Obsidian Wings

What goes around...

by liberal japonicus

Open thread-y post. Been reading a lot about the revolt in Russia and a common hook is to plug it into some historical event. The obvious one is 1991 KGB takeover and Yeltsin and Czar Nicolas II is another fave. But there is also Yemelyan Pugachev (Catherine the Great), one of the false Dmitris (one, two or three) and a couple of others that I can't relocate. We also discussed the Mandate of Heaven, and how it has been on repeat in China. So thinking about all this, the Guardian article caught my attention.

A new exhibition in Paris aims to show how England in the middle ages was very much part of Europe’s dynamic art, architectural, trade and culture scene between AD1000 and AD1500.

Organisers said the event would discredit the “popular perception” – mainly across the Channel – that medieval England was “primitive and barbaric” while France and parts of Europe enjoyed a gothic zenith.

[...]

Unfortunately, while France and other European countries largely preserved their medieval treasures, England’s artistic heritage was “systematically and ruthlessly decimated” by the 16th-century Reformation and the revolution led by Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s, he said.

Looking at British history in the 16th century as a kind of Brexit is an interesting thought.

Anyway, open thread.

Techbros and adventure

by liberal japonicus

Fodder for discussion with a rather ironic title.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40406673/the-man-who-wants-to-send-us-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean

discuss

 

We need new showrunners for this reality

by liberal japonicus

Via this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, I was steered to this blog post on a fascinating site, Data Colada

I'll let you click on the links, but here's a taste

Two summers ago, we published a post (Colada 98: .htm) about a study reported within a famous article on dishonesty (.htm). That study was a field experiment conducted at an auto insurance company (The Hartford). It was supervised by Dan Ariely, and it contains data that were fabricated. We don’t know for sure who fabricated those data, but we know for sure that none of Ariely’s co-authors – Shu, Gino, Mazar, or Bazerman – did it [1]. The paper has since been retracted (.htm).

That auto insurance field experiment was Study 3 in the paper.

It turns out that Study 1’s data were also tampered with…but by a different person.

That’s right:
Two different people independently faked data for two different studies in a paper about dishonesty.

The chef's kiss on this? The person who seems to be behind the fabricated data authored a book titled (wait for it!) Rebel Talents: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life. The blurb on the website says

Whether you want to inspire others to action, build a business, or build more meaningful relationships, Rebel Talent will show you how to succeed — by breaking all the rules.

Discuss.

“Who’s for more sprouts?”: thoughts on intelligence

by liberal japonicus

Rich people don’t wear coats, we were told. Their shoes only ever touch carpet, as they move seamlessly from their cars to their jets to their buildings. Also, crucially, they don’t duck (when getting out of helicopters).

In the first season, I wrote an episode set around Thanksgiving. The rich consultant really went to town on me. I had written a line for Logan’s wife, Marcia, announcing that lunch was ready. But rich people don’t make food-related announcements, apparently. They don’t even know where their kitchens are and they definitely don’t say “Who’s for more sprouts?”, while spooning them on to people’s plates.

This is a bit of a 5 rail bankshot of a post, but the above 2 paragraphs, from a Grauniad article about the writers of the TV series Succession, popped up in my head when, in the comments, there was discussion of Johnson's intelligence. The answer to the question "Is Johnson intelligent?" is really 'who cares?' This is because regardless of his intelligence, it is clear that he doesn't have the slightest scintilla of empathy, thoughtfulness, consideration of anyone outside of himself. I won't belabor this point, though here is James O'Brian's rant if that floats your boat.

But back to intelligence. We get into this interesting problem with intelligence, we feel like we have to give it its due, and it is virtually impossible to simply ignore it. We also feel we have to acknowledge intelligence when it pops up. (I'm thinking of Joe Klein's description of Trump's 'feral intelligence') I don't want to dismiss intelligence, it's nice to have, and we have some intelligent folks here. But I'm coming to the view that we put too much stock in it, especially when there are people that have no empathy or understanding of others. The Grauniad article anecdote was about how to write dialogue for the kind of rich people who inhabit that TV series, and what is depressing is that it was the actual observations by the "rich consultant" for the show, not a one off on a particular loathsome specimen, but the way that rich people lived. Imagine being raised in an environment where the idea that you might offer to dish up some food for someone sitting next too you is something that is not going o happen. How must that impact on a person's 'intelligence'. Yet we have to somehow note that someone who is a total piece of shit has some intelligence.

We talked about how what we often measure as intelligence is really a very narrowly focussed ability. One reason why people have been falling out over ChatGPT and other LLM is that it 'sounds smart'. So maybe what is needed is not some way to better measure intelligence but to stop treating it as the be-all, end-all. Discuss.

Eyewitness

Pictures of the Philly skyline from hairshirthedonist, who writes, the smoky photo was taken in the early afternoon and the clear one mid morning, so the sun at different angles.

Thanks, hairshirt.

I drove east today and smelled smoke faintly when I got within 10-15 miles of the coast. Then I smelled it again when I got out of the car back home, but again very faintly. It's still pretty breezy here.

Open thread. There should be plenty to talk about.

Picking up and going

by liberal japonicus

In the enshitification thread, the notion popped up (and it's popped up several times at the blog) about the idea of moving to some red state en masse to change the politics. I've kind of lost track of who said what, but this guardian article points to the issues with that.

Under censorship laws, we could both be arrested for felonies, and once you have a felony [on your record] you can’t vote any more. Why is the response always, you guys can just move?” Both Mitchell and her daughter are living with disabilities, and Mitchell says the family would struggle in any state with a higher cost of living than Indiana. “We do not have a big savings account, and it’s not like we’re 20 and we can just grab a duffle and go where we want to. We’ve been married for more than 25 years and we have a family. We can’t just pick up and hope it works out.”

“Finding jobs, setting up a social network, kids in schools, parents in care … economically and socially, moving states is not something you do on a whim,” says McCranie.

As a person who is wondering how he ended up where he did, the idea of moving to support a political ideal seems particularly fraught. Anyway, something to discuss.