Blogging Advice
By Diana Hsieh
For my fellow bloggers, in particular 41 Reasons Why Your Blog Probably Sucks. NoodleFood does indeed suck for some of the reasons listed.
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Paul Hsieh is a physician specializing in orthopedic and emergency radiology. He blogs about science, technology, and random humorous items at 
Greg Perkins is a software architect working in the R&D labs at Hewlett-Packard, Boise. His degree is in mathematics and computer science. Greg hosts
10 hours ago
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Are You Smarter Than A Super Bowl Quarterback?
By Paul Hsieh
Both Eli Manning (quarterback for the Super Bowl-bound New York Giants) and his older brother Peyton (quarterback for last year's Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts) are regarded as very intelligent men. What I didn't know is that Eli is considered smarter than Peyton, at least by one standard NFL measure of intelligence. According to this New York Times article:
[Eli] Manning posted a score of 39 out of 50 on the Wonderlic, the intelligence test administered by N.F.L. teams to evaluate draft prospects. It was 11 points higher than Peyton's score and well above the average.If you want to know how you stack up to the Manning brothers, a sample test is available here. Just multiple the number right on these 20 questions by 2.5 to get your Wunderlich score.
Here are how some other NFL players scored and what those numbers mean:
Specifically, 21, considered an average score, is equivalent to the average IQ of 100. Higher scoring applicants are supposed to learn more rapidly, master more complex material, and exercise better judgment while lower scoring applicants tend to require more time, detailed task instruction, and less challenging job routines. 25 is the average score for quarterbacks and offensive linemen. Other positions average about a 20.(For what it's worth, I did better than Eli on the sample test. But I can't throw a football spiral to save my life.) Read more...
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Spot the Logical Fallacy
By Paul Hsieh
Today's edition of "Spot the Logical Fallacy" comes from the medicolegal world:
1) A pregnant mother who had a prior Caesarean section now wants to deliver her next baby at home.
2) Her obstetrician warns her that it's dangerous and advises the she have the baby in a hospital.
3) The mother ignores her doctor's advice and has a home birth anyways.
4) The baby is born with "severe brain damage".
5) The doctor gets sued. According to the article, "Plaintiffs told prospective jurors earlier this week that they are seeking more than $13 million in damages."
Question: Can you spot the logical fallacy in the plaintiff's case? More importantly, will the jury?
Answer: The doctor's defense lawyer correctly states, "[T]he physician should not be held accountable 'for choices she didn't make, and for choices she counseled against.'"
Extra credit question: Would this sort of thing increase or decrease medical costs?
Thank you all for playing!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Effective Standing Orders
By Diana Hsieh
Usually, when a person needs to remember to do something, he gives himself a standing order associated with some trigger, e.g. "check the tire pressure and wiper fluid when changing the oil on the car." Sometimes, however, new standing orders will not stick to well-automatized actions. Case in point:
Early last spring, I bought a well-reviewed, cheap car seat heater. I'm using it regularly this winter. Unfortunately, it remains fully operational -- and so drains the car battery -- if left plugged into the cigarette lighter when the car is off. Predictably, I left it plugged in a few times accidentally, despite my best efforts to remember to unplug it when turning off the car. I should just be able to add it to my standard leaving-the-car checklist, I thought. That didn't work at all, however. A few weeks ago, I finally managed to drain my car battery. (Thankfully, I did so at a convenient time, as I was home and didn't need to go anywhere. Paul gave me a jump.) Given the inflexibility of my teaching schedule, that's not a consequence I could afford to risk in the future.
After that, I considered buying a "battery drain guard" (like this one), but I hate to spend $20 on a silly memory problem. So I decided to try a different solution. Instead of trying to remember to unplug the heater, I plug it in in such a way that I can't forget. I run the rather long cord over my thigh so that it's totally out of the way -- until I try to leave the car. Then I need to unplug the heater to get out of the car smoothly. So far, I've found it totally reliable: it's easy to remember to plug it in via that convoluted route and impossible to forget to unplug it.
The basic reason why this new method works whereas my old method failed is that my getting-out-of-the-car routine is very thoroughly automatized. I'm not thinking of the car seat heater; I have no immediate reason to do so. That's not true of plugging in the car seat heater; it happens whenever I notice that I'm cold. So while I'm already thinking about it, I can easily plug it in by a slightly odd route.
So I'd put the general principle as follows: If you're trying to automatize some new action, don't attempt to force yourself to remember ex nihilo, but instead find some way to connect to it to your natural patterns of thought.
Notably, that's precisely what a well-managed (i.e a GTD-type) task list does. Instead of overloading your mind with the task of remembering all that you need and want to do, you only need to automatize checking and managing your task list. For people with lots to do like me, such a task list is essential not only to productivity but also to basic peace of mind.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Europe’s Philosophy of Failure
By Paul Hsieh
The January/February 2008 issue of Foreign Policy points out that young students in France and Germany are being taught that capitalism and free markets are "savage, unhealthy, and immoral."
If I were a betting man, I'd sell Europe short. Assuming that I could find any economically-literate Europeans who'd take the other side of the trade...
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Prospectus Defense
By Diana Hsieh
Hooray for me!
Hooray for me!
Hooray for me!
I successfully defended my prospectus today. It went fabulously well. The four (of five) faculty on my committee able to attend seemed broadly supportive of my project, with good questions, comments, and challenges. They voted to pass me, so now the only work left for my Ph.D is my already-in-progress dissertation.
Paul and I are headed out to celebrate by consuming vast quantities of delicious calories!
Hooray for me!
Hooray for me!
Hooray for me!
More Football
By Diana Hsieh
During this football season, Paul and I have taken to watching The NFL Channel if we have some extra time while exercising but nothing to watch on DVD. The analysis shows are reasonably good -- although we definitely prefer HBO's "Inside the NFL." The essentialized "NFL Replay" games are fun to watch, as are the significant games from past seasons. When listening to some lecture or fiction on my iPod, I'll often watch games on the NFL channel with the sound off, as that keeps my brain occupied enough to concentrate on the audio material.
A few days ago, I watched a portion of 1998's Superbowl 32: Denver vs Green Bay. (I was also listening to Onkar Ghate lecture on philosophy!) That's ancient history for me, as I only began watching football two seasons later.
When I began watching football, my goal was to be nothing more than a very casual fan. I thought I'd know which teams were doing well each season, enjoy watching a few games, but not much more than that. In fact, I even said that I couldn't imagine learning the names of players.
How times have changed! Of course, I recognized tons of players from this old game, most notably the very young-looking Brett Farve, but also McCaffrey, Davis, Sharpe, etc. The two head coaches were also familiar faces. I recognized the commentators: Phil Simms looks so much older today. However, what blows me away is that I recognized Ed Hochuli. He wasn't nearly so buff then as he is now. And he isn't the only referee I know on sight! Plus, I now have very definite preferences for in-the-booth commentators: I adore Chris Collinsworth above all others.
If someone had told me ten years ago that I'd be such a devoted NFL fan, I would have gotten a good chuckle from such crazy talk.
Oh, and... Go Giants!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
An Odd Grey Area in the Law of Sex
By Paul Hsieh
Here's a story from the Denver Post which raises some interesting issues about prosecuting children for having sex with one another:
Utah Supreme Court justices acknowledged Tuesday that they were struggling to wrap their minds around the concept that a 13-year-old girl could be both an offender and a victim for the same act -- in this case, having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend.I do agree with the general principle that children below a certain age cannot genuinely consent to sex with an adult. But I'm not sure what the proper legal approach should be for two such children who engage in sex with one another. Read more...
The Ogden, Utah, girl was put in this odd position because she was found guilty of violating a state law that prohibits sex with someone under age 14. She also was the victim in the case against her boyfriend, who was found guilty of the same violation by engaging in sexual activity with her. "The only thing that comes close to this is dueling," said Associate Chief Justice Michael Wilkins, noting that two people who take 20 paces and then shoot could each be considered both victim and offender. And Chief Justice Christine Durham wondered if the state Legislature had intended the "peculiar consequence" that a child would have the simultaneous status of a protected person and an alleged perpetrator under the law.
...State authorities filed delinquency petitions in July 2004, alleging that each had committed sexual abuse of a child, a second-degree felony if committed by an adult. The girl appealed the petition, saying her constitutional right to be treated equally under the law had been violated. Her motion noted that for juveniles who are 16 and 17, having sex with others in their own age group does not qualify as a crime. Juveniles who are 14 or 15 and have sex with peers can be charged with unlawful conduct with a minor, but the law provides for mitigation when the age difference is less than four years, making the offense a misdemeanor. For adolescents under 14, though, there are no exceptions or mitigation and they are never considered capable of consenting to sex.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Making Fun of Tom
By Diana Hsieh
I'm totally in love with Jerry O'Connell, Tom Cruise's co-star in "Jerry Maguire," for making good fun of Tom's insane Scientology video.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Dolphins Create Rings of Air Bubbles
By Paul Hsieh
Cool video: "Dolphins have been observed to create bubble rings by exhaling air carefully in the middle of the vortices caused by the motion of their fins through the water, among other techniques. Besides being nice to look at (and a neat demonstration of fluid mechanics), this phenomenon also might throw some light on dolphin cognition, since the skill to create the rings is a bit subtle and tends to be taught from one dolphin to the next via careful observation and practice."
Read more...Margarine Philosophy
By Diana Hsieh
Heh: thanks to tweebuscuit.net: Three philosophies of non-butter:
Monday, January 21, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The International Physician Brain Drain
By Paul Hsieh
For some reason, far more physicians are choosing to come to the US from Canada, Australia, and the UK than the other way around:
From "The Metrics of the Physician Brain Drain", New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 353:1810-1818, Number 17, October 27, 2005. (The PDF version is here.)
The article does not state any conclusions about the factors that give rise to this result. Of course, my own guess is that the medical practice is relatively more free (i.e., less socialized) in the US than in those other three countries, thus making it a more desirable place for doctors to work and live.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Eric Daniels on Capitalism
By Diana Hsieh
Mark your calendars, New Yorkers:
The Morality of CapitalismEric Daniels is one of my favorite speakers. So go, if you can! Read more...
Who: Dr. Eric Daniels, speaker for the Ayn Rand Institute and visiting scholar at Clemson University's Institute for the Study of Capitalism
What: A talk making the case that capitalism is the only moral social system. A Q&A will follow.
Where: Kimmel Center, Room 914, New York University, 60 Washington Square South, NY, NY 10012 Maps and directions: http://www.nyu.edu/about/virtual.html.
When: Wednesday, January 23, 2008, at 7 pm
Registration: Attendees must RSVP to nyu@objectivistclubs.org
Description: Despite the enormous success of American capitalism at producing material abundance and political freedom, critics continue their assault on the system, calling it immoral. In this lecture, Dr. Eric Daniels makes the case that capitalism is the only moral social system. He also examines the conventional defense of capitalism, which relies on the practical, economic argument, and illustrates why only a defense of pure laissez-faire capitalism can succeed.
Bio: Dr. Eric Daniels is a visiting scholar at Clemson University's Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He taught for five years at Duke University, in the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, and at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned his doctorate in American history. He has lectured internationally on the history of American ethics, American business and legal history, and the American Enlightenment. Daniels's publications include a chapter in Abolition of Antitrust and five entries in the Oxford Companion to United States History.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Three Bourne Movies?!?
By Diana Hsieh
Over the past week, Paul and I watched all three Bourne movies: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum.
In a sense, they weren't terrible. The plots were basically coherent. The characters were mostly consistent. Yet the movies added up to nothing but a series of totally forgettable zeros.
The action, particularly the all-too-regular chase scenes served no purpose, except to inadvertently suggest (1) that Jason Bourne wasn't terribly good at the stealth for which he was supposedly trained to perfection and (2) that for all his angst about his prior killings, Jason didn't mind killing and maiming commuters and pedestrians.
The characters were just puppets acting out their parts, without rhyme or reason beyond "that's just who he/she is." Heck, they weren't even interesting puppets. Jason Bourne is driven to uncover his past, whatever the cost, but without any compelling reason for doing so except some nightmares. His years-long love affair with Marie was absurd: two people meet accidentally then fall deeply in love for no reason whatsoever.
None of the movies had any theme or purpose or point whatsoever. They were just playing out the plot for its own sake. Basically, the movies consisted of very boring naturalism marginally spiced up by one chase scene after another.
Paul and I both regarded them as a waste of time. Honestly, I think I'd rather endure the active pain of watching The Last Samurai again than endure the numb boredom of watching the Bourne movies again!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Huckabee the Theocrat
By Diana Hsieh
In his October 2006 his statement on the election, Leonard Peikoff urged voting for Democrats rather than Republicans based on an analysis of their respective driving philosophies. He wrote,
In essence, the Democrats stand for socialism, or at least some ambling steps in its direction; the Republicans stand for religion, particularly evangelical Christianity, and are taking ambitious strides to give it political power.He concluded his statement by saying that, "If you hate the Left so much that you feel more comfortable with the Right, you are unwittingly helping to push the U.S. toward disaster, i.e., theocracy, not in 50 years, but, frighteningly, much sooner."
Socialism--a fad of the last few centuries--has had its day; it has been almost universally rejected for decades. Leftists are no longer the passionate collectivists of the 30s, but usually avowed anti-ideologists, who bewail the futility of all systems. Religion, by contrast--the destroyer of man since time immemorial--is not fading; on the contrary, it is now the only philosophic movement rapidly and righteously rising to take over the government. Given the choice between a rotten, enfeebled, despairing killer, and a rotten, ever stronger, and ambitious killer, it is immoral to vote for the latter, and equally immoral to refrain from voting at all because "both are bad."
In response, many people denied -- even scoffed at -- the possibility of theocracy in America.
Yet less than a year and half later, Mike Huckabee -- a devout fundamentalist Christian who explicitly promises to make socialist policy based on fundamentalist Christian faith that drives his decisions -- is a serious contender for the Republican nomination for president. As if that's not telling enough, in a prepared speech in Michigan, he said:
I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the Living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."Here's the video:
Even if Mike Huckabee doesn't win the Republican nomination, more explicit calls to entwine government with Christianity should be expected in 2012.
My point? In less than two years, the natural course of politics in America has proven Dr. Peikoff right about the prospects of theocracy in America, "not in 50 years, but, frighteningly, much sooner." Frankly, I wish the definitive proof offered by Huckabee's candidacy had trickled in rather more slowly.
(As for the much-asked question, "But shouldn't we vote for the better Republicans?", you can find Dr. Peikoff's reply to that and more in his fifth podcast, starting at 2:50.) Read more...
Amazon Versus France
By Paul Hsieh
Amazon.com is being punished by the French government for offering free shipping:
The Tribunal de Grande Instance (a French appeals court) in Versailles ruled back in December that Amazon was violating the country's 1981 Lang law with its free shipping offer. That law forbids booksellers from offering discounts of more than 5 percent off the list price, and Amazon was found to be exceeding that discount when the free shipping was factored in.I am glad that an American CEO is defending his company's right to engage in mutually voluntary rational trade (and in the process save money for his customers). I don't know whether Bezos is doing it in a principled fashion that gets to the moral fundamentals or if he's only making a pragmatic argument. Read more...
The company was told to start charging within ten days or pay a daily fine. It also owes €100,000 to the French Booksellers' Union for the court battle and for the losses it has apparently caused them. With the holidays over and the ten-day grace period over, Amazon has officially announced its plan to ignore the court order and pay the fine instead, according to the International Herald Tribune.
Amazon can do so for 30 days (€30,000), but after that time the court will review the fine. They could raise it, or they could lower it, but given that Amazon has chosen to flip the justices the bird, guess which outcome is more likely? At some point, if Amazon doesn't change its ways, the fine will probably be jacked up so high that the company has no choice but to comply.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, has taken to the virtual airwaves to rally the French public in support of Amazon's free shipping. He sent out a recent e-mail to French customers in which he claimed that "France would be the only country in the world where the free delivery practiced by Amazon would be declared illegal." He then asked people to sign an online petition that has so far garnered more than 120,000 signatures.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Tom Cruise, Scientologist Nut
By Diana Hsieh
"We are the authorities on getting people off drugs, we are the authorities on the mind, we are the authorities on improving conditions. We can rehabilitate criminals, we can bring peace and unite cultures."
Oh, and only a Scientologist can really help at the scene of an auto accident.
Yup, that's what Tom Cruise says in this leaked Scientology video interview. It might not be available for long, so I'd recommend watching it sooner rather than later. It's definitely ... um ... interesting.
Some terminology: An "SP" is a "suppressive persons" or critic of Scientology. KSW refers to L. Ron Hubbard's letter "Keeping Scientology Working" that demands accepting Scientology beliefs and practices wholesale, as dogma.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
IQ by Profession
By Diana Hsieh
I have no definite opinion of IQ tests. The simple bubble-type tests are too narrow in scope to be of much value, I suspect. Some years ago, I was given an individually-administered WAIS-III test. I was impressed with the wide range of cognitive skills that it tested. I've never made any serious study of the subject though.
So with that proviso, I offer the following fascinating graphs of IQ distributions of various professions. (Click to view the full-size version.)
(I originally found that on Neatorama, but it's actually from Hauser, Robert M. 2002. "Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success." CDE Working Paper 98-07 (rev). Center for Demography and Ecology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin. The PDF from which the graphs are taken is available here.) Read more...
Monday, January 14, 2008
Huck’s Army
By Paul Hsieh
The January 13, 2008 New York Times has an interesting article on the split amongst evangelical Christians as to whether to support Mike Huckabee for president ("Huckabee Splits Young Evangelicals and Old Guard").
In particular, most of the older leadership of the evangelical Christians have chosen not to endorse Huckabee, instead dividing their support amongst the other Republican candidates:
While Dr. Dobson and Mr. Perkins remain on the sidelines, many in the old guard are actively backing Mr. Huckabee's rivals: Pat Robertson is for Mr. Giuliani, Gary Bauer for Fred D. Thompson, and Paul Weyrich, a founder of the movement, for Mr. Romney. The few national conservative Christian political advocates who have rallied to Mr. Huckabee say they are dismayed by the reluctance of their best-known leaders to do the same.These are the ones that have some fading attachment to capitalism, even though it conflicts with their explicit Christian philosophy.
In contrast, many of the younger evangelicals are fervently drawn to Huckabee precisely because of his support for the environment and his "populist" economic views. At some level, they recognize that these positions are more consistent with their altruist Christian philosophy:
...Rick Scarborough, an aspiring successor to the previous generation of conservative Christian leaders... recently argued that his allies were wrong to balk at Mr. Huckabee’s turn toward environmentalism and "social justice."Brett and Alex Harris, the young evangelicals who created the online network of Huckabee supporters "Huck's Army" explained:
"Can you imagine Jesus ignoring the plight of the disenfranchised and downtrodden while going after the abortionist?" Mr. Scarborough wrote on the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com.
...[H]e believed in a Christian obligation to care for prenatal "life" and also education, health care, jobs and other aspects of "life." "It is a new kind of evangelical conservative position," Brett Harris said.Huckabee's appeal has crossed over to many Catholics, for similar reasons:
..[T]he Web site Catholic Online, a hub for dedicated church members, prais[es] Mr. Huckabee’s opposition to abortion rights and his empathy for the poor as consistent with the social teachings of the church.Although mainstream conservative publications like the Wall Street Journal have correctly categorized Huckabee's views as "religious left", that's entirely all right with these young evangelicals. The NY Times quotes one of them as saying, "Huckabee is a change for the conservative Christian movement, and a welcome one."
