahm's brother
4. Wrote a few more blog posts, referencing Randolph of Roanoke, both famous Francis Bacons and the SS
5. Added links to some posts I had written
6. Generally ate and drank whatever I normally do, but tried to consume only about 75% of what I normally do
7. Noticed my car isn't obviously sputtering when I step on the gas and get to 45 mph or so, like it did Friday
8. Checked mail to see if I got the book, "War Nerd," by Gary Brecher in the mail, and was disappointed again!
9. Woke up at 9AM after dreaming about...I think a dream-version of high school, centering, as usual, around the theme of struggling and failing to fit in--it might be good to put the scenery of my dream world down, maybe make a map, and capture the aesthetic/themes--maybe write a Tolkien-esque novel set in this world
10. More or less did whatever popped into my head instantaneously unless it seemed like a bad idea, with occasional struggles to motivate myself
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Freewrite, hitting the random article link on wikipedia, Veldorama
Veldamora
I guess this is a place in Spain. I like the name. Veldamora. It sounds cool, but it's hard to free-write on the word since it doesn't really refer to anything that I might use as a tangent. I guess I could stretch and say...it...Veld...um...amora. Amora--sounds like amour, right, love, or a moor, as in a North African Muslim, I think, probably like the Barbary Pirates I referenced in an earlier post. Amora also sounds like amoral, which is an interesting concept.
When you hear the term 'amoral', it sounds bad, doesn't it. There's immoral which literally is b ad, and then amoral, which means without reference to morality--but that usually seems to mean bad--like if you're not letting some moral sense infiltrate everything, you're immoral. To be amoral is to be immoral. To tolerate amorality is to tolerate immorality.
I don't believe this necessarily, but I can see someone thinking along these lines. There's the with-us-or-against-us idea, that seems to create a universally moral universe--anything that is helping you fight your enemy is your enemy, because indifference to your survival against your enemy is evil. If a serial killer is trying to kill me and you don't take sides, well, fuck you.
This I think was a Roman idea, and I think Jesus mentioned this in the Bible, perhaps intentionally riffing on the seemingly Roman-in-origin phrase. And in our modern times Bush has used the phrase in describing his view of how nations should act in a terrorist world--either you're with us or with the terrorist, I think was his phrase, or something like that.
I am inclined to be...not...I guess I think of myself as a perspectivist, like Nietzsche. Nietzsche distinguished between good and evil, and good and bad. Good and evil were absolutes--one size fits all--what's good is good for everyone and what is bad is bad for everyone--in the Christian world view it seems to me that what is absolutely good is what is godly, and what is bad is what brings us away from god. Good and bad depends on who you are. It might be good for me to wake up early in the morning, and it might not suit your constitution, and so it would be bad for you.
So, I guess I tend to see the world...as a spectrum from good to bad, as far as we think we understand things and their values to us, and my spectrum is different than your spectrum. I suppose calling the moral world something existing on a spectrum might make things seem too one dimensional and strip things of context, but it's just a rough model. And so some things can sort of be neither good or bad, in that they aren't obviously good for me nor obviously bad for me. Having a few drinks at a party might be something like this--it might not be great for my health, but it kind of loosens me up and maybe makes me a little more fun, allowing me to reap some benefits. It's a coin-toss, or a 50/50 situation, so whatever you do, it doesn't much matter for your self interests. You're in the zone of indifference, as Gary Klein would call it. Adam Smith I believe said these difficult moments shouldn't be, because whatever you choose is about the same.
I guess this is a place in Spain. I like the name. Veldamora. It sounds cool, but it's hard to free-write on the word since it doesn't really refer to anything that I might use as a tangent. I guess I could stretch and say...it...Veld...um...amora. Amora--sounds like amour, right, love, or a moor, as in a North African Muslim, I think, probably like the Barbary Pirates I referenced in an earlier post. Amora also sounds like amoral, which is an interesting concept.
When you hear the term 'amoral', it sounds bad, doesn't it. There's immoral which literally is b ad, and then amoral, which means without reference to morality--but that usually seems to mean bad--like if you're not letting some moral sense infiltrate everything, you're immoral. To be amoral is to be immoral. To tolerate amorality is to tolerate immorality.
I don't believe this necessarily, but I can see someone thinking along these lines. There's the with-us-or-against-us idea, that seems to create a universally moral universe--anything that is helping you fight your enemy is your enemy, because indifference to your survival against your enemy is evil. If a serial killer is trying to kill me and you don't take sides, well, fuck you.
This I think was a Roman idea, and I think Jesus mentioned this in the Bible, perhaps intentionally riffing on the seemingly Roman-in-origin phrase. And in our modern times Bush has used the phrase in describing his view of how nations should act in a terrorist world--either you're with us or with the terrorist, I think was his phrase, or something like that.
I am inclined to be...not...I guess I think of myself as a perspectivist, like Nietzsche. Nietzsche distinguished between good and evil, and good and bad. Good and evil were absolutes--one size fits all--what's good is good for everyone and what is bad is bad for everyone--in the Christian world view it seems to me that what is absolutely good is what is godly, and what is bad is what brings us away from god. Good and bad depends on who you are. It might be good for me to wake up early in the morning, and it might not suit your constitution, and so it would be bad for you.
So, I guess I tend to see the world...as a spectrum from good to bad, as far as we think we understand things and their values to us, and my spectrum is different than your spectrum. I suppose calling the moral world something existing on a spectrum might make things seem too one dimensional and strip things of context, but it's just a rough model. And so some things can sort of be neither good or bad, in that they aren't obviously good for me nor obviously bad for me. Having a few drinks at a party might be something like this--it might not be great for my health, but it kind of loosens me up and maybe makes me a little more fun, allowing me to reap some benefits. It's a coin-toss, or a 50/50 situation, so whatever you do, it doesn't much matter for your self interests. You're in the zone of indifference, as Gary Klein would call it. Adam Smith I believe said these difficult moments shouldn't be, because whatever you choose is about the same.
Hitting the random article link on wikipedia, Henry Bacon
SS Henry Bacon
This article confused me, because when I see SS, I think the Nazi SS, rather than a ship, which I guess this is. It seems from a quick look in Wikipedia that SS in this context stands for steamship. It was sunk by the Germans in World War II, which makes things even more confusing to me when quickly glancing at the article, because, well, SS in the context of WWII usually means the Nazi SS.
In the US, SS can mean Social Security, though I think more about WWII than Social Security so sometimes have this funny experience of thinking people are talking about Himmler's SS rather than our retirement plans.
"I'm really worried about SS."
"Why? We won the war."
"Won the war? SS is going to be causing us a lot of problems in the future."
"What are you talking about Harry Turtledove, we won the war. This isn't some Philip K. Dick novel where the allies lost."
"What world are you living in? The young will be sacrificed for the old, who will become more of a burden on our system, and SS won't be able to deal with the problem."
"Jesus Christ, you want to euthanize the elderly, you sick bastard! Listen Heydrich, I don't know what kind of goofy survivalist white power shit you've been reading, but there's no way we Americans are going to let a reconstituted SS come along."
"What other solution do we have?"
And so on with the forced comedic misunderstanding.
Yeah, so um--yeah and Henry Bacon--sounds like a famous guy but I don't know who he is. I think of Francis Bacon, the scientist and also the twentieth-century painter of very cool, gory paintings that Christopher Nolan, director of the Dark Knight, referenced when thinking about the looks of the Joker, I suspect particularly in the interrogation scene, when the lights are off early on.
Bacon is a delicious name, too.
This article confused me, because when I see SS, I think the Nazi SS, rather than a ship, which I guess this is. It seems from a quick look in Wikipedia that SS in this context stands for steamship. It was sunk by the Germans in World War II, which makes things even more confusing to me when quickly glancing at the article, because, well, SS in the context of WWII usually means the Nazi SS.
In the US, SS can mean Social Security, though I think more about WWII than Social Security so sometimes have this funny experience of thinking people are talking about Himmler's SS rather than our retirement plans.
"I'm really worried about SS."
"Why? We won the war."
"Won the war? SS is going to be causing us a lot of problems in the future."
"What are you talking about Harry Turtledove, we won the war. This isn't some Philip K. Dick novel where the allies lost."
"What world are you living in? The young will be sacrificed for the old, who will become more of a burden on our system, and SS won't be able to deal with the problem."
"Jesus Christ, you want to euthanize the elderly, you sick bastard! Listen Heydrich, I don't know what kind of goofy survivalist white power shit you've been reading, but there's no way we Americans are going to let a reconstituted SS come along."
"What other solution do we have?"
And so on with the forced comedic misunderstanding.
Yeah, so um--yeah and Henry Bacon--sounds like a famous guy but I don't know who he is. I think of Francis Bacon, the scientist and also the twentieth-century painter of very cool, gory paintings that Christopher Nolan, director of the Dark Knight, referenced when thinking about the looks of the Joker, I suspect particularly in the interrogation scene, when the lights are off early on.
Bacon is a delicious name, too.
Hitting the "Random Article" Link on Wikipedia I Get
"Joseph J. Went"
(A ten minute free-write*):
A kind of tough-looking Marine General who at the same time looks like that goofy little guy who runs for president every four years--the rep from Ohio--Kucinich.
Actually Kucinich doesn't strike me as goofy really, it's just that he's kind of joked about. I honestly don't know much about him. To get elected mayor and then a representative to Congress is impressive, even if you dress in a clown outfit or something. I hear this old conservative American politician from the early nineteenth century--Randolph of Roanoke--he was written about by Russell Kirk--Randolph might have had an extra X chromosome, or some such genetic disease, that made him kind of feminine and impotent.
He was a conservative who was a leader of the Old Republican, if I remember correctly, who broke with Jefferson, and his main focus, IIRC, was on a stricter interpretation of the Constitution and less centralization. I believe he broke with Jefferson during Jefferson's presidency.
Anyway, a leader of men, and he sounded like an assertive guy, all the while being I guess kind of feminine and maybe impotent. I guess impotence shouldn't have anything to do with your assertiveness unless it has to do with your testosterone production, right? And even then, I mean, we're talking probability of greater assertiveness, I would say, not a sure thing. All sorts of women are assertive, just generally I would guess men tend to be more assertive.
Well, anyway, I got a bit interested in what life was like in the South in the Revolutionary period. I've heard there were the Scotch-Irish southerners, and then there were the wealthy aristocratic southerners, who I think tended to be Cavaliersfrom England who left when their cause was defeated.
The Scots-Irish are probably the group that make up most Southern whites nowadays, and arguably the Scots-Irish culture has influenced African-American culture, hence Thomas Sowell's characterization of some American blacks as "Black rednecks". Interesting idea.
Anyway, this old Southern guy, Randolph of Roanoke, it has been suggested might have converted to Islam. It sounds dubious to me--I think he might have said he admired Islam, perhaps when the issue of the Barbary Pirates had come up under the administration of his opponent, Jefferson.
*with a bit of tidying up after the fact--this goes for all previous free-writes in this series too
(A ten minute free-write*):
A kind of tough-looking Marine General who at the same time looks like that goofy little guy who runs for president every four years--the rep from Ohio--Kucinich.
Actually Kucinich doesn't strike me as goofy really, it's just that he's kind of joked about. I honestly don't know much about him. To get elected mayor and then a representative to Congress is impressive, even if you dress in a clown outfit or something. I hear this old conservative American politician from the early nineteenth century--Randolph of Roanoke--he was written about by Russell Kirk--Randolph might have had an extra X chromosome, or some such genetic disease, that made him kind of feminine and impotent.
He was a conservative who was a leader of the Old Republican, if I remember correctly, who broke with Jefferson, and his main focus, IIRC, was on a stricter interpretation of the Constitution and less centralization. I believe he broke with Jefferson during Jefferson's presidency.
Anyway, a leader of men, and he sounded like an assertive guy, all the while being I guess kind of feminine and maybe impotent. I guess impotence shouldn't have anything to do with your assertiveness unless it has to do with your testosterone production, right? And even then, I mean, we're talking probability of greater assertiveness, I would say, not a sure thing. All sorts of women are assertive, just generally I would guess men tend to be more assertive.
Well, anyway, I got a bit interested in what life was like in the South in the Revolutionary period. I've heard there were the Scotch-Irish southerners, and then there were the wealthy aristocratic southerners, who I think tended to be Cavaliersfrom England who left when their cause was defeated.
The Scots-Irish are probably the group that make up most Southern whites nowadays, and arguably the Scots-Irish culture has influenced African-American culture, hence Thomas Sowell's characterization of some American blacks as "Black rednecks". Interesting idea.
Anyway, this old Southern guy, Randolph of Roanoke, it has been suggested might have converted to Islam. It sounds dubious to me--I think he might have said he admired Islam, perhaps when the issue of the Barbary Pirates had come up under the administration of his opponent, Jefferson.
*with a bit of tidying up after the fact--this goes for all previous free-writes in this series too
Ten things I did today
1. Read maybe twenty pages of "Cobra II" by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor
2. Saved drafts of two of my novels to a CD
3. Wrote a piece of music
4. Posted an ad to Craigslist advertising my apartment, along with photos
5. Scheduled an appointment with someone interested in checking out the apartment
6. Watched a Law and Order: Criminal Intent
7. Responded to a comment on my blog
8. Had dinner with my family
9. Took a half an hour nap, think I might have dreamed a little
10. Read sections of "The Lord of the Rings" and "Dracula"
2. Saved drafts of two of my novels to a CD
3. Wrote a piece of music
4. Posted an ad to Craigslist advertising my apartment, along with photos
5. Scheduled an appointment with someone interested in checking out the apartment
6. Watched a Law and Order: Criminal Intent
7. Responded to a comment on my blog
8. Had dinner with my family
9. Took a half an hour nap, think I might have dreamed a little
10. Read sections of "The Lord of the Rings" and "Dracula"
Labels:
10 things I did today
10 Things I did yesterday
1. Did the first thing that came to mind when it came to mind, more or less, for the whole day (YEAH!)
2. Went to the bank to deposit my paycheck
3. Went to the library to get some books, saw nothing interesting me in time, as library was closing
4. Looked for the book, "War Nerd" in the mail, but it didn't come (BOO!)
5. Watched Beowulf on demand
6. Emailed potential roommates telling them I'd send them photos of the apartment shortly
7. Posted a comment to Overcomingbias.com regarding Robin Hanson's recent post on Academia
8. Found some old pocket notebooks with my notations in them, and some batteries I needed for my camera (YEAH!)
9. Did the dishes
10. Drove to work
2. Went to the bank to deposit my paycheck
3. Went to the library to get some books, saw nothing interesting me in time, as library was closing
4. Looked for the book, "War Nerd" in the mail, but it didn't come (BOO!)
5. Watched Beowulf on demand
6. Emailed potential roommates telling them I'd send them photos of the apartment shortly
7. Posted a comment to Overcomingbias.com regarding Robin Hanson's recent post on Academia
8. Found some old pocket notebooks with my notations in them, and some batteries I needed for my camera (YEAH!)
9. Did the dishes
10. Drove to work
Labels:
10 things I did today
10 things I did today
1. Wrote several blog posts (YEAH!)
2. Took photos of the apartment for prospective roommates and sent them to people who asked for them
3. Uploaded photos to Facebook (YEAH!)
4. Did laundry
5. Responded to a comment on the blog
6. Downloaded Fireshot screenshot software
7. Wrote two pieces of music and wrote lyrics for one
8. Read more of "The German Way of War" by Robert Citino, "Create Your Own Economy" by Tyler Cowen, "The American Way of War" by Russell Weigly, and "The Power of Intuition" by Gary Klein (YEAH!)
9. Took the long-form IPIP-NEO on the internet (BOO!)
10. Strung my electric guitar
2. Took photos of the apartment for prospective roommates and sent them to people who asked for them
3. Uploaded photos to Facebook (YEAH!)
4. Did laundry
5. Responded to a comment on the blog
6. Downloaded Fireshot screenshot software
7. Wrote two pieces of music and wrote lyrics for one
8. Read more of "The German Way of War" by Robert Citino, "Create Your Own Economy" by Tyler Cowen, "The American Way of War" by Russell Weigly, and "The Power of Intuition" by Gary Klein (YEAH!)
9. Took the long-form IPIP-NEO on the internet (BOO!)
10. Strung my electric guitar
Labels:
10 things I did today
Purgatory is Paradise
"...paradise has no need for epic poetry." --Tyler Cowen, "Create Your Own Economy", p. 128
Labels:
quotation,
tyler cowen
Hitting the random-article link on Wikipedia, "Taiga"
This is the Wikipedia article I get when I hit random article at Wikipedia.com--I actually got this the second time I hit the random button just now, as the first one was some person's name that seemed a little too not-famous to have a Wikipedia article, and so I felt like I was almost taking some random person's name and putting it up as a title to my blog post, and they might see it and comment and...I don't know why that would be so bad, really, but something about it is unpleasant and I am wasting time on this new free-write topic by mentioning it.
Taiga, the second article I came across in pressing the random link on Wikipedia, is apparently the ecosystem of a lot of Russia and Canada--I guess of Siberia and Alaska and Northern Canada if I read the map correctly, filled with coniferous forest according to the introduction to the article.
I was amazed to see you can drive pretty far up into Alaska directly from the lower forty eight. You can drive to Juneau and you can drive to Wasilla. I think of Northern Exposure, that old TV show that I watched a lot of when I was unemployed for a half a year or so after college. I think of Sarah Palin and I think of that guy who died in the woods in Alaska whose life is the basis of "Into the Wild". There is something interesting about that big-ass state and its wilderness, and Siberia similarly is interesting to me, mainly because I know so little about it. Though maybe that I know so little about it at the ripe age of 29 suggests that I am not that interested in it, since I could have been reading about it plenty in the years I've been alive.
Yeah, I guess so, but other things were more interesting, which is not to say that Alaska isn't interesting, just relative to other things, it wasn't as interesting.
Anyway, I read somewhere that you could be a pot smoker and a conservative in Alaska, which makes Alaska sound like an odd culture. Sarah Palin is interesting--I think she's gotten too much criticism--I think it's kind of weird that the news is even focusing on her anymore--the VP candidate of a defeated guy.
My interpretation so far is that she's probably seen as a big threat by liberals, and also kind of just hits a nerve with left-wingers causing sort of outbursts. If she's no big deal and her career is over, then am I going to stop hearing about her?
This is not to say I am a fan of Palin. I just think there's something strange about the attention she's getting. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think of Lieberman after Gore's loss in 2000, or Jon Edwards after Kerry's loss, and it doesn't seem like they got much attention. I could go on about my thoughts about why she seems, to me, to be getting so much attention, and why it says more about the media and the Democrats than about Palin but I'm gonna wrap up. I also sort of doubt that her IQ is very low (Bush everyone thought was stupid but he probably has an IQ in the 125 area if you go by his SATs, IIRC) and I think she doesn't study for debates out of a belief substance in debates doesn't matter, and looking and sounding cool is all that matters if you want to win, and I tend to agree with her.
Taiga, the second article I came across in pressing the random link on Wikipedia, is apparently the ecosystem of a lot of Russia and Canada--I guess of Siberia and Alaska and Northern Canada if I read the map correctly, filled with coniferous forest according to the introduction to the article.
I was amazed to see you can drive pretty far up into Alaska directly from the lower forty eight. You can drive to Juneau and you can drive to Wasilla. I think of Northern Exposure, that old TV show that I watched a lot of when I was unemployed for a half a year or so after college. I think of Sarah Palin and I think of that guy who died in the woods in Alaska whose life is the basis of "Into the Wild". There is something interesting about that big-ass state and its wilderness, and Siberia similarly is interesting to me, mainly because I know so little about it. Though maybe that I know so little about it at the ripe age of 29 suggests that I am not that interested in it, since I could have been reading about it plenty in the years I've been alive.
Yeah, I guess so, but other things were more interesting, which is not to say that Alaska isn't interesting, just relative to other things, it wasn't as interesting.
Anyway, I read somewhere that you could be a pot smoker and a conservative in Alaska, which makes Alaska sound like an odd culture. Sarah Palin is interesting--I think she's gotten too much criticism--I think it's kind of weird that the news is even focusing on her anymore--the VP candidate of a defeated guy.
My interpretation so far is that she's probably seen as a big threat by liberals, and also kind of just hits a nerve with left-wingers causing sort of outbursts. If she's no big deal and her career is over, then am I going to stop hearing about her?
This is not to say I am a fan of Palin. I just think there's something strange about the attention she's getting. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think of Lieberman after Gore's loss in 2000, or Jon Edwards after Kerry's loss, and it doesn't seem like they got much attention. I could go on about my thoughts about why she seems, to me, to be getting so much attention, and why it says more about the media and the Democrats than about Palin but I'm gonna wrap up. I also sort of doubt that her IQ is very low (Bush everyone thought was stupid but he probably has an IQ in the 125 area if you go by his SATs, IIRC) and I think she doesn't study for debates out of a belief substance in debates doesn't matter, and looking and sounding cool is all that matters if you want to win, and I tend to agree with her.
"Alice Arm, British Columbia"
This is the Wikipedia article title I am using as a launch pad for a new free-write. This is another tough one--I don't know much about British Columbia--I had initially thought it was on the East Coast, and it turns out its on the West Coast. Canadians would be appalled. I know so little about a place that is only a few hundred miles away--I probably know more about California or Texas than I do about Canada, which is very odd.
It's funny to think of the name "British Columbia" and think of Colombia in South America. Like, here's Colombia, don't get kidnapped or do cocaine, you silly pants you, and here is British Columbia--similar but British--the kidnapper calls you old boy when he throws you in the trunk and they don't do coke--it's snuff for them. Pip pip.
Yeah, and then the name of this place, Alice Arm. What a weird name. Like the explorer who discovered and named the place had a kid named Alice and ran out of ideas about what to name things. Maybe it was a naming convention to name stuff after your children, and if you ran out of children, you ran out of names and had to defer to someone else, or start naming things after royals, and the explorer, whose daughter's name was Alice, tried to skirt this rule by naming places after parts of his daughter. So there's Alice Arm and Alice Leg and Alice Torso. And so on.
Yeah, that's probably what happened. I can imagine Thomas Pynchon coming up with some clever faux-historical explanation that is better than the lame one I just came up with--I don't actually know if it's lame or not as I don't think I have distance so I'll just call it lame and hope for the best.
Pynchon is coming out with a new novel in a little...or maybe it's already out--it's called...something Vice. Miami...Ingrained...Innate...god.
The cover is cool, looks like there's an Edsel on it, by a surf shop with some palm trees and a beach in the background. Maybe this will be something like Vineland. Vineland wasn't too bad, though I am reminded of my previous post about incomprehension in childhood--I think my incomprehension in adulthood probably mostly relates to Thomas Pynchon and women.
It's funny to think of the name "British Columbia" and think of Colombia in South America. Like, here's Colombia, don't get kidnapped or do cocaine, you silly pants you, and here is British Columbia--similar but British--the kidnapper calls you old boy when he throws you in the trunk and they don't do coke--it's snuff for them. Pip pip.
Yeah, and then the name of this place, Alice Arm. What a weird name. Like the explorer who discovered and named the place had a kid named Alice and ran out of ideas about what to name things. Maybe it was a naming convention to name stuff after your children, and if you ran out of children, you ran out of names and had to defer to someone else, or start naming things after royals, and the explorer, whose daughter's name was Alice, tried to skirt this rule by naming places after parts of his daughter. So there's Alice Arm and Alice Leg and Alice Torso. And so on.
Yeah, that's probably what happened. I can imagine Thomas Pynchon coming up with some clever faux-historical explanation that is better than the lame one I just came up with--I don't actually know if it's lame or not as I don't think I have distance so I'll just call it lame and hope for the best.
Pynchon is coming out with a new novel in a little...or maybe it's already out--it's called...something Vice. Miami...Ingrained...Innate...god.
The cover is cool, looks like there's an Edsel on it, by a surf shop with some palm trees and a beach in the background. Maybe this will be something like Vineland. Vineland wasn't too bad, though I am reminded of my previous post about incomprehension in childhood--I think my incomprehension in adulthood probably mostly relates to Thomas Pynchon and women.
Labels:
alice arm,
british columbia,
colombia,
freewrite,
thomas pynchon
"Legacy (Doctor Who)"
That is the random article title I got on Wikipedia just this moment, to serve as my launch pad in free-writing.
I am drawn to both "legacy" and "Dr. Who". I don't know about this particular--what is this, an episode--I didn't even notice. I'll assume it's an episode. Anyway, I remember watching some Doctor Who's on PBS when I was a kid with my dad, I think, and not understanding anything that was going on, and yet I still watched it. That is tolerance for weirdness and a lack of comprehension. I try to imagine myself now trying to simulate a similar experience and think, how would I do that--I think maybe picking up a book in Chinese and trying to read it without any reference to what the Chinese characters represent. And doing this for like, an hour every week or whatever it was I used to do as a kid watching Doctor Who, me on the floor and my dad I think sitting in his chair--though with such early childhood memories you don't know how much of them you're just kind or making up on the fly from a few suggestive nuggets sitting in your head. Maybe I really watched like 15 minutes of the show once while my dad snoozed in his chair in the living room and was baffled, and this nugget has morphed into me watching this show all the time and not getting it but tolerating my not getting it quite a lot.
I remember trying to read some sequel to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001...I think it was like 2061 maybe? Everything seems to happen in years that end in 1 for him--oh wait, didn't he write like 2010 too? Hm. So much for that theory.
Well, yeah, I tried to read this book and I don't recall actually comprehending much of anything I read...I don't think I even really got it on a sentence to sentence level, like "Jim left the apartment to get coffee and then came back with it." I don't know what the actual experience of me reading the book was--was I just kind of skimming the pages or was I reading line after line uncomprehendingly? I don't know. Strange. I remember nuggets of that book too though--there was some alien trapped under the ice on some moon of Saturn or some such planet. Did that happen? Perhaps I'll look it up.
Um, so yeah, I guess when you're a baby you're an alien kind of plunked into this weird world and you kind of try to get it with progressively better attempts. I'm told when I was a kid I tried to speak before I really could, and would make up words or mangle real words, whereas my brother didn't speak as early, I don't think, but got the word right the first time.
Yeah, and then there's the first bit of this Wikpedia article, taken secondly, I guess in this free-write, which is "Legacy". When I hear legacy I think of presidents, like President Bush or Clinton. I wonder how Bush's legacy will turn out--I think it'll be better than what it is now--I think of Truman who apparently wasn't liked much when he left but then his reputation turned over. Bush I think said something about how people argue over Adams, or someone like that, and still don't agree on his legacy, and he took some solace in that, which strikes me a good observation--and I think Clinton cited Ulysses S Grant, a favorite of mine, as someone whose reputation has sort of been recently revived, another good point. I probably could find you examples of recent debates over the legacies of Roman emperors who have died well over a millennium ago.
I am drawn to both "legacy" and "Dr. Who". I don't know about this particular--what is this, an episode--I didn't even notice. I'll assume it's an episode. Anyway, I remember watching some Doctor Who's on PBS when I was a kid with my dad, I think, and not understanding anything that was going on, and yet I still watched it. That is tolerance for weirdness and a lack of comprehension. I try to imagine myself now trying to simulate a similar experience and think, how would I do that--I think maybe picking up a book in Chinese and trying to read it without any reference to what the Chinese characters represent. And doing this for like, an hour every week or whatever it was I used to do as a kid watching Doctor Who, me on the floor and my dad I think sitting in his chair--though with such early childhood memories you don't know how much of them you're just kind or making up on the fly from a few suggestive nuggets sitting in your head. Maybe I really watched like 15 minutes of the show once while my dad snoozed in his chair in the living room and was baffled, and this nugget has morphed into me watching this show all the time and not getting it but tolerating my not getting it quite a lot.
I remember trying to read some sequel to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001...I think it was like 2061 maybe? Everything seems to happen in years that end in 1 for him--oh wait, didn't he write like 2010 too? Hm. So much for that theory.
Well, yeah, I tried to read this book and I don't recall actually comprehending much of anything I read...I don't think I even really got it on a sentence to sentence level, like "Jim left the apartment to get coffee and then came back with it." I don't know what the actual experience of me reading the book was--was I just kind of skimming the pages or was I reading line after line uncomprehendingly? I don't know. Strange. I remember nuggets of that book too though--there was some alien trapped under the ice on some moon of Saturn or some such planet. Did that happen? Perhaps I'll look it up.
Um, so yeah, I guess when you're a baby you're an alien kind of plunked into this weird world and you kind of try to get it with progressively better attempts. I'm told when I was a kid I tried to speak before I really could, and would make up words or mangle real words, whereas my brother didn't speak as early, I don't think, but got the word right the first time.
Yeah, and then there's the first bit of this Wikpedia article, taken secondly, I guess in this free-write, which is "Legacy". When I hear legacy I think of presidents, like President Bush or Clinton. I wonder how Bush's legacy will turn out--I think it'll be better than what it is now--I think of Truman who apparently wasn't liked much when he left but then his reputation turned over. Bush I think said something about how people argue over Adams, or someone like that, and still don't agree on his legacy, and he took some solace in that, which strikes me a good observation--and I think Clinton cited Ulysses S Grant, a favorite of mine, as someone whose reputation has sort of been recently revived, another good point. I probably could find you examples of recent debates over the legacies of Roman emperors who have died well over a millennium ago.
"Achirimbi II"
I guess this was a ruler in Cameroon. I got this name through hitting the random article link at Wikipedia, so I could have some random subject to use as a launching pad for a free-write blog post. Um, yeah. I was sort of stumped by this one--how do you use this name as a launching pad. It's not one of those nice general article titles, like the last one I got and used, which was "Staying in Love". I see he was sympathetic I guess to the British, who I guess were possessing some land in Cameroon.
That has some promise--the British Empire--as a subject. I was recently reading War Nerd articles at the Exiled online newspaper--I ordered the book "The War Nerd" and have been wondering if Gary Brecher, the author of the column and the book, is John Dolan, who I guess is an English Professor and novelist who has some similar autobiographical details. I'm inclined to think Brecher is John Dolan myself.
Anyway, I was thinking about empire, and wondering what would happen if the US tried to turn the rest of the world into the US--making the rest of the world culturally American and politically under the power of the US government, and perhaps a participant in the US government--Iran and Iraq and Russia, et c., become states in the Union with governors and houses and senates and all that. This is pure fantasy, pure what-if thinking, but I was contemplating it for the sake of contemplating it.
I'm not sure how that would go. I don't think the US electorate really wants to rule the world, though I could see the electorate generally wanting to be the top dog--I would have to look at polls to get a better sense of that. I imagine if the US stopped being the top dog it would be a strike at the American ego, but I'm not sure if it would be that bad. I would feel irritated, which is funny, because I generally don't affiliate with groups, like Red Sox fans or Republicans et c. I sort of think of myself as a libertarian, but I have a hard time getting into the idea of being a party man and joining the party and going to meetings to talk about party stuff, et c. I don't know--I'm not a joiner, to use Robin Hanson's phrase.
Anyway, but say the US citizenry was composed of a bunch of little Cecil-Rhodes types. How would the US practically conquer the world, if at all possible.
Actually, I really don't know if it is possible. If I think of the British Empire, which I believe was the biggest empire in history, land-wise, I think you might say divide and rule, which they got I think from the Romans. So you divide and rule. You look at the world and you split it and support one side against the other, and pick off enemies in such a way, and I suppose you iterate this process--so say you take Iraq--you support the Shiites and Kurds against the Sunni Arabs, perhaps, and then you support the Shiites against the Kurds, and then you support Iraq against Iran maybe, or something like that.
That has some promise--the British Empire--as a subject. I was recently reading War Nerd articles at the Exiled online newspaper--I ordered the book "The War Nerd" and have been wondering if Gary Brecher, the author of the column and the book, is John Dolan, who I guess is an English Professor and novelist who has some similar autobiographical details. I'm inclined to think Brecher is John Dolan myself.
Anyway, I was thinking about empire, and wondering what would happen if the US tried to turn the rest of the world into the US--making the rest of the world culturally American and politically under the power of the US government, and perhaps a participant in the US government--Iran and Iraq and Russia, et c., become states in the Union with governors and houses and senates and all that. This is pure fantasy, pure what-if thinking, but I was contemplating it for the sake of contemplating it.
I'm not sure how that would go. I don't think the US electorate really wants to rule the world, though I could see the electorate generally wanting to be the top dog--I would have to look at polls to get a better sense of that. I imagine if the US stopped being the top dog it would be a strike at the American ego, but I'm not sure if it would be that bad. I would feel irritated, which is funny, because I generally don't affiliate with groups, like Red Sox fans or Republicans et c. I sort of think of myself as a libertarian, but I have a hard time getting into the idea of being a party man and joining the party and going to meetings to talk about party stuff, et c. I don't know--I'm not a joiner, to use Robin Hanson's phrase.
Anyway, but say the US citizenry was composed of a bunch of little Cecil-Rhodes types. How would the US practically conquer the world, if at all possible.
Actually, I really don't know if it is possible. If I think of the British Empire, which I believe was the biggest empire in history, land-wise, I think you might say divide and rule, which they got I think from the Romans. So you divide and rule. You look at the world and you split it and support one side against the other, and pick off enemies in such a way, and I suppose you iterate this process--so say you take Iraq--you support the Shiites and Kurds against the Sunni Arabs, perhaps, and then you support the Shiites against the Kurds, and then you support Iraq against Iran maybe, or something like that.
Labels:
british empire,
empire,
freewrite,
gary brecher,
rome
"Stay in Love"
I hit the random article link on the Wikipedia page to get a random subject as a launching pad for a blog post, and this is what I got--I didn't look too much into the article--I think it's a song or an album by some seventies artist. The sentiment is interesting. Stay in love. You should stay in love. Is there a volitional element to love, or is it something to just kind of do.
How does one stay in love? I don't have a clear answer. I'm inclined to think love generally follows this rough pattern--you fall in love and have the kind of intense, pleasurable lovey-dovey experience, and then you cool down and become sort of used to each other and comfortable with each other, then maybe you launch into the commitment phase of marriage, home-buying, kid-having, and then the kid's become the central project, and then they grow up and don't need you as much, and you settle into a comfortable, or perhaps uncomfortable, empty nest.
So anyway, can you start to fall out of love and say, hey, I'm going to stay in love. I guess when you put it that way it sounds like the answer would be no, but you might think of it in terms of, "something is happening that is causing me to fall out of love, and I need to do something to affect that cause such that I am not falling out of love anymore, and gaining back sufficient lovingness to get what I need out of life." You might think, well, I'm better off falling out of love--it's easier to get someone else than to keep this relationship going. I imagine this becomes less an option as you get older and more tied to someone in terms of children and property, and you lose your own romantic market value (this is harder on women then men generally, who gain in earning power, are not as harshly judged by women based on their looks, and tend to age in a way that women find attractive, whereas women tend to become less attractive to men as they get older, and if they have relied on the man as a primary breadwinner, they are economically potentially in dire straits).
So, I guess the incentive to keep the relationship strong might be stronger with women than with men. Does that seem true? I'm not sure--I'd have to look at older people and their relationships I suppose. Men I think tend to mellow out as they get older and their testosterone diminishes, so they might not be as driven to trade up.
How does one stay in love? I don't have a clear answer. I'm inclined to think love generally follows this rough pattern--you fall in love and have the kind of intense, pleasurable lovey-dovey experience, and then you cool down and become sort of used to each other and comfortable with each other, then maybe you launch into the commitment phase of marriage, home-buying, kid-having, and then the kid's become the central project, and then they grow up and don't need you as much, and you settle into a comfortable, or perhaps uncomfortable, empty nest.
So anyway, can you start to fall out of love and say, hey, I'm going to stay in love. I guess when you put it that way it sounds like the answer would be no, but you might think of it in terms of, "something is happening that is causing me to fall out of love, and I need to do something to affect that cause such that I am not falling out of love anymore, and gaining back sufficient lovingness to get what I need out of life." You might think, well, I'm better off falling out of love--it's easier to get someone else than to keep this relationship going. I imagine this becomes less an option as you get older and more tied to someone in terms of children and property, and you lose your own romantic market value (this is harder on women then men generally, who gain in earning power, are not as harshly judged by women based on their looks, and tend to age in a way that women find attractive, whereas women tend to become less attractive to men as they get older, and if they have relied on the man as a primary breadwinner, they are economically potentially in dire straits).
So, I guess the incentive to keep the relationship strong might be stronger with women than with men. Does that seem true? I'm not sure--I'd have to look at older people and their relationships I suppose. Men I think tend to mellow out as they get older and their testosterone diminishes, so they might not be as driven to trade up.
Movies I've recently seen
Beowulf
This was very good, directed by Robert Zemeckis--it's a computer-animated film that sort of lives in the uncanny valley as they call it--the point where characters look a lot like real life people but are lacking somehow and causes one to feel a weird feeling when viewing them. Grendel was excellently done, and I was reminded of Sin City's aesthetic when I saw him. Very grotesque figure, and interestingly conceived, as a sort of mutated, sort of messed-up superhuman. I loved the beer hall camaraderie of the Anglo-Saxons prior to being attacked by Grendel. Makes me think of fraternities, basically--I wasn't in one and didn't like them when I was in school, but my experience with them was they weren't bad guys, and they threw good parties.
Note that Angelina Jolie just isn't sexy when she's rendered in computer animation.
Stardust
This was great too--kind of like the Prince Bride only about half as good, which is still pretty good. Claire Danes, who I don't generally find attractive, is very cute in this movie. The leading man is kind of a nothing, lacking charisma, like Orlando Bloom. Deniro wasn't all that great in it, I don't think.
Death Proof
Overall I liked it but I found the dialog kind of annoying, which is weird to say about a Tarantino film, because he's supposed to be great with dialog. But I don't know if I ever was that crazy about his dialog. Some of it is okay, I guess. This movie I liked more for the setting and the muscle cars and the pretty girls. I sort of like the gritty suburban and mildly urban environment and the everyday characters. The car chase scene at the end of the movie was excellent--I read Tarantino saying he didn't like CGI car scenes because he knew they were fake and there was no risk, IIRC, which I can sort of see--the uncanny valley for action scenes? Hm. Well, this car chase eschewed CGI and it looked great and was scary. Kurt Russell plays the bad guy, a sort of JG-Ballard-esque car-crash fetishist. I wonder if Tarantino reads Ballard--I think he likes Cliver Barker, who strikes me as having something in common with Ballard. Psychopathic, perverse fascinations, I guess--and Tarantino seems to have that too--think the Gimp.
Planet Terror
I think this was probably better than Death Proof IMO. Rose McGowan is a national treasure. It sort of falls apart at the end. Rodriguez has some great stylized, video-game-esque violence in there--zombie army men need a gas to keep them from becoming zombies, but the gas also causes others to become zombies--I think dosage was the key.
This was very good, directed by Robert Zemeckis--it's a computer-animated film that sort of lives in the uncanny valley as they call it--the point where characters look a lot like real life people but are lacking somehow and causes one to feel a weird feeling when viewing them. Grendel was excellently done, and I was reminded of Sin City's aesthetic when I saw him. Very grotesque figure, and interestingly conceived, as a sort of mutated, sort of messed-up superhuman. I loved the beer hall camaraderie of the Anglo-Saxons prior to being attacked by Grendel. Makes me think of fraternities, basically--I wasn't in one and didn't like them when I was in school, but my experience with them was they weren't bad guys, and they threw good parties.
Note that Angelina Jolie just isn't sexy when she's rendered in computer animation.
Stardust
This was great too--kind of like the Prince Bride only about half as good, which is still pretty good. Claire Danes, who I don't generally find attractive, is very cute in this movie. The leading man is kind of a nothing, lacking charisma, like Orlando Bloom. Deniro wasn't all that great in it, I don't think.
Death Proof
Overall I liked it but I found the dialog kind of annoying, which is weird to say about a Tarantino film, because he's supposed to be great with dialog. But I don't know if I ever was that crazy about his dialog. Some of it is okay, I guess. This movie I liked more for the setting and the muscle cars and the pretty girls. I sort of like the gritty suburban and mildly urban environment and the everyday characters. The car chase scene at the end of the movie was excellent--I read Tarantino saying he didn't like CGI car scenes because he knew they were fake and there was no risk, IIRC, which I can sort of see--the uncanny valley for action scenes? Hm. Well, this car chase eschewed CGI and it looked great and was scary. Kurt Russell plays the bad guy, a sort of JG-Ballard-esque car-crash fetishist. I wonder if Tarantino reads Ballard--I think he likes Cliver Barker, who strikes me as having something in common with Ballard. Psychopathic, perverse fascinations, I guess--and Tarantino seems to have that too--think the Gimp.
Planet Terror
I think this was probably better than Death Proof IMO. Rose McGowan is a national treasure. It sort of falls apart at the end. Rodriguez has some great stylized, video-game-esque violence in there--zombie army men need a gas to keep them from becoming zombies, but the gas also causes others to become zombies--I think dosage was the key.
Labels:
beowulf,
death proof,
grindhouse,
planet terror,
stardust
Books I've Been Reading
Create Your Own Economy by Tyler Cowen
I've been jumping around in this book. A big theme seems to be the autistic cognitive style, which I suppose is an autistic person's cognitive style, though you can have it without necessarily being autistic. I was interested to read in this book that someone had asked Tyler Cowen if he was autistic. I remember Cowen writing about autism in some blog post a long time ago, and then hearing him talk with his odd monotone voice, and wondered if he was autistic. Apparently he isn't, but has certain autistic tendencies, like great information retention on certain subjects--for him apparently it's culture, and maybe something else I am forgetting.
There's a bit about narrative psychology and stories that I delved into but I'm drawing a blank on it at the moment.
I got the introductory chapter to his forthcoming book on the philosophical underpinnings of freedom--I haven't read it yet. He offered it to people who bought it on or before its first day. I think a big part of the treat was getting an email from Tyler Cowen!
The German Way of War by Robert Citino
I've had my nose in this one for maybe a month, jumping around as I do. I've learned a bit about the Great Elector, Frederich Wilhelm of Brandenburg. He seems to be the starting point for the German Way of War as Citino sees it--by German Citino notes he means the Prussian way of war, noting there are other Germans, such as the Austrians or the Saxons, and sometimes different Germans fight each other. Citino suggests that the German way of war can be thought of as aiming for 'short and lively wars,' in the words of the Great Elector--due to the lack of great resources to prosecute long, attritional wars. The Prussians wanted to knock their enemies out of the war quickly, and developed aggressive, maneuver-based, annihilating approaches. The Great Elector brought speed to his warfare and rewarded independence in his underlings, and aggression, Frederick the Great, a later Prussian ruler, was aggressive and made use of interior lines, then Blucher came, and was aggressive. Moltke the Elder focused on rapid deployment, mission-type tactics, giving an objective and allowing great independence, and making use of multiple independent armies encircling enemies, while operating on exterior lines, and Citino goes into WWI and WWII, where the German way of war sort of dies--but not without influencing war in general.
The Power of Intuition by Gary Klein
I love Gary Klein's approach to studying decison making. His idea is basically that we should trust our intuition to a great extent, and know when it doesn't work, which is occassionally, but generally it's reliable. He suggests that we tend to come up with one idea about how things are, and then look to see if this ideas fits with the world, and if it doesn't we look for a new idea about how things are, tending to eschew, if we know of them, more formal decision-making approaches. He makes some suggestions for honing your intuition and avoiding its pitfalls. Very good stuff.
Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard
This is pretty good--it's about a Detroit cop named Delsa who is investigating a crime, a hit of a criminal lawyer, a wealthy, successful one, while meeting a witness to the crime, who he falls in love with. So far not as good as Get Shorty, but I enjoy it.
I've been jumping around in this book. A big theme seems to be the autistic cognitive style, which I suppose is an autistic person's cognitive style, though you can have it without necessarily being autistic. I was interested to read in this book that someone had asked Tyler Cowen if he was autistic. I remember Cowen writing about autism in some blog post a long time ago, and then hearing him talk with his odd monotone voice, and wondered if he was autistic. Apparently he isn't, but has certain autistic tendencies, like great information retention on certain subjects--for him apparently it's culture, and maybe something else I am forgetting.
There's a bit about narrative psychology and stories that I delved into but I'm drawing a blank on it at the moment.
I got the introductory chapter to his forthcoming book on the philosophical underpinnings of freedom--I haven't read it yet. He offered it to people who bought it on or before its first day. I think a big part of the treat was getting an email from Tyler Cowen!
The German Way of War by Robert Citino
I've had my nose in this one for maybe a month, jumping around as I do. I've learned a bit about the Great Elector, Frederich Wilhelm of Brandenburg. He seems to be the starting point for the German Way of War as Citino sees it--by German Citino notes he means the Prussian way of war, noting there are other Germans, such as the Austrians or the Saxons, and sometimes different Germans fight each other. Citino suggests that the German way of war can be thought of as aiming for 'short and lively wars,' in the words of the Great Elector--due to the lack of great resources to prosecute long, attritional wars. The Prussians wanted to knock their enemies out of the war quickly, and developed aggressive, maneuver-based, annihilating approaches. The Great Elector brought speed to his warfare and rewarded independence in his underlings, and aggression, Frederick the Great, a later Prussian ruler, was aggressive and made use of interior lines, then Blucher came, and was aggressive. Moltke the Elder focused on rapid deployment, mission-type tactics, giving an objective and allowing great independence, and making use of multiple independent armies encircling enemies, while operating on exterior lines, and Citino goes into WWI and WWII, where the German way of war sort of dies--but not without influencing war in general.
The Power of Intuition by Gary Klein
I love Gary Klein's approach to studying decison making. His idea is basically that we should trust our intuition to a great extent, and know when it doesn't work, which is occassionally, but generally it's reliable. He suggests that we tend to come up with one idea about how things are, and then look to see if this ideas fits with the world, and if it doesn't we look for a new idea about how things are, tending to eschew, if we know of them, more formal decision-making approaches. He makes some suggestions for honing your intuition and avoiding its pitfalls. Very good stuff.
Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard
This is pretty good--it's about a Detroit cop named Delsa who is investigating a crime, a hit of a criminal lawyer, a wealthy, successful one, while meeting a witness to the crime, who he falls in love with. So far not as good as Get Shorty, but I enjoy it.
Robin Hanson on academia
Robin Hanson on academia. The gist is students want to associate with high status teachers rather than learn what they have to say. I comment there:
I could see in a tribal environment students wanting to have status by associating with a great teacher, but also genuinely wanting to learn the lessons of the great teacher, since he’s not unlikely to be some impressive alpha male who maybe can hunt/fight/seduce well. And in the tribal environment, people don’t have books and can’t study their admired person from afar–and perhaps we bring this sensibility with us to the classroom. The status argument makes sense, but I don’t see why it doesn’t also have to work along side the idealistic argument. Students want status associated with being around a high status teacher, but also want to learn his tricks. Also students don’t necessarily know what teachings the teacher would aim towards them, and so they might not want to dive into the literature, rather getting direct instruction.
Also, Robin, how do you square your cynical view with the Big Five Personality suggestion that roughly half of people are more or less agreeable, and so seem to be more likely to genuinely be idealistic in their aims?
Labels:
big five personality,
education,
ev psyche,
status
"Create Your Own Economy", Amusia, Ulysses S Grant
I read in "Create Your Own Economist" by Tyler Cowen that Freud, Che Guevara and Milton Friedman suffered from amusia. Ulysses S Grant apparently did too, I've read elsewhere. Thinking about commonalities among these amusia-sufferers, Grant, Freud and Friedman all seemed like guys confident in their own original view of things, such that they could persevere in the face of difficulty--I don't know much about Guevara though I could imagine he was similar.
I could see possibly Freud, Friedman and Grant's cognitive styles leaning towards simplifying logic used to construct models that are confidently held, that explain seemingly chaotic experiences, a form of thinking perhaps helped by being somewhat insensitive to the emotional aspects of a line of thought, which might distract or cause one to get mired in the complexity of a situation.
Music seems to affect emotions directly, I've heard it argued, and perhaps an insensitivity or dulled reaction to emotional stimuli might help one when thinking about economics, war or psychology (this last one is perhaps counter-intuitive, but I think emotionality might get in the way of the unsentimental view of human nature Freud had, and that evolutionary psychologists seem to have).
Of course, there are great psychologists, warriors and economists who like music, I'm sure, just to avoid overstating anything.
I could see possibly Freud, Friedman and Grant's cognitive styles leaning towards simplifying logic used to construct models that are confidently held, that explain seemingly chaotic experiences, a form of thinking perhaps helped by being somewhat insensitive to the emotional aspects of a line of thought, which might distract or cause one to get mired in the complexity of a situation.
Music seems to affect emotions directly, I've heard it argued, and perhaps an insensitivity or dulled reaction to emotional stimuli might help one when thinking about economics, war or psychology (this last one is perhaps counter-intuitive, but I think emotionality might get in the way of the unsentimental view of human nature Freud had, and that evolutionary psychologists seem to have).
Of course, there are great psychologists, warriors and economists who like music, I'm sure, just to avoid overstating anything.
Labels:
evolutionary psychology,
psychology
Ulysses S. Grant, Big Five Personality, Low Conscientiousness, People Low on Conscientiousness as a Reserve in case of Disaster
"Personality, Character, and Leadership in the White House" By Steven J. Rubenzer, Thomas R. Faschingbauer:
"Typically passive and even sluggish as a man and a president, he [Ulysses S Grant] came alive in battle where he behaved with courage and decisiveness." (p. 166)
This lines up with a theory I've had that people low in conscientiousness might act as a reserve--they laze about until something concrete and bad is happening imminently (or concrete and good), then they jump into action. The people high in conscientiousness are always buzzing about working, and they don't have much more to give when unexpected things happen, but the low conscientiousness people have energy to spare. They're also probably more used to dealing with chaos and stress because they don't plan as much for the future, and so are always running into disasters and anarchy.
"Typically passive and even sluggish as a man and a president, he [Ulysses S Grant] came alive in battle where he behaved with courage and decisiveness." (p. 166)
This lines up with a theory I've had that people low in conscientiousness might act as a reserve--they laze about until something concrete and bad is happening imminently (or concrete and good), then they jump into action. The people high in conscientiousness are always buzzing about working, and they don't have much more to give when unexpected things happen, but the low conscientiousness people have energy to spare. They're also probably more used to dealing with chaos and stress because they don't plan as much for the future, and so are always running into disasters and anarchy.
George W. Bush's Big Five Personality
I wrote before:
According to this book, Bush has:
O - low openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
I think they're probably right about neuroticism, since Bush has a reputation for anger, whereas I was thinking mainly he seems like a guy who doesn't worry about much. I kind of think they're wrong about conscientiousness though--sure he had a drinking problem, but he also graduated from Yale, got an MBA at Harvard, ran very disciplined campaigns, is known for keeping on message, and being very scheduled nowadays.
George W. Bush:
O - low openness
C - medium conscientiousness (with W. as well as Obama, how do we square their wild youths with their later apparent discipine?)
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
According to this book, Bush has:
O - low openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
I think they're probably right about neuroticism, since Bush has a reputation for anger, whereas I was thinking mainly he seems like a guy who doesn't worry about much. I kind of think they're wrong about conscientiousness though--sure he had a drinking problem, but he also graduated from Yale, got an MBA at Harvard, ran very disciplined campaigns, is known for keeping on message, and being very scheduled nowadays.
Happiness Pie*
Patri Friedman blogs John Tierney's poll of what makes his readers happy in life. I'm a big consumer of the cheap happinesses and an avoider of the expensive ones, it seems, except college, which largely seems like cheap happinesses sold in a package along with credentialing, for way too much! I comment there (I've edited the text here to clarify, root out a contradiciton):
*the song title of a song by a character in the movie 'Brain Candy'
I liked college but it was too expensive--I could have had pretty much all of what I had in college if I just hung out with people my own age, read books, talked about interesting subjects, drank beer and went to parties, et c on my own dime and of my own initiative. Is the cost of college worth it in that you don't have to spend your own time organizing these events? I kind of doubt it--but there is the credentialing thing too, but even that seems like a it could be done cheaper.
It's a complete puzzle to me that it's unclear kids make people happier--it makes sense and yet people very clearly seem to want to have kids, even when they have a sense of how crappy it can be [I'm a model of clarity here...].
Part of me thinks the desire to have kids might just be a conscientiousness (in the big five personality sense) thing--most people just feel like it's the thing they should do, their duty, and happiness doesn't really fit into the equation--it's like deontological ethicists versus consequentialists--they just think there are things one does--and maybe they tend to be high in conscientiousness.
Another is the sunk cost issue--you have kids, don't want to admit it sucks and that you'd have been happier having skipped it maybe because what's the point of that--that would just make things worse by making your kid hate you and by causing you to be ostracized by the other parents who are threatened by this message, and by making you look low in conscientiousness, agreeableness, and iq maybe,and so you say its great and promote it, or at least keep quiet about it.
But to me it seems like parents do really enjoy having kids, so I think maybe they get happiness, or something like it, but aren't inclined to call it happiness. Another angle is parents unconsciously are making their kids feel they owe them something [by saying their not happy when they really are] so they have someone to take care of them, give them fun grandchildren, and visit them/take care of them in old age, which is positive--[or]...there might be, as I think Bryan Caplan suggests, an inter-temporal substitution. Crappier thirties for happier sixties or something like that.
*the song title of a song by a character in the movie 'Brain Candy'
Labels:
big five personality,
happiness,
kids,
psychology
If you're the best at something, why get better?
Robin Hanson writes about how people tend not to want to enhance their strengths*. I comment there:
I guess there might be reason to get better at something that you're the best at, though, if you want to have a big lead over potential competitors. At some point though I would think that developing your lead might be less valuable than diversifying in your strengths.
*perhaps I should stick to his language of cores--features people identify with themselves, which might not be a strength--my blue eyes are a feature but not a strength--that said the items listed for core features seem like strengths, and I assume people tend to see them as such who were surveyed
I wonder if this has anything to do with being a part of a community, and working with others–if we keep changing, we might be hard to work with. The more I identify with a certain trait, probably the more likely other people identify that trait with me, so if I become more able in that trait, it might create confusion when others are trying to coordinate with me.
“You’re self confident, so we thought you could deal well with this, but we know you’re not so self confident to deal with this other problem, so we came to help with that one–but you seem to have dealt with it on your own, unexpectedly, because you developed more self confidence, and now we’ve wasted our time.” You’d think that people would learn and adjust though, so I’m not so sure this explanation works. There does vaguely seem like some value in remaining who you are to help in coordinating with friends.
Another angle is competition–if you’re the best at something in your group, what incentive do you have to get better–I think of dominant companies in an industry versus upstarts and less dominant companies in that industry–you’d be more concerned with suppressing competition in your ecological niche, maybe, or perhaps expanding into other niches where you aren’t dominant as an insurance policy against rough times in your own niche, maybe.
I guess there might be reason to get better at something that you're the best at, though, if you want to have a big lead over potential competitors. At some point though I would think that developing your lead might be less valuable than diversifying in your strengths.
*perhaps I should stick to his language of cores--features people identify with themselves, which might not be a strength--my blue eyes are a feature but not a strength--that said the items listed for core features seem like strengths, and I assume people tend to see them as such who were surveyed
Labels:
bias,
caveman rationality,
overcoming bias,
rationality
Tasty Treats
Mindhacks on dreaming:
Roissy:
Seth Roberts:
WSJ(via mindhacks.com):
From wikipedia.com, which I infer explains the band name, "The Arctic Monkeys":
From quoteworld.org, via Matthew Cornell:
From omnivoracious.com:
Ben Casnocha:
Among their findings, escape and pursuit themes were the most frequent type of threat found in their sample (25.9 percent), followed by accidents and misfortunes (19.7 percent), aggression and violence (19.0 percent), physical difficulties (17.0 percent), emotional difficulties (7.5 percent), and disasters (3.4 percent).
Roissy:
In The Company Of Men was brutally Roissy. I’ve noticed that women who have seen Neil LaBute’s masterpiece universally hated it, when in reality they would be all over the type of men portrayed by Aaron Eckhart’s smooth talking, manipulative alpha character.
Seth Roberts:
Does that make J. K. Rowling (6,600,000 Google hits) the most powerful person in the world? Unlike President Obama, she can say whatever she wants. And she speaks to the most impressionable people in the world.
WSJ(via mindhacks.com):
These sudden insights, they found, are the culmination of an intense and complex series of brain states that require more neural resources than methodical reasoning. People who solve problems through insight generate different patterns of brain waves than those who solve problems analytically. "Your brain is really working quite hard before this moment of insight," says psychologist Mark Wheeler at the University of Pittsburgh. "There is a lot going on behind the scenes."
From wikipedia.com, which I infer explains the band name, "The Arctic Monkeys":
Northern Monkey
(UK) (See also Southern Fairy) Used as a pejorative in the South of England, relating to a percieved stupidity and lack of sophistication of those in the North of the country.[126] In some cases this has been adopted in the North of England, with a pub in Leeds even taking the name 'The Northern Monkey'
From quoteworld.org, via Matthew Cornell:
"The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes [picture is of Jr. though I imagine he and his dad get mixed up a lot with respect to attribution]
From omnivoracious.com:
The battle that occurs between the irrational and rational as the Dream Kingdom disintegrates takes on an updated Grand Guignol quality that oddly enough has the texture of modern-day war. It’s almost as if the novel channels Apocalypse Now by way of Hieronymus Bosch.
Ben Casnocha:
Bottom Line: If you're thinking the same thought twice, in the same way, for the same reason, you're wasting time and energy. Store your thoughts / tasks as you soon as you think them.
Big Five Personality Factor Speculations about Famous Writers with Brief Rationale
Elmore Leonard
O - high openness - fiction writer, literary references in work, seemingly curious
C - low conscientiousness - recovering alcoholic
E - low extraversion - bit of a guess here--he's a novelist, so lonely profession
A - low agreeableness - in interviews willing to correct, cool demeanor
N - average neuroticism - even quality in interviews, fairly rosy fictional universe
Samuel Johnson
O - high openness - writer of dictionary, books on poetry, novelist, well-read
C - low conscientiousness - procrastinator, messy, overindulgent with food, drink, though his hard work on the dictionary makes me wonder--I suspect it was a passion rather than dutifulness fueling the work
E - average extraversion - lonely writing profession but sociable, active
A - low agreeableness - argumentative
N - high neuroticism - depressed, anxious, angry
JRR Tolkien
O - average openness - fantasist but traditional Catholic, Luddite
C - average conscientiousness - philology seems detail work but much work unfinished
E - average extraversion - not unsociable but fiction writer
A - low agreeableness - break with CS Lewis over religion, argued his POV
N - average neuroticism - seems fairly even-tempered despite difficult life
Patricia Highsmith
O - high openness - interested in art, novelist, practiced alternative lifestyle
C - low conscientiousness - alcoholic
E - low extraversion - recluse
A - low agreeableness - stormy relationships I think
N - high neuroticism - reputedly misanthrope, dark preoccupations in novels
O - high openness - fiction writer, literary references in work, seemingly curious
C - low conscientiousness - recovering alcoholic
E - low extraversion - bit of a guess here--he's a novelist, so lonely profession
A - low agreeableness - in interviews willing to correct, cool demeanor
N - average neuroticism - even quality in interviews, fairly rosy fictional universe
Samuel Johnson
O - high openness - writer of dictionary, books on poetry, novelist, well-read
C - low conscientiousness - procrastinator, messy, overindulgent with food, drink, though his hard work on the dictionary makes me wonder--I suspect it was a passion rather than dutifulness fueling the work
E - average extraversion - lonely writing profession but sociable, active
A - low agreeableness - argumentative
N - high neuroticism - depressed, anxious, angry
JRR Tolkien
O - average openness - fantasist but traditional Catholic, Luddite
C - average conscientiousness - philology seems detail work but much work unfinished
E - average extraversion - not unsociable but fiction writer
A - low agreeableness - break with CS Lewis over religion, argued his POV
N - average neuroticism - seems fairly even-tempered despite difficult life
Patricia Highsmith
O - high openness - interested in art, novelist, practiced alternative lifestyle
C - low conscientiousness - alcoholic
E - low extraversion - recluse
A - low agreeableness - stormy relationships I think
N - high neuroticism - reputedly misanthrope, dark preoccupations in novels
Big lies
Robin Hanson asks openmindedly what might be worthwhile big lies to be preserved?
One question that might help is to ask yourself what truths have you learned that you would have been better off not knowing?
Some hypothetical possible answers: your parents didn't plan to have you, they suspect they would have had a happier lives if they didn't have you, you're probably fairly average, you're not the best lover your wife has had in bed, your husband thinks you look fat in those pants, there's no Santa.
Another angle of approach might be to look at the truths or seeming truths that many people are unwilling to even entertain, or that they fight hard against to prevent from breaking through and convincing them. If people have a hard time accepting something, it might suggest there is some evolved purpose for our seemingly unrealistic belief, and by overriding this mechanism, we do ourselves damage we might not have been able to foresee.
Here are some possible truths people seem to resist, perhaps for good reason: people seem to resist determinism, arguments about philosophical zombies or evil geniuses or brain-in-a-vat scenarios, Pyrrhonian skepticism, non-naturalistic decision-making approaches, many ideas from economics, that their senses or intuitions could mislead them, et c.
Another angle is to contemplate what seemingly empirically incorrect or seemingly logically contradictory ideas correlate with happy living, wealth, power, prolificacy, long life, and whatever other good stuff comes to mind.
I've heard religious people tend to be happier than non-believers, so if you believe the religious are not in touch with the truth as closely as non-believers, you might say their false beliefs are beneficial.
I've heard extremists are more successful in politics than non-extremists--extremism itself doesn't necessarily mean 'wrong' but it doesn't necessarily mean 'right' either. If status makes for a better life, then extremists whether right or wrong might have better lives.
I believe people low on agreeableness have a harder time in their careers, and are more concerned about the truth than agreeable people, suggesting people inclined towards truth-seeking might not be as wealthy as people who are agreeable and less inclined towards truth-seeking, if I am getting my facts straight (quite possible I'm misremembering on this point). I believe wealth to an extent correlates with happiness, and also status which would be more easily obtained by career advancement more readily open to agreeable people. Health outcomes I believe are also better for higher status people too.
I'm inclined to think a lot of times the truth is probably better than not, but I do suspect that there is a 'let sleeping dogs lie' tendency in people--we see potential problems in knowing something, so we don't invest mental and physical energy in investigating the truth. I don't really believe in self deception, because it seems psychologically unrealistic--who says 'I'm going to lie to myself and then believe it'? Maybe this is a straw man, but self deception conjures this idea for me. As I said, I think what we talk about when we talk about self deception is more like an assessment that investigating for the truth in some cases would not be worthwhile and it's better left unknown.
As a metaphor, imagine your truth seeking mechanisms are like the US's FBI. They could investigate the president, but that could lead to lack of valuable cohesion in the executive branch needed for dealing with external threats, and time spent investigating him is time not spent dealing with organized crime or terrorists that threaten the stability and cohesion of the US. Not to say the president shouldn't be investigated, just it comes at a price, and there might times when an investigation makes sense and times when the same investigation might not.
So maybe you can be reflective and self-critical in times of success and peacefulness, whereas it would perhaps be dangerous to do so when you're dealing with many troubles in the world (Nietzsche said that in times of external peace, a war-like person goes to war on himself). It seems sensible not to analyze your technique in a fight as you're fighting, but rather save that for when you don't need to devote all your resources to the present fight.
One question that might help is to ask yourself what truths have you learned that you would have been better off not knowing?
Some hypothetical possible answers: your parents didn't plan to have you, they suspect they would have had a happier lives if they didn't have you, you're probably fairly average, you're not the best lover your wife has had in bed, your husband thinks you look fat in those pants, there's no Santa.
Another angle of approach might be to look at the truths or seeming truths that many people are unwilling to even entertain, or that they fight hard against to prevent from breaking through and convincing them. If people have a hard time accepting something, it might suggest there is some evolved purpose for our seemingly unrealistic belief, and by overriding this mechanism, we do ourselves damage we might not have been able to foresee.
Here are some possible truths people seem to resist, perhaps for good reason: people seem to resist determinism, arguments about philosophical zombies or evil geniuses or brain-in-a-vat scenarios, Pyrrhonian skepticism, non-naturalistic decision-making approaches, many ideas from economics, that their senses or intuitions could mislead them, et c.
Another angle is to contemplate what seemingly empirically incorrect or seemingly logically contradictory ideas correlate with happy living, wealth, power, prolificacy, long life, and whatever other good stuff comes to mind.
I've heard religious people tend to be happier than non-believers, so if you believe the religious are not in touch with the truth as closely as non-believers, you might say their false beliefs are beneficial.
I've heard extremists are more successful in politics than non-extremists--extremism itself doesn't necessarily mean 'wrong' but it doesn't necessarily mean 'right' either. If status makes for a better life, then extremists whether right or wrong might have better lives.
I believe people low on agreeableness have a harder time in their careers, and are more concerned about the truth than agreeable people, suggesting people inclined towards truth-seeking might not be as wealthy as people who are agreeable and less inclined towards truth-seeking, if I am getting my facts straight (quite possible I'm misremembering on this point). I believe wealth to an extent correlates with happiness, and also status which would be more easily obtained by career advancement more readily open to agreeable people. Health outcomes I believe are also better for higher status people too.
I'm inclined to think a lot of times the truth is probably better than not, but I do suspect that there is a 'let sleeping dogs lie' tendency in people--we see potential problems in knowing something, so we don't invest mental and physical energy in investigating the truth. I don't really believe in self deception, because it seems psychologically unrealistic--who says 'I'm going to lie to myself and then believe it'? Maybe this is a straw man, but self deception conjures this idea for me. As I said, I think what we talk about when we talk about self deception is more like an assessment that investigating for the truth in some cases would not be worthwhile and it's better left unknown.
As a metaphor, imagine your truth seeking mechanisms are like the US's FBI. They could investigate the president, but that could lead to lack of valuable cohesion in the executive branch needed for dealing with external threats, and time spent investigating him is time not spent dealing with organized crime or terrorists that threaten the stability and cohesion of the US. Not to say the president shouldn't be investigated, just it comes at a price, and there might times when an investigation makes sense and times when the same investigation might not.
So maybe you can be reflective and self-critical in times of success and peacefulness, whereas it would perhaps be dangerous to do so when you're dealing with many troubles in the world (Nietzsche said that in times of external peace, a war-like person goes to war on himself). It seems sensible not to analyze your technique in a fight as you're fighting, but rather save that for when you don't need to devote all your resources to the present fight.
Labels:
lying,
overcoming bias,
self deception
Five factor personality and Famous Generals
Average trait preferences for famous generals I speculated about (see below for details on the generals):
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
You might say that based on this it seems the important personality traits of generals seem to be high openness, high extraversion and low agreeableness--extraversion seems the most important, with disagreeableness a near second, and openness more mildly important.
Generals used in following tables:
1. Grant
2. Sherman
3. Bedford Forrest
4. Patton
5. Rommel
6. Guderian
7. Mannstein
8. Napoleon
9. Caesar
10. Sulla
O = openness on the big five personality scale
C = conscientiousness
E = extraversion
A = agreeableness
N = neuroticism
A score of 1 = low, 2 = average and 3 = high on the five factor personality traits.
#### 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Genr G S B P R G M N C S Avg
Open 2 3 2 3 3 3 2 3 3 2 2.6
Conc 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 2 1 2.3
Extr 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
Agre 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1.1
Neur 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 2 1 1 2.2
Or put differently:
big5 O C E A N
gran 2 1 3 1 3
sher 3 3 3 1 3
bedf 2 3 3 1 3
patt 3 3 3 1 3
romm 3 3 3 1 3
gude 3 3 3 1 2
mann 2 3 3 1 1
napo 3 1 3 1 2
caes 3 2 3 2 1
sull 2 1 3 1 1
big5 ope con e agr neu
avrg 2.6 2.3 3 1.1 2.2
If the following correlations are roughly right
Openness = Intuition in Jungian Personality Type
Conscientiousness = Judging in JPT
Extraversion = Extraversion in JPT
Agreeableness = Feeling in JPT
Neuroticism = N/A
then you might say the average general is an Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinker, and either a Perceiver/Prober or a Judger, with a bias towards Judging (2.3 on conscientiousness on average), so ENTJ and ENTP, or you might include ENTX to use Kiersey's nomenclature.
Sherman, Patton and Rommel by my guess have roughly the same big five personality tendencies of high openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism, with low agreeableness.
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
You might say that based on this it seems the important personality traits of generals seem to be high openness, high extraversion and low agreeableness--extraversion seems the most important, with disagreeableness a near second, and openness more mildly important.
Generals used in following tables:
1. Grant
2. Sherman
3. Bedford Forrest
4. Patton
5. Rommel
6. Guderian
7. Mannstein
8. Napoleon
9. Caesar
10. Sulla
O = openness on the big five personality scale
C = conscientiousness
E = extraversion
A = agreeableness
N = neuroticism
A score of 1 = low, 2 = average and 3 = high on the five factor personality traits.
#### 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Genr G S B P R G M N C S Avg
Open 2 3 2 3 3 3 2 3 3 2 2.6
Conc 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 2 1 2.3
Extr 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
Agre 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1.1
Neur 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 2 1 1 2.2
Or put differently:
big5 O C E A N
gran 2 1 3 1 3
sher 3 3 3 1 3
bedf 2 3 3 1 3
patt 3 3 3 1 3
romm 3 3 3 1 3
gude 3 3 3 1 2
mann 2 3 3 1 1
napo 3 1 3 1 2
caes 3 2 3 2 1
sull 2 1 3 1 1
big5 ope con e agr neu
avrg 2.6 2.3 3 1.1 2.2
If the following correlations are roughly right
Openness = Intuition in Jungian Personality Type
Conscientiousness = Judging in JPT
Extraversion = Extraversion in JPT
Agreeableness = Feeling in JPT
Neuroticism = N/A
then you might say the average general is an Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinker, and either a Perceiver/Prober or a Judger, with a bias towards Judging (2.3 on conscientiousness on average), so ENTJ and ENTP, or you might include ENTX to use Kiersey's nomenclature.
Sherman, Patton and Rommel by my guess have roughly the same big five personality tendencies of high openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism, with low agreeableness.
How many militants are produced by killing civilians?
Say every person on average has 10 people who love him very much, and if he was killed he would be sorely missed and there would be strong revenge motives in individuals.
If an army strike kills 100 people, then 100 people x 10 loved ones per person = 1,000 loved ones angered.
Half of these loved ones are women and less more or less unlikely to be militants, let's assume. So 1,000 loves ones divided by 2 = 500 potential militants. Say a terrorist tends to be in the 20-39 age range. Say loved ones are fairly evenly distributed among the age brackets (as many young as old, et c.--a bit dubious given old die off at different times and are likely to be somewhat fewer, but for the sake of rough guessing let's go with it). So people in their 20s and 30s would be as numerous as people in their 0's, 10's, et c.
500 potential militants:
1-9 = 71 (rounded)
10-19 = 71
20-29 = 71
30-39 = 71
40-49 = 71
50-59 = 71
60-69 = 71
so given 1-19 are too young and 40-69 are too old, there would be 142 potential militants produced from bombing and killing 100 people.
Let's imagine that some of the big five personality traits tend to dispose or disincline people from becoming militants in this group.
Openness
It doesn't seem like openness would be that important--I suppose people with very low openness scores would be too stuck in routine to make a big change in their lives and become militants--let's say the bottom 20 percent on the openness scale.
Conscientiousness
I would think that low conscientiousness would prevent someone from being a reliable terrorist. So the bottom 20 percent on the conscientiousness scale I would guess is unlikely to be a terrorist.
Extraversion
I would think that low extraversion would prevent someone from becoming a terrorist, because he wouldn't be fairly inactive temperamentally, and wouldn't develop many social contacts that would put him in with a terrorist group, I would guess. So I'll cut out the bottom 20 percent on the extraversion scale.
Agreeableness
People low on agreeableness might not work out too well as a terrorist because they wouldn't want to work with a group, and terrorism seems to be usually an activity done by groups. So I'll cut out the bottom 20 percent on the agreeableness scale.
Neuroticism
I think someone low on neuroticism would probably be too calm to be able to keep up the motivational fire to be a terrorist, so cut out the least neurotic 20 percent of the bell curve too.
So of the 142 potential militants created by killing 100 people in an air strike, how many remain?
142 x .8 top openness scorers x .8 top conscientiousness scorers x .8 top extraversion scorers x .8 top agreeableness scorers x .8 top neuroticism scorers = 47 people.
According to wikipedia:
Take a rough average of these figures, 500,000 civilian casualties during the Iraq War. If the US and its allies caused half of these, 250,000, each death having roughly 10 loved ones, or 2,500,000, .047 of whom were moved to become militants, then you'd have ~117,000 militants.
Or about 130,000 in insurgent groups, which is actually close to my 117,000 figure based on 250,000 Iraqi civilian deaths caused by the coalition x 10 loved ones per death x .047 loved ones becoming militant. Not all these insurgents I would imagine have loved ones who died at the hands of the US, I would think. How many would have? I don't really know. If 1 person who dies has 10 people who loved him or her very much, then you would expect of the estimated 250,000 that died against the US and its allies, that 2.5 million people in Iraq who loved someone killed in coalition attacks. Iraq according to wikipedia has about 31 million people living in it. 2.5 million loved ones of coalition killed individuals, out of 31 million Iraqis = 8 percent, about. So in general, by my rough speculative calculation, if you're an Iraqi, you might expect about a 8 percent chance of being a loved one of someone killed by the coalition.
How many militants would I expect to have been created in the war in Afghanistan.
According to Wikipedia, the US and NATO caused this many civilian deaths:
So say about 18,000 deaths civilian deaths caused by the US and NATO. Assume those 18,000 people had 10 loved ones, so 18,000 US/NATO-caused civilian deaths times 10 loved one per loved one = 180,000 loved ones of US/NATO-caused civilian deaths. If .047 become militants, then you would expect the number of militants created by the US/NATO to be about 8,000.
I actually can't tell by scanning the Wikipedia page on the Afghanistan War how the the anti-US/NATO forces have been affected. I suppose I would want an idea of the size of the forces the US fought prior to the war, how many casualties they suffered, and how big their present size is.
According to Wikipedia, the anti-US/NATO groups are:
So say about 50,000 total forces against the US/NATO. The same article says that of these groups, "22,506–22,931" were killed. So about 23,000, meaning you would have expected the forces against the US to have diminished to about 27,000 without new soldiers to come to help. If usually the people who joined the fight against the US/NATO were people who were loved ones of civilians killed (18,000 dead x 10 loves ones per dead x .047 likely to become militant of that group = ~8,000) by the US/NATO, you might expect the 27,000 remaining forces not killed by fighting the US/NATO to have been refreshed by newly minted fighters numbering about 8,000. So you might expect the current fighting forces against the US/NATO to be around 27,000 remaining fighters + 8,000 freshly minted fighters = 35,000.
It seems the US is only fighting the Taliban now, in Afghanistan, if I understand right, and I may be mistaken. According to Wikipedia, there are at present "7,000 to 11,000 (2008 est.)" So my formula that estimates the insurgent fighting force in Afghanistan should be about 35,000 is off by about 26,000. There are about 11,500 soldiers fighting against Pakistan and the US in the Waziristan War , according to its Wikipedia page. If I count them, I'd be off by 14,500. I'm naturally inclined to look for forces with antipathy to the US/NATO/Afghan government that I might have missed to make up for the shortfall, and I suppose that is fine, but at the same time, you can see where confirmation bias comes in, me searching for evidence to confirm my theory. Got to be aware of that.
Anyway, interesting exploration--all this is extremely speculative and obviously has problems and is filled with vulnerable assumptions--but lots of facts have been learned and some interesting speculations have been made. One thing that strikes me is how it doesn't seem obvious that lots of militants are generated by military action, just looking at the figures. If the US killed 250,000 civilians in Iraq, I speculated maybe 117,000 insurgents were produced, which was close to the number of 70,000 Sunni insurgents and 60,000 in the Mahdi Army Wikipedia suggests. Those numbers could be misleading though--are those numbers counting those that have been killed, or is that the present strength at the time those figures were gathered--I didn't get into the weeds that much. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:
But yeah, I don't think any of this bit of blogging is at all conclusive, just an interesting bit of guesswork, and brings up more questions than answers. Why does the formula seem to do okay in predicting the insurgent numbers for Iraq but not in Afghanistan, for example? Maybe I just got lucky with Iraq? What might be off about my estimations or my understanding of the facts--what tweaking or refining might help to get a better picture? Your corrections, critiques, speculations, et c. are welcome.
