It's the Gays!

In late 2005, I predicted that we would have nationwide gay marriage within five years. We're nearing the five year mark with nothing yet, so I was a bit early in my prediction.

But research like this indicates that I may have not been all that early. Maybe seven years.

I find this very encouraging. Generally, views like this are difficult to get rid of. Look at the civil rights movement. That was FIFTY YEARS AGO, and we're still dealing with the expulsion of those biases from our system. Of equal importance was the way some of it had to be expelled; the government had to literally force people to accept blacks. We are not a terribly smart species.

As such, dogmatic views, especially those rooted since childhood, usually die with the generation. You hate your parents, and reject a few things about them, but accept a majority. Your parents die, and so dies the few views that your generation rejected. Even seemingly massive cultural shifts end up with people who are eerily similar to those who came before. Look at the hippies, the supposed counter culture who rejected everything that their intolerant, square parents had advocated. What did we get out of that? Yuppies and people who were actually more conservative in many ways.

So it's with great happiness that I am digesting the thought that, with enough exposure, even deeply rooted bigotry can be, at least somewhat, quelled.

Gay? Whatever, Dude (New York Times)

Socialist Conspiracy!!!

Rational Consumer? Pah!

In economics, there's this concept called the rational consumer. Basically, it states that all economic agents (people) are rational and will do what's best for them, or, at the very least, what they think is best for them. This concept scales up to groups of people and corporations. In fact, this very idea was at the heart of Alan Greenspan's behavior as the economy heated up and the real estate market became quite obviously over-heated. He assumed that banks would never drive themselves to ruin, at least not in large numbers. He has admitted that he was wrong.

But even outside of such grand economic examples, we find other areas where the rational entity just doesn't seem to fucking exist! Exhibit A: Wal-Mart. Wally World was aware of widespread gender discrimination in 1995, and was warned about their exposure to a possible lawsuit. For six years, they did nothing. Nada. Squat. Then, shocker, in 2001, just such a lawsuit was filed!

It really makes you wonder. Is this theory completely off base? Does the rational consumer actually not exist? Because remember, this aspect of classic economic theory assumes that nearly everyone is rational, and only very few are irrational. I'm beginning to think that it's the opposite.

Report Warned Wal-Mart of Risks Before Bias Suit (New York Times)

Daily Show

In this clip of the Daily Show, Stewart goes up against the president of the American Enterprise Institute, Arthur Brooks.

First off, the man complains about expansions in power under the Bush administration. Funny, considering that both Dick and Lynne Cheney are senior fellows.

The point that annoys me is that they BOTH discuss the concept of a liberal conspiracy and use the liberalism of professors as evidence that there is a group out there attempting to corrupt our students.

First, I never met a professor who was the super-liberal socialist that Brooks seems to see as the enemy. Without polling data of academics with widely known questions, I consider it a straw man not worthy of consideration.

Second, this study shows that even if the professors are trying to indoctrinate their students, they aren't succeeding.

Liberal ideals are a symptom of youth, not professorial manipulation. Everyone thinks that they can change the world.

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Exclusive - Arthur Brooks Unedited Interview Pt. 1
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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Arthur Brooks Unedited Interview Pt. 2
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Do Liberal Professors Indoctrinate Students? (Outside The Beltway)

A Nod to Gary Coleman

I want to mention Gary Coleman's death. It's a very sad thing. He somehow managed to remain in the public eye, especially the eye of those obsessed with pop culture. He WAS pop culture. He was the ultimate non-sequitur. It didn't matter what your show or book was about; you could introduce Gary Coleman and it made perfect sense. It was made all the funnier that it was not only Gary Coleman, but Gary Coleman playing Gary Coleman. He didn't need a character. He just was. That is something that I'm going to miss.

New York Times Introduces New Philosophy Column

The NY Times has introduced "The Stone" (cute), a column written by multiple philosophers and edited by Simon Critchley. It remains to be seen if it's going to be heavy or light, penetrating and controversial, or easy and mellow. I hope that the various authors take the chance to really put some difficult concepts of truth, justification, religion, and ethics on the bully pulpit, but I doubt it.

The NY Times primary mandate is to create compelling reading, and fitting arguments that are sometime best expressed as a list of bullet points into an essay format that also fits into a newspaper is going to be damn-near impossible. I remain hopeful, though, that we will get something other than historical discussion or simple fluff.

The Stone (New York Times)

What is Truth.

I've been tangling with the concept of truth, recently, for a book I'm working on (a philosopher? Writing a book? Shocker!). Correspondence theory is the theory that most academics accept or at least lean towards. Even there, leaning is hardly an endorsement. Basically, correspondence theory states that propositions can be true or false (grass is green) depending on if they correspond to reality.

But what is reality? If reality is determined wholly by our senses, then I see very little difference between the correspondence theory and pragmatic truth. It's in there where my mind is spending its time. Pragmatic theory is so much more powerful than I once gave it credit for.

