Legacies
Without being a Larry Summers fan, I thought he got the boot as Harvard's president under ridiculous circumstances. In this Bari Weiss interview about the future of legacy admission, Summers makes sensible points about the purpose of an elite university's admission process while avoiding several fashionable types of arrant nonsense. Mostly he seems to consider questions like: Should we care whether a student is self-motivated or simply allowing his over-involved parents to stuff his resume with expensive baubles? Does an applicant's history of overcoming adversity tell us how much he'll benefit from a challenging university curriculum? Do we trust ourselves to detect intellectual talent any more, or have we decided that we can teach calculus to a horse if we purify our politics sufficiently? If elitist topics like calculus aren't the point any more, then why not simply mail the diploma to anyone who asks for it, to level the playing field? OK, he doesn't ask those questions exactly, but his thoughts are tempting him into these dangerous heresies.
A question that caught my eye was whether the people paying a fortune in Harvard tuition legitimately expected their little darlings to get the whole Harvard experience, the most important part of which is developing a good rolodex in preparation for a life of nepotistic privilege. Not that I can't see the practical value of such an approach, but it meshes poorly with the image of Harvard as social justice warrior.
Off to the Wilderness
In addition to the TR General/Rope Rescue series I mentioned, I've been concurrently taking TR Wilderness classes on alternating weekends. This weekend is the last of those too, so by Sunday my summer of rescue classes will have come to an end. (If you're keeping track at home, I was already TR Water certified.)
I'll be out participating in the exercises and exams through Sunday. Have a good weekend.
UPDATE: It’s 8:40 PM Sunday and I’m back on station.
The night phase turned out to be a full scale search and rock rope-rescue by midnight. Both it and other phases were handled with great skill by everyone in spite of the difficulty of coming from different agencies and levels of government. My son, I am pleased to say, was part of the rope team on the cliff top. He’s coming along.
It almost turned into a real rescue. A 14 year old girl went missing yesterday, and they almost called off the exercise to have us participate in the search. Fortunately I’m told that she was located quickly, so we continued with the exercise.
“Hey y’all”
Quite a translation from the French.
I need to try to remember “Salut à toutes et à tous.” That could be a useful phrase sometime.
Duties versus Responsibilities
Last night I took the last exam in the Technical Rescuer - General series (which in NC is also combined with the Rope Rescue specialization). One of the multiple choice questions asked you whether certain things were DUTIES of the incident commander, or instead RESPONSIBILITIES.
These exams are often badly written. I have found them harder than the exams I took in graduate school, sometimes, just because of the bad writing by the exam authors. Sometimes the issue is that the questions are antiquated and haven't been replaced:
- Last night's exam also featured two questions about an acronym used in rope rescue, both the current one we were taught about and the old one they long ago replaced and no one had ever heard of before;
- another exam featured a series of questions about a type of harness that was long ago discontinued by NFPA, and about which we therefore knew nothing;
- a third exam had a Vietnam-era question about helicopters that hasn't been current in decades.
Those questions don't necessarily feature bad writing, just outdated information that needs to be cleaned up but apparently never is. They could be fixed if there were ever a review.
What really gets to me is the logic problems in the exams that are created by authors not understanding how logic works. One question on an early test asked if a kind of rescue material should be replaced after exposure to temperatures above 160 degrees Fahrenheit, 200 degrees, 220 degrees, or 240 degrees. Now logic will tell you that only 240 could be correct, as otherwise there would be multiple correct answers on a question that only accepts one. For example, if the correct answer were 220, then anything exposed to 240 should also be replaced because 240 > 220.
However, 220 was in fact the correct answer, and the fact that 240 was also correct didn't bother the authors. The question could have been asked differently without creating that problem, which is why test authors should have some training in logic. "What is the standard for the maximum temperature beyond which these materials should be replaced?" would not have created the same issue.
Here too the real point of the question was to see if you had memorized the exact wording of the answer. There is no technical distinction in the literature between 'duty' and 'responsibility' that would justify including both answers in the test. If you look up the definition for 'responsibility,' you will find that the appropriate entry includes the word 'duty.' Either of these words would, in ordinary English, correctly describe the concept. However, one of them was right, and the other was counted towards failure of the exam.
I imagine this sort of thing comes up in many similar technical fields. I know it's something that the authors of the Law School Admissions Test take seriously, because they hired a friend of mine who is a professional logician to review their tests. At the technical school level, though, students have fewer resources and are unlikely to sue if they should wrongfully fail an exam. They're just working class people who are expected to put up with it, as they are often expected to put up with worse conditions in society. You failed? Eh, repeat the course. It won't hurt you to hear it again.
Cyberpunk Update
Bionic hands are enjoying a significant improvement.
For the first time, a person with an arm amputation can manipulate each finger of a bionic hand as if it was his own. Thanks to revolutionary surgical and engineering advancements that seamlessly merge humans with machines, this breakthrough offers new hope and possibilities for people with amputations worldwide. A study presents the first documented case of an individual whose body was surgically modified to incorporate implanted sensors and a skeletal implant. A.I. algorithms then translated the user's intentions into movement of the prosthesis.
