Audacious Epigone and Mangan's Miscellany trimmed out

For a long time, I kept the above two bloggers on my blogroll. After skimming their recent work, I've removed them today. Basically, when I added them I was using my blogroll as a blog bookmark list, not as an endorsement list. Considering their controversial subject matter on race and "right-wing" perspective, I feel compelled to comment. I don't agree at all with their views on race, income inequality, politics, and probably not much on economics either. However, they push the contrarian button in me. They provide that different perspective in a slightly less crass manner than someone like Steve Sailer. I'm not sure how much the race stuff applies to Mangan but it applies very obviously with Audacious.

Both have interesting personalities and each has unique strengths: Audacious Epigone is data-heavy on intelligence; Mangan's Miscellany touches on nutrition and investing. But these are topics that are better to learn about elsewhere, such as through peer-reviewed review articles on the topics. Some might say that intelligence is too politically sensitive to be discussed properly in these channels. That's just wrong, because there are probably hundreds of articles discussing the topic, plenty of academics have advocated for it, and they have been responded to by other academics in the very recent past.

Having read into the debate and worked a bit on the Wikipedia article, I don't think that Flynn and Nisbett have really been engaged properly by Rushton and Jensen. In the response to Nisbett's latest book, Rushton and Jensen resorted to technical jargon rather than proper engagement. Overall, yes, we know there's a gap between the races as shown by measures used to test intelligence.

In any case, whether there truly is a gap doesn't really matter. All that matters are the social implications. Does bringing up this issue and trying to convince everyone of it serve any useful social purpose? Rushton and Jensen have tried to argue yes. While it's debated, I strongly suspect that in 1969 Jensen tried to argue that the correct takeaway was to teach black people in a more rote manner (see Harvard Educational Review 39: 1–123). I can't see any useful social purpose, and I see substantial risk of racism, discrimination, and stereotype threat. The fact that someone would advocate such a thing despite the vastness of the unknowns, individual heterogeneity, and the imperfect information available to people in everyday life is morally despicable.

In 1969, we did not even know that lead caused IQ deficits in children. In fact, "we" didn't really know that leaded gasoline caused any health problems at all. By "we", I mean the general public, since occupational health scientists were well-aware of the health hazards of lead when it was first used (see Kovarik 2005). However, this brings up another point: these two bloggers, like many others of the "right-wing" crowd, do not seem to recognize the four-dimensional nature of the political compass. Would these people have opposed lead regulation? Some might think that is a straw man argument, but I hardly think it is a straw man to say that in the 1930s, these type of people would be the most strident of corporate apologists, as those who are self-described "right-wingers" are similarly corporate apologists today.

There's a general antipathy towards moving forward which is evident in even the label "conservative". And this is more than just a worded label. Those who use it to describe themselves take it to heart. These are often people who think that we can save the economy by simply drilling more and more holes in the ground. These are the people who have strongly opposed the abolition, as more than half of the country at the time did.

Despite my talk of the political compass above, I genuinely believe that conservative is a mindset - perhaps a genetic predisposition - which has been generally against every progressive (defined as a change which equalizes power among the units of a society) change in society, ever. An example from American History can be provided. Abraham Lincoln was an extreme liberal in his day. Seward, his secretary of state, almost won the Republican nomination but was considered too left-wing as he had been more open in his views toward abolishing slavery, and had also been a typical liberal spendthrift as Governor of New York. I have read that Abraham Lincoln ran on a platform of increasing federal power and government infrastructure investment. When the Democrat party began to become liberal, the conservatives swiftly shifted to the Republican party. Many are aware because of the Trent Lott incident that the infamous Strom Thurmond, a Republican Congressman who ran on a desegregation campaign, was originally a Democrat - but the hyper-racists have switched parties as conservatism has switched to the Republican party. And there they persist in their campaign to make sure that the productive energy of the world is used in making sure that the rich can have more luxuries, with a caveat that the lower classes can be helped through oil subsidies to the companies to which the rich own.

Obama, Transparency, Earmarks

I have mixed feelings about Obama. While I loved him when I heard that he passed the Transparency Act of 2006, I was disappointed to find later that they'd basically taken usaspending.org and tossed a .gov at the end of it. They spruced it up a bit and made it more user-friendly, but I'm not sure that there was as much value-added as there could be. There was plenty of glory, however.

