We have a couple of great horned owls that are frequent visitors. The hooting was very cool at first, but it got to be kind of an annoyance at the point that we wanted to actually sleep. Not a problem now that we're in closed-window season. We keep hoping they'll make a dent in the chipmunk population (which are slowly destroying our patio, but so far I haven't been able to bring myself to take action to get rid of them).
This Thanksgiving, a half-dozen wild turkeys waddled across our driveway -- that provided some entertainment (and an opportunity for some obvious jokes) for our guests. A little while later we saw a fox in our woods -- perhaps the timing wasn't coincidental.
A few years back we found a snapping turtle waiting for us on our back patio one day. This would've required his (her?) climbing four steps -- pretty impressive for a turtle. As we were worrying and trying to figure out how to get him back to the pond (which is about a half-mile from us) without getting bitten, he wandered back on his own.
Deer and skunks and raccoons and opossums are a common enough sight not to cause much excitement anymore (though the babies are awfully cute when we get a glimpse of them).
This is a definite drawback of the (no-longer-very-)new site design -- it's not easy to tell that this post is actually in the sub-blog, especially if you come to it by way of a comment link rather than the main post link. I agree that the expectations are a little different given its location.
I haven't been around here for a while, so maybe this has already been discussed, but is there any evidence for this theory:
But, see, this has had the unfortunate consequence of alleviating the pressure on the companies that offer unsustainable jobs… they would likely not be able to find someone to do the job at that wage if there wasn’t government assistance covering the difference.
Offhand it doesn't seem self-evident -- it suggests the availability of a higher-paying job for that someone in the absence of subsidies, but where would that job come from, and if it's an option, then why wouldn't that someone still take the higher-paying job even with subsidies? If the subsidies are allowing that person to take the Walmart job over the other one, then there must be some benefit to the Walmart job that the person is receiving.
I could see it actually working the other way around -- without subsidies, a person would be more desperate to take whatever he/she can get, but with subsidies, he/she could be more selective.
Tod, I think you're mixing up two different things. It's true that an insurer uses the premiums collected from all its clients to pay the claims of the ones who've had an adverse event requiring payment, so if you want to call that insurance, go ahead. But nothing in that arrangement requires that the less risky people pay for the risk of the more risky people.
Take life insurance -- if you're 25 and healthy and I'm 55 and horribly unhealthy, I'll pay a dramatically higher premium than you. If we're covered by the same company, then both our premiums go into the same bucket of money to pay out any claims, but our premiums are each based on our own risk profile. The healthy young person is not paying for the risk of the unhealthy old person.
Alas, real life is not letting me participate very deeply in this, but I should say that my statement was not meant as an argument against utilitarianism/consequentialism in general but rather against the thought in the OP (or at least, in the penumbras and emanations of the OP -- I'm not sure now that it was really there) that if we just get rid of our ideological commitments and focus on determining consequences, we can resolve most of our disagreements with careful open-minded empiricism.
I do agree that "ideology" in and of itself isn't the real target -- rather it's the tendency to treat one's own ideological package as Truth rather than as a convenient bundle of assumptions and values that help us to make sense of the world. I don't know that "tribalism" is exactly the right word for this, but I can't think of a more appropriate one at the moment.
Reihan Salam once labelled himself, in a jokey post at TAS, as a "realservative" -- by which he meant more or less that he had a conservative outlook but was always mindful of the fact that he had no proof that his outlook was superior to others. You can see this shining through his posts, which is why he's one of my favorite bloggers. I think we should all strive to be "real" in that way -- libereals, librealtarians, etc. Easier to say than to do (and easier to see others' failure at that than our own).
Having not read others' comments carefully, I apologize in advance if I've simply repeated what's already been said.
This is not an argument against utilitarianism per se -- it's solved just by adopting a more sophisticated evaluation mechanism, with the appropriate weights/multipliers.
However, it does point up that utilitarianism depends on prior agreement on values -- what results are good, what results are bad, and most of all, how do we adjudicate between different bundles of goods and bads. It's likely that there's a substantial connection between one's political ideology and one's decisions on how these various trade-offs should be resolved even in the absence of a political ideology.
