I read the New York Time web site like a holy writ. Frequently, coverage of some fashion show or another will make its way to the front page of the web site. I'm a sucker for anorexics, so I generally take the bait and click the link. Of course, being the sort of person who reads the entirety of every blurb in a museum (even if it's an art museum (even if the text just list the artist, year of creation, and the ever-popular name "Untitled.")), I actually read the article that accompanies the pictures of expensively dressed waifs and wastrels. So far as I can tell, though, these articles are as free of content as the carefully coiffed heads of the models.
The world of fashion seems to be predicated on some notion of progress, where styles constantly change and evolve. Certainly, there is some basis for a claim of development in other visual art forms. The style of paintings exhibit clear changes from decade to decade, and while I am no art critic, I can appreciate some of the evolving theoretical ideas which underlie the changes in appearance. These runway shows, in contrast, feature the same basic design year after year. Shirts are still shirts. Pants are still pants. The commentators will note that wool is a common trend this year. Last year there was very little wool. But seven years ago everything was wool. Does this make wool new or innovative?
What's more, I cannot for the life of me figure out whether anything motivates the cut of the sleeve of a dress or the choice of lining for a coat other than pure aesthetic preference divorced from deeper metaphor or meaning. I mean, a designer presents a line of coats which neither keep the wearer warm nor allow them a full range of vision. Fantastic. But why? Is this commentary on the position of women in society? Or the relationship of the individual to the technological and cultural artifacts with which we surround ourselves? Because it looks really weird and doesn't really function as clothing in the conventional sense. Even if you could manage to walk around in a high fashion outfit without tripping or running into a wall, your progress would be impeded by the baffled masses gawking at the such alien tactics for covering your nakedness. If runway clothing is so impractical that it cannot be worn outside of a fashion show (hence the necessity of distinguishing "ready-to-wear" fashion from its more cumbersome brethren), then surely these aesthetic flourishes should serve some higher purpose. Please enlighten me.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Friday, September 7, 2007
Sunday, July 1, 2007
SUV drivers for a greener tomorrow
A week or two ago, my lab received a fresh shipment of printer paper. The boxes were labeled "bright white." The contents, made from recycled paper, were more of a mouldering yellow. They felt like newsprint, shriveled when exposed to even a drop of water, and reduced the apparent contrast of color figures. I'm all in favor of saving the earth, but the voluntary actions of individual consumers are all but irrelevant. Such gestures of self-deprivation are comparable in efficacy to wearing sackcloth and beating your back with a switch. In the face of billions of other individuals who don't personally choose to save the planet by denying themselves consumerist pleasures, any single person's purchasing decisions have a negligible effect. Moreover, the real damage to the planet can come from surprising places. If I read a document printed on recycled paper while eating an orange imported from Spain and grown with inorganic fertilizers and pesticides, how does the damage incurred in the process of producing and shipping that orange compare to that saved by using recycled paper rather than beautiful fresh white paper? My seat on a flight home from Zurich to New York City produces about 1.7 tons of carbon dioxide. How many reams of white paper would I have to use to place a similar burden on the environment?
This is, once again, a case of the tragedy of the commons. So long as our economic system remains structured so that it is in each individual's personal interest to live in an environmentally unsustainable manner, no amount of personal sacrifice will prevent human activity from fundamentally scarring the world in which we live. In fact, attempting to reduce your own impact may make the problem worse in the end, since it masks the full impact of current policies. Nonlinear systems can exhibit strange dynamics. If it is clear that the earth is currently spiraling towards destruction, it will be easier to convince politicians and populaces across the globe to implement broad policies to moderate human impact. A slow descent allows the nay-sayers to invoke the paradox of the heap. If any single year of wanton consumption only pushes us incrementally towards the brink, then we can safely wait until next year to implement strict controls on energy consumption, recycling, greenhouse gases, and the like. If there is any doubt regarding the severity of the problem, then the same people who deny the existence of global warming today will continue to bury their heads in the sand until environmental armageddon sweeps them from their feet. So! Drive an SUV for a greener planet today!