Pragmatic theory says that a proposition is true if it's useful. Sounds almost silly, but the theory's strength lies in the definition of useful. For example, believing that God exists might make someone feel better, but that is not useful. A proposition must be usable to achieve other propositions that are themselves useful.

For example, I believe "there is a pen on my table." If correspondence theory is true, simply seeing the pen confirms that. But imagine that it's a hologram. I reach out and get nothing but air. Then, suddenly, I have two contradictory perceptions. Which one corresponds to reality? I don't think that it's answerable! The pen might be an illusion, or I might be missing when I reach. My hand might be an illusion. I can't tell.

But pragmatic theory is much better. "There is a pen on my table" is true if, acting upon that belief, I am able to achieve other things. If I need to write something, and I act upon the belief and reach out for the pen, and, indeed, successfully write something, my belief was true. If I try to act on that belief and fail to write something, the belief was not true.

That's powerful! It works with the scientific method very well, because confirmation is central to science, obviates correspondence theory (if we assume that reality is sense perception), and achieves what truth theory should achieve: giving us something to work with.

What Is This Movie About?

I came across this video on YouTube and was initially surprised at how level-headed it seemed. Then its philosophy fell off a cliff. What is it arguing against?



It starts off extolling the virtues of a country where everyone can do what they want to be happy. So far so good. Then it segues into a four-way argument between a farmer, a politician, a laborer, and a company owner. They are then offered a drink called Ism. And as Ferris Bueler warned us, Ism's should be avoided. I assumed that each person drinks the particular ism that they think will solve their issues. Namely socialism for the laborer, laissez faire capitalism for the business owner, republicanism (I think) for the politician, and I don't even know what for the farmer. Government subsidies?

Still, the cartoon loses it after it apparently just turns into a straw man argument against communism. In the creators' world, there's nothing in between America and Russia. There is no slippery slope, it's just a sheer cliff, and that negates the cartoon's thesis. I can only assume that it was made for a public so tragically uninformed that this facile argument makes sense.

I also like the usage of a Henry Ford analog to convince us. Yes. Ford is a true American success story. He paid laborers high wages. He was a capitalist. He was politically involved. He was also a a right-wing extremist who hated Jews, immigrants, and America's involvement in WWII. He initiated violence against labor organizers, and grew paranoid to the point of dysfunction in later life. Edison's not much better. I would have used Carnegie.

What The Hell Happened in 1972?

I was perusing Wikipedia, as I often do, and came across the list of top-grossing films. I take solace in the fact that Avatar is still very far down the inflation-adjusted and ticket-sales lists... Unobtanium... fuckin' hell.

But regardless! You can view this list, which lists the top grossing films for each year. You have outliers, like Gone With The Wind (and I bet Disney is really embarrassed that Song of the South was a bonafied mega-hit), but what about 1972?

It's frequently mentioned that Jaws was the first summer blockbuster, but the phenomenon seems to have started three years earlier. Previously, the top-grossing films had been measured in double-digit millions for over three decades. Thirty million here, fifty million there. But 1972 brought The Godfather and a box office of $245 million. $245 million! Alright, fine. Gone With The Wind did $338 million in the 30's. But the next year, The Exorcist, $402 million. Then $193m for Godfather II. Jaws, $470m. Rocky, $225m. Star Wars, $782m.

Over NIGHT, Hollywood started producing mega-million-dollar blockbusters. What the hell happened?

Oh, China.

China has been stripped of the Olympic team bronze for gymnastics for... 2000? WTF?

My first thought is, duh. It was pretty obvious that China used girls who were quite under-age for the 2008 games, which resulted in something of a controversy. So, I guess it's not surprising that they did the same thing in other years as well.

But on second thought, While it's shitty that China ignored the rules, especially considering that their handling of Olympic hopefuls is still very much in the vein of totalitarian governments, the girls did it, not the government. I say let them compete. They won, fair and square. They worked hard, and to take the medals away because their government is run by a group of self-centered sacks of shit doesn't seem right.

China stripped of 2000 gymnastics medal for underage athlete (Yahoo.com)

Go Go Gadget Racial Profiling

I'm assuming that this connection has already been made, but I'm going to lend my voice to the din. Does anyone in Arizona, who recently passed a law so stupid that it would be hilarious if it wasn't so infuriating, realize how hypocritical they are?

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Law & Border
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Yes, hypocritical. They are vehemently against Obama and his health care, yet they have just passed a law that is closer to 1984 than anything Obama has ever done, talked about, or even thought about.

Well, that of course assumes that their resistance to Obama was logical and not rooted in racism, political fear-mongering, and dogma.

At times, I feel like Obama isn't wrong simply because those who are vocally against him are so dumb that they can't be right.

MMORPG Economics

I'm always saying that the various online games are stuck in the old economics of game play. Namely, they're still operating on the concept that you make a game, package it on some kind of medium, sell it, and then count your money. Even World of Warcraft is basically that. The only difference is that you then have to pay for access to a service.

Dungeons and Dragons Online has discovered the profits possible from opening the game entirely. Previously, they were trying to operate under the same business model as WoW, which I thought was dumb then, and has since been proven to be dumb. D&D-O was heading towards oblivion until they opened the game, which immediately sent user numbers through the roof.

Still, they then followed Farmville and any number of games from Aeria in a business model built on restricting access to certain parts of the game unless you pay up. I've nailed why this doesn't work, and why Farmville and all of Zynga makes almost none of their money from direct sales, all the while gold and items in World of Warcraft sell for, in some cases, hundreds of dollars.

In WoW, everything people are buying is attainable in-game. When someone buys, there's no way to tell if they bought their way through or if they earned it. That's important. In Farmville, many items can only be purchased with real money, they thus hold no value since they represent nothing but the money behind them.

And that's the key. When something is only attainable with money, they have no opportunity cost in the game. Obviously, classic opportunity cost applies, but not virtual. In WoW, for example, you want the Sword of a Thousand Truths. You can look up online and find that you need to go through a long quest called a raid to get it. You have a 10% chance of getting it on any given raid. The raid takes 3 hours to complete. That means that you can decide if buying the item is worth a possible 300 hours of game time required to get the item in-game.

Everything or nearly everything must be accessible in-game. Only then can a user apply a value to the things for which you are charging. The developer cannot lock up anything behind money or its value becomes nebulous.

WoW may want to consider this. They need to do something, because the population appears to have plateaued at about 11-12 million.

Results From Dungeons & Dragons Online Going Free: Revenue Up 500% (TechDirt.com)
World of Warcraft- Population 11.5 Million and shrinking? (RecklessGamer.net)

How Far My Ownership Goes.

The New York Times has a story about a Native American tribe that has sued The University of Arizona and reclaimed some blood samples taken from the tribe because the DNA was being used for research other than that which was initially discussed. They discuss the legal issues, and, as with most popular stories about science clashing with dogma, the only argument presented in favor of the science is that it's "good science," and that progress demands that we make concessions in the degree of control individuals have in the data that they submit.

One of the biggest issues is that the DNA indicates a link between the tribe and people making the trek over the Bering land bridge, which doesn't exactly jive with the tribes creation story (shocker!) that says that they were plopped there to be the Grand Canyon's defender.

This isn't a matter of moral or ethical problems. If a research institution wants to be tender and understanding with dogmatic beliefs, then that's their choice, but not their legal or ethical obligation. The blood was taken, and the DNA is nothing more than information, now. They have more blood, they haven't "lost" any DNA. The University didn't take it from them. The situation is similar to a researcher telling a man that, if he has a blue string in his pocket, he's, I dunno', psychic. The man empties out his pocket and the researcher finds many strings of different colors. None blue, but the researcher remembers the colors that he did see. If the researcher then writes a paper on those other colors, what harm has there been?

There are certainly a great number of ethical issues with DNA, especially as our ability to analyze it gets ever-greater, but this story is not one of them. The Universities actions did not diminish the tribe or its people. They did not steal anything. They did not harm the people. Just because a group of backwater, uneducated people don't like science clashing with their official story of their creation is not a basis for a fucking law suit.

Indian Tribe Wins Fight to Limit Research of Its DNA (NYTimes.com)

Good News

Well, at least we've gotten that out of our system.

"The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to [the most devious and mediocre]. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

-H. L. Mencken

Inelastic Joints.

The New York Times has recently discovered the concept of inelasticity in the artificial joint industry.

I can only assume that they know this and simply assume that their readership is retarded, because, duh. Of course artificial joints are a total rip-job. In economics, the elasticity of a good is how widely its price can vary with no effect on its market value (price). For example, if bicycles suddenly all cost $5,000, almost no one would buy bicycles anymore. But if insulin suddenly cost $5,000, its sales would only drop a small amount because it's literally a matter of life and death for those who buy it. So it is said that insulin is inelastic.

As such, any good that is highly inelastic is going to foster corruption. If I'm the only maker of bread, and people need bread, even if I don't act like an asshole and charge $500 per loaf, my successor may discover that, regardless of what she does, people always come back. A relationship of such imbalance is never good. The buyer and the seller must both need each other.

So here we are with artificial joints. People who need them NEED them. The market is very difficult to get in to. So, we have a limited, inelastic good that because of its nature limits competition. And we are surprised that the companies suck? Seriously?

Inelasticity is merely one detail in the economic web that, in anything other than medicine, is fine. It's only once it becomes part of medicine that we have, dare I say it, a moral issue. If insulin is a necessity for life, can a society that supposedly cares about its members truly allow free-market principles keep its price high? I don't think so.

Health System Bears Cost of Implants With No Warranties (NYTimes.com)