And yet, would the bird consider a painful and struggling existence life still preferable to no life at all? Animals in that sort of situation generally still do everything they can to stay alive, though presumably that's "just" instinct and not the result of examined preferences.
As a cat owner who's also an animal sympathizer in general, I have to ponder this question (and act or not act on my decision) way more often than I'd like.
A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial package.
The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set of generalized graphics routines, an artificial intelligence interface, but not the slightest mention of anything financial.
When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. "Don't be so impatient,'' he said, "I'll put in the financial stuff eventually.''
Agreed, though perhaps it's more awkward in print than it would be when spoken, where tone and pacing could smooth it out.
But just to be pedantic (because that's what I am and I'm too old to change), your rewrite should probably say "But did you call on...", not "But am I...".
My dad gave me that jokebook when I was eight or so and I devoured it (figuratively) -- I still remember most of the jokes, and I even find occasion to tell a few of them now and then. I'm a lousy joketeller, so mostly I just summarize them and invite my listeners to imagine what they would sound like if told by someone more talented.
OK, I see what y'all are saying, but I guess my experience of it is not a feeling of being overwhelmed -- I just realize I need to seek a buyer's guide or other resource to help me decide.
As Brandon says below, I certainly wouldn't want some entity to deliberately reduce the choices, because my top 5 might very well be different than someone else's top 5.
True, and I almost mentioned that -- Asimov's book was the source in my head, but I just searched for some key terms and linked the first match I found.
I'm at work and so I've only skimmed the comments, but as far as the jam study is concerned, the question is not between choice and no choice, but rather between a few choices and a lot of choices. We're all apt to be indecisive at times, and "no choice" can sometimes be a relief, but personally I have a hard time thinking of a case where five choices would've been fine but 30 choices was overwhelming.
By the way, this otherwise fine post is missing the obligatory link to this joke.
At the risk of seeming like I'm shilling for Jim Manzi, his new book Uncontrolled sort of does that -- after a few chapters on the history of the scientific method and the limits on what experiments can reasonably tell us in different contexts, he discusses his experience running a company that specializes running randomized field trials for businesses and how that might be applied to other domains, but especially social science.
It's not perfect but it's an interesting read -- the first part of the book should be required reading for anyone who likes to cite studies to support their political beliefs.
There may not be that much distance between you two -- he does say "The paradox of choice will surely occur in some contexts – it’s just that markets don’t seem to produce this outcome very often."
It's certainly interesting how the idea has taken off even in the absence of very good evidence for it.
Besides what's been mentioned, I can think of a few other negatives:
* Discussions in the comments section move fast -- if you take the time to think through a question and write up a cogent response, most people will have moved on to another topic by the time you manage to post it. So extensive thought is really not rewarded -- the people who have ready-made answers for every topic will get more attention and tend to dominate the conversations.
* The practical lifespan of a comment is much shorter than that of a blog post, so it doesn't justify putting a lot of effort for that reason as well.
* Front-pagers are selected, but comments are open to all comers (at most sites, anyway) -- even leaving aside the nastiness, the sophistication level of the discussion will tend to head down to the least common denominator, especially because unsophisticated commenters may not be aware of their lack of sophistication.
That said, I don't think the comments section at this site should be done away with -- there's plenty of value here too, and many of the blog posts are designed to elicit conversation. It's just a matter of coming into it with the appropriate expectations.
On “A New Neighbor”
We have a couple of great horned owls that are frequent visitors. The hooting was very cool at first, but it got to be kind of an annoyance at the point that we wanted to actually sleep. Not a problem now that we're in closed-window season. We keep hoping they'll make a dent in the chipmunk population (which are slowly destroying our patio, but so far I haven't been able to bring myself to take action to get rid of them).
This Thanksgiving, a half-dozen wild turkeys waddled across our driveway -- that provided some entertainment (and an opportunity for some obvious jokes) for our guests. A little while later we saw a fox in our woods -- perhaps the timing wasn't coincidental.
