The humility of science

In the middle of Jonah Goldberg’s tribute to his father is this little gem that testifies to the need for Man to be humble about his knowledge and abilities.

At Thanksgiving every year as the carving of the turkey got underway, he would note that if there was a planet of super-intelligent turkeys watching all this, the spectacle would be worse than any horror movie ever seen. At the end of the meal, he would always look at the remains of the carcass on the platter and ask me, gravely, “Jonah, Do you think if we assembled the greatest doctors and scientists in the world, we’d be able to save this bird’s life?”

If there is any doubt that there was greatness in the soul of Goldberg senior, consider the following observation.

“The editorial is an encomium to Kerouac’s genius, that he was a “master of haiku.” The only problem is that haiku is the most rigid poetic form–17 syllables in three lines of 5 , 7, and 5 syllables each, a form set in concrete for three or four centuries–and, as NYT points out, Kerouac was able to overcome this and do haiku in different numbers of syllables, not even adding up to 17…. The examples cited by NYT editorial are pure crap.”

It is remarkable how much unmitigated bullshit one can see through if one merely refuses to assume that others, particularly those with the highest standing and most impeccable credentials, actually know whereof they speak. Don’t trust, just verify.

Mailvox: opportunity and result

DML and Mikert, among others, appear to be having some trouble understanding the difference:

So the difference between opportunity and result here is a question of citizenship? I think it would be helpful if you’d devote a post to explaining the difference because this doesn’t look like a very good, clear explanation.

I’ll try to type a little more slowly… although I find it very difficult to fathom how and why anyone should have any trouble distinguishing between opportunity and result given the way in which conservatives are often explaining why they support equality of opportunity instead of equality of result with regards to issues such as affirmative action.

Anyhow, it’s not a question of citizenship, the hypothetical concept of 500,000 Chinese immigrating to Delaware and democratically transforming it into a Communist state is merely an example of the way in which liberty of opportunity – in this case, the free movement of peoples – can render a result that is significantly and materially less free for the people living in Delaware. Anarcho-capitalism may sound cool and exciting, but it is an oxymoronic concept as capitalism requires the sort of ground rules that no anarchic society is capable of supporting.

Liberty of opportunity: everyone on the planet enjoys the maximal freedom of choice with regards to where they live, and where are permitted to vote and/or otherwise influence the systems of government whether they happen to live there or not.

Liberty of result: everyone on the planet enjoys the maximal freedom of action with regards to how they live their daily lives in their places of residence, but they are not permitted to enter or even have contact with those communities that do not wish to associate with them.

Libertarianism is not anarchism and maximizing liberty for everyone necessarily involves imposing limits on those whose actions would result in less freedom for others. This is not utilitarianism, this is simply logic and observable fact. One may not ignore the fact that nations exist and are societally significant any more than one can ignore the fact that gravity exists simply because one would like to fly.

Still short. Still fat.

Still stupid:

SHARON WAXMAN, EDITOR THE WRAP: Yeah, but you can’t talk about Anthony Weiner with your kids. You can’t talk about him at the dinner table. I mean, at some point…

JANEANE GAROFALO: What?

WAXMAN: Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t talk about what was going on in the news what I spent my day doing this week at the dinner table. It was X-rated.

GAROFALO: That’s not his fault.

WAXMAN: That’s not his fault?

GAROFALO: We can talk about the things he’s fought for. I would say the distraction that’s created is by a media that’s overly-obsessed with this stuff because it’s easier than doing the hard stuff of their job.

[APPLAUSE]

WAXMAN: Mostly I agree with you. Mostly I agree with you. In the Clinton scandal I agree with you. In this case Anthony Weiner did this to himself.

GAROFALO: No, no, no.

BILL MAHER, HOST: I agree, I would like him to stay, too, but I have to agree with you that, like, I cannot look at him now. Whatever he’s saying, “Medicare for all,” I’ve seen your dick.

GAROFALO: That’s not his fault.

MAHER: That’s all…

GAROFALO: That’s not his fault. And you actually technically haven’t seen his, his…

MAHER: Oh, yes we have.

GAROFALO: In his underwear, right?

MAHER: No, no. The one this week. I’ve seen his picture too much.

