Category: Uncategorized

One of the key elements of totalitarian, or even just authoritarian, regimes is the concept of “political truth”.  This, basically, is something that must be true because the tenets of the ideology demand that it be true.

In Marxism, a political truth is the exploitation of the working class under capitalism.  It’s simply assumed true and any arguments otherwise–argument about the value those who provide capital bring to an enterprise, the concept of risk and compensation to induce people to take that risk, and so on–are weasel worded around or simply dismissed.

Another example in the American Left which simply declares that any difference in outcomes between different groups that can be defined in terms of various physical characteristics–melanin content, shape of facial features, hair texture, possession of reproductive organs, how they choose to pair said reproductive organs with others, etc.–must be, can only be, because of discrimination by other groups (well, actually there’s only one group that is ever called to task for this).  If one suggests that cultural factors that form self-propagating learned behaviors might actually be part the differences, well, that too is part of the discrimination don’t you know.  And don’t you dare suggest something as “racist” as assimilation into cultures that produce more desired outcomes.

And, yes, there’s the other side where such differences are taken as stemming completely from genetic differences.  To them, the claim is that such differences mark the inherent “superiority” or “inferiority” of one group compared to another.  Suggest to these folk that maybe the differences are learned–culturally or otherwise–and you’re just…well, the names can get creative.

One thing all these various forms of “political truth” have in common is a deep and abiding avoidance of objectively verifiable reality.  Oh, sure, they may cherry pick a few “facts” that appear to support their ideology, but anything beyond that, anything that challenges their cherished tenets, is anathema.

And the main tool that all of these have in common–every single one–is to attack the motive of the person presenting the uncomfortable facts.

“You know, maybe the learned behaviors in that subculture are suboptimal for success in modern American society and…” THAT’s RACIST!

“You know, if folk had just had a better environment at home and in their communities there’d be a lot less…” YOU X LOVER!

“You know, if you simply let people make the voluntary economic transactions across the board that they choose to make, the net result is prosperity across the board.” YOU FASCIST! (Which is a very strange accusation to make to that claim but…it is a claim made.)

“You know, there are some situations involving things like external benefits and costs which voluntary exchange, the market, does not handle well, so perhaps…” YOU COMMIE!

None of these actually address the issue at hand in each case.  They attack the motive, and therefore the character, of the person raising the point.  They are classic example of “Argument ad hominem” “argument to the man” where one accepts or rejects an argument not because of its logic or factual support but because of who makes it.  And it’s a logical fallacy for a reason.  Good people can make bad arguments and have erroneous conclusions.  And bad people can make good arguments leading to correct conclusions.

For that matter, a bad argument might still have a correct conclusion and a good argument might still lead to an incorrect conclusion (chiefly because some unknown factor might affect the result).

When people make arguments that a particular statement is some form of “ist” (or the closely related “phobic”), watch out.  You’re usually running into somebody’s political truth.  And that political truth, stemming from cherished ideology, will not stand contradiction.

And if they can’t dismiss your facts, they’ll simply dismiss you.

Some folk at the extreme end of the Libertarian spectrum insist that government is bad, pure and simple, that anything, absolutely anything, government can do that’s the least bit beneficial, private voluntary transactions can do better.  Here’s an example of the thinking:

This position, however, drastically oversimplifies the matter.  It works well when the people who receive benefits and pay costs are direct parties to a transaction.  However, that’s not always the case.  People outside the transaction are sometimes also involved–the transaction between two individuals can involve things that impose a cost on others, or produce benefit beyond the folk engaged in the transaction.  In either case, they distort the cost of the transaction.  Milton Friedman called these “neighborhood effects”.  Thomas Sowell and others more recently use the terms “External costs” and “External benefits.”

A classic example is a business dumping waste into a stream or river.  On the one hand, there is no such thing as “pure water” in nature.  Even “unspoiled” rivers high in the mountains contain the waste of the deer and bear that live there.  It’s all about the amount.  “The poison” as they say “is in the dose.” “More pure” has a value to it, just as other things we desire have values to them.  And just like with those other things we value, we would be willing to part with some of it for something else we value sufficiently.

If there were just two people involved, a stream that ran only from the dumper to the dumpee, they could come to a mutual arrangement.  The dumper would be allowed to dump X amount of waste in return for giving the dumpee Y to compensate for the reduced purity of the water.

The problem is we don’t have only two.  When one party dumps into a stream it affects the water purity for everyone downstream.  It becomes difficult to determine who is affected how much and to arrange individual transactions to compensate for the lost value for each affected individual.  When you have multiple parties doing the dumping as well as multiple parties downstream and parties on both the receiving and the delivering end of the dumping it becomes simply impossible.

In addition to external costs, there can also be external benefits.  Thomas Sowell uses the example of mud flaps on cars.  By reducing the “spray” from a car’s tires onto vehicles following them those other vehicles have the benefit of improved visibility.  They can see better because they are not getting as much rain, snow, and mud thrown onto their windshields.  However, each driver receives no benefit from mud flaps on his own vehicle, only a benefit from the mud flaps on the vehicle ahead.

Another example of an external benefit is education.  I benefit from other people being well educated, whether it is the surgeon who removes my malfunctioning gall bladder or the engineer who designed the brakes on the car I drive.  There are endless benefits I receive that are hard to track down to the specific parties to the transaction.  Yes, the specific surgery or the specific car purchase is an individual voluntary transaction, well handled by the market (albeit the former distorted by both regulation and insurance systems), the education of doctors and engineers, let alone the foundational education before they even sort into doctors, engineers, scientists, teachers, lawyers, and so on is much less so.

The case of externals costs/benefits is a situation which “the market”, the system of voluntary transactions, does not handle well.

Another class of situations that presents a particularly difficult challenge to a system of strictly voluntary transactions is when the benefits are to a group and cannot be divided out to particular individuals.  National defense is the classic example here.  Everyone in a society can agree that defending that society from foreign aggression has value but everyone gets that value regardless of whether they, in particular, pay for it.  The incentive, then is for each individual to rely on others to pay for the defense while they individually reap the reward while paying nothing.  Not everybody will take such a cynical approach.  Some will pay because they recognize that someone must and, thus, it is their duty to do so.  But those duty-driven individuals will pay more because others, not so driven, will take the benefit without making the voluntary (remember, we are talking about a system of voluntary exchanges here).

So, it soon becomes apparent that some means needs to be put into place to deal with external costs and benefits and non-divisible benefits.  Since this won’t be strictly voluntary transactions it will, by definition, be some form of government.

The problem is that just because in some circumstances government can handle a matter better than can the market, does not mean that it will handle it better.  Once the government program is in place, its own constraints and incentives will take over.  The iron law of bureaucracy will soon come into play and the various government organizations will soon become more interested in expanding their own power and influence and less over the problem they were created to deal with.

However well intentioned any government program for dealing with external costs/benefits or indivisible benefits, the programs will grow and expand to the point where the costs exceed the benefits.  Thus, while the elimination of government entirely is feasible, the default should always be toward pruning.  And when looking at the supposed benefits of a government program one needs to be highly cognizant of the fact that the costs very often exceed the benefits (meaning the resources being spent could be better spent elesewhere) or that in most cases the market, voluntary transactions between individuals and self-organized groups of individuals, really does handle things better.

A friend of mine posted over on the Book of Faces a few days ago (remember, I’m queuing these up in advance) about serving as a chaparone on an LDS Youth Conference.  These are events held by the church for young people that include lectures, scriptural devotionals, dances and other activities. It reminded me that the first dance I ever attended was at one of those youth conferences. The band was…truly awful. Extremely limited repertoire which included maybe three “slow dance” songs.

And this dance then set the pattern for every such event I attended ever since–in terms of my personal issues, not the music–most events I attended had much better music at least’

A couple of years later, when I was in Phoenix a dance held by the local church ward (it would be some years yet before I drifted away from the church) had a band that was at least somewhat better than that first one but they really, really needed a sound engineer. Vocals would get swamped by the instruments. Drums would overpower guitar (or vice versa). Somebody who could sit at the mixer board and adjust the various levels as needed for particular songs would have really put some professionalism into their performance. Setting it once at the start of the performance just didn’t work, and I’m not sure if they even knew how to set it in the first place.

I wonder, sometimes, if things might have gone differently had I approached them about that idea and offered to work in that capacity.

There’s a bit of a story behind that trip to Phoenix. A friend of mine’s family had moved out to Phoenix the year before and I had saved up money from a summer job (my first) to go visit. Since I had turned 18 the year before, I derived the cunning plan of trying to find a job in Phoenix and stay there–get out of the backwoods of Cambridge Ohio (which, really was the ass end of nowhere so far as I was concerned). I got myself enrolled in the local high school for my senior year: Thunderbird High School to be exact. I had lodging that was willing to put me up for a while while I was looking for work. In the end, however, I wasn’t able to find work that fit with a school schedule and had to return to Ohio. In the interim, my mother had moved from Cambridge to Byesville. If I had thought Cambridge was the ass end of nowhere, I was to be proven oh, so wrong. I ended up graduating not from Cambridge High School but from Meadowbrook High School.

At least I was able to find work after graduating–mid-shift dishwashing at a restaurant that was only about a two mile walk from where we lived.  And when I was rejected by the college to which I applied (yeah, stupid to apply to only one college–I applied to Brigham Young University and was not expecting the local Branch President, the local religious leader, to veto my application on the grounds that I was then wearing my hair a bit longer than BYU’s dress code permitted) going into the military was my next best choice.

When it comes to personal interactions I tend to have two main modes and a couple of lesser modes.

One I term “deer in the headlights.” Basically, I have no idea what to say. I freeze. It’s not just a matter of I need a second to think, I really just have no clue what words should come out of my mouth. I have had folk tell me that this comes off as brusque or downright rude. And, well, I’m not intending to be it’s just that a combination of social anxiety and utter cluelessness causes me to freeze. You can be my best friend in the world and I still have no idea what to say.

The second mode is when you get me going on a subject I’m passionate about. Then, the problem is the exact opposite; getting me to shut up. I get motivated about the topic and…well, that just takes over.

There are a couple of lesser modes for special situations as well.

The first of these is “polite greeting.” “Hi.” “How are you.” “Nice day.” “Things going well?” “Take care. Have a nice day.” Basically “canned” phrases (which doesn’t mean that they aren’t well meant) that I have sometimes heard described as “polite noises.” I can do that. I can even be sincere about it. It’s just, you run out of those pretty quickly.

The last is “on stage presence” which is what I use when doing panels at cons or when doing training related to my work. (Want to learn how to use a NanoScope AFM? We teach people that.) It’s sort of a toned-down version of mode 2 that relies on the more formal structure of a panel discussion or a training session to keep me from going overboard as I am wont to do without that structure.

“Stage Presence” mode is something I learned from a very early age.  I was raised in a church with a “lay clergy” in which members of the congregation were expected to get up and give “talks” (what served as “sermons” in this church) or to teach various Sunday School classes.  I learned early on to put on an appropriate “mask” for this, and it carried over nicely once I started participating in programming at science fiction conventions.

The observant reader will note that what’s lacking in there is a “mode” that is useful for social interactions, in particular for meeting new people. It is no great surprise that virtually all of my friends are folk I’ve met through cons and thus were able to interact with initially via “on stage presence”. Online also comes closer to that “on stage” than any in person interactions and, so is behind most of the rest of my friends–those I didn’t meet through cons I “met” online. Indeed, I tend to be a lot more “open” online than I’d ever dream of being face to face with all but my absolutely closest friends.

And this lack is one of the major challenges of my life: how to actually meet and get to know people in “meat space” beyond the rote (although never empty, not for me) pleasantries.

Many years ago, in Jerry Pournelle’s novel “Janissaries” he had the character of Gwen think that love didn’t exist.  All the poems and such about it were probably written by people who thought such feelings ought to exist but they hadn’t really hadn’t really experienced it.

In darker moments (which came quite frequently back in the day), long before I’d read that book I would say “Love isn’t real.  It’s just something invented so that Belinda Carlisle would have something to sing about.”

(Given the subject and tone of the song this video is a bit…strange)

I’ve been trying different recipes for Chicken Mole over time. This one seems to have turned out really well.
2 lb boneless skinless chicken breast
3 Tbsp xantham gum
2 24 oz jars Kroger brand Medium Salsa.
1 16 oz jar Mrs. Renfro’s Habanero Salsa.
1 quart chicken broth.
2 tbsp garlic powder.
1 cup olive oil (optional–I wanted to increase the fat content to make it a more keto-friendly dish).
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 oz unsweetened bakers chocolate.
I would probably have just used more cocoa powder but I ran out so I used what I had.
Put the chicken in a 5 quart slow cooker Sprinkle the xantham gum over it. Add the remaining ingredients.
Cook on low for about 8 hours. Stir. The chicken should break up into small pieces. Any pieces that don’t, shred with two forks.
Makes about 15 1 cup servings (so, party or to nosh on over a week or so).
I’ve served it over riced cauliflower, mixed “non-starchy” vegetables, or just eaten it like a stew. If you’re not doing low carb then over rice or noodles would also be good.

Short one today.  Short, but important.

In a previous post I pointed out how ridiculous the idea that the money people behind “big pharma” were pushing vaccines, not because it was medically a good idea but simply to make money.  (Spoiler alert:  There’s a lot more money in treating even “harmless childhood diseases” like measles compared to preventing them with vaccines.)

The other point that is claimed is that the vaccines themselves cause injury and are more dangerous than “acquiring immunity naturally” (which is weasel wording for “getting the disease”).  And one of the things they like to point to is the Vaccine Injury Court and all the awards it’s granted.  There, proof positive that vaccines are dangers and so you should avoid them.

Well, not so fast.  First off, there’s very little actual science in this Vaccine Injury Court.  As ZDogg (a practicing physician with popular YouTube and Facebook feeds) points out, you don’t need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt like in a criminal trial.  You don’t even need a preponderance of evidence like in a civil court.  All you need is to spin a story that’s reasonably plausible to people who only have a layman’s knowledge (i.e. none to speak of) of immunology and biochemistry.

But let’s take the strongest possible argument.  Let’s presume that every case where an award was granted really was because of vaccines.  In the thirty years between 1988 and 2018 20,728 petitions were filed with the vaccine injury court.  Of these, 6,579 were determined to be compensable, i.e. that presented a case that sounded good to folk essentially ignorant on the subject.

6,579 over 30 years, or an average of 219 per year.  In my previous post I noted that, before vaccination, the number of deaths from measles alone averaged about 450 per year.

Without vaccines, more than twice as many died from a single “harmless childhood disease” than all the compensable injuries (even at that very low standard of evidence) from vaccines–even if the compensable claims all, every single one, represented real injuries from vaccines instead of “just so stories”–combined.

Vaccinate your kids, people.

A double dozen centuries ago (about 380 BC) Plato wrote a treatise called “The Republic.” The system of government described bore essentially none of the characteristics that would come to define what anyone else ever called a Republic.  The Roman Republic bore far more resemblance to what the Founding Fathers of the US called a Republic than anything Plato wrote about.

Plato’s Republic was a sort of totalitarian “meritocracy.” The people who were best at farming were assigned to be farmers.  Those best at war were assigned to the army.  And so on.  And at the top of it all, the Philosopher Kings, who decided who would be farmers (because, of course, the Philosopher Kings–the central planners of the Republic–knew who would be best at farming).  They decided who would be soldiers (because the central planners knew best).  They decided who would do every task.  And all would work not for their own benefit but for the greater good of the whole.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is.  Marxism (as it’s come to be known, which Thomas Sowell notes is somewhat different from what Marx actually wrote) or “Socialism” in the modern day.  A centrally planned economy (and “economy” ends up functionally meaning “everything you do”) organized not for individual benefit and certainly not for the “greed” of those engaged in business but for the “greater good” of society.

This social vision is portrayed as “progressive”.  It’s supposed to be new and forward thinking.  And yet, it’s simply the writings of a 19th century philosopher that have failed every time anyone has actually attempted (or claimed to attempt) to put them into practice.  Lenin’s “reinterpretation” a century ago was the only “advancement” of those particular ideas that have happened since (not counting the endless ways of repackaging the same ideas, wrapped in new rhetoric, to disguise the long series of failures) and that a century ago.

“Progressive” has somehow come to mean the regurgitation of a century or more old set of ideas that have failed every time anyone has tried to sell them to the masses.

Every.  Single.  Time.

But it’s actually worse than that.  Marxism, as reinterpreted by Lenin, is nothing more than the concept of the Philosopher Kings wrapped in new rhetoric.  It’s the divine right of kings with proper socialist thought replacing bloodlines.  The inbreeding is intellectual rather than genetic, but just as deadly as any hemophiliac princes.  More, since while a hemophiliac prince might be in danger of bleeding to death, the inbred ideas of the “progressive elite” risk bleeding the whole society to death.

A double dozen centuries of tyranny and oppression for the people at large, for economic failure that spreads misery and poverty.

This is “progressive.”

Yes, I have talked about this recently but this one just disturbed me to no end.

“One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.” If said bad apple is not immediately removed, the rot spreads.

That this psychopath could be acquitted in large part because the judge suppressed the body cam footage, suppressed introduction of his public statements where he looks forward to killing people, and suppressed introduction of his personalized weapon with “you’re fucked” on it demonstrates that the rot has already spread quite wide indeed. It’s not just the cops but judges and prosecutors who are complicit.

Add in that the whole purpose of the “simon says” they were forcing a man who had done nothing illegal to follow was to keep the suspect disoriented and confused (and thus prone to make mistakes) and then the police use a single mistake as a justification for killing him.  This demonstrates that the purpose of that procedure is, indeed, simply to give them an excuse to kill someone.  If you want someone to follow orders and comply, you give orders that are clear and easy to understand and follow.  If you want them to make mistakes, then you give confusing and contradictory orders.  And if the entirely predictable result of those orders is that they make a mistake in following them, and said mistake is justification for shooting them, well, that looks a lot like premeditation from over here.

Again, the rot has spread far and wide throughout the system.

And to cap it all off, he gets a pension for having PTSD from murdering a man? AYFSM?

It’s not “a few bad apples” (or not anymore). It’s a systemic problem.