People in Britain used to smoke a lot. And even people who didn't smoke would inhale a lot of cigarette smoke too. That doesn't happen any more.
We all know how bad smoking is for your body. Sure enough, in line with the decrease in smoking, we get better health outcomes. E.g., "For males, lung cancer AS incidence rates in the UK decreased by 31% between 1993-1995 and 2013-2015", says Cancer Research UK.
But what about nicotine? "Nicotine is frequently used for its performance-enhancing effects on cognition, alertness, and focus. A meta-analysis of 41 double-blind, placebo-controlled studies concluded that nicotine or smoking had significant positive effects on aspects of fine motor abilities, alerting and orienting attention, and episodic and working memory", says Wikipedia.
The UK population was widely exposed to a drug with life-shortening but cognition-enhancing effects. Just as we see the public health benefits of a decline in consumption of that drug, shouldn't we also see the public-cognition detriment?
Here's some evidence. "The IQ levels of young people have been steadily falling for the past few decades, according to new research. The decline is believed to have begun following the generation born in 1975, and indicates that the slow rise in intelligence observed over much of the 20th century has come to an end", says The Week, citing The Times. That "slow rise in intelligence" - in line with the slow increase in the prevalence of smoking, both active and passive?
We used to swim in a river of performance-enhancing drugs that has now slowed to a trickle. It's worth thinking about what that means. (and adding in changes in the amounts of alcohol and caffeine consumed as well). If you think that, say, political discourse has become more stupid, perhaps it's because people have become more stupid? Do you ever hanker after the days when sensible centrist policies came out of smoke-filled rooms? Perhaps the smoke in those rooms was doing an important job.
Wednesday, 25 July 2018
Friday, 13 July 2018
A miscellany of links
1. Soft power.
"Know how we gittee free? Cudjo tellee you dat. De boat I on, it in de Mobile. We all on dere to go in de Montgomery, but Cap’n Jim Meaher, he not on de boat dat day. It April 12, 1865. De Yankee soldiers dey come down to de boat and eatee de mulberries off de trees. Den dey see us and say, “Y’all can’t stay dere no mo’. You free, you doan b’long to nobody no mo.’ ”
Oh, Lor’! I so glad. We astee de soldiers where we goin’? Dey say dey doan know. Dey told us to go where we feel lak goin’, we ain’ no mo’ slave."
This fascinating account, from one of the last slaves smuggled into the US, had difficulty in finding a publisher because it was written as it was spoken (as you can see). But it's so vivid this way: you can almost hear the voice of the man, watching the Yankees eating their mulberries, and being told he was now free.
Why are Democrats so keen on Russia? (That is taken from here.) Good to see that we're not forgotten.
2. An interesting and depressing account of one (successful) man's student debt, combined with his family's debt. "Or was it my fault for not having the foresight to realize it was a mistake to spend roughly $200,000 on a school where, in order to get my degree, I kept a journal about reading Virginia Woolf? (Sample passage, which assuredly blew my mind at the time: “We are interested in facts because we are interested in myth. We are interested in myth insofar as myth constructs facts.”)" What price can you put on being able to translate the Dream of the Rood into the modern vernacular? ($200,000, it seems.)
3. The diversity con - a left-wing critique of "diversity". I'd frame a lot of the points made quite differently from the author, but it's well worth reading, and it also fits in nicely with the points I was making about the capitalism of modern feminism. Cui bono is not the only question to ask about politics, but it's not one to forget.
4. Lovely pictures of Ivan Kupala Night celebrations. Nothing to do with politics. And yet politics so terribly saturates culture nowadays that, as I look at the photos, I can almost see them being used in an advertising campaign for the Belorussian equivalent of Brexit.
"Know how we gittee free? Cudjo tellee you dat. De boat I on, it in de Mobile. We all on dere to go in de Montgomery, but Cap’n Jim Meaher, he not on de boat dat day. It April 12, 1865. De Yankee soldiers dey come down to de boat and eatee de mulberries off de trees. Den dey see us and say, “Y’all can’t stay dere no mo’. You free, you doan b’long to nobody no mo.’ ”
Oh, Lor’! I so glad. We astee de soldiers where we goin’? Dey say dey doan know. Dey told us to go where we feel lak goin’, we ain’ no mo’ slave."
This fascinating account, from one of the last slaves smuggled into the US, had difficulty in finding a publisher because it was written as it was spoken (as you can see). But it's so vivid this way: you can almost hear the voice of the man, watching the Yankees eating their mulberries, and being told he was now free.
6. Signs of the times: Build-A-Bear causes havoc with discount deal. "Build-A-Bear Workshop was offering UK customers a chance to buy any bear, which can cost up to £52, for the price of their child's age.// At Leeds' White Rose Shopping Centre police were called when queues of "about a mile long" formed." From my limited familiarity with Build-A-Bear, I do not find this surprising.
7. A brilliant list of things that happen in Silicon Valley and also the Soviet Union, including "waiting years to receive a car you ordered, to find that it's of poor workmanship and quality", "promises of colonizing the solar system while you toil in drudgery day in, day out" and "Henry Kissinger visits sometimes for some reason".
8. Sam Leith on Lee Child. Worth it for the two sentences he quotes from Child.
Wednesday, 11 July 2018
Lawyers for the modern world
Some people think that lawyers are a fusty lot, a bunch of old-fashioned so and sos who use obsolete words like 'fusty' long after everyone else.
Think again! The Law Society is addressing a very current concern by releasing this best practice video showing how to navigate issues of consent in today's hook-up culture.
Think again! The Law Society is addressing a very current concern by releasing this best practice video showing how to navigate issues of consent in today's hook-up culture.
Monday, 9 July 2018
Five interesting links
1. Chinese business entertainment. Every bit as bad as you suspect. E.g., "one of my sources was unsympathetic after an American friend, working with a sole colleague, was on the brink of hospitalization following a banquet with Hunanese officials. “What an idiot,” she said, “Bringing only one other person to drink with the government!”" and "“Sometimes everyone strips off and you lie around naked together in comfortable rooms. The lower ranking members of the group then serve the other ones food and drink. On other occasions, we got high together, took off our shirts, and danced around in a circle holding hands,” one Western observer commentated, preferring anonymity." There is worse stuff at the link.
2. The Spanish Inquisition? Lovely people. "Well, for a start, the jails of the Inquisition were universally known to be hygienic and well maintained. They were neither built nor run as places of punishment. The standard of care that inmates received was high enough that prisoners held by the Crown would often petition to be moved to Inquisition jails. There are recorded cases of criminals committing public heresy with the express purpose of being held and tried by the Inquisition, rather than the secular courts."
3. Do you remember Obama's Kill List? It's still going strong. Here is an account of a court case by a US citizen who thinks that the United States government has tried to kill him five times. He'd like it to stop.
4. Labour is no longer the party of the working class. You knew that, but here are some background statistics you might not have known: the "2017 Labour Party rule book, a 91-page document, contains 26 mentions of “gender”, 41 of “BAME” (black, Asian and minority ethnic), 43 of “ethnic”, 11 of “race”, two of “black” and “Asian” respectively, but only two of “class”"; "The proportion of working-age men without qualifications who were not active in the labour force increased from 4% in the mid-1990s to 30% today. Poor white British children do worse in school than any other ethnic group. In 2016, 75% of the suicides reported in the United Kingdom were men. The suicide risk for low-skilled men, particularly those working in the construction industry, is three times higher than the male average.". This is from the Economist, which adds some unusually forthright comment: "The public-sector middle class is huge despite decades of wolf-crying about the destruction of the middle class. ... The universities have dangerously over-expanded (while also perfecting the art of teaching their students that the West is based on exploitation, patriarchy and other injustices). ... Whatever the problems with British productivity in general the country is doing a brilliant job of mass-producing an alienated “intelligentsia” that will provide a Corbyn-style Labour Party with the votes that it needs to win the next election."
5. Are you a bit unsure about Bayesian probability? This is the clearest explanation I have seen. Take this on statistical significance: "If a researcher shows me data that would only occur one time in twenty if geography didn’t matter to hospital waiting times, then I’ll become a firm believer in the “postcode lottery”, because the idea was reasonably plausible to start with. But if a researcher shows me data that would only occur one time in a 1,000 if the position of Jupiter were irrelevant to British election results, I’ll respond that this leaves the idea of a Jovian influence on the British voter only slightly less crazy than it always was."
2. The Spanish Inquisition? Lovely people. "Well, for a start, the jails of the Inquisition were universally known to be hygienic and well maintained. They were neither built nor run as places of punishment. The standard of care that inmates received was high enough that prisoners held by the Crown would often petition to be moved to Inquisition jails. There are recorded cases of criminals committing public heresy with the express purpose of being held and tried by the Inquisition, rather than the secular courts."
3. Do you remember Obama's Kill List? It's still going strong. Here is an account of a court case by a US citizen who thinks that the United States government has tried to kill him five times. He'd like it to stop.