If an army strike kills 100 people, then 100 people x 10 loved ones per person = 1,000 loved ones angered.
Half of these loved ones are women and less more or less unlikely to be militants, let's assume. So 1,000 loves ones divided by 2 = 500 potential militants. Say a terrorist tends to be in the 20-39 age range. Say loved ones are fairly evenly distributed among the age brackets (as many young as old, et c.--a bit dubious given old die off at different times and are likely to be somewhat fewer, but for the sake of rough guessing let's go with it). So people in their 20s and 30s would be as numerous as people in their 0's, 10's, et c.
500 potential militants:
1-9 = 71 (rounded)
10-19 = 71
20-29 = 71
30-39 = 71
40-49 = 71
50-59 = 71
60-69 = 71
so given 1-19 are too young and 40-69 are too old, there would be 142 potential militants produced from bombing and killing 100 people.
Let's imagine that some of the big five personality traits tend to dispose or disincline people from becoming militants in this group.
Openness
It doesn't seem like openness would be that important--I suppose people with very low openness scores would be too stuck in routine to make a big change in their lives and become militants--let's say the bottom 20 percent on the openness scale.
Conscientiousness
I would think that low conscientiousness would prevent someone from being a reliable terrorist. So the bottom 20 percent on the conscientiousness scale I would guess is unlikely to be a terrorist.
Extraversion
I would think that low extraversion would prevent someone from becoming a terrorist, because he wouldn't be fairly inactive temperamentally, and wouldn't develop many social contacts that would put him in with a terrorist group, I would guess. So I'll cut out the bottom 20 percent on the extraversion scale.
Agreeableness
People low on agreeableness might not work out too well as a terrorist because they wouldn't want to work with a group, and terrorism seems to be usually an activity done by groups. So I'll cut out the bottom 20 percent on the agreeableness scale.
Neuroticism
I think someone low on neuroticism would probably be too calm to be able to keep up the motivational fire to be a terrorist, so cut out the least neurotic 20 percent of the bell curve too.
So of the 142 potential militants created by killing 100 people in an air strike, how many remain?
142 x .8 top openness scorers x .8 top conscientiousness scorers x .8 top extraversion scorers x .8 top agreeableness scorers x .8 top neuroticism scorers = 47 people.
According to wikipedia:
The table below summarizes some of the Iraqi casualty figures.
Source Iraqi deaths March 2003 to...
Iraq Family Health Survey 151,000 violent deaths. June 2006
Lancet survey 601,027 violent deaths out of 654,965 excess deaths. June 2006
Opinion Research Business survey 1,033,000 violent deaths as a result of the conflict. August 2007
Iraq Body Count 91,059 – 99,431 violent civilian deaths as a result of the conflict. February 2009
Take a rough average of these figures, 500,000 civilian casualties during the Iraq War. If the US and its allies caused half of these, 250,000, each death having roughly 10 loved ones, or 2,500,000, .047 of whom were moved to become militants, then you'd have ~117,000 militants.
According to wikipedia:
Sunni Insurgents
~70,000 (as of September, 2007)[12]
Mahdi Army
~60,000[13]
Or about 130,000 in insurgent groups, which is actually close to my 117,000 figure based on 250,000 Iraqi civilian deaths caused by the coalition x 10 loved ones per death x .047 loved ones becoming militant. Not all these insurgents I would imagine have loved ones who died at the hands of the US, I would think. How many would have? I don't really know. If 1 person who dies has 10 people who loved him or her very much, then you would expect of the estimated 250,000 that died against the US and its allies, that 2.5 million people in Iraq who loved someone killed in coalition attacks. Iraq according to wikipedia has about 31 million people living in it. 2.5 million loved ones of coalition killed individuals, out of 31 million Iraqis = 8 percent, about. So in general, by my rough speculative calculation, if you're an Iraqi, you might expect about a 8 percent chance of being a loved one of someone killed by the coalition.
How many militants would I expect to have been created in the war in Afghanistan.
According to Wikipedia, the US and NATO caused this many civilian deaths:
* direct deaths: at least 4,972 - 7,764
* indirect deaths in initial invasion: 3,200 - 20,000
* direct & indirect deaths: 8,172 - 27,764
So say about 18,000 deaths civilian deaths caused by the US and NATO. Assume those 18,000 people had 10 loved ones, so 18,000 US/NATO-caused civilian deaths times 10 loved one per loved one = 180,000 loved ones of US/NATO-caused civilian deaths. If .047 become militants, then you would expect the number of militants created by the US/NATO to be about 8,000.
I actually can't tell by scanning the Wikipedia page on the Afghanistan War how the the anti-US/NATO forces have been affected. I suppose I would want an idea of the size of the forces the US fought prior to the war, how many casualties they suffered, and how big their present size is.
According to Wikipedia, the anti-US/NATO groups are:
Flag of Afghanistan Taliban: 7,000-10,000[7]
al-Qaeda: 1,200-2,500
Hezbi Islami: 1,000[8]
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan: 5,000-10,000[9]
Flag of Afghanistan Haqqani militia: 1,000[8]
Flag of Afghanistan Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan: 30,000[10]
So say about 50,000 total forces against the US/NATO. The same article says that of these groups, "22,506–22,931" were killed. So about 23,000, meaning you would have expected the forces against the US to have diminished to about 27,000 without new soldiers to come to help. If usually the people who joined the fight against the US/NATO were people who were loved ones of civilians killed (18,000 dead x 10 loves ones per dead x .047 likely to become militant of that group = ~8,000) by the US/NATO, you might expect the 27,000 remaining forces not killed by fighting the US/NATO to have been refreshed by newly minted fighters numbering about 8,000. So you might expect the current fighting forces against the US/NATO to be around 27,000 remaining fighters + 8,000 freshly minted fighters = 35,000.
It seems the US is only fighting the Taliban now, in Afghanistan, if I understand right, and I may be mistaken. According to Wikipedia, there are at present "7,000 to 11,000 (2008 est.)" So my formula that estimates the insurgent fighting force in Afghanistan should be about 35,000 is off by about 26,000. There are about 11,500 soldiers fighting against Pakistan and the US in the Waziristan War , according to its Wikipedia page. If I count them, I'd be off by 14,500. I'm naturally inclined to look for forces with antipathy to the US/NATO/Afghan government that I might have missed to make up for the shortfall, and I suppose that is fine, but at the same time, you can see where confirmation bias comes in, me searching for evidence to confirm my theory. Got to be aware of that.
Anyway, interesting exploration--all this is extremely speculative and obviously has problems and is filled with vulnerable assumptions--but lots of facts have been learned and some interesting speculations have been made. One thing that strikes me is how it doesn't seem obvious that lots of militants are generated by military action, just looking at the figures. If the US killed 250,000 civilians in Iraq, I speculated maybe 117,000 insurgents were produced, which was close to the number of 70,000 Sunni insurgents and 60,000 in the Mahdi Army Wikipedia suggests. Those numbers could be misleading though--are those numbers counting those that have been killed, or is that the present strength at the time those figures were gathered--I didn't get into the weeds that much. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:
Insurgents dead (post-Saddam): 18,583-24,081 per these reports.
19,429 per U.S. military (September 22, 2007)[28]
Detainees: 12,794 (U.S.-held)[29]
24,200 (Iraqi-held)[30][31]
But yeah, I don't think any of this bit of blogging is at all conclusive, just an interesting bit of guesswork, and brings up more questions than answers. Why does the formula seem to do okay in predicting the insurgent numbers for Iraq but not in Afghanistan, for example? Maybe I just got lucky with Iraq? What might be off about my estimations or my understanding of the facts--what tweaking or refining might help to get a better picture? Your corrections, critiques, speculations, et c. are welcome.
Labels:
estimates,
militants,
speculation,
strategy,
war
Big Five Traits Tendencies of Philosophers--Speculative
O = openness, C = conscientiousness, E = extraversion, A = agreeableness, N= neuroticism
....nietzsche socrates james russell sartre santayana hume kant avg
O......3.........3........3......3........3.......3..........3......3....3
C......1.........2........2......1........3.......2..........3......3....2.1
E......1.........2........2......2........1.......2..........1......1....1.5
A......1.........1........2......1........1.......1..........1......1....1.1
N......3.........1........3......3........2.......2..........2......2....2.2
So from this non-random sample, based on speculations of big five traits of these philosophers, you get this rough picture:
Average for these philosophers:
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - average extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
So the most salient traits based on this very rough analysis is that high openness and low agreeableness seem to go with being a philosopher.
....nietzsche socrates james russell sartre santayana hume kant avg
O......3.........3........3......3........3.......3..........3......3....3
C......1.........2........2......1........3.......2..........3......3....2.1
E......1.........2........2......2........1.......2..........1......1....1.5
A......1.........1........2......1........1.......1..........1......1....1.1
N......3.........1........3......3........2.......2..........2......2....2.2
So from this non-random sample, based on speculations of big five traits of these philosophers, you get this rough picture:
Average for these philosophers:
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - average extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
So the most salient traits based on this very rough analysis is that high openness and low agreeableness seem to go with being a philosopher.
Five Factor Type Speculation - Russell Brand
Russell Brand
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (like I think possibly Lord Byron, Roissy, John McCain, maybe Tucker Max--this seems like a Lady's Man combo--'mad, bad and dangerous to know').
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (like I think possibly Lord Byron, Roissy, John McCain, maybe Tucker Max--this seems like a Lady's Man combo--'mad, bad and dangerous to know').
Type Speculations Part a Billion, with notes on Generalship and Personality, Et c.
LBJ
O - average openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Goering
O - average openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
Charles the Bold
O - low openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Louis XI
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Blucher
O - average openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (I think Ulysses S Grant may have been something like this too--I think it might be a good combo for generals--average openness makes you open to new ideas but not dismissive of the tried and true, low conscientiousness prevents you from sweating the details and becoming paralyzed, high extraversion makes you aggressive and attack, low agreeableness allows you to think quickly and for yourself and ignore others and avoid groupthink, and high neuroticism makes you vigilant for disaster and gives you a sense of fear of the enemy that might cause you to want to get at him quickly.
But it occurs to me I could be making a just-so story here--take the opposite view--average openness may not really fit with the great captains of history (I don't know really, and this is a line of reasoning that might cause me to look into it a bit later), low conscientiousness could cause a general to be sloppy about important things like organizing and training his army, being secure enough in his movements or attentive of his lines of supply and communications, et c (Moltke the Elder seems a highly conscientious person--Lee too). High extraversion might cause one to attack mindlessly rather than ruminating (I believe Monty was a bit reserved about action), being disagreeable could lead to problems with your staff, as Stonewall Jackson had, or that gent who Patton replaced in North Africa during WWII, whose name escapes me, and being neurotic could make you afraid of your own shadow (McClellan was very cautious--perhaps he was too neurotic?) These are all very speculative ideas.
Moltke the Elder
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Genghis Khan
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
George Patton
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Rommel
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
One thing is hard for me to do, and that is rate a general as low or average on extraversion--perhaps this is a mistake though. And as usual, I am probably neglecting 'averageness' as a rating--if you had to guess what a person's traits were without knowing them, your best bet it seems would be to guess average on all traits, because the traits intensity is distributed on a bell curve, with people clustering around the middle, (average conscientiousness, openness, et c.) and fewer people existing at the edges (high or low openness, extraversion, et c.).
O - average openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Goering
O - average openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
Charles the Bold
O - low openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Louis XI
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Blucher
O - average openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (I think Ulysses S Grant may have been something like this too--I think it might be a good combo for generals--average openness makes you open to new ideas but not dismissive of the tried and true, low conscientiousness prevents you from sweating the details and becoming paralyzed, high extraversion makes you aggressive and attack, low agreeableness allows you to think quickly and for yourself and ignore others and avoid groupthink, and high neuroticism makes you vigilant for disaster and gives you a sense of fear of the enemy that might cause you to want to get at him quickly.
But it occurs to me I could be making a just-so story here--take the opposite view--average openness may not really fit with the great captains of history (I don't know really, and this is a line of reasoning that might cause me to look into it a bit later), low conscientiousness could cause a general to be sloppy about important things like organizing and training his army, being secure enough in his movements or attentive of his lines of supply and communications, et c (Moltke the Elder seems a highly conscientious person--Lee too). High extraversion might cause one to attack mindlessly rather than ruminating (I believe Monty was a bit reserved about action), being disagreeable could lead to problems with your staff, as Stonewall Jackson had, or that gent who Patton replaced in North Africa during WWII, whose name escapes me, and being neurotic could make you afraid of your own shadow (McClellan was very cautious--perhaps he was too neurotic?) These are all very speculative ideas.
Moltke the Elder
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Genghis Khan
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - average neuroticism
George Patton
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Rommel
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
One thing is hard for me to do, and that is rate a general as low or average on extraversion--perhaps this is a mistake though. And as usual, I am probably neglecting 'averageness' as a rating--if you had to guess what a person's traits were without knowing them, your best bet it seems would be to guess average on all traits, because the traits intensity is distributed on a bell curve, with people clustering around the middle, (average conscientiousness, openness, et c.) and fewer people existing at the edges (high or low openness, extraversion, et c.).
Drafts and Democracy
David Henderseon via Russ Roberts:
Does the draft in a democratic society tend to make populations under it less war-like? "I'd be for this war if I didn't have to go there." "I'd be for this war if my son didn't have to go."
Another possibility is the wars become more strategic-bombing oriented and less troops-on-the-ground oriented, which wouldn't bode well for populations ruled by or in proximity to the enemies of the strategic-bombing oriented, draft-having democratic nation.
I was for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, am against the draft, and my basic line is, I can be for fighting crime without being a cop, and I can be for fighting a war without being a soldier. If we can't induce enough people to fight with compensation, then we can't fight the war. I suppose in some dire case a draft might be instituted--when many people need to fight quickly in order to secure the country, for example.
If we did have a draft while deliberating about Iraq or Afghanistan in the early 2000s, I'm not sure my calculus would have changed mainly because my vote is highly unlikely to decide the matter. The debate probably would have been different and perhaps the strategy of war would have been different if more soldiers were available.
Between 1948 and 1973, here's what you knew if you were a healthy male born in the U.S.A.: the government could pluck you out of almost any activity you were pursuing, cut your hair, and send you anywhere in the world. If the United States was at war, you might have to kill people, and you might return home in a body bag.
Does the draft in a democratic society tend to make populations under it less war-like? "I'd be for this war if I didn't have to go there." "I'd be for this war if my son didn't have to go."
Another possibility is the wars become more strategic-bombing oriented and less troops-on-the-ground oriented, which wouldn't bode well for populations ruled by or in proximity to the enemies of the strategic-bombing oriented, draft-having democratic nation.
I was for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, am against the draft, and my basic line is, I can be for fighting crime without being a cop, and I can be for fighting a war without being a soldier. If we can't induce enough people to fight with compensation, then we can't fight the war. I suppose in some dire case a draft might be instituted--when many people need to fight quickly in order to secure the country, for example.
If we did have a draft while deliberating about Iraq or Afghanistan in the early 2000s, I'm not sure my calculus would have changed mainly because my vote is highly unlikely to decide the matter. The debate probably would have been different and perhaps the strategy of war would have been different if more soldiers were available.
Labels:
democracy,
draft,
politics,
strategic bombing
Five Factor Personality Speculations Part Who Knows
People I speculate would possibly score this way on the five factor personality model test:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Edgar Allen Poe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gregory House, Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopehauer [I would add possibly Patricia Highsmith -7.5.09]
Socrates:
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Lord Byron:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (This seems to be the "Lady's Man", or most stereotypically alpha male variant, it seems to me. I speculated Roissy would score this way too).
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Edgar Allen Poe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gregory House, Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopehauer [I would add possibly Patricia Highsmith -7.5.09]
Socrates:
O - high openness
C - average conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Lord Byron:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extraversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (This seems to be the "Lady's Man", or most stereotypically alpha male variant, it seems to me. I speculated Roissy would score this way too).
Labels:
big five personality,
big five speculation
Big Five Personality and Politics as an Expression of Persoanlity
The big five personality dimensions suggest that there is a bell curve distribution of people who fall somewhere in the spectrum between openness and closedness, conscientiousness and unconscientiousness, et c.
This is interesting when considering political standpoints. I've seen openness correlated with liberalism and closedness correlated to conservativism, which on its face seems reasonable, though I think that conservativism and liberalism in the American sense might not quite correlate completely, since some conservative ideas can be fairly revolutionary (the libertarian strains, the neo-conservative strains I suspect), and some liberals seem more about holding or retaining or reinstating New Deal and Great Society ideas, which would not be running against the grain of a conservative in the sense of 'being averse to change'.
Anwyay, I have often wondered whether politics was just a fight between people with different tastes. Living in Massachusetts as a libertarianish, right-leaning person, I tend to be the black sheep of my social group, my friends generally being liberal, or liberal-ish anyway. I think sometimes the issue is mainly that I want to do my own thing and not have to work with a community, whereas some of my liberal friends, though probably not all, tend to be into the idea of a community where things are talked about, where diliberations are had--I think of the idea of deilberative democracy which turns me off--I am much fonder of a very minimal state that doesn't have much power to do much of anything, and has a very simple set of rules it follows, of protecting life and liberty and property in fairly bright-line-rule sorts of ways, so there isn't much need or reward for deliberation--the rules aren't easily misinterpreted, creative interpretation isn't encouraged, and, so I and others don't have to deliberate much, and individuals have an easy time going their own way (my property, my life, my choice to do what I want with it--buzz off).
I think this might be a major turn off to communitarian librals. It might be that my politics is largely a function of my personality--a thesis I've seen at overcomingbias.com, probably econlog.econtalk.com and marginalrevolution.com. I'm low on agreeableness, meaning I'm not big into getting along with other people, I'm low on extraversion meaning I don't like to chit chat much, which diminishes my tolerance for deliberation even if I were agreeable, and I'm low on conscientiousness so working with the expectations of others, or with lots of demands from a community are just plain hard for me. I tend to think my liberal friends are more likely to be high on agreeableness, maybe extraversion in some cases, and perhaps more conscientious. To me the tendencies that would encourage communitarian liberalism would probably be high agreeableness, high conscientiousness and high agreeableness--though diliberative democrats might favor disagreeableness as long as it resolves into a good-enough agreeableness, so not too much disagreeableness but enough to stir the pot, and not too much that one bolts from the group and rejects deliberation.
I'm not totally satisfied with this account but I'll leave it as food for thought.
This is interesting when considering political standpoints. I've seen openness correlated with liberalism and closedness correlated to conservativism, which on its face seems reasonable, though I think that conservativism and liberalism in the American sense might not quite correlate completely, since some conservative ideas can be fairly revolutionary (the libertarian strains, the neo-conservative strains I suspect), and some liberals seem more about holding or retaining or reinstating New Deal and Great Society ideas, which would not be running against the grain of a conservative in the sense of 'being averse to change'.
Anwyay, I have often wondered whether politics was just a fight between people with different tastes. Living in Massachusetts as a libertarianish, right-leaning person, I tend to be the black sheep of my social group, my friends generally being liberal, or liberal-ish anyway. I think sometimes the issue is mainly that I want to do my own thing and not have to work with a community, whereas some of my liberal friends, though probably not all, tend to be into the idea of a community where things are talked about, where diliberations are had--I think of the idea of deilberative democracy which turns me off--I am much fonder of a very minimal state that doesn't have much power to do much of anything, and has a very simple set of rules it follows, of protecting life and liberty and property in fairly bright-line-rule sorts of ways, so there isn't much need or reward for deliberation--the rules aren't easily misinterpreted, creative interpretation isn't encouraged, and, so I and others don't have to deliberate much, and individuals have an easy time going their own way (my property, my life, my choice to do what I want with it--buzz off).
I think this might be a major turn off to communitarian librals. It might be that my politics is largely a function of my personality--a thesis I've seen at overcomingbias.com, probably econlog.econtalk.com and marginalrevolution.com. I'm low on agreeableness, meaning I'm not big into getting along with other people, I'm low on extraversion meaning I don't like to chit chat much, which diminishes my tolerance for deliberation even if I were agreeable, and I'm low on conscientiousness so working with the expectations of others, or with lots of demands from a community are just plain hard for me. I tend to think my liberal friends are more likely to be high on agreeableness, maybe extraversion in some cases, and perhaps more conscientious. To me the tendencies that would encourage communitarian liberalism would probably be high agreeableness, high conscientiousness and high agreeableness--though diliberative democrats might favor disagreeableness as long as it resolves into a good-enough agreeableness, so not too much disagreeableness but enough to stir the pot, and not too much that one bolts from the group and rejects deliberation.
I'm not totally satisfied with this account but I'll leave it as food for thought.
Labels:
big five personality,
politics
Personality and the Possibility of Changing One's Personality
I've taken a handful of big five personality tests online. I've taken other personality tests too, the Meyers-Briggs, which I tend to score INTP on (introverted, intuitive, thinking, probing). The big five test tend to say I am high on openness, low on conscientiousness, low on extraversion, low on agreeableness and high on neuroticism. There is some variation from test to test, and you can have some extraverted traits while being largely an introvert, or you can be low on conscientiousness while still having a high score on one dimension associated with conscientiousness--for example I score high on cautiousness on one of the tests, which is a component of conscientiousness aparently.
I do wonder about the value of the test. I think an advantage might be that you focus your energy where it will likely pay the best dividends. I'm high on openness it seems, so being creative and curious and intellectual seems to be my bag, and am itnroverted, so being out and about, active and talkative is probably not my bag. Not surprisingly, I aspire to be a novelist most fervently, and my other aspirations have usually foundered due to lack of ability to get a group together, or to work with other people, which seems to be corroborated by my low agreeableness and extraversion.
There are odd lines of thought I have though. The low conscientiousness score tends to suggest that I'm lazy, which I suppose you could say is the case, or at least lazty regarding things that require me to force myself. But what can you say regarding this? "I don't want to clean off my desk because I'm low on conscientiousness, and it presumably is just plain harder for me to do than for someoen with high conscientiousness?"
I also think of the interplay of the various characteristics. I am high on neuroticism, which I would agree with just based on my own assessment, but it seems to me much of my difficulty willing myself to do things, which would be a sign of low conscientiousness, is wrapped up in the high neuroticism. If I were less neurotic I suspect I would also be more conscientious, because I would have more willpower to force myself to do things I don't like to do but feel would be good to do, but don't because I'm working on fighting off negative feelings, or am simply sapped by depressed feelings.
But maybe this critique doesn't matter much, since a person can be low on conscientiousness and low on neuroticism, so they are not sapped by their neurotic tendencies because they don't have any, but aren't into forcing themselves either. It might be they have low IQ and simply can't see that far into the future mentally to see the consequences of their actions, and if they could they would be more conscientious. But it might also be that they have a normal or above average IQ and whatever it is that gives one willpower is not very high--they have a low 'will power quotient' so to speak.
I probably have an above average IQ, and I think some of this might have been helped along by my parents encouraging me to discuss, and by praising me as a smart person, causing me to devote more time to coming off as smart, which means possibly aping the smart people, and picking up their good habits to an extent. I wonder if you can similarly be encouraged to improve your will power IQ as a child, and at some point the tendency gets locked in, or at least becomes fairly firm.
On the other hand, I think you probably could make the claim that people have tend to be muscular or not muscular or average in muscularity, but a skinny person can get more muscular if he is so inclined. I've heard it said by a psychologist that willpower can be improved, that it's like a muscle, whigh suggests to me that you can change your conscientiousness if you want, but I assume it's not likely.
I would be curious to see exceptions to the rule of personality. It might be that peopel do tend to be the way they have been in the past, and that it's a fine thing to try to generalize about people's personailties, but that there is significant ability to change your personality if you are sufficiently motivated, and perhaps other things working in your favor. For example, I imagine a high IQ, high conscientiousness person who is introverted might be able to effectively become an extrovert. I've heard from Robin Hanson at overcomingbias.com that personality might be changeable.
I do wonder about the value of the test. I think an advantage might be that you focus your energy where it will likely pay the best dividends. I'm high on openness it seems, so being creative and curious and intellectual seems to be my bag, and am itnroverted, so being out and about, active and talkative is probably not my bag. Not surprisingly, I aspire to be a novelist most fervently, and my other aspirations have usually foundered due to lack of ability to get a group together, or to work with other people, which seems to be corroborated by my low agreeableness and extraversion.
There are odd lines of thought I have though. The low conscientiousness score tends to suggest that I'm lazy, which I suppose you could say is the case, or at least lazty regarding things that require me to force myself. But what can you say regarding this? "I don't want to clean off my desk because I'm low on conscientiousness, and it presumably is just plain harder for me to do than for someoen with high conscientiousness?"
I also think of the interplay of the various characteristics. I am high on neuroticism, which I would agree with just based on my own assessment, but it seems to me much of my difficulty willing myself to do things, which would be a sign of low conscientiousness, is wrapped up in the high neuroticism. If I were less neurotic I suspect I would also be more conscientious, because I would have more willpower to force myself to do things I don't like to do but feel would be good to do, but don't because I'm working on fighting off negative feelings, or am simply sapped by depressed feelings.
But maybe this critique doesn't matter much, since a person can be low on conscientiousness and low on neuroticism, so they are not sapped by their neurotic tendencies because they don't have any, but aren't into forcing themselves either. It might be they have low IQ and simply can't see that far into the future mentally to see the consequences of their actions, and if they could they would be more conscientious. But it might also be that they have a normal or above average IQ and whatever it is that gives one willpower is not very high--they have a low 'will power quotient' so to speak.
I probably have an above average IQ, and I think some of this might have been helped along by my parents encouraging me to discuss, and by praising me as a smart person, causing me to devote more time to coming off as smart, which means possibly aping the smart people, and picking up their good habits to an extent. I wonder if you can similarly be encouraged to improve your will power IQ as a child, and at some point the tendency gets locked in, or at least becomes fairly firm.
On the other hand, I think you probably could make the claim that people have tend to be muscular or not muscular or average in muscularity, but a skinny person can get more muscular if he is so inclined. I've heard it said by a psychologist that willpower can be improved, that it's like a muscle, whigh suggests to me that you can change your conscientiousness if you want, but I assume it's not likely.
I would be curious to see exceptions to the rule of personality. It might be that peopel do tend to be the way they have been in the past, and that it's a fine thing to try to generalize about people's personailties, but that there is significant ability to change your personality if you are sufficiently motivated, and perhaps other things working in your favor. For example, I imagine a high IQ, high conscientiousness person who is introverted might be able to effectively become an extrovert. I've heard from Robin Hanson at overcomingbias.com that personality might be changeable.
Labels:
big five personality,
personality
Some of my favorite songs that I've written, with annotation
My last fm page with lots of music on it (I've written ~1,000 pieces of music and on last fm have had about ~12,000 listens and ~6,500 listeners).
Some of my favorite songs that I've written
"Opened"
This one is a favorite--it's an instrumental and the production quality is pretty good actually. I usually play guitar with the gain knob that determines distortion up to like 4 or so, on my guitar amp, but with this I had no gain, IIRC, so the guitar is cleaner-sounding. Like most of the time, I write in segments, writing a verse segment generally, and then a chorus segment, doing all the layering individually. I usually record the chorus segment by looping a drum track that starts with the end of the verse, and then goes into blank space with only a drum track playing, and I start noodling for good ideas, until I find something I like and then I get a decent recording of that segment, (usually like eight beats in duration I think, but I've played around with different lengths), then repeat it with the end of the verse as an intro, and record another layer of chorus, letting the track repeat and record what I create through noodling, till I find something that works, and keep that while tossing out the rest.
With this song you can hear a pretty standard approach for me, which is a kind of grooving bass line (I think it stays throughout the song--again, it's just guitar pretending to be a bass), along with a simple arpeggio and something on top of that that might act as a melody or provide a little variety. The song also has a really cool kind of extended jam in the bridge that I really like.
Rock Without Purpose
Actually, this isn't a very rocky song--more like "Opened" though it's more busy. There's three fairly active guitar lines playing at the same time--I'm avoiding using chords for each one, though there's something chord-like about the results. I start with no drums and then let the drums come in (the drum track come with the program I have) to add variety and bring a sense that things are getting more active, and then the chorus comes in, which I really like--it has a kind of soaring quality.
This is I think a fairly old song, maybe from 2003 or 2004, and I had yet to really move from verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus styles to verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus styles--"Opened" I think probably shows me at a point where I started to use bridges more and was really having fun with them, doing sort of extended jams that come back to the chorus--though actually with "Opened" there isn't any chorus at the end so it's a bridge to nowhere, or not a bridge at all :)--but you slap a chorus on the end and its a bridge, heh.
"Beautiful Aggression"
The song makes use of punky chords moving into bass and individually-played notes without chords and bank to punky chords. I like to play heavy chords and then stop playing chords and do bass and individually played, sort of high-ish notes. I repeat the verse because I get impatient writing lyrics--if I remember right I actually just grabbed the lyrics from a story I wrote and sang them over the music without any real plan, and repeating the verses allows me not to pay attention to repeating the melody from one verse to the next because you're just copying and pasting the vocals--the problem is that you get a repetitious element. I'd been listening to Tegan and Sara and they seemed to do this with some of their songs, and the Ramones have that line, "Second verse, same as the first," so I figured why not try it out.
The production quality isn't that great--you can record pretty well at home but I don't put much effort into it as it goes against my personality, and I don't mind the lofi sound anyway generally (I like GBV and Pavement for example)--the vocals sound weird I think because the mic was run through a guitar amp and there was some distortion on them. I think the Strokes might do something like that.
Some of my favorite songs that I've written
"Opened"
This one is a favorite--it's an instrumental and the production quality is pretty good actually. I usually play guitar with the gain knob that determines distortion up to like 4 or so, on my guitar amp, but with this I had no gain, IIRC, so the guitar is cleaner-sounding. Like most of the time, I write in segments, writing a verse segment generally, and then a chorus segment, doing all the layering individually. I usually record the chorus segment by looping a drum track that starts with the end of the verse, and then goes into blank space with only a drum track playing, and I start noodling for good ideas, until I find something I like and then I get a decent recording of that segment, (usually like eight beats in duration I think, but I've played around with different lengths), then repeat it with the end of the verse as an intro, and record another layer of chorus, letting the track repeat and record what I create through noodling, till I find something that works, and keep that while tossing out the rest.
With this song you can hear a pretty standard approach for me, which is a kind of grooving bass line (I think it stays throughout the song--again, it's just guitar pretending to be a bass), along with a simple arpeggio and something on top of that that might act as a melody or provide a little variety. The song also has a really cool kind of extended jam in the bridge that I really like.
Rock Without Purpose
Actually, this isn't a very rocky song--more like "Opened" though it's more busy. There's three fairly active guitar lines playing at the same time--I'm avoiding using chords for each one, though there's something chord-like about the results. I start with no drums and then let the drums come in (the drum track come with the program I have) to add variety and bring a sense that things are getting more active, and then the chorus comes in, which I really like--it has a kind of soaring quality.
This is I think a fairly old song, maybe from 2003 or 2004, and I had yet to really move from verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus styles to verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus styles--"Opened" I think probably shows me at a point where I started to use bridges more and was really having fun with them, doing sort of extended jams that come back to the chorus--though actually with "Opened" there isn't any chorus at the end so it's a bridge to nowhere, or not a bridge at all :)--but you slap a chorus on the end and its a bridge, heh.
"Beautiful Aggression"
The song makes use of punky chords moving into bass and individually-played notes without chords and bank to punky chords. I like to play heavy chords and then stop playing chords and do bass and individually played, sort of high-ish notes. I repeat the verse because I get impatient writing lyrics--if I remember right I actually just grabbed the lyrics from a story I wrote and sang them over the music without any real plan, and repeating the verses allows me not to pay attention to repeating the melody from one verse to the next because you're just copying and pasting the vocals--the problem is that you get a repetitious element. I'd been listening to Tegan and Sara and they seemed to do this with some of their songs, and the Ramones have that line, "Second verse, same as the first," so I figured why not try it out.
The production quality isn't that great--you can record pretty well at home but I don't put much effort into it as it goes against my personality, and I don't mind the lofi sound anyway generally (I like GBV and Pavement for example)--the vocals sound weird I think because the mic was run through a guitar amp and there was some distortion on them. I think the Strokes might do something like that.
Labels:
my music
100 Random Ideas (not all original)
1. a car that is also a boat
2. a motorcycle that can float like a balloon
3. a monster who embodies you're negative feelings
4. a bad guy who is the opposite of you
5. a bad guy who is like you but with your traits manifesting in bad ways
6. a comedy with current politicians played by actors but without much reference to politics (like 'that's my bush' i guess).
7. a comedy about a serial killer
8. a video game where you play a psychopath
9. a book about a psychopath getting away with what he wants to do
10. a book about a terrorist trying to destroy as much of the world as possible
11. a book about a terrorist trying to cause as much trouble as possible
12. a fantasy version of world war ii
13. a fantasy version of the civil war
14. a fantasy version of world war ii and the civil war
15. a fantasy that combines all of history into one period
16. an online novel written serially in blog posts
17. a novel written with each chapter based on the mood and theme of a songs of an album you like, writing the chapters in the order of the album songs
18. drop stink bombs on iran to get them to do what we want
19. drop pepper spray bombs on iran to get them to do what we want
20. drop little battery powered noise makers on iran/north korea/elsewhere to annoy them to get them to do what we want
21. drop a sticky nontoxic substance on cities to make everything sticky and annoying for people walking around
22. a webpage that lists and links to all you've made that is on the web
23. a webpage that details what went into making whatever you made
24. a webpage that takes posts of others you like, quotes them and talks about the quotes
25. be polite if not nice
26. list ideas for people of what they can do when they have a problem
27. argue a point by listing evidence for it and evidence against the counterarguments
28. a webpage that takes posts or items you don't like and argues against them by listing evidence for your counterargument and against their argument
29. a webpage that takes various blog posts and arranges them to draw attention to different points or contradictions with minimal commenting of your own, perhaps
30. a blog with fictional characters arguing about stuff
31. list ideas until you're sick of them
32. a video game where you get to play the president
33. a video game that is based on international relations among countries
34. a video game in which you're in charge of appointing and supplying generals in the field and telling them what their object is but where the generals themselves have a lot of their own choice--like final fantasy--you tell the character who to attack and supply him but he does the attacking
35. similarly, a game where you're a general and you tell your units how to attack and how much power a unit has, what support he gets
36. an analysis of the world with an eye for the big five personality traits and their distribution
37. a blog in which possible consequences of actions are listed and probabilities are given
38. a blog that looks to past opinion and sees how wrong it was
39. a deeply speculative history
40. invent a means of writing many blog posts quickly and in a good enough fashion to satisfy your needs
41. write nothing but free-write novels without editing or turning back for a month
42. read for three hours a day everyday for a month (or a week)
43. eat as little as you healthily can for a month to see what happens (or a week)
44. list all the things you like about yourself
45. list all the things you think you're good at
46. list all the things you don't like about yourself
48. and then list ways to overcome them
49. and ways that they can be turned to your advantage
50. and ways to look at them that might suggest they aren't so b ad
51. and actively list reasons why they might not be bad things about you at all
52. list possible opportunities
53. list possible threats (this and previous item is part of SWOT analysis i believe)
54. list possible goals
55. list means of getting those goals
56. list backwards inductive approaches to getting those goals
57. list "indirect approach style ways" (liddell hart's idea) of getting those goals
58. list fast ways of getting those goals
59. list easy ways of getting those gals
60. list fun ways of possibly getting those goals
61. list economical ways of getting those goals, in terms of energy or money
62. list movies you've never seen that you think you should
63. list movies you loved
64. list movies you hated
65. list qualities that these movies seem to have in common, or that are common of the movies listed if not possessed by all
66. do this with books too
67. do this with people
68. do this with blogs
69. do this with ideas
70. do this with art work
71. do this with music
72. imagine you have severely reduced means and a need to do something incredibly ambitious--list ways of how you would go about doing that
73. list possible goals and inflate them to see what happens
74. list possible goals and then deflate them to see what happens
75. take goals and list incremental subgoals that could be achieved and would be good in and of themselves that would also put you on the path to achieving the goal
76. make a list of people by speculated personality type
77. make a list of great generals by speculated personality type
78. take similar seeming people, and see if their personality types seem the same when you speculate on them
79. try to get into a flow state and see how long you can keep it up
80. try to do something as long as you can and see what comes of it
81. read for as long as you can
82. write for as long as you can
82. write music for as long as you can
83. write letters for as long as you can
84. comment on posts as long as you can
85. make a list as long as you can
86. stay awake as long as you can
87. walk as long as you can
88. work out as long as you can (safely--as with all these types of items)
89. list a bunch of new ideas you could make use of for your job
90. make a list of a bunch of new ideas that a friend might make use of
91. make a list of new ideas for organizing yourself
92. make a list of new ideas for making your life easier
93. make a list of ideas for making your life more fun
94. look at list and take the best 20 percent out and give them particular attention
95. do an 80/20 analysis of listed ideas--give some absolute score to each idea with no upper bound perhaps to each item and see if 20 percent of the ideas produce 80 percent of the speculated value of all the ideas
96. list one hundred interesting possible blog entries
97. list one hundred potential new lines for songs
98. list one hundred potential titles for your novels
99. list potential names for songs
100. list 100 things you could do to get people involved with you in beneficial projects for you and them
2. a motorcycle that can float like a balloon
3. a monster who embodies you're negative feelings
4. a bad guy who is the opposite of you
5. a bad guy who is like you but with your traits manifesting in bad ways
6. a comedy with current politicians played by actors but without much reference to politics (like 'that's my bush' i guess).
7. a comedy about a serial killer
8. a video game where you play a psychopath
9. a book about a psychopath getting away with what he wants to do
10. a book about a terrorist trying to destroy as much of the world as possible
11. a book about a terrorist trying to cause as much trouble as possible
12. a fantasy version of world war ii
13. a fantasy version of the civil war
14. a fantasy version of world war ii and the civil war
15. a fantasy that combines all of history into one period
16. an online novel written serially in blog posts
17. a novel written with each chapter based on the mood and theme of a songs of an album you like, writing the chapters in the order of the album songs
18. drop stink bombs on iran to get them to do what we want
19. drop pepper spray bombs on iran to get them to do what we want
20. drop little battery powered noise makers on iran/north korea/elsewhere to annoy them to get them to do what we want
21. drop a sticky nontoxic substance on cities to make everything sticky and annoying for people walking around
22. a webpage that lists and links to all you've made that is on the web
23. a webpage that details what went into making whatever you made
24. a webpage that takes posts of others you like, quotes them and talks about the quotes
25. be polite if not nice
26. list ideas for people of what they can do when they have a problem
27. argue a point by listing evidence for it and evidence against the counterarguments
28. a webpage that takes posts or items you don't like and argues against them by listing evidence for your counterargument and against their argument
29. a webpage that takes various blog posts and arranges them to draw attention to different points or contradictions with minimal commenting of your own, perhaps
30. a blog with fictional characters arguing about stuff
31. list ideas until you're sick of them
32. a video game where you get to play the president
33. a video game that is based on international relations among countries
34. a video game in which you're in charge of appointing and supplying generals in the field and telling them what their object is but where the generals themselves have a lot of their own choice--like final fantasy--you tell the character who to attack and supply him but he does the attacking
35. similarly, a game where you're a general and you tell your units how to attack and how much power a unit has, what support he gets
36. an analysis of the world with an eye for the big five personality traits and their distribution
37. a blog in which possible consequences of actions are listed and probabilities are given
38. a blog that looks to past opinion and sees how wrong it was
39. a deeply speculative history
40. invent a means of writing many blog posts quickly and in a good enough fashion to satisfy your needs
41. write nothing but free-write novels without editing or turning back for a month
42. read for three hours a day everyday for a month (or a week)
43. eat as little as you healthily can for a month to see what happens (or a week)
44. list all the things you like about yourself
45. list all the things you think you're good at
46. list all the things you don't like about yourself
48. and then list ways to overcome them
49. and ways that they can be turned to your advantage
50. and ways to look at them that might suggest they aren't so b ad
51. and actively list reasons why they might not be bad things about you at all
52. list possible opportunities
53. list possible threats (this and previous item is part of SWOT analysis i believe)
54. list possible goals
55. list means of getting those goals
56. list backwards inductive approaches to getting those goals
57. list "indirect approach style ways" (liddell hart's idea) of getting those goals
58. list fast ways of getting those goals
59. list easy ways of getting those gals
60. list fun ways of possibly getting those goals
61. list economical ways of getting those goals, in terms of energy or money
62. list movies you've never seen that you think you should
63. list movies you loved
64. list movies you hated
65. list qualities that these movies seem to have in common, or that are common of the movies listed if not possessed by all
66. do this with books too
67. do this with people
68. do this with blogs
69. do this with ideas
70. do this with art work
71. do this with music
72. imagine you have severely reduced means and a need to do something incredibly ambitious--list ways of how you would go about doing that
73. list possible goals and inflate them to see what happens
74. list possible goals and then deflate them to see what happens
75. take goals and list incremental subgoals that could be achieved and would be good in and of themselves that would also put you on the path to achieving the goal
76. make a list of people by speculated personality type
77. make a list of great generals by speculated personality type
78. take similar seeming people, and see if their personality types seem the same when you speculate on them
79. try to get into a flow state and see how long you can keep it up
80. try to do something as long as you can and see what comes of it
81. read for as long as you can
82. write for as long as you can
82. write music for as long as you can
83. write letters for as long as you can
84. comment on posts as long as you can
85. make a list as long as you can
86. stay awake as long as you can
87. walk as long as you can
88. work out as long as you can (safely--as with all these types of items)
89. list a bunch of new ideas you could make use of for your job
90. make a list of a bunch of new ideas that a friend might make use of
91. make a list of new ideas for organizing yourself
92. make a list of new ideas for making your life easier
93. make a list of ideas for making your life more fun
94. look at list and take the best 20 percent out and give them particular attention
95. do an 80/20 analysis of listed ideas--give some absolute score to each idea with no upper bound perhaps to each item and see if 20 percent of the ideas produce 80 percent of the speculated value of all the ideas
96. list one hundred interesting possible blog entries
97. list one hundred potential new lines for songs
98. list one hundred potential titles for your novels
99. list potential names for songs
100. list 100 things you could do to get people involved with you in beneficial projects for you and them
Labels:
random ideas
Random Ideas
1. pepper spray bomb or stink bombs on population centers of governments who are hostile like us, to push them to do what we want without many serious casualties
2. a factory for art (warhol-esque of course) producing movies, novels, tv shows et c. with the object if cranking out as much of the product as possible
3. newspaper written in list-form--facts of interest listed
4. a reality tv show that attempts to recreate what it was like for nobles, monarchs, big-deal leaders of history, with elimination mirroring death--contestants act as powerful people--real world road rules challenge meets historical recreation
2. a factory for art (warhol-esque of course) producing movies, novels, tv shows et c. with the object if cranking out as much of the product as possible
3. newspaper written in list-form--facts of interest listed
4. a reality tv show that attempts to recreate what it was like for nobles, monarchs, big-deal leaders of history, with elimination mirroring death--contestants act as powerful people--real world road rules challenge meets historical recreation
Labels:
random ideas
Comparing various Big Five Personality Test results
According to Personality Labs Big Five Personality test I score:
Openness - 82
Conscientiousness - 50
Extraversion - 24
Agreeableness - 49
Neuroticism - 66
I took another Big Five test and got, IIRC:
O - average (high on imaginativeness and intellect, but low on liberalism and artistic interest - odd given I'd like to be a novelist...)
C - low
E - low
A - low (though high-ish on cooperativeness)
N - high
I also took two other tests, one at outofcontrol.com, and another at similarminds.com, which scored me as:
O - high
C - low
E - low
A - low
N - high
Taking the average of all these tests you get:
O - high, high, average, high = ~high
C - low, low, low, average = ~low
E - low, low, low, low = ~low
A - low, low, low, average = ~low
N - high, high, high, average = ~high
I think all but similarminds was designed by an academic--I don't know who designed the similar minds one.
There's something kind of bummer-ish about these tests--if the theory behind them is more or less true, then there are certain things about me that I just can't change, or change much, and so I'm kind of stuck with what I have--for example being high on neuroticism means I'll be prone to negative feelings pretty much forever. Similarly, low conscientiousness means I don't have much willpower. I just read at Bryan Caplan's blog that people with low agreeableness, conscientiousness and high neuroticism tend to correlate with divorce, IIRC. I've speculated Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Gregory House are similarly high on openness and neuroticism and low on conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness--I guess they're all cool and I like them, (well, Wittgenstein, eh, but Nietzsche and House, yes), but none of them strike me as, you know, that well off, and they are all probably much smarter than me--I got an 1160 on my SATs in 1997 the first time and an 1180 or 1190 the second time--which would put me in the low 120 IQ range if you go by this site.
Openness - 82
Conscientiousness - 50
Extraversion - 24
Agreeableness - 49
Neuroticism - 66
I took another Big Five test and got, IIRC:
O - average (high on imaginativeness and intellect, but low on liberalism and artistic interest - odd given I'd like to be a novelist...)
C - low
E - low
A - low (though high-ish on cooperativeness)
N - high
I also took two other tests, one at outofcontrol.com, and another at similarminds.com, which scored me as:
O - high
C - low
E - low
A - low
N - high
Taking the average of all these tests you get:
O - high, high, average, high = ~high
C - low, low, low, average = ~low
E - low, low, low, low = ~low
A - low, low, low, average = ~low
N - high, high, high, average = ~high
I think all but similarminds was designed by an academic--I don't know who designed the similar minds one.
There's something kind of bummer-ish about these tests--if the theory behind them is more or less true, then there are certain things about me that I just can't change, or change much, and so I'm kind of stuck with what I have--for example being high on neuroticism means I'll be prone to negative feelings pretty much forever. Similarly, low conscientiousness means I don't have much willpower. I just read at Bryan Caplan's blog that people with low agreeableness, conscientiousness and high neuroticism tend to correlate with divorce, IIRC. I've speculated Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Gregory House are similarly high on openness and neuroticism and low on conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness--I guess they're all cool and I like them, (well, Wittgenstein, eh, but Nietzsche and House, yes), but none of them strike me as, you know, that well off, and they are all probably much smarter than me--I got an 1160 on my SATs in 1997 the first time and an 1180 or 1190 the second time--which would put me in the low 120 IQ range if you go by this site.
Labels:
big five personality
Books I've Read that I can Remember at the Moment
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams
Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams
The Gunslinger - King
The Drawing of the Three (I think I got through this, IIRC) - King
Red Dwarf - Grant Naylor
Infinity Welcomes Cautious Drivers - Grant Naylor
The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett
The Doorbell Rang - Rex Stout
Black Orchids - Rex Stout
The Hobbit - Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Rings - Tolkien
The Two Towers - Tolkien
The Return of the King - Tolkien
Lolita - Nabokov
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight - Nabokov
V. - Pynchon
The Crying of Lot 49 - Pynchon
Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon
Vineland - Pynchon
Mason and Dixon - Pynchon
Slow Learner - Pynchon
Carpenter's Gothic - Gaddis
The Game - Strauss
The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway
On the Road - Kerouac
Dharma Bums - Kerouac
Starship Troopers - Heinlein
The 33 Strategies of War (possibly missed a chapter here or there) - Greene
Strategy of Indirect Approach (possibly missed a little here or there) - Liddell Hart
The Lair of the White Worm - Stoker
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
Notes from the Underground - Dostoevsky
Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzsche
Ripley Underwater - Highsmith
Decision Traps - Russo and Shoomaker
Pirx the Pilot (I think all of it) - Lem
More Tales of Pirx the Pilot (I think all of it) - Lem
Peace on Earth - Lem
Fiasco - Lem
The Man in the Hightower - Philip K. Dick
The Simulacra - Philip K. Dick
A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick
Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction - Grayling
Basic Economics - Sowell
Applied Economics - Sowell
The Vision of the Anointed - Sowell
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World - Browne
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand - Peikoff
Twilight of the Idols - Nietzsche
The Dosadi Experiment - Herbert
The Hotel New Hampshire - Irving
Creature - John Saul
Get Shorty - Leonard
Schismatrix - Sterling
The Diamond Age - Stephenson
Snow Crash - Stephenson
Aesthetics - Aristotle
Dracula (possibly skipped a bit) - Stoker
The Moral Animal (with the exception of the into, IIRC) - Wright
Super-Cannes (possibly missed a page or two here or there) - Ballard
Essays in Pragmatism (I think I got through all of it, IIRC) - James
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (possibly missed a few stories) - Max
Please Understand Me II (possibly missing sections here or there) - Keirsey
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams
Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams
The Gunslinger - King
The Drawing of the Three (I think I got through this, IIRC) - King
Red Dwarf - Grant Naylor
Infinity Welcomes Cautious Drivers - Grant Naylor
The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett
The Doorbell Rang - Rex Stout
Black Orchids - Rex Stout
The Hobbit - Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Rings - Tolkien
The Two Towers - Tolkien
The Return of the King - Tolkien
Lolita - Nabokov
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight - Nabokov
V. - Pynchon
The Crying of Lot 49 - Pynchon
Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon
Vineland - Pynchon
Mason and Dixon - Pynchon
Slow Learner - Pynchon
Carpenter's Gothic - Gaddis
The Game - Strauss
The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway
On the Road - Kerouac
Dharma Bums - Kerouac
Starship Troopers - Heinlein
The 33 Strategies of War (possibly missed a chapter here or there) - Greene
Strategy of Indirect Approach (possibly missed a little here or there) - Liddell Hart
The Lair of the White Worm - Stoker
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
Notes from the Underground - Dostoevsky
Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzsche
Ripley Underwater - Highsmith
Decision Traps - Russo and Shoomaker
Pirx the Pilot (I think all of it) - Lem
More Tales of Pirx the Pilot (I think all of it) - Lem
Peace on Earth - Lem
Fiasco - Lem
The Man in the Hightower - Philip K. Dick
The Simulacra - Philip K. Dick
A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick
Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction - Grayling
Basic Economics - Sowell
Applied Economics - Sowell
The Vision of the Anointed - Sowell
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World - Browne
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand - Peikoff
Twilight of the Idols - Nietzsche
The Dosadi Experiment - Herbert
The Hotel New Hampshire - Irving
Creature - John Saul
Get Shorty - Leonard
Schismatrix - Sterling
The Diamond Age - Stephenson
Snow Crash - Stephenson
Aesthetics - Aristotle
Dracula (possibly skipped a bit) - Stoker
The Moral Animal (with the exception of the into, IIRC) - Wright
Super-Cannes (possibly missed a page or two here or there) - Ballard
Essays in Pragmatism (I think I got through all of it, IIRC) - James
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (possibly missed a few stories) - Max
Please Understand Me II (possibly missing sections here or there) - Keirsey
Big Five Personality Trait Speculations Part III
Robert Pollard:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (like Roissy and John McCain IIRC)
Philip K. Dick:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Heinrich Himmler
O - low openness (reading more about him I would change this to high openness 6/30/9)
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - low neuroticism (reading more about him I would guess maybe average neuroticism 6/30/9)
Reinhard Heydrich
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Gregory House
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (like Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and me)
Joseph Stalin
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - medium neuroticism
TE Lawrence
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Orde Wingate
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (like Heydrich)
Thomas Sowell
O - medium openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - medium neuroticism
Rush Limbaugh
O - medium openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Yet again I think I've probably overdone the high and low ratings and not put in enough medium ratings--you'd expect that to be the most common, wouldn't you? As I said in a previous installment, I suspect I'm just noticing the extremes of the people and not the perhaps bland and easy-to-miss averages.
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (like Roissy and John McCain IIRC)
Philip K. Dick:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Heinrich Himmler
O - low openness (reading more about him I would change this to high openness 6/30/9)
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - low neuroticism (reading more about him I would guess maybe average neuroticism 6/30/9)
Reinhard Heydrich
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Gregory House
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (like Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and me)
Joseph Stalin
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - medium neuroticism
TE Lawrence
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Orde Wingate
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (like Heydrich)
Thomas Sowell
O - medium openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - medium neuroticism
Rush Limbaugh
O - medium openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Yet again I think I've probably overdone the high and low ratings and not put in enough medium ratings--you'd expect that to be the most common, wouldn't you? As I said in a previous installment, I suspect I'm just noticing the extremes of the people and not the perhaps bland and easy-to-miss averages.
Links of Superior Firepower
Two Blowhards "Impolite Drivers and the Cars They Drive" - I agree, Mercedes and BMWs, though I'm not sure I am justified in it, it's something I tend to think.
Al Fin "Telescoping Wing Rear-Ducted Skybike" - I love it. Imagine soldiers using armored versions of these things (see my post on armored motorcycle soldiers).
Coming Anarchy "The House of Cards Trilogy" - sounds cool! I am reminded of Tom Ripley from Patricia Highsmith's series. I love reading about the inner-lives of manipulative, secret-having bastards.
Scott Adams "The No Fear Aphrodisiac Hypothesis"
Cheap Talk "I’ll Be in My Trailer" - story telling and game theory--I adore this post. I'm reminded of Gary Klein's recognition-primed decision theory. We come up with a scenario, look for holes in it, revise it till the holes are gone, and act on it, more or less. See also my post Does Fiction Lie in Any Important Way Differently than from Theory?--the comments section of that post too.
moronpaul's posting of a video of Richard Feynman entitled "Richard Feynman on 'Social Sciences'" via Cafe Hayek - note Feynman has a weird combination of confidence and lack of confidence--I could see that being a useful combo for scientists. "I know I'm right! Let's go!...Hm...I think I'm all wrong...let's look at this...I know I'm right!" (and so forth).
Al Fin "Telescoping Wing Rear-Ducted Skybike" - I love it. Imagine soldiers using armored versions of these things (see my post on armored motorcycle soldiers).
Coming Anarchy "The House of Cards Trilogy" - sounds cool! I am reminded of Tom Ripley from Patricia Highsmith's series. I love reading about the inner-lives of manipulative, secret-having bastards.
Scott Adams "The No Fear Aphrodisiac Hypothesis"
Cheap Talk "I’ll Be in My Trailer" - story telling and game theory--I adore this post. I'm reminded of Gary Klein's recognition-primed decision theory. We come up with a scenario, look for holes in it, revise it till the holes are gone, and act on it, more or less. See also my post Does Fiction Lie in Any Important Way Differently than from Theory?--the comments section of that post too.
moronpaul's posting of a video of Richard Feynman entitled "Richard Feynman on 'Social Sciences'" via Cafe Hayek - note Feynman has a weird combination of confidence and lack of confidence--I could see that being a useful combo for scientists. "I know I'm right! Let's go!...Hm...I think I'm all wrong...let's look at this...I know I'm right!" (and so forth).
Labels:
ev psyche,
fiction,
links,
recognition-primed decision,
science
Zeitgeist and politics biased towards big five personality traits of conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism?
I would guess the most politically active people, who aren't politicians, are high in the big five personality traits of conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. I suspect these people join parties, organize, go to protests, vote in primaries and in general elections, talk politics, write their congressmen, go to conventions and other such activities, much more than their opposites, and I suspect that political life caters to them. Frankly it seems like these people would be the most visible in general, motivated by their willpower (conscientiousness), zest for action and pursuit of positive emotions from the world (extroversion), desire to work with others (agreeableness), and fears of bad things to come (neuroticism).
So is the real silent majority (well, silent equality, since they're equal to those on the other side of the bell curve) the people low on conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism? Can one tend to discount the zeitgeist as overly driven by the highly conscientious, extroverted, agreeable neurotics out there stirring up the world?
For example, maybe I believe being extroverted is good, because extroverts are the ones talking all the time, and so I feel bad about being introverted. But I'm falling prey to the availability bias--you don't know of introverts expressing their favor for introversion because they don't like talking that much.
What would be the lessons if this were true? Attention to detail, organization and willpower are overrated (conscientiousness)? Talking and taking action are overrated (extroversion)? Getting along, going along with the group, and empathizing is overrated (agreeableness)? Things aren't as bad as people generally think (neuroticism)?
So is the real silent majority (well, silent equality, since they're equal to those on the other side of the bell curve) the people low on conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism? Can one tend to discount the zeitgeist as overly driven by the highly conscientious, extroverted, agreeable neurotics out there stirring up the world?
For example, maybe I believe being extroverted is good, because extroverts are the ones talking all the time, and so I feel bad about being introverted. But I'm falling prey to the availability bias--you don't know of introverts expressing their favor for introversion because they don't like talking that much.
What would be the lessons if this were true? Attention to detail, organization and willpower are overrated (conscientiousness)? Talking and taking action are overrated (extroversion)? Getting along, going along with the group, and empathizing is overrated (agreeableness)? Things aren't as bad as people generally think (neuroticism)?
Labels:
big five personality,
social psychology,
sociology
Signaling Big-Five Personality Trait Conscientiousness through marathon-running
Labels:
big five personality,
conscientiousness,
signaling
Thought-experiment premises on limiting power
Thought-experiment premises--I do not mean to say that these ideas would be good or bad, in particular. Anyway, what do you think would happen if these premises were to become realities?
Politicians are banned from lobbying after they've left office.
Politicians are given a pension allowing them comfortable lives after working in politics, and are barred from working at all, after their time in office.
Candidates and parties are prohibited from spending any money on campaigning and can only use their personal time, energy and vocal chords. People in office can't run for a second term in the same office, and can't run for another office immediately after their term has ended (so a representative who has left office and aspires to be a senator would have to wait for a senator to be elected and see through his six-year term before the ex-representative can run for that office).
Politicians can only serve in one office for one term and then must retire from politics completely.
Politicians are banned from lobbying after they've left office.
Politicians are given a pension allowing them comfortable lives after working in politics, and are barred from working at all, after their time in office.
Candidates and parties are prohibited from spending any money on campaigning and can only use their personal time, energy and vocal chords. People in office can't run for a second term in the same office, and can't run for another office immediately after their term has ended (so a representative who has left office and aspires to be a senator would have to wait for a senator to be elected and see through his six-year term before the ex-representative can run for that office).
Politicians can only serve in one office for one term and then must retire from politics completely.
Labels:
thought experiment,
wild idea
Links of Masterfulness
Grace Helbig blogging about an MTV episode of "Made"
Too funny
Insight on You Tube's future from Mark Cuban
A standing order for insurgents by John Robb--the whole Standing Orders series is thought-provoking.
I would like one of these cheapo little cars.
Simple Internet Strategy, advice to ponder
Too funny
Insight on You Tube's future from Mark Cuban
A standing order for insurgents by John Robb--the whole Standing Orders series is thought-provoking.
I would like one of these cheapo little cars.
Simple Internet Strategy, advice to ponder
Labels:
links
"Best of" and "Worst of" recent posts at michaelkenny.blogspot.com
"Best of"
Low-conscientiousness and the big five personality model, referencing Daniel Nettle's book, "Personality", Samuel Johnson and Quentin Tarantino
Big five personality trait speculation part II (for the text in the Wittgenstein section)
A way to try to cut through your biases
Why aren't formerly famine-stricken countries now filled with fatties who were able to live off fat stores to survive the famine?
"Worst of"
Meh
I feel like this could have been good but didn't make it.
You need to know this why?
Low-conscientiousness and the big five personality model, referencing Daniel Nettle's book, "Personality", Samuel Johnson and Quentin Tarantino
Big five personality trait speculation part II (for the text in the Wittgenstein section)
A way to try to cut through your biases
Why aren't formerly famine-stricken countries now filled with fatties who were able to live off fat stores to survive the famine?
"Worst of"
Meh
I feel like this could have been good but didn't make it.
You need to know this why?
Big Five Trait Neuroticism and using your negative thinking against your negative thinking
I score fairly high on the big five personality trait of neuroticism--the ability to feel negatively, more or less. I wonder if this technique would work to help with bad moods: when something bugs you, think "Well, things could be worse--here's how." You use your ability to see negative possibilities (I'm assuming neurotics are better at this naturally) to reframe the negative feelings that you're experiencing.
This is a kind of judo move against your tendency to feel bad about things. "Ah, no parking spots near the building!" "Well, it could be worse--it could be raining, your windshield wipers could be broken, et c...hm...don't feel as bad anymore." I'm not sure this will work in practice generally. I've found that I feel better about not achieving as much as I wish I had when I think about people who I admire and their failings, or people I don't admire at all and their successes. "If these great people failed, I shouldn't feel so bad about failing myself. If these jerks could win, then winning isn't always such a sign of greatness."
This is a kind of judo move against your tendency to feel bad about things. "Ah, no parking spots near the building!" "Well, it could be worse--it could be raining, your windshield wipers could be broken, et c...hm...don't feel as bad anymore." I'm not sure this will work in practice generally. I've found that I feel better about not achieving as much as I wish I had when I think about people who I admire and their failings, or people I don't admire at all and their successes. "If these great people failed, I shouldn't feel so bad about failing myself. If these jerks could win, then winning isn't always such a sign of greatness."
Labels:
big five personality,
neuroticism,
strategy
Does intentionally damaging communication networks damage an insurgency, and if so, should it be done, or is it too costly?
John Robb writes:
So if an army fighting an insurgency can damage communication networks, it can damage an insurgency?
The first, and most general, standing order of any modern insurgency is simple:
...break networks...
The only caveat being: avoid breaking communications networks. These networks are small group enablers/catalysts, and enable the spread of social contagion virally.
So if an army fighting an insurgency can damage communication networks, it can damage an insurgency?
Labels:
counterinsurgency,
insurgency,
strategy
Automatic enrolment in catastrophic healthcare coverage unless you're already covered
What do you think about a government program that automatically enrols a person in randomly selected catastrophic-coverage health insurance, which is the default, unless the person has at least that much insurance on their own. People who can't pay their bills will get government assistance to make up what they can't pay for a time-limited period with extensions with reasonable appeal.
Labels:
wild idea
US Soldiers as Mongol Horsemen
Perhaps a wild and inpractical idea, but one that interests me: an armor-shell-surrounded dirt-bike or motorcycle, ridden by a soldier could possibly act as a mini-tank for urban security, or as a part of a group of such mini-tanks that could form an highly dispersable mobile column. Soldiers could have small trailers on their bike for supplies and weapons, making the soldiers on these bikes logistically somewhat independent, and threatening in multiple ways due to the ability to use different weapons depending on the situation. These soldiers might be a bit like Genghis Khan's Mongol horsemen, or Belisarius's heavy cavalry.
Labels:
wild idea
Low Conscientiousness in the Big Five Personality Model
Those in alcoholic recovery programmes don't limit their drinking to a couple of glasses. They abstain completely. This is just as much of a reflection of their low Conscientiousness as their previous uncontrolled drinking was. They know that if they start, their personality will not allow them to stop, and so they do not put themselves in the position of having started.
-Daniel Nettle, his book "Personality", p.240
"Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult." --Samuel Johnson
Maybe you have to focus on your positive 'addictions' to do well with low conscientiousness--Johnson wrote a dictionary, an immense undertaking which on its face seems the task for someone with high conscientiousness, but Johnson seemed to be low on the conscientiousness scale to my knowledge, so maybe his efforts were sustained by his lust for learning about words, a quality that might signify high openness.
"Anything I'm not interested in I can't even feign interest. I can't do just this little bit to just get by." --Quentin Tarantino on Charlie Rose
It seems like Tarantino is similar to Johnson. Wouldn't directing and writing be a high conscientiousness activity? Seems it, but Tarantino doesn't seem like a high-conscientiousness type of guy, so maybe he's motivated by his 'addiction' to movies.
Labels:
big five personality
Some notes on going with your personality rather than against it, with reference to my scores on the Big Five Personality Test
O - high openness
Focus on creative, curious, novel endeavors. Play up your knack for weirdness, novelty, et c, wherever you can.
C - low conscientiousness
Aim for short, self contained efforts that can be completed with your mood, and robust, undemanding approaches to ones requiring discipline and stick-to-it-iveness. Avoid taking on responsibility, planning, or having to work in situations where self-discipline is fairly important, as much as practically possible. Focus on situations that reward tolerance for chaos, improvisation, messiness, anti-perfectionism, and situations which cater to your natural way of being, so you don't have to use the little will-power you have to get something done.
E - low extroversion
Exploit your ability to be go without the interruptions of the world, or the need to be rewarded much by attention or external stimulation.
A - low agreeableness
Focus on rewarding efforts that don't require a lot of coordination or negotiation with others.
N - high neuroticism
Accept you're going to feel down, anxious, irritated, angry or depressed frequently. You're not failing by feeling this way--it's just how you tend to be wired. For the really rough times, focus your strengths against them--being high on openness probably has opened vistas for you regarding tricks for overcoming the negative feelings.
Focus on creative, curious, novel endeavors. Play up your knack for weirdness, novelty, et c, wherever you can.
C - low conscientiousness
Aim for short, self contained efforts that can be completed with your mood, and robust, undemanding approaches to ones requiring discipline and stick-to-it-iveness. Avoid taking on responsibility, planning, or having to work in situations where self-discipline is fairly important, as much as practically possible. Focus on situations that reward tolerance for chaos, improvisation, messiness, anti-perfectionism, and situations which cater to your natural way of being, so you don't have to use the little will-power you have to get something done.
E - low extroversion
Exploit your ability to be go without the interruptions of the world, or the need to be rewarded much by attention or external stimulation.
A - low agreeableness
Focus on rewarding efforts that don't require a lot of coordination or negotiation with others.
N - high neuroticism
Accept you're going to feel down, anxious, irritated, angry or depressed frequently. You're not failing by feeling this way--it's just how you tend to be wired. For the really rough times, focus your strengths against them--being high on openness probably has opened vistas for you regarding tricks for overcoming the negative feelings.
Labels:
big five personality,
strategy
Big Five Personality Trait Speculation Part II
Thinkers:
Nassim Taleb (who I suspect might disapprove of the big five personality model as too platonic!):
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Friedrich Nietzsche:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (same as me--no wonder I like Nietzsche so much! Hopefully I turn out better!)
Wittgenstein:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (same as Nietzsche...hm--high openness plus high neuroticism along with lowness in all other dimensions = philosophically inclined? One is intellectual and creative, as well as prone to negative feelings, but not empathetic, active or very friendly--perhaps such a type feels confused by humanity due to lowness of score on the social dimensions of conscientiousness, extroversion and agreeableness, troubled by this confusion due to neuroticism, and uses his intellect and creativity to come up with answers to help alleviate the confusion and trouble--seems plausible).
Politicians:
Barak Obama:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
George W. Bush:
O - low openness
C - medium conscientiousness (with W. as well as Obama, how do we square their wild youths with their later apparent discipine?)
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
John McCain:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (same as my speculations of Roissy and Tucker Max, IIRC!)
Hillary Clinton:
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - medium neuroticism
Bill Clinton:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Dick Cheney:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Ronald Reagan:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Criminals:
Tony Soprano
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Ted Bundy:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
I'm a touch bothered there are so many high openness personalities--could it be that I'm only really interested for the most part in high-openness people? Or are famous people likely to be high-openness types by and large, and so any list of this type would be high on high-openness personalities? Again, I suspect there should be more 'medium' ratings too.
Nassim Taleb (who I suspect might disapprove of the big five personality model as too platonic!):
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Friedrich Nietzsche:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (same as me--no wonder I like Nietzsche so much! Hopefully I turn out better!)
Wittgenstein:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (same as Nietzsche...hm--high openness plus high neuroticism along with lowness in all other dimensions = philosophically inclined? One is intellectual and creative, as well as prone to negative feelings, but not empathetic, active or very friendly--perhaps such a type feels confused by humanity due to lowness of score on the social dimensions of conscientiousness, extroversion and agreeableness, troubled by this confusion due to neuroticism, and uses his intellect and creativity to come up with answers to help alleviate the confusion and trouble--seems plausible).
Politicians:
Barak Obama:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
George W. Bush:
O - low openness
C - medium conscientiousness (with W. as well as Obama, how do we square their wild youths with their later apparent discipine?)
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
John McCain:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism (same as my speculations of Roissy and Tucker Max, IIRC!)
Hillary Clinton:
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - medium neuroticism
Bill Clinton:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Dick Cheney:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Ronald Reagan:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Criminals:
Tony Soprano
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Ted Bundy:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
I'm a touch bothered there are so many high openness personalities--could it be that I'm only really interested for the most part in high-openness people? Or are famous people likely to be high-openness types by and large, and so any list of this type would be high on high-openness personalities? Again, I suspect there should be more 'medium' ratings too.
Labels:
big five personality
What do you really believe?
Thought experiment:
You don't know what you believe on some issue. Imagine God manifests himself, puts a gun to your head and says, "I'm omniscient, so I know all answers to all questions, and I want you to guess what is the nature of the thing you are wondering about. You must guess. If you guess wrong, I shoot. What is your guess?"
So you might wonder, "Do I believe we'd be safer if we bombed Iran?" Imagine god put a gun to your head and asks you to guess the reality, and if you're wrong, he shoots. What would be your answer?
(I'm reminded of Anton Chigurh from the film, 'No Country from Old Men').
You don't know what you believe on some issue. Imagine God manifests himself, puts a gun to your head and says, "I'm omniscient, so I know all answers to all questions, and I want you to guess what is the nature of the thing you are wondering about. You must guess. If you guess wrong, I shoot. What is your guess?"
So you might wonder, "Do I believe we'd be safer if we bombed Iran?" Imagine god put a gun to your head and asks you to guess the reality, and if you're wrong, he shoots. What would be your answer?
(I'm reminded of Anton Chigurh from the film, 'No Country from Old Men').
Labels:
bias,
overcoming bias,
thought experiment
Big Five Personality Trait Speculation of Notable People
I think I probably went with 'high' and 'low' ratings more than is probably right, perhaps because you go only on a little information you gather from people's public personaes, and perhaps the peaks and valleys are more noticed than the averages.
Tyler Cowen:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Robin Hanson:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - low extroversion (edit: Robin Hanson reports he's high extraversion)
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Eliezer Yudkowsky:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Seth Roberts:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Mickey Kaus:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Robert Wright:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Richard Posner:
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - medium neuroticism
Roissy:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Tucker Max:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Generals:
Ulysses S Grant:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Robert E. Lee:
O - medium openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
William T. Sherman:
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Stonewall Jackson:
O - medium openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Tyler Cowen:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - low neuroticism
Robin Hanson:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - low extroversion (edit: Robin Hanson reports he's high extraversion)
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Eliezer Yudkowsky:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Seth Roberts:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Mickey Kaus:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Robert Wright:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Richard Posner:
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - medium neuroticism
Roissy:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Tucker Max:
O - high openness
C - medium conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Generals:
Ulysses S Grant:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - medium agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Robert E. Lee:
O - medium openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - medium extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
William T. Sherman:
O - high openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Stonewall Jackson:
O - medium openness
C - high conscientiousness
E - high extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Labels:
big five personality
Tyler Cowen on Vernon Smith's "Discovery" - I take it "Discovery" isn't a source for Cowen's upcoming book
Tyler Cowen on Vernon Smith's autobiography "Discovery".
Tyler doesn't say when he read it but I infer he's been reading it lately. This surprises me because Cowen's upcoming book is supposed to be somewhat about autism or an autistic personality style, and economics, and Vernon Smith seems like an obvious source.
I read the chapter in Smith's "Discovery" entitled "Above All to Thine Own Self Be True" and enjoyed it. Vernon Smith reports his IQ is 130 in the book.
Tyler doesn't say when he read it but I infer he's been reading it lately. This surprises me because Cowen's upcoming book is supposed to be somewhat about autism or an autistic personality style, and economics, and Vernon Smith seems like an obvious source.
I read the chapter in Smith's "Discovery" entitled "Above All to Thine Own Self Be True" and enjoyed it. Vernon Smith reports his IQ is 130 in the book.
OODA Loop, Blind people using sonar, Self-experimentation
Here's Seth Roberts' recent post, "Human Sonar and Self-Experimentation". Seth writes his thoughts on how the process of creating the innovation of human sonar is like, or effective is, self-experimentation.
I comment there:
The process of coming up with human sonar could be thought of as an OODA-loop process, and the process of human sonar itself can be thought of as an OODA-loop process.
Simplistic model of creation of human sonar: Observation = Hear sound. Orientation = know roughly where something is, can use sound to locate things. Decision = to walk towards object, make sounds. Action = execution of plan. Observation = clearer idea of where things are (or not, and use of a new sound, iterate OODA-cycle till you have a useful sonar approach).
The clicking noise that human sonar users use to navigate the world is a serial observation of the world with sound. Action = click. Observation = what happens to the click. Orientation = what one infers about the world given the feedback. Action = movement in line with the click.
The clicking and listening is a snapshot whereas our sight is a film. Sight allows for quicker observation-orientation-decision and action, but the clicking allows greater observatory ability to the sonar-using blind person.
I comment there:
I’m reminded of John Boyd, the military theorist, who came up with an idea that we make decisions in “Observe-orient-decide-act” cycles. More or less, you view the world, come up with a mental model, decide what to do, and then act. You repeat the cycle over and over. If you can do these cycles quicker than your opponent, you get more info about the battlefield quicker, giving you an advantage. Self-experimenters seem to go through their OODA loop or decision cycle quicker than academic experimenters.
The process of coming up with human sonar could be thought of as an OODA-loop process, and the process of human sonar itself can be thought of as an OODA-loop process.
Simplistic model of creation of human sonar: Observation = Hear sound. Orientation = know roughly where something is, can use sound to locate things. Decision = to walk towards object, make sounds. Action = execution of plan. Observation = clearer idea of where things are (or not, and use of a new sound, iterate OODA-cycle till you have a useful sonar approach).
The clicking noise that human sonar users use to navigate the world is a serial observation of the world with sound. Action = click. Observation = what happens to the click. Orientation = what one infers about the world given the feedback. Action = movement in line with the click.
The clicking and listening is a snapshot whereas our sight is a film. Sight allows for quicker observation-orientation-decision and action, but the clicking allows greater observatory ability to the sonar-using blind person.
Labels:
ooda loop,
self experimentation,
sonar
My big five personality results
I'm a O88-C30-E12-A22-N76 Big Five!!
Basically:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Basically:
O - high openness
C - low conscientiousness
E - low extroversion
A - low agreeableness
N - high neuroticism
Labels:
big five personality
Comments on Signaling and Pull Advertising
Robin Hanson talks about reasons for human signaling here. I comment there:
Seth Roberts on pull advertising (requesting a service). I comment there:
Maybe one could signal a certain unpredictable volatility that could show others they need to be cautious about threatening or seeming to threaten a person or the group he tends to represent or lead (I think this is Thomas Schelling’s idea).
Seth Roberts on pull advertising (requesting a service). I comment there:
Craigslist seems like a great example of the pull advertising. Google and others on the internet are trying to interpret our search requests as indirect pull advertising (looking at baby names? You might be interested in this ad for cribs).
Labels:
comments,
pull advertising,
robin hanson,
seth roberts,
signaling
Links of Goodness
Seth Roberts on advertising
Nimble books on Napoleon and Wellington and what you should know about Napoleon (edited from original due to correction by Fred Zimmerman from the site)
Don Boudreaux on envy
Half Sigma and 'uselessidiot' on job contentment
Arnold Kling on Geoffrey Miller and the big five personality test and IQ
Shannon Love on dangerous imperial robots!
Jeff at Cheap Talk on Pynchon-esque Iraq War findings
Dan Baum on a tactic for dealing with people who say "off the record", via Ben Casnocha del.icio.us feed.
Robin Hanson defends his territory against others--redolent of his remarks on theories being named after later discoverers of the idea
Patri Friedman on the uncanny valley of offensiveness
Mindhacks' Vaughan on Russian roulette study
Seth Roberts on yaysayers and naysayers
Jeff at Cheap Talk about what the amount of questions asked by Supreme Court justices says about how the court will rule
Nimble books on Napoleon and Wellington and what you should know about Napoleon (edited from original due to correction by Fred Zimmerman from the site)
Don Boudreaux on envy
Half Sigma and 'uselessidiot' on job contentment
Arnold Kling on Geoffrey Miller and the big five personality test and IQ
Shannon Love on dangerous imperial robots!
