Stoat
Taking science by the throat...
2024-10-23
Sound to hide the broken bone the sunken ship
2024-10-19
Reason and Morality
Notes
Refs
2024-10-16
Who knew what when, again?
Notes
Refs
2024-10-11
The Foundations of Morality
Other, failed, theories
Morality, Law, Manners
The curious case of Haidt
Notes
Refs
2024-09-21
By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die
Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites an ‘existential threat to astronomy’ - predictably, all the ideas are "more regulation". There's not even a thought of cost-benefit analysis: is Starlink a better use than radio astronomy? Or even "would we be better off doing this from space?"
Mario Draghi’s best ideas are those Europe finds least comfortable (full report). But his answers are always things like "unify decision-making on public investments" so its all doomed7; the idea of dealing with over-regulation is still-born (he does manage to notice that "innovative firms that want to scale up are hindered by inconsistent and restrictive regulations" but his answer is to unify the regulations, not to think). And as the Economist says, the "recommendations are so numerous that policymakers will be able to pick and choose from among them"; this always happens. As an employee of a USAnian megacorp in the UK, I'm think I'm kinda insulated from the slow death of Yorp.
And then by happy chance, via Xitter, comes Foundations: Why Britain has stagnated. You'll notice, of course, that this compares Britain unfavourably with Yorp, particularly France, so is not perfectly in accord with me; nonetheless it is well-reasoned.
Update
[2024/10/02] Since I wrote the above the popcorn vendors have been making out like bandits. There's no shortage of talking heads proffering their foolishness, so I'll try to avoid adding much more. One notable theme has been of the "oh you know getting into these wars is very very dangerous" variety, written by idiots sat in comfortable arm chairs to be read by idiots sicac6, as though the Israelis who are actually risking their lives haven't thought of it; a sort-of variant on Dumb America. When done by e.g. Al-Jazmagi it's whistling in the wind / what their base want to hear; when done by the West it is more, I think, "intellectuals" desperate to be relevant in a time of soldiers (this seems to be a more decent assessment, though still somewhat pro-H; notice that what has happened wasn't on their list of possibilities). As I write this the Mad Mullahs have flung a pile of missiles at the kikes to little obvious effect5 but seems likely to provoke interesting consequences. I don't have a good feel for what will happen, but let me attempt a prognostication just to show how wrong I can be: the Israelis will hit Iran, taking out air defences (quite likely with US help), missile sites, and some of the nuke programme, and a token hit on oil facilities. And if they have any sense, take out their navy including the spy ship that helps the Houthis.
[2024/10/04] Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has vowed that Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will emerge with new leaders and will not back down says the Graun; this is convenient if you were under any illusion that Hammy or Hezzy were independent entities; but no, Iran speaks for them. He continued "the brilliant action of our armed forces a couple of nights ago was completely legal and legitimate”... any nation had the right to defend its soil and its interests in the face of aggressors. And yet it isn't clear to me how flinging a pile of missiles at Israel was helping defend his Iran; since the near-inevitable consequence is Israel attacking Iran, it might be the reverse.
[2024/10/08] Astonishingly, the Beeb manages Siniora is unflinching in his assessment of Lebanon’s lost sovereignty. "Practically, Lebanon as a state has been kidnapped by Hezbollah. And behind Hezbollah is Iran. They make up for that brief interlude of sanity by hiding it under a blame-misattributing headline of "Lebanon abandoned by international community - ex PM". And another note: from the Economist, which tracks attacks in Lebanon, I see that Hezbollah attacks on Israel haven't gone down, counting raw numbers. The Israeli incursion won't be a success until it goes to ~zero.
[2024/10/18] 'Death of Hamas mastermind' and One Direction tribute to 'brother' Liam: another on bites the dust. And I love the irony that in the fat Cold West, we can't tell the difference between news and entertainment. With Sinwar, as the Economist notes, there is some hope for change. The Pales could even see sense and surrender; it can't be much of a life being Hamas, after all; even fanaticism must have limits. But hopefully not before Israel twats the Iranian nooks. Speaking of the Mad Mullahs, they say "the spirit of resistance will be strengthened", which is exactly what would be bad for the Pales, but then the MMs never had Pale welfare at heart, only their own weird theocratic objectives.
[2024/10/26] The Israelis seem to have gone for the minimalist reply against Iran; mostly air defneces, following step one in the std.us playbook; and some missile production sites. This is somewhat disappointing, especially for the popcorn vendors. And the MMs seem to have gone for "that didn't hurt much" instead of getting Really Angry so likely all will go quiet for a bit on that front. But it must gall the MMs that the only thing that keeps the Israelis off them is US pressure; they have no ability to defend themselves; consider for contrast the laughable idea that the MMs might try to bomb Israel from the air.
