MetaPseudoIntellectualism

I Love Ronen Verbit

2009-06-08T07:09:00.001-04:00

ronen verbit: professional artist, amateur human being.

That is all.

Morality, Passivity and Tomkow

2009-06-02T07:05:00.001-04:00

To clarify for anyone reading this, I am not writing this as a persuasive piece. In fact, I'm writing it as a way for me to seek clarity, for myself, about how I feel regarding an argument I saw recently online. The argument began as one regarding the immorality of not giving charity for those less fortunate than ourselves. If we allow children to starve while we have the ability to prevent it by giving charity, are we any different from the man who watches a child drown because he does not wish to save it?

The piece that really got me to question my moral beliefs just now was at Tomkow.com, in response to a discussion of Peter Singer's ideal that modern western man is morally obligated to give much more than he currently does to charity. He currently gives 25% of his income to charity, a laudable act in my eyes. The critique is that inaction and action are not morally equivalent, a statement with which I am disposed to agree. I am uncomfortable with the statement from of which this is an obvious corollary; that there is no moral obligation to actively interfere in a wrong, even if doing it actively is immoral. The problem is that there is "no thoroughly convincing account of [the] source [of the idea that there is a difference in weight between positive and negative duties.]"

The argument to justify the non-existence of an imperative to act to forestall a bad thing is simple, but I think easy to dismiss. The argument follows: A man sees a child drowning. He should save the child. This is a positive duty. If the man, however, had not seen the child, the world would be no worse off than had he ignored it. No-one, however, really believes that the man ignoring a drowning child has done nothing wrong. We can claim that this is a defect in the personality of the person, but we must still admit that it is a wrong action. Tomkow claims that virtue ethics is wrong because we cannot judge the ethical nature of an action by examining the character of ethical agents, because then we are assuming that ethical agents actions are intrinsically correct, and can do no wrong. This assumes the conclusion.

But he continues; heroism isn't morally good, it's just a good trait. Preventing bad is esthetically right, but morally neutral. It does not matter if the state of the world improves by the action; we cannot label not doing it as making the state of the world worse - the world gets worse on its own. But doesn't that remove us completely from the moral picture, and excuse anything?

Claiming that the man might not have been there to see the child drowning doesn't remove the moral obligation to help him once he did. Tomkow makes the claim in order to use Singer as an example: "If you [think that the bystander did anything morally wrong] then you will have a problem with Singer's equivalence: if failing to donate all you can is as unvirtuous as letting that child drown then you are going to have to say that even Singer lacks moral virtue. But look at that picture!" So by way of claiming that no one has solved the issue of how to deal with third world poverty, and because we see that people are imperfect, we simply dismiss the critique completely.

We view our actions as meaningful, whereas the default of doing nothing is viewed as morally never bad. This is clearly untrue, however convenient it may be to believe. There was a time when our actions' purview was limited to what we could see, and morality was simpler then. We could simply say that inaction when seeing a wrong was itself t some degree wrong, and that ignorance was an excuse because is was impossibly to have the knowledge needed.

Now, however, we face a problem. It is the "Beggars in Spain" problem: if you see a beggar, you give him food. What do you do about all the beggars in Spain? (I label it this because of where I first saw it, in a book of that title. The question there was posed as an issue of objectivist "philosophy," about whether productive members of society owed anything to their unproductive counterparts. I reject the philosophy, but wish to have a convenient label for the problem.)

We basically paint ourselves into a corner. Not pretending to have the answers, I simply point out that inaction isn't an excuse for moral wrongs, and that with modern knowledge and communications, essentially all of humanity is aware of drowning children, constantly. This is where I think it is important to realize that tithing is a fair minimu for the amount of charity anyone should give to the less fortunate. Either we start to address the problem, as Singer does, or we philosophize about how we are not morally bad, we are just, as Tomkow claims, sons of bitches. And if Tomkow is going to label himself that for not trying to address these problems, I will not disagree

My personal values system is informed by and, I believe compatible with, but not identical to that of Orthodox Judaism. I like to think that it is defensible without reference to the un-provable. By this, I mean that it should be defensible without reference to the fact that God told me to do certain actions. Of course, I will refrain from participating in activities that others without my beliefs would, but I think I do not do anything that is condemned as immoral outside of my belief system, and that Halachic Judiasm is compatible with this claim. (Not necessarily as practiced, but that is a separate discussion.)

My Recent Reading

2009-05-31T18:24:00.003-04:00

Well, I've been doing a lot of reading recently, and haven't written about any of it. I don't really think I'm going to spend the time writing any full reviews, but here are the books I've read recently that were worth reading.

The post-American world, by Fareed Zakaria. I like his writing, and his ideas.

America and the world : conversations on the future of American foreign policy, by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft. Some parts were excellent, and some parts were not as interesting to me, but overall two people worth hearing.

Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show. (Short Story Collection) The stories ranged from good to incredible, and there were new stories from the Ender's game universe. Particularly good were stories by Eric James Stone, Tim Pratt and James Maxey. Of course, I love everything by Orson Scott Card, but of the offerings, there were stories better than those of his included, though none, I believe, that came to the level of his best work.

What I Write About, When I Write About Running, by Haruki Murakami. Very good memior, well written. I like a lot of the stories of his I have read, but I think this is now my favorite. I hate running, but I could almost consider starting after reading the book.

US Military Interrogation Policy (Things that make me hopeful...)

2009-01-22T18:25:00.002-05:00

I have one complaint. In the spirit of the time, however, let's start with everything the new administration got right about this. I saw on CNN that there would be a presidential order regarding detainees and Guantanamo. I wondered how transparent the white house site really was, so I went to whitehouse.gov. Two clicks, and no searching later, I was looking at the new order. The have all of them, by date, listed on a page accessed one click from the front page. A sitemap adorns the bottom of every page - I've never seen it before, but it's a great idea.

Then I read the order. It was clear - the CIA cannot run detention centers. Guantanamo is to be closed expeditiously. Creation of a very high level task force to review what works, and what doesn't, what is legal and what is not. Prisoners must be treated humanely. My favorite part of the order, of course, is that the International Committee of the Red Cross gets notification of, and access to all prisoners. A Non-US group, internationally respected, and the one on which we rely to evaluate everyone else, is allowed to look at our prisoners as well. Now all we need is for congress to pass this as well. Hell, it should be in the constitution, but let's not push this too far for now.

The biggest single point, the one I was hoping to see, wasn't there. It is the single biggest deterrent to abusive interrogation, and should be used any time anyone is being held by a governmental agency - every interaction the prisoner has should be taped. This measure has proven effective in preventing abuse for civilian police detainment where it is required, and should be universal. I'm not saying that they need to be accessible in real time (though police interrogations largely should be.) I just think that somewhere, FOIA-able, there should be a set of tapes. They can be classified, but I want to know that at some point, we will be able to verify that whatever was done was done, if not perfectly, at least in a manner that the persons doing the interrogation would not mind having shared with the news media in the future.

But I have hope that this type of order will show the world that we have rejected the tactics that we are so reviled for internationally, and know that with the type of transparency the White House is currently displaying, we will all be better off.

"The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" by Edward R. Tufte

2008-12-18T17:57:00.001-05:00

Rarely do I find a book that I would call beautiful, but this meets the criteria, both as a physically appealing book, apropos to the purpose of the book, and an informationally dense, and well presented one. A favorite quote of mine, from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, where the protagonist says; "I remember... remarking about the analytic craftsmanship displayed." This was my reaction to Tufte's book.

The book manages to decompose graphical presentation of data into categories other than the x- and y-axes, and instead talks about multifunctional elements and data density. The book reimagines the nature of numerical information using a graphical design perspective, with a healthy dose of common sense as to how graphs are used, and a veritable treasure trove of examples of both good and bad design.

This book, along with "How Buildings Learn," by Stewart Brand, is a rare example of a narrow focus with an incredibly broad appeal. This book is not for the narrow specialist in constructing the sometimes obscurely complex graphics displayed, but rather for anyone who is interested in the data presented to them, and certainly anyone who produces this data in any form.

Who's your Messiah?

2008-10-29T09:29:00.004-04:00

Well, I am generally fascinated by the charachterization of Obama as the Anti-Christ, the scare message du jour for evangelicals from their gracious hosts and suitor, the Republican Party. It's a brilliant bit of dog-whistle politics, since the majority of the polity simply doesn't know why it would be a bad thing to be a celebrity, or hailed as a transformational Christian leader - things that scream "Anti-Christ" to a select group. What impresses me is that they manage to play both sides. From RCP, Tony Blankley makes the claim that he's actaully a religious zealot, and that really we should be scared of him because he thinks he's god's messenger:

Consider that these words came from a man who has urged his followers to "get in the face" of his opponents and has exalted recently -- in an uncharacteristic moment of lack of restraint -- that he has "a righteous wind" at his back. That is a revealing word, righteous. It suggests that a person's actions have been "judged" or "reckoned" as leading a life that is pleasing to God. A verse in the Bible's book of Psalms speaks of one being shielded by God and receiving favor because of righteousness.

This is a particlarly impressive claim given that it comes from the party of George Bush and Sarah Palin. Maybe, just maybe, they think the best way to fight the claim that Religious zealots are a bit scary is to say that the claim runs both ways. I can't claim that I understand how this will play out in the minds of religious christians, but it is interesting that the message is being put out there by the right.

"When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth"

2008-04-17T23:36:00.002-04:00

I just finished reading this short story, by Cory Doctorow, who I kept on hearing about as a great new writer, but never actually read. Anyways, I read this story, and it was really amazing. I might also be getting a copy of his latest book from Making Light, and will probably try to find an appropriate young adult to gift it to once I finish reading it. I'll also try to write a review here, but schedules get pretty busy, especially when I want more time. And I still don't have my new laptop to write it on.

Giving Charity (AKA: So I'm thinking about taking the GREs...)

2008-04-17T22:19:00.005-04:00

though I'm not sure what type of grad school I would like to go to. (I'm currently working at an entry level job in finance at an I-Bank.)

In any case, needing to work on vocabulary (read: enjoying geeky words,) I have started spending time on freerice.com. It lets you be a wonderful person, and smarter too! On the other hand, I feel like I'm good enough at guessing that I probably don't end up with the slightly easier words I should really try to learn. Also, there are too many foreign words that I assume were adopted into the English language, but mostly I've never heard of them. Also, the options for each word stay the same so that it gets easier, and your level moves up without really learning the words. On the gripping hand, and despite the complaints, I am learning lots of new words.

In conclusion, I feel good about learning new words, and donating upwards of 10,000 grains of rice at this point to the poor. And for those who go in for trivia more, try freeflour.com, though it starts very easy, and moves up in levels a bit too slowly.

Particularly egregious miscalculation

2008-04-11T13:01:00.002-04:00

I routinely read Cato-Unbound, and while I don't have time to post here almost ever, I did note one thing recently that I wanted to point out.

Michael Strong wrote "Since 1973, K-12 educational expenditures have more than doubled; on a per-dollar basis, “investing” in public education now shows a thirty-five year trend of steadily decreasing returns." in his bit The Freedom to Innovate and the Future of Education.

A bit of economic analysis: based on the CPI, the value of a dollar has decreased 79.4% since 1973. We spend 2 times as much money on a per dollar basis, meaning that we spend less than half what we did in 1973.

So what was his point?

So when I saw this:
"One can still find tens of thousands of volumes in academic libraries citing empirical evidence that communism was as effective at meeting human needs as is capitalism."

I need to ask: Do we typically throw out library books because we find problems with the contents? Because if so, this little post of his is destined for the trash bin.

