Comment Time I'm going home for about a week starting on Sunday and I'll finish up about five essays that I've been working on. I'm wondering which of my posts you think I should lengthen? I'm pretty sure the one on John Nash and Simone Weil will happen, and maybe "Bravo Bravado" as per Ram's approval. I've also kept an Excel file of all the RIAA wrongdoings this year alone. It is vast. Also, is "Playing Chess With a Domino Set" too pretentious a title for when I (finally) make the move to Movable Type?
Friday, May 2, 2003 01:35 p.m.
On a Personal Note
I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about this summer. Alina's directing that mass libertarian youth indoctrination project with a name that is not the homophone of everyone's favorite stimulant drug. Krista is coming back from overseas to be the sexiest jet-set economist Washington proper has ever seen. And I'll try my best to compete. The best thing about a small office is no dress code. I see a Williamsburg haircut in the not too distant future.
[Economists] may argue ferociously about the result, or how good our model is, etc., but we'll both agree that the process for finding truth is to construct a hypothesis by building carefully from basic premises, and then test it as well as we can against the real world. The physical sciences will have even more rigorous tests than economics, which runs up against hte difficulty of getting humans to let themselves be experimented on. Ultimately, perhaps you'll be right: the effect of a small change in the minimum wage doesn't have any measurable effect. But the process will have refined and enhanced both our understanding, for example by establishing that we agree that the laws of supply and demand still apply to labor, and we can't generalize from, say, a study showing no effect on employment from a $0.05 change in the wage, to a conclusion that we can raise the minimum wage by $5.00 and still have no change in employment.
The humanities simply doesn't have this rigor. In some cases, such as literature, you really can't, although you can certainly be more rigorous than many of the programs devoted to exposing the obvious truth that Shakespeare and company did not have the same racial and gender sensibilities as 21st century Americans, yawn. In other cases, such as sociology and political science, it's possible that you could, but don't yet. That's why discussions in those courses tend to revolve around the speakers' opinions on human nature, interesting and possibly right but very difficult to either prove or falsify.
in the comments, she adds:
Sociology will assume the science mantle when it stops relying on first person subjective evaluations and surveys, political science when it develops a coherent micro model from which the macro can be derived -- as a friend I spoke to last night said, "In economics you don't have to sit around arguing whether people look to their own self interest, but you have to argue that in political science before you can get anywhere". Economics is the least scientific where it has the most trouble finding testable data, which is to say macroeconomic policy, which is why there's so much truth-shading by politics-minded economists in areas like tax policy; assertions are often arguable, but rarely falsifiable.
You won't find an economist without some hostility toward sociology. Blame Max Weber, the father of sociology, who also believed himself to be an expert economist (he was a Hegelian.) He developed a list of basic behavior uncertainty principles that sound like watered-down Menger, and claimed sociology is the left-hand, so to speak, of the other behavior science, economics. Yeah, sure. Last time I checked no economics classes are titled "Gender and Society," or "Wealth, Power, and The Family."
At no college will you get a better education in Sociology/Anthropology over Economics. However, there are intellegent individuals enrolled in light Humanities programs. A natural intellectual can make a trite discipline rigorous by his own creativity and motivation. The rest of them ride on his coat tails and cite his work whenever they can.
Sure, Economics is not a science. Those who confuse Economics with a science tend to be bad economists. Check out a number of Deirdre McCloskey's writings (except maybe ,a href="http://www.pfc.org.uk/reviews/mcc-rsn.htm" target=_blank>this one) for more on that. Consider it instead as the Yang to Political Science's Ying. And Galt is a bit too quick to dismiss Political Science (a past error of mine, I'll admit.) As a Bachelor's degree, it's usually worth as much as Sociology; but an advanced degree in Political Science requires at least a Bachelor's degree worth of Economics.
But the discipline most similar to Economics still goes unmentioned: Philosophy. Both require the same sort of analytic and abstract reasoning skills.
This is kind of a boring post for me because arguing whether or not economics is a science, and why economics is superior to other Social Sciences, is all economics majors do when they get together. Go read this article, Taking On 'Rational Man,' from The Chronicle of Higher Education
Friday, May 2, 2003 12:45 a.m.
No, His Name's Not Bat Boy
I don't normally post the "news of the weird" type stuff, but this is totally freaky. Seven year old boy "pregnant" with twin -- fromt he BBC
Thursday, May 1, 2003 05:51 p.m.
What We Do For Love
A couple friends emailed me this Washington Post story and Christina has blogged about it, so I guess I'll put in my $0.02. It's on the demise of the "dating" institution. If I'm dancing on its grave, it's a mollified head-bob and toe-tap.
Young people understand now there's no point to chaining yourself to another in a "relationship" unless the other person is special to you. What's the point of monogamy without love? You are simply denying yourself the opportunity that someone better might come along.
So we have our "open relationships," some work well, others do not. Sartre and De Beauvoir did it for 50 years. Your ideal emotional partner may be less than satisfying physically, or the reverse. It's better to be single than bored. And it's summertime... sigh. I pity the monotonously monogamous couples that are missing out on the action this season. But they're the "risk aware," like the U-street yuppies -- and they're the codependents.
I've always hated that song "If You Can't Be With The One You Love (Love The One You Are With.)" Some of us don't settle for second best. What women want -- and I can't believe I just started a sentence with that -- is to be someone's A-1, his primae facie favorite female. If you are the "friend with benefits" you can never get that feeling, but it's no better or worse if your boyfriend doesn't really want you.
