Preserving Culture in the Internet Age

There's a real risk that the twin forces of corporate (and individual) greed on the one hand and passive indifference on the other are going to doom large swaths of internet history and culture (or--more pessimistically but probably more accurately--of human history and culture) to utmost oblivion. 

To clarify: the corporate side of this dismal duo refers to the politically-connected private interests that are preventing increasing numbers of cultural products from entering the public domain, thus preventing them from being cheaply and efficiently preserved by crowd-sourced projects. The corporations also frequently attempt to claw back cultural products from the public domain; examples here include Milton Bradley's "Monopoly", and [if memory serves] Disney's attempts to assert ownership over elements of the Alice and Wonderland mythos.

The indifference side of the dismal duo simply refers to the fact that most people lose interest in cultural products once references to them have fallen below the top screen of their Facebook or other social media feed. If there is a guiding spirit of our age, it is surely the god of Blind Novelty--or else his cousin, Heedless Forgetfulness.

However, this article profiles the good work being done by the Internet Archive and other kindred projects to counter the two disturbing trends aforementioned. If druthers were to be had in this dreary domain, I would that a few idealistic billionaires part with a handful of millions to put projects like these on cultural and legal terra firma. (And while they're at it, could they please create an endowment for Wikipedia, and also set up an open-source, nonprofit, ad-free social media project? Cheers.)

Applied Public Choice Theory, Regulatory Capture Edition

Intuit, the makers of Turbo Tax, have spent $11.5 million (as of 2013) lobbying politicians to keep the federal income tax a complex mess.

Under the Skin (2013)

A mysterious, stunning, haunting film. One of the best of 2013.

What Makes Teams Work Well?

According to researchers Anita Wooley, Thomas W. Malone, and Christopher Chabris: it's not average team IQ, it's not extroversion, and it's not feeling motivated to work.

So what is it? Three factors: (1) equal contribution from all team members; (2) ability to keep track of what others feel and believe; and (3) proportion of women on the team.

That's right: gender equality in team membership was not a factor for success. The more women on the team, the better the team tended to do.

This was at least partly explained by the fact that women tend to do better than men on factor (2): the ability to keep track of what others feel and believe (called Theory of Mind), which includes as an important sub-factor the ability to read complex emotional states from faces (Reading the Mind in the Eyes).

The authors initially conducted a study using only face to face teams, and then conducted a follow-up study which tested both face to face and online teams. The initial results held up, including the importance of the ability to keep track of what others feel and believe. (Indeed, it was the online study that made them realize that factor (2) consists of more than just Reading the Mind in the Eyes, because this is not something that the online team members were able to do; this led the researchers to postulate the importance of Theory of Mind for team success.)

I have a pedagogical interest in this result, since I have started to use team-based learning in all of my classes. But this research is important for all human organizations . . . probably for all humans, period.

There May Not Be Widespread Discrimination against Women in Certain Academic Disciplines after All

The authors of a recent study published in the journal Science argued that "women are underrepresented in fields whose practitioners believe that raw, innate talent is the main requirement for success, because women are stereotyped as not possessing such talent" (Leslie et al., "Expectations of brilliance underlie distributions across academic disciplines," Science 347 (2015): 262-265).

This study has been widely reported on without much criticism, but Scott Alexander appears to have undermined the central claim of the study by showing that the proportion of women in STEM fields tracks very closely their relative performance on the GRE tests used to determine admission to STEM programs. In other words, according to Alexander, there is not evidence of discrimination against women trying to enter STEM fields in the first place.

Because it is outside of my area of expertise, I am unable to determine if Alexander's numbers or statistical analysis are accurate, but I think this is worth sharing anyway so that other people can examine his arguments.

Here is Alexander's figure showing the relation between average GRE quantitative score and percent women in a discipline; he says that the correlation between these two factors is r = -0.82 (p = 0.0003).

Secrets of Charred Ancient Scrolls Revealed?

A new x-ray technique might enable scholars to read hundreds of lost philosophy texts which survive only in scrolls blackened by the ancient eruption of Mt. Veusvius.

The scrolls are believed to mostly contain writings by a follower of Epicurus named Philodemus. This could prove very significant to our understanding of the history of philosophy; while several works of Epicurus have survived, including some which summarize his teachings, most of Epicurus' numerous and lengthy works have been lost, and Philodemus' writings may contain additional information about their contents and the characteristic doctrines of the school.

Socotra Island

I just learned yesterday of the island of Socotra. Socotra lies south of Yemen and east of Somalia, and is part of the nation of Yemen. It boasts astoundingly unique flora and fauna, gorgeous geography, and a fascinating culture and architecture.

Dragon's blood trees

Cucumber trees

Cucumber tree

Cameleonte calyptratus

Monocentropus Balfouri

Egyptian vultures

Shouab Beach

Halah Cave

Old Sana'a

Sequel Madness

This post is pretty late to the party. I hope it is fashionably late, rather than rudely so. In any event, perhaps timeliness is the enemy of judiciousness; if so, the timing seems perfect.

To wit: I asked a former student of mine, who is a fan of the Star Wars saga, the following question about the upcoming sequels: While some people are discussing the possibility that there will be female stormtroopers in the films, why are there going to be stormtroopers of any kind, granted that the Galactic Empire was defeated at the end of Episode VI?

My student's guess, which had also occurred to me, is that the writers will postulate the continued existence of other, undefeated Imperial commanders and forces, who will then furnish suitably Imperial foes (stormtroopers included) for our still plucky (?) rebels to struggle with. This, of course, would follow the precedent set by some of the Expanded Universe material generated in the wake of Episodes IV-VI.

My underlying concern is that the new films are just going to have the protagonists re-fight the same fights as in Episodes I-VI in an unconvincing and ultimately uninteresting fashion. Why can't the new films explore something genuinely new in this interesting and rich universe? Does it always have to be about stormtroopers and Darth Vader?

Imagine, for instance, the new problems and conflicts that could emerge when the Rebels become the new establishment, and when they attempt to establish a New Republic with a new constitution, new laws, and new policies. Granted, given the mythology of the setting, one would suspect some role to be played by the Dark Side in whichever conflicts become salient, but this by no means entails continued struggle against the Empire and its minions.

(Sigh.)

European Financial Rumblings

I'm a philosopher, not an economist, so the subtleties of central banking and international public finance are quite beyond me. Yet this is a fascinating article by Frances Coppola at Forbes on recent changes at the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and European Central Bank (ECB). 

Essentially, the SNB halted its pegging the Swiss franc to the euro, and Coppola argues that this was to avoid financial ruin in the wake of the ECB's soon-to-commence unconstrained quantitative easing (QE) activities.

Here is an especially insightful passage from the article, about how the operations of different central banks can affect each other:

Central banks cannot be broken by markets when defending a rising currency (though they can when defending a falling one). But they can be broken by a central bank with more firepower. The ECJ Advocate General’s opinion was a game changer. No way is the most powerful central bank in the world going to allow the minnow on its border to derail its hard-won QE program. The SNB, considerably smaller than the ECB and subject to both democratic and legal constraints, had no choice but to end its Euro purchases or face destruction of its balance sheet to no purpose.

Tip of the hat to Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution.

Research on Secular Family Values

Phil Zuckerman has written an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times which summarizes recent research on the moral values of secular families. The article presents evidence that children from secular families are actually better off in terms of their moral development than children from religious families. Here is an excerpt:

The results of such secular child-rearing are encouraging. Studies have found that secular teenagers are far less likely to care what the “cool kids” think, or express a need to fit in with them, than their religious peers. When these teens mature into “godless” adults, they exhibit less racism than their religious counterparts, according to a 2010 Duke University study. Many psychological studies show that secular grownups tend to be less vengeful, less nationalistic, less militaristic, less authoritarian and more tolerant, on average, than religious adults.