Liar's Poker

2007-07-16T10:22:00.000-04:00

There is a central hubris that underlies much of financial advisory as a profession, and the book Liars Poker gets to the essence of this problem. Basically, there is an inherent uncertainty and complexity in financial markets, and the role that many financial advisers attempt to play is that unfailing oracles in a sea of partially efficient markets-generated uncertainty. The central conceit of the novel is the game of Liar’s poker; basically, it is a bidding game using serial numbers from dollar bills. The players must know probability and have a keen grasp of the game, but the level at which the game is actually played is based on the bluffing skills of the players, and the willingness to take real risks with the money.

A scene that exemplifies the risk-taking, and bluffing of the scene in investment banking is where John Meriwether is challenged by John Guttfreund, the former trader viewed by disdain in the firm as no longer a real player, to a single game of liars poker for a million dollars: “One hand, one million dollars, no tears.” By this, he seemingly hoped to establish his credentials when Meriwether backed down, at a price that was low enough that he could afford it if he lost. The problem in such a challenge is that a single two person game of liar’s poker, irrespective of the skills of the players, is essentially a roll of the dice. The amount was enough that Meriwether could not afford to lose it, and his status was such that he couldn’t decline. Instead, knowing that Gottfreund was able to afford a one million dollar loss, he counter challenged; “I’d rather play for real money. Ten million dollars. No tears.” Merriwether quickly backed down, unable or unwilling to bet so substantial a percent of his fortune on a game at which he knew he was outmatched. (two thirds of his liquid capital, after his wife remodeled their new apartment, according to the author.)

This wasn’t only the game they played with their own fortunes, which could multiply or melt away with tremendous rapidity; it was the game they played for, or with, their clients. Of course, you could “blow up” a client or two when you were still learning (bankrupt them by advising a bad financial move,) and then once you had your legs, you would move up the ladder, earning money for the firm by maneuvering around either the market, the clients, or the other players in the market. At the end of the day, the profits taken out of the market are zero-sum, so in this context it’s all a big game of liar’s poker, with the additional benefit of giving the players a sense that they control the world, or at least the world’s financial fortunes.

The hubris, and of course the cocaine, hookers, and profligate spending habits of the traders are legendary, but Lewis does a wonderful job of portraying the traders, as it were, in their natural habitat with motives and scenery intact. It is a interesting perspective looking at the way the street works, especially given the short viewpoints of the traders and the asymmetric motives of traders and investors. In short, anyone interested in investing, and especially working on Wall Street, should see this perspective to more fully understand some of the problems that Wall Street has representing their clients, especially on the sell side.

It's funny...

2007-05-10T10:18:00.000-04:00

Because it is the MPAA, and they have the AACS Key on their page...

The Reality of the Stupid Voter

2006-11-06T12:22:00.000-05:00

Most people are stupid about most things. This has been true since humans started to specialize, and people no longer knew how to do all of the jobs needed in society. Even so-called "renaissance men" only knew a small fraction of what there was to know. Why is it surprising that, as Bryan Caplan points out in the Lead Essay at Cato Unbound this month, the average voter makes mistakes that are statistically significant because they do not trend towards the reality of situations.

Of course, the argument he makes is good, and I think correct, but not quite compelling. There is a brilliant analysis of why the problem of measuring correctness of the average voter is difficult, and then... he flubs it. "Economists and the public hold radically different beliefs about the economy." Of course, it is not intrinsically obvious that economists are correct and the public are wrong. He notices this, but "it is hard to get around the strong presumption that if experts and laymen disagree, the experts are probably right, and the laymen are probably wrong." It may be true¹.

In fact, I would not be bothered by the analysis much, except that it's so internally inconsistent; before the next section even begins, he says that economic research has been built around "the contrary assumption that the beliefs of the average voter are true." Of course, the experts are wrong - that even when they believe they, the experts, are wrong, they are wrong about it. It's impressive, actually.

The analysis of the conclusion is terrific, and I really like the fact that someone actually talks about remedies, not just analysis of the problem. I'm just not so sure I should be as despondent about the future of democracy as the conclusion suggests. The problem is that even if voters are wrong, and it's unlikely that we can change it, we still have the "good enough" solution - we don't need a system that works very well, we need one that allows as many people as possible to get by, and live their lives². If we do that, and we have been for 250 years, we're doing OK.

¹⁾Sometimes the difficult is necessary. Actually, I think it's more rational to believe that we are all, professionals included, bad at judging complex issues. Darts seem to have as good a record as professional economists - and no-one studies how accurate their predictions are over the long run. Of course the public probably should have just as bad a record, except that their beliefs are likely to inform their actions, making some of their beliefs self-fulfilling - if people think the economy is doing badly, they will behave as if it will, causing problems. But I'm not a professional, so my opinion is one of those that's "probably wrong."

²⁾I still have a problem with part of his conclusion - if we can only change the ignorant majority's opinion's by misrepresenting ourselves (the penultimate paragraph of the penultimate section) then it turns into a contest of which side can lie better. And if you want to push the election in one direction or the other, all you need do is misrepresent better than your opponent, which sounds remarkably like a status quo in politics today. And we know where that leads - see every critique of politicians over the past 50 years.

Religion Forming Society: Ties between Feudalism, Religion, and Eastern Thought

2006-10-10T16:10:00.000-04:00

This is a paper I wrote for Western History class. The assignment was to read a set of about 4 texts, and come to a conclusion regarding the Franks from about 500-1000 CE, and how religion influenced governmental development in light of a chaper from Li's book regarding the nonexclusivity of eastern religion. I don't think the bit of Chinese text shows up. Oh Well.

Note that the assumption behind the assignment was to show why nonexclusivist religious thought, like that which exists in the far east, would be different than Christian exclusivist religious thought from Europe. The obvious conclusion from the assigned readings seemed a bit obvious, and after a bit more reading, seemed simplistic and not borne out by facts. It also conveniently says that Christianity and politics mix even worse than other religions, and seems to be (if I'm not reading too muich into it, which I don't think I am) and implicit criticism of George W. Bush and his Christian government. I decided to write from a slightly different viewpoint, about a slightly broader topic, and debunk the obvious conclusion.

Here we go.

