TheVat

I'm a pantheist, which means I believe in stealing trousers! (pant + heist = pantheist)

And the scale that housing reform happens at is municipal. A scale where it helps to have concrete examples of success stories to show local officials when zoning law changes or building code changes or fixed structure criteria are being proposed. And there's a lot more than twelve. Tiny houses can include a range of builds, from small permanent foundation homes to separate garages that are converted into habitable rentable cottages to units that can be put up on a trailer bed. When municipal law doesn't choke off the options, a lot can happen. As a wiser man than I once said, "all politics is local. " It was just one example, my earlier post was making a broader point about the value of individual choices even when large-scale collective political forces are caught up in gridlock and grinding along glacially. It either strikes a chord or doesn't I guess.

Well, there's this prof, who faced disciplinary action, and the federal appeals court sided with him.... A Christian professor of philosophy who was reprimanded for refusing to refer to a trans student as a woman can pursue his lawsuit against Shawnee State University in Ohio, a federal appeals court said Friday. Shawnee State “punished a professor for his speech on a hotly contested issue,” the appeals court said. “And it did so despite the constitutional protections afforded by the First Amendment.” The case stemmed from a 2018 political philosophy class in which the professor, Nicholas Meriwether, called a trans woman “sir.” Meriwether said it happened accidentally, as no one informed him of the student’s preferred pronoun. After class, the student “demanded” to be called “Ms.,” like other female students, and threatened to have him fired if he didn’t, according to Meriwether’s lawsuit. The university initially asked Meriwether to stop using masculine and feminine titles and gendered pronouns, but he argued this was next to impossible. Instead, he said he would refer to the student in question by her last name only. The student was dissatisfied with this approach, as Meriwether continued to address other students as “Ms.” and “Mr.” Meriwether also called the student “Mr.” again in front of the class by accident, he says. The student allegedly threatened to sue Shawnee State, which in turn pressured Meriwether further to address the student in her preferred manner. Meriwether agreed -- on the condition that he could put a disclaimer in his syllabus about how he was following the university’s pronoun policy under compulsion, and stating his views about biological sex and gender being one and the same and immutable. Meriwether’s dean rejected this as incompatible with the university’s gender identity policy. The case was referred to the university’s office for compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits gender-based discrimination. Meriwether, who continued to refer to the student by her last name only, was found to have created a “hostile environment” for her via disparate treatment. (Again, he continued to call other students "Mr." and "Ms.") Meriwether argued against this finding, saying that the student received high marks in the course, and that he didn’t treat her substantially differently from any other student. “Reasonable minds” could differ about this “newly emerging cultural issue,” he said in a letter to his provost. Unswayed, the provost put a warning letter in Meriwether’s personnel file, telling him to follow the pronoun policy to “avoid further corrective actions.” (.....) https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/03/29/court-sides-professor-who-repeatedly-misgendered-trans-student My feeling is everyone was pretty rigid about their position and there could have been less hyperventilating all the way around. The professor, for all his claims of "accident" seemed to be being provocative. Most of us who reach adulthood figure out to call other people what they want to be called - it's called common courtesy. The trans student, in turn, didn't need to start threatening lawsuits and getting him fired, because the professor is a jerk. The best way to disappoint a jerk is to ignore their petty provocations. And there's always those teacher evaluation forms, at semester's end. I'm sure he's going to pay for all that "Mister" crap, when those forms reach the Dean's desk. But putting him on unemployment for it seems extreme to me.

Don't you live in Iowa? So you've credibly found a way to avoid peeing in the ocean. Seriously, I don't see human energy as something like a battery that's just going to drain and go dead if I do more than one thing. Most of our political power, as individuals, is mediated through our elected officials, and we all know how good they are at hearing us and acting in the public interest. So NGO groups, like say the Nature Conservancy or the NRDC, that pool the resources and energy (money, esp.) of private citizens also seem like a fruitful path. As do consumer boycotts, and all the "hundredth monkey" stuff where people spread their behaviors to others around them. There are so many carbon-mitigating things that our government just won't do, because it doesn't get people reelected. Take smaller houses. Elected officials all have to pander to their rich donor class, who doesn't want anyone interfering with the building of, and aggressive marketing of, big square footage houses in sprawling subdivisions, because they see that as their profit center. If people want to live in smaller houses (which require less energy), they have to go directly to the building industry and demand them. Or contribute to a public interest outfit that can pool resources and find bigger crowbars to use under those contractors, and generally promote the concept of small houses across media platforms. I will note that the most extreme form of this idea, the Tiny House movement, has taken hold with a lot of people without much help from government. I'm seeing them for sale now on places like Craigslist, and they get snapped up pretty fast.