And, via Chicago Boyz, wearable devices are helping fight diabetes.
UPDATE: Military computer chips with human and mouse brain tissue.
Home in the High Country
It’s taken a day of travel, but I’ve returned home to the far blue mountains.* I won’t be here long; by the end of the month I’m due to wander out West for a time. For a few days, though, I’ll be here where things are familiar.
* Louis L’amour made the worst pun I know of in all his work at the end of that novel, when the protagonist sees the far blue mountains,’but he knew not their appellation.’
A Visit with Uncle J
Longtime readers will remember Uncle Jimbo, former Green Beret and fellow BLACKFIVE blogger. I dropped in on him today while passing through Arlington. He has a new sign.
It’s hilarious in the context of his neighbors, who all have those “IN THIS HOUSE WE..” rainbow signs they probably got at their Unitarian or Methodist church.
The Black Sea Deal
Russia suspended its participation in the Black Sea deal, which provided a grain corridor to the world from the war in Ukraine. Wheat prices jumped immediately, as they would given that Russia and Ukraine together provide a quarter of the world's supply. That said, the war has already lead to fluctuations.
Traditional Conservatism on Parade
The Orthosphere pens the most genuinely conservative post I have read in many years: an argument in favor of natural slavery.
Conservatives, following Aristotle, get there from time to time; I think it's close to literally unthinkable for liberals, for better or worse. Liberals often have very good minds, so finding something they cannot -- or will not allow themselves to -- think is surprising. Perhaps one of them could entertain the idea over beer, in private conversation with a trusted friend. Perhaps it is just socially so unacceptable as to be unthinkable and incapable of expression even as a potential idea in a public context.
The idea is severable from racism, and indeed should be severed from it: Aristotle was talking about his fellow Greeks, and the fictional Prime Minister the Orthosphere quotes about his fellow Britons. The issue has to do with virtue and vice, those who give themselves to one and those who give themselves to the other. It is an idea that has a long philosophical heritage, really at least as strong in Plato as in Aristotle, in Kant as in any Anglo-American thinker.
Liberalism began by emancipating the heretics, proceeded to emancipate the serfs and slaves, turned its hand to emancipation of the women, and has most recently been striking the manacles from off the wrists of sexual deviants and thieves. [Link added for emphasis. -Grim]There is a Pollyanna liberalism that believes emancipation must always be followed by improvement, that is full of childish self-confidence and hatred of restraint. Like a child sulking and chaffing under the restraints of his father’s house, Pollyanna liberalism does not see that there are dreadful possibilities in freedom. When a young man comes of age and is emancipated from the restraints of his father’s house, he soon discovers that he is free to stay up as late as he pleases, and also, if need be, to sleep on the street. He soon realizes that he is now free to eat whatever he likes, and also, if need be, to eat nothing at all.The dreadful possibilities of freedom become clear.
The idea is properly a significant challenge to those -- like myself -- who advocate for human freedom in the strongest terms. What should be done with those described? Plato's answer is a sort of ancient totalitarianism; Aristotle, a kind of slavery-for-their-own-good. Kant likes execution, frankly; he is high on the value of capital punishment. Probably I mostly like removing the protections that keep them from realizing the natural consequences of their actions, and letting them learn -- or letting them die.
What we've done instead is driven the idea out of the mind, which seems more and more popular as an approach. No good will come of that for certain. Hard ideas might breed hard men, but they might also engender thoughtful resolutions. Or both: we could do worse than having hard but thoughtful men, and probably will.
IRR
These numbers are fairly small, which suggests to me that they already had a specific list in mind. The Inactive Ready Reserve is generally the fate of those whose enlistment has otherwise ended, but are contractually obligated to remain available in that way for a certain period (usually 4 years). This is not necessarily cause for alarm; it may be more to do with recruiting shortfalls leaving them lacking a few companies’ soldiery.
Still, it looks like it is slated for Ukraine. Our continuing commitment to that conflict, which has already pushed a Democratic administration to endorse the cluster bombs they normally prefer to discuss as war crimes, has created an extended risk given that we are not formally a combatant in the war.
An End
I would note that this is not for the base brand, but for its "Platinum" high ABV version. Still, I tend to agree with the assessment that losing COSTCO is a big deal. Whether or not any lessons will be learned remains to be seen.
Maybe, though. This is the first big corporate property to die, rather than just to suffer a temporary setback, as a result of this foolishness. We'll see if that's enough to get their attention.
If you remember the movie, this happened right after William Wallace sacked York. Immediately after this scene, Longshanks muses that if Wallace can sack York, he can come after him, too.
Longshanks responds with aggression; will international corporations likewise? More censorship, more government oppression of parent teacher organizations and grassroots political groups? Or will they sue for peace?
Illusions of Moral Change
AVI asked earlier if we are experiencing an illusion of moral decline. There are arguments for and against this idea.
He presents a long comment as evidence that it might be, and evidence also that deniers are just looking at evidence they prefer to look at. I have a counterargument to that idea, which I've been making for some years.
