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				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
STATUS GAMES


When people talk about "status games" 'round these parts, they're normally referring to our obsession with relative social status and the games that we play in order to increase it. However, this morning, I listened to oral arguments in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, a case about a municipal ordinance, from a town in Oregon, prohibiting people from sleeping in public, at least with some 'aggravating' factor, like having a blanket. Of course, as is probably traditional for me at this point, I hardly even want to talk about the specifics of this case, at least not concerning homelessness. Instead, I'd like to jump off into questions of categories (which, uh, I guess are made for man?), agency, and the games we play with categories like 'status'.


The background is a 1962 case, Robinson v. California, referred to in all blockquotes from the Court as just "Robinson", which considered




A California statute makes it a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for any person to "be addicted to the use of narcotics," and, in sustaining petitioner's conviction thereunder, the California courts construed the statute as making the "status" of narcotic addiction a criminal offense for which the offender may be prosecuted "at any time before he reforms," even though he has never used or possessed any narcotics within the State and has not been guilty of any antisocial behavior there.




SCOTUS held:




As so construed and applied, the statute inflicts a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.




Details aren't the most important, but a vague sense of that backdrop is. If someone is "addicted to narcotics", that's considered just a "status", not actual behavior or conduct that can be regulated by the state.


This status/conduct categorical divide has a long history of being quite confusing, and this confusion was on full display at the Court. A Ctrl+F of the transcript shows 121 mentions of the word "status", and many of them are trying to figure out what counts. I collected more blockquotes than I could possibly clean up or feel comfortable bombarding TheMotte with, so I'll try to be sparing. First off, Justice Kagan asking questions of Ms. Evangelis, who is arguing on behalf of the city:




JUSTICE KAGAN: So can I talk about that, Ms. Kapur? So taking Robinson as a given, could you criminalize the status of homelessness?






MS. EVANGELIS: Well, I have a couple points to that.






JUSTICE KAGAN: It's just a simple question.






MS. EVANGELIS: So Robinson doesn't address that and I think it's completely distinguishable. So Robinson was a --






JUSTICE KAGAN: Could you criminalize the status of homelessness?






MS. EVANGELIS: Well, I don't think that homelessness is a status like drug addiction, and Robinson only stands for that.






JUSTICE KAGAN: Well, homelessness is a status. It's the status of not having a home.






MS. EVANGELIS: I actually -- I disagree with that, Justice Kagan, because it is so fluid, it's so different. People experiencing homelessness might be one day without shelter, the next day with. The federal definition contemplates various forms.






JUSTICE KAGAN: At the period with which -- in the period where -- where you don't have a home and you are homeless, is that a status?






MS. EVANGELIS: No.




There is a bit of meandering that I'll omit, but it comes back to:




MS. EVANGELIS: The statute does not say anything about homelessness. It's a generally applicable law. One more -- it -- it's very important that it applies to everyone, even --






JUSTICE KAGAN: Yeah, I -- I got that.






MS. EVANGELIS: -- people who are camping.






JUSTICE KAGAN: But it's a single person with a blanket.






MS. EVANGELIS: And --






JUSTICE KAGAN: You don't have to have a tent. You don't have to have a camp. It's a single person with a blanket.






MS. EVANGELIS: And sleeping in conduct is considered -- excuse me, sleeping in public is considered conduct. And this Court -- this Court in Clark discussed that, that that is conduct. Also, the federal regulations --






JUSTICE KAGAN: Well, sleeping is --






MS. EVANGELIS: -- are very --






JUSTICE KAGAN: -- a biological necessity. It's sort of like breathing. I mean, you could say breathing is conduct too, but, presumably, you would not think that it's okay to criminalize breathing in public.






MS. EVANGELIS: I would like to point to the federal regulations which I brought up.






JUSTICE KAGAN: And for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public.




and finally:




JUSTICE KAGAN: -- I'll tell you the truth, Ms. Kapur. I think that this is -- this is a super-hard policy problem for all municipalities. And if you were to come in here and you were to say, you know, we need certain protections to keep our streets safe and we can't have, you know, people sleeping anyplace that they want and we can't have, you know, tent cities cropping up, I mean, that would create one set of issues. But your ordinance goes way beyond that. Your ordinance says as to a person -- and I understand that you think it's generally applicable, but we only come up with this problem for a person who is homeless, who has the status of homelessness, who has no other place to sleep, and your statute says that person cannot take himself and himself only and, you know, can't take a blanket and sleep someplace without it being a crime. And -- and -- and that's, you know -- well, it just seems like Robinson. It seems like you're criminalizing a status.




