Local government insanity, two more examples

Example the First. We have a community pool, built a couple of decades ago. Popular lore suggests that all the local governments committed to sharing its expenses equally, but there's nothing in writing. In recent years, one local entity dropped out, while the others (including the county) have contributed a fixed sum annually--a fraction of the actual net cost of the pool after user fees. One entity, the largest local city, apparently picks up the substantial tab for the entire resulting deficit, and has done so since the memory of man sayeth not to the contrary.

For about 18 months now, as the county's representative on the pool committee, I've been trying with increasing bafflement to get the pool manager and the other board members, who include a city rep, to address the deficit. Sometimes they say it's not a problem, because the city will cover it, to which I respond, cool, let's quit talking about it, then. To which they then say, but what if the city doesn't keep it up? And I say, hadn't you better take a look at your revenues, specifically your user rate structure? I've written about this here before. They struggle with the task of imagining what rate increases the market might bear, and how much each type or amount of increase might contribute to the bottom line annually, given uncertainties like volume of customers from year to year and the impact of rate hikes on same.

Last spring I tried to get them to think about this in preparation for the 2021 summer season. When they finally got it on the agenda in July, they still lacked any firm numbers to wrestle with and supposedly were going to call a special meeting in a week or so, while there might still be time to raise rates for the summer season. OK, that never happened. Fast-forward to last week, the first meeting since last July. I expected the same topic to be rehashed, with roughly the same results. When I arrived, however, I was pleased to see that the city finance manager was attending. I asked her what I used to try to ask the other folks, "What does it actually mean when we run a deficit? Is there a cushion account we're gradually depleting? We don't bounce checks, right?" She responded quite openly: the city simply pays all the bills, and runs an account receivable that the pool has never paid and evidently never will.

Okay, I thought, when I'm wearing my pool hat the status quo seems eminently satisfactory, and I don't ever wear a city hat. I do wear a county hat, but the county doesn't mind continuing to pay its annual flat contribution, so we're all good.

But if you're thinking I was then able to shut up while the room went on to continue to discuss the issue of what rates to raise and by how much, I guess I haven't painted a very clear picture of myself. Like an idiot, I eventually found myself goaded into asking clarifying questions. Someone would start talking about a tiny change in a minor category of rate, and I'd ask, now, is that one rate type out of four, or what? Hearing that it was in fact one rate out of four or so, and that they planned to move on to the other rates next, I'd say, now, how much do you suppose that first rate change would increase annual revenues? And I would get blank stares again, just as I did last year. Finally after they slowly went through all the categories, I said, OK, the total impact sounds like roughly in the neighborhood of what, about X dollars?--X dollars being maybe 20-25% of the annual deficit.

At this point, they left glum confusion behind and proceeded to the idea that really animates them: it's terrible that the county doesn't pick up a big part of the huge recurring annual deficit and help the city out. Never going to happen, I said, taking the opportunity to suggest that they might want to think about whom they'll vote for in the primary for County Judge primary in a few weeks. Now everyone's shouting about the county being mean and not living up to its ancient (unwritten, disputed, unenforceable) promises and so on.

Finally someone has the bright idea that, if the city subsidizes the losses but the county doesn't, maybe city taxpayers should pay lower pool use rates than all non-city residents, including county residents in the boonies and out-of-towners. Excellent idea, I agreed, very sensible, figure out how much you can raise that way. Well, they had no idea, and besides, what they really wanted was for me to say, "Oh, don't do that, I'll go take the other County Commissioners hostage at gunpoint and force them to increase your budget."

We left it that they still needed to gather data for a reality check and would call a special meeting "soon," so they may still be able to raise rates before summer. All I could think was, "Please wait another 11 months. I'm out of here December 31." Or, "Heaven give me the good sense to shut up next time if there really is one before I go."

Example the Second. I learned this week that the county has an ordinance dating back to 2004 requiring a $5 annual pet license, including the usual need to prove rabies vaccination. I learned this because we recently inched a small fraction of the county's IT system slightly further into the third millennium, so residents can now buy the license online instead of going bodily to the Animal Shelter with, I kid you not, a money order. I figured this would spark the same level of non-interest that most descriptions of county activity do when I post them on Facebook.

Imagine my surprise when my public absolutely erupted. Three days later we're into a practically unprecedented number of comments. It's unconstitutional. It's a tax gouge. It will make it impossible for poor people to afford having a pet. It's the government invading and ruining our lives. How will the county enforce this if no one knows about it, etc.

I've been steadily pointing out that the rule has been in force for 18 years, though apparently not a soul was aware of it. The county has no plans whatever to start enforcing it, or even to publicize it. I seem to be the only one talking about it. Absolutely nothing has changed except that, if you happen to want to buy a license, you can now do so conveniently online. It's pretty cheap, and it will put your pet into a registry so that you'll be notified faster if your pet should ever get lost and picked up.

"But I already microchip my pet, so this is tyranny/waste/mad overreach." OK, but the Animal Control folks report that it takes six hours to hear back from the national microchip registry, while this local registry is basically instant. Again, it's pretty cheap, and it's a bit of a donation to the almost-no-kill Shelter, which helps sad puppies. No, it's a tax on strays! Also, it's evil to finance government operations via user fees instead of general taxes! Or both!

I resolutely remain calm--easier to do online than sitting in a pool committee meeting--and keep repeating that nothing has changed in terms of obligations or enforcement. The only change is that it's now easier to pay.

But the public remains in a ferment. We're going to borrow $13MM to build a bigger, fancier courthouse than we need? Yawn. A $5 fee you weren't paying is now easier to pay if you feel like it? Armageddon.

"Our appeal is becoming more selective"

An innovative defense of the effectiveness of home-nonschooling in the COVID age:

Even the Democrat-led city government of San Francisco had enough with the board. It filed a lawsuit against both the SFUSD and its board in February 2021, accusing them of ” failing to come up with a reopening plan even as numerous other schools across the U.S. have reopened.” But SFUSD reopened only elementary schools last April and didn’t return to full-time in-person learning for all K-12 until fall 2021.

Board President López claimed the long delays didn’t cause any learning loss because children were “just having different learning experiences than the ones we currently measure,” and they learned more “about their families and cultures by staying home.”

I've wondered if some schools could actually make kids dumber.

Enchiridion XVII

XVII

Remember that you are an actor in a drama of such sort as the Author chooses—if short, then in a short one; if long, then in a long one. If it be his pleasure that you should enact a poor man, or a cripple, or a ruler, or a private citizen, see that you act it well. For this is your business—to act well the given part, but to choose it belongs to another.

Here the parallel is to the Bhagavad Gita, where the key religious lesson is that one has a role to play in the dream of the Great God -- and therefore ought to play that particular role as well as possible. Clearly there is a recognized need for someone to stand in the role of the Author, in spite of the fact that the mythology of the day made it mysterious who precisely might be in that role.

Enchiridion XVI

XVI

When you see anyone weeping for grief, either that his son has gone abroad or that he has suffered in his affairs, take care not to be overcome by the apparent evil, but discriminate and be ready to say, “What hurts this man is not this occurrence itself—for another man might not be hurt by it—but the view he chooses to take of it.” As far as conversation goes, however, do not disdain to accommodate yourself to him and, if need be, to groan with him. Take heed, however, not to groan inwardly, too.

"His son has gone abroad" is a much smaller reason for grief than "his son has died." If the other man were meant to be a Stoic we must assume was meant to be included from the earlier aphorisms; but he is clearly not one, and so the comment is meant to underline that even minor things can upset the unwise.

That makes the cynical ending more appropriate. We are human beings, wise and unwise alike; it can be worthy to sympathize or empathize with the unwise, for the purpose of comforting them and ameliorating their suffering. Yet it is not proper to abandon the course of wisdom in doing so; we must remember that they are behaving foolishly, even as we attempt to ease their foolish suffering. 

A Western Interlude

I decided to clean the guns the other day. Nothing like a little 'Western' music to make that task a happier one. 

