The Dish

by Reihan This’ll be quick.

It often seems as though right-wingers are trying to make light of inequality by pointing to consumption inequality, and that left-winger take inequality seriously by zeroing in on income and wealth inequality as meaningful metrics. I think, emphasis on think, that this is the wrong way of looking at things.

In The End of Equality, Mickey Kaus drew an insightful contrast between "Money Liberals," focused on income and wealth, and "Civic Liberals," focused on our shared institutions. His basic take was that while money inequality was a lost cause, we could create excellent schools and an excellent public healthcare system that all would be proud to use. These institutions, in turn, would serve as engines of mobility and opportunity. It’s an attractive vision, though I can’t say that it’s my own. I suppose I’m more skeptical about the ability of even the best-run bureaucracies to adapt to fast-changing circumstances. But Kaus’s framework is worth keeping in mind.

What exactly are the consumptionists telling us? My sense is that they are telling us that material deprivation isn’t a pressing problem in the United States. This point, very narrowly understood, isn’t very controversial. But it also doesn’t establish that inequality is not a problem. Far from it. Consider the ever-present danger that a wealthy elite will use its disproportionate political power to entrench its privilege. Though I’m pretty optimistic about American life, and though I cheer lustily for the market economy, it seems clear to me that something like this state of affairs already exists. Of course, my view is a little idiosyncratic, e.g., I tend to see things like, say, the tobacco settlement or a cap-and-trade system or Wal-Mart agitating for ostensibly "progressive" labor market regulations as examples of this kind of oligarchic self-dealing, etc. Other views can just as easily fit this framework. Inequality isn’t a problem because the hell of Anglo-Saxon capitalism is leading to people dying on their feet: it could be a problem "merely" because it corrupts our democratic institutions, a corruption that has corrosive effects on our life chances. That is, Money Liberalism could be an essential instrument for achieving Civic Liberalism.

Again, I don’t actually think this view is right, but it’s at least somewhat persuasive, which is more than can be said of the view that the economic immiseration of half or a third of Americans is the central fact of our time. When we talk about the problems stemming from inequality, we’re being very imprecise: we usually have in mind problems stemming from a lack of social cohesion, and more specifically from the proliferation of disrupted families. Now I’ll repeat, for the umpteenth time, way more money!" Well, it’s not so much that our problems are bigger as that our problems are different. That was something I gleaned from Judith Shklar’s  American Citizenship: The Quest for Inclusion, though I’d hardly be surprised if Shklar is rolling in her grave over the fact that I’ve claimed her in this small way. It also makes me wary of, say, a "Marshall Plan for the cities." Cultural capital can’t be bought; it needs to be rebuilt, slowly, and there are good reasons to believe that this is exactly what’s happening in many historically excluded communities.

The upshot of all this is that conservatives have, or rather conservatives should have, important and interesting things to say on these subjects. But the argument from consumptionism, sound as it may be, is only a first step.

[Peter Suderman] Look, I’m sure the Euphoria physics engine in the new Star Wars video game, The Force Unleashed, is pretty awesome. But I wonder if the reporter who sat through a couple of gameplay demos for this Vanity Fair article is really all that familiar with the gaming world, because there have been games that use rag-doll effects, A.I., and simulations of various physical properties for quite a while now. Admittedly, I haven’t seen the demo he has, but this passage strikes me as having the potential for serious overkill: 

By the time the demonstration was over, I was left with the unmistakable sense that LucasArts was on the cutting edge of a huge leap forward for the video-game industry—a technological breakthrough, nearly as revolutionary as the introduction of sound in film, that could finally give gaming the kind of immersive realism that would enable it to join movies and television as a form of mainstream entertainment. 

At the very least, it’s true that game companies have been showing very limited demos that make it appear as if they’ve stumbled upon the Holy Grail of gaming—completely seamless and lifelike physical interaction with the world at large—for quite a while. Look at this 2006 demo for Assassin’s Creed in which the host brags about the world design as well as the way that characters react organically within the game, not simply relying on preprogrammed animations. Or check out this 2003 demo of Half-Life 2, in which the announcer boasts of being able to "build environments" that the game company "couldn’t even dream of" just a few years previous. Later, he brags about the A.I. and shows off the interactivity the game allows with the physical environment. Sound familiar? 

The point is that game companies have been hyping their code like this for years without any one technology (other than the advent of 3D) really proving transformational.  Like politicians talking up their policy plans, game companies tend to make a lot of big promises but often fail to deliver on the revolutions they assure us are in store.  Things work much better on paper–or in demo mode–than they do out in the field. And while this write-up clarifying how Euphoria is supposed to work does make it seem like a neat piece of tech, I remain skeptical that this is anything close to "nearly as revolutionary as the introduction of sound in film."

