Ethical Arithmetic, and a Matter of Opinion

Lots of things to come back to, but first, an exercise in categorization. (Note: I imagine something like this has been done before, potentially by utilitarians, but it's been a while since I've read any.)

First, I propose that there is a quantitative and highly descriptive measure of one's ethics: The ratio S of the amount of suffering one will undergo to prevent similar suffering in others. The most fundamental example is the case of giving one's life to save that of another. Under egalitarian assumptions about the value of life, this is a ratio of exactly 1:1.

Some caveats: real-world ethical behavior is almost invariably more complicated than this. Firstly, there is the problem of quantitative measurements of suffering. There are as many valuations of suffering as there are people, but still, this is only a difficulty of measurement. For now, the individual is asked to rely on their own judgment of the relative merits of, say, long-term malnourishment vs. a swift kick to the testicles.

Secondly, there is the blanket term "others". In practice, people value the suffering of others at very different rates, depending on their relation to them. Alternatively, other humans represent a continuum of self-ness and other-ness. The exemplary case is the common willingness of parents to sacrifice for the well-being of their children. Note that under the alternate terminology, this suggests that these parents identify more with their children than with themselves. Conversely, someone may be generally considerate, but have a particular animosity for some foe, and delight in that person's every setback. For the purposes of this exercise, I will base the quantity S on perfect strangers.

Thirdly, there is the problem of agency. Most people, I would estimate, are more likely to allow suffering to occur than to actively create it. Most likely, this can be accounted for by the time, effort, and anxiety incurred by performing such an action, or by veering from one's ordinary course. In that case, this becomes a sub-problem of valuation.

Also related to valuation is the problem of the perception of suffering in others. People cannot take action to prevent suffering they are not aware of. Perceiving suffering requires the trait of empathy, and the ability to witness or imagine the suffering of others. In the interconnected modern world, most moral failures are failures of imagination.

Returning to the initial notion of S: S is the ratio of S_s, the amount of suffering undergone by the individual, to S_o, the amount of suffering prevented in the generic other. On a tentative basis, let's equate the creation of joy/pleasure with the prevention of suffering (though this is, I suspect, much more subjective than pain and suffering). Anyway, on to categorization:

S < 0: This is Sadism. Such a person goes out of their way to cause pain to others. They might, for example, work several days tarring roofs, in order to save up money for a pair of steel-toed boots, in order to more satisfyingly deliver a swift kick to your testicles. The problems of agency and empathy come up here in reverse -- such a person is more likely to enjoy their own actions than to be pleased, in the abstract, by starvation in distant countries. Also note that values of S less than -1 represent the radical case of someone who might, for example, break their own arm in order to make you late for the theater.

S = 0: At precisely 0, the person is said to be a Sociopath or Solipsist. For the solipsist, this might more fairly be called the case where S is undefined, since the true solipsist does not allow for an "other" to measure against. By my own reckoning, I consider the sociopath more dangerous than the sadist; if not recognized and prevented, a sociopath will take the most efficient route they can to their goals, whatever those may be, and potentially cause great harm along the way. It is expected that positions of prestige and power will be disproportionately occupied by talented sociopaths unless considerable safeguards are in place. Whether democratic elections, in various forms, effectively provide such safeguards is a matter of heated debate.

0 < S < 1: This represents, I presume, the spectrum of normal human behavior. let's call this Civility: people compromise, do small favors when asked, give charity to the less fortunate (since money is more useful for those who have less), and generally make some effort to avoid harming others. There is, of course, a wide variety here, from those who would risk near-certain death to save the life of another (e.g., a 95% chance of their own death against certainly preventing another's, which yields .95), to those who could hardly be bothered to get off the couch if someone were being crushed under it.

S = 1: This I will call Utilitarianism,"the greatest good for the greatest number." Obviously, a great many previous thinkers have also called this utilitarianism. In its purest form, this case is the most literally selfless, as it makes no distinction between the self and the other. In the ideal case of perfect perception, a society composed of utilitarians will be the happiest, as every action will maximally decrease the net suffering in the world.

S > 1: But wait, there's more! Here we enter the somewhat mystical territory of Altruism. While not selfless in the same way as utilitarianism, and in some sense sub-optimal, I find it hard to call this ethically inferior to the previous case. In a way, it mirrors the case of the sadist, in so far as there are obvious nonsensical scenarios. Few people would, for example, give Warren Buffet $100 as an expression of altruism -- the money could do more good elsewhere, and altruism need not be wholly irrational. What is far more intuitive, though, is a parent (as mentioned above) risking death for even a slim chance of saving their child (for a 75% chance of die-trying against a 25% chance of success, S is 3, and strictly non-utilitarian). Parents, as I said, are a special case, but the calculations are the same for total strangers, even if the attitude is rarer.

Note: This kind of calculation is not actually how people think, of course, especially in emergencies. People are notoriously bad at estimating probability, especially under duress. Rather, it represents how they might think of the situation when given time to reflect. In a crisis, parents are compelled to act by their emotional bond with their child. An equivalent altruist would need to feel the same bond with all humanity.

As long as one does not get to the point of self-destructive behavior, I'm inclined to say that utilitarianism versus altruism is a matter of personal choice, and neither can be said to be wholly superior. Given perfect information, utilitarianism is optimal, but no such thing exists. In practice, it may be perfectly useful to act as though there is more suffering than one can observe at any given time. Furthermore, given that society is not composed solely of utilitarians or altruists, there are almost always numerous opportunities for efficient (S < 1) prevention of suffering, and the difference will only come up in exceptional cases. Still, altruists with very high values of S must take care to avoid debilitating guilt over trivial matters.

Anyway, if you are still reading, congratulations. I feel as though I've only scratched the surface here, but a truly thorough treatment would probably require writing a book. On that note, acknowledgement goes to Rob, who got me thinking about the altruist/utilitarian divide during an unrelated religious hypothetical.

Me: So if we assume Heaven and Hell, then the most moral act is to give up your own salvation for that of another, but --
Rob: You mean, for two others...
*Tangential debate ensues*

On Free Will

Quantum mechanics dictates that all things are possible -- literally, all arrangements of matter have non-zero probability. At any moment, I may become an eggplant. Whether I have willed myself to become an eggplant -- ah, here it becomes a question of mythology.

"I feel they praisin too much, oh now they don't praise enough."

I suggest you buy this because it's a sonic experience.

Also, if you don't already have the following bonus track, be sure to toss it in the mix. It's a real stun gun.

Wale - Fly Away

The Best Rappers Alive, Part 2

So, I was going to wait until the end of the year to update this list, but now seems as good a time as any. I'll do some sort of best of '09 for year's end.

1. Wale

The promise shown in Nike Boots has been fully realized. Wale's mixtapes, including the most recent Back to the Feature, has shown just how intellectual this guy can get, and everything he's leaked off Attention: Deficit has been fantastic. It's only a couple weeks away, folks. Witness the future.

2. Lil Wayne

Mr. Carter is headed to the bing for the better part of a year now. I wish him all the best, and would council him by pointing out the wonders this could do for his craft. That mind forced to sit behind a wall for a year might yield something truly great. It's no coincidence that he seems to be rapping better than ever at the moment. The No Ceiling mixtape proves that he hasn't lost anything. It would be another Da Drought 3 if not for all the Young Money features. Wayne has the best jokes.

3. Obie Trice

One doesn't hear from Obie too often, but when he decides to drop something, it's decidedly amazing. Still, unless he releases his long awaited album soon, and maybe a mixtape every once and a while, Obie is in danger of drifting into obscurity. Maybe that's what he wants, but I would hate to see a talent like this take himself out of the competition.

4. Mikkey Halsted

Mikkey has definitely put in hours since the last time this list was published. He's prolific with the leaked tracks, getting a more diverse range of production, and has been spreading his namesake by collaborating with just about every Chicago Hip-Hop artist you can imagine. His Uncrowned City label is really becoming a force in the city. The Photo Album remains unreleased, as anticipation builds.

5. Freddie Gibbs

Whoa. I thought this guy was solid before, and then he went and dropped midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmusic. Might be the drop of the year. The production.. The lyrics.. I posted his previous drop earlier this year, and he's got another tape coming in November. Mainstream criticism loves this dude.

Special mention goes to Young Buck, who still has one of the best ears for production and has huge potential on his next album drop. Also, Lupe seems to be coming out of hiding more, and there's always the question of what that Drake album is going to prove. Stay Tuned.

Two-Fisted Whimsy

I suppose I'm on Twitter now, and I can't entirely justify it. Originally, I signed up and then didn't write a thing for months. then I had to use it to test some code for work, and I appear to be using it to comment on random things I observe in New York. So, yeah: my twoots. I will try not to let it become the traditional tedious stereotype. In fact, I'll try not to twut anything unless Oscar Wilde would be proud to have also twytted it first. That twink.

He had the time of his life

Yeah Dirty Dancing was great. Ghost was nice. But I always felt he was most appropriately cast as the motivational speaker/kiddie porn kingpin from Donnie Darko. R.I.P.

Libertarian Socialists Unite!

In my ideal America, the two most prominent parties are the Libertarians and the Socialists. I suspect this would solve a lot of our current problems with public discourse, especially since recent iterations of Republicanism strike me as libertarianism -- but without the ideas (in a similar vein I'd suggest that objectivism is a lot like libertarianism, but without the compassion).

Without going too far into that, I do think there is more concordance between libertarians and socialists than you would initially suspect. In practice, they tend to agree on social freedoms and disagree on economic policy. Fair enough, but why? Well, in practice again, there are assumptions made on both sides about economic results. Presumably much of this could be eliminated, but macroeconomics a science of very few trials and no control groups -- but who said it had to be easy? It seems, though, that there should be some core difference that prompts all this guesswork. I've been turning this over, and I put forward that both libertarianism and socialism can be extended from one root ethical proposition:

• Libertarianism: A government is an object, the purpose of which is to guarantee certain rights to its citizens.
• Socialism: A government is an object, the purpose of which is to promote the general welfare of its citizens.

You see? Now, very different things can arise from here depending on what rights you guarantee and how you define such a nebulous thing as "general welfare," but firstly we'll consider the point of agreement:

A government is an object.

It's easy to push right past this, but it's quite crucial when you stop to consider what else a government might be. In an authoritarian mindset, government is an absolute, and citizens are subordinate. Ethically the government becomes an end in itself, regardless of its actions. Alternately, one might simply state that government is a collection of people, which is almost always true in some sense, but as a starting principle drives towards an adversarial relationship -- especially when that collection of people begins the collection of taxes. Government as an object, however, is necessarily subordinate to its citizens (presuming we here agree to value people more greatly than objects, yes?). Any powers granted to such a government must be inherently necessary for its purpose. Any other powers are not legitimate powers of government -- any more than a bow-tie is part of a lawn mower.

Next Up: What if Peewee Herman mows your lawn? Also, I work on backing up some assertions.

Hitler Bingo, Books & Booze

The ad bar is full of hip-hop links again, so I'd better post something. Though I'm glad Alex has kept things from going dead in my absence. Still, probably best not to ogle Teddy K down there for too long.

Firstly, I am chagrined to note that the argument "Hitler: not such a bad guy, really" has been taken up by noted nationalist Pat Buchanan. See Matt Yglesias for one of many possible refutations. But also consider this statement:

Because Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.

Here there is a vague and bewildering implication that the Holocaust could somehow have been avoided by leaving Hitler in power. There are no doubt hypothetical scenarios that might achieve this, but to blame Britain and France strikes me as bizarre. If war had been avoided (somehow), Hitler might have had less territory in which to build concentration camps, but it seems doubtful he would have been less genocidal in general.

Secondly, I was in DC this weekend, which was a good time but also provoked a serendipitous discovery: used books! Shortly before seeing Zach in a somewhat abridged Othello, I discovered the following at the preposterous price of 50 cents each:

• Ulysses - James Joyce
• A Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain
• The New American Bartender's Guide - John J. Poister
• The Year's Best Science Fiction (1992) - Edited by Gardner Dozois

The first three should require little explanation, but the fourth has also been quite a boon so far. I must admit historical minutia sometimes intrigue me, so I was pleased to find the foreword as a comprehensive "State of the Union" overview of where the sci-fi industry was at the time (including prescient predictions as to the lousiness of the then-new SciFi Channel). I'm only a little way in, but so far "Dust" by Greg Egan is the standout -- a fascinating meditation on artificial consciousness and the perception of patterns. Of course, if sex-crazed Moon colonists and weird neurotoxins are more your style, "Griffin's Egg" by Michael Swanwick is also well-worth reading.

The whole book will be very helpful, I think. Science fiction is my native genre, but it's far too easy to stick to a few well-known names (Asimov, Vonnegut, Gibson, Stephenson, etc.) in an effort to avoid the dreck out there. This is the case with nearly everything, of course -- it's easy to stick with what you know. Probably it should have occurred to me sooner to find an anthology or two, but hey, it's easy to forget about short fiction.

Speaking of things I didn't know, turns out there's a drink called the "Doctor Funk":
Doctor Funk

• ½ lime
• ½ lemon juice
• 1 tsp. sugar syrup
• dash grenadine
• 2-3 oz. dark Jamaica, Haitian, or Martinique rum
• Club soda
• ½ tsp. Pernod or Herbsaint bitters

Clearly this needs to be made soon. I may have to share some of the other 2,199 recipes in this thing as well.

T-Money

Mufasa!

Alle Zusammen!

In the spirit of the forklift safety video, Germany continues to provide the best in public service announcement humor. Here are 10 drugs you shouldn't be on while driving. Ins Deutsch!

All Black Everything

So, The Smoking Section put up some Jay-Z - Kanye verse analysis today. Comparing the two is really a silly exercise as they're nothing alike. But since the issue came up, I'll say that Kanye's awkward delivery moments will forever prevent his verses from reaching the transcendent nature of some of Jay's best. But I think Kanye's nice. I think he's actually getting better and better.

In fact, his much-talked about verse on Jay-Z's new single "Run This Town" may be one of his best ever. And the general consensus seems to be that Kanye murdered his Big Brother on the track.

Now don't get me wrong, Ye killed it. It was a dope verse and it builds as it goes. But I would still say that Jay's first verse on the track is the best one. Here you hear his voice and delivery become one with the music. (Which is masterfully provided by Yeezy and No I.D., a mentor-student partnership that I predict will allow 9/11's Blueprint 3 to finally live up to the original.)

Really, this song as a whole is probably the best thing out right now.

Biden Time

I'm increasingly confused by criticism of Joe Biden, which seems to be primarily of the form "I agree, but..." The latest bombshell from Shoeless Joe? Russia has problems. Well, okay.

While tact and diplomacy have their place, I find it hard to dislike a guy whose chief vice is being too honest. Would that we had more such men in government.

Koolaide, Kush, And What Else?..

..Old School Convertibles. Summer trunk music. If you own a car, it should play this whenever it is on.

Download Mixtape | Provided by DatPiff.com

What A Game

Mark Buehrle is having the best career ever.

Hitler: Overrated?

So, enough theory. Hitler: Overrated or Underrated? ...
Anyway, I've been trying out this weird little argument lately. It goes like this: aren't we lucky that Hitler was such a terrible artist?

I don't mean, "what if Hitler were accepted into the Vienna academy?" It's likely we would be better off if Hitler, lousy artist or not, had been able to pursue painting. But what if, after being rejected, after becoming Fuhrer, we looked back at his paintings and were forced to recognize genius? This is a "Hitler as van Gogh" hypothesis. Many artists aren't really appreciated until after their death, after all.

Of course, the first time I suggested this, someone asked me how I knew he was such a bad artist... and I had no idea. I was simply going on assumption. Fortunately I was able to find the pages here and here. The gist of it is that Hitler, while having some talent, was basically a hack. He supported himself by painting postcards (by necessity, these are fairly derivative), and while his architectural features are rendered in loving detail, living figures tend to be disproportionate and haphazard.

Third, notice the perspectives. Architectural perspectives are rendered with extreme precision, with almost loving attention to detail; however, people and animals are out of proportion, poorly articulated, and vastly out of scale with the backgrounds. Figures are rendered with wanton disregard for anatomy or accurate animation. This is the primary reason he was rejected by the Vienna School of Fine Arts: "Test drawing unsatisfactory."

So we can reassure ourselves that Hitler was nothing terribly interesting on the art front. What if he had been? I'm not sure how we would handle it. Hitler, in contemporary language, occupies a unique role: he is a historical individual with no redeeming qualities, the nadir of moral expression. And he occurred after the bulk of our moral and historical framework was in place -- Nero and Attila the Hun are less singularly alarming for that reason. What would we do without him? Probably substitute Stalin -- Stalin doesn't have a lot going for him, though he was smarter than Hitler. World War II would have gone quite differently, save for a number of monumentally poor strategic decisions by Hitler.

But switching to Stalin only reframes the question. We seem to need someone to think of as unequivocally bad. In contemporary debate, it's often easy to tar all Democrats or all Republicans, or Obama or Bush* with this brush. Mature positions, in my experience, have fewer and fewer individuals painted as pure black (but plenty of dark gray, certainly), but we can all, seemingly, agree on Hitler. So, in an extremely limited way, we're lucky that there's no particular reason to say "That Hitler guy? not as bad as he seems."

And yet, too many people are out there defending Hitler on wholly irrational grounds. Not many, thankfully, but still too many.

*Seemingly inept and authoritarian, but still no Hitler.

The Over/Under on Underrated Oeuvres

While I am, as you may have noticed, a big fan of context, I also think that "overrated" and "underrated" are two of the less interesting concepts in criticism. Joe Posnanski adeptly demonstrates the problems with "underrated" as a long-term reputation.

Underrated is a Zen place to be. What I mean by that is you can only be underrated for as long as people do not notice that you are underrated. Once someone starts calling you underrated, you begin to lose your footing. When enough people start calling you underrated, you stop being underrated. And when you become known as the “most underrated anything,” well, the jig is up.

Overrated has slightly different problems. When you say something is overrated, there is a risk that what you are actually saying is that you object to other people enjoying it. It actually directs your point away from whatever it is you object to, and makes it an attack on the fans. Here's the thing: fans are easy targets. You can find idiots in favor of nearly anything; it's very easy, in any sort of public debate, for both sides to trot out opposing idiots as straw men.

The nice thing about this as a logical fallacy is that the designated idiot has no doubt committed all manner of extravagant crimes against logic in the first place, making yours look not so bad. Of course, what happens in the end is that both sides feel free to ignore each other, and you get a nice display of pomp and fury without the risk of any real communication occurring.

An example: Rush Limbaugh is not really worth paying attention to. Some would say he's a big fat idiot. That is perhaps not productive discourse, but I feel relatively comfortable saying that Limbaugh is not acting in good faith. But, for some reason, Limbaugh has been big news lately. He seems to have a certain amount of clout in the GOP, but it's hard to say for sure -- maybe he's just easier to spot nowadays due to the lack obvious leadership in the GOP. But anointing him leader of the GOP is actually an advantage for the Democrats, because it makes the Republicans look crazy. And the gist of the argument becomes, "Rush Limbaugh is overrated." While this is politically useful, it has the downside of focusing even more attention on Limbaugh. So he becomes a bigger deal, gets more coverage, and increasing the perception that he's overrated.

Along the same lines is the practice of reading about celebrities in order to feel outraged at how much coverage they receive. Some people are "famous for being famous," but even originally noteworthy people are sometimes swallowed up by their own fame. Arguably, I am contributing to the problem even now.

But back to my main point: while the mechanisms of these cultural feedback loops are interesting, the contents themselves rarely are. When you claim something is overrated, you're giving a large, nebulous group of people control of the context. While in some cases the overrating has its own significance -- Limbaugh being overrated translates into real political power, for example -- it's still peripheral to the core argument. Eventually, you have to get down the business of explaining why he's wrong (I am assuming, for the purpose of argument, that you can find something to disagree with Rush Limbaugh about).

EDIT: And after that, you have to get down to the real business of explaining why you're right.

Twissa Twis

Twista can be real nice. His latest Category F5 album is one of those times when he is. The music is good, and I'm interested to see the kind of numbers this release will do. It was independent and I thought the marketing was done well. Twista got real tight with the most popular Chicago hip-hop blog and reaped the benefits with tons of relevant exposure. Furthermore, I think they designed the album to encourage single-track download sales, accomplishing this through a number of diverse and well-executed high-profile features. Fan of Kellz? Then you gotta have that "Yellow Light" track. Kanye nut? Then that"Alright" joint is a must. Gucci and OJ devotee? "Walking On Ice" bangs. Oh yeah, and there's that sweet Akon cut. Twista basically just packed an album together with songs he thought would be hits. Nice work.

If you got the official release, make sure to download this stunner with fellow fast-spitter Tech N9ne that leaked last week. It didn't make the album due to sample-clearance issues. The sample is a Jesus Christ Superstar song. The song is fantastic.

Twista - Problems (Feat. Tech N9ne)

A Case of Mistaken Identity

The really fortunate thing, when one is playing Devil's Advocate, is that one is not tasked with proving Satan's innocence. Such as thing is by definition impossible. One need merely prove he is not Satan.

See also: A Tale of Two Santas

Whitey: Santa Claus, you stand accused of crimes against humanity. How do you plead?
Bender: Not Santa!
[Farnsworth stands up and points at Bender.]
Farnsworth: There he is again!
[He shoots Bender in the back.]

Conspicuous Signals

While the Daily Dish is often fascinating, this post troubles me. There are a number of assumptions with troubling consequences. It is itself a response to Matt Yglesias, who regrets that reading a book on the Kindle does not have the same signaling capacity as reading it on paper. Conor Clarke objects to his concern on the basis that it is a desire for "conspicuous consumption." He refutes conspicuous consumption in this fashion:

First, the supply of status in a given society is fixed. If I go from being the 198,745,647th most popular person in the United States to the 198,745,644th most popular person, I must displace some others on the way up. In the game of status, not everyone can be a winner. Second, conspicuous consumption leads to an arms-race mentality that produces wasteful consumption. Every dollar or minute I spend pruning my outfit or adjusting my bookshelf is a dollar or minute that I will not be spending on something intrinsically enjoyable, like writing a blog post.

Firstly, the notion of "status" as a single, linear scale is demonstrably nonsense. Consider the case where the book is Das Kapital, and then consider Atlas Shrugged. Each book will signal something different to different observers, not a flat "+15 status points." The idea of a unified status scale only works if you conflate "status" with "wealth" -- which, to be sure, often occurs in normal cases of conspicuous consumption (indeed, since the Kindle is an expensive luxury, it fits the traditional definition better than any single book). There is a difference between signals which are intended to convey superiority and those which are intended to convey certain values or interests (they may be intertwined, however).

Actually, the question of intent to signal is rather interesting. Yglesias could, if he wished, still purchase the physical copy of the book. Why doesn't he? The Kindle copy is cheaper and more convenient, functionally superior. If he bought the physical book, that would be a wasteful display -- conspicuous consumption.

Secondly and relatedly, Clarke assumes that all outward signs ("outfit...bookshelf") are there only to serve as signs. He seems to discount the possibility that one has read (or even intends to read) the books on one's bookshelf. Now, if the books are there to serve as status symbols, then they are false signals, a representation with no reality -- a lie, if you will. I think we can all agree, without further ado, that we disapprove of liars and especially posers. But why? Well, for one, they are polluting a formerly useful channel of communication.

While everything about us is, to some degree, a signal, books are especially useful in that regard. Signals are often symbols -- they stand for something else, a community, an idea. Your mohawk, my leather jacket, a briefcase -- they suggest things. A book, simply enough, stands for the text between its pages, and all its attendant notions. A well-understood book is very concise in this way. Not to mention, for the book to be at it's most effective, you should be reading it. It requires action and continued effort to display, and this is fundamentally honest. To carry around a book with no intention of reading it -- how sad!

So, a representation with no reality is a lie. Then what is a reality with no representation? Isn't this also dishonest? If I wrap a romance novel in brown paper because I am ashamed of it, there is something amiss. In that case, though, the concealment is a deliberate action on my part. For Yglesias, it is simply the nature of the Kindle that causes the appearance to be separated from the contents. Obviously, the Kindle has many advantages, and I wouldn't judge him for using it, but it does lack a certain intrinsic honesty found in books.

As I mentioned, the problem with signals is that they can be faked. This is the disadvantage of brevity. Some things are easier to fake, however. It is easier to carry one book falsely than to arrange a whole fake bookshelf, and harder still to make sure all those book are well-worn and tastefully annotated (note: but not impossible). The lesson here, however, is not to say "all representations are false", throw up your hands and give up on communicating with other humans. It simply requires that you not take any one signal in isolation. CONTEXT MATTERS.

Now, this does produce something of an argument in favor of "conspicuous consumption," from the observer's point of view. If someone is willing to spend money on something, they must care about it to some degree -- or they care about appearing to care. Sometimes this is good enough. This is how I interpret the custom of wearing a suit to an interview: it doesn't really prove that you're "professional"; it proves that you realize they expect you to look "professional," which is a good first step.

As a final point, Clarke mentions that one can now use Facebook and Twitter to substitute for the "book cover effect" by creating virtual bookshelves and such. These are great (I use one) and have the advantage that you can keep note of books you've borrowed from the library and read (conspicuous non-consumption?). On they other hand, if you're concerned about false signals, they're much easier to fake because, after all, they're free. I concede, however, that free-ness removes the issue of wasteful spending. More importantly though, these programs aren't really a replacement, since they operate on the Internet. Much as I love the Internet, it still pales in comparison to the physical world as a medium for socialization.

In essence, I object to Conor Clarke on the grounds that not all visible activity is conspicuous consumption.

EDIT: The whole blogpile begins with this piece in Vanity Fair, which is interesting but pushes the status/conspicuous consumption angle much more heavily. Clarke is justified in using the term on those grounds, but it was not clear to me from his piece (see, folks? context). Derek Thompson's response to the VF piece is also worth looking at. Everything I argued above still holds, but I may have misrepresented Conor Clarke on the way. Hopefully I can tackle this whole "culture snobbery" thing from another angle soon.

Variation on a Theme

A possible refinement of "power corrupts...":

Power that is felt to be undeserved engenders feelings of paranoia in the powerful. This paranoia naturally leads to abuse of power, which heightens the sense of guilt/inadequacy, leading to further paranoia, etc.

Only holds true for certain personality types, of course. The possibility of a neurotic, guilt-racked dictator is somewhat intriguing, though. Paranoia and the abuse of power go hand in hand, as in Stalin, Ahmadinejad, Joe McCarthy, and Bush/Cheney (obviously these represent varying levels of abuse).

EDIT: Inspiration for this actually comes from this here Joe Posnanski article on LeBron James/Nike.

Subjectivity

I am always wracked by sentimentality, in large part because I demand to live in a context rich with emotional meaning. I invest everything around me with a narrative, or a place in a larger narrative, until everything is more or less humming with crucial purpose. You may be wondering, what does this have to do with Red Faction?

This piece on Penny Arcade touches on a number of things I've been going on about lately (or will be going on about shortly), mainly a certain kind of subjectivity in art. Video games are especially apt in this way, since the actions of the player change the content of the game in a much more recognizable way than, for example, how one approaches a painting.

Also, Tycho is an excellent writer, so touches on these things much more gracefully than I would. This, as my brother once said to me, is the problem of being a philosopher rather than a poet -- that a poet can say things more elegantly, more quickly than a philosopher can. On the other hand, as a philosopher one can explain things at greater depth. I have, I think, more ability with poetry, but in any case I find it difficult to be both at once.

Also, I will say Casey has more grace with philosophy than I do, and his blog is well worth reading.

R.I.P.

"Love never die, but it can kill you." - Dwayne Carter

And he can't do this and he don't do that.

I respect this man. Not so much as a rapper. But definitely behind the boards. Also, he's always seemed a bit unhinged and I hear he's into guns. Plus, look how nice those Jordans are.

This song here is just about one year old. It got some rotation in the fall, mostly at parties with lots of drunk girls. It came so quickly on the heels of Lollipop and had no better lyrics that I largely dismissed the track. But coming back to it now, I have found appreciation. Namely, that's a damn good sample of a song right there. You have taken the basic elements of Lollipop and reworked them into an entirely different sound. Also, I have no idea what kind of bass he's using here, but that shit knocks down walls. daviddaviddaviddaviddaviddavidbanner.

You can watch the video on YouTube, but I can't seem to embed it in this country. I can, however, give you the instrumental, just in case you need to get some sick flow off your chest this morning.

R.I.P.

Shocking, to be sure.

At the risk of sounding terrible, I'm going to go on record as saying that it's a good thing he passed. Let's face it, the man's life was pretty much locked in downward spiral mode. Now we can remember him as he was, instead of as decrepit.

I Need You

Ok. I'm just going to come out and say it again for everyone who didn't hear me last time. Obie Trice is the best rapper alive. To me, he takes all the best aspects of Biggie, Jay, and Wayne and adds something great of his own on top of that. Excellent use of alliteration, wordplay, and clustered rhymes make his verses some of the most interesting in the game. Plus, he's as real as they come and currently has a bullet in his brain. You want to tell him he's not the best?

He's looking for recognition in this latest drop. Talking about the complexities of taking his label private, Obie calls on his fans and internet supporters to spread the word about his greatness. Just doing my part.

Obie Trice - I Need You (Freestyle)

Victory Consistently

Wayne's rock music is an odd thing. It doesn't really appeal to me. Some songs are kind of catchy, but I it isn't a genre I would find myself listening to very often. That said, I can see huge potential for this sound on teenybopping little white kids. This is important for two reasons: 1) these are pretty much the only people who control whether CDs go multi-platinum anymore because their parents buy them as presents. 2) wayne's rock would be a "pop" music with more musical drive and talent behind it than your Jonas Bros or Miley Cyrus holla at mes.

But I really came here today to share this track with you:

Lil Wayne - No Quitter, Go Getter

It is not a rock song.

The fact that Wayne is still capable of dropping flows like these makes the world a better place. Now, I am not the type of person who transcribes lyrics, but after listening to this song a few times, I just had to see the words in front of me. Verse one is here for the sake of brevity, but the whole track operates at this level.

i’m goin for the goal.

my heart is in control.

my mind is on succeed.

and i am in the lead.

don’t buy into the schemes,

the science or stratege.

just giant n.u.t.’s

bring triumph and belief.

i’m reliant, or redeem,

never tired or fatigued,

never defiant to my team,

never lyin on da thing,

until i’m lyin on da thing

hooked to wires and things.

imma die as a king.

if i don’t do it now,

i’m gonna try it again,

and when i do accomplish it,

i’m gonna try it again.

i’m a riot—insane.

i’m a lion, my mane

hangs

down to my strings,

and they’re tied to the game.

i stay dry when it rains.

i’m tired of the fame.

got everything to gain,

and i’m proud of the pain,

the bride in the plain,

the wise and the strange.

denied by the same.

besides, we’re the same.

who’s guiding the train?

who’s flying the plane?

who’s driving the lane?

who dies when it bang?

who fires when it bang?

who lies in the aim?

two lives in the drain.

who cries when he sang?

you hide, but you can’t.

you high, but you ain’t.

i advise you to think.

you’ll find what you can’t.

revive what you taint.

survive what you bring.

supersize what you shrank,

the fries and the drank.

admired as a saint,

defined by my rank,

combined with my strength,

my time and my length.

imma iron out the kinks.

yes i’m on a rink,

and in the eye of a wink,

imma retire in a bank.

The song is also dedicated to Michael Phelps, which is great stuff, because I approve wholeheartedly of all of Phelps' post-Olympic recreational activities. Did you know he's writing a children's book?

It's A Fiasco

So Lupe seems to finally be doing what I always hoped he would--switch up his delivery a little. I always believed that the West Side native had the imagery and lyrical talent to do big things, and his overall musical sound and beat selection were on point. It was just that he kinda sounded the same on most of his songs. He sounded too much like he was reading. Yeah, he's fast, but it wasn't really an interesting fast--more of a drone. This 1st drop from his next full-length, though, this is the business. Plus he's dressing like a full-blown hipster now, which is an infinitely better look than his previous coach potato vibe.

Lupe Fiasco - Shining Down (Feat. Matthew Santos) - (No more link, folks. Lupe wants people to drop .99 on this one.)

No comment on the autotune. Or Matthew Santos, for that matter.

This song just came on in my itunes after. Considering the Young Jeezy post below, I thought I'd add it. This verse really illustrates Jeezy's improvement. Young Buck's is my favorite, though.

Also, Real Things

Apparently Twitter is good for something. Powerful stuff.

While it may not mean much, the protesters in Iran have my deepest sympathy and admiration.

On Hostile Assumptions

Not to callously take advantage of current events, but the current kerfuffle over Letterman's Palin joke precisely proves my point about hostile audiences. Letterman made a joke about Palin's daughter being knocked-up by A-Rod, without specifying which daughter. Palin's response refers to "sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl."

This is only a reasonable response if one begins from the assumption "Dave Letterman is a pedophile," or at the very least "Dave Letterman is an enemy seeking to cause me harm." This sort of cultural paranoia is, I repeat and repeat, poisonous to real communication.

In short, hostility is not an appropriate response to ambiguity.

Letterman's apology is actually quite well-done, since he apologizes for poor execution of the joke rather than any real hostility (presumably there is none). When one is in entertainment, and speaking publicly, one takes on a responsibility to be understood, so this is fair. Of course, with a truly hostile audience, it's impossible to fulfill this responsibility. As such, Letterman's apology makes the charitable assumption that Palin's response was derived from confusion rather than malice.

So yeah, in these terms, Letterman has the moral high ground here.

Alcoholism + Productivity

Er, so to speak. Over the course of the weekend, I put together the ingredients to make a 1-gallon batch of mead, based on these directions. This was somewhat harder than I anticipated. I went to four grocery stores in my neighborhood, and all had approximately the same set of baking supplies -- and no yeast. Bit of an obstacle. Today I took the subway down to Columbus Circle to find the Whole Foods, the closest thing to a real grocery store.

This is one of the maddening things about New York -- upper Manhattan anyway. The population density means it can support an immense number of businesses, but due to the limitations on space, each one of them is laughably small. Instead of the wide selection you see at a standard Chicago or (God help you) suburban supermarket, you get several copies of the same limited selection. Most businesses have an incentive to set themselves apart (restaurants, for example), but grocery stores don't seem to have that pressure on them.

Anyway, I went to the spacious, gleaming Whole Foods and contemplated the splendid nonsense of capitalism:
-On entry, I was nearly annihilated by the vast selection of smelly cheeses available from the deli. Potent indeed.
-There is less price variation between different qualities of food than there is between different qualities of cookware ($16 seems like a lot for a colander, even if it is square).
-Beer selection was good, more expensive than supermarket-price, but cheaper than bodega-price. Yuengling was an unexpected steal at $6 per 6-pack.

In the end, I walked out with both yeast and beer (Yuengling of course). Mead-making is successful so far: the yeast seems to have taken hold. This gives me three of four months to come up with terrible Viking-themed ideas for what to do with it. Skål!

Younger Than Ever

I know Maciej has already expressed his love for Jeezy's The Recession album that came out at the end of 2008. He said that the trap star seemed to be improving lyrically. I agreed with that assessment, and I'm happy to say that things just keep getting better. This latest mixtape is pure fire all the way through. In fact, I think the title track might be the best verse Jeezy's ever laid.

My only complaint is with the mixing. There was a no DJ version of this floating around with significantly better sound quality and none of those annoying drops. I'm guessing DJ Folk got it pulled. But DJs should really get the point by now. Fans want the music, not your annoying voice shouting catch-phrases at twice the volume of the actual track. I know you want your name out there, but if you're really looking for respect: 1) don't sacrifice sound quality for your own jabbering. 2) make your drops sound good. And really, excessive rewinding does not demonstrate your mixing skill. It just makes me not listen to that track again. Anyway.

Download Mixtape | Provided by DatPiff.com

Gangsta Gibbs

So I've gotten behind on some things I've wanted to post because apparently blogger didn't make it through the Great China Firewall. Back in Macau, though. Glad to see Pat held things down with baby seal jokes.

This tape right here, though. This should be your soundtrack for the summer. Light the sticky and bump it in the whip on a sunny day.

Gary's best kept secret.

Download Mixtape | Provided by DatPiff.com

Proposal on Conservativism

As I understand, there are two major narratives which seem to mar conservative thinking in the present.

1) Individual vs. Government power: the individual should be preferred to the state, but the conservative narrative ignores the difference between the actual, human individual (the citizen) and the abstract, corporate "individual". Government is not the only method of concentrating power.

2) Cultural Unity vs. The Other: as I said previously, a narrow cultural identity is poisonous in a democracy. As far as conservatives recognize this, they seem intent on destroying other cultural identities through legislation. Again, this is counterproductive. If two cultures are really incapable of compromise, democracy is impossible and civil war must result. If some democratic compromise is possible, then the cultures share key values and it behooves us to recognize this.

On Authorship

Any high school English student will try to tell you what the author meant.
Any college English student can tell you that this doesn't really matter.
Any author will tell you this is the most terrifying thing about writing.

(Use of the style of aphorism borrowed from Nietzsche by way of my brother.)

Humanism and Anti-Humanism

A problem I've been working on:

As a humanist, I believe in the brotherhood of humanity. That is, the shared identity of being human is primary, and I have no intrinsic quarrel with any other person. But the humanist must be ready to deal with the anti-humanist, generally the chauvinist (who believes in the irrational superiority of his own group).

Now, irrationality does not suggest inferiority. Cultural identity is axiomatic to the chauvinist, just as human identity is to the humanist (I've been very concerned about cultural identities lately, for this reason). But at the most extreme, the chauvinist is prepared to treat the humanist as an enemy based on what the humanist takes to be a trivial detail. What is the appropriate response?

Ethically, the humanist is obliged to be reasonable for as long as possible; these things are rarely cut and dried, and many things that can be seen as conflict are merely failures to communicate. Again, in the most extreme case, rationality no longer plays a role -- we've entered into a sort of Hobbesian state of war between human and human. This may be obvious upon consideration, but peace and rationality rely on mutual consent -- there is no such thing as a unilateral peace.

At this breakdown, there are two choices. One gives primacy to self-defense; once the state of war is entered, one may take any action necessary to defend oneself or others from harm (harm to others must be considered harm to the humanist). This gives rise to the notion that the good are obliged to be dangerous.

The other option is pacifism, which rejects the state of war even at this point. And who is to say this is incorrect? I have mentioned the power of non-violence in discovering the humanity of the oppressor (the anti-humanist is still human at all times). A purely pacifist approach may be going even further, though.

Does the pacifist err in refusing to separate the just cause from the unjust? Or does he achieve something greater, by means of a leap of faith? I don't know that it can be determined. In practicality, one rarely deals with this momentous choice. Still, I think it is informative in how one identifies and deals with opposition of all stripes.

Some Jokes About Jokes

Okay, so I've got this joke, and I think it's great, but I can't tell it to people. They just stare at me, most of them. It kills with the right crowd, though. Problem is, the right crowd is computational linguists. Still, humble as I am, I may have written the world's best Noam Chomsky joke. So let's talk about jokes.

Now, we're all familiar, I hope, with this old chestnut:

Two guys walk into a bar. One of them ducks.

At root, it's just a pun on the two meanings of bar. But it's also a joke about jokes, because it wouldn't be funny except for a heaping pile of even older chestnuts in which, you know, two guys walk into a bar. In a strange sort of parallelism, there's also a joke about a duck who walks into a bar. That one's not important, though.

My favorite joke is the one that starts like this:

A baby seal walks into a club...

Actually, it ends like that, too. You don't know awkward until you're standing in front of your co-workers at the holiday party, and the head of the company you just joined says, "Well, go on." That's the risk you run when all your jokes play on what the audience expects from a joke. That aside, it's a great joke: I've never seen another that combines brevity, meta-humor, and brutality towards adorable animals in quite the same way.

Now for Noam Chomsky. He's got this sentence about grammar:

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Got that? Well, don't worry; it's meant to be a demonstration of how a sentence can be grammatically sound, but not have any semantic meaning. The parts of speech are correct, but green things can't be colorless, ideas don't have color nor do they sleep, and if they did they couldn't sleep furiously. Granted, if you work hard enough with figurative meanings, you can come up with something (there have been competitions), but let's just say it's meaningless.

And here's where I work my "magic":

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. One of them ducks.

I'm telling you, it kills with linguists... Hopefully that was funny, because now I'm going to explain it. As we all know, any joke properly explained ceases to be funny. So this is your last chance. Note that both the "joke" and "non-joke" versions are equally meaningless in an objective sense, but somehow one of them is a joke, and the other isn't. The first version is a bit of nonsense, while the second is two bits of nonsense grafted together, creating a joke, which you might say is just a different kind of nonsense. Of course, the crucial thing is that the audience knows the contexts of both halves of the joke, and the way that those clash creates the humor. You can analyze this joke on as many layers as you want, and I think that's funny too, given that the original statement is from someone looking into the minute details of how language works... I like this joke more than is strictly healthy, I think.

So I'll leave you with one more joke (not mine) that might be about linguistics. It's kind of hard to say:

How do you tell the difference between a duck?
One of its legs are both the same.

Political Correctness

Thank goodness for sports. If it weren't for them, nationalism would be a much messier affair than it is these days. Have you noticed that there is not one really competent soccer team in the Middle East? Food for thought.

Anyway, I bring this up because Yahoo Sports columnist Mike Silver recently stepped into the "rename the Redskins" hornet's nest, and received the predictable backlash. I essentially agree with him, but I want to take a closer look at the oft-used pejorative "politically correct." For one thing, the history of the term is fascinating: it was mainly used as a term of self-deprecation among Leftists until the 90s, when it was seized by conservatives in order to... deprecate the Left. Charming, no?

What is accused in the label of "politically correct" is that the speaker is either too timid to risk giving offense (conversely, that someone using the term is being more forthright), or is deliberately attempting to undermine cultural (American, usually) values. The criticism directed at Silver hits both points, but since he obviously expected the topic to be controversial, the second criteria is more interesting. The problem is one of language. Among Redskins fans, the word "redskin" has quite positive connotations. They want Redskins to succeed and are proud to be associated with the word. Among Native Americans, and, frankly, most everyone else in the country, it's understood to be a racial slur directed at a historically-abused minority. Most moral failures have at their root failures of imagination. Although it must be said that what we've got here is failure to communicate.

Of course, there's a reason the name has stuck around for this long. We go to sports to sublimate our nationalism, after all. Sports and teams are deeply mythological and rely heavily on tradition, and most people are fans from a young age. Hence, the symbols involved are quite intransigent. People don't like to change what they see as their identity, no matter how outwardly nonsensical it may be. But then, why can't we all just accept that when they say "redskin," they mean something completely different? Well, we could, in theory, but the Redskins are a nationally visible team. The use of the term is not really private to Redskins fans. And all told, even the most fervent Redskin fan is probably not as culturally attached to it as Native Americans are to their ancestry.

As Americans (I presume), we basically all speak English. Or rather, the American dialect of English. Or a New York or Chicago or Tennessee dialect of English. Or New York Jewish English or New York Dominican English. And, let's face it, the finer connotations of words are going to vary from person to person. Hence, the goal of most "politically correct" language is to be publically correct -- to have a meaning which is roughly coherent across most possible listeners. There is an essential guiding principle in this case, which I recall from my college RA:

"In public, people can see and hear you."
-Jakob van Santen

Specifically, public speech is targeted to the widest possible audience, and in a culturally diverse setting there may be a very restrictive subset of the language that is useful. Language may be further constrained by the expected attitude of the listener. Laws and regulations must be worded with the utmost care, on the assumption that someone may try to distort or negate the intention of the law. And again, it must apply equally in all jurisdictions and even time periods. Laws often define their own terms for this reason. In this respect, the Bill of Rights contains our most poorly written laws. Going even further, our communication with computers, who as yet have no culture whatsoever, must ultimately be extremely precise. In the case where the listener assumes a hostile intent in every statement (for example, Slashdot commentators), constructive communication is basically impossible.

This is all well and good. The problem with "politically correct" as we know it, is when speakers try to apply this to real cultural incompatibilities -- gay marriage, let's say. When the concept itself has opposite connotations to two groups, there is no proper neutral term. Attempts to create one will dissolve into nonsense. Or I would say so, although the persistence of civil unions as the "let's do it but say we didn't" option would seem to belie this.

This is problematic, but it seems to me that certain critics aren't really against politically correct language so much as the lack of cultural unity that makes it necessary. The solution on the Right in recent decades has been an attempt to force a common culture legislatively (Paul Krugman corroborates). Of course, this actually serves only to drive the subcultures involved further apart, a destroy lines of communication. In the long term, this is poisonous to democratic governance (cf. Yugoslavia). To be fair though, this blind spot to subjectivity in language is not unknown on the Left either; it just hasn't been organized to the same extent.

Of course, my solution is that we should all think twice before assuming the worst of people. Bonkers, I know.

R.I.P. Dolla

Can't say I saw this one coming. Who do you expect a lankey georgian drawling rapper/singer to have beef with? Poor kid got one in the head in Beverly Hills, waiting for the valet after a trip to the mall with a buddy, while he was in L.A. to record his debut album for Akon's Konvict label. Does it get any worse than that? Word is they tracked down the shooter, still armed, in L.A.X.

Last year Dolla put out a single called "Make A Toast." I originally discovered it on a bootleg Wayne mixtape, and ended up bumping it wherever I could for a good minute. It was one of those songs that comes to mean larger things for you and had a sound that seemed as mournful as it was celebratory. And there's this part before the last verse where Dolla starts singing. It's real delicate-like, but it gets me every time. Dude had potential.

Make A Toast - Dolla

bonus trivia side note: he was born in tha chi

R.I.P. Pimp C

it better like this?  i think so.

Download Mixtape | Provided by DatPiff.com

Non-Violence

In non-violence, the method of the oppressed is to confront the oppressor with his own humanity. Whosoever strikes them down strikes down himself, and claims willingly the title of monster and enemy-of-humanity. That such a method can prove effective speaks firstly to the unfathomable courage of the oppressed, but also to the basic decency of the oppressor.

...

The above is a quick paragraph I wrote on the plane this weekend. I don't know that it says anything surprising, but it is my hope that it does so with some style and brevity. Interestingly, the below-mentioned Schmitt argues non-violence is madness and humanism is essentially meaningless.

Authoritarian Morals

From The Concept of the Political, by Carl Schmitt, which (full disclosure) I have yet to finish:

The numerous modifications and variations of this anthropological distinction of good and evil are not reviewed here in detail. Evil may appear as corruption, weakness, cowardice, stupidity, or also as brutality, sensuality, vitality, irrationality, and so on. Goodness may appear in corresponding variations as reasonableness, perfectibility, the capacity of being manipulated, of being taught, peaceful, and so forth.

Italics mine. This quote is somewhat tangential to Schmitt's argument about "the political" as a sphere apart from morals, economics, etc., but some of these concepts seem to be under the wrong heading. Having weakness and vitality together seems fully incoherent, and perhaps Schmitt means to challenge the universality of morals. Nonetheless, given an authoritarian perspective, these make more sense; that "the capacity of being manipulated" is certainly desirable from the perspective of the powerful, and would make the existence of the unified state that Schmitt speaks of much easier.

Not surprisingly, Schmitt speaks of Nietzsche and Hobbes together as philosophers who believe men are "basically evil", despite the fact that their definitions of "good" and "evil" are not very compatible. Of course, Nietzsche speaks repeatedly of ranking and ordering and command. Having last read Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche becomes especially problematic, but The Genealogy of Morals, if I recall, provides better justification.

But while the varieties of "evil" offered are contradictory, the varieties of "good" all seem to deal with malleability or lack of power. Goodness and harmlessness are essentially the same thing, from Schmitt's perspective. I argue that this can only speak to a philosophy of living in terror of others. Essentially this is a more comprehensive way of saying that humanity is basically evil -- that anyone capable of doing harm will do so.

By my thinking, if evil exists, the good are obliged to be dangerous. Evil/selfishness/sociopathy are characteristics which intend the accumulation of power without regard for the means, and naturally must impose themselves on others through force and manipulation. Hence, the good are compelled to be capable of resistance on behalf of themselves and others. Said resistance may take organized form, depending on the nature of the threat, but to do so in a compulsory, authoritarian fashion is extremely problematic, if we take human life, freedom, and happiness as paramount. "Reasonability" here is a good because it allows for cooperation among peers and the recognition of a common threat -- rational thinking as a kind of lingua franca, not as purely self-interested "economic rationalism."