Martin Luther King, Jr's Role in Ending the Poll Tax

Writing for The Daily Beast, Gary May gives a long-form account of the part played by MLK in the congressional battles over ending the poll tax in 1965. May explains how the poll tax was used as part of a strategy to disenfranchise southern blacks de facto, even if they had the right to vote de jure. He also argues that ending the poll tax had a large beneficial impact on poor whites in the four southern states which continued to collect poll taxes at that time.

The Relative Merits of Prediction Markets and Democracy

I'm 2 years late to the party, but Scott Siskind's 2013 post on prediction markets and democracy is probably the best on politics that I've ever read.

Siskind succinctly explains both why democracy is better than most or all rival forms of government (surprise: it's not because democracies settle on the best policies) and why prediction markets are both (a) the most consistently accurate sources of information anywhere and (b) incorruptible, despite feeble arguments to the contrary.

Prediction market for the 2008 U.S. presidential election

Siskind asserts that futarchy (government by prediction markets, promoted by economist Robin Hanson) might be better than democracy, but unlike other futarchists (probably including Robin Hanson) Siskind has a firm grasp of democracy's several merits.

Robin Hanson, futarchist, and the least cranky anarcho-capitalist transhumanist cryogenicist you're ever likely to meet

Essentially, according to Siskind, democracy enables a society to avoid the intermittent truly terrible leaders and frequent succession struggles which plague monarchies and authoritarian regimes, and democracy creates social consensus by having a fair mechanism for creating a "Schelling point" for deciding questions of leadership and policy.

Siskind's post is recommended reading for all Patriots and Citizens.

Sacrificing Pigs in Honor of Chairman Mao

A recent celebration of Mao Zedong in China included pig sacrifice and other behaviors usually associated with the worship of gods in traditional Chinese religion.

On the one hand, slaughtering a pig for a celebration would not be specifically religious if it were simply being consumed during a feast given in honor of Chairman Mao.

However, as this picture shows, the pig's blood was evidently left as an offering in front of a statue of Mao. This does seem to closely reflect traditional Chinese rituals honoring gods and spirits.

Oddly, a Buddhist monk helped arrange flowers left in Mao's honor. (Is this a new instance of Chinese syncretic religion, but in this case with Buddhism combined with Communism rather than Daoism or other indigenous Chinese religious practices?)

In any event, a fascinating read. Tip of the hat to Slate Star Codex.

The Man in the High Castle

Amazon.com has produced an excellent television adaptation of Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle. The series currently consists of a single pilot episode. Ridley Scott was one of the executive producers.

The pilot features good writing, acting, directing, editing, cinematography, and production design. As noted in this review at Wired.com, the primary flaw is some weak CGI in establishing shots of New York City. Hopefully this problem can be sorted out (more practical effects?) should the pilot be turned into a series.

I was particularly impressed by how the writing and production design handled the series' alternate history premise in a convincing fashion. This is something that's really easy to get wrong. The pilot showed a nation which was still distinctly American in culture, but with a layer or sliver of Japanese and German culture imposed on top in characteristic imperialist fashion.

The pilot also depicted a material culture which was a combination of technology and design from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. You might think that this is a flaw, but to my mind it gets things exactly right. There is an inherent conservatism to the material culture of totalitarian regimes, both because of economic stagnation (think of the Soviet Union, or for a more extreme version, Cuba), and because of the regime's suppression of the novelty and innovation characteristic of the material culture of liberal democracies. One shouldn't expect a 1962 America ruled by the Axis powers to look like it came from an episode of Mad Men.

The Curious Tale of the Could-Be Assassin

While testifying in response to a request for a restraining order, NASCAR-driver Kurt Busch has claimed that his ex-girlfriend Patricia Driscoll is an assassin.

