Man, fleas, and gods

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, yet he makes gods by the dozens.

- Michel de Montaigne

Why this isn't the time

Another mass shooting, again at a school, and the reactions are predictable as ever. "We need to talk about gun control." "Don't politicize the tragedy." "To not talk about it would be to politicize it." "I love you guys, but Americans are fucking idiots" (from a Canadian friend of mine).

Anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with politicizing the attack -- it's an inherently political topic -- but this is still the wrong time to be talking about changing policy. Why? We're in the wake of an attention-getting but unrepresentative event. Emotional reactions don't lead to good policy.

While this attack is clearly a terrible event for those directly involved, it's a detail from a public policy standpoint. There are roughly 9,000-10,000 per year in the US. That's 25-30 per day, every day. Newtown is, in a very real sense, just another day.

It also seems that most commonly proposed gun control measures wouldn't do much to prevent attacks like this. Waiting periods, background checks, registration, all sensible but not relevant to the situation at hand. These mass shootings tend to be perpetrated by people with no prior criminal record, a long planning horizon, and no concerns about getting caught.

What might help? The most effective policy would probably be to suppress media coverage. These people are copycats, looking for attention. We give it to them. I recently read about some countries that suppressed reports of suicide-by-train, with a resulting drop in rates (large drop by train, smaller one overall). It seems like a similar dynamic But would I advocate that? I'm not so sure. The only other thing I'd see maybe working would be eliminating all guns, but I'm not even sure that would be possible, setting aside for the moment the costs and Constitutional issues.

Best headline ever?

Fuck You, Pelicans Are Awesome

Actually, the whole article is pretty good. Have a read.

Dave Brubeck R.I.P.

Dave Brubeck died today. It's almost twelve years ago I had a chance to see him play live, an 80th birthday concert with four of his sons and the London Symphony Orchestra, but missed it because I'd already bought my flight back to the States for Christmas. It's high on my list of things I regret not doing in life.

To be honest, I didn't even realize he was still alive until I heard the news. I didn't even realize he was still alive and playing twelve years ago until I saw the show advertised. I'm certainly not a great follower of his. But as jazz goes, I think he's one of the best, and I'm not sure he's as well known as he should be.

If you're not familiar with him, check out Take Five. You'll recognize it. Then go a bit deeper with Unsquare Dance, probably my favorite of his. You might recognize it too. It's been in commercials and apparently made #74 on the U.S Billboard Hot 100. Then try The Real Ambassadors, with its great backstory. And his verison of Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho. And what he did with Volga Boatmen while touring Russia. And on and on and on.....

Photos that give a truly different vew of reality

This is some of the coolest photography I've ever seen. It's interesting, and the writer spends a lot of time explaining what's behind it, but focusing on that is like focusing on the chemical processes behind a film photo or the signal processing in a digital camera. It's interesting, but that's secondary.

Instead, these are cool just because they draw me in. I've spend a lot of time with them, mostly with the waves. I haven't spent much of it thinking about what the scenes would look like 'normally'. They just look familiar, yet not, like a glimpse into a different reality

My first reaction was to want one of these cameras. Setting aside the $85,000 price tag, I probably couldn't produce anything like this anyway. I have plenty of photographic power now, but my skills, my vision... still a work in progress. And this is some serious vision, not just a piece of equipment.

A unified theory of politics

I think I might have figured it out.

1. Most Democratic voters are seriously uninformed, haven't thought very deeply about the issues, and are voting mainly on tribal loyalty.
2. But a lot of them are well informed, have thought deeply about the issues, and are voting based on values and some good thought about how the world works.
3. Points 1 and 2 apply equally to Republican voters.

I could probably extend point 3 to Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, PRI, SDP, and any other large party anywhere. (You're probably less likely to support a minor party, be it Libertarians or Greens, without having thought about it a lot.)

What are the implications? Well, first, it should show that it's not that impressive to point out stupid things said by supporters of the opposition; supporters of your side are saying lots of stupid things too. You want to get somewhere, try to engage with the better arguments from the opposition.

And that leads nicely into my second point, which is that the opposition generally has some good arguments for their position. Not all people who disagree with you are uninformed. Often it comes down to a difference in values. Sometimes it's differing predictions about the effect of a policy. It's almost always subjective differences, not objective ones.

This is why I rarely try to changes peoples opinions about policy. Instead, I just try to change their opinions of my opinions. If I can convince someone that you don't have to be an idiot to support, say, market-based health care reforms, I'll call that a success, even if I can't convince them that those reforms are the best policy.

Mars landing

We've all seen a lot from Curiosity, still photos and video. This video is being offered up by Slate as the "[b]est Mars landing video ever." They might be right.

How well do you understand the other guy?

So, I just saw this on facebook

I'm not going to name the person who linked to it, mainly because I'm not trying to criticise him personally, but also because he's one of those facebook 'friends' I don't even really know. And that's also why I'm not taking this point to him directly.

It does, however, seem like a good time to link to one of my favorite Greg Mankiw posts.

Two very different approaches. And I'm not going to claim that the former represents all the left or the latter all the right. There are straw men being attacked from both sides as well as people engaging constructively. We'll only get more of the good debate if we demonstrate we want it.

Imperfect polices

The left says we need tighter gun laws. The right answers that criminals don't follow the law in the first place. The left replies that making it harder to get a gun will stop some criminals, even if not all of them.

The right says we need tighter border enforcement. The left answers, "Show me a ten-foot fence, I'll show you an eleven-foot ladder." The right replies that making it harder to sneak into the country will stop some illegal immigration, even if not all of it.

I simplify a bit by saying left and right, but this is probably a pretty good segmentation of society. Obviously, everyone is able to realize that an imperfect policy might still be desirable. If the choice is between accomplishing none of your objectives and some of them, you might as well take the partial win. Yet somehow, people still act as if, "Your suggested policy is imperfect" is a convincing argument.

There are other arguments to be made for these policies. Tighter gun laws may or may not reduce crime. Illegal immigration may or may not be beneficial for citizens. Let's engage at that level.

One more thing about Romney's taxes....

We don't know how much Romney paid in taxes from 2000-2009, the period for which Harry Reid claims (without any evidence) that he paid none.

But we do have Romney's tax return for 2011. How much did he pay that year? $3,226,623.

And we have Romney's tax return for 2010. How much did he pay that year? $3,009,766.

That's a total of $6,236,389 over two years. That's a lot of money, more than most people will pay in their entire lives. And how much did Harry Reid pay during those two years? We don't know. He isn't releasing any of his own tax returns.

Burden of proof

 “I don't think the burden should be on me,” he said. “The burden should be on him. He's the one I've alleged has not paid any taxes.” -- Harry Reid on his anonymously sourced claims about Mitt Romney's taxes.

I don't disagree that's the standard that's taken hold in politics -- sling mud, see if it sticks, guilty until proven innocent. I'm just surprised to see the Senate Majority Leader acknowledging it so explicitly.

This claim is as baseless and about as implausible as were claims about Obama's Kenyan birth. And in both cases the subject of the rumors could have put them to rest by releasing some documents but chose not to. Of course, there are some differences:

• Obama would be legally ineligible for office if the rumors were true. Romney has disclosed everything legally required.
• I suspect Romney does have 'something to hide'. My guess is that in 2008, possibly 2009 as well, massive capital losses as the market took a dive led to minimal, maybe even zero, tax paid. Legal, but not something most people would understand. By contrast, I could never figure out why Obama refused for so long to release all his birth records. He was probably just annoyed at the stupidity of it all. (This might also be a factor in Romney's decision.)
• The birther claims were believed by a substantial minority of Republican voters (23% per Wikipedia) and several prominent commentators but no senior elected Republicans. (There was some innuendo from some fairly senior figures, e.g. Bachmann, Palin, and a few quotes attributed but denied.) The tax claims are being made by the Senate Majority Leader. (So far, the White House hasn't officially joined in, but they too have piled on the innuendo.)

Of course, the other difference is the degree to which one set of implausible claims was treated as proof of the intellectual degeneracy of the right while the other is treated as just smart politics.

(Just to be clear, I think both situations are evidence of bipartisan degeneracy.)

Context

People quote each other out of context sometimes. For campaigning politicians it's a pervasive tactic. This crosses party lines and national borders. The usual response is to complain and provide the full context, which is then ignored by supporters of the first politician, while they simultaneously complain "Your guy did it too... and worse!"

Which is why I thought the recent back-and-forth over Obama's "You didn't build that" was really interesting.

That line was part of a speech by the President in Roanoke on 13 July. "If you've got a business, you didn't build that -- somebody else made that happen." Opponents jumped on it -- Obama telling the Wright brothers "You didn't built that", "That Nobel prize, you didn't earn that", the most interesting man in the world saying "I don't always build it myself, but when I do, Obama says others made it happen", etc.

Obama supporters and staff objected, saying the quote had been taken out of context. Eventually, the President himself responded with the following ad. Have a look. He says he's been taken out of context and proceeds to expand his argument, but he doesn't actually provide any more context.


FAIR went a step further, not just claiming lack of context but actually headlining a story "You Didn't Build That -- or Say It". But say it he did. And who was more than happy to provide the full context? The American Future Fund, a conservative non-profit.

The RNC got in on the act as well, here.

When your opponents are jumping to provide more of what you said, lack of context might not have your problem.