GAROFALO: Either way, that doesn’t, if the media and the hypocrite Republicans didn’t keep this going pretending the American people want it, it wouldn’t be something you have to discuss with, and I’m sure you don’t discuss Anthony Weiner with your kids at the table anyway, even before this.

There is the new excuse for those caught indulging in inappropriate Internet behavior. The hypocrite Republicans made me do it! In the likely event you didn’t understand the reference, it is to this 2003 column. It’s remarkably how well it holds up these days…. But at least the democratic system worked, the outraged vox populi was heard, and Weiner is only walking away with around $1 million in taxpayer money courtesy of his togger tweeting. It’s rather nice work if you can con a district into hiring you.

Voxic Shock 1.2: Karl Denninger

In this week’s podcast, I speak with Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker about everything from the probability of another banking bailout to the student loan debacle.  We also discuss how it came to pass that he, a lifelong Republican, voted for Obama and how he felt about it subsequently as well as why he is not a supporter of Ron Paul.

A direct download of Voxic Shock 1.1, featuring economist Ian Fletcher, is now available.

UPDATE – Karl has a post on the podcast in case you are interested in leaving a comment related to it on his site. It appears his readers enjoyed it as well.

Yes, Apple really is technofascist

Even the Macintossers are beginning to admit the obvious:

IPHONE users may soon be stopped from filming at concerts — as a result of new Apple technology. The leading computer company plans to build a system that will sense when people are trying to video live events — and turn off their cameras. A patent application filed by Apple revealed how the technology would work.

If an iPhone were held up and used to film during a concert infra-red sensors would detect it. These sensors would then contact the iPhone and automatically disable its camera function.

As El Borak has already noted, there will no doubt be a version 2.0 containing a Law Enforcement switch that will turn off the iPhone cameras whenever police badges are detected nearby. Apple may make good products, but if you’re still buying them, you’re just not getting it.

Trade and the Libertarians

Ian Fletcher takes on the free trade Libertarians at WND:

I recently gave a podcast interview to Vox Day, a prominent Christian libertarian, explaining why free trade is bad for America. He followed it up with an article making many of the same points.

Finally, a libertarian gets it.

This did not go over well with some of his followers.

I’m not qualified to speak to the “Christian” aspects of free trade – whatever those are – beyond observing that globalism, of which free trade is a part, certainly looks like the Tower of Babel. But as one prominent libertarian has now seen through the free trade delusion that generally grips his fellow libertarians, this is probably a good time to explain what he got and they didn’t.

Followers? I have followers? And here I thought I merely had Ilk. Anyhow, Fletcher’s casual observation connecting Babel and globalism is one that should give any Christian, libertarian or not, food for thought.

What Fletcher is saying without specifically articulating it is a variant on a point I have previously made with regards to abortion and immigration. There is a difference between liberty of opportunity and liberty of result. But liberty, unlike equality, is a desired net outcome. It is not desirable that everyone be the same, whereas it is desirable that everyone have the maximal amount of personal freedom. This means that contrary to the way in which equality of opportunity is to be preferred to equality of result, liberty of result is to be preferred to liberty of opportunity.

Furthermore, it is no more intrinsically unjust that foreign corporations are forced to pay a tariff in order to sell their wares – or even not be permitted to sell them at all – than foreigners who are not resident in the USA are not permitted to vote for the U.S. president or collect AFDCTANF payments. The so-called moral argument for free trade to which many Libertarians appeal is not only unjust, overtly anti-American, and anti-Constitutional, it is an important tool in the service of one of the most fundamentally evil concepts in the history of humanity, a centralized international government with global authority.

Two collapses

Nouriel Roubini finally latches onto the fact of the collapsing European currency:

So given these three options are unlikely, there is really only one other way to restore competitiveness and growth on the periphery: leave the euro, go back to national currencies and achieve a massive nominal and real depreciation. After all, in all those emerging market financial crises that restored growth a move to flexible exchange rates was necessary and unavoidable on top of official liquidity, austerity and reform and, in some cases, debt restructuring and reduction.

Of course today the idea of leaving the euro is treated as inconceivable, even in Athens and Lisbon. Exit would impose big trade losses on the rest of the eurozone, via major real depreciation and capital losses on the creditor core, in much the same way as Argentina’s “pesification” of its dollar debt did during its last crisis.

Yet scenarios that are treated as inconceivable today may not be so far-fetched five years from now, especially if some of the periphery economies stagnate. The eurozone was glued together by the convergence of low real interest rates sustaining growth, the hope that reforms could maintain convergence; and the prospect of eventual fiscal and political union. But now convergence is gone, reform is stalled, while fiscal and political union is a distant dream.

Greece’s credit rating was recently reduced to CCC. Ireland and Portugal aren’t much better off. Spain is also in serious trouble. But just as Roubini has been late on the developing eurodisaster, he’s probably too generous in thinking that it’s going to take five years for nations to begin leaving the Euro.

Complicating matters is the fact that it looks like the U.S. mortgage scandal is on the verge of entering the next stage, which threatens both the banking industry and the housing market. As usual, Karl Denninger has the details at the Market Ticker:

The principal issue ripe for determination by this Court, and which was left unaddressed by the majority in Matter of MERSCORP (id.), is whether MERS, as nominee and mortgagee for purposes of recording, can assign the right to foreclose upon a mortgage to a plaintiff in a foreclosure action absent MERS’s right to, or possession of, the actual underlying promissory note. However, as “nominee,”MERS’s authority was limited to only those powers which were specifically conferred to it and authorized by the lender (see Black’s Law Dictionary 1076 [8th ed 2004] [defining a nominee as “(a) person designated to act in place of another, (usually) in a very limited way”]). Hence, although the consolidation agreement gave MERS the right to assign the mortgages themselves, it did not specifically give MERS the right to assign the underlying notes, and the assignment of the notes was thus beyond MERS’s authority as nominee or agent of the lender.

It’s only a small matter of something like 60% of all US mortgages. But the court has noted that it’s unlikely to be impressed by the “too big to fail” defense. “This Court is mindful of the impact that this decision may have on the mortgage industry in New York, and perhaps the nation. Nonetheless, the law must not yield to expediency and the convenience of lending institutions.” It’s about time. But the fact that the various crashes and cleanups are absolutely necessary doesn’t mean they are going to be a lot of fun for everyone.

To put in perspective the seriousness of the present situation, consider the current interest rates on various two-year government bonds, (the price of government borrowing), as of June 15, 2011. Higher interest rates indicate an anticipated increased degree of risk.

0.445 USA
0.767 USA 2010

25.628 Greece
8.637 Greece 2010

11.621 Portugal
3.090 Portugal 2010

3.402 Spain
2.946 Spain 2010

1.586 Germany
0.511 Germany 2010

And we’re back to the Ice Age predictions

I hope you all enjoyed the brief, but glorious Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change era, as it appears Science (ever to be praised, never to be doubted) has now changed her mind again and the Earth is going to be getting colder. But this time it’s not Man’s fault, but rather the Sun’s.

What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening, as heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth – far from facing a global warming problem – is actually headed into a mini Ice Age.

The announcement made on 14 June (18:00 UK time) comes from scientists at the US National Solar Observatory (NSO) and US Air Force Research Laboratory. Three different analyses of the Sun’s recent behaviour all indicate that a period of unusually low solar activity may be about to begin.

The Sun normally follows an 11-year cycle of activity. The current cycle, Cycle 24, is now supposed to be ramping up towards maximum strength. Increased numbers of sunspots and other indications ought to be happening: but in fact results so far are most disappointing. Scientists at the NSO now suspect, based on data showing decades-long trends leading to this point, that Cycle 25 may not happen at all.

The amusing thing isn’t so much the about-face, or even the way in which news sites that previously bought into the AGW/CC myth were quick to attempt to minimize the announcement. “However, the temperature change associated with any reduction in sunspot activity would likely be minimal and not enough to offset the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming, according to scientists.”

Of course. How could even a minimal cooling manage to offset something that isn’t even happening. But the statement is literally true since there is no impact of “greenhouse gases”, also known as “carbon dioxide”, on global warming and they were careful to utilize the word “likely” to cover their posteriors in case they happen to be wrong. Again.

But whether the Earth is headed for a mini Ice Age or a maxi Heat Age, we can be certain of one thing. The only possible solution recommended by Science will involve handing over more money and political power to whatever government authority pays the salaries of the scientists involved.