Jeff at Cheap Talk on Pynchon-esque Iraq War findings
Dan Baum on a tactic for dealing with people who say "off the record", via Ben Casnocha del.icio.us feed.
Robin Hanson defends his territory against others--redolent of his remarks on theories being named after later discoverers of the idea
Patri Friedman on the uncanny valley of offensiveness
Mindhacks' Vaughan on Russian roulette study
Seth Roberts on yaysayers and naysayers
Jeff at Cheap Talk about what the amount of questions asked by Supreme Court justices says about how the court will rule
Labels:
links
Thought running contra to one evolutionary theory of obesity
If a tendency to obesity is a means of storing fat for famine, shouldn't countries that suffered famines historically be full of fatties now, assuming they aren't in a famine anymore? The idea being the fatties survived the famine, because they had more stores, and the people who couldn't put on weight died, leaving only people who tend to put weight on easily.
I've tended to believe obesity is a manifestation of our tendency to store some fat for times of famine, but I haven't yet squared it with my above thinking.
One possible answer is Seth Robert's idea that food tastes the same now, and we have a tendency to binge on foods that taste the same. In the past because foods were more likely to be bacteria-laden and complex in flavor (another Seth Roberts idea), it would be harder to eat foods that repeatedly had the same taste, and our binge-on-the-familiar-flavor tendency wouldn't kick in.
I've tended to believe obesity is a manifestation of our tendency to store some fat for times of famine, but I haven't yet squared it with my above thinking.
One possible answer is Seth Robert's idea that food tastes the same now, and we have a tendency to binge on foods that taste the same. In the past because foods were more likely to be bacteria-laden and complex in flavor (another Seth Roberts idea), it would be harder to eat foods that repeatedly had the same taste, and our binge-on-the-familiar-flavor tendency wouldn't kick in.
Labels:
evolutionary psychology,
food,
obesity
Inglorious Basterds, guerrilla war, Heydrich, war in general
I just read the script for Inglorious Basterds on the web, and I liked it. I was interested in the movie based on what I had read about it and what I had seen of the trailer and behind-the-scenes footage. I love that Mike Meyers of SNL/Austin-Powers-fame has a cameo of a British general in this.
I think this could be a good movie. It could be so-so. The script was pretty decent I thought, and Tarantino can make a movie look great, so I don't see why this would do too bad.
I'm kind of fascinated by guerrilla war. I don't think there was anything by the allies quite like the Basterds of the script, who are largely American Jews (I don't think their leader, Aldo Raines, is Jewish though--he's probably Scotch-Irish, being a hillbilly) who've para-trooped, I believe, behind enemy lines to kill Nazis. The script possibly conflates Germans with Nazis, which could be a problem. If you're just some poor slob German soldier, or civilian, you're not really a Nazi anymore than a guy fighting in our current military, or a US citizen, is a Democrat, because Democrats are in power.
Oh yeah, but guerrilla warfare. Britain did send some Czekoslovakians, I believe, into Prague to kill Heydrich, who was I guess the governor of--what, Czekoslovakia or some element of that region, trying to pacify the area. I was reading an interesting bit of a book by Joaquim Fest about some of the Nazis, and Heydrich was one of them. Heydrich possibly was a quarter Jewish on his mother's side. I read in Wikipedia that he was cleared of Jewish ancestry in an investigation, though maybe this was a nominal investigation. Fest seems to have said Heydrich was probably Jewish, believed himself to be so, and that Himmler and Hitler knew this, and left him in power anyway.
Fest writes that Heydrich wasn't really an ideological Nazi, so much as an opportunist looking for advancement, and his real motive was power. He just wanted power and would get it anyway he could, and was typically underhanded in his means, rather than violent, and actually the British may have been motivated to send assassins to get him because he was not being terribly murderous in Prague, and people were not sufficiently stirred up by his oppression because he wasn't terribly oppressive, and the British wanted to create a violent reaction in the Nazis with Heydrich's death that would stimulate a popular movement against the Nazis in Czechoslovakia, out of hatred for them.
If that was Britain's aim in supporting the assassination, then I believe it worked to create a reaction, but I'm unclear if it created a guerrilla movement. I believe I read somewhere the Nazis had trouble with guerrillas in areas because they were typically harsh masters, whereas Italian occupied places tended to not have guerrilla problems, because they tended not to be, IIRC. It seems a big point of some counterinsurgency thinking I've read is that you don't want to piss off the population, or they'll help guerrillas, whereas if they like you they'll work against the guerrillas.
Another surprisingly effective covert operation was one run by the Germans in World War I, in which they sent Lenin into Russia in the hopes of fomenting unrest at home against the Russian Empire whom they were fighting at the time. Wow did that work, the Bolsheviks taking power and pulling the Russians out of the war, so Germany could focus exclusively on the Western Front.
It occurs to me that Aldo Raines, the leader of the Basterds, has a scar on his neck from a possible failed lynching, and he also carves swastikas in the heads of Nazis he lets go. I wonder if someone played a similar game on him. Maybe he was in the Klan or something, and was allowed to get away by some vigilante who gave him that scar so he could never fully get rid of the stigma.
But that doesn't quite fit, does it?--people wouldn't look at a scar on your neck from a rope and think that you were clansmen, whereas if you have a swastika carved on your forehead, it is likely more stigmatic. Certainly there seems like a common theme there.
I think of the Swamp Fox when I think of Aldo Raines, and also Ord Wingate and Lawrence of Arabia. Ord Wingate was a pioneer, I guess, of deep operations behind enemy lines in the Asian theater of the war, fighting for the British Empire against the Japanese, going deep into the jungles to attack the Japanese deep behind their lines (where, Burma? I can't remember off the top of my head) and would have supplies dropped in from airplanes, getting rid of the need for a land supply line. Lawrence of Arabia was a World War I figure who kept the Ottoman Turks preoccupied with keeping Mecca and Medina, by threatening their supply lines with bands of highly mobile Arab warriors. I don't really know much about the Swamp Fox in the American Revolutionary War, other than he engaged in hit-and-run tactics, rather than fighting the British in stand-up fights.
I was reading a bit of a Richard Citino book...what was it--I think the book was something like "Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm" or something like that, on amazon.com. He mentioned a book called "The American War of War," which I have ordered and should be getting any day now from Amazon, and contrasted the author of that book's view that America tended to fight total wars and waited to amass great advantages and slug it out with their enemy, IIRC. Citino's view is a bit different--my rough recollection is, he points out the US fought maneuver wars--that Lee was fighting a German/Prussian style war, and referenced Grant's maneuver warfare victory at Vicksberg, and also mentioned Scott in the Mexican-American War cutting away from his supply lines and I believe encircling Mexico City, which I hadn't know about and found fascinating. I think Citino said something to the effect that the American Way of War might be thought of as flexible to meet the demands of the war.
Ulysses S. Grant seems like that to me, from what I've read of him. It seemed like he could appreciate the idea of maneuvering for victory, or by slugging it out with another army, or by destroying the enemies' economic base (Sheridan and Sherman). Whatever struck him as sensible he went with, I suppose, without much reference to doctrine.
I think this could be a good movie. It could be so-so. The script was pretty decent I thought, and Tarantino can make a movie look great, so I don't see why this would do too bad.
I'm kind of fascinated by guerrilla war. I don't think there was anything by the allies quite like the Basterds of the script, who are largely American Jews (I don't think their leader, Aldo Raines, is Jewish though--he's probably Scotch-Irish, being a hillbilly) who've para-trooped, I believe, behind enemy lines to kill Nazis. The script possibly conflates Germans with Nazis, which could be a problem. If you're just some poor slob German soldier, or civilian, you're not really a Nazi anymore than a guy fighting in our current military, or a US citizen, is a Democrat, because Democrats are in power.
Oh yeah, but guerrilla warfare. Britain did send some Czekoslovakians, I believe, into Prague to kill Heydrich, who was I guess the governor of--what, Czekoslovakia or some element of that region, trying to pacify the area. I was reading an interesting bit of a book by Joaquim Fest about some of the Nazis, and Heydrich was one of them. Heydrich possibly was a quarter Jewish on his mother's side. I read in Wikipedia that he was cleared of Jewish ancestry in an investigation, though maybe this was a nominal investigation. Fest seems to have said Heydrich was probably Jewish, believed himself to be so, and that Himmler and Hitler knew this, and left him in power anyway.
Fest writes that Heydrich wasn't really an ideological Nazi, so much as an opportunist looking for advancement, and his real motive was power. He just wanted power and would get it anyway he could, and was typically underhanded in his means, rather than violent, and actually the British may have been motivated to send assassins to get him because he was not being terribly murderous in Prague, and people were not sufficiently stirred up by his oppression because he wasn't terribly oppressive, and the British wanted to create a violent reaction in the Nazis with Heydrich's death that would stimulate a popular movement against the Nazis in Czechoslovakia, out of hatred for them.
If that was Britain's aim in supporting the assassination, then I believe it worked to create a reaction, but I'm unclear if it created a guerrilla movement. I believe I read somewhere the Nazis had trouble with guerrillas in areas because they were typically harsh masters, whereas Italian occupied places tended to not have guerrilla problems, because they tended not to be, IIRC. It seems a big point of some counterinsurgency thinking I've read is that you don't want to piss off the population, or they'll help guerrillas, whereas if they like you they'll work against the guerrillas.
Another surprisingly effective covert operation was one run by the Germans in World War I, in which they sent Lenin into Russia in the hopes of fomenting unrest at home against the Russian Empire whom they were fighting at the time. Wow did that work, the Bolsheviks taking power and pulling the Russians out of the war, so Germany could focus exclusively on the Western Front.
It occurs to me that Aldo Raines, the leader of the Basterds, has a scar on his neck from a possible failed lynching, and he also carves swastikas in the heads of Nazis he lets go. I wonder if someone played a similar game on him. Maybe he was in the Klan or something, and was allowed to get away by some vigilante who gave him that scar so he could never fully get rid of the stigma.
But that doesn't quite fit, does it?--people wouldn't look at a scar on your neck from a rope and think that you were clansmen, whereas if you have a swastika carved on your forehead, it is likely more stigmatic. Certainly there seems like a common theme there.
I think of the Swamp Fox when I think of Aldo Raines, and also Ord Wingate and Lawrence of Arabia. Ord Wingate was a pioneer, I guess, of deep operations behind enemy lines in the Asian theater of the war, fighting for the British Empire against the Japanese, going deep into the jungles to attack the Japanese deep behind their lines (where, Burma? I can't remember off the top of my head) and would have supplies dropped in from airplanes, getting rid of the need for a land supply line. Lawrence of Arabia was a World War I figure who kept the Ottoman Turks preoccupied with keeping Mecca and Medina, by threatening their supply lines with bands of highly mobile Arab warriors. I don't really know much about the Swamp Fox in the American Revolutionary War, other than he engaged in hit-and-run tactics, rather than fighting the British in stand-up fights.
I was reading a bit of a Richard Citino book...what was it--I think the book was something like "Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm" or something like that, on amazon.com. He mentioned a book called "The American War of War," which I have ordered and should be getting any day now from Amazon, and contrasted the author of that book's view that America tended to fight total wars and waited to amass great advantages and slug it out with their enemy, IIRC. Citino's view is a bit different--my rough recollection is, he points out the US fought maneuver wars--that Lee was fighting a German/Prussian style war, and referenced Grant's maneuver warfare victory at Vicksberg, and also mentioned Scott in the Mexican-American War cutting away from his supply lines and I believe encircling Mexico City, which I hadn't know about and found fascinating. I think Citino said something to the effect that the American Way of War might be thought of as flexible to meet the demands of the war.
Ulysses S. Grant seems like that to me, from what I've read of him. It seemed like he could appreciate the idea of maneuvering for victory, or by slugging it out with another army, or by destroying the enemies' economic base (Sheridan and Sherman). Whatever struck him as sensible he went with, I suppose, without much reference to doctrine.
Labels:
civil war,
deep penetration,
ord wingate,
t.e. lawrence,
tarantino,
war,
world war ii
Movie reviews more into thoughts against insider trading, selling lemons, buying something for a steal, empathizing and not, for murderers
I watched I think three movies, or more or less three movies on Friday. I had finished watching Wall Street I think Thursday, which I had been watching in pieces throughout the week, and I watched Friday Donnie Brasco, Factory Girl, and I watched also Capote. I thought Donnie Brasco wasn't that great, though I had heard good things about it. My problem with it is (SPOILER) that we're supposed to like Lefty, the Al Pacino character, who is a mobster who's killed by the end of the movie I think 30 people in his life. Donnie is an FBI agent working undercover to infiltrate the mob, and is vouched for by Lefty. Vouching means that if Donnie ends up being a problem, it is a black mark on Lefty's record and could lead to his death. Well, when Donnie gets out of the mob and it's revealed by the FBI to Donnie's old mob boss that he was an agent, Lefty gets killed. So we're supposed to feel bad, but Lefty was a bloodthirsty murderer. He's comical and charming in a way, so I guess that's why he should get to escape the life, as Donnie wants him to. Meh.
I liked Factory Girl--I fast-forwarded as much as I could through scenes without Andy Warhol in them. Warhol was played by Guy Pearce, an actor I like but who's usually bland (for some weird reason I like this bland, minimalist acting style--see Memento and LA Confidential). In this he seems to do a pretty good job of playing Warhol, from what I can remember of what I've seen of Warhol's behavior. Despite not wanting to like her, Sienna Miller is great as Edi Sidgwick. I skipped as much as possible the scenes of the Bob Dylan character played by Hayden Christensen He doesn't seem natural at all in any of his roles. He looks like me if I were trying to act, uncomfortable, nervous, trying to pretend to be something I'm not.
Capote I skipped scenes in liberally too, fastforwarding--all these movies I watched on Friday were on demand, for free, via Comcast. Philip Seymour Hoffman was good--I don't think I've seen him ever do a bad job. But I wonder sometimes if a person just needs to have a good look to his face--a face with character--and an ability to look kind of natural pretending to be someone, and they'll be a fine actor. Hoffman can imitate, which seems an extra talent, but even if he couldn't, he has a face with character--I suspect I mean by this that he kind of just naturally looks like something is going on inside of him even if presumably nothing much is--some people look like nothing is going on in them, and it seems like it could be simply their face doesn't naturally suggest emotions, whereas some people's faces just naturally convey sadness (Gwyneth Paltrow, John Cusack) or anger (John Malkovich, Jack Nicholson). Blank types: Keanu Reeves, maybe Charlie Sheen? His dad, Martin has very sad eyes and mouth, I think, which is interesting because he also looks a lot like Charlie, but Charlie in my mind's eye seems facially kind of blank emotionally in a resting state.
Wall Street was okay. I was torn by it I guess. One thing that is interesting about some deals in a capitalist systems--one party thinks what they are selling is going to go down in value and the other thinks it's going to go up. They both think the other is wrong, and it's a zero sum game--one guy's win is the others' loss. But there are also trades of goods or services for money, or bartering, where both parties get something they would prefer more than what they are giving away, and so the transaction is win-win. Investors can be doing this--buying goods from people and then selling them to other people for a profit, and everyone wins. I buy a bunch of your grain for money that you want more than the grain, and then I find people who want to buy the grain and sell it for a profit--they get the grain and I get the money. I get the residuals as payment for bringing the wheat to someone who wants it, which the farmer wasn't willing to do, otherwise he would have gone directly to the market, assuming he was aware of this option, and why wouldn't he be?
The off-putting element of trading is the idea that you are selling someone something you know is probably going to lose value. I sell you my stock, I am saying I think this is going to lose value. But it's not clear. But if I have inside information, as Gekko has, then I have a greater sense of the likelihood of the stock losing value, and so am avoiding the loss I am suffering by selling to the sucker who buys my stock before it tanks, who thinks I am selling it because of my judgment of the situation without inside information.
Anyway, I think it's off-putting to sell someone something you have a good sense is going to lose value. If I'm selling someone my car, I would want to tell them if it had some major problem, rather than not telling them and getting more for the car, and then letting them take the loss. I'd feel bad, and I would rather lose the money than feel bad, in that case, I think. Insider trading is similar. You know what you are selling is probably going to lose value, but you don't tell the buyer.
That said, I've heard insider trading might be good, because it would convey to the market quickly that the company is having problems, quicker than the information is transmitted when people are prevented from selling off stock when their company is doing poorly.
I'm inclined to think that maybe some rule should apply to any transaction in a market, that is something along the lines of: In a trade, anything a reasonable person would want to know about the good or service being bought or sold should be disclosed to him prior to any deal, if known by the seller. So a reasonable person would want to know if the car is in normal working order and no problems are known in its functioning by the owner. In a stock sale, the stock owner would have to tell his stock buyers that he happens to know the company is probably going bankrupt soon, so the stock won't be worth as much in the future, because a reasonable person would want to know that about the company they are about to buy stock in.
I wonder, though, if a buyer should also have responsibility to the seller. If a seller of a car is selling it for below normal price, and a buyer knows this and discovers from the owner there is nothing wrong with the car which would cause its reduction in value, then the buyer shouldn't buy it for the steal, because it's market price is higher, and should inform the seller of this. If the seller then wishes to sell the car for the steal anyway, then that seems fine.
Prices are organically formed for the most part it seems, though, so I am a bit confused by this last proposition. Many buyers and sellers haggling over prices determine the market price as I understand it. Through comparison shopping and a sort of auction process of selling, prices tend to find a particular point based on the needs of the various participants. If people will pay more for a product than you will, they will get it, and if sellers will undersell you, then you won't sell your goods.
I guess I'm angling for a rule that prevents people from selling lemons or stocks that will crash, but also prevent buyers from ripping of sellers who are unaware of the value of what they are selling (a little old lady selling her nice car for a steal from a sneaky guy).
I think of the movie, the Ninth Gate, in which Johnny Depp's character, a book dealer, buys an old set of Don Quixote books from some ignoramuses who are in charge of their incapacitated father's estate (IIRC). Depp's character buys the book for a steal. If he had to inform them about what a reasonable person would want to know about selling it, if he knows it, which as a book dealer presumably would, then he would have to give the book back and maybe get some kind of punishment for ripping off the people.
I'm wary that this rule might be hard to enforce though. I guess in the case of Johnny Depp's character in the Ninth Gate, a court might have an easy enough time figuring out to the standard the law requires for these kinds of things, Depp's likelihood of knowing the price of those books, if there's a pretty clear market value for those books, and they or the judge could award reparations to the plaintiffs. The books were expensive, too, so there'd be a strong incentive for the family to go after Depp.
Anyway, just a thought.
Capote was pretty good. I skipped over scenes that didn't have Capote talking to the murderer of a family in Kansas--Perry Smith, whom he was writing about for his book "In Cold Blood." Perry Smith, like Lefty from Donnie Brasco, is a character who killed a bunch of people, but you're supposed to like him a bit. (SPOILER) From what I saw of him I didn't think much of him, though I did feel a bit bad for him at the end when he gets executed. Truman agonized over the death and Harper Lee seems angry at him for him not wanting Perry Smith to live, because then he wouldn't have a good ending for his book (IIRC). But I guess I didn't feel it was such a big deal to worry about someone who killed a bunch of people.
I'd probably feel different if I was actually in Capote's situation, though, spending time with this guy. You get to know someone a lot, you get to see things from their perspective, and I tend to think the more you really understand a person, the more you can see that things weren't going to be any different than they were for this person, that they made the best choices they could based on who they were genetically, and how they were affected in this world, and this is where they are, and that is life. I think of how people seem to usually defend their friends when their friends are condemned by others, and you yourself might have condemned someone similarly if they weren't your friend. But you know your friend better than most, in some sense, and so you see things from their perspective. This might not be completely the answer as to why people protect their friends--their friend is an investment and if their investment is hurt then they lose, and so they want to hype their investment and protect it, because perception is all that matters in some cases.
If I've spent a lot of time with someone and become friends with them, and then they steal from someone, and are called out on it, I might be inclined to defend my friend without much thought to the reality, because if my friend is seen as a thief, then I am a friend of a thief, and my judgment and perhaps trustworthiness is questioned, and I'm hurt. If I successfully argue my friend isn't a thief, irrespective of whether he is or not, I have protected my reputation. Perhaps then I stop associating with the friend to cut my potential losses. This actually does seem like a way some friendships end. None of this has to go on consciously, but rather in an automatic way, encoded in our genes I suppose.
I liked Factory Girl--I fast-forwarded as much as I could through scenes without Andy Warhol in them. Warhol was played by Guy Pearce, an actor I like but who's usually bland (for some weird reason I like this bland, minimalist acting style--see Memento and LA Confidential). In this he seems to do a pretty good job of playing Warhol, from what I can remember of what I've seen of Warhol's behavior. Despite not wanting to like her, Sienna Miller is great as Edi Sidgwick. I skipped as much as possible the scenes of the Bob Dylan character played by Hayden Christensen He doesn't seem natural at all in any of his roles. He looks like me if I were trying to act, uncomfortable, nervous, trying to pretend to be something I'm not.
Capote I skipped scenes in liberally too, fastforwarding--all these movies I watched on Friday were on demand, for free, via Comcast. Philip Seymour Hoffman was good--I don't think I've seen him ever do a bad job. But I wonder sometimes if a person just needs to have a good look to his face--a face with character--and an ability to look kind of natural pretending to be someone, and they'll be a fine actor. Hoffman can imitate, which seems an extra talent, but even if he couldn't, he has a face with character--I suspect I mean by this that he kind of just naturally looks like something is going on inside of him even if presumably nothing much is--some people look like nothing is going on in them, and it seems like it could be simply their face doesn't naturally suggest emotions, whereas some people's faces just naturally convey sadness (Gwyneth Paltrow, John Cusack) or anger (John Malkovich, Jack Nicholson). Blank types: Keanu Reeves, maybe Charlie Sheen? His dad, Martin has very sad eyes and mouth, I think, which is interesting because he also looks a lot like Charlie, but Charlie in my mind's eye seems facially kind of blank emotionally in a resting state.
Wall Street was okay. I was torn by it I guess. One thing that is interesting about some deals in a capitalist systems--one party thinks what they are selling is going to go down in value and the other thinks it's going to go up. They both think the other is wrong, and it's a zero sum game--one guy's win is the others' loss. But there are also trades of goods or services for money, or bartering, where both parties get something they would prefer more than what they are giving away, and so the transaction is win-win. Investors can be doing this--buying goods from people and then selling them to other people for a profit, and everyone wins. I buy a bunch of your grain for money that you want more than the grain, and then I find people who want to buy the grain and sell it for a profit--they get the grain and I get the money. I get the residuals as payment for bringing the wheat to someone who wants it, which the farmer wasn't willing to do, otherwise he would have gone directly to the market, assuming he was aware of this option, and why wouldn't he be?
The off-putting element of trading is the idea that you are selling someone something you know is probably going to lose value. I sell you my stock, I am saying I think this is going to lose value. But it's not clear. But if I have inside information, as Gekko has, then I have a greater sense of the likelihood of the stock losing value, and so am avoiding the loss I am suffering by selling to the sucker who buys my stock before it tanks, who thinks I am selling it because of my judgment of the situation without inside information.
Anyway, I think it's off-putting to sell someone something you have a good sense is going to lose value. If I'm selling someone my car, I would want to tell them if it had some major problem, rather than not telling them and getting more for the car, and then letting them take the loss. I'd feel bad, and I would rather lose the money than feel bad, in that case, I think. Insider trading is similar. You know what you are selling is probably going to lose value, but you don't tell the buyer.
That said, I've heard insider trading might be good, because it would convey to the market quickly that the company is having problems, quicker than the information is transmitted when people are prevented from selling off stock when their company is doing poorly.
I'm inclined to think that maybe some rule should apply to any transaction in a market, that is something along the lines of: In a trade, anything a reasonable person would want to know about the good or service being bought or sold should be disclosed to him prior to any deal, if known by the seller. So a reasonable person would want to know if the car is in normal working order and no problems are known in its functioning by the owner. In a stock sale, the stock owner would have to tell his stock buyers that he happens to know the company is probably going bankrupt soon, so the stock won't be worth as much in the future, because a reasonable person would want to know that about the company they are about to buy stock in.
I wonder, though, if a buyer should also have responsibility to the seller. If a seller of a car is selling it for below normal price, and a buyer knows this and discovers from the owner there is nothing wrong with the car which would cause its reduction in value, then the buyer shouldn't buy it for the steal, because it's market price is higher, and should inform the seller of this. If the seller then wishes to sell the car for the steal anyway, then that seems fine.
Prices are organically formed for the most part it seems, though, so I am a bit confused by this last proposition. Many buyers and sellers haggling over prices determine the market price as I understand it. Through comparison shopping and a sort of auction process of selling, prices tend to find a particular point based on the needs of the various participants. If people will pay more for a product than you will, they will get it, and if sellers will undersell you, then you won't sell your goods.
I guess I'm angling for a rule that prevents people from selling lemons or stocks that will crash, but also prevent buyers from ripping of sellers who are unaware of the value of what they are selling (a little old lady selling her nice car for a steal from a sneaky guy).
I think of the movie, the Ninth Gate, in which Johnny Depp's character, a book dealer, buys an old set of Don Quixote books from some ignoramuses who are in charge of their incapacitated father's estate (IIRC). Depp's character buys the book for a steal. If he had to inform them about what a reasonable person would want to know about selling it, if he knows it, which as a book dealer presumably would, then he would have to give the book back and maybe get some kind of punishment for ripping off the people.
I'm wary that this rule might be hard to enforce though. I guess in the case of Johnny Depp's character in the Ninth Gate, a court might have an easy enough time figuring out to the standard the law requires for these kinds of things, Depp's likelihood of knowing the price of those books, if there's a pretty clear market value for those books, and they or the judge could award reparations to the plaintiffs. The books were expensive, too, so there'd be a strong incentive for the family to go after Depp.
Anyway, just a thought.
Capote was pretty good. I skipped over scenes that didn't have Capote talking to the murderer of a family in Kansas--Perry Smith, whom he was writing about for his book "In Cold Blood." Perry Smith, like Lefty from Donnie Brasco, is a character who killed a bunch of people, but you're supposed to like him a bit. (SPOILER) From what I saw of him I didn't think much of him, though I did feel a bit bad for him at the end when he gets executed. Truman agonized over the death and Harper Lee seems angry at him for him not wanting Perry Smith to live, because then he wouldn't have a good ending for his book (IIRC). But I guess I didn't feel it was such a big deal to worry about someone who killed a bunch of people.
I'd probably feel different if I was actually in Capote's situation, though, spending time with this guy. You get to know someone a lot, you get to see things from their perspective, and I tend to think the more you really understand a person, the more you can see that things weren't going to be any different than they were for this person, that they made the best choices they could based on who they were genetically, and how they were affected in this world, and this is where they are, and that is life. I think of how people seem to usually defend their friends when their friends are condemned by others, and you yourself might have condemned someone similarly if they weren't your friend. But you know your friend better than most, in some sense, and so you see things from their perspective. This might not be completely the answer as to why people protect their friends--their friend is an investment and if their investment is hurt then they lose, and so they want to hype their investment and protect it, because perception is all that matters in some cases.
If I've spent a lot of time with someone and become friends with them, and then they steal from someone, and are called out on it, I might be inclined to defend my friend without much thought to the reality, because if my friend is seen as a thief, then I am a friend of a thief, and my judgment and perhaps trustworthiness is questioned, and I'm hurt. If I successfully argue my friend isn't a thief, irrespective of whether he is or not, I have protected my reputation. Perhaps then I stop associating with the friend to cut my potential losses. This actually does seem like a way some friendships end. None of this has to go on consciously, but rather in an automatic way, encoded in our genes I suppose.
No Country for Old Men explained--what the one rule is that brings someone to Anton (maybe)--follow your passionate desire
from an email to a friend:
...no country for old men...i rewatched, and my new view is that anton sigur seems to be some kind of embodiment of an abstraction, but what? i think something like passionate desire for something...but also with randomness thrown in there that takes out people like the guy in the truck when lewellyn is trying to get away from anton, or the guy at the gas station forced to flip the coin [actually this guy doesn't get taken out, but he almost does, despite lacking passionate desire for something, which is what i am thinking brings people into contact with anton--the one rule they follow]. so you could interchange anton sigur with 'passionate desire for something' and make a sensible statement.
but what does it mean when tommy lee jones almost runs into anton, it seems, and then anton disappears as if a ghost from the hotel crime scene? is it jones is teetering on 'passionate desire for something', 'something' maybe being 'justice' in this case, or revenge? and he survives because he retires without obsessively tracking down anton, hence not encountering passionate desire...
or something like that! dunno if it holds together.
Labels:
interpretation,
no country for old men
Reading about war
Okay. I've been reading a bit on Amazon.com a couple books by Robert Citino, one called The Quest for Decisive Victory and the other's name escapes me but has to do with the development of war from World War II to Desert Storm. Interesting reading from what I perused. I ordered Citino's The German Way of War yesterday or the day before, I think.
Through The German Way of War I learned about The Reformation of War by JFC Fuller, whom I had heard about before. I found it at archive.org, the entire text for free, and was listening to it (I select the text and then use vozme.com's text-to-audio reader to read it to me).
Fuller's Reformation book is interesting in that he's writing it prior to World War II, about the future of war, and is making predictions and envisioning how things might be, and you can compare his futurism of the past with what actually happened. What is interesting is Fuller thought that infantry probably would be a thing of the past, and that gas warfare would be more common. I had to admit, I found his argument, even now in the light of history, compelling. Why didn't anyone use gas in World War II? The most obvious answer I could come up with was that the leaders of the respective armies had an emotional aversion to its use given their experiences in the previous war. Hitler had been gassed, for example. I can't quite figure why gas wasn't used. Maybe because the Nazis didn't use gas in their campaigns, others thought that if they used gas, they would open themselves to Germans using gas in kind, and would lose out, because the Germans had a strong chemical industry--Fuller explains the German dominance in the chemical industry at the time of writing Reformation, which was in the interwar period, or perhaps shortly before, during or around World War I. I think he said Germany controlled about 70 percent of the chemical industry, whereas Britain controlled something like 11 percent, IIRC.
Anyway, perhaps Hitler didn't want to use it out of an emotional distaste for the weapon (which seems odd to me, given he seemed so cunning and underhanded in so many ways in his way of fighting wars), and the other countries didn't want to push him in the direction of using these weapons, because they would be at a disadvantage in fighting with chemical warfare.
I don't know if this explanation is satisfactory. What I wonder is why didn't the Germans look to chemical war when things began to turn against them on the Eastern front? Or why didn't they consider chemical war in the blitz against Great Britain, dropping chemical bombs on London to knock them out of the war or soften them up for invasion?
Fuller thought that a fairly humane war was the way to go, that the less you hurt the enemy in compelling to give up the war, the better the peace. I wonder if this is true. I can understand the idea of completely destroying your enemies ability to wage war by attriting them, so that if they wanted to hurt you in the future, they couldn't because they wouldn't have the means--metaphorically, two guys are in a fight and one breaks the other guy's neck so he can't use his body against the other guy later.
Fuller's view seems more two guys fighting, and one guy deftly puts the other into some kind of arm lock to cause him to be unable to fight, while not actually harming his body. What I wonder is, how do we know we have peace when we release our enemies from the metaphorical arm lock? Maybe the idea is to have a perpetual arm lock on the enemy so that he can be alive and functional, but not able to strike us. Maybe a better metaphor would be something like, two men are enemies. They both have a gun. One man ambushes the other and gets him to relenquish his gun, and tells him to, "Go about his life, but don't bother me anymore."
I guess the impulse to totally destroy your enemy is strong. In this final case, you still have an enemy who can attack you in your sleep, or develop some new clever means of hurting you, if he wants.
Through The German Way of War I learned about The Reformation of War by JFC Fuller, whom I had heard about before. I found it at archive.org, the entire text for free, and was listening to it (I select the text and then use vozme.com's text-to-audio reader to read it to me).
Fuller's Reformation book is interesting in that he's writing it prior to World War II, about the future of war, and is making predictions and envisioning how things might be, and you can compare his futurism of the past with what actually happened. What is interesting is Fuller thought that infantry probably would be a thing of the past, and that gas warfare would be more common. I had to admit, I found his argument, even now in the light of history, compelling. Why didn't anyone use gas in World War II? The most obvious answer I could come up with was that the leaders of the respective armies had an emotional aversion to its use given their experiences in the previous war. Hitler had been gassed, for example. I can't quite figure why gas wasn't used. Maybe because the Nazis didn't use gas in their campaigns, others thought that if they used gas, they would open themselves to Germans using gas in kind, and would lose out, because the Germans had a strong chemical industry--Fuller explains the German dominance in the chemical industry at the time of writing Reformation, which was in the interwar period, or perhaps shortly before, during or around World War I. I think he said Germany controlled about 70 percent of the chemical industry, whereas Britain controlled something like 11 percent, IIRC.
Anyway, perhaps Hitler didn't want to use it out of an emotional distaste for the weapon (which seems odd to me, given he seemed so cunning and underhanded in so many ways in his way of fighting wars), and the other countries didn't want to push him in the direction of using these weapons, because they would be at a disadvantage in fighting with chemical warfare.
I don't know if this explanation is satisfactory. What I wonder is why didn't the Germans look to chemical war when things began to turn against them on the Eastern front? Or why didn't they consider chemical war in the blitz against Great Britain, dropping chemical bombs on London to knock them out of the war or soften them up for invasion?
Fuller thought that a fairly humane war was the way to go, that the less you hurt the enemy in compelling to give up the war, the better the peace. I wonder if this is true. I can understand the idea of completely destroying your enemies ability to wage war by attriting them, so that if they wanted to hurt you in the future, they couldn't because they wouldn't have the means--metaphorically, two guys are in a fight and one breaks the other guy's neck so he can't use his body against the other guy later.
Fuller's view seems more two guys fighting, and one guy deftly puts the other into some kind of arm lock to cause him to be unable to fight, while not actually harming his body. What I wonder is, how do we know we have peace when we release our enemies from the metaphorical arm lock? Maybe the idea is to have a perpetual arm lock on the enemy so that he can be alive and functional, but not able to strike us. Maybe a better metaphor would be something like, two men are enemies. They both have a gun. One man ambushes the other and gets him to relenquish his gun, and tells him to, "Go about his life, but don't bother me anymore."
I guess the impulse to totally destroy your enemy is strong. In this final case, you still have an enemy who can attack you in your sleep, or develop some new clever means of hurting you, if he wants.
Labels:
citino,
jfc fuller,
war
Immortality of averageness
The average person isn't remembered when he dies, because he's average, like most of us, and is familiar--what's to remember--he was like you or me or anyone. And in a sense, his familiarity makes him immortal.
Labels:
averageness,
philosophy
Laissez-faire as "Doing something" and government intervention as slowing down people from "doing something" about a problem
There seems to be a 'do-something' bias (I've heard someone use this term I think) when it comes to dealing with the economy. Free-market types want to leave the economy alone generally, and liberals wants the government more involved. But you could argue the free-market approach is more do-something-ish than the liberal alternative, and the liberal alternative actually might slow down our ability to do something about the problem. The free market is many individuals going at their various problems as they see fit, as long as its not coercive, whereas the liberal vision is one in which the government involves itself in such transactions to make sure that nothing is going astray. This might slow down the various transactions aimed at suiting the concerned parties, and hence slow down activity towards increasing the welfare of the respective parties.
Arguably if these transactions will tend to be bad, and that government intervention will tend to correct the problem without incurring too great a cost, then fine, but is this the case usually?
Imagine the free market as a means of deputizing individuals to control the welfare of a particular portion of the citizenry, themselves, as a means of doing something to solve a problem.
Arguably if these transactions will tend to be bad, and that government intervention will tend to correct the problem without incurring too great a cost, then fine, but is this the case usually?
Imagine the free market as a means of deputizing individuals to control the welfare of a particular portion of the citizenry, themselves, as a means of doing something to solve a problem.
Labels:
do something,
economics,
free market
Mind focusing on valuable, plausible opportunities
Very speculative line of thought from a non-expert in psychology:
I imagine there are lots of things we are more or less confident about because of our repeated experiences or our evolved nature, (heavy things drop when you let go of them, i believe other people are conscious) and then there are a lot of things that are plausible, but who knows if they are true or not--lines of thought that seem relevant to our interests as far as we know them, and drawn from our everyday lives but haven't been tested in any informal way (i could see her liking me--but who knows until you see where things go), and then there is this massive space of possibilities floating around that may or may not end up being seen as realities, but they don't even occur to us (there is a man in the hotel down the street in room 232 named bill preston, we are living in the matrix).
I imagine we experience the world as being composed of our confident beliefs, surrounded by a veneer of plausibility, which is a borderland between what we think we know and what is all the possible stuff that exists or could exist in reality that is beyond our natural inclination and ability to see. I imagine possibly we are scanning continually, unconsciously, for potentially valuable plausibilities--things that seem to not be wildly implausible and could be good to know, (she likes me, i could make some good money working for this guy, i should go on vacation for my health/happiness), and our unconscious mind grabs one of these potentially valuable plausibilities, we focus on it to find out if it's real or not. through our natural living in the world and following plausibilities, we opens up new vistas of plausibility drawn from the vast darkness in which possibilities live.
Does any of this seem true? Does our unconscious mind scan for valuable plausibilities randomly, or sort of randomly (dreams, daydreams)? What cues would be used to determine a valuable plausibility over a plausibility that is pointless--simply a positive reaction to its contemplation?
I imagine there are lots of things we are more or less confident about because of our repeated experiences or our evolved nature, (heavy things drop when you let go of them, i believe other people are conscious) and then there are a lot of things that are plausible, but who knows if they are true or not--lines of thought that seem relevant to our interests as far as we know them, and drawn from our everyday lives but haven't been tested in any informal way (i could see her liking me--but who knows until you see where things go), and then there is this massive space of possibilities floating around that may or may not end up being seen as realities, but they don't even occur to us (there is a man in the hotel down the street in room 232 named bill preston, we are living in the matrix).
