JayB

F* - thanks for the reminder that your absence has been nice. You just can't seem to ever post without an unwarranted insult to others can you? Hey Bill: If the world was full of people that are as cool and loyal as you are, the world would be a much better place! Having said that, I wouldn't want you to rekindle the beef that you two had going on my behalf (if that's not what motivated the post, then please ignore this entire post) I'm sure that Pat's a fine fellow in person, and I find the rhetorical attention flattering. Besides, I'm sure that now that I'm back in Seattle for good, we'll almost surely run into each other at some point, so there's no sense in chalking any of our banter here up to more than differences of opinion that manifest themselves in more caustic and snarky ways online than they would over a beer. Besides, I rarely if ever talk seriously about politics or religion in person with folks who aren't close friends already (never sparred with people until I was reasonably certain that they wouldn't go nuts if you caught them with a good shot when we used to have gloves around, either, for the same reasons), so there's a reasonable chance that if we'd met elsewhere the now long-standing back-and-forth would never have started. *Ooops - I just assumed that Tvash's reply was directed at me, but after looking at the quote-chain again, I see that I was mistaken! Never mind and please excuse my presumption!

Most likely it's both. There is no question MANY are our enemies. Some are innocent and some are guilty. Sorting that out is a hard row to hoe no doubt. Assuming MOST of these yahoos are guilty and are our enemies, then what? Are they imprisoned for life with no trial? Are those who are innocent then also imprisoned for life? It ain't the American way. Given the data so far, most detainees are not and never were our enemies. We've released 3/4 of the Gitmo detainees so far because there was no real evidence against them. Of the remaining 250 or so, only 14 have ever been charged with anything. The government's credibility at this point is non-existent, by any reasonable measure. Of course, if you're 'in the biz' and earning a fat paycheck from Joe Sizpack working in the mostly scam national security industry that exploded after 911 (our only growth industry left at this point, as far as I can see), you're going to continue to maintain the party line no matter what. There is no reason to believe that most the remaining detainees are guilty of anything more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time when some local bounty hunter, paid by the US to "go out and bring back some terrorists" kidnapped them to make some money, satisfy a personal vendetta, or both. Given the policy choices that the Obama administration has made on everything from renditions to millitary tribunals to the the role of state secrets in terrorism trials - it's not clear to me which party that you are referring to, but as a man who puts principle first, I expect that you'll waste no time in taking the Obama adminstration to task and excoriating them for their many shortfalls on these fronts.

Demise? Hey - it's a brand new day over at GM, and you're the owner! The taxpayers have $50 billion riding on this experiment, so it's time to cross your fingers and hope for the best, particularly since the peak market-cap for GM was around $56 billion in the year 2000. I certainly wish the government the best in its role as majority owner/regulator/UAW-parter, and hope that they'll be able to navigate through the seemingly impossible gauntlet of interest-conflicts that are inherent in such a role, much less in securing private bidders/financing after what happened to the bondholders vis-a-vis the unions in the restructuring that the Obama administration put together. If the goal is to return GM to profitability someday, by selling cars at a price that exceeds the cost of building them, moves like limiting production-inputs from China in favor of UAW-controlled plants in the US, keeping small fuel-efficient cars built by the Opel division out of the US and replicating all of the tooling, etc necessary to build them here, etc seem like strange moves. However - I suspect that as owner/regulator/etc Congress will do what's necessary to motivate people to buy whatever GM produces - be it in the form of subsidies, tarriffs, tax-credits, etc - so I have no doubt that they'll find a way to keep vehicles moving out the door.