Notes
1. Absurdly, Wiki's article on "live by the sword" insists that the quote is biblical, despite the play preceeding the New Testament by centuries. I tried to correct them but they wouldn't listen.
2. Despite this being the bleedin' obvious, which I said in June, the fuckwitted meeja still haven't realised. Update: this is a fine example: Lebanon's economy minister Amin Salam says "It is very clear if we decide, or if Hezbollah decides, or the whole country decides to take a big risk and gamble more in this war, we will be paying a very, very, very big price that will take Lebanon to a very difficult place, and it will take many, many years to get back from that place". So, errm, why not decide not to take that risk? Why not decide not to fight? The answer, of course, is that he is unable to say "oh shit we have no control of Hezbollah we wish they'd all fuck off but if I say that they'll kill me".
I find, belatedly, "the one responsible for the fire from Lebanon is not only Hezbollah or the terrorist elements that carry it out, but also the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese state that allows the shooting from its territory" from csis.org/analysis/coming-conflict-hezbollah.
3. Holy Shiite Batman: the Graun actually quotes someone saying "Get the official Lebanese army on the ground on the Israel Lebanon border – not Hezbollah not Iran – get state authority back into the south Lebanon border." Admittedly, buried in other ideas and obvs the Graun doesn't take this up, but even a brief interlude of sanity is welcome.
4, More [2024/09/26] shitty reporting from Politico; the bit they're missing is the obvious: Hezbollah refusing to accept a ceasefire (and no, the fuckwitted tying it to Gaza isn't sane).
5. Ironically, the only reported fatality is "Sameh al-Asali, a 37-year-old Palestinian from Gaza living in the occupied West Bank". However - correctly IMO - people are regarding it as a serious attack.
6. There's plenty of that in The Economist; just recently they seem to change their tune somewhat with What Hamas misunderstood about the Middle East.
7. Others have also noticed this.
Refs
* Against Censorship and Its Academic Supporters.
* Galileo Galilei vs The Holy Roman Catholic Church – Round: 5555555555…………
*Preliminary Milei Report Card - ACX.
* SLS is still a national disgrace.
* "In light of the wars and crises that threaten Arab and regional security, we have no choice but to restore the concept of the nation-state and respect its independence and sovereignty. The era of militias with its sectarian and regional dimensions has cost the Arabs dearly and burdened the region. The future is for security, peace and prosperity with an independent Arab project reconciled with its surroundings" take that, Hezzy and Hammy.
* Who is really in charge of Lebanon?
* Conservatives Are Lying on Immigrant Crime.
* Compendium of Writings on the October 7 War and Western Reactions to it (including Far-Left Support for Hamas is not an Aberration).
2024-09-06
When will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down?
Refs
2024-08-15
Good news on photovoltaics, perhaps
Refs
2024-07-22
Book review: A Heritage of Stars
Refs
2024-07-02
The Loper's so Bright, I gotta wear shades
Refs
Notes
2024-06-28
Mayflies
2024-06-24
Spinoza, Ethics
You can tell from the title (Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order) that its going to go wrong, being another (but perhaps the first (no: the rather more successful Leviathan predates it by 10 years)) to ape geometry. It doesn't take him long to go wrong, he doesn't really understand definitions / axioms well: thus he defines finite (not rigourously, obvs) and then uses infinite without defining; he uses eternal before deffing it; etc. We get a pile of propositions that all depend on e.g. exactly what he means by "substance" so I didn't care.
Then, the ontological proof of god, which no-one believes, including him, because he immediately follows it with another proof variant (see wiki: by God he may mean Nature; which may or may not be the simple material universe (in which case why bother prove it exists?) or some pantheistic god).
Later, he proves that you can't cut an infinite thing in half because it would then be two infinities which is twice as large. Duh. He also neglects to consider one part being finite. I hope we get past this dull stuff soon.
Doesn't like free will (prop xxxii) since will needs a cause which must regress to god; similarly (xxxiii) the world could not be other than is, since it proceeds from god and god cannot be different it would be absurd. Confusingly (corr to prop xxxi, but another ordering of props) things are contingent.
There's very little actual ethics in there. In discussing good / bad (mostly in terms of desire / aversion in which he is close to Hobbes) I think he goes wrong (e.g. later: good-v-evil is nothing but emotions of pleasure-v-pain). He is missing the key concept of societies only existing if they have moralities that allow existence. This is unsurprising but means all his stuff is broken. Note: it is important to realise when things are broken. Not doing so, and endlessly chattering, is a key failure of most philosophy. Of his many propositions re emotions, some are kinda interesting aphorisms, and so of some value, but the proofs are all uninteresting.
