Syd Mead

Syd Mead is a commercial illustrator who worked for Ford Motor Company before turning to concept art for film studios. The above images are work he did for the 1982 film Blade Runner.

State college tuition fact of the day

Tuition has doubled since 1988, but spending per student is flat. What accounts for the discrepancy? Economist Susan Dynarski, writing for the New York Times, explains:

In 1988, state legislatures gave their public colleges an average of $8,600 a student. Students contributed an additional $2,700 in tuition, which gets us to a total of $11,300. By 2013, states were kicking in just $6,100, while students were contributing $5,400; this gets us to a total of $11,500. 

As far as students are concerned, public tuition has doubled. As far as public colleges are concerned, funding is flat. 

At public colleges, then, the explanation for rising tuition prices isn’t spiraling costs. The costs are the same, but the burden of paying those costs has shifted from state taxpayers to students.

Library digital collection blues

My university's library is moving towards reducing its print collection and replacing it with a digital collection. I support this move, both because this will enable the library to use its space more efficiently (more room is needed for student study spaces, as these often fill up), and because the right sort of digital collection would be more efficient for research than a print collection. However, I'm concerned that the current incarnation of the digital collection is not as useful as a print collection, and I believe this is a common problem in libraries that are going digital right now. 

As I understand it, the library's e-books can be viewed online in .html format or downloaded in Adobe Digital Editions format. The former option seems to suffer from two drawbacks. First, it can only be accessed with an internet connection. Second, in the sample e-book I examined, Innovative Buddhist Women by Karma Lekshe Tsomo, the image quality (reflected in the clarity of the text) was noticeably poor. It's fine for reading a couple of pages, but seems like it would be a strain to try to read the entire book carefully, which is necessary for students and faculty engaged in research.

The download option has two drawbacks of its own. First, it seems that a book can only be downloaded for up to 7 days before it is scuttled by the publisher's software. 

Second, the process of downloading is not easy or simple. When I attempted to download the aforementioned e-book, I was first prompted to download Adobe Digital Editions. It is annoying to have to use a new piece of software when they are already a lot of common file formats out there (.pdf comes to mind). How many students will persist past this initial roadblock?

Third, after downloading the new software, the user is prompted to provide an Adobe Digital Editions ID. I have no idea what this ID is or how to get it. After deciding to view the e-book without the ID (which means, evidently, that I can only use the book on one computer or device and not share it between computers or devices, itself a problem), I was finally able to view the e-book. 

Fourth, while the e-book does share the same pagination as the print edition, which is necessary for research purposes, there is a serious problem with the fonts in this particular e-book. I assume these kinds of problems occur more generally, though, since the e-book is not simply a .pdf or other file type which captures an image of the print version of the book. With Innovative Buddhist Women, all of the letters in Sanskrit words which require diacritical marks are in a different, hard-to-read, and awkwardly sized font that doesn't match the rest of the text. In other words, the e-book version of this book is as difficult to read for long periods as the .html version which is accessible via the library's website, but for different reasons.

It appears I am not the only one to complain about the current state of many e-books available through university libraries. Bob Pasnau, of the University of Colorado, has made similar complaints about Oxford Scholarship Online. Pasnau also explains part of the underlying problem, which is that publishers are not putting as much thought and care into their digital editions as they are into their print editions.

I am not very confident that these problems will be solved soon. I wish they would be, because of the great potential of a properly designed digital collection.

The benefits of pre-testing

Science writer Benedict Carey makes the case for testing students before they are taught new material in a class as well as after.

Catnip for human ears?

Vice Motherboard reports on audiophiles obsessed with tuning instruments to 432 Hz, instead of the standard 440 Hz. They claim that tuning to 432 brings with it immeasurable aesthetic and spiritual benefits; some within the movement have even blamed tuning to 440 on the Nazis.

Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin isn't buying it:

“We can fix pitches anywhere we want,” Levitin writes, “because what defines music is a set of pitch relations. The specific frequencies for notes may be arbitrary, but the distance from one frequency to the next—and hence from one note to the next in our musical system [the intervals we discussed earlier]—isn’t at all arbitrary.”

UC San Diego cognitive psychologist Diana Deutsch suggests simply resolving the dispute with a controlled experiment--but laments that there is no funding for such at this time.

Either way, it's a fascinating story, well told by Chris Hampton for Motherboard.

The psychology of pronouns

Psychologist James Pennebaker studies the psychology of word choice. Among other things, he has discovered that lower status people use the word 'I' more when talking to higher status people. Pennebaker illustrates this with an email that he wrote to a high-status professor before making this discovery:

Dear Famous Professor: 

The reason I'm writing is that I'm helping to put together a conference on [a particular topic]. I have been contacting a large group of people and many have specifically asked if you were attending. I would absolutely love it if you could come... I really hope you can make it. 

Jamie Pennebaker

 And here is the professor's reply:

Dear Jamie - 

Good to hear from you. Congratulations on the conference. The idea of a reunion is a nice one ... and the conference idea will provide us with a semiformal way of catching up with one another's current research.... Isn't there any way to get the university to dig up a few thousand dollars to defray travel expenses for the conference? 

With all best regards,

Famous Professor 

Rising income inequality

Income inequality has increased in the United States since the recession:

"The most striking finding is that the median American family earned 5 per cent less in 2013 than in 2010 after inflation even though the average American family took home 4 per cent more."

That was from Matthew C. Klein, who blogs at the Financial Times, in response to the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances for 2013.

Klein further comments: "The discrepancy can be explained by the fact that only people in the top tenth of the income distribution experienced any real income gains since 2010."

The labor market seems to be increasingly divided between those with the most valued skills and everyone else (including, ahem, academics with 9 or more years of higher education under their belt...). (Note that this data is about income inequality, not wealth inequality, which is a separate issue.)

Hat tip to Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution.

"Peter Thiel disagrees with you"

This is the title of an informative profile of Thiel, a gay Christian libertarian entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and would-be public intellectual.

Social Mobility Is Slower than Previously Thought

Gregory Clark, an economist at UC Davis, discusses the evidence that, while members of both the upper and the lower class tend to revert to the mean over time, social mobility is slower than previously thought: regression to the mean can take 10 to 15 generations (or 300 to 450 years).

Russia and Ukraine

According to Akos Lada, a PhD candidate in political economy and government at Harvard, nations are more likely to go to war when they are culturally similar.

Smartphone fanboys

A fascinating article about smartphone fanboys. Combines juicy content with dazzling page design. (Hat tip to the inimitable Enoch Constantine Wu!)

Look at the road, not the mountain

Advice on how to meditate:

When the practice isn’t giving results as fast as you’d desire, remember that the problem isn’t with the desire per se. You’ve simply focused it on the wrong place: on the results rather than on the causes that will produce those results. It’s like driving a car to a mountain on the horizon. If you spend all your time looking at the mountain, you’ll drive off the road. You have to focus your attention on the road and follow it each inch along the way. That will take you to the mountain.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, With Each and Every Breath, pp. 77-78.

Call Me Boroughs: A Life

BookForum review of Call Me Burroughs: A Life. A choice quotation:

Cut-ups allowed Burroughs to efface himself in text the same way he effaced himself in person, by fading into the foreground. Miles chronicles the exuberant collaborations in Paris during which Burroughs and company experimented with scrying, Orgone boxes, dreamachines, telepathy, and drugs—always drugs. If Kerouac was the Beats' freewheeling angel and Ginsberg their tantric cheerleader, then Burroughs was the eternal saboteur: "I order total resistance directed against this conspiracy to pay off peoples of the earth in ersatz bullshit. I order total resistance.… With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly."

The man and his guns:

Not sure what else to add. A peculiar fellow.

A tale of "Trouble"; or, cinnamon toast at $4 a slice

A journalist uncovers the fascinating personal story of the woman who started the latest artisanal food craze.

Claims about meditation

According to this story in SF Gate, meditation (or "quiet time" as they are calling it) in Bay Area schools has been improving student performance and discipline. 

Your cat is a jerk, because science

According to the Huffington Post, anyway.

