Quotulatiousness

July 27, 2019

The US Economy is About to Crash Hard | Between 2 Wars | 1929 Part 1 of 3

Filed under: Economics, History, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost History
Published on 25 Jul 2019

In 1929 it’s been nothing but growth for the US economy for years, at least if you judge by the New York Stock Exchange. But all that glitters is not gold, and when the gilding comes off this bubble it sinks like a lead ballon.

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From the comments:

TimeGhost History
3 hours ago (edited)
Now… ladies and gents – this is not a video about 2019 and we are not making any political statements. We know that some of you love making parallels between the present day and historical events. Although we can learn from history, try to remember that the circumstances were very different. Others among you feel it appropriate to extend partisan conflicts backwards and make out our videos, or events in the videos as partisan statements or issues. First of all we simply don’t do that, we just relate the events and the circumstances as factually as possible with the best possible sources. Second of all it is pointless to look for the 2019 partisan left/right divide according to party lines in events that happened 90 years ago. There’s just no comparison as both reality, and political parties have gone through so much change that the members of the same party, from today and then would probably disagree so vehemently on so many points the they would not even understand each other. So please, try your best to not go off on partisan rants, as it distracts form the actual historical issues at hand

“[T]he more educated a Democrat is … the less he or she understands the Republican worldview”

Filed under: Education, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Last week in the Guardian, Arlie Hochschild explained some of the mutual incomprehension of US Democrats and Republicans based on a recent study:

In a surprising new national survey, members of each major American political party were asked what they imagined to be the beliefs held by members of the other. The survey asked Democrats: “How many Republicans believe that racism is still a problem in America today?” Democrats guessed 50%. It’s actually 79%. The survey asked Republicans how many Democrats believe “most police are bad people”. Republicans estimated half; it’s really 15%.

The survey, published by the thinktank More in Common as part of its Hidden Tribes of America project, was based on a sample of more than 2,000 people. One of the study’s findings: the wilder a person’s guess as to what the other party is thinking, the more likely they are to also personally disparage members of the opposite party as mean, selfish or bad. Not only do the two parties diverge on a great many issues, they also disagree on what they disagree on.

This much we might guess. But what’s startling is the further finding that higher education does not improve a person’s perceptions – and sometimes even hurts it. In their survey answers, highly educated Republicans were no more accurate in their ideas about Democratic opinion than poorly educated Republicans. For Democrats, the education effect was even worse: the more educated a Democrat is, according to the study, the less he or she understands the Republican worldview.

“This effect,” the report says, “is so strong that Democrats without a high school diploma are three times more accurate than those with a postgraduate degree.” And the more politically engaged a person is, the greater the distortion.

What could be going on? Bubble-ism, the report suggests. Even more than their Republican counterparts, highly educated Democrats tend to live in exclusively Democratic enclaves. The more they report “almost all my friends hold the same political views”, the worse their guesses on what Republicans think.

So do they believe in sticking with their own? No. When asked in a Pew survey whether it’s important to live in a place “where most people share my political views”, half of conservatives and only a third of liberals agreed. Although in principle more tolerant of political diversity, highly educated – and mostly urban – Democrats live, ironically, with less of it.

Take the quiz or see more of the results here.

Life and Death in Herculaneum (Prof. Wallace-Hadrill)

Filed under: Europe, History, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Cardo Maximus
Published on 20 Jun 2013

QotD: Ban roses!

Filed under: Environment, Humour, Quotations — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

Be honest: the roses one encounters in daily life are, mostly, hideous. Think of the colors: syphilitically inflamed orange, or highlighter-pen salmon, or nylon pink, or overripe-banana yellow. How often have you bent to smell a neighbor’s rose, ready to snort up a lungful of Turkish-delight deliciousness, only to discover no scent at all? The names, too — Newly Wed, Scentimental, Golden Smiles, Admiral Rodney, Bright ‘n’ Breezy — put breeders of pedigree dogs to shame. But worst of all is the plant itself: drab little leaves, plagued with leprous brown spots or grazing aphids; prickled shoots whipping in the wind above gnarled, charmless trunks. And no one knows how to prune them. Invariably either overdisciplined or scrubby, viciously trained into a municipal pygmy or as amateurishly hacked at as a young porcupine with a home haircut, the vast majority are tragic shadows of the perfect rose in its ruffled, scented bounty.

What’s more, they are dangerous. Which other common garden plant requires one to wear chainmail to perform the simplest tying-in, sharpened secateurs for ceaseless deadheading, a full hazmat outfit in which to spray it with the toxins required to keep it pretty? Haven’t you heard the stories of gardeners who, after a single rose-thorn puncture, lost an arm, or more? Would you keep a shark in your front yard? Precisely.

Charlotte Mendelson, “Let’s Ban Roses”, The New Yorker, 2017-06-21.

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