Gdanning
11mo ago
I don't understand how he was ever taken seriously,
I have never met anyone who read the book who thinks that; it is nothing if not carefully argued. Of course, most people who criticize are actually criticizing media misrepresentations of the argument.
Gdanning
11mo ago
I read it many years ago, but this seems to be pretty good: https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-End-of-History-and-the-Last-Man/plot-summary/
I am curious why you see Guns, Germs and Steel as something not to be taken seriously.
Note, that to me, "not to be taken seriously" implies that it can be summarily disregarded, whereas something that is carefully (and thoroughly, I should have included that as well) might be wrong, but cannot be dismissed, even if it wrong; it must be engaged with. Of course, there are some exceptions, such as works based on clearly erroneous factual premises, but that does not seem to me to describe either Guns, Germs and Steel or The End of History.
Gdanning
11mo ago
I disagree, this sort of approach is easily hackable by mining scholarly works for whatever data suits your idea, shaping it into a narrative that is trendy with the current zeitgeist, thus ensuring few people will be interested in challenging you to begin with, and the remainder is too intimidated by the sheer magnitude and obscurity of the material you've dug out.
Yes, but isn't that a claim that the argument might be wrong, rather than a claim that they must be wrong? It seems to me to be an argument for skepticism, rather than an argument for dismissal out of hand.
Didn't it spend pages upon pages talking about how lucky Europeans were because they started off with caloric and easy to cultivate crops, and easily tamable animals, only for it to turn out that ancient European plants/animals were about as useful to humans as those anywhere else, and what the authors were comparing were products of generations of artificial selection to wild plants/animals?
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As a possibly non-relevant aside, the book is about why Eurasia developed more quickly than elsewhere, rather than Europe.
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Glancing at my copy of the book, he says: "Experimental studies in which botanists have collected seeds from such natural stands of wild [fertile crescent] cereals, much as as hunter-gatherers must have been doing over 10,000 years ago, show that annual harvests of up to nearly a ton of seeds per hectare can be obtained[.] ... [In contrast,] [c]orn's probable ancestor, a wild plant known as teosinte, ... was less productive in the wild than wild wheat . . ." So he certainly at least tried to compare like with like. In addition, that is only one of three advantages he claims that Eurasian cereal plants had over wild plants elsewhere; the others, he argues, are that they are annuals, and that most are plants that "usually pollinate themselves but are occasionally self-pollinated." I don't know whether either of those attributes can be changed via artificial selection. Re animals, he notes that only 14 of the world's large (100lbs+) herbivorous animals were ever domesticated (including only 13 of 72 in Eurasia) and notes that even modern efforts to domesticate large wild animals other than the "ancient fourteen" that were domesticated failed, and makes arguments why so few have been domesticated.
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Most importantly, that is an argument that Diamond is wrong, or that that he overstates his case. But it is not an argument that "no one ever should have taken him seriously," and I note that on the Wikipedia page on the book, Joel Mokyr is cited as saying that "Diamond's view that Eurasia succeeded largely because of a uniquely large stock of domesticable plants is flawed because of the possibility of crop manipulation and selection in the plants of other regions, the drawbacks of an indigenous plant such as sumpweed could have been bred out, Mokyr wrote, since 'all domesticated plants had originally undesirable characteristics' eliminated via 'deliberate and lucky selection mechanisms'", which sounds like the criticism you are citing.* But he is also quoted as saying that the book is "one of the more important contributions to long-term economic history and is simply mandatory to anyone who purports to engage Big Questions in the area of long-term global history". And I will say that one of the strengths of the book is that is explicitly states the assumptions behind its arguments, repeatedly refers to possible weaknesses in supporting evidence, and also repeatedly suggests avenues for future research which might undermine some of its claims.
- But I note that, re teosinte, Diamond's argument is not that such changes were impossible -- they obviously weren't -- but that they took a very long time (at p. 137), which helps explain why development in the Americas lagged behind development in Eurasia (and, of course, it is the lag that he seeks to explain).
Gdanning
5mo ago
While I agree with the Rittenhouse verdict, the comparison doesn't work. Rittenhouse intentionally killed two people; when someone does that in circumstances other than those where self-defense is completely obvious (eg, defense of home), of course he is going to be arrested. In contrast, here there is no evidence that the killing was intentional. Moreover, the police had probable cause at the time to think that the Rittenhouse murders were premeditated.
Gdanning
7mo ago
How about increasing funding for asylum adjudication, so that the wait for adjudication is 6 months, not several years? That will pretty much eliminate the border issue, since it will massively decrease the incentive to enter the country and give asylum a shot. That would have bipartisan support, especially from people like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who for all intents and purposes really control what passes the Senate.
How about a law to preserve the substance of the Pico plurality decision, which is probably no longer good law, to prevent red schools from removing ideas they don't like, and blue states from doing the same?