A few years back we found a snapping turtle waiting for us on our back patio one day. This would've required his (her?) climbing four steps -- pretty impressive for a turtle. As we were worrying and trying to figure out how to get him back to the pond (which is about a half-mile from us) without getting bitten, he wandered back on his own.
Deer and skunks and raccoons and opossums are a common enough sight not to cause much excitement anymore (though the babies are awfully cute when we get a glimpse of them).
On “Working on Holidays is Rarely a Choice”
This is a definite drawback of the (no-longer-very-)new site design -- it's not easy to tell that this post is actually in the sub-blog, especially if you come to it by way of a comment link rather than the main post link. I agree that the expectations are a little different given its location.
On “So on an odd vein…”
This might be relevant to the discussion.
On “Great Moments In Corporate PR History”
Patrick,
I haven't been around here for a while, so maybe this has already been discussed, but is there any evidence for this theory:
Offhand it doesn't seem self-evident -- it suggests the availability of a higher-paying job for that someone in the absence of subsidies, but where would that job come from, and if it's an option, then why wouldn't that someone still take the higher-paying job even with subsidies? If the subsidies are allowing that person to take the Walmart job over the other one, then there must be some benefit to the Walmart job that the person is receiving.
I could see it actually working the other way around -- without subsidies, a person would be more desperate to take whatever he/she can get, but with subsidies, he/she could be more selective.
On “The 10 Biggest Lies Being Told About the Government Shutdown”
Merci beaucoup!
"
Crud, screwed up the italics...
"
Tod, I think you're mixing up two different things. It's true that an insurer uses the premiums collected from all its clients to pay the claims of the ones who've had an adverse event requiring payment, so if you want to call that insurance, go ahead. But nothing in that arrangement requires that the less risky people pay for the risk of the more risky people.
Take life insurance -- if you're 25 and healthy and I'm 55 and horribly unhealthy, I'll pay a dramatically higher premium than you. If we're covered by the same company, then both our premiums go into the same bucket of money to pay out any claims, but our premiums are each based on our own risk profile. The healthy young person is not paying for the risk of the unhealthy old person.
On “One Ideology to Rule them All”
@pierre-corneille @chris
Alas, real life is not letting me participate very deeply in this, but I should say that my statement was not meant as an argument against utilitarianism/consequentialism in general but rather against the thought in the OP (or at least, in the penumbras and emanations of the OP -- I'm not sure now that it was really there) that if we just get rid of our ideological commitments and focus on determining consequences, we can resolve most of our disagreements with careful open-minded empiricism.
I do agree that "ideology" in and of itself isn't the real target -- rather it's the tendency to treat one's own ideological package as Truth rather than as a convenient bundle of assumptions and values that help us to make sense of the world. I don't know that "tribalism" is exactly the right word for this, but I can't think of a more appropriate one at the moment.
Reihan Salam once labelled himself, in a jokey post at TAS, as a "realservative" -- by which he meant more or less that he had a conservative outlook but was always mindful of the fact that he had no proof that his outlook was superior to others. You can see this shining through his posts, which is why he's one of my favorite bloggers. I think we should all strive to be "real" in that way -- libereals, librealtarians, etc. Easier to say than to do (and easier to see others' failure at that than our own).
Having not read others' comments carefully, I apologize in advance if I've simply repeated what's already been said.
"
Ditto on the first line -- I've really enjoyed your contributions, VB.
"
This is not an argument against utilitarianism per se -- it's solved just by adopting a more sophisticated evaluation mechanism, with the appropriate weights/multipliers.
However, it does point up that utilitarianism depends on prior agreement on values -- what results are good, what results are bad, and most of all, how do we adjudicate between different bundles of goods and bads. It's likely that there's a substantial connection between one's political ideology and one's decisions on how these various trade-offs should be resolved even in the absence of a political ideology.
On “A bird with a broken wing is not a three-legged dog.”
And yet, would the bird consider a painful and struggling existence life still preferable to no life at all? Animals in that sort of situation generally still do everything they can to stay alive, though presumably that's "just" instinct and not the result of examined preferences.