I imagine we experience the world as being composed of our confident beliefs, surrounded by a veneer of plausibility, which is a borderland between what we think we know and what is all the possible stuff that exists or could exist in reality that is beyond our natural inclination and ability to see. I imagine possibly we are scanning continually, unconsciously, for potentially valuable plausibilities--things that seem to not be wildly implausible and could be good to know, (she likes me, i could make some good money working for this guy, i should go on vacation for my health/happiness), and our unconscious mind grabs one of these potentially valuable plausibilities, we focus on it to find out if it's real or not. through our natural living in the world and following plausibilities, we opens up new vistas of plausibility drawn from the vast darkness in which possibilities live.
Does any of this seem true? Does our unconscious mind scan for valuable plausibilities randomly, or sort of randomly (dreams, daydreams)? What cues would be used to determine a valuable plausibility over a plausibility that is pointless--simply a positive reaction to its contemplation?
Labels:
plausibility,
possibility,
random
Fiction as normative and positive theory
A list of commandments isn't a map of the world. But they imply a map that the commands are in line with. Similarly, a fictional story isn't a map, but it might produce effects in line with the map. The story might be an example of how one should act--a different way of writing commandments. This is if you reject the is/ought distinction.
A fiction story can be a metaphorical map. Broadly, a story generally has characters dealing with problems. Any real life situation of problem solving thus is in some respects the same as a fictional story. A problem is dealt with one way or another. The more detailed you get with regard to the story, the more it will diverge from reality--the metaphor breaks down and loses its relevance. "We have to deal with enemies in the world. Frodo had to deal with problems in his world. We're the same in this respect. Frodo needed courage to deal with his problems, it seemed. We seem to need courage to deal with our problems. We're the same in this respect. Frodo needed to return a ring to Mordor...um, we don't have that particular problem--we're concerned with (insert real-life problem)."
A fiction story can be a metaphorical map. Broadly, a story generally has characters dealing with problems. Any real life situation of problem solving thus is in some respects the same as a fictional story. A problem is dealt with one way or another. The more detailed you get with regard to the story, the more it will diverge from reality--the metaphor breaks down and loses its relevance. "We have to deal with enemies in the world. Frodo had to deal with problems in his world. We're the same in this respect. Frodo needed courage to deal with his problems, it seemed. We seem to need courage to deal with our problems. We're the same in this respect. Frodo needed to return a ring to Mordor...um, we don't have that particular problem--we're concerned with (insert real-life problem)."
You've been kidnapped!
Jack woke up.
"How did I get back here?" Jack said. He was tied up, lying on the back seat of a car driving along at a fair pace.
"You've been kidnapped!" a stunning black-haired woman said over her shoulder--she was driving.
"Wow...by you?"
"Why would you say that?"
"Because I'm tied up in the back of your car."
"I was being sarcastic."
"You don't modulate your voice at all in the seven words you've spoken to me since we've met, so it's hard to tell when you're being serious or not."
"I'll try harder."
"See! I have no idea if you're serious or not."
"I'm never serious."
"So I haven't been kidnapped?"
"You have."
"You know, it's like you don't want to be understood by anyone. I'm going to just assume that I know when you're being serious or not to expedite these tedious exchanges, and try to learn by trial and error when you're being serious."
"I thought I gagged you."
"Well, I have to say, I could have been kidnapped by less attractive types than you. You're not secretly a man, or working for a man who is masterminding things?"
"That is sexist."
"I am sexist. How many actual criminal masterminds are women? Not many."
"Well you're looking at one."
"So, a second question comes to mind."
"Which is?"
"Why are you kidnapping me? I don't actually have any money, or wealthy loved ones who would pay a hefty ransom for me, et c. Frankly, I'm a little happy at the prospect of having a reasonable excuse for not going into work for a while."
"It doesn't occur to you that kidnappers can be dangerous people who might kill their victims?"
Jack blinked.
"Not until just now."
"How did I get back here?" Jack said. He was tied up, lying on the back seat of a car driving along at a fair pace.
"You've been kidnapped!" a stunning black-haired woman said over her shoulder--she was driving.
"Wow...by you?"
"Why would you say that?"
"Because I'm tied up in the back of your car."
"I was being sarcastic."
"You don't modulate your voice at all in the seven words you've spoken to me since we've met, so it's hard to tell when you're being serious or not."
"I'll try harder."
"See! I have no idea if you're serious or not."
"I'm never serious."
"So I haven't been kidnapped?"
"You have."
"You know, it's like you don't want to be understood by anyone. I'm going to just assume that I know when you're being serious or not to expedite these tedious exchanges, and try to learn by trial and error when you're being serious."
"I thought I gagged you."
"Well, I have to say, I could have been kidnapped by less attractive types than you. You're not secretly a man, or working for a man who is masterminding things?"
"That is sexist."
"I am sexist. How many actual criminal masterminds are women? Not many."
"Well you're looking at one."
"So, a second question comes to mind."
"Which is?"
"Why are you kidnapping me? I don't actually have any money, or wealthy loved ones who would pay a hefty ransom for me, et c. Frankly, I'm a little happy at the prospect of having a reasonable excuse for not going into work for a while."
"It doesn't occur to you that kidnappers can be dangerous people who might kill their victims?"
Jack blinked.
"Not until just now."
Possible reason why we like to jog
persistence hunting
this might dovetail with my idea of there being a barrier to behaviors that once we overcome, the behavior becomes easier--running sucks, but then you start getting a runner's high that incentivizes it, similar to the pattern of people transgressing norms with great anxiety, and then it gets easier for them with a flood of excitement that comes from breaking the rule.
this might dovetail with my idea of there being a barrier to behaviors that once we overcome, the behavior becomes easier--running sucks, but then you start getting a runner's high that incentivizes it, similar to the pattern of people transgressing norms with great anxiety, and then it gets easier for them with a flood of excitement that comes from breaking the rule.
Labels:
psychology,
running
Religious stories, myths, history and fiction stories as problem-solving accounts that can be compared to other problem-solving accounts for ideas
I'm listening to Frank and Yudkowsky on Bloggingheads.tv, which is interesting/annoying. Yudkowsky and Frank don't seem to disagree really, but they think they do, as far as I can tell. Yudkowsky says something like this: curiousity is being ignorant and then learning and losing one's ignorance. Frank says something like we're always with mystery. Yudkowsky thinks this means Frank just wants to stare at mystery endlessly. Frank thinks Yudkowsky doesn't express enough pleasure in the feeling of looking at a mystery before solving it. But this doesn't seem the case to me. I suspect Frank thinks that the eternal mystery is the process of continually not knowing stuff. Unless we can get rid of all ignorance, then we'll always have mysteries aruond us, and this is not unpleasant to the curious, since if all problems were solved one would be bored. This doesn't seem at least an imminent problem, so it seems at least more-or-less eternal. Yudkowsky obviously is interested in mysteries and enjoys them, since he is curious about them and enjoys (I assume) solving them, and would be bored, as he's written, with a heaven of perpetual bliss.
I agree with Frank we can appreciate religion--I would frame my appreciation as a literary/robust metaphorical/deeply human appreciation. Religion, and myth, can be seen as metaphors that reward interpretation. You can see a lot in a lot of mythological stories, whether you believe a religious metaphysic or a rationalist metaphysic, or straddle the two somehow.
A very robust metaphor might be 'some problem emerges, a solution is sought, a solution is found (or not found), the problem is eradicated, lived with, or conquers those concerned.' This is basically just about any story, I would guess, and any story is a metaphor for another story of this form. Mike wants to get the girl, finds otu a way of doing it, gets the girl, is happy. The President wants to bring the South into the Union, finds out a way of doing it, gets the South back into the Union, is...well not happy, since he got shot, but close enough. Comparing stories is comparing problem solving in differnet contexts.
I agree with Frank we can appreciate religion--I would frame my appreciation as a literary/robust metaphorical/deeply human appreciation. Religion, and myth, can be seen as metaphors that reward interpretation. You can see a lot in a lot of mythological stories, whether you believe a religious metaphysic or a rationalist metaphysic, or straddle the two somehow.
A very robust metaphor might be 'some problem emerges, a solution is sought, a solution is found (or not found), the problem is eradicated, lived with, or conquers those concerned.' This is basically just about any story, I would guess, and any story is a metaphor for another story of this form. Mike wants to get the girl, finds otu a way of doing it, gets the girl, is happy. The President wants to bring the South into the Union, finds out a way of doing it, gets the South back into the Union, is...well not happy, since he got shot, but close enough. Comparing stories is comparing problem solving in differnet contexts.
Labels:
narrative,
problem solving,
psychology,
stories
AT&T's customer service is attrocious.
AT&T's customer service is attrocious. Apparently the entire company is automated and no living person can be reached for a nice non-computer-voice, non-decision-tree type question. I think I must have to call a store directly, though no where is this said directly as far as I can see. Awful.
Experimental rules of thumb
1. Start doing something when it pops into your head you could do it
2. Stop it if you don't want to do it anymore
3. If you have to do something you don't want to do, put it off till, conservatively estimated, you have to
4. Do the least unpleasant stuff you can afford to first, if only unpleasant but necessary options are before you
4. Default/parallel-with-actions mode: identifying/maximizing what you want and identifying/minimizing what you don't
6. Finish it now unless you clearly don't want to, or can't, and you can fix/improve it later if you want/need to
7. Only worry about non-trivial chances of death, disablement, or the like
2. Stop it if you don't want to do it anymore
3. If you have to do something you don't want to do, put it off till, conservatively estimated, you have to
4. Do the least unpleasant stuff you can afford to first, if only unpleasant but necessary options are before you
4. Default/parallel-with-actions mode: identifying/maximizing what you want and identifying/minimizing what you don't
6. Finish it now unless you clearly don't want to, or can't, and you can fix/improve it later if you want/need to
7. Only worry about non-trivial chances of death, disablement, or the like
Labels:
procrastination,
rules of thumb
Staggeringly transgressive aristocrats of the past, a theory of transgression and human habits, sleep deficit
I read some of a book on the Internet Archives about Gilles de Rais, a creepy fifteenth-century French (Breton) nobleman who fought with Joan of Arc against the English (need to read more about the Hundred-years War). He engaged in serial murder and rape, black magic, alchemy, and was a spendthrift that wasted a lot of his massive fortune. Reading about him, I thought his acts were redolent of Dracula and the Mad Scientist archetype. I wonder if the Romantics were influenced by him. I would think so, actually, but who knows. The book on Archive.org was referencing the similarities of Gilles de Rais to Bluebeard, whom I know little about. I think Bluebeard killed a series of wives, was that it? I think the book said something like, "Gilles de Rais's crimes make Bluebeard's look mild," which seems true, given Gilles' victims were I think all children, which tends to shock us even more than when the victims are adults.
I noted Gilles had read to him Suetonious' Lives of Caesars, which is interesting. I had read about Gilles that he wanted to act like the Caesars of Rome, if I remember correctly. I had just been listening to Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. You do see some very bloody action by the emperors. Let me think. Caraculla (sp?) killed or set up his brother's murder, which happened in front of their mother. One emperor was found decomposing in his carriage as it traveled along a path, and I believe the carriage was opened when someone noticed a stink coming from it. If memory serves, Constantine killed his own son. I believe some passages I read about Gallus suggested he was a bit of a sadist in line with De Rais, having torture mechanism set up in his home in, I think Antioch.
I'm sure there are more. I was reading bits of a book on Amazon called something like Mad Monarchs, Raving Rulers, or something like that. It was pretty interesting. Mainly what these powerful people seem to end up doing, more or less, is indulging their appetites for sex, food, alcohol, and exerting power, it seems. I recall I think Alain De Botton talking about how Marcus Aurelius was a very powerful emperor who is notable for being someone who restrained from such behavior, and how this is admirable, since other people who say they are not tempted don't have much power to enact their desires anyway. If you can have anything you want, you have many more temptations than someone who doesn't, it seems. I thought that was a good point and very interesting.
This brings me back to De Rais. He put on a Mystery Play about Joan of Arc and it seems he commissioned its writing, and it puts him in a heroic supporting role, if I understand right, and he put this on in a town at great (perhaps ruinous) expense to himself. He liked putting on these lavish plays, and he liked fine wine and beautiful clothing and jewels. To me, the putting on of plays, and his sort of impatient, spendthrift, pay-whatever attitude to get goods to him, seem to speak of a guy who wants reality manipulated and wants it manipulated quickly. This might be a stretch, but when you don't haggle over goods you want to buy, you expedite the process and reduce friction in the short run that prevents goods from getting into your hands. Similarly, a play is a manipulation of the appearance of reality, with not quite the same verisimilitude as a movie or perhaps in the future, virtual reality, but still, it's an expression of someone who wants to create an experience quickly.
Instant gratification, basically. Or expedited gratification. With the goods De Rais bought, the cost of his expedited gratification was the extra money he paid, and with the plays he put on, the expedited gratification came at a cost of actually making the reality a reality--well, this would be the case with regard to plays he put on that had not happened. His Joan of Arc play, which he commissioned it seems, was based on reality, though I imagine it might have been finessed a bit, or for the most part even.
I found this all very interesting. He gets into alchemy and black magic too, which are means of getting what you want quickly. I suppose power itself is simply the ability for you to get whatever you want quickly. The more power you feel the less resistance of friction, as Clausewitz might put it, you feel.
It seemed de Rais might have felt bad about what he did in murdering, et c., to many children. This made me wonder about people transgressing things, and why there are these reports, it seems, of euphoria when people like serial killers kill someone. My account so far, like basically all my theories--and maybe any good theory should be this--is a working theory--the theory is that we have evolved to respect rules, taboos, traditions, and we have been rewarded by propagating our genes far and wide. But have some flexibility--we feel anxiety at the prospect of breaking some rules, like murder, but there is a need at times to murder, perhaps, or break other rules--for example you might be in a very odd situation where you are blackmailed by a mafia guy to commit a hit, and you do this because otherwise the mafia guy will kill your wife and kids. So you murder a person. Okay, that is arguably an ethical thing to do in that situation. Another example that works a little bit better with the point I want to make is the person stealing. Normally stealing is considered bad, but, as the classic example goes, from Victor Hugo and perhaps others, if you stealing bread to feed your starving family seems pretty reasonable and ethical if you seem pretty clearly to have no other obvious option.
So you feel nervous at first, you steal the bread, and then you get away with it and feel some excitement--you feed your family, but you also got away with stealing. You broke a moral rule that would cause some anger among people in most cases, and perhaps this one, and you went on and broke the rule anyway because you thought that you needed to to bring about the desired results--you went for the lesser evil. If you were an absolute rule follower, your family would die so that the rich bread owner can have an extra bit of bread to stuff his fat stomach.
So, my theory is that we feel anxious about breaking rules, but when we break them, it becomes easier to break them in the future, because the fact that you did it once suggests, though doesn't certainly mean, that you might have to do it again, and the shot of euphoria and transgressing eases the future transgressions. So the guy who steals the bread is not terribly unlikely to be able to feed his family suddenly after stealing it once, though maybe he might. So he passes over the threshold, and then the threshold gets lowered. Similarly, a person who has to kill, say a soldier, transgresses a general and strong rule not to kill people, but then when he kills his first person, he has an easier time the next time. An over-the-top or maladaptive expression of this tendency might be manifested in serial killers who, once they have their first kill do more, or in mafiosos whose first kills were tough, but then they get easier, if you can go by the Sopranos, which is of course, dubious.
But maybe the mechanism is broader, telling you to do what you've always done, or what others do, and feel some anxiety about changing things up, unless circumstances dictate otherwise, and then change with great trepidation, but if it works, go with it.
All very interesting. What else am I thinking? Yeah, I've been listening to Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and I like it, though I got a bit tired of it, and I did skip around a little. My favorite emperors? Hm...well, the ones that seemed best, the ones I would want to live under, let's say, I think were, Tacitus (not the historian but possibly a relative), Probus, Julian, Marcus Aurelius, Chlorus (Constantine's Dad, IIRC)...and the ones that were most interesting? Diocletian, Elagabalus--a transvestite hooker, possibly...not from Transylvania, though--he was from Syria I believe (sp?), Constantine (killed his son, and if memory serves, his wife too--how Christian!), Julian...
Actually, there are a whole bunch of emperors who don't seem to go down in history very well, which is not to say they were really bad emperors. You lose a battle and you die and then your competitor wins and maybe writes about how you suck.
There's that saying, "History is written by the victors." I think Napoleon said that, but it seems like it could be older than that. I read someone else write something like "History is written by the historians" which on its face seems silly and no-duh-ish, but I think the point, or the point I take anyway, of it is that historians aren't necessarily the victors. Who is going to create the most history about things? I think I've read it argued somewhere that the Lost Cause is a good example of history being written by the losers, which seems plausible to me, given Lee seems like a pretty well-remembered guy, and Grant not so well remembered despite, in my inexpert opinion, him being one of the best generals of the war on either side.
And I mean, Grant was president for two terms after the war, so there's the added later incentive of his political enemies tarring his part achievements to hurt his political chances, possibly. I think of Ariel Sharon who was a general in the Israeli Defense Force--I think he had both a reputation for being a good general and being brutal, and I have no idea what is true, but you could see politics causing people to take up whatever works for them if they were promoting or hurting Ariel Sharon.
Maybe we should embrace the more lawyerly approach--maybe historians who are game could co-write books like lawyers putting on trial and proposition.
What am I thinking? I guess I'll write for a while stream-of-consciously and see what comes of it.
Yeah. Okay. So it's Friday and I am tired. Tired because why? Well, I guess I didn't get that much sleep this week, did I? No, I got a fine amount of sleep. I got a fine amount. It was maybe seven hours a night on average I'd say. If I need about eight, then I would be in a five hour sleep deficit I suppose, which might be significant, I suppose. Most people don't sleep that much though, and aren't walking around like zombies. I'm not a zombie but I'm not going out tonight. A lot of people do. I'm 29, so I'm pretty young. Your average 29-year-old--is he doing something tonight? I don't know. I would guess half of them maybe are going out tonight in the US. Maybe less. Maybe a third? I don't really know. I'm just guessing.
Are the other two thirds, if that is roughly true, sleep deprived and in need of a good night's sleep on a Friday? Or a good chunk of them? I don't really know that either. I kind of doubt it. If I have a sleep deficit of five hours, it isn't hurting me too bad. I suspect I can pay it back on an installment plan. I'm not walking around like I got three hours of sleep last night, am I? I don't think so. I'm frequently this tired on other days too.
I noted Gilles had read to him Suetonious' Lives of Caesars, which is interesting. I had read about Gilles that he wanted to act like the Caesars of Rome, if I remember correctly. I had just been listening to Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. You do see some very bloody action by the emperors. Let me think. Caraculla (sp?) killed or set up his brother's murder, which happened in front of their mother. One emperor was found decomposing in his carriage as it traveled along a path, and I believe the carriage was opened when someone noticed a stink coming from it. If memory serves, Constantine killed his own son. I believe some passages I read about Gallus suggested he was a bit of a sadist in line with De Rais, having torture mechanism set up in his home in, I think Antioch.
I'm sure there are more. I was reading bits of a book on Amazon called something like Mad Monarchs, Raving Rulers, or something like that. It was pretty interesting. Mainly what these powerful people seem to end up doing, more or less, is indulging their appetites for sex, food, alcohol, and exerting power, it seems. I recall I think Alain De Botton talking about how Marcus Aurelius was a very powerful emperor who is notable for being someone who restrained from such behavior, and how this is admirable, since other people who say they are not tempted don't have much power to enact their desires anyway. If you can have anything you want, you have many more temptations than someone who doesn't, it seems. I thought that was a good point and very interesting.
This brings me back to De Rais. He put on a Mystery Play about Joan of Arc and it seems he commissioned its writing, and it puts him in a heroic supporting role, if I understand right, and he put this on in a town at great (perhaps ruinous) expense to himself. He liked putting on these lavish plays, and he liked fine wine and beautiful clothing and jewels. To me, the putting on of plays, and his sort of impatient, spendthrift, pay-whatever attitude to get goods to him, seem to speak of a guy who wants reality manipulated and wants it manipulated quickly. This might be a stretch, but when you don't haggle over goods you want to buy, you expedite the process and reduce friction in the short run that prevents goods from getting into your hands. Similarly, a play is a manipulation of the appearance of reality, with not quite the same verisimilitude as a movie or perhaps in the future, virtual reality, but still, it's an expression of someone who wants to create an experience quickly.
Instant gratification, basically. Or expedited gratification. With the goods De Rais bought, the cost of his expedited gratification was the extra money he paid, and with the plays he put on, the expedited gratification came at a cost of actually making the reality a reality--well, this would be the case with regard to plays he put on that had not happened. His Joan of Arc play, which he commissioned it seems, was based on reality, though I imagine it might have been finessed a bit, or for the most part even.
I found this all very interesting. He gets into alchemy and black magic too, which are means of getting what you want quickly. I suppose power itself is simply the ability for you to get whatever you want quickly. The more power you feel the less resistance of friction, as Clausewitz might put it, you feel.
It seemed de Rais might have felt bad about what he did in murdering, et c., to many children. This made me wonder about people transgressing things, and why there are these reports, it seems, of euphoria when people like serial killers kill someone. My account so far, like basically all my theories--and maybe any good theory should be this--is a working theory--the theory is that we have evolved to respect rules, taboos, traditions, and we have been rewarded by propagating our genes far and wide. But have some flexibility--we feel anxiety at the prospect of breaking some rules, like murder, but there is a need at times to murder, perhaps, or break other rules--for example you might be in a very odd situation where you are blackmailed by a mafia guy to commit a hit, and you do this because otherwise the mafia guy will kill your wife and kids. So you murder a person. Okay, that is arguably an ethical thing to do in that situation. Another example that works a little bit better with the point I want to make is the person stealing. Normally stealing is considered bad, but, as the classic example goes, from Victor Hugo and perhaps others, if you stealing bread to feed your starving family seems pretty reasonable and ethical if you seem pretty clearly to have no other obvious option.
So you feel nervous at first, you steal the bread, and then you get away with it and feel some excitement--you feed your family, but you also got away with stealing. You broke a moral rule that would cause some anger among people in most cases, and perhaps this one, and you went on and broke the rule anyway because you thought that you needed to to bring about the desired results--you went for the lesser evil. If you were an absolute rule follower, your family would die so that the rich bread owner can have an extra bit of bread to stuff his fat stomach.
So, my theory is that we feel anxious about breaking rules, but when we break them, it becomes easier to break them in the future, because the fact that you did it once suggests, though doesn't certainly mean, that you might have to do it again, and the shot of euphoria and transgressing eases the future transgressions. So the guy who steals the bread is not terribly unlikely to be able to feed his family suddenly after stealing it once, though maybe he might. So he passes over the threshold, and then the threshold gets lowered. Similarly, a person who has to kill, say a soldier, transgresses a general and strong rule not to kill people, but then when he kills his first person, he has an easier time the next time. An over-the-top or maladaptive expression of this tendency might be manifested in serial killers who, once they have their first kill do more, or in mafiosos whose first kills were tough, but then they get easier, if you can go by the Sopranos, which is of course, dubious.
But maybe the mechanism is broader, telling you to do what you've always done, or what others do, and feel some anxiety about changing things up, unless circumstances dictate otherwise, and then change with great trepidation, but if it works, go with it.
All very interesting. What else am I thinking? Yeah, I've been listening to Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and I like it, though I got a bit tired of it, and I did skip around a little. My favorite emperors? Hm...well, the ones that seemed best, the ones I would want to live under, let's say, I think were, Tacitus (not the historian but possibly a relative), Probus, Julian, Marcus Aurelius, Chlorus (Constantine's Dad, IIRC)...and the ones that were most interesting? Diocletian, Elagabalus--a transvestite hooker, possibly...not from Transylvania, though--he was from Syria I believe (sp?), Constantine (killed his son, and if memory serves, his wife too--how Christian!), Julian...
Actually, there are a whole bunch of emperors who don't seem to go down in history very well, which is not to say they were really bad emperors. You lose a battle and you die and then your competitor wins and maybe writes about how you suck.
There's that saying, "History is written by the victors." I think Napoleon said that, but it seems like it could be older than that. I read someone else write something like "History is written by the historians" which on its face seems silly and no-duh-ish, but I think the point, or the point I take anyway, of it is that historians aren't necessarily the victors. Who is going to create the most history about things? I think I've read it argued somewhere that the Lost Cause is a good example of history being written by the losers, which seems plausible to me, given Lee seems like a pretty well-remembered guy, and Grant not so well remembered despite, in my inexpert opinion, him being one of the best generals of the war on either side.
And I mean, Grant was president for two terms after the war, so there's the added later incentive of his political enemies tarring his part achievements to hurt his political chances, possibly. I think of Ariel Sharon who was a general in the Israeli Defense Force--I think he had both a reputation for being a good general and being brutal, and I have no idea what is true, but you could see politics causing people to take up whatever works for them if they were promoting or hurting Ariel Sharon.
Maybe we should embrace the more lawyerly approach--maybe historians who are game could co-write books like lawyers putting on trial and proposition.
What am I thinking? I guess I'll write for a while stream-of-consciously and see what comes of it.
Yeah. Okay. So it's Friday and I am tired. Tired because why? Well, I guess I didn't get that much sleep this week, did I? No, I got a fine amount of sleep. I got a fine amount. It was maybe seven hours a night on average I'd say. If I need about eight, then I would be in a five hour sleep deficit I suppose, which might be significant, I suppose. Most people don't sleep that much though, and aren't walking around like zombies. I'm not a zombie but I'm not going out tonight. A lot of people do. I'm 29, so I'm pretty young. Your average 29-year-old--is he doing something tonight? I don't know. I would guess half of them maybe are going out tonight in the US. Maybe less. Maybe a third? I don't really know. I'm just guessing.
Are the other two thirds, if that is roughly true, sleep deprived and in need of a good night's sleep on a Friday? Or a good chunk of them? I don't really know that either. I kind of doubt it. If I have a sleep deficit of five hours, it isn't hurting me too bad. I suspect I can pay it back on an installment plan. I'm not walking around like I got three hours of sleep last night, am I? I don't think so. I'm frequently this tired on other days too.
Labels:
aristocracy,
evolutionary psychology,
history,
madness,
power,
ramble,
transgression
my craigslist posting for forming a virtual band
hi,
i'd like to get some singing over my music. i don't like writing lyrics or singing but i've got tons of pieces of music in more or less a verse-chorus-v-c-bridge-c structure recorded. what i'm thinking is if you like singing and writing lyrics, you could write lyrics and then sing over the music. i'm thinking we could maybe try a lo-fi, robert-pollard/guided-by-voices-type method: you could play the music on your speakers while singing over it and record that, and we could upload that mp3 to the web, as a sort of over-the-web virtual-band project. you don't have to have a great voice or skills or anything, don't sweat that. here's some of my music: http://www.last.fm/music/michael+kenny
the newer albums are instrumental generally, whereas the older ones tend to have my own singing on them. the music is basically rock. i tend to like indie, hard rock, a little metal and punk, so it might show in the music. let me know what you think.
i'd like to get some singing over my music. i don't like writing lyrics or singing but i've got tons of pieces of music in more or less a verse-chorus-v-c-bridge-c structure recorded. what i'm thinking is if you like singing and writing lyrics, you could write lyrics and then sing over the music. i'm thinking we could maybe try a lo-fi, robert-pollard/guided-by-voices-type method: you could play the music on your speakers while singing over it and record that, and we could upload that mp3 to the web, as a sort of over-the-web virtual-band project. you don't have to have a great voice or skills or anything, don't sweat that. here's some of my music: http://www.last.fm/music/michael+kenny
the newer albums are instrumental generally, whereas the older ones tend to have my own singing on them. the music is basically rock. i tend to like indie, hard rock, a little metal and punk, so it might show in the music. let me know what you think.
Labels:
craigslist,
music,
posting,
virtual band
Quotations
From the Boston Globe:
From Michael Delahoyde:
From the Positivity Blog:
And another from the same article at the Positivity Blog:
Particularities of the Irish temperament -- the mordant wit that hides a profound emotional reserve, the ingratiation that may disguise resentment, a longing for trust in tension with the fear of it -- are echoes of the famine trauma. If this is little acknowledged, it is because the overwhelming response of survivors and their progeny, even as most of them entered the diaspora, was denial. A vast silence settled over the true Irish past, and that, too, was disguised by the lovely ballads, the Pat-and-Mike jokes, and the myth of leprechauns. Irish love songs are sad, as the saying goes; it's the battle music that has an up-beat. And the much-prescribed medication for this condition is the pint.
From Michael Delahoyde:
Kennings were poetic phrases consisting of compound metaphors. The sea could be called "the swan's road" or "the whale's way." As mentioned above, women were "cup-bearers" or "peace-weavers."
From the Positivity Blog:
“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task”
William James
And another from the same article at the Positivity Blog:
1. Stop thinking. Start doing.
“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.”
Eva Young
Labels:
anglo-saxon,
irish,
kenning,
procrastination,
william james
16 Facts From Last Night's Outing to the Electric Six Show at the Middle East in Cambridge, MA
1. We got to the Middle East at 10.
2. Some band was ending their set. Bang Camaro came on next.
3. I learned Bang Camaro played on Jimmy Kimmel when Dick Valentine referenced it during the E6 set.
4. Here are some songs played by Electric 6, IIRC, last night: Dance Commander, Gay Bar, Gay Bar Part 2, I Buy the Drugs, Down at McDonaldzzz, Danger High Voltage, Infected Girls, Dirty Balls
5. Bang Camaro has maybe 8 singers? They have two guitarists playing kind of Judas Priesty music, a bassist, and a drummer
6. I saw Tait Nucleus and Johnny Nashinal in the audience before their set
7. I bought an Electric Six shirt, a simple one with the band name on the front in red--a black shirt.
8. I thought the chorus of one of the Bang Camaro songs was "Airplanes for Ninjas." One of the guy's I went with thought it was "Hell-bent for Liquor."
2. Some band was ending their set. Bang Camaro came on next.
3. I learned Bang Camaro played on Jimmy Kimmel when Dick Valentine referenced it during the E6 set.
4. Here are some songs played by Electric 6, IIRC, last night: Dance Commander, Gay Bar, Gay Bar Part 2, I Buy the Drugs, Down at McDonaldzzz, Danger High Voltage, Infected Girls, Dirty Balls
5. Bang Camaro has maybe 8 singers? They have two guitarists playing kind of Judas Priesty music, a bassist, and a drummer
6. I saw Tait Nucleus and Johnny Nashinal in the audience before their set
7. I bought an Electric Six shirt, a simple one with the band name on the front in red--a black shirt.
8. I thought the chorus of one of the Bang Camaro songs was "Airplanes for Ninjas." One of the guy's I went with thought it was "Hell-bent for Liquor."
Labels:
electric six,
facts,
list,
music
Rough Working Theory of Declining Art
Electric Six Albums in order of quality, IMO:
1. Senor Smoke - 9/10 (second album)
2. Flashy - 9/10 (fifth album)
3. Fire - 9/10 (first album)
4. Switzerland - 5/10 (third album)
5. I Shall Exterminate... - 4/10 (fourth album)
Two awesome early albums, two so-so middle albums, and one awesome late album. Odd--usually I think of bands' albums as slowly diminishing in quality over time--similar to authors and filmmakers. This makes me think bands, authors and bands tend to get attention for one really good early album that they were lucky to produce, and then produced albums of poorer quality while not doing much consciously different in their creating process. In other words, artists got lucky with the first work, and then next few were more like your average artist stumbling through doing okay work, but we wrongly attribute talent where luck is better, a la Taleb's fooled-by-randomness argument.
But another argument is that the first album was good because artists didn't have any formulas, and created a work with an attractive organic-ness, that emerged from trial and error. The following albums tended to be approximations of the first project minus the somewhat open-minded trial and error. The band has a simplified model of what they did the first time, which they deploy in a rote manner, and the work ends up being an approximation of the first product, minus the possibly valuable trial-and-error tinkering, that is perhaps more empirically sensitive to what works and doesn't. Another vaguely Taleb-esque argument actually, I guess--there's a chapter in the Black Swan that talks about an artist's trial and error. The argument, IIRC, is that artists don't know what works ahead of time, but when they try out stuff, they know when they have done something they like. This bit might or might not have been specifically in Taleb's The Black Swan, though it seems Taleb-eque at least: The artists might mis-attribute what works to some procedure they did, rather than luck of accidentally doing stuff that ended up looking nice. I think probably would be thought of as the narrative fallacy, which Taleb brings up in the Black Swan.
Dunno if that makes sense or not, but I'll put it out there.
I think also of a book that was linked to from Marginal Revolution--a book on art, that suggests there are two types of artists, ones that have concepts in mind and execute them, like Picasso, and others who tinker and their works slowly evolve, like some other dude whose name escapes me.
Let me state what I currently believe based on all this speculation: artists are wise to repeat methods associated with success but should ultimately ask if they like what they have produced from those methods, which probably allow for more trial-and-error. If you don't know if it's good enough or not, then keep working on it till it seems pretty likely to be good enough, in your opinion. I suspect that the conceptual/evolutionary approaches seem to match roughly with the Myers-Briggs Judging versus Probing distinction, and I suspect similarly, there are many people who are int he middle of these distinctions for whom the distinctions don't quite feel very useful.
1. Senor Smoke - 9/10 (second album)
2. Flashy - 9/10 (fifth album)
3. Fire - 9/10 (first album)
4. Switzerland - 5/10 (third album)
5. I Shall Exterminate... - 4/10 (fourth album)
Two awesome early albums, two so-so middle albums, and one awesome late album. Odd--usually I think of bands' albums as slowly diminishing in quality over time--similar to authors and filmmakers. This makes me think bands, authors and bands tend to get attention for one really good early album that they were lucky to produce, and then produced albums of poorer quality while not doing much consciously different in their creating process. In other words, artists got lucky with the first work, and then next few were more like your average artist stumbling through doing okay work, but we wrongly attribute talent where luck is better, a la Taleb's fooled-by-randomness argument.
But another argument is that the first album was good because artists didn't have any formulas, and created a work with an attractive organic-ness, that emerged from trial and error. The following albums tended to be approximations of the first project minus the somewhat open-minded trial and error. The band has a simplified model of what they did the first time, which they deploy in a rote manner, and the work ends up being an approximation of the first product, minus the possibly valuable trial-and-error tinkering, that is perhaps more empirically sensitive to what works and doesn't. Another vaguely Taleb-esque argument actually, I guess--there's a chapter in the Black Swan that talks about an artist's trial and error. The argument, IIRC, is that artists don't know what works ahead of time, but when they try out stuff, they know when they have done something they like. This bit might or might not have been specifically in Taleb's The Black Swan, though it seems Taleb-eque at least: The artists might mis-attribute what works to some procedure they did, rather than luck of accidentally doing stuff that ended up looking nice. I think probably would be thought of as the narrative fallacy, which Taleb brings up in the Black Swan.
Dunno if that makes sense or not, but I'll put it out there.
I think also of a book that was linked to from Marginal Revolution--a book on art, that suggests there are two types of artists, ones that have concepts in mind and execute them, like Picasso, and others who tinker and their works slowly evolve, like some other dude whose name escapes me.
Let me state what I currently believe based on all this speculation: artists are wise to repeat methods associated with success but should ultimately ask if they like what they have produced from those methods, which probably allow for more trial-and-error. If you don't know if it's good enough or not, then keep working on it till it seems pretty likely to be good enough, in your opinion. I suspect that the conceptual/evolutionary approaches seem to match roughly with the Myers-Briggs Judging versus Probing distinction, and I suspect similarly, there are many people who are int he middle of these distinctions for whom the distinctions don't quite feel very useful.
Labels:
art,
creativity,
music,
nassim taleb,
theory
Sources of Power by Gary Klein
Sources of Power by Gary Klein - perusing it due to an interest in his recognition-primed decision making model (I think it's his), and the book is good from what I've read of it. It matches a lot of my own thinking about decision making, developed from trying to write fictional characters making decisions--independent evidence of his theory. Klein has studied how people tend to make decisions in real life to develop his model.
(revised 4.30.09)
(revised 4.30.09)
Making Things Fun that Normally Suck
I hated editing my novel. I wrote a long messy draft with tons of typos and it was very boring to clean up. What I did was watch youtube, shows on hulu, or listen to podcasts or text-to-audio versions of articles, via vozme.com, while doing simple editing tasks like correcting obvious spelling errors or grammar. I'd jump around the text, moving to a different section if I got bored of what I was on, marking what I had worked. If I had trouble doing an editing task while watching TV or the like, I'd simplify the task or move to a simpler bit of text. For example, if I were trying to make sentences sound smooth and natural and easily understandable, and found one particular sentence hard, I would skip to a short sentence I could fix quickly without being too taxed as "Chuck" or "The Big Bang Theory" was being played in the adjacent opened window on my desktop. Editing became fun.
Labels:
editing,
fun and productive,
novel writing,
writing
TV Show "Chuck" and Film "Wanted"
"Chuck"--nerdy beta-male beats out alpha males for the heart of alpha female without trading in his beta-hood. He has adventure foisted on him rather than seeking as you might expect an alpha male to do (to exhibit his superiority to other contender-alpha-males, to women). This appeals to the myriad beta-ish guys who wants alpha-ish women (beautiful, young, capable, yet protective and maternal and seemingly pretty chaste and loyal), and a weekly fantasy that supports such a view.
But you could maybe argue Chuck is alpha-ish with a strongly beta-ish veneer.
The movie "Wanted," seems basically the same idea, except the beta becomes an alpha by having adventure foisted on him, and rising to the challenge, winning the heart of the alpha female, Jolie (beautiful, protective--though in the movie not very nurturingly maternal--more stern, in real life, Jolie seems to get some maternal cred with her many babies).
But you could maybe argue Chuck is alpha-ish with a strongly beta-ish veneer.
The movie "Wanted," seems basically the same idea, except the beta becomes an alpha by having adventure foisted on him, and rising to the challenge, winning the heart of the alpha female, Jolie (beautiful, protective--though in the movie not very nurturingly maternal--more stern, in real life, Jolie seems to get some maternal cred with her many babies).