 

Hey, as long as we want the best person for the job

At long last, S. Ct. Justice Breyer has seen the elephant in the abysmal polling on the future of the U.S. Senate after November 2022, and announced his retirement effective June. The Democratic party leadership is floating some black female candidates, because that's the important thing, with a Ketanji Brown Jackson reportedly heading the list. She tends to get reversed even by bipartisan higher D.C. Circuit courts, but I suppose that's because no one's properly setting her up for success.

Watch Your Flank

Interesting warning:

We currently have no Duke of Edinburgh, York or Sussex. I don’t want to alarm anyone but we are again exposed to Viking marauders on the Eastern flank. @donaeldunready

— Stuart Whomsley (@Bossloper) January 16, 2022

Enchiridion XV

XV

Remember that you must behave as at a banquet. Is anything brought round to you? Put out your hand and take a moderate share. Does it pass by you? Do not stop it. Is it not yet come? Do not yearn in desire toward it, but wait till it reaches you. So with regard to children, wife, office, riches; and you will some time or other be worthy to feast with the gods. And if you do not so much as take the things which are set before you, but are able even to forego them, then you will not only be worthy to feast with the gods, but to rule with them also. For, by thus doing, Diogenes and Heraclitus, and others like them, deservedly became divine, and were so recognized.

There is a sixth century commentary on this by Simplicus, who is one of the chief Neoplatonist writers; I am not referring to it on purpose, and indeed have not read it, as I never read secondary sources prior to engaging a philosophical text myself. Nor should you; we may engage it later. There is always a lot to be learned from what the wise think about any topic, but you should wrestle with it first to decide what you think. They may convince you that you were wrong, or that you misunderstood something; but you should first find a ground of your own, rather than letting any of them tell you what to think. Aristotle's efforts often begin by explaining the positions of the wise, and when they do they quickly turn to him refuting them. 

The process described in the end is apotheosis, a Greek pagan notion by which some heroes were raised to the ranks of the immortals. Many local heroes were worshipped after a while as if they were gods, though usually as chthonic gods of the underworld. (That is redundant, if you are unfamiliar with the word chthonic.) Some Greeks believed in a cycle of reincarnation, involving an eventual return to light and life in a cycle that embraced death and perhaps godhood; we don't fully grasp exactly how all of this worked. 

The general advice is interesting. At a banquet, everyone should usually be served all the courses. Here the idea is that the banquet is somewhat chaotic, and some dishes are offered but others pass by. Others that might have been offered to your fellows have not yet been offered to you. Patience is the key virtue; that and self-discipline, which allows you to take not of some of the offerings if you decide they are not good for you. If you do that, you will be worthy of ruling like the gods: though in fact you may gain nothing at all, and pass by some things of value (perhaps including good glasses of beer or cider, or even fine Scotch whisky) along the way. 

It's a strange sort of banquet, not arranged with the convenience nor the enjoyment of the guests as its first order. Such is how we find it, however, whatever that says about the qualities of the host.

What Exactly is the Threat to Democracy?

In an amazing article that should not be excerpted, Vox wonders aloud. 

And speaking of pretexts

In general our political system would garner a lot more support if it stopped with the pretext nonsense and worked out compromises on the use of power based on actual responses to the harms it claims to be addressing. Enough with the pretending that CO2 is a "toxin," for instance, or that a virus is the same as a machine emitting sparks.

WOTUS pocus

We'd do better addressing real environmental threats if we quit destroying our credibility with preposterous pretexts like this.

What constitutes “navigable waters”? That question has bedeviled Mike and Chantell Sackett for 15 years, and now it comes back again to the Supreme Court. Ten years ago, the Supreme Court took an incremental approach to the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Act and the EPA’s regulation based on its jurisdiction over “navigable waters.”

* * *

[A new] case raises the question of the test that courts should use to determine what constitutes “waters of the United States,” which the Clean Water Act was passed to protect in 1972.

In a 2006 case called Rapanos v. U.S., the court could not muster a majority opinion. Four justices, led by Justice Antonin Scalia, said the provision means water on the property in question must have a connection to a river, lake or other waterway.

But a fifth justice, Anthony M. Kennedy, created the test that emerged from the case, saying the act covers wetlands with a “significant nexus” to those other bodies of water.

For maximum confusion

There's nonsense talked about a lot of things, of course, but sometimes I think the greatest nonsense is reserved for what passes for discussion of economic policy.

[I]f you asked critics what “Supply-Side Economics” is, most would say it’s a theory about tax revenues that says a lower rate of taxation often yields a higher tax-revenue haul. It's a foolish try.

More realistically, supply-side economics is a simple statement of reality: in order to consume we must produce first. Since consumption is what happens after production, the goal of economic policy should be to remove the barriers to production. . . .

Add Treasury secretary Janet Yellen to the list of supply-side critics who is wholly confused about what it is she’s criticizing. In a recent speech before the World Economic Forum, Yellen pointed to the Biden administration’s infrastructure proposals, child care, paid leave, and global warming initiatives as “Modern supply-side economics.” She said what?

I guess that's "modern" as in "absolutely nothing like what the term means."  Way to make sterile arguments about definitions even crazier and more futile.

Come to think of it, though, the irrationality is hardly confined to economics. As a species we seem to combine irrationality with stupidity in staggering proportions. And yes, I have been spending too much time lately interacting with my fellow citizens as we gear up for the local election primary on March 1, why do you ask?

Well, that took long enough

Election do sometimes improve things.

One major focus for Makary has been on the importance of recognizing natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2, acquired by previous infection. He has continually pushed for the government and employers to recognize natural immunity in addition to immunity conferred by vaccines when considering mandates, which is normal throughout Europe. A new CDC study released on Jan. 19, 2022, appeared to lend credence to Makary’s analysis.

Newly elected Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently appointed Makary to be his adviser on pandemic response.

Enchiridion XIV

XIV

If you wish your children and your wife and your friends to live forever, you are foolish, for you wish things to be in your power which are not so, and what belongs to others to be your own. So likewise, if you wish your servant to be without fault, you are foolish, for you wish vice not to be vice but something else. But if you wish not to be disappointed in your desires, that is in your own power. Exercise, therefore, what is in your power. A man’s master is he who is able to confer or remove whatever that man seeks or shuns. Whoever then would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others; else he must necessarily be a slave.

Here is another master/slave admonition, one that runs towards accepting the fact that servants are not flawless but human beings with vices and flaws. It's odd, in a way, to run this together with the death of wives or children. We've seen that tendency throughout these early aphorisms: 'accept that a cup may be broken, or your wife could die.' 

This reminds, again, that these are meant to be thoroughgoing commitments. In small things and in the biggest things, accepting that you only control what you do is the path to freedom. Practicing the small things makes you capable of handling the big things when they arise, for -- as mentioned earlier -- it is habituation via small exercises that enables the soul to handle the great labors. 

The Boomers are Responsible

It’s popular to write generational warfare posts, but as a Gen X member I’m neutral in those. However, I would like some of you who are Boomers to explain this to me. 

I kinda like it; but it doesn’t make any kind of sense. 

The Situation in Ukraine

The Korean War started when the United States declared the Korean peninsula to be outside its defensive perimeter, then changed its mind once the Communist forces invaded. The United States under the present administration has done everything it can to declare Ukraine outside the West's defensive perimeter -- withdrawing diplomats today, declaring combat forces off the table a month or so ago -- but now is mulling shifting up to fifty thousand men into Eastern Europe as a hedge against Putin's 100,000 forces massed on Ukraine's borders.

Nor is it limited to drawing a line just this side of Ukraine.

...after years of tiptoeing around the question of how much military support to provide to Ukraine, for fear of provoking Russia, Biden officials have recently warned that the United States could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Mr. Putin invade Ukraine.

That is always an option, although not one generally acknowledged publicly by the President himself. Normally you have think tanks and other outsiders warn about that possibility, trusting your opponents' intelligence services to read those white papers and pass the warning along. Open acknowledgement undermines the chief advantage of such a strategy, which is plausible deniability. 

Nor is this theoretical.

More than 150 U.S. military advisers are in Ukraine... [including] Special Operations forces, mostly Army Green Berets, as well as National Guard trainers from Florida’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

Military advisers from about a dozen allied countries are also in Ukraine, U.S. officials said.... In the event of a full-scale Russian invasion, the United States intends to move its military trainers out of the country quickly. But it is possible that some Americans could stay to advise Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, the capital, or provide frontline support, a U.S. official said.