As a cat owner who's also an animal sympathizer in general, I have to ponder this question (and act or not act on my decision) way more often than I'd like.
On “Linky Friday #41”
If only programmers were aware of that concept.
A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial package.
The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set of generalized graphics routines, an artificial intelligence interface, but not the slightest mention of anything financial.
When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. "Don't be so impatient,'' he said, "I'll put in the financial stuff eventually.''
(from The Tao of Programming, in case it wasn't obvious)
On “Conor’s latest post is something of a paradox…”
No they won't.
On “Choosing isn’t hard.”
Agreed, though perhaps it's more awkward in print than it would be when spoken, where tone and pacing could smooth it out.
But just to be pedantic (because that's what I am and I'm too old to change), your rewrite should probably say "But did you call on...", not "But am I...".
My dad gave me that jokebook when I was eight or so and I devoured it (figuratively) -- I still remember most of the jokes, and I even find occasion to tell a few of them now and then. I'm a lousy joketeller, so mostly I just summarize them and invite my listeners to imagine what they would sound like if told by someone more talented.
"
OK, I see what y'all are saying, but I guess my experience of it is not a feeling of being overwhelmed -- I just realize I need to seek a buyer's guide or other resource to help me decide.
As Brandon says below, I certainly wouldn't want some entity to deliberately reduce the choices, because my top 5 might very well be different than someone else's top 5.
"
True, and I almost mentioned that -- Asimov's book was the source in my head, but I just searched for some key terms and linked the first match I found.
"
I'm at work and so I've only skimmed the comments, but as far as the jam study is concerned, the question is not between choice and no choice, but rather between a few choices and a lot of choices. We're all apt to be indecisive at times, and "no choice" can sometimes be a relief, but personally I have a hard time thinking of a case where five choices would've been fine but 30 choices was overwhelming.
By the way, this otherwise fine post is missing the obligatory link to this joke.
"
@blaisep
At the risk of seeming like I'm shilling for Jim Manzi, his new book Uncontrolled sort of does that -- after a few chapters on the history of the scientific method and the limits on what experiments can reasonably tell us in different contexts, he discusses his experience running a company that specializes running randomized field trials for businesses and how that might be applied to other domains, but especially social science.
It's not perfect but it's an interesting read -- the first part of the book should be required reading for anyone who likes to cite studies to support their political beliefs.
"
There may not be that much distance between you two -- he does say "The paradox of choice will surely occur in some contexts – it’s just that markets don’t seem to produce this outcome very often."
It's certainly interesting how the idea has taken off even in the absence of very good evidence for it.
"
In case you haven't seen it already, Jim Manzi critiqued the jam study a while back.
On “We’re #1! We’re #1!”
And all the liberals can move to New Hampshire and New Jersey. :)
On “Conor’s latest post is something of a paradox…”
Oops, was meant to be a standalone comment. More evidence that commenters suck.
"
Besides what's been mentioned, I can think of a few other negatives:
* Discussions in the comments section move fast -- if you take the time to think through a question and write up a cogent response, most people will have moved on to another topic by the time you manage to post it. So extensive thought is really not rewarded -- the people who have ready-made answers for every topic will get more attention and tend to dominate the conversations.
* The practical lifespan of a comment is much shorter than that of a blog post, so it doesn't justify putting a lot of effort for that reason as well.
* Front-pagers are selected, but comments are open to all comers (at most sites, anyway) -- even leaving aside the nastiness, the sophistication level of the discussion will tend to head down to the least common denominator, especially because unsophisticated commenters may not be aware of their lack of sophistication.
That said, I don't think the comments section at this site should be done away with -- there's plenty of value here too, and many of the blog posts are designed to elicit conversation. It's just a matter of coming into it with the appropriate expectations.
On “On Anthony Weiner and Weiners in General”
Russian -- the signs in the background are for a children's store and a consumer electronics store.
"
I think you mean "presiding", unless you're implying that his wife finally kicked him out of the house and so he just set up a cot in the courtroom.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.