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[Jul. 6th, 2009|01:58 am] |
From xkcd:
Often, at work, people will start talking about how bad things are, and how they're getting worse. Seventy percent of the time, I kind of slough it off on the grounds that they're probably just griping, but in some cases, I get the feeling that they seem to look at it from the point of view that life is bad and getting worse, and that now will never be as good as then. Part of me appreciates the sentiment, as I can say with no uncertainty that now will never be exactly like then, but then I'll never be the same person I was yesterday, not necessarily worse, just different, so it's just a statement of the obvious.
Yet I can't imagine how people can think of the whole of history as one continual trek in a downward moral spiral. I mean, we're still here, and assuming morality is something that helps us to exist, then it's gotta be working or else we wouldn't be around to question it. Now, I think one can say the standards now are worse than they used to be, but that's not the best path of thought either, since I can bet that if things went back to the way they were 200 years ago, the person would think it was even worse. In fact, it's one of my favorite lines of rebuttal, to point out what a reasonable person would probably have considered justifiable or good in other centuries and eras.
I would imagine a more fruitful way of thinking in this direction would be sort of socratic; each generation learns something from the old one, and then gets confronted with a different set of problems, so that even while the knowledge base grows, the potential issues increase even faster creating a feeling of having even less wisdom than our parents may have had. While I guess that's useful from a humility standpoint, it's troublesome in that it can mean problems now aren't viewed with sufficient seriousness, being "the fault of all those bad/stupid/low class/rich/etc people", which is more of a blamestorming than problem solving activity.
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|01:18 am] |
I thought this was a nice link to share:
"Why smart people often feel they're the dumbest one in the room"
Being somewhat extroverted, I think it's pretty common for people to overestimate how intelligent I may be, especially since I tend to toss out ideas that can come from topics that are potentially obscure, but in reality, just reflect some bit of stuff I happened to be reading that day (and, as an entp, I can go through quite a bit, stashing this and that factoid for later recombination into more original second level thoughts), and gathering other people's opinions, as opposed to something I put together myself.
I , however, tend to be most impressed with folks who have a poker face about things, you tell them stuff, and are pretty sure they're processing it, but don't give quite enough feedback to see where they are. It only get's reinforced if they open their mouth every so often and something intelligent comes out. It can get to the point where I want to get inside the other person's head because I want to see how it ticks.
The interplay seems to make for an good chemistry, one side very curious, the other side relaxed by a person who's pretty easy to read, making for a decent conversation.
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|05:41 am] |
Why do so many people seem to conflate moral relativism with a "live and let live" philosophy?
On the other hand, why do so many live-and-let-livers seem to be so intolerant of people who have different moral beliefs?
The first question springs to mind from a recent discussion where on one hand the person argued that moral rules are essentially arbitrary constructs (gay marriage in this case), then says it should be allowed because it's not hurting anyone, and we should live and let live. It seems the person has a definite idea of what they believe to be a moral guideline (the 'it's not hurting anyone else basis), and what they don't (people who find issue with sexual variety). Now, I don't have an issue with the debate about which position is better, but it seems to undercut one's position to argue that the rules are arbitrary, and then try to enforce another set in the same argument. Perhaps it would have been better to say X principal dominates Y in this case.
The second question springs from a side thought during the first discussion, that people who argue for tolerance are often anything but. I guess the very idea of trying to get someone to agree with us is by it's very nature manipulative, if not actually somewhat coercive vis a vis a sort of bandwagon argument. It's just not a live and let live kind of thing to do.
I guess this is why I split up my personal life philosophy from my thoughts about how others should behave, with the tacit understanding they probably do the same thing on some level. That way, I can fully acknowledge that morals can be highly malleable, while following some form of them. I have instincts that I was probably born with on what's right or wrong that were no doubt guided by my upbringing, and I feel good or bad when I follow them (or don't), but since I can't see behind someone else's brain, I feel more inclined to accept their behavior in as much as it doesn't interfere with mine, but I also accept the fact that lots of other folks want to have more rules for purposes ranging from mere signaling (rules on dress or speech), to actual organization of limited resources (use of various facilities, marriage, etc..). Since there is some benefit from folks following these various rules, I tend to go along most of the time. Still, in order to satisfy my own peevishness, I tend to work for the spirit as opposed to the wording (think of a rolling stop. Sure it violates the law, but if you look adequetly it serves the purpose). |
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| Biden My Time |
[May. 8th, 2009|12:50 am] |
Joe Biden recently got into some trouble recently for saying "I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now" referring to trains and such (it should be noted that he frequently rides a train to DC, and did so none too recently). Now, I won't debate the reasonableness of the comment, or whether or not it would cause some kind panic (note: I like Joe. Much for the same reason I like mccain. They say stuff that's on their mind every so often. It may require a foot to be inserted later, but I think it's good thing because it makes them more like the rest of us), but I will say that I've seen one or two blogs comment on the uproar saying "science will win out" or what not, in a an attempt to say Biden was wrong. This kind of thinking bugs me.
Why? Because all science can say in this case is that I have X probability of catching the flu from a person who happens to be on the train. That's it. It can't say it's the best answer, and while it might be able to answer (through economics) what the optimal answer is from a cost point of view, it certainly can't say which is "good" or "bad", it can just merely state some probabilities.
This whole using the "science club" seems to be as popular as using the "morality club" (An example is someone saying it's for the kids... in a political debate) and it functions as a rhetorical weapon, which is that part that bugs me. It detracts from the real issue, which is one of public policy: Weighing all the known benefits and costs, and running it against our filter of what is just and unjust, is this a good idea?
Some topics (most certainly not complete) that I think misuse science, and instead are arguing something more akin to morality:
The environment- I think the ipcc report represents a reasonable interpetation of the data. It's a starting point for public policy discussion. I'm more than happy to have the debate on costs and benefits, but one has to realize that while the scince says what is probable, the environment in many ways has a value that is based on it's usefulness. Any discussion that wants to preserve it perfectly is approaching morality, not science.
Abortion- One can point to various topics of research that a fetus has or doesn't have this response or that, but in the end, the actual decision being made is a moral one about the rights of one individual vs another in a very specific arrangement. Now, if one wants to argue science in the abortion debate, they have to use a study like one about crime rates dropping when abortion is legal, but good luck with that, cf "The Morality Stick".
Toxins and other Dangers- This is the one that orginally used to bug the crap out of me. OK, X chemical has Y effects, some of which have a certain probablity of being harmful. Now, we can most ceratinly ban the chemical, but then we have to ask why are we banning this instead of Z chemical, which is equally harmful, but is "natural", or whatever reason is used to justify why the same risk results in different outrage. In fact, there's been some study on this topic and a correlation of 0.2 pops out (this means hazard and outrage are almost never in sync with each other, ie they're independent variables). In fact, the weirdest part is that the 0.2 pops up independently in different fields, be it travel, chemical hazard, job hazard, etc... Again, this isn't a matter of science (or else we'd be doing a more comprehensive risk management with some sort of agreed upon threshold of stability, say 1 in 10,000 chance of death, or a couple years of life expectancy), but rather one of public policy.
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| Sympathy for the Devil. |
[May. 8th, 2009|12:33 am] |
I wonder why it is in our culture that we have a hard time justifying empathy for our employers, or even business in general. I find myself in debates frequently about whether certain cost cutting measures are needed at work for example, and well, let's face it, in the current climate it's not hard to find someone complaining about the way things are run on the commerce side of things.
An example: A sizable retailer closes. The news will cover it, but the angle will be about job losses, as opposed to the oppurtunities lost for people who were shopping for whatever item the store sold, or even an angle about how the person built up the place, or the hoops they had to go through to get there (unless there's a local angle to be covered).
Another example: Discussing with a coworker about overtime. Revenues have dropped recently, and management is asking for givebacks. At our level, a policy has been implemented to reduce overtime by not calling out shifts when a daystaff member is available to fill them during the day shift. I can understand where the person sees this as a pain to their own pockets, or perhaps an abrogation of contractual resposibilities, but I can't understand why they think it's a bad thing generally. A water plant is there to produce waterr a rate reasonable to it's consumers. To varying extents,. the rate they can charge is limited by regulations. Therefore, in a bad time, the only way to keep itself above water (so to speak) is to cut costs. I'm not sure where the assumption that a huge pot of money exists during a poor economic period comes from, except from maybe a sense of entitlement (then again, I find money grubbing by most people to be dishonorable, so seeing close up bugs me on principle.)
Now, I could be the weirdo here since my general leanings toward devil's advocacy will cause me to take some weaker arguments, but in this case, I think the people who go through the rigamorole to start a place are doing a service to the rest of us (not directly of course, they're doing it for the money), and it seems like there's some empathy to be had. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 4th, 2009|09:38 am] |
WARNING
DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO ALONE.
MAY CAUSE NIGHTMARES.
For those who don't get videos in LJ, here's the link: Top Freakiest Advertisements:
Now, onto the analysis. The one thing to note is all the diabolical laughter, or at least what we consider diabolical laughter nowadays. I think what we may have here is an example of how an emotional response has changed over time. 50 years ago, assuming they were actually trying to sell this doll, as opposed to giving me horrible dreams, the kids are obviously supposed to look excited when they see the doll, as opposed to crepy. The laugh was supposed to be wild, as opposed to something quite so... sinister.
For those who check up the article, I also recommend the michael myers rejuveniquwe mask, playing "You are so Beautiful"in the background... with no spoken bits..
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| (no subject) |
[May. 3rd, 2009|07:40 pm] |
Why do people need to believe in a subconscious source for emotions when a simpler explanation exists: Emotions adults in a society express (the interesting ones, that is grief, guilt, joy, etc) are learned behaviors. Now, I know that some basic ones are obviously present in very young children (fear, for example), but picture the kid who bumps his head on the table, which most of us have seen, he looks around for a moment (obviously feeling discomfort) and an adult cues her with either a laugh or a look of concern, at that point, they pick up what they're supposed to do.
This kind of carries over into studies of children born blind and deaf (who have some limited range of emotion), as well as the couple of cases of feral children that have come around; there is some rudimentary ability, but it's not too far above what we might expect from a dog, or similarly socialized animal.
One can see the effect in themselves if they take a moment before they give into an emotion, a little bud of something, then, after a moment of work up, a full fledged feeling. Guilt, I think is particularly good for this, but the feeling of sublimeness kind of captures it too. Some might see this as sort of living a lie, in that there is some manipulation going on, but in some sense, this is actually advantageous, since it allows for a greater awareness of self, and a better abilitty to adjust in a social setting. Either way, being part of being human, it would be, by it's very nature, human to adjust one's feelings as needed.
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| (no subject) |
[May. 2nd, 2009|03:22 pm] |
One thing I've always felt uncomfortable with, and get in trouble with periodically is the whole rebel/follower axis. Not that I don't see it, or that I dislike being labeled, just that it seems to skip what I've always thought is a bigger issue: Comfort with ambiguity. There are a couple of places it pops up, some of which are day to day, like law and language issues, some are a little less frequent, like with science and art, finally, some are really just sort of deep seated "outlook on life" kind of things.
I'll look at language first. Let's take a controversial word: Irregardless (stupidfree just had an interesting debate on the topic). Some people (called prescriptivists) take the view that it's not a word, or at least not a real one. First, it violates a rule about double negatives, having an ir- and a -less, next, they may argue the word doesn't add anything since it basically means the same thing as regardless, finally there is an isue with its informality. Now, those of us who get past these points by arguing the idea that irregardless has a slightly different usage (it's a tad more sarcastic) would say the word betters the language by creaitng more options, or perhaps respond that the whole double negative thing is kinda new. Now, on the rebel/follower axis, one could see this as some grammar nazis forcing their rules on a bunch of people who are flaunting thing in their faces. On the other hand, sone of us understand the rules perfectly well, but enjoy the manipulation of them, as we see them merely as a custom that allows for communication, so the spirit of the rules are being served, even if the customs aren't.
Another area where ambiguity comes up is in art. Just put a piece of abstract art in front of a kid, and you'll get to see how our ideas are shaped. An adult may be able to appreciate a half finished canvas, but a kid won't accept it since they've been taught "this is art" in what obviously must be a somewhat exclusionary way (as are many adults). Science kind of this way too. If I read some new study, I'll often accept it in a sort of "provisionally true" box. Sometimes, this will upend previous thought. Occasionally, I can be confused why people have issues accepting new information in this regard, and deny until forced to accept through overwhelming evidence, rather than trying to play with the new info until it's proven wrong.
The true until wrong vs the wrong until true point of view continues all the way into people's worldviews, I think. I see it when someone has a particularly rosy or grim point of view. Evidence is tossed into boxes more to help an argument than to actually come up with solutions. I'd imagine the outlook is good in some sense as it means they hang on, which can be useful in terms of making it through hard times. Nothing is without advantages, I guess. |
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| Ongoing Learning. |
[May. 1st, 2009|11:55 am] |
I consider myself a bit of a history buff. I like to think I'm well read, and I've seen quite a few ideas, but every so often, something kind of bumps into me and disturbs that happy adolescent equilibrium. I've been on a bit of a reading tear this past week, chugging through a five hundred page book, Hapsburg and Bourbon Europe 1470-1720, by Lockyer, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire by Luttwak, and Parentonomics, by Joshua Gans.
The first book was quite interesting in that it demonstrated the relative ineffectiveness of monarchs up until about the time of Louis XIV. For some reason or other, I had thought that once europe rolled around into the renaissance, that centralized monarchies existed, and they were more or less absolute. Well, that apparently wasn't quite the case. While the book didn't quite show the departure from the feudal period, I can defnitely see the remains as most kings were highly restricted by councils of state, be it the Cortes of Spain, or the Parliments and Estates of France. Really, unless a king was particulalrly powerful, not much was getting done. It also surprised me that the English Magna Charta really isn;t quite that unique, as pretty much everyone back then had something similar. Also, elective monarchies were about as common amongst the big states as heredetary (Poland, Sweden, Holy Roman Empire, and Hungagry had them, for example). Finally, the almost continuous state of low level warfare, as states just decided Today seems like a good day to send an army on a trip across the Alps, almost randomly claiming some muiscellaneous territory (OK. Milan is hardly miscellaneous, but that's kind of how it happened.
The other book, Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire nailed me right on the opening (Of course, Luttwak is good writer, so this was hardly suprising), as he detailed a common error (to which I think I too, was susceptable to) with historical thought on warfare, The Clausewitzian Error, as he labelled it; That people think warfare is all about offensive operations, when nowadays (and at many points in the past), things are often more about defensive operations. In the time the book was written, the cold war was going on, and the typical military confrontation was more akin to an enemy crossing your border by surprise, doing some damage, and seeing what they could get away with. Hell, it's that way today. This style of thinkng is completely different from "Send X regiment to accomplish Y on the way to Z". I imagine this way of thinking even affects those who are in peace movements, as the concept of continuous conflict seems more like continuous war than uneasy peace, since offensive operations with oodles of causlaties are clearly defined, but defensive operations over a period with a trickle of casualties aren't. Some people just can't handle ambiguity, and I'd think idealists would be that type (which could merit it's own post about me vs the wife).
I've managed to squeeze in one other book, by the way: Parentonomics, by Joshua Gans. A discussion of an economist raising three kids, and how he uses their triials and tribulations to explain some economic concepts. It was a complete belly roller at times. Much recommended as light reading with some meat.
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|04:47 pm] |
We interrupt our normally scheduled moments of deeper consideration to bring you this bit of snark.
Thank you for sitting next to me on the train Mr Coughs-a-lot, in your much too heavy jacket for the current weather conditions. Well, at least in the bigger sense, I can get the whole flu thing out of the way. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|09:42 am] |
Does everyone who was once a helpless victim, in a terrible way, lose autonomy?
This was a question posed recently after a debate between Tyler Cowen at marginal revolutions and several others during a discussion about the legalization of prostitution, and whether a woman who was raped loses the ability to make an autonomous decision to become a prostitute. My ponderings here aren't so much about the prostitution case, but rather the ramifications if this is taken as a worldview, ie A victim loses the ability to make an independent decision in a field in which they were victimized.
Something about this bugs me. There's no doubting that past experiences influence later decisions, but so do a plethora of other factors, genetics, training, brain chemistry, hell, even if one just had their morning coffee and danish. However, I couldn't say (and I doubt many others would either) that these make us lose our freedom in any legal or moral sense (although they could ameliorate things). The fact that in the past I've been robbed, beaten, molested, hazed, ignored affects some viewpoints, and may make me more sympathetic to some positions on the political front, but they don't seem to have any overriding effects. I can picture people in whom they do; in fact, I don't have to picture them, I know a few. Still, they seem to be the exception. Most people have some sort of tragedy, yet I don;t really see a preponderence of people with the kind of disaffections that one would call out and out psychosis. Rather, it seems people act within constraints that they perceive that are imposed on them. Rational within an irrational framework, if you will.
