Ventrue Capital

Fat, Mean, and Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life

2011-06-26T12:27:00.002-04:00

Bradley Long takes an "ideological Turing test" and shows that while he is fatter than I am, he is also less intelligent, which is pretty sad, since we're both supposedly in the same field. (Actually, the chances are that I will be practicing law instead of economics, but that's another story.)

Been Ladin

2011-05-14T13:21:00.002-04:00

Ron Paul has been getting a lot of flak for saying he wouldn't have ordered the SEAL raid that killed OBL. Well, retired US Army Ranger John T. Reed (one of my heroes) also would not have ordered the raid, for several reasons; instead, he said it should have been done by the Air Force with three 2,000-pound bombs spaced 30 seconds apart. A "SWAT-type" raid (as he aptly describes it) was irresponsible grandstanding by our Incompetent-in-Chief.

The SWAT approach was simply too risky—again, assuming the fix was not in with the Pakistan Air Force and that the U.S. knew there were only three guys protecting Obama and they were not well armed and booby trapped and all that.
If I were in the military now and were offered the chance to be on or command this operation, I would have said, "No way. This is totally unnecessary. It’s strictly an Air Force operation."
Bin Laden was a symbolic military mission, not a valid military target like, say, Adolf Hitler would have been during World War II. Bin Laden was a financier and leader back in the day, but lately he seems to have evolved into a sort of elder statesman/philosopher with a Just-For-Men colored beard and an intermittent, lame TV show on al Jazeera. You do not risk men’s lives to kill such a person. If the chain of command wanted not only me but also my men to go on this mission, I would have gone to war with my chain of command fighting all the way to the president if necessary and resigning my commission in protest. I went to war with my chain of command over a lot less when it came to mistreating my men when I was an officer.

I Like to Be an Intellectual of This and That, and So It's Good.

2011-04-04T17:52:00.002-04:00

From Hannah Volokh, via Instapundit:

I also find conservative anti-intellectualism troubling, and I think it’s important to separate it into three separate points:
1. Left-wing intellectuals are wrong substantively.

2. Many people who claim to be intellectuals are actually not intellectuals at all, but activists.

3. Central planning is not the best way to run a government or economy, so intellectuals do not need to be running things.

Still, to understand why central planning is a bad idea, and what we should have instead, and to get at the answers to numerous substantive policy issues, intellectuals are crucially important.

Drum and Dumber

2011-04-04T01:43:00.003-04:00

/B/r/i/t/n/e/y/ /S/p/e/a/r/s/ Kevin Drum at Mother Jones magazine claims that

I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he's smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted.

I couldn't agree more. Kevin, on whether you're less-intelligent than President Obama, I trust *your* expert judgement!

Comment on "Progressive Nudges for Household Savings"

2011-03-31T14:42:00.000-04:00

"If I were a card-carrying progressive" I would start by cutting (preferably eliminating) all corporate welfare, "community development grants" (which go to big construction firms and real estate speculators) and other government programs that primarily benefit the rich. I'd put an income limit on who was allowed to receive agricultural subsidies.

Remember, all income tax *deductions* (as opposed to credits) are perverse because they benefit the rich more than the poor, because a poor man getting a $1000 deduction only gets 15% of it, while a rich guy gets 30% or more. So I'd change all income tax deductions (primarily mortgages and health insurance) to tax credits.

For the record I *am* a card-carrying progressive, or at least a bleeding-heart libertarian. Which means I care more about the poor than Obama, Rahm, and the rest of the "let's bail out the rich and ignore the poor" gang in both parties. And I also know which policies actually work, as opposed to the "let's have rallies and riots" all-mouth no-brain crowd.

The Task Set Before Us

2011-03-27T20:10:00.002-04:00

First, I believe that the president's power as commander-in-chief of the military is very simple to understand. He has the power to give any (lawful) order to anyone in the military, and it must be obeyed. That includes things like ordering the military to blockade, bomb, or even invade Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran.

However, the definition of a lawful order is limited by both international law -- which means treaties that the U.S. has signed, and more importantly the "law of war" that says things like you're not allowed to harm, and in fact have a duty to protect, civilians, prisoners, and anyone else who doesn't try to harm you or disobey your orders.

Furthermore, lawful orders are restricted by the specific rules that the U.S. military follows, such as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that's set by Congress, as specified in the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Paragraphs 10-16 and especially Paragraph 14, "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces."

That means if Congress wants to specify that "No member of the armed forces of the United States shall enter Libya," they can do it. And they can certainly specify the various conditions listed in the War Powers Resolution.

That being said, I am all in favor of intervening in Libya as long as we do it good and hard. In fact, I'm in favor of intervening in Syria even better and harder, since Assad is worse than Qadaffi. And if Iranian Revolutionary Guard units are in Syria, that gives us a really good excuse to attack those units.

On the other hand, I will also repeat what I warned about before we went into Afghanistan and Iraq, which is that we need to have a clear plan, including a clear objective. Glenn Reynolds is right: "Waging war halfheartedly, on the cheap, and by committee is not a formula for success."

Good Question!

2011-03-13T01:26:00.006-05:00

BRIAN LEITER ON BUDGET CUTS: “At some point these acts of brazen viciousness are going to lead to a renewed philosophical interest in the question of when acts of political violence are morally justified.”

I'll tell you when they're justified: when they're against rich white establishment law professors like that guy. How much do you make a year, Brian Leiter? More than the working stiffs in the unions, I'll bet. A lot more!

Well, it's time for *you* to take a pay cut and distribute to the rest of us whatever you make above the national average. Power to the people.

We know where you live.

Up against the wall, m**********r!

(It's okay for me to attack his ethnic group, since it's my ethnic group as well -- although I'm a graduate student in economics, rather than a law professor. See 0:56 in the court scene in Woody Allen's Bananas.)

On Wisconsin!

2011-03-01T03:32:00.002-05:00

As a good progressive, of course I support the State-employee unions in Wisconsin and elsewhere. (See the photo of me helping out at their protest!)

In fact, I urge them all to go out on strike for their rights immediately.

Even if this means shutting down all government schools and most other government agencies, it will be worth it!

Brothers and sisters, venceremos, we will be victorious!

Viva Che'!

2011-02-23T06:55:00.001-05:00

I am a democratic socialist and a follower of the ideals of Che!

Che was right, that there is no right to strike against the State. These striking teachers should be thrown into prison or even better put into labor camps to work for the public good. They could easily be replaced with teachers from so-called "private" schools or "parochial" schools (and drafting all those "private" teachers into government service, forcing them to work for the current low-wage contracts that government teachers have, would help shut down those corrupt capitalist schools).

I assume all other progressives who support Che will join me in supporting this modest proposal!

Venceremos, hermanos y hermanas!

The Task Set Before Us

2011-02-12T14:21:00.000-05:00

This is the task before us: to accept that we are dissidents and opponents. To accept that it is our duty to resist. To use art to express that resistance, the win intellectuals and people of ability to our side. To forge contacts with supporters in the outside world. To slowly expand our influence and never, ever stop laughing at the State.

And when it comes crashing, and I believe it will, we will be there, smiling and laughing.

[End of piece by anonymous author Albert, who identifies as a State Dept. employee in Europe].

Politics is Not About Policy

2011-02-12T13:44:00.002-05:00

Robin Hanson famously said that "Politics is not about policy, it is not even about power, it is about status." I concur.

An anonymous poster on Unqualified Reservations said:

*talk matters*.

Clinton talked left, and acted right. Clinton was an amazing president in many ways. Black incarceration rates tripled under Clinton (www.finalcall.com/national/incarceration03-06-2001.htm), one of the main reasons behind the drop in crime in the 1990's. Clinton pushed deregulation and capitalism.

Bush talks right and acts left. That's why the left hates him, even as he gives them NCLB and illegal aliens and Medicare spending and "the government is here to help".

Therefore, whatever you want to do in politics, you can (and possibly should) talk in whatever way appeals to the majority (i.e. the median voter), specifically by saying good things toward groups and behaviors they want to be high-status and bad things toward groups and behaviors they want to be low-status. And especially you should say things toward groups whose status the majority hopes will change.

You can also tailor this message toward a particular audience, depending on where you are speaking.

And then govern whatever way you want, or at least push the envelope as far as you can in the direction you want it to go.

On the other hand, this doesn't always work. It worked fine for Clinton and Reagan, and and even for Junior Bush (since because of his rhetoric and personal style he is still hated by leftists and respected by some conservatives, despite all his left-wing policies) and it seems to not be working at all for Obama. So there has to be some finesse in the execution. Of course, if you come up with garbage policies like the PPACA (a/k/a "Obamacare") you will get despised no matter what. You know, for some supposedly bright guys, they came up with some dumb policies -- and speaking as a bright guy who also considers himself pretty good at politics as well as policy, I don't buy the "We had to compromise in order to get it passed" excuse, on that piece of . . . legislation. Or on anything else.

Reflections on CPAC

2011-02-12T06:50:00.002-05:00

I posted this on Pajamas Media:

For those of us who can remember back that far, the 1990's were a time of Republican unity as well, during which the annoyance of being out of power was great enough for people to be willing to overlook minor differences over social policy in the hope of retaking the White House.

At the very least, when one is out of power the opposing party is the Great Satan while other factions within one's own party are the enemy of one's enemy.

I predict this unity, based around economic issues, will persist until we retake power -- and then we will have to deal with differences on social issues and foreign policy.

I'm a big-tent Republican, and I hope we can deal with those differences properly. And I'd like to remind my fellow-Christians that if government is allowed to enforce social values, it will almost always enforce values that we do *not* want. This will happen all the time when we do not control the federal government, and it will even happen most of the time that we do control it, because the both the government bureaucracy and the intellectual establishment are against us. (How much conservative social policy came out of the federal government during the last administration?)

So the best policy (pun intended) will be to get the government out of our lives in every respect. Once the government stops actively subsidizing sin (paying for abortions, and welfare, and blasphemous, poor-quality "art") and its practitioners are forced to pay for it themselves, it will disappear.

Back in Black?

2011-01-27T00:52:00.002-05:00

School choice is a no-lose proposition for any politician outside of Maryland. Government-school teachers, and especially their union leaders and agitators, are now seen as the selfish monsters they are, who care only about their pay raises and outrageous pensions, and don't give a d--- about kids.

The GOP ought to bring back the DC school voucher program, with at least twice as many students to balance the fact that it was cut out before. In fact, our starting point (from which we will compromise) should be to make *every* poor and/or minority student in DC eligible for this. This will force the Democrats to choose between betraying the teachers' union or betraying the poor and minorities, so *someone* will hate them no matter what they do.

I am *all about* driving wedges between different parts of the traditional New Deal coalition. It's like a Frankenstein's monster, except that I have no sympathy for it. I want to see it ripped apart like the patchwork man in Britannia Hospital.

Another good idea is to require the DC government schools to follow the reforms recommended by Charles Murray in Losing Ground.

2011-01-26T11:11:00.004-05:00

Clint Bolick got it perfectly:

Obama gave two speeches, one to his liberal base and one to the middle. Lots of inconsistencies, such as "I'm going to cut domestic spending and veto earmarks," while we "invest" in myriad new things. But I don't think most people noticed.

Obviously there's an opportunity for the GOP (and the LP) to point this out and hit the administration at a vulnerable spot, forcing it to abandon either "progressives" or moderates. If the administration is really inept, it might even lose both.

Another opportunity, much less obvious, is for the GOP to hammer the Democrats on Social Security. Specifically, they can say (truthfully)

Social Security is bankrupt. It owes more than it has, and its debts are piling up faster than money is coming in. We have to either cut benefits, or cut spending on other programs, or do nothing until the entire Social Security program collapses. *We* favor cutting spending on other programs in order to save Social Security, but if you prefer one of the other options, vote for a Democrat.

This forces the Democrats to either support cutting other programs -- and they would rather cut their own throats -- or cutting benefits (which is political suicide) -- or claiming there is nothing wrong with Social Security, which isn't political suicide yet, but can easily be made into it.

My Steampunk RPG Campaign

2011-01-19T00:34:00.003-05:00

Perfidious Albion is a steampunk RPG campaign -- a Scientific Romance for ladies and gentlemen of good breeding (ahem), set in the late 19th Century in a well-developed alternate-history setting in which a peaceful compromise (Ben Franklin's "Albany Plan") prevented the American Revolution, the British Empire is the world's dominant power, and steam-powered supercomputers perform econometric calculations in mere minutes! (For those who really like trivia, there was an earlier point of divergence at the Putney Debates in 1648.)

For Perfidious Albion: A Scientific Romance, I recommend either GURPS Lite or FUDGE. Even more, I recommend any good steampunk fiction, such as The Difference Engine, Girl Genius, The Two Georges, and so forth.

Some good references for steampunk, and for the Victorian period in general, are:
* What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist -- The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England by Daniel Pool (available for cheap on Amazon.com);
* An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't, specifically the section on English Literature, which discusses obscure details of nineteenth-century British life (likewise available for cheap on Amazon);
* GURPS Steampunk by my old friend Bill Stoddard (available for cheap as a PDF at Warehouse23.com), hands-down the single best reference source for the period, whether realistic historical or steampunk.;
* Forgotten Futures: The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game by the brilliant Phil Masters (available for free as shareware, he asks that you make a donation to charity, God bless him!)
* Comme Il Faut, a supplement for Castle Falkenstein on daily life and manners in the 19th Century.

(For what it's worth, I did graduate work in English literature and specialized in both sf/fantasy and Victorian/industrial revolution fiction.)

I prefer "system" games, because the system helps answer questions like "How far can I jump?" and "How long will it take to fix the engine?" I strongly believe in a good story rather than rolling dice, and I also believe in realism and balance.

Above all, I want to make sure that people who are interested in the genre and/or the setting, and are not familiar with the system, to join and play and learn the system as we go along.

For more information about the game, or if you wish to join, please contact the Management of the game via electronic mail for any questions about the setting, or for the Approval of Characters.

Excerpted from a survey report by the Infinity Corporation:

PERFIDIOUS ALBION (BRITANNICA-8), 1877

CURRENT GLOBAL SITUATION:A libertarian British Empire (including America) vs. the Holy Alliance (France, Spain, Austria, Russia) and Ottoman Caliphate.

DIVERGENCE POINTS:
1648: The Levellers win the Putney Debates to decide the new government after the English Civil War.
1765: Ben Franklin's "Albany Plan of Union" is accepted by the Whig government of Britain.

MAJOR CULTURES: Western (multipolar), Chinese (empire), Islamic (empire).

GREAT POWERS: British Empire (feudal technocracy, CR2), France (dictatorship, CR5), Spain (dictatorship, CR5), Austria (dictatorship, CR5), Russia (dictatorship, CR6), Prussia (dictatorship, CR4).

MINOR POWERS: Ottoman Empire (dictatorship, CR5), Manchu Empire (dictatorship, CR5), Sweden (democracy, CR4), Japan (feudal technocracy, CR 5).

WORLDLINE DATA:
Technological Level: 5+2 (except TL5 weapons/armor)
Mana Level: low
Quantum: 7
Infinity Class: P1
Centrum Zone: YELLOW

KNOWN ADVENTURES:
"A Series of Tubes"
"Can You Get Sound On That Thing?"
"First Contacts"
"Hearts of Steel"
"League of Extraordinary Ladies & Gentlemen"
"Sphereland"

Which Parents, When Their Child Asks for Bread, Give a Stone Instead? Amy Chua!

2011-01-09T23:42:00.001-05:00

@cp puts it perfectly:

How many Yale law professors would want to allow terror suspects to be denied access to food and water?

I'm sorry, I consider Amy Chua's parenting methods to be dead to me. I strongly recommend the methods suggested by The One-Minute Mother and The One-Minute Father.

Matthew 7:9
Luke 11:11

Giants in the Earth

2011-01-05T05:23:00.001-05:00

I'm a born-again Christian and I've always said that God wants us to play Dungeons & Dragons (and other roleplaying games).

Furthermore, those who claim that "unicorn" is a mistranslation of "rhinoceros," or that "dragon" is a mistranslation of "crocodile," are as mistaken as those who claim that "day" in Genesis is a mistranslation of "time period." Obviously we need to take the King James Version literally (in the simplest and most obvious sense); if Shakespearean English was good enough for Christ Himself to speak, then it is good enough for the rest of us. Thus, "unicorn" means "horse with a horn on its forehead" and "dragon" means "giant lizard that breathes fire."