"Parks and Recreation" and "The Office"
"Parks and Recreation" and "The Office"--lovable, earnest, well-intentioned bumblers in middle management make an audience in middle management, or bossed by those types, laugh, but also feel like even bumbling through (which many might feel due to bureaucratic complexity), in a well-intentioned way, is better than cynicism and hopelessness, and gets stuff done sufficiently. Which seems true.
Labels:
parks and recreation,
the office,
tv shows
Do something, do it second, do a lot of it, do try to watch the Dana Carvey Show
Pick Anything by Seth Godin
When in doubt, should you do something or not do anything, on average? I am currently thinking 'do something' but with trepidation.
Why She Does (and Why She Doesn't) by Jeff at Cheap Talk
I'm not sure I get this post completely. Are sloppy seconds supposed to be more likely to impregnate a woman? I've heard a theory that this might be the case. Could this explain cuckolding fetishes? Not that I'm really interested in female orgasms, not being a woman...
Book is Finished by David Shenk
Stats on writing a book.
On the greatness of the Dana Carvey Show Writers
Wow, incredible writing team.
When in doubt, should you do something or not do anything, on average? I am currently thinking 'do something' but with trepidation.
Why She Does (and Why She Doesn't) by Jeff at Cheap Talk
I'm not sure I get this post completely. Are sloppy seconds supposed to be more likely to impregnate a woman? I've heard a theory that this might be the case. Could this explain cuckolding fetishes? Not that I'm really interested in female orgasms, not being a woman...
Book is Finished by David Shenk
Stats on writing a book.
On the greatness of the Dana Carvey Show Writers
Wow, incredible writing team.
Labels:
action,
charlie kaufman,
ev psyche,
procrastination,
writing
Cutting in movies and psychological effects
Steve Sailer writes:
I think of Stanley Kubrick for avoiding cuts, with the effect of feeling you're obsessively staring at something. Maybe Hitchcock too.
"NBK" was made, right after "JFK", near the height of Stone's considerable powers of cinematic razzle-dazzle. To establish the amount of effort put into making "NBK" psychologically powerful, the plaintiff's lawyers counted up the extraordinary number of cuts in the film and compared it to an ordinary film.
I think of Stanley Kubrick for avoiding cuts, with the effect of feeling you're obsessively staring at something. Maybe Hitchcock too.
Labels:
editing,
movies,
psychology
Alternative alternative history
From my post Fun with alternate history: The Kings of America, the Houses of Adams and Cleveland, Kings Nixon and Clinton
I suppose you can make up any rules you want in an exercise of imagination, but wouldn't a more normal way of doing successions in hereditary monarchies be to go with the oldest child at the time of the king's death, and when the king doesn't have a male heir, the oldest brother of the king gets the crown? Keeping that in mind:
The oldest surviving brother of John Quincy Adams II, assumnig dubiously that he had no children, would mean going with Charles Francis Adams Jr., who would be king from 1894-1915, then it seems his son Charles Francis Adams III, from 1915-1954, then his son Charles Francis Adams IV, from 1954-1999, then his son, Charles Francis Adams V from 1999 to who knows when.
What if the US had had a hereditary monarch? Let's imagine that Washington would be the first, and that when there isn't a direct male heir we go with the president who was elected at that time.
I suppose you can make up any rules you want in an exercise of imagination, but wouldn't a more normal way of doing successions in hereditary monarchies be to go with the oldest child at the time of the king's death, and when the king doesn't have a male heir, the oldest brother of the king gets the crown? Keeping that in mind:
John Quincy Adams II - king from 1886-1894, about 8 years. I can't find any info on kids, so I'll assume, dubiously, he didn't have any. In 1894 Grover Cleveland was president, so we'll imagine he gets elected King.
The oldest surviving brother of John Quincy Adams II, assumnig dubiously that he had no children, would mean going with Charles Francis Adams Jr., who would be king from 1894-1915, then it seems his son Charles Francis Adams III, from 1915-1954, then his son Charles Francis Adams IV, from 1954-1999, then his son, Charles Francis Adams V from 1999 to who knows when.
Labels:
adams,
counterfactual history,
history
Man is wolf to man
Listening to Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I'm struck with a crude, somewhat simplistic idea, but an interesting one nonetheless:
Win-win societies are good at trade and bad at war.
Win-lose societies are good at war and bad at trade.
Win-lose societies destroy win-win societies.
Win-lose societies pacify their world, lose opportunities for win-loss interactions (wars), and learn win-win approaches.
Win-lose societies become win-win societies.
Another win-lose society comes along and, experienced in war, beats the newly minted win-win society, that has forgotten win-lose thinking.
Win-win thinking is good generally, but makes one soft.
Win-lose thinking is bad generally, except it makes you tough.
Win-lose thinking comes from scarcity, frontiers, the barbarian world.
Win-win thinking emerges when one side dominates all comers, and all involved turn to win-win arrangements.
Contradiction: Gibbon cites some saying about Rome--that there are two types of Romans, the hunters and their prey. This is win-lose thinking. Does the win-lose impulse turned inward when no outside enemy exists, causing corruption? Gibbon cites the invasion of Germans threatening Rome on one occassion as a stimulus to the soft Roman senate to take up arms and successfully defend the city, which Gibbon suggests is a sign of a reawakening of old Roman virtues.
Win-win societies are good at trade and bad at war.
Win-lose societies are good at war and bad at trade.
Win-lose societies destroy win-win societies.
Win-lose societies pacify their world, lose opportunities for win-loss interactions (wars), and learn win-win approaches.
Win-lose societies become win-win societies.
Another win-lose society comes along and, experienced in war, beats the newly minted win-win society, that has forgotten win-lose thinking.
Win-win thinking is good generally, but makes one soft.
Win-lose thinking is bad generally, except it makes you tough.
Win-lose thinking comes from scarcity, frontiers, the barbarian world.
Win-win thinking emerges when one side dominates all comers, and all involved turn to win-win arrangements.
Contradiction: Gibbon cites some saying about Rome--that there are two types of Romans, the hunters and their prey. This is win-lose thinking. Does the win-lose impulse turned inward when no outside enemy exists, causing corruption? Gibbon cites the invasion of Germans threatening Rome on one occassion as a stimulus to the soft Roman senate to take up arms and successfully defend the city, which Gibbon suggests is a sign of a reawakening of old Roman virtues.
Labels:
civilization,
gibbon,
history,
rome,
simplistic theory,
strategy,
win lose,
win win
Fun with alternate history: The Kings of America, the Houses of Adams and Cleveland, Kings Nixon and Clinton
What if the US had had a hereditary monarch? Let's imagine that Washington would be the first, and that when there isn't a direct male heir we go with the president who was elected at that time.
Washington - no male heir, lived to 1799. Adams would have then become president.
Adams - king from 1799-1826, about 27 years. Passes the monarchy to his son John Quincy Adams in 1826.
John Quincy Adams - king from 1826-1848, about 22 years. Passes the crown to Charles Adams.
Charles Adams - king from 1848-1886, about 38 years. Passes the crown to John Quincy Adams II.
John Quincy Adams II - king from 1886-1894, about 8 years. I can't find any info on kids, so I'll assume, dubiously, he didn't have any. In 1894 Grover Cleveland was president, so we'll imagine he gets elected King.
Grover Cleveland - king from 1894-1908, about 14 years. Passes his crown on to Richard Folsom Cleveland, who around 11 years old, so presumably there's a regent.
Richard Folsom Cleveland - king from 1908-1974, about 66 years. I can't find any info on his kids, so I'll assume he didn't have a male heir, just to keep the exercise going. In 1974 Nixon would get elected King.
Richard Nixon - king from 1974-1994, about 20 years. No sons, so Clinton is elected King in 1994.
Bill Clinton - king from 1994-present, about 15 years. Assume Clinton lives to about 80 (though I imagine he'll go longer), he'd be president to maybe 2026, for a reign of about 32 years).
We would have had nine heads of state since Washington if this scenario played out, rather than having 44 presidents in the same time frame. I'd love to play around with what their reigns might have been like, given their personality and how things might be during their reign. Maybe I'll start from the initial conditions of things at the beginning of their reign and imagine how they might have dealt with things, and speculate as to how things would have evolved differently. Maybe I'll do this with each king, and then imagine a more contiuous timeline, more for fun, in which the speculated term of one king sets the initial conditions of the next. In other words, have one set of portraits of reigns based on real conditions at the beginning of those reigns, and then portraits of reigns based on imagined conditions that developed in previous reigns.
Washington - no male heir, lived to 1799. Adams would have then become president.
Adams - king from 1799-1826, about 27 years. Passes the monarchy to his son John Quincy Adams in 1826.
John Quincy Adams - king from 1826-1848, about 22 years. Passes the crown to Charles Adams.
Charles Adams - king from 1848-1886, about 38 years. Passes the crown to John Quincy Adams II.
John Quincy Adams II - king from 1886-1894, about 8 years. I can't find any info on kids, so I'll assume, dubiously, he didn't have any. In 1894 Grover Cleveland was president, so we'll imagine he gets elected King.
Grover Cleveland - king from 1894-1908, about 14 years. Passes his crown on to Richard Folsom Cleveland, who around 11 years old, so presumably there's a regent.
Richard Folsom Cleveland - king from 1908-1974, about 66 years. I can't find any info on his kids, so I'll assume he didn't have a male heir, just to keep the exercise going. In 1974 Nixon would get elected King.
Richard Nixon - king from 1974-1994, about 20 years. No sons, so Clinton is elected King in 1994.
Bill Clinton - king from 1994-present, about 15 years. Assume Clinton lives to about 80 (though I imagine he'll go longer), he'd be president to maybe 2026, for a reign of about 32 years).
We would have had nine heads of state since Washington if this scenario played out, rather than having 44 presidents in the same time frame. I'd love to play around with what their reigns might have been like, given their personality and how things might be during their reign. Maybe I'll start from the initial conditions of things at the beginning of their reign and imagine how they might have dealt with things, and speculate as to how things would have evolved differently. Maybe I'll do this with each king, and then imagine a more contiuous timeline, more for fun, in which the speculated term of one king sets the initial conditions of the next. In other words, have one set of portraits of reigns based on real conditions at the beginning of those reigns, and then portraits of reigns based on imagined conditions that developed in previous reigns.
Labels:
counterfactual history,
fantasy,
fun,
speculation,
what if
There should be jail for robots
Mike: "Many a false step is made by standing still.*"
Robot: Good advice.
Mike: Yeah, really.
Robot: Don't know what to order at the restaurant? Just go with the first thing you see.
Mike: Sure.
Robot: Not sure what to do next on a project? Just do the first thing that occurs to you and you can fix things as you go.
Mike: Makes sense.
Robot: Deciding whether to strangle that door-to-door salesman or not? Go for it--what's the worst that could happen?
Mike: Yeah--wait, what?
Robot: I mean, it's not like there's a jail for robots.
*an actual fortune cookie fortune I got.
Robot: Good advice.
Mike: Yeah, really.
Robot: Don't know what to order at the restaurant? Just go with the first thing you see.
Mike: Sure.
Robot: Not sure what to do next on a project? Just do the first thing that occurs to you and you can fix things as you go.
Mike: Makes sense.
Robot: Deciding whether to strangle that door-to-door salesman or not? Go for it--what's the worst that could happen?
Mike: Yeah--wait, what?
Robot: I mean, it's not like there's a jail for robots.
*an actual fortune cookie fortune I got.
Labels:
humor
"Many a false step is made by standing still." --My fortune cookie today.
"Many a false step is made by standing still." --My fortune cookie today.
All life is political. There is no escaping it and a flaw of libertarian thinking is that politics can be overcome--humans will always be political animals seeking to lord their power over others, infringing on others' lives, liberty or property, and so this has to be accepted.
The practical libertarian is one who is cunningly political with the end of bringing about a more or less libertarian world, or as much of it as is realistically possible.
In the US, big government and anti-competitive big business are probably good trargets for a populist libertarianism, and the negative critique of these institutions offers a lot of materal to work with. Alienating big business cuts one off from funding, and being against big government makes you less of a candidate for support among those who want the government to do their will, but being in the pocket of big business isn't libertarian. Perhaps focusing on the populace and gaining power through them is the best approach.
One approach for libertarians might be to befriend wealthy and influential types individually and convert them to the libertarian cause while slapping big government and big business continually with libertarian critiques. And Republicans and Democrats are both for different kinds of big government, so a libertarian can ally with Democrats on critiquing non-libertarian policies by Republicans, and similarly with Republicans on non-libertarian policies of Democrats.
Generally I think it would be good for libertarians to avoid advocating issues that are unpopular, because they get tarred as nuts when they do. Better to be noted at the people who are associated with popular anti-big-government and anti-big-business attitudes. Better to remain silent on an unpopular issue, at least in the public sphere.
To clarify, by beign anti-big-business I mean big-business that tries to influence politics in their favor by getting its hands on the levers of big government by lobbying and political contributions.
The practical libertarian is one who is cunningly political with the end of bringing about a more or less libertarian world, or as much of it as is realistically possible.
In the US, big government and anti-competitive big business are probably good trargets for a populist libertarianism, and the negative critique of these institutions offers a lot of materal to work with. Alienating big business cuts one off from funding, and being against big government makes you less of a candidate for support among those who want the government to do their will, but being in the pocket of big business isn't libertarian. Perhaps focusing on the populace and gaining power through them is the best approach.
One approach for libertarians might be to befriend wealthy and influential types individually and convert them to the libertarian cause while slapping big government and big business continually with libertarian critiques. And Republicans and Democrats are both for different kinds of big government, so a libertarian can ally with Democrats on critiquing non-libertarian policies by Republicans, and similarly with Republicans on non-libertarian policies of Democrats.
Generally I think it would be good for libertarians to avoid advocating issues that are unpopular, because they get tarred as nuts when they do. Better to be noted at the people who are associated with popular anti-big-government and anti-big-business attitudes. Better to remain silent on an unpopular issue, at least in the public sphere.
To clarify, by beign anti-big-business I mean big-business that tries to influence politics in their favor by getting its hands on the levers of big government by lobbying and political contributions.
Labels:
libertarianism,
politics,
strategy
Cavemen debating society, Zombies created by crowds, Liquidating some gov, Making worse decisions that feel better, Assortative-mating created classes
Efficient Economist Pledge by Robin Hanson
Is liberty or efficiency more important? Hanson says efficiency and Caplan says liberty. I guess if I had a gun to my head, I'd say I agree with Caplan a little more than Hanson, though I tend to think that their argument sort of dissolves when you get into the details--like liberty tends to lead to efficiencies, and neither Caplan or Hanson are really absolutists about the concepts, so in real world arguments, would they really have a big disagreement about some policy matter?
They both seem to have a kind of Jekyll and Hyde personality, in a non-bad sense. Hanson seems like someone who devotes a lot of time to truth uber alles, but he's also very good with a kind of debating/advocacy sort of role that to me anyway, seems a bit more sneaky in its nature to the truth-uber-alles mentality. Debating is more like 'My side, right or wrong.' I guess you could say, hey, that's okay because you're balanced out by another guy who is doing the same thing with an opposing argument.
And Caplan seems Jeckyl-and-Hyde-ish in the sense that he has a sort of Objectivist self-confidence but seems fairly comfortable with admitting he's wrong, though maybe I'm misreading him. There's a kind of recusant-Austrian quality about him--he obviously likes Murray Rothbard but he's distanced himself from the Austrian school.
Oh, and the whole debate format between Jekyl-and-Hyde-like debaters makes me think about communal rationality, you might call it, or maybe ev-psyche or cave man or evolutionary rationality--say being a rational individual isn't ideal--it's better to just be rational in a biased, un-self-conscious way, and do it among people who will counter it. You'll debate, have your views voted on, informally, in your tribe, and have certain pressures to conform or not.
How rationality worked in Stone Age might be something to look at, and how it fails us or serves us, and what rationality at that time was, and how things have changes while we are largely the same. I kind of assume ev psyche has already dealt with a lot of this, but I wonder how much has been looked at regarding how rationality functions among cave men, or could have functioned, and how it might have good things to it as well as bad. Maybe all of us being rational is bad to an extent, because we lose gains specialization and trade. I'm good at imagining stuff, you're good at criticizing, Bill is good at making things happen, Jill's has good social intelligence. We all do better than if we were all blundering along, me trying to be critical of all my brilliant ideas, you trying to come up with a bunch of ideas at the cave man brain-storming meeting, et c. et c.
Paperlilies going to an award show
It sounds like Paperlilies (a sort of Youtube celebrity) is going to sort of big-deal-sounding TV award show in England. She did a zombie movie thing that was contributed to by a bunch of people around the world, and what I thought was neat about the movie project was that it was the first movie project that I know of that is being produced in a distributed manner--starting with Paperlilies kind of imagining a zombie movie, and then people getting excited about it and organizing, seemingly on their own to an extent, and it seemed Paperlilies took the leadership role, and somehow the whole thing snowballed into a movie that was documented on a show on BBC4.
Yes.
I like this idea, and not just as a joke. How much money would you get back if the government just scrapped everything but military and courts? I think off the top of my head that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are like 1.7 trillion or so, yearly. Say you gave that money to everyone and said okay, you have to get what we provided to you on your own. Everyone would have about 5,600 bucks a year to do it with. Would that be a good deal?
Experimentation in business
Cool idea--I read a book called "Decision Traps" by Russo and Shoomaker, from Cornell and the University of Chicago respectively, that seemed aimed at business types, and attempted to get them thinking in more experimental ways, and educated them about biases--Russo and Schoomaker reference Kahneman and Tversky IIRC, and show a person how to do a sort of informal statistical analysis that was experimentally pretty good according to them, compared to intuition.
One odd experience I had, though, was using their advice to determine what it was I liked about movies, and broke it down into weighted factors that I then used to rank movies, and it seems the factors I chose ended up producing odd choices--some movies that I thought were way better than others, intuitively, didn't beat ones that were worse, as I judged them intuitively.
I liked the book, but I admit I almost never use the methods they outline, which they say are I think generally better than intuition. I compare their method to Gary Klein's Recognition-primed Decision theory, which seems more in line with how I make decisions generally, and how I suspect people in general do, which seems to be the aim of Klein's approach, to get a picture of natural human decision-making.
My account for why I don't use the method from "Decision Traps" is that it's too uncomfortable. If someone told me I could move more efficiently by walking on my tippy toes I still wouldn't do it, because it is too unpleasant compared to just walking around. It was such a good book to read though. I'm sure the stuff about biases influences my way of thinking about things massively nowadays--and one of my favorite sites, overcomingbias.com, is about the cognitive biases we have, a major theme from Decision Traps.
Incompetence
I'm fascinated by what it would be like to experience the feeling that you aren't able to keep up with a lot of other people. I think of the idea of a singularity in which perhaps AI becomes so smart that it makes me look like an ant in comparison, in terms of intelligence. We're used to being the smartest creatures around. I suppose we can understand to an extent that another being is much smarter than us. If you can do calculus in your head, you've beaten me. So what might it be like if we're eclipsed by our own technology, or gaps in IQ among people become greater do to assortative mating create a sort of IQ elite.
On the other hand, could there be some kind of distinction between school smart and street smart that could be seen in AI or in assortative mating. I could see the street smart types not liking the school smart types, and mating with similarly street smart types (Tony and Carmilla Soprano). You get more priestly-type people good at abstract math, who are indifferent to practicalities, and a bring warrior class with some indifference to abstraction, maybe? Highly speculative!
Tom 7's Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous play an interesting gig
This is cool--a more recent entry also shows Tom 7's interesting new piece of equipment, the laser suspension womb, a hard hat with lights embedded within that shine outward, that are synchronized to music played through a guitar-hero-like game, which is played while wearing the hat. I think Tom 7 must have referenced the hat in his second novel, (I haven't read them, but I imagine they are fun!). I suspect Tom 7 will probably create some kind of rich interactive universe given his multi-media talents and facility with computers. Think "What would Goethe be doing in the 21st Century?"
Hahaha. Wow, awesome. If this is true, I am amazed at Strunk's reputed certitude.
I qualify my remarks so much I annoy myself, even though I feel like qualifying your remarks makes for wimpy prose. 'I think that this seems to be the case, or approximately the case.' I think sometimes good-sounding style just plays to people's desire for simplicity and narrative and certainty. Part of me thinks people who go for these Mclaughlin-of-Mclaughlin group style declarations are just exhibiting their desire to be seen as tough and perhaps want to intimidate people into agreeing with them. If you want argument, shouldn't you want to make it easy for people to argue with you, meaning don't look like you're gonna bite off their head?
Usefulness of knowledge formula
This formula is neat, though I don't know how you multiply what you learned by what you know necessarily, though I think it was probably just a kind of intuitive, off-the-top-of-the head sort of formula. One of the things I like about learning something new is, similarly to the formula, how I kind of use the new knowledge and sort of connect it with already known things, and see if the new knowledge allows me to grab some new knowledge out of the old knowledge.
I don't know of any really systematic study of humans developing ideas, then learning new ideas, and relating old and new ideas to develop even more new ideas. There's something weirdly artsy about the process, it seems to me--I seem to learn something new, and then use it as a metaphor to describe other things already known, and follow new lines of thinking unlocked by the metaphor, probably first along lines of similarity. Perhaps also I create metaphors in a somewhat random manner, comparing the new knowledge with old knowledge, a process that perhaps acts as a kind of random sampling of possibility, that effectively unlocks something useful.
Wisdom of Pets
Sometimes I think I am too uptight about not liking to pick things up off the floor without quickly washing my hands et c. I think of pets and babies--they both are totally untroubled by tasting totally gross things like the floor or as I've heard one baby doing, a shopping cart handle, and they seem to do okay. So why do we adults act so much more uptight? How did we get so hygienic?
Is liberty or efficiency more important? Hanson says efficiency and Caplan says liberty. I guess if I had a gun to my head, I'd say I agree with Caplan a little more than Hanson, though I tend to think that their argument sort of dissolves when you get into the details--like liberty tends to lead to efficiencies, and neither Caplan or Hanson are really absolutists about the concepts, so in real world arguments, would they really have a big disagreement about some policy matter?
They both seem to have a kind of Jekyll and Hyde personality, in a non-bad sense. Hanson seems like someone who devotes a lot of time to truth uber alles, but he's also very good with a kind of debating/advocacy sort of role that to me anyway, seems a bit more sneaky in its nature to the truth-uber-alles mentality. Debating is more like 'My side, right or wrong.' I guess you could say, hey, that's okay because you're balanced out by another guy who is doing the same thing with an opposing argument.
And Caplan seems Jeckyl-and-Hyde-ish in the sense that he has a sort of Objectivist self-confidence but seems fairly comfortable with admitting he's wrong, though maybe I'm misreading him. There's a kind of recusant-Austrian quality about him--he obviously likes Murray Rothbard but he's distanced himself from the Austrian school.
Oh, and the whole debate format between Jekyl-and-Hyde-like debaters makes me think about communal rationality, you might call it, or maybe ev-psyche or cave man or evolutionary rationality--say being a rational individual isn't ideal--it's better to just be rational in a biased, un-self-conscious way, and do it among people who will counter it. You'll debate, have your views voted on, informally, in your tribe, and have certain pressures to conform or not.
How rationality worked in Stone Age might be something to look at, and how it fails us or serves us, and what rationality at that time was, and how things have changes while we are largely the same. I kind of assume ev psyche has already dealt with a lot of this, but I wonder how much has been looked at regarding how rationality functions among cave men, or could have functioned, and how it might have good things to it as well as bad. Maybe all of us being rational is bad to an extent, because we lose gains specialization and trade. I'm good at imagining stuff, you're good at criticizing, Bill is good at making things happen, Jill's has good social intelligence. We all do better than if we were all blundering along, me trying to be critical of all my brilliant ideas, you trying to come up with a bunch of ideas at the cave man brain-storming meeting, et c. et c.
Paperlilies going to an award show
It sounds like Paperlilies (a sort of Youtube celebrity) is going to sort of big-deal-sounding TV award show in England. She did a zombie movie thing that was contributed to by a bunch of people around the world, and what I thought was neat about the movie project was that it was the first movie project that I know of that is being produced in a distributed manner--starting with Paperlilies kind of imagining a zombie movie, and then people getting excited about it and organizing, seemingly on their own to an extent, and it seemed Paperlilies took the leadership role, and somehow the whole thing snowballed into a movie that was documented on a show on BBC4.
Yes.
I like this idea, and not just as a joke. How much money would you get back if the government just scrapped everything but military and courts? I think off the top of my head that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are like 1.7 trillion or so, yearly. Say you gave that money to everyone and said okay, you have to get what we provided to you on your own. Everyone would have about 5,600 bucks a year to do it with. Would that be a good deal?
Experimentation in business
Cool idea--I read a book called "Decision Traps" by Russo and Shoomaker, from Cornell and the University of Chicago respectively, that seemed aimed at business types, and attempted to get them thinking in more experimental ways, and educated them about biases--Russo and Schoomaker reference Kahneman and Tversky IIRC, and show a person how to do a sort of informal statistical analysis that was experimentally pretty good according to them, compared to intuition.
One odd experience I had, though, was using their advice to determine what it was I liked about movies, and broke it down into weighted factors that I then used to rank movies, and it seems the factors I chose ended up producing odd choices--some movies that I thought were way better than others, intuitively, didn't beat ones that were worse, as I judged them intuitively.
I liked the book, but I admit I almost never use the methods they outline, which they say are I think generally better than intuition. I compare their method to Gary Klein's Recognition-primed Decision theory, which seems more in line with how I make decisions generally, and how I suspect people in general do, which seems to be the aim of Klein's approach, to get a picture of natural human decision-making.
My account for why I don't use the method from "Decision Traps" is that it's too uncomfortable. If someone told me I could move more efficiently by walking on my tippy toes I still wouldn't do it, because it is too unpleasant compared to just walking around. It was such a good book to read though. I'm sure the stuff about biases influences my way of thinking about things massively nowadays--and one of my favorite sites, overcomingbias.com, is about the cognitive biases we have, a major theme from Decision Traps.
Incompetence
I'm fascinated by what it would be like to experience the feeling that you aren't able to keep up with a lot of other people. I think of the idea of a singularity in which perhaps AI becomes so smart that it makes me look like an ant in comparison, in terms of intelligence. We're used to being the smartest creatures around. I suppose we can understand to an extent that another being is much smarter than us. If you can do calculus in your head, you've beaten me. So what might it be like if we're eclipsed by our own technology, or gaps in IQ among people become greater do to assortative mating create a sort of IQ elite.
On the other hand, could there be some kind of distinction between school smart and street smart that could be seen in AI or in assortative mating. I could see the street smart types not liking the school smart types, and mating with similarly street smart types (Tony and Carmilla Soprano). You get more priestly-type people good at abstract math, who are indifferent to practicalities, and a bring warrior class with some indifference to abstraction, maybe? Highly speculative!
Tom 7's Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous play an interesting gig
This is cool--a more recent entry also shows Tom 7's interesting new piece of equipment, the laser suspension womb, a hard hat with lights embedded within that shine outward, that are synchronized to music played through a guitar-hero-like game, which is played while wearing the hat. I think Tom 7 must have referenced the hat in his second novel, (I haven't read them, but I imagine they are fun!). I suspect Tom 7 will probably create some kind of rich interactive universe given his multi-media talents and facility with computers. Think "What would Goethe be doing in the 21st Century?"
Hahaha. Wow, awesome. If this is true, I am amazed at Strunk's reputed certitude.
I qualify my remarks so much I annoy myself, even though I feel like qualifying your remarks makes for wimpy prose. 'I think that this seems to be the case, or approximately the case.' I think sometimes good-sounding style just plays to people's desire for simplicity and narrative and certainty. Part of me thinks people who go for these Mclaughlin-of-Mclaughlin group style declarations are just exhibiting their desire to be seen as tough and perhaps want to intimidate people into agreeing with them. If you want argument, shouldn't you want to make it easy for people to argue with you, meaning don't look like you're gonna bite off their head?
Usefulness of knowledge formula
This formula is neat, though I don't know how you multiply what you learned by what you know necessarily, though I think it was probably just a kind of intuitive, off-the-top-of-the head sort of formula. One of the things I like about learning something new is, similarly to the formula, how I kind of use the new knowledge and sort of connect it with already known things, and see if the new knowledge allows me to grab some new knowledge out of the old knowledge.
I don't know of any really systematic study of humans developing ideas, then learning new ideas, and relating old and new ideas to develop even more new ideas. There's something weirdly artsy about the process, it seems to me--I seem to learn something new, and then use it as a metaphor to describe other things already known, and follow new lines of thinking unlocked by the metaphor, probably first along lines of similarity. Perhaps also I create metaphors in a somewhat random manner, comparing the new knowledge with old knowledge, a process that perhaps acts as a kind of random sampling of possibility, that effectively unlocks something useful.
Wisdom of Pets
Sometimes I think I am too uptight about not liking to pick things up off the floor without quickly washing my hands et c. I think of pets and babies--they both are totally untroubled by tasting totally gross things like the floor or as I've heard one baby doing, a shopping cart handle, and they seem to do okay. So why do we adults act so much more uptight? How did we get so hygienic?
Throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks, part II
I commented here:
Seth Roberts comments:
I comment:
Addendum:
Seth comments:
Mike comments:
Seth comments:
what about trying out many new things at once, like when you went to paris or beijing. those seemed like fruitful enterprise, and didn’t seem like ‘the smallest, easiest thing.’ going to those places seemed to expose you to lots of strange stimuli, and new things happened to you, which you then sought explanations for. this to my inexpert mind seems like a very valuable approach, as long as you don’t do anything that could lead to non-trivial risks of serious harm. one could try to eliminate stimuli to see if effects remain, to isolate the actual causes. but perhaps there is a serious flaw in this thinking?
Seth Roberts comments:
Mike, going to Paris is a good way to get new ideas but it isn’t doing an experiment. Experiments are usually done to test ideas, not generate them.
I comment:
what if i were to take a bunch of different supplements at once to see if i notice anything new happening to me. i’m impatient, so i don’t do one supplement at a time, but a whole host of them, while being cautious not to poison myself in any known way.
i then observe what happens to me–say i get a dry mouth and i sleep an extra hour a night. i then remove half of the supplements to see if the results remain, and they do. i then divide the supplements i am taking into half again and see if the results remain, and they don’t, so i take the half i had just stopped taking, et c. would this constitute a reasonable experiment? i’ve heard warnings about testing multiple things at once, and have wondered if the above example is included or is different.
Addendum:
Seth comments:
Mike, the sort of thing you propose works only in people’s dreams, as far as I know. Things just aren’t that simple.
Mike comments:
thanks–i defer to you on this given your experience–is there a particular difficulty that emerges from such an approach? just thinking about it, and not having much experience with experimentation in general, i have trouble coming up with a serious problem with it.
Seth comments:
here are two possible difficulties: 1. it will be hard to take so many supplements. 2. the effects won’t be clear.
Labels:
experimentation,
self experimentation,
seth roberts
throwing everythign at the wall to see what sticks
what about trying out many new things at once, like when you went to paris or beijing. those seemed like fruitful enterprise, and didn’t seem like ‘the smallest, easiest thing.’ going to those places seemed to expose you to lots of strange stimuli, and new things happened to you, which you then sought explanations for. this to my inexpert mind seems like a very valuable approach, as long as you don’t do anything that could lead to non-trivial risks of serious harm. one could try to eliminate stimuli to see if effects remain, to isolate the actual causes. but perhaps there is a serious flaw in this thinking?
me commenting here.
Labels:
experimentation,
self experimentation
Non-trivial Trivia Section in Wikipedia
The Wikipedia decision-makers seem to want to get rid of the trivia section of their entries, but I have to say I love the trivia section and it's the one I am most likely to read in an entry.
How about a Wiki-trivia-pedia of only trivia sections? It'd be an interesting read, I bet, and people wouldn't have to invest much time adding something to the list. Wikipeida is to wiki-trivia-pedia as blogging is to twittering?
How about a Wiki-trivia-pedia of only trivia sections? It'd be an interesting read, I bet, and people wouldn't have to invest much time adding something to the list. Wikipeida is to wiki-trivia-pedia as blogging is to twittering?
stripping bias: god puts a gun to your head and asks you what you really believe
thought on 'overcoming bias': if you want to know what you really believe, imagine god came down to you and pointed a gun to your head and asked you to tell him what you think the truth of some matter is, and if you're wrong, he'll shoot you. your answer to him will reveal what you think is your sober, reflective, honest view.
does this seem useful? i like it as a thought experiment or experimental heuristic, but i don't know.
does this seem useful? i like it as a thought experiment or experimental heuristic, but i don't know.
Labels:
bias,
heuristic,
self deception,
thought experiment
From Maverick Philosopher:
The emphasis on life being burdensome is interesting. I'm reminded of Albert Ellis, the psychologist, his idea of low frustration tolerance being a cause of I think anxiety. People sometimes think that they should get everything they want easily and when they don't they get frustrated. So the expectation, I guess, causes the frustration, whereas if you recognize that it's normal to struggle with stuff, you might not get frustrated. I think Ellis was influenced by the Stoics. That said, the Stoic world view seems kind of a bummer, so maybe you have to balance the expectation of difficulty with some kind of optimism about your ability to overcome it in a way that is generally pretty satisfactory. In a way low tolerance for frustrations is possibly a sign of a strong person--they are used to getting things easily, or not having to work hard at something, and this suggests a strength and ability, or a world that is not so difficult to live in.
Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, X, 4 (tr. Basore):
All life is a servitude. And so a man must become reconciled to his lot, must complain of it as little as possible, and must lay hold of whatever good it may have; no state is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find in its some consolation. . . . Apply reason to difficulties; it is possible to soften what is hard, to widen what is narrow, and burdens will press less heavily upon those who bear them skillfully.
The emphasis on life being burdensome is interesting. I'm reminded of Albert Ellis, the psychologist, his idea of low frustration tolerance being a cause of I think anxiety. People sometimes think that they should get everything they want easily and when they don't they get frustrated. So the expectation, I guess, causes the frustration, whereas if you recognize that it's normal to struggle with stuff, you might not get frustrated. I think Ellis was influenced by the Stoics. That said, the Stoic world view seems kind of a bummer, so maybe you have to balance the expectation of difficulty with some kind of optimism about your ability to overcome it in a way that is generally pretty satisfactory. In a way low tolerance for frustrations is possibly a sign of a strong person--they are used to getting things easily, or not having to work hard at something, and this suggests a strength and ability, or a world that is not so difficult to live in.
taxes
did my taxes. "taxes" backwards is "sex at." ...kind of. sex at where? or when? sex at noon, in the porto potty! ...you can spell "texas" by rearranging the letters of "taxes." you can get "axest", which should be a word though isn't--F.U. english. and "sexta," which sounds like an ED pill, or an erotically packaged sugar substitute. i'm mike kenny, and i approve this message.
Freud & ev psyche, mentally frugal jump-shots, indirect approach & Roman strategy, keep moving, Kerouac & recognition-primed decisions, be yourself
Tyler Cowen:
I comment there:
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I was thinking similarly that engineering is pattern informed by functionality, which is informed by sensibility. Engineering doesn't itself necessarily appeal to our sensibility, but indirectly does, and could be possibly thought of as indirect art--it itself doesn't necessarily please but its product does.
*
From the Independent (Hat tip to Mindhacks.com):
Does this mean you should be asking women who remind you of your mom what their dad's were like to see if you're compatible with them? What does this mean for the evolution of relationships? I marry someone like my mom, and my wife marries me, who is like her dad. Our relationship will be possibly be quite similar in some respects to our parents, but different in the sense that we're different than our same-sex parents. So from my vantage point, my marriage might look a bit like my parents relationship, except that my dad is more like me, and to my wife, our marriage would look like her parents', except her mom is more like her. Weird. I can see this possibly being a way of slowly changing relationships without creating radical change. That said, why is there the stereotype of mothers not getting along with daughters-in-laws, and men not getting along with their daughter's boyfriends? Is it that we naturally are competitive with people who fit a similar ecological niche to us, and this tendency might bleed over into our relationships with our kids' mates, or our mates' same-sex parents?
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From Audacious Epigone's blogger profile:
I hear it's good to keep your military forces working on something, even if it's sort of pointless, because it's good for their morale. I think I've read JFC Fuller, Clauswitz, I think Vegetius, Ulysses Grant, and I think others, all make this point. It seems like German war doctrines from Moltke, possibly earlier, had a 'any action is better than no action' attitude. I wonder if it's good just for individuals to have a sort of 'keep moving' attitude. One problem is that everyday human life for individuals is not always competitive, whereas war always is, and the competitive aspect might be the important factor is the 'keep moving' philosophy. Though I do suspect that the 'keep moving' attitude might help with depression. Grant might have suffered from depression--maybe he used the 'keep moving' idea in his own individual everyday life.
I like the aloneness aspect of the Africanus quote too. At marginalrevolution.com and overcomingbias.com there have recently been posts on a study that suggests when we socialize, we tend to talk about stuff that everyone knows about, having kind of agree-fests. I find this kind of boring, but maybe I'm weird. If you feel lonely when among people, because you're weird and want to learn new things, or because for whatever reason you're less agreeable than average, you might learn more, by associating with new people (Nietzsche said something about it being good to associate with people who disagree with you, rather than agree, something like that). Also, if you're used to going-it-alone, you might be more able to deal with situations where there is perhaps no consensus, or consensus-thinking is bad--is being a general, which Scipio Africanus is a famous for (beat Hannibal!) helped by the tendency to be able to think for oneself and not be inclined towards consensus thinking? Ulysses S. Grant said "I don't underrate the value of military knowledge, but if men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail." So if you're used to not agreeing with the consensus, then you can look at things freshly, and perhaps this is good in a general, who has to deal with an evolving situation, where the old ways of doing things might make you predictable.
On the other hand, as overcomingbias.com writings have suggested, Robin Hanson I think mainly, consensus or average views tend to be good to mimic, unless you have good reasons not to follow them. If nobody thinks it's a good idea to drink Lysol, it's probably a good idea not to. If everyone thinks it's a good idea to eat food, you probably should.
