Well Put
Democratic positions.
The Democrats are making it real easy to mock them. They call the vote on the Green New Deal a GOP stunt. But doesn't that imply the introduction of the legislation itself is a stunt also?
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Children and Climate Change
Cowen argues having children will help solve climate change.
He's fighting windmills. The folks who cite climate change as a reason not to have children cannot be taken at their word. They are looking for excuses to not parent. But why not admit this? Instead, they also want the ego boost. It's called vainglory.
Also related, if you want insight into who these people are, the Atlantic has a new section called "Dear Therapist."
Since hearing the news, I have been honest with her about my feelings. I reminded her that we simply cannot afford a second child and we can kiss our joint career aspirations goodbye if we have another baby. She agrees with me. More important, I said our marriage will be over in the sense that we will just be co-parents rather than lovers because I will resent her, and the baby will always be a reminder of my career sacrifice and our indebtedness...
...We're both Christians, and I know she will struggle with making the decision I prefer and might regret it afterward. I don't think I will share those regrets, but if she keeps the pregnancy I will likely enter into a state of lifelong depression and feel stuck in an unhappy marriage. I feel like there are only bad outcomes with either choice. What do we do?What an awful person is what I come away thinking...
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Arrogance
Amazon banning anti-vaccine books.
I'm into vaccinating children, but not into banning books. I can only imagine what's next. Maybe books about the Confederacy.
Amazon banning anti-vaccine books.
I'm into vaccinating children, but not into banning books. I can only imagine what's next. Maybe books about the Confederacy.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Parental Indecision Therapists
People in my age group will pay someone $400 an hour to help them figure out whether they want kids.
To not understand yourself enough by age 40 to know whether you want to have kids or not seems to me a failure of sorts. Maybe that's a shitty thing to think.
People in my age group will pay someone $400 an hour to help them figure out whether they want kids.
To not understand yourself enough by age 40 to know whether you want to have kids or not seems to me a failure of sorts. Maybe that's a shitty thing to think.
Sunday, March 17, 2019
My Favorite and Least Favorite NBA Players
Favs:
Paul Millsap. Just love his all around game and adaptability to systems. Whenever he's on the team, the team is good.
Playoff Rajon Rondo. He's getting old and we see less and less of the old Rondo, but I just love his idiosyncratic skill set, his toughness, and his oddball nature.
Joel Embiid. As far as I can tell, the closest we have to Hakeem in the modern game. Great size, athleticism, and low post moves. Fun to watch an old school big man. I don't care for stretch fives.
Russell Westbrook. Incredibly frustrating at times, but man, does the guy demand attention. Any given night is boom or bust, but it's never what I would call boring. Love that he thinks he's the best player on the court when he is not.
Kyrie Irving. The handles, the shooting, the creative finishing. Artwork.
Damien Lillard. Leadership, grit, and a great sense of timing.
Joe Ingles. Love his slo-mo perimeter game and how he irritates better players on defense.
Chris Paul. Still like the guy for his competitive fire and intelligence.
De'Aaron Fox. Toughness. Cleverness.
Trae Young. His passing.
Kahwi Leonard. Because if he's locking down on D, it seems more likely he'll steal the ball than his guy will score.
Least Favs:
Draymond Green. The most annoying person in the NBA.
Jason Tatum. So talented, so soft.
James Harden. Too much dribbling and drawing fouls.
Lonzo Ball. I never feel his impact on the game. I forget he is playing.
Brandon Ingram. The reason LeBron to the Lakers isn't working is because the Lakers haven't identified ANY talent since the Kobe-Gasol teams.
Side Notes:
Steph Curry. Is the most underrated player in the league. People routinely tout Durant as the best Warriors player and rarely speak of Steph as a generational superstar. LeBron, Durant, Giannis, Harden, George, etc., are all spoken of with more awe than Steph. Maybe because we're bored by the Warriors. Or maybe because he doesn't have the physical stature. Absurd as it is that a two time MVP and three time champ could be considered underrated, but the guy is a game changing force and very often the best player on the court in games facing off against those other guys. He's also the heart and soul of arguably the greatest bball team of all time and creates little to no drama. The only knock may be his injury history. But he's played and showed up when it mattered. And consider this: even when he was injured, it took LeBron 7 games to defeat them. As a thought experiment, I'd love to see Durant and Draymond leave the Warriors and just see Steph and Klay win a championship with whatever else they could throw together.
Favs:
Paul Millsap. Just love his all around game and adaptability to systems. Whenever he's on the team, the team is good.
Playoff Rajon Rondo. He's getting old and we see less and less of the old Rondo, but I just love his idiosyncratic skill set, his toughness, and his oddball nature.