4. Labour is no longer the party of the working class. You knew that, but here are some background statistics you might not have known: the "2017 Labour Party rule book, a 91-page document, contains 26 mentions of “gender”, 41 of “BAME” (black, Asian and minority ethnic), 43 of “ethnic”, 11 of “race”, two of “black” and “Asian” respectively, but only two of “class”"; "The proportion of working-age men without qualifications who were not active in the labour force increased from 4% in the mid-1990s to 30% today. Poor white British children do worse in school than any other ethnic group. In 2016, 75% of the suicides reported in the United Kingdom were men. The suicide risk for low-skilled men, particularly those working in the construction industry, is three times higher than the male average.". This is from the Economist, which adds some unusually forthright comment: "The public-sector middle class is huge despite decades of wolf-crying about the destruction of the middle class. ... The universities have dangerously over-expanded (while also perfecting the art of teaching their students that the West is based on exploitation, patriarchy and other injustices). ... Whatever the problems with British productivity in general the country is doing a brilliant job of mass-producing an alienated “intelligentsia” that will provide a Corbyn-style Labour Party with the votes that it needs to win the next election."
5. Are you a bit unsure about Bayesian probability? This is the clearest explanation I have seen. Take this on statistical significance: "If a researcher shows me data that would only occur one time in twenty if geography didn’t matter to hospital waiting times, then I’ll become a firm believer in the “postcode lottery”, because the idea was reasonably plausible to start with. But if a researcher shows me data that would only occur one time in a 1,000 if the position of Jupiter were irrelevant to British election results, I’ll respond that this leaves the idea of a Jovian influence on the British voter only slightly less crazy than it always was."
Thursday, 28 June 2018
Feminism and capitalism
This Ross Douthat piece is interesting. He sets out how American feminism has consistently resolved its internal disputes - disputes over issues such as surrogacy ("now only eccentric conservatives notice the weird resemblances between California-style surrogacy practices and the handmaids and econowives of Gilead") and pornography - by adopting the logic of capitalism.
Take a current dispute: feminists "were, and are, divided over prostitution, but it’s pretty clear that the version of feminism that supports the rights of sex workers to sell their bodies in the marketplace has the intellectual momentum."
I'd add another example: maternity leave. It's not a particularly feminist or left-wing idea on this side of the Atlantic that new parents, particularly mothers, should be allowed a few months off work when they have a new baby. It's the sort of common sense idea that anyone - social conservatives, fans of breast-feeding, feminists, responsible employers, just people - can get behind. You can get a debate going by talking about some 'extreme' Scandinavian 2-year period, or wondering about how very small businesses cope, or asking whether women on maternity leave should really be accruing holiday - but you're unlikely to find anyone who favours the US model. (Wikipedia: "The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 ... mandates ... 12 weeks unpaid leave to mothers for the purpose of attending to a newborn or newly adopted child. However, the act does not attain universal coverage as it includes several limiting stipulations. In order to receive maternity leave, employees must work in a firm of 50 or more employees, maintain employment with the same business for 12 months and have accumulated at least 1,250 working hours over those 12 months. As of 2012, 59% of American employees were eligible under the FMLA. // The FMLA is the only law that addresses family leave.")
American feminism seems to be more concerned with the (non-business-affecting) issue of whether people's genitals should restrict their choice of lavatories than by the (distinctly business-affecting) issue of maternity leave and maternity pay. But which issue is more likely to make a discernible improvement on the lives of women?
Indeed, this is a feature of American left-wing political thought that extends beyond feminism. Take immigration: there is a left-wing tradition, based in trade unionism and economic protection that seeks to reduce immigration, and a left-wing tradition, based in universalism and anti-nationalism, that seeks to increase it. Guess which tradition won? The one that big business and capitalism favour - i.e. free movement of labour.
One might go even further. Let's be terribly cynical and Marxist about it. Imagine those cigar-chomping capitalists were designing a set of political debates to suit themselves. Wouldn't they want them to consist of both right-wing and left-wing arguments for things they want (open borders, abortions rather than maternity leave) accompanied by loud and angry arguments about trivia to distract people from any economic left-wingery?
It's worth remembering that just because you are woke and right-on and progressive and all the rest of it, you are not necessarily any more antipathetic to capitalism than a crotchety old right-winger who forgets that he can't use that phrase about the woodpile any more. Equally, if you are a social conservative, it's worth remembering that capitalism is not necessarily your friend.
Take a current dispute: feminists "were, and are, divided over prostitution, but it’s pretty clear that the version of feminism that supports the rights of sex workers to sell their bodies in the marketplace has the intellectual momentum."
I'd add another example: maternity leave. It's not a particularly feminist or left-wing idea on this side of the Atlantic that new parents, particularly mothers, should be allowed a few months off work when they have a new baby. It's the sort of common sense idea that anyone - social conservatives, fans of breast-feeding, feminists, responsible employers, just people - can get behind. You can get a debate going by talking about some 'extreme' Scandinavian 2-year period, or wondering about how very small businesses cope, or asking whether women on maternity leave should really be accruing holiday - but you're unlikely to find anyone who favours the US model. (Wikipedia: "The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 ... mandates ... 12 weeks unpaid leave to mothers for the purpose of attending to a newborn or newly adopted child. However, the act does not attain universal coverage as it includes several limiting stipulations. In order to receive maternity leave, employees must work in a firm of 50 or more employees, maintain employment with the same business for 12 months and have accumulated at least 1,250 working hours over those 12 months. As of 2012, 59% of American employees were eligible under the FMLA. // The FMLA is the only law that addresses family leave.")
American feminism seems to be more concerned with the (non-business-affecting) issue of whether people's genitals should restrict their choice of lavatories than by the (distinctly business-affecting) issue of maternity leave and maternity pay. But which issue is more likely to make a discernible improvement on the lives of women?
Indeed, this is a feature of American left-wing political thought that extends beyond feminism. Take immigration: there is a left-wing tradition, based in trade unionism and economic protection that seeks to reduce immigration, and a left-wing tradition, based in universalism and anti-nationalism, that seeks to increase it. Guess which tradition won? The one that big business and capitalism favour - i.e. free movement of labour.
One might go even further. Let's be terribly cynical and Marxist about it. Imagine those cigar-chomping capitalists were designing a set of political debates to suit themselves. Wouldn't they want them to consist of both right-wing and left-wing arguments for things they want (open borders, abortions rather than maternity leave) accompanied by loud and angry arguments about trivia to distract people from any economic left-wingery?
It's worth remembering that just because you are woke and right-on and progressive and all the rest of it, you are not necessarily any more antipathetic to capitalism than a crotchety old right-winger who forgets that he can't use that phrase about the woodpile any more. Equally, if you are a social conservative, it's worth remembering that capitalism is not necessarily your friend.
Thursday, 14 June 2018
Grenfell Tower
The Grenfell Tower fire happened 1 year ago. This is an almost uniformly excellent article/edition of the LRB about it.
You don't need me to tell you that the fire itself was awful. I didn't read all of the sad bits towards the beginning of the piece. Maybe you can.
I found the account of the aftermath both less emotionally wearing and also more interesting. There are interesting echoes of the Sharon Shoesmith affair in the cavalier, panicky, headline-grabbing treatment of local government by central government. K&C and various Tory councillors come out of it well; central government comes out much less well.
But for this blog post, I want to show you some bits about the aftermath that I found most shocking.
"‘Nobody said “no” to anybody,’ one of the department heads told me. One survivor said he needed a pram for his one-year-old. ‘We said: “No problem: dozens have been donated.”
“No,” he said, “I want a new one.” The one he wanted cost £900. We bought it.’"
Well, that's just a pram, you say. Yes, it is - but it's also an example of a wider pattern of behaviour.
"‘But the council as a whole,’ I asked. ‘Did they help you?’
‘Yes, they did,’ she said. ‘Any time we needed money – for a PlayStation, an Xbox, they bought them for us. They sent keyworkers. I read this stuff, people are unpleasant with what the council did, but for me they did it all.’ Karen and her boys lived in a local hotel for four months, paid for by the council, before accepting a brand new flat off High Street Kensington. Though she had rented privately in the tower, after the fire she was made a permanent social housing tenant. Her flat cost £1.2 million on the open market. She won’t have to begin paying rent or utility bills until July 2019. ‘It’s a relief,’ she said.
‘If this had happened in another country,’ I asked her, ‘do you think the response from the authorities would have been better?’
‘Well, if it happened in my country, in Lebanon,’ Karen said, ‘we would have been thrown on the streets, for the dogs.’"
‘Yes, they did,’ she said. ‘Any time we needed money – for a PlayStation, an Xbox, they bought them for us. They sent keyworkers. I read this stuff, people are unpleasant with what the council did, but for me they did it all.’ Karen and her boys lived in a local hotel for four months, paid for by the council, before accepting a brand new flat off High Street Kensington. Though she had rented privately in the tower, after the fire she was made a permanent social housing tenant. Her flat cost £1.2 million on the open market. She won’t have to begin paying rent or utility bills until July 2019. ‘It’s a relief,’ she said.
‘If this had happened in another country,’ I asked her, ‘do you think the response from the authorities would have been better?’
‘Well, if it happened in my country, in Lebanon,’ Karen said, ‘we would have been thrown on the streets, for the dogs.’"
Of course I am glad that this country is rich enough and generous enough to provide more lavishly for Karen than what she describes as her own country. But does something not strike you as odd about all this? Let me put it this way. The article also quotes the Daily Mail reporting that "The wealthy Tory councillor who was in charge of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment has fled his £1.3 million home after allegedly receiving threats from angry residents". The "wealthy" live in (or flee) £1.3m homes (Daily Mail valuation) while the "poor" live in £1.2m homes (open market valuation): and the poor also get free PlayStations, Xboxes and a couple of years with no rent. If this is what Tory Kensington & Chelsea is like, who do you vote for if you want austerity and inequality?
Well, that's just £1.2m, you say. Yes, it is - but ...
"‘So, with this particular family,’ a senior housing officer said, ‘the government got itself into such a situation that the government itself had to find a two million pound property for the family. They live there now. And of course when other families heard the story they were like, “Where’s my two million pound house?” ... Almost all the residents I spoke to brought this up with me. One of them printed off a list from Zoopla of four properties near Westbourne Grove at two to three million pounds each, and she wrote ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, and ‘four’ beside them in order of preference. She gave it to her keyworker and imagined the council would go ahead and buy one."
"‘So, with this particular family,’ a senior housing officer said, ‘the government got itself into such a situation that the government itself had to find a two million pound property for the family. They live there now. And of course when other families heard the story they were like, “Where’s my two million pound house?” ... Almost all the residents I spoke to brought this up with me. One of them printed off a list from Zoopla of four properties near Westbourne Grove at two to three million pounds each, and she wrote ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, and ‘four’ beside them in order of preference. She gave it to her keyworker and imagined the council would go ahead and buy one."
Read it and weep.
The world today
1. Have you ever wondered what is happening to music nowadays?
Well, classical music being is being weaponised: "“[D]espite a few assertive, late-Romantic exceptions like Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff,” notes critic Scott Timberg, “the music used to scatter hoodlums is pre-Romantic, by Baroque or Classical-era composers such as Vivaldi or Mozart.”" And it's being ruined in other ways too - see the link. Meanwhile, pop[ular] music is unimportant.
Of course, there is that kind of music that is associated with gangs. But the more you look into it, the more interesting it gets. I tried investigating Stormzy. The music is better than I thought it would be. But also more varied: it turns out he has written a hymn, which he performed at a funeral. Remember that the world is always bigger and more complicated than you think.
2. This is how you prevent war nowadays, with a video and Donald Trump telling you to "Think of it from the real estate perspective".
3. Teenage relationships nowadays: only in America? Only in the Park Slope white-parent community? I find it hard to imagine that kind of behaviour becoming widespread, but then I am terribly old and set in my ways. Some completely different - but also very weird - American young person sexual behaviour is here: "Is it possible for two people to simultaneously sexually assault each other? ... The one important thing you need to know about the case is that according to the lawsuit, a woman has been indefinitely suspended from college because she let a man touch her". (I have left the final word out of that quotation, but without changing the meaning.)
Well, classical music being is being weaponised: "“[D]espite a few assertive, late-Romantic exceptions like Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff,” notes critic Scott Timberg, “the music used to scatter hoodlums is pre-Romantic, by Baroque or Classical-era composers such as Vivaldi or Mozart.”" And it's being ruined in other ways too - see the link. Meanwhile, pop[ular] music is unimportant.
Of course, there is that kind of music that is associated with gangs. But the more you look into it, the more interesting it gets. I tried investigating Stormzy. The music is better than I thought it would be. But also more varied: it turns out he has written a hymn, which he performed at a funeral. Remember that the world is always bigger and more complicated than you think.
2. This is how you prevent war nowadays, with a video and Donald Trump telling you to "Think of it from the real estate perspective".
3. Teenage relationships nowadays: only in America? Only in the Park Slope white-parent community? I find it hard to imagine that kind of behaviour becoming widespread, but then I am terribly old and set in my ways. Some completely different - but also very weird - American young person sexual behaviour is here: "Is it possible for two people to simultaneously sexually assault each other? ... The one important thing you need to know about the case is that according to the lawsuit, a woman has been indefinitely suspended from college because she let a man touch her". (I have left the final word out of that quotation, but without changing the meaning.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)