Emphasis added. Sometimes we deploy forces as a 'tripwire,' daring enemy forces to engage them because it would mean engaging the United States military. The ongoing mission in South Korea is of that sort. Yet these forces are pledged to be withdrawn in the event of a Russian invasion, unless they stay to provide 'frontline support' to the opposition according to this nameless official. 

That is exactly the kind of lack of clarity that provoked the Korean conflict. We are well behind the power curve if we want into this fight -- those fifty thousand men can't be there for a long time, and the initial commitment will only be a few battalions. Ships take a while to float. Divisions take a while to shift into place, and they can't get there too far ahead of the logistical sustainment elements they will require. 

If we don't want the fight -- if letting Russia (and probably China) reassert their older claims to a larger sphere of influence than they have enjoyed during the era of the Pax Americana -- then we should be clear about where our lines really are now. There's no point whining about the Russians rolling into Ukraine if we have decided they can have it for the moment; and neither Russia nor China has the demographics to hold these extended claims for more than a generation or so.

We would not be here, of course, if the Biden administration had not come into power; their willful destruction of American energy independence, their devastation of our economy, and their humiliation of our military in Afghanistan are at the back of the present moment of weakness. Yet it is what it is; retrenchment may be necessary for the present moment. A second Korean war in eastern Europe serves no one's interests, not even Ukraine's. 

"Seared into the Hypo-something"

The UN is funding psychologists who promise to help migrants 'recover' memories of oppression that will entitle them to asylum claims in the USA.

“The most common mistake migrants make during interviews . . . is that they are saying that they are suffering economic hardship. It’s not one of the criteria for refugee status,” Vidal explained during a lengthy recorded telephone interview January 20 with the Center for Immigration Studies in Tapachula. “That may cover up one of the true reasons why they are coming. They need psychological help so they can remember the situation they experienced.”

Asked if recovering asylum-qualifying memories for better interview outcomes is the main purpose of employing psychologists with United Nations money, Vidal answered: “Yes, through the psychological help we give them.”

They claim a 90% success rate in helping migrants describe their experiences in ways that accord with international conventions on asylum. 

Trucker Rebellion

Canada has passed a vaccine passport bill for truck drivers entering or leaving the country, which just went into effect. The short term effect of this bill is that it has provoked a substantial demonstration among truckers up north; they say it took 45 minutes for the convoy to clear Calgary on its way to link up with others. The medium term will be to exacerbate supply chain issues and crash the economies of Canada and the United States (the latter made worse by a similar issue with Mexican truck drivers, who supply a large amount of our fruits and vegetables -- especially in winter). 

The long term effect may be to encourage the shift to robot truckers, as this kind of concentrated economic power among the little guys is threatening to those who enjoy political and social power. They aren't there yet, though. For now they still have to heed those ordinary men (and a few women) who push those diesels down the highway.

Enchiridion XIII

XIII

If you would improve, be content to be thought foolish and dull with regard to externals. Do not desire to be thought to know anything; and though you should appear to others to be somebody, distrust yourself. For be assured, it is not easy at once to keep your will in harmony with nature and to secure externals; but while you are absorbed in the one, you must of necessity neglect the other.

Socrates professed that his wisdom lay in knowing that he knew nothing. If you're sure you know how to do anything, there is a danger that you stop trying to learn to do it better.  

"Patriot Front" are a Federal Mousetrap

I think we went over this the last time they popped their heads up -- which they never do except at major right-wing events they want to discredit with their presence -- but this so-called group is obviously a bunch of Federal agents and/or informants. They have no support among the well-known right-wing organizations -- even the hard-right Center for Security Policy has no brief for them, nor does Heritage, nor does anyone. They show up with matching uniforms and equipment, as well as professionally-printed banners. These are expensive, but no right-wing billionaires support them. Who would? The Koch brothers, who want mass immigration to keep labor costs down? Commerce Club Republicans? The pro-Israel right, made up of Evangelicals and Orthodox Jews -- are they going to fund a neo-Nazi fascist group? Of course they are not. And it's certainly not Donald Trump, who never spends anything on anything that doesn't say "TRUMP" in big gold letters. Nor does he spend money on anything that's not going to make him money, not on purpose. No right wing players would back this group, but they've clearly got real money backing them. The Federal police are the obvious explanation for this funding source. 

Also, Patriot Front coordinates with the police everywhere they go, and very successfully. They have police escorts when they march to avoid altercations, unlike Antifa or the Proud Boys who fight in the streets and therefore end up in court -- where they are identified publicly in court records. Coordinating hostile protests with the police is a skill that some longstanding protest organizations have, but few of those exist on the right (who are not much given to police-confrontational protest marches anyway). However, if you're the FBI, it's pretty easy to get the local police to assign you a protection detachment to walk  you through your march. 

Dad29 has a commentary on a recent 'leaked' video that exactly matches my own interpretation of it. It's an obvious plant.

There's a similar problem with another claimed leak about this organization, this one out of Unicorn Riot, the pro-Antifa media. From a counterintelligence perspective, Unicorn Riot should expect to be close to the top of the FBI's infiltration list if the FBI is at all concerned about Antifa: after all, they're considered friendly media and are allowed to film at Antifa events. Getting someone inside there would be invaluable for collection. That same infiltration of Unicorn Riot would likewise be invaluable for the FBI in terms of credentialing their fake "Right Wing Fascist" group. Arrange a fake leak through Unicorn Riot and suddenly the left wing groups will believe this is a real organization. They'll begin to treat it as if it were real when they see it in the streets, which might encourage right wing fascists to come out and join it.

The real issue is that there aren't really any right wing fascists to recruit. Try that "Sig Heil" crap at one of the local honky-tonks and see how far you get with it. I'd make sure your insurance is paid up, though. There's no grassroots support for this kind of thing because Americans hate Nazis; and there's no Astroturf support on the right because none of the relatively few right-wing billionaire players would back such a group. The Feds are the only thing that makes any sense.

Harsh but fair

 

Enchiridion XII

XII

If you would improve, lay aside such reasonings as these: “If I neglect my affairs, I shall not have a maintenance; if I do not punish my servant, he will be good for nothing.” For it were better to die of hunger, exempt from grief and fear, than to live in affluence with perturbation; and it is better that your servant should be bad than you unhappy.

Begin therefore with little things. Is a little oil spilled or a little wine stolen? Say to yourself, “This is the price paid for peace and tranquility; and nothing is to be had for nothing.” And when you call your servant, consider that it is possible he may not come at your call; or, if he does, that he may not do what you wish. But it is not at all desirable for him, and very undesirable for you, that it should be in his power to cause you any disturbance.

Philosophy is often a pursuit of those with leisure -- Aristotle argues that it is necessarily so -- and thus usually when one runs into philosophers' advice on what to do about servants it is offensive more often than not.  Epictetus, though, was a slave for most of his life: when he speaks of how little the servant wishes to be a cause of disturbance to the master, he speaks as one who knows. 

When I first began making mead, it was a great disturbance to me that so much of it was wasted in the process of racking (that is, removing the yeast and sediment from the product at various stages of finishing). But he is right: once you learn to accept that a certain amount of it is going to be lost, it becomes something that is not bothersome after all. (I am told that distillers run into a similar issue with evaporation of the finished product: they call this 'the Angels' share' of the whiskey.) 

The least plausible of this section's aphorisms is the suggestion that one ought better to neglect one's affairs than be disturbed by them. Duty seems to be crosswise from that: if they are indeed one's own affairs, then by neglecting them one is doing disservice to one's children or heirs; if another is maintaining you in return for service, to them. Sometimes people make movies about those who lay aside arduous careers in order to assume peaceful and fulfilling modes of life, however; and maybe some people really do that, even. Perhaps they are wise.

More Constitutional confusion

A federal judge in Texas has struck down a federal mandate requiring vaccination for all federal employees.  He did not rule that vaccinations are bad, or that the federal government lacks the power to require its employees to be vaccinated, despite the ignorant protestations from the reporters' pet sources.  The judge ruled that an executive order is an improper means of imposing such a requirement, which must instead be enacted by Congress--something Congress clearly has no intention whatever of doing, being too busy with futile attempts to jam through laws for which they've known for months that they lacked the votes.