Kagan may be the smartest of the liberal Justices, so it's probably no surprise that I think she got the closest to a conceptualization of status that is friendly to the left in this case. Unsurprisingly, though, "Republicans Pounce". Justice Gorsuch said that, "[T]he distinction between status and conduct is a slippery one and that they're often closely related," and had what was perhaps the most comprehensive exchange on the topic with Mr. Kneedler, who is the Deputy Solicitor General, weighing in on the case on behalf of the federal government, who was technically supporting neither party, but is obviously in practice representing the equities of the Biden administration portion of the left.




JUSTICE GORSUCH: Mr. Kneedler, I want to probe this a little bit further because it -- it does seem to me the status/conduct distinction is very tricky. And I had thought that Robinson, after Powell, really was just limited to status. And now you're saying, well, there's some conduct that's effectively equated to status and -- but you're saying involuntary drug use, you can regulate that conduct. That doesn't qualify as status. You're saying compulsive alcohol use, you can regulate that conduct in public. Public drunkenness, even if it's involuntary, that doesn't qualify as status, right?






MR. KNEEDLER: Right.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: You're saying you can regulate somebody who is hungry and has no other choice but to steal. You can regulate that conduct even though it's a basic human necessity, and that doesn't come under the -- under the status side of the line, right?






MR. KNEEDLER: Yes.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Okay. But, when it comes to homelessness, which is a terribly difficult problem, you're saying that's different and -- because there are no beds available for them to go to in Grants Pass. What -- what about someone who has a mental health problem that prohibits them -- they cannot sleep in -- in a shelter. Are they allowed to sleep outside or not? Is that status or conduct that's regulable?






MR. KNEEDLER: I -- I think the -- the question would be whether that shelter is available.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: It's available.






MR. KNEEDLER: Well, no, available to the individual.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: It's available to the individual.






MR. KNEEDLER: But --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: It's just because of their mental health problem, they cannot do it.






MR. KNEEDLER: I -- I think there might be -- I mean, that's -- the mental health problem --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Status or conduct?






MR. KNEEDLER: The mental health situation is itself a status.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Right, I know that.






MR. KNEEDLER: Yes. But -- but if the






JUSTICE GORSUCH: It has this further knock-on effect on conduct. Is that regulable






MR. KNEEDLER: I -- I --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: -- by the state or not?






MR. KNEEDLER: -- I -- I think that -- I think if the --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: All the -- you know, alcohol, drug use --






MR. KNEEDLER: Right, right.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: -- they have  problems too and that that -- and -- and -- but you're saying that conduct is regulable. How about with respect to this pervasive problem of -- of persons with mental health problems?






MR. KNEEDLER: I -- I think, in a particular situation, if the -- if the -- if the person would engage in violent conduct as --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: No, no, no, don't
mess with my hypothetical, counsel.






(Laughter.)






JUSTICE GORSUCH: I like my hypothetical. I know you don't. It's a hard one, and that's why I'm asking it. I'm just trying to understand --






MR. KNEEDLER: I -- I --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: -- the limits of your line.






MR. KNEEDLER: I think it would depend on how serious the offense was on the -- on the individual.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: It's -- it's -- it's a very serious effect. The mental health problem is serious, but there are beds available.






MR. KNEEDLER: Well, what I was trying to say, it would depend on how serious being required in -- to -- to go into that facility was on the person's mental -- if it would make his mental health situation a lot worse, then that may not be something that's --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: So that's status -- that falls on the status side?






MR. KNEEDLER: Well, I -- I -- I -- I guess you could put it that way, but I -- I guess what I'm saying is that --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: I -- that's what I'm wondering. I don't -- I'm asking you.






MR. KNEEDLER: Well -- JUSTICE GORSUCH: I really am just
trying to figure out --






MR. KNEEDLER: No. You could view that as status or --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: You're asking us to extend Robinson, and I'm asking how far?






MR. KNEEDLER: Well, what I was going to say, you could -- you could think of it as status, but I think another way to think about it, and this is our point about an individualized determination, is that place realistically available to that person because --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: It is in the sense that the bed is available --






MR. KNEEDLER: I know that it's --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: -- but not because of their personal circumstances.






MR. KNEEDLER: Right. Right. And that's -- and that's my point. It -- it's available in a physical sense. It may be available to somebody else, but requiring an individualized determination might include whether that person could cope in that setting. That's the only --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: So that -- so that might be an Eighth Amendment violation?






MR. KNEEDLER: Because it may not -- yes, because it's not available.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: So that's an -- it's an Eighth Amendment violation to require people to access available beds in the jurisdiction in which they live because of their mental health problems?






MR. KNEEDLER: If -- if going there would -- would --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: How about if they have a substance abuse problem and they can't use those substances in the shelter? Is that an Eighth Amendment --






MR. KNEEDLER: That is -- that is not a -- that is not a sufficient --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Why? Why? They're addicted to drugs, they cannot use them in the shelter. That's one of the rules.






MR. KNEEDLER: Well, if they -- if they -- if it's the shelter's rule, then they have no -- they -- they -- they can't go there if they're -- if they're addicted. That's not -- that's not --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: So that's an Eighth -- that's an Eighth Amendment violation?






MR. KNEEDLER: Well, no, the -- the -- the Eighth Amendment violation is prohibiting sleeping outside because the only shelter that is available --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Is not really available to that person?






MR. KNEEDLER: -- won't take them -- won't take them, yes. And that's an individualized determination.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Same thing with the alcoholic?






MR. KNEEDLER: Yes.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Okay. So the alcoholic has an Eighth Amendment right to sleep outside even though there's a bed available?






MR. KNEEDLER: If -- if the only shelter in town won't take him, then I think he's in exactly -- he's in the same -- he's in the same condition. And there can be all sorts of reasons, and the City doesn't normally --






...






JUSTICE GORSUCH: How about if there are no public bathroom facilities? Can -- do people have an Eighth Amendment right to defecate and urinate outdoors?






MR. KNEEDLER: No, we -- we --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Is that conduct or is that status?






MR. KNEEDLER: I -- it's, obviously, there -- there is conduct there and we are not suggesting that cities can't enforce their --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Why not, if there are no public facilities available to homeless persons?






MR. KNEEDLER: The -- the -- that situation, you know, candidly, has never arisen. And whether or not there -- I mean, in the litigation as I've seen. But no one is suggesting and we're not suggesting that public urination and defecation laws cannot be enforced because there are very substantial public health reasons for that.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Well, there are substantial public health reasons with drug use, with alcohol, and with all these other things too.






MR. KNEEDLER: And they can all be --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: And you're saying the Eighth Amendment overrides those. Why not in this circumstance right now?






MR. KNEEDLER: No, I'm not -- I'm not saying the Eighth Amendment overrides the laws against drug use.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Oh, I know that.






MR. KNEEDLER: Oh, I'm sorry.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: I know that.






MR. KNEEDLER: No, I misunderstood what you --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: That one -- that one the government wants to keep. I got that.






MR. KNEEDLER: No, I misunderstood your question. Sorry.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Yeah. Last one. How about -- how about fires outdoors? I know you say time, place, and manner, but is there an Eighth Amendment right to cook outdoors?






MR. KNEEDLER: No. I -- I -- I -- I think what -- what --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: That's -- that's an incident -- a human necessity every person has to do.






MR. KNEEDLER: But this -- but this is one -- this is one of those things that, you know, is taken care of on the ground as a practical matter. There are restaurants where
someone can go. There are --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Well, no, no, we're talking about homeless people.






MR. KNEEDLER: No.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: They're not going to go spend money at a restaurant necessarily. Let's --






MR. KNEEDLER: Well, there -- there may be inexpensive places. Some people get --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Let's say there isn't, okay?






MR. KNEEDLER: And --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Let's say that there is no reasonable --






MR. KNEEDLER: And -- and the local community --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Do they have a right to cook? They have a right to eat, don't they?






MR. KNEEDLER: They have -- they have a right to eat, a right to cook if it entails having a fire, which I think it -- it -- it probably -- it probably would, but -- but, as I said, the -- the -- the eating, the feeding is taken care of in most communities by nonprofits and churches stepping forward --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: But if there isn't






MR. KNEEDLER: -- as they have for 200 years.






JUSTICE GORSUCH: -- but, if there isn't, there's an Eighth Amendment right to have a fire?






MR. KNEEDLER: No, no, we are not saying there's an Eighth Amendment --






JUSTICE GORSUCH: Well, I thought you just said there was.






MR. KNEEDLER: Well, there -- there's food that you can eat without cooking it. I mean, they -- and they could could get a handout from the -- from a -- from an individual that, you know, people can beg for money. I mean, there are -- there are ways that this works out in practice.




Oof, that was long and covered a lot. Gorsuch would go on to suggest that the Court should just push the case back the State for a "necessity" analysis and not "get into the status/conduct stuff that -- that Robinson seems to invite." Roberts, meanwhile, went after immutability in a colloquy with Ms. Corkran, representing the class of homeless people challenging the law.




CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: A number of us, I think, are having difficulty with the distinction between status and conduct. You'll acknowledge, won't you, that in those terms, there's a difference between being addicted to drugs and being homeless? In other words, someone who's homeless can immediately become not homeless, right, if they find shelter.






Someone who is addicted to drugs, it's not so -- so easy. It seems to me that in Robinson, it's much easier to understand the drug addiction as an ongoing status, while, here, I think it is different because you can move into and out of and into and out of the status, as you would put it, as being homeless.






MS. CORKRAN: Yeah. So it's interesting, we today understand addiction as an immutable status. In Robinson, the Court suggested that someone might be recovered and no longer have the status of addiction. So the Robinson Court wasn't thinking about addiction as something that couldn't change over time.






CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, that may limit the applicability of Robinson to a different situation, but what is the -- I mean, what is the analytic approach to deciding whether something's a status or a situation of conduct?






MS. CORKRAN: So the question is a status is something that a person is when they're not doing anything. So being addicted, having cancer, being poor, are all statuses that you have apart from any conduct.






CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Having cancer is not the same as being homeless, right? I mean, maybe I'm just repeating myself because homelessness can -- you -- you can remove the homeless status in an instant if you move to a shelter or situations otherwise change. And, of course, it can be moved the other way as well if you're kicked out of the shelter or whatever. So that is a distinction from all these other things that have been labeled status, isn't it?






MS. CORKRAN: I -- I don't think so because, you know, a cancer patient can go into remission, they no longer have that status. I don't think -- I mean, I don't think there's any question that being poor is a status. It's something you are apart from anything you do. It's a status that can change over time, and at that point, you wouldn't be a part of the class, but I don't think it changes the fact that it is a status. And what Robinson found so offensive about status-based conduct --




But it would take Justice Jackson to blow up our first real bombshell of the argument, following up on the Roberts' discussion of immutability:




JUSTICE JACKSON: Can a person go from being addicted to drugs to not being addicted to drugs?






MS. CORKRAN: So I think under common -- as we think about it in terms of modern medicine, the answer is no. But the Robinson Court certainly thought that was the case, right? Sixty years ago, we didn't have the same understanding of addiction as we do now.






JUSTICE JACKSON: So your view of Robinson is that it doesn't really matter, the permanency of the condition; it's still a status?






MS. CORKRAN: Right. The Robinson Court did not think that the permanency mattered because it thought that addiction was a status that could change.




In summary, the Robinson Court was actually wrong on the facts. They thought that people could go from being addicted to drugs to not being addicted to drugs. So, they clearly didn't care all that much about permanency. But BOOM goes the claim that, apparently the New Correct Lefty Science has determined that people don't ever transition from being addicted to drugs to not being addicted to drugs. I guess I heard it here first. My years of shouting at clouds that Scott pointed out that basically all honest alcoholism rehabilitation studies fail to outperform a placebo and that narcotics rehabilitation studies don't even use measures like "stops taking narcotics" in favor of measures like "causes trouble for other people while using narcotics somewhat less often" is finally being adopted! (Frankly, in far stronger form that I would have even stated. I wouldn't say that people can't stop being addicted to drugs; just that we can't magically impose a "treatment" regime that is going to result in them stopping.) Wow! Was the failure of Oregon's decriminalization experiment so spectacular that we're no longer going to have endless claims that we can make everything completely legal, so long as we pray to the god of providing "treatment" (without any serious consideration of how this is going to happen or whether it will actually do anything)? I can hardly believe it.


As amazing as this concession to Justice Jackson was, Alito somehow at least comes close:




JUSTICE ALITO: Well, see, the problem is that once you move away from the definition that makes the inquiry basically tautological, then you get into the question of assessing the closeness of the connection between the status and the conduct. And you do run into problems with the person who's a kleptomania -- a kleptomaniac or a person who suffers from pedophilia. So how do you distinguish that? How does the Court assess how close the connection has to be?






