Solutions for non-believers

The cool thing about markets is that they can solve problems even for people who are deeply suspicious of markets' supposedly cold indifference to altruism.

13 Hours, Trailer 2

Gun Control Test Vote: VA Senate

Strike one.

You think they'll figure this out before it's too late?

Related news: gun sales back at record highs, six months running.

A Winner in Relativity v. Quanta?

An article describes the ongoing debate among physicists.

Shotgun Boogie

So, Ted Cruz went hunting, as candidates do in election years, and...

Staunch gun rights advocate Ted Cruz is here seen holding a shotgun while being interviewed by CNN. Can you see what he’s doing wrong? That’s right, he’s violating the first two rules of gun safety.

When you learn to shoot, apply for a hunting or carry license and any time you’re at a gun range, there’s four basic rules of gun safety that — and this is impressed on you very strongly — must be observed at all times:

1) Treat all guns as if they are loaded.
2) Never point a firearm at something you’re not willing to destroy.
3) Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
4) Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

Properly observed, these rules are almost entirely capable of preventing accidental shootings.

Those four rules are good, but the first one is properly "Treat all guns as if they are loaded, until you have personally checked it right now to be sure it is unloaded." After all, you couldn't disassemble a firearm to clean it if you could never treat it as if it were unloaded. Cruz personally knows his firearm is unloaded because the breech is open and empty, as we can all plainly see in real time.

Likewise, the muzzle rule applies to firearms except when you have personally checked them right now to ensure they are unloaded. Otherwise, how could you transport one to wherever you were going to hunt? You couldn't drive your car with the thing stored in the trunk without the muzzle becoming pointed at things it shouldn't were it loaded.

Fortunately, in addition to the four rules of gun safety, there is another method that is "almost entirely capable of preventing accidental shootings," which is to ensure the firearm is not loaded. Without ammunition in it, a firearm is quite inert.

The most amusing thing about this to me is that the same story ran in 2008 about then-Governor Palin, who was photographed holding a shotgun with the breech open (in this case, not over her shoulder but under her arm). "Is that even the right way to hold a rifle?" demanded critics. "Can't you shoot your foot off like that?"

Turns out that you really can't. But hey, let's have a song.

The Length is Part of the Point

A poem on English pronunciation.

America in 2016, As Viewed from Classical Athens

Plato, in Laws III, talks about the two sorts of ruin that afflicted Persia and Athens. It strikes a familiar chord on both terms. How familiar does this sound, when thinking of the corruption of the Clintons or the endless regulation of the Obama faction?

We remarked that the Persians grew worse and worse. And we affirm the reason of this to have been, that they too much diminished the freedom of the people, and introduced too much of despotism, and so destroyed friendship and community of feeling. And when there is an end of these, no longer do the governors govern on behalf of their subjects or of the people, but on behalf of themselves; and if they think that they can gain ever so small an advantage for themselves, they devastate cities, and send fire and desolation among friendly races. And as they hate ruthlessly and horribly, so are they hated; and when they want the people to fight for them, they find no community of feeling or willingness to risk their lives on their behalf[.]

As this faction pursues further restriction on our ancient liberties, now on guns as earlier on freedom of speech, religious liberty, freedom of association, and politically-incorrect expression, they find there is no trust left among the people. Why can we not discuss 'common sense gun regulations'?  Because no one can trust that such regulations are not a back door to confiscation.  We are unable to reason together because of decades of bad faith.

Who will enforce these new laws in any case?  Will the people they want to fight for them comply?  Will the police, whom they have hated upon ruthlessly and horribly for more than a year?  Will the military, which is drawn in plurality from the part of the country they hate most ruthlessly and horribly of all?

As for the right, or what passes for it among common Americans today, the situation is a wave of support for... a reality-TV judge.

[A]s time went on, the poets themselves introduced the reign of vulgar and lawless innovation.... And by composing such licentious works, and adding to them words as licentious, they have inspired the multitude with lawlessness and boldness, and made them fancy that they can judge for themselves about melody and song. And in this way the theatres from being mute have become vocal, as though they had understanding of good and bad in music and poetry; and instead of an aristocracy, an evil sort of theatrocracy has grown up. For if the democracy which judged had only consisted of educated persons, no fatal harm would have been done; but in music there first arose the universal conceit of omniscience and general lawlessness;-freedom came following afterwards, and men, fancying that they knew what they did not know, had no longer any fear, and the absence of fear begets shamelessness.

Donald Trump is a theatrocrat if ever there was one. His judgments are judgments of the sort Plato fixes his gaze upon here, and he has like the theatrocrat of old swayed the audience into believing that they can judge as well. Watching these shows, and rendering judgments as if they knew what they were talking about, is now the pastime of millions. I have seen only enough of these shows to know that everyone in the audience is boldly stating their opinion about which chef did best in the competition -- though they have never studied cooking, and never tasted the food.

They love Trump because he is bold in just this way:  loudly, fearlessly, and in ignorance. This is the last power they sometimes feel they have, to judge as he does. They want to believe in it.

There is a real danger that he will win. There is a very powerful wind at his back. There is a despair eating the heart of middle aged Americans without college. When we see a demographic collapse brought on by suicide, alcohol and drugs, unheard of except among Russian men after the fall of the Soviet Union, we know we are talking about something much more powerful than a passing fancy. It is the pain of a people who have come to believe that their lives are worse than wasted, who are ashamed to live without work or on government aid, who are in pain from finding themselves useless and without a place or a point. They are not only hurt, but righteously angry.

This has been brought on by the pressures against this class of our fellow Americans brought by those who support massive immigration and globalization, either because they hoped to fundamentally change the nature of America, or because they sought campaign donations from corporations that benefit from cheaper labor. It is the fault of those who have ensured that all new jobs since the start of the recession have gone to immigrants. They have called down this whirlwind.

I do not distrust my fellow Americans, especially not the poor and downtrodden members of this class, who have suffered so much at the hands of those who dare to think themselves their betters.  I feel a great loyalty to them, and am angry at how they have been betrayed by the government -- of both parties -- which owed them fellowship and loyalty.  It is only that it is hard to think clearly in pain and anger, as I know too well myself.

From social media

Heh.

You May Find This Triggering

Project Veritas strikes again.

"Get Over It"

Hillary Clinton gives some advice to Africa.

It's not that different from the advice the President gave when he spoke in Kenya.

If you are an American, you should ask yourself: why are they giving you different advice?

Asking for her hand. A lesson.

So normally, I don't bother complaining about music or other elements of popular culture.  Partly because it does no good, but mostly because the general solution is simple, change the station.  But There is a song out there that annoys me.  Less because it is bad (though that is also true) but mostly for the message it passes along to young men.  You are welcome to give it a listen here, though I don't recommend it save to satisfy curiosity, but I will include the relevant lyrics below.

Kant and Warning Labels

If I were crafting a warning label for Kant's works,* it would not read as this one does:

This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.

First of all, any parents who are reading Kant's critiques with their children deserve our robust congratulations and are in no need of further guidance.

Secondly, the thing you really need to be warned about with Kant is that he doesn't use words like anyone else you know. You're going to encounter a lot of words that you think you recognize from a lifetime of reading, yet when Kant uses them all together they are not going to make any sense. This is because he made up his own language. Even in German, the problem is serious according to friends fluent in that tongue; in translation, it is severe. Assume that any word over two or three syllables is a technical term that means something specific for Kant that it never means for anyone else, and that you need to find out just what that meaning is to understand what he's trying to tell you.

Those are my first and second thoughts. Open Culture comes up with its own:

First, we must point out Wilder Publications’ strange certainty that a hypothetical Kant of today would express his ideas in tolerant and liberal language. The supposition has the effect of patronizing the dead philosopher and of absolving him of any responsibility for his blind spots and prejudices, assuming that he meant well but was simply a blinkered and unfortunate “product” of his time.

But who’s to say that Kant didn’t damn well mean his comments that offend our sensibilities today, and wouldn’t still mean them now were he somehow resurrected and forced to update his major works?

...

Secondly, who is this edition for?

Homeschoolers, apparently. The assumption that parents will be reading this with their children suggests to me that homeschooling may be a much better form of education than anything else going.

* (I want credit for avoiding in the headline all the horrible puns suggested by this story: "I Kant Believe This Publisher's Gall" and the like.)

Vortex

Einstein was right again.

Time and space, according to Einstein's theories of relativity, are woven together, forming a four-dimensional fabric called "space-time." The mass of Earth dimples this fabric, much like a heavy person sitting in the middle of a trampoline. Gravity, says Einstein, is simply the motion of objects following the curvaceous lines of the dimple. If Earth were stationary, that would be the end of the story. But Earth is not stationary. Our planet spins, and the spin should twist the dimple, slightly, pulling it around into a 4-dimensional swirl. This is what GP-B went to space in 2004 to check.

This Autumn, If It Were a Celtic Punk Song

Although without the clappy happy ending.

Or maybe

Still, my woes are my own danged fault. (Philosophy joke: What does the repentant solipsist say? It's all my fault!)

So, to happy endings ...

When Google Translate Hates Your Language

Galicia celebrates a local delicacy.

President Obama: You Know, We Could Use More Criminals In Government

I mean, I would have thought there to be no shortage.

Well, you know how on job applications, there's sometimes a little box that asks whether or not you've been convicted of a crime? With the wave of a pen, Obama just ordered that box to be removed from applications for jobs within the federal government, saying, "We can't dismiss people out of hand simply because of a mistake they made in the past."

You really can't make this stuff up.

"Simply because of a mistake" is fair enough, as applied to certain offenses. One might have said, "We shall no longer discriminate against certain kinds of offenses for certain kinds of positions." You could do a double-blind sort of thing with Federal hiring -- they employ enough people to do it -- whereby the first would filter to ensure that the crimes were of the right type to be ignored, and forward the listings stripped of criminal history to the actual hiring committee.

But, no. Instead, we won't consider criminal history... in hiring for government jobs, which come with government power... and somehow this makes sense? Somehow this is a good idea we should all get behind?

A Political Philosophy Wrapped in a Rant

This piece is really about the DMV not shining in comparison with the free market -- a point against which none of us are likely to argue -- but it is framed in an interesting account of the state.

[B]anditry frequently degenerates into a protection racket, a relatively modest tax on criminal enterprises and non-criminal enterprises alike. Protection rackets have their own challenges: For one thing, you actually do have to provide some protection, mainly from other predators like you. Over the years, economic success and administrative demands eventually transform bands of roving bandits into bands of stationary bandits. One popular theory of the state — one that is pretty well-supported by the historical evidence in the European context — is that this is where governments come from: protection rackets that survive for a long enough period of time that they take on a patina of legitimacy. At some point, Romulus-and-Remus stories are invented to explain that the local Mafiosi have not only historical roots but divine sanction.

Cf. Aristotle's account:

The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas 'companions of the cupboard,' and by Epimenides the Cretan, 'companions of the manger.' But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be suckled 'with the same milk.'...

When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.

I would say that there is a sense in which both are true for America, for example: the frontier was settled by families who came together in marriages and formed ever-stronger communities (Aristotle), with very limited support from a distant government that claimed authority and the right to tax (Williamson). The American Revolution is the elimination of the 'stationary bandits' by the Aristotelian states that had formed on the frontier. So we began in the right way, surely.

And yet here we are.

We need a better account, one that does not look for the evil as bred in the bone, but one that recognizes the evil as a corruption of what was once healthy. It won't lie in the traditional analyses of what went wrong with America -- not in slavery or racism, I mean, for America has proceeded against those evils as resolutely through its history as any diverse nation is likely to do. It is, rather, a turning away from the favoring of the small Aristotelian cells of natural government in favor of a stronger, alien state. It is, likewise, about the turning away from the natural producer of the smaller Aristotelian governments -- the family, and those brotherhoods of table and church that Aristotle describes later in the Politics:

It is clear then that a state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. These are conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together do not constitute a state, which is a community of families and aggregations of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life. Such a community can only be established among those who live in the same place and intermarry. Hence arise in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together. But these are created by friendship, for the will to live together is friendship. The end of the state is the good life, and these are the means towards it. And the state is the union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honorable life.

I suppose we might say that it is a turning away from the natural toward the artificial, but that wouldn't do for Aristotle: he thought it was the purpose of art to bring to fulfillment and perfection that which nature had, for whatever reason, left incomplete or imperfect.

Perhaps it is a good place to begin an inquiry, in any case. There are levels of government and forms of governance that, if it were all to disappear tomorrow, we families would move to come together and re-establish. These levels and forms are healthy. What more?

The Port of Amsterdam -- SAIL 2015

OPM

I got a note in the mail today from the Federal Government's Office of Personnel Management, letting me know that my security clearance information was among those stolen in the massive data breach we've read about. They've taken a page from Target -- the store, that favorite of Michelle Obama's -- by offering me three years of free identity theft protection by way of compensation.

Which is all well and good, but -- like the President's own pre-announced withdrawal timeline for his Afghanistan surge -- that only tells the Chinese how long they have to wait before going gangbusters with the stolen data. My personal interests aside, out of a simple concern with national security they ought to flag my data (and all our data that was stolen) forever, not for three years. Whoever stole this stuff knows everything there is to know about where I've lived and worked, has on file personal references from people who have been interviewed in support to the investigation, and so forth. You could obtain any kind of paperwork from the government, or for that matter from private banks, based on what's in that file.

Fair enough if the three years is a stopgap while they put something else in place to ensure that the stolen data can't be used by the hackers, although it's not clear what that "something" might be. Perhaps a marker that anyone affected must be handled on a different basis than past information, should they need new clearances (or loans).

Still, three years is not that long a time. The scale of this breach, targeting as it did those with security clearances, ought to merit a much more permanent and serious response. That's true even if the government only cares about its own security, and not at all about those of us who are personally compromised.

Once in a lifetime

From Maggie's Farm, images of the desert bloom resulting from historic rains in the driest place on Earth.