Society

Cool House, Terrible Reporting

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2013-11-06 Safe House

The Internet is pretty awesome as a kind of external hard drive for your brain because the information is so conveniently accessible. But if the information that you conveniently access is crap, then so much for the promise of the brave new future.

Consider this interesting house, which I found out about from a ViralNova story on Oct 26. The ViralNova story mentioned zombies (a lot) and depicted the home as some kind of prepper-bunker: “The fortress is virtually indestructible. Thieves, rioters and even an army couldn’t get in once you lock up.” Why is it indestructible? Because it’s obviously built of solid steel right? Err… no.

I was interested enough that I did some light research and found an older Techeblog article (from 2012) that featured the same house with basically the same motif: zombies. The article claimed the house was “impenetrable to just about anything short of missiles / bombs.” Based on what? I have no idea. They posted a YouTube video of the designer explaining his creation, and he didn’t mention a single thing about zombies. He did mention the construction of the house, however. The longest moving wall is built on a steel truss, but that’s just the internal skeleton. The outer layer is light-weight wood, and it’s filled with “mineral wool” for insulation. None of that is remotely “indestructible”, but then again the Techeblog article mentions “a guesthouse, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows.” when it’s actually an indoor pool. Clearly they didn’t watch the video that they posted on their own site.

The thing that’s both sad and annoying is that the actual explanation of the home’s intent is far more interesting than ridiculous claims about rocket-proof walls or zombies. The designer has a fascinating take on the idea of organic construction. Instead of stereotypical rounded edges, it’s the function rather than the form of this building that makes it organic. It is designed to open like a flower every morning to let in the sun’s energy, and then close at night to conserve that energy. Security is a feature, yet, but it’s not the most interesting or important aspect of the building.

Armed with the name of the firm that designed the building, I found their own description of their work. I’m glad I did, because they have several other interesting concepts. Call me weird, but learning about modern architectural theories was much more interesting than the silliness in the original articles.

I know, I know. I’m a grumpy old man yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. I get it. But there’s a simple point I still think is worth getting grumpy about. The world is interesting enough as it is without lazily applying your preconceived notions to it. Yes, the home’s slate-gray coloring make it look intimidating and fortress-like, but digging deeper reveals a more interesting story. I know that ViralNova and Techeblog aren’t overly concerned with credibility or veracity, but hey: I am.

So I took the time to look up the real info, write it here, and I hope y’all enjoy learning about the home and the designer’s philosophy and seeing their other buildings as much as I did.

Racism: A Definition and a Critique

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A couple of weeks ago I came across an extremely articulate explanation of perhaps the dominant perspective of racism from the American political left. The explanation comes in the form of an online Powerpoint at the Tumblr of Women of Color, In Solidarity.

It’s a fairly short and straight-forward presentation, and I’m deeply appreciative of how starkly it lays out the case against white privilege, starting with this definition of the key terms:

2013-11-06 Racism Definition

So here we have a very precise definition of racism: it is the institutionalization of discrimination (which is itself the acting out of prejudice). This definition has one very important and straightforward consequence: reverse-racism (i.e. anti-white racism) cannot exist.

2013-11-06 No Reverse Racism

In simple terms: individuals may have anti-white prejudice and may even act on that prejudice (which is anti-white discrimination), but because this discrimination is not built into the structure of our society it’s not institutionalized and therefore doesn’t qualify as racism by definition. The author slammed this point home with one more emphatic slide:

2013-11-06 Tragedy of Victimization

Once again: this is a clear and unambiguous perspective on race and–within its assumptions and definitions–it is consistent and logical.

But it is still deeply, deeply flawed. The flaw will seem subtle at first, but as it ripples through the larger argument it will have profound implications. And the flaw is this: the assumption that the cause of discrimination is animosity. 

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U.S. Death Penalty Support Lowest in More Than 40 Years

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death penalty nooses

I love Gallup.

Sixty percent of Americans say they favor the death penalty for convicted murderers, the lowest level of support Gallup has measured since November 1972, when 57% were in favor. Death penalty support peaked at 80% in 1994, but it has gradually declined since then.