This case is distinguishable from the Supreme Court's recent upholding a rule allowing a vaccine mandate for workers in Medicare and Medicaid facilities, because you can make a case that the legislature enabling Medicare and Medicaid funding contemplated and authorized the restriction in its provisions for infection control.  The case may not be airtight, but it was enough to get Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh on board.  As usual, however, the caterwauling is not about whether a judge is correct about the established procedures for imposing new rules, but about whether the policy is a good one and therefore should be tolerated even if enacted by clearly illegal means.  Anyone who insists on the rule of law must want to deny science and murder Grandma.

Of course, if a Supreme Court justice is demonstrably unaware of these niceties, what are the odds that there's a mainstream reporter in the entire country with a clue?

Enchiridion XI

XI 

Never say of anything, “I have lost it,” but, “I have restored it.” Has your child died? It is restored. Has your wife died? She is restored. Has your estate been taken away? That likewise is restored. “But it was a bad man who took it.” What is it to you by whose hands he who gave it has demanded it again? While he permits you to possess it, hold it as something not your own, as do travelers at an inn.

Often in reading these the Biblical equivalent occurs: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." An ongoing question in the discussion might be phrased as, 'But how do you do this without the Lord?' As we have been discussing, the Romans and Greeks did believe in the logos; they were a bit unsure of how it was grounded. 

That may be one reason that the conversion, when it came in Constantine's day, was as thoroughgoing as it was.

Hubbard & Leather

 From a new album featuring some well-known co-stars. 

Enchiridion X

X

Upon every accident, remember to turn toward yourself and inquire what faculty you have for its use. If you encounter a handsome person, you will find continence the faculty needed; if pain, then fortitude; if reviling, then patience. And when thus habituated, the phenomena of existence will not overwhelm you.

This is strongly Aristotelian: virtue is a state of character formed by habituated practice. At first it is difficult to do a frightening thing that duty may require; with practice it becomes ordinary to do it. That is the virtue of courage. The virtue of reacting calmly and appropriately when with a beautiful person is the same; so too with these other things. 

Theft by Police

I find it hard to argue with Reason's conclusion that this is outright robbery by police officers.

Five times since last May, sheriff's deputies in Kansas and California have stopped armored cars operated by Empyreal Logistics, a Pennsylvania-based company that serves marijuana businesses and financial institutions that work with them. The cops made off with cash after three of those stops, seizing a total of $1.2 million, but did not issue any citations or file any criminal charges, which are not necessary to confiscate property through civil forfeiture.

The ambiguity by which marijuana is legal in some states but illegal Federally creates a strange situation, but the armored car business is perfectly legal -- and nobody is alleging that any crimes were committed anyway. More, as Reason explains, the police are dodging state laws and also Federal laws that should bar this practice. 

A Victory for the Republic

Sanity prevails, for the moment, and on a bipartisan basis. No Fraudulus bill this time; and a stalwart defense of minority rights on the filibuster. 

Enchiridion IX

IX

Sickness is an impediment to the body, but not to the will unless itself pleases. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will; and say this to yourself with regard to everything that happens. For you will find it to be an impediment to something else, but not truly to yourself.

I think I have answered all your earlier comments that needed a response; if not, let me know. I am encouraged by your interest. I was beginning to wonder if you were just humoring me. 

I do think that the decision to start with the Enchiridion may have been a difficulty, since (as I was telling James) it contains only settled principles rather than the arguments for them. We might have more wisely started with the Discourses, but here we are. We can go back and do the Discourses another time if there is interest. You might find this short biography of Epictetus handy; the part it is calling 'the Handbook' is the Enchiridion, which is a word that means something like 'handbook' or 'manual' in Greek.

Murderer Undecided On Whether He'll Follow New Gun Laws

 

Songs from World War II

It's about 3 hours of 1930s and '40s music focused on WWII. Some of the song titles are great:

• The Washing On The Siegried Line
• Where Does Poor Pa Go In The Black-Out?
• They Can't Black Out The Moon
• The Deepest Shelter In Town
• Could You Please Oblige Us With A Bren Gun?
• Der Fuehrer's Face
• The Thing-Ummy-Bob (That's Going To Win The War)
• Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Germans
• I'm Gonna Get Lit Up

Enjoy!

As Mr. Kruiser says, "Everything isn't awful"

Glenn Reynolds links to a modern anti-"Lord of the Flies" story, in which a small group of shipwrecked boys survives on a seemingly uninhabitable island for 15 months before being rescued in good health and spirits.  Someone raised these kids up right, enabling them to bring their sane characters together in a sane community structure.  Glenn comments on the depressing view of Golding's famously dystopian novel and notes that Golding was a mess of a man, which could explain his conviction of the inevitable mess men must make of a culture.  And certainly the mess is inevitable if the men embrace vicious failure in themselves; it's hard enough to face disaster when we're all doing the best we can. The culture affects how the kids are raised, and then the kids affect the culture.

We got a lot of culture largely based on the “sad self-knowledge” of people who were psychological and moral outliers — social and moral losers, as I say — but who fancied themselves representative of humanity and who managed to sell that self-justifying delusion to the rest of society. The costs were significant.

Rutger Bregman wrote a book, "Humankind," about the six Tonganese boys who stole a fishing boat in 1966 to take a "three-hour tour" as a break from their strict Catholic boarding school. Mr. Bregman's book, not "Lord of the Flies," is in my Audiobooks queue for background listening while I paint or crochet this week.

Enchiridion VIII

VIII

Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.

This is another one of those sections that almost sounds like a Bible verse -- "Not my will, but Yours, Lord" -- but is that is coming out of a non-Christian tradition. To will that it be as it has been directed to be by the logos inherent in creation means, perhaps, aligning your free will with that of the divine. Perhaps; other wills may be at work in the world. 

A worthy project for an interested party would be to explore how this period of Hellenistic Roman society informed both traditions. We know that a certain amount of Greek philosophy made its way into John, at least; the spirit of the age may have shaped more than is apparent at first glance. 

El Camino

I always thought these things were ridiculous, but they're enjoying a retrospective moment. Lots of songs have recently been written about them. It struck me as a very strange thing to valorize until I heard the introduction to this piece. "...but it was a Chevelle, and you could get it with an SS package and up to like a 450 horsepower, 454 engine, four speed transmission, Positraction rear end, all kinds of sway bars..."

OK, I can see how that could be cool.

Apparently she was persuaded as well. 

Enchiridion VII

 VII

As in a voyage, when the ship is at anchor, if you go on shore to get water, you may amuse yourself with picking up a shellfish or a truffle in your way, but your thoughts ought [20]to be bent toward the ship, and perpetually attentive, lest the captain should call, and then you must leave all these things, that you may not have to be carried on board the vessel, bound like a sheep; thus likewise in life, if, instead of a truffle or shellfish, such a thing as a wife or a child be granted you, there is no objection; but if the captain calls, run to the ship, leave all these things, and never look behind. But if you are old, never go far from the ship, lest you should be missing when called for.

This sounds strongly Biblical, but it is not; it may well, however, be religious. 

Epictetus is typically considered the most religious of the Roman Stoics.... Here we see why the Stoic conception of Nature, derived from the study of physics and theology, is essential to understanding this holistic philosophical system. Both oikeiosis and theology fall under the topic of physics in Stoicism. Thus, whether the Stoics began with oikeiosis or theology, they grounded their ethical theory in physics—the study of nature.

...the Stoic divinity is immanent. As such, a fragment of the same logos that providentially orders the cosmos resides in us as our guiding principle (hegemonikon).

There is thus perhaps something similar in the imagery of the Captain calling you back to the ship as in Matthew's warning to always be ready for the call to judgment; there may even be something similar in the concept of being ready to leave your wife and child at call and Jesus' suggestion that you should be ready to abandon your father and family to follow him. The logos that orders the world is the touchstone of similarity here; the difference is in the conception of how that logos is expressed in the cosmos.