The effects of religion on the formation of any society are multifaceted, and no-one doubts their importance, but the relationship between a specific type of religion or religious organization and the structure of the governance of a society are still somewhat ambiguous. To be more specific, there is a relationship between the existence of, or lack of, religious plurality and the development of the governmental structure that accompanies it . We can see from the religious philosophies and the development of the power structures in both feudal France and China that religious culture is a factor which influences the formation of the structure and role of government in a fashion that might not be expected.

To understand the similarities and differences between the two cultures, we must examine the way in which they developed. The basic outline of these cultural evolutions can be thought of as occurring in three stages. The previous structure is destroyed, and a different one comes to replace it. As this next stage begins, there is a need to co-opt aspects of the previous government. Parenthetically, this reflects the structure of the previous government, which is apropos because it was developed to deal with exactly the same problems that the new government faces. The new structure, which in both these cases is religiously based, slowly changes to partially reflect the old one. The use of the previous governmental structure becomes absorbed into the new one, and a hybridized system emerges. In both the kingdom of the Franks and China, these structures were established, and remained so stable that only in modern times, with the advent of representative democracies, were the last vestiges of these systems finally purged.

The evolution of France from the fall of Rome until the Capetian Dynasty and the Formation of the Holy Roman Empire is an excellent and informative example about how a strong religion, especially a monolithic one, can be efficacious in the formation of a strong central government. In the wake of the fall of Rome and the dissolution of Roman power, new religious forces were able to take an expanding role in the power structure of the society. Despite the assertion that Christianity has “ritual[s…] that united people beyond the traditional barriers of social class, education, and gender,” (Kagan, 209) the church was the “[lone] effective hierarchical administration… staffed by the best educated minds in Europe.” (ibid.) Even the church, supposedly acting as a great leveler, was simply mirroring the only known structure, which was hierarchical, that would deal with a system of the complexity of what amounted to an empire.

We see that the origins of both Church and Merovingian society in France were based on the previous, Roman structure. By "absorbing the mechanism of provincial Roman administration... [they] establish[ed] legitimate [rule... and] enforc[ed] Roman law." (Geary, 43) This was made possible partially by the near homogeneity of the beliefs and preexisting structures from Roman times. The Franks added to this empire their "cherished feuds, kinship structures, and personal alliances." (Geary, 44) The largest change was one that bridged the gap between the barbarism and essential dispersed nature of the Germanic tribes and the monolithic centralized civilization of Rome: "the profound localism was characteristic of the Merovingian period... [which] also [led to] the shift in religious authority from the urban world of the bishops to the rural monastery." (Geary, 45) And seemingly despite the monolithic church, the fragmented political structure dictated to some extent the structure of religious organization during this period. This led to a sort of "counter transference," where the church received parts of the structure of the society it was within. The religious and secular leaders both simply co-opted what they could of the Roman structure, and used their tribal influence to moderate the system to their own ends.

It was only as religion began to mandate obeisance that the Carolingian dynasty began its ascent. The Arnulfings took power as a product of the bureaucracy established by the Merovingians, and in order to establish their credentials, looked towards the only power that could possibly establish them other than the physical power they already possessed, that being the religious mandate of the church. After Childeric, known as the phantom king, was placed as a titular head, Pippin lacked only approval from the church to officially usurp the throne. His appeal was at first for legitimacy, and should in no way be construed as obeisance to the church, but rather a further usurpation of power, one that this time included even the church in its grasp.

The importance of the origins of the structure cannot be overstated: the structure was synthesized from the Roman Imperial law and the Christian Church, whose structure was itself derived from the Roman Empire. In the beginning of the transformation, during early Merovingian rule, “there is... some realignment of spiritual values" (Wallace-Hadrill, 106) which reflect the barbarian religion of the Franks. Later, as the governing class began to formalize their power structure, they needed to do so in a way acceptable to the church. This meant basing the traditional familial structure on Roman law, with benificium and precarium as the legal vehicles used. (Ganshof, 11)

Of course, the church would not play steward to the Merovingian dynasty indefinitely. Imperial structures in the Roman mold are exclusionist, and so the parties involved each tried seeking supremacy. The culmination of this relationship occurred when, by mutual consent, Charlemagne was crowned imperator Romanorum, making him the proxy for the church as ruler, neatly solving the dilemma. Later this was modified to be only gobernans Imperium, but originally he was anointed a clear heir to the Roman Empire, trans-substantiated into a Holy Roman Empire by this act of the church. The formation of the entire complication of the feudal system followed: Roman common law, which was acceptable to the church, was applied to Frankish governance. While important, this system is a product of the forces outlined. As Tierney put it, they were "trying to create a coherent legal system out of the prevailing pattern of behavior," and it is a combination of Roman law and barbaric practice. (Tierney and Painter, 158) The basics seemed to have been a veneer over the Roman Empire laid by the barbarian tribes attempting to retain their familial ties, and evolved to allow retention of the personal relationship within a Roman-like political structure.

We saw the developmental trinity in Europe around Christian ideals, that of a government falling, a new one which co-opts previous structures forming, and finally the emergence of a hybrid. The same occurred in China. In China, the Zhou period was the period in which “a new order began to emerge,” leading to the formation of the unified states. (Fairbank, 54) The concept of feudal roles was in fact pioneered in China centuries before its renaissance in Europe. This was, in fact, the previous system that the Chinese empire emerged from. As the Zhou period ended, and the Qin dynasty emerged, the philosophy centering on governance that had emerged during the so called "hundred schools of thought" was tested, and put into place by its believers. This government was feudal, to some extent, except that the structure was significantly more bureaucratic and less relationship based than the feudal one in Europe would later be.

In contrast to Europe, Chinese religion was not imported, nor did people need to convert, or throw out old ideas completely. In fact, there was a reverence for the old: "respect for the old became a central feature of the Chinese cultural tradition." (Billington, 121) In sum, there was very little counter transference that occurred into Confucianism as the ideas were brought into use for government, and the government, once established, did not need to evolve.

It is important to note that this new order was not despite the religious revival that had just occurred or even parallel to it, but because of it. The entire governmental structure was rebuild around religious ideals - primarily Legalist and Confucian ones, but the nonexclusive religious climate meant that other ideas were included as well. Of course, Confucianism was a religion based on Chinese governance, and so was much more directly applicable to governance than Christianity, and Legalism has been classified more often as political theory than as a religion. As the Qin (also spelled Ch'in) dynasty emerged, following a state based on Legalist doctrine, it emerged from a slightly modified bureaucratic feudalism , and easily a millennium before the first hints of such a system would appear in Europe. This feudalism, and more specifically the rigid hierarchy and bureaucracy, was to a large extent embraced by Confucius, himself once a civil servant (Burlington, 119) as the epitome of proper government. To quote Confucius himself, in response to the Duke Qing of Qi asking about government (in The Analects, Book XII, Chapter XI), "君君, 臣臣, 父父, 子子" meaning: "[There is government] when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son." The role of individuals in the system was in many ways even more fixed than that of European feudalism.

Of course, the Qin dynasty was no bastion of tolerance, and had Confucian thought banned. It was instead a precursor to the Han dynasty, which capitalized on the unification brutally brought about by the Qin dynasty. The Qin dynasty also abolished feudal alliances, and standardized the entire country, allowing for development by more civilized regimes later. After the Qin dynasty, the Han took power, and codified and made permanent most of the structure. As in Europe, once the system was established as stable then the relationship moved to a more direct power for the ruler. The Qin, and later the Han Dynasties, based much of their philosophy Legalism, with Han incorporating more Taoism, as well as strong currents of a revived Confucianism, recovering from being banned and nearly destroyed during the Qin Dynasty. As the empires progressed, the fengjian (Bureaucratic Feudalism) turned into junxian (Bureaucratic Centralization,) (Fairbank, 56) which parallels Europe, with the addition of a bureaucratic element (and some Chinese terminology.) This bureaucracy was constituted so that policy was difficult to change. China never was able to develop the "workable relationship between bureaucrats and policymakers" (Strayer, 110) that Europe eventually settled into. The bureaucracy was expanded to be able to withstand any changes in government, and it indeed lasted millennia, through the communist revolution, and in large part until today.

After noticing the structure of these dynasties, however, it is instructive to broaden our scope. As Li points out in his introduction, "sometimes historic accidents will determine more than anything else what the future will be," (Li, 1) so we look at the philosophies upon which governments are based. These philosophies, mostly Confucianism and Legalism, were conceived in a period remarkable similar to that of Europe after the fall of Rome. As Finer puts it, "the old order was in full retreat, a new one not yet born." (456) Instead of tacitly borrowing idea from the previous governmental structure, Confucius unabashedly asserted that he was modeling his new government on the old. He claimed that since people didn't change, governments should not have to either, and that all that would be required was to learn what the emperors of the golden age had done, and copy "the maxims of proper government." (Finer, 458) It is about tailoring actions to the needs of the times, and focuses almost completely on governmental, and not spiritual, concerns. Legalism is even more a governmental philosophy, but in this case one that is almost diametrically opposed to Confucianism. The basis is one of an unambiguous code of law, where everything is spelled out, because "the Legalists viewed the mass of humanity as irrevocably stupid and base, and susceptible only to the carrot and the stick." (Finer, 467) Taoism, as compared to the other two religions being discussed, is decidedly familiar: it is theist, though not monotheist, and involves specific rituals. It also focuses on philosophy of living life, and not on what happens afterward, keeping a focus for religion on practical problems and beliefs.

Given the complete antithetical natures of these religious philosophies, it is surprising that most dynastic governments of China combined them. This is what Li was discussing, in a different context, when he talked about exclusive versus nonexclusive religion and its implications on modern democracy in China. Clearly, however, the implications for government are not as straightforward as a dilemma between pluralism and feudalism. The first problem with this simplistic approach is that even though the paradigms are not exclusive as religions, they are constructed along clear authoritarian lines. Strayer points out, "Organization alone could not... produce the modern state," (Strayer, 107) but in Feudalism, the system could evolve because the roles eventually would allow progress; it gave "lesser vassals a chance to participate in the work of government as judges and administrators." (Strayer, 106) In contrast Li states that, "in Confucianism people are essentially unequal because of their social roles.” (Li, 177) and regarding not Taoism specifically, but Chinese religion in general, Billington prefaces his discussion of Taoism with a warning that "Chinese humanism sets greater store on the relationship between individuals and their fellows: social empathy rather than personal development is their overriding aim." (Billington, 87) Clearly, the philosophical exclusivity of the different Chinese approaches had less impact than the fact that they gave control to the elite, and allowed for government along these bureaucratic lines.

Both systems were, as Tierney said about feudalism, "the natural product of the customs and conditions of the time." (Tierney and Painter, 159) The key differences stem from the types of governments that have arisen. In the case of Europe, the stifling nature of the religion and government led to the eventual revision and revolts that led to modern democracy. In China, the eventual end of their system was the arrival of a European culture informing them they were centuries behind the time in the art of governance. In the conclusion lies the key to understanding origin; in many ways, Chinese philosophy and religion was so oriented towards this world, and one's place in the world, that the chaos of the west, despite its long dark age, overtook it.

The difference between these two forms of governance lies mainly in the cultural and religious background that existed. The key end result in both cases, as we see, is that once a coherent system of government is established, religion is the vehicle, and not the controller, and the rulers who create the system are insulated from the majority of the religious implications regardless.

Billington, Ray. Understanding Eastern Philosophy. London, GBR: Routledge, 1997.

Fairbank, John King. “The First Unification: Imperial Confucianism.” China: A New History, Pg 46-71. The Belnap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1992

Finer, S.E. The History of Government from the Earliest Times I: Ancient Monarchies and Empires Pg 442-72. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999

Ganshof, F.L. Feudalism Trans. Philip Grierson. Harper and Row, 1964

Geary, Patrick. "Merovingian Society." The Middle Ages, Volume II: Readings in Medieval History ed. Tierney, Brian. Pg 37-47. McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 1999.