Hazlitt
Hazlitt, in The Foundations of Morality, quotes Spinoza for "In no case do we strive for, wish for, long for, or desire anything because we deem it to be good, but on the other hand we deem a thing to be good, because we strive for it, wish for it, long for it, or desire it" (written between 1661 and 1675). That would make me think him worthwhile, had he originated it. But it is just a rip-off of Hobbes: "But whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, evill; And of his contempt, Vile, and Inconsiderable. For these words of Good, evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them" (Leviathan, published in 1651).
Refs
* Two Federal Courts Rule Against Biden's New Student Loan Forgiveness Plan on the Same Day.
* France 2023 part four: Les Deux Alpes to La Berade; around; Dibona; and to Bourg D'Oisans.
2024-06-22
In Defence of War
Notes
2024-06-21
Sherwood B. Idso suffers hard delete
Refs
Notes
2024-06-17
Polling Pales
Before going on, it's worth noting the finding that A majority of 58% expected Hamas and Israel to reach a ceasefire in the next few days while 39% did not expect it. That's 58% delusional or reporting their hopes rather than actual expectations1, which you should factor into your reading of all the other answers and my notes.
Most interesting to me is the figure below2.
Yes that's right: slightly fewer people have been injured; and the number killed has increased by less than a percent. We could excuse this by sampling difficulties, perhaps, but the lack of increase of dead is weird. Of course it isn't the number of dead, it is the proportion of "families" with at least one dead, but still the lack of increase over the last three months suggests to me that these numbers just aren't reliable. Bizarrely, the report itself makes absolutely no comment on this oddity.
Support for Hamas's attack remains high, at 73% (fig 1), perhaps partly because only 3% think Hamas committed atrocities (fig 4) and 67% expects Hamas to "win" the current war. They carefully avoid explaining what "win" might be. 61% would prefer Hamas to control Gaza (fig 7); though if you prefer a slightly different perspective, Most Palestinians Don't Want Hamas Rule, Poll Shows3.
But what should be done? We have: When asked about its support and opposition to specific policy measures to break the stalemate: 66% supported joining more international organizations; 49% supported resort to unarmed popular resistance; 63% supported a return to confrontations and armed intifada; 62% supported dissolving the PA; and 22% supported abandoning” the two-state solution and demanding one state for Palestinians and Israelis. Three months /’, 55% supported a return to confrontations and armed intifada; 45% supported resort to unarmed popular resistance; 58% supported the dissolution of the PA; and 24% supported abandoning the twostate solution in favor of one state. Unfortunately they weren't offered the option of "surrender; stop fighting" which is my suggestion, but I doubt that would have been popular. Fig 22 provides another view on this, with 54% up for armed struggle 25% for negotiations; and 16% for popular non-violent resistance. "66% supported joining more international organizations" is amost sweet in its delusion; but more likely it indicates despair of other ideas. [Note: the weird "Three months /’" is in the original; I don't know what they've been smoking.]
It does seem that these people are motivated by hatred: The poll found significant opposition of three quarters to Saudi-Israeli normalization, even if it is conditional on Israel accepting a Palestinian state and taking concrete and irreversible steps toward that goal.
Somewhat more speculatively, I notice that the Palestinians invariably refer to their dead - all and any of their dead - as martyrs. That doesn't seem healthy. Whereas the Israelis usually call theirs murdered.
Update: Lebanon / Hizbullah
I'll write a few hasty words here before the world explodes, so I know what I thought (around 2024/06, I think).
The major oddity is that the Lebanese govt gets very sniffy about Isreal violating their sovereignty (example; notice that doesn't mention why the naughty Israelis are attacking, which is of course Hizbullah). And that would be fair enough, were they indeed sovereign in southern Lebanon. But if they are, then they're responsible for the rockets being fired into Israel from there (alternatively, they condemn the rocket attacks and would like to stop them, but can't, in which case they do not have actual sovereignty over the area). And if they're flinging rockets at Israel, they can hardly complain if Isreal bombs them back.
The answer, of course, is that the Lebanese govt is too weak to control Hizbullah in southern Lebanon, but doesn't want to admit it, and won't upset its people by telling Hizbullah to stop. The best solution would be for Iran to stop funding Hizbullah; that seems unlikely; second best is probably the upcoming Israeli attack.
2024/09: see me. But also see e.g. this, which shows zero evidence that the Lebs want Hezbollah gone, which makes them dorks.
Update: Hobbes
it is a precept, or generall rule of Reason, "That every man, ought to endeavour Peace, as farre as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of Warre." The first branch, of which Rule, containeth the first, and Fundamentall Law of Nature; which is, "To seek Peace, and follow it." The Second, the summe of the Right of Nature; which is, "By all means we can, to defend our selves." - Hobbes, Leviathan, CHAPTER XIV. OF THE FIRST AND SECOND NATURALL LAWES, AND OF CONTRACTS, The Fundamental Law Of Nature.