It's all in the Bible, and the Monster Manual. King James Version, and OGL -- none of this modernized scripture for me, and no 4th Edition D&D either!

Cloward-Piven: Bring It On

2011-01-01T03:22:00.002-05:00

Maybe I'm overlooking something here; if so, please let me know!

The Cloward-Piven strategy was to overwhelm the system with a massive amount of both protests (possibly violent) and also welfare recipients; this was supposed to cause a breakdown of both public discourse and also of public finance.

The idea was that the status quo in both politics and public programs would not be able to handle the new situation and would have to be replaced by something else.

According to Piven, the activism of the 1960s and 1970s was this strategy in action.

As I understand it, those are her claims -- and I completely agree with them so far. Her mistake is believing that the response of the system would be to give in to the demands of the activists and welfare applicants, and replace capitalism with democratic socialism.

Instead, in the 1980s and 1990s the system -- I hesitate to say "Silent Majority" -- responded by voting for right-wing Republicans and moderate Democrats, and by pushing for welfare reform.

The reasons why her strategy failed are that the number of producers must be greater than the number of parasites (or else the entire society collapses into chaos) and also that the producers tend to vote and otherwise participate in politics more than the average parasite. (There are other reasons as well, such as the fact that free-market capitalism allows upward mobility for those who are willing to work, so a temporarily-unemployed producer is on the side of the producers, rather than the parasites.)

As a hard-core political activist I'd like to encourage Ms Piven to agitate as much as possible, because I look forward to the results of her tactics. Bring it on, baby! As Lenin said, "The worse, the better."

As William F. Buckley, Jr., remarked, there may be a million violent rioters; there are a million and one lampposts.

Investing in America

2010-12-28T02:40:00.004-05:00

Frank Wolf (R-VA 10) has introduced a bill called the "Bring Jobs Back to America Act."

Jobs are a top priority and Frank Wolf's bill will actually make things worse.

Here are some concerns that his bill does not address:

1. It provides a subsidy of $71,000 per job, but there is no provision in the bill for how long the jobs have to last.
In other words, a company could set up a factory with jobs that pay $20,000 and operate it for one year before shutting it down, and still receive $71,000 per job, which means they are tricking the government -- or the taxpayers -- out of $51,000 per job.

Frank Wolf is apparently either an idiot (if he didn't think this part through) or corrupt (if he did).

2. This bill rewards companies for bringing jobs back that were already outsourced. So a company that already did its patriotic duty by keeping jobs here gets no benefit.
In other words, it's like a version of affirmative action that only helps former criminals, and doesn't give anything to law-abiding citizens.

Again, Frank Wolf is apparently either an idiot (if he didn't think this part through) or corrupt (if he did).

I am a loyal Republican but Frank Wolf embarrasses me. I look forward to his NOT being in Congress after 2012. He is already past the Biblical three score and ten years old, and it's probably long past his time to retire. Perhaps someone should run against him in the 2012 primary. Not me, though -- I've already got *my* sights on Gerry Connolly's seat!

I have no problems with any proposed tax cut, including credits and deductions, with three minor, common-sense conditions.
First, the cuts should be fair, i.e. equal, rather than being "targeted" to only certain specific firms or industries. "Targeted" cuts are both unfair and also wasteful.
Second, there should be no *subsidies* or other benefits which are greater than the cost of the action; otherwise we are paying for businesses to do things that waste money.
Third, any business -- or other organization -- which receives more money from the government than it pays in taxes should be prohibited from lobbying or making political contributions, even indirect "issue advertising."
(I also think that any individual who receives more from the government than *they* pay in taxes should not be allowed to vote -- not my idea, it goes back at least 150 years to John Stuart Mill.)

As far as immigration policy goes, I want to have a policy which encourages smart, honest, hard-working people to emigrate to America, and which discourages stupid, dishonest, and lazy people from coming (or staying) here.

One policy that would do that is to prohibit any government benefits (such as welfare, Social Security, education, or health care) to anyone except U.S. citizens.
Since naturalization requires being in the country for at least five years, this means they would have to support themselves for five years in a row.
I think that's a pretty good indication that they didn't want to come here to leech off our welfare system.
Of course anyone who tried to get benefits should have to prove citizenship, and be deported if they couldn't.
This means that someone who needed emergency medical care would receive it, but be deported as soon as it was medically safe.
I'm also in favor of *increasing* immigration of skilled, educated workers, i.e. those with a graduate or professional degree.
I'm also in favor of requiring each immigrant to post a bond which would cover the cost of a return ticket and other expenses for deportation.

Red State Diary

2010-12-28T01:14:00.002-05:00

I just posted the following at RedState:

I am a financial conservative. I agree that this is an issue that 70% of the voters will support. Regardless of how you feel about social issues, it is a good idea for all of us to work together on economic issues. Even in the worst possible case, wouldn't you rather succeed on only one set of issues than not succeed on anything at all?

I am also a social conservative, and I think we can find common ground on social issues as well. Even the most libertine libertarian agrees that we should not have welfare benefits for drug addicts, unwed mothers, or lazy hippies (or anyone else). Without such programs there would be no need to have laws to protect the family or punish promiscuity -- it will happen naturally, as those who behave badly end up homeless and starving, or turning to churches for charity.

Libertarians also want no anti-discrimination laws or other special privileges for homosexuals (or anyone else). So even if you spurn Christ's teachings (1 Corinthians 5:12, Matthew 7, Matthew 9:10-13, Matthew 13:27-30) and think it's a good idea to have laws against homosexuality, and against heterosexual adultery and fornication, and against divorce . . . on a practical level those are not going to happen. So I suggest settling for a "level playing field" and letting God sort things out.

Modest Proposals: Agenda for the 112th Congress

2010-11-07T15:03:00.005-05:00

Social Security, Medicare, Defense, Interest, Welfare, Education, Other.

Useful links:
"A Modest Agenda for a New GOP Congress" by David H. Horwich

"How the New Congress Can Roll Back Obama’s Agenda"

"Republicans won the midterm elections. Now can they survive?"

"Top 10 challenges John Boehner will face as Speaker of the House"
By Bob Cusack

Thousands of Democrats to be jobless in Washington
By Al Kamen

"The Six Arguments You Meet in Political Hell"

"How to Cut $343 Billion from the Federal Budget"

"What Republicans Need to Do Now"

"Conservatives Treat a Foe Like a Foe"

"The Globe discovers that Massachusetts has shot itself in the foot…AGAIN"
http://datechguy.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/the-globe-discovers-that-massachusetts-has-shot-itself-in-the-foot-again/

1. Replace the current tax system with either a flat-rate income tax or a national sales tax, or some combination. This should replace both individual and corporate income tax, capital gains tax, and the Alternative Minimum Tax. A possible tax rate would be 20% or 25%.

It's not necessary to make this revenue-neutral because "starving the beast" doesn't work, and apparently raising taxes makes people more opposed to government spending!

2. Eliminate all earmarks, and all discretionary spending. The first targets should be corporate welfare and the very next targets should be all spending in "blue" areas, i.e. those which voted Democrat. Once that happens, we can expect bipartisan support for eliminating all spending in "red" areas.

Perhaps we can start by using "reverse earmarking": bills will specify that no funds for their programs can be spent in certain areas. When Democrats are faced with a choice between eliminating a program, or keeping it but having it only go to Republican areas, I expect they will see the light.

We can certainly keep government programs such as interstate highways and other transportation, national parks, the United States Postal Service, PBS and anything else, simply by making them self-supporting. Highways will have to be funded by tolls, license fees, and gasoline taxes; parks will be funded by ticket sales and donations; the USPS and PBS will simply have their subsidies eliminated.

3. Replace all current welfare and other social programs (other than Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) with a flat-rate demogrant of, say, $10,000 per person per year.

4. Replace Medicare and Medicaid with a comprehensive universal system that gives each person a voucher for whatever it would cost the government to give them basic health care plus catastrophic health insurance from Medicare/Medicaid, but allow people to use the voucher for private insurance, including HSAs that can roll over instead of being literally stolen at the end of each year. To clarify, people with preexisting conditions or other issues which cost more will get bigger vouchers, because the amount of the voucher will be whatever it would cost the government to provide Medicare/Medicaid for that particular person.

This could be funded out of the $10,000 per person demogrant.

5. Replace

http://www.johntreed.com/growth.html

http://www.johntreed.com/Reedhealthcare.html

Nothing But Class

2010-11-06T08:05:00.002-04:00

I just filled out a survey on NBC.com. When asked what I disliked about their website, I replied, truthfully, that

It is very difficult to find a specific clip or episode. Your "filing system" is a horrible mess. Many times I have clicked on a link for a clip or episode, or something else related to a show (such as cast biography), and gotten something completely different. Sometimes I clicked on the link for a show and been taken to a completely different show. This happened so frequently that I COMPLETELY QUIT USING YOUR WEBSITE EXCEPT WHEN I WAS DIRECTED TO IT FROM AN OUTSIDE LINK. THIS IS A BAD THING FOR NBC. BAD JOB! I never go to your website except on the rare occasions when there is a link to it within an article that I read -- and even when there is a link to your site, I usually don't bother to click on it if I see it goes to NBC.com. By the way, since I no longer use a regular television set, this means the only time I ever see any of your shows is on Hulu. Congratulations: from my perspective it would be hard to do a worse job if you were actually trying to do badly. In fact, it seems to be happening right now with the clip that I want to see, which is the link to "Saturday Night Live - Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on http://www.mediaite.com/tv/the-two-underlying-reasons-keith-olbermann-was-suspended-now/

"Morals" Laws are Immoral

2010-10-24T10:03:00.000-04:00

I mean laws against *vices* (a/k/a victimless crimes, a/k/a “morals laws”) such as intoxication (alcohol and/or drugs), masturbation, fornication, sodomy, and gluttony.

Murder, theft, assault and trespass are all examples of real crimes. They are not examples of *subjective* or “personal” morality because literally no one wants to be the victim of such acts — even those criminals who want to commit them on others. Therefore, enforcing those laws is legitimate.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss?

2010-10-17T09:53:00.003-04:00

"The Risk of Post-Election Republican Betrayal and What We Should Do about It."

I am a "public choice" economist, i.e. someone who analyzes politics using the theories and techniques of economics.

Bottom line: I believe that we get whatever policies the average voter wants, or rather whatever policies that special interests want and the average voter is willing to put up with.

Modest Proposals: A Gentlemen's Agreement on the Supreme Court

2010-07-04T20:09:00.002-04:00

[Dogbert has been nominated to the Supreme Court:]
Senator: Do you have any opinions on the right to privacy?
Dogbert: No. In fact, I never formed an important opinion in my entire life.
Senator: You must think we're idiots!
Dogbert: Okay, I've formed one opinion, but that's all.

I personally would refuse to confirm a nominee who didn't give clear answers on how they would rule in various hypothetical cases. Furthermore, I would specifically point out their evasive answers meant they were either dishonest or incompetent, probably the former, and that's why I didn't consider them qualified.

On the other hand, I would not have any problem confirming a nominee whose opinions I disagreed with. Like many of the posters on The Volokh Conspiracy I believe that the Senate should give deference to the President's nominees.

One way of handling this would be to have a rule -- not a law but a "gentlemen's agreement" -- that each President is entitled to nominate one new justice to the Supreme Court. In other words, rather than a lifetime appointment, being a justice of the Supreme Court should be the equivalent of a 36-year term.

Like other "constitutional bargains" -- this is something we study in economics, specifically in my favorite field, public choice -- the idea behind it is that it treats both sides equally and neither of them knows whether they will be benefited or harmed by it.

If this were the case, i.e. if each of the last nine presidents had appointed one justice, it would be:

Obama (D)
Bush (R)
Bush (R)
Clinton (D)
Clinton (D)
Bush (R)
Reagan (R)
Reagan (R)
Carter (D)

In other words, the court would be divided between five Republican justices and four Democratic ones.

2010-06-07T17:22:00.001-04:00

You Scored as Anarcho-capitalist

Anarcho-capitalists are libertarians who oppose the state entirely and propose to have a free market in the provision of security and arbitration. The term anarcho-capitalism derives from Murray Rothbard to describe a stateless society based on the principles of laissez-faire or the philosophy in support of such a proposition. Anarcho-capitalists may tend to still associate more with the political right and make use of the political process, unless they are agorists or left-libertarians at the same time.

Anarcho-capitalist

100%

Left-libertarian

75%

Minarchist

67%

Agorist

67%

Neo-libertarian

67%

"Small L" libertarian

58%

Geo-libertarian

33%

Paleo-libertarian

25%

Libertarian socialist

Will Opine For Food

2010-06-06T16:29:00.003-04:00

I'm still working on a list of topics for papers I want to submit for publication.

One set is the list of "interfaces" between political science and economics, which Bryan Caplan listed in his ECON 854 course.

Also these:
A survey to measure the Mueller Effect.
An analysis of the concept of "collective intelligence" in public- and private-sector organizations.
What *should* be done (and have been done) concerning the BP oil spill.
A critique of Rand Paul's gaffe about the 1964 Civil Rights Act (from a perspective very close to Richard Epstein's).
Why it's actually beneficial that Islamofascists are challenging some of our most fundamental concepts like religious tolerance.
A response to Is the Welfare State Justified? by Daniel Shapiro.
A critique of so-called "libertarian paternalism."
An analysis of the economic-efficiency (social-welfare) effects of the so-called "Neutrality" or "Generality" rule.
A response to Dan Klein's criticism of the social welfare function as "loose, vague, and indeterminate."
A response to Bryan Caplan's criticism of Pareto optimality (possibly combined with the previous topic). Both of these would build on the defenses of economic efficiency as a standard, made by David Friedman and Richard Epstein.
Something else that I forgot.

How To Solve The Financial Crisis

2010-04-09T14:44:00.002-04:00

Someone asked me to recommend him some academic economics journal articles about the causes of the Financial Crisis. I demurred, and explained why:

Mainstream economics, and at least 80% of all economics, is "free-market" in the sense that it understands and approves of the free market, and only wants to interfere with it when it will actually do some good for society as a whole, and wants the intervention to be as small and as market-based as possible.

So it would only support things like a Negative Income Tax (which Milton Friedman invented), or school vouchers (which Friedman also supported), and other sorts of vouchers.

To clarify even more: The overwhelming majority of economists dislike the vast majority of current government programs, even though they are moderate-liberal Democrats themselves. (For the question of why they still support the Democrats even though they oppose their programs, I refer you to Professor Klein, whose class I'm typing this in, and also Arnold Kling. Kling says it's "culture" or "psychological identification" -- they're more comfortable with fellow-intellectuals that they disagree with, rather than rednecks that they despise. They'd rather belong to the party of Soft Heads than the party of Hard Hearts.)

So just about *any* economics journal article would be acceptable.

Second, to quote Nobel Prize-winner George Stigler, "The typical article in a professional journal is unrelated to public policy -- and often apparently unrelated to anything in reality." So from that point of view *no* journal article would be acceptable. Use blogs, or articles in "popular journals," e.g. Atlantic or The Economist, instead.

Third, people -- even experts who are generally within the same economic doctrine -- are still arguing about what went wrong, never mind how to fix it.

Bottom line: Google "financial" and "crisis" at site:econlog.econlib.org

Here's my take on what happened:

1. For a variety of reasons, some due to human miscalculation and some due to government intervention, we had a housing bubble: prices rose above a reasonable level, people kept buying anyway, and people overextended themselves buying housing on credit (zero-down mortgages).
Clear definition of a reasonable level: If bonds are paying 3% per year (33 x earnings) it's not reasonable to pay 50 x (expected) earnings for stocks. It makes no sense! It might make sense for a specific stock if you thought its expected earnings were going to skyrocket, or if you thought everyone else was about to mistakenly think its expected earnings were going to skyrocket, but not to do it across the board.

2. Eventually the bubble burst and housing prices dropped drastically. Therefore some people started defaulting on their mortgages (because they weren't worth keeping -- the debt was higher than the new value of the house) and even the mortgages that didn't default (yet) had to be re-valued and banks suddenly found their collateral for loans had disappeared and their balance sheets were horrible. For a variety of reasons, partly because the housing bubble had so many participants and partly because the risk was "spread around" by "bundling" mortgages, this meant a *lot* of banks and other financial houses were hit.

