ishkabible: July 2005 Archives

« June 2005 | Main | August 2005 »

July 29, 2005

stay upwind - 2

In practice, "stay upwind" reduces to "work on hard problems." And you can start today. I wish I'd grasped that in high school.
Most people like to be good at what they do. In the so-called real world this need is a powerful force. But high school students rarely benefit from it, because they're given a fake thing to do. When I was in high school, I let myself believe that my job was to be a high school student. And so I let my need to be good at what I did be satisfied by merely doing well in school.

If you'd asked me in high school what the difference was between high school kids and adults, I'd have said it was that adults had to earn a living. Wrong. It's that adults take responsibility for themselves. Making a living is only a small part of it. Far more important is to take intellectual responsibility for oneself.

If I had to go through high school again, I'd treat it like a day job. I don't mean that I'd slack in school. Working at something as a day job doesn't mean doing it badly. It means not being defined by it. I mean I wouldn't think of myself as a high school student, just as a musician with a day job as a waiter doesn't think of himself as a waiter. And when I wasn't working at my day job I'd start trying to do real work.

When I ask people what they regret most about high school, they nearly all say the same thing: that they wasted so much time. If you're wondering what you're doing now that you'll regret most later, that's probably it.

"What you'll wish you'd known," by Paul Graham, January, 2005 (excellent advice for young people)

Posted at 02:23 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Good Advice , students

July 25, 2005

"Moral Poseurdom"

European countries now have attitudes in inverse proportion to the likelihood of their acting upon them. They're like my hippy-dippy Vermont neighbours who drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers. Every couple of years, they trade in the Volvo for a Subaru, and painstakingly paste a new "Free Tibet" sticker on the back.
What are they doing to free Tibet? Nothing. Tibet is as unfree now as it was when they started advertising their commitment to a free Tibet. And it will be just as unfree when they buy their next car and slap on the old sticker one mo' time. If Don Rumsfeld were to say, 'Free Tibet'? That's a great idea! The Third Infantry Division goes in on Thursday', all the 'Free Tibet' crowd would be driving around with 'War is not the answer' stickers. When entire nations embrace self-congratulatory holier-than-thou moral poseurdom as a way of life, it's even less attractive. The Belgians weren't half as insufferable when they were the German army's preferred shortcut to France.

"Do you want to sing Waterloo or fight it?" by Mark Steyn, August 17, 2004

Posted at 02:24 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Bumper Stickers , Nihilism , Pundits

July 18, 2005

"honor" killings - 2

Meanwhile, Muslim apologists in European countries continue to loftily inform shocked Westerners that, while being perfectly understandable, "honor killing" isn't "the real Islam" and the police and doctors tread lightly for fear of being accused of "racism" (although, obviously, Islam isn't a race).
Former British Home Minister Mike O'Brien described multiculturalism as an excuse for "moral blindness", while Britain's Dhimmi-in-Chief, foreign secretary Jack Straw, praising the progress made by Turkey (population 70 million) in working towards joining the European Union (where it would shortly thereafter become the largest member), which is estimated to have at least 200 honor killings per year, is quoted as saying, "Turkey has undergone remarkable changes over the last few years, putting in place the extensive reforms the EU asked of it. The EU must now deliver its side of the bargain."

In return, Turkey has graciously temporarily shelved a proposal to criminalize adultery.

[For a horrific story of the experience of a young Palestinian girl whose family decided to murder her (she overheard them, including her mother, planning it) for becoming pregnant although not married, and who was rescued and brought to the West while her body was still so charred that the other airline passengers complained of the smell, follow this link.]

"Honor Thy Father -- Or Else," by Val MacQueen, Tech Central Station, February 2, 2005

Posted at 02:38 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Gynephobes , Nihilism

July 15, 2005

The Economics of Woody Allen

If you read Woody Allen very charitably, he seems have a perfectly reasonable desire to live longer. But his real complaint is that the time he has is meaningless because he only has a finite amount. And his conclusion resonates with a lot of people, and has for a long time.
I've never understood the appeal of this argument. If a finite quantity of life is worthless, how can an infinite quantity be desirable? Sure, you could trot out mathematical structures with this property, but come on. If an infinite span of days is so great, what's stopping you from enjoying today? In fact, by the law of diminishing marginal utility, the average value of a year in a finite lifespan should be more valuable than the average value of a year in an infinite lifespan.

It would be exceedingly interesting to see how Woody Allen would react to immortality. Frankly, I suspect he'd be complaining about it in a week. Well, actually, I don't have to just suspect. He tells us:

Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again. God - I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again.

This illustrates one of the main lessons of personality psychology: Contrary to appearances, perennially unhappy people aren't unhappy about anything. They are just unhappy, and project their feelings onto the world.

"The Economics of Woody Allen," by Bryan Caplan, EconLog, June 29, 2005

Other Resources

Nihilsm - from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Wikipedia

"You're Really Nothing at All," - from the American Nihilism Association

Posted at 02:27 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Nihilism

tiptoeing around sacred sites

So Osama is using our invasion of Iraq to recruit new troops? First of all, you know this how? We have a tape of OBL holding up a copy of 2004 TV Guide Fall Season edition to verify the date, declaring a new and improved jihad? Second, do you think a summit in which the various satrapies of the Middle East and elsewhere convene for a marathon bitchfest about Gaza is going to make America beloved in Sadr City? They want us to extend a hand, yes, so they can lop it off. Ah, but what of the moderates. Those who have been turned against us because we threw out the Taliban and deposed Saddam – the relentlessly secular Saddam, as we’re often reminded. If it hasn’t occurred to these folks before, let me spell it out plainly: if you think there’s a war against Muslims now, you lack a certain sense of perspective. If tiptoeing around sacred sites and taking special care to pick off the snipers hiding in mosques so as not to disturb the plaster is a war against Islam, you will be looking for new terms when Putin drops a big bag of hammers somewhere someday. Surely the alienated moderates must be asking: the United States could destroy the madmen, completely. Yet they do not. Why?

"Two consecutive boring days," Bleat by James Lileks, October 1, 2004

Posted at 02:25 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Terrorism

July 11, 2005

war is a terrible thing

This war — like all wars — is a terrible thing; but far, far worse are the mass murder of 3,000 innocents and the explosion of a city block in Manhattan, a ghoulish Islamic fascism and unfettered global terrorism, and 30 years of unchecked Baathist mass murder. So for myself, I prefer to be on the side of people like the Kurds, Elie Wiesel, Hamid Karzai, and Iyad Allawi rather than the idiotocrats like Jacques Chirac, Ralph (the Israelis are "puppeteers") Nader, Michael Moore, and Billy Crystal.
Sometimes life's choices really are that simple.

"Civilization vs. Trivia: Sometimes life’s choices are simple" by Victor Davis Hanson, NRO, July 9, 2004

Posted at 02:41 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Terrorism

July 09, 2005

defense welfare

Like any other form of welfare, defence welfare is a hard habit to break and profoundly damaging to the recipient. The peculiarly obnoxious character of modern Europe is a logical consequence of Washington's willingness to absolve it of responsibility for its own security. Our Defence Editor, John Keegan, once wrote that "without armed forces a state does not exist".
That's true in a certain sense. But, in another, for wealthy nations who've found a sugar daddy, it's marvelously liberating. You're able to preen and pose on the world stage secure in the knowledge that nobody expects you to do anything about it. Bret Stephens, the editor of the Jerusalem Post, opened his mail the other day and found a copy of something called "Conclusions of the European Council", a summary of the work done during the six months of the Irish Euro-presidency. He made the mistake of reading it.

"Do you want to sing Waterloo or fight it?" by Mark Steyn, August 17, 2004

Posted at 02:42 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Pundits

July 05, 2005

gynophobic wankers

So no, I’m not enthused about a summit, unless we get to set the agenda. Item one: get over the frickin’ Jews, people. They’re not going anywhere, and if they do they’re taking all of you with them. Item two: You poke the hornet’s nest one more time and the skies of Tehran and Riyahd will darken with 747s, which will disgorge a fleet of Jeeps. We will ride around with bullhorns and announce that all women are free to leave, with their children, so they can live in a society where they get to show some shin without having some gynophobic wanker whip them with sticks. Your choice! Madrassas and no women, or a live-and-let-live world with women, and cable TV and the odd cold beer now and then, if you like. Beer will not be mandatory. We’re not the sort of people who impose beer on the unwilling. But you know, on 9/11 we recognized the downside of coexisting with societies that want to hang people for having a Pabst after a hot day. Your choice. Item three: we’re going to play a video of the events of 9/11. And then we’ll have a discussion. We’re willing to entertain all sorts of commentary, with one proviso: the moment you use the word “but,” you’re escorted from the building and put back on a plane home. You can never come to the US again. Your nice condo in the new Trump building will be sold for five dollars to a nice Jewish lesbian couple we met the other day at parent’s night at our school in Park Slope. One’s an artist, the other’s a lawyer.