Acceptable: -Someone is dishonest about their skills/background/ability/limitations and you want to warn others. Lots of grey areas here, but if it looks like you've got the right motives and are clearly making an effort to be as polite as you can, the response will generally be positive and people will probably appreciate what you've done. Lame: -Someone is honest about their skills/background/ability/limitations and you didn't enjoy climbing with them, so you log-in and try to make them look as bad as possible. You'll generally make yourself look worse than the person that you're trying to slander. I wasn't there, but based on what I've seen here Chris looks like the classier guy, and it was perfectly reasonable for him to make a 100-percent public response to DL's characterization of him. ******************************************************************* FWIW - we all have off-days, and partners that can roll with the ups and downs that are an inevitable part of teaming up with another person to climb something are far more valuable, and far more likely to have an easy time making and keeping climbing partners than people that can't seem to take these things in stride. As an example of the above, here's a story from my own past, when I *had* to fit the profile of the ultimate-cc.com-nightmare partner: I'd met John Aguiar a couple of times, and run into him at Lillooet on at least one occasion, but had never climbed with him before - and he seemed like a great guy. We make plans to hit Baker's north ridge, and I wake up on the morning we're supposed to head out feeling waaay less than stellar, but keep on packing and hope that I'll start feeling better. It takes me way longer to pack than normal, and I roll over to John's place at least an hour late. On the way up there, I start feeling worse and worse, and about 30 minutes from Bellingham I ask him to pull over so that I can go hurl in the bushes. Feeling better? "Maybe" is all I can muster, and I waste more time trying to figure out whether or not that's the case before concluding that it would be best to bail. On the drive back to Seattle, I start to feel better, feel good enough to attempt to salvage the day by driving over to Leavenworth to do some cragging. About the time we're zipping by the Money Creek campground on US2, I need to pull over again and we wind up killing another hour while I'm sitting on the side of the road and randomly oscillating between feeling better and getting floored by nausea. The most memorable thing about the trip for me was what a complete gentleman John was about the entire thing. It's hard to imagine anyone being cooler or more pleasant in those circumstances. He was cracking jokes, in good spirits, and clearly making an effort to make me feel better. He even sent me a funny e-mail along with a photo of me slouched over somewhere from our "Statewide Ditch Tour." While he'd be well within his rights to run screaming if I ever broached the topic of climbing together again, I'd tie in with the guy any-time, and the way he handled himself on that day said far more about the kind of partner he'd be than if everything had gone according to plan. There are probably been some days when I've been a good partner, other days when I've been average, and some days where I've just sucked by any reasonable standard - but I've been lucky to hook up with some great folks that play by the golden rule even when the chips are down - and they're the ones that I try to emulate, and that I look forward to teaming up with again after every trip.

Wow. Beautiful.

I know we're all supposed to leap to the conclusion that this proves these guys were active terrorists who were rightly detained at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib or God-only-knows-where-else and should never have been released. But isn't it equally possible that some, perhaps many of these people were, in fact, innocent, and wrongly detained for a period of years, possibly (probably?) tortured before being released? And isn't it just possible their wrongful detention and torture may have the effect of turning otherwise neutral individuals into angry, hate-filled terrorists bent on revenge against their former captors? I don't know about you, but if I was detained for years and subjected to various methods of "enhanced interrogation" despite having done nothing wrong, I'd be nursing some pretty serious grudges upon my release. I'd want to get back at the people who locked me up and torturted me for no reason. I'd want to blow up their shit. Hell, I'd want to blow up them, never mind their shit. So, yeah, there's a good chance I'd turn up on a battlefield somewhere after my release, and I wouldn't be fighting to defend my former captors. These reports stating that former captors - former torture subjects in some cases - are turning up on battlefields fighting for the other side are hardly surprising. In fact, they're pretty much inevitable. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." What do you want to bet that particular biblical quote never appeared on the title page of any of GWB's briefing notes? As a general narrative, Murray, that's all feasible enough - but in this particular case, going from goatherd-minding-your-own-business-wrongfully-detained-in-Gitmo to Taliban commander orchestrating attacks against the US/British/etc seems a tad improbable. I can definitely see the Taliban handing the guy a Koran, a suicide vest, and a love note to read to each of the 72 virgins that they've assured him will heap up on him in a giant-holy-nekkid-love-pile if he succeeds in slaughtering as many people (not sure if they're more interested in taking out American soliders or schoolgirls these days) as possible in order to capitalize on his newfound radicalism and zeal. It's harder to see them handing a guy like that the reigns and giving him responsibility for leading the troops out in the field, coordinating attacks, etc if he was a green innocent beforehand. I'll concede that that's possible, but it just seems terribly unlikely in this case. Innocent-turned-terrorist or hardened radical anxious to return to the fold and get his jihad on? Not sure it's easy to tell which way Occam's razor will cut without knowing more specifics in this and many other cases. I think it's also worth pointing out that while some of the Taliban may selectively attack US forces in response to their mistreatment by the same. I think it would be a grave mistake to assume that their roots go back no deeper than that, that they have no positive agenda of their own that's limited to and defined by a simple tit-for-tat reaction to US moves, or that their targets and ultimate goals are so limited and specific.

i'm not sure if you are posting the above as evidence of your point, or mine.... I'd be willing to wager that the author of the above would crush both of us on an IQ test, so if we're talking about precise definitions of what the word intelligence means, then probably not yours. If you're using the term as a proxy for qualities like wisdom, sound judgment, etc that don't necessarily have anything to do with IQ, then perhaps your claim that the guys working in this field aren't very intelligent would be more meaningful.

You can repeat what I have already answered several times, it won't make it anymore true. The dynamics of this exchange encapsulate failry well most exchanges with JayB: never expect a specific answer to arguments put forward, always expect a repeat of what you already answered in your previous post. Just to be clear - this: "There is no need for anyone to make such distinctions and any solution has to account for the role of media in society. I haven’t given lots of thought to this topic but off hand I’d say it should involve the break up media conglomerates and the enabling of media that do not resort to advertising techniques distorting perception, cognition, motivation, etc …" constitutes the answer-in-the-previous-post that you are referring to, no?

Anyone have numbers for C02 emissions for passenger mile for trains, busses, trams (including construction/build-outs) vs autos? How about numbers for efficiency trends (which mode is getting more efficient most rapidly relative to others) and replacement rates? Seems like incremental gains in passenger-mile efficiency could easily dwarf those obtained by mass transit, since the vast majority of all travel here is via auto. Also think that the fleet of autos turns over much more rapidly, so efficiencies become incorporated into this mode much more quickly than in busses, trains, etc. Per the GM/Chrysler issue - the essential problem has always been that ever since there's been anything like real competition in the marketplace, they've had a difficult time persuading consumers to buy their output at prices that cover the cost of producing them. The new MPG standards are only going to put GM et al further behind. Count on sqaundering scores of billions of dollars on enterprises that ultimately go the way of British Leyland. I suspect that it'd be cheaper to shutter all of the factories and give all existing UAW members salaries for life, and would make the underlying economic realities much more clear.

~$60, Northgate Joe's. Saw them on the table as part of the going out of business sale. Posted on the off chance that they might be of interest to folks that mount their own bindings. Store will close in 3 days.

Agreed. I suspect that this is without even factoring in the tab for public employee retirement costs. you say this as if public employees aren't entitled to retire. fascinating? is that the extent of your thought process on the topic? do you have anymore strawmen you'd like me to answer? There is nothing in these numbers which contradict what I said. Now if you want to make the effort of constructing an argument, I just may answer it in detail. So the problem down there - per you - wasn't that taxes were too low, and the profits generated in California weren't taxed too lightly to fund the budget? Just one other point of clarification before you go on - when you talk about wages do you mean total income (wages + benefits + transfer payments from the government*), or just money wages? Given the magnitude of benefits and transfer payments - this is an important distinction. Also - is this where you'll reveal how erecting barriers that restrict trade at some arbitrary level (between individuals, neighborhoods, towns, counties, states, or countries) and imposing more stringent price controls on labor will increase real wages (money wages + benefits)? Yes or no answer would be fine here if you don't care to elaborate. *This includes welfare, the EIC, federal subsidies for mortgage interest, etc.

Saying anything is "Hayekian" these days as if it's a good thing and has some connection to reality has got to be up for some irony award or something. Hilarious! Thanks. This comment takes us waaaay into recursive irony-loops here, no? It's far from clear to me that you: - Have actually read any Hayek, much less enough to fully acquaint yourself with his ideas. - Are capable of understanding them, even after doing the requisite reading. - Have the capacity to make technically and logically sound critiques of his central ideas, even if you've done the reading and understand his central arguments. Normally I'd hedge any statements like these, since I'd classify myself as a complete dilettante who's only read a fraction of his output and who has a very shallow understanding of his work. After reading what you've had to say on various topics, though, it's clear that no such qualifying statements are necessary. However - prove me wrong and resolve the information problem at the heart of his ideas, and the world will beat a path to your door! Let me know how it goes.

"extremely intelligent"? that's kind of a funny assertion....i guess "intelligent" can mean many different things to different people. what i always loved about hayek was his buddhist sensibility. I think that virtually all of the folks that constructed the mathematical models used to quantify various kinds of financial risk, as in the paper below, would qualify as extremely intelligent. "On Default Correlation: A Copula Function Approach by David X. Li of The RiskMetrics Group April 2000 Abstract: This paper studies the problem of default correlation. We first introduce a random variable called "time-until-default" to denote the survival time of each defaultable entity or financial instrument, and define the default correlation between two credit risks as the correlation coefficient between their survival times. Then we argue why a copula function approach should be used to specify the joint distribution of survival times after marginal distributions of survival times are derived from market information, such as risky bond prices or asset swap spreads. The definition and some basic properties of copula functions are given. We show that the current CreditMetrics approach to default correlation through asset correlation is equivalent to using a normal copula function. Finally, we give some numerical examples to illustrate the use of copula functions in the valuation of some credit derivatives, such as credit default swaps and first-to-default contracts. JEL Classification: G13, C41. Published in: Journal of Fixed Income, Vol. 9, No. 4, (March 2000), pp. 43-54." Having said that, there's a distinction between intelligence and, say, wisdom - which is what I think that you must be getting at. Smart - yes. Wise - no.

you aren't really arguing for educated masses, are you? Doesn't this financial crisis show that even the experts are fucking retarded? I think that Nassim Taleb's analysis is the most compelling. Worth listening to: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/04/taleb_on_black.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/03/taleb_on_the_fi.html His central explanation for exactly how-and-why extremely intelligent people made such bad decisions regarding risk and leverage is that they based their decisions on statistical models of reality which assumed that all events which influence financial risk (e.g., reality) obey simple gaussian distributions for long periods of time. Kind of like looking at the aggregate historical data for average temperature, wind-speed and precipitation on Rainier in the summer and concluding that it'll be safe to take the family on a hike up to Muir without worrying about or preparing for bad weather. Very Hayekian in his warnings about the perils of confusing representations of reality based on sets of statistical aggregates with the real thing.

Nope, you didn't grant them - those are all powers that the one and only entity likely to enforce the kinds of restrictions that you are evidently in favor of. I never talked about restrictions even though restrictions already do exist (despite your behaving as if it were impossible) such as in adverts for children and regarding subliminal advertising. Furthermore, if anyone is for restrictions it is likely to be you for I suspect you want to keep the control of media in the hands of the highest bidder, i.e. mega-corporations, all in the name of “freedom” of course. Clubs, religion, sewing circles etc ... don’t have a virtual monopoly on coming into your home and brain uninvited to keep repeating the same manipulative messages. There is no need for anyone to make such distinctions and any solution has to account for the role of media in society. I haven’t given lots of thought to this topic but off hand I’d say it should involve the break up media conglomerates and the enabling of media that do not resort to advertising techniques distorting perception, cognition, motivation, etc … Well, after you have dedicated an appropriate amount of thought to this question and have figured how the government can objectively determine what constitutes every individual's real vs illusory self interest in practice, how they can best enforce these distinctions, and how all communication can best be monitored and restricted in order to prevent individuals from being exposed to, formulating, and or believing in notions of their self interest that vary with those that the government has decided for them - I hope that you'll post all of the details here. Should be fascinating.

You may be doing more than "wishing them well" - Arnold is looking for transfer payments straight from the taxpayer pockets of the other 49 states of the union Someone's got to pay-up if California's public employees are going to be insulated from the economic realities that everyone in the private sector has to contend with. "Benefits widen public, private workers' pay gap" By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY The pay gap between government workers and lower-compensated private employees is growing as public employees enjoy sizable benefit growth even in a distressed economy, federal figures show. Public employees earned benefits worth an average of $13.38 an hour in December 2008, the latest available data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says. Private-sector workers got $7.98 an hour. Overall, total compensation for state and local workers was $39.25 an hour — $11.90 more than in private business. In 2007, the gap in wages and benefits was $11.31. The gap has been expanding because of the increasing value of public employee benefits. Last year, government benefits rose three times more than those in the private sector: up 69 cents an hour for civil servants, 23 cents for private workers. Labor costs account for about half of state and local spending, according to BLS and Census data. Benefits consume a growing share of that, now 34%."

Agreed. I suspect that this is without even factoring in the tab for public employee retirement costs. Your post above that, where you lambaste the California legislature and the public employees unions for imposing draconian spending limits on the state in pursuit of a Thatcherite dreamworld, is fascinating. How does that argument square with the figures below? http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_tot_tax_bur-total-tax-burden-per-capita http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_tol_tax_bur_pergdp-total-tax-burden-per-gdp http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_per_inc_percap-economy-personal-income-per-capita http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_wel_cas_tot_rec_percap-caseloads-total-recipients-per-capita How well does this data comport with your model/hypothesis?

Nope, you didn't grant them - those are all powers that the one and only entity likely to enforce the kinds of restrictions that you are evidently in favor of. It's clear that advertising is only one mode of knowledge transmission that has the potential to lead individuals into making choices that others deem contrary to their self interest. Clubs, religions, schools, sewing circles, gossip, etc - singling out advertising that meets existing rules against fraud, etc seems a bit arbitrary. If exposure to other modes of communication also put people at risk for making choices contrary to their externally determined self interest, what argument can you make against granting the same entity to power to restrict any means of disseminating information that meets your "known to be harmful to their self-interest" test? If you argue against doing so, I hope you'll be careful enough to construct an argument that isn't at odds with your position on advertising. I'm also still curious about the mechanisms that you'd like to external agent determining and enforcing an choices that are in an individual's self interest use to make such distinction and impose them. E.g. how to distinguish someone duped into making a given decision by a corporocracy and someone who is making a choice consistent with real, objectively identifiable free will? Also, if a choice can be empirically determined to be driven by authentic free will, but has also been determined to be objective counter to the said person's self-interest, what would you still be comfortable for the external-self-interest-determiner using its power to prevent him from acting?

"Best recent quote - "We are concerned about bring these dangerous criminals into the US prison system" --- Mitch McConnell. Isn't that what prisons are for? Who's there now?" Agreed. Hard to believe that no one gave this question any serious consideration beforehand, much less that the political ramifications of moving them to detention facilities in the US seems to have caught everyone off guard.

You didn't take my position as granted. My position is that relentless commercial propaganda manipulates individuals into doing what they otherwise wouldn't do; therefore, the loss of freedom occurs when commercial interests control and distort human impulses in order to sell more junk. It's rather remarkable that repetitive manipulative techniques, which are otherwise branded as "brainwashing" and "indoctrination" suddenly become "informational advertising" when corporatists use them. It's not clear to me that you can draw the lines that clearly. If someone mightn't have taken a trip to Costa Rica if they hadn't seen a brochure, or read a particular book if they hadn't seen an ad for it in a paper both qualify as things that people "might not have otherwise done" if not for marketing, I drew the line at manipulating, distorting and controlling human impulses. Not at providing information. We could find zillions of outcomes that are harmful, and you'd probably agree that many are harmful. if observers can identify some propaganda as brainwashing, they certainly can determine what isn't in another person's interest. I didn't "grant external authorities all powers necessary to restrict the information that people are exposed to", but it is remarkable that you don't think it is already case insofar the corporate media only communicates "information" that furthers it own interests. Even if we accept that it's possible to draw a clear line between information and propaganda/brain-washing/etc in all cases, who or what is the "they" in the second to last response, and what mechanisms of enforcement and coercion should the "they" in question be granted to insure that people they're responsible for supervising don't make choices that "they" have determined are not in their self-interest? With regards to the last point, I'd certainly agree that every entity in society that disseminates information does so with an eye to advancing its own interests, including actors ranging from GM to GreenPeace to the government. Even if you agree with the far-from-certain proposition that their doing so always results in outcomes that are inconsistent with the interests of others - it's far from certain that granting the only party in society with the capacity to arrest, imprison, dispossess, detain, others the power to make and enforce such determinations will serve to advance the interests of those outside the government. Do the risks inherent in granting the only realistic "they" in question these powers not present risks that are far graver than the potential benefits?

Agreed. Much less after privately endorsing them beforehand.

You didn't take my position as granted. My position is that relentless commercial propaganda manipulates individuals into doing what they otherwise wouldn't do; therefore, the loss of freedom occurs when commercial interests control and distort human impulses in order to sell more junk. It's rather remarkable that repetitive manipulative techniques, which are otherwise branded as "brainwashing" and "indoctrination" suddenly become "informational advertising" when corporatists use them. It's not clear to me that you can draw the lines that clearly. If someone mightn't have taken a trip to Costa Rica if they hadn't seen a brochure, or read a particular book if they hadn't seen an ad for it in a paper both qualify as things that people "might not have otherwise done" if not for marketing, but it's quite a leap to go from that concession to agreeing that: 1)Those outcomes, and zillions of others like them, constitute activities that are objectively harmful in any sense. 2)Outside observers can reliably determine what's objectively in another person's interest. 3)We should grant external authorities all powers necessary to restrict the information that people are exposed to, and the choices that they make in response to it - even if it were possible to demonstrate that conditions 1 and 2 were true.

This kind of antisocial denial that private choices very often have far-ranging social effects has pretty much run its course as an idea about how real human societies work. You're becoming what the Bushies described as a "dead-ender". The "wide ranging social effects" of private choices has never been in dispute, and I would have thought that this elementary point would have been obvious. What's been under discussion has been the extent to which the reality of social effects that extend beyond the individual can be used as a justification for enforcing limits on the set of choices and behaviors that individuals can make. In the liberal tradition, the line has been drawn at those behaviors in which the direct risk and/or harm are confined to the individual. The central basis for protecting this sphere or individual rights been that allowing the state to cross this threshold is incompatible with the set of liberties that are necessary to maintain a social order predicated on the existence of a set of inalienable rights and liberties. Anyone remember the old admonition about the risks associated with forsaking liberty for security?

C'mon, Jay. If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and guys like him - particularly if they actually were shown to have given intelligence that actually made us safer - were the only ones tortured there would be no big issue. You know that. I agree with a lot of your statements about how Obama has not and likely will not depart from the overall war plan in Iraq and Afghanistan - both wars that he INHERITED FROM BUSH, by the way. But do you suggest that Obama would have invaded Iraq in the first place? There's nothing purely partisan about thinking we might want to wait and see just what he does before we pronounce the Obama administration a complete disaster. At least he's said that torture is not going to be our FIRST choice of interrogation methods and that war and the abrogation of treaties is not going to be our FIRST choice of diplomatic method. It seems clear that Obama wouldn't have invaded Iraq, but he would have had to respond in some fashion, and that would likely have included a significant millitary dimension, and he would have had to construct a framework for detecting, targeting and apprehending/killing terrorists that forced him to confront the same nettlesome questions that he's currently dealing with. Given that he's shown a knack for combining diplomacy that caters to public sentiments while retaining an effective set of tools and tactics - there's every reason to believe that he would have done a better job of all of the above than the Bush administration. IMO the Bush administration should have had the sense to figure out that they would have to make considerably more concessions along these lines than any Democratic administration if they were going to wade into moral/legal/diplomatic grey zones like the prolonged detention of known or suspected terrorists, etc. The fact that they not only didn't do so, but more or less went the other way was a diplomatic blunder of the highest order. I haven't been critical of the Obama administration because I think they've made all of the right moves on these fronts thus far and, although this is less important by far, they're more or less identical to what I suspect a McCain administration would have done. One of my central arguments here is that I think that identical moves by the McCain administration would have received a very different response from the same folks who are largely giving Obama a pass here, but I've already beaten that point to death so there's no need to dwell on it any further.

If by "unopposed" you mean "made categorical denunciations of and unqualified opposition them the central focus of their campaign rhetoric" then I agree with you 100%.