I think I would say that Epictetus' conception of the Captain is one of moral duty, which must be obeyed by the Stoic because it is his business. It is, indeed, his whole proper business to do the right thing, the virtuous thing, according to his rational understanding of what the right thing is. In this, too, he prefigures Kant's arguments. Perhaps, indeed, his version is better. 

On Aerosols

I wouldn’t link this if it was just another COVID piece, but it’s got a lot more going for it. There are lessons from scholars of the 1930s and 40s that were lost, from the beginning of germ warfare and the efforts to protect the lungs of miners. Much that we once knew might have helped, but some ideas become unpopular and are thus dismissed— even in hard scientific fields. 

Enchiridion VI

 VI

Be not elated at any excellence not your own. If a horse should be elated, and say, “I am handsome,” it might be endurable. But when you are elated and say, “I have a handsome horse,” know that you are elated only on the merit of the horse. What then is your own? The use of the phenomena of existence. So that when you are in harmony with nature in this respect, you will be elated with some reason; for you will be elated at some good of your own.

Eventually the first principle invoked there is going to encompass things like 'being hansdome' as well. It might be endurable for your horse to glory in being handsome because he is an irrational beast, but you ought not to do so:  you didn't earn it. 

Here the argument is that you should only be elated about internal accomplishments. For example, perhaps you successfully did a hard and virtuous thing instead of the pleasant thing you'd have rather done. That is something to feel good about, an honest accomplishment. Feeling good because you happen to have a pretty face -- which is only a semblance, after all -- is a mistake. That doesn't belong to you properly because it is not an accomplishment of your own.

Later we will find that this extends to not feeling bad about losing the things you didn't earn. Age robs many of beauty, and this is a source of great consternation to many. Epictetus is going to argue that they should not think it so; fate gave them beauty, not their own actions. Just as they have no cause to glory in what they did not earn neither should they mourn for having a thing they never earned taken away. 

Whereas no one can take away your proper pride in a just and virtuous action. This is a point that Aristotle also makes in his writings on the capstone virtue of magnanimity (called 'pride' in that translation, but it is properly the quality of having a 'great soul'). The magnanimous man does what is right because it is worthy of honor, but he does not care if people of little honor praise him or condemn him. Should they condemn him, he knows internally that he has done the honorable thing; their attempt to pile dishonor on him does not attach to his own sense of honor, as he knows it is unjust. "The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on." 

The narrative drifts

It's the End Times: Even in the New Yorker, Americans are now permitted to express the former heresy that pandemic measures have both costs and benefits that must be weighed together, that panicked over-reaction itself has costs, and that data do not always yield simple answers.

Ninjas

HRT 1, mysterious figure 0.  We may never know what motivated this young man with a "British" accent that some might characterize as Middle Eastern to take four hostages during a Shabbat service and demand the release of a notorious Al Quaeda operative, but he has achieved stable ambient temperature.  No hostages or law enforcement officers were injured.

I was just listening to a thriller on tape last night about jihadists taking hostages in the White House.  It's nice to root for the rescuers in real life.

Enchiridion V

 V

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things. Thus death is nothing terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death, that it is terrible. When, therefore, we are hindered or disturbed, or grieved, let us never impute it to others, but to ourselves—that is, to our own views. It is the action of an uninstructed person to reproach others for his own misfortunes; of one entering upon instruction, to reproach himself; and one perfectly instructed, to reproach neither others nor himself.

This is an excellent section, challenging and complex in just a few words. There is a great deal to wrestle with here.  

Snowfall

We're getting a bit of snow up here in the mountains overnight. I may or may not be around for a bit depending on how that goes. We've got chainsaws and chains on the truck, chains on the firetrucks, plenty of firewood and water. We're as ready as I know how to make us for it, so hopefully it will merely be a beautiful and pleasant interlude. 

Obamacare tactics so nice, we had to try them twice

I assume everyone's already heard about Schumer's legislative ploy to get around the Senate filibuster on the Federalize Voting Fraud bill. The Senate passed a benign bill addressing the need to renew some leasing powers of NASA, which then went to the House, which stripped out ever word and filled the empty vessel with an unholy mixture of two pending "Enable All the Election Fraud" bills that have been floating around for the last year without getting enough support to pass. The House plans to pass this Trojan Horse with its slim majority, which I take it is feasible, and send it back to the Senate for final approval. The idea is that the filibuster doesn't apply in this situation, perhaps because it's supposed to be done under reconciliation rules? Even though it's clearly not a spending bill?

I'm a little lost, but here's what Neo has to say about it, and she tends to get this stuff right: the NASA empty-suit-filled-with-election-fraud-goodness scam bypasses only the need for 60 votes to bring the bill to the floor for debate, not the 60 votes needed actually to pass it. Whether Manchin would vote against bringing it to the floor for a vote—thus denying it even the 51-vote majority I guess is required for that purpose—I don’t know. He might be willing to have it debated even if he would refuse to vote for it on the merits in the end.

As for Manchin's vote on the merits, the word is that he initially supported a bill to make it more difficult for state legislatures to block Electoral College certifications, a measure that enjoys some bipartisan support.  Nevertheless, he does not at all support the measures like outlawing voter i.d.'s, legalizing ballot-harvesting, etc., that Schumer deems necessary to preserve democracy as we know it. If Neo is correct that in the end Fraudulus could not pass without 60 votes, I'm relieved. I'd rather not worry so much about Mr. Manchin's principles.

Enchiridion: An Aside

In the comments to the last post, J. Melcher writes:

It's a challenge to resist the human -- even animalistic -- urge to punish offenses against our instinctive sense of proper behaviors. Chickens will leave off feeding to enforce their status in the local pecking order. Canines defend their fair share of a carcass brought down in a pack hunt -- and enforce their rights to a hunting territory. Social animals will form mobs to drive away individuals who seem crazy or sick or challenging to the existing order.

I trust there will be a recommendation coming up about how to find the balance between accepting the trivial and standing up for what seems important.

There are some considerations that need to be raised about this. Epictetus was a long-time slave, for one; much of his life was not the life of a free man. Second, even when he was free he was a Roman citizen in the era of Empire rather than in the old Republic. Marcus Auerilius has a lot of concern with the public sphere, being an Emperor of Rome. Epictetus has relatively little. 

Our society of free men -- empowered to defend themselves and conduct citizens' arrests in cases of violence against the common peace and lawful order -- draws heavily on Medieval liberties that had not come to be in the time of Rome. The right to bear arms was a Medieval liberty of knights and lords, which came to be extended to free men in England through the process historian Sidney Painter described. The right of self-defense -- the right to defend one's home, because 'every Englishman's home is his castle,' the root of our Castle Doctrine -- these things arose in a later time, in the face of a weaker state that needed to reach out to ordinary people to support it and keep it stable. Sometimes these rights were compelled by rebellion against a state that tried to deny them, and could not successfully oppose its people, its knights, or its lords. 

These rights have also not always flourished. In some generations they have waned, because even natural rights must be remade in every generation. Nature provides grapes, but we must in every generation make the wine ourselves.

If you read the introduction to the Enchiridion at the page we are using, they point out that the Stoics became of interest in the early Modern age precisely for this reason.

That there was a rebirth of Stoicism in the centuries of rebirth which marked the emergence of the modern age was not mere chance. Philosophical, moral, and social conditions of the time united to cause it. Roman Stoicism had been developed in times of despotism as a philosophy of lonely and courageous souls who had recognized the redeeming power of philosophical reason in all the moral and social purposes of life. Philosophy as a way of life makes men free. It is the last ditch stand of liberty in a world of servitude. Many elements in the new age led to thought which had structural affinity with Roman Stoicism. Modern times had created the independent thinker, the free intellectual in a secular civilization. Modern times had destroyed medieval liberties and had established the new despotism of the absolute state supported by ecclesiastical authority.

Emphasis added. It is worth noting that the 'ecclesiastical authority' enlisted to support the absolute monarchy often represented a fragmentation of the earlier Church: in Germany as in England, the Catholic Church's authority was rejected because it was a source of opposition to the throne. In France and Spain, king and bishop found ways to reinforce one another. The space for liberty arises when powers are opposed, as our Federal government and our states are in key cases opposed; as our Supreme Court is meant to oppose the Congress or the Executive, and so forth. In the early Modern era, those oppositions often failed. 

