The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.

From The Path of the Law, 1897 by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.

Bass Note 3

Bass Note 3: A design by Saul Bass 1971

Click to enlarge.

Like a vendor of pots and pans

From A Treasury of Jewish Folklore by Nathan Ausubel.

An Author's Life After Forty

A young Talmudic scholar who had just completed a learned work came to Rabbi Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna, and begged him for a testimonial.

Rabbi Elijah regarded his visitor with gentle compassion.

“My son,” he said to him, “you must face the stern realities. If you wish to be a writer of learned books you must be resigned to peddle your work from house to house like a vendor of pots and pans and suffer hunger until you’re forty.”

“And what will happen after I’m forty?” asked the young writer, hopefully.

Rabbi Elijah smiled encouragingly, “By the time you’re forty you’ll be quite used to it!”

That's the America I know and rarely see on the news

Despite the media turmoil of the past couple of years, there has been at least one bright spot amidst the bad behavior, gloom, and hysteria. The emergence of journalist Salena Zito. She caught my attention during the 2016 campaign with Taking Trump Seriously, Not Literally in The Atlantic. She observed:

The 70-year-old Republican nominee took his time walking from the green room toward the stage. He stopped to chat with the waiters, service workers, police officers, and other convention staffers facilitating the event. There were no selfies, no glad-handing for votes, no trailing television cameras. Out of view of the press, Trump warmly greets everyone he sees, asks how they are, and, when he can, asks for their names and what they do.

That indicates to me a reporter who is there, observing and reporting, not some party operative with a by-line, remotely interpreting and spinning. I have subsequently seen other such accounts, but never from the mainstream media.

This is the observation that impressed me:

He hammered at the importance of better opportunities in black communities as a remedy to quell today’s unrest: “We have to have education and jobs in the inner cities or they are going to explode like we have never seen before. You already see signs of that already all over the country.”

The best way, he says, is to provide good education and good jobs in these areas. “Fifty-eight percent of black youth cannot get a job, cannot work,” he says. “Fifty-eight percent. If you are not going to bring jobs back, it is just going to continue to get worse and worse.”

It’s a claim that drives fact-checkers to distraction. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the unemployment rate for blacks between the ages of 16 and 24 at 20.6 percent. Trump prefers to use its employment-population ratio, a figure that shows only 41.5 percent of blacks in that age bracket are working. But that means he includes full time high-school and college students among the jobless.

It’s a familiar split. When he makes claims like this, the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.

Indeed, his supporters take him very seriously and the media has not been able to shake free from their conviction that he is a shallow uncouth fool whom they, they believe, could easily defeat in a debate about the fact. It does not matter how frequently Trump manipulates them into embarrassing positions of their own choosing, it seems never to occur to them to step back and look at him strategically (seriously) and quit nit-picking around the tactics (literally).

If it is by Zito, I will read it; she's that good. This piece aligns with a claim I have been making. America is a great place, with great people and we rub along and solve most of our problems locally and with one another regardless of our individual faith, race, orientation, policy convictions, gender, etc. America is just fine. The dysfunction and hysteria is localized in the academy, in the media (news and entertainment), and in the bureaucracy/NGO community. All those with their collective snouts in the trough of public money and privilege of position. Andrew Cuomo doesn't see America's greatness because he doesn't know where to look by Salena Zito.

Somewhere between Nickelsville and Bear Wallow Hollow along Virginia state route 71, the remains of a redbrick home smolders on the hillside overlooking the single lane road. Several volunteer firemen sit, drinking water near the remains of the home. It’s over 90 degrees out. The sun and heat are punishing, exaggerating the heaviness of their efforts.

None of these men will get a paycheck for risking their health and possibly their lives. But that’s okay, that’s not why they do it.

An elderly gentleman stands outside of his vehicle along Route 11 West, the Virginia-Tennessee bi-way made infamous in the 1958 movie Thunder Road about moonshine running — he’s not far from a service station. Two young men pull over and offer their help. Minutes later, he is steering, and they are pushing. He makes it to the station; they walk back toward their white service van with two sandwiches in hand he bought them at the lunch counter inside the service station.

A new waitress at a Chattanooga diner drops her tray full of ribs, macaroni and cheese, and wings just as she is about to deliver it to a table filled with family members from out of town. Half of it lands on the father of the family, staining his white shirt and tangling gooey macaroni and cheese in his hair. She is filled with apologizes and tears. They handle it with grace.

When they leave — after they finally have their dinner — they refuse an offer for complimentary dinner and leave her a generous tip.

None of these are extraordinary moments. In fact, they are really quite ordinary things that happen every day in this country. They are the tiny measures of character, which is best measured in such granular increments. Character is the mosaic of tiny acts, rather than a large bold mural making an obvious statement.

That's the America I know and rarely see on the news, in the media, or from the talking heads.

There is a better market for collectivist intellectualism than there is for free enterprise individualism.

Milton Friedman observations in The Intellectuals and Collectivism by John Phelan. Over decades and across countries and cultures, it always seems as if intellectuals back centralized power which robs individuals of their freedom and liberty. Why?

I have never come up with a satisfactory answer. Thomas Sowell, of course, has some trenchant explanations in Intellectuals and Society. I have read lots of explanations. Most of them seem substantially correct but they still feel incomplete.

The disconnect between what we expect from public intellectuals and their actual beliefs is too large to be easily comprehended.

Friedman has a shot. Read the whole thing.

After some initial observations, Friedman notes:

Schumpeter gave one answer. He said that a free enterprise society, by its success, creates a large number of intellectuals who, by their nature, feel they don’t have the power they are entitled to. They become frustrated and repressed, and thus dissatisfied with the existing system. I think there is a good deal of truth to that. But, of course, that doesn’t argue that intellectuals are collectivists. It only argues that they would be against the status quo; that they would be free enterprisers in a collectivist world and collectivists in a free enterprise world.

However, that’s hard to observe because the potential free enterprisers in a collectivist world wouldn’t be permitted to talk. The only place we’d hear the intellectuals speaking freely would be in a free enterprise society. I haven’t seen any public announcement of the formation of a Russians for Capitalist Action. You don’t have a capitalist party in the Soviet Union, but there is a Communist Party here.

If you ask why so many intellectuals are collectivists, I think the fundamental reason is very different. I think it’s in their own self-interest, in a double way. First, in a collectivist society, intellectuals have more power than they do in a free enterprise system. In the 1930s, the New Deal created an enormous number of jobs that didn’t exist before for intellectuals. I had one myself, so I am speaking from personal experience. There has been a “drang nach Washington” since the New Deal which intellectuals everywhere recognize as having improved their personal status. Second, it is much easier to sell simple-minded, collectivist ideas than it is to sell sophisticated, free enterprise ideas. Take our topic—social responsibility. Why does this nonsense fill the air? Because it is simple-minded and easy to sell. Because listeners don’t have to go through a complicated thinking process.

Trying to sell people on the idea that although there are things that are wrong, if you try to make them better, you’ll make them worse, is a lot harder than selling them the idea that the way to solve a problem is to elect a good man and have the government do something. Consequently, there is a better market for collectivist intellectualism than there is for free enterprise individualism.

There is an intellectual consistency here. For Friedman, the explanation for public intellectuals being so enamored with policy stupidity is simply a matter of market dynamics. "There is a better market for collectivist intellectualism than there is for free enterprise individualism." Probably correct, but still a somewhat unsatisfactory explanation of the phenomenon.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny

From Edmund Burke in a speech at Bristol Previous to the Election (6 September 1780)

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

The Reaper

The Reaper, 1878 by Winslow Homer (1836–1910)

Click to enlarge.

And where do I wind up? In a dungeon!

From A Treasury of Jewish Folklore by Nathan Ausubel.

An Unpredictable Life

One day, centuries ago, as a rabbi was on his way to the House of Study he suddenly met the duke of the province followed by his retinue.

“Where are you going this bright morning, Rabbi?” the duke asked him sarcastically.

“I’m sure I don’t know, Your Grace,” replied the rabbi with a doubtful air.

“You don’t know where you’re going? How dare you speak so impudently to me, Jew? I’ll teach you to have proper respect for a Christian prince!” cried the duke, and he ordered the rabbi thrown into a dungeon.

“What did I tell you, Your Grace?” called out the rabbi. “Now you see for yourself that I was right when I said I did not know where I was going.”

“How so?” asked the duke curiously.

“You see, Your Grace, I left my home this morning in order to go to the House of Study — and where do I wind up? In a dungeon!”

Translating accurate observations into possibly useful information

I am intrigued by:

New book sums up all sins that precipitated psychology into the reproducibility crisis. https://t.co/VltJhg4tb3 pic.twitter.com/aDApX4fiAU

— Rolf Degen (@DegenRolf) August 18, 2018

The book is Psychology in Crisis by Brian Hughes.

Degen is highlighting some of the symptoms which Hughes has identified. None of this is unfamiliar and all of it fits in with much of my research on logical errors and fallacies in personal or group decision-making. But there is something about the listing that is intriguing and yet unsatisfying. All of it is true, and especially true for psychology, but it doesn't feel especially accessible.

Is there a way to repackage these observations so that a person, when confronted by a factual assertion, regardless of knowledge domain, might be able to assess the likely reliability of the assertion?

I am not sure that this is it, but here's a shot.

When confronted by a claim, the more of these factors which are present, the more suspect is the assertion. Each factor is associated with high levels of failed replication, i.e. the assertion is wrong.

System being studied

Are the effect sizes small?

Is it a complex system?

Is it a dynamic system?

Is the system cyclical?

Does the system evolve over time?

Is the system subject to direct observation or via proxies?

Does the system demonstrate pareto effects and/or power laws?

Are the effects the product of multiple loosely coupled systems?


Study Characteristics

Does the assertion arise from a small study with a low number of participants?

Were the study participants randomly selected?

Did the participants have an incentive?

Was the study a snapshot or longitudinal?

Was the study methodology pre-registered?

Did the study perform multivariate analysis if it is a multivariable system?

Were apples being compared to apples?


Field Characteristics

Is the field ideologically/culturally homogeneous?

Does the field have few research teams?

Are there tight affiliative interrelationships between the different researchers?

Does the field have a tradition of low research transparency (published methodologies with published data)?

Is this a field where the incentive structures favors media mentions over accuracy?

Does this field have a winner-take-all reward structure?

Does this field have only a few stakeholders?

Does this fields have low valuation of process/methodological consistency?

Does this field invest heavily in replication?

Does this field have a high retraction rate on research?

The more affirmative responses to the above questions, the more likely it is that the assertion cannot be relied upon. Any one of the attributes can, under the right circumstances, completely undermine the assertion. It does not take many of them in combination to sink it completely.

When someone makes an assertion, running through this checklist gives you a ball park estimation of reliability. Even if you do not know the particulars, you can get to a Fermi Estimation which puts you in an order of magnitude.

You go to war with the design trade-offs you planned, not the design trade-offs you discover you need

From Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E. Ambrose, page 65.

To paraphrase Rumsfeld, you go to war with the design trade-offs you planned, not the design trade-offs you discover you need.

Thanks to the American productivity and ingenuity, there were many more Shermans in action than Panthers or Tigers (in fact, about half the Wehrmacht's tanks in Normandy were Mark IVs, 26 tons). Besides numbers, the Shermans had other advantages. They used less than half the gasoline of the larger tanks. They were faster and more maneouvrable, with double and more the range. A Sherman's tracks lasted for 2,500 miles; the Panther's and Tiger's more like 500 miles. The Sherman's turret turned much faster than the Panther's or Tiger's. In addition, the narrower track of the Sherman made it a much superior road vehicle. But the wider track of the Panther and Tiger made them more suited to soft terrain.

And so it went. For every advantage of the German heavy tanks, there was a disadvantage, as for the American medium tanks. The trouble in Normandy was that the German tanks were better designed for hedgerow fighting. If and when the battle ever became mobile, then the much despised Sherman could show its stuff.

American transport and utility vehicles were far superior to the German counterpart. For example, the jeep and the deuce-and-a-half truck had four-wheel-drive capability, and they were more reliable than the German vehicles. But again like the Sherman, their advantages did not show in the hedgerows, where squad squad size actions predominated and the mass movement of large numbers of troops over long distances was irrelevant.

With any weapon, design differences lead to losses as well as gains. The German potato masher, for example, could be thrown farther in part because it was lighter. It had less than half the explosive power the American grenade. The GIs said it made more noise than damage.

One other point about weapons. Over four decades of interviewing former GIs, I've been struck by how often they tell stories about duds, generally about shells falling near their foxholes and failing to explode. Lt. George Wilson said that after one shelling near St. Lo, "I counted eight duds sticking in the ground within thirty yards of my foxhole." There are no statistics available on this phenomenon, nor is there any evidence on why, but I've never heard a German talk about American duds. The shells fired by the GIs were made by free American labor; the shells fired by that Wehrmacht were made by slave labor from Poland, France, and throughout the German Empire. And at least some of the slaves must mastered the art of turning out shells that passed examination but were nevertheless sabotaged effectively.

Heartrending to think of the German slave-laborers, risking their lives in sabotage and never knowing just how many American lives they were saving, and correspondingly, the American soldiers never knowing the brave actions taken on their behalf by unknown Europeans subjugated to the German war machine.