3. When the housing bubble burst, it also affected people who were relatively solvent, by dropping the value of their houses; and this affected the stock market. People *were* buying stocks by using the equity in their homes, and felt fine about it; now the equity disappeared -- it was just as if they found out their rich uncle who previously said he would leave all his wealth to them had suddenly decided to disinherit them -- started selling off stocks because they wanted cash in hand. This drove the value of stocks down, which caused even more panic selling.

4. Therefore, not only were people defaulting on mortgages but there were also people whose lives were unaffected by anything physical, anything that could be seen by watching a silent videotape of Before versus After, who felt poor and/or panicked. People who still had jobs and could meet their mortgage payments (same as before) and pay their groceries and utility bills (same as before) because all their paper wealth (the equity of their houses, and the value of their stock portfolios) had evaporated. (By the way, one extremely important thing to understand is that my vampire RPG character, Mr Grey a/k/a Caliban, lost 3/4 of his wealth in the crisis, because almost all of his wealth was in stocks and real estate -- I had established the basics of his investments when I created him back in 2002!)

5. Also, businesses were affected because capital dried up. People saved/invested less because they didn't have paper wealth, so they didn't have as much money to put into banks. (Previously, they had been getting cash by refinancing their houses, or by selling them, at inflated prices, or from the stock market, and then putting it into banks or stocks or more real estate.) And so banks didn't have as much cash on hand *and* they couldn't make any new loans anyway, because they were overextended because the value of the collateral on all their previous loans was gone. It was exactly as if tornadoes had devastated all the houses so there wasn't any collateral value left.

6. Banks reacted by drastically reducing the amount of new loans they made. Partly they raised their interest rates but mostly they just became very, very cautious; they wanted to see huge amounts of collateral before they would make a loan for anything, either homes or business loans or automobile loans or anything else. This helped cause a *real* recession (decline in employment and production and incomes, which then causes more decline, etc.) in addition to the crash of *paper* wealth (loss of value of real estate and stocks).

7. IMO the proper response by government would have been to say "Nobody is too big to fail; when you play with fire, you gonna get burn'; when you take the profits you gotta take the losses as well. We have guaranteed people's bank accounts up to $100,000 per person if they failed; we will make a special temporary increase up to $250,000 or $500,000 for the next year or two to cushion the blow so people aren't hurt *too* badly. We will also increase unemployment benefits to help those who have temporarily lost their jobs due to the recession. We will also reform the welfare system" -- hey, I'm like Rahm Emmanuel, I never want to let a good crisis go to waste, and reforming welfare to be more like a Negative Income Tax / Guaranteed Income system is something we should have done 40 years ago -- "and eliminate corporate welfare and other subsidies" -- as I always say, I don't know if we need more spending the less-fortunate but we definitely need less spending on the more-fortunate -- "and use all those savings to cut the deficit, which will boost the economy while bringing us *out* of debt instead of further into it."

8. Unfortunately, the government decided, by the most amazing coincidence, to do something to help out the people and groups who were politically powerful and well-connected. So they decided to bail out Wall Street bankers and brokers, and also the people who defaulted on their mortgages that they should never have gotten in the first place, and the non-Wall Street bankers who should never have given those mortgages in the first place -- in other words, gangs of criminals who ripped off hard-working taxpayers. I have some sympathy for poor, uneducated people who lied on their mortgage documents, but no sympathy for white-collar criminal "banksters" who told them to do it.

2010-02-04T14:51:00.002-05:00

In the Seattle Daily Weekly: Gay, Mentally Challenged Biracial Male Cheerleader Claims Discrimination

Well, I for one am proud to live in a country where a guy like that can be elected President.

After all, Obama is biracial; Jimmy Carter is mentally-challenged; Bill Clinton was a male cheerleader.

Just Posted on Vanity Fair

2010-01-23T09:07:00.002-05:00

If the Supremes had made the decision Mr Rollins wanted, it means (as Ilya Somin points out) that *unions* would have been banned from making political contributions, and (as Matt Welch points out) *nonprofit* corporations would have been banned from making political statements.

Would Mr Rollins have approved if MoveOn.org’s Campaign to Defend America had been blocked by George W. Bush’s Federal Elections Commission from broadcasting a documentary called “McCain: The Movie” during the 2008 election?

Because that's exactly what the FCC tried to do with Citizens United, and apparently he supports that decision.

Or does he only want free speech rights for those who agree with him? Is he a fool or a hypocrite?

[Update:] I apologize for calling Mr Rollins a fool or a hypocrite; I do think his *opinion* is either foolish or unjust. If organized groups are banned from politics then only individuals will be able to make political statements and contributions -- and that gives a big advantage to rich individuals. It's easier and simpler to get $1 million from one donor than to get $1000 from a thousand or $10 from ten thousand. Organized groups like PACs and unions help coordinate the contributions of the middle- and working-classes so they can help balance those of the rich. And I repeat that if we allow this for progressive organizations it is unfair to deny equal rights to reactionary ones.

Kenesaw Mountain Chicken Droppings

2009-11-25T23:30:00.002-05:00

To the tune of "Kenesaw Mountain Landis" by Jonathan Coulton:

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a scumbag and a bigot
and shouldn't even be immortalized in funny songs;
he should be mocked and ridiculed forever
for keeping baseball segregated for so long . . .

Not to mention all the First Amendment vi-o-lations
at the trials of dissidents that he presided at;
while I love Jonathan Coulton I hate Kenesaw Landis
(although he had a cool name)
and that is all that I have to say about that!

Too Skinny Even For Me

2009-10-21T18:08:00.004-04:00

I enjoy Ralph Lauren's fashion sense -- it reminds me of the Reagan era -- you know, "morning in America" -- but this time I'm on the other side, along with Xeni, Cory Doctorow, Instapundit, Popehat, and the American Bar Association:

2009-07-05T01:44:00.000-04:00

"Those who protested the war in Vietnam cite our losing it as proof they were right. I cite the enemy’s since adopting most of our core values as evidence that we were right to fight for them at the time." -----John T. Reed

Hear, Hear

2009-07-04T18:33:00.000-04:00

"The party's over. Neither I nor anyone else in government has a right to anything you earn or own. And you have no right to anything that I or anyone else earns or owns.

"It's okay to love your neighbor, but I have no right to force you to take care of his medical needs ... or support him money if he loses his job ... or hire him at a wage that I deem to be fair ... or help him financially, or otherwise, in any other way.

"From octomoms in California to welfare bums in Massachusetts ... from environmen-talists in Oregon to heroine addicts in New York City ... I have no right to force you to accommodate their desires just because they call them needs. And by no stretch of the imagination are anyone's "needs" rights. The only rights an individual possesses are those given to him by God."

2009-06-10T17:57:00.002-04:00

"Reporters tend to treat public policy issues with all the depth of, well, movie directors: See problem. Talk about problem. WHY ISN'T PROBLEM BEING FIXED!" -----Matt Welch, "Ink-Stained Retch"

Never Again

2009-06-10T17:40:00.003-04:00

"The fact that the Holocaust Museum
needs armed guards
is why we need a Holocaust Museum." -----James Lileks

R.I.P., E.G.G.

2009-05-29T02:17:00.001-04:00

Andrew Rilstone puts it better than I ever could. One life, furnished in early Gygax.

Prescriptions for Disaster

2009-05-28T22:47:00.001-04:00

"I think getting doctors on a salary is the very first solution..."

The original rationale for HMOs was that the insurance company would be paid a fixed amount per patient per month (although this might be modified by the patient's pre-existing medical conditions) and would be required to provide whatever medical care was necessary; therefore, they would have an incentive to do things the most economical way, i.e. through preventive medicine whenever possible.

That sounded great to me, and it still sounds like a good goal.

Unfortunately, as Adam Smith predicted (when talking about education), instead this gave an incentive for insurers to provide as little care as possible, by making the quality as low as possible, and making it as difficult as possible to obtain it.

In Bryan Caplan's class on microeconomics, he explained the concept of "moral hazard" to us, with plenty of amusing examples. I suggest this as another one.

So, how do we actually accomplish the original goal?

Second-Best News All Day

2009-05-14T14:14:00.003-04:00

My friend and mentor Bryan Caplan -- the guy responsible for my switching from political theory and English literature to economics, and for going to George Mason University -- thus forcing me into courses in which I actually have to learn something during the semester! -- has asked to blog one of my answers to one of his exams.

I'm pretty thrilled. It kind of makes up for the crapsack April I had (with severe downward trends in school, finances, health, and a friendship).

Placeholder Post

2009-05-12T23:47:00.003-04:00

David Friedman (and others) talk about the Stupid Party and the Evil Party.

I believe it was H. L. Mencken who said "Each party claims the other is unfit to rule, and they're both right."

Here's a YouTube video from one party about the other.

"How I Became A Libertarian" by Michael Shermer

2009-05-12T13:23:00.002-04:00

I'm a big fan of skepticism and skeptics, and my heart breaks and bleeds when I see how many of them are gullible followers of left-wing pseudoeconomics. One of the brightest lights of skepticism is Michael Shermer, who has written a blog post called "How I Became a Libertarian."

PCer Than Thou

2009-04-16T00:10:00.000-04:00

I just posted this on Ezra Levant's blog:

Rebekah wrote: "I am in a debate with someone at the moment who says that freedom of speech is a civil right, and as such we have no right to judge other cultures or regimes that deny freedom of speech. Could I ask, how would you answer this?"

Oh, I love debating against leftists. It's so much fun to see their eyes pop out when their own Politically Correct slogans are used against them!

I would use two arguments. The first is: "I believe in freedom of speech because I believe in equality. If there is no freedom of speech, that means that some people can say what they want, and some views get expressed, but other people -- minorities and the oppressed -- and other views get suppressed. Don't you believe in equal rights for everyone in society?"

If the PC leftist actually admits that he thinks "respecting other cultures" is more important than equal rights, my other argument would be: "Okay, I won't argue against that position. Instead, I'll just say that according to your own statment it's fine for Americans or Canadians or other Europeans to suppress arguments for pacifism, atheism, homosexuality, feminism, or anything else because those are against the values of Eurocentric culture."

Of course if you happen to know the particular Politically Correct causes that he supports, you should use them as examples.

As far as I can see, the only argument against that would be for the leftist to claim that Islamofascist values are actually *better* than our cultural values. If he does, you can attack him for being "judgemental" and "inegalitarian" and also debate him on the merits of our values versus his.

Old Skool Gamin'

2009-01-10T03:11:00.001-05:00

I'm getting back to my roots, to my ancestral culture, to my people's ancient heritage.

Bitter Sweet

2008-12-16T08:15:00.002-05:00

I'm impressed, and not in a good way, with the new "game" from Twix (the candy bar). They actually managed to get me to agree with the Politically Correct femocrats at safercampus.org.

I don't know if you're aware that this ad campaign has provoked a very negative reaction among people; one website described it as an "interactive date-rape tutorial."

I'm a man, and I'm not Politically Correct, and even I dislike the fact that your company apparently thinks the best alternative to choose, at the end of the game, is to lie to the woman.

A relationship based upon a Big Lie is going to fail, and at least one person will be unhappy with it. Or, if you're saying that's okay because it's just a one-night stand and the guy will have sex, then I'm offended as a Christian -- someone who believes that sex outside of marriage is a bad idea...like eating too much candy.

Congratulations, though, on an ad campaign that actually makes me agree with Poltiically Correct femocrats about something! I'm putting this on my blog! (Oh, yeah, obviously your ad wizards don't know much about blogging, either.)

Burn Notice

2008-11-14T02:19:00.004-05:00

I just posted this conundrum at www.safercampus.org in response to a post entitled "Stealth Conservatives At It Again":

Ashley:
I'm very curious what would persuade you that FIRE is not "a far right organization." I see they have defended (among others) Ward Churchill, as well as a professor who posted an anti-religious cartoon on his office door, and a student who was expelled from school for his environmental activism.

Alternatively, maybe you consider defending free speech for all to be a "far right" viewpoint. Does that mean you think that the "left-wing" viewpoint should be in favor of censorship or political inequality?

Or, you might say something like "Yes, they defend free speech for everyone equally, which is a Good Thing, but they are still mostly right-wing in the rest of their lives." In that case, I would suggest that you should be glad that you and they agree on at least some things, such as freedom of speech and equal legal rights. (I also suggest the same things to my right-wing friends when we discuss the ACLU!)

[Oh, when I say I posted it, I mean I tried to post it, but apparently they didn't accept it. Apparently they are biased against logic and the truth.]

Macro Zombie Virus

2008-10-15T16:05:00.006-04:00

The midterm for ECON 715 (Macroeconomics) is coming up next week, and so is the second midterm for ECON 630 (Mathematical Economics). Last week was the midterm for ECON 811 (Microeconomics) which I would have aced except that I completely forgot how to do a Lagrange substitution. So for next time I'm having the equations for the Lagrangian auxiliary function tattooed on my arm.

Hey, Obama-For-President Campaign, Sue Me For This!

2008-09-26T17:04:00.004-04:00

I haven't been a McCain supporter for over a year, but here's one reason I'm not for Obama either: the Obama campaign has threatened to sue television stations which air the following anti-Obama ad which gives accurate information about his anti-gun political positions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm0mo3bgvw0

As one member of The Volokh Conspiracy said,

The proper response to such attempts to infringe on the First Amendment is to make sure that the video in question receives the widest circulation possible, to deter the Obama campaign, and other campaigns for that matter, from engaging in such tactics in the future. So here it is. Share it with a friend, with a note that Obama is in violation of the First Amendment, threatening legal action against stations that run it.

Ending the Embargo on France

2007-11-27T13:26:00.000-05:00

I'm still recovering from Thanxgiving -- and still in a period of heavy seminar-paper overload -- but I'm glad that Sarkozy is President of France. Since Eurasia /i/s/ /n/o/w/ has always been allied with Oceania, I can enjoy Beaujolais Nouveau again with a clear conscience. I got into the habit almost twenty years ago of drinking Beaujolais Nouveau with Thanxgiving turkey and I don't care what Mike Steinberger says.

Burning Man

2007-11-12T04:07:00.000-05:00

Shouldn't this be prosecuted as a hate crime??

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A man accused of prematurely torching the Burning Man festival's namesake effigy in August has been arrested on suspicion of trying to set fire to a mosque, police said.
San Francisco performance artist Paul Addis, out on bail in the Burning Man charges, was taken into custody on the top steps of the Mosque of the Light of Allah around 11:40 p.m. Sunday, a police spokesperson said . . .
Addis had an ammunition belt of small explosives strapped around his waist, he said.
Police were tipped by a caller who said they overheard Addis talking about a plan to set fire to the local landmark. No fire was set and there was no damage to the mosque.

(Whoops, my typo, it wasn't a mosque.)

Garbage In, Garbage Out

2007-10-14T09:35:00.001-04:00

I just submitted a couple of comments on Liz Seymour's blog which are awaiting moderation. Here they are:

1. I am shocked and appalled by the comments of the woman who said the law is more important than feeding the hungry. I think it should be perfectly legal to salvage food (or anything else) from the trash. (In fact, it's a low-tech and immediate form of recycling!)

2. I think the almost everyone who disapproves of dumpster diving believe that food from dumpsters is probably either spoiled ("Why else would anybody throw it out? And if it wasn't spoiled before, it's been sitting there for days, just rotting.") or else contaminated -- almost as if it had been retrieved from a portable toilet. These facts may be wrong but given their (presumably mistaken) beliefs, their visceral reactions are perfectly appropriate. Have you tried explaining how/why the food is still fresh and sanitary? I think that will help eliminate, or at least reduce, people's reactions.

3. "Surely it’s not as parasitic as making a profit off of minimum wage workers, using up the world’s resources and leaving it to our children to pick up the tab..." I don't want to justify any of the other actions you mention, but I believe that employing and paying workers -- even at minimum wage -- is clearly productive, which is exactly the opposite of parasitic! After all, the alternative to employing them is leaving them unemployed, which means they would be getting *nothing* rather than something. Salvaging food doesn't harm those workers but it doesn't help them either. If you meant that employing people is good and you think it would be even better if they were paid more, that's not what you said or how it came across.

Hat Tip to Stephen "Freakonomics" Dubner's post "Anarchist Mom" by way of another post at City Comforts, whom I hope to convert to libertarianism /R/e/a/l/ /S/o/o/n/ /N/o/w/ Sooner Or Later.

Update: My comments have been posted!

I Oughta Be In Pictures

2007-09-22T16:57:00.001-04:00

Daniel Drezner explains, using small words, why films about Iraq don't do well at the box office

There's not a whole lot of escapism in films about Iraq. Anyone who sees a well-crafted movie on Iraq will feel angry. Why would anyone who supports the war pay ten bucks for the privilege of having their core assumptions challenged? Why would anyone who opposes the war pay ten bucks for the privilege of having their core assumption -- that the war is a mess -- confirmed?

and concludes that "The only way I could see an Iraq war movie doing well would be if it was, like M*A*S*H, a very black comedy."

Ironically, I'm writing such a film right now, inspired by the New Republic articles of Scott Thomas Beauchamp; its working title is Shock and Awe.

Sue Me, Sue Me, What Can You Do Me?

2007-09-21T18:37:00.000-04:00

I see that Dan Rather is suing CBS News for $70 million ("one million dollars for every year of his life after age five") while Brendan Sullivan and Barry Scheck are suing the city of Durham (North Carolina), former DA Mike Nifong, several police officers, and other individual defendants for $30 million, plus a wide array of procedural reforms, on behalf of the three Duke University lacrosse team members who were, quite bluntly, framed for rape.

Best of all, it looks like the other 44 members of the Duke University lacrosse team are contemplating suing the members of the "Group of 88" (Duke faculty) who libeled them in print, slandered them in class lectures and at rallies, and deliberately gave them unfairly-low grades in classes after the incident.

Thanx to Instapundit and The Volokh Conspiracy respectively for mentioning those two stories.

Update: There are some nice videos on about the Duke lacrosse rape frame-up on YouTube, here and here and here. The first of those calls it a "hoax" but I prefer the term "frame" in the popular meaning of "hide the real evidence and make up fake evidence."

Also, the witty Roger L. Simon has an excellent post mocking poor Dan Rather at Pajamas Media (and only partly reprinted on his own site).

Why Conservatives Are So Cruel, Mean, And Heartless

2007-09-15T11:44:00.000-04:00

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is an example of a law which was advocated mostly by left-wingers as a way to help those who were disadvantaged through no fault of their own, and was opposed mostly by right-wingers. The left-wingers *claimed* this was because right-wingers were selfish and/or cruel, i.e. they didn't want to help poor (unfortunate, not necessarily in poverty) people. The right wingers *claimed* that wasn't true, it was because the ADA was going to be an "undue burden" on businesses which were going to be forced to wait hand and foot -- perhaps literally -- on people with imaginary disabilities. The left-wingers *claimed* that wasn't true, it was only going to help people who really needed and deserved help.

Here's a quote from Hacklawyer's blog:

complaints by the traditionally disabled - the deaf, the blind, the paraplegic - have accounted for only a tiny share of these kind of ”accomodation requests.” The overwhelming majority of them comprise those who claim such dubious disabilities as ADD, visual and oral processing diabilities, dysgraphia (really bad handwriting), ”phonological processing,” dyscalculia (math disability).

Personally, if I had been hired by either side, I would have advised them to MAKE LOUD ANNOUNCEMENTS AT THE TOP OF THEIR VOICES IN ALL THE NEWS MEDIA THEY COULD REACH that *they* were willing to compromise and it was all the other side's fault for being stubborn, fanatic extremists who were demanding something really unreasonable. And to actually make an offer that looks reasonable to the general public, with something in it that's toxic to the other side.

Of course, I usually advocate that tactic on *any* issue. For example, Matt Miller suggests that advocates of school vouchers offer huge increases in school funding, and huge increases in teacher salaries, in return for the "minor concession" of vouchers; the educationalist lobby (such as the National Education Association) has promised to oppose *any* legislation which includes vouchers, so this makes *them* look like the Bad Guys (which they are) because it puts *them* in the position of opposing school funding and raises for those poor, poor teachers.

Engage This

2007-09-05T16:55:00.000-04:00

"Men journey together with view to particular advantage, and by way of providing some particular thing needed for the purposes of life, and similarly the political association seems to have come together originally, and to continue in existence, for sake of the general advantages it brings" Aristotle, Ethics, Book VIII, Chapter 9

"Organizations can therefore perform a function when there are common or group interestsm and their primary function is to advance the common interest of groups of individuals." Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary." Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter X

"By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community...As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed...The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government." James Madison, The Federalist No. 10

"Special interest politics is a simple game. A hundred people sit in a circle, each with his pocket full of pennies. A politician walks around the circle taking a penny from each person. No one minds; who cares about a penny? When he has gone all the way around the circle, he throws fifty cents down in front of one person who is overjoyed at the unexpected windfall. The process is repeated...After a hundred rounds everyone is a hundred cents poorer, fifty cents richer, and happy." David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom, Chapter 27.

Before Mancur Olson published "The Logic of Collective Action" it was generally taken for granted that it was relatively easy to form groups (the "factions" mentioned in The Federalist) based on common interests, and to take collective action to further those interests; and also that the biggest (internal) problem facing a democracy was how to prevent the tyranny of the majority. In particular, the Federalist Papers assume that minority interests will be unable to control the legislature because "If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote." On the other hand, "When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens." Hence the reason the Founders wanted a republic with checks and balances rather than a democracy, and a Bill of Rights, to reduce the possibility of tyranny by the majority.
As far as I can see -- and I'm certainly open to the possibility that I'm misinterpreting or simply overlooking something -- Olson's point in "The Logic of Collective Action" was that all collective action is subject to the free-rider problem and therefore subject to the Prisoner's Dilemma. This is true virtually by definition; if "collective action" means "action taken for collective benefit" then by definition it's a public good (at least for some particular group), i.e. it's non-exclusionary; and if it's non-exclusionary, then it's subject to the Prisoner's Dilemma because it will benefit someone to "defect" (i.e. refuse to contribute/cooperate) if he can get away with it (i.e. still receive the benefits). This all makes perfect sense to me! And as he points out, "the concept of public goods is one of the oldest and most important ideas in the study of public finance." (And to quote The Federalist again, "To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of...faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.")
Olson then suggests that one characteristic of states or governments is that they deal with public goods by means of coercion; that is, they force people to pay taxes and follow the law -- supposedly for the benefit of all -- by using force to compel obedience and/or punish dissent. He also discusses the possibility that other groups can use forms of coercion against members who "defect" and refuse to contribute to efforts made for a common goal.
This leads, of course, to the civics-textbook claim governments exist (at least partly) in order to provide public goods and that coercion is necessary in order to remedy the "market failure" that would exist due to the free-rider problem, e.g. people refusing to pay their share of the costs for things which benefit everyone in the public -- things like highways, schools, health insurance (in Canada), television and radio stations (in Britain) nuclear weapons, prisons for nonviolent drug addicts, customs agents whoo confiscate lesbian-rights literature (in Canada), police officers assigned to hang around public restrooms and arrest homosexuals, and all sorts of other wonderful things we could never pay for privately and just could never live without. (I also find it ironic that Olson uses corporate lobbying as an example of a "public good" that is underproduced -- in economic terms -- due to the free-rider problem.)
Many economists have pointed out the practical disadvantages to providing public goods through coercive means. Such goods might be produced even when the benefits to the public are not worthwhile, if they benefit the politically powerful. Later in his book -- although not in the article we're assigned -- Olson talks about how the free-rider problem allows concentrated interests to overcome diffuse interests, i.e. tyranny of a politically-powerful (because well-organized) minority over the unorganized majority.
Garrett Hardin's point in his classic essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" is that any commons suffers from the free-rider problem and Prisoner's Dilemma, because everyone has an incentive to grab as much as possible -- which is more than their fair share -- because if they don't grab it, somebody else will. John Locke recognized this over three centuries ago and came up with the "Lockean Proviso" in the Second Treatise of Government. Hardin explains how the commons' lack of ownership means a lack of enforcement of the Lockean Proviso to everyone's detriment, with specific examples.
Hardin recommends several alternatives to an unregulated commons. He advocates individual ownership when possible, otherwise (in cases such as air, flowing water, and public parks) government ownership with impartial regulations. He recognizes the state awards benefits to the politically powerful ("Bureau administrators...are singularly liable to corruption") which was Olson's point, so he recommends impartial regulations ("a government of laws and not men") based on price, merit, or equal shares for all rather than administrative fiats, and of course I agree! Bruce Ackerman's Social Justice in the Liberal State discusses how to determine whether private or communal ownership is the most economically efficient way to control a resource, and how to allocate it justly, including compensating those who are disadvantaged by whatever method is chosen; and William Blinder's Hard Heads and Soft Hearts discusses specific proposals for market-based environmental protection including emissions fees/taxes versus "cap-and-trade" permits. Currently there are many such proposals and even the Kyoto Protocol is somewhat market-based because it allows emissions trading. The biggest problem with such proposals is how to allocate allowed emissions for each nation.
Hardin also suggests that overpopulation is an example of the tragedy of the commons, because couples who have children are free riders, and therefore childbearing needs to be regulated. This argument is reasonable but mistaken, as David Friedman demonstrates in his article "Laissez-Faire in Population: The Least-Bad Solution," at least to the extent that there are no subsidies or externalities involved in raising children.
Finally, Robert Putnam (author of Bowling Alone, which inspired Meetup.com, and Better Together) has an article that talks about ways to overcome the Prisoner's Dilemma, and thereby overcome the Free Rider Problem. He analyzes evidence from local governments within Italy and finds that private "civic ties" provide a sense of community and trust (what Tom Wolfe calls a "favor bank" and Stephen Covey calls an "emotional bank account") so that people are willing to cooperate. Participants with civic ties believe it's worth the risk to trust someone else; they think the likelihood of cooperation is great enough to cooperate themselves. Putnam also found a breakdown of civic ties due to distrust in communities that are more diverse, which causes such problems as ethnic strife in the United States and, in extremis, in places such as Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and of course Iraq. Another reason for lack of trust is official corruption and "kleptocracy": insecure property rights and government intervention in favor of the politically favored, which in endemic in both the developing world and former communist countries -- and, to a lesser extent, in the United States as well.
In another article, "Reviving Community: What Policy-Makers Can Do to Build Social Capital in Britain and America," he suggests that governments can "rebuild social capital by subsidizing community organizations, through civics education, by instituting a scheme of voluntary national service, and through structural reforms." These may be useful, but I believe he is overlooking the vital information provided by Robert Axelrod's work on "the evolution of cooperation" which provides an experimental proof that the Prisoner's Dilemma is solvable if it's iterated. By breaking down social interactions into a series of smaller interactions, the risk is lower and non-cooperation or "defection" can be punished. Therefore people are more willing to risk trust others more than they would in an all-or-nothing gamble, and are also better able to build up trust.
In Starship Troopers Robert Heinlein asserted that a government (or other system) works as long as authority and responsibility are linked. There are several American political institutions which serve to break down this linkage via "rational ignorance." One of them is our weak party system which prevents voters from easily knowing the exact positions taken by their representatives on each issue. Another is the Presidential system rather than a parliamentary system, which prevents parties from being held accountable for the results of their platforms. A third is the "first past the post" or "winner take all" electoral system which emasculates minor parties. Finally, the ability of the state to enact programs which provide benefits to a single class or group, such as subsidies to farmers, is perhaps the single worst flaw in our system.
I believe the single greatest problem facing liberal constitutional democracies is the ability of concentrated minority interests to enact legislation against the common good. Strong parties, a parliamentary system, and proportional representation would go a long way to overcoming the causes of "rational ignorance" while a Constitutional amendment prohibiting the state from transfers or other programs unless they are universal (possibly with a means test) -- suggested by Charles Murray in In Our Hands -- would eliminate its effects.

No Gun? No Funeral! No Problem!

2007-08-21T08:33:00.000-04:00

Apparently there's a minor scandal brewing in the Great White North about a website for a group called "No Gun, No Funeral."
Some people think the group wants to ban handguns in Canada but I think that's a myth; instead, I assume they want to encourage handgun ownership by having funeral homes refuse to organize funerals for people who refused to own handguns.
So I signed their petition. In fact, I wanted to help them so much I signed it twice!
My spelling was a little bit off. In fact, the second time I signed it, I wrote

I am many times the rappist and want to help sure that no womyns have gun for stop me! Thank you for your helps! I visit you soon to thanks you!

Of course, what I meant to say was "I have been a therapist many times and want to make sure no hysterical women (or men) have guns because they might shoot me during a therapy session. Thank you for your project, and I hope to visit you soon to thank you in person!"
I'm sure no one could construe my comments as a threat. And even if they did, why, since I don't own any guns (as far as they know) they don't need guns to defend themselves, do they??

Feat of Clay, or Blowing the Whistle in a Glass House

2007-08-21T07:07:00.000-04:00

(Sorry for the corny puns in the title of this post; I'm ill and can't think well.)
The New Republic is one of my favorite publications, and one of my goals in life is to contribute to them. I am so upset over the Scott Thomas Beauchamp scandal that I'm physically sick, with intestinal problems.
David Thomson has an interesting post on Pajamas Media. Money quote: "Why does TNR continuously have this problem? Why don’t these incidents ever seem to occur in more conservative publications? This is a very simple question to answer: left-wing writers are far more inclined to lie and slime."

What are the consequences when the powerful are impervious to justice?

2007-08-18T22:02:00.000-04:00

Bernadette Atahuene's post at Blackprof poignantly asks "

What are the consequences when the powerful are impervious to justice?"

I oppose the Occupation of Iraq, and I am in favor of equal justice for all.

BT posted: Iraq - Genocide of entire religious sects.

I agree with you: the world should definitely demand that the Sunni and Shiite terrorists who are slaughtering civilians be punished for those crimes.

Mwafrika posted: Bush and Co. will never answer for the more than 0.6 million Iraqi (according to some estimates) and 3600 American soldiers.

That's true, because the 600,000 Iraqi civilians were killed (deliberately) by insurgents, and not killed by Coalition forces.

According to the Iraq Body Count project, Allied forces killed about 9,000 Iraqi civilians in the two years from 2003 to 2005. So I agree that Dubya and his gang should be held responsible for those deaths and punished, while the insurgents should be held responsible for the remaining 591,000+ deaths and punished proportionally.

Mwafrika also posted: Presidents Mugabe, Chavez, Castro get away with human rights abuse and dismantling of democratic structures in the guise of fighting imperialism.
Their "fighting imperialism cred" win them massive support among the oppressed people in their respective countries and the world, hence imposible to dislodge from power.

I agree that Mugabe, Chavez, and Castro are guilty of crimes against humanity and should be brought to justice as soon as possible!

Political Pigfight: Death to the Corrupt and Evil (Young and Stevens)

2007-08-16T03:50:00.000-04:00

TheHill.com has a heartening article about principled opposition to two of the most corrupt and evil men in Congress, Representative Don Young and Senator Ted Stevens, both Republicans from Alaska. Both of them are evil because they helped lead the fight, during the GOP's control of Congress, to maintain and increase "pork" spending, i.e. spending for special interests, such as corporate welfare and "earmarks" -- a term which means, very simply, "giving money to special interests."
I'm an active and registered Republican but these two, like are corrupt and evil in a way which makes me embarassed to admit my political affiliation these days. In fact, they would make me proud to be a Democrat instead! As Noam Schriber pointed out in The New Republic,
"When small-government conservatives abandon their principles and become big-government conservatives...scandal is a predictable result. The reason is that people ideologically predisposed to doubt the effectiveness of government don't see much practical difference between running programs in the public interest and running them as vast kickback operations, in which they spread government lucre among their favorite interest groups. If government won't work either way, you might as well make your friends happy."
To quote Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), "The Republicans didn’t do what they said they were going to do. They deserve the wrath of the voters.”

Update: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/aug/17/i75_blog_fight_over_10_million/?breaking_news

Update:
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/120274.html

Update: Ace of Spades HQ says

"When your own partisans (such as myself) are actively rooting for Republican Congressmen to be arrested, you've got a problem. Deal with the problem. Eliminate all earmarks. All of them."

He expresses my sentiments perfectly. Hat tip: Instapundit.

Update: Fred Barnes in the WSJ says "the road to political recovery...for Republicans is to stop acting like, well, Republicans--that is, Republicans of recent vintage." Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan, who gives Barnes the Yglesias Award for Political Honesty!

Political Catfight

2007-08-15T21:23:00.000-04:00

I feel as strongly about this conflict as I do about the one between Hamas and Fatah! Please check out the "America Held Hostage" .gif on the header of my blog to see one of the several reasons I have no respect for Nancy Pelosi, and for another reason you can check out my post about the Democrats voting for additional powers for Attorney-General Gonzales when it's clear that he suffers from advanced Alzheimer's disease and can't be trusted with them. Of course, her support for corporate welfare (especially for farmers) and her opposition to school reform are the main reasons I dislike her, but I'll support practically anyone who is against Pelosi.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

2007-08-12T05:42:00.001-04:00

On his blog The Agitator, Radley Balko points out something that I use to show -- or rather remind -- my conservative friends why the so-called "Patriot" Act is such a bad idea:

the Democrats want to fire Alberto Gonzalez, but then voted to give him new eavesdropping powers (because) they believe Hillary Clinton will be president come 2009.

3 Laws (of War) Safe

2007-08-05T03:15:00.000-04:00

Kenneth Anderson's Law of War and Just War Theory Blog has an excellent article on applying the laws of war to robots. At this stage of development military "robots" are just remote-controlled armed fighting vehicles but Anderson makes it explicit: "That post was about machines with the capability to act independently, independent of human control." He also quotes an article in The Economist.
For me, of course, the money quote from Anderson's post is this:

The most striking part of the project is that I do not see that the attempt to translate ethical decisionmaking into machine terms involves genuinely novel questions of ethics as such. On the contrary, what we seek to do is not to establish novel ethical principles, but rather to create, or re-create, hypothetically ideal or perfect ethical decisionmaking and conduct as we would imagine it for a hypothetically ideal or perfect human soldier but do so within a machine, a robot. The problems are in translation, not the creation of new problems or new solutions. In that sense, one could say that however interesting or important a task of ethical translation, it poses no new tasks in fundamental ethical theory. (Italics mine.)

He then goes on to provide an interesting and well-thought-out discussion of the current state of just-war theory...which (surprise, surprise) hasn't advanced in any discernable way since I first read Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars thirty years ago.
ObCit: "3 Laws Unsafe" by the Singularity Institute, and a "Prognosis: Terminal" by David McDaniel, may God rest his beautiful soul!

Would You Like Freedom Fries With That?

2007-08-04T21:14:00.000-04:00

Eurasia is allied with Oceania.
Eurasia is at war with Oceania.
Eurasia is at war with Oceania.
Eurasia is at war with Oceania.
Eurasia is allied with Oceania.
Eurasia is at war with Oceania.
Eurasia is allied with Oceania.
Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania.
Eurasia has always been allied with Oceania.
Eurasia will always be allied with Oceania.
Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania.
Eurasia has always been allied with Oceania.

...And I Wish For A Pony, Too!

2007-08-04T11:40:00.000-04:00

Bruce, who blogs at Pink Sheets, has posted a comment (in response to "It's Not the Paper, Stupid!") on Jack Lail's Random Mumblings which gives some good suggestions:

Imagine someone opening up a news agency whose highest priority is providing information without judgement. If a big news event happens, they just roll the cameras and show the scene, without commentary, without speculation, without moral lessons.

Imagine they create a culture of extreme objectivity, firing anyone for the least infraction. Where a photoshopped picture would not only result in firings, but would also provide years of open ridicule. Imagine a news organization that not only admits its errors, but places them on page 1 if they were regarding page 1 stories. What if they had a detailed introspective followup explaining how they would avoid similar errors in the future, what changes they would make?

What if they had active elements within the organization continuously seeking out any and all biases, no matter how small?

What if they allowed their customers an open forum, easily viewable by their customers, for pointing out errors, commenting on the stories, making suggestions, etc.?

Some might think this is overly optimistic, but I am an idealist and I really think it's possible, with some effort, for the MSM to rise up to the level of quality now provided by the blogosphere. I don't think it's likely to happen, but at least it's possible.

Update: this article on "Augmenting the Pros by Linking to Them" at Classical Values, and this one from Knoxnews.com. Hat tip to Instapundit, of course!

Sousveillance is a Juvenal Activity, and an Enema of the State

2007-07-14T15:25:00.000-04:00

David Brin calls for a "transparent society" in which everything will be known to everyone. Here is a step in that direction, a website of sousveillance i.e. "inverse surveillance" -- the poor and disadvantaged spying on, or at least monitoring, the rich and powerful. (That's why I call it "an enema of the state.")

ObLitCritCit: Lots of contemporary literary theory deals with the "panopticon"; M. Foucault's Discipline and Punish is a prominent example.

And the issue of how to prevent the authorities from being corrupt and/or tyrannical goes back at least as far as Aristotle and Juvenal. As James Hughes put it, new technology (e.g., cloning, cyborgization, A.I., nanotechnology) doesn't require new ethics, it only requires the application of old (and valid) ethics.

Update: Radley Balko has a devastating pro-sousveillance article at that hotbed of left-wing anti-authoritarianism, FoxNews.com.

Update: "Jimmy Justice" is videotaping NYPD officers breaking the law. Hat tip to Instapundit, of course!

Disclose This

2007-07-03T06:09:00.000-04:00

This policy is valid from 01 January 2006

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact John Fast (Ventrue Capital (at) Gmail dot Com).

This blog does not accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. Any advertising or other links are provided free of charge. I will accept and keep free products, services, travel, event tickets, and other forms of compensation from companies and other organizations but any such compensation will be listed on my blog.

The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog, except that I am more likely to review a product if I have sample of it. Any posts related to such products will be identified in the post.

The owner of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owner's. If I claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, I will only endorse products or services that I believe, based on my expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org.

Market This

2007-06-26T14:35:00.000-04:00

"Having to learn a new system every time you pick up a new role-playing game is like having to learn an entirely new operating system every time you buy a computer."

My strong suggestions for anyone considering creating RPGs for a living are:

1. Don't quit your day job yet (unless you can afford it, and maybe not even then) and

2. Start out by designing a scenario or other supplement for an existing RPG like D&D/d20, GURPS, White Wolf/World of Darkness, or Champions/Hero System.

After all, if you can't sell your scenarios or game-world for a system that people already know and enjoy, what makes you think you can sell them for a system they will have to learn from scratch?

It's perfectly reasonable to add new rules, or change existing rules, to achieve your vision within the basic framework of the games that I listed. For example, there are horror supplements for D&D/d20 that have new rules for fear, insanity, and taint!

I Support the Palestinian Armed Struggle/s/! Twice As Much As Anybody Else!!

2007-06-22T13:35:00.000-04:00

As the Socialist Workers' Party has pointed out, Hamas is the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. As such, I strongly support their revolutionary struggle to take power in both Gaza and the West Bank. Long live the glorious martyrs of Hamas, and death to all the evil, reactionary members of Fatah!

As NewerLabour points out, "Fatah, the social-democratic/nationalist party of Yasser Arafat in Palestine...needs to protect itself and its activists from the murderous clerical fascists of Hamas." Of course I strongly support their efforts to defend themselves and to kill as many murderous clerical fascists as possible!

Update: According to Associated Press,

Electricity in Gaza on Monday became the latest battleground in the struggle between the coastal strip's Islamic Hamas rulers and their Fatah rivals...The losers are hundreds of thousands of Gazans, who have been plunged into darkness as European donors cut off key electricity aid.

I call on both sides to redouble their efforts to slaughter each other in the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, the Eternal, and in the name of liberation from imperialism and colonialism! Hat tip: Roger L. Simon!

Axe This

2007-06-11T19:30:00.000-04:00

I agree that the most important priority is to reduce the total amount of taxation.

The second priority is to replace property taxes with consumption/sales taxes, as much as possible.

The third priority is to make property taxes as fair (equal) as possible, instead of giving exemptions to some people and not to others.

Gonna Wash That Business Right Out Of My Hair?

2007-04-27T22:44:00.000-04:00

I just used the "Contact Us" form on the Clairol Herbal Essence website to send the following message:

"This is the third time I've tried to contact you, and I have not received any reply so far. I have no idea whether this is because your webmasters are idiots, or whether your customer service department is being deliberately rude, or merely grossly incompetent. Either way, if I don't have a satisfactory reply in one week I am going to post on my blog -- which is fairly well-read here at the university -- an extremely nasty, cutting review of your company, particularly your web site *and* your customer service. I am also going to send a snailmail letter to your corporate HQ, explaining *why* I have done this, and why you are losing me as a customer."

Basically, I used to use Clairol Herbal Essence clarifying shampoo, because I'm a pretty sweaty guy. Recently, Clairol completely changed their shampoo names, and they set up a page for people to try to figure out what shampoo to use now. That's fine, except they ask all sorts of offensive, flaming-stereotype questions that I don't even understand. For example, here's the first one:

"My friends say I'm:
A. the girl next door.
B. far from perfect.
C. a diva, baby."

Guess what, Clairol: I'm a guy, and you're practicing discrimination. I think this may be grounds for a lawsuit.

Here's another one:

"I'm more likely to:
A. gossip with my friends than about them.
B. sing in the elevator than the shower.
C. I'll never tell."

I'm a fortysomething-year-old guy from Brooklyn. I could guess, or ask some of my colleagues in Queer Studies here at FAU, but why should I have to jump through hoops in order to buy something from someone who presumably wants to sell it?

So, it looks like, after fifteen years, I'm switching from Clairol to Equate or Suave, who don't try to get cute at their customers' expense.

At Large

2007-04-27T13:06:00.000-04:00

1. How did Quinones win as a Republican in a heavily Democratic
district? We need to figure out what he did so we can emulate
it whenever possible.

2. It's ironic that the Voting Rights Act, a law generally supported
by liberals, was used to elect a Republican. "Those who live by
the /s/w/o/r/d/ State shall die by it."

3. The unfairness wasn't that the elections were countywide,
but that they were "winner take all." If the elections had
used Proportional Representation of some sort, then a group
with 38% of the voters would get 38% representation (on average).

Winner-take-Hindmost

2007-03-24T07:09:00.000-04:00

The incredibly distinguished Saul Levrmore, Dean of the University of Chicago Law School, has a post on the UC Law Faculty Blog about primary reform. As usual, he explains all the important points of the issue in a very clear manner without taking sides. My own position on this issue is pretty clear, although I'm sure it's colored by my own perspective -- as an activist, and as someone who lives in Florida. (BTW, when the flig is Blogger going to learn to support Trackback? I'm starting to wonder whether I'll need to migrate my blog to another site in order to be able to use Trackback...)

Duke W. Nukem, Part 2

2007-03-24T06:56:00.000-04:00

Brian Reynolds Myers -- whom I was familiar with only through his brilliant polemic "A Reader's Manifesto" -- has an article at OpinionJournal explaining why the South Koreans aren't particularly happy with our efforts to "protect" them from North Korea. This lends even more support to the policy (which I support) that we should disengage from the Korean situation: withdraw all our military forces immediately, with a clear statement that we have no further commitment to giving military (or other governmental) aid to South Korea.

It is absolutely insane to have military forces to "protect" or "help" people who do not want our protection or help, whether in Korea or Iraq. Anyone who espouses such a policy is either an idiot or a liar, depending on whether or not he believes what he says. (And it is immoral to use military force for any reason other than to protect people.)

Transgressing the Boundaries: Whoring for Peace

2007-03-17T06:28:00.000-04:00

Baron Bodissey writes: "Now, this is the kind of transgressive antinomian empowerment that you expect from a top-of-the line state college. It makes me proud to pay my son’s Student Activities Fees when I know they go to fund such worthy causes."
and
"After all, the cross in the chapel was controversial because it offended people — well, one person, according to President Nichol — so it had to go. But a 200-pound (90 kilos, for our European readers) stripper in a G-string and pasties — why, no one could possibly be offended by that! Ask the Muslim Students Association — I’ll bet they really dig that sort of thing."
and
"It may be a pig gussied up in a transgressive silk dress with postmodern lipstick, but it’s most emphatically still a pig."

I couldn't say it better than he did.

And speaking of that second quote, about the Muslim Students Association -- on the Independent Women's Forum, Charlotte Hays says "It’s so interesting that radical feminists would rather attack the U.S. than defend women’s rights in the Middle East. I suspect that the reason is Islamofascists hate the West—just as our own homegrown radicals do deep down."

Personally, I would love to see the femocrats get into a feud with Islamofascists, and (as a staunch defender of Political Correctness) I will try to do everything I can to promote that. At the very least, I strongly advocate giving burkas to Katha Pollitt and Barbara Ehrenreich, since they sympathize with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The Great God Panopticism Is Dead

2007-03-12T04:39:00.000-04:00

Thamus Pan-megas Tethnece!

(This week's readings for T.A.R.D.I.S. are Philip K. Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Michel Foucault's essay "Panopticism.")

"Panopticism is a method of organizing that places several parties under
the eye of one or more supervisors. This is apparent in the roots of
the word, with its prefix of pan, meaning all or whole and optic, meaning sight. The parties being observed are however isolated/restricted to some degree or another from each other. They are not aware of if and when the supervising party/parties is observing them. Thus, they are spurned on into self-regulation by the paranoia being caught not behaving properly or performing adequately. This phenomenon of panopticism is a result of the advent of industrialization and empirical/utilitarian thinking. It is found in the institutions arising during its era of its inception and is still with us today. It can be seen everywhere. Examples of it can be found in places ranging from prisons, to factories, to classrooms.
[...]panopticism works in theory because power and knowledge are entwined[...]
And look at the most rigid and supposedly sternest use of the panoptic: prison.
Prisons are awash with crimes being committed by people already
convicted of a crime and are now put there supposedly to stop them from
committing further crime until their debt to society is paid. Drug
distribution, sexual assault, bribery: you name it, it goes on. You
have but to watch the TV show OZ or read the book In the Belly of
the Beast to see examples of this. Now, take these individual
examples of knowledge not being power's shadow and quantify them
across entire societies and indeed the entire world. You start to get a
more accurate reflection of reality then.[...]The phenomenon of power and knowledge growing together is called economy of scale and the point at which they begin to grow apart is called diseconomy of scale."

Philip K. Dick was obsessed with several themes, including epistemology and metaphysics. Given his particular psychological disorders, he seemed to be experiencing the literary phenomenon of the unreliable narrator in his own life, his own psyche. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch deals with aspects of these themes; for example, the epistemological problem of how we can know something is true rather than a hallucination (courtesy of Chew-Z or Can-D) or a virtual experience (courtesy of Perky Pat), and the contradiction between predestination (or precognition) and free will. (Dick's story "Minority Report" discusses this as well.) Dick was also interested in religion, or rather in God; hence the obvious parallels between the eucharist -- or neolithic sacred rituals involving hallucinogenic mushrooms -- and Palmer Eldritch's Chew-Z. Finally, the phenomenon of precognition is related to Foucault's theory of panopticism. The precogs (in both book and story) can see the future, but their power to control it is quite limited, unlike the Observer in Foucault.

Panopticism is modernism par excellence, or perhaps reducto ad absurdum. For Foucault, knowledge equals power equals control equals order. What Foucault didn't realize is that there is a difference between each of these terms. Knowledge without will is powerless; power without ethics, or at least finesse, causes rebellion and disorder. In microeconomic terms, the phenomenon of power and knowledge growing together is called economy of scale and the point at which they begin to grow apart is called diseconomy of scale.

Duke W. Nukem

2007-03-06T02:15:00.000-05:00

Daniel W. Drezner pleads, "I'm going to Los Angeles for a UCLA conference entitled 'Nuclear Weapons in a New Century: Facing the Emerging Challenges.'

"As I have to say something about this in 48 hours, readers are strongly encouraged to proffer any bright ideas they might have about how to deal with this issue."

I'm pretty ignorant of international relations theory, but I offered my two cents' worth on his blog, along with a plug for my favorite IR proposal, from Joe Haldeman's Tool of the Trade.

Haldeman's proposal (in simplified form) is that the five "Nuclear Weapons States" which have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, and China -- should each commit reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons to a level no greater (according to both number of weapons and total megatons) than the largest stockpile of any nation which does not have such an agreement. (The details include rules for inspection and verification, reducing stockpiles by 10% per year over 10 years, and so forth.)

This would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world from about 20,000 to below 2,000 and probably below 1,000; in other words, more than 90% and probably more than 95% of nuclear weapons would be eliminated. (The percentages are even higher for reducing total megatons, rather than number of weapons!)

Over 90%, and probably over 95% -- I give this plan an A.

Bourdieu Saved From Drowning: Supertoys, Cyborg Theory, and Cultural Capital

2007-02-25T14:29:00.000-05:00

This week the readings for LIT 6932 are Brian Aldiss' "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" (better known as the film A.I. -- which still makes me cry like a river whenever I see it or even think about it too much -- or as Walt Disney's Pinocchio), Walter Jon Williams' "Daddy's World," and Pierre Bourdieu's "Postscript: Towards a 'Vulgar' Critique of 'Pure Critiques,'" from Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. The title of this essay is a parody of Boudu Sauvé Des Eaux (Boudu Saved From Drowning), a classic 1932 film by Jean Renoir which was remade in 1986 as Down and Out in Beverly Hills, and again in 2005 as Boudu.

1. MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN: In "Supertoys" David asks the question "How do you tell what are real things from what aren't real things?" "Supertoys" and "Daddy's World" are all about the distinction between the mechanical and the natural, of which the latter is traditionally supposed to be more "real." That's a bogus decision, of course. As Heinlein pointed out, whatever humans do is as natural as, say, beavers building a dam. (Lewis also discussed the distinction between "natural" and "artificial" as part of his discussion of "natural" vs. "supernatural" in Miracles.)

Donna Haraway's "cyborg theory" also relates to this. The point is, everyone from Heinlein to Lewis to Haraway agrees, "mechanical" or "artificial" is not necessarily "wrong" or "bad." And there's no reason why a cyborg, mutant, alien, robot, or A.I. shouldn't have the same rights as a human being, and vice versa.

In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep the dividing line between human and replicant is based on empathy; but I am sure that plenty of replicants and other artificial life forms possess more empathy than many natural-born humans.I also find it ironic that David displays emotions, and is afraid of his mother because she seems so cold and distant. Even more ironically, Teddy tells David "We're both real. You're as real as I am," and both Teddy and David lie to Monica.

2. GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE: "Daddy's World" is also about living in a virtual world. Please see Nick Bostrom's "Are You Living In A Simulation?" http://www.simulation-argument.com, and Robin Hanson's "How to Live in a Simulation" http://www.transhumanist.com/volume7/simulation.html as well as his article "If Uploads Come First: The Crack of a Future Dawn" http://hanson.gmu.edu/uploads.html. (Of course, as a Christian I already believe this world is just the moral equivalent of a simulation; but that simulations are also the moral equivalent of true Reality.)

3. NOBODY KNOWS WHAT "REAL" REALLY MEANS: "Supertoys" is also about alienation from others as well as from self (for being unreal). The world is overcrowded but people suffer from loneliness, so they want robotic companions. Henry also says that people will be linked to the Ambient (i.e., the Internet). The Internet gives me the equivalent of three billion people I can speak with on the phone, i.e. have a realtime conversation with. And most of them can pass the Turing test. I'm not trying to say we don't need plenty of human contact -- I love giving and getting hugs and backrubs. (I don't list sex in there, since sex seems to be masturbation plus hugs and backrubs, and it's easy to masturbate over the Internet.) But I don't see any reason to consider email or IM inferior to letter-writing or phone calls.

4. I GOT YER VULGAR CRITIQUE RIGHT HERE: Bourdieu is the fellow who invented the ideas of cultural capital and social capital, and appropriated -- how ironic -- the idea of intellectual capital from economics. In economics, remember, capital is different from ordinary property because it is *productive* -- in other words, it can be used to produce additional quantities of ordinary property, and possibly additional capital as well. One presumes that cultural capital is what allows one to produce ordinary culture, and so forth; however, one should never expect consistency from /F/r/e/n/c/h/m/e/n/ philosophers.

"Daddy's World" shows the use of virtual reality as (primarily) intellectual and cultural capital, by educating Digit; "Supertoys" shows the use of artificial intelligences as intellectual and social capital. The humans in "Supertoys" control intellectual and social capital, as well as controlling the society and its definitions of humanity.

Bourdieu's other key idea is that "where you stand depends upon where you sit," i.e. that taste is determined by culture and more specifically by sub-culture, which includes class, gender, religion, etc. Pseudo-intellectuals scorn popular culture just because it is popular, a form of reverse-fetishization. C. S. Lewis' essay "Good and Bad Books" is about why genre fiction and alternative media should be treated the same as "real literature." One of my ongoing projects is to do this by applying critical theory to roleplaying games.

5. FANTASY GAMES UNLIMITED: Just a reminder that Walter Jon Williams was in a roleplaying group with several other sf/fantasy authors including George R. R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass; and Williams himself wrote game rulebooks as well as paperback novels for the games Privateers and Gentlemen (from Fantasy Games Unlimited) and Cyberpunk (from R. Talsorian Games). In fact, the virtual world in "Daddy's World" has many of the same characteristics as a roleplaying game-world -- interesting, colorful characters, intelligent puzzles, and striking scenery.

Analyze This

2007-02-24T22:27:00.000-05:00

I sadly recommend "Right Slight: Why Did the GOP Lose the Election?" at TNR:

There are two very unpleasant truths that we have to face,
in order to change them:

"While the publicly-available election data can't answer this
question definitively, everything we know about public opinion
suggests there isn't a majority constituency for economic
libertarianism. (Tax cuts, perhaps, but not the smaller government
that goes along with it.)"

"When small-government conservatives abandon their principles
and become big-government conservatives--usually because voters
demand more government (as in the case of Bush's prescription
drug entitlement) or revolt when they try to cut it (Social
Security privatization)--scandal is a predictable result. The
reason is that people ideologically predisposed to doubt the
effectiveness of government don't see much practical difference
between running programs in the public interest and running them
as vast kickback operations, in which they spread government
lucre among their favorite interest groups (e.g., the
pharmaceutical industry). If government won't work either way,
you might as well make your friends happy."

Alien/Nations

2007-02-20T23:06:00.000-05:00

My first paper for LIT 6932 (Time, Space, and Science Fiction) is called "Alien/Nations: Cyborg Politics in Lafferty's 'Slow Tuesday Night' and Pohl's 'Day Million.'" As usual, I picked a couple of stories so obscure that there has been absolutely no scholarly research done on them since the year 2000.

On the other hand, I also picked a contemporary critical theorist, Donna Haraway, who is (in)famous for her works "A Manifesto for Cyborgs" and "The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others." I'm using Haraway's ideology, generally known as "Cyborg Theory," as a springboard for a more general discussion of transhumanism. That brings me out of the postmodern wilderness and back to more familiar territory: political ideology, especially social justice, which is my primary specialty in political science.

Here's my outline:

I. INTRODUCTION
A. Transhumanism and Cyborg Theory
1. What is Transhumanism?
2. Cyborg Theory = Transhumanism + Feminism + Socialism
B. Significance of the Cyborg Manifesto
1. Feminism (but Transhumanist)
2. Socialism (but Transhumanist)
3. Transhumanism (but Socialist)
4. Very popular, famous, critical theory (anthologized in Norton)
C. "Slow Tuesday Night" and "Day Million" as responses to the same phenomena that engaged Haraway

II. IDEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
A. Romance vs. Enlightenment (Brin)
1. Neophobia vs. Neophilia
2. Third Axis of Political Spectrum
3. Luddites vs. Transhumanists in all camps
B. Transhumanism
1. Definition and Camps
2. Significance: All Your Luddites Are Belong To Us (dustbin of history)
3. Post-Scarcity and Distribution of Goods (quote Ackerman and Friedman)
4. Identity Crisis; Property Rights Over One's Own Body (quote Friedman and Locke)

III. CYBORG THEORY AND TRANSHUMANISM
A. Transhumanism
1. Extropianism (Libertarian Transhumanism)
2. Democratic Transhumanism
3. Technoconservatism (Anti-Transhumanism)
B. Cyborg Theory as a branch of Transhumanism
1. Primary aspects
2. Relationship to Feminism
3. Relationship to Socialism
4. Relationship to Transhumanism

IV. CYBORG THEORY (AND TRANSHUMANISM) IN THE TEXTS
A. "Slow Tuesday Night"
1. Postmodernist (critique of Modernism), and Romantic (prefers good old days);
2. "playful and sarcastic" "ironic political fable" like Haraway
3. Critique of Capitalism (Postmodernist)
a. Alienation of Labor
b. Fetishism of Commodity
c. Financial insecurity (giant roulette wheel)
4. Critique of Sexism
5. Critique of Consumerism/Materialism

B. "Day Million" -- A Transhuman Future!
1. Description/Classifications
a.Modernist (Pohl is an old-fashioned Social Democrat)
b. Enlightenment (pro-future)
c. Not ironic about self (Modernist, not PoMo)
d. Humanist
e. Socialist by Interpolation (from Pohl's views)
f. Uses colloquial language, friendly attitude, dialogue with the reader

2. Cyborgs With A Human Face
a. Fits all of Haraway's definitions of Cyborgs (three transgressions), and all her other characteristics as well. These folks are literally cyborgs as well as being genetically engineered.
b. Alienation of Reproduction from Sex (Sulva) -- it's a Cyborg Sex Story!
c. Individualist Transhumanism, plus Socialism, and Feminism

IV. CONCLUSION
A. Romance vs. Enlightenment (been around since ~1800)
D. These Two Stories Showcase All This!

Viscus: The Problem with Legalizing Drugs

2007-02-20T02:29:00.000-05:00

Viscus suggests that Ilya Somin's article in favor of drug re-legalization (at the Volokh Conspiracy) misses the point when it apparently claims the main benefit would be reducing prison rapes (by reducing the number of people in prison). Instead, Viscus asks "Would it make cases like, People v. Bell, more or less common?"

I completely agree with Viscus on that -- I support drug re-legalization because I want to reduce (actually, I want to eliminate) the murders of (and other harms to) innocent bystanders.

If legalizing drugs means more people will use more drugs, quite frankly, I think it's absolutely worth it AS LONG AS IT MEANS NO INNOCENT PEOPLE GET HURT BY DRUG ADDICTS ANY MORE!

Iraq and a Hard Place

2007-02-18T12:40:00.000-05:00

Obviously the most important issue in American politics is the Iraq War, just as from 1965 to 1975 the most important issue in American politics was the Vietnam War. Casualties since the 2003 invasion include over 3,000 gallant Coalition soldiers, civilians, and contractors (about 3 every day) and somewhere between twenty and two hundred times that many Iraqis, depending on which figures you believe.

My views on this issue are simple and clear:

1. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was a good act that was justified by international law for several different reasons: because of his crimes against humanity (war crimes and genocide), his violations of human rights, and the fact that he wanted to get and use more weapons of mass destruction. (Remember, Saddam had used poison gas and biological warfare, which are both WMDs, against Iranian soldiers and against Iraqi civilians. His nuclear weapons program was not active, but if he could have gotten away with building or buying a nuke he absolutely would have. I assume even the most extreme left-winger agrees with those facts.)

2. As a libertarian, I understand that there are many good actions which still should not be done by government for moral reasons, practical reasons, or both. For example, libertarians and conservatives believe it is wrong to force people to pay money to finance government welfare programs that they don't agree with; libertarians also understand (and so should conservatives) that it's just as wrong to force people to pay for government warfare programs that they don't support.

I assume almost all the liberals out there believe it should be legal, or at least moral for people to practice nonviolent civil disobedience by refusing to pay taxes to support things like the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, or the stockpiling of nuclear weapons. I agree, and would ask them, in order to avoid being hypocrites, to extend the same privilege to those who want to practice nonviolent civil disobedience concerning other government programs.

3. I also think the occupation shows that our government, like all governments, is inherently short-sighted and incompetent. I am continually amazed -- although I shouldn't be -- that conservatives who complain about the inefficiency of government bureaucracies like the post office and welfare system seem to overlook that the Pentagon is the biggest and most inefficient bureaucracy of all.

4. If our invasion of Iraq was justified on humanitarian grounds because it helped innocent Iraqi dissidents and other civilians, this means our occupation cannot be justified unless it is still helping them; and that is best measured by whether the local population wants us to stay or leave. And obviously a majority of the locals want us to leave everywhere in Iraq except Kurdistan and perhaps one or two other places.

5. To summarize everything so far: I agreed with getting rid of Saddam Hussein and making sure that Iraq had no WMD's, although I think an assassination or coup would have been better than the invasion, because there would have been fewer innocent casualties, which is always the supreme moral imperative for judging a war. After the invasion, we should have left immediately, except in those areas (such as Kurdistan) where the local population wanted us to stay for either protection or reconstruction. I wish that President Bush had made this (unfortunately imaginary) speech long before the 2004 elections; but we should do it now, better late than never.

6. In addition to withdrawing from Iraq (except for those areas where the local population actually wants us to stay), we should also offer asylum for those Iraqis who would be in danger after we leave, such as Christians, Iraqis who actively worked for human rights, and those who actually helped us. Specifically, we should allow them to immigrate to the U.S. without any limitation on numbers, as long as they have evidence (in each individual case) that they are in danger because of their pro-western, pro-Coalition, pro-human rights political or religious beliefs or actions.

Viscus: Eminent Domain, Libertarians, and Consent

2007-02-17T20:10:00.000-05:00

Viscus: Eminent Domain, Libertarians, and Consent is disappointed that "from the libertarian perspective, just about any dignitary harm foisted on another is justified if there is consent. That is, using people and disregarding their dignity is okay if they consent. [...] It seems the primary factor driving libertarian opposition to takigns (sic) is lack of consent."

He then explains to the unenlightened that "A superior ethical view would be that one does not violate another person's dignity, regardless of whether 'consent' is forthcoming."

I look forward to seeing Viscus' support for efforts to legally prohibit such offenses against human dignity as, hmm, consensual BDSM (which obviously violates the dignity of the sub); consensual heterosexual intercourse outside of a loving, stable (presumably married, but at least committed) monogamous relationship (which violates the dignity of the woman who is used for physical pleasure and then discarded); and, well, a whole host of other behavior which social conservatives dislike because it offends their traditional religious values.

It looks to me like Sticky has to either support the right-wing fundamentalist agenda (at least in part) or else explain the difference between prohibiting things *he* thinks violate human dignity, and prohibiting things the vast majority of people (not just conservatives, but even moderates and many liberals) think violate human dignity.

Libertarians (and most liberals) don't want to use force to prohibit things just because we dislike them or find them personally offensive, or even think that they violate human dignity. "I may be disgusted by what you two do, but I will defend to the death your right to do it, as long as you don't involve anybody without their consent."

Apparently Sticky is more "enlightened" than Voltaire and Jefferson.

Gernsback and Forth; or, Future's So Bright We Gotta Wear Shades

2007-02-11T18:07:00.000-05:00

This week in LIT 6932 (Time, Space, and SF) we're discussing Bruce Sterling's "The Gernsback Continuum," John Varley's "Air Raid," and R. A. Lafferty's "Slow Tuesday Night," plus Edgar Allen Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition." Herewith some comments:

1. "The Gernsback Continuum" is definitely postmodern according to the simplest definition, because it is a critique of and reaction to modernism -- specifically, the modernism of pulp sf courtesy of Gernsback and John W. Campbell (whom Isaac Asimov described, in The Early Asimov, as wanting "big men solving big problems with big ideas and big machines"), illustrated by the alternate universes of Earth-Tesla and Tom Strong; and the postwar era, like Donald Fagen's beautiful album The Nightfly, particularly the songs "New Frontier" and "I.G.Y." and

I'm a fan of modernism, because I was raised an Enlightenment liberal by Asimov and Heinlein and Clarke. I remember the good old days before the defeats in Vietnam and the War on Poverty; back in 1950-1965 when we were actually making progress on civil rights and eliminating poverty and reducing inequality; back when people worried that the government's biggest problem would be figuring out how to spend the surplus. I wouldn't have a problem with someone telling me "John, we've forgotten to take our food pills." :-D

2. "Air Raid" was made into the movie Millennium. It takes a very dystopian view of the future, and there is sort of a colonial/exploitive relationship between the time travellers and our present; on the other hand there is a similar-but-opposite relationship between the pollution and waste of our time and the problems of the future. (Another paradox concerns the film itself as a product -- one reviewer described it as "smart and moronic at the same time.")

