3 days 'til SEQUESTERMAGEDDON, You Guys!

Posted by: andy at 03:08 AM | Comments (305)
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Are Americans Too Weird for Science?

A lot of psychology studies have been based on Americans (and other Westerners) over the years. But recent studies involving games and even optical illusions suggest that some cognition may be cultural and not universal. And that Americans are exceptional in their ways of thinking even among Westerners.

Without measuring which of these corners is longer?

If you said the first one, you're probably an American and almost certainly from a Western country. If you said they're the same size, you just might be a redneck San tribesman from the Kalahari. Or an American who has seen this trick before. Although the possibility of a Bushman in an American suit can't be ruled out.

So given this much of a difference from a single image how much about human psychology do we really know?

It is not just our Western habits and cultural preferences that are different from the rest of the world, it appears. The very way we think about ourselves and others-and even the way we perceive reality-makes us distinct from other humans on the planet, not to mention from the vast majority of our ancestors. Among Westerners, the data showed that Americans were often the most unusual, leading the researchers to conclude that "American participants are exceptional even within the unusual population of Westerners-outliers among outliers."

Yep we're not quite like most of the world - we're special, we're outliers, we're the Group W of countries. And yet people risk their lives daily to sneak into our asylum.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:18 PM | Comments (798)
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The twit Twittered:

@lenadunham

Ladies: Anne Hathaway is a feminist and she has amazing teeth. Let's save our bad attitudes for the ones who aren't advancing the cause.

I wrote about it at The Conversation.

Bumped, just because this was posted four minutes before the ONT.

Posted by: Ace at 06:40 AM | Comments (129)
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Or words to that close effect.

You understand, of course, that when the government fears it may have to lay off nonessential workers, or reduce funding to unnecessary low-priority programs, it always goes after the essential workers in the essential functions of government to make them hostages.

Give us all the money we want, or we'll stop inspecting chickens for salmonela.

Senator Coburn has some ideas for reducing spending. Perhaps these unnecessary new hires could be cancelled in lieu of reducing anti-terrorism efforts.

Posted by: Ace at 03:32 PM | Comments (434)
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Someone on Twitter called The Onion's joke "tasteless."

That's fine, I think: If a joke strikes you as tasteless, call it such.

But we don't tend to do that. The "tasteless" insult doesn't seem to carry enough weight, so people start spinning off all sorts of monstrous theories about the utterer of the statement: that he must secretly hate women or children, for example.

This is exactly what the left did with Limbaugh's joke about Sandra Fluke.

It's a tasteless joke; it was designed to provoke.

And? So, call it tasteless. And then let's move on.

What's this crap with spinning out ever-wilder speculations about the diseased mind that uttered this Forbidden Joke?

How about this: He was speaking off-the-cuff, as people do, and doing what people do when they make jokes (which is to say, finding surprising connections between things), and he tossed out a joke that some didn't like.

Did the media really need to fucking give Sandra Fluke a bishopric for the hardships of having had to endure it?

Tastelessness is an error, not a crime, and we ought to treat it way. And we should also trust that demeaning a joke as "tasteless" is enough of a penalty.

I've noticed this tendency; maybe you have too. But I believe the left has a whole series of things that they insist are Serious You Guys Not Funny.

But all of these objections are rooted in either taste or partisan advantage. And yet, even though they're rooted in subjective, biased perspective, they insist on forcing their own sense of taste on everyone else.

And how they do it is by two tactics:

1. What Does This Joke Say About The Mind of This Monster?

Correct answer: Virtually nothing, especially given that most people will, at one time or another, make a dark or tasteless joke, and they don't hold it against themselves for having done so.

So, how about we all drop this How Dare You act and allow that other people are allowed to do likewise?

The other tactic is...

2. Let Me Spin Out a Wild Series of Indirect Consequences of This Joke, Such as "Encouraging a Mindset In Which Violence Against Women Is Acceptable."

Wait, what? Limbaugh made a joke and you're now claiming that that conditions people to think it's okay to beat or rape women? You're claiming an indirect, but nonetheless real, link between Limbaugh's joke and a rape?

What?

What the F*** are you talking about?

What people do when they can't prove their own sense of taste or sensitivity to some issues is immediately begin postulating a ridiculous string of X leads to Y and Y and leads to Z reasoning to claim that they're not just objecting on grounds of personal, idiosyncratic, biased, and politically-motivated taste, but are in fact attempting to reduce real-world tangible evils like rape and violence against women.

