Glass Walls on Slaughterhouses

Ahahaha. Now, we already knew Hamilton Nolan is a goddamned moron, and we already knew that Gawker's brand of progressive woo-girl politics is as superficial as its audience, but shut my mouth and palm my face, this do beat all. Apparently, it never occurred to our progressive heroes while agitating for the overturn of DADT that they were, in fact, agitating for people to have the opportunity to be psychologically broken down in order to be rebuilt as perfect, unquestioning killing machines. Tugging uncomfortably at the collar, a strained expression, a finger held aloft: "This seems a bit, well, retrograde." You don't say.

It's always amusing to see naïve campus progressivism run face-first into a reality-based brick wall; it tickles my slapstick funny bone. But there's also an unpleasant dissonance in considering the kind of person who can blithely accept the idea of humans being shaped into lethal weapons while blanching at the thought that the process of shaping them thusly might involve some impolitic language. Like George Carlin said about rules of combat, it seems just a way to reassure ourselves that we're quite civilized even as we devote our efforts to signing up as many people as possible to this institution of mass killing. Faced with the grave significance of war, presented with a pile of corpses, what kind of procedural mindset massages away the cramps of conscience by consulting a properly ticked-off checklist? Well, let's see — proper declaration of hostilities, signed in the right place, mm-hmm; official uniform, name tag clearly displayed, yep; cause of death: regulation military weaponry, legally obtained, properly registered, good; aaaaand....nope, doesn't appear anyone was called a faggot or a raghead in the process. All righty, everything looks good here, carry on.

One of the things that nauseated me during those wasted years spent reading the political blogosphere was the presence of so many amateur spin doctors, those process-minded moral homunculi who only thought in terms of optics and marketing, divorced from considerations of value. The Democrats were the brand, and achieving maximum market share was the goal. Repealing the ban on gays in the military looks to be polling well, so let's go with it! Meta-questions about the worthiness of any such goals would only confuse them, like a Roomba stuck in the corner between the bookcase and the nightstand. Vroom, bonk. Vroom, bonk. Should gays or anyone else care about being discriminated against by such an institution? What about the implications of seeing the world's mightiest death-dealing colossus as first and foremost a vehicle for job training and career advancement? Vroom, extending civil rights, bonk. Vroom, the most important election of our time, bonk.

People who can overlook gruesome reality with the help of sanitized language are not to be trusted.

One Who Glimpsed It and Fled

Bill Watterson:

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential -- as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them.

To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble. Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it's going to come in handy all the time.

Somehow, until I saw Maria Popova's link, there had been a Watterson-commencement-speech-shaped hole in my experience of which I had been unaware. Glad that's fixed now.

Future Imperfect

Jörg Friedrich:

We don’t always strive for perfection. To the contrary: as a species, we often embrace imperfect conditions instead of attempting to better them. A desire for perpetual progress isn’t encoded in our genes. Large periods of human history were relatively static. For many generations, our forefathers lived contently without desiring radical change. We also know of contemporary tribes in inaccessible regions of the earth that appear to be quite happy with the world as it is and with their place within it. These tribes don’t necessarily aspire to “be different” or to be more like us.

In the modern West, many people are similarly sceptical of radical change even if it promises great technological, social or medical benefits. As Shakespeare already knew, it’s often easier for us to endure existing hardship than it is to aspire to an unknown future.

Why does this matter? Because attempts to develop new technologies and to propel engineering forward often fail to account for the diversity of views on progress. We are presented with shining examples of scientific possibilities that will change our everyday lives whether we desire it or not. Yet from the perspective of an objective observer, the introduction of many new technologies is unnecessary. Their development isn’t driven by some innate need for progress and survival but by our own curiosity and enthusiasm for new gadgets and by economic interests.

This is something I think about a lot. It's only been in the last few hundred years that knowledge and technological prowess have begun to exponentially increase, but we've quickly become accustomed to thinking of this as something inevitable. As is often the case, Hume is there wagging his finger at us, reminding us that we ultimately have no solid foundation upon which to rest our blithe assumption that tomorrow will be a teleological improvement upon today. 165 million years of dinosaurs existing as a species ultimately meant nothing. Whatever we might hope or think will happen to a species of hairless ape that has only been around for a fraction of that time, we don't know. There is no precedent here. And so, what might it be like if humanity were forced to reacclimate itself to such a static, cyclical way of life?