Heinlein, Robert A. "Glory Road" Baen New York, 1963.

Li, Chenyang. The Tao Encounters the West: Explorations in Comparative Philosophy. State University of New York, Albany, 1999

Strayer, Joseph R. On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1970

Tierney, Brian. "The Frankish-Papal Alliance." The Middle Ages, Volume I: Sources of Medieval History ed. Tierney, Brian. Pg 81-88. McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 1999. (cited as Tierney)

Tierney, Brian and Painter, Sydney. Western Europe in the Middle Ages 300-1475. McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 1999 (Cited as Tierney and Painter)

Wallace-Hadrill, J.M. "The Conversion of the Franks." The Other Side of Western Civilization: Readings in Everyday Life, Volume 1: The Ancient World to the Reformation Pg. 97-106. Harcourt, Inc. Orlando, Florida, 1973

The Guardian and the Lebanese power structure

2006-08-02T10:43:00.000-04:00

I ran into a strange quote in an article in The Guardian today, given what I heard (Incorrectly?) about how Hezbollah is operating independantly of Lebanon's military.

"Lebanese security officials claimed today's barrage of missiles amounted to more than 300 rockets"

How do they know? Who are they interviewing that they label a "Lebanese Security Official"? Is this code for "We got Hezbollah to make a statement, but can't say so"? It's especially interesting becasue of the following blog post on The Guardian talking about the difficulty of getting good sources other than from the Israeli PR machine.

Chess for girls.

2006-07-26T21:02:00.000-04:00

I just saw a idea whose time has come. And then went again. That's right, everybody knows that chess is about superficialities. And that's why we need a World Chess Beauty Contest. Because if Saturday Night Live thought of it, it must be a good idea.

Tags: Saturday Night Live, Chess, Superficial, Funny

Beged Eisha

2006-07-16T17:44:00.000-04:00

"After years of stiling conservatism, men face a dizzying array of clothing options... unisex collections that blur the distinction between the genders. French designer Jean Paul Gaultier¹ is largely to thank for these advances" - Joelle Diderich, Associated Press, Published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution 7/16/06.

Given that gender is a social construct, it makes sense to challenge it - it's not as though there is some god-given difference between the sexes. In fact, saying that they are equal is not enough, since separate is necessarily inherently unequal. So any person interested in analyzing art as a rebellion must ask what it is that drives this conservative obsession with gender roles. The fact that it has worked for millennia is an artifact of our primitive, primate derived notions of how society works. If we let nature dictate our society, we would still be picking bugs out of each others hair.

Progress entails challenging every possible previous notion of how society should be structured, the more obviously true, the more important to challenge. We live in a universe where everything is relative, and as Alan Sokal has pointed out, new (and liberal) universal topological approaches have supplanted our previous niave notions of our ability to understand reality based on our local, parochial understanding. "Today both men and women reject the constricting and unequal sex roles of past generations..."⁽²⁾ The basis of our society is fundamentally unequal, and should be completely rethought.

Of course, starting from gender roles clearly does not fully eliminate the irrational biases that we hold. The real solution is to go back to our intolerant, dogmatic assumptions, and eliminate them. To build a fair society, one that truly reflects only what is progressive and modern, we must eliminate all that is based on our parochial assumptions, all of our biased technology, the engineering we have mistakenly built over the graves of so many minorities, and go back to the modernity and progressivism that we enjoyed in primitive society.

¹⁾Gaultier, posibly better known as the designer who made Madonna's outrageous 90's costumes (and the costume designer for 5th Element as well, if you thought there was some redeeming value in Madonnas ridiculous fashions,) is known for "playing with traditional gender roles," according to the Wikipedia article. Additonally, he is known as one of the co-founders and original hosts of Eurotrash, the most outré show on British television. According to the Guardian, it is "demented genius," mocking Europe by displaying the British appetite for the absurd. Who else would have conceived of features such as "Naked Germans of the Week."
²⁾Hate and Marriage, by Richard Thompson Ford, http://www.slate.com/id/2145620/ (The rest of the quote, of course, reflects narrow bias, and should not be considered.)

It's not quite metapseudointellectual...

2006-07-13T20:24:00.000-04:00

...but "it's true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies, but they're entertaining lies, and in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer, is no." (The Simpsons) And this, truthfuly, is both true and amusing. Really. I mean, it started as an amusing lie, and normally it would end there as well. But sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. Because fiction is rarely truly strange. The Onion, however, has never had such limitations. But sometimes the truth lives up to the high, high bar set for it by The Onion.

Tags: Funny, The Simpsons, The Onion, Consumerism

Iran's Bomb

2006-07-12T16:39:00.000-04:00

Well, it's a new month. And we know what that means. Cato Unbound has a new topic. Several weeks late, but as they pointed out, it is timely. Iran and the bomb. And our bombs. And the possibility of their conjunction. Or the use of ours to prevent theirs. Well, you get the point. And Reuel Gerecht leads off arguing for intervention.

This month, due to my limited knowledge of military options in the theatre, I'll have very little to say. The exception is to point out that since everyone seems to agree that at best we can delay Iran going nuclear, it would seem that only planning what to do before they get the bomb is, well, short sighted. And we want our sights on this issue to be set at least a bit past whenever Iran gets the bomb, to whether they will use it, and who they will give it to. Because something that scares me worse than Iran having the bomb is what Iran does once it thinks about the fact that the nukes it will have can be used as bombs, as well as for their political leverage.

Kerfluffle? Let's figure out what a right is first.

