Decline of the Empire

Homeless Girl

Since none of the people I'm going to mention here are ever going to see this blog, I'm just going to write this up. Names will be withheld.

About 6 or 7 weeks ago, a homeless girl in her early 30's (I'm guessing) started living in one of the garages in the back of my house, which is a 1880's mansion that was broken up into three apartments. I live on the 1st floor, and the garage she moved into was formerly mine when I had a car.

I spoke with her from time to time, gave her smokes, did her a few other small favors. Prior to living in that unventilated, toilet-less garage, she had been living on the street. She was grateful at least to have a roof over her head. Eventually, she got a bed in there.

And today, this morning, she knocked on my back door to tell me the owner of the building was evicting her from that garage because the third floor tenants, a young European doctor and his wife, complained to the owner about her. There was a threat to call the police.

Now, I can't imagine what they could have possibly complained about because there was self-evidently nothing to complain about. This young girl caused no trouble of any kind. She had visitors come by the garage, and they didn't cause any trouble either.

So I imagine that those socially aspiring people on the third floor were simply offended to be living so close to a homeless person. And then, thoughtless about the consequences for this girl, complained about her to the owner. Now she will be homeless again. There she was crying on my back porch this morning as she told me the sad details of how all this came to pass.

And we know that over time, or maybe even tomorrow, that bourgeois young couple on the third floor will forget all about the fact that they did such an evil thing. Their consciences will be clear, their memories wiped clean. In fact, I talked about that early last week in the last post I wrote. Few seemed interested in that post. Well, at least now you understand its consequences.

Now, I wish there was a God because then I could tell those motherfuckers to get down on their knees several times a day for a very long time to pray to that God for forgiveness.

Unfortunately, even as we strongly suspect there is no God, we know for a fact that there are lots and lots of heartless motherfuckers. Humans evolved, so what you see is what you get. It ain't a pretty sight.

And I am wondering what I could possibly say on this blog about some other awful human atrocity that compares to this story, because, in the end, all those atrocities boil down to the story I just told. There is no calculus of evil.

— Dave

Unethical Amnesia

Some time ago I published this updated Flatland model of how the human mind works at a broad level. Read the linked-in source for more detail.

Today I want to illustrate how the Internal Representation of the "self" works. A new study published at PNAS nicely serves that purpose. It's called Memories of unethical actions become obfuscated over time.

Don't be intimidated by the seeming complexity of the Flatland model shown above. You'll see that this stuff is not as hard as it might first appear.

Stuff I'm Reading (New Normal)

I may post on some of this stuff at some point, but today I'll provide some links with short comments. This is an open thread. 

1. Capitalists Without Borders

Should the Middle Class Fear the World’s Poor? (Marshall Steinbaum, Boston Review, May 11, 2016)

And I quote— "Capital mobility—not competition with the world’s poor—is the greatest threat to the working class in rich countries." Right. Capitalist Elites Want Cheap Labor. Now they can play off the workers of any nation (including the U.S.) against the workers of all the others.

2. "Again and again, faster and faster"

AI will create 'useless class' of human, predicts bestselling historian (The Guardian, May 20, 2016). An advance review of Yuval Noah Harari's new book. Lots of Flatland bullshit. And I quote--

AIs do not need more intelligence than humans to transform the job market. They need only enough to do the task well. And that is not far off, Harari says. “Children alive today will face the consequences. Most of what people learn in school or in college will probably be irrelevant by the time they are 40 or 50.

If they want to continue to have a job, and to understand the world, and be relevant to what is happening, people will have to reinvent themselves again and again, and faster and faster.”

Does anybody still wonder why I think Homo sapiens is an utterly failed evolutionary experiment?

3. Comforting fantasies

Dual Process: The Only Game in Town (Morris Berman lecture, May 13, 2016)

Morris speculates on what comes after neoliberalism and capitalism are no longer with us. So, what comes next? Morris doesn't know, but it may or may not look like Kunstler's "world made by hand." Morris thinks Japan is leading the way. He would think that because he recently wrote a book about Japan, and Morris thinks nothing which doesn't help book sales to his target audience, however small it is.

I myself don't think capitalism is going anywhere. It will be there right 'til the bitter end. And what about global warming, the current mass extinction and severe degradation of marine ecosystems? The human assault on the biosphere is not mentioned by Morris. That wouldn't help book sales. Apparently he is unaware of these trends, or has filtered them (which amounts to the same thing.) And he's talking about a centuries-long transition!

4. Worse than we think

The college debt crisis is even worse than you think (Boston Globe, May 18, 2016)

Of course it is! Human "bad news" filtering means that just about everything we hear about is worse than we know. Think about it.

That's enough for now.

That's Progress!

1960's

 

 

2016

Security Lines Are Interminable, But With Good Reason (NPR Weekend Saturday, May 21).

 

The Astounding World of the Future (personal favorite)

 

Human Nature And The "Bad Actors" Problem

The phrase "bad actors" is not a reference to Ashton Kutcher, Adam Sandler, etc. 

Instead, the phrase refers to those who use nominally value-neutral "technologies" (like the internet or mortgage-backed securities) to exploit others. Basically, we're talking about predators here.

Yesterday a reader linked-in a video on human nature which I watched for a while. It's very interesting. Those discussing the subject all sought to counter simplistic reductionist statements like "it's all in the genes" or "the selfish gene." We've all heard these kind of reductionist arguments. Instead, the researchers in the video cited environmental factors like upbringing and biological factors like epigenetics during development to explain the astonishing individual variation we see within the human population. One can then argue further that human nature is a mirage because of there's so much individual variation, as expressed behaviorally.

My own view is that individual variation may appear to be large, but it is clearly bounded (finite), and that variation can therefore be categorized in useful ways. As a result, there is an identifiable suite of human behaviors at the level of large populations, or at the species level. And that is where you need to look if you want to understand human nature.

There is also the statistical argument which I used in the first Flatland essay—the fact that .01% of the human population is actively trying to preserve other species merely implies that 99.99% are either killing them off, even if it is not their "intention" to do so, or doing nothing to prevent it. We are interested in the vast majority, not the tiny minority which expresses some rare individual variation. These arguments complement one another.

Which brings me to bad actors.

Chomsky On Human Nature

Long-time reader Jim mentioned Noam Chomsky in a comment last week, which got me thinking about that old fuckhead.

Chomsky's views on all the subjects he's talked about for decades—power politics, elite repression of The People, elite-controlled media, socioeconomic arrangements, and, recently, climate change—are vacuous unless he has based those views on some theory (or partial theory) of how humans work at a fundamental level (human nature).

And that's not true of Chomsky only; that's generally true. If this vaunted "intellectual" is so damn smart, why hasn't he realized this? Why hasn't he worked on the Human Nature problem as it pertains to, for example, the human response to climate change, instead of lecturing us over and over again about elite-controlled media or unreported, U.S.-supported genocides?

Aren't genocides and elite-controlled media manifestations of aspects of Human Nature? And what about the human response to climate change? If these are not manifestations of human nature, then what the fuck are we talking about? Here's my view.

For example, you can't talk about free market (albeit corrupt) capitalism versus anti-hierarchical anarcho-syndicalist blah blah blah (Chomsky's preferred arrangement) unless your views are based on how humans work, on what is possible for humans to achieve. Otherwise, you're talking out your ass. I discussed this foundational point at the very beginning of the first Flatland essay.

What I also explained in the beginning of that first Flatland essay goes as follows: in order talk out your ass, you're forced to assume a "blank slate" view of Human Nature which implicitly posits that humans are infinitely malleable (our behavior is completely determined by our social and physical environment).

The "blank slate"' in effect says that "anything goes" as far as human socioeconomic arrangements go, to pick just one example. Now, we might ask a simple question here: why is the world dominated by market-based (though inevitably corrupt) capitalist systems instead of anarcho-syndicalist blah blah blah? Is all this some kind of mistake?

Well, if you ask Chomsky, he would argue, at least implicitly, that the world-as-it-is is indeed some kind of mistake, and humans can fix it (though not easily) by inventing some kind of new sociopolitical system which would be better in some undefined way. Chomsky has dedicated his life to this viewpoint, despite clear and overwhelming evidence that humans do not have the capacity for change that he imagines.

At this point you might ask Chomsky why those malevolent elites (hierarchical kleptocracies) he goes on and on about have always existed (and still do) in all large, complex human societies. Apparently, this is a "mistake" humans have made over and over again for the last 6000 years or so, ever since large complex human societies first appeared.

I'm sure Chomsky could explain this insurmountable problem away with some kind of clever, convincing-sounding answer because the old fuckhead always has some smooth-sounding  and very seductive bullshit to offer up, regardless of the question.

Now, if you've understood this much, then you will also understand that to maintain this very convenient "blank slate" view of how humans work, you've got to either 1) deny that human nature exists; or 2) admit that human nature must exist—this is correct—but say further that we know virtually nothing about it. 

In the video below, Chomsky takes option #2. That's Flatland filtering, plain and simple. This leaves him free to talk out his ass about anything he wants to, including Peter Kropotkin on the natural roots of anarchism, an opportunity he has exploited time and time again for longer than I care to remember.

As you listen to Chomsky below, try to understand why he must believe what he believes about Human Nature (a post-hoc rationalization) as explained above. It's all Flatland bullshit. For example, at the end of the video, Chomsky tells us we can't work out a good enough theory of Human Nature because, scientifically, the problem is too hard for us solve! Nonsense.

For a very long time now, reasonable (albeit incomplete) answers about human nature have been staring us in the face, at least as far as I'm concerned. Necessarily human nature is revealed in the world humans have constructed. How could it be otherwise?

But then again, I don't have an agenda for social change I need to defend, like Chomsky does.

 

Shoot First, Ask Questions Later

The headline tells the story — North Dakota’s First Wolverine In 150 Years Is Immediately Shot And Killed By Rancher.

The first verified wolverine spotted in North Dakota in nearly 150 years was shot and killed by a rancher last month.  

The rancher said the animal had been harassing livestock when he shot it, which would make it a legal kill, according to the Helena Independent Record. 

The rancher “came out to a calving pasture and the cows had surrounded the wolverine and he felt it was a threat,” state furbearer biologist Stephanie Tucker told the newspaper. 

The wolverine, known to wildlife officials as M56, had made headlines in 2009 for traveling some 500 miles from Wyoming into Colorado...

The status of the wolverine has been under debate for a number of years. In 2014, federal officials declined to add the wolverine to the list of endangered and threatened species.  

However, a federal judge last month ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reevaluate that decision after a lawsuit from environmental groups.

Following that endangered species link, we learn that there are an estimated 300 wolverines in the lower 48. According to Google, which quotes the USDA, there are approximately 98.4 million cows in the United States.

If that wolverine had been listed, it would have been illegal for ranch hand Jared Hatter to shoot it. He would have been in hot water then! 

It is not clear that Jared knew what kind of animal he was looking at, which is not surprising considering the fact that no wolverine had been spotted in North Dakota in nearly 150 years. In any case, Hatter did nothing "wrong" 

In either case, officials say that Hatter appeared to have done nothing wrong. Although North Dakota may not have had a visit from a wolverine in well over a century, the state surprisingly still has a closed hunting season for the animal. More to the point, the state also allows ranchers to kill predators that attack or harass livestock.

Shoot first, ask questions later.

Have a nice weekend.

 

So, What Then?

Here at the outset I want to emphasize that I do not make this stuff up.

OK, this text is from Brad Plumer's report on CO2 emissions from world air travel.

Growth in air travel could swamp technology improvements. So what then?

The other question we've danced around so far is how much aviation emissions actually need to fall to avoid drastic climate change. This is a little trickier.

Remember, the most optimistic scenario that Schäfer and his co-authors looked at envisioned the carbon intensity of aviation — that is, CO2 per passenger-mile — falling 2.6 percent per year between now and 2050.

But here's the catch: If the total amount of air travel grows by more than 2.6 percent a year, then overall aviation emissions would rise.

Whoops!

Exam Question

Read the post below, re-printed from Dean Baker's blog.

It is bizarre how many people feel the need to claim that a large trade deficit in manufactured goods does not cost manufacturing jobs. You can argue all sorts of things about the merits of trade, and even make a story about how a trade deficit is good (pretty hard, when we're below full employment), but it is almost impossible to tell a story that the explosion of the trade deficit between 1997 and 2006 did not cost manufacturing jobs (** see note below).

Nonetheless that is the story the NYT gave its readers when discussing Indiana's economy just before the primaries this week. It presents the views of Michael J. Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana:

"Factory jobs have declined, he added, but not because of trade deals with other countries as Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders assert, but because Indiana factories are increasingly efficient and fewer workers are needed.

"'Manufacturing employment peaked in 1973,' he said, adding that since then the productivity of Indiana factory workers has climbed 250 percent. 'We need far fewer workers, and a very different type of worker, too.'"

In the country as whole manufacturing employment peaked in the early 1970s, but then remained more or less constant, while falling as a share of total employment since the labor force grew. However employment fell sharply in the years from 2000 to 2006. While there was productivity growth in manufacturing over the years 2000 to 2006, that was also true for the years 1973 to 2000. The difference in the years 2000 to 2006 was the sharp rise in the trade deficit.

This was also the story in manufacturing employment in Indiana, as can be seen in the graph below [source: BLS].

Manufacturing Employment in Indiana

As can be seen, manufacturing employment had been rising through the 1990s recovery. It peaked in December of 1999 at 672,200 and then fell to 556,700 by December of 2006, a drop of almost 20 percent. Employment fell further during the 2008-2009 recession, although it has recovered the ground lost.

[My note: Manufacturing employment in Indiana has not recovered all the ground lost in 2008-09, as the graph plainly shows.]

Anyhow, the data certainly seems to support the case that Indiana lost a large number of jobs due to trade in the years 1999-2006, it's not clear why the NYT would want to deny this fact.

[** You may find this economist-speak peculiar and it is. A large trade deficit does not cause anything; it is merely a symptom of the consumption/production imbalance caused by the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs.]

You will recall that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump won their primaries in Indiana, despite the best efforts of the New York Times to convince those poor, benighted Hoosiers that trade deals and globalization have hardly affected them.

Based on your understanding of the Flatland model as laid out in many essays and posts on this website, explain to Dean Baker in an essay of 500 words or less why the New York Times would deny the fact that "Indiana lost a large number of jobs due to trade in the years 1999-2006."

Hint: judicious but forceful use of the phrase "elite interests" will get you bonus points.

Also, listen to retired political scientist Walter Dean Burnham talk about our "bifurcated society" and elite "malfeasance and nonfeasance" on the latest On The Media podcast.

Black Irony

An open thread for you, if you've got something to say.

Fort McMurray, Alberta, home of the tar sands, is threatened by wildfire. The town has been evacuated.

Black Irony (photo below).

Here's Elizabeth Kolbert on the deep causes of the fire (persistent drought, unseasonable warmth). No mystery there.

And read a biased (Flatland) account of Hillary's money laundering operation here.

Have a nice weekend.