Tag: mailvox

Mailvox: certainly self-comlimentary

BB affects to be surprised:

I found this site by accident. This discussion of evolution is certainly on a low level for a site that is so deeply self-comlimentary. I am always surprised that people refuse to accept biological evolution because of its supposed implausibility, yet easily accept the idea of spontaneous human appearance. God, in this view, did not need to develop, but just “is.” The plausibility of God goes unquestioned. Said another way, the argument is that man evolved is unsupportable, but the idea that God is and was forever, self-conceiving, is logical.

By the way, I believe in God.

I suggest you apply the same argument to God and man. But I readily admit that doing so will not answer the Question that you and I both have. The old question of something out of nothing.

Color me dubious.  An affectation of disinterest, followed by a nonsensical naked assertion, followed by a complete strawman.  And notice how quickly the “defense” of evolution rapidly transitions to its scientific plausibility to a philosophical attack on God.  What I find amusing is how the Neo-Darwinian faithful continue to insist that evolution is every bit as probable no matter how much the necessary complexity is observed to have increased. 

The recent recognition – long expected by me and others – that genetics are much more complex than previously understood and that junk DNA is somehow involved in the process, to say nothing of the toppling of the “tree of life”, all significantly increase the improbability and necessary time scales of evolution by natural selection.  And yet, there hasn’t even been any attempt to account for these additional complexities, partly because evolutionary biologists are both relatively innumerate and logically challenged, but mostly because the so-called science is little more than an article of willfully blind faith.

Mailvox: the big questions

LA queries:

I had a question–do you have an opinion on the movie Airplane!?
 The
humor on this movie has always escaped me.  I’ve always found many
comedy movies to be fairly stupid but I can always suspend disbelief,
put aside logical problems in a decent sci fi or comedy movie, and find
some way to enjoy the humor even if it isn’t my normal cup of tea.
 But this movie has always been the one film I cannot stand.
 Anyway,
a friend that reads Vox Popoli and I were having a spat about it and it
made me curious if you enjoyed it or if you ever saw it, and whether
you care one way or another.

I thought Airplane had its amusing moments, but would not put it in my personal top 25 movies or even top 20 comedies.  I can stand it, but only in short doses; I’ve never been able to watch it all the way through.  Its humor is mostly of the sort that I consider to be too broad-based and obvious to be more than moderately funny even when done right.  I think an element of surprise, or at least unpredictability, is necessary to make something genuinely hilarious, and most of Airplane’s humor is entirely predictable, being based on stupid and unlikely misunderstandings.

As a writer once said that if the plot of your novel is dependent upon your characters being stupid, you don’t have an actual book.  In like manner, I don’t find humor that depends upon the characters being borderline retarded to be amusing.  And if a “humorous” pratfall is somehow involved, I am left colder than cold.  I simply don’t find people falling down, particularly in a theatrical manner, to be be funny at all.  When I see an adult laugh at someone slapping their forehead and falling down, or pretending to faint, I seriously wonder what is wrong with them.

But Airplane! does have its moments.  The “I speak jive” line is funny, although the actual execution of the jivespeak borders on the painful.  The surely/Shirley bit is almost Wodehousean and is done well in a deadpan manner that probably wouldn’t have worked nearly as well for anyone not named Leslie Nielsen.  And the short exchanges between Joey and the Captain are downright quoteworthy.  That being said, I looked at the list of what are supposedly the greatest quotes from the movie and noted that less than a quarter of them actually struck me as funny.

To me, easily the funniest movie ever made is Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Other movies that I found to be funnier than Airplane! include Heathers, Weird Science, The Hangover, The Gods Must Be Crazy, The Big Lebowski, Old School, A Fish Called Wanda, Dodgeball, Grosse Pointe Blank, Notting Hill, the first two American Pie films, Stripes, The Pink Panther, and Being There.

Apple’s high water mark

All declines have to begin from a high, and with regards to Apple, it would appear to be all downhill from here.  A few weeks ago, I ranted about the way Apple’s walled garden and forced upgrade approach was being adopted by foolish technology companies.  Two of our four Kobos ended up bricked, both due to the same buggy updated firmware; I could have avoided bricking the second one were I not inadvertently forced into an unwanted update by the computer software.

Apple was able to get away with this very risky strategy due to it being run by a perfectionist, detail-oriented, technofascist.  It didn’t matter if the updates were forced, because anyone working for Steve Jobs was going to be triple-damn certain that the updates would work properly… or at least not contain any fatal bugs.  Now that Jobs is gone, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Apple is running into the same kind of bugs that plague most of the other companies that stupidly tried to imitate it.  I received this email from a friend of mine who was so bold as to update his iPhone to iOS 6:

I updated my iphone to IOS6 last night. New
app appeared called ‘passbook’ which apparently is ‘the simplest way to
get all your passes in one place’ … except it doesn’t connect to the
itunes store. Also I found I had lost
all my playlists from my music … this also happened to a friend but his
have since automagically reappeared … mine haven’t so far!

It’s now been two days and he is still missing his playlists.  Not a big deal, hardly a fatal bug, and yet likely indicative of more serious problems to come in the future.  Meanwhile, Karl Denninger notes that Apple has forced its users to give up Google Maps in favor of its own lower-quality map software.  It’s far too soon to pronounce final judgment, but these recent events tend to bolster my expectation that the second post-Jobs era at Apple is not going to go any better than the first one did.

Mailvox: an uneven match

George: In the end, adherence to divine command theory is the province of lazy minds.

So, in the one corner, we have the irrepressible George as well as the snowflake moralist, INTJ. In the other, we have William of Ockham, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, John Calvin, Immanuel Kant (arguably), and bringing up the rear, Vox Day.

I certainly don’t mind finding myself in the company of such “lazy minds”.

Is evil all you can do?

Greatheart claims that voting is the full extent of his capabilities:

God doesn’t care about my pride, He does care how I conduct myself while on this earth. He will not judge me based on how others treat me; He will, however, judge me on my behavior. My vote is the only weapon I have against the evil at work in this country, so I will use it.

This raises three questions. First, why does Greatheart think his vote is the only weapon he has? Was the vote the only weapon possessed by George Washington or by the apostles? And does he truly believe God wants men to support what they know to be evil in the name of fighting evil?

Barack Obama is certainly evil. But there is no question that Mitt Romney is also evil, in fact, it is entirely possible that he is more evil than Obama. We know how Obama will govern, mostly in absentia. Whereas neither Mitt Romney’s governance of Massachusetts nor the way in which he violated party rules and used his power to silence dissent at the Republican National Convention indicates he will be a lesser evil than Obama.

Mailvox: a requested arbitration

You know you’re dealing with a very special individual when you find yourself longing for the simple pleasure of swatting away the usual anklebiters. And what is with my critics and their absolute obsession with the human posterior? Anyhow, Corona Rabbit requested arbitration:

CR: I would like to know who deleted the CoronaRabbit posts under “True libertarians won’t vote Libertarian”.

VD: One of the blog administrators authorized to do so, who did so correctly as per the rules I established. It’s not that hard. When you are asked a direct question that is relevant to the topic at hand, then answer the fucking question. If you can’t follow a few very simple rules of this sort, you can’t be part of the conversation here.

CR: How very snappy. If you are not available to act as arbiter, then you should not have conversations on your blog. Or rather, you can, but then please rename your site to: Home Of The Ass Flies: We Suck Asses Daily.

Are you aware that I ASKED you to look at my posts, and those of Josh, in order to resolve this very thing? I stated that I was WAITING for that resolution. Here is the thing, Vox: Josh DEMANDED that I comply with the reply-rule. I saw no need to reply to his bullshit. Still, given his DEMAND, I then asked that YOU make a ruling on whether I was right about Josh being a filthy fucking play-debater.

Surely I am allowed to do thusly? Apparently, it seems, not. More than that, I was not necessary that I respond: my response to his question (the first version, before he changed it) had already been given, before he even asked. But let me give you the sequence: that is, if you actually do give a fucking damn.

[LONG AND TEDIOUS REFRAIN OF COMMENT THREAD]

So do tell me Vox, did I have to answer Josh’s “Question”? Given that before he changed the question, I kind of already had? I was under the impression that the sort of things Josh did were very big no-no’s. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Now. Who the hell erased my last posts? I had classically cursed Nate in the last one, and was rather happy with it. Oh, and bought all the little wockers before the Lord: this is the real world, after all, where the Living God walks around. Read Lev 19 (KJV) for a refresher if you are in the mood.

I was not in the wrong here. Not 100% in the right, fine, but in terms of honesty and truth this was shameful. And do let me point out that Nate, the self-proclaimed Mr Awesome, had apparently read the posts… and then proceeded to proclaim judgement on the side of Josh. Apparenly I had managed to offend his unholiness with my lack of demonic glibness. (The act which led me to, in the absence of ANY fucking arbiter, to bring the Living God into the game.)

I am waiting for a reply. Not that I care, you understand. Not that I think you will act with any more integrity than the animals did. I would just like you to formaly chose the way of the devil. “I like my universe neat,” sayth the Lord.

THE REQUESTED VERDICT

VD: You very much need to learn to stop trying to tell other people what to do in their own house. Josh was correct. You had an obligation to answer his question and instead of doing so, launched an obnoxious and foul-mouthed series of idiotic comments. Moreover, it is utterly stupid to expect any blogger to act as an arbiter 24-7. That is absolutely ridiculous and you should be embarrassed to have even raised the point. Nor does failing to arbitrate between commenters on demand somehow transform a blog into an echo chamber. That doesn’t even make any sense.

It is 100 percent clear that you did not answer a serious and relevant question. You even admit it, you are simply attempting to justify not doing so. You claimed: “I DEEMED IT ANSWER ENOUGH. GIVEN THE CLASSICAL LOGICAL FALLACY JOSH WAS UNDOUBTEDLY KNOWINGLY COMMITTING, I SAW NO REASON TO TREAT JOSH WITH ANYTHING BUT DESERVED CONTEMPT”.

You were wrong. The various other aspects are irrelevant. You still have to answer the question. If Josh was committing a logical fallacy, you should have pointed it out to him, identified the specific logical fallacy committed, and then answered the question.

Mailvox: the bonfire of the brights

MP writes of an amusing run-in with his intellectually superior atheist boss:

I’ve been following your blog for several months now after reading The Irrational Atheist, and have recently come across a particular situation which I feel will not only provide you with quite possibly severe bouts of hysterical laughter, but also, rather worrying food for thought.

My boss falls under the category of what I would like to describe as an Unread Atheist, an Atheist who has not read The God Delusion, God Is Not Great, End of Faith and other select works in ego-fondling, nor has he done further research into the field. He just plain doesn’t believe and feels that everyone that does is a moron. Now, this is not to mean that in contrast, a Read Atheist is one who is a well-read and intelligent person, it would just mean that via High-Pope Dawkins, First-Saint Hitchens and Court-Jester Harris, that this Read Atheist believes that they have some form of misguided ammo to make a convincing case against God’s existence.

While having post-work talks about all sorts of miscellanea, my boss led it into atheism. Generally, I remain quiet, as you can only imagine the general drivel that he could come up with; ‘Religion causes war’, ‘They don’t believe in science’, ‘Big Bang made the Universe’, ‘The Vatican Deathstar opposes gay contraception in Zimbawania, because they think the Earth is 2,000 years old’ and ‘Jesus never created the Big Bang because I read half of Thus Spoke Zarathustra once’. But then, it happened…

“The European Economic Crisis is the Vatican’s fault and it could be fixed if they weren’t so greedy, all they need to do is sell everything that they’re hiding in their treasury and catacombs and Europe would be back to normal”

I’d like to think that this is one of the most idiotic things that either of us have read, but I honestly don’t even know where to begin with tackling the problem. What do you have to say on this matter?

I say do the math. Vatican City’s assets are estimated to be worth between $1 billion and $3 billion in total. Total global debt now over $190 trillion, about one-quarter of which is European debt. So, I would ask him how $3 billion is going to pay off $47.5 trillion in debt. It may be a hard lesson for some to learn, but not believing in God doesn’t magically make you smarter. Or, as we first learned from the example displayed by Richard Dawkins, particularly numerate.

Mailvox: logical or empirical?

691 doesn’t do the math:

What you cite as a logical blunder is not a logical error at all. Maybe an empirical error. It’s entirely logically possible for a $1 decrease in spending to lead to a $3 decrease in revenue, resulting in a $2 increase in the deficit.

The deficit, the change in debt levels, is the difference between two numbers: spending and revenue. Does the extra debt come from (relatively) higher spending or (relatively) reduced revenues? You claim that spending and borrowing have increased, which would imply that each $1 in extra spending is leading to less than $1 of extra revenue.

But citing debt levels alone is not sufficient to prove your case.

Very well, let’s look and see if what he’s saying is, in fact, logically possible. I pointed out that the debt doubled from $5 trillion to $10 trillion in four years. 691 is claiming that “it’s entirely logically possible for a $1 decrease in spending to lead to a $3 decrease in revenue, resulting in a $2 increase in the deficit.”

There are two ways to show 691’s criticism is incorrect. First, his statement can only be true if the multiplier effect on government spending can be 3x or more. But is that the case? No, it is not.

“For U.S. annual data that include WWII, the estimated multiplier for defense spending is 0.6-0.7 at the median unemployment rate. There is some evidence that this multiplier rises with the extent of economic slack and reaches 1.0 when the unemployment rate is around 12%. Multipliers for non-defense purchases cannot be reliably estimated because of the lack of good instruments.”
– Macroeconomic Effects from Government Purchases and Taxes,
Robert J. Barro and Charles J. Redlick, NBER Working Paper No. 15369 (September 2009)

So, because the unemployment rate never reached 12 percent, the G multiplier cannot possibly have reached 1.0, much less the required 3.0, and therefore it was, as I previously wrote, logically impossible for the post-crisis governments to simultaneously produce large deficits and cut spending.

Concerning the second method, even if we plug in his numbers, we can see they don’t work on an empirical basis either. We’re not dealing in hypotheticals here. What X decrease in annual spending could lead to a 3X decrease in revenue to create a $1.25 trillion deficit? There would have to be a $625 billion decrease in spending as well as a $1.875 fall in revenue to produce it. However, there was a $535 billion INCREASE in spending to go with a $419 billion fall in revenue, thereby providing an empirical illustration of the logical absurdity of his position.

Mailvox: on flaming swords

Kickass wonders about a well-known image:

Could I get an explanation on the flaming sword picture? I thought it was a joke but googled it.

I’ve  explained this before, but for those who didn’t know, this picture was one of many from a Star Tribune photoshoot for an article one of its writers was doing about my Eternal Warriors novels. He moved onto one of the big New York papers before he’d finished the piece, if I recall correctly, so it never ran, but the photographer liked them so much that he emailed a few of them to me.

I still remember laughing when he called me up after the interview with the writer and asked if “my characters, like, did anything interesting?”  I mean, what was I supposed to say, no, they all sit around and discuss their boring lives?  He got really excited when I mentioned that there were these angels and they got in big battles with flaming swords, until he realized that he was, after all, dealing with a writer.  Which led to his next question: “You’re not, like, fat or anything, are you?”  When I reassured him that I was not the pudgy little novelist he was expecting, he asked me to come down to the Star Tribune building in Minneapolis the next week and bring a sword if I happened to have one.

I didn’t, but there was one at the house at which I was staying – we’d already moved to Europe  at this point – which led to the funniest part of the whole thing.  It was winter, so it was cold, but it was also a bright sunny day, which led to my walking into the Star Tribune reception wearing a long black overcoat, black gloves, black shades, with a shaved head and carrying a katana.  The two female receptionists freaked out and called security, at which point I explained the situation and the guards had a good laugh.

We didn’t end up using the katana, however, as the photographer obtained a few swords from a nearby theatre as well as some flame-paste, so he just picked out a rather Conanesque sword, gave it a quick coat of paste, then set it on fire while I held it.  It was a little trickier than it looked because the burning paste tended to drip off, so I had to try to hold still for the photo while dodging the dripping flames at the same time.  It was more fun than the usual photo shoot and I shared the photographer’s disappointment that the piece never ran.  The reaction to the photo, however mockingly it may be intended, only tends to show that his instincts were correct as it made for a much more interesting author’s photo than most.

Mailvox: a subscription, canceled

A former Gary North subscriber writes to share his experience:

I joined garynorth.com a few months ago in hopes of learning why I should believe in free trade. Dr. North and I immediately locked horns as he would not answer my questions. Every time I cited another scholar’s position he dismissed them as a statist or a mercantilist.

He said I wanted to stick a gun in someone’s belly. I was stunned at his behavior. So I cancelled my subscription.

Only recently did I discover your ongoing debate with him over free trade. What a pleasure to see an intellect of your capacity dismantle Gary North for the intellectual fraud that he is.

Not only are the economics better here, but it’s really hard to beat the price. As for North, one shudders to consider the psychosexual foundation for what appears to be his favorite metaphor. And for those who still find the free trade position entirely convincing, I hope you will note that unlike its defender, I am quite willing to answer questions concerning the subject.