2006-07-02T23:36:00.000-04:00

Over on Spiked this week, they have a neat article, about the new proposed British bill of rights. Basically, they claim that if a bill of rights isn't made by popular sentiment, and is passed instead by the establishment, then it will have the effect of limiting rights by circumscribng them instead of expanding them to previously unrecognized areas. It's an interesting idea. I'm still working out whther I beleive in the concept of "rights" in the first place - not that I'm opposed to human rights. (For instance, we have this over at Mother Jones. It's important to notice that people are refusing to help others conceive, which they have no obligation to do. Do doctors have an obligation to spend every waking second saving lives? If you want people to be doctors, that is't a good plan. The libertarian in me says to hell with the public good, but the moralist in me says that not helping when you can is evil.) I'll post about my ideas when I've thought it through and have free time to write it up.

Internships, Starbucks, and Litigious Society

2006-06-21T15:59:00.000-04:00

The way I see It #101

The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit
Herbie Hancock
Musician. His work can be heard on Starbucks Hear Music(TM) station, XM Satellite Radio Channel 75.
This is the author's opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks. To read more or respond, go to www.starbucks.com/wayiseeit.

I had a cup of coffee today at my internship, and it made me think a bit. Which was good, because before my coffee in the morning I can't. When my eyes had focused to a sufficient extent, I noticed that there was something on the side of the cup. With a disclaimer. Because Starbucks was worried that we might think they believe in the beauty of the human spirit.

And now, onto the point: my internship. I'm interning at the FTC. The Federal Trade Comission. We do something that until recently, I firmly beleived, as a right thinking libertarian, should not need to be done: we attempt to fix all the stuff wrong with a pure free market economy. And it works. Basically. "Sentence fragment. Good device."

Anyways, I read a couple pieces that the FTC gives out to interns, and being slightly more economically inclined than I would assume most of the law students that typically intern are, I was mostly interested in the economic analyses of what the FTC accomplishes. On that I read, which I could find, and was cited online, was written by a professor at Emory, Paul Rubin, about "Regulation of Information and Advertising." It was this type of thing that got me thinking - theoretically, the mission of the government in terms of economics is to make sure that everyone is OK. The consent of the governed is in part based on an understanding that the government will regulate trade, and so on. Anyways, that's for a later post. One that I started writing here, and decided 4 paragraphs in that it had wandered a bit to far.

And speaking of to far. Well, at some point it gets ridculous. Like the disclaimer on this cup. I understand that they have a boilerplate disclaimer, but this is silly. Of course, it's the result of our litigious society, whose litigaton holds everything in check. It's still sad. And amusing. "Sentence fragment. Good device."

Salary Caps, Health Care, and Realism

2006-06-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm not sure that those boys over at Cato are actually interested, but I see an interesting problem with their discussion - which I'm enjoying. (I even learned a new term - "sticky jobs.") The problem is that as long as they stick to vague generalities and analogies to sports parity, they can acomplish very little. Not that somethng akin to salary caps wouldn't have beneficial aspects, as Frank Levy eventaully explaned, but on some level realistic policy modification is a goal, and pure abstractions are not. (By the way, I loved that whole interplay about who was taking sides in the culture wars, without anyone feeling compelled to mention any actual issues.) Let me explain by using an example having nothing to do wth salary caps; I wonder, and I put this out as a challenge, how the government could implement universal health care in the most minimalist way possible?

Let me explain; a good concrete goal for creating this "creative workforce" is allowing people not to be tied to jobs for health care, and allowing employers to compete in a atmosphere where it wasn't the 800-pound gorilla in the room. This means some kind of governmental interference, which libertarians dislike. So, given that this is a probable step regardless of our issues about a creative workforce, what is a viable, libertarian approach to universal health care? How can we utilize the free market to provide good care without having costs balloon to an unworkable extent? Who pays, and how? What is the minimum required, and how can it be managed to change as different techniques become commonplace? (Perscription drugs are a sine-qua-non now, but how do we build in what will be similarly important in 20 years without overloading the system?)

These questions are important for libertarians to address now, before the bills begin to be drafted - our best ideas, if put clearly and not marginalized by being too radical, may be adopted. Think of the way carbon trading schemes have been embraced by the far left as a solution to global warming.

In any case, these policies are important because on a very real level, tweaking municipal attractiveness and investing in local education to beat the next town's schools for students is a zero sum game, and while it is certainly interesting in theory, in practice it is irrelevant. The game is so much bigger stakes that petty gains are irrelvant as the major parties throw the country into chaos. we are not going to make our culture more bohemian, if that is a goal, simply by saying it creates growth. We need more than that, and I think that realistic policy ideas are the way to go.

There is no revolution. All hail the revolution.

2006-06-11T02:25:00.000-04:00

Well, Robin Hanson over at Cato-Unbound has some interesting points over at his response essay to Cato's topic this month, specifically about the drives behind economic growth. These point are then quickly overshadowed by a bad analysis of the original essay, and a strange millennial analysis of human development, a la Yeat's "The Second Coming".

First, the good point - most economic growth is fueled by incremental changes, the kind that will continue to occur over the next century. He disagrees with the supposed point that "epic revolution over the last half century has put growth in the hands of bohemians," and points to instead a continual change in work methodologies that drove the change, which "[do] not require free-spirited self-expression." It's true. Changing the ordering system of a company to utilize new web-based ordering platforms requires neither a free spirit, nor any measure of self expression. So the advance is caused by the tried and true, staid denizens of the corporate world.

Of course, creating the web, the programming languages, the concept of databases and the systems to make these accessible to the masses required both free spirits and self expression, simply because they were, at a point not too long ago, new and original ideas that were ridiculed as unrealistic, even if it was only due to technological limitations. The fact that these millions of "apparently conservative lawyers, doctors, and accountants" can use the internet to place google ads to get online referrals is in fact due to the "bohemians" that Hanson ridicules.

On the other hand, it is in fact very sad that Hanson's supposed "originality" was crushed. He claims that he "had to learn to be less creative." I'll disagree. I saw in his piece the most creative piece of logical twisting I have seen in a sober discussion. This is the Yeats-ian millennial prediction; The rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem is in fact "another new mode appear soon, growing even faster" then the previous ones. Instead of a 2000 year cycle, which would of course be unscientific, we have a exponential growth model with regular paradigm changes. The problem here isn't with the concept of sets of transition, each qualitatively different than the previous, but rather with the presentation; the claim is made that the cycles cause the change, and not vice-versa. The fact that we approach a millennial era does not cause the gyre to widen, we respond to the claim which Yeats once made, that of the mystical Spiritus Mundi. We say that even if Yeats was correct, and we will admit that "Surely some revelation is at hand," it is caused by no living spirit of the universe. If a revolution is to happen, we better look to the bohemians.

Problems with Prognostication, with a Meditation on Bifurcated Workforces

2006-06-08T22:15:00.000-04:00

They do it every month. Over at Cato Unbound, they are once again having a discussion. This time it's about the future, and specifically the rich/poor divide involving the bifurcation of jobs into manual versus intellectual labors. They point out that the payoff for education and comparative advantage in the marketplace is accelerating at a pace that seems to foreshadow the obsolescence of manual labor and non-creative jobs, especially in America, in the near future.

Of course, the questions they ask manage to combine the dual questions of mechanization and outsourcing, which are really two separate questions. The first is a technological, predictive question, whereas the second is a policy and economics question. The point is that there are two separate groups that should address these problems, and in neither case is the prognostication particularly famed for it's accuracy. Why then should a group of people who are all well informed on the subject has definitive opinions on the subject? Because their published works make statements that have implications on these questions, that's why!

The next part of their question, of course, gives away the narrow perspective that leads to this grouping; they ask "what is America's comparative advantage?" It's funny, because it's the single most incongruous line in the article. First of all, technological change will obsolete things in transnational ways, so that comparative advantage is a silly mode of analysis. Secondly, in 18 years, when these newborn children are starting college and picking careers, what are the odds that the world will be in similar enough shape for this question to make much sense? (Remember now, 18 years ago, George Bush was president of the United States, The world was reeling from a war between a major power and Afghanistan where military might proved ineffective against the Muslim fighters, America was being challenged by the other world powers, and no-one knew when it would end. I was a bit young to have noticed at the time but I guess things haven't changed much. Except that now we can read about all of it online.)

Essentially, to respond to the question (and not to the original post, which was not too bad,) the game changes fast enough that the disjoint timelines that we need to use separate paradigms to analyze the two questions. Since I don't really care about American problems with outsourcing enough to write about them, and I'm convinced enough by Kurzweil's ideas that I think that considering geopolitical trends involving jobs 18 years from now isn't useful. So I guess I'll just sit on the sidelines and make fun of the posts in the thread.

Architecture

2006-06-01T12:22:00.000-04:00

Well, the sum total of what I know about buildings is experience, Ayn Rand, and, as I wrote about, "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand. Basicaly, I have a bias against badly built buildings and nothing more than an intuitive appreciation of beautiful architechture. One of the advantages which I have discovered, which is attendant to attending a university in the United States, is that I can ask for books that I want to read - and they find them for me! I read an article about a new book about Glen Murcott, and his minimalist ecological functionalist Architecture. (I just enjoy writing phrases ike that.) Given that it's something I'm interested in, and I wanted to read it, I asked the librarians if they could get the book freom another library, and THEY DID! (Sorry I seem so surprised.)

In any case, the buildings are, for the most part, beautiful. Not just pretty, some of them are really beautiful. But they are all in Australia. Which stinks. For me at least.

Anyways, on the the point. I've been interested in this ecological minimalism and functional building for a while, and then my brother-in-law got involved in a "Solar Decathlon" as part of the University of Maryland's team. Despite being an undergraduate team that was underfunded, and miserable luck, they placed 8th out of 18, and won the people's choice award for best house.

The buildings Murcott designed are not simply ecologically friendly in the classical sense - using renewable materials, and consuming less power than average - but also use local material, and are built integrated in to the environment. Plus, as I said, they are pretty. He uses solar panels, and sheet metal, and wood, and steel beams, and the houses are just breathtaking. The rooves frequently have a curvature, something architechts typically love for the effect, but abhor for the difficulty constructing and maintaining them. (if they are conceintious enough to care about future maintenance.) He uses the natural deformation under gravity of the sheet metal, wich is cheap and environmentally fairly benign, to achieve his effects, and then utilizes shade and water to cool the houses down. The houses are partially cooled by cross ventilation - not only not accidental, but purposely built in order to utilize the curvature of the surrounding land to funnel air currents through the buildings.

I think this was unfinished, but I'm not sure where I was going with this, so I'll post it now, October 2006.

Markets and Collective Delusions

2006-05-19T22:54:00.000-04:00

I was reading an interesting book, and had an idea. The book was "The Idea of the State," and it was discussing the conception of the state as a product of collective consciousness. The argument was that a country is not defined by it's borders, citizens, or culture - any of these can and will change. It's defined partially by the fact that we consider it a state and act on that belief. That second part got me thinking about my senior project, which I want to do about the application (and specifically mis-application) of mathematics. We take an example which works to illustrate the point I wish to make, then see how it applies in a more abstract field.

When mathematics was first applied to finance in more than a superficial way, it was important that the system in place, including things such as interest, would work mathematically. It is not difficult to build a consistent mathematical structure on that basis, and one was built. The question is if the ideas are intrinsic to the idea of time as it relates to money, or if they are imposed because the math says so. If I tell someone that I'll give them a dollar today instead of a dollar and fifteen cents in a year, and the interest rate is ten percent, it is logical for a person, all else equal, to wait to receive the money later, in exchange for the extra return. This is a basic result of the equations governing interest.

Now we get to a more complex example - let's discuss market pricing. Everyone uses related models and similar assumptions to price a stock. The system, within the limits of its ability, is correct. It is consistent to large extent, and the market works. The question is whether the market reflects the prices because the nature of the market essentially is reflected in the models, or if the collective agreement of the market to use these and similar assumptions makes the models work. When Mayo, in "Investments - An Introduction" discusses pricing, he assumes that there is an intrinsic connection, one which may simply be widespread agreement.

Anyways, pondering markets and pricing and people.