This is yet another instance of the playing out of the principles identified by Ayn Rand in her classic essay, "Anatomy of Compromise" in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal:
In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.In other words, the less-consistent older evangelicals who still support some diluted form of capitalism, because they (erroneously) believe that their economics follows from their Christian philosophy will eventually lose to the more-consistent evangelicals who (correctly) recognize that their Christian altruist ethics will require government redistribution of wealth, "universal health care", environmentalism in the name of "Christian stewardship", etc.
...When two men (or groups) hold the same basic principles, yet oppose each other on a given issue, it means that at least one of them is inconsistent. Since basic principles determine the ultimate goal of any long-range process of action, the person who holds a clearer, more consistent view of the end to be achieved, will be more consistently right in his choice of means; and the contradictions of his opponent will work to his advantage, psychologically and existentially.
Psychologically, the inconsistent person will endorse and propagate the same ideas as his adversary, but in a weaker, diluted form and thus will sanction, assist, and hasten his adversary's victory, creating in the minds of their disputed following the impression of his adversary's greater honesty and courage, while discrediting himself by an aura of evasion and cowardice.
Existentially, every step or measure taken to achieve their common goal will necessitate further and more crucial steps or measures in the same direction (unless the goal is rejected and the basic principles reversed) thus strengthening the leadership of the consistent person and reducing the inconsistent one to impotence.
The conflict will follow that course regardless of whether the basic principles shared by the two adversaries are right or wrong, true or false, rational or irrational.
Even if Huckabee does not win the Presidency in 2008 (and I do not believe he has quite enough support to do so), his candidacy will have seeded the ground for a future Christian president much like Huckabee, but who is even more explicit and consistent in his opposition to capitalism and individual rights due to his Christian philosophy. And that is the real danger that Huck's Army poses today. Read more...
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Aristotle on Anger and Laughter
By Diana Hsieh
An interesting tidbit from Aristotle's Rhetoric:
The emotions are all those feelings that so change men as to affect their judgments, and that are also attended by pain or pleasure. Such are anger, pity, fear and the like, with their opposites. We must arrange what we have to say about each of them under three heads. Take, for instance, the emotion of anger: here we must discover (1) what the state of mind of angry people is, (2) who the people are with whom they usually get angry, and (3) on what grounds they get angry with them. It is not enough to know one or even two of these points; unless we know all three, we shall be unable to arouse anger in any one. The same is true of the other emotions.Aristotle's subsequent dissection of anger is particularly interesting for its view of proper and improper humor. (I've added some paragraph breaks to the online text to make it more readable. And yes, it's well worth reading in full.)
Anger may be defined as an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one's friends. If this is a proper definition of anger, it must always be felt towards some particular individual, e.g. Cleon, and not 'man' in general. It must be felt because the other has done or intended to do something to him or one of his friends. It must always be attended by a certain pleasure--that which arises from the expectation of revenge. For since nobody aims at what he thinks he cannot attain, the angry man is aiming at what he can attain, and the belief that you will attain your aim is pleasant. Hence it has been well said about wrath,Just consider the contrast: in our modern world, expressing any anger in response to insolent remarks suggests the grave moral defect of failing to laugh at yourself. What a horrible package-deal that is! To laugh at one's own trivial, silly errors is a far cry from laughing at one's most precious values. Yet so many people fail to see the difference -- or refuse to do so. Read more...
Sweeter it is by far than the honeycomb dripping with sweetness,
And spreads through the hearts of men.
It is also attended by a certain pleasure because the thoughts dwell upon the act of vengeance, and the images then called up cause pleasure, like the images called up in dreams.
Now slighting is the actively entertained opinion of something as obviously of no importance. We think bad things, as well as good ones, have serious importance; and we think the same of anything that tends to produce such things, while those which have little or no such tendency we consider unimportant.
There are three kinds of slighting--contempt, spite, and insolence. (1) Contempt is one kind of slighting: you feel contempt for what you consider unimportant, and it is just such things that you slight. (2) Spite is another kind; it is a thwarting another man's wishes, not to get something yourself but to prevent his getting it. The slight arises just from the fact that you do not aim at something for yourself: clearly you do not think that he can do you harm, for then you would be afraid of him instead of slighting him, nor yet that he can do you any good worth mentioning, for then you would be anxious to make friends with him. (3) Insolence is also a form of slighting, since it consists in doing and saying things that cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to yourself, or because anything has happened to yourself, but simply for the pleasure involved. (Retaliation is not 'insolence', but vengeance.)
The cause of the pleasure thus enjoyed by the insolent man is that he thinks himself greatly superior to others when ill-treating them. That is why youths and rich men are insolent; they think themselves superior when they show insolence. One sort of insolence is to rob people of the honour due to them; you certainly slight them thus; for it is the unimportant, for good or evil, that has no honour paid to it. So Achilles says in anger:
He hath taken my prize for himself and hath done me dishonour,
And
Like an alien honoured by none,
meaning that this is why he is angry. A man expects to be specially respected by his inferiors in birth, in capacity, in goodness, and generally in anything in which he is much their superior: as where money is concerned a wealthy man looks for respect from a poor man; where speaking is concerned, the man with a turn for oratory looks for respect from one who cannot speak; the ruler demands the respect of the ruled, and the man who thinks he ought to be a ruler demands the respect of the man whom he thinks he ought to be ruling. Hence it has been said
Great is the wrath of kings, whose father is Zeus almighty,
And
Yea, but his rancour abideth long afterward also,
their great resentment being due to their great superiority. Then again a man looks for respect from those who he thinks owe him good treatment, and these are the people whom he has treated or is treating well, or means or has meant to treat well, either himself, or through his friends, or through others at his request.
It will be plain by now, from what has been said, (1) in what frame of mind, (2) with what persons, and (3) on what grounds people grow angry. (1) The frame of mind is that of one in which any pain is being felt. In that condition, a man is always aiming at something. Whether, then, another man opposes him either directly in any way, as by preventing him from drinking when he is thirsty, or indirectly, the act appears to him just the same; whether some one works against him, or fails to work with him, or otherwise vexes him while he is in this mood, he is equally angry in all these cases.
Hence people who are afflicted by sickness or poverty or love or thirst or any other unsatisfied desires are prone to anger and easily roused: especially against those who slight their present distress. Thus a sick man is angered by disregard of his illness, a poor man by disregard of his poverty, a man aging war by disregard of the war he is waging, a lover by disregard of his love, and so throughout, any other sort of slight being enough if special slights are wanting. Each man is predisposed, by the emotion now controlling him, to his own particular anger.
Further, we are angered if we happen to be expecting a contrary result: for a quite unexpected evil is specially painful, just as the quite unexpected fulfillment of our wishes is specially pleasant. Hence it is plain what seasons, times, conditions, and periods of life tend to stir men easily to anger, and where and when this will happen; and it is plain that the more we are under these conditions the more easily we are stirred.
