Pansynthesis

[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]

Greek End Game – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com

Many commentators now believe that Greece will end up restructuring its debt — a euphemism for partial repudiation. I agree. But the reasoning seems to stop there, which is wrong. In effect, the consensus that Greece will end up defaulting is probably too optimistic. I’m growing increasingly convinced that Greece will end up leaving the euro, too.

[...] The only thing that could reduce that need for austerity would be something that helped the economy expand, or at least not contract as much. [...] But the only route to economic expansion is higher exports — which can only be achieved if Greek costs and prices fall sharply relative to the rest of Europe. [...] The whole thing is effectively undiscussable.

EXCITING TIMES: Please Welcome Silvana!

There comes a time, in every blog’s life, where that blog tires of singledom. It wants to settle down! Start a family! Or something! Basically, the blog wants to bring on new contributors, is what the blog wants to do, and by “the blog” I mean “Tiger Beatdown,” and by “Tiger Beatdown,” I mean me.

So, in related news, GUESS WHO TOTALLY JUST UPPED THE BAR FOR ALL OF US?

It is Silvana! Silvana, of Bitch, Ph.D and TAPPED and “holy crap, Tiger Beatdown has just exploded with comments due to this Dude Rock piece” fame!

Because women don’t get to have “man caves”

…I think people like to think of their tastes as being simple expressions of their true selves, and not influenced directly by environment. Most of the press coverage of why women read more than men falls into this way of thinking—it’s assumed women control the publishing industry and therefore female tastes rule. [...]

This unwillingness to see media consumption and hobbies as resulting from social strictures has all sorts of interesting results. A male friend called me up and said that the whole debate reminded him of the social phenomenon of the ”man cave”. Talk about evidence for my theory that men are way more entitled to have their free time uninterrupted—men get to have entire rooms to the house dedicated to just this idea! There’s even a TV show dedicated to the concept. But it’s not discussed in terms of the male privilege to actually have free time…

[...] One thing I think that we’re going to see more of in the future with laptop computers and inventions like the iPad is that women are probably going to be watching more shows and movies and playing more games than they used to. The quieter, more private, and more easily set aside in a second an entertainment is, the more women will be willing to pick it up without fear that they’ll never get to the end of it….

Tyranny For Dummies (Hullabaloo – Digby)

Next time someone in a tri-corner hat starts waving the constitution in your face, ask them about today's Senate Homeland Security hearings, where the conservatives had a complete fit at Mayor Michael Bloomberg's complaint that people on the terrorist watch list can buy any gun they like and there's nothing anyone can do about it <s>-</s> while at the same time they all thoughtfully pondered whether or not we should strip them of their citizenship. I'm not kidding. [...]

I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that tea partiers are having fits over a health care plan which they claim is a usurpation of our constitutional rights, but stripping Americans of their citizenship when someone suspects them of a crime is worth considering. Torture and indefinite imprisonment are perfectly in keeping with our founding principles but asking people to fill out a census form is Big Brother in action. Profiling anyone who some beat cop thinks might not be a citizen is a-ok, but making it difficult for terrorist suspects to buy a gun is an assault on the constitution. What the hell?

Emergency: Oakland Has Run Out of Medical Marijuana (Legally Weird)

…it is part of a routine declaration that the City Council makes for legal purposes. The city first started making the Oakland cannabis proclamation in 1998. The declaration itself, declaring a public health emergency, has no specific meaning, except to boost policies permitting medical cannabis dispensaries and encouraging the Oakland Police force to effectively ignore pot offenses.

Oakland official Barbara Parker said the city issued the declaration due to problems in the city of Oakland with law enforcement arresting growers and patients.

CA Offers New Lethal Injection Guidelines (FindLaw Blotter)

Executions have been on hold in California for nearly four years but may resume in the near future as the California Department of Corrections has offered its new lethal injection procedures.

[...] California has the nation's largest number of death row inmates with a record of now just over 700.

Mint 9 features new software manager, backup tool

The Linux Mint team has released a development RC version of Linux Mint 9 ("Isadora"), based on Ubuntu 10.04. Linux Mint 9 features a new software manager with 30,000 packages, a new backup tool that restores previous software selections, and various menu improvements, says the team.

DOES SEXISM STILL EXIST, IN AMERICA? A Brief Demonstration

Now: I liked the book. I think the reviewer is wrong about the book. But the reviewer’s thoughts on the book are beside the fucking point, at this point. The point is that I have never read a professional fucking review of a man’s work, however negative or ad hominem the review might be, in which the reviewer felt compelled to add, “but also, his female partner’s work in a completely different genre is better!”

Hypnotized by Charisma

…even while awake, our brains can be in different identifiable states that alter how we process information. And one of those states – hypnosis – involves a decrease in critical thinking and executive function.

To extend this a bit – psychologists have also studied our response to various social interactions. This reveals that people perform better on tasks when exposed to supportive or in-group people, and worse when exposed to out-group individuals. This has been interpreted as exposure to people we perceive less favorably using up limited brain resources, therefore leaving less for other tasks. While being exposed to comfortable people puts us at ease, freeing up brain resources for other tasks.

Now to the new study, which has possibly identified another state in which our critical thinking and executive function is inhibited, much like hypnotic induction. The study looked at individuals identified as Christian and very religious (confirmed with a questionnaire) and non-religious controls. They were then exposed to speeches by a non-Christian, a Christian, and a Christian faith healer, while being examined by fMRI…

[...] two things appear to be happening here. The first is an increase in activity among the secular group when exposed to the speech of a Christian faith healer – this can perhaps be interpreted as a negative reaction, putting their critical thinking on alert. Further, Christians who believed in faith healing had the opposite reaction…

…it is interesting how easy it is to turn off our critical thinking. Evolutionary psychologists speculate that our ancestors may have been selected for the ability to hand over their executive function to a charismatic leader. This allows for group cohesion, and it allows for the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the group. If the group is comprised largely of our genetic relatives, this self-sacrifice can make Darwinian sense.

This level of handing over may be necessary to do otherwise unthinkable acts, such as following your commander into a deadly (even suicidal) situation.

More Anti-Science at the Huff Po (NeuroLogica Blog – Steven Novella)

One of the challenges of trying to be scientific, and an honest intellectual, is that judgment is often required in assessing a claim or topic. The problem with relying upon one’s judgment is that it is fraught, even overwhelmed, with personal bias. The “default mode” of human behavior (which means most people do this most of the time) is to construct an elaborate rationalization for what we already believe, and want to believe. The more intelligent we are, the more sophisticated and elaborate our rationalizations – giving more confidence in our conclusions, but not necessarily deserved.

The solution to this problem is to develop a specific intellectual skill set – knowledge of the many and various ways in which we bias our thinking and the constant application of this knowledge to our own beliefs. In other words, we need to be skeptical, especially of ourselves. But not just skeptical in attitude, systematically skeptical of the process of our own thought. But since this is necessarily self-referential (we can bias our assessment of our biases) it is also necessary to check your beliefs and thinking against other people, people with different perspectives – from different backgrounds, areas of expertise, and cultures. [...]

One manifestation in particular I want to discuss today is the “demonization” of a person, belief, or system that we don’t like. You can make anything sound sinister and broken, if you exaggerate and emphasize the flaws and weaknesses of a system and ignore or downplay the virtues. For example, if you really wanted to make a case that democracy is broken, you could point out the corruption in the system, the power of lobbyists, the failures of the election system and the electoral college. The 2000 election would stand as a prime example. You could then conclude that we need to reject democracy for something else – anarchy, or perhaps a benign dictator.

This is exactly what Dana Ullman has done to science at the Huffington Post. He essentially says that science is broken and not to be trusted – therefore trust my pseudoscience (homeopathy) and help this new medical science to replace what we have now.

The Link(s): Wed, May 5th, 12pm by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.