Still, I'm intrigued by my gut reaction here. Applying a rule where people who have been victimized gain certain immunities seems like a system prone to abuse (cut to a world of loreena bobbits...), as it would be possible to game. Yet, on the other side of the balance, it's hard not to have symapthy, and allow those who are obviously victims of abuse a certain leeway. I'd imagine the informal system that results in a jury system is how the law deals with it on one hand, and on the other, the unnofficial channels resulting from "they've been hurt" aren't always without some aid. Still, I wonder how one constructs a better system. I know it's not the one I personally use (and by no means would impose on anyone else) of "suck it up", as that's a tough one on anybody who doesn't already come installed with a cult of self...
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| Hodge-Podge |
[Apr. 20th, 2009|10:31 am] |
On science:
I think this is bigger than they're giving it credit for: Slime Molds Show Signs of Intelligence (at http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/071). A slime mold is subjected to cold dry spurts for the first ten minutes of an hour for three hours. The cells of the amoeba (slime molds are groups of amoeba acting as a communal organism. very interesting. I recommend looking them up on wiki). respond by slowing down. When the variations are stopped, the amoeba continue slowing down at the beginning of the next hours, in anticipation. This is as intesresting as the experiment when the planarian worms who have learned something are fed to others worms, and those new worms show knowledge from the former ones.
I'm also simply amazed that a single celled animal/plant/mold colony can demonstrate a knowledge of time in a sequence that isn't necessarilly one it would see in nature (an hour, as opposed to say a day).
On grammar:
On overcoming bias, there is a post asking "Who are the real grammar authorities?" Which, much to my surprise points out that "Elements of Style", is "grammatically incompetent" (!). I find the premise interesting; that english as it is written is predominantly determind by the tastes of english teachers, not by what is thought correct by grammar theorists. Of course, most things are probably patched together by a limited class, who come up with rules they talk about, but which theorists usually find to be more about what is said, rather than what is actually done. I think of religion as written in holy book vs what is common practice as a parrallel point.
On Economics:
This is my thoughts on a discussion going on about whether it's possible to do a negative real interest rate: Original posting by Greg Manikew, response by Mish Shedlock.
Couldn't we do a currency reissue, using the banks as a kind of clearing center? Not endorsing the plan, but if we wanted to do it, the domestic aspect seems doable; ask people to bring in their money to get the new bills, and refund the balance in the new bills sans any removed serial numbers. New currency means that no one tries to slip in the old bills to vending machines, which could be reprogrammed.
As to the quater and dime part... well, good luck buying the weekly groceries in quarters. It might be legal, but there is a high enough shame factor from the people behind them in line to keep that in check, except on a minimal basis (biddies with coupons comes to mind).
Anything left in a bank is automatically reduced by the target rate, rather than worrying about the fact that bills represent a minority of in circulation currency (perhaps anything in a retirement fund could be excepted). Given that people are irrational about risk, many will decide that taking the chance on not losing anything is preferable to losing a guaranteed 4% (or whatever), so it should have an effect (open to arguments here about the unintended consequences of a bank run).
Basically, the plan is doable, I think, but the unintended consequences are huge, and there's definitely costs for the printing, bank service, et al.
Finally,
On Men, Women, Alcohol, and Beer Goggles...
Nope, men don;t have beer goggles (actually, the article goes into some other studies that bring up different points), but women apparently do. Given a set of pictures before and after drinking, men rated the pictures about the same, while women rated them higher. This could be an artifact of the idea that men just aren't that discerning; women in general are attractive to us.
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 16th, 2009|11:09 am] |
I was recently having one of those imaginary conversations in my head with what I kind of pictured as my future child. This is how it went:
One of the secrets to life is to remember it's basically a game. You can't take it too personally or too seriously. There's a set of running scores throughout; but in the end, ultimately the score is reset to zero, so if you overthink what you have or don't have now, you'll get sucked into the vanity of it, and lose all your perspective, which means you won't enjoy it, and ultimately, it's the pleasure of playing, and the fear of the game coming to a stop that keeps us making moves.
