"People we've decided in advance we do like can basically get away with murder." - Via
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
"For many women across the country, having gender as a top concern in a political election is a luxury."
Watch: Clinton Campaign Official Blames Loss On 'Internalized Misogyny' Of White Women: "McIntosh’s evaluation is at odds with exit surveys that reveal what was really going on in the minds of voters at the polls.
60% of voters said the country was “seriously on the wrong track.” Roughly the same amount said the economy wasn’t working for them.
Given those numbers, and Hillary Clinton’s policies – which many voters acknowledged would bring “more of the same” – is it really so inconceivable that the Democratic candidate lost? Do we need to resort to theories like the “internalized misogyny” of white women to explain that loss?
Could it be that DNC staff are right with their declaration that Hillary Clinton’s arrogance is what cost her the election? The Democratic candidate and her campaign team have been reaching left, right and center for someone to blame for the election result. Just last weekend, they blamed FBI director James Comey. Clinton has yet to acknowledge that her campaign team failed to get out in key areas and instead relied on a piece of analytics software called ‘Ada.’ Even President Obama hinted at the ineffectiveness of that plan when he, at a presser, said, “I won Iowa not because the demographics dictated that I would win Iowa, it was because I spent 87 days going to every small town, and fair, and fish fry, and VFW hall.”"
Could it be that DNC staff are right with their declaration that Hillary Clinton’s arrogance is what cost her the election? The Democratic candidate and her campaign team have been reaching left, right and center for someone to blame for the election result. Just last weekend, they blamed FBI director James Comey. Clinton has yet to acknowledge that her campaign team failed to get out in key areas and instead relied on a piece of analytics software called ‘Ada.’ Even President Obama hinted at the ineffectiveness of that plan when he, at a presser, said, “I won Iowa not because the demographics dictated that I would win Iowa, it was because I spent 87 days going to every small town, and fair, and fish fry, and VFW hall.”"
Why Hillary Clinton Couldn't Win Over Female Voters | Vanity Fair: "...perhaps the largest miscalculation was notion that Americans, and American women, in particular, would vote based on gender. What has become clear in the election's immediate aftermath is just how little a factor that was in deciding this election, and how wrong a subset of the population was about its significance...
Overall, the majority of women voted in favor of Clinton. But her support was largely bolstered by minority women, with 94 percent of black female voters throwing their support behind her and 68 percent of Latino women doing the same, according to exit polls. Clinton, rather surprisingly, or so it seemed, lost with white women—53 percent of whom cast their ballots for Donald Trump. The number was much higher, at 62 percent, for non-college educated women. But even educated women white voters just barely leaned toward Clinton; 51 percent of white women with college degrees voted for her, meaning that 45 percent of them did vote for Trump. What mattered most to voters, exit surveys indicated, was the economy, and, to borrow Trump’s words, "draining the swamp" in Washington. Four in 10 voters attested that they were in search of change, and three in five said the country was seriously on the wrong track. About the same proportion of people felt the economy wasn’t working for them, and two-thirds indicated that their financial situation was either the same or worse than it was when President Obama started his second term four years go...
Gender is useful and potent indicator, but it can also be an obfuscating one. And while America may be in the throws of various, lingering culture wars, it is in the maw of a far more terrifying battle. Since the late 70s, the U.S. economy has fundamentally shifted from a largely manufacturing focus to one based on services. The rise of globalization and technology have exported jobs or rendered them fit for a machine or software program. And the inexorable decline of the labor movement has made workers far more vulnerable than ever. In fact, in some ways, gender was always a misleading prism in which to lose this election. And if the exit polling is correct, that had a far greater impact on women voters than seeing one of their own in the White House...
It's easy to cast blame on these white women who went for Trump, and there’s been no shortage of that over the past 24 hours. “What leads a woman to vote for a man who has made it very clear that he believes she is subhuman? Self-loathing. Hypocrisy. And, of course, a racist view of the world that privileges white supremacy over every other issue,” L.V. Anderson wrote for Slate. “A majority of white women, faced with the choice between the first female president and a vial of weaponized testosterone, said, ‘I’ll take Option B. I just don’t like her.’ Hope you got your sticker, ladies. Way to lean out,” comedian Samantha Bee told her audience.
It is not hard to imagine why Anderson and Bee and any number of women could feel let down, disappointed, perplexed, frustrated, angry at their fellow women. It is just as simple to see how those who are criticizing female Trump voters don’t fully get at the heart of what the “others” feel. For many women across the country, having gender as a top concern in a political election is a luxury. That’s not to say having a female president isn’t important to them, or that a woman’s fundamental rights aren’t of concern. But they feel there are other factors that affect their families more, on a day-to-day basis, and ultimately, that is what they cast their vote for. Particularly, for non-college educated women, who stay at home or make minimum wage or find themselves more dependent on men, there is was even less importance placed on gender...