This seems like a separate issue from the merits or lack of JP. I agree there is too much combing over what anyone says in search of something you can take offense at. When people do this in mass shamings on social media, it can feel Maoist and wrong. Neither the right to say stupid things, nor the right to dispute them, should be abridged. I have even gone online to defend the free speech of RW nut jobs, and support their right to public podia, on the principles of intellectual freedom and of everyone being free to counter their free speech with their own free critique. And no one has a special right to be protected from offense, unless it is from speech that specifically violates laws on fomenting sedition, hate crime, or slander (usually defined in terms of damage to livelihood and reputation). That said, I think there are reasons to critique JP, so long as critique doesn't extend to censoring or deplatforming. If he is saying things other people are thinking, then I want to hear him simply because I deem it worthwhile to know what other people are thinking. I don't think anyone here would be opposed to that, though some might say, with reason, that he's not worth paying much attention.

I would question the either/or here. Doesn't it take both personal consumption choices AND feedback to companies and government? If I stop buying carbon-intensive widgets, that sends a ping up the supply chain. If I write Congress and ask for better widget regulations that's also a signal. Why not do both, when both consumption choices and letters can send a message? I know some say political action is the better path, and it can be, but I have also seen grassroots consumer movements (combined with letters to companies letting them know what's happening) effect change. I guess I'm suggesting that we don't have to feel individually powerless, that we can make choices every day and let others see us making them, without waiting on some politician to start listening.

Many people can be influencers - they take measures to reduce their impact, do it with grace and skill, and then those around them gain a more positive view. The trick is to implement lifestyle changes that work, that you can stick with. People have been aware of the basic lifestyle changes (bike, walk, reuse, recycle, eat lower on the food chain, wear woolens and turn down thermostat, etc) for decades -- what helps is to actually have people in their peer group who "just do it. " Step one: own an umbrella. 🙂

I live on the edge of wildfire country, where there is some thinning. I find the argument for clearing some growth fairly persuasive, given that it does yield a western woodland closer to its natural state. Also, when you do have a wildfire the pre-cleared forest doesn't burn as fiercely and some tree species survive external charring quite well (trees that would be wiped out if the fire were fueled by more crowded foliage) and make a comeback. The moisture retention approach, while it may be valid in some Eastern forests, wouldn't seem to apply here where there is less foliage density and conditions are dryer, but it is a complex issue which can't be mastered reading a couple articles. Thinning can be done badly, and that's been evident here, as when crews leave slash piles that dry out and then just go up like blowtorches when a spark lands on them. A related issue that's come up here in the western USA is that some areas may be become dryer and hotter to the degree they no longer support a woodland ecosystem and give way to grasslands and scrub. The only pluses to that will be it decreases the fire danger in those areas (grassfires are far more manageable) and the higher albedo of grassland will have a cooling effect. But it also means land that retains less carbon, a shift which we really don't need right now.

Can I call you a taxi?

Would I call them a term whose meaning I only vaguely understand if at all? No. What does neurodivergent mean? To your example, I'd call someone at the top of the scale in extroversion "very outgoing. " Or "quite gregarious. "

Going to ask for an abstract of your paper before reading. A concise description of your main points. Would be very helpful.

But your hypothetical situation cannot map precisely onto the real world. In a world where human fertility went off a cliff in 1950 and population growth flatlined (which in population biology means that fertility rates actually slumped a couple decades before) , there would have been all sorts of societal changes that we might not expect. For example, the southwestern US and west coast might still have seen mass migrations due to the attractive climate and scenery, and so would still be afflicted with rapid-growth ills - water shortages, smoggy urban basins like LA, offshore drilling leaks, etc. And where people are more sparse, there may have been less regulation of some human industry and agriculture, thus enabling more casual and irresponsible dumping, leaking, polluting. Nations that are now moving away from coal might, if they had one third their present populations and proportionate energy demands, more easily shrug off the downsides and drag feet on green policymaking. It's also possible that without any population growth for the last 70 years, there would have been less push towards innovations that were partly in response to population pressures. We might be using more arable land per person, employing fewer agricultural advances and using water and chemicals less efficiently. And, given the demographics of non-growing populations, people might be on average more conservative and less willing to try new ideas. Your alternate world could be dangerously complacent.

More food for thought than I can digest or address. On the whole issue of harassing horndogs at parties, I fall back on the great Dr. Asimov: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." I don't live in 1870's Deadwood, or wherever Koti lives, so my view is through a certain lens of time and geography. Perhaps I've been fortunate to live in parts of the US where a woman, encountering an unwanted Romeo, can simply respond to any offer with "that's flattering but I'm not sure my husband/boyfriend would go for it, " or something equally gently deflating. Deflations allow the miscreant to slink away without provoking an escalation (like, say, a beer tossed in the face might) and neatly underline the situation of being in an exclusive relationship. Competent people appeal to reason and give reality checks, they don't need to punch faces in. I have to wonder how many actual fights, starting from this situation, were theatrical displays that carried both men farther along than they wished. A lot of "masculinity" is performative. That was my experience with a friend who called my then-GF a bitch. I invited him outside, we proceeded bravely out into the yard, then as we lost an audience we realized neither wanted a fight, and so he apologized and we shook hands.

Wow. You make the wife sound helpless and like some sort of possession ("you... take your wife and leave"). Have you met many American women? Why would my confronting the guy be "standing up for myself"? In your scenario he is hitting on her, not me. And my wife would definitely stand up for herself, an alternative you completely ignore for some reason. (As well as that my wife would refuse to leave a party unless the building was under rocket attack) And there's yet a fourth alternative where I do get involved and neither flee the party nor tell the guy rudely to leave or get punched - instead I simply tell him he is making my wife uncomfortable and he should stop. And I'm aware of no evidence that any such pest would have "a set of skills" that allows him to predict my or my wife's response. And, from my experience, most spouses opt for the relatively peaceable "knock it off" response because they know the interloper will back away in embarrassment. I think you may have watched too many violent American movies where everything must be resolved through some vigilante asskicking. Social shaming is far more powerful.

First "vat" joke of the day tells me the whole day will be fun. One can poke a hole in my milk analogy, fair enough, but I was just trying to say that sampling is useful. If I've read six articles by, or quoting at length, JP, and they're all similarly structured hogwash, then I will conclude he's a pop culture hack. If he wrote carefully researched scholarly papers on his various popular theories, I would read one. But he hasn't, has he? And that would be due to his following Jungian psychology which is more a school of literary philosophizing than a cognitive science. He's more of a folklorist, like Robert Bly or Joseph Campbell, than a scientist. And that's fine. If I want to dip into some Jungian reflections, I'll check him out.

The founding fathers did not choose or want a two party system. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Washington all spoke out against the formation of political parties. Several Federalist Papers were issued against the whole idea.

The OP sounds like a manifesto excerpt from a religious cult. Why is it in a biology forum?

Sampling can be useful. One sip from a gallon of milk will inform you that it's turned sour. Not necessary to chug the whole bottle.

I think there may be some misunderstanding of what expertise means here. I have no doubt that, as @MigL thorough listing shows, JP has read many many books and meandered through many topics en route to his PhD in clinical psychology, focusing on familial dynamics and alcoholism. But when he critiques identity politics or attacks SJWs as "weaponizing compassion, " to me it looks like someone who is offering some rather vacuous opinions that do not flow from his actual expertise in psychology or from much grasp of social justice. I find them rather hard to pin down and often they seem little more than clever aphorisms he came up with while studying his navel. I don't really care where he fits on some political spectrum, and so I don't much care how he labels himself. More interested in real content and shrewd analysis, which I don't get from him. If he wants to go about saying he's a free thinker and an iconoclast, that's great, and I hope that's true, but that doesn't mean he can convincingly gripe about cancel culture and suppression all while he and other "classical liberals" can keep shouting at us through their media bullhorns.

Peterson is an expert in many areas that are not his field and in which he has no training and has done no scholarly work submitted for peer review. IOW, just another opinionated guy with a YouTube channel and some half-baked ideas. And he seems to make the RW bigots happy with his arguments that treating NB and trans people with respect is some Maoist plot that will force us into reeducation camps. Ironic to me is that his bestseller is titled 12 Rules for Life.

...that the world was slightly saner today for about four hours when FB, instagram and whatsapp all went down. (bet someone tried to reconfigure a DNS server and it crashed)

Likely philosophers who focus on a specific branch (usually numbered at seven: metaphysics, logic, axiology, aesthetics, ethics, epistemology and political philosophy) that pertains to specific methods or objectives of science will get more respect and fewer sixteen ton weights. Ethics is one, as several noted. Epistemology is another, as it looks at what can be known in the interpretation of data and what can be said to be known in advance of that interpretation. And good old logic is handy when you kick the tires on any conclusion. I've found epistemology the most useful branch when it comes to making sense of areas like NCC (the neurological correlates of consciousness) or quantum theory.

I blame the excessive chiming of cuckoo clocks.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/10/big-companies-are-funding-campaign-kill-climate-bill/620278/ Doubletalk from large corporations on the climate provisions in the major infrastructure legislation currently being thrashed out in the US Congress. (This magazine provides three free articles before a PW drops down. )

Intelligence is an umbrella term to cover a vast range of cognitive skills, and seems far less relevant to assessing job fitness than more precise measures of competence, sometimes called aptitudes. Competencies vital to a national leader would include social skills, big picture comprehension that sees beyond giant fields of data, sound judgement and quick decision skills, and capacity to empathize with people from all walks of life. It's a failure of democracy, of its filters, of its guardrails, when someone gets through whose competencies are only conning people and covering up their own lapses of judgement, empathy, decision-making, etc. Of course, Clinton was a smart guy who had most of the competencies I mentioned, and still somehow couldn't quite grasp that the POTUS is someone who lives in a fishbowl and can't sneak off and be a horny college boy again. Or that making juvenile excuses makes it far worse than just owning up and apologizing. Maybe the competency I left off the list was: being a fecking grownup. Grownups don't have to be moral paragons, but they do have to own up when they're not. I haven't followed Bo enough to know where he falls on the grownup spectrum, though I suspect he finds it a challenge. On first sighting I'll confess I said something unkind and petty about "village idiot hairdo, " and I regret that.