Update: It’s also sort of odd to suggest that video games are not yet a form of "mainstream entertainment."  It’s an $18 billion industry that’s growing far faster than the movie or music business.  Sony has sold more than 120 million Playstation 2 consoles. It’s not exactly a niche market.

by Reihan If you want to understand the struggle for Earth’s geopolitical future, you might want to read Parag Khanna’s provocative take in The Second World.

The struggle I have in mind is the far weightier struggle over who will be the Johnny Depp of the Millennial Generation.

Now, male heartthrobs are normally not my bailiwick, but a very smart reader recently noted that my musings on women make her cringe. Ahem. This comment was, by the way, totally justified, particularly in light of the fact that I once wrote a two-part rap about my inexplicable "love" for Saffron Burrows. So I’m going to do my darnedest to make entirely new demographics cringe by bringing to light the elemental conflict between Emile Hirsch, force of good, and Shia LeBeouf, force of evil, with a brief note concering Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

First, it should go without saying that Johnny Depp is the greatest actor of his generation, and possibly the greatest living human. Perhaps you missed Depp’s reaction to the spectacle of a gaggle of dancing Japanese pirate toddlers, now stripped from YouTube by overzealous television executives. I wish I could honestly say you didn’t miss much. I fear that, having missed this extraordinary event, you no longer have a reason to live. But somehow I think you’ll manage to fool yourselves into believing otherwise, if only so as not to miss the spectacular season finale of Lost.

So yes, Depp is a hero to us all, this despite the undeniable fact that he is a goateed Francophile, which is saying rather a lot about his redeeming qualities. For years I’ve wanted to write a book titled Captain Jack’s Guide to Management, divining the Shinto-inspired code of business success buried deep beneath Captain Jack Sparrow’s wild-eyed witticisms as spouted in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Alas, there have been no takers as yet.

I’ll also add, briefly, that I really love the movie Edward Scissorhands and that when I met a really lovely yet very skinny and pale young woman, my brilliant friend dubbed her, "Edward Sisterhands," as though she were, um, Edward Scissorhands’ sister. Oh heck, you get the idea.

Anyway, I loved Holes and Disturbia as much as the next red-blooded American, but when LaBeouf addressed the assembled hordes at Comic-Con in San Diego last year, he was a punk. Harrison Ford, the wonderful Karen Allen, Steven Spielberg: all were class acts who recognized that the fans are decent, hard-working people who spent a lot of dough to ooh and aah with many like-minded Indiana Jones nerds. Yet Shia slouched and muttered and behaved in a generally impish, prima-donnaish fashion. I’ll never forgive him. Rest assured, there are many millions of people who will throw rose petals at this young man’s feet, and it’s true that he’s a decently talented actor. But you’re no Depp and you never will be, LaBeouf. So you might want to develop some humility. Oh yes, the ladies love cool Shia. Merry Christmas, and damn you to Hades! What troubles me most is that he’s rumored to be the first pick to play Yorick Brown in the forthcoming Y: The Last Man picture. More on Y to come.

Emile Hirsch, in contrast, is a true talent, as demonstrated by his remarkable star turn in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, easily one of the most affecting performances of 2007. Even in The Girl Next Door, a silly yet mildly diverting teen sex comedy, Hirsch gave a moving performance that ranged from earnest naif to smolderingly intense proto-pimp. This kid is going places, and my hope is that he will take a brief detour on the way there to trample on Shia LaBeouf. Metaphorically. We need to increase the peace, people. Just ask our next president, Obamahatma Gandhi.

Then there is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who has been making many strategically shrewd choices — playing despised, marginalized types, starring in the awesome Brick (which also starred the awesome Nora Zehetner, who also played the young Helena Bonham Carter in the criminally underrated Conversations with Other Women). JG-L is a bit older, and he certainly has the inside track to be the sleeper indie Depp. My sense is that once LaBeouf is out of the way, say his massive ego leads to some kind of temporary brain rupture, Hirsch will have to face off against Gordon-Levitt in a battle to the death. Just as the end of the Second World War saw a a globe-spanning conflict between two former allies, this hitherto unforeseen battle may prove the most consequential of them all. And the balance will be in the hands of celebrated tween icon Miranda Cosgrove, who I predict will become the Helena Bonham Carter of Generation Z.

And what will follow Generation Z, you ask? I see two distinct possibilities: (a) all of our celebrities will be digital composites, Max Headroom-style or (b) we are headed straight for something like the Biblical apocalypse. Which is why I’m investing in gold doubloons. (See Chapter 5 of Captain Jack’s Guide to Management.)

Tomorrow I hope to be marginally saner. I put my chances at slim to none.

by hilzoy

Nicholas Kristof is a smart guy. So why on earth did he write this?