Yesterday Obama revealed his earmarks. I'm not real government-savvy (I've been exploring the government websites for about a year now, but they're still a maze to me), and I wonder why he even had to reveal them. Aren't they publicly-available? Apparently not -- or apparently it would be a major hassle to compile the data, as it's probably in text files. So it's $740 million, including a fishy $1 million for his wife's hospital. I'll give him credit for revealing it. Clinton has not revealed hers. I don't think he's completely pure, but he certainly has a better record for integrity than McCain (who was involved in the Keating case) or Clinton, who is just plain slimy.

I'd trust Obama and McCain more than Clinton when it comes to making smart economic policy, as well. While Obama has made a fuss about NAFTA, his book comes down more in favor of free trade:

A tariff on imported steel may give temporary relief to U.S. steel producers, but it will make every U.S. manufacturer who uses steel in its products less competitive on the world market.... U.S. Border Patrol agents can't interdict the services of a call center in India, or stop an electrical engineer in Prague from sending his work via email to a company in Dubuque. When it comes to trade, there are few borders left.

EDIT: Where is the press release of these revealed earmarks from Obama? The fact that it was revealed last Thursday (March 13), but there is no press release from Obama's website is disturbing, to say the least. It suggests that he's trying to downplay his earmark requests. However, the earmarks question is fairly prominently displayed (#2) in his AnswerCenter.

Seeing Through Ron Paul

The "libertarian" who "would have" voted for Defense of Marriage Act? See here.

Flag Burning - A letter to my Senator

Hi,

One thing that really made me angry was the attempt to ban flag burning, which nearly succeeded. That would have been a sad day in our nation's history. Today I finally looked up who had voted for it. According to Wikipedia. only 3 Republicans voted against the amendment.

I don't think I should have to explain why the amendment was so foolhardy. It would have certainly been the most petty amendment in our nation's history. Burning the flag is an important and often warranted expression of disgust at what our country's government (and perhaps people) has become.

You may disagree with that opinion, but that doesn't give you the right to force your opinion of what flag-burning means on me.

I would love to hear a reply on this issue and hope that you think carefully about the issue if it comes up again. The Supreme Court has ruled that it is protected speech not once but twice. I see no reason to override that. Perhaps the most interesting fact is that flag-burning is not common and causes few people real trouble, which leads one to believe that the entire movement was a disheartening political ploy.

Again, I would greatly appreciate a reply. I've noticed that I receive replies when I send letters in print, but electronic emails should be treated exactly the same.

Thank you,
***

-------------------------

It's old news, of course, but the Constitutional Amendment lost by a single vote. 3 Republicans voted against and 14 Democrats voted for. It makes me sick that it was so close.

Sourcewatch: Flag Burning Amendment

Saving Democracy

A computer scientist named Don Lindsay has an idea that could fix democracy. I imagine it's been on his website for a long time, but it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

It's a pretty simple idea. When you vote, you put down a first choice and a second choice. If your first choice isn't in the top-two, your second choice is used instead. This would allow people to vote for third-party candidates without absolutely wasting their votes.

It might not fix things immediately, but even I am sometimes reluctant to vote for the third-party (although I always want to) because I know that I need to add my vote to the real tally or else very bad things could happen, like the Bush reelection.

If you like this idea, please pass it on.

By the way, this guy also publishes the longest list of informal fallacies I have ever seen.

The Conspiracy Chain

It looks like this: Knights Templar ---> Bavarian Illuminati ---> Freemasons ---> (Skull And Bones) ---> Council On Foreign Relations ---> Bilderberg Group ---> Trilateral Commission

The Freemasons have an "Order of the Knights Templar" and supposedly incorporate their symbols, but there is a 400-year gap between the two. That link is iffy. Do I really believe that some organization has managed to continue its quest for world domination from the 1300s? No. But it is a fact that a very large number of powerful, intelligent men have belonged to these groups in the past. Today it is even more worrying - look at the membership lists of the Bilderberg Group and Trilateral Commission at Wikipedia, and read the link that I posted earlier from the Guardian, especially the third page.

First Republican Primary Debate

I've been hunting around for the entire Republican debate and so far this is the best that I can find. The setting is exactly the same as the Democrats background: a huge American flag. Such art demonstrates the vast creative power of our political leaders and media machine. The questions in Democrat debate were bad. The only information of substance that I remember getting out of it was that the Iraq war should be stopped and that Hillary and Barack want universal healthcare (a policy I vigorously disagree with, but that's for another post).

SO I loaded up this clip and had to laugh when Matthews asked Romney what he hated the most about America. Romney, of course, chased the hardcore right by responding that he "loved American" and "loved most of all its people", who are the "best people in the world and always will be." And more nationalistic blather.

