Month: January 2011

A couple days ago, the Dish noted Jesse Bering's article on rape. PZ Myers pokes holes in Bering's thesis:

The story is that women have evolved specific adaptive responses to the threat of rape. In support of this conclusion, the author cites various studies that claim to show that ovulating women show stronger handgrip strength (the better to fight off men who want to assault their eggs with sperm), that ovulating women are more suspicious of men, that ovulating women are more likely to avoid risky behaviors, and that ovulating white women become more fearful of black men. I'm unimpressed.

All of the studies involve small numbers, typically of college students at American universities (and even more narrowly, of psychology students), and all involve responses to highly subjective stimuli. When you examine the literature cited in these papers, you discover that different investigators get different results — the handgrip study even admits up front that there are conflicting results, with other papers finding no differences in performance across the menstrual cycle. None test anything to do with inheritance, none try (or even can) look at the genetic basis of the behaviors they are studying. Yet somehow evolutionary psychologists conclude that "women may have been selected during human evolution to behave in ways that reduce the likelihood of conception as a consequence of rape."

Steven Heydemann suggests "some canary-in-the-coalmine indicators that will give us a good indication whether the Jasmine Revolution will turn out to be a true turning point for Tunisia and the Arab world":

Will the opposition be able to form an effective coalition and begin to build the apparatus needed to compete in the upcoming elections?  Will the ongoing negotiations over the composition of the caretaker government produce a meaningful role for the opposition, as opposed to vanity roles that provide window-dressing for what is likely to be a “neo-RCD”? 

Will Islamists respond to their exclusion from the caretaker government through negotiation, through efforts to secure a seat at the political table via elections, or through some other route?  Will the caretaker government implement its recent decisions to lift restrictions on civil society?  Will it support independent media and end the massive system of controls through which Ben Ali’s regime regulated communications technologies and media content?

A reader writes:

You got it right; any attempt to frame Apple's products in terms of utility and economic value added misses the point. In that sense there is also similarity to the faith you reference in your original post. I work at an advertising agency. As you probably know, there is a great deal of copy-catting in advertising and marketing. But here's the thing: when we present case studies of great marketing, we don't use Apple anymore because it is viewed as an outlier of such magnitude that many of us in the industry regard it as inimitable.

Apple really does great marketing. But our clients feel like there is nothing to learn from Apple because if you could deliver – with nearly every single product – an amazing user experience, genuine technical innovations, uncompromisingly stylish packaging AND be backed by a company who is unafraid to pursue a singular vision vs. what the focus groups say, then it'd be EASY to do great marketing because all you'd have to do is a great product demo. Which, by the way, is what most Apple product ads are.

As a marketer, I know that people will evaluate the facts about products but decide to buy them because of what they feel. Apple products nurture a crazy kind of hope in people. It's the hope of modernity: that new ideas can make us better. Part of Apple's genius is to deliver those new ideas in a way that celebrates humanity and the things that make us human (like the jolt of pleasure you get when two songs that you would never have put together on a mix tape are serendipitously juxtaposed on your iPod's shuffle mode to stunning effect. That's only possible because Apple realized that it'd be great to be able to take your entire music collection with you.)

Then there is this: Apple reaches for greatness without apology. Market share and profitability are important only as outcomes. They are not its purpose, which is to achieve the "insanely great." It is as if they are on an ongoing Grail quest. (As Professor Henry Jones said to Indiana: "The search for the Grail is the search for the Divine in all of us.")

Yeah, it's just some metal, plastic and silicon. And, yes, Apple makes a lot of money. But those two observations miss completely the point of Apple. It's about inspiration, hope and an embrace of the future and humanity's place within it.

(Image via GOOD Design: "A portrait by Greek designer Charis Tevis for the Italian magazine Panorama that uses hundreds of Apple products created under Jobs's tenure to make up his likeness." More versions and close-ups here.)

Frum begs Republicans to get serious:

If the strategy is to address the most pressing threats in the existing bill, Republican tactics have to adapt. If [yesterday’s] vote cleared the air so that real work can begin, then fine. If however [yesterday’s] vote represented the overture to 24 months of symbolic politics and pre-election positioning – then it has mightily disserved the cause it supposedly upheld.

Today on the Dish, Andrew lambasted Limbaugh's latest poison, and crushed the major myths about the Tea Party. Tea partiers booed freedom in the form of decriminalization, and Andrew solidified Obama's bump by insisting he embrace Bowles-Simpson. Palin's blood libel against Assange mirrored her own, and Andrew wasn't placated by her low favorability ratings. On the conservative media front, Roger Ailes experimented with propaganda, Hugh Hewitt masqueraded as a journalist, and readers delved into the right's rhetoric on past shootings. James Wolcott embalmed Beltway consensus, opposites don't attract, and Michael Lind opted out of Regressive politics.