Notes
1. Speaking as a SWeng or mathematician, when people ask me a question I tend to answer it, and become unhappy when I can tell that my answer to their question, given literally, will mislead them; or when their question is so badly posed that no accurate answer is possible. But most people, I observe, treat a question more as an invitation to say whatever they like on a given topic. So I have no faith at all that survey reports are literally accurate.
2. I don't know why they've labelled that as "Jun 24"; the text says surveys between May 26 and June 1, 2024.
3. There's some wishful thinking going on there. Another way of saying it is Among those intending to vote, support for Hamas stands at 46%, Fatah 25%, third parties 6%, and the undecided at 25%.
Refs
* The flower of justice is peace.
* Meritocracy, democracy and competition.
* Words for the word god: "He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees".
* France 2023: part two: around Vallouise and Ailefroide.
* The Gap.
* Are the Rich Antisocial and the Poor Emotionally Intelligent?
2024-06-14
The morality of not meddling in other people's business
We're back to the olde feldes with Supreme Court preserves access to abortion pill at which all right-thinking people shout hurrah! Although one senses that the Graun isn't fully comfortable, or even cognisant, of what happened. The issue is one of Standing: just because you happen to care deeply and passionately about a given issue doesn't give you a right to stick your twitchy nose and grimy fingers into the legal pie. Which I link to my previous advice to care less.
This is a legal principle1. But elevated - carefully - to a constitutional provision in some suitable fashion I would tout it as a solution to the Great War: in the sense that the govt really has no cause to be making laws about things that are best left to individuals. I've said this before to the inevitable great acclaim.
Refs
* Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight / Where ignorant armies clash by night.
* The Supreme Court Inches Towards Liberty - Richard Hanania.
* Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18th.
* Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson.
Notes
1. For an opposing view, see The Case Against Restrictive Constitutional Standing Requirements; and for discussion of standing, see many comments on Murthy.
2024-05-16
Why do we have so many bullshit plans?
Notes
Refs
2024-05-14
Your right to lorenorder
Refs
2024-05-13
Bad Beekeeping, spring 2024
View from above onto the brood box. No, I didn't lift the queen excluder. Do you think I'm mad?
My friends back garden remains idyllic-looking in the sunshine.
Refs
* "Hive B" didn't survive the winter; but did provide a refuge for a shrew. Video.
2024-05-02
End of the line for the photogenic ex-teens
Refs
* Photogenic teens sue US government, part 2
* North Korea ‘may not be performance art’, say experts.
* Katy Perry - Hot N Cold (Official Music Video).
* Mir McLuhanism by Arnold Kling; see-also (stretch) The Languages of Pao.
* The Latest Environmental Shrieking - We're Gonna Run Out Of Rock.
* Federal Court Rules Laws Restricting Interstate Travel for Abortion Violate the Right to Travel.
2024-04-24
Your right to protest
Notes
Refs
2024-04-16
There is no human right to a safe or stable climate
Notes
1. Sorry DA and RS. You can try again here if you'd like more intelligent conversation.
Refs
* 2021/11: Lust for suing.
* 2021/04: Yet moaah climate suing; and City of New York v Chevron Corp, again.
* 2020/06: Yet moah climate suing.
* 2019/12: Exxon Found Not Guilty of Deceiving Investors Over Climate Risks; and Historic Urgenda Climate Ruling Upheld by Dutch Supreme Court.
* 2019/02: Moah suing news.
* 2018/08: Yet more climate suing.
* 2018/06: Holy Alsup, Batman!
* 2018/03: A little bit more climate suing stuff.
* The People Will Save the Planet, Not the Courts (arch).
* We Don’t Need a ‘War’ on Climate Change, We Need a Revolution? and Words for the word god.
* Bruce Schneier points us to Dan Solove on Privacy Regulation: Murky Consent: An Approach to the Fictions of Consent in Privacy Law. This gets one thing right: both the US version (by using this service you consent to our terms) and the EU version (a zillion cookie popups that everyone clicks through) are not "real consent". His answer is, astonishingly, more regulation, how could we possibly have guessed (Murky consent should be subject to extensive regulatory oversight with an ever-present risk that it could be deemed invalid: in other words, yet again, overturning contracts (see-also Sandel: Liberalism and the Limits of Justice) and thus providing more work for lawyers). A better answer is: yes, this is not real consent, but no-one gives a toss so just move on. There is general public apathy in this area, which is good grounds for believing that no new law is needed.
* Sabine has a video on the general subject but it is shallow; and she has forgotten - or never heard of - Alsup or the ex-photogenic ex-teens.