See? I'm not just objecting on grounds of taste that Limbaugh said Sandra Fluke was "like a slut;" what I'm really doing is fighting rape.

So I win: My sensitivities must carry the day.

Or, with this Onion writer: I'm really not objecting on grounds of simple taste; what I'm really doing is fighting the sexualization of children.

Well, no; what you're doing is objecting on grounds of taste (which itself is perfectly fine) but then aggrandizing that into a defense of children.

The fact is, there is no I Win card in matters of taste. De gustibus non est desputandum -- In matters of taste, there is no argument, as it's out of the realm of the intellectual and things that can be proven. And it's In Latin (TM), so you know it's true.

But what people are doing is trying to craft an intellectual argument -- drawing in lots of risible claims of causality -- to "prove" that their taste is not merely taste but An Fact.

Well, it's not An Fact. Never will be An Fact. And all this crap about Limbaugh's Fluke joke leading, somehow, to violence against women is just an absolutely stupid argument offered up by someone who Rilly Rilly Rilly Rilly Wants to Win an Argument Because, Rape.

I have noticed this growing tendency of people to reject the proper language when discussing things. Instead of using the language of taste in discussing matters of taste, we instead begin discussing things like "hostile environment" and "real world effects."

It's a scam. The left created this, of course (as they have created most abuses of language and conceptualization). But we should resist it. Because ultimately this sort of thinking -- that even the most trivial action (or inaction) by a person somehow results in a real world horror which we are duty-bound to avoid, by whatever means necessary -- is ultimately an argument that People Can't Be Trusted With Freedom and We Need Some Sort of Enforcement Mechanism To Make Sure They Think and Say the Right Things.

I seized upon this Onion thing because I've been thinking about this lately -- that I can't seem to see anyone ever saying "That's tasteless" anymore. The left abandoned that 20 years ago, as every Word became a Weapon and they began their disarmament campaign against Assault Language.

But I see a lot of conservatives doing it too. I don't know if we (as a group) are claiming this in order to use this tactic against the left (and, by doing so, get the left to knock it off), or if we're just doing it because we've been conditioned to accept the Left's basic premises on Language Too Dangerous to be Uttered.

It's all so false. There is virtually no action or utterance one can undertake now without someone who disapproves of that action or utterance, whether on the left or right, claiming it will result in some Parade of Horribles which we simply cannot abide.

Posted by: Ace at 02:42 PM | Comments (483)
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A whole lot of sense here. Quoted here are his thoughts on liberals deciding to selectively ignore the Constitution -- which makes him wonder if he therefore has any obligation to obey it.

REYNOLDS: Here’s the problem with public officials — because that’s really [Seidman’s] audience — deciding to ignore the Constitution: If you’re the president, if you’re a member of Congress, if you are a TSA agent, the only reason why somebody should listen to what you say, instead of horsewhipping you out of town for your impertinence, is because you exercise power via the Constitution. If the Constitution doesn’t count, you don’t have any legitimate power. You’re a thief, a brigand, an officious busybody, somebody who should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail for trying to exercise power you don’t possess.

So if weÂ’re going to start ignoring the Constitution, IÂ’m fine with that. The first part IÂ’m going to start ignoring is the part that says, I have to do whatever they say.

ROBERTS: But his argument is that we already ignore the Constitution; itÂ’s not really much of a binding document.

REYNOLDS: Oh, well, then IÂ’m free to do whatever I want! And actually, that is a damning admission, because what that really says is: If you believe SeidmanÂ’s argument; if you believe that we already ignore the Constitution anyway, then in fact, the government rules by sheer naked force, and nothing else. And if thatÂ’s what you believe, then all of this talk of revolution suddenly doesnÂ’t seem so crazy, it seems almost mandatory.

ROBERTS: Well, he would say – well, I won’t speak for him, but some would say that, well, there’s a social contract, we’ve all agreed to kind of play by these rules…

REYNOLDS: Oh really?!

ROBERTS: Â…of electing officials, andÂ…

REYNOLDS: Well, the rules I agreed to electing these officials are the Constitution. I thought we were going to ignore that. ThatÂ’s my social contract.

He talks about government being too big for democracy at around 4:30-- quoting Jerry Pournelle's thoughts. Capture of the Government is now too important a prize:

POURNELLE: We have always known that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. It’s worse now, because capture of government is so much more important than it once was. There was a time when there was enough freedom that it hardly mattered which brand of crooks ran government. That has not been true for a long time — not during most of your lifetimes, and for much of mine — and it will probably never be true again.

Reynolds carries this thought:

That captures an important point. The more powerful the government becomes, the more people are willing to do in order to seize the prize, and the more afraid they become when someone else has control. So it was after the 2004 election when liberals talked revolution, and so again after 2012, when secession petitions flooded the White House.

There are two possible ways to address this problem. One is to elect people that everyone trusts. The problem with that is that there aren't any politicians that everyone trusts -- and, alas, if there were, the odds are good that such trust would turn out to be misplaced.

The other option is to place less power within the political sphere.

His column discussing this is here here.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (146)
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Somewhere between the horse-lover and couch-admirer, we find this week's entry. Go ahead. Take a crack at it.

Posted by: CAC at 02:22 PM | Comments (99)
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The naming agency insisted that, per protocol, the moon be named something that had something to do with Pluto.

Well, Vulcan was Pluto's son, so the Trekkies get a win. Even though they're totally not pushing "Vulcan" just because it's the name of Pluto's son.

They know why. We all know why.

Vulcan loopholes.

The other moon will be named Cerberus. There probably is a Star Trek thingamabob named Cerberus too.

Via @danriehl.

Posted by: Ace at 05:24 PM | Comments (196)
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And yet still no media coverage, outside of a website called Mediabistro (which really is not "The Media," of course).

CNN President Jeff Zucker is scheduled to meet today in Atlanta with the leadership of the National Association of Black Journalists to discuss the state of black journalists at the network, FishbowlDC has learned.

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (107)
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A long, long, long time ago Rush had an observation about David Letterman's fans that I didn't agree with, at all.

At the time.

Now I get it: He was completely right.

This was back when David Letterman was completely apolitical, so none of this was due to Limbaugh's animus about Letterman's politics. In fact, at this time, Letterman was suspected of being a "nonvoting Republican" (as one of his writers, I think, guessed to the media).

So, Letterman had gone on CBS at 11:30 and instantly zoomed to the top of the ratings. Everyone Loved Dave.

Limbaugh -- again, not making a political observation but a purely human one -- said that that would not last, and that the people suddenly watching Letterman did not really find Letterman funny, but were simply being told by people who were funny that he was funny and so were claiming to find him funny.

Limbaugh probably (though I don't remember if this is true) noted that if these new viewers really liked Letterman's humor, nothing previously prevented them from VCRing the long-running 12:30 am NBC Letterman show every night and then watching it the following evening. (Yes, these were the days of the VCR, and yes, I used to do that myself).

So he just didn't believe that these people really liked Letterman. They had had more-than-ample previous opportunities to like Letterman, and had passed on them all.

This is just hype, he said, and the herd mentality of people; if enough people say It's Popular, they'll follow along.

But not forever. Because while people will watch a show for a while to be part of the It's Popular crowd, ultimately they'll find it to be too much of a labor and will start doing what they actually prefer.

Now, at the time, I was a Dave Letterman Super Fan. I loved the guy's humor. I'd been watching him since he would guest host on Carson. So I thought Rush was just crabbing here, maybe being jealous of another broadcaster's success. No, I judged, Rush is quite wrong; people love Letterman because he's always been super-funny and only now are they really catching up with Cult Opinion on the matter.

But we all know how that turned out. Jay Leno did one high-visibility show-- the Hugh Grant appearance -- and from that moment on all half of Dave's Super-Fans moved immediately, and irretrievably, to Leno's camp.

I was thinking about this as I read this Mediaite writer claiming Serious You Guys, Seth McFarlane killed the Oscars last night, so funny you guys.

Really? Or have you just heard These Kids Are Really Into Seth McFarlane now and so you're jumping on?

Seth McFarlane is a guy with some real comedy chops... which he used up five years ago and has been coasting on since without any update to his act. Now he's a Cartoon Salesman who does the Stewie Voice.*

There was a time when Sarah Silverman was, in fact, intensely funny. But no schtick can stay funny forever, and at some point, you've made enough Rape jokes.

And Obama.... Well, I don't know if he was every actually anything at all, except a rabble rouser who could turn his "black dialect" on and off, as Harry Reid observed. But I do know the same Follow the Lead Sheep thing has been going on with him for a while.

* The Star Wars parodies were pretty good.

Here's a Big Problem with Seth McFarlane: Ironically, Seth McFarlane now insists upon himself.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:41 PM | Comments (319)
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