These, then, are the frames of mind in which men are easily stirred to anger. The persons with whom we get angry are those who laugh, mock, or jeer at us, for such conduct is insolent. Also those who inflict injuries upon us that are marks of insolence. These injuries must be such as are neither retaliatory nor profitable to the doers: for only then will they be felt to be due to insolence. Also those who speak ill of us, and show contempt for us, in connexion with the things we ourselves most care about: thus those who are eager to win fame as philosophers get angry with those who show contempt for their philosophy; those who pride themselves upon their appearance get angry with those who show contempt for their appearance and so on in other cases. We feel particularly angry on this account if we suspect that we are in fact, or that people think we are, lacking completely or to any effective extent in the qualities in question. For when we are convinced that we excel in the qualities for which we are jeered at, we can ignore the jeering.
Again, we are angrier with our friends than with other people, since we feel that our friends ought to treat us well and not badly. We are angry with those who have usually treated us with honour or regard, if a change comes and they behave to us otherwise: for we think that they feel contempt for us, or they would still be behaving as they did before. And with those who do not return our kindnesses or fail to return them adequately, and with those who oppose us though they are our inferiors: for all such persons seem to feel contempt for us; those who oppose us seem to think us inferior to themselves, and those who do not return our kindnesses seem to think that those kindnesses were conferred by inferiors. And we feel particularly angry with men of no account at all, if they slight us. For, by our hypothesis, the anger caused by the slight is felt towards people who are not justified in slighting us, and our inferiors are not thus justified.
Again, we feel angry with friends if they do not speak well of us or treat us well; and still more, if they do the contrary; or if they do not perceive our needs, which is why Plexippus is angry with Meleager in Antiphon's play; for this want of perception shows that they are slighting us--we do not fail to perceive the needs of those for whom we care. Again we are angry with those who rejoice at our misfortunes or simply keep cheerful in the midst of our misfortunes, since this shows that they either hate us or are slighting us. Also with those who are indifferent to the pain they give us: this is why we get angry with bringers of bad news. And with those who listen to stories about us or keep on looking at our weaknesses; this seems like either slighting us or hating us; for those who love us share in all our distresses and it must distress any one to keep on looking at his own weaknesses.
Further, [we feel angry] with those who slight us before five classes of people: namely, (1) our rivals, (2) those whom we admire, (3) those whom we wish to admire us, (4) those for whom we feel reverence, (5) those who feel reverence for us: if any one slights us before such persons, we feel particularly angry. Again, we feel angry with those who slight us in connexion with what we are as honourable men bound to champion--our parents, children, wives, or subjects. And with those who do not return a favour, since such a slight is unjustifiable. Also with those who reply with humorous levity when we are speaking seriously, for such behaviour indicates contempt. And with those who treat us less well than they treat everybody else; it is another mark of contempt that they should think we do not deserve what every one else deserves. Forgetfulness, too, causes anger, as when our own names are forgotten, trifling as this may be; since forgetfulness is felt to be another sign that we are being slighted; it is due to negligence, and to neglect us is to slight us.
The persons with whom we feel anger, the frame of mind in which we feel it, and the reasons why we feel it, have now all been set forth. Clearly the orator will have to speak so as to bring his hearers into a frame of mind that will dispose them to anger, and to represent his adversaries as open to such charges and possessed of such qualities as do make people angry.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Asian Rear and Helmet Hair
By Diana Hsieh
Via List of the Day:
(Thanks to Flibby for the pointer to the portraits.) Read more...
Friday, January 11, 2008
More Cool Nuclear Technology
By Paul Hsieh
Who wouldn't want one of these?
A Battery That Can Power a Whole Town(Via Transterrestrial Musings.) Read more...
Nuclear "batteries" are nothing new. Energy from a fist-size lump of plutonium has powered the Voyager spacecraft for 25 years. And tiny specks of the stuff kept pacemakers ticking for decades. Now, Hyperion Power Generation (HPG) is developing a nuclear battery capable of powering a town. The size of a hot tub, it can put out more than 25 megawatts for five years, enough to run 25,000 homes.
Building on technology developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Santa Fe (N.M.) startup's battery runs on uranium hydride, which acts as fuel and also regulates power output, making it virtually impossible for the battery to suffer a meltdown. With no moving parts to break or corrode, HPG's batteries can be buried in the earth for added security and safety. Their small size makes them easy to install and, later, to remove and refuel, cutting out the need to handle radioactive materials on site.
HPG plans to sell its first units to towns and industrial operations not connected to the grid. The company estimates lifetime costs for its battery will be a fraction of the price to build and run a natural gas plant with the same capacity. Backed by venture capital from Altira, HPG could have its batteries ready in six years.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Cold Weather? I Blame Global Warming
By Paul Hsieh
There's been a fair amount of extreme cold weather recently around the world. Of course, many environmentalists are attributing this to global warming. Geophysicist David Deming notes:
Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.Read more...
Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric power. People worldwide are being reminded of what used to be common sense: Cold temperatures are inimical to human welfare and warm weather is beneficial. Left in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed particularly concerned about the welfare of polar bears, penguins or walruses. Fossil fuels don't seem so awful when you're in the cold and dark.
If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make this stuff up.
Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Yaron Brook on Health Care
By Paul Hsieh
Forbes.com has just published the following excellent opinion piece by Yaron Brook on health care:
The Right Vision Of Health CareYou can post comments in response to this op-ed on the Forbes web site. (So far, most of the comments are negative.) Read more...
Yaron Brook 1.08.2008
With the primary season in full swing, the presidential candidates are fighting over what to do about the spiraling cost of health care--especially the cost of health insurance, which is becoming prohibitively expensive for millions of Americans.
The Democrats, not surprisingly, are proposing a massive increase in government control, with some even calling for the outright socialism of a single-payer system. Republicans are attacking this "solution." But although they claim to oppose the expansion of government interference in medicine, Republicans don't, in fact, have a good track record of fighting it.
Indeed, Republicans have been responsible for major expansions of government health care programs: As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney oversaw the enactment of the nation's first "universal coverage" plan, initially estimated at $1.5 billion per year but already overrunning cost projections. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who pledged not to raise any new taxes, has just pushed through his own "universal coverage" measure, projected to cost Californians more than $14 billion. And President Bush's colossal prescription drug entitlement--expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.2 trillion over the next decade--was the largest expansion of government control over health care in 40 years.
Today, nearly half of all spending on health care in America is government spending. Why, despite their lip service to free markets, have Republicans actually helped fuel the growth of socialized medicine and erode what remains of free-market medicine in this country?