In many ways thought, life isn't a game; at least not one where you can say "I won". It's more like jump rope, or one of those little quirky challenges you do when you're alone, like seeing if you can balance a pen on your nose, or how many potato chips you can fit into your mouth. It's also important to remember that not everyone is playing the same thing as you, and so their score can be completely different. Sure Joe may have more money than you, but perhaps you've read better books, or have a more interesting collection of experiences. Pick the scores you want to go for, enjoy the race, just remember that not everyone will be as interested, and more importantly, keep in mind that just because someone is playing a game, it doesn't mean that you have to join in: That's your choice alone.
Your mom might disagree with the game concept. "Game" can imply something that's not serious, but it isn't necessarily so. You need some level of commitment, and maybe even some suspension of disbelief to keep yourself interested in what's going on. It can all appear kind of meaningless, and in a way, it is; but you can give it significance, at the very least a personal one. Without significance, there can be no goals, without goals, everything is aimless. Too many intelligent people fall into that trap of not seeing the forest from the trees. I've been confused and lost before too, and it's never fun. That's why I'd rather have the wrong goals than no goal; playing the wrong game, as opposed to playing no game.
Sometimes, in the middle of things, it's good to take yourself out of the game. Pull yourself up and look from the mountains. See where the valleys and streams are. At times like that, you may even be blessed with clarity. I think it's what everyone who talks about meditation is referring to. I can't be too sure since I'm a pretty hardcore naturalist, and some of that stuff doesn't make sense to me. Maybe you're not, and you can appreciate things on that level. If you can, just be aware of it and the paths it closes to you, much as I have to be aware of my leanings. Options are what you want when you start any journeys, although I should mention that after you start, you want fewer options, they can be distracting, and cause too much worry about "what if I do this?" Be open, but don't forget the destination. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 11th, 2009|05:42 am] |
I enjoyed this essay on social construction, marriage, and the differences between conservative and liberal thought at philosoraptor. It got me thinking about the question of what elements actually constitute a marriage. The most seemingly obvious is probably the sexual element, although, one would probably call a sexless marriage a marriage nevertheless. Another element would be the exclusivity of the arrangement; I am married to you, but not to you.I think polyamorists would have an issue with this in the sense that one is implicitely implying two people (english, not having a good second person plural past y'all kinda does that.).
Procreation is another aspect, or at least one of the aspects that makes society want to encourage and support married folks, on the grounds that they're supplying a societal need. However, I don't think anyone in mainstream thought would say a couple who can't conceive aren't really married.
I'm not sure if this aspect is ever thought of all that intentionally, but as an economic arrangement, marriage is pretty good for division of labor, especially since men and women in many cultures are taught different skill sets. Still, this idea would be true even if one lived with mom or dad, but no one's calling that marriage either.
Now, I've taken a while to mention the love part. Mostly because love is kind of ephemeral, and like with sex, one could have a loveless marriage. However, I feel obliged to mention it as many people believe this is the defining criteria.
However, I think the whole definition of marriage thing is a red herring. The two sides really don;t seem to be debating the same issue, as raptor notes. i think it's more a debate about fairness vs tradition, or at least the ability of a community to set moral rules, rather than nature vs convention (which is how raptor sees it). The religious right will have to face the fact that government gives benefits to married people, and therefore, if a group wants to clamor for an equal share of benefits, it will have to give them a serious hearing.
Now, if I was a religious conservative, and I was really wanted to keep the whole thing pure, then the best solution is to remove all the benefits to marriage, and attach them to child rearing. That would resolve the dilemma the law leaves marriage currently in. The other is to make all governmentally sanctioned personal arrangements civil unions, and let churches do the marriages. While someone could probably bring a lawsuit against a church that won't perform a ceremony, I think the church in question will almost certainly win the case.