This is, once again, a case of the tragedy of the commons. So long as our economic system remains structured so that it is in each individual's personal interest to live in an environmentally unsustainable manner, no amount of personal sacrifice will prevent human activity from fundamentally scarring the world in which we live. In fact, attempting to reduce your own impact may make the problem worse in the end, since it masks the full impact of current policies. Nonlinear systems can exhibit strange dynamics. If it is clear that the earth is currently spiraling towards destruction, it will be easier to convince politicians and populaces across the globe to implement broad policies to moderate human impact. A slow descent allows the nay-sayers to invoke the paradox of the heap. If any single year of wanton consumption only pushes us incrementally towards the brink, then we can safely wait until next year to implement strict controls on energy consumption, recycling, greenhouse gases, and the like. If there is any doubt regarding the severity of the problem, then the same people who deny the existence of global warming today will continue to bury their heads in the sand until environmental armageddon sweeps them from their feet. So! Drive an SUV for a greener planet today!
Friday, June 29, 2007
SCOTUS can suck it
The Supreme Court has gone off the deep end. SCOTUS has recently come to the learned conclusion that students are not permitted to exercise their right to free speech if their message contains any reference to mind-altering substances. Quoting from a Times article to which I can't seem to generate a stable link,
That's right. The mission of American public education is to tell students what to think, to indoctrinate them with the prevailing beliefs of the day, rather than to teach them to use their own powers of rational thought. This meshes perfectly with the Bush administration's push for a unitary executive, with powers trumping those of the other branches of government. In both instances, America is being rendered vulnerable to a tyrannical majority which seeks to impose its values on the entirety of society. Long gone are the days of a pluralistic culture, embracing everyone's individual perspective and favoring none. Indeed, in yet another blow against an open society where ideas are freely and universally exchanged, the Supreme Court has deemed active desegregation through race-conscious school admission programs unconstitutional. And what better way to cement the control of those already in power than to repermit them to bias elections by saturating the media with advertisements immediately before balloting? The McCain-Feingold act has been rendered more porous than the legal arguments supporting the torture of "enemy combatants." With television, radio, print, and internet approaching nitrogen in their ubiquity, allowing the wealthy to suffocate the populace with a self-serving message will further drown out the voice of the common man. When the unitary executive does trample the constitutional guarantee of freedom from state-imposed religion, SCOTUS joins the cheering section and announces that the proletariat has no standing to challenge such abuses in court. And as a rancid cherry on top of this foul four-scoop sundae, the Supreme Court has ruled that manufacturers and distributors who forbid discounting and set minimum price floors do not necessarily violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. An independent judiciary is a fine thing, but only when it is committed to being (a) not stupid and (b) not evil. Our new chief justice and his conservative bloc seem to be failing at least one of these two key tests.
"In light of the history of American public education,” Justice Thomas said, “it cannot seriously be suggested that the First Amendment ‘freedom of speech’ encompasses a student’s right to speak in public schools.”
That's right. The mission of American public education is to tell students what to think, to indoctrinate them with the prevailing beliefs of the day, rather than to teach them to use their own powers of rational thought. This meshes perfectly with the Bush administration's push for a unitary executive, with powers trumping those of the other branches of government. In both instances, America is being rendered vulnerable to a tyrannical majority which seeks to impose its values on the entirety of society. Long gone are the days of a pluralistic culture, embracing everyone's individual perspective and favoring none. Indeed, in yet another blow against an open society where ideas are freely and universally exchanged, the Supreme Court has deemed active desegregation through race-conscious school admission programs unconstitutional. And what better way to cement the control of those already in power than to repermit them to bias elections by saturating the media with advertisements immediately before balloting? The McCain-Feingold act has been rendered more porous than the legal arguments supporting the torture of "enemy combatants." With television, radio, print, and internet approaching nitrogen in their ubiquity, allowing the wealthy to suffocate the populace with a self-serving message will further drown out the voice of the common man. When the unitary executive does trample the constitutional guarantee of freedom from state-imposed religion, SCOTUS joins the cheering section and announces that the proletariat has no standing to challenge such abuses in court. And as a rancid cherry on top of this foul four-scoop sundae, the Supreme Court has ruled that manufacturers and distributors who forbid discounting and set minimum price floors do not necessarily violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. An independent judiciary is a fine thing, but only when it is committed to being (a) not stupid and (b) not evil. Our new chief justice and his conservative bloc seem to be failing at least one of these two key tests.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Utopias and artificial scarcity
Utopian literature is by and large a rather dull genre. Consider Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, Aldous Huxley's Island, and Sir Thomas More's original vision. Many of the famous contributions were written before the failure of socialism demonstrated that human self-interest is more powerful than any community, and later writers seem to conveniently develop selective amnesia regarding the success of efforts to implement collective societies. In a particularly egregious instance of such intentional blindness, the psychologist B. F. Skinner produced fantastical visions where an end-run around human nature created out each sovereign individual a worker bee primarily dedicated to the good of the hive, a cog in the larger machine. A key feature of these political, social, and economical fictions is the state of plenty, or at least sufficiency, which arises when everyone works for the common good and takes no more than they need. Work days are uniformly short, but while on the job, workers are focused and productive. No one resents offering the sweat of their brow for the benefit of others, nor do any strive to lift themselves above their fellows.
While flesh and blood humans may never be able to achieve these ideals, it strikes me that certain features of these utopias are within our grasp. Many of the products of our present information economy are kept out of reach of most people only because of artificial scarcity, enforced through intellectual property laws. Consider a few examples: only a minute fraction of the cost of most medications is due to the expense of their manufacture or distribution. Aside from a small percentage of substances of biological origin, once the effective agent and synthesis technique are known, most pills can be produced for pennies. India has taken advantage of this fact by rewriting their patent laws to cover the manufacturing process rather than the final product. As a result, Indian companies can produce substantially discounted generic versions of HIV and other medications by subtly changing the process by which the substances are made. I'm no expert on world economics and trade law, but the article linked above claims that these generics are sold for one twentieth to one fiftieth of the American price. Pharmaceutical companies shout themselves horse asserting that the high cost of their wares reflects the expense and risks of research, but most of the basic research which underlies medical innovation is performed at tax-payer expense by university laboratories. It is true that the clinical trials needed to prove the safety and efficacy of new drugs are time consuming and expensive, but it is hard to believe that they could not be performed by the public sector. The academic world has produced a stunning system for motivating intelligent and industrious individuals with a carrot that isn't made of dollar bills. Given the opportunity and the right incentives, these institutions could turn their considerable intellectual clout towards producing medications financed and owned by the public.
At a more mundane level, consider the designer fashion industry. A $200 or even $500 pair of limited-edition designer jeans is not made of substantially different materials than the $20 jeans from Old Navy. They are not the product of superior workmanship. In many cases, they are made in the same overseas sweatshops. And most importantly, in many places in east Asia (and their outposts in major American cities), you can obtain knock-offs of these designer jeans for pennies on the dollar.
Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the substantial output of the movie, television, music, software, and art industries could be available to all for no more than the cost of a broadband internet connection. While the arguments regarding intrinsically electronic media have been flogged until their backs are raw and bleeding, it is relevant to note that many of the works of art which sell for thousands or millions of dollars could be easily mass produced and made available for everyone's living room. Indeed, many of the most famous contemporary artists operate factories where journeyman artists render into canvas and paint the vision of their popularly anointed overseers. These same artistic apprentices could produce their paintings at less than stratospheric prices if less value was accorded to the proprietary signature of their masters. Once again, east Asia has beaten the western world to the punch.
I recognize that simply eliminating intellectual property rights would wreak havoc on the American and world economy. But I think it is high time we seriously considered the cost of artificially restricting the distribution of goods that people want and need. In all of the cases described above, the majority of the costs passed on to the public consist of the expense of redeveloping a product which is already available, and then convincing the public that they cannot do without the new version. How many different selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, boot-cut hip-huggers, or commercially created boy bands do we really need? Are there no better uses to which those financial and human resources could be put? What benefit do we as consumers derive from the manufactured desire for artificially scarce goods distinguished only by their expensive advertising campaigns? Government, and the rights it supports, is at least in principle of the people, by the people, and for the people. If the present formulation of intellectual property rights is no longer serving our collective interest, we can and should change them.
While flesh and blood humans may never be able to achieve these ideals, it strikes me that certain features of these utopias are within our grasp. Many of the products of our present information economy are kept out of reach of most people only because of artificial scarcity, enforced through intellectual property laws. Consider a few examples: only a minute fraction of the cost of most medications is due to the expense of their manufacture or distribution. Aside from a small percentage of substances of biological origin, once the effective agent and synthesis technique are known, most pills can be produced for pennies. India has taken advantage of this fact by rewriting their patent laws to cover the manufacturing process rather than the final product. As a result, Indian companies can produce substantially discounted generic versions of HIV and other medications by subtly changing the process by which the substances are made. I'm no expert on world economics and trade law, but the article linked above claims that these generics are sold for one twentieth to one fiftieth of the American price. Pharmaceutical companies shout themselves horse asserting that the high cost of their wares reflects the expense and risks of research, but most of the basic research which underlies medical innovation is performed at tax-payer expense by university laboratories. It is true that the clinical trials needed to prove the safety and efficacy of new drugs are time consuming and expensive, but it is hard to believe that they could not be performed by the public sector. The academic world has produced a stunning system for motivating intelligent and industrious individuals with a carrot that isn't made of dollar bills. Given the opportunity and the right incentives, these institutions could turn their considerable intellectual clout towards producing medications financed and owned by the public.
At a more mundane level, consider the designer fashion industry. A $200 or even $500 pair of limited-edition designer jeans is not made of substantially different materials than the $20 jeans from Old Navy. They are not the product of superior workmanship. In many cases, they are made in the same overseas sweatshops. And most importantly, in many places in east Asia (and their outposts in major American cities), you can obtain knock-offs of these designer jeans for pennies on the dollar.
Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the substantial output of the movie, television, music, software, and art industries could be available to all for no more than the cost of a broadband internet connection. While the arguments regarding intrinsically electronic media have been flogged until their backs are raw and bleeding, it is relevant to note that many of the works of art which sell for thousands or millions of dollars could be easily mass produced and made available for everyone's living room. Indeed, many of the most famous contemporary artists operate factories where journeyman artists render into canvas and paint the vision of their popularly anointed overseers. These same artistic apprentices could produce their paintings at less than stratospheric prices if less value was accorded to the proprietary signature of their masters. Once again, east Asia has beaten the western world to the punch.
I recognize that simply eliminating intellectual property rights would wreak havoc on the American and world economy. But I think it is high time we seriously considered the cost of artificially restricting the distribution of goods that people want and need. In all of the cases described above, the majority of the costs passed on to the public consist of the expense of redeveloping a product which is already available, and then convincing the public that they cannot do without the new version. How many different selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, boot-cut hip-huggers, or commercially created boy bands do we really need? Are there no better uses to which those financial and human resources could be put? What benefit do we as consumers derive from the manufactured desire for artificially scarce goods distinguished only by their expensive advertising campaigns? Government, and the rights it supports, is at least in principle of the people, by the people, and for the people. If the present formulation of intellectual property rights is no longer serving our collective interest, we can and should change them.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Neutral no more
Switzerland is serious about neutrality. Aside from the occasional accidental invasion of Lichtenstein, the Swiss make no compromises when it comes to minding their own business. Guess which land-locked country, entirely surrounded by EU member states, refuses to join any international organization which would compromise its self-determination of economic and military affairs? Switzerland only joined the UN in 2002, despite hosting the second largest UN complex. In Europe, only the Vatican City holds itself more aloof.
This isolationism wends its way into the very fabric of the Swiss economy and consumer mindset. Whereas in America, just about every physical consumer good (aside from grain, of which we have a metric butt-load, and super-sized SUVs) is imported from China, Central America, or South America, Switzerland manufactures a surprising range of goods locally. My pens say "Swiss," my envelopes read "Swiss made," and the cheese and chocolate are obviously domestic; but the meat, fruits, and vegetables are also grown locally whenever possible. When there's anything in season, a god-damned farmer drives his tractor up to my front door (literally, on all counts) to sell his produce, in case there was any doubt in my mind regarding the provenance of the goods sold in the supermarket a mere two blocks down the road (and the other supermarket a full three blocks away).
Combine economic isolationism with more prosaic forms of neutrality and you have the enigma which is Swiss beer. The supermarkets within walking distance of my house sell only Swiss beer and Heineken. All of it is bland. Not watery, mind you - no one is trying to foist Budweiser on me (although the Czech Budweiser Budvar, unrelated to the American variety except by name, is supposed to be pretty good). But definitely bland. The grand irony is that Belgium, home of countless delicious ales, is only a stone's throw away (assuming you have a pretty good arm).
Well, I've decided that I'm not going to take this anymore (in addition to being mad as hell). Graduate student stipend or no, I'm now buying my beer exclusively from the hole-in-the-wall down the street from the two grocery stores, which contains precisely three bookshelves full of beer (and a few wines, and nothing else), where my order is entered into bound books by hand after the total is tabulated on a desktop computer for lack of a proper cash register. It may be three times as expensive. The bottles may be dusty. I may be able to clean them out of a particular variety by purchasing a six-pack. But the goods are definitely imported and absolutely delicious.
This isolationism wends its way into the very fabric of the Swiss economy and consumer mindset. Whereas in America, just about every physical consumer good (aside from grain, of which we have a metric butt-load, and super-sized SUVs) is imported from China, Central America, or South America, Switzerland manufactures a surprising range of goods locally. My pens say "Swiss," my envelopes read "Swiss made," and the cheese and chocolate are obviously domestic; but the meat, fruits, and vegetables are also grown locally whenever possible. When there's anything in season, a god-damned farmer drives his tractor up to my front door (literally, on all counts) to sell his produce, in case there was any doubt in my mind regarding the provenance of the goods sold in the supermarket a mere two blocks down the road (and the other supermarket a full three blocks away).
Combine economic isolationism with more prosaic forms of neutrality and you have the enigma which is Swiss beer. The supermarkets within walking distance of my house sell only Swiss beer and Heineken. All of it is bland. Not watery, mind you - no one is trying to foist Budweiser on me (although the Czech Budweiser Budvar, unrelated to the American variety except by name, is supposed to be pretty good). But definitely bland. The grand irony is that Belgium, home of countless delicious ales, is only a stone's throw away (assuming you have a pretty good arm).
Well, I've decided that I'm not going to take this anymore (in addition to being mad as hell). Graduate student stipend or no, I'm now buying my beer exclusively from the hole-in-the-wall down the street from the two grocery stores, which contains precisely three bookshelves full of beer (and a few wines, and nothing else), where my order is entered into bound books by hand after the total is tabulated on a desktop computer for lack of a proper cash register. It may be three times as expensive. The bottles may be dusty. I may be able to clean them out of a particular variety by purchasing a six-pack. But the goods are definitely imported and absolutely delicious.
Larry Summers Redox
(I know this post is total flame-bait. In life as in science, it's sometimes useful to take a position which may not be correct and see where it leads. I'm happy to be convinced that I'm wrong.)
I've recently read Larry Summers' original comments and a reasonable rebuttal to them. Here's what I think: Larry Summers was the wrong person at the wrong place and the wrong time to make those comments. Because of his position and the context in which they were made, they carried political implications which were probably unintended and certainly undesirable. The speech itself, though, is hardly the piece of controversial rhetoric it's been made out to be.
Summers suggests three possible causes for the lack of women at the top of academia: on average, women are less willing than men to make the insane sacrifices necessary to attain this sort of success; due to some feature of biology, women tend to experience less variance in most traits and so there are fewer women than men at the very tip of the bell curve who have the capability to reach the very top of the academic ladder; and women are indeed subject to outright discrimination in the hiring and advancement process.
Admittedly, he does downplay the role of socialization in the preferences of women for science, but it is also true that the gender imbalance is not so great at the undergraduate level, and becomes increasingly exaggerated as one moves up the academic hierarchy, so the problem would seem to be more than just one of women being steered away from science and engineering in general (although this may certainly play a part). The second point is presumably the most controversial. I'm not aware of the evidence showing greater variance in men as compared to women in features such as "height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability," but the first four at least would be fairly easy to assess. If such a disparity in variance exists in these feature (regardless of the "meaning" of IQ), it is reasonable to assert that the difference in variance extends to the features necessary for academic success in the sciences. I presume the third point is uncontested.
The rebuttal focuses almost exclusively on the effect of socialization on women's desire to make the time commitment necessary to achieve the highest levels of academic success in the sciences. In response to the rebuttal, I am sure that women face significant cultural obstacles to making the sort of time commitment necessary to reach the top of a discipline. But you know what? Men face rather similar obstacles. They're not exactly the same, and I have no desire to get into a pissing match regarding who has it harder, but really, it's very difficult to put in anything approaching 80 hours a week regardless of who you are. Unless you are able to function on 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night, an 80 hour work week (especially if your commute is more than 5 minutes) means doing almost nothing other than working, eating, washing your clothing, and going to the grocery store for frozen dinners. I did it for a while. It's no fun.
The author of the rebuttal writes: "A woman is going to find it much harder than a man to find a spouse who is ready to tolerate her 80-hour work weeks and obsessive relationship to her job." Speaking from experience, finding a date, let along actually going out on that date, while working 80-hour weeks is a trying proposition regardless of gender. We're not talking about a low-maintenance relationship here; we're talking about a no-maintenance relationship, verging on no relationship in the first place. The author also makes reference to working mothers. I would argue that caring for a child while attempting to work 80 hour weeks is suicidal. If you have a spouse who wants to take on the full burden of raising the child I suppose it could work, but the kid is going to end up addressing you by your first name rather than "mom" or "dad."
My favorite claim is by far the following: "The phenomenon of the girl math geek who frets that she can't get any dates continues to be a stereotype for a reason." Clearly, the author believes that either (a) boy math geeks don't have any trouble finding dates or (b) boy math geeks don't "fret" about dates because they are asexual beings of pure reason. Almost by definition, geeks don't get dates, regardless of sex.
I'm not sure if I've worked up to a cohesive conclusion as opposed to just ranting, but I suppose my point is that if fewer women than men (on average) are willing to choose to work 80 hours a week to reach the pinnacle of academia, I don't think this is a manifestation of oppressive cultural forces or some dysfunction in the way women are raised. Rather, it just means that women are, on average, saner than men. I can't find the quote now, but at one point Caltech graduate students were agitating for a less pressured environment and more "balance" in their lives. The response of David Baltimore, the then-president of Caltech and still-Nobel prize winning scientist, was something along the lines of: "Balance? What are you talking about? You're graduate students. Get back to lab." Everyone deserves a little balance in their lives. Insistence upon it need not be chalked up to discrimination.
I've recently read Larry Summers' original comments and a reasonable rebuttal to them. Here's what I think: Larry Summers was the wrong person at the wrong place and the wrong time to make those comments. Because of his position and the context in which they were made, they carried political implications which were probably unintended and certainly undesirable. The speech itself, though, is hardly the piece of controversial rhetoric it's been made out to be.
Summers suggests three possible causes for the lack of women at the top of academia: on average, women are less willing than men to make the insane sacrifices necessary to attain this sort of success; due to some feature of biology, women tend to experience less variance in most traits and so there are fewer women than men at the very tip of the bell curve who have the capability to reach the very top of the academic ladder; and women are indeed subject to outright discrimination in the hiring and advancement process.
Admittedly, he does downplay the role of socialization in the preferences of women for science, but it is also true that the gender imbalance is not so great at the undergraduate level, and becomes increasingly exaggerated as one moves up the academic hierarchy, so the problem would seem to be more than just one of women being steered away from science and engineering in general (although this may certainly play a part). The second point is presumably the most controversial. I'm not aware of the evidence showing greater variance in men as compared to women in features such as "height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability," but the first four at least would be fairly easy to assess. If such a disparity in variance exists in these feature (regardless of the "meaning" of IQ), it is reasonable to assert that the difference in variance extends to the features necessary for academic success in the sciences. I presume the third point is uncontested.
The rebuttal focuses almost exclusively on the effect of socialization on women's desire to make the time commitment necessary to achieve the highest levels of academic success in the sciences. In response to the rebuttal, I am sure that women face significant cultural obstacles to making the sort of time commitment necessary to reach the top of a discipline. But you know what? Men face rather similar obstacles. They're not exactly the same, and I have no desire to get into a pissing match regarding who has it harder, but really, it's very difficult to put in anything approaching 80 hours a week regardless of who you are. Unless you are able to function on 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night, an 80 hour work week (especially if your commute is more than 5 minutes) means doing almost nothing other than working, eating, washing your clothing, and going to the grocery store for frozen dinners. I did it for a while. It's no fun.
The author of the rebuttal writes: "A woman is going to find it much harder than a man to find a spouse who is ready to tolerate her 80-hour work weeks and obsessive relationship to her job." Speaking from experience, finding a date, let along actually going out on that date, while working 80-hour weeks is a trying proposition regardless of gender. We're not talking about a low-maintenance relationship here; we're talking about a no-maintenance relationship, verging on no relationship in the first place. The author also makes reference to working mothers. I would argue that caring for a child while attempting to work 80 hour weeks is suicidal. If you have a spouse who wants to take on the full burden of raising the child I suppose it could work, but the kid is going to end up addressing you by your first name rather than "mom" or "dad."
My favorite claim is by far the following: "The phenomenon of the girl math geek who frets that she can't get any dates continues to be a stereotype for a reason." Clearly, the author believes that either (a) boy math geeks don't have any trouble finding dates or (b) boy math geeks don't "fret" about dates because they are asexual beings of pure reason. Almost by definition, geeks don't get dates, regardless of sex.
I'm not sure if I've worked up to a cohesive conclusion as opposed to just ranting, but I suppose my point is that if fewer women than men (on average) are willing to choose to work 80 hours a week to reach the pinnacle of academia, I don't think this is a manifestation of oppressive cultural forces or some dysfunction in the way women are raised. Rather, it just means that women are, on average, saner than men. I can't find the quote now, but at one point Caltech graduate students were agitating for a less pressured environment and more "balance" in their lives. The response of David Baltimore, the then-president of Caltech and still-Nobel prize winning scientist, was something along the lines of: "Balance? What are you talking about? You're graduate students. Get back to lab." Everyone deserves a little balance in their lives. Insistence upon it need not be chalked up to discrimination.
Declaring War on Poverty
In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty. Technically, only congress can declare war, but the events of the past few decades strongly suggest that this is particular notion is defunct. The US Congress has not officially declared war since 1941; nonetheless, in addition to the military engagements in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq again, various presidents have also declared war on drugs and terrorism. Let us consider for a moment the escalation of these latter domestic wars. Johnson's war on poverty was characterized by the introduction of various social welfare programs, such as the Job Corps and Head Start. By 1969, when Nixon declared war on drugs, tactics had already begun to shift towards those conventionally associated with military conflict. Although the war on drugs undeniably features a social outreach and rehabilitation component, its most prominent manifestation is the arrest of 1 million Americans every year. The war on terrorism saw further escalation. Now, rather than simply imprisoning the enemy, war targets are extraordinarily rendered to foreign countries for torture, or held by US military forces on foreign soil in an attempt to escape the notoriously lenient judicial system which has been busily incarcerating millions in the still-ongoing war on drugs.
Somehow, in all the confusion of the war on drugs and the war on terror, the war on poverty was left by the wayside. But the war on poverty has clearly not been won. Almost 36 million people, or 12% of the US population, were still living in poverty in 2004. I think that it is high time that we rejoined the battle against poverty, but with the general lack of efficacy of 1964's soft-hearted approach in mind. Really, soft-hearted is probably too generous a term. Weak would be more appropriate. The Enemy cannot be defeated with educational programs. We need to apply the lessons of the wars on drugs and terrorism to the war on poverty.
The first obvious step is to outlaw poverty. Drugs and terrorism are both already illegal. How can you properly prosecute a war against an enemy which is aided and abetted by your own judicial system? This begs the question of what sort of penalties should be meted out to those who oppose us in the war on poverty. Fines seem to be counterproductive, since the inability to pay such fines is the very hallmark of the enemy against whom we are fighting. The war on drugs has shown us that prison is an insufficient deterrent. There's as much crack and smack on the streets now as ever, despite locking up anyone who looks like they might be using chemicals to enjoy themselves. Except alcohol and nicotine and caffeine. But those don't count. Because they're not drugs. The tactics introduced in the war on terror seem to have been much more effective. Since September 11th, 2001, there hasn't been a single major instance of terrorism in the US. Unfortunately, there isn't enough space in Cuba to house the entire 12% of the US population who oppose us in the war on poverty. I suggest that we repurpose North Dakota as the Gulag-style prison camp. The Siberia of America! A system of military tribunals can fairly and impartially determine whether a suspect is in fact guilty of being poor, and if found in violation of the anti-poverty laws, render them (extraordinarily!) unto one of the anti-poverty forced-labor camps. Indefinitely.
Today's rant was brought to you by Brouilly St. Fortnat:
Aus dem südlichen Gebiet der Beaujolais-Region stammt der Brouilly, der mit seinem beerigen Bouquet Freude verbreitet. Der Brouilly AC St-Fortunat ist ein idealer Begleiter zu einem fröhlichen Beisammensein, das vielleicht auch etwas länger dauert ... Man geniesst ihn beispielsweise zu dunklem Fleisch, Terrinen, Charcuterie und allen leichten Speisen. Preis: Fr. 8.90/75 cl.
Somehow, in all the confusion of the war on drugs and the war on terror, the war on poverty was left by the wayside. But the war on poverty has clearly not been won. Almost 36 million people, or 12% of the US population, were still living in poverty in 2004. I think that it is high time that we rejoined the battle against poverty, but with the general lack of efficacy of 1964's soft-hearted approach in mind. Really, soft-hearted is probably too generous a term. Weak would be more appropriate. The Enemy cannot be defeated with educational programs. We need to apply the lessons of the wars on drugs and terrorism to the war on poverty.
The first obvious step is to outlaw poverty. Drugs and terrorism are both already illegal. How can you properly prosecute a war against an enemy which is aided and abetted by your own judicial system? This begs the question of what sort of penalties should be meted out to those who oppose us in the war on poverty. Fines seem to be counterproductive, since the inability to pay such fines is the very hallmark of the enemy against whom we are fighting. The war on drugs has shown us that prison is an insufficient deterrent. There's as much crack and smack on the streets now as ever, despite locking up anyone who looks like they might be using chemicals to enjoy themselves. Except alcohol and nicotine and caffeine. But those don't count. Because they're not drugs. The tactics introduced in the war on terror seem to have been much more effective. Since September 11th, 2001, there hasn't been a single major instance of terrorism in the US. Unfortunately, there isn't enough space in Cuba to house the entire 12% of the US population who oppose us in the war on poverty. I suggest that we repurpose North Dakota as the Gulag-style prison camp. The Siberia of America! A system of military tribunals can fairly and impartially determine whether a suspect is in fact guilty of being poor, and if found in violation of the anti-poverty laws, render them (extraordinarily!) unto one of the anti-poverty forced-labor camps. Indefinitely.
Today's rant was brought to you by Brouilly St. Fortnat:
Aus dem südlichen Gebiet der Beaujolais-Region stammt der Brouilly, der mit seinem beerigen Bouquet Freude verbreitet. Der Brouilly AC St-Fortunat ist ein idealer Begleiter zu einem fröhlichen Beisammensein, das vielleicht auch etwas länger dauert ... Man geniesst ihn beispielsweise zu dunklem Fleisch, Terrinen, Charcuterie und allen leichten Speisen. Preis: Fr. 8.90/75 cl.
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