Joel Embiid. As far as I can tell, the closest we have to Hakeem in the modern game. Great size, athleticism, and low post moves. Fun to watch an old school big man. I don't care for stretch fives.
Russell Westbrook. Incredibly frustrating at times, but man, does the guy demand attention. Any given night is boom or bust, but it's never what I would call boring. Love that he thinks he's the best player on the court when he is not.
Kyrie Irving. The handles, the shooting, the creative finishing. Artwork.
Damien Lillard. Leadership, grit, and a great sense of timing.
Joe Ingles. Love his slo-mo perimeter game and how he irritates better players on defense.
Chris Paul. Still like the guy for his competitive fire and intelligence.
De'Aaron Fox. Toughness. Cleverness.
Trae Young. His passing.
Kahwi Leonard. Because if he's locking down on D, it seems more likely he'll steal the ball than his guy will score.
Least Favs:
Draymond Green. The most annoying person in the NBA.
Jason Tatum. So talented, so soft.
James Harden. Too much dribbling and drawing fouls.
Lonzo Ball. I never feel his impact on the game. I forget he is playing.
Brandon Ingram. The reason LeBron to the Lakers isn't working is because the Lakers haven't identified ANY talent since the Kobe-Gasol teams.
Side Notes:
Steph Curry. Is the most underrated player in the league. People routinely tout Durant as the best Warriors player and rarely speak of Steph as a generational superstar. LeBron, Durant, Giannis, Harden, George, etc., are all spoken of with more awe than Steph. Maybe because we're bored by the Warriors. Or maybe because he doesn't have the physical stature. Absurd as it is that a two time MVP and three time champ could be considered underrated, but the guy is a game changing force and very often the best player on the court in games facing off against those other guys. He's also the heart and soul of arguably the greatest bball team of all time and creates little to no drama. The only knock may be his injury history. But he's played and showed up when it mattered. And consider this: even when he was injured, it took LeBron 7 games to defeat them. As a thought experiment, I'd love to see Durant and Draymond leave the Warriors and just see Steph and Klay win a championship with whatever else they could throw together.
Facebook
Removed ads by Elizabeth Warren calling to break up the tech giant.
I guess they could call it hate speech.
Removed ads by Elizabeth Warren calling to break up the tech giant.
I guess they could call it hate speech.
Agreed
With Ross Douthat.
The “more meritocracy” argument against both legacies and racial quotas implicitly assumes that aptitude — some elixir of I.Q. and work ethic — is what our elite primarily lacks. But is that really our upper class’s problem?
What if our elite is already diligent and how-do-you-like-them-apples smaht — the average SAT score for the Harvard class of 2022 is a robust 1512 — and deficient primarily in memory and obligation, wisdom and service and patriotism?
In that case continuity and representation, as embodied by legacy admissions and racial quotas, might actually be better legitimizers for elite universities to cultivate than the spirit of talent-über-alles. It might be better if more Ivy League students thought of themselves as representatives of groups and heirs of family obligation than as Promethean Talents elevated by their own amazing native gifts.
It might be better if elite universities, in being open about seeking a specific ethnic mix and encouraging an intergenerational tradition, ceded a certain amount of talent to public universities, and even saw their average SAT score go down.Or just let in more students.
Maybe we need genius's in fields like physics or tech. I don't know. But in fields like politics, entertainment, business, education, etc., I don't see IQ as the critical factor to success.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
He'd Be A Good Bond Villain
Zuckerberg wants to build a mind reading machine that people do voluntarily.
After all this is said and done, Zuckerberg is gonna find out what's he's suspected all along: people still won't like him.
Zuckerberg wants to build a mind reading machine that people do voluntarily.
After all this is said and done, Zuckerberg is gonna find out what's he's suspected all along: people still won't like him.
Corruption
I don't know if American society is becoming more corrupt, but it feels that way. A college admissions scam.
I don't know if American society is becoming more corrupt, but it feels that way. A college admissions scam.
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Strange Thing About Trump Presidency
There seems to be a constant unfolding of revelations of who stands for what. Germany will no longer list Hezbollah as a terrorist group and won't cooperate against Chinese spying.
There seems to be a constant unfolding of revelations of who stands for what. Germany will no longer list Hezbollah as a terrorist group and won't cooperate against Chinese spying.
This Seems Right
The issue is the issue.
The issue is the issue.
When I used to be a professor, there was a joke about faculty senate debates being so vicious because they involved such trivial issues. In the modern world, the political debates aren’t about consequential issues like workers’ rights, civil rights, war and peace, etc.