“Consider torture. There was nary a vote in the Republican primary to be gained by opposing the waterboarding of swarthy Muslim men accused of terrorism. But Mr. McCain led the battle against Dick Cheney on torture, even though it cost him donations, votes and endorsements.

Even more than his time as a prisoner in Hanoi, that marked Mr. McCain’s most heroic moment. He risked his political career to protect Muslim terror suspects who constitute the most despised and voiceless people in America.”

As Kristof notes later, it’s only four days since McCain voted against a bill that would have prohibited any agency of the US government from using waterboarding or any other techniques not authorized by the Army Field Manual. McCain says that while he thinks it is “incontestable that waterboarding is outlawed by the Military Commissions Act, and it was the clear intent of Congress to prohibit the practice”, he doesn’t want to ban the CIA from using all the interrogation techniques prohibited by the Army Filed Manual. Here I agree with Marty Lederman:

“If Senator McCain believes that there are particular “enhanced” techniques that are not in the Field Manual, but that are also not torture or cruel treatment, and wishes to allow the CIA to use them, he should identify what they are, and offer legislation that would authorize those, and those only, techniques, in addition to those listed in the Field Manual. Otherwise, despite all his worthy efforts in this area, Senator McCain is now facilitating the CIA’s use of techniques that are unlawful, including some that are torture even by Senator McCain’s own lights.”

Nicholas Kristof thinks it’s great that McCain is no good at pandering. Personally, I don’t see why: not being good at a bad thing is no guarantee of being good at any good thing. I suppose Kristof thinks that McCain is so bad at pandering because his principles keep getting in the way. But I don’t see much evidence of that. (Quite the contrary.) John McCain acts on principle some of the time. I’m glad: intermittent attacks of conscience are better than none at all. But I’m not prepared to call McCain “principled” absent some evidence that he acts on his principles consistently. Until I see that evidence, I’m sticking with my view that while McCain isn’t much good at pandering, he’s no great shakes at being principled either.

(Cross-posted to Obsidian Wings)

[Patrick Appel] The last ten minutes of Obama’s speech last night:

[Patrick Appel] Clinton leads by 6 in a new ARG poll. Obama is still ahead in the Wisconsin poll of polls, but not by much. Tuesday should be interesting.

[Peter Suderman] Michael Bay demands awesome! (Via Jonathan Last at Galley Slaves.)

[Peter Suderman] Ezra Klein thinks markets don’t work efficiently for health insurance because patients lack the ability to accurately assess doctor performance:

I spent some of the morning running almost random searches to try and remember the name of my doctor. Eventually, I got him. And a bunch of reviews of him. Most of the reviews, to be sure, were good. The consensus appears to be that he’s sort of mean to you, but quite thorough. But that’s all the reviewers were able to evaluate: Was he courteous? And did he do lots of stuff?

Those are not particularly useful metrics on which to evaluate doctor quality. Etiquette is important, but neither here nor there to diagnosing appendicitis. And "doing stuff" can actually be bad, and needlessly costly. The question is whether the doctor is doing the right stuff. But patients simply don’t have the requisite tools to evaluate that question. They can’t review doctors like they can review books, or movies, because impressions of the experience aren’t terribly relevant, or insofar as they are relevant, they’re a second-order concern. There have been some efforts to get insurers to rate doctors, but their incentive, of course, is to rate doctors highly when they’re being stingy, and helping the insurer make profits.

Here’s where I wonder if some sort of independent rating agency not beholden to either doctors or insurers would work. And either way, would a largely or fully public health care system, like Ezra wants, solve the problem of lack of patient knowledge? I’m not convinced. Patients seeking information about doctors would still have to turn somewhere, and that would likely mean health care metrics provided by the government, which would still be subject to various outside incentives (keeping costs down to lower the taxpayer burden, fiddling with the stats to show better performance). We’ve all seen The Wire and heard about "juking the stats." Public institutions aren’t exactly perfectly honest when it comes to self-assessment.

[Patrick Appel] I had heard of the Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden but had never seen quality photos. The picture above is of the hotel’s church. It was created by artists Mark Szulgit, Julia Orlando Adzuki, Marjolein Vonk, and Cindy Berg. The hotel’s other rooms are equally impressive. More images here.   

[Patrick Appel] Scott Adams has a plan for world peace:

What I’d like to see is a pen pal web site designed to end war. The idea would be to connect citizens in different countries at such a high rate it would be politically impossible for the two countries to start a war.

You might support your government in a war against a country full of people you don’t know. But would you support a war that has a good chance of killing your e-mail friend Phlubanakawahaha and his entire family? There is some theoretical level of citizen-to-citizen contact that makes war between two countries virtually impossible.

It’s a shame there aren’t more cartoonist think tanks.