The Audience Is Listening

Adam Gurri:

The point is, if you start blogging thinking that you’re well on your way to achieving Malcolm Gladwell’s career, you are setting yourself for disappointment. It will suck the enjoyment out of writing. Every completed post will be saddled with a lot of time staring at traffic stats that refuse to go up. It’s depressing.

Instead, the perfect balance is committing to only those crafts that you can perform with satisfaction even if you have to do so in utter obscurity. Then, put your work out in public as part of the process itself—if you’re making homebrew beer or an Arduino hack, make a video or write about the process as a means to think harder about the details of it. If you’re a writer, think of putting it online as simply having the work backed up in one more place.

In this way, you open yourself up to the spectrum of possibilities, ranging from utter obscurity at one end to global fame at the other. Far more likely is something closer to the obscurity end but much more satisfying—that you will draw the attention of a relative few who share your interests.

In my mind, this is the best way to take advantage of modernity while minimizing its costs. We are an affluent enough society that we’re able to make enough money as individuals to have time to devote to doing something we love for its own sake. We are also an interconnected society where some artisans are able to rise to sudden prominence and make a living doing what they love. A satisfying life will focus on the former while keeping the door open to the latter possibility.

There's these two friends of mine. Between them, there are are least six blogs floating around the web like ghost ships, mysteriously abandoned shortly after launch with no signs of struggle. Both of them are well-educated and driven to be serious writers. Both of them struggle to write regularly and frequently seem despondent over what they do produce, as well as the lack of any foreseeable future for it in the marketplace. The identity of being a writer-with-a-capital-W seems to be a heavy burden on their shoulders; the glass always seems half-empty. And here I am, a mere scribbler, about to chalk up 1500 posts and loving every minute of it. It's almost enough to give me something like survivor's guilt.

With respect to Gurri's excellent post, I'd still prefer to keep the door firmly barred against recognition and reward. It's a delicate balance to hold; I suppose there's always a chance that making one's work public could lead to unwanted attention. But addressing an audience, even one that mostly exists in the abstract, is how I keep from disappearing into narcissistic diary-keeping, or talking in complacent shorthand and private jokes. Echolocation, however tentative or intermittent, is necessary for perspective. So thanks for reading — and thanks for being so few in number.

An Ordinary Man Away From Home Giving Advice

Lisa Levy:

Indeed, there is something ersatz, if not quite fraudulent, about de Botton’s entire intellectual enterprise: he often seems like a grad student who shows up to seminar having done just enough of the reading to participate by jumping on other people’s comments, but who never makes an original observation of his own. He is constantly quoting and alluding to great figures — Jane Austen, John Stuart Mill, Stendhal, and Freud, among others, all get name-dropped in his self-help book, How To Think More About Sex (about which more below) — but he tends to meander and summarize after a quotation rather than using it to drive his own argument forward.

...And de Botton’s book makes an enraging little study (all the books clock in at around 200 pages) of contemporary assumptions about sex, marriage, and relationships, regarded strictly from the point of view of a bored, married, middle-aged man who maybe dabbles in philosophy and fancies himself an intellectual. It’s like being hit on by a paunchy, balding European guy at an office party who tries to seduce you with, well, quotes from Jane Austen and Stendhal, and empty proclamations about the place of sex, marriage, and relationships in contemporary society.

Oh-ho, I see what she did there. It's clever, see, because that's de Botton she's describing there! De Botton's book is like de Botton himself in person being all lame and socially striving and stuff! Burn!

To reiterate, my own opinions of his work vary significantly. But I am beginning to admire the knack he has for provoking pretentious twats into displaying their honest contempt for their social inferiors.

When He Himself Might His Quietus Make

Sara Reardon:

Ultimately, says Nader Perroud of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, if suicidal behaviour is considered as a disease in its own right, it will become possible to conduct more focused, evidence-based research on it and medications that treat it effectively. "We might be able to find a proper treatment for suicidal behaviour."

They can have my right to self-cancellation when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.

My Mirror Disappoints Me

Hamza Shaban:

We tend to think that the offline and the online are of two different realms, with sign-in screens acting as a portal. On the one side: babble, blog posts, centrifugal bumble puppy, Tinder, disengaged tweens, the Kardashians, hyper-regressive attention spans, Facebook farce, The Matrix. On the other: books, truth, orgasmic eye contact, the Socratic Method, a hike through Canadian forests, reality, patience, conversations with Oprah.

Yeah, I don't think the Internet has done anything but dramatically amplify and magnify traits that were already there. I have to agree with Scalzi here:

The online world can be distracting and alienating, but it is often so because people are often inclined to be distracted and alienated. If you’re one of those people, it doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, you’ll still be inclined toward distraction and alienation. You could be in a monastery on the slopes of the Himalayas and get distracted by the snowflakes. No satori for you! On the other hand, dude, snowflakes.

And I still say it's a mistake to just take people at their word when they claim to be distracted against their will, despite their best efforts. Are our gadgets really so fiendishly well-designed to hijack the reward centers of our brains, swiftly and irrevocably altering them beyond our control? To borrow a concept from Nicholas Humphrey who was in turn borrowing it from David Hume, it seems far more likely that people are shirking responsibility for their own satisfaction and excusing behavior they think others will disapprove of by claiming to be powerless to stop it.

Back In the Village Again

Cole Stryker:

The rise of the social web may be perceived as a re-villaging, where the permanence of one’s digital footprint behaves as a deterrent, making it seem to some like an ideal time to reintroduce public shaming to reinforce norms. But considered through a historical lens, public shaming begins to look like a tool designed not to humanely punish the perp but rather to satisfy the crowd.

This explains its resurgence. When has the crowd ever been bigger, or more thirsty for vengeance? The faceless Internet, with its shadowy cyberbullies and infinite display of every social ill is scary. And when it slithers its tentacles in a person’s life, we become desperate for some way to fight back—to shine light into the darkness and counterattack those who would victimize behind the veil of anonymity. But doxing, even just naming publicly-available names to channel outrage (or worse) at someone who has violated your norms, is not only an ineffective way to deal, it risks causing more harm than the initial offense. Last year’s trendy rise of media-sponsored shaming is self-righteousness masquerading as social justice. In many cases the targets deserve to be exposed and more, but public shaming does not drive social progress. It might make us feel better, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking we’ve made a positive difference.

Nothing I need to add to that.

Unknown Unknowns

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

— The Analects of Confuseus

Samuel McNerney:

The same thing occurs when lay audiences read books about thinking errors. They understand the errors, but don’t notice the trick – that simply learning about them is not enough. Too often, readers finish popular books on decision making with the false conviction that they will decide better. They are the equivalent of Edwards’ competition – the so-called best of the best who miss the ruse.

The overlooked reason is that there are two components to each bias. The first is the phenomenon itself. Confirmation bias, for example, is your tendency to seek out confirmation information while ignoring everything else. The second is the belief that everyone else is susceptible to thinking errors, but not you. This itself is a bias – bias blind spot – a “meta bias” inherent in all biases that blinds you from your errors.

I, on the other hand, have recognized that I was born guilty of original bias, and have thus accepted λογική into my heart as my savior, so this doesn't apply to me anymore. Do you have a few minutes? If I could come in, I'd like to talk to you some more about λογική...

Madness to the Method

Jag Bhalla:

The word rational is widely misused. Scientists often apply it unnaturally, in ways that conflict with our biology. Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Gary Becker, and their respective schools of thought, are on opposite sides of this breach with our nature. They revive an old struggle between prudent empiricism and blinkering “theorism” (an overreliance on idealized models).

...To minimize misuse, consider that the word rational really incorporates three types of assumptions: first, about desirable goals; second, about effective methods of attaining them; and third, about whether agents have the needed skills.

Ahaha, oh yes. One of the most tiring things about fellow atheists is the way they use those assumptions interchangeably, with the result that "rational" ends up, in practice, meaning little more than "anything I approve of and agree with". It's becoming one of those words that trigger an, uh, irrational anger in me.

The Emperor's Clean Clothes

Jessica Grose:

Which is all to say, it’s seen as socially admirable and masculine for a man to be on diaper duty or to sous-vide a steak, but there are no closet organizing tips in the pages of Esquire, no dishwasher detergent ads in the pages of GQ. Considering the strides that have been made in getting men to share the labor in other traditionally female domestic areas, why has cleaning remained the final frontier?

At its most basic, a reason why a lot of men don’t want to clean is obvious: it’s not fun. The rewards of the other two traditionally female household tasks—childcare and cooking—are palpable. Your kid’s smile, a delicious meal. But not so with cleaning. Drew Magary, a Deadspin columnist and the author of the forthcoming parenting memoir Someone Could Get Hurt, says that men will never take the initiative and clean without being asked “because it sucks.”

...With all these obstacles to real gender parity of chores, what’s a working woman to do? Philosophy professor Alexandra Bradner suggests on the Atlantic’s website that couples sit down with a list of questions like, “Do I do half of the laundry and half of the dishes every day?” to figure out where they’re slacking off in comparison to their mate. This sounds exhausting and impractical. If I do one load of laundry, it’s easier for me to do the second rather than wait for my husband to mosey over. (Bradner also says that when men do traditionally female chores, they’re enacting “‘small instances of gender heroism,’ or ‘SIGH’s”—which, barf.)

Cooking meals and taking care of the crotchfruit are necessities; mopping and scrubbing are more like bonus options. Eating out all the time would be expensive, and society tends to frown on child neglect, but it'll take a while for the accumulation of filth and vermin to actually become hazardous, and my experience suggests that most people, regardless of gender, lean more toward being lazy slobs than neat freaks.

I had to share a room with my brother until I was twelve. My parents used to jokingly call us Felix and Oscar over our diametrically opposed personalities. Once I finally convinced my mom that he was capable of having his own room without needing supervision (she's always been an overprotective worrier), I started doing my own vacuuming, laundry, dusting, etc. and never looked back, while he turned every living space he inhabited into a landfill.

Honestly, I enjoy doing chores. It's very satisfying to make messy things clean. Clutter affects my soul like being forced to listen to the strumming of a hundred guitars, each out of tune in a unique way. I can accept that life itself is chaotic and unruly and prone to make a mockery of all our best-laid plans, but I nonetheless have a deep-rooted psychological need to create simple, streamlined tidiness out of disorder within my living space. Without the opportunity to channel it like this, who knows how that control-freakishness might otherwise express itself?

This led to an amusing culture-shock moment with my girlfriend, who comes from a family where resentfully-performed chores serve as passive-aggressive pawns to be skillfully deployed for Machiavellian advantage on a psychological chessboard. In short, it took some convincing for her to accept that things here were exactly what they appeared to be, that I washed dishes, scrubbed toilets, emptied trashcans and hauled firewood because I had long ago accepted them as basic, inevitable aspects of my routine, aspects that I didn't particularly feel strongly about one way or another. As I've said before, I consider myself mostly honest, not because of any burning devotion to abstract moral principles, but because I simply don't have the patience or love of intrigue to bother weaving tangled webs of deceit. Way too much fucking trouble. Same principle applies here. I'm a simple fellow, baby, I said. I see something that needs doing, and I do it. It'll just gnaw at me if I try to ignore it. Besides, I did all this for years when I lived by myself, I'm in the habit of it, why should that change now? But why not ask or demand that the other members of the household do it? she asked. I stared at her like she was a madwoman.

Because, one, I'm a firm believer in the adage about doing things yourself if you want them done right. And two, I get far, far more satisfaction from getting something done when and how I want it done than I would from asking someone else to do it, waiting impatiently for them to get to it, which would no doubt be too late for my liking, and then being forced to restrain the urge to kibitz their efforts or brush them aside and do it my own damned self. A perfectly-divided pie chart of chore distribution doesn't mean shit to me. I laugh at your weak, puny notions of dialogue and parity. I am the motherfucking tyrant of my domicile, the love-child of Alexander the Great and Mr. Clean, and the linoleum will run with the blood of any who dare oppose or hinder me (not for long, though, because that stuff's hard to get up once it's dried).

Gender heroism? What a laugh. Could that previous paragraph sound any more patriarchal?