No one seriously expects Trump to do anything about illegal immigration, trade deficits, etc. Today’s debates are about symbolic issues. It’s as if half the population decided to pick a fight with the other half, just as an aggrieved spouse that had built up years of resentment suddenly lashed out at their partner over some trivial issue—forgetting to do the dishes.
While Brexit itself has only a trivial effect on the UK in utilitarian terms, the Brexit debate might be the biggest blow to the UK’s aggregate utility since WWII. It is reducing happiness on both sides. The real issue is the issue itself, not what the issue is about.I wonder if this boils down to young vs. old? The young feel the old have screwed them deeply in some way and can't figure out how or why and the anger manifests itself in a number of bizarre ways. Could go some of the way toward explaining the attempted demotion of all things from the "the past."
Logging
Music: Tash Sultana
Reminds me of being younger. Love it.
TV: Murder Mountain, Peaky Blinders s. 1
Interesting doc about Humbolt county.
Somehow I didn't get into Peaky Blinders the first time I tried. I don't know how that was. It's brilliant pulpy storytelling.
Film: Midnight Run
No matter how many times I watch the film, the scene when DeNiro visits his ex-wife and daughter gets me.
Music: Tash Sultana
Reminds me of being younger. Love it.
TV: Murder Mountain, Peaky Blinders s. 1
Interesting doc about Humbolt county.
Somehow I didn't get into Peaky Blinders the first time I tried. I don't know how that was. It's brilliant pulpy storytelling.
Film: Midnight Run
No matter how many times I watch the film, the scene when DeNiro visits his ex-wife and daughter gets me.
Peak California
I agree 100%.
Housing prices are going to cause decline in the state. Already are. New generation of start ups will not be in California. SF economy not diverse enough - in the way New York is - to create sustainable balance.
If I could figure out a way to long term short California and the Bay Area in particular, I would.
I agree 100%.
Housing prices are going to cause decline in the state. Already are. New generation of start ups will not be in California. SF economy not diverse enough - in the way New York is - to create sustainable balance.
If I could figure out a way to long term short California and the Bay Area in particular, I would.
Friday, March 08, 2019
Reparations
David Brooks comes out in favor.
If your idea is to heal rather than sow more tension, I can imagine few worse ideas.
David Brooks comes out in favor.
If your idea is to heal rather than sow more tension, I can imagine few worse ideas.
Wednesday, March 06, 2019
NBA Players Misery
Adam Silver discusses isolation, social media, etc.
If social media makes you unhappy, get off it.
If you yearn for camaraderie, build it.
If you want a community, participate in it.
These things are simple in concept, harder to make happen.
Which makes it all the more disappointing when we allow angry people to tear these things down.
Adam Silver discusses isolation, social media, etc.
If social media makes you unhappy, get off it.
If you yearn for camaraderie, build it.
If you want a community, participate in it.
These things are simple in concept, harder to make happen.
Which makes it all the more disappointing when we allow angry people to tear these things down.
Tuesday, March 05, 2019
Social Conservatives
And the Religious Right were the boogey men of the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps the most sympathetic portrait was John Lithgow's preacher in Flashdance, a badly misguided man who wanted to ban dancing in his town. Dancing! What a misguided fool we said. Of course, these folks had lost the battle years before and have since faded away. For the most part.
Their point was that the loosening of moral standards and embrace of a more sexualized, boundary-less society would lead to very very bad things. So rock and roll music, alcohol, dancing, no school uniforms, etc would eventually lead to drug addiction and sexual depravity. Absurd! We all said.
But in light of the R Kelly and Michael Jackson documentaries, along with the fact that drug abuse now claims 70,000 lives per year in America, would it be fair to say....
They had a point.
?
Because one takeaway I got from the docs was the music and fame was a critical component of how these guys lured their victims in. Am I wrong?
And now, how in this era that we live in, can people justify listening to Michael Jackson?
And the Religious Right were the boogey men of the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps the most sympathetic portrait was John Lithgow's preacher in Flashdance, a badly misguided man who wanted to ban dancing in his town. Dancing! What a misguided fool we said. Of course, these folks had lost the battle years before and have since faded away. For the most part.
Their point was that the loosening of moral standards and embrace of a more sexualized, boundary-less society would lead to very very bad things. So rock and roll music, alcohol, dancing, no school uniforms, etc would eventually lead to drug addiction and sexual depravity. Absurd! We all said.
But in light of the R Kelly and Michael Jackson documentaries, along with the fact that drug abuse now claims 70,000 lives per year in America, would it be fair to say....
They had a point.
?
Because one takeaway I got from the docs was the music and fame was a critical component of how these guys lured their victims in. Am I wrong?
And now, how in this era that we live in, can people justify listening to Michael Jackson?
Friday, March 01, 2019
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