Ordinarily, one would suspect delusion or deceit on the part of Mr. Busch, but as it happens Ms. Driscoll's professional life makes the claim at least plausible:

Driscoll, 37, lives in Ellicott City, Md. She heads two organizations, both of them based in Washington, D.C. One is the Armed Forces Foundation, a veterans advocacy group that partners with NASCAR. The other is Frontline Defense Systems, whose website says Driscoll "spent the majority of her career in the narcotics and intelligence world."

And here is a promotional video which further elucidates her current line of work.

One thing that doesn't add up: if Ms. Driscoll does actually perform assassinations or other "special operations", why would her firm release a promotional video highlighting her combat training? This would seem to reduce her value as as assassin, spy, or what have you.

Regardless of whether Ms. Driscoll is in fact an assassin, the story does raise the serious question of how many special operations are conducted by private security firms and contractors.

Discrimination against Women's Speech at Work

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant (pictured) have written an article for the New York Times on a body of research which seems to show systematic discrimination against women's speech in professional settings. One example from the article:

This speaking-up double bind harms organizations by depriving them of valuable ideas. A University of Texas researcher, Ethan Burris, conducted an experiment in which he asked teams to make strategic decisions for a bookstore. He randomly informed one member that the bookstore’s inventory system was flawed and gave that person data about a better approach. In subsequent analyses, he found that when women challenged the old system and suggested a new one, team leaders viewed them as less loyal and were less likely to act on their suggestions. Even when all team members were informed that one member possessed unique information that would benefit the group, suggestions from women with inside knowledge were discounted.

Our Dystopian Future?

A recent review by Rick Searle shows the continuing relevance of economist Tyler Cowen's Average Is Over when it comes to understanding Our (possible) Dystopian Future.

From Searle's review:

In Cowen’s world the rich with money to burn are chased down with a combination of AI, behavioral economics, targeted consumer surveillance, and old fashioned, fleshy persuasion to part with their cash, but what will such a system be like for those chronically out of work? Even should mass government surveillance disappear tomorrow, (fat chance) it seems the poor will still face a world where the forces behind their ever more complex society become increasingly opaque, responsible humans harder to find, and in which they are constantly “nudged” by people who claim to know better. For the poor, surveillance technologies will likely be used not to sell them stuff which they can’t afford, but are a tool of the repo-man, and debt collector, parole officer, and cop that will slowly chisel away whatever slim column continues to connect them the former middle class world of their parents. It is a world more akin to the 1940’s or even the 1840’s than it is to anything we have taken to be normal since the middle of the 20th century.

The Future of PUA?

Kong Feng is a Beijing-based pick-up artist who, thankfully, has more in common with the judicious "Dr. Nerdlove" (Harris O'Malley) than with the more well-known, sleazy representatives of his profession. Hopefully Feng represents the future of PUA: a move away from teaching how to manipulate, deceive, and coerce women, and towards teaching basic social skills, nonverbal cues, the art of conversation, and simple confidence.

Why Are Left Wing Economists So Influential?

A propos The Economist's recent list of most influential economists:

Some attempts to explain why there are so many left-leaning economists on the list:

1. Paul Krugman.

2. An insurance industry analyst replies.

3. Krugman again.

The Case for Banning Laptops from the Classroom

Professor Tal Gross follows the example of Clay Shirky in advocating banning laptops and other screens from the classroom.

The basic problem is that they are a source of distraction for the students who use them, and also for the students around them. Shirky in particular makes a persuasive case that even exemplary professors cannot compete with professional marketers when it comes to grabbing and retaining students' attention.

Two Stories about Capitalism

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains why, whether you're on the left or the right politically, you're foolish and irrational. 

Even the experts are biased when it comes to economics and other politicized questions. The stories we tell about capitalism (e.g.) exert a profound influence on our perception of reality, making consensus and progress towards solutions difficult.