Consider the basic factor that has driven the expansion of government medicine in America.
Prior to the government's entrance into the medical field, health care was regarded as a product to be traded voluntarily on a free market--no different from food, clothing, or any other important good or service. Medical providers competed to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible prices. Virtually all Americans could afford basic health care, while those few who could not were able to rely on abundant private charity.
Had this freedom been allowed to endure, Americans' rising productivity would have allowed them to buy better and better health care, just as, today, we buy better and more varied food and clothing than people did a century ago. There would be no crisis of affordability, as there isn't for food or clothing.
But by the time Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, this view of health care as an economic product--for which each individual must assume responsibility--had given way to a view of health care as a "right," an unearned "entitlement," to be provided at others' expense.
This entitlement mentality fueled the rise of our current third-party-payer system, a blend of government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, together with government-controlled employer-based health insurance (itself spawned by perverse tax incentives during the wage and price controls of World War II).
Today, what we have is not a system grounded in American individualism, but a collectivist system that aims to relieve the individual of the "burden" of paying for his own health care by coercively imposing its costs on his neighbors. For every dollar's worth of hospital care a patient consumes, that patient pays only about 3 cents out-of-pocket; the rest is paid by third-party coverage. And for the health care system as a whole, patients pay only about 14%.
The result of shifting the responsibility for health care costs away from the individuals who accrue them was an explosion in spending.
In a system in which someone else is footing the bill, consumers, encouraged to regard health care as a "right," demand medical services without having to consider their real price. When, through the 1970s and 1980s, this artificially inflated consumer demand sent expenditures soaring out of control, the government cracked down by enacting further coercive measures: price controls on medical services, cuts to medical benefits, and a crushing burden of regulations on every aspect of the health care system.
As each new intervention further distorted the health care market, driving up costs and lowering quality, belligerent voices demanded still further interventions to preserve the "right" to health care. And Republican politicians--not daring to challenge the notion of such a "right"--have, like Romney, Schwarzenegger and Bush, outdone even the Democrats in expanding government health care.
The solution to this ongoing crisis is to recognize that the very idea of a "right" to health care is a perversion. There can be no such thing as a "right" to products or services created by the effort of others, and this most definitely includes medical products and services. Rights, as our founding fathers conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but freedoms of action.
You are free to see a doctor and pay him for his services--no one may forcibly prevent you from doing so. But you do not have a "right" to force the doctor to treat you without charge or to force others to pay for your treatment. The rights of some cannot require the coercion and sacrifice of others.
So long as Republicans fail to challenge the concept of a "right" to health care, their appeals to "market-based" solutions are worse than empty words. They will continue to abet the Democrats' expansion of government interference in medicine, right up to the dead end of a completely socialized system.
By contrast, the rejection of the entitlement mentality in favor of a proper conception of rights would provide the moral basis for real and lasting solutions to our health care problems--for breaking the regulatory chains stifling the medical industry; for lifting the government incentives that created our dysfunctional, employer-based insurance system; for inaugurating a gradual phase-out of all government health care programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid; and for restoring a true free market in medical care.
Such sweeping reforms would unleash the power of capitalism in the medical industry. They would provide the freedom for entrepreneurs motivated by profit to compete with each other to offer the best quality medical services at the lowest prices, driving innovation and bringing affordable medical care, once again, into the reach of all Americans.
Yaron Brook is managing director of BH Equity Research and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Eco-Insanity
By Diana Hsieh
(Note: I meant to post this entry a few weeks ago, but it got lost in the queue. It's still relevant, however.)
Well, it's hardly a loss to the world that some eco-freaks refuse to reproduce:
At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years [Toni] was sterilised to "protect the planet". Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card.I doubt that organic-buying soccer moms will be rushing to sterilize themselves anytime soon. That's one reason why I don't regard the ecological movement as a long-term threat anywhere in par with religion, as dangerous as it might be in the short-term.
While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal. "Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35. "Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."
While most parents view their children as the ultimate miracle of nature, Toni seems to see them as a sinister threat to the future.
...
Mark adds: "Sarah and I live as green a life a possible. We don't have a car, cycle everywhere instead, and we never fly. "We recycle, use low-energy light bulbs and eat only organic, locally produced food. "In short, we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child.
"That's why I had a vasectomy. It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of Earth. "Sarah and I don't need children to feel complete. What makes us happy is knowing that we are doing our bit to save our precious planet."
In its most consistent form, the ecological movement is nothing better than nihilistic destruction of human life. That's not true of its mass base, however. Most ordinary-folk "environmentalists" are moved by the worry that we're destroying the environment in ways that will be ultimately harmful to human life. They're wrong in that embrace of environmentalism, as real as environmental destruction can be, but they're not nihilists ready and eager to sterilize themselves for the sake of the planet.
To put the point in the standard terms of environmental philosophy, most ordinary folk describing themselves as "environmentalists" are fundamentally anthropocentric (i.e. human-centered) in their reasoning. They think that preserving and protecting the environment is necessary for human well-being. In contrast, the ideological leaders of the environmental movement disdain all such anthropocentric thinking. They regard nature as valuable for its own sake. It's not just living beings (including rats, slugs, and deadly bacteria) that have such intrinsic value, often rocks and rivers to too. Humans are also intrinsically valuable. So we count for something, albeit much in the same way that the individual counts for something in utilitarian calculations with a global population of billions. Actually, we're not even all that, since humans do so much damage to other species and environments without contributing anything good in return. (For a prominent example of this general view, see Paul Taylor's well-known article "Biocentric Egalitarianism.") The explicit purpose of environmental ethics is to de-humanize ethics, i.e. to remove humans from the forefront of ethical concern.
In contrast, no such disconnect between the ideology of leaders and mass base can be found in religion. The ideology is not nihilistic. Instead, religion promises all the wealth of values that the faithful might imagine in the afterlife. That can motivate mass fervor and mass sacrifice in this life. It is a possible basis for centuries of unquestioned darkness, destruction, and ignorance -- as the history of Europe shows quite clearly.
So as dangerous as environmentalism is on a policy level, I do not see it as a possible driving force for some new world order. Although it has broad support, it does not have deep support necessary to make "eco-topia" the goal of more than a few man-hating nutters. Read more...
Monday, January 7, 2008
Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age
By Paul Hsieh
Depending on how you look at it, this could either be inspiring or depressing: "Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age".
(Via MetaFilter.)
