Turn it into Drone Valley. Some interesting thoughts on regulatory arbitrage from Marc Andreesen.
[Update early afternoon]
Link was a little off, but fixed now.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
Flag Day
Are Conservatives Dumber Than “Liberals”
It turns out that classical liberals (i.e., libertarians) are smarter than both.
Climate Science And Conservatism
Some thoughts from Judith Curry on Steven Hayward’s latest essays (including this one). I think that “climate cultists” is certainly no more derogatory a phrase than “deniers.”
Bill Watterson
…(briefly) returns to the comics page.
Dads Are Stupid
A disturbing advertising trend:
The ads tell you that fatherhood – indeed, any sort of domestic entanglement – turns you into a dullard, a dope, a neutered clueless dork who can be reduced down to oversized tools and stammering befuddlement at Important Things. Why would any man want to be that? What rewards does the culture offer in return?
Not much, sadly.
Miles O’Brien
Life after the loss of an arm:
In my job as a science and technology correspondent, I have covered some of the advances in prosthetic technology in recent years. They are remarkable. But now that I am looking as a customer, I see shortcomings. The devices rely on actuators, which in turn rely on batteries. That makes these arms very heavy, less reliable, and not weatherproof. To make some of them work well, doctors need to move nerves to better connect them with sensors inside the robo-arms. Replicating what the human hand does is a very difficult problem for engineers, much harder than making an artificial leg. I have learned, though, that one hand—with all its dexterity, sensitivity, and opposable-thumb efficiency, along with something much more crude that has the simple ability to grasp—is all you need. For now, the split hook I wear is working well. I’m pretty sure that it’ll allow me, eventually, to return to the cockpit.
My prosthetist assumed I would like to have a cosmetic hand, one that has no real function but looks like the real thing, and so he made a mold of my remaining hand. An artist who produces fake wounds in Hollywood created a clear silicone mirror image. Then she sat with me for six hours, painting it, even embedding bits of hair snipped from my right arm. The result is haunting, and I don’t like looking at it. I’m not sure whom I would be wearing it for. I don’t feel the need to pretend or to make my presence easier on others.
The biggest problem I cope with is phantom pain. My arm has become a ghost, immobilized as if it were in a sling—which is where it was the last time I saw it. If I concentrate, I can move my imaginary fingers. The arm feels as if it’s been asleep and the circulation has just begun once again. First thing in the morning, it’s actually a pleasant, painless feeling. My arm is suspended, almost as if it is weightless. But as the day goes on, it feels as if it is progressively bound tighter and tighter, to the point of excruciating pain. In addition, my fingers often feel as if they’ve been jolted with surges of electricity.
He’s a mensch.
The Scientific Method
…versus the “scientific” method.
Scientific method vs. actual scientific method … pic.twitter.com/LjU9oW0Tvc
— Brian D. Earp (@briandavidearp) June 2, 2014
On Gun Control
How I learned to stop worrying and love the AR-15:
Brutally put, it makes little philosophical sense for the elected representatives of a government that is subordinate to the people to be able to disarm those people. As an enlightened state may by no means act as the arbiter of its critics’ words, it may not remove from the people the basic rights that are recognized in the very document to which it owes its existence. “Shall not be infringed” and “shall make no law” are clear enough even for the postmodern age. To ask, “Why do you need an AR-15?” is to invert the relationship. A better question: “Why don’t you want me to have one?” And far from being the preserve of two-bit reactionaries, this, I discovered to my consternation, is a deeply — nay, radically — liberal principle, and one of the most beautiful ideas in the history of beautiful ideas. It changed my politics forever.
It is not, and has never been, about hunting.
[Update a few minutes later]
And then there’s this:
These ideas had a profound effect on me, ushering in the startling realization that, far from merely being a larger England, the United States had become something quite different: an incubator of lost or diluted British freedoms. As the Liberty Bell was originally cast in England but rang out in America, so those guarantees of the “rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural-born subjects” have found their truest expression across the Atlantic. “That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy,” wrote George Orwell in 1941. “It is our job to see that it stays there.” In Britain and beyond, that rifle has long been taken away. England’s bell has fallen silent. Americans would do well to ensure that the crack in theirs grows no larger.
Yes.
Rousseau Was Wrong
That’s an evergreen post title, but the science is settled:
Human facial structure evolved to tolerate punches to the head, according to new research that suggests our ancestors spent a lot of time fighting.
So they weren’t corrupted by civilization. Huh.
[Update early afternoon]
On the other hand, maybe not.
But even without this theory, there’s ample evidence that prehistoric humans weren’t gentle pacifists.