The Filter^

Stop Voyeur

You know that feeling when the girl across the street starts to take her bra off at her bedroom window, and you watch intently because it's the nearest you'll get to flesh... but after she's turned away you reflect tinged with guilt, ashamed at being such a pathetic lonely squid?
I don't, but I imagine it feels somewhat like I do now, having read an article on Harper Lee in The Independent, and a piece on Lucien Freud in The Sunday Times Magazine. Last week I visited my god-daughter, and brought her a copy of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. I also gave her a Children's version of the New Testament, and will enjoy seeing which she prefers. Even though it was on my school curriculum I managed to enjoy it, and quite rightly it's considered to be one of the classic American novels. Of course Lee never wrote another novel, as is her right.

In contrast to Lee, Lucien Freud is an engine of creativity very much in the cobweb of contemporary culture. Yet like Lee he shuns the exclusive interviews, leading a rich and veiled life of mystery. This is his right.

Neither creator owes us anything. And I feel very uneasy writing my own speculative mumblings now. If you are the sort who can't resist an ogle through the curtains then I'm sure you can track down the links. But as best as I can, I hope to convey the irrespectability of trampling through the allure of greatness.

Three Orange Books

• Liberals: A History of the Liberal and Liberal Democrat Parties

Roy Douglas
March 2005
Hambledon & London (1852853530)
amazon.co.uk

• Against the Flow

Samuel Brittan
January 2005
Atlantic Books (184354377X)
amazon.co.uk
Samuel Brittan's columns
The Economist review

• Liberal Lion: Jo Grimond - A Political Life

Peter Barbaris
January 2005
I.B. Tauris (1850436274)
amazon.co.uk

Free Market = Pro War??

My results, from the popular Political Survey. As with the Political Compass I have some issues with the reasoning, and don't feel adequately represented.
For example, look at the vertical axis: free market/pro-war vs socialist/anti-war.
No, sorry, I'm not going to have that.

Globalization - that glorious manifestation of free people, free markets and free minds - ties the economic interests of countries together, breeding cooperation and preventing war. In this regard I am firmly a Cobdenite, who sought to develop international peace via free trade. He knew that no major wars have been fought between liberal democracies, and that it is authoritarian states, not private enterprise, that turn to war to get what they want.

This idea is often known as the McDonald's Rule, since no two countries with a McDonald's has ever gone to war. Whatever our personal tastes regarding the nutritional value of a Big Mac I think we can all wonder at such a fact. It should help expose the sickening ignorance of those who claim McDonald's is some kind of imperial force.

In his new book The World is Flat, NYT columnist Thomas Friedman introduces The Dell Theory.
In an interview with Yale Global he says:

The Dell Theory says that no two countries that are part of the same global supply chain will ever fight a war as long as they're each still part of that supply chain.

He traced parts from his computer to some of the nations that supplied them, and  points out that such mutual dependence drastically raised the costs of any military engagement:

If you do go to war and you're part of one these supply-chains, whatever price you think you're going to pay, you're going to pay ten times more.  Once you lose your spot in the supply chain because you've gone to war, the supply chain doesn't come back real soon.They're not going to.

The survey categorizes me "pro-war" even though I answered "The UK was right to go to war in Iraq" as "Strongly disagree". It is they who are being oxyMORONS, not me.

Addendum:
Witty review from New York Press

Freakonomics

Last week Freakonomics went on sale. The subtitle is: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and it's a collaboration between Chicago Economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner.

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter?

Although the claims to be "rogue" are accurate, that says more about the state of modern economics than it does about Mr Levitt. For non-economists who desire an entertaining and stylish example of top tier economic reasoning, this is the book for you. It might not be perfect, but until I finish writing Krupnikonomics you'll just have to make do!

Buy it from Amazon here, here, and check out the blog.   

Saul Bellow (1915-2005)

 

"In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves"

The Bellowing Soul of an American Master, courtesy of Tom Sperlinger.

Thomas Sowell on Writing

Well, British   editors aren’t supposed to be as officious as American editors, but some bold   genius at the well-known British publishing house Allen & Unwin changed   “capitalists” to “workers” at one point in the British version of a book of   mine—and published it that way, without even bothering to check with me. That’s   not a small change, especially in a book on Marxism.

Some Thoughts about Writing is an entertaining read. The author, Thomas Sowell is a highly respected Conservative columnist, and wrote a superb textbook for the "citizen".

He also dabbles in photography.

Gilead

"These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you're making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice."

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

I've previously argued that academia is a Creative Commons, and you can also see posts on enforcement costs and free journals. There's really a triangulation of themes:

1. Economic Exchange: Decentralized, emergent systems to facilitate exchange are better than centrally planned ones. Both for positive reasons regarding the efficient transfer of knowledge, and normative reasons for the preservation of freedom via voluntary compliance: ie. capitalism beats socialism
2. Open Source software, is also more efficient than "planned" order and the Creative Commons is a people led movement against protectionism. Copyright law should permit freedom and enable creativity
3. The market for economics ideas (principly exchanged through journals), and the market for computer code are similarly bound by intellectual property law. For example citation norms (open source code), freedom to produce derivitave works (permission to make further modifications), and commonality (work is bound by the same legal structure).

Whilst my previous comments on academia focus on this third stand, the implications are huge. In a book called 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar', available via amazon.com or online, via Erik Raymond we see a classic text on economic order, demonstrating why evolutionary(/Austrian) economics is set to dominate.

Linux overturned much of what I thought I knew.  I had been preaching the Unix gospel of small tools, rapid prototyping and evolutionary programming for years.  But I also believed there was a certain critical complexity above which a more centralized, a priori approach was required.  I believed that the most important software (operating systems and really large tools like the Emacs programming editor) needed to be built like cathedrals, carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation, with no beta to be released before its time.

Linus Torvalds's style of development—release early and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the point of promiscuity—came as a surprise.  No quiet, reverent cathedral-building here—rather, the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches (aptly symbolized by the Linux archive sites, who'd take submissions from anyone) out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles.

The fact that this bazaar style seemed to work, and work well, came as a distinct shock.  As I learned my way around, I worked hard not just at individual projects, but also at trying to understand why the Linux world not only didn't fly apart in confusion but seemed to go from strength to strength at a speed barely imaginable to cathedral-builders.

The times they are a-changing...

The Beautiful Game? by David Conn

During this summer one of the greatest disgraces in modern football slowly, yet inevitably, carried Wayne Rooney away from immortality toward almost certain ruin. The conduct and criminality of his agents surprised no-one, but what really angered me was the journalists who accomplished Stretford's scheme. Unless you take the time and trouble to sift through the numerous reports and opinions across the broad spectrum of independent Everton fanzines you'd think he was sold for £30m.
He wasn't.

During these events there was just one journalist who was noticeably pointing out the actions of Rooney's agent, advisors and "friends"/colleagues. The same man who 15 years on still thinks it relevant to talk about Hillsborough, and writes about the modern game with reason not opinion.

David Conn is a cool guy, and I've exchange emails with him about the Rooney saga. He's written countless articles on the little clubs that the London press couldn't give a shit about, and at last his book is available. Called The Beautiful Game? any footie fan needs a copy. Evertonian Mickey blue Eyes reviews it here. Burn the Sun.

"Jesus will save you!"

From Reuters:

A man leaped into a lion's den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts.

"Jesus will save you!" the 46-year-old man shouted at two African lions lounging under a tree a few meters away.

The incident reminds me of a passage from Coupland's Hey Nostradamus:

I remember once at dinner when I was a kid, I sarcastically asked Reg what we'd do it we learned to speak with dolphins. Would we try to convert them? Oddly, he missed my intent. "Dolphins? Dolphins with the whole English language at their command?"

"Sure, Dad. Why not?"

"What a good question."

I was so surprised that he'd taken me seriously, that I became serious in turn. I added, "And we wouldn't even need translators. We could speak with them just as we're speaking with each other here."

Reg pulled himself back in to his seat, a posture he usually reserved for deciding which form of punishment we deserved. He said, "In the end, no, there would be no point converting dolphins, because they never left God's hand. If anything, we might be asking them what it's like to never have left, to still be back in the Garden."