For some years I've argued that 'moral progress' is a mere illusion. Joseph W. and I used to fight about this, in that joyous and pleasant way in which we contested each other's ideas. My sense is that mostly people's values change by encountering other people -- ideas 'rub off,' as it were. Now people closer to you rub off on you more than people further away. It is possible to be distant in both time and space, such that people further away from you in time will look less like you than people closer. That means that we should ordinarily expect to see an illusion of progress, because (a) we take our own values to be right, and (b) the further back you go, the less people agree with us.
There are some obvious additional factors that make it easier or harder for people to 'rub off' on you: sharing a language makes it more likely at distance; belonging to a civilization makes it more likely that you will share at least some values with your ancestors, too. Still, by and large I think it's obvious that you would think of society as progressing morally simply by looking back and discovering that, the further away from yourself you go, the less people agree with your (obviously correct!) moral values.
A consequence of this reading is that the conservative and progressive moral projects are both illusions (but see the important exception at the link). Conservatives are always under the illusion that things are getting worse because there has been constant movement from a prior time they've marked out as an ideal: their childhood, the Victorian era, Arthur's Camelot, the Age of Muhammad and his Companions, the ancient Roman Republic.
Progressives, by contrast, assume wrongly that there is moral progress in their direction just because the current age agrees with them and all prior ages disagree more and more. Thus, there is an arrow of morality that points in their direction.
Both of these views are illusions.
However, there's an important empirical point AVI gets to and returns to as well: we can say that rates of violence, for example, goes up or down. That's not perfect; some violence is moral, and the loss of that kind of violence may worsen society. (Consider a society, like the present-day Canada, that bars violent self-defense. You may run from a criminal, but not resist him.)
That kind of empirical consideration of morality is what I was getting at by the end of the linked post.
I once heard a Buddhist argument that held something like: "To say that you have forgiven but not forgotten is to say that you have not forgiven." This is that argument in a developed form.
If you truly did forget, you would lose both any sense of moral progress, and any sense of moral crumbling. What would be left? Would it be enough?
There's a good debate in the comments of that post featuring many of you, dear readers. You might want to review what you thought at the time and see how it compares to what you might think now. For that matter, it might be helpful to write down what you think now first to see how it compares to what you thought then.
Highwaymen
This interview starts off with a very aggressive question from the journalist: can you imagine suggesting to Johnny Cash at any point in his career that he couldn’t fill a venue? He came close to calling the man a liar over it.
Waylon, though, had the best response.
The Highwaymen had four of my very favorite performers of all time, but I never was able to enjoy them as a group. They were too self conscious of standing at the end: it was mournful, more than anything else. I like this interview for the spirit, which was not so ready to concede the end.
Dark Times
This is absolutely brilliant. pic.twitter.com/lpGWDkBFh7
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 9, 2023
Leavening
As I was browsing a number of articles about wild yeast, I read several that mentioned the early evidence of deliberate fermentation, including some kind of Chinese alcoholic drink from 7,000 B.C. and leavened Egyptian bread from 1,000 B.C. Considering that the Jews appear to have shown up on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean shortly after the catastrophic collapse of Bronze Age civilizations around 1,200 B.C., and considering also the Jews' complicated relationship with Egyptian culture during the next millennium, this reminded me of something that surprised me in the Biblical exegeses I've been working on in recent years at Project Gutenberg.
In both the Old and New Testaments, "leavening" has a strangely negative connotation of impurity and corruption. I'd always assumed that the point of unleavened Passover bread was that the homemakers were in a rush, but there's more to it than that. Part of the Passover ritual is a strenuous disinfection of the home from all leavening, not just so that the bread will be truly unleavened and therefore qualify for the ritual, but also apparently as a symbol of purification. Exodus 12:15, 13:6-7. Leviticus 2:11 forbids the burning of yeast on the altar at any time, not just during Passover. Both Jesus and St. Paul used leavening as a metaphor for spiritual or psychological infection that can start with a small fault and bloom until it consumes the person: hypocrisy in Matthew 6:6-12 and Luke 12:1, and sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 5:1-8.
For some reason this opprobrious attitude didn't extent to alcoholic fermentation, which the Jews apparently didn't connect closely with bread fermentation. The Jews never have thought much of drunkenness, but they don't react to alcohol with horror at impurity in the manner of temperance zealots. I have cousins who, in my youth, startled me by casually explaining that they wouldn't eat things like olives because they were produced by a variety of fermentation. The fermenting bacteria break down the bitter flavor in raw olives, without producing any mind-altering substances, but apparently even the presense of the word "ferment" was enough to make my cousins swear the whole thing off. They didn't object to leavened bread, however.
A heavily trafficked area of the West Wing
From PowerLine:
Is there no fingerprint or DNA on the baggie? Is video unavailable, as in the matter of Jeffrey Epstein’s death? This is probably not the toughest case in the world to “crack” — unless you don’t want to, or unless Inspector Clouseau is in charge of the investigation.
Sourdough
My lurking neighbor persuaded me to take some of the natural starter she began developing from local airborne yeast several years back. I've been experimenting with loaves this week and have managed today to produce a loaf with good strong sour flavor and a decent rise and crumb. The crust is outstanding.
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