Haidt has produced two complementary videos which brilliantly illustrate the stories people tell about capitalism: "Capitalism is exploitation" vs. "Capitalism is liberation." Which myth is the foundation of your political faith? :)

Nerd Shaming and Social Justice Warriors

Scott Alexander "speaks truth to power" about nerd shaming:

I live in a world where feminists throwing weaponized shame at nerds is an obvious and inescapable part of daily life. Whether we’re “mouth-breathers”, “pimpled”, “scrawny”, “blubbery”, “sperglord”, “neckbeard”, “virgins”, “living in our parents’ basements”, “man-children” or whatever the insult du jour is, it’s always, always, ALWAYS a self-identified feminist saying it. Sometimes they say it obliquely, referring to a subgroup like “bronies” or “atheists” or “fedoras” while making sure everyone else in nerddom knows it’s about them too. 

There continue to be a constant stream of feminist cartoons going around Tumblr featuring blubberous neckbearded fedora-wearing monsters threatening the virtue of innocent ladies.

Every age has its own irrational biases and blind spots, its own witch hunts and lynch mobs mis-characterized as social justice. Has Scott Alexander identified a blind spot, a witch hunt for today's culture? 

Regardless, Alexander's broader point that privilege is not a simple monotonic quality seems correct. In other words, it's at least logically possible for some women, who are oppressed as a group by male privilege, to also oppress other groups, in this case nerds. Nerds may benefit from male privilege even as they are simultaneously oppressed by the privilege of non-nerds. Whether or not this is true, a lot of people seem to want to deny the possibility of axes of privilege which tilt in different directions. 

The Criminal Overclass: A Sobering Example

Money may not be able to buy you love, but billionaire Jeffrey Epstein seems to be trying his hardest to prove that it can buy you the ability to sexually abuse young women with impunity.

Tyler Cowen's "Los Angeles Notes"

The economist offers up some prescient observations of the city and its changing relation to the rest of the country:

Los Angeles no longer seems so superficial, perhaps because so many other parts of the country have been revealed to be the same or worse.  Their bookstores are no longer an embarrassment because now everyone’s are an embarrassment.  The city feels less glamorous and more normal, a better place to live but a more difficult place to talk about.  It remains an oddly forgotten city, overlooked in America’s love affair with Brooklyn and Silicon Valley and yes the Southeast, yet better to live in than perhaps anywhere else on this continent.  (Provided you do not have school-age children.)  The city has lost relative ground in one major way however: California no longer has such a monopoly on good Asian and Latin food.  Nor do movies exercise much of a hold on the American imagination nowadays.  It is no longer easy to identify what is essential about Los Angeles, yet no one here seems to care.

As is his wont, he also offers up ethnic dining recommendations (see the link for details).

The Importance of Ideological Diversity in Academia

Economist Bryan Caplan has written an important blog post on the lack of ideological diversity and evidence of ideological discrimination in the social sciences. We hear a lot about the importance of racial, gender, and socioeconomic diversity, but much less about the importance of ideological diversity. Caplan argues that ideological diversity is actually more important to academic than demographic diversity, because it is a more effective means to reduce confirmation bias in research (inter alia).

Jacob Levy on the Charlie Hebdo Killings

Professor of Political Theory Jacob T. Levy comments in a BBC interview on the importance of free expression and the hypocrisy of the French ban of the Niqab.

The Decline of Gang Violence in Los Angeles

Sam Quinones has written a fascinating article at Pacific Standard about the decline of gang violence in Los Angeles.

The story is complex, but Quinones credits the decline in part to the following factors: (1) an increase in the number of officers in the field; (2) the use of CompStat to measure the effectiveness of police interventions, to guide subsequent interventions, and as criteria for the retention and promotion of police commanders; (3) the use of RICO (federal anti-racketeering laws) to prosecute and incarcerate large numbers of street gang foot soldiers; (4) changes in gangs' culture and politics (for example, the fact that the Mexican Mafia has alienated many gang members because of its widespread use of "greenlights" or death warrants against its enemies); and (5) the increase of real estate prices and gentrification in neighborhoods formerly dominated by gangs.