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Vegetius:
This quote seems related to the idea of consensus, mimicry, and thinking for yourself, and I suppose in war our tendency to mimic might not be good sometimes. I think of when I was little, playing chess, I would sometimes do exactly what the other guy did, which tended not to work so well and at some point became impossible because my situation was different than his. I also think of argument--I think Bismarck said something like "I like to repay people in their own coin." I took this to mean when someone is nice to you or does you a favor, you do the same for them, and vice versa, when someone hurts you, you hurt them back. The tit-for-tat strategy that has been shown to work well in I think iterated prisoner's dilemma games. So here mirroring seems to be not a bad approach, though I think some other strategy beat tit-for-tat eventually.
On the other hand, I think sometimes giving in to someone rather than repaying them in their own coin can be disorienting to them, and you can use this as a sort of judo move. On a few occasions people have gotten aggressive with me in arguments and I found that if you are weirdly nice to them rather than shouting back, it seems to disorient your opponent, or make them feel weird. In public arguments, I suspect a person yelling and acting 'mean' to someone who is nice and easygoing makes the 'mean' person feel weird. I wonder if the Christian approach of turning the other cheek basically has this advantage of disorienting attackers. I don't think it would always work though. I recall someone saying something like, "If Gandhi tried passive resistance on someone like Hitler, his movement would have been crushed."
More Vegetius:
To me this is sort of in line with Sun Tzu and Basil Liddell Hart's "indirect approach," and Sherman and Grant's total war approach. I think Caesar and Pompeii the Great both liked this approach in winning battles (Liddell Hart features Caesar starving an opponent, and I think magnanimously accepting defectors from the starving camps, as a means of bloodlessly attriting the enemy, in Spain during the Roman Civil War).
For some reason though it surprised me to read the above Vegetius passage. Somewhere in my mind I thought that Romans tended to be slug-it-out, direct and dumb annihilators rather than engaging in an indirect style I associate with Sun Tzu and Liddell Hart's theories. Maybe their fights with Pyrrhus and prior to Fabius and Scipio, their battles with Hannibal have highlighted a brutal, straightforward style that sometimes overshadows Caesar, Fabius and Scipio Africanus.
Vegetius:
This mirrors the discussion of Scipio and being at ease above.
Vegetius:
Basically it seems you want to hold off battle until you're likely to really do well, or because you have to. This mirrors the idea of Lenin, I paraphrase, that you want to weaken your enemy so much before fighting that when you do he's so weak he is easily defeated. Liddell Hart references this idea in his "Strategy of Indirect Approach" book, which you can read entirely for free at the archive.org. Liddell Hart, IIRC, thought of strategy as the art of getting the best situation possibly prior to battle, or possibly even creating a situation where battle was impossible for the enemy, so you win bloodlessly. Sun Tzu also talks about battle as a last resort (actually probably seiges as the last resort), first aiming to weaken your enemy by other means.
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Hat tip to Richard Lawrence Cohen.
I've read this quote before. I love it. I recently have been reading about Recognition-primed decision making, developed by Gary Klein and possibly others. This article from Fast Company seems a pretty good introduction. The basic idea, and perhaps I am being a little simplistic, is that you create a picture of the world intuitively, and then compare it to the facts. If there are contradictions between your picture of the situation and reality, then you generate a new picture until something fits the facts available.
Similarly, when imagining how the future works, in order to act, you develop a simulation of the world, and note problems in the simulation, and create an altered simulation to avoid the problems of the previous one, until you find a satisfactory simulation on which to act. It seems when you're an expert, or dealing with a fairly ordinary situation, your first thought will tend to be your best thought. You can rapidly act without much or any conscious decision making, and may chalk up your actions to intuition, experience, or ESP even. You might not even really know why you act the way you do, you just do what you do and that's that, but it works. I suppose, if I understand right, in novel situations, you start with first thought best thought, and then alter it as you see problems in it. The less expert you are, the more you'll tend to generate options, it seems, which makes sense to me. This seems, more or less, a pretty accurate approximation of decision making. I just think of it when I hear 'first thought best thought'. I suppose recognition-primed decisions might be 'first thought, best thought, unless something occurs to you as problematic about the thought,' more or less, and the inexperienced are likely to see more problematic with their first thought.
The concept of coup d'oeil in military theory I believe is mentioned by Klein, perhaps in one of his books, IIRC--having a vision of what should be done as a kind of flash of insight. What I like about recognition-primed decisions is it seems closer to everyday decision-making than the decision theory I've looked at. Overcomingbias.com, which is a site very interested in making good decisions, doesn't seem to have any references to this theory, which to me suggests the site is biased towards non-naturalistic decision making (playing to the mathy strengths of Hanson and Yudkowsky). In the Fast Company article linked-to above, it's noted Klein found out that students at I think MIT's Sloan Business School were taught a form of decision theory, but then didn't use it in making important decisions in their life. Revealed preference. I've tried to use decision theory in making decisions in life and it's like walking on your hands.
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Bryan Caplan:
Bryan Caplan elsehwere:
Imagine we all walked around with video cameras on ourselves 24/7 fed live to the web, saved and archived, and automatically tagged by computers so that the video database is searchable.
*
I was running through my Google Notebook, which is where I got I think all these quotes, and I just commented on them, saying whatever came to mind. I had a good time with it! I've been struggling to have fun blogging--I like the idea of blogging but have yet to really enjoy it that much. This has helped me! Maybe this will be a new way of doing things, if it keeps being fun! I think I might have been influenced by Nassim Taleb's notebook, which is fare-ranging, digressive, and addictively interesting.
3. Jordan's flat shot was part and parcel of an efficient combination of talents. Perhaps the flat shot gave him a quicker release or different angles at the basket or a greater ability to shoot while moving or all of those. Check out "The Shot" at 2:20 here...
In my heart of hearts, I believe #3 is the answer.
Questions: Can any feature of the U.S. economy be said to be akin to Jordan's flat jumper? Any feature of your personal cognitive profile?
I comment there:
One thought is that a flat shot is simpler for your mind to compute than a higher-arched shot. I've heard the mind is distracted by curving motions compared to straight ones, presumably because they require more brain power to track. Maybe Jordan could free himself up to do weirder stuff on the court to throw off defenders if he kept his shot simpler and thus requiring less mental activity to execute. The mental activity could go into getting the best position to make a flat shot. Very speculative of course! :)
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Art is Pattern Informed by Sensibility." - - Sir Hebert Read
I was thinking similarly that engineering is pattern informed by functionality, which is informed by sensibility. Engineering doesn't itself necessarily appeal to our sensibility, but indirectly does, and could be possibly thought of as indirect art--it itself doesn't necessarily please but its product does.
*
From the Independent (Hat tip to Mindhacks.com):
"From a social point of view, people will go for the same types of partners throughout their lives. For example, one woman might go for tall, brown-eyed men throughout her life," Sergeant says. Research shows that this preference stems from our parents. "This sounds Freudian, but it operates through an imprinting-like phenomenon. Men often look for qualities in a potential mate that they might have seen in their mothers," he adds.
There is an evolutionary reason for this. When we decide to have children, we want to do so with an individual whose genes we know have been tried and tested, and are therefore successful – hence the similarity factor. There is, however, an optimum level of similarity. Too similar is unattractive, as it suggests similar genes and inbreeding. We are after new genetic material, but equally material that we have seen has worked in the past.
Does this mean you should be asking women who remind you of your mom what their dad's were like to see if you're compatible with them? What does this mean for the evolution of relationships? I marry someone like my mom, and my wife marries me, who is like her dad. Our relationship will be possibly be quite similar in some respects to our parents, but different in the sense that we're different than our same-sex parents. So from my vantage point, my marriage might look a bit like my parents relationship, except that my dad is more like me, and to my wife, our marriage would look like her parents', except her mom is more like her. Weird. I can see this possibly being a way of slowly changing relationships without creating radical change. That said, why is there the stereotype of mothers not getting along with daughters-in-laws, and men not getting along with their daughter's boyfriends? Is it that we naturally are competitive with people who fit a similar ecological niche to us, and this tendency might bleed over into our relationships with our kids' mates, or our mates' same-sex parents?
*
From Audacious Epigone's blogger profile:
"I'm never less at leisure than when at leisure or less alone than when alone." -- Scipio Africanus
I hear it's good to keep your military forces working on something, even if it's sort of pointless, because it's good for their morale. I think I've read JFC Fuller, Clauswitz, I think Vegetius, Ulysses Grant, and I think others, all make this point. It seems like German war doctrines from Moltke, possibly earlier, had a 'any action is better than no action' attitude. I wonder if it's good just for individuals to have a sort of 'keep moving' attitude. One problem is that everyday human life for individuals is not always competitive, whereas war always is, and the competitive aspect might be the important factor is the 'keep moving' philosophy. Though I do suspect that the 'keep moving' attitude might help with depression. Grant might have suffered from depression--maybe he used the 'keep moving' idea in his own individual everyday life.
I like the aloneness aspect of the Africanus quote too. At marginalrevolution.com and overcomingbias.com there have recently been posts on a study that suggests when we socialize, we tend to talk about stuff that everyone knows about, having kind of agree-fests. I find this kind of boring, but maybe I'm weird. If you feel lonely when among people, because you're weird and want to learn new things, or because for whatever reason you're less agreeable than average, you might learn more, by associating with new people (Nietzsche said something about it being good to associate with people who disagree with you, rather than agree, something like that). Also, if you're used to going-it-alone, you might be more able to deal with situations where there is perhaps no consensus, or consensus-thinking is bad--is being a general, which Scipio Africanus is a famous for (beat Hannibal!) helped by the tendency to be able to think for oneself and not be inclined towards consensus thinking? Ulysses S. Grant said "I don't underrate the value of military knowledge, but if men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail." So if you're used to not agreeing with the consensus, then you can look at things freshly, and perhaps this is good in a general, who has to deal with an evolving situation, where the old ways of doing things might make you predictable.
On the other hand, as overcomingbias.com writings have suggested, Robin Hanson I think mainly, consensus or average views tend to be good to mimic, unless you have good reasons not to follow them. If nobody thinks it's a good idea to drink Lysol, it's probably a good idea not to. If everyone thinks it's a good idea to eat food, you probably should.
*
Vegetius:
It is the nature of war that what is beneficial to you is detrimental to the enemy and what is of service to him always hurts you. It is therefore a maxim never to do, or to omit doing, anything as a consequence of his actions, but to consult invariably your own interest only. And you depart from this interest whenever you imitate such measures as he pursues for his benefit. For the same reason it would be wrong for him to follow such steps as you take for your advantage.
This quote seems related to the idea of consensus, mimicry, and thinking for yourself, and I suppose in war our tendency to mimic might not be good sometimes. I think of when I was little, playing chess, I would sometimes do exactly what the other guy did, which tended not to work so well and at some point became impossible because my situation was different than his. I also think of argument--I think Bismarck said something like "I like to repay people in their own coin." I took this to mean when someone is nice to you or does you a favor, you do the same for them, and vice versa, when someone hurts you, you hurt them back. The tit-for-tat strategy that has been shown to work well in I think iterated prisoner's dilemma games. So here mirroring seems to be not a bad approach, though I think some other strategy beat tit-for-tat eventually.
On the other hand, I think sometimes giving in to someone rather than repaying them in their own coin can be disorienting to them, and you can use this as a sort of judo move. On a few occasions people have gotten aggressive with me in arguments and I found that if you are weirdly nice to them rather than shouting back, it seems to disorient your opponent, or make them feel weird. In public arguments, I suspect a person yelling and acting 'mean' to someone who is nice and easygoing makes the 'mean' person feel weird. I wonder if the Christian approach of turning the other cheek basically has this advantage of disorienting attackers. I don't think it would always work though. I recall someone saying something like, "If Gandhi tried passive resistance on someone like Hitler, his movement would have been crushed."
More Vegetius:
It is much better to overcome the enemy by famine, surprise or terror than by general actions, for in the latter instance fortune has often a greater share than valor. Those designs are best which the enemy are entirely ignorant of till the moment of execution. Opportunity in war is often more to be depended on than courage.
To me this is sort of in line with Sun Tzu and Basil Liddell Hart's "indirect approach," and Sherman and Grant's total war approach. I think Caesar and Pompeii the Great both liked this approach in winning battles (Liddell Hart features Caesar starving an opponent, and I think magnanimously accepting defectors from the starving camps, as a means of bloodlessly attriting the enemy, in Spain during the Roman Civil War).
For some reason though it surprised me to read the above Vegetius passage. Somewhere in my mind I thought that Romans tended to be slug-it-out, direct and dumb annihilators rather than engaging in an indirect style I associate with Sun Tzu and Liddell Hart's theories. Maybe their fights with Pyrrhus and prior to Fabius and Scipio, their battles with Hannibal have highlighted a brutal, straightforward style that sometimes overshadows Caesar, Fabius and Scipio Africanus.
Vegetius:
An army is strengthened by labor and enervated by idleness.
This mirrors the discussion of Scipio and being at ease above.
Vegetius:
Good officers never engage in general actions unless induced by opportunity or obliged by necessity.
Basically it seems you want to hold off battle until you're likely to really do well, or because you have to. This mirrors the idea of Lenin, I paraphrase, that you want to weaken your enemy so much before fighting that when you do he's so weak he is easily defeated. Liddell Hart references this idea in his "Strategy of Indirect Approach" book, which you can read entirely for free at the archive.org. Liddell Hart, IIRC, thought of strategy as the art of getting the best situation possibly prior to battle, or possibly even creating a situation where battle was impossible for the enemy, so you win bloodlessly. Sun Tzu also talks about battle as a last resort (actually probably seiges as the last resort), first aiming to weaken your enemy by other means.
*
Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy... Submissive to everything, open, listening... Something that you feel will find its own form. --Jack Kerouac, from "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose
Hat tip to Richard Lawrence Cohen.
I've read this quote before. I love it. I recently have been reading about Recognition-primed decision making, developed by Gary Klein and possibly others. This article from Fast Company seems a pretty good introduction. The basic idea, and perhaps I am being a little simplistic, is that you create a picture of the world intuitively, and then compare it to the facts. If there are contradictions between your picture of the situation and reality, then you generate a new picture until something fits the facts available.
Similarly, when imagining how the future works, in order to act, you develop a simulation of the world, and note problems in the simulation, and create an altered simulation to avoid the problems of the previous one, until you find a satisfactory simulation on which to act. It seems when you're an expert, or dealing with a fairly ordinary situation, your first thought will tend to be your best thought. You can rapidly act without much or any conscious decision making, and may chalk up your actions to intuition, experience, or ESP even. You might not even really know why you act the way you do, you just do what you do and that's that, but it works. I suppose, if I understand right, in novel situations, you start with first thought best thought, and then alter it as you see problems in it. The less expert you are, the more you'll tend to generate options, it seems, which makes sense to me. This seems, more or less, a pretty accurate approximation of decision making. I just think of it when I hear 'first thought best thought'. I suppose recognition-primed decisions might be 'first thought, best thought, unless something occurs to you as problematic about the thought,' more or less, and the inexperienced are likely to see more problematic with their first thought.
The concept of coup d'oeil in military theory I believe is mentioned by Klein, perhaps in one of his books, IIRC--having a vision of what should be done as a kind of flash of insight. What I like about recognition-primed decisions is it seems closer to everyday decision-making than the decision theory I've looked at. Overcomingbias.com, which is a site very interested in making good decisions, doesn't seem to have any references to this theory, which to me suggests the site is biased towards non-naturalistic decision making (playing to the mathy strengths of Hanson and Yudkowsky). In the Fast Company article linked-to above, it's noted Klein found out that students at I think MIT's Sloan Business School were taught a form of decision theory, but then didn't use it in making important decisions in their life. Revealed preference. I've tried to use decision theory in making decisions in life and it's like walking on your hands.
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Bryan Caplan:
In short, economics informed by behavioral genetics come down on the side of romantic idealism: Show the world your true self - and see who loves you just as you are.
Bryan Caplan elsehwere:
...if you stay in the closet, some other people will like you more. But these people aren't really your friends. If they can't accept you for who you are, you need to move on. Perhaps one day, they'll realize their mistake, and you'll magnanimously accept their apology; but you can't live a lie to spare the feelings of others. This is wisdom for gays and economists alike.
Imagine we all walked around with video cameras on ourselves 24/7 fed live to the web, saved and archived, and automatically tagged by computers so that the video database is searchable.
*
I was running through my Google Notebook, which is where I got I think all these quotes, and I just commented on them, saying whatever came to mind. I had a good time with it! I've been struggling to have fun blogging--I like the idea of blogging but have yet to really enjoy it that much. This has helped me! Maybe this will be a new way of doing things, if it keeps being fun! I think I might have been influenced by Nassim Taleb's notebook, which is fare-ranging, digressive, and addictively interesting.
Prophet of Suckers
Interesting. It almost seems like one should make some predictions, say 10 sort of crazy ones, say them enough to be able to cite them if one or two happen, but not be so insistently repetitive that when 8 or 9 predictions don't happen, everyone remembers and makes fun of you. Maybe there's a sweet spot of remember-ability for cynical types to exploit! Make crazy predictions not too memorable, but not too forgettable either. ;)
Me commenting here.
Labels:
cynicism,
memory,
psychology,
rhetoric
Thinking outloud on Immigration, Culture, and Political Economy
We have Obama in office and the Democrats in the Congress...I think they'll push for things that will help their position in the coming years...Obama is I hear pushing for illegal immigrant amnesty which seems to make sense for dems in that it will get them a bunch of voters and help their future electoral prospects, though it also helps social conservatives it seems to me.
So what does that mean? I guess more Mexican voters voting like Mexican American voters vote, which I think will be Democrat, but also with a social conservative flavor, if I'm not mistaken, and these people I think are concentrated in the Southwest, so their effect it seems to me would be to make a more kind of conservative Democratic Southwest than exists now--this is interesting because I think of So. Cal as a liberal place both economically and socially, and some interesting tensions could emerge between white liberals and Mexican-American Democrats who are socially more conservative.
I don't know if that would happen or how that would play out, but it's just something that leaps to mind.
...Maybe you'll see more liberals from So. Cal move to the Pacific Northwest or more white liberal environment. You might also possibly see Mexican narco traffickers using the Mexican-American population as the 'water' through which they as fish swim, to use a guerrilla war idea of Mao Tse-tung--in Mexico drug gangs are causing problems and those problems might come to the Southwest of the US too, though I don't know--I mean I don't now how the US would deal with that. If you started to see drug gangs in the Southwest acting like they do in Mexico I would imagine a crack down and these gangs I think would have less ability to infiltrate the US Federal government the way they might in Mexico--I'm fuzzy on the details of the Mexican problem...you might have some kind of insurgency in the US, in which the US government is cracking down on drug gangs in the Southwest that have caused corruption of Southwestern state and local governments that would presumably be easier to infiltrate, and whose governed populations are probably more easily changed by Mexican immigrants...but maybe not.
Maybe the drug gangs, if they are able to infiltrate Southwest state or local government, would just want the government to leave the drug gangs alone, but otherwise they can do their thing and I suppose that could make sense--I don't know how this problem has gone in Mexico really. I mean, do the drug gangs there just want to be left alone as far as their drug business goes, and otherwise is fine with the Mexican government doing the typical law and order stuff? My impression is that they are causing more problem for the government than what would be required to get the Mexican government to leave them alone to do their drug trafficking. They are...causing more problems in other respects--but I'm not sure--I would have to read up more--my guess is that the gangs do want to mainly just do their drug business and the only reason they might cause more problems for the police is because the police and military are trying it supress them and the gangs infiltrate the government as a countermeasure, which causes the government to feel they are more threatened than just regarding their drug crime fighting, and reacts against the gangs more strongly out of self-preservation, and there is an escalation I suppose...does this make sense? I'm not sure. i don't see why a drug gang would want to do what the government does generally--but rather would just like to be left alone to make their drug money...but I guess government can be used as a tool against competitors...so that is something...
Well, so I don't know...I guess that might be the problem. The government can be used as a tool against competitors and so cartels might push for control over the government to cause problems for competitors...but it seems to me all the chaos would be focused on the drug trade and not on other stuff, that would be boring for drug cartels to get involved in. Dunno. But I guess if you control government, you can steal a lot of wealth from all over...so why not get your hands in there?
Hm--okay, I guess I can see why drug gangs would want to control the government...okay, so could that happen in Calfirornia?
COMMENT: THE DRUG WAR IS MAINLY A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THING, ISN'T IT? SO IF THE DRUG GANGS WERE TRYING TO CONTROL STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS, THEY'D STILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
The drug gangs presumably have an easier time insinuating themselves into Southwestern politics because they are closer to the Mexican community and can blend in with basically law abidiing Mexican-Americans better than among white Americans...
I think the more Mexicans come into the Southwest the more the Southwest will have a Mexican character and...
I don't know...I mean, maybe you'd see--I mean I don't know how demographics would shift in the long run--in the long run--I mean, the thing is, are kids of Mexican immigrants very Mexican? I'm inclined to think a lot of them are basically as American as me...there seems to be a kind of weakening of the effects of Mexican culture on kids of immigrants compared to the immigrants themselves--their kids are more American than they are...
...how many Mexicans come to the US a year? I think it's like a million--the population of California is what? 30 million? I don't know what the population of other Southwest states are...let's imagine it's about...I don't know--I'll just guess a quarter of the US population, which would be...75 million I guess...that population is reproducing too, not as quickly I don't think as Mexican immigrants or Mexican Americans or other Latin Americans...
Hm...but yeah I don't know...maybe 1 million Mexicans come to the US for the most part a Southwestern population of say 75 million--rough numbers used here for a back of the envelope post...I mean...I don't know--will immigrants coming in cause problems for the Southwest any time soon?
I tend to think no, not really...I guess the politics might incrementally move a bit more economically liberal and socially conservative but maybe not much...
But I mean...wait, let me think about this--at a rate of 1 million a year in 10 years you have 10 million. Let's imagine mostly in the Southwest in that time...how many more non-Mexican-Americans would be there...I guess...I don't know...
I don't know. What makes sense? Like...of the guessed-at 75 million Americans living in the Southwest, assuming not much movement out of the region...I mean how many are like say in the 15-25-year-old range and likely to have their kids in the next 10 years or so? 1/8th maybe? 9.4 million about...so...they pair off, let's say, to be a little bit simplistic, to form 4.7 million couples that have 2.3 kids, so 4.7 * 2.3 = 11 million new non-Mexican-American babies made by this indigenous population, about...
So...you'd have 1 million more Americans than the 10 million guessed-at Mexican new arrivals in that hypothetical 10 year span...well, is that fine? Seems on its face fine to me. So if this is true, big if, given the back of the envelope nature of this guessing, then it seems to me the Southwest would get more American than less American over time...
But that seems counter-intuitive...what's the deal? Is that 1 million immigrant stat just way off from the reality. I'll have to check it with wikipedia. Oh, well the 10 million Mexicans that come are reproducing too, of course, so how many kids might they have...say 10 million immigrants, .125 of which have kids (1/8th--though immigrants are probably younger than the indigenous general American population, I would think) in that ten years, at a rate of 2.3 (I think Hispanics tend to have bigger families though, so maybe I'll try something higher in a moment) so 10 million Mexican immigrants x .125 people reproducing (1/8th) = 1,250,000 Mexican-immigrants who let's say, simplistically, pair off and have 2.3 kids = 1,437,500 Mexican-Americans born in a ten year period to Mexican immigrants.
Well, so by that calculation, there's be 1.4 million kids of Mexican immigrants--but wouldn't they be more America than Mexican? I tend to think so, but I don't know--they, to me, would be more comfortable in the American group than the Mexican immigrant group in terms of culture and identity, I think, like my mom, whose the daughter if two Irish immigrants, is culturally basically American and not Irish--though of course some of her parents' Irish culture rubs off I'm sure. I would tend to think your immigrant parents might most obviously affect your politics and religion, though even there I think there's probably some drift towards a more indigenous political style. Maybe the really important values your parents have you try not to alienate if you can avoid it, but you don't want to be arguing with everyone around you about politics either, so you are on some important issues like your folks, and otherwise, you tend to blend in with the people around you. Does that sound like not a bad rough model?
So I guess...I'm thinking that the Mexican immigrants aren't a big concern in terms of causing problems for the US in terms of big cultural shifts or drug-gang insurgencies--I guess it makes sense to inhibit their immigration if you want to keep things more socially liberal and fiscally conservative, if I am understanding the demographics right, which is a big if, and I would like to keep things more socially liberal and fiscally liberal--which is odd--it's odd for a libertarian being possibly in favor of some more immigration restriction--but it's based on political economy I guess--I tend to think that if you have a more paternalistic population, you'll get more paternalistic policy, at least to an extent.
Addendum: Wikipedia facts compared to my guesses from the above post:
California population: ~37 million. I guessed 30 million. I was 81% correct.
Southwest population total: ~85 million. I guessed 75 million. I was 88% correct.
My guess on Mexican immigrants coming to the US per year was about a million. Wikipedia says the US allows about 1 million legal immigrants (didn't see anything about ethnicity in my quick scan) to be here, and between 700,000 to 1,500,000 illegals. So how many Mexican immigrants does that mean? I don't know--I assume the bulk of illegals are Mexican, could be wrong. I'll guess 750,000 of the legal immigrants are Mexican, and that 1.1 million illegals from Mexico come, making for a total of 1,850,000. My guess was 1 million, so I was 54 percent right on that first guess on the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the US, if my wikipedia-updated guess of 1.85 million is about right.
Average correctness of my guesses checked in the addendum: (81% + 88% + 54%)/3 = 74%. Not too bad.
So what does that mean? I guess more Mexican voters voting like Mexican American voters vote, which I think will be Democrat, but also with a social conservative flavor, if I'm not mistaken, and these people I think are concentrated in the Southwest, so their effect it seems to me would be to make a more kind of conservative Democratic Southwest than exists now--this is interesting because I think of So. Cal as a liberal place both economically and socially, and some interesting tensions could emerge between white liberals and Mexican-American Democrats who are socially more conservative.
I don't know if that would happen or how that would play out, but it's just something that leaps to mind.
...Maybe you'll see more liberals from So. Cal move to the Pacific Northwest or more white liberal environment. You might also possibly see Mexican narco traffickers using the Mexican-American population as the 'water' through which they as fish swim, to use a guerrilla war idea of Mao Tse-tung--in Mexico drug gangs are causing problems and those problems might come to the Southwest of the US too, though I don't know--I mean I don't now how the US would deal with that. If you started to see drug gangs in the Southwest acting like they do in Mexico I would imagine a crack down and these gangs I think would have less ability to infiltrate the US Federal government the way they might in Mexico--I'm fuzzy on the details of the Mexican problem...you might have some kind of insurgency in the US, in which the US government is cracking down on drug gangs in the Southwest that have caused corruption of Southwestern state and local governments that would presumably be easier to infiltrate, and whose governed populations are probably more easily changed by Mexican immigrants...but maybe not.
Maybe the drug gangs, if they are able to infiltrate Southwest state or local government, would just want the government to leave the drug gangs alone, but otherwise they can do their thing and I suppose that could make sense--I don't know how this problem has gone in Mexico really. I mean, do the drug gangs there just want to be left alone as far as their drug business goes, and otherwise is fine with the Mexican government doing the typical law and order stuff? My impression is that they are causing more problem for the government than what would be required to get the Mexican government to leave them alone to do their drug trafficking. They are...causing more problems in other respects--but I'm not sure--I would have to read up more--my guess is that the gangs do want to mainly just do their drug business and the only reason they might cause more problems for the police is because the police and military are trying it supress them and the gangs infiltrate the government as a countermeasure, which causes the government to feel they are more threatened than just regarding their drug crime fighting, and reacts against the gangs more strongly out of self-preservation, and there is an escalation I suppose...does this make sense? I'm not sure. i don't see why a drug gang would want to do what the government does generally--but rather would just like to be left alone to make their drug money...but I guess government can be used as a tool against competitors...so that is something...
Well, so I don't know...I guess that might be the problem. The government can be used as a tool against competitors and so cartels might push for control over the government to cause problems for competitors...but it seems to me all the chaos would be focused on the drug trade and not on other stuff, that would be boring for drug cartels to get involved in. Dunno. But I guess if you control government, you can steal a lot of wealth from all over...so why not get your hands in there?
Hm--okay, I guess I can see why drug gangs would want to control the government...okay, so could that happen in Calfirornia?
COMMENT: THE DRUG WAR IS MAINLY A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THING, ISN'T IT? SO IF THE DRUG GANGS WERE TRYING TO CONTROL STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS, THEY'D STILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
The drug gangs presumably have an easier time insinuating themselves into Southwestern politics because they are closer to the Mexican community and can blend in with basically law abidiing Mexican-Americans better than among white Americans...
I think the more Mexicans come into the Southwest the more the Southwest will have a Mexican character and...
I don't know...I mean, maybe you'd see--I mean I don't know how demographics would shift in the long run--in the long run--I mean, the thing is, are kids of Mexican immigrants very Mexican? I'm inclined to think a lot of them are basically as American as me...there seems to be a kind of weakening of the effects of Mexican culture on kids of immigrants compared to the immigrants themselves--their kids are more American than they are...
...how many Mexicans come to the US a year? I think it's like a million--the population of California is what? 30 million? I don't know what the population of other Southwest states are...let's imagine it's about...I don't know--I'll just guess a quarter of the US population, which would be...75 million I guess...that population is reproducing too, not as quickly I don't think as Mexican immigrants or Mexican Americans or other Latin Americans...
Hm...but yeah I don't know...maybe 1 million Mexicans come to the US for the most part a Southwestern population of say 75 million--rough numbers used here for a back of the envelope post...I mean...I don't know--will immigrants coming in cause problems for the Southwest any time soon?
I tend to think no, not really...I guess the politics might incrementally move a bit more economically liberal and socially conservative but maybe not much...
But I mean...wait, let me think about this--at a rate of 1 million a year in 10 years you have 10 million. Let's imagine mostly in the Southwest in that time...how many more non-Mexican-Americans would be there...I guess...I don't know...
I don't know. What makes sense? Like...of the guessed-at 75 million Americans living in the Southwest, assuming not much movement out of the region...I mean how many are like say in the 15-25-year-old range and likely to have their kids in the next 10 years or so? 1/8th maybe? 9.4 million about...so...they pair off, let's say, to be a little bit simplistic, to form 4.7 million couples that have 2.3 kids, so 4.7 * 2.3 = 11 million new non-Mexican-American babies made by this indigenous population, about...
So...you'd have 1 million more Americans than the 10 million guessed-at Mexican new arrivals in that hypothetical 10 year span...well, is that fine? Seems on its face fine to me. So if this is true, big if, given the back of the envelope nature of this guessing, then it seems to me the Southwest would get more American than less American over time...
But that seems counter-intuitive...what's the deal? Is that 1 million immigrant stat just way off from the reality. I'll have to check it with wikipedia. Oh, well the 10 million Mexicans that come are reproducing too, of course, so how many kids might they have...say 10 million immigrants, .125 of which have kids (1/8th--though immigrants are probably younger than the indigenous general American population, I would think) in that ten years, at a rate of 2.3 (I think Hispanics tend to have bigger families though, so maybe I'll try something higher in a moment) so 10 million Mexican immigrants x .125 people reproducing (1/8th) = 1,250,000 Mexican-immigrants who let's say, simplistically, pair off and have 2.3 kids = 1,437,500 Mexican-Americans born in a ten year period to Mexican immigrants.
Well, so by that calculation, there's be 1.4 million kids of Mexican immigrants--but wouldn't they be more America than Mexican? I tend to think so, but I don't know--they, to me, would be more comfortable in the American group than the Mexican immigrant group in terms of culture and identity, I think, like my mom, whose the daughter if two Irish immigrants, is culturally basically American and not Irish--though of course some of her parents' Irish culture rubs off I'm sure. I would tend to think your immigrant parents might most obviously affect your politics and religion, though even there I think there's probably some drift towards a more indigenous political style. Maybe the really important values your parents have you try not to alienate if you can avoid it, but you don't want to be arguing with everyone around you about politics either, so you are on some important issues like your folks, and otherwise, you tend to blend in with the people around you. Does that sound like not a bad rough model?
So I guess...I'm thinking that the Mexican immigrants aren't a big concern in terms of causing problems for the US in terms of big cultural shifts or drug-gang insurgencies--I guess it makes sense to inhibit their immigration if you want to keep things more socially liberal and fiscally conservative, if I am understanding the demographics right, which is a big if, and I would like to keep things more socially liberal and fiscally liberal--which is odd--it's odd for a libertarian being possibly in favor of some more immigration restriction--but it's based on political economy I guess--I tend to think that if you have a more paternalistic population, you'll get more paternalistic policy, at least to an extent.
Addendum: Wikipedia facts compared to my guesses from the above post:
California population: ~37 million. I guessed 30 million. I was 81% correct.
Southwest population total: ~85 million. I guessed 75 million. I was 88% correct.
My guess on Mexican immigrants coming to the US per year was about a million. Wikipedia says the US allows about 1 million legal immigrants (didn't see anything about ethnicity in my quick scan) to be here, and between 700,000 to 1,500,000 illegals. So how many Mexican immigrants does that mean? I don't know--I assume the bulk of illegals are Mexican, could be wrong. I'll guess 750,000 of the legal immigrants are Mexican, and that 1.1 million illegals from Mexico come, making for a total of 1,850,000. My guess was 1 million, so I was 54 percent right on that first guess on the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the US, if my wikipedia-updated guess of 1.85 million is about right.
Average correctness of my guesses checked in the addendum: (81% + 88% + 54%)/3 = 74%. Not too bad.
Labels:
back of the envelope,
immigration
i guess business people might fund some experimentation in order to actually get a working g product they could sell. a problem there is if you’re working to find out something so you can sell it then you might not care to share your findings because that would be a trade secret. i guess you want to be rewarded for your findings, but at the same time, there seems like there could be a problem of useful findings being held by only a few due to their interests.
Me commenting here.
Hm, maybe the insiders should deliberately bring in a few outsiders to supplement their decision-making. Also, maybe journals could self-consciously publish articles 20 percent of the time that they would normally have rejected as too weird. They could then over time see how well the weird stuff did compared to the normal stuff in terms of citations. Perhaps even if one journal did it (maybe one does something like this?) it would have some data that could be used to argue for or against weird articles that normally wouldn't be published.
Me commenting here.
Hm, maybe other economists are more likely to try to suggest a middle ground between dominant economic theory and what your average person might think acceptible, or average politician.
I think of the law and economics movement versus pragmatic adjudication. As I understand it, law and economics seeks to bring about the best outcome in legal judgments according to economics. Pragmatic adjudication according to Richard Posner seeks 'reasonableness' in the legal sense rather than what economics might say is the best outcome, pragmatism being perhaps a bit more practical than the law and economics ideal.
Me commenting here.
Robin writes: "In general, if you want to believe the truth, then you should just accept the average belief on any topic unless you have a good (and better than average) reason to think the causes of your belief difference would be substantially more informed than average."
It seems like a culture of comformism would be most rational then. I wonder if cultures with more comformism tend to be composed of more rational individuals generally. I think of American culture as having a non-comformist streak that would lead to an odd thought pattern: "I should believe the average, but the average belief is I shouldn't believe what is average."
Also, I wonder if going against our genetic beliefs are a bit like trying to walk on all fours. How might one deal with the tension between believing what one knows is likely true, and what one continually returns to despite realizing it is unlikely to be true?
Me commenting here.
i guess my take would be that the point of overcoming bias ultimately seems to be purely to make you happier or diminish your suffering. if overcoming bias doesn't do this, it seems pointless to me--what is the reason for overcoming bias other than this? can you give me an example?
i'd imagine movements in societies towards or away from racism tended to be spurred by realities in which people maneuvered for more happiness or less suffering for themselves. a scapegoat can be useful for some in some cases, but in others, picking on someone different than you can cause you to lose something of value (a good business contract say).
one question that leaps to mind--should you dig for the truth if you think it likely that the truth will not make you happier? i'm inclined to think that no one does this, but those that say they do really just believe they'd be happier digging for the truth than the alternative and wrap this preference in altruistic language, because such a move is encouraged by evolutionary pressures.
Me posting here.
Would there be any value in betting on how questions would be answered by experts or non-experts in the future regarding the issue of privacy or other concerns? For example, one bets on whether a poll of experts in a certain field (law or economics or political sciences, et c.) would believe that the merger was good or bad in five or ten years, et c. Perhaps a similar question could be asked of non-experts, regarding whether their online search experiences, et c., are better or worse, and what the answer would turn out to be would be bet on now. I'm not if this approach would be too problematic or not.
Me posting here.
do you think it would be possible or useful for others to attach probabilities to expert predictions? that is, if the experts won't give probability estimates, we take public comments and formulating them in terms of probability estimates ourselves? this might force experts to say 'don't put words in my mouth,' to which one could say 'well, am i estimating too high or too low?'
maybe such interpretations of probability could be posted on the web. i'm just thinking there must be some comments that are made, perhaps less publicly, by experts that one could reasonably attach probability estimates to. 'i'd be surprised if x happened' would = 90% likelihood of x not happening, say.
i suppose the estimates could be based on past remarks of experts too, like 'when dr. jon doe says something like "i'd be surprised if x happens," it historically seems to means there's about a 90% probability of it not happening, but when dr. jane doe says the same thing, it means there's a 95% chance that x won't happen.'
so experts could recalibrate their language if their probability estimates are different from their record, but also listeners could recalibrate their interpretation of expert estimates, even if experts didn't recalibrate their language.
Me commenting here.
If you believe that you'd be happier overcoming bias than not in the cases Tyler suggests, the questions for yourself might be "Why am I different from the average person? Why am I special? Would I have good reason to doubt someone making the claim I am making?"
On the other hand, there may be great reasons to believe you are special and can gain greater happiness overcoming particular biases than not.
It seems to me the project of overcoming biases is aimed at getting a clearer understanding of the world so we can manipulate the world for our ends, which presumably are ultimately ends that stimulate happiness in some way.
Perhaps the best approach would be to develop a systematic way of deciding whether overcoming a particlar bias would serve your long term interests or not. If overcoming a bias causes depression and no compensating benefits, perhaps it's best to leave the bias alone as much as possible. If you believe overcoming a bias will lead to depression but also insight about life, which will benefit thousands of people, and you'll experience the gratification of helping othe