MS. CORKRAN: So -- so, for both of those categories, the -- the -- the status is defined -- I don't know if status is the right word there -- being a pedophilia or having pedophilia is defined by the urge that you have, not by your conduct, and acting on that urge. So, if someone were to act on that urge, that tight causal nexus on why they didn't have access to shelter, then they would be outside of our claim.




What's this?!?! A distinction between "having an urge" and conduct?!? In the realm of sexuality? Say it isn't so! How many times can The Lefties That Be just boldly admit that the entire slew of homosexual behavior to gay marriage cases were based on a fundamental lie?!


The more cynical among us might observe that status/conduct games seem to be yet another way that folks run away from agency, shielding anything that they like in terms of it "being who you are" or things that just "happen to you". There is no real theory here, and most attempts to justify it are pretty philosophically incoherent. It doesn't seem like the Court is going to buy this particular extension of The Game, but why wouldn't they try? They've had all these other victories, including effectively banning Christian groups from campuses, by substituting "status" in for "conduct/belief". Why are the Status Games so powerful?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have always preferred calling them "micro-aggravations". Yes, it's a real thing, but it really says more about the aggravatee's psychology and what they find annoying/unpleasant than it does about anything that can be properly called "aggression". One can still care deeply about reducing their impacts, even on a society-wide basis, but I think this terminology more appropriately captures the concepts that they use to describe the phenomenon and avoids the horrific conflation with literal violence that plagues the rest of the associated political movement.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would be interested to see an effort post from you describing what you think "actual justice" is, alongside your meta-ethical views and how they fit together with your determinism. I know that you have in the past positively linked to Mackie's argument for moral nihilism from queerness, but I haven't gotten a sense for how you put it all together. What do you think is "actual justice" to a nihilist? How does it possibly matter to a determinist? Why would it even make sense to have a decision "theory" in this world, and what would it possibly have to do with justice?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Mostly what @gattsuru said. We could have gotten a string of cases that treated sex as the status in question and then applied standard 14A intermediate scrutiny, but we didn't. Don't forget that it's not just Lawrence and Obergefell. It's Lawrence, Romer, CLS, Windsor, and Obergefell. They made an absolute hash out of the whole mess, and they certainly did not rest simply on distinctions being made based on the status of sex.


Would be the absolute peak of irony, however, in an alternate universe, to hear KBJ interrogate counsel with a frank and straightforward, "Can a person go from being the male sex to being the female sex?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"You never know how evil a technology can be until the engineers who designed it fear for their jobs." -Stewart Baker


Probably related would be to say that you never know how evil a law can be until the politicians who passed it fear for their electoral prospects.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


there’s a relevant passage on page 38. Evangelis argued that homelessness, due to its mutability, does not fit Robinson’s definition of a status. It’s exactly what Corkran was trying to rebut when you quoted her.




Sure. Evangelis and Corkran seem to agree that people cannot go from being addicted to drugs to not being addicted to drugs. It didn't stick out all that starkly when Ms. Evangelis spoke about it (though I notice it more clearly now; Corkran also said the same thing but not as starkly in her response to Roberts). She seemed to be thinking more about the "struggle" part. It stuck out massively when KBJ spoke to Ms. Corkran.




I couldn’t actually figure out where mutability came into play.




Evangelis and Corkran seem to agree that addiction to drugs is immutable (to some extent; Evangelis is a bit less clear here). Evangelis thinks that this is a distinguishing factor from Robinson, thinking that the Robinson Court, at that time, also viewed it as some sort of immutable, which contributes to an argument of it being a "status". Corkran disagrees, thinking that the Robinson Court simply got the facts about addiction wrong, that they thought it was mutable (but it's really not), so they were thinking that mutable things could still be a "status". Thus, Evangelis thinks that Robinson supports mutable things being not a status and immutable things being a status, while Corkran thinks that Robinson implicitly supports both mutable and immutable things being a status (dependent upon some other features, apparently).




So at what point did this become “lefty science”?




The point where EVERYONE suddenly believes that people who are addicted to drugs cannot, in any way, become not addicted to drugs! This is a huge H-WHAT?!?! moment. I've been constantly bombarded for decades now with messaging that we just need "treatment", and that will solve all our public policy problems with drug addiction. It's a magic panacea that, if applied appropriately and with sufficient outlay of government monetary resources, will be able to convert people who are addicted to drugs into people who are not addicted to drugs. Now, suddenly, out of nowhere, everyone seems to agree that this is just impossible. This is, frankly, incredible New Science. I'd be open to a scientific argument with links to scientific experiments and theorizing that support this incredible New Science; if convincing, I may even agree with it. However, until I see a remotely convincing argument with actual scientific evidence, I'm going to default to it being the new Lefty Science Party Line, akin to the prior consensus on biological determinism of sexuality, that has been adopted primarily due to political reasons and raw social force rather than genuine scientific evidence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for April 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


statistically speaking, CICO is not likely to result in success.




This is basically useless evidence. Statistically speaking, most people don't get jacked. It doesn't mean that weightlifting doesn't build muscle. It's a pretty "simple" biophysical phenomenon, but it's not particularly "easy" to dedicate time and effort to doing it.


Moreover, we have good evidence for why CICO is not likely to result in success, because we can see a stark difference between studies of in-patients, where the researchers have complete control and ability to strictly account for calories consumed, and self-report studies, where they don't. The conclusion is that it's unquestionable that CICO absolutely completely works; it's that people do all sorts of shit to convince themselves of little lies here and there rather than wholeheartedly embrace truth and reality and take agency for their choices.


Two examples I've talked about here are my wife and a friend of ours. When I convinced my wife to just count the calories and see what the deal is, she still mentally rebelled against it. She would see the line tracking her weight (weekly average) not always dropping immediately, and be all, "MAYBE IT'S NOT WORKING ANYMORE!" I had to say, "Shut up and just keep doing it," more times than I can remember, and sure enough, it always kept going down. I don't know how many times it took for her to mentally "get it". At some point, she was like, "Yeah, I 'knew' that it worked like this, but I didn't 'know know'." Because society has been lying to her for decades.


Our friend literally went to her doctor and basically begged for advice on how to plan diet/exercise, but doctors hate to tell people to diet/exercise, because they know that most people have been lied to for decades and simply won't believe it enough to do it, so what did her doctor say to help her? "Ya know, you're just getting older." Even the fucking doctors contribute to the constant lying that people experience. It's no wonder that the statistics are what the statistics are, even if it works 100% of the time when you do it.


WaPo just had an article a couple weeks ago detailing one of the industries that are literally dedicated to lying to people about how the world works. These are the bootleggers. The baptists are the lying gyms and diet people who say shit on big signs like, "LOSE 30LBS IN 20 DAYS!" Everyone is constantly lying to people, and we shouldn't be surprised that, statistically, people get confused by those lies rather than doing the simple, but not easy, things that are necessary to lose weight.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Have you considered that maybe people you don’t like can be right?




Sure they can. Care to defend either of the things I "tilted" at?


Note that I wrote:




Of course, as is probably traditional for me at this point, I hardly even want to talk about the specifics of this case, at least not concerning homelessness. Instead, I'd like to jump off into questions of categories (which, uh, I guess are made for man?), agency, and the games we play with categories like 'status'.




The sections you're complaining about are the parts that aren't actually about the specifics of this case. So, uh, I'm really not sure how your description of things that are specifically about this case are really relevant to the things I wrote that you're complaining about.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


there is a difference between "science" and "New Correct Lefty Science"




Can you suggest a simpler and more plain way of indicating this? I thought the caps and everything did the job. Maybe a (TM)?




It is possible to not be an active addict... an addict can be a "monster", then return to being normal for years or decades or the rest of their life, even if the monster risk is always hanging over them.




I hate to say it, but this reeks of epicycles. Like, it's also always possible for someone who has never been an addict before to become an addict at some point in the future. If so, what conceptual content does "addict" have? What is its definition? Is it something like, "An addict is someone who has at any point in the past been addicted to drugs"? If so, it's another one of those amazing definitions like those that just claim, by definition, that it's theoretically impossible for someone to change from being homosexual to being heterosexual (and that anything that appears otherwise must be hidden mystical bisexualism). Ok, sure, you can define your terms that way, in a way that makes it true, by definition, that people who are addicted to drugs cannot become not addicted to drugs, but that's not saying anything about the science of addiction, or anything we've "learned" by science since the Robinson era. It's saying that you've simply adopted a different definition. Then, we'd have to wrestle with how changing definitions affect the legal and philosophical concepts involved. Plus, from a culture war observer position, I'll absolutely enjoy just watching and noting the various changing of definitions, how they may come from political pressures rather than new scientific results, and how such changes interact with the broader public discourse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A beggar/bum has a strong incentive to be as close as possible to the largest number of people with disposable income in their pockets (and places with free services, like public parks w/ restrooms, libraries, and charities.) This is in tension with most people's desire to be able to use the public goods their tax dollars pay for in the way they were intended, and their desire to be left alone while walking from place to place.




Man, can you imagine a Grand Experiment, almost like in The Wire? Rather than trying to force people out with the stick, draw them to an alternate, via the carrot. It's well-known that many of the folks who are, I'm not sure what the current descriptive term is, serially-homeless let's say, are willing to migrate for nicer weather and more of these types of things you describe. How much would it cost to set up a 'city', away from all the normal cities where people live, with some nice parks, some libraries, charities, maybe even some literal money fountains that kick out dollars at a stochastic rate too low to be worth sitting at for folks who can manage to hold down a regular job, but just high enough to be attractive to a guy who is used to sitting at an intersection near all those folks with disposable income. All the libraries/charities can be run by the same social worker types who normally deal with them in the city, anyway. Sitting at an intersection is basically a stochastic money fountain, so make a big push to tell the normies that they can assuage their conscience by donating to the charity's stochastic money fountains, still giving them literal cash, but in a way that draws them closer to helpful resources.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I am in my 50's and that is certainly what we were taught about addiction when I was a kid. "Not even once!"




I don't think that saying is identical with saying that it is impossible for someone who is addicted to drugs to become not addicted to drugs. It's saying that it's easy to become addicted to drugs. It was also the slogan of an anti-meth ad campaign by The Man, the gov't, the squares who are, like, the evil Christian Moral Majority or something. It was quite the meme on the internet. Everybody hip to the drug legalization scene knows that it's much more of a joke phrase than a serious exposition of the science of substance use.


In any event, our own perceptions of the zeitgeist aside, what the prominent counsel for the cause claimed was that people used to believe that people who were addicted to drugs could become not addicted to drugs, but that science knows better now. I've primarily just observed that claim.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For a start is it really lefty beliefs?




I believe that both the respondents and the Deputy Solicitor General are trying to represent beliefs that could be described as "lefty", by virtue of their respective positions.




If you think that the general zeitgeist is that addicts can be cured and it didn't used to be, you can just say that.




I wrote:




Evangelis and Corkran seem to agree that addiction to drugs is immutable (to some extent; Evangelis is a bit less clear here). Evangelis thinks that this is a distinguishing factor from Robinson, thinking that the Robinson Court, at that time, also viewed it as some sort of immutable, which contributes to an argument of it being a "status". Corkran disagrees, thinking that the Robinson Court simply got the facts about addiction wrong, that they thought it was mutable (but it's really not), so they were thinking that mutable things could still be a "status". Thus, Evangelis thinks that Robinson supports mutable things being not a status and immutable things being a status, while Corkran thinks that Robinson implicitly supports both mutable and immutable things being a status (dependent upon some other features, apparently).




So, it appears that the general zeitgeist is moving toward the idea that addicts can't become not addicted to drugs, and some portion thinks that it didn't used to be that way.




So the definition is "An addict is someone who has at any point in the past been addicted to X AND still has that desire."




Why wouldn't we short-circuit that to just "has that desire"? What is the AND doing, besides pointing to past conduct? Should "pedophile" be defined as "someone who has any point engaged in pedophilic conduct AND still has that desire" rather than "has pedophilic desires"? Should "homosexual" be defined as "someone who has at any point engaged in homosexual conduct AND still has that desire"? I honestly can't help but point out that this is feeling suuuuper epicycl-y.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm speaking a bit tongue in cheek, because as I linked to a couple of my prior comments, and as many people learned during COVID, what the politicians or the media say the science says is ultimately as powerful or more powerful, in terms of the culture war, than what the science actually says. This is ultimately about observing the shift in the culture war, not a shift in the science. That is, there is a difference between "science" and "New Correct Lefty Science", where the latter is specifically things like what the politicians, media, and every party member in good standing must say in order to not end up in the metaphorical gulag.


I'm anticipating that in the next five years or so, simply asking people who want to argue about drug policy, specifically those who are on the left, a version of, "Can a person go from being addicted to drugs to not being addicted to drugs?" is going to be illustrative and possibly necessary in order to even communicate with them reasonably on the topic. We will have to figure out where in the update process they are, kind of like how we've had to do so on trans issues for the last ~5 years.1


I have gotten piled on here (well, at least at the various old places, with a similar community of individuals) for taking the position that "treatment" isn't a magic word that solves drug addiction problems, that legalization will likely increase consumption (including people who consume for the first time or consume enough to become addicts), and that we have approximately zero clue how to convert people from being addicts to not being addicts. (Plenty of people do things like "age out" or take agency and figure it out on their own, etc. It's clearly possible to stop being an addict, except in the colloquial sense that some support groups use the phrase; it's just that we have basically no useful public policy tools to actually accomplish that with any scale.) But similar to what @crushedoranges said, if we take that view, then it really opens up arguments for public policy that are quite different than the arguments we're seeing now.


At least since I was young, this perspective has not been on the table, as the pro-legalization cultural forces have been utterly dominant. I even bought their message when I was growing up, which is how I know what the messaging was like. So, perhaps the New Correct Lefty Science is actually adopting something more like this now. If so, that might be a great improvement, being closer to correct! (I'm a bit doubtful that they'll actually hit the target, though...) However, if so, it's going to generate quite a rift and plenty of cognitive dissonance with all the pro-legalization talking points, and that's a culture war worth paying attention to. Like, what's going to happen? Who's going to win? Who are the X-o-phobes going to be? What sorts of rationalizations will emerge to blend this with various policy desires? Prior to this oral argument, I didn't anticipate needing popcorn for drug policy arguments anytime soon; now, I'm already poppin'.


1 - For another example, you still occasionally see someone on the internet who clings to the extremely weird claim that it is just theoretically impossible for someone to change from being homosexual to heterosexual, the rationale being to the point that even if you have a public example of someone who appears to have done just that, there's some hidden mystical behind-the-scenes explanation that they were actually bisexual the entire time, but were also somehow not wrong about their claim that they were homosexual, and the epicycles that follow. But it's very rare now; it was everywhere ten years ago. Completely pervasive. Because that's what the party demanded. I found it plenty interesting to watch how that culture war shifted, even if I don't think anything about the "real" science shifted.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
KBJ is still "young", a prospect of sorts. One of those, "She needs some refinement to bring her play up to the level of wily, consistent veterans, but she shows flashes of potential greatness," situations.


Whereas with Sotomayor, I think we pretty much know what she is. I would submit that the Thomas Revolution was less about Thomas changing/growing and more just about how people viewed his work. Lots of folks were so focused on Scalia during his life and just thought Thomas could never live up. It wasn't until Scalia passed that they re-evaluated. I don't think Sotomayor is suffering from that. Perhaps a bit of a Kagan effect, but I would find it quite difficult to imagine someone sitting down now, putting their hypothetical brain to work, removing Kagan from the picture, thinking hard about what Sotomayor's core contribution is, and coming up with a great argument that it is something that can be rallied around to really deliver. KBJ totally could.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't find the original Scott-post, but I found an old comment of mine that linked directly to this on his old website, which was presumably there because of a post he made.


My priors on this sort of thing are similar to my priors on weight loss studies - that there is a Hlynka-sized hole in the discourse. It's a multi-agent environment; other agents get to make choices, and there is no way for you to impose your idealized study protocol onto their entire life and choice set. If you can selection effect your way to people who will take agency and apply focused determination to solving the little problems along the way, it actually won't be that hard to find solutions to those problems, and a variety of "methods" will probably work about equally well (though individual circumstances may result in differing folks somewhat preferring differing methods), but if not, than basically nothing other than raw physical/biological force will cut it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for April 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The way we solve this is that we just schedule different snacks. My wife and I have the same meals, with calories planned so that they make sense for her, and then I have more significant and more calorie-dense snacks to fill out my requirements. I work from home, and she goes in about half the time, so I may even just have basically a "fourth meal"; e.g., if the plan for lunch is just a 200-300 calorie soup or salad, I'll just eat that at like 10:30 and then make myself another quick meal around 1-2.


She helps in this by making sure that I have plenty of prepared snacks available. She'll make tasty and protein-full snacks like chicken bites with various seasonings that are easy and don't lend themselves to overeating, like potato chips.