Key points:

  • Support for the death penalty has exceeded opposition since 1936 in all but one survey (May 1966).
  • Since 2000, several states have enacted moratoriums or outlawed the death penalty entirely, partially due to several death-row inmates proven innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted.
  • 81% of Republicans currently favor the death penalty, compared to 60% of Independents and 47% of Democrats.
  • 52% of Americans believe the death penalty is applied fairly, compared to 40% who believe it is applied unfairly.
  • 44% of Americans believe the death penalty is not imposed often enough, compared to 26% who believe it is imposed the right amount of time and 22% who believe it is imposed too often.
  • 18 states do not allow the death penalty; 6 of those bans have occurred since 2006.

In my experience, most arguments around the morality of the death penalty focus on whether the government should have the right to execute people guilty of certain particularly heinous crimes. I believe the work of organizations like the Innocence Project has drawn attention to a different category of death penalty opposition: a person can believe it is morally acceptable to execute the guilty, yet still oppose the death penalty because they believe the system is too error-prone to implement (i.e. there’s too high of a risk of executing innocent people).

Of course we will never have a perfect system, but there are certain reforms that can lower the error rate. Still the questions remain: when risking innocent lives, what error rate is low enough? What do we gain in return for that cost?

I do believe some people deserve to be executed. I’m just weary of entrusting such an awesome responsibility to our government.

American Politics as Religion

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Intellectual historian Eran Shalev has an interesting 2010 Church History article entitled “‘Written in the Style of Antiquity’: Pseudo-Biblicism and the Early American Republic, 1770-1830.” In it, he reviews the roots of the pseudo-biblical writing style in early American letters, tracts, and books, particularly the role of the language found in the King James Version. Authors would mimick the KJV language “and its accompanying structures and forms to discuss their difficulties and represent their achievements, past and present…American authors and commentators used this ontologically privileged language as a means to establish their claims for truth, as well as their authority and legitimacy in public discourse” (pg. 801). This biblical style was particularly useful in political debates:

Through pseudo-biblicism the Bible became a living text, an ongoing scriptural venture which complemented and foritified notions of national chosenness and mission. This transformation occurred within a poisoned political culture which created “two parallel imagined communities,” namely the two political parties—the Federalists and the Republicans—that denied each other’s legitimacy. This disposition…created a political culture governed by a grammar of combat, which entailed a “politics of anxious extremes.” It fostered the intense employment and further construction of biblical politics, each side depicting the other as wrong-doing “Adamites” or “Jeffersonites.” …The pseudo-biblical language thus wove the Bible into American life and sanctified the young nation. American politics were transformed, in texts largely devoid of references to God, into the new religion of the republic (pg. 812).

The “use of distinctive Elizabethan English for political ends” was rampant because it “manipulated readers into conjuring up biblical visions only to contrast them with their American past and present” (pg. 817). For example, early Jeffersonian Republicans and remnants of the Anti-Federalists “accused the members of the constitutional convention and “[John] Adams their Servant” for conspiring with “the Britannites” to the effect that “all the country round about, even from Dan unto Beersheba, should be subject unto one king, and unto one council.”” Republicans often depicted themselves as “Israel,” while declaring Federalists to be anything from Pharisees to Amalekites. On the flipside, Federalists attacked Republicans for not being “a goodly people—fearing the lord and submitting to the Rulers placed over them” (pgs. 816-817).

This style of writing began to decline in the mid-1800s, but it seems to me that the fusion of religious meaning with political debate is alive and well in 21st-century America. Perhaps it is because “American politics were transformed…into the new religion of the republic” that we see partisan hacks (even the atheistic ones) ranting and raving like religious fanatics.

If you can’t beat ’em…

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appvsgoog

A few years ago a consortium of tech giants bought several thousand patents from a failing telecom with, it appears, the express purpose of using them to hurt their biggest competitor. Counting amongst its members Apple, Sony and Microsoft, this coalition of corporations has allied together to use standard patent troll tactics in a bid to use these Nortel patents against Google and Google’s wildly popular Android mobile operating system, as well as several companies that build Android-based devices. At the time the patents went up for auction in 2011, Google saw what was going to happen and tried to purchase the patents itself, but was unable to pony up more dough than were the collective resources of some of the largest and richest companies in the history of the world.

So, now, instead of attempting to simply compete directly with Google, these companies, under a “plausible-deniability” shell company called Rockstar, are going to try to use the government to put the brakes on one of the biggest tech success stories of the modern age. In using purchased-patent warfare and filing their suit in the patent-friendly Eastern District of Texas, these tech giants, through Rockstar, are essentially conceding that they cannot best Google in the eyes of the consumer and must instead appeal to the failed and broken US patent system using the bogus framework of software patents to continue to pour more money into the pockets of their executives and shareholders.

It’s ridiculous, and it enrages me. The patent system exists ostensibly for the purposes of disclosure of invention. It is, at least theoretically, about information, and its dissemination into society. There is an agreement between the patent applicant and the patent office that the applicant will disclose the details of his or her invention (which encourages further innovation from other parties) and the patent office will grant certain rights to claim exclusivity (which is the incentive to invent and disclose). This pushes people to do work in fields that has not yet been done rather than “reinvent the wheel,” forcing them to license what has already been done if they want to utilize it in their own developments. In practice it is being used by attorneys and corporations to shake down anyone within reach, particularly the “little guy” without the resources to fight a protracted legal battle, and to outlaw and siphon money from their competitors’ products. This directly contracts the number of useful inventions and promotes the proliferation of useless inventions which exist only for purposes of litigation. As soon as a legal or social institution becomes the means to do the exact opposite of what it was meant to accomplish, it’s due an overhaul, if not demolition and reboot.

There are a few rays of hope, though. New Zealand, hopefully serving as an example of rationality in the world of patent insanity, recently outlawed software patents, with the European Union continuously debating similar action. I wouldn’t be surprised if we started to see more and more startups moving to software-friendly (ie, anti-software patent) nations in hopes of protecting themselves against the trolls looking for a government-mandated tribute.

In the past couple years we have seen increasing and heartening efforts from Congress and even Obama himself, most recently in the form of a bipartisan bill which looks to make a serious dent in the economic damage wrought by patent trolls every year. While that bill may not affect the impending Google vs. Rockstar war, it’s good to see our government is finally acknowledging there is a problem, and finding ways to do something about it.

The next step? Follow New Zealand.

More info here.

Another Post On Marriage and Social Mobility: This Time With Graphs

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The Atlantic has a number of new articles jam-packed with data on marriage, divorce, and economic mobility. Drawing on a recent BLS survey, Derek Thompson points out that marriage is common across all levels of educational attainment. However, marriage remains unequal across racial divides, with whites marrying at higher rates than Hispanics and blacks. “In fact, blacks are three-times more likely to be unmarried by the age of 46 than the rest of the population.”

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Paglia’s Comments on Gender Essentialism

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2013-10-26 Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia debated Jane Flax on the topic of “Gender Roles: Nature or Nurture?” at American University earlier this month. Paglia, often described as a “contrarian feminist” took the position that the roots of gender differences are biological and essential rather than social and contingent. Her open statement is available here.

I like pretty much everything that Paglia writes–even though I disagree with lots of her conclusions–and I especially liked the fact that she tended to blame a lot of the nonsense behind rejecting gender essentialism on Rousseau, who I like to blame for basically everything that’s wrong with modern Western liberalism.

In any case, give it a read.

The History of the Nobel Prize

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From The Washington Post:

• Nobel prizes have been awarded to people from 72 different countries. But more than half all Nobel laureates come from only three countries: the United States, Britain and Germany.

• More than one in every three Nobel laureates is from the United States. Put another way, the United States has 4 percent of the world’s population and 34 percent of its Nobel laureates.

• All of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East combined have only 104 Nobel laureates. These regions hold 81 percent of the world’s population but only 10 percent of its Nobel laureates.

• 82 percent of Nobel laureates are from Western countries (Western Europe, North America, Australia or New Zealand). If you add in Eastern Europe, it’s 90 percent.

• Just over half of all Nobel laureates are from Europe: 54 percent. Of those, most are from Western Europe, which has had 45 percent of all laureates. You can see this in the giant swathe of green in the circle chart above.

• About half of the world’s Nobel laureates are from the Anglosphere: Britain, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

• The second most common native language among Nobel laureates is German; 152 laureates are from German-speaking countries.

• The region with the fewest Nobel laureates per capita is Africa. There is one African Nobel prize per 62 million Africans alive today. By comparison, there is one American Nobel prize per 900,000 Americans alive today.

• The Middle East has had 20 Nobel laureates: 12 Israelis, four Egyptians, one Palestinian, one Iranian, one Turk and one Yemeni. Ironically, it also has the largest proportion of peace prize winners: eight of the 20 Middle Eastern laureates are peace-prize winners.

• The top 10 countries with the most Nobel laureates, in order. Pay attention to how top-heavy this list is; the numbers drop precipitously:

1. United States (347 Nobel laureates)
2. Britain (120)
3. Germany (104)
4. France (65)
5. Sweden (30)
6. Russia (27)
7. Switzerland (26)
8. Canada (23)
9. Austria (22)
10. Italy (20)

What isn’t mentioned is the amount of Jewish recipients: “At least 193 Jews and people of half- or three-quarters-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 23% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2013, and constituting 37% of all US recipients during the same period.”

This is pretty fascinating. Or should I be disturbed with the unequal distribution of Nobel Prizes?

Time to Push Back: Stop Enabling Predators

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2013-10-17 Yoffe Piece

The attacks on so-called “rape apologists” have reached levels of recklessness and insanity that call for a direct and forceful repudiation. I am sick and disgusted of “feminists” who attack those offering sound, reasonable, and moderate advice to help keep women safe.

Let me give you a very, very clear example of this.

Emily Yoffe, who writes the Dear Prudence column for Slate, wrote a short column with a simple message: College Women: Stop Getting Drunk. Her message is very clear and absolutely incontestable: when women get drunk they place themselves in danger. She also took great pains not to place blame on women, however, writing:

Let’s be totally clear: Perpetrators are the ones responsible for committing their crimes, and they should be brought to justice. But we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them.

I can’t think of a more sane, reasonable approach to this problem. And if the topic were anything other than rape this advice would be considered not only reasonable, but sort of obvious. No one thinks that when you tell college kids that they should lock up their bikes that are you some kind of bike-thief apologist. If I tell my son or daughter to lock their car doors when they park on the street, I don’t think I would be accused of perpetuating “burglary culture”. When gyms post signs advising clients to lock the lockers where they leave their stuff, we don’t get some bizarre outcry about teaching children not to steal instead of teaching them to protect their belongings. In no other area of human life do I see any difficulty at all holding these two concepts in our brains at the one time:

1. People who do bad things are bad. And they shouldn’t do them.

2. In addition to urging people not to do bad things and punishing those who do, it’s a good idea to take simple, practical steps to make yourself less likely to become a victim. (Please note: “in addition” isn’t the same thing as “instead of”.)

I can’t believe we actually have to argue about this, but apparently we do.

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When do children learn right from wrong?

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Inspired by the recent arrests of two teens for bullying a girl until she committed suicide and remembering that I have read articles describing a shift in the brain at 8 years old that allows for moral judgement as well as different learning abilities (of course I can not find those now!), I stumbled across this article about moral development in children.

development

There’s lots of interesting things in here that present a very complicated picture of kids who do terrible things but who have not matured. What do you do with them? How do you hold them responsible? How do you get them to mature?  What do we do about a cycle of immature children having children?

I particularly thought this was interesting (forgive the 90s rhetoric):

Drug abuse delays development, Farrow says, because, “If kids are high all the time . . . they’re not very future oriented; they tend to stay concrete, and not see the consequences of their actions.”

Dropping out of school and hanging out with “deadheads going nowhere,” he says, means children don’t get any intellectual challenge. That means that, although their brains are ready to develop the capacity for critical thinking, they don’t get trained to do so.