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 6th, 2009|04:50 pm] |
I hate to simply rip a post, but this is quite interesting, and I'd like to keep a copy here if the other blog went down:
From http://orgtheory.wordpress.com
All of sociology in 4 ez steps:
The rap against sociology is that it’s an incoherent discipline. There’s definitely an element of truth in that view, but the case is overstated. I think the right way to say it is that sociology has a handful of major traditions and none of them has stamped out the others. What are they? I count four major traditions in soc world: - Hard core interactionism/social constructionism: Social reality is defined mainly by how it’s enacted in specific situations and these vary quite a bit. Moreover, interactions aren’t necessarily reducible to the broader social order. The more radical elements of this tradition run into post-modernism - there is no coherent social reality because it’s created differently in different contexts (i.e., no coherent self). You see it also pop up in the strong sociology of knowledge (construction of ideas may have little to do with “reality”).
- Critical social theory: The basis of social reality is power. This can be defined in economic terms (Marx), race (DuBois), or gender (feminists). Or it can be generically defined (Bourdieu). Most of social life boils down to struggle over the stuff that gives your power, or resisting the power.
- Values, institutions, and relations: This is the broad trend stemming from Weber and Durkheim. The basic elements of VI&R are that human communities have values, which are translated into order via rules, organizations, and institutions. This basic set up motivates everyone from Parsons, to Selznick, to Sumner, to Luhmann, to the world polity crowd. The flavors may be different, but they’re all about the push and pull between values and structure.
- Resources and Action: This strand represents what might be called the “economic view” on things. Psychology and values are strongly de-emphasized and you just work on strategic action. The old version was called “social exchange.” Now we call it rational choice. But the R&A tent is big enough to catch some other types of sociology. Organizational ecology - psychology thin and focusing on competition - fits here as well. So might lightly theoretical stratification research.
This scheme won’t catch everything. For example, demography rarely focuses on institutions and interactions, so it doesn’t fit here. A-theoretical areas of sociology, like network analysis, or applied statistics, don’t fit either. But when you think about it, each box in the typology offers an object of study, a vocabulary for studying society, and a set of preferred explanations.
Looking at it through these various lenses, I can see sociology in a more sympathetic light.
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 3rd, 2009|07:07 am] |
I'm happy to have finally gotten around to reading Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate. It's a good sign when a book addresses an issue that you've had for a while; in my case, concerning one's ability to separate race/culture, and nature/nurture. I agree with him that the moderate position that everything's a bit of both is kind of silly. Some things are very much due to one or another. We might have an inate capacity for language, but to actually get our language is completely nurture; we certainly are born with a few moral tools, but using them requires a cultural overlay.
Speaking of the cultural overlay I've also been thinking about a problem with issues I have about judging cultures. I understand why political correctness (as toothless as it's kind of become over the years) doesn't even allow for calling one culture or the another good or bad, memories of that being taken out to racism and denial of the moral dictum of equality amongst humans (which I accept too), but it has the downside of not allowing for some kind of moral opprobrium from the rest of the community when something violates their norms. However, it would seem to be fair to say one culture(or subculutre) is better adapted to a current circumstance than another.
For example, using two subcultures, the hippie and the hip hop, we can say that the hippie culture is suboptimal in current society in a harder form because of it's denial of large amounts of technology, and the implicit effects that would have on anyone else. With hip hop culture, the level of violence is too high for the genitltiy that seems to have taken hold in mainstream culutre (kids saying the pihanna probably deserved the beating comes to mind).
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 27th, 2009|06:09 pm] |
Here at the city there was a spate of layoffs. Some of them were transferred to other sections; we received two of them. One was a rank below me, the other a rank above. Nobody minded about the lower ranking fellow, but some feathers were rankled by the one above (like the overdone plummage of a coworker who's carrying on a relationship with our boss). Being a big believer in the idea that people deserve a shot, I volunteered to train him (actually, I was the only one willing to do it, as his presence made one of our possible future promotions go away, hence the feather rankling).
Well, unfortunately, the training isn't going as well as I'd liked, and I'm stuck with the responsibility of making the call about whether I think he's qualified or not (no good deed goes unpunished). If the job were just a paperpushing sort of thing, it wouldn't be a big deal, but instead, working at a water filtrtration plant, if my trainee made a mistake, something like what happened in milwaukee could happen (400,000 people got sick, and about a hundred died). There's no way I would be the person responsible for that, so I have to be brutally honest.