The free mind is a space of liberty even when all else is constrained. Even if you are not free to stand up for what is right practically, you may still think what you will. Even if speaking your opposition would destroy you and your family, your means of making a living or perhaps even you actual freedom to exist outside prison walls -- or to exist at all -- your mind can remain free. This was true even of a Roman slave, who managed to inspire generations after him who came up in bad times. 

It does not excuse us who are free from fighting for our practical freedom, nor does it excuse us from dying for it if necessary. Yet we should recognize Epictetus as a comrade in the fight for liberty, even if he never was as free as any of us have been.

I have another theory

 A NYT writer muses (link is to HotAir, not NYT) on why people are having public tantrums:

Being told you can’t have x, y, or z is no longer just a disappointment, it’s a challenge and a reminder that you’re not in control of anything. And I think that when you cram a bunch of people already feeling that way into a tight space like an airplane, it’s not surprising that a lot more fights are breaking out than usual.

Maybe something else to consider is why a lot of people failed to learn any life strategies for situations when they didn't get exactly what they want as soon as they demanded it.

Enchiridion IV

 IV

When you set about any action, remind yourself of what nature the action is. If you are going to bathe, represent to yourself the incidents usual in the bath—some persons pouring out, others pushing in, others scolding, others pilfering. And thus you will more safely go about this action if you say to yourself, “I will now go to bathe and keep my own will in harmony with nature.” And so with regard to every other action. For thus, if any impediment arises in bathing, you will be able to say, “It was not only to bathe that I desired, but to keep my will in harmony with nature; and I shall not keep it thus if I am out of humor at things that happen.”

Obviously the example turns on a public bath, a Roman tradition. This is very urbane advice: if you should see some pilfering going on in the city, forget it, Jake. ("It's Chinatown.") The nature of the thing -- the city -- means that there will be a certain number of thieves about. You'll see a certain number of homeless. Beggars will confront you. The poor will always be with you. It's just the way it is.

Accepting the world as it is, according to the nature of the thing, is another core insight. The nature of the city is of course human nature, and the city is the environment that is in a sense the most human of all: the environment reformed by human will in accord with human nature. It is human nature that produces the thieves.

Trusting the experts

It appears to amaze some of my acquaintances, particularly constituents who don't know me very well and evidently pay no attention to information about the usual origin of my opinions, that I don't universally despise experts. Uncritically believe them, no, of course not, but there is an initial step required to induce enough doubt to justify a personal investigation. That initial step, contrary to popular view, involves facts rather than feelz.

In recent weeks, my community has been roiled by a series of podcasts and letters to the editor suggesting that an old "red bed" on the edge of the county is going to destroy our local environment. Red beds are disposal pits for the residue of smelting aluminum from bauxite ore. Very little aluminum smelting gets done in the U.S. any more, the local manufacturers having been subjected to new environmental standards that drastically reduced the more troublesome trace products in the residue, while simultaneously making the process so much more expensive that recycling is now more cost-effective. Apparently the U.S. currently relies more on recycled aluminum than mined, though China, for instance, is still smelting like crazy. Nevertheless, decades of previous smelting have left a lot of red beds full of bauxite residue. 

Red beds don't take their lurid color from anything exotic, just a high proportion of iron oxide (rust) in the bauxite. The usual bad rap against aluminum smelting is not so much the chemical byproducts as the fact that it's an absolute electricity hog, because the smelting process is a kind of electrolysis, like a giant battery. In addition, however, red mud is extremely alkaline (pH 10 to 13), so you definitely do not want it to escape its confinement and flow into any waterways in high concentrations. In a few highly publicized disasters, such as one in Hungary, this has happened on a large enough scale to sterilize a waterway, at least temporarily. Dilution apparently clears the problem up eventually, but it's serious. What's more, although red beds that dispose of relatively new and cleaner smelting may be chemically fairly benign other than their alkalinity, the fact remains that residue from older or dirtier smelters may contain a variety of toxins such as mercury and various hydrocarbons, including flouride compounds. In the case of a smelter in the county to our north, the red beds were of a particularly vile sort that dumped enough mercury into the bay system to prompt a Superfund designation. The mercury levels have been reported to have dropped substantially in the years since the designation and remediation.

The red bed at issue in my own county today is on the other end, to the south, and is not a Superfund site. Until today, all I could find out from people with their hair on fire was that they feared this complex of red beds was like the red beds to the north, or like other worse examples elsewhere in the world. The state version of the EPA, called Texas Council on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) doesn't think so, but of course there is the usual suspicion that they're in league with industry flacks, as must be anyone who believes a word TCEQ says. Also, it's obvious that the red beds are deadly because the complex paid a lot of ad valorem taxes without ensuring that the locals participated somehow in their profits. I need more than the first argument to be excited into action, and the second argument I reject with contempt.

This morning, however, to my delight, someone forwarded me a genuinely helpful and informative document: a soil- and water-testing report, admittedly over 20 years old, attached to a TCEQ motion filed in 2016 in the federal bankruptcy proceedings of the former owner of the red beds. I can't tell offhand how serious are the problems it identified, but it did identify some, thus establishing that at least some of the red mud at this site came from some of the older and dirtier smelting sites, and some of the problems did make their way into some groundwater. With that lead, I can figure out what happened in the bankruptcy, including who is the current owner and what entities are still stuck with the clean-up liability, which was reported to have been estimated some years ago at $10MM minimum. Did TCEQ manage to find a solvent entity to undertake remediation, and was it effective? Have followup tests been done? The concerned citizens this time around allege that TCEQ is engaging in a "closure" rather than a remediation, which may be true; it may even be warranted. Evidently the most common strategy for red beds is to leave them alone and let them dry in place, while controlling red dust in dry and windy conditions. There's some effort to learn cost-effective ways to extract their more valuable trace elements, but I don't think anything like that is being attempted here.

In the meantime, people are posting podcasts showing the bright red ponds and letting that image work on the public's feelz. This is a state-law regulation issue, not a county one, but the concerned citizens believe, with some justification, that if TCEQ is dropping the ball then the county leadership should investigate and light a fire under them. I'm willing to do the investigation. I'd have been more willing sooner if I'd been approached with more light and less heat, and far less jumping to conclusions about the ulterior motives of anyone whose hair isn't equally on fire. Why do people think it's a winning strategy to appear at a public meeting to denounce motives? Even a skeptical governing body would be more likely to be brought on board if the concerned citizens concentrated on providing clear evidence of a problem instead of speculating about cover-ups for nefarious purposes. The defensive rage spurred by a question like "But what makes you conclude that TCEQ's remediation efforts have been ineffective to date?" is amazing. "Stop attacking me! You're part of the problem! You must think money is more important that preventing the poisoning of our bays!" There's also a serious difficulty in distinguishing between being attacked and not being believed uncritically--especially not being believed about things that even the concerned citizen hasn't investigated yet, let alone ones that I personally haven't investigated yet.

I'm not running for this office again, I'm done at the end of 2022. This has been enough service, I guess. I may paint and crochet for the rest of my life with a perfectly clear conscience.

Our Opponents are Psychopaths Part MCMLXIII

I suppose we should give some credit for willingness to declare that Trump-supporting was not the key metric. Still:

[W]e found that it’s not conservatives in general who tend to promote false information, but rather a smaller subset of them who also share two psychological traits: low levels of conscientiousness and an appetite for chaos. Importantly, we found that several other factors we tested for — including support for former President Donald Trump — did not reliably predict an inclination to share misinformation.

You can make of that what you want, I guess, but they claim that "in the early months of the pandemic, conservatives were more likely to believe Covid-19 was a hoax, and to downplay the virus’ severity." I seem to recall that, in the early months, it was the Nancy Pelosis of the world who declared that you should go join the Chinese New Year celebrations in your local town. Trump's ban on travel from China was painted as racist, and not by conservatives. His follow-on ban on travel from Europe was painted as wild-eyed.

Can LCCs be prevented from sharing falsities? One of the most common measures for combating misinformation is using accurate messaging or fact-checker interventions, which have been shown to reduce the sharing of misinformation. Unfortunately, in two studies, we found that fact-checking warnings were inadequate: LCCs continued to share fake news stories at a higher rate compared with liberals and high-conscientiousness conservatives, despite being told the news was inaccurate.

This would be more persuasive if the "fact-checkers" weren't so reliably pro-establishment propaganda. I can't recall one I've read recently that wasn't designed to short-circuit debate and reaffirm the position of the powerful. 

At the same time, our research overall suggests a path forward. First, those seeking to combat false information online can now target their interventions toward a smaller subset of the population: LCCs. More targeted approaches have been shown to be effective in influencing individual behavior in the past.

Second, our research makes clear that anyone trying to reach LCCs needs to experiment with interventions that go beyond fact-checking. We believe the onus falls primarily on social media companies. There is plenty of evidence that a user’s personality and political ideology can be inferred based on their social media activity. If these companies can identify LCCs, that means they can also be proactive in making sure LCCs are presented with reliable information, and not with falsities.

Misinformation is a serious threat to American democracy that deserves serious attention. 

This sounds like a desire to identify likely enemies and make sure they don't have access to any information that isn't approved by their betters. Thoughts must be controlled to protect democracy.

I have an alternative suggestion: why not have real debates in which people can put forward their views honestly as they understand them? I don't listen to podcasts, but Joe Rogan's apparently hosted an alternative viewpoint that embarrassed him -- and his response was to admit that his opponent was smart and well-informed, but then to cite his source for having believed otherwise.

Reasonable people are grappling with all this stuff as well as they can. If democracy is in fact the goal, you have to begin by accepting that ordinary people will be making decisions. While expert opinions may be helpful to them in areas where they are not themselves experts, they also don't know which experts are trustworthy and legitimate. The more the powerful seem to be trying to winnow the field to eliminate opposing views, the less trust they're going to have for the ones endorsed by the powerful.

Open and honest discussion is the only real way forward. Rogan is a mixed martial arts guy, not a scientist. But everyone is grappling with this, whatever their backgrounds. All of them have to come to individual decisions about what to do: that's real democracy. You've got to trust them to engage the discussion, and give them space to do it well. The more the powerful try to suppress and control, the more they end up delegitimizing their preferred speakers in the eyes of the ordinary person. They may not be expert enough to understand the science or to identify the true expert from the fake one, but they can definitely tell when pressure is being employed to try to keep them from reaching any but the approved conclusion. 

Tech crash?

Or maybe just tech bailout? If they're woke enough. Linked by Powerline:

You have a certain fire in your 20’s. Ready to reform and change everything. You get noticed when you perform. Promoted, bonuses, etc. But eventually you keep hitting the same problems or gatekeepers over and over. I recall asking an older coworker (mid-thirties at the time) what drove him, and he said he just does it for the paycheck now. I’m at that point. Lost the fire for career and collecting my paycheck for other purposes in life where the fire has been rekindled.

I worked remote for 5 years at a prior job and this was never the case. There’s something special about this combo of remote and “your feelings are valid”.

I know this isn’t just my company because I’ve interviewed at many other companies (Big Tech and Unicorns). Awful conduct at interviews. Demoralized employees who show up late, unprepared, or absolutely do not want to be there.

Things my coworkers spend an enormous amount of their day on: – Coming up with a “clever” new Zoom background each day (something Harry Potter or Star Wars like children) – Clever Slack emojis – Reddit style responses in threads (“First!) and other low brow irony for the lulz.

Dog-eat-dog competition

From Arnold King:

If you think that competition for wealth in a capitalist economy is bad, consider the alternatives. In particular, think about competition for money and power in an economy where markets are weak and government is strong.

Recall Bryan Caplan’s aphorism:

Free markets are awesome because they give business incentives to do good stuff that sounds bad. Governments are awful because they give politicians incentives to do bad stuff that sounds good.

The institutions that emerged out of the Enlightenment that set up competition in various realms, including scientific research and business, all worked well for a long time. But those institutions are threatened by people offering false utopian alternatives.

Dirty underwear

You've got to wonder when people are going to learn not to confess their corrupted professional ethics in emails.

The emails unveiled this week reveal no good scientific reason at all for why these leading virologists changed their minds and became deniers rather than believers in even the remote possibility of a lab leak, all in just a few days in February 2020. No new data, no new arguments. But they do very clearly reveal a blatant political reason for the volte-face. Speculating about a lab leak, said Ron Fouchier, a Dutch researcher, might ‘do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular’. Francis Collins was pithier, worrying about ‘doing great potential harm to science and international harmony’. Contradicting Donald Trump, protecting science’s reputation at all costs and keeping in with those who dole out large grants are pretty strong incentives to change one’s mind.

And then they whine that no one will believe the science. I believe in science, but not in all scientists.

Enchiridion III

 III

With regard to whatever objects either delight the mind or contribute to use or are tenderly beloved, remind yourself of what nature they are, beginning with the merest trifles: if you have a favorite cup, that it is but a cup of which you are fond of—for thus, if it is broken, you can bear it; if you embrace your child or your wife, that you embrace a mortal—and thus, if either of them dies, you can bear it.

This one moves quickly from the trivial to the most catastrophic losses. In that way it may seem to equate them, though Epictetus clearly intends to set a priority: begin with the most trivial, and continue all the long way. 

Romans lost children a lot more often than we do, and wives as well due to the heightened likelihood of death in childbirth. A preparation for this likelihood of devastating experience is one of the things that people would have found attractive in Stoicism. 

Among the dictates, this one in particular reminds me of Zen instruction. "See the cup as already broken," Zen advises, recognizing not only that it is the kind of thing that can be broken -- "remind yourself of what nature they are" -- but that its breaking is so certain that you should already be aware that it will ultimately not survive. For a while you may continue with it, but it is broken at some point in future time: when you get there, well, you were always going to get there. 

Death is certain, too, your own and not only the deaths of others. Keeping that thought in the forefront of the mind will prove to be a crucial part of the Stoic approach. So too Zen, at least as expressed in bushido.

In Praise of Senator Sinema

Senator Sinema, defending the filibuster, sounds more like a statesman worthy of the body than anyone else sitting there. Democrats may not believe it today, but they will soon be grateful that she defended this tool that allows the minority to prevent sweeping legislation that lacks widespread consent. 

Honesty is a Virtue

Being honest with yourself, especially; but being honest with the public in a public matter, also.

Had she been held to the previous criteria, she would have failed, according to her score sheet and memo. The change was so recent that her scores were still marked as a failure on electronic records when she took the test in late March 2021, since the grading database wasn’t updated with the new rubric, according to the paperwork and a source familiar with it....

The author of the anonymous letter said the female airman has tried to quit training three times — twice in water confidence sessions and once during land navigation. Self-elimination has long meant that an airman’s attempt to join special tactics is over, yet documents show a different standard applied to the female captain.... She was allowed to continue despite the instructors’ objections, the trainer said.

It may well be that historians will record these diversity efforts as heralding the end of American military dominance, and with it the American-led global order. They may not be American historians, though.  

Hate Speech at Facebook

This story at the Washington Post begins with a two-paragraph lurid example targeting 'the Squad,' followed by several paragraphs of Facebook 'balking' in a way that is described as 'on the side of racists.' The whole piece is structured to assert that Facebook is actively trying to expose black people especially to harmful views. 

Yet there are two paragraphs in the middle that draw the eye.

The algorithm was aggressively detecting comments denigrating White people more than attacks on every other group, according to several of the documents. One April 2020 document said roughly 90 percent of “hate speech” subject to content takedowns were statements of contempt, inferiority and disgust directed at White people and men, though the time frame is unclear. And it consistently failed to remove the most derogatory, racist content. The Post previously reported on a portion of the project.

Researchers also found in 2019 that the hate speech algorithms were out of step with actual reports of harmful speech on the platform. In that year, the researchers discovered that 55 percent of the content users reported to Facebook as most harmful was directed at just four minority groups: Blacks, Muslims, the LGBTQ community and Jews, according to the documents.

When human users report hate speech, then, 55% of reports are of speech targeting blacks, Muslims, the LGBTQ community and/or Jews; but when the machine blindly identifies and removes denigrating comments, 90% of them target white people and/or men. 

The piece's clear perspective is that this shows that the algorithm is failing, as it is identifying content to remove that is different from what the human users think should be removed. The alternative is that our society has a clear bias towards allowing hate speech towards men and/or white people, and that it is only the other sorts of bias that violate our norms enough for people to report it.  

Enchiridion II

 II

Remember that desire demands the attainment of that of which you are desirous; and aversion demands the avoidance of that to which you are averse; that he who fails of the object of his desires is disappointed; and he who incurs the object of his aversion is wretched. If, then, you shun only those undesirable things which you can control, you will never incur anything which you shun; but if you shun sickness, or death, or poverty, you will run the risk of wretchedness. Remove [the habit of] aversion, then, from all things that are not within our power, and apply it to things undesirable which are within our power. But for the present, altogether restrain desire; for if you desire any of the things not within our own power, you must necessarily be disappointed; and you are not yet secure of those which are within our power, and so are legitimate objects of desire. Where it is practically necessary for you to pursue or avoid anything, do even this with discretion and gentleness and moderation.

What are the undesirable things that you can control? They are things like your attitudes towards events or people. Things occur that are outside your control, but you do get to decide how you react to them. Ray Wylie Hubbard put this in the end of his talking blues song "Mother Blues" as 'keeping his gratitude higher than his expectations.' The same things are happening to you externally, but the internal thing that you can control changes what the experience is like for you in crucial ways. You can shun the bad reactions, and pursue the good ones.

I saw someone remark the other day that if you choose not to find the joy in snowy days then your life will have less joy, but the same amount of snow. That is roughly the insight here.

The virus was still there, but we did not die of it any more

 

Enchiridion I

 THE ENCHIRIDION

I

There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs.

Now the things within our power are by nature free, unrestricted, unhindered; but those beyond our power are weak, dependent, restricted, alien. Remember, then, that if you attribute freedom to things by nature dependent and take what belongs to others for your own, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you take for your own only that which is your own and view what belongs to others just as it really is, then no one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you; you will find fault with no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing against your will; no one will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will you suffer any harm.

Aiming, therefore, at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself any inclination, however slight, toward the attainment of the others; but that you must entirely quit some of them, and for the present postpone the rest. But if you would have these, and possess power and wealth likewise, you may miss the latter in seeking the former; and you will certainly fail of that by which alone happiness and freedom are procured.

Seek at once, therefore, to be able to say to every unpleasing semblance, “You are but a semblance and by no means the real thing.” And then examine it by those rules which [you have; and first and chiefly by this: whether it concerns the things which are within our own power or those which are not; and if it concerns anything beyond our power, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.

In defining everything outside our own mind as a 'semblance,' Epictetus predicts the move that Immanuel Kant will make during the Modern era. For Kant, everything we know about the outside world has to go through a process of simplification he calls 'transcendental apperception.' For example, our mind takes the evidence of our five different senses about some outside event and unifies it into a single event. Thus, in an important way Epictetus is correct: our evidence about what is going on outside of our mind is a kind of semblance, something different from what the things out there really are. His claim that we can dismiss these things as 'merely' a semblance is more difficult, but even Kant will affirm that we can only know the semblances -- the phenomena -- and not the true world outside (the noumena). 

In the first section we get the core charge, which is stunning in its difficulty. Who among us could really not care if we suffered in our body, for example? I ride motorcycles fully aware that I run the hazard of being crippled every time I do, but that does not imply that I have no concern about the matter. The same with horses; one might break one's back doing that, but the fact that one rides anyway does not imply that one does not care if one broke one's back. Nor, ordinarily, would we regard a failure to be concerned about dangers like this as if it were praiseworthy. Aristotle would call it a kind of rashness, not a true form of courage but its excess. 

Once Lancelot conveyed his willingness to face injury or death in battle to a lady, though, saying, "All shall be welcome that God sends." Arguably this is the fault of Job, who endured losses such as are described here without complaint until the losses touched his own body (as Satan thought would be the case). By the end of the book he confesses that God's judgment, and not his own, is the righteous one; and Jesus, asking that 'this cup' might pass him, nevertheless adds that it should be according to the will of the Father and not his own. There is good warrant in myth and faith that Epictetus is on to something here. 

In any case this is the heart of the thing: to divide the world into that which we can master, and that over which we ultimately have no control, and then to concern ourselves with the area of our own mastery. That is what principally concerns us, and the thing we have the power -- and perhaps the honor -- to perfect. 

The Enchiridion

Last year we got through several works of Plato's here, and I think that was time well spent. This year I want to start with something a little different: a work of Stoicism. Stoicism is an approach to philosophy deeply informed by both Plato and Aristotle, but different in character and in expression. Like Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics are concerned with virtue. For the earlier thinkers, though, virtue was about action that was meant to shape the world. For Plato, virtue might enable the construction of a good society in which the heights of the human condition might be attained. For Aristotle, courage was the virtue that won wars, and magnanimity the virtue that shone the path to the highest and noblest accomplishments. By nature, wars and honorable accomplishments are public matters, and entail striving in the public sphere and sometimes against others who are in competition. 

The Stoics are going to propose an inward looking approach to virtue, one that sets aside the outer world as being imperfectly (at best) within our sphere of influence. Thus, they will suggest, we should focus on that which we really do control: our attitudes, our reactions, our thoughts, ourselves. In this way we relinquish concern with that whose gain or loss we cannot really control, and become intimately concerned with what we can perfectly shape. Courage is not about winning wars, although you might win a war along the way. It is about learning to face danger and potential loss -- even of the body, as one might in war -- without being concerned about it. 

The Stoics did sometimes nevertheless win public honors; Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor, in fact, and accounted one of the good ones. We are going to begin with a work by Epictetus, who was born a slave. He attained his freedom sometime after the death of Nero, in Rome, and began to teach; later, Rome banned philosophers and he had to retreat to another corner of the empire. 

The Enchiridion reads to me much more like Zen philosophy than the Greek philosophy from which it properly draws. There are fifty-one sections; some of them are only one sentence long. Nevertheless, like the Zen aphorisms they merit reflection and consideration. They are unlike the extended narratives of Plato, or the extended arguments of Aristotle. I do not think that I will need to comment nearly as extensively on them to make them accessible, but I will as I think appropriate. Mostly I will put them in front of you, and we can discuss them. I'll try to do one a day, which will take us through the two coldest months of the year with good thoughts as our company. 

More good news

During Kyle Rittenhouse's trial, the prosecutor brought what I thought were vindictive charges against Rittenhouse's friend Dominic Black immediately after Rittenhouse testified to how Black supplied him with a rifle on the day of the shootings.  The prosecutor appears to have thrown in the towel on those charges, or almost.

I can't find the original link, which may have been from PJ Media, but this NY Post article is similar.

Supply line blues

Our grocery store continues to have a slightly iffy inventory, but not too bad. What was surprising today was to find that Sherwin Williams may need a month or even two to supply us with the paint we want for a long-delayed project. The oil-based products, in particular, are arriving at stores in the Texas Coastal Bend only every few or weeks or even months. I briefly considered trying out one of the new latex trim paints, but can't quite make myself do it. Latex trim paint was a horrible product in my youth, but my youth is now several decades away. Supposedly the new ones dry to a very hard, durable finish, have better adherence to an undercoat of oil-based trim paint, and have much better flow. Nevertheless, if I'm going to give the newfangled latex product a try, it won't be in the most public room of my house.

So the painting project, which took me over six months to find a painter ready to work on it, will now be delayed for another month or two. On the plus side, we survived hosting our first political shindig last night and don't have to dive directly into boxing up hundreds of books today so as to get the bookcases ready to paint.

We conducted an indoor clean sweep fore and aft in preparation for the party, in case the weather chased us and our guests inside (which it didn't), so I've put away my craft oil-painting station at last. Because I'm starting an oil-painting class that will meet for 3 hours every Thursday morning for the next seven weeks, it's probably best to assume that will satisfy my painting urges for now. That left no choice, naturally, but to take up another crochet project. Whether or not my idle hands are the Devil's workshop, the fact remains that I pretty need to be doing something with my hands at all times.