You know, when I was a young child people always used to tell me that politicians were dirty slimeballs. I always figured it was on some level untrue - that politicians must be smart leaders. These days I've begun to realize how wrong I am. How can we reconcile the competence and character of our past and current leaders with rational choice theory, the idea that people make rational decisions? Why wouldn't rational populations choose the most qualified, intelligent individuals rather than people who build their careers through their ablitiy to schmooze and slander?

Rational ignorance is often cited as the reconciliation between the two. To put it simply, it says that the cost of education is higher than the benefit. What most economists don't tell you but is quite implicit is that the perceived cost and benefit rather than the true cost and benefit is the one which influences people's decisions. We live in a world of imperfect information and the only hope of improving that is to educate people into the importance of the issues today. That change seems to be happening.

The other claim is somewhat more interesting and perhaps linked in how the situation appears to voters. When I go to vote, I don't really influence the result at all in most cases. I don't encourage other people to go vote simply by voting. Even if I promote voting, my actual vote doesn't do anything. The system instead works through the aggregate of people arriving at the decision to vote independently. The game is the classic prisoner's dilemma: the group as a whole would be better off if everyone voted (and, most importantly, researched), but each individual can be better by not spending the time on voting. (The problem is that these people are worse off in the long-run when they don't vote, but even if they had voted it wouldn't have made them less worse off - their vote makes no difference.)

UPDATE: Here is the debate. The idiots running MSNBC didn't build it to run in Firefox.

Winston Churchill

I've been reading The Last Lion and I am just blown away by Winston Churchill. The man was a genius, and one of the few geniuses to enter political life. He struggled in school because he was so goddamned rebellious, despite being, throughout school, the best writer in his class. He had no patience for math. He loved the truth, and straddled both sides of the political spectrum to pursue what he saw as important. Yet because he loved truth and was not a liberal or a conservative, he was reviled by both parties. They would vilify him for any reason. I find some interesting parallels to that in my own life - lots of people don't like me because I am neither conservative nor liberal. They are afraid of what I have to say.

Some interesting examples:

In the beginning of his career as a politican, Churchill was a Tory. Yet he consistently came out against the party line: he was against the Boer War (reminds one of a modern parallel, perhaps?), and against protectionism. To sum up: he was against imperialism, which was fundamental to the Tory platform. So he switched parties and became a Liberal for a long, long time.

When Germany was about to invade France at the start of World War I, most of the Liberals wanted to stay out of the war. Churchill had to fight to roust them up, although when Germany went through Belgium they all caved. This same exact thing happened in World War II, which could have been avoided had the English and the French seen it coming and nipped it in the bud. Churchill warned of the impending disaster before its time.

There are countless other examples, but I have things to do. It's easy to see parallels today: the minimum wage is not the best way to reduce poverty, and gay marriage should be allowed. Corporate welfare is a big problem, and CEO pay is perhaps an even bigger problem.

Look at recent Supreme Court cases. In Gonzales v. Raich it was the liberals who voted to continue the immoral oppression of marijuana users. In Kelo v. New London it was the liberals, again, who decided that cities may condemn private land in order to give it to corporations. These acts are entirely unforgivable.

The Ivory Tower

I talked my dad recently and said I have no respect for 90% of those in the U.S. Congress. I said they weren't intellectuals and they had no principles. He said he had no respect for the Ivory Tower.

I wanted to tell him that intellectuals had principles, they knew what the country needed, they weren't the shallow, stupid, short-sighted people that most of our Congressmen were. But I couldn't. I knew my words would sound empty. I just continued to point out how crazy, stupid, and dishonest our politicians were.

The real question is: if intellectuals or academics are so smart, why do they not enter the public arena? Why don't they infiltrate the bourgeoisie and change things? Is it because they don't think changing things is really necessary? (Revealed preference.) Likely, perhaps -- but it might also be because that intelligence, when it comes to success, can be a curse. The intelligent forever second-guess themselves.

Honestly, the question of why the "natural aristocracy" -- the academics and intellectuals -- don't rise to the top is still relevant. Nobody has supplied a good answer thus far. It leaves the intelligence of the so-called intellectuals suspect.

UPDATE: Philosophy is the history of second-guessing -- and really, is there any point to questioning whether or not I'm experiencing reality right now or I'm dreaming? Or whether inductive logic is necessarily logical? Or whether we can really know the "thing in itself"?