Some Words about Scalzi’s “Difficulty Setting” Post
Always one for a bandwagon, here are my responses to John Scalzi’s “Lowest Difficulty” Setting post on Kotaku. Actually, it was originally on his own blog, but he shut down comments after they reached 800. The point of the piece was to try to communicate the idea of white privilege to straight white males who don’t “get it” by analogizing being a straight white male to a video game played on the lowest setting. In the piece, Scalzi is careful to note that some minorites and women (and women minorities) will end up with natural attributes randomly assigned by the
How Student Loans Should Work
As someone with a certain modest amount of student loan debt and a lot of experience teaching undergrads, not to mention being someone who is deeply worried about the national and state-level debts, I’m sympathetic to calls for reform of the federal student loan program. Like this one, for example. Basic argument – that loans should stop being exclusively need-based and should start, instead, digging into students grade and credit histories. That is, they should be in some sense ‘merit-based,’ dependent on ability to repay. …the Department of Education should start targeting student loans: giving cheaper loans, not to every
The Universe is Deterministic AND we have Responsibility
A discussion with a friend yesterday reminds me how persisitent the notion of mystical free will is. Like most people, this friend seems to operate under the assumption that without a mystical dimension to our existence, we cannot make choices – or, at least, we cannot be held responsible for the choices that we do make. But I think that’s not the case at all. Accepting a purely materialist view of the universe has changed absolutely nothing about my attitudes toward morality, free will, and choice. Let me explain. Typically, the argument goes something like this. If everything in the
Zuckerberg’s Tax Bill Reminds me why Consumption Taxes are Superior
There’s a cool article on CNBC explaining how Mark Zuckerberg can get away without paying taxes for the rest of his life if he likes. Of course, it’s not a jab at Zuckerberg personally. “Zuckerberg” here is just an attention-catcher: it could be any paper millionaire. The details are in the article, but the gist of it is that Zuckerberg can just take out an eternal line of credit against his assets and spend on the debt. Since debt doesn’t count as income, he’s out of having to pay income taxes. And since his salary after the IPO will be
A Refreshing Article on Same-Sex Marriage
Here’s an article by a lesbian in The Atlantic that makes a damn lot of sense: What Straight Allies Need to Understand About Gay Marriage and States’ Rights, by E. J. Graff. In no particular order, here are points she makes that I think needed to be made: Anti-miscegenation laws are not the right analogy. Graff gives two good reasons for this: anti-miscegenation laws typically criminalized interracial marriages, and they banned an institution that had previously been legal. Neither of these is true of same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage IS new. Lots of pro-SSM partisans talk as though nothing could be
History may not be here yet
Here‘s a cool, if obvious, article explaining how public support for gay marriage can be strong and yet state-level constitutional amendments banning it so prevelant. No prizes for guessing that it’s because support for SSM varies widely by state. Maybe you get a prize for guessing that it’s also the case that most of the amendments in question passed in the early stages of the great shift in public opinion toward favoring it. In other words, these amendments very much are the product of a frantic opposition that sees its window of opportunity closing. The thing that isn’t explicitly pointed
The Man in the Brown Suit – Review
One thing that stands out on reading Agatha Christie’s books in publication order, as I’ve been doing recently (reviews here, here, and here), is how few of them are classical English country house mysteries. 4 novels in and it’s only 50%! The Man in the Brown Suit is one of those that’s more a “caper” than a “whodunit.” What’s more, it seems particularly to Christie’s personal tastes, if I can fairly extrapolate those from her biography. This is the book that she wrote for herself. More or less, it’s a retelling of The Secret Adversary with a girl as the
Fighting the Good Fight Against Psychopaths
Here’s cute editorial: Capitalists and Other Psychopaths. No door prize for guessing that the author doesn’t like Capitalism much. A recent study found that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are “clinical psychopaths,” exhibiting a lack of interest in and empathy for others and an “unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation.” (The proportion at large is 1 percent.) Another study concluded that the rich are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law. Let’s just assume for the sake of argument that there are no flaws in these studies and that their conclusions are correct.
Richard Thaler Misses the Point (Again)
If you needed any more proof that Richard Thaler is not a libertarian (his claims to the contrary notwithstanding – in fact, he even goes so far as pulling that ancient dodge of citing fear as the only reason anyone would presume otherwise!), look no further than his recent New York Times op-ed. Here he’s arguing that any arguments to the effect that the Commerce Clause has no meaning if people can be compelled to buy health insurance are slippery slope arguments and ipso facto fallacious. Let’s give Mr. Thaler an education in how slippery slope arguments actually work in
Fete Fatale – Review
What do say about a mystery novel where the whole setup is a red herring? Taking a break from Agatha Christie, I picked up a Robert Barnard‘s Fete Fatale. I’ve had an interest in Barnard since half-finishing Blood Brotherhood about ten years ago. Fascinating book – but I had to return it before I could finish. But I looked him up on the internet and found out that he was an English Lit professor who had done some critical work on Agatha Christie, so I always meant to give it a second go. I enjoyed Fete Fatale. It’s very well
