Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Diedre McCloskey on the Right and the Left

Physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is the atom's way of knowing about atoms. -George Wald, scientist and Nobel laureate


Today is Liz' birthday. Happy Birthday!
Liz got a terrific review at work.
Mom got in to Boston yesterday, I'm going today.
I have no idea how the Pens lost last night.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month, "In 2019, there is more government-backed housing debt than at any other point in U.S. history." And these government guarantees are up considerably since the 2009 housing crash. The Post continues: "Now, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration guarantee almost $7 trillion in mortgage-related debt, 33% more than before the housing crisis ... Because these entities are run or backstopped by the U.S. government, a large increase in loan defaults could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars."


A study from Magna suggested 29% of TV viewing was happening outside the traditional model, although only 3% of TV ad budgets were being allocated to streaming services. Future streaming viewers--and profits--will all come at the expense of TV.



Ayn Rand wrote a book on philosophy. Here is what she says about the need for philosophy: "[y]our only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown."

We find that polities led by queens were more likely to engage in war than polities led by kings. Moreover, the tendency of queens to engage as aggressors varied by marital status. Among unmarried monarchs, queens were more likely to be attacked than kings. Among married monarchs, queens were more likely to participate as attackers than kings, and, more likely to fight alongside allies. These results are consistent with an account in which marriages strengthened queenly reigns because married queens were more likely to secure alliances and enlist their spouses to help them rule. Married kings, in contrast, were less inclined to utilize a similar division of labor. These asymmetries, which reflected prevailing gender norms, ultimately enabled queens to pursue more aggressive war policies.--a paper by Oeindrila Dube and S.P. Harish


Offensive performance in the majors is tied to the count, and just one missed pitch can have a significant effect. During the regular season, hitters had a .351 batting average on a count of two balls and one strike, versus a .161 batting average on a count of one ball and two strikes — a difference of nearly 200 points in batting average.


pickleball, n.
A game similar to tennis played with short paddles and a light perforated plastic ball.’ Etymology: <  pickle n.+ ball n.
The game was invented by Washington House of Representatives member Joel Pritchard (later Lieutenant Governor of Washington) and friends in the 1960s. The semantic motivation of the name is uncertain but it is nice to see something good come out of government.


Chick-fil-A i has long been criticized over its contributions to groups with anti-LGBTQ stances. In March, the San Antonio city council voted to ban the chain from its international airport, citing its history of LGBTQ issues, and the Buffalo, N.Y., airport followed suit a month later. So on Monday, the Chick-fil-A Foundation (the chain’s charitable arm) announced that it’s introducing “a more focused giving approach” for next year. It will “deepen its giving to a smaller number of organizations working exclusively in the areas of education, homelessness and hunger,” and has committed $9 million to organizations such as the Junior Achievement USA, which fosters work-readiness and financial literary skills for students through 12th grade, as well as Covenant House International, which provides outreach to 70,000 homeless, runaway and trafficked young people each year. But it won’t be making multiyear commitments to charities anymore, and will now reassess its philanthropy on a year-to-year basis. And that includes not renewing its annual donations to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, as reported by the Washington Post, which are two religious organizations that have made controversial statements about homosexuality and same-sex marriage in the past.

                  Diedre McCloskey on the Right and the Left

 A liberal is someone who believes that there shouldn’t be any masters, no tyrants. Not husbands over wives, not masters over slaves, not politicians over citizens, no hierarchies. Whereas the other two, in their own charming way, delight in coercion, in masters. On the left, it’s the masterhood of the state over everyone. On the right, it’s the masterhood of the state over everyone. 

So, along the conventional left-right spectrum, we’re only arguing about how to use the massive power of the state. The idea that there shouldn’t be any massive power of the state is just off the table. Whereas we liberals, you know, starting with Adam Smith and Mary Wollstonecraft and Tom Paine and Thoreau and Mill and Milton Friedman, we all think that the state should be small — competent but small. So we’re off of the scale. We’re not on the left-right scale.

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