Among the other revelations, the article has this to say about a spate of race-related killings in the bad old days of gang violence, and the change since then:

In many of these neighborhoods, Latino gangs had taken to attacking and killing random black civilians, turning themselves into the leading regional perpetrators of race-hate crime. . . . The last three times I’ve been to Hawaiian Gardens, I’ve seen nothing on the walls, and young black men freely visit taco restaurants on the main drag, something that would have been inconceivable a few years ago.

Now, street gangs continue to exist, and they continue to wield a great deal of wealth and power. But a lot of their drug dealing and other criminal enterprises no longer happen on street corners, and in relative terms there is less violence than their used to be. That is great and surprising news. Hopefully the trend continues.

Japanese Fertility Musings

Is Japan's fertility problem worse than previously thought, or is it only thought that Japan's fertility problem is worse than previously thought?

The Future of Language

In the future, fewer languages will be spoken, and they will be simpler--so argues linguist John H. McWhorter.

Among other things, McWhorter discusses the origin of English as a pidgin spoken on the language border between Vikings and native Englishmen in the Danelaw in the Middle Ages. This process caused English to lose much of its earlier syntactic complexity, which makes it easier for nonnative speakers to learn than Chinese (for example), which has tones that are evidently difficult for adult nonnative speakers to master.

Should We Fear the Filter?

Scott Alexander shares his thoughts about Robin Hanson's "Great Filter", which refers to a factor which weeds out civilizations in the universe, thus explaining why we don't observe more (really, any) advanced spacefaring civilizations in the known universe. Alexander argues that none of the so-called "late filters" proposed are very likely, and so we should not fear a late filter (and perhaps should feel some relief that we have passed beyond a hypothetical early filter?).

This blog post is remarkable, not least because of the fact that the comments are just as good if not better than the post itself (how often has this happened in the whole history of the internet?).

New Economics Study on English PhDs

I recently stumbled across some sobering news about the job prospects for English PhDs, which seems to reflect a broader trend in academia:

While students in top-10 programs might have a reasonable chance of getting tenure-track jobs at a national research university or national research liberal arts colleges, the chances for such placements are essentially nil for students graduating from lower ranked programs. If students from lower ranked programs do get tenure-track jobs, they will most likely be at schools where the primary focus is on undergraduate teaching to students with weak academic backgrounds.

After posting a link to this article on social media, some of my friends were upset that the author of the article apparently assumes that a tenure track job at a research oriented university is the only academic job worth having. This is a good point, but I think the article is noteworthy even if you don't share this assumption. There is (or at least seems to be) a mismatch between the training many English PhD students receive and their likely job prospects; the article claims that English PhD students are usually trained to be scholars at research oriented universities, even though most of them will not actually be employed in this capacity after graduation. There is also an apparent mismatch between the culture of expectations in English PhD programs and the realities about the job market facing graduates of those programs. I experienced something similar in philosophy, and this leads me to believe it is a common problem in PhD programs in the humanities in general.

Personally, I highly value teaching, and have even considered working at a private high school. Some of my high school teachers had PhD's and were passionate and fantastic teachers; they were probably a big influence on my interest in teaching and learning. But the fact remains that the training we get in PhD programs in the humanities often does not reflect the job prospects we face upon graduation. To be clear: training in research methods is important, even for graduate students who will eventually get jobs which focus on teaching, but there should probably be more teacher training in many PhD programs, and fewer PhD programs accepting fewer students into their programs (because of the current surplus of people with PhDs in the academic job market).

Loeb Takes on Classic Indian Literature

Game changer: Loeb Classical Library is publishing Loeb editions of classics from Indian literature.
Among the initial titles is an edition of the Therigatha--poems by early Buddhist nuns, which is part of the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Pali Canon.

These new critical editions and translations of the Indian canon are a big deal for scholars (at least). A lot of these texts lack widely accessible or recent critical editions and translations. Also, as explained in the New York Times article linked to above, this series will bring attention to the diverse nature of traditional Indian literature, which was not exclusively Hindu, despite the rhetoric of many contemporary Hindu nationalists.