Robert Mackey profiled the Tunisian blogger turned government worker, Jennifer Rubin defended herself and Bush, and Beinart discounted American influence, since democracy was better off without it. US unemployment climbed higher than the world average, and language barriers persisted between China and the US.

Larison grimaced at 2012 wild card Kain's hawkishness, Chait guessed what Lieberman was thinking, Scott Stossel eulogized Sargent Shriver and his view of public service, and California's boomers fleeced the state. The US government could fight drugs with its uncoolness, Howard Gleckman patted down the healthcare mandate, Austin Frakt proposed a repeal related to the deficit, and a reader argued PTSD could be a normal response to trauma. Oklahoma City's memorial didn't change our rhetoric, and some wounds from Tuscon won't heal. Robin Handson believed in digital brains, readers joined Andrew in defending the pure style and functionality of Apple, and Starbucks could explode your stomach.

Christianism watch here, Yglesias award here, VFYW here, marriage equality index here, quote for the day here, MHB here, creepy ad watch here, and FOTD here.

–Z.P.

Earlier today the House voted to repeal Obama's healthcare law. The bill now proceeds to the Senate were it will go nowhere. Ezra Klein takes the GOP to task for voting to repeal healthcare reform without coming up with an alternative:

Boehner's GOP, in deciding against offering the promised replacement for the Affordable Care Act, ducked the hard work and highest responsibilities of governance. Maybe, in the coming months, they'll do better than that. Maybe their committees will report out serious alternatives and they'll be brought to the floor of the House. But this isn't the first time health-care policy has come up in Washington. If the GOP had wanted to offer a plan of their own, there are plenty they could've taken off the shelf. If they'd needed more time, well, there was no hurry. But they didn't take more time, or dust off an existing piece of legislation. Backwards was good enough.

Cohn makes a related point:

As recently as the last debate over health care reform, in the 1990s, prominent Republicans showed sincere interest in finding common ground in order to achieve similar goals. And there are, I know, honest, caring conservatives who still feel the same way. But the Republicans in the House? If they too are committed to helping the un- and under-insured, they haven't shown it.

The Dish noted this morning that Tunisian activists are taking positions in the new government. Putting this turn of events in context, David Henderson invokes a 1971 paper by Gordon Tullock called "The Paradox of Revolution":

In it, [Tullock] pointed out a simple but powerful insight. Any one person's decision to participate in a revolution, he noted, does not much affect the probability that the revolution will succeed. 

Therefore, when each person considers participating in the revolution, the expected benefits that he takes account of that are generated by the revolution are not much affected by his own decision to participate. This is true, noted Tullock, even for the most visible and influential participants. On the other hand, noted Tullock, a nasty government can individualize the costs very effectively by heavily punishing those who participate in a revolution. So anyone contemplating participating in a revolution will be comparing heavy individual costs and small benefits that are simply his pro rata share of the overall benefits.

Therefore, argued Tullock, for people to participate, they must expect some benefits that are tied to their own participation, such as a job in the new government or whatever. Tullock noted that, in fact, the typical revolution involves many of the people who are actually in the government they are revolting against. This is evidence for his model, Tullock said, because such people are particularly well situated to replace the incumbent office-holders.

A priest carries Nepalese living goddess Kumari Mateena Shakya towards Taleju temple on the occassion of the Changu Narayan festival in Kathmandu on January 19, 2011. Kumari, who appears in public only thirteen times in a year on special occasions, is worshipped by both the Hindus and Buddhists as a living goddess and it is also believed that she is the protector from evil and the bestower of good luck and prosperity. By Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images.

Austin Frakt drafts a healthcare repeal plan focused on deficit reduction:

If I were to make a budget-based argument for repeal, I’d advocate a partial one. Kill the spending, keep the savings, keep the revenue, and probably keep the experimental. The experiments could have costs, but it is hard to argue that we don’t need to try new Medicare/Medicaid financing approaches. Maybe not all of the savings will materialize, but should we not try to save something in an otherwise fiscally unsustainable patchwork of federal/state health systems?

Ezra Klein points out the obvious:

[T]he distance between what Frakt is proposing and what the Republicans are proposing is further evidence that the GOP's erratic and unreliable concern over the deficit just isn't on the level. It's there when convenient, gone when inconvenient.