So how can we tell ... Does he recognize you in public? Do you know all his friends? Was he nervous when you first met? Are you intellectually equal? Do you know his secrets? All these things seem obvious, but I know couples together for months that cannot answer yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 10:53 p.m.
Goings On It's May. Wow. This Saturday at Politics and Prose Azar Nafisi reads from her book "Reading Lolita in Tehran" which sounds like Oprah territory but is deeper than that. That evening, the fierce sounding "Democratic Networking Group" screens "Horns and Halos" at Visions. An amazing band The Mercury Program plays at the Black Cat on Sunday night. Later on in the week, Michelle Malkin and Heather MacDonald are doing a Clare Boothe Luce luncheon at Heritage on the 9th.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 10:11 p.m.
The Gentrifying Gentry
The aim of my post on Westminster gentrification is unclear. I do not want to move to the neighborhood because the 9:30 Club is three blocks away. I want to move there because it is home to at least thirteen of my friends. Then again, unless they've got rent control, it might not be for long.
I'm dead set on living alone so I guess that means the DC proper locations within my price range are limited to Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights.
I suppose one could take this argument as hipster elitism. Fine. Yuppie annoy me just as my kind annoys them. Zoe has it right identifying them as "the risk aware." Something has to be said about those who guage the desirability of a housing local based on its nearest proximity to a Fresh Fields. For obvious reasons I prefer the company of people who aren't afraid to walk alone late at night around black people.
Sadly, DC is running out of "black neighborhoods" for the artists to invade -- at least in upper lefthand corner. Maybe Souffwest is next... or maybe we should have all moved to Philadelphia by now
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 09:24 p.m.
New Jazz
I went to the Montreaux Jazz Fest in Montreaux, Switzerland about two years ago. I do not remember seeing bands like Mogwai, Tricky, and Yo La Tengo on the bill. This kind of confirms my theory that much of the better indie/experimental music will be regarded like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker in fifty years.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 09:00 p.m.
New Risk for Venture Capitalists
More RIAA evil doings. They're taking the Napster investor Hummer Winblad Venture Partners to court. The article from Mercury News ponders whether this is a slippery slope towards legal action against indiidual investors. ``Should someone be able to come after you because you invested in Philip Morris when you should have known that cigarettes are bad for people?'' asked Gurley, a former Hummer Winblad partner who left the firm before its Napster investment.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 08:12 p.m.
Bravo Bravado.
I've hated "actors" since the first days of high school. You couldn't find a sorrier sad-sack of obnoxious self-absorbed sychophants than in the drama club's yearbook photo. They were the ones who wore bowler caps and thrift store blazers, affected Madonna accents, and lived every minute of the day just to be looked at
Apparently my school has a good theater (pardon me, theatre) department. I only met one of the students in it. She was just of the character type I describe above and extroverted like hell. I remember a few years back it was about time for her graduation. We had a meaningless conversation and in the back of my mind I thought, "have fun teaching high school, bitch."
But she was moving to NYC "with nothing but a dream" just like plenty of other waitresses before her. The celebrities who aren't annoying, like Gwynneth Paltrow, usually got into the business because of family connections. The irrationality of persuing such a career is bound by emotions; the feeling that one is so much like a snowflake, and so little like the billions other people persuing the same unrealistic goal. I imagine most actors religiously follow zodiac charts. We do know, because of award ceremony speeches, almost all of them believe in god.
It's the sanctimony that sickens me. The tabloids and rags exault people like Stockard Channing and Anne Bancroft, why because they're old? Even with age an actor is useless. Anne Bancroft. What has Anne Bancroft ever done besides Mel Brooks, and then what has he ever done? If you paid puppets are going to pick a frivilous career path, fine, do it and enjoy it. Just accept that "the method" is hardly rocket science, if not even basket weaving.
Update: Here's an apologetic addendum to soften the blow of the above words. Desire for celebrity is normal, but desire to exist as a puppet isn't. Indeed, as I was telling Bill the other day, all I want right now is to get published. I must admit that a small part of it is because I fantasize about people from my past thinking "Joanne McNeil --Oh, I remember her! We made out on the Charles Bridge that summer..." not to mention people in my future knowing me before meeting me (although that is just a little creepy.) Go read George Orwell's "Why I Write" because none of this drunken blustering can say what I mean any better.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 12:45 p.m.
Uncertainty Principles
I'm just going to flip-flop on the issue for the next ten years until it's a sure bet Open Source is here to stay. More on the Microsoft
patch problem at least signals they're getting weaker in the race.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 12:19 p.m.
Press Pass
The Paris advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi ran a successful campaign for "Press Freedom" featuring famous French journalists in grusome photos. Now they plan on taking the message over-seas
To bad the US adaptation does not include more seriously respected journalists. According to an IMC poster on the women in the photo above, "it was ridiculous to imagine Christine Ockrent being killed for doing her job when you know what kind of job she does."
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 11:37 a.m.
There Goes the Neighborhood
U Street has really changed. Rents where Zoelives have escalated so that I was asked $1100/month to rent out an English basement on 10th St.
Of course I have no economic qualms about "gentrification;" eventually a new neighborhood will spring from Westminster's ashes. However, it's quite an annoyance to wait patiently until the next bohemian neighborhood is established. All you can do is curse the "second-wave" yuppies in the interium as they convert rundown rowhouses into places like Saint Ex.
Update: Zoe has a poignant follow up noting Phil's now sells artichokes among other anecdotes... Ah, but I'll move there in a heartbeat if anything opens up
