Quotable from Adam Smith

From The Wealth of Nations:

Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life. But after the division of labour has once thoroughly taken place, it is but a very small part of these with which a man's own labour can supply him. The far greater part of them he must derive from the labour of other people, and he must be rich or poor according to the quantity of that labour which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase. The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.

Penn Administrators Uphold the Value of Free Speech While Recycling Zionist Smears

In response to criticism of the upcoming Palestine Writes Literature Festival on the University of Pennsylvania campus, administrators have issued a statement endorsing the false equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

I hadn't been too sure I'd make time to attend a general literature event, but in response to these smears against Palestinians I feel obligated to show up in support.

PW's correspondence with Penn: https://palestinewrites.org/2023/09/15/letter-to-the-university-of-pennsylvania/

My sign at the Global Climate Strike today. A fellow marcher made it easier for me to carry by letting me hang a couple of my bags from her handlebars.

A Video of My First Filk Song Is Posted

My first song parody, "Trinity," is based on the Lois McMaster Bujold fantasy novel The Curse of Chalion and set to the tune of "Yesterday." I composed it in 2004 and got a tape recording made a few years later at Philcon, which I subsequently got converted to a sound file. Today I sang it again for a video recording, whose visual part is simply the book standing up on a table.

The lyrics focus on the uncomfortable condition of the protagonist, Cazaril, for much of the story. At the opening he's barely staying alive, wandering the countryside of a feudal society in search of a position. On his last legs, he realizes he's arrived at the estate of a noblewoman he served in his distant youth as a page. Hoping against hope that she might remember him and let him serve as a page again, he drags his weary self to the gate. Once he gets the guard to inquire within, he finds that the noblewoman not only remembers him, but wants him for a significantly more exalted position as secretary and tutor to a young princess in the royal line of succession named Iselle, who is currently under the noblewoman's protection, and her lady in waiting. Over the next weeks they become fast friends, only to receive a mysterious summons to the royal court. Shortly after they arrive, they learn the reason: under the influence of intriguing courtiers, the King has betrothed Iselle to a lout named Dondo. Feeling he owes his life to her, Cazaril resolves to do whatever he can to save Iselle from this fate. He obtains an audience with the King in hopes of changing his mind, but is unable to sway him. Next, he attempts to assassinate Dondo by various means, but they all fail. His last resort is to death magic.

In the universe of this book there are five gods: the Lord of Winter, patron of old men; the Lord of Autumn, patron of young men; the Lady of Summer, patron of mature women; the Lady of Spring, patron of maidens such as Iselle; and finally the Bastard God, patron of all things out of season. Death magic is a ritual whereby one prays to the Bastard God to end someone's life. Two troublesome things about death magic: if it fails because the Bastard God didn't answer your prayer, the attempt is considered to have been blasphemy. On the other hand, if it succeeds you lose your own life in the process, because the death demon that the god sends in answer to your prayer takes the soul of the person for whose death you prayed and then takes your soul too.

For the first reason, Cazaril has to make his attempt in secret. He finds a section of the royal castle that's no longer in use, and since no  one else knows about what he's doing he has to conduct the entire elaborate ritual by himself. When he's finally completed it he collapses in exhaustion, hoping not to wake up since if his prayer is answered he'll be dead soon.

But he does wake up, still alive if oddly bloated. At first he thinks he must have failed, but soon learns that Dondo did in fact die mysteriously at table. He asks around and learns of an old retired wizard who's working in the King's private menagerie, whom he goes to see in hopes he might have an idea why Dondo has died yet Cazaril hasn't. The wizard gets the story from Cazaril, also noting his strangely bloated condition, and figures it out: the Bastard God answered his prayer and the death demon he sent took Dondo's soul, but before it could also take Cazaril's, one of the other gods intervened by encapsulating the demon along with Dondo's soul in Cazaril's gut. Hence the bloating. This implies that whichever god did this has some use for Cazaril, making him by definition a saint. It doesn't take him too long to figure out that the god in question is the Lady of Spring, but most of the remaining book to work out exactly what her purpose for him is. Cazaril's awkward condition is the focus of my song.

Here is a link to the video I made: https://fstube.net/w/hJRNXPjjzuXNsm8ME9Fm7t

A Little Bit Culty?

 

A few years ago I saw an article about groups for explorers of urban spaces and looked into joining one. I noticed that one Meetup group's web page asked that people not rate the Meetups unless they were going to give five stars, on the grounds that the Organizer was going to the effort to make them happen and lead them and people who didn't like them just shouldn't come back. This sounded to me like the request of an insecure narcissist so I decided not to get involved with that group.

"Is your online community a little bit culty? These are the signs"

https://www.cultnews101.com/2023/08/is-your-online-community-little-bit.html

Sabine, Markets =/= Capitalism

 

Quantum physicist Sabine Hossenfelder wades out of her depth in a video titled "Capitalism Is Good." I posted the following comment:

There are two fundamental errors here. One is assuming the consequent: she argues for the benefits of a market in the context of private ownership of the means of production, but that's precisely the condition for the capitalist system's operation, which she doesn't question.

The second error is confusing a free market with capitalism. As Sabine acknowledges, capitalism is a recent historical development, yet markets have existed since ancient times. What distinguishes capitalism as a system is the commodification of labor-power. The existence of labor markets and capital markets, which is unique to the current capitalist era, results in an increasingly uneven distribution of personal income, so that there's growing expenditure on luxuries for a few while the basic needs of many others go unmet. This in turn causes capital to be increasingly invested in producing luxuries and comparatively disinvested from the production of necessities. Obviously this is sub-optimal for the species biologically.

It also misses the point to dismiss the problem of anticipating externalities like the social cost of carbon emissions as "another problem." The problem is precisely that the capitalist setup, in which the means of production are privately owned by wealthy people who can afford to insulate themselves from the social costs of their investment decisions, guarantees that such considerations will by default be an afterthought, and by the time even a robustly democratic government has begun to catch up with them, much damage has been and there's a vested interest with the resources to obstruct any attempt at regulation. Capitalist democracies are constantly closing the barn doors after the horse is gone.

None of this is to deny that a great deal of material progress has been made possible by capitalism, but further progress is increasingly obstructed by the imbalances it creates, and it's been absolutely destructive in the way it forces most people into a much more alienated relation to their work than was typical in premodern times. Instead of one-sidedly pronouncing it "good" as if it represented the end of history, it's necessary to see it as a phase of social evolution that it's time to move beyond. Capitalism has created machine industry and in the process it's also created a working class for whom cooperative labor is second nature. It's time for this class to recognize that it can lead society in replacing the allocation of productive resources by unconscious market mechanisms with the conscious democratic self-direction of society, and to act on this understanding by substituting its own political rule for the present de facto dictatorship of capital.

To deepen your understanding of capitalism not as synonymous with liberalism but as a contradiction immanent within bourgeois society and pointing beyond it through proletarian revolution, I suggest you enroll in The Platypus Affiliated Society's primary Marxist reading group.

Echo Chambers Happen in Science Too: The Case of Obesity Research

 

These days there are many people who tell us we should just "trust the science." They insist anyone who suggests there could be systematic bias on a question within the scientific community is just a paranoid conspiracy theorist, and that conventions like peer review and the desirability of making one's mark with an original insight ensure against excessive conformism. But the reality is that collective delusions can occur in spite of their collective non-functionality among scientists just as easily as in any other group.

A good example is obesity research. As demonstrated in the article I'm linking to below, for half a century or more this field has been totally dominated by an "energy balance" explanation for what causes obesity and what can be done about it. This is in spite of the fact that it's been repeatedly observed in various species that some individuals reliably become obese even when they're starving. Saying weight gain equals energy in minus energy out is much like saying the average price is that at which supply equals demand: it's a mere tautology that doesn't actually predict anything. Yet it's been treated as dogma within this community and obstructed the advancement of knowledge that could actually reverse the trend of ever more overweight people.

"How a ‘fatally, tragically flawed’ paradigm has derailed the science of obesity"

https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/13/how-a-fatally-tragically-flawed-paradigm-has-derailed-the-science-of-obesity/

Review: The Little Red Schoolbook

 

The Little Red Schoolbook was written in 1969 by Danish educators influenced by the youth radicalization and counterculture of the period. It was soon translated into many different languages and published in many countries -- and also banned in many countries, as described by The Children's '68.

Its purpose was to encourage pupils to question authority and learn how to organize and stand up for their rights, just as their older counterparts at colleges and universities were doing. It also aimed to give them information that they wanted and needed which was typically being embargoed from them on topics such as sex and drugs.

Although I learned of its existence a few months ago while researching Beatrice Faust, the Australian civil liberties and women's rights campaigner who contributed to that country's edition of the book, it's an American edition that I recently finished reading.

The book goes into considerable detail describing how schools work and the role of the different actors such as teachers, principals, and school boards. It describes how to engage constructively with these, especially teachers who have power over students but little control of their own situation, as well as how to turn to outside forces such as the press when this is unsuccessful.

It also provides accurate, non-judgmental information about sexuality, including homosexuality, and tells girls how to avoid unwanted pregnancy as well as how to seek an abortion. One section that falls a little short is three paragraphs about "Child molesters or 'dirty old men.'" It begins, "In the old days people used to talk about 'dirty old men.' Children were told they were dangerous. This is very rarely true. They're just men who have nobody to sleep with."

While it's true that they're very rarely dangerous, they're not simply men who have nobody to sleep with. It's now understood that both men and women vary in their sexual age orientation just as they vary in their sexual gender orientation. Although most minor-attracted people don't harass children or youth, those who do do so because these are the people to whom they're attracted. They may well, and often do, have someone adult to sleep with, but that's not what they actually want.

The conclusion of this section is also problematic. It states, "If you see or meet a man like this, don't panic. Go and tell your teachers or your parents about it." This assumes a child wouldn't be interested in sexual activity with an older person, which isn't always the case. It also doesn't make sense, given not only that they're rarely dangerous, but especially in light of the fact, mentioned in the preceding sentence, that in the rare cases they become violent "it's usually because the man has got scared." In that case, it should be obvious that spreading around the advice that follows could only make violence more likely rather than less.

There's also a major section on drugs, with accurate information about a great variety of them with respect to both their affects and their hazards and without regard to whether a particular drug is "illicit" or "licit," such as tobacco or alcohol -- one of the things that made the book controversial.

Although I only learned of this book recently, reading about it in its historical context has prompted me to comment on the article I linked to above, as follows:

I only learned of this book a few months ago and subsequently read it. But the culture of that period had a profound effect on me, even though I only turned seven in 1968, thanks to my having Old Left parents who were friends with hippies. When I was eight years old and starting to form a perspective on the world beyond my immediate experience and what attitude I should take toward it, the adult conversations I sat in on when we had visitors and the "underground" papers and comics that lay around formed me as essentially radical several years before I actually got involved with politics. It was only natural that as I sat in a police station that same year after running away from home, I imagined myself tearing down the "Wanted" poster for Angela Davis -- so the police couldn't use it to help them catch her. And that when the Pledge of Allegiance was introduced in 10th grade, I refused to say it, even though some classmates initially forced me to my feet for it. (Ironically and tellingly, before the end of the semester no one in my home room was saying it, including those students.)

OTD in 1923 and 2016

On this day in 1923, the Nineteenth Amendment was certified as part of the US Constitution, ending sex discrimination in the franchise. Coincidentally yet appropriately, on this day in 2016 tickets went on sale for the world premiere of _The Red Pill_ documentary about the men's human rights movement. I ordered one that day for the very first screening the afternoon of October 7 in Greenwich Village, where I met filmmaker Cassie Jaye among other people. She posted the picture below the day before that.

My Creative Process

I just watched a video by Shirley Serban from a couple years ago about how she composes song parodies, prompting me to put down my thoughts on how it works for me. I posted them as a comment:

Interesting. It's a much more intuitive, organic kind of process for me. I've composed 24 parodies to date (8/23/23), all but three of them since August '19, but I've never thought systematically about the process. I think it usually starts when I realize that some song I'm hearing or thinking of has lyrics that could have a different meaning, or that rhyme with something that particularly interests me, and I gradually build around that starting point until I've got something of satisfying length. Often the entire process occurs in my head. Sometimes, if I don't actually know the original lyrics by heart, I'll print it out on a sheet of paper so that I can write what I've thought of alongside the corresponding lines. If I'm not sure I know the whole melody, or discover that I don't after I've started composing, I'll watch a lyrics video a whole bunch of times until I can recite at least the whole tune, if not all the words, without fault. This process can result in a parody that's longer in terms of unique lyrics than the original, though the running time may be the same since I don't care for repeating verses without variation. So, for instance, my parody of "Windy" would probably play about the same length of time as The Association's classic recording, even though it has nearly three times as many unique lyrics (eight verses versus three in the original). It takes no effort to review what I've composed since it's pleasurable and more or less compulsive to review my creation over and over in my head for several days thereafter, in the course of which I'll sometimes realize there's a tweak to be made that sounds more natural or achieves a more perfect parody of the original.

The video: https://fstube.net/w/w9BDWVdswbnefux2Jb22Lw

AP Tells Lies about ROGD

An AP article appearing in Wednesday's Metro contains some misinformation. I wrote the editor about it.

I am infuriated at the ideologically motivated distortion of science in your article ""How many transgender and intersex people live in the US?"

It says, "[C]onversations about gender-affirming care bans were at times clouded by a discredited 2018 study that claimed kids might experience gender dysphoria because of peer influence. This led to erroneous suggestions that the number of trans people was inflated."

The article deviously fails to name the allegedly discredited study, making it difficult for readers to check the facts for themselves. Fortunately I'd heard of the paper and read an interview with the author, Lisa Littman, in the magazine Quillette. The study was never discredited. The journal PLOS One did a re-review in response to criticism, but as stated in the Notice of Republication, “Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article."

Not only was peer influence not discredited as a factor in the recent rise in the number of adolescents and young adults presenting with gender dysphoria -- and the sudden shift toward more female-to-male, rather than male-to-female, transitioners -- but as Littman noted in the interview, "One amazing outcome [of the controversy] is that four young women who experienced gender dysphoria in their teens and then de-transitioned or desisted [pictured above] found each other and created The Pique Resilience Project, a video series they use  to share their experiences. All of them now speak openly about having experienced ROGD [rapid onset gender dysphoria]."

Blanket age restrictions or parental vetoes on young people's bodily autonomy would not be justified. But where irreversible procedures that destroy people's reproductive potential are concerned, this principle needs to be balanced with the ethical responsibility of professionals to thoroughly explore someone's gender dysphoria and other emotional issues to rule out other, non-trans causes before referring them for medical or surgical treatments.

Quote of the Day: Adorno on Sexual Taboos

In law and morals sympathy is accorded to everything that perpetuates the modes of behavior of societal oppression -- and ultimately sadistic violence -- whereas modes of behavior that are contrary to the violence of the social order itself are dealt with mercilessly. -- Theodor Adorno, "Sexual Taboos and Law Today," 1963

https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/readings/adorno_sexualtaboostoday.pdf

Lolita Misread

 

In a book I'm currently reading I saw the following passage:

"There is the incontrovertible fact, very hard for some of us to accept, that in certain cases it is not the man who inaugurates the trouble. The novel Lolita ... describes what may well happen. A girl of twelve or so is already endowed with a good deal of sexual desire and also can take pride in her 'conquests.' Perhaps, in all innocence, she is the temptress and not the man." (The Facts of Sex, 1970, quoted in Fear of Child Sexuality by Stephen Angelides, 2019)

Doubtless in some cases this is what happens, but it misrepresents the novel, and I've encountered this misrepresentation quite a number of times. Go no further if you're supersensitive to spoilers, but in a nutshell here's what happens up to that scene in the book: Humbert sees twelve-year-old Lolita and finds her attractive, as he's a hebephile who loves "nymphets." There's no indication that she has any interest in him. He devises to befriend and ultimately marry her mother, pretending to love the latter, simply to get close to Lolita and ultimately achieve intimacy with her. Yet he's beset with the perverse notion that he's morally obligated to preserve her "innocence," so he devises to give her a drug that will put her out, allowing him to take her without her being "corrupted." But when he actually gets to this point, he's anxious to be absolutely certain that she's really unconscious, and so deeply so that she won't wake up during the act. So he keeps almost initiating intercourse without actually doing so. Finally he falls asleep from exhaustion, only to be awakened by Lolita's jumping his bones.

In this context, it appears perfectly clear what Nabokov was portraying: a relationship initiated and driven exclusively by the older man's desire, ultimately consummated by the girl only because his repeated "almosts" when she wasn't actually asleep have started to drive her crazy and to arouse her with the feeling that she's desirable.

For whatever reason, the term "Lolita complex" came to be used for a girl pursuing older men, and presumably this is why many people, perhaps people who haven't actually read the book, have had a misapprehension of the story it tells.

Not All Self-care Is Alike

I see a lot of memes about self-care these days. It's a valid concept, but I get the feeling that some of these messages are dangerously one-sided and open to harmful interpretations. Under a cultic influence, which isn't necessarily formally organized let alone recognized as such, a person may cut off someone he deems "negative" or "toxic" merely because they challenge a belief he's become emotionally attached to and dependent upon -- a kind of self-milieu control. This sort of "self-care" is actually self-limiting and potentially self-destructive.

Vivid Dreams

It's been a few years now since I first encountered a reference to "vivid dreams" as a medical symptom or side effect. This still seems weird to me. Since I first started having dreams that I remembered on waking (probably when I was seven) a certain percentage of them have been vivid. I never saw this as a problem, and find it hard to fathom that anyone would.

The New Library and the Old Baseball Diamond

Someone linked to this poem with a point in the chat during last night's celebration of the Forward Party's first birthday.

One day some folks in the town of Julyberry

Went to commission a neighborhood library.

Books in the town were too simple and few, 

And they’d run out of stories exciting and new.

They convened at Town Hall and presented their plan.  

The town council considered, and said, “Yes, we can!”

“There’s a perfect location–just give us some time and

We’ll put it on top of the old baseball diamond!”

The book-reading folks were content with this choice, 

But the athletes and sports fans cried out with one voice,

“You can’t put a library on our sports field!

We will not allow it, and we will not yield!”

They put their foot down and continued to shout, 

“We will form our own party and we’ll vote you out!”

They selected their leaders with singular aim, 

To protect their old ballfield and keep things the same.

The councilors whispered, their speech tinged with greed, 

“The athletes and sports fans don’t want you to read!

We need more campaign funds to keep them from power!

They oppose your library?  We’ll make it a tower!”

The book-lovers turned out their pockets with glee.

“We’ll show the sports-lovers!  Yes, we’ll make them see!

They resent us for all our creative pursuits.

They don’t care about baseball; they’re just being brutes!”

But meanwhile the sports-lovers turned out the vote–

They replaced half the council, and how they did gloat.

They stopped not just the library, but any measure

They thought might give book-lovers any small pleasure.  

The members of council were thus in deadlock–

Each group would draft measures the other would block.

Most had clauses that tweaked someone’s nose, as expected,

But those that did not, even so, were rejected.  

And Julyberry leaders kept serving the town

Writing spiteful proposals and shouting them down

And continued to meet all their fundraising goals

While the old pipes and roads became riddled with holes.  

Now you can’t drive through town and you can’t drink the water, 

And you won’t see repairs on the town meeting blotter.  

But the voters sing praise of each allied official, 

Their neighbors, now enemies, just sacrificial.  

And who is to blame for the town’s ceaseless fight?

If one says that they all are at fault, is that trite?

For next door to Town Hall, under overcast skies,

Lies an old vacant lot, roughly library-size.

https://ginnungagapfoundation.wordpress.com/2022/12/11/your-party-is-not-your-friend-or-the-new-library-and-the-old-baseball-diamond/

Stop Capitalist State/Corporate Censorship

 Former ACLU president Nadine Strossen discusses Big Tech censorship with Sam Husseini:

"Even private sector actors are directly bound by constitutional norms, including the First Amendment free speech guarantee ... if they are essentially conspiring with the government doing the government's bidding."

Even when Big Tech isn't actually colluding with government, the state is involved in two ways: 1) if the platform is owned by a corporation, it has the privilege of operating only because the government has issued it a charter, which could be revoked on the grounds that it isn't serving the public interest; and 2) even if it's not incorporated, it can only exercise this power of censorship because the state is enforcing its private ownership of the means of public communication. It's this ultimate backing by state violence that makes Capital itself tyrannical, even where government isn't directly involved. Democratic values can best be enforced by nationalizing these platforms so that the First Amendment applies to them automatically.

https://husseini.substack.com/p/interview-with-nadine-stroessen-on

https://fstube.net/w/c1ewtuyPyGwnaBerhjuB6r

A Case of Zionist Censorship

In a new segment of his podcast System Update, Glenn Greenwald talks with David Miller, a British professor who was fired for anti-Zionist views in an example of the "safetyism" (as Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff have dubbed it) that we more often associate with the Left.

When Miller mentions that no one has refuted the factual statements for which he's being criticized, I'm reminded of something I saw in the East Jerusalem hostel where I stayed while volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement in 2002. It was a booklet analyzing the curriculum of Palestinian Authority schools from a Zionist standpoint. Various statements about the region's history that were part of this curriculum were criticized as being "anti-peace," yet not once was any evidence adduced that they were untrue. The fact that they were inconvenient for Zionism was seen as sufficient grounds for condemning them.

https://fstube.net/w/tXe3wpSCabVuSBwonRLk7o

Happy Moon Day, Everyone!

There's no place humanity can't go if we get our act together.

Election Interference by Big Tech

In a video posted on YouTube today, Glenn Greenwald discusses the latest instance of capitalist interference with scientific and political freedom.

Some self-described radicals cite Herbert Marcuse's essay "Repressive Tolerance" as justification for their support of censorship that's supposedly on behalf of the oppressed. The irony is that at the end of that essay, Marcuse negates his own argument, or at least makes it appear practically irrelevant, by saying that this sort of censorship could never actually be implemented because it wouldn't be in the interest of those with the power to do so -- exactly the argument Greenwald makes here. So those who cite him as an influence, insisting the establishment censorship they support really helps the oppressed, ought to explain why he was right about everything else but wrong about the very last thing in the essay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdE_3VdGPFI