Quotulatiousness

March 27, 2018

Stereotype duel – Boomers versus Millennials

Filed under: Education, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In the latest Libertarian Enterprise, Sarah Hoyt discusses the long-term damage the Boomers have done to the Millennials:

I’m highly amused that the boomers, possibly the most media-stereotyped generation in history, where the decent members keep telling us they’re not like the lunatics who protested, shut down universities and joined sex communes to share medieval-like diseases from never bathing, are the ones most stereotyping the millennials, according to how the media portrays the millennials.

As some millennial readers here have said, and as I know from my circle, most millennials aren’t like the lazy, game addicted creatures who preach socialism at everyone that the media shows you. Most millennials I know were raised under the spur of boomer teachers who — sorry guys — really are stereotypical in “challenge all authority except mine!

Yes a lot of millennials got lost along the way, and yes, I know my share of millennials drifting through life with no aim, no job, no training, nothing.

But do consider these kids were assured from their youngest age that they were surplus (there are too many humans. I mean they tried to force both of my kids to sign a no-reproduction agreement); that there is nothing they can do (capitalism is inherently unjust, and we’re all ruled by corporations and big, shadowy forces); that no one cares about them (blood for oil; the only reason guns aren’t banned is because people want you to get shot); that their future is poorer and any children they have will be condemned to hell on Earth (we’re running out of oil, water (according to my kids’ teachers), glass (also according to my kids’ teachers) and anything else you can think of (including some things you can’t), there is no future for humanity (global warming is going to kill us all.)

The amazing thing is not that some millennials drift through life with no aim and no plan. Who cares, if it’s all going to end, anyway.

I’m fairly sure they resemble nothing so much as the generation that grew up in the shadow of the year 1000, except without the religious portion, since the prophecies that depress them pretend not to be religious. And yet, anyone who has seen a millennial white male talk about how he’s guilty of all the evils in the world and how he will never be clean of white privilege knows EXACTLY what the flagellants looked like.

Put yourself in their place. The kids who swallowed the gospel of human guilt for everything and in particular the gospel that the West is particularly evil and that the end is nigh and inevitable aren’t getting up and building. I’m shocked, aren’t you shocked?

The brighter they are, too, the easier it is for them to swallow that gospel, because it’s easier for smart people to become attracted by internally consistent systems even if (particularly if) they have no contact with the outside world.

Again, these aren’t all the millennials, just like the toking, commune dwelling lot weren’t all of the boomers.

But they are a significant portion, and in some way they might be the portion that would have been most dedicated/creative.

So, what can be done?

German WW1 Prototype Tanks Of 1918 I THE GREAT WAR On The Road

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published on 26 Mar 2018

Get Our New Oberschlesien Tank Poster: http://bit.ly/PanzerOberschlesien

The German Tank Museum: https://www.youtube.com/DasPanzermuseum

While the German Army only fielded 20 A7V tanks during World War 1, they understood the potential of the tank and started working on different designs in the last year of the war. Some designs like the LKII almost got deployed while the Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien or the Krupp-Protze never left the prototype stage.

Metrics are merely a tool. Like any tool they can be misused.

Filed under: Books, Business, Health, History, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

A big problem with depending on metrics is finding things to count that are actually useful measurements of whatever you’re tracking. A lot of bad management decisions can be traced to poorly chosen metrics. As a general rule, just because something can be measured doesn’t automatically mean that measurement will be useful. Tim Harford reviews a recent book on metrics:

Jerry Z Muller’s latest book is 220 pages long, not including the front matter. The average chapter is 10.18 pages long and contains 17.76 endnotes. There are four cover endorsements and the book weighs 421 grammes. These numbers tell us nothing, of course. If you want to understand the strengths and weaknesses of The Tyranny of Metrics you will need to read it — or trust the opinion of someone who has.

Professor Muller’s argument is that we keep forgetting this obvious point. Rather than rely on the informed judgment of people familiar with the situation, we gather meaningless numbers at great cost. We then use them to guide our actions, predictably causing unintended damage.

A famous example is the obsession, during the Vietnam war, with the “body count” metric embraced by US defence secretary Robert McNamara. The more of the enemy you kill, reasoned McNamara, the closer you are to winning. This was always a dubious idea, but the body count quickly became an informal metric for ranking units and handing out promotions, and was therefore often exaggerated. Counting bodies became a risky military objective in itself.

This episode symbolises the mindless, fruitless drive to count things. But it also shows us why metrics are so often used: McNamara was trying to understand and control a distant situation using the skills of a generalist, not a general. Muller shows that metrics are often used as a substitute for relevant experience, by managers with generic rather than specific expertise.

Muller does not claim that metrics are always useless, but that we expect too much from them as a tool of management. For example, if a group of doctors collect and analyse data on clinical outcomes, they are likely to learn something together. If bonuses and promotions are tied to the numbers, the exercise will teach nobody anything and may end up killing patients. Several studies have found evidence of cardiac surgeons refusing to operate on the sickest patients for fear of lowering their reported success rates.

History Buffs: Tora! Tora! Tora!

Filed under: History, Japan, Media, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

History Buffs
Published on 21 Jun 2017

Tora! Tora! Tora! is a 1970 Japanese-American historical war film that dramatizes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The film was directed by Richard Fleischer, Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku and stars an ensemble cast, including Martin Balsam, Joseph Cotten, Sō Yamamura, E. G. Marshall, James Whitmore and Jason Robards. The title is the Japanese codeword used to indicate that complete surprise had been achieved. “Tora” means “tiger” in Japanese.

Cynical Historian: Pearl Harbor review – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUlwDDeAQNE

QotD: Victimology

Filed under: Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

One must have a closed heart not to see that some minorities still are mistreated, that some women are still abused, that some of the overweight are still bullied, that some handicapped continue to be neglected, and that some members of the gay community are harassed. But one must have closed eyes not to see how some have used the victim card for personal gain. In our earnest efforts to redress monstrous problems, we consistently create new monsters. Perpetual victimhood is too great a price for temporary protection. Those victim shackles are nearly unbreakable.

We are, I fear, living in a new age of tyranny, and one as sinister as many that have gone before because these modern tyrants are weak and earnest and have had legitimate complaints. The tyranny is a tyranny mostly of the mind. To use another Blakean metaphor — our own “mind-forged manacles” hold us captive and few find escape from a ruthlessly self-imposed victimhood. And the so-called privileged must cultivate a strong streak of masochism in order to cope with this modern liberal view of political reality. And perhaps we are reaching victim overload. No longer just minorities and women and Muslims and gays and the handicapped, but also the overweight and the underfed, and the homeless, the gluten-adverse, the peanut phobic, the emotionally distraught, and so forth ad infinitum. Who will be left to blame? Who will be left to carry the guilt for all these victims of society and nature?

But it is on a still deeper level that victimhood is truly disturbing for a victim is never an equal. A victim is always defined not by who they are, but by what has been done to them. While treating a group as victims is in many ways preferable to denigrating them, it has this same impact: They are not equal. They are like pets, well treated, even pampered, but not their masters equal. Victimhood is little more than a subtler, but equally pernicious, form of enslavement. The liberal enablers of this pretense should be ashamed. They would do well to remember a much less quoted warning my Dr. King: “A shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” Liberals have made entire segments of society more dependent and eternally adolescent. They are never truly free because they are always defined by their limitations and pain.

Joseph Mussomeli, “Victim Privilege, Cultural Appropriation, & the New Enslavement”, The Imaginative Conservative, 2018-02-09.

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