Now, that might not be a problem, but he's not a bad guy, and he's a hard worker, so my impulse is to try everything I can to get a lot of stuff into his head in the 30 days he has to qualify (most people come up through the ranks, so this typically isn't difficult, coming in from the outside makes it hard. Being the rank he is makes it even harder since it has greater responsibility). Still, I am somewhat pessimistic as he doesn;t seem to be able to remember things for more that a few hours, and he's a design engineer, so his skillset isn't of the faster moving operations type.
I really feel horrible knowing that there's a high probability that I'm going to decide that someone's unemployed. This is going to bug me for a while.
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 25th, 2009|02:33 pm] |
I normally don't blog current issues too much but I thought this was interesting (plus, who doesn't want some potentially good news). I was reading this article earlier today from a feb 12 article in a quantitative research blog (http://inflationusa.blogspot.com/ For the background, read the Nov article before it) that there would be a drop in unemployment in the near future. Going through my normal daily reads on bloomberg, I caught this article predicting much the same thing, albeit in a different sense.
I can only wonder if my daily blog reads have become so expansive that I'm reading stuff that's curved over from the other side of the universe.
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| How does a Concept of Probability affect Determinism vs Free Will? |
[Feb. 25th, 2009|01:23 pm] |
Say I have a wave function that says a particle has a 75% chance of being somewhere in particular when I measure the system; it often ends up being where I predict it, but not always. It's there in hindsight, so to speak.
Now, let's say a person has a better chance than not of committing an act (like taking $5 off a table with no one around). I use the idea of "better chance than not" because when situations arise I can often be between the two choices, with one having a bit more of a pull that I can occasionally avoid. At any moment until the person performs the act, or the situation that allows it is removed, the potential for either act exists. In the 'during' phase, free will seems to exists, the person both does and doesn't perform the act. If I could measure the person's brain, I'd have a good chance of knowing what they'd do, but there would still be a chance of being wrong (My thought is going to an experiment where a person touches something hot, and the person's hand moves before the brain receives a message about it).
After the experiment, either the person took the five dollars, or they didn't. It's happened, or it hasn't, but it seems the determinism only happens in hindsight, and free will isn't there either since there was a decent chance of knowing the result beforehand. They might choose in a way, but I could reasonably predict how often they'd fail, which in a bigger picture seems somewhat deterministic. |
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| The Justifiability of Terrorism |
[Feb. 24th, 2009|05:06 am] |
This discussion at colin mcginn's blog about whether terrorism is ever justifiable has me a bit baffled. I'm going to assume that his basic definition of terrorism is along the lines of "an act of force (he focuses on causing harm) meant to cause fear in a populace for some effect", in which case there seem to be pleanty of reasonable cases for terrorism, ranging from actions meant to change the existing political order down to deterent type actions, meant to cause fear to prevent any further conflict.
Perhaps Mr Ginn's main issue is with the term "justifiable". In that case, I can see where it becomes rather problematic, as justification is a bit slippery as a term. Of course one can justify things, that's like coming up with excuses. What I think he wants is something that would salve his conscience, which is something he'd have to rationalize for himself, although an assortment of culturally relevant choices are probably available.
One bit that did catch my attention though was a question that popped out in the discussion thread, about whether one could imagine a case where it was permissable to torture a child (a poster responds, "well, I can't come up with one, but that's probably due to a failure of my moral imagination"). Thinking about it though, it would seem the case of suffocating a crying baby with a group hiding from some pursuers bound on killing them could qualify (Although some might not call that torture). Then again, given an expansive definition of torture "existence of a specific purpose plus intentional infliction of severe suffering or pain" could include most normal punishments, since kids can often seem severely affected by rebuke, or even a simple "no", perhaps torture is already morally acceptable for the purposes of moral pedagogy.
Finally, one little side note seems to eneter my mind from reading the 8/22 16:32 comment. To some extent, we come installed with a physics engine in our brains, and as time goes on, we assume things in the real world are generally organized, and will respond that way most of the time (an organized universe). The same things seems to go on with morality, we develope a model, and assume the universe is constructed in an organized manner (even if the organizational principal is chaotic). It might just be me, but this leap from mental model reinforced by observation leading to a larger conclusion seems similar. Does the process of learning imbue us with the assumption that things will continue in a particular way, or are we just hardwired to do that naturally?
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