Sunday, January 6, 2008
National Review Does It Again
By Diana Hsieh
Yet again, National Review manages to reach new lows in its swipes against Ayn Rand. In a just-posted article, Michael Novak describes the "many different belief systems are found among people who call themselves atheists." His second type reads as follows:
Those relativists and nihilists who do believe, as Nietzsche warned, that the “death of God” has also meant the death of trust in reason and science and objective rules of morality. Such atheists, therefore, may for arbitrary reasons choose to live for their own pleasure, or for the joy of exercising brute power and will. This is the kind of moral nihilism that communist and fascist regimes depended upon, to justify the brutal use of power. It appears, also, to be the kind of atheism that Ayn Rand commended.That gross misrepresentation is required for Novak's argument that the ethical practices of morally decent atheists are basically those of Christianity, "all the way up the scale from mere sentiments, to effective personal help to the poor, and to heroic self-sacrifice." Since that's obviously not true of Ayn Rand, Novak can only marginalize her by falsely lumping her with amoralists (!!), fascists (!!), and communists (!!!). Intellectual dishonesty doesn't get any worse than that. Read more...
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Seasonique
By Diana Hsieh
Sometimes Mother Nature is wise and wonderful. Sometimes she's a nasty old hag in need of improvement from modern medicine. Case in point: Seasonique.
(Warning to the men: I'm about to discuss the female reproductive system. Steel yourself!)
Seasonique is the birth control pill that produces only four periods per year, i.e. every three months. The research indicates that it's as safe and effective as monthly-cycle pills.
I just finished my first three-month pack. I suffered absolutely no ill effects. From what my doctor told me, it's actually a lower dose of hormones than my prior pill (Ortho/Novum 135).
This pill does not merely eliminate the hassle of the monthly period, this particular pill allows a woman to have more sex. And here at NoodleFood, we're all in favor of that. Hence, this post.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Colorado Springs Gazette OpEd on Health Care Reform
By Paul Hsieh
The January 4, 2008 edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette has published a good editorial on health care reform in Colorado. Both Brian Schwartz and myself were cited in their OpEd. Lin Zinser and Ari Armstrong also gave their editor (Wayne Laugesen) a great deal of background information, although their names don't appear in the piece.
Once again, this shows that it is possible to get good ideas circulated amongst the wider culture, as long as one is willing to do the work necessary to advocate them.
Here is the full text of their OpEd:
Health care, ho!Read more...
State should avoid repeat of Massachusetts
THE GAZETTE January 3, 2008
For Colorado Democrats, a regulatory fix of the state's ailing health care system may seem irresistible during the upcoming 2008 legislative session. Imagine the attention major health care reform, or statewide "universal health care," would garner from the media in August, when the country's Democrats converge in Denver for the Democratic National Convention. Colorado could be held up as the example of how it can and should be done. Democratic leaders could be lauded for aiding 792,000 uninsured men, women and children.
House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, as quoted in The Gazette, says Coloradans are tired of waiting on a federal government that "cannot or won't fix" the health care crisis. The Blue-Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform, appointed by legislative leaders and the governor, will present its recommendations to the Legislature on Jan. 31. The commission plans to recommend that all Colorado residents be mandated to buy insurance that meets minimum standards, and state subsidies would be extended to more of the state's poor.
Before politicians get too ambitious, however, they should take a closer look at the health care reform led by a leading Republican: Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.
"The majority of the commission favors a government-heavy proposal," says Dr. Paul Hsieh, a Denver physician who has studied the new Massachusetts system. "They're crafting it similar to the Massachusetts model."
A year old, the Massachusetts system is resulting in rationing and shortages of care, and higher costs to taxpayers than originally expected. The Patriot Ledger newspaper tells of Lee Sampson, a 47-year-old unemployed medical transcriptionist. Sampson bought into Commonwealth Care, a state-subsidized insurance cooperative. She had to buy insurance by Jan. 1 to avoid tax penalties and fines.
But Sampson, like a growing number of other Massachusetts residents, is learning that mandatory insurance doesn't mean doctors will treat her. To receive benefits from the plan, Sampson must find a primary care physician. She reported calling 50 doctors' offices within a half-hour drive of her home. All rejected her. Most explained they were overwhelmed and accepting no new patients.
Massachusetts, like Canada, will learn that mandating health care as a universal right results in a demand for services that exceeds the supply. The demand for medical services under the new Massachusetts system has become so great, and so expensive, that state officials are cutting back on the compensation doctors receive for services, while raising patient co-pays. The medical community, struggling with high demand and inadequate reimbursement, is cutting costs by rationing services for patients like Sampson.
Ask Americans if they would enjoy free universal health care, like the Canadians have, and many will say yes. Ask the same folks if they'd like to wait several months for an MRI, a heart scan or chemotherapy -- as Canadians often do -- and they'll give a resounding "no way."
Yet one can't argue that our nation's health care system is well. As reported by The New York Times, health care costs are going up at twice the rate of inflation. With soaring costs come rising insurance rates, which fewer employers and individuals are willing or able to pay. Based on U.S. Census data, 10 million Americans were uninsured 15 years ago. Today, more than 46 million live uninsured.
While it's expedient for politicians to promise a solution in the form of a program, Massachusetts will continue showing us why it doesn't work. Government intervention, in fact, explains the failures of our current system. The IRS code drives most Americans to buy health insurance through employers. That means insurers don't have to compete for consumers, because for most Americans, shopping around for a better deal involves a career change. And because health insurance has been packaged as a "free" benefit from employers, patients have spent the past half-century consuming health care without challenging the price. For those with health plans, "insurance" has morphed into pre-paid service, seemingly paid for by someone else. Imagine a system in which large employers provided auto insurance. Would employees balk at the cost of this "free" benefit, demanding a better price? If the insurance covered routine oil and lube jobs, the way health insurance covers physicals, would consumers demand lower prices from Grease Monkey? Doubtful.
State legislators can't change the morass of federal regulation that has led to a health care system unrestrained by the conventional market forces that control other services and goods. But legislators can improve access to health care by eliminating most of the state controls that prohibit affordable coverage. State law, for example, requires that health insurance plans include coverage for childhood autism -- even for consumers with no prospect of children. Regardless of a consumer's personal needs, any policy he or she buys in Colorado must cover alcohol rehab, mental health and maternity treatments -- to name a few. Why not a law that says all cell phone plans must come with 80-channel cable TV?
Brian Schwartz, an Arvada-based optical engineer, proposed to the Blue Ribbon Commission a market-based health care reform package that mostly involved deregulation. Commission member Linda Gorman fought for it, but others scoffed.
"One commissioner said we already have a free market in health care, and it has failed," Schwartz told The Gazette. "But we don't have a free market. If you're a widow, you have to buy a policy that covers marital therapy, maternity and prostate cancer. You have no need for this, but if you want insurance you're required to buy it. Mandates raise your premium by 20 to 50 percent."
Government, as we're seeing in Massachusetts, can't make health care affordable and abundant. Market forces can and will -- if politicians ever allow them to.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Teaching Egoism Versus Altruism
By Diana Hsieh
When I taught the issue of egoism versus altruism in my Introduction to Philosophy class last semester, I wasn't happy with my ability to explain why the choice is either-or. I'm able to effectively explain the evils of a fully altruistic life, in part thanks to Susan Wolf's article on "Moral Saints." (She draws different conclusions in that article than I do, but it works quite well for my purposes.) However, the next natural position for my students to adopt is that some mixture of egoism and altruism is the right answer: sometimes we should think of ourselves first and sometimes we should think of others first.
Obviously, that view is partially motivated by the false assumption that egoism demands callous indifference to others. However, it's also due to a much deeper problem, namely the fact that the students don't understand the fundamental opposition of egoism to altruism. They fail to appreciate that because they don't think of their own lives in terms of any fundamental principles or ultimate values. They don't think that a life needs to be so integrated.
So, dear readers, do have any suggestions on how I might show that egoism and altruism cannot be coherently mixed? How can I make reasonably clear that to attempt to sometimes adopt one policy and sometimes adopt the other cannot be done on any rational, principled basis, but would have to be a mere emotional decision?
Of course, my students won't be obliged to agree with me. They're welcome to defend any views they please in class and in their papers, so long as those views are supported by plausible arguments. However, I'd like to offer them compelling grounds on which to question a view that seems so natural to them.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
What Your Cat Would Do If He Could
By Diana Hsieh
What your cat would do to you in the morning if he could:
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Wrong Way to Defend Intellectual Property Rights
By Paul Hsieh
Update: Newsfactor.com is reporting that the Washington Post has misreported part of their story, and that Jeffrey Howell is being sued for ripping his own CD's onto his computer hard drive and placing them onto his shared folder for distribution to the rest of the world through the Kazaa file sharing system.
Obviously this changes the merits of that particular lawsuit. (It doesn't change the error of the Sony lawyer Jennifer Pariser's statements also cited in the WaPo story.)
=====
I am a firm believer in intellectual property rights, including copyright. However, when the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) takes ridiculously wrong legal positions in their supposed "defense" of copyright, it merely confuses and alienates honest consumers. A recent article in the Washington Post summarizes some of the statements that recording industry lawyers have made condemning the entirely legitimate practice of taking a music CD that one has legally purchased and transferring a copy onto one's own home computer or MP3 player for personal use (i.e., not for widespread distribution to others):
In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.To make things worse, the RIAA used to explicitly endorse the practice they are now condemning. A few years ago, they stated on their official website (and still available via the Web Archive):
The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.
...The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.
But lawyers for consumers point to a series of court rulings over the last few decades that found no violation of copyright law in the use of VCRs and other devices to time-shift TV programs; that is, to make personal copies for the purpose of making portable a legally obtained recording.
If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail.But that language has since then been removed from their current website.
The danger is that when an organization like the RIAA overstates its case by making such egregiously bad claims about intellectual property rights, it merely undercuts the validity of the concept in the average readers' minds. An average consumer might easily (and with some partial justification) conclude, "If 'copyright' means that I can't listen to my own legally-purchased album on my own iPod, then screw it - I won't respect copyrights!"
Of course, the correct approach to combating illegal and immoral "file sharing" of copyrighted material is not to make a bogus defense of property rights, but to make a genuine principled defense that incorporates the relevant technological facts about these issues.
For instance Dr. Leonard Peikoff's briefly discusses this issue on his website (in the entry dated April 12, 2007), and arrives at a better conclusion, based on the distinction between form and content:
Q: On Copyrights:I believe Dr. Peikoff's position is essentially correct, and that form-content distinction is an important one.
1. Under a proper capitalist government, if you buy CDs where the only contract term is "Copyright, All Rights Reserved," would it be legal--and moral--to copy those CDs, that one has already bought and paid for, to one's own iPod?
A: First, a caveat: I have not thought much about issues in the philosophy of law. So some of the following is only my best ideas given limited knowledge.
I agree with your earlier general statement that creators have a moral right to set whatever conditions they want, rational or otherwise, in regard to the use of their property. As you say: "copyright owners have the right to control the act of copying as such. In support of this is the idea that their property rights cannot be limited, and that the copyright owners created the value of the music in the first place."
However, if you ask me what is the rational policy in this issue, my answer involves a distinction between form and matter -- i.e., changing the medium or organization of a purchased work in order to make its content more conveniently accessible to the buyer; vs. duplicating the purchased work (which is what I myself call "copying"). E.g., scanning OPAR into your computer in order to adjust the font vs. making a copy of the purchased book, so that you have two of the very books on sale in the store. I regard the first as, in essence, a transfer of content already paid for, and thus justified; while the second is unjustified: if you buy a book, you are not and should not be authorized to become a manufacturer of it, whether of 1 or 1,000 more copies.
The same applies to CDs. I think you have a right to transfer the content to an iPod, or to transfer excerpts from different CDs onto one CD; but I do not think you have a right to "copy" them in the sense of manufacturing duplicates of the original CDs.
There are some interesting side issues that he didn't address that might be worthy of further analysis. For instance, does creating a physical backup copy of a CD of music or software that one has legitimately purchased (purely as a precaution in case that the original is accidentally damaged or destroyed) count as "manufacturing" in the sense that he means? Provided that one keeps that backup copy in a safe place unused (as opposed to giving/selling it to others for their use), I think this would be legitimate. Most software producers allow or even encourage this practice, and I think it would be a reasonable practice for musical content as well.
Similarly, does burning a duplicate physical copy of a music CD so that one can keep one copy in the upstairs music CD player and a second copy downstairs or in one's car (again purely for personal use as opposed to giving/selling to others) count as "manufacturing"? Also, is the intended user (i.e., personal use vs. giving/selling to others) the critical distinction as well? I freely admit that I don't have fully worked out positions on some of these questions of how best to apply the broad principle of copyright to specific scenarios in this era of easy digital duplication and dissemination.
Overall, I think Dr. Peikoff is on the right track with this type of analysis, and this is the correct approach to take, rather than the concrete-bound approach of the RIAA ("copying" = "stealing") which merely undercuts respect for property rights.
I would love to see more work by Objectivists on the nature and proper justification of intellectual property rights, such as Greg Perkins' essay, "Don't Steal This Article!" or Ayn Rand's own "Patents and Copyrights" in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Michigan State law professor Adam Mossoff has also written a number of articles on intellectual property available on SSRN. More such work would be a welcome contribution to the often-contentious and confused discussions in the mainstream media about these important issues. Read more...
Happy New Year
By Diana Hsieh
Best wishes for a healthy, happy, and productive New Year!
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