College athletes who can't read

Investigative journalism on NCAA athletes and the universities who fail them by admitting students not ready for college and systematically cheating or covering up for their academic problems. Not a shock, but surely a disgrace.

The story of the burglars behind the "Pentagon Papers"

Some of the civil rights activists who took on the FBI and got away with it are coming from the shadows to tell their story. 

"How Netflix reverse engineered Hollywood"

Alexis Madrigal's article in The Atlantic on the secret alchemy behind Netflix's microgenres.

Facebook sued for scanning users' messages

Regardless of the merits or the outcome of this case, it's fair to say we Facebook users are openly inviting the vampire-marketers into our hearths and homes. A bargain with the Devil for our 'free' social medium. To sling a little economics jargon, network goods can be a bitch. (Since everyone is using Facebook, it's not easy to find a substitute with as many people we know.)

Denmark restricts bakers' use of cinnamon

"Angry Danes want their buns reclassified quickly, but they'll have to wait until February for a resolution of the hot baking issue." 

Why students do better overseas

When it comes to education, the U.S. has a lot to learn (ahem).

Praising by faint condemnation

SF Gate review of the Coen brothers' latest film, "Inside Llewyn Davis."

A pair of Pound's proteges

1. Robert Frost, egomaniacal lecher.

2. James Joyce, rescued for Literature by a Poundian missive.

New evidence about materialism (the non-metaphysical variety)

Materialism is correlated with and may cause anxiety and depression.

Grade inflation in the UK

The story of an academic who rebelled against pressure by administrators to raise grades. The tale of slipping standards and students increasingly unprepared for university is also familiar on this side of the pond.

Internet shaming in China

Cyber-bullying for both pro-social and anti-social reasons (the gentleman in the picture above insists that he was incorrectly identified as a cab driver who spat on a homeless man).

The article also discusses the new phenomenon of the internet-only celebrity, such as the iconic "milk girl" shown below:

Late Roman and early Christian attitudes towards sex

NYRB review of Kyle Harper's From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity.

Our robotic future: medicine edition

Numerous arguments in support of the view that doctors and nurses should be replaced by robots and computers. 

How to become wiser and more virtuous

"Regard him as one who
points out
treasure,
the wise one who
seeing your faults
rebukes you.
Stay with this sort of sage.
For the one who stays
with a sage of this sort,
things get better,
not worse."

(Dhammapada 76. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, translator.)

Brennan on the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP)

"It's an older code, but it checks out." Jason Brennan's blog post from last December critiques a common argument given in defense of libertarianism. Brennan is himself a libertarian, but regards the libertarian Non-Aggression Principle as a dialectical non-starter.

Charity

Chicago oral surgeon feeds the homeless twice a week.

The Pink Gang

Philosopher Roderick T. Long on India's feminist vigilantes.

Bryan Caplan is right

Libertarian Economist as Civil Rights Advocate:

If the NYPD bombed Harlem to kill one rampaging murderer, we'd condemn the NYPD agents as murderers. But if the USAF bombs a town in Afghanistan to kill one rampaging murderer, we forgive the bombers - or cheer them on. If the state of Alabama made it a crime for blacks to take white collar jobs, we'd damn them as racist monsters. But if the entire U.S. government makes it a crime for Mexican citizens to take any U.S. job whatsoever, we accept and justify the policy. What's the difference between "fighting crime" and "fighting terrorism"? Between "Jim Crow" and "protecting our borders"? The mere fact that the victims are foreigners, so up is down and wrong is right.

Gruss von Krampus

The Atlantic reports on Saint Nicholas' evil, Alpine companion.

Inside the mind of Gawker editor Neetzan Zimmerman

Melding together man and machine for a better tomorrow (or, how to survive in the brave new economy).

"The Roots of Buddhist Romanticism"

Thanissaro's "The Roots of Buddhist Romanticism" an excellent appraisal of the appropriation of Buddhism by modern Western societies. The only limitation is that Thanissaro does not also discuss the role of Enlightenment thinking in Western interpretations of Buddhism. But most of my job when teaching Buddhism to students, either as a philosophy or as a religion, is in disabusing them of their tendency to interpret Buddhism through the lens of Western Romanticism and its sundry offshoots.

Schooling higher ed

Part of the problem seems to be not enough money spent on the core mission--education.

Ericailcane

Italian street artist.

Did too many regulations doom implementation of the Affordable Care Act?

So argues economist Tyler Cowen:

For instance, the tangle known as government procurement has exacerbated problems with the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges. The required formal processes made it difficult to hire the best possible talent, led to nightmare organizational charts and resulted in blurred lines of accountability. It’s hard to turn on a dime and fix such problems overnight, no matter how pressing the need.

Chomsky on Kennedy

Noam Chomsky offers an unflattering portrait of John F. Kennedy, highlighting the aggressive military actions and lack of commitment to civil rights which characterized Kennedy's presidency, and discussing the cult of his memory which has grown up since his assassination.

A Vintage of Canaan

Archaeologists announced a discovery of an ancient wine cellar which stored vast quantities of Canaanite wine:

A chemical analysis of residues left in the three-foot-tall jars detected organic traces of acids that are common components of all wine, as well as ingredients popular in ancient winemaking. These included honey, mint, cinnamon bark, juniper berries and resins used as a preservative. The recipe was similar to medicinal wines used for 2,000 years in ancient Egypt and probably tasted something like retsina or other resinous Greek wines today.

In Memoriam

A post in honor of my dear friend, Bob Bashore (1926-2013), who passed away last week after a brief illness. 

Bob was an English professor at Bowling Green State University who specialized in 19th century American literature; he was especially interested in Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville. 

If Bob were still with us, I would have told him today about an article I recently read, about Western Buddhists' interpretation of the Pali Canon. In "The Buddha via the Bible", Thanissaro Bhikkhu argues persuasively that Western Buddhists interpret the Pali Canon through the lens of the Romantics' and Transcendentalists' reading of the Christian Bible.

Countdown to 2150 AD

Haw Par Villa Theme Park in Signapore

A vivid depiction of the Buddhist hell realms. 

The shape of things to come

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, yet with stranger eons, even death may die." -- H. P. Lovecraft

Meco

I recently learned that record producer Meco (Dominico Monardo) made a disco version of the Star Wars theme that went platinum, and a dance remix of the Ewok celebration ("Yub-Nub!") song.

Michael Wolf

German-born artist Michael Wolf's photo series 'The Real Toy Story'.

Pamela Colman Smith

Visionary artist Pamela Colman Smith; half-Jamaican, half-American, raised in England, illustrator of the Smith-Waite Tarot.

The Jeweler Philosopher

The Guardian has run a profile of philosophical charlatan David Birnbaum. 

Birnbaum is a famous New York jeweler who claims to have solved 'the mystery of existence'. According to this piece in The Guardian, Birnbaum has made fraudulent claims regarding the endorsement of his work by professional philosophers, and has illegally used the Harvard imprint for his books.

Atlas Moved to Chile

Feminist and individualist anarchist Wendy McElroy is moving to Galt's Gulch in Chile.

This is surprising for two reasons.

Firstly, while individualist anarchists and Objectivists both value liberty, the former are vocal critics of state capitalism, while the latter are defenders of it. It's not immediately clear that living among a band of Objectivists in Chile is going to be preferable to living in Canada (McElroy's current home).

Secondly, there's a "Galt's Gulch" in Chile?!

Left Libertarians vs. Right Libertarians (or, the Mixed Legacy of Murray Rothbard)

There is a great series of posts at Bleeding Heart Libertarianism about the debate among right-leaning and left-leaning libertarians about the value of Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell's contributions to the movement. Jason Brennan is (rightly) critical of some of Rothbard's philosophical views, and of Rothbard's creation of an alliance between libertarians and paleo-conservatives, which resulted (inter alia) in the infamous race-baiting newsletters ghost-written by Lew Rockwell for Ron Paul.

Matt Zwolinski agrees with Brennan about the damage Rothbard did to libertarianism by forging an alliance with paleo-conservatives, but he has also written a list of seven positive contributions Rothbard made to the broader libertarian movement. I agree for the most part with Zwolinski's assessment; Rothbard's arguments for individualist anarchism are flawed, but worth taking seriously, and it was reading these arguments that helped push me toward "radical libertarianism" (for lack of a better term). Given his ill-starred later attempt to forge a strategic alliance with racists and other paleo-conservatives, I find it fascinating that Rothbard is quite clear in some of his earlier work about the potentially radical implications of old-school Lockean liberalism. Here are some quotations from Rothbard's "Confiscation and the Homestead Principle," first published in The Libertarian Forum on June 15, 1969, and now available on mises.org:

What of the myriad of corporations which are integral parts of the military-industrial complex, which not only get over half or sometimes virtually all their revenue from the government but also participate in mass murder? What are their credentials to "private" property? Surely less than zero. As eager lobbyists for these contracts and subsidies, as co-founders of the garrison state, they deserve confiscation and reversion of their property to thegenuine private sector as rapidly as possible. To say that their "private" property must be respected is to say that the property stolen by the horsethief and the murdered [sic] must be "respected". 

. . . .  

And there is another consideration. Dow Chemical, for example, has been heavily criticized for making napalm for the U.S. military machine. The percentage of its sales coming from napalm is undoubtedly small, so that on a percentage basis the company may not seem very guilty; but napalm is and can only be an instrument of mass murder, and therefore Dow Chemical is heavily up to its neck in being an accessory and hence a co-partner in the mass murder in Vietnam. No percentage of sales, however small, can absolve its guilt. 

This brings us to Karl's point about slaves. One of the tragic aspects of the emancipation of the serfs in Russia in 1861 was that while the serfs gained their personal freedom, the land—their means of production and of life, their land was retained under the ownership of their feudal masters. The land should have gone to the serfs themselves, for under the homestead principle they had tilled the land and deserved its title. Furthermore, the serfs were entitled to a host of reparations from their masters for the centuries of oppression and exploitation. The fact that the land remained in the hands of the lords paved the way inexorably for the Bolshevik Revolution, since the revolution that had freed the serfs remained unfinished. 

The same is true of the abolition of slavery in the United States. The slaves gained their freedom, it is true, but the land, the plantations that they had tilled and therefore deserved to own under the homestead principle, remained in the hands of their former masters. Furthermore, no reparations were granted the slaves for their oppression out of the hides of their masters. Hence the abolition of slavery remained unfinished, and the seeds of a new revolt have remained to intensify to the present day. Hence, the great importance of the shift in Negro demands from greater welfare handouts to "reparations", reparations for the years of slavery and exploitation and for the failure to grant the Negroes their land, the failure to heed the Radical abolitionist's call for "40 acres and a mule" to the former slaves. In many cases, moreover, the old plantations and the heirs and descendants of the former slaves can be identified, and the reparations can become highly specific indeed.

You don't hear many Lockean rights based arguments for reparations for the descendants of slaves, but arguably Rothbard is right on the money, and his points about Russian serfs and war profiteers are also worth taking seriously. Some libertarians are so identified with the right wing, because of the recent history of politics in this country, that it makes it difficult for them to see the sometimes radical implications of a traditional liberal property rights regime. This was not lost on 19th century classical liberals such as John Stuart Mill, but for historical reasons (ably summarized here by Steve Horwitz) many contemporary libertarians identify more with the right than with the left, even though libertarianism is arguably an inherently liberal and progressive ideology.

Reasonableness of Christianity Round-Up

Is Christianity reasonable? The answer depends largely on what one means by 'reasonable': strongly rationally justified; somewhat rationally justified; permissible in public political debate and decision; meriting serious rational engagement. BGSU philosophy professor Kevin Vallier argues that Christianity is reasonable, and his initial argument has brought forth a bevy of responses.

At first, I took Vallier to be arguing for the weak thesis that Christianity merits serious rational engagement by non-Christian philosophers. But now, I think he might be arguing for one of the stronger theses involving rational justification. If he chooses the weak thesis, this is much easier to argue for, but its implications are less interesting and controversial (most atheists don't want Christians banned from public policy debates, for example). If he chooses one of the stronger theses, he will have a much more difficult time mounting a successful argument (for the reasons noted below by fellow BGSU philosophy professor Richard Yetter)!

1. Kevin Vallier's initial argument in support of the reasonableness of Christianity.

2. Richard Yetter's reply.

3. Jason Brennan's post about some of the different senses of the word 'reasonable' in play. Brennan notes that 'reasonable' has a technical meaning in the political philosophy literature that might be escaping some people engaged in this debate.

4. Vallier clarifies what he means by 'reasonable'.

5. Vallier's tries to prove that Christianity is reasonable.

To be continued!

Links for Writers

1. The adverb is not your friend.

2. Creative sleep.

3. Lee Martin's tips for fiction and nonfiction writers.

Yet Another Abuse of Power by a "Spiritual" Teacher

"Bikram yoga" guru charged with sexual assault.

"Grit" Predicts Success More Than I.Q.

A summary of the research on motivation in student success by psychologist Angela Duckworth.

Among other findings, Duckworth's 12-point "Grit" self-test predicts the success of cadets at West Point better than the battery of measures developed by West Point for just that purpose.

Astonishing Size Comparison of Every Sci-Fi Spaceship Ever

Well, almost every.

Steven Seagal is a Reincarnated Lama

Surprised I didn't already know about this, but action film star Steven Seagal (shown above with his good buddy Vladimir Putin) was declared to be a tulku (reincarnated lama) in February of 1997 by someone who should know (another lama). Brief discussion here on wikipedia.

Halloween Costume Idea for Two

I go as Doctor Theopolis, you go as Twiki. (For three: he goes as sci-fi Gary Coleman.)

Ripples on the Ocean

1. "Speculative Non-Buddhism": An intellectually stimulating but mean-spirited and petty critique of mainstream Western Buddhism. Recommended.

2. "Meditation and mindfulness are the new rage in Silicon Valley." Words to send shivers down your spine.

3.  When Buddhists and non-Buddhists attack. Harsh words in the comments thread between meditation teacher Kenneth Ford and his "non-Buddhist" (disgruntled Buddhist?) adversaries.

4. Biting "non-Buddhist" satire of the commercialization of Buddhist spirituality.

60s and 70s Science Fiction Madness

To prove: If you pursue the absurd far enough, eventually you break through to the sublime.

1. "Barbarella" (1968).

2. John Carpeneter's freshman directorial effort, "Dark Star" (1974).

3. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century theatrical pilot opening: Buck dreams of space disco queen Erin Grey for 500 years while adrift in space.

4. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Twiki falls in love.

5. "Starcrash" (1979).

QED.

Tyler Cowen on Growing Income Inequality and Our Unequal Future

1. Cowen's new book on our unequal future: "Average Is Over." Economist review of "Average Is Over." Daily Beast review of "Average Is Over."

2. "The great reset": In 2012, real median household income was 8.3% lower than in 2007.

3. New results on labor market polarization.

Strange Synergy

1. Tyler Cowen's reflections on the economy and society in the new world of big data and ubiquitous computing.

2. "Billy Mordor"'s reflections on cyberpunk and the end of golden-age sci-fi: technology transforms our social problems, it does not solve them.

More Wisdom of the Desert

"One of the elders used to say: In the beginning when we got together we used to talk about something that was good for our souls, and we went up and up, and ascended even to heaven. But now we get together and spend our time in criticizing everything, and we drag one another down into the abyss." (From The Wisdom of the Desert [selections from the Verba Seniorum], Thomas Merton, translator, p. 95.)

The Wisdom of the Desert

"The story is told that one of the elders lay dying in Scete, and the brethren surrounded his bed, dressed him in the shroud, and began to weep. But he opened his eyes and laughed. He laughed another time, and then a third time. When the brethren saw this, they asked him, saying: Tell us, Father, why you are laughing while we weep? He said to them: I laughed the first time because you fear death. I laughed the second time because you are not ready for death. And the third time I laughed because from labours I go to my rest. As soon as he said this, he closed his eyes in death." (Thomas Merton, trans., The Wisdom of the Desert [Selections from the Verba Seniorum], p. 105.)