This would be a great text to pair with "Vintage Season," and the fact that the latter story was also made into a film is just icing on the cake! (In fact, I'm not sure why we're not reading them both during the same week.)

3. "Slow Tuesday Night" gives yet another view of the future, by simply extrapolating present trends the same way Heinlein did in 1950 (and again in 1965 and 1980) in "Pandora's Box" and "Where To?" I am working a paper comparing it to two similar works by Fred Pohl -- The Age of the Pussyfoot and "Day Million" -- and Edgar Allen Poe's "Mellonta Tauta." All these works extrapolate present-day trends and try to project a future that is radically different from the present at least quantitatively. "Slow Tuesday Night" shows us a world moving at breakneck speed; "Day Million" depicts a society of genetically-engineered immortals, each of which has gigawatts of power and dozens of artificial intelligences at their casual disposal; The Age of the Pussyfoot depicts a society with somewhat less advanced A.I.'s and biomedical technology, but still significantly advanced over our own, and with the consequences of centuries of relatively "mild" inflation; and "Mellonta Tauta" simply emphasizes various aspects of strangeness and discontinuity between the future world of 2848 and the past/present world of 1848.

4. Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition" is a classic explication of narrative fiction, particularly short-story writing, just as Raymond Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder" is for the detective story (and Dr. Gideon Fell's lecture in Chapter 17 of The Three Coffins is for locked-room stories). Poe says that the story-writer must first figure out what sort of effect he wants to produce, and then bend every effort, use every trick that will fit, and calculate every phrase in the story, in order to produce the maximum of that effect upon the reader. (H. Bruce Franklin claims that Poe's stories fall into two categories: those in which the effect is an emotion, and those in which the effect is an idea.)

Well, /d/u/h/ of course! This is good practical advice. And the three pieces of fiction for this week all do that. As a formalist and structuralist, I look at the elements of style in the prose of each one; it's part of my job.

Tech-Refuseniks

2007-01-28T22:10:00.000-05:00

David Brin's New Year's Day post discusses (among other things) "'tech-refusniks' who - for many reasons - seem prone to reject the benefits of high technology in an onrushing scientific age":

Some who despise this era relish a return to lifestyles that were less democratized or flattened by the "great equalizer" of mass access to tools. [...] At another extreme are neo-feudalists, who don't mind technology and comfort, but resent the fact that the masses are getting almost as many toys and rights and privileges as aristocrats, nowadays. How much better to have an old-fashioned pyramid of privilege, with a few on top lording it over many, below. But that won't happen if the masses are technologically empowered. Hence, much of the propaganda of fear, trying to promote refusnikism on a very broad scale.

From another angle, consider the effect of labor saving devices in the home. Today, a vast majority of Americans can avoid drudgery in ways that - formerly - only the very rich knew. Human servants used to perform the tasks now done by refrigerators and cars and microwaves and vacuum cleaners, etc. All of thistechnologically-driven equality seems to rob all our advances of their sense of wonder. This is prime territory for romantics. If everybody - the masses - has something, then it cannot be good or beautiful or worthwhile.

At the opposite extreme are folks who worry deeply about the COST of over-dependence upon technological crutches. This includes people who are concerned with the ecological damage done by wasteful-wastrel masses who seem bent on consuming simply for consumption's sake.

I don't know why Brin seems to have overlooked what seem to me to be the single largest group opposed to technology: leftists who believe that increasing technology means less social/economic equality, possibly even a lower standard of living for those at the bottom. For example, they worry about workers losing their jobs because of automation, and poor children who (because they are uneducated, thanks to government schools) will be at a greater disadvantage in a higher-tech society.

There are a number of rational ways to deal with these issues, including reforming public education and reforming welfare and the rest of the "social safety net." The solutions are relatively simple (although politically difficult, of course). But my confusion is why Brin didn't mention this concern. The only possibilities I can think of are that he either considers it part of the "folks who worry deeply about the COST" or else that he is doesn't realize that some people don't share his belief that technology helps level society.

TARDIS

2007-01-28T15:59:00.000-05:00

Right now I'm only taking two courses for credit. One of them is LIN 6107: History of the English Language, known universally as H.O.T.E.L. The other is LIT 6932: Time, Space, and Science Fiction, which I have dubbed T.A.R.D.I.S.

The dynamics of the sf/fantasy program at FAU are rather curious. Professor McGuirk (who teaches TARDIS) specializes in science fiction and modern (post-1900) critical theory, while Professor Martin specializes in fantasy and early (pre-1900) literary theory. Anyone who knows me at all will realize that I have a vast knowledge of the texts of the entire genre (both sf and fantasy), and that my knowledge of post-1900 literary theory is very limited. (This is one reason I'm auditing Professor McGuirk's undergraduate course on literary criticism: I want to be able to hold my own at MLA conferences when people babble about "the radical indeterminacy of the text" and "post-colonial hermeneutics.")

This week our readings for TARDIS are Ted Sturgeon's "Thunder and Roses," Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds," and Jean-Paul Sartre's "What is Literature?" We're asked to do a response paper every week, so here are my thoughts:

1. "Thunder and Roses" made me cry, and it also made me think of Mordechai Roshwald's horrifying Level 7 as well as Arthur C. Clarke's "The Last Command" Then I thought of On the Beach and Earth Abides and Alas, Babylon and "Solution: Unsatisfactory."

I can't think of much else to say about the story; the death of humanity, or even a large portion of it, overwhelms me and I can't think clearly. The only way I can see out of this emotional pit is to re-commit myself to activism, specifically to my project to promote the nuclear disarmament program suggested by Joe Haldeman in Tool of the Trade.

2. "Speech Sounds" -- the depiction of Los Angeles after the breakdown of civilization reminds me of Butler's The Parable of the Sower. (Could Butler have sued herself for plagiarism?) The discussion of gender relationships reminded me of the work that's been done in /s/o/c/i/o/b/i/o/l/o/g/y/ evolutionary psychology.

3. "What is Literature" -- Whenever I hear the word "existentialism" I reach for a copy of "De Futilitate" by C. S. Lewis. I'm not a fan of continental philosophy -- my specialty is classical and analytic philosophy -- but here are Sartre's points as I understand them:

1. Why write, as opposed to do something else (like start Fight Club)? Of course, as an existentialist, Sartre points out that all meaning ("relationship") comes from human existence, and then explains that "One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world." This is a clearly existentialist statement, dealing with the drive to give meaning to our lives.

2. Sartre next deals with the subject-object dichotomy. Writing (like running a roleplaying game) involves a curious relationship with the text: "The writer cannot read what he writes, whereas the shoemaker can put on the shoes he has just made." "The operation of writing involves an implicit quasi-reading which makes real reading impossible." The writer must try to imagine the way the reader will encounter the text, but he will never encounter the text that way himself, because he always knows what comes next. "There is no art except for and by others."

3. Reading involves the reader in a relationship with the text; it must be active rather than merely passive/receptive. "Reading seems, in fact, to be the synthesis of perception and creation." (You get out of it what you put into it.) "Reading is a pact of generosity between author and reader. Each one trusts the other, each one counts on the other, demands of the other as much as he demands of himself." Therefore the reader must be free; therefore there can be no truly great art that promotes tyranny, oppression, racism, and so forth. (Obviously he's overlooking works such as Birth of a Nation.)

Red Queen's Race

2007-01-28T01:09:00.000-05:00

I just found out this week that I will need to take another graduate-level course in English, American, and/or multicultural literature for my M.A. in English. No worries, this summer I'll take ENL 6305, Professor Martin's course on Spenser.

Of course I'd like to do my research paper for that class on Spenser's influence on roleplaying games, but I don't know of anything beyond a single article in Dragon magazine, so I will probably do either his influence on later fantasy (primarily DeCamp and Pratt's Harold Shea story "The Mathematics of Magic") or else his use of political allegory.

I'm guessing this last theme is pretty much mined-out, though.

Maybe something about the various ways the word "faerie" was used in Elizabethan times, as Lewis discusses in The Discarded Image.

"[W]ithin the same island and the same century Spenser could compliment Elizabeth I by identifying her with the Faerie Queene and a woman could be burned at Edinburgh in 1576 for 'repairing with the fairies and the 'Queen of Elfame.'"(M. W. Latham, The Elizabethan Fairies (Columbia, 1940), p. 16, quoted in Lewis, The Discarded Image, p. 124.)

Or the various versions of magic according to Renaissance literature, including demonology and academic magic. "In his volume of the Oxford History of English Literature, he explains the difference between magia, high or "white" magic, such as we encounter in Merlin or Bercilek, which is associated with the world of Faerie, and goeteia, black magic, associated with witchcraft and Faustian contracts with the devil. But having made the distinction, Lewis adds that most sixteenth-century writers, including King James himself (who published his Demonology in 1597) condemned all kinds of magic as a snare, warning that even "white magic" was a danger to the soul (7-8)."

Or maybe something about David Lodge's novel Small World...

Regardless of what I do my Spenser paper on, I'm still on track to get my M.A. at the end of 2007 -- or whenever I finish my thesis, whichever comes first. And I'm also on track to teach undergraduates starting this fall.

Interesting Times

2007-01-27T18:54:00.000-05:00

This is the "Letter of Intent" that I submitted to the Department of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University.

“You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls! What is wrong with you?” -----Jon Stewart

At first glance it seems incongruous that I want to get my Master’s degree in political science at Florida Atlantic University, since my primary interests are in political theory (especially ideology) and American politics and I take a qualitative approach, while FAU’s political science department emphasizes international relations and comparative politics, and quantitative methodology, but the incongruity is perhaps more apparent than real.
Based on my experiences so far, I believe graduate work at FAU offers me an opportunity to learn the most in those areas where I am weakest while still pursuing my primary specialties, particularly through independent study. In addition, I appreciate FAU’s balance of emphasis between research and teaching, since I enjoy doing both of these equally. (I also intend to pursue a Ph.D. in political science; my first choice is the University of Chicago.)
But my interest in political science is far more than strictly academic, if you will pardon the pun. I want to have a major positive impact on the world. With all due respect to research and teaching, my aspiration is become a “public intellectual” -- my role-models are Thomas Friedman, James Fallows, George Lakoff, Matthew Miller, Charles Murray, and Bruce Ackerman: people who write popular columns, host political discussion shows, or write books such as Moral Politics and Don’t Think of an Elephant, Losing Ground and In Our Hands, and The Stakeholder Society and Before the Next Attack. These are bold visions of radical change. Like Robert Kennedy (and George Bernard Shaw) I don’t just want to see things as they are and simply ask why; I want to see things that never were and ask “Why not?”
We live in “interesting times,“ to quote the ancient Chinese witticism. The “public intellectuals” Ph.D. program is a recognition of the fact that an article in Atlantic, Harper’s, or The New Republic will have more influence on policy than will one in a peer-reviewed academic journal; I’m not sure if it recognizes the fact that more people get their news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report than from The New York Times or any broadcast network, or the political influence of fiction such as South Park and Borat. Even the government’s own threat-assessors are “channeling Tom Clancy.”
FAU is the only university in North America which offers a graduate degree in English with a specialization in science fiction and fantasy literature, and I intend to pursue that degree as well as one in political science. But speculative fiction has been used to address political issues since long before H. G. Wells worked with the Fabians; depending on how one defines it, the tradition of political science fiction and fantasy goes back to either Thomas More’s Utopia or to Plato's philosophical fables of Atlantis and the Ring of Gyges. When truth becomes stranger than fiction, shouldn’t fiction return the favor?

References

Ackerman, Bruce A. 2006. Before The Next Attack: Preserving Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism. New Haven: Yale.
Ackerman, Bruce A., and Anne Alstott. 2000. The Stakeholder Society. New Haven: Yale.
Anderson, Brian C. 2005. South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias. Washington, D.C.: Regnery.
Anderson, Brian C. 2005. “South Park Republicans,” The Dallas Morning News, 17 April. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_dmn_southpark_reps.htm
CNN Crossfire. 2004. “Jon Stewart’s America.” 15 October.
Katz, Marisa. 2006. “Novel Approach: Terrorism as Pulp,” The New Republic. 06 November. <http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061106&s=katz110606>
Lakoff, George. 2004. Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate -- The Essential Handbook for Progressives. New York: Chelsea Green.
Lakoff, George. 2002. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: University Press.
Lakoff, George. 2006. Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea. New York: Farrar.
Murray, Charles. 2006. In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State. Washington, D.C.: AEI.
Murray, Charles. 1986. Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980. New York: Basic Books.
Miller, Matthew. 2003. The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America’s Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love. New York: Public Affairs.
Pinker, Steven. 2006. "Block that Metaphor!" The New Republic. 09 October. <http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061009&s=pinker100906>
Satin, Mark. 2004. Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now. Boulder: Westview.
WorldNetDaily. 2006. “No Joke: ’Daily Show’ Substantive as Network News.” 5 October.

Thesis to Pieces

2007-01-26T13:23:00.000-05:00

I notice that a lot of other graduate students blog about their schoolwork, so I'm going to do the same. Right now I'm working on an overdue paper for ENG 5018 (Literary Criticism I, Professor Martin) analyzing roleplaying games -- real roleplaying games, not video or computer games that *call* themselves roleplaying games but really aren't -- as a form of improvisational theater. (I don't think this counts, for the opposite reason: it's roleplaying but not a game.)

I. Introduction

Literary theory and criticism is conventionally assumed to deal with the written word, i.e., with stories, novels, and poems; but it also deals with other forms of literature including theater. In fact, the earliest examples of literary criticism, Plato's _Ion_ and _Republic_ and Aristotle's _Poetics_, deal with theater, the famous "classical Greek drama." In addition, contemporary literary theory and criticism deals with other media such as films, radio, television, performance art, and now even the Internet.

Roleplaying games are a new art form and a new medium. Therefore it is appropriate to apply literary theory to roleplaying games. Conventionally, roleplaying games are generally classified as a form of fantasy literature; in essence, they are lumped in with standard stories and novels. To quote an early article from Different Worlds magazine, the assumption is that "If someone wrote down everything that happened in one of our Dungeons & Dragons games, it would make a pretty good fantasy story." A standard definition (courtesy of White Wolf Game Studio) describes roleplaying games as "collaborative storytelling."

My thesis is that, because of the interactive, multi-player nature of the games it is more useful to treat them as a form of collaborative improvisational theater. This is true for standard "tabletop" roleplaying games as well as live-action roleplaying games (LARPs). A roleplaying game can be defined, quite simply, as a form of collaborative improvisational theater in which each actor (player) plays a single character, while the gamemaster/referee/dungeonmaster plays all the other characters. (27=1 p.)

In this paper I intend to follow this theory by attempting to analyze roleplaying games as theater, using classical literary theory (Plato and Aristotle) as well as Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories" and Lewis' "On Science Fiction." If I have time, I also intend to use Michael Moorcock's book Wizardry and Wild Romance and Ursula LeGuin's The Language of the Night. Finally, I will look at some of the new critical theories that have been developed specifically to deal with roleplaying games, including the Fourfold Way and GNS Theory.

There have been other attempts to study roleplaying games using critical theory; some examples include Role Playing Games As Culture and The Roleplaying Game: A New Performing Art as well as Man, Play, and Games which deals with games in general as well as "social simulation games" in particular; but as far as I know it is the only attempt which is done using literary theory, as opposed to some other form of critical theory.

II. Roleplaying Games as Theatre

Andrew Rilstone provides a concise definition of roleplaying games: "A role-playing game is a formalized verbal interaction between a referee and a player or players, with the intention of producing a narrative."

Perhaps the best way to understand roleplaying games is to define them as improvisational theater, much like the commedia cell'arte. Each of the participants plays the part of a single major character, except for the gamemaster (also known as a “referee” or “storyteller” or occasionally other terms based on the specific game – for example, West End Games’ Tales From the Crypt calls the gamemaster the “Crypt-Keeper”) who plays all the other characters as well as describing the scenery and directing the overall plot. (Some roleplaying games vary this in trivial ways; for example, players may be allowed to portray more than one character at a time, or the gamemaster may be assisted by one or more assistants who help portray the non-protagonist characters). (The difference between a conventional "tabletop" roleplaying game and a live-action roleplaying game [LARP] is that in the former, the actions of the characters are described rather than acted-out -- like the difference between radio theater and conventional theater.)

What distinguishes roleplaying games from other forms of improvisation, and forms part of their essential definition, is that the improvisations are performed within the limits set by the rules or “game mechanics” of the particular game. These rules, like the rules of any conventional game, are used to resolve disputes. For example, if two characters are in physical combat, the rules determine which one is victorious; if a player declares that his character undertakes some non-trivial action such as jumping over a chasm, picking someone’s pocket, or disarming a bomb, the rules determine the outcome – how far he can jump, whether his crime is detected, whether the bomb is disarmed or detonates.

III. Classical Greek Theories of Drama

Aristotle defines poetry (including theater) and other arts in terms of their medium, mode, and object; Under the category of object, Aristotle lists three of the components of tragedy: plot (the representation of the actions of the characters), character (the representation of the personalities of the characters), and thought (the representation of the intellectual processes of the characters as well as the values and beliefs articulated in the play.

The medium of a role-playing game is primarily speech, varying between “in-character” (spoken directly by the characters) and “out-of-character” (narration of the character’s actions, or other exposition); but many roleplaying games also include either physical activity miming or acting out a character’s behavior, or small-scale miniature figures to depict the scene.

The mode is delivery by the individual participants; stereotypically the gamemaster describes the scene and each player describes the reaction of their character, generally in turn according to the character’s speed or “initiative” according to the rules; at the end of the turn the cycle repeats. This directly corresponds to Aristotle’s comparison of telling a story with a single voice, reciting the Iliad in several voices, and having several actors.

The object of roleplaying games can be any protagonist, but generally they are much as China Mieville described them in Perdido Street Station: "They were immediately and absolutely recognisable as adventurers[...]They were hardy and dangerous, lawless, stripped of allegiance or morality, living off their wits, stealing and killing, hiring themselves out to whoever or whatever came. They were inspired by dubious virtues.[...]They were scum who died violent deaths, hanging on to a certain cachet among the impressionable through their undeniable bravery and their occassionally impressive exploits."

The correspondences with classical theater continue; for example, the gamemaster’s portrayal of the non-protagonist characters (NPCs) in the game corresponds exactly to the role of the chorus. Other features (courtesy of Wikipedia) include:
* Deus ex machina, a crane that gave the impression of a flying actor
* Trap doors, or similar openings in the ground to lift people onto the stage
* Pinakes, pictures hung into the scene to show a scene's scenery.
* Thyromata, more complex pictures built into the second-level scene (3rd level from ground)
Each of these has a clear corresponding element in roleplaying games.

Plato said that poets are dangerous to society; and exactly the same criticisms apply to roleplaying games -- and in fact have been applied, by groups such as B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons)! According to Plato poets are disorderly and chaotic because they are inspired by the Muses (rather than being governed by conscious logic), are emotional in their performances, and thereby inspire dangerous emotions in their audience; according to B.A.D.D., some roleplayers are so obsessed or overwhelmed by the game that they commit suicide when it goes badly for them. Plato also claimed that poets encourage disrespect for authority by depicting rulers and gods as having flaws, or even as figures of fun; certainly the same occurs quite often in roleplaying games. (One example from a roleplaying game of my own is the Governor of Sensak, who is based on the vigilante Judge Roy Bean.)

Plato also said that poetry encourages bad behavior by depicting vice and/or "persons of low character" which gives the audience ideas about imitating their deeds, especially when they are depicted as heroes. Roleplaying games are filled with characters who are rogues, criminals, cowards, and tomb robbers; in fact, one of the "core" or primary character types in Dungeons & Dragons is the "rogue" or "thief" character class, and it is even possible to play a professional assassin! Of course, B.A.D.D. has claimed several different cases in which teenagers were supposedly inspired to commit crimes because they played Dungeons & Dragons and wanted to "act out" these deeds, just like children (at least according to urban legend) once jumped off rooftops with bath towels as capes, in imitation of Superman.

Finally, to Plato, poets and dramatists are merely third-hand imitators, as opposed to real craftsmen, such as those who make chariots; and fantasists are even worse -- they are liars because their stories are false, and in some cases impossible. Similarly, Ursula LeGuin has pointed out in "Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?" contemporary fantasists are also pilloried because their works are "impractical" (i.e., not about success in business) and "unrealistic" (because they deal with ideals, and a better world than our own); and the same sort of criticisms are often levied about roleplaying games and those who play them. And just as Plato wished to see poetry banned from the Republic, there was also a movement to prohibit roleplaying games.

Aristotle disagreed with Plato on all of these points, and his defense of poetry and classical Greek theater can also be applied directly to roleplaying games.

(1) D&D games (and other literature) can be socially useful because they produce catharsis, so the players and audience don't need to get those emotions from real actions/events;
(2) they can inspire virtue by depicting heroism and nobility in a positive light;
(3) they can prevent vice by depicting it and "persons of inferior character" in a negative light, either seriously showing the problems caused by such behavior or by using comedy to mock such persons so everyone will want to avoid emulating them (thus providing a stick to the carrot of point #2);
(4) they are actually closer to the Mind of God (or the Platonic forms) by acting _in imitatio Dei_ to create something superior to the fallen (real) world;
(5) they may be false in the particulars, but can demonstrate important "higher truths" of human nature or other concepts. (+130=5pp)

IV. 20th-Century Theories of Fantasy

In "On Fairy Stories," J. R. R. Tolkien discusses fantasy fiction. This essay is of course a classic, and its principles can be applied to the analysis of other media besides the written story and the oral folk tale; for example, to fantasy films, theater, and to roleplaying games.

In the essay, Professor Tolkien defines fairy stories as stories about the adventures of mortal men in -- that is, their interaction and relationship with -- the "perilous realm" of faerie, i.e. the supernatural. He also sketches the principles behind the concept of world-building -- what Tolkien calls "sub-creation" -- which certainly apply to the creation of settings for roleplaying games!

Again to quote Tolkien, "a 'fairy-story' is one which touches on or uses Faerie," a term which in turn "may perhaps be most nearly translated by Magic--but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific magician." This is in stark contrast with the practical thaumaturgy of most characters in most _Dungeons & Dragons_ games! These player-characters are generally examples of the "greed for self-centered power which is the mark of the mere Magician" rather than the enchanter (storyteller or dungeon-master).

In Tolkien's opinion, the world depicted, although it has supernatural elements -- perhaps even because of this (quote about how Magic must not be satirized) -- must be consistent and rational. This sort of logic and consistency allows "Secondary Belief" or "willing suspension of disbelief" in the Secondary World, which is absolutely necessary for enchantment.

"Faerie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted."

This allows us to see aspects of our own world with a different perspective: "It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine."

This enchantment is the true purpose of the fantasy story: "The magic of Faerie is not an end in itself; its virtue is in its operations; among these are the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires. One of these desires is to survey the depths of space and time. Another is (as will be seen) to hold communion with other living things." "To the Elvish craft, Enchantment, Fantasy aspires, and when it is successful of all forms of human art most nearly approaches."

Tolkien also, following Aristotle, discusses the practical psychological benefits of fantasy fiction -- specifically, the creation of the psychological states of "Recovery," "Consolation," and "Escape."

V. Theories Developed Explicitly for Gaming

The two most prominent theories developed specifically to analyze roleplaying games are known as "The Fourfold Way" and "GNS Theory." There have been several other theories developed, but all are either less-prominent, less-well-developed, or simply derivative variations of one of these two primary theories.

Witness This

2007-01-10T09:37:00.000-05:00

Yesterday while I was on campus at FAU (where I am a graduate student) I noticed someone preaching in the quad. He had attracted a crowd of students, many of whom were heckling him, and I noticed he was wearing a sandwich board that said (among other things) "GOD HATES SIN" in big letters.

As a fellow-Christian, I think a better approach would have been to wear something that said "GOD LOVES YOU" in big letters, as the primary message. We already have enough trouble reaching people, thanx to nuts like Fred Phelps (who will most definitely go to Hell when he dies, or at best to purgatory).

WHY I'M TRYING COSTCO AND LEAVING SAM'S CLUB, AT LEAST TEMPORARILY

2006-12-16T11:37:00.001-05:00

I've used Sam's Club for four years now, and generally been extremely satisfied with them. In particular, I love the way I can order groceries online so they are waiting for me when I come to pick them up. It's like something out of the future as predicted in the 1970's!

Unfortunately, they are having some absolutely awful problems with their website, both the pages on the site and the registration/account system. Here is the email I sent them about why I'm reluctantly and unhappily leaving Sam's Club and trying Costco until they fix those problems:

To: mserve@samsclub.com

Subject:
WHY ARE YOU MAKING IT SO HARD FOR PEOPLE TO GIVE YOU MONEY?

I always used Sam's Club until now, but due to the severe problems (which I
reported on the phone) with your website and also with my registration, I plan
to try Costco until these problems are resolved.

I also plan to put this information -- including the details of the problems and
my decision to try Costco -- on my blog.

I hope that you can fix the problems with your website and also with my
registration.

As a reminder, these problems are:

1. Every product is listed as unavailable in Club #8140.

2. In "Shop By Category," in every category, the top three rows of
sub-categories (which are the ones that got covered by those annoying pop-up
advertisements) are not clickable, even after the pop-up advertisement finally
goes away.

3. When I got a replacement card (because my old card was lost), the website
forced me to re-register AND choose a new email address AND it no longer has
access to my click-and-pull lists.

These are the sort of problems I expect from webpages done by
high school students who have not mastered HTML.

I know that Sam's Club is not a cheap fly-by-night organization
that can't afford to hire competent people as webmasters, so
I assume there is some other reason why your webmasters are
apparently so incompetent. I'm just *really* curious what that
explanation could be.

John Fast

P.S.: When I tried to send this using the "E-mail Sam's Club" feature
on your website I got a "severe error" message, so I'm sending this by regular
email. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn't it?

2006-11-23T10:44:00.000-05:00

From "What RPG Player (Not Character) Type Are You?"

"You scored as Storyteller.

The Storyteller is in it for the plot: the sense of mystery and the fun of participating in a narrative that has the satisfying arc of a good book or movie. He enjoys interacting with well-defined NPCs, even preferring antagonists who have genuine motivations and personality to mere monsters. To the Storyteller, the greatest reward of the game is participating in a compelling story with interesting and unpredictable plot threads, in which his actions and those of his fellow characters determine the resolution. With apologies to Robin Laws.

Storyteller 90%
Tactician 85%
Specialist 85%
Character Player 55%
Casual Gamer 50%
Power Gamer 15%
Weekend Warrior 10%"

Courtesy of CharlesRyan who created the quiz,
Rob Laws who created the system of classification,
Hank Harwell who mentioned it on the
Christian Gamers' Guild (in their Yahoogroup),
and the late Glenn Blacow, the greatest gamemaster
in the world, who first came up with the idea of
classifying games and players, may he rest in peace.

BTW, more information on player styles, using Rob's
classification, is in the Dungeon Master's Guide II
and in Dungeon Master (sic) for Dummies.

Real War for Real Men

2006-09-02T16:32:00.000-04:00

Why a real war on terrorism brings out the best in us. By Robert Wright - Slate Magazine

I've been in love with Robert Wright's brilliance ever since I read his article on sociobiology, "Why Men Are Such Beasts," in my favorite neoliberal mag, The New Republic. This series is an excellent idea for strategy for a *real* war on terrorism, not the counterproductive fiasco that the Dubya administration is trying to pass off as one. (For the record, I supported the invasion of AghanIraq, but not the occupation.)

An Ugly (Tomato) Story

2005-03-11T15:38:00.000-05:00

"Florida Growers Stifle an Ugly but Tasty Tomato"
<http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/11093168.htm>

I can understand why the Florida Tomato Growers' Guild or whatever they call themselves :-D (actually it's the Florida Tomato Committee <http://www.floridatomatoes.org/> <info@floridatomatoes.org> samantha@floridatomatoes.org ) might want to keep scary-looking tomatoes off the market, because it might lower the standard of having *Florida* tomatoes.

I can also understand why they might want to keep successful competitors off the market.

And I can understand why people might want to have tasty tomatoes, even when they're ugly.

The point is, when there's more than one side to an issue, and it's really a subjective judgement call, i.e. based on personal taste or personal moral values, NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO IMPOSE THEIR PERSONAL TASTES OR VALUES ON OTHERS WHO DON'T SHARE THEM.

So, yes, I agree with Senators Specter and Santorum -- representing the extreme left and right wings of the Republican Party, while I consider myself a moderate -- and support their call for the US Department of Agriculture to intervene.

According to the story, "J. Luis Rodriguez, trade adviser for Florida Farmers Inc., a major producer based in Lake Worth, said 'Pennsylvania did not deliver for the president. We delivered twice."'

Maybe that's true.

And maybe Procacci Brothers will remember who their friends are during the next election cycle. And tell their customers.

And maybe the G.O.P. should remember who are NOT their friends, i.e. rich Florida corporate agriculture, and take a good hard look at subsidies to them . . . and eliminate these corporate welfare payments for big agribusiness!
<http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb109/hb_109-31.pdf>

Cutting agricultural subsidies is not just good ethics and good common sense, it's also good politics. As Grover Norquist points out, agricultural subsidies cause farmers to take leave of their senses, or rather of their morals, and vote Democratic. But "without subsidies, farmers are nothing but heavily-armed small businessmen."

Ventrue Capital

Fat, Mean, and Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life

Been Ladin

I Like to Be an Intellectual of This and That, and So It's Good.

Drum and Dumber

Comment on "Progressive Nudges for Household Savings"

The Task Set Before Us

Good Question!

On Wisconsin!

Viva Che'!

The Task Set Before Us

Politics is Not About Policy

Reflections on CPAC

Back in Black?

My Steampunk RPG Campaign

Which Parents, When Their Child Asks for Bread, Give a Stone Instead? Amy Chua!

Giants in the Earth

Cloward-Piven: Bring It On

Investing in America

Red State Diary

Modest Proposals: Agenda for the 112th Congress

Nothing But Class

"Morals" Laws are Immoral

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss?

Modest Proposals: A Gentlemen's Agreement on the Supreme Court

Will Opine For Food

How To Solve The Financial Crisis

Just Posted on Vanity Fair

Kenesaw Mountain Chicken Droppings

Too Skinny Even For Me

Hear, Hear

Never Again

R.I.P., E.G.G.

Prescriptions for Disaster

Second-Best News All Day

Placeholder Post

"How I Became A Libertarian" by Michael Shermer

PCer Than Thou

Old Skool Gamin'

Bitter Sweet

Burn Notice

Macro Zombie Virus

Hey, Obama-For-President Campaign, Sue Me For This!

Ending the Embargo on France

Burning Man

Garbage In, Garbage Out

I Oughta Be In Pictures

Sue Me, Sue Me, What Can You Do Me?

Why Conservatives Are So Cruel, Mean, And Heartless

Engage *This*

No Gun? No Funeral! No Problem!

Feat of Clay, or Blowing the Whistle in a Glass House

What are the consequences when the powerful are impervious to justice?

What are the consequences when the powerful are impervious to justice?"

Political Pigfight: Death to the Corrupt and Evil (Young and Stevens)

Political Catfight

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

3 Laws (of War) Safe

Would You Like Freedom Fries With That?

...And I Wish For A Pony, Too!

Sousveillance is a Juvenal Activity, and an Enema of the State

Disclose *This*

Market *This*

I Support the Palestinian Armed Struggle/s/! Twice As Much As Anybody Else!!

Axe This

Gonna Wash That Business Right Out Of My Hair?

At Large

Winner-take-Hindmost

Duke W. Nukem, Part 2

Transgressing the Boundaries: Whoring for Peace

The Great God Panopticism Is Dead

Duke W. Nukem

Bourdieu Saved From Drowning: Supertoys, Cyborg Theory, and Cultural Capital

Analyze *This*

Alien/Nations

Viscus: The Problem with Legalizing Drugs

Iraq and a Hard Place

Viscus: Eminent Domain, Libertarians, and Consent

Gernsback and Forth; or, Future's So Bright We Gotta Wear Shades

Tech-Refuseniks

Engage This

Disclose This

Market This

Analyze This

Witness This