The reality for most Americans is that gender is secondary to financial stability, to finding an economy that works for them, and a tomorrow that’s a little less hard than today."
"...the good news is that you have the power to rewrite the coming scenes of your movie."
The Last Confirmation Bias Test of This Election | Scott Adams' Blog: "There might be an objective reality in our world. But our brains didn’t evolve to be able to see it. Our brains only evolved to do the job of keeping us alive so we could procreate. That means the reality you see – the movie in your head – can be totally different from mine, and almost certainly is. Yet we can both get by in this world.
Last year, when many observers were saying Trump was a stupid, under-informed clown, I was saying he was a Master Persuader. Pundits said he ignored facts because he didn’t know them or because he was a liar. I said he ignored facts because facts are useless for persuasion. Trump could learn lots of facts if he wanted to do so. But he knew it was a waste of time. These are two totally different views of reality. And yet they did not conflict. Clinton supporters still see the stupid, under-informed clown and I still see the Master Persuader. We live in totally different movies and yet we can still interact with each other, still eat and drink, still procreate when necessary.
Reality isn’t what you thought it was a year ago. Your movie isn’t my movie. But the good news is that you have the power to rewrite the coming scenes of your movie. And those scenes can be anything that isn’t ruled out by your own observations."
"I wouldn't have killed Hitler. I would have raped him." - Louis CK
"I believe you can joke about anything." - George Carlin.
George Carlin – Rape Can Be Funny | Genius: "Lots of groups in this country want to tell you how to talk. Tell you what you can't talk about. Well, sometimes they'll say, well you can talk about something but you can't joke about it. Say you can't joke about something because it's not funny. Comedians run into that shit all the time. Like rape. They'll say, "You can't joke about rape. Rape's not funny." I say, "Fuck you, I think it's hilarious. How do you like that?" I can prove to you that rape is funny. Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd. See? Hey, why do you think they call him "Porky," eh? I know what you're going to say. "Elmer was asking for it. Elmer was coming on to Porky. Porky couldn't help himself, he got a hard-on, he got horny, he lost control, he went out of his mind. A lot of men talk like that. A lot of men think that way. They think it's the woman's fault. They like to blame the rape on the woman. Say, "She had it coming, she was wearing a short skirt." These guys think women ought to go to prison for being cock teasers: don't seem fair to me. Don't seem right, but you can joke about it. I believe you can joke about anything. It all depends on how you construct the joke..."
Monday, January 30, 2017
"...when Trump has created a hundred reasons to complain, do you know what impression will be left with the public? He sure got a lot done."
He is working the crowds and the refs like a professional, and no one is even getting it.
Outrage Dilution | Scott Adams' Blog: "Here’s how the math of persuasion works in this situation:
1 outrage out of 3 headlines in a week: Bad Persuasion
25 outrages out of 25 headlines in a week: Excellent Persuasion
At the moment there are so many outrages, executive orders, protests, and controversies that none of them can get enough oxygen in our brains. I can’t obsess about problem X because the rest of the alphabet is coming at me at the same time.
When you encounter a situation that is working great except for one identifiable problem, you can focus on the problem and try to fix it. But if you have a dozen complaints at the same time, none of them looks special. The whole situation just looks confusing, and you don’t know where to start. So you wait and see what happens. Humans need contrast in order to make solid decisions that turn into action. Trump removed all of your contrast by providing multiple outrages of similar energy.
You’re probably seeing the best persuasion you will ever see from a new president. Instead of dribbling out one headline at a time, so the vultures and critics can focus their fire, Trump has flooded the playing field.
You don’t know where to aim your outrage. He’s creating so many opportunities for disagreement that it’s mentally exhausting. Literally. He’s wearing down the critics, replacing their specific complaints with entire encyclopedias of complaints. And when Trump has created a hundred reasons to complain, do you know what impression will be left with the public?
He sure got a lot done.
Even if you don’t like it.
In only a few days, Trump has made us question what-the-hell every other president was doing during their first weeks in office. Were they even trying?"
The Persuasion Filter and Immigration | Scott Adams' Blog: "So what does a President Trump do when he is in an impossible situation? According to the Hitler Filter, he does more Hitler stuff, such as being more extreme than anyone expected with his recent immigration declarations. That filter accurately predicted that he would be “worse” once elected. Sure enough, his temporary immigration ban is more extreme than most people expected. If things never get worse from this point on, we would have to question the Hitler Filter. But if things get worse still, the Hitler Filter is looking good.
Compare to the Persuasion Filter. This filter says Trump always opens with an extreme first offer so he has room to negotiate to the middle. The temporary ban fits that model perfectly. On the immigration topic alone, both the Hitler Filter and the Persuasion Filter predict that we get to exactly the point we are at today. Let’s call that a tie in terms of predictive power. The hard part is predicting what happens next. The Persuasion Filter says Trump is negotiating with his critics on the extreme right at the same time as he is negotiating with his critics on the left. He needed one “opening offer” that would set up both sides for the next level of persuasion. And he found it. You just saw it. The left sees Trump’s executive orders on immigration as pure Hitler behavior. That gives him plenty of room to negotiate to the middle. The initial orders are too broad, and clearly target too many of the wrong people. As he fixes those special cases he will be moving away from the Hitler model toward the middle. And people are more influenced by the DIRECTION of things than the absolute position of things. As long as he is moving away from the Hitler analogy, people will chill out, even if they think he was too close to that position before. Direction matters.
Trump’s temporary immigration ban set a mental anchor in your brain that is frankly shocking. It will make his eventual permanent immigration plan (”extreme vetting”) look tame by comparison. The Persuasion Filter says that’s his strategy. Because that’s ALWAYS his strategy. He acts the same way every time. He wrote a book about it. He talks about it publicly. Then he does it right in front of us, over and over. And no matter how many times he does it, half the country still thinks the opening offer is the real one. I’ve mentioned in this blog a few times that persuasion works even when the subject of the persuasion recognizes all the techniques as they happen. This is a perfect case. The left has been watching Trump make big offers and dial them back for the past year. And yet they still think this time it will be different. The Persuasion Filter says that 70-year old Trump will act the same way today as he has for the past several decades: Big first offer, then negotiate..."
Thursday, January 26, 2017
"Demonstrations serve a useful function in a democracy — but only when they have clarity of purpose."
Protests these days are, mostly, akin to masturbation. There's nothing wrong with it and you should do it if you want. But know it's mostly just about making yourself feel good.
The Pointless Women's March Against Trump - Reason.com: "If anything, this particular demonstration is shaping up to be a feel-good exercise in search of a cause...
Everything else about the Women's March, however, is reaching a level of absurdity worthy of the man they are protesting. Start with the fact that they are billing this event as the voice of women when 42 percent of women (and 62 percent of non-college educated white women) actually voted for Trump.
Then there's the almost-comical progressive hysteria over the event's name. It was initially called the Million Women March. But that was hastily dropped after the original organizers, three white women, were slammed for "cultural appropriation." Why? Because they were allegedly poaching the heritage of the 1997 Million Woman March for black women. Further appropriation concerns arose because the event evidently encroached on the legacy of the 1963 March on Washington by Martin Luther King Jr. when he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. In response to this objection, the organizers had to actually release a statement billing the Women's March as a tribute to King.
As if such bickering over semantics wasn't enough, the Facebook page of the event is rife with arguments about whether an event organized primarily by white women can be sufficiently "intersectional" — or attuned to the issues faced by, say, poor minority women who reside at the "intersection" of class, race, and gender concerns in America.
Wasn't this supposed to be about opposing Donald Trump?
Some amount of conflict in a rally (organizers don't want to call it a "protest" because they insist they are not protesting Trump, just putting him on notice) of this size and complexity is natural. But when an event is grounded in a genuine existential threat, it helps people overcome their particular interests and agendas – and find a unifying vocabulary without this level of squabbling...
Sure, he is a sexist pig who likes to go after high-profile women — Rosie O' Donnell, Megyn Kelly, Alicia Machado — who cross him. And although he seems to have calmed down on that front since he got elected, it is entirely likely that once he's in office and faces criticism, he'll return to form... But here's the curious thing: On women's issues, there is a wide gulf between Trump's character and his policy positions.
For much of his adult life, Trump claimed to be pro-choice on abortion. Now he insists he's pro-life, and is threatening to appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court. This is a genuine problem for women (like me) who strongly believe in reproductive rights. However, in other respects, Trump has made a concerted attempt to extend an olive branch to the feminist lobby.
He has embraced gender wage parity, government-mandated maternity leave, and child tax deductions in defiance of his own party. One can debate the wisdom of these ideas, but not that they are intended to help women. And then there are his three female Cabinet appointments, and a fourth woman as U.N. envoy.
This is all in sharp contrast to his rhetoric...
Opposing him will require focused vigilance, and concerted activism that is targeted, intelligent, nuanced, and appropriately calibrated (as as I have argued previously). But prematurely elevating the faux concerns of a hyper-active feminist lobby will make it far more difficult to launch a serious resistance movement. It will allow Trump to depict his critics and dissenters as overwrought hysterics and dismiss the concerns of genuinely targeted groups."
"Nearly 55 years after Silent Spring we do know [that] Carson's concerns have turned out to be way overblown."
I remember one of the English lessons in the Jr High textbook in Japan was all about Silent Spring and Rachel Carson. [Japan, despite being covered in concrete, has a huge infatuation with nature.] And then, having done some research into her, and discovering that she was wrong about a lot of things. A lot of her work was fear mongering and juked stats. And the ban on DDT likely did much more harm than good, especially for the folks who died from malaria. But she's still venerated by the eco & political folks.
Rachel Carson: New Documentary on PBS Tonight: "It is not an exaggeration to say that we are all still living in the intellectual and public policy world that Rachel Carson constructed in that book. "Already alarmed about the environmental damage caused by the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, Carson determined to alert the public to the dangers of pesticides and began the work that would define her legacy," explains the documentary press release...
Time has proved that Carson was right that agricultural spraying of the popular pesticide DDT did reduce the populations of hawks and eagles by thinning their eggshells. She was also right that widespread use had resulted in increasing pesticide resistance among many targeted insect species. These findings did indicate that they should be used more judiciously.
Somewhat surprisingly, the documentary does not delve any more deeply into what science has discovered about the risks and benefits of synthetic pesticides in the 55 years since the publication of Carson's book. So what light does subsequent research shed on the claims made in Silent Spring?
As an elegant and effective rhetorician Carson understood that while some Americans might be a bit worried about the health of birds and other wildlife, what would really get their attention is cancer. She was most concerned about the long-term effects of exposures to pesticides and other synthetic chemicals, but she sought to frighten readers with anecdotes about acute exposure producing cancer with months or weeks. She tells a story about a woman "who abhorred spiders" and who sprayed her basement with DDT in mid-August. She died of acute leukemia a couple of months later. In another passage, Carson cites a man embarrassed by his roach-infested office who again sprayed DDT and who "within a short time … began to bruise and bleed." He was within a month of spraying diagnosed with aplastic anemia. Again, comparing pesticides to the contamination of milk by radioactive fallout, Carson aimed to worry parents about the possibility of their kids getting cancer...
The PBS documentary shows clips of Carson interviews aired on the CBS Reports program in the spring of 1963 with Eric Severeid. "We have to remember that the children born today are exposed to these chemicals since birth; perhaps before birth," warns Carson. Now what is going to happen to them in adult life as a result of that exposure? We simply don't know because we've never had this kind of experience." Nearly 55 years after the publication of Silent Spring we do know and, fortunately, Carson's concerns have turned out to be way overblown.
For example, in Silent Spring Carson warned, "Today, more American school children die of cancer than from any other disease [her emphasis]." That is still true today. But why had cancer emerged as the greatest killer of children in the 1950s? Not because it had significantly increased, but because far fewer were dying of the infectious diseases that had killed them in droves during earlier decades. The good news is that due to improvements in treatment the death rate from cancer for children 14 and under has fallen from 6.5 in 1969 to 2 per 100,000 now. Cancer incidence has ticked up for children under age 14 from 13 cases in 1974 to 17 cases per 100,000 now.
As the American Cancer Society notes, a small percentage of cancer in children results from inherited genetic mutations, but otherwise, there are "few known risk factors for childhood cancer." Despite activist urgent alarms, subsequent decades of research have proved that exposure to trace amounts of all sorts of synthetic chemicals are not increasing the age-adjusted incidence of cancer. In fact, the cancer incidence rate among Americans has been falling for more than two decades. According to the latest Cancer Statistics 2017 report from the American Cancer Society, the overall cancer incidence rate (2004-2013) was stable in women and declined by approximately 2% annually in men, while the cancer death rate (2005-2014) declined by about 1.5% annually in both men and women.
As the American Cancer Society has noted, "Exposure to carcinogenic agents in occupational, community, and other settings is thought to account for a relatively small percentage of cancer deaths – about 4 percent from occupational exposures and 2 percent from environmental pollutants (man-made and naturally occurring)." The documentary also includes a clip from CBS Reports featuring American Cyanamid biochemist Robert White-Stevens. "Miss Carson is concerned with every possibility of hazard and danger whereas the agricultural school has to concern itself with the probability, the likelihood of danger and assess that against utility," states White-Stevens. "If we had to investigate every possibility, we would never make any advances at all because this would require an infinite time for experimental work and we would never be finished."
White-Stevens was arguing against what is now known as the precautionary principle; the idea that new technologies must be proven entirely safe before they can be deployed."
"Michael Keaton kept saying "I'm Batman" during Spider-Man fight scenes."
Keaton Wins.
Batman News: "When asked what it was like working with Keaton, Holland said “Pretty cool. He’s a badass. We have a fight in the movie and I punch him. He turns around and says [in a deep voice], ‘I’m Batman.’ He kept doing Batman quotes on set.”"
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
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