Gdanning
10mo ago
The parallels with gender abound. How much does the biology matter? The relationships? The performance of the role’s expected behaviors? How much should we honor someone’s self-identification? Are there any useful insights to draw from the comparison?
There are no insights to be drawn from the comparison, because you never stop to define what a "mom" is. If "mom" is defined as "the person from whose womb a child sprung," then step-moms are not moms, and nor are women who use surrogate mothers. If it means, as you hint is can, "the person who nutured you in the manner that our society associates with motherhood," then a step-mother can be a mother. As can arguably a man. And different definitions can be used in different contexts; for the purpose of determining who has the right to due process before being deprived of parental rights, a stepmother who has not adopted her stepchild might not be deemed to be the child's mother. But for purposes of determining who gets to go to mother-daughter day at the ballpark, she probably is.
Similarly, whether a transwoman is a "real woman" depends entirely on the definition one uses. And, that, of course, is the root of the dispute. People on the right think that self-identification is completely meaningless, while those on the left think that it is the whole thing, at least for the issues that they care about. And, of course, self-identification is often all that defines group membership in many contexts. But obviously not all.
Brutalism hasn't been in vogue for 40+ years. See recent Pritzger winners.
Edit: No, concrete boxes are not the only acceptable architectural form. Frank Gehry does not design concrete boxes. Nor does Rem Koolhaas. Nor does Santiago Calatrava. Nor does Renzo Piano. Nor does Daniel Libeskind.
And of course there is a wide variety of styles represented here
Gdanning
7mo ago
- I don't understand why you frame it as which side gets to hurt the other more, as opposed to both sides benefiting from ensuring that their ideas are not censored.
- Have you not heard of cancel culture, and the like? Do you think that only conservatives try to censor ideas that they don't like? A law that prevents censorship benefits all sides.
Gdanning
9mo ago
If the problem is that teachers are stupid and allergic to nuance, then structural changes are not going to have much effect. We're going to have to attract smarter, less nuance-resistant people to the teaching profession. And that is going to mean raising pay substantially. Because when I was teaching, we had plenty of smart, nuance-friendly Teach for America teachers, but the vast majority of them left to go to law/medical/business school.
it seems the only question here is whether parents should be allowed to overrule librarians, and I don't see why the answer to that should be "no" whether we're talking about blue, or red parents.
No, that isn't the issue. The issue is whether a majority of parents can silence all views with which they disagree, and whether schools should only provide information on one side of political issues. That certainly is not the norm. Most school districts, be they red or be they blue, have "controversial issues" policies which require teachers to teach such issues objectively, and to provide views on all sides. Even the supposed "anti-CRT" laws generally do not ban those ideas from class but instead provide that discussion thereof is perfectly fine if "instruction is given in an objective manner without endorsement.".
And, you would be OK if your kid's school only taught Das Kapital, and only had Marxist works in their libraries, and blocked all websites other than those that gave Marxist interpretations of history, economics, politics, etc?
Whether or not both sides will benefit from lack of this kind of "censorship" will also depend on whether librarians tend to have a bias towards one side or the other
School boards, not librarians, are ultimately responsible for deciding what books can be in libraries, and school boards often are asked to remove books which are not politically correct.
Gdanning
7mo ago
the standard assumes he can get away with it forever.
This is little more than a suggestion that the index would be more accurate if it discounted a woman's earned income somewhat in order to account for the possibility that a woman with no earned income might recover from her husband. A fine suggestion, but the index's failure to do (assuming it indeed fails to do so) hardly delegitimizes the entire endeavor.
Gdanning
11mo ago
what exactly does a white person owe a state that actively discriminates against them?
Maybe ask these guys?
Gdanning
7mo ago
then please explain how this law would prevent librarians from curating away books they don't like,
The point is that, in the absence of the law, libraries will not simply be able to remove books with views they don't like; they will have the right to do so. In contrast, if the law is passed, they risk losing funding or worse if they do so. Will it absolutely prevent them from doing so? No, just as laws against murder do not absolutely prevent murders.
yes I would be a lot more ok with that than having these decision made by a single librarian.
You are avoiding the issue. The issue is not by whom it should be done, but rather whether it is ok with it being done at all.
It also looks like you were trying to address the other part of my comment but didn't get around to it?
No, there was just a formatting problem. I have edited it for clarity.
"We're coming for your children" is saying something very real . . . the statement means they intend to influence the perception of children towards the LGBT movement in defiance of their opposition.
Which, unlike child molestation, is a perfectly legitimate goal in a democratic society. Just as those who lobby for or against teaching all sorts of things do all the time.
Also, if your nanny is not familiar with the saying, "you can't judge a book by its cover," or is too lazy to leaf through a book for toddlers, you need a new nanny. And some people want their kids to read those books. That is why the library carries a variety of books, some of which appeal to some people and some of which appeal to others.
Gdanning
7mo ago
I'm not willing to give away the option to prevent flooding the library with propaganda
Well, we will have to agree to disagree, because I see that as deeply improper. And, as Justice Alito has correctly noted, 'The public schools are invaluable and beneficent institutions, but they are, after all, organs of the State." Morse v. Frederick, 551 US 393, 424 (2007). That is true regardless of whether decisions are made by librarians or parents.
Gdanning
7mo ago
Sorry, I misread your previous reply. It seems that you agree that indoctrination is bad; if that is the case, then I do not understand why you oppose a law that prevents indoctrination. Because, to clarify, once the plurality opinion in Pico is overruled, which is inevitable given the Court's subsequent government speech jurisprudence, schools will be free to engage in indoctrination by removing all books that conflict with the majority view.
Gdanning
11mo ago
Then you did down into things like his zebra arguments, and they are just obviously rubbish because there are multiple instances of Europeans going to Africa in the 1800s and early 1900s and remarking on how easy to break zebras are,
But, breaking an animal is not the same as domesticating an animal. As noted on page 159: "Elephants have been tamed, but never domesticated. Hannibal's elephants were, and Asian work elephants are, just wild elephants that were captured and tamed; they were not bred in captivity. In contrast, a domesticated animal is defined as an animal selectively bred in captivity and thereby modified from its wild ancestors, for use by humans who control the animal's breeding and food supply."
And of course to this day zebras have not been domesticated.
So, you think displaying a rainbow flag causes some pct of boys to grow up to get an erection when seeing a naked guy, and to fail to get an erection when seeing a naked woman?
Gdanning
11mo ago
You are correct that I did not see the gap. But, is the video actually about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence? I think I see one "nun" in the background watching but I don't see any participating in the performance. And 2) what exactly is anti-Catholic about sexualizing Jesus? If I said, "I want to fuck Jesus," I am sure that some Catholics would be offended. But how is that statement anti-Catholic? As opposed to expressing an idea that disagrees with Catholic doctrine?
Gdanning
11mo ago
A decade ago the supreme court unanimously ruled that people are actually allowed to appeal federal agency rulings to the court system, which the Obama administration did not want.
That is not the worst summary of a legal issue I have ever heard, but it isn't great. The Administrative Procedures Act provides for judicial review of “final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court.” 5 U. S. C. §704. The issue in the case was whether "final agency action" had yet occurred. Not whether "people are actually allowed to appeal federal agency rulings to the court system," since people have been doing that successfully for decades.
Biden's EPA, which had attempted to define the navigable waters of the united states to mean any land on which there is any standing water at any time of the year.
No, 40 CFR 120.2 defines "waters of the United States" to include wetlands, and "wetlands" to mean "those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions." And according to the Court's decision, that definition dates to the early 1980s. And see, eg, People of State of Ill. v. Outboard Marine Corp, 619 F.2d 623, 627 fn 14 (2nd Cir. 1980) (quoting the rule). It was not a creation of "Biden's EPA," as you imply.
Gdanning
4mo ago
And the people claiming this don't even really like Romney all that much!
I would guess that most of the people complaining are more concerned about who he was running against. And for some of those people, more specifically the race of that person.
Gdanning
6mo ago
the elusive moderate Muslim
Every Muslim I have met in the US, and I have met a fair number, has been moderate. Though only one has been from the Middle East.
If you are doing worse, then you seem to be in the minority. And see here
Perhaps your personal situation is not representative of the norm, and that the cited data, rather than being "statistical bullshit," more accurately describes the norm than does your anecdote.
Gdanning
7mo ago
- I don't know why you think there are "sides" on this particular issue. But this is pretty rich, since it sure seems that most of the objections seem to be that commenters fear that it says something that commenters don't want to hear.
- The problem with your analogy to abortion numbers is that false numbers are just that: false. And true numbers are true. In contrast, as I have repeatedly noted, an index like this one is inherently less than perfectly accurate, And, an index, unlike an abortion statistic, can not be said to be either "false" or "true." So, it is not enough to say, as people have, that it is not perfectly accurate. It might be so inaccurate that is "call[s] the whole thing in question," but neither you nor I nor anyone else here has any idea how "inaccurate" it is (ie, the degree to which it does not reflect what is actually happening on the ground). None of us even knows the precise methodology used. The only one who has posted any description of the methodology is yours truly.
Again, the original claim was that the index is invalid simply because it is not perfect. That is a claim a failure to understand the nature of that which is being critiqued.
Where is your evidence that they are anti-Catholic? You linked to their website, but there is nothing there about Catholicism at all. That is in marked contrast to the websites of actually anti-Catholic groups.
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