Mar 13, 2011
It’s remarkable but true that people are more confident at this stage than after the acquittal.—The Trial
Mar 13, 2011
—Obama’s Gridiron speechI want to acknowledge a few people in the house tonight. Kathleen Sebelius did a great job, didn’t she? (Applause.)
She does a great job each and every day. In these tough times I’ve asked all my Cabinet members to cut even those things that they care deeply about. In Kathleen’s case, it was her once-promising political career. (Laughter.)
Mar 11, 2011
And my two favorite moments from that experience – going with McNamara to visit the archivist for the ICC. McNamara told him, “I wish that they had these statutes governing war crimes back when I was secretary of defense,” and the archivist replied, “But, sir, they did.—Errol Morris
Dec 17, 2010
Even though the government has a monopoly on violence, violence cannot solve math problems.—Jake Appelbaum
Dec 14, 2010
—Wal-Mart CEO Bill SimonAnd you need not go further than one of our stores on midnight at the end of the month. And it’s real interesting to watch, about 11 p.m., customers start to come in and shop, fill their grocery basket with basic items, baby formula, milk, bread, eggs, and continue to shop and mill about the store until midnight, when electronic—government electronic benefits cards get activated and then the checkout starts and occurs. And our sales for those first few hours on the first of the month are substantially and significantly higher.
And if you really think about it, the only reason somebody gets out in the middle of the night and buys baby formula is that they need it, and they’ve been waiting for it. Otherwise, we are open 24 hours — come at 5 a.m., come at 7 a.m., come at 10 a.m. But if you are there at midnight, you are there for a reason.
Oct 27, 2010
I lied about accessing all of the computers. I then admitted about accessing the computers, but lied about what I was doing. Finally, I admitted what I did.—Joe Miller
Sep 20, 2010
The superstition-based initiative is not about a single superstition. In this country we’re great because we’ve got many superstitions, and we’re great because you can choose whatever superstition you choose, or if you choose no superstition at all, you’re still equally American.—President Bush makes a lot more sense when you replace “faith” with “superstition” (via Alan Sokal)
Sep 19, 2010
Edinburgh Revisited
I’m finally getting around to reading Beyond the Hoax and really appreciating the chance to revisit Sokal’s clear-thinking elucidation of such fundamental philosophical issues. But there is one thing that I was persuaded by the first time I read some of these arguments (in the papers posted to his website and in Fashionable Nonsense), but now I’m convinced isn’t quite accurate. p. 159:
Let’s take a concrete example: Why did the European scientific community become persuaded of the truth of Newtonian mechanics somewhere between 1700 and 1750? Undoubtedly a variety of historical, sociological, ideological and political factors must play a role in this explanation — one must explain, for example, why Newtonian mechanics was accepted quickly in England but more slowly in France[footnote omittted] — but certainly some part of the explanation must be that the planets and comets really do move (to a very high degree of approximation, though not exactly) as predicted by Newtonian mechanics.[footnote omitted]
I think the issues with this can be seen more clearly if we take Sokal’s suggestion on the following page and replace the scientists with detectives. A detective is called to the scene of a murder and, after investigation, concludes the victim was killed by Rubin Carter. Why did he conclude this?, you may ask. Surely one can make the case for sociological factors playing a role. Perhaps the detective was under great pressure from his bosses to name a killer and close the case. Perhaps he held racist beliefs and thus was eager to pin the crime on a black male. If you asked the detective, presumably he’d point to the evidence for his conclusion: an eyewitness from the murder scene, a lack of alibi from Carter, etc. But surely it is of no use at all to say that the detective concluded Rubin Carter did it because Rubin Carter actually did it.
Since the detective cannot directly perceive the reality of the murder, it’s impossible for his belief to be caused by the reality without some intermediate step (the evidence). And if the evidence is sufficient to cause the belief, the belief can be held whether it is true or not (since any evidence could be caused some other way). So why should the belief being true be part of the explanation?
I think this is actually a pretty common sense point. If a friend asks me why I think the restaurant is open at this hour, I can’t just reply “because it is!” It seems odd to think sociologists of science should behave any differently.
Sep 19, 2010
I knew I was being charmed, but, quite honestly, she charmed charmingly.—Dunne on Safra
Sep 11, 2010
Do we know what we want?
Robert Solow writes (via dsquared):
What does it mean for someone to be “better off?” Many criteria are possible: you could say that a man is better off if he makes a bigger contribution to the health of the State or the glory of God. In economic theory, however, it has usually meant that he is better off in his own estimation. If you want to know whether A prefers working over a hot stove or in a nice cool sewer, you ask him; or better still, you offer him a choice between the two jobs and see which he chooses. […]
[Views like this] are under attack these days, usually for the wrong reasons. It is said that ordinary people can not be entrusted with the judgment of their own welfare, not even with the choice of the thing they buy. This is because they are ignorant of “true” satisfaction, or because they are manipulated by advertising[…]
It seems like Solow’s argument is missing a step. Even if we agree that I am the best at judging whether I’m better off in a sewer or over a stove, that doesn’t mean I actually will know in advance. Perhaps I mistakenly pick the sewer and come to regret my choice. And then I switch to the stove and realize no, I was really right the first time. Just because I can realize this in retrospect doesn’t mean I can make the right choice in advance.
And this is exactly where advertising becomes problematic. If one is bombarded by commercials about how “nice” and “cool” our sewers are, it’s not hard to see why one might decide to pick them, even if they really would prefer the stove. And it doesn’t seem practical for everyone to try every job to figure out which one they really like.
If this were a real blog post, I’d draw out some practical conclusions, but I’m tired and I’ll stick to just pointing out the error.
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A quoteblog by Aaron Swartz.
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