Month: April 2009

James Earl Jones gets down to basics:

Felix Salmon wants some price sanity after the recession ends:

My hope is that the world which emerges from the present crisis will be one where goods, in general, have a price which is commensurate with their cost. I remember walking down Broadway last year, in Soho, and overhearing a woman coming out of H&M explaining to her friend that the clothes there were great: they were so cheap that you could wear them once and simply throw them away, without having to worry about how they stood up to washing or dry-cleaning. And although it was easy to conjure up lots of high moral dudgeon to direct at the woman in question, the fact is that incentives matter, and the prices at H&M were clearly incentivizing her to feel that way: as a general rule, it’s not good for the planet when a frock costs roughly the same as the cost of dry-cleaning it.

 

You have probably seen the "If the world were a village of 100 people" stats already. But Toby Ng's visuals take them to a new level.

(hat tip: Made In England)

A reader writes:

I can't help but assign the tea protests a place in my view that the Right is generally going through the same convulsions that overtook the Left in the late 1970's and continued into the 1990's.

The Left of that era grew to be increasingly insular, ideologically rigid, and dyspeptic. Identifying as a liberal during the Reagan era was a bit of a badge of honor, but the complete lack of power lead to all sorts of nuttiness. With nothing but a record of losing, it became possible for the anyone on the Left to come up with ridiculous policy prescriptions, and the lack of anyone in power listening made the advocate look bold and daring, rather than unstable and silly.

Nowhere was this more evident than in what I call the "Protest Left."

 With misty memories of the civil rights and Vietnam demonstrations in their heads, this crowd would take to the streets at the drop of a hat.  As the years wore on, these protests grew increasingly incoherent and undirected. In the 1990's while in college, after getting sick of the nonsense, I would press my ideological colleagues who would ask me to go march in the streets about something, "What are we trying to accomplish?  Who is the target? What do we want them to do?"  The answers were always vague generalities about "building the movement," "taking action," and the ever-present "raising awareness" among the amorphous "society."  (I must note that during this era I did witness some highly effective, targeted, and well organized protests, but they tended to be the exception.)

It increasingly struck me that these protests served primarily as form of group therapy via self expression.  When ones movement is, quite literally, powerless, there's a sense of despair that can take over.  In a demonstration, one can commiserate with ones fellow travelers, and instead of powerlessness, there's a feeling of righteous indignation.  Also, there's the added advantage of getting a forum where it's socially acceptable to shout your beliefs at other people, which regardless of its utility and efficacy (or lack thereof), is a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, it leads to a deep intellectual rot, as good ideas commingle with ridiculous ones without vetting, and protests obsessed with self-interest leave vital political action undone.  Nowhere was this more apparent than in the run-up to the Iraq war.  The Left had a critical message to convey which might have saved the country from the fiasco, but its record of protest silliness left it marginalized in the media, and the bad habits of letting everyone say their own thing meant the message got muffled.  Despite the odiousness of the organization, I drove to DC to take part in the ANSWER protest on MLK Day in 2003, hoping that a mass demonstration of opposition might change the media narrative.

Unfortunately, as we now all agree, it was a complete mess.  While I'd wager that 95% of the marchers were sane and focused, the stage at the rally on the mall was overrun with every last form of Leftist aggrievement, from slavery reparations to Tibet to abortion access.  About halfway down the route I found myself uncomfortably next to a Palestinian group leading chants of "long live the Intifada."  I finally lost it when, in the press of the crowd, someone pressed a heavy leaflet into my hands asking us to consider "peace online," advocating for open source software.  SOFTWARE! We were trying to stop an insane war, and someone thought it was a good idea to muddle the mess with screeds against Microsoft.  (I hate them as much as the next geek, but really!)

Returning to the Teabagging events (is there any better sign that the GOP has lost the young than that nobody along the way warned them about that name?), you have a group of people feeling powerless and increasingly at odds with the dominant political discourse.  They are convinced, as the Protest Left was, that the majority of the country would agree if only they knew, if only they heard a little more.  This isn't the beginning of a revival of political power, however, it's the beginning of a ride off to the la-la land of discombobulated nuttiness and well-deserved political irrelevance.

Take a word of advice from the Left, guys — until you engage the country where it is, instead of scolding it about where you'd like it to be, you're going to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.  Until then, enjoy the shouting — it's about all you'll get out of the teabags other than tea.

"The Experiment conveys the evolution of an idea in the form of an organism."

The Experiment from Colin Trenter on Vimeo.

Jonah Lehrer would like to tinker with one of the brain's features:

We're stuck with a mind that reacts to the mundane mundane worries of modern life – a falling stock market, a troubled marriage, taking the SAT – with a powerful set of primal chemicals that, once upon a time, were reserved for moments of "fight or flight". In other words, we treat everything like an existential threat, which is why a multiple choice exam can leave us panicky and breathless. The hypothalamus, it turns out, is an excitable drama queen, suffusing the bloodstream with adrenaline and cortisol whenever things get a little uncertain or unpleasant.

The problem with this blunt reaction to stress – it's too often all or nothing – is that, as I've written numerous times, chronic stress is really bad for you. It causes chronic back pain, weakens the heart and kills brain cells.

Austin, Texas, 11.05 am

From a group blog focused on human rationality:

When you put people in a social-science experiment room and tell them, in the abstract, about the Israel/Palestine conflict, they are in “far” mode. This situation is totally unlike having to choose which side to join in an actual fight – where your brain goes into “near” mode, and you quickly (I predict) join the likely victors….

In a situation where there is an extremely unbalanced conflict that you are “distant” from, there are various reasons I can think of for supporting the underdog: but the common theme is that when the mind is in “far” mode, its primary purpose is to signal how nice it is, rather than to actually acquire resources. Why do we want to signal to others that we are nice people? We do this because they are more likely to cooperate with us and trust us! If evolution built a cave-man who went around telling other cave-men what a selfish bastard he was… well, that cave-man wouldn't last long.

"SOUTH PARK MURDERED ME LAST NIGHT AND IT'S PRETTY FUNNY. IT HURTS MY FEELINGS BUT WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM SOUTH PARK! I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MY EGO THOUGH. HAVING THE CRAZY EGO IS PLAYED OUT AT THIS POINT IN MY LIFE AND CAREER. I USE TO USE IT TO BUILD UP MY ESTEEM WHEN NOBODY BELIEVED IN ME. NOW THAT PEOPLE DO BELIEVE AND SUPPORT MY MUSIC AND PRODUCTS THE BEST RESPONSE IS THANK YOU INSTEAD OF "I TOLD YOU SO!!!" IT'S COOL TO TALK SHIT WHEN YOU'RE RAPPING BUT NOT IN REAL LIFE. WHEN YOU MEET LITTLE WAYNE IN PERSON HE'S THE NICEST GUY FOR EXAMPLE. I JUST WANNA BE A DOPER PERSON WHICH STARTS WITH ME NOT ALWAYS TELLING PEOPLE HOW DOPE I THINK I AM. I NEED TO JUST GET PAST MYSELF. DROP THE BRAVADO AND JUST MAKE DOPE PRODUCT. EVERYTHING IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. AS LONG AS PEOPLE THINK I ACT LIKE A BITCH THIS TYPE OF SHIT WILL HAPPEN TO ME. I GOT A LONG ROAD AHEAD OF ME TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE I'M NOT ACTUALLY A HUGE DOUCHE BUT I'M UP FOR THE CHALLENGE. I'M SURE THE WRITERS AT SOUTH PARK ARE REALLY NICE PEOPLE IN REAL LIFE. THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO DRAW MY CREW. THAT WAS PRETTY FUNNY ALSO!! I'M SURE THERE'S GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN THIS… THAT'S HOW YOU KNOW IT'S ME!" – Kanye West.

All caps in the original. The comments are even better. My faves:

You should be in the simpsons though, they would treat you respectively.

And:

dude it's ok, we accept you as a gay fish

And we do! We do! Relevant out-take from last Wednesday's South Park after the jump:

From Rachel, with love: