Cobb

American Wag Moves Forward

We're starting to get a tempo and a pace for our new video blog. 'Vlog' sounds so much like a morloch alien species I can see Spock raising one eyebrow. I am incrementally and unimpressively advancing my iMovie skills. So I should have music and titles in the new ones. I still don't know how to fade the music. We've changed the position of the camera and our voices are definitely coming out more clearly. Switching the format to shorter 15 to 20 minute segments works. So we'll cruise at this altitude and see how well it works. 

We're trying to get something that's controversial between us, and I don't think it takes much. We'll perceive things differently and that's what we're beginning to flesh out in these episodes.  

One of the interesting perspectives we have on our democracy is the roles of becoming. I think that for a lot of people it is somewhat misplaced. Without having guarantees or even something as ephemeral as a social consensus, I think young and/or undereducated folks have a very difficult time managing the confidence to develop skills and acumen. Too much of our social interaction is anti-meritocratic and self- and other-deprecating without much humor. That's the skillset for ladies and gentlemen in a society that seems unwilling to acknowledge anything but the suit. And of course the presumption against 'suits' is that they are douchebags. And those who are not are either sweaties or bastards, or worse, sweaty bastards. It is those presumptions about human nature that are screwing up our politics and our society, and I think that within the upper middle class, aka, the Slice, we are overwhelmingly tempted to become sweaty bastards with a lot of class apprehensions, less we lose the attention of the ruling class. We are too much our work and our politics and not enough ourselves. Having that kind of unity seems to be the exception rather than the rule. We look for life hacks. 

I feel like I'm getting better and seeing how people's view of society affects what they desire from politics and how economic insecurity drives up the desire for political necessity and stridency. But it's also what people expect to have to do and sacrifice to be employed which really is important. I think the fact that so few of us understand economics is what misguides our deportment. And there's too damned much signal that is actually noise. That's why we don't understand labor. That's why we don't understand character. But I think it's primarily because of the character corruption of the ruling class which doesn't actually know a lot of stuff. Which brings us to questions of power. Ick. 

 

I don't know how much the virtual post-industrial economy can sustain mankind. We really have to assume a lot, much of which Amazon is building (and yes I tend to ignore Microsoft and IