If it’s not apparent why I object to Yglesias and putzes like him I just wanted to clarify that it’s not merely related to their lack of talent combined with overabundance of credentials. No, these are some of the less emotional reasons:

1) According to Yglesias and people like him, neoliberalism does not exist. It’s not an ideology, not an approach to and from economics, not a governing principle found anywhere in the world. According to this view, the features and devastation of late-stage capitalism are natural and unalterable, like gravity or photonic emission (Somehow, despite different countries with differing policies seeing different outcomes. Huh!)

2) Also according to these people, the sole explanation for Trump’s victory and consequently Hillary’s loss is racism — not economic effects, not the abandonment of the working class by Democrats, not the destruction of unions, not the Social Darwinistic ideology of neoliberalism (which according to them does not exist) — no, none of these things. Just racism.

3) The complete inability of Yglesias and those like him to step outside of the data points. I call it “spreadsheet fuckery,” where the results you think you’ve “proven” with fucking around with Excel or some other tool is more valid than what’s out there in the real world. Yes, yes, data is important. Without it, we are lost. But the data is not the world, is not the truth, is not even knowledge. It offers no guidance and tell you not at all what to optimize for. Yglesias and his ilk get none of this. Just none.

If Yglesias were merely talentless that would not be such a big deal. Join the club. Most people aren’t very good at very much.

But he is talentless, credentialed and with a large, influential platform where he harms people and distorts the truth daily.

That makes him my enemy.

When I need to be reminded that Matt Yglesias is a fucking idiot, I just look at things like this.

Also, this.

Yglesias was a strong supporter of invading Iraq, Iran and North Korea, calling the countries on his blog “evil” and stating that “we should take them all out,” although he was critical of the term “axis of evil.”[5][6] He later called his attitudes about the war a mistake.

Well, at least he copped to it being a mistake, I guess, but still: idiot.

I’ll admit it. People much dumber than I am with no skills and no talent but only credentials to wave around who become enormously successful but are fundamentally no better than some mook ranting in line at a Burger King — well, they make me annoyed and angry.

I’m not a pilot but the idea of a circular runway is just ridiculously stupid.

This would not and cannot work for so many reasons. Banking into a landing or out of a take-off is a terrible idea. No room for error if something goes wrong. Depends more on brakes working correctly and is more confusing for pilots.

Great video.

The woman with the lighter hair moves with the kinesthetic grace of Summer Glau.

In the middle of the night, I just heard the “BRAMMMMM” sound in the real world.

I assume this is a bad sign.

I have no idea who made this.

But I would also expect the classic “Error: no error.”

Oh my.

8K. My eyes are agog and my heart is aflutter and under my breath I do mutter

Fortunately, 8K is about the highest resolution even very picky eyes like mine can resolve at any normal screen size and viewing distance.

Dell, drop that price a bit and I’ll break out my wallet faster than a seagull diving for a hot dog.

Was just thinking how during the 1980s my grandmother would make these ornate Halloween displays and place them on the front porch.

She made a life-size witch one year that was a very credible simulacrum for a person. In the semi-darkness of a moodily-lit porch, it was indistinguishable from a real human. With papier mache and other tools, she was an artist of rare skill.

One year a woman came to the door semi-politely but adamantly admonishing my grandmother for her Halloween decorations being “too scary,” and enjoining her to take them down for the kids’ sake.

She sort of had a point, though the kids actually loved them. I think they just scared the woman in particular and as always “for the kids” was just an excuse. What bothered the woman in particular if I recall was a spider three feet across my grandmother had made that looked so life-like that it seemed it’d skitter across the porch at any moment.

The witch, though — it was rigged with fishing line in such a way that when the trick-or-treaters were standing in front of the door hands out for treats, as my grandmother opened the door, the witch would rise up behind them, unseen.

Then of course when they turned around the witch would be there, levitating in the air behind them where nothing had been before.

That was a very effective scare, I can tell you.

Ah, the joys of terrifying witless some six-year-olds. At that, my grandmother was a master.

Kawehi is a genius.

I’ve noticed that the most ardent defenders of Islam as practiced are always those who have never lived in an Islamic country.

I have lived in an Islamic country, so I cannot defend it any more than I can defend Christian dominionist Taliban tendencies.

My next car will be a Tesla Model 3.

There are enough supercharger stations and such now — hell, where I work currently has charging stations at both locations.

Fewer moving parts, less maintenance, decent range and better tech? Sounds like a good thing to me.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an example of the poor excuse the US has for public intellectuals these days.

Rationality simply cannot be the basis for any political organization. Evidence? Whose evidence? On what basis? Applied to whom?

Especially in a world where something like half (or fewer) of studies are not reproducible, and no one (not even many scientists) are sure what constitutes evidence, what sort of society would “Rationalia” create?

Economists believe they have evidence for supporting all manner of preposterous and contradictory policies. There was incontrovertible “evidence” for the inferiority of blacks, the degenerate nature of Jews, the unsuitability of women for holding political office.

I wish NDGT would just shut the hell up. His thoughts are always a waste of space, particularly because he could be so much better.

I usually read a book at my desk at lunch at work, on my screen. The other day one of the interns with whom I routinely work came by to ask me a question and noticed I was reading something.

So she as people do asked me what I was reading.

I said, “Cognitive Neuroscience of Language by David Kemmerer.”

She said, “Is that like for a class or something?”

Me: “No. No class.”

Intern: “Oh, did you major in that? Like in college?”

Me: “No, just thought the book looked interesting and it’s related to something I’ve been thinking about.”

Intern: “But why are you reading it?”

Me: “When I was a kid, I used to invent my own languages and such. Now I’m researching how language works at the neural level the best we know, anyway, to see if there are more pragmatic ways of designing languages without something so absurd as Lojban but with some optimization and greater specifiability but without related reductions in connotative expressiveness necessarily built in.”

Intern: “Ok, I don’t think I understood any of that but sounds, uh, interesting? Anyway, about that system….”

What’s wrong with some light lunch reading? 😉 Anyway, the book I mentioned is rather good. I’d say you need some significant grounding in functional and theoretical linguistics and neuroscience (or be a quick learner) before you tackle this book, though.

It is not a book aimed at undergrads. Fortunately, I am not an undergrad so with looking up a few words here and there it’s fine and a good read.

This has always puzzled me — how eager pseudo-liberals are to accept the narratives of economists when it is consonant with their interest of supposedly bettering society. The alignment of neoclassical economics and modern political liberalism on the economic effects (or not) of immigrants is one of those puzzling areas.

Ironically, even though labor is described as a commodity sold in the “labor market,” conventional (neoclassical) economists insist that supply and demand play no role whatsoever in these markets! So, for example, increasing the supply of workers by, say, massive amounts immigrant labor is said to have no effect whatsoever on domestic wages. Neither does the addition of millions of additional workers via globalization. Rather, according to economists, in this “market” everyone simply gets what they produce, no more and no less!

It’s an excellent bit of propagandizing aimed at those who want to (or at least believe they want to) help people that masterfully manages to align their sense of social justice with the desires and imperatives of capital.

I’m generally pro-immigration, by the way — just not pro-stupid immigration. That is, “open borders” is completely preposterous an idea for any society. It is just some odd fetishized liberal ideological fantasy that could never work anywhere without tearing the host society apart.

That said, the US is at no real risk from immigration. We mostly admit people with cultures and views much like our own. We are still pretty decent at integration (though that is changing, and not due to racism etc but due to capitalism and all the pseudo-liberals’ neolib heroes, mostly).

Europe, however, in admitting millions of North Africans and Muslims is going to experience huge and society-rending problems in the next 20-40 years. That is baked in, alas.

I wish I just had the power to believe propaganda like what I mentioned above about the magical always-positive effects of immigration, though, without pondering it at all. It would make life so much easier, really.

The first ten on today’s playlist: