31.8.02

VVV

How we figured out why people walk up staircases but not up escalators. And yet somehow last summer, we [an upper-echelon economics department] managed to spend a week in a state of collective befuddlement, obsessing over a seemingly impenetrable conundrum that came up over lunch: If people stand still on escalators, then why don't they stand still on stairs? Taking a step has a certain cost, in terms of energy expended. That cost is the same whether you're on the stairs or on the escalator. And taking a step has a certain benefit—it gets you one foot closer to where you're going. That benefit is the same whether you're on the stairs or on the escalator. If the costs are the same in each place and the benefits are the same in each place, then the decision to step or not to step should be the same in each place. So what's the moral of the story? To me, the moral is that we should take seriously what we tell our students: Marginal analysis really works. If it seems not to be working, the right question is not, "Why doesn't the marginal analysis work?" Instead, the right question is, "How am I failing to understand the marginal analysis?" or, more succinctly, "In what way am I being stupid?" (link via Scott)

Apparently marginal analysis is an economist's scripture.
posted by Stentor Danielson at 13:49 -- link --

VVV

Kyrgyzstan: Government Stages Public Rallies Kyrgyzstan has been swept by a tide of government-sponsored rallies in support of beleaguered President Askar Akaev. One such rally was attended by between 8,000 and 15,000 people in Bishkek on August 22. The event was initiated by the local administration, which has the power to grant or deny permission for mass protests in the city centre. However, the country's increasingly vocal opposition has dismissed the events, claiming the majority of people who attended were government officials, public sector employees and pensioners. "The rally was engineered by the government and there were many plainclothes police among the participants," claimed the independent newspaper Moya Stolitsa-Novosti. The protesters also called for the term of Akaev's presidency to be extended from five years to seven. These events were organised immediately after a group of opposition leaders reiterated their intention to press for Akaev's resignation.

The last two sentences are what concern me. Beyond the disagreement among the Kyrgyz people about whether Akaev has done a good job as president loom the larger issue of the rule of law. The rule of law is a concept of governance that recognizes that nobody will have a purely disinterested and objective position on any particular issue. Perspectives are always limited, and that is going to affect governance done on a case-by-case basis. Under the rule of law, general principles -- in this case, elections at specified and non-negotiable intervals -- establish a process through which all cases are filtered. Though the rule of law can be taken too far, becoming rigidly bureaucratic and unable to take contextual factors into account, some degree of rule of law is necessary to set limits on power and establish a reliable social structure. The assumption that a policy is beneficial (such as the continued leadership of Akaev) can't be allowed to let it be implemented without going through the proper channels. And where a robust culture of the respect for the rule of law has not developed, adherence to the principle in practice becomes even more important. So calling for Akaev's resignation is more dangerous to Kyrgyzstan than calling for Bill Clinton's resignation was to the US, despite the greater severity of Akaev's crimes. The rule of law in the US was robust enough that we could afford to make an exception based on a consideration of a particular case because doing so would not question an entrenched system. But the Kyrgyz rule of law is weak enough that it can't afford many exceptions.
posted by Stentor Danielson at 13:37 -- link --

29.8.02

VVV

Global Warming Is Good For You! The paper claims that the release of more carbon dioxide from fossil fuels "will help to maintain and improve the health, longevity, prosperity and productivity of all people." It concludes that "we are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of CO2 increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life as that with which we are now blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution."

This is a long but interesting article on how the science behind the global warming theory gets used and spun in the media.
posted by Stentor Danielson at 11:44 -- link --

27.8.02

VVV

112 Reasons to Lead a Barren, Childless Existence That Ends in Your Death 60. You know how when you were a kid, there were some other kids in your peer group you didn't like, who were annoying? 61. What if, as your child gets older, you start to think he's annoying?! 62. It's not like you can send her back. 63. Or give her up for adoption to some annoying family. 64. And because the kid is in many respects just an amplifier for all of your own attributes, including the less-attractive ones, then you have to ask yourself, "Am I annoying?" 65. Your friends' kids might be cooler than yours and make you jealous that you didn't end up with the kick-ass kids.

Now I'm even more convinced I don't want offspring. I think sea turtles are more highly evolved than us -- they can just lay their eggs and leave them.
posted by Stentor Danielson at 20:57 -- link --

VVV

Delaware Police Stir Controversy By Compiling Database Of Future Suspects Police in Delaware are trying to get a head-start on cracking crimes before they happen by setting up a database that contains a list of people who officers believe are likely to break the law. Defense attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union ( news - web sites) oppose the database, which lists names, addresses and photographs of the potential suspects — many of whom have clean slates. The precise grounds for putting a person on the list aren't clear. But since the system was introduced in Wilmington in June, most of the 200 people included in the file have been minorities from poor, high-crime neighborhoods. State and federal prosecutors say the tactic is legal, but defense lawyers object to the practice.

I think there's a conspiracy to bankrupt the ACLU's legal fees fund.
posted by Stentor Danielson at 00:05 -- link --

25.8.02

VVV It seems to me that there are two ways to read a text if you're trying to learn from it -- critical and scriptural.

Critical reading is what college tries to teach you. When you read critically, you approach the text with a skeptical attitude. You evaluate the ideas and arguments that are proposed, and subject them to rigorous analysis. You test out the ideas to see if they're incomplete, if the author has made assumptions that are unsubstantiated or not adequately addressed an issue. Ultimately, we decide whether or not to agree with the various propositions in the text.

Scriptural reading begins with the opposite attitude. It begins with the assumption that the text contains the truth -- maybe not on the surface, but somewhere, if you dig down far enough and look at it the right way. It may seem that scriptural reading is on the decline in our society, as science and a declining expectation of divine revelation have made us more skeptical. But all too often a shallow form of scriptural reading has taken over. Our faith in "experts" (a pragmatic necessity, given the vast increase in the amount of knowledge available, which leads anyone attempting to become a Renaissance Man to turn into Jack of all trades, master of none) and intellectual laziness (another pragmatic development, as nobody can think hard all the time) lead us to take texts at face value. But this is not high caliber scriptural reading, any more than saying "that doesn't sound right" and leaving it at that is good critical reading. Good scriptural reading requires the same level of analysis as critical reading -- indeed, perhaps even more rigorous, because concluding that something isn't right isn't an option. To say something isn't true is to leave the scriptural framework, to decide that a text cannot be treated as scripture and can only be read critically. If a text seems wrong our only option as scriptural readers is to dig deeper and wider, finding additional information or context or new perspectives that reveal truth in it.

Scriptural reading is valuable in that it serves as a catalyst to thought. We can't stop with the conclusion that something is wrong, so we have to work ourselves harder to make it true. It raises issues in a challenging way and doesn't allow us to set them aside because we don't agree. Which is not to say that scriptural reading is necessarily better or worse than critical reading (as always, the utility of a strategy depends on the context). For some people, some texts just cannot be read scripturally. Indeed, most texts, on their deepest level, will require critical reading.

There are certain characteristics that make a text suitable for scriptural reading. The best scripture is open-ended, allowing for many different readings and perspectives. For example, though people criticize the Bible for being diverse to the point of contradictoriness, it is this very diversity that allows it to serve as scripture for so many people. A closely argued book -- such as most books about Christian theology, particularly ones by modern authors who share so many unspoken cultural assumptions with us -- is restrictive. It's hard to take in a way different from what the author wanted. And so, if its surface doesn't contain the truth, it becomes hard to find anything else there, and we are forced to become critical. The exact content of the scripture is not all-important, because the text's role is one of a catalyst. It provides grist for our thought process. Ultimately, the truths we glean from the text come not so much from the text as from our mind's interaction with the text. The text is like atmospheric dust, which provides the nuclei around which raindrops form.

There is also an element of suspension of disbelief involved in reading scripturally. Scriptural reading requires the a priori assumption that the text contains the truth. So it is difficult, except as a mental exercise, to just pick up a text and decide to read it scripturally. Sometimes a text will strike us with an unexpected truth as we begin to read, which will fill us with hope that it can be read scripturally. Other times it requires an act of faith, an expectation that there is a divine or spiritual revelation contained in the text. This act of faith requires a difficult sort of near-doublethink if we are aware of the text's role as a catalyst, because it can only work as a catalyst when we assume it is a soue able to read scripturally). But it can also be liberating. It wouldn't work out too well for us if the one universally true scripture were the oral tradition of the Pitjantjatjara people. When it's the relationship to the text that's important, we can be more comfortable reading the scripture that's near us (which is not to say that any scripture works for anyone, or that searching can't turn up a much more valuable scripture). We can exchange the criterion of "is it the true scripture?" for "does it work for me to treat this as scripture?" I don't have to worry that I'm irrationally clinging to the cultural conditioning of my upbringing by always trying to harmonize my understanding of the Bible with my understanding of the world as a whole. Instead I'm taking advantage of my comfort with treating the Bible as scripture to suspend skepticism and exercise my brain in a different way.
posted by Stentor Danielson at 16:50 -- link --