video violence debunk May 15, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : society , add a commentThe Voltage Gate on a review of research which concludes that there’s really not much behind the ‘video games create more violent people’ line.
Tags for this article: science , society , video games , violence
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insulting May 6, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : society , add a commentAs one of those bastards who hardly ever votes, I’ve been rather far from feeling that any candidate, let alone a ‘major’ candidate, in the upcoming election warrants anything even vaguely resembling an endorsement* from me, let alone an actual vote.
But I am happy to come out and unequivocally state that there is someone any self-respecting individual shouldn’t vote for. In this case, it’s Hillary (and I suppose by extension anyone else still advocating a “gas tax holiday”). Mark Thoma at Economist’s View says it better than I can:
“When literally all the experts around you are telling you that what you are saying is misleading (at best), yet you declare you are going to say it anyway, that’s no better than the Laffer curve stuff. Sure, it’s not much money, but what if this were attacking Iran instead and she declared she was just going to do it anyway? That’s a bigger deal, and refusing to listen to experts - dismissing them as out of touch and elitist - tells us something important.”
The idea, the fact that it’s being pushed, and the way it’s being pushed are nothing less than an insult to the American people; telling them a lie and expecting that they’ll not only believe it, but embrace it. And the worst part is, I think, that people are going to be insulted and be happy about it. I distinctly recall the last time we had our highest public officials telling the public rather misleading statements because the public wanted to hear it and because it enabled the officials to push forward the policies they wanted — the public happily embraced it, and we’re still paying the price.
Tags for this article: economics , politics , society , stupidity
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rule by the uneducated May 6, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : society , add a commentA reminder from P.J. O’Rourke, via MR, not to get our hopes up about American politics:
“But the problem isn’t politicians — it’s politics. Politics won’t allow for the truth.”
Tags for this article: politics
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oh, the ironía May 6, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : language, society , add a commentPictures, worth, etc.
At Language Log.
And yes, the mistake is indeed underlined.
Tags for this article: language , politics , stupidity
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cute talking heads April 28, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : society , add a commentOvercoming Bias (with Freakonomics) on why I don’t watch television news: everyone else is watching it, and they therefore decide how the programming is run.
Tags for this article: society , stupidity
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our own worst enemy April 27, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : society , add a commentI found Kishore Mabubani’s article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, “The case against the West”, to be quite interesting as a presentation of how the West — and its failures — is viewed in the non-Western world. The article isn’t available online other than in preview form (unless you pay for it); but I daresay it’s worth a trip to the local bookstore and to read it — and one should probably read Richard N. Haass’s “The age of nonpolarity”, which is also interesting and bears no small connection to Mr. Kishore’s article. The Haass article is available in its entirety online.
Tags for this article: arms control , politics , society
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blame-morality April 25, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : society , add a commentRobin Hanson and a working paper and morality as a blame-game rather than normative–system–facilitating–co-existence.
Tags for this article: morality
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wine psych April 25, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : food & drink, society , add a commentVia Mind Hacks, an article from The Psychologist about wine — plenty of stuff in there regardless of whether you’re more interested in vino than in psych, or vice versa.
Tags for this article: drink , science , wine
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speaker’s phone March 26, 2008
Posted by ocmpoma in : society , add a commentEarlier this month I talked a bit about cell phone use while driving, and how studies seem to indicate it’s talking that’s the problem, not using a phone. Cognitive Daily has a post up on a study that looks at the difference between talking on a cell phone vs. talking to a passenger. The results of the study are significant, but I have some reservations, as does Dave Munger over at Cog Daily:
Arguably, the topic of the conversation — a life-threatening situation — is one that primes participants to be looking for danger. I’d be interested to see additional studies with different, more benign conversation topics. Also, since both participants were licensed drivers, these passengers might be more likely to alert drivers to dangers than, say, a child might. The study also doesn’t address hands-free cell phone use. Perhaps this is just as safe as conversing with the passenger for this type of conversation.
In addition to those, my main reservation is that the number of subjects was 96, which isn’t a very large sample. But I found the paper very interesting, and, as I said, its results are significant even with the small number of test subjects. I’d be quite interested in reading more work along the same lines, as well as work into why there is a difference. At first glance I find it difficult to accept that our brains perceive spoken language differently depending on how much electronics are involved.
Tags for this article: society
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