When I came here [to Silicon Valley] I encountered tremendous arrogance. A kind of “resistance is futile” mentality that of course our apps will take over the world, and when they do, when everybody is connected, that’ll be awesome! There will be one global community and everything will be great. And my response to that was: That’s insane. That’s historically completely implausible. We’ve run experiments with really large-scale social networks before. We didn’t have the Internet, but that didn’t matter. You could do it with a printing press. You could even do it just with the written word. And the result is never to produce a single homogenous cluster of happy-clappy individuals in a global community. That never happens.
Niall Ferguson, quoted by @bigthinkagain, 2018-02-17.
May 9, 2020
QotD: Networks don’t work that way with humans
May 8, 2020
QotD: Measuring beauty
Peter Grant, “How do you measure up?”, Mad Genius Club, 2018-01-28.
May 7, 2020
QotD: Chestnuts
Which is why they have been fed to pigs, these last few hundred years; that, and the appalling propaganda mounted against chestnuts by our culinary elites. The European poor once ate them in quantity, as their filler; made bread from chestnut flour. Italians, harder to intimidate by fashion than most others, still adore their subtle flavours.
These thoughts were occasioned by a sealed bag of peeled chestnuts, casually purchased the other day as a snack while walking. They were candied in a rather disagreeable way. But worse, I unfortunately failed to read the label attentively, or would have noticed that the contents were “organic”. No intelligent consumer will buy anything on which this warning is prominently displayed. Quite apart from the doubling or tripling of the price, the product itself may be missing some important ingredient.
Children raised on “organic” food become weak and sickly. Those raised “vegan” as well are likely to die. If you find a child perishing in this way, be merciful and fill him with meat and chestnuts.
David Warren, “Chestnuts”, Essays in Idleness, 2018-01-29.
May 6, 2020
QotD: The French philosophes and the “lower orders”
The French philosophes thought the social classes were divided by the chasm not only of poverty but, more crucially, of superstition and ignorance. They despised the lower orders because they were in thrall to Christianity. The editor of the Encyclopédie, Denis Diderot, declared that the common people had no role in the Age of Reason: “The general mass of men are not so made that they can either promote or understand this forward march of the human spirit.” Indeed, “the common people are incredibly stupid,” he said, and were little more than animals: “too idiotic — bestial — too miserable, and too busy” to enlighten themselves. Voltaire agreed. The lower orders lacked the intellect required to reason and so must be left to wallow in superstition. They could be controlled and pacified only by the sanctions and strictures of religion which, Voltaire proclaimed, “must be destroyed among respectable people and left to the canaille large and small, for whom it was made.”
Keith Windschuttle, “Gertrude Himmelfarb and the Enlightenment”, New Criterion, 2020-02.
May 5, 2020
QotD: Social media encourages autistic behaviour
The genetic fallacy, you’ll recall, is the inability to separate the idea from the speaker. Or, if you’re under age 40, it’s simply “communication,” as our public discourse nowadays proceeds in very little other than genetic fallacies. Try it for yourself. We all know what kind of reaction you’ll get in respectable circles if you say “You know, Donald Trump has a point about …”, but you can do it on “our side” of the fence, too. Watch: Obama was right about Race to the Top. No, really: Compared to W’s No Child Left Behind bullshit, pretty much anything short of letting kids be raised by wolves would’ve been better (and hey, even being raised by wolves worked out ok for Romulus and Remus). Even with the qualifier attached, almost everyone on “our side” instinctively bristles — we’ve been so conditioned by the words “Obama” and “race,” especially in close proximity, that we can’t help ourselves. Even I do it.
It’s especially bad for the younger generations who, as I keep arguing, have been effectively autismized (it’s a word) by social media. Twitter, especially, is so constructed that “replies” can come in hours, days, months, years later. Blogs too for that matter — one of the reasons we close the comments here after a few weeks is to prevent drive-by commenters clogging things up trying to re-litigate something from years ago. Modern “communication” must take place in discrete, contextless utterances. That being the case, understanding a statement in context is impossible — I repeat, impossible. So Lenin (or Hitler, or Mao, or William F. Buckley, or the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man) didn’t have a point about ___; because that requires understanding how his point fit into the larger context of his thought, his times, his culture, his world. None of that shit fits into a tweet, so we’re trained to respond to the name — Lenin (etc.) is either a good guy or a bad guy, full stop, so anything he says about anything must be good or bad, automatically.
I hardly need to elaborate on the effect this has on our public culture. If Our Thing really wants to get serious, the first thing any “organization,” no matter how loose, must do is: Ban social media.
Severian, “Education, the Genetic Fallacy, and the Spectrum”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2020-01-27.
May 4, 2020
QotD: The eternal “now” of Progressive stasis
None of that matters to the cultural marxist, though. How could it? As I wrote yesterday, to the fanatic, the past is one long catalog of freely chosen error. Nor is there any meaningful future to a fanatic. That seems wrong, I realize, but consider that time passes through contrast. People will be born and die in the Communist Utopia, but since everyone will always have everything, human activity will be exquisitely pointless …
Ignore what Leftists say. Watch what they do, and it’ll soon be obvious that what they long for above all things is stasis. They want everyone and everything to be one way, and one way only, forever. Homosexuals are the most flamboyant example. Imagine that — having your entire life defined by your sexual attraction. I like blondes, but you know, if the right brunette came along I’d go for her. Heck, I’d even go for a ginger (I know, I know, I’m a monster). But according to the Left, that’s not allowed. I like blondes, and therefore I’m only allowed to like blondes. Oh, and I can only vote for Bernie Sanders, because he’s the attracted-to-blondes candidate, and I must support abortion, and use the word “cisgendered,” and …
Thus, to the Leftist there’s no past, and no future either. There’s only now, and the only thing that matters now is power. How could it be otherwise?
Severian, “The Endless Now”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2020-01-23.
May 3, 2020
QotD: Tragic cultural misunderstandings
It’s one of those cultural traps which I have read about and which are tragic.
I think I’ve spoken before of the tragic encounter between Zulu and Boers in South Africa. Zulus were doing what they did that had won them Africa (they came from central Africa shortly before the whites arrived): Commit incredibly scary atrocities so the enemy runs/avoids combat/submits. The whites were in their head just another tribe. They could not understand the idea of a “tribe” that was starting to span the globe and which would self-identify as “tribe” in the face of a savage. So their savagery made the Europeans MORE determined to wipe them out.
We’re seeing something like that, again. Islamic CULTURES are big on bragging, exaggeration of force and intimidation of the enemy. This is functional in a desert where there’s always a lot of low-level “war.” Some atrocities, scare “the enemy” and you keep your patch, and you go on. They have a fine tuned ear for this. When the other tribe isn’t committing atrocities against YOU and particularly when they’re being appeasing/accommodating, you have them over a barrel. If you strike with showy force you can take their stuff and enslave them. NOTE most of the attacks are designed to be showy.
TWO things they don’t get: Our elites are appeasing because the elites think they’re SO powerful they can’t be touched and are oikophobes who hate their own people. AND our PEOPLE is pissed, really pissed.
You know the old joke? There are no Muslims in Star Trek because it’s set in the future.
This is unfortunately the likely outcome of the cultures meeting. At some point (already happening) the elites will have to fight or be replaced. And when we go to war, our power is incalculable compared to them. They think we exaggerate our strength, while, culturally, we underplay it. They don’t understand we’re holding back.
The result will be a horrific destruction of guilty and innocent alike and even people like me who look Arab/Mediterranean in a bad light will be at risk.
And they will be the victims of genocide.
Sarah Hoyt, “Cross-Culture”, According to Hoyt, 2017-03-23.
May 2, 2020
QotD: Today’s psychological epidemic
There’s an epidemic of self-diagnosis among young people, there’s a race to multiply pathology, there’s a glorification of disorders like borderline personality disorder, which is rare. When being the most oppressed victim gives you the highest status, then it’s a race to the bottom.
We’re not helping young people figure out a noble and difficult pathway forward, where they bear responsibility and march forthrightly into adulthood. Quite the contrary. We’re saying, “Well, the system is corrupt and there’s no point in taking part in it. You’re going to be victimized no matter what you do.” And so the race is on for who gets to play the victim card with the highest degree of status. And it’s really bad, it’s especially bad for adolescents because they’re trying to sort their identity out, they’re already a mess.
Jordan Peterson, “Christie Blatchford Sits Down With ‘Warrior For Common Sense’ Jordan Peterson”, National Post, 2018-02-07.
May 1, 2020
QotD: Cynicism
The cynics aren’t exactly wrong; there is a lot of shoddy, grasping, rottenness in the world. But cynicism is radically incomplete. Early modernist critics used to complain about the sanitized unreality of “nice” books with no bathrooms. The great modernist mistake was to decide that if books without sewers were unrealistic, “reality” must be the sewers. This was a greater error than the one it aimed to correct. In fact, human beings are often splendid, the world is often glorious, and nature, red in tooth and claw, also invented kindness, charity and love. Believe in that.
Megan McArdle, “After 45 Birthdays, Here Are ’12 Rules for Life'”, Bloomberg View, 2018-01-30.
April 30, 2020
QotD: Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity (and Judaism)
H.L. Mencken, “Transvaluation of Morals”, The Smart Set, 1915-03.
April 29, 2020
QotD: “Ethical” ways to prevent scientific progress
The hobbling of research is not just a symptom of bureaucratic mission creep. It is actually rationalized by many bioethicists. These theoreticians think up reasons that informed and consenting adults should be forbidden to take part in treatments that help them and others while harming no one. They use nebulous rubrics like “dignity,” “sacredness,” and “social justice.” They try to sow panic about advances in biomedical research with far-fetched analogies to nuclear weapons and Nazi atrocities, science-fiction dystopias like Brave New World and Gattaca, and freak-show scenarios like armies of cloned Hitlers, people selling their eyeballs on eBay, and warehouses of zombies to supply people with spare organs. The University of Oxford philosopher Julian Savulescu has exposed the low standards of reasoning behind these arguments and has pointed out why “bioethical” obstructionism can be unethical: “To delay by 1 year the development of a treatment that cures a lethal disease that kills 100,000 people per year is to be responsible for the deaths of those 100,000 people, even if you never see them.”
Steven Pinker, “The Intellectual War on Science”, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2018-02-13.
April 28, 2020
QotD: Rent control in Stockholm
Instead of a fairer rental market, where tenants can easily afford rent and live in high-quality housing, Sweden suffers from increased social segregation; eruptions of violence as a result of disagreements in its massive black market of sublet housing; and companies that face immense difficulties in recruiting talent, as potential workers are unable to find suitable accommodation.
Proponents of rent control often emphasise the fairness the measure: rent controls are meant to create a more egalitarian society, where individuals irrespective of their income live in the same neighbourhood and can afford similar quality housing. This could not be further from the truth.
The Swedish experiment shows that it is high-income, well-educated individuals who benefit from rent controls the most, whereas less-educated, or not as well-connected individuals such as younger renters or immigrants, are highly disadvantaged by the system.
In theory, housing stock that becomes available for rent is allocated through the Stockholm Housing Agency, which ensures the rental prices are kept on “an average level”. The average waiting time in Stockholm for such housing allocation is over 11 years. As tenants realise the true value of their contract — e.g. the money they can receive for their apartment on the secondary rental market — they are unwilling to return the property to the agency, even when they move out. Instead, they rent it out to someone in their extended circle of friends or exchange the flat for one in a different area — only in practice, not on paper of course. No wonder that only 0.5% of the housing is returned to the agency, resulting in a massive queue of 670,000 people on Stockholm’s housing waitlist — out of a total population of 970,000.
This system benefits the most well-connected individuals, but highly disadvantages people who lack broad social connections. These groups are often forced into the informal rental market, where the prices are on average double that of the official rent controlled numbers. One in five young Swedish renters face have admitted renting on the black market. Due to the lack of legal arbitration, disagreements between parties can lead to violence and in some cases even murder.
Another problem has been the inflexibility of rental contracts, which have made it difficult for people to move between cities, leading to a fifth of Swedish companies facing severe recruitment problems due to the lack of suitable housing.
Adam Bartha, “Rent controls have failed in cities throughout Europe”, Institute of Economic Affairs, 2020-01-23.
April 27, 2020
QotD: H.L. Mencken’s literary theory
H.L. Mencken, “Private Reflections”, The Smart Set, 1922-12.
April 26, 2020
QotD: Bio-engineering
Unless we stop now. And I know what you’re saying: Oh, it’s easy for you to say, Mr. Stop-the-progress-of-science-for-some-ridiculous-ethical-reason. Actually, no, it’s not easy for me to say. This forked tongue I got from the snake gene implant is not exactly working out. On the other hand, I don’t have to change clothes; I just molt twice a year. On the other, my wife hates finding that thing in the hamper.
James Lileks “In the genes department”, Star Tribune, 2005-02-06.
April 25, 2020
QotD: The entitlement mindset of intellectuals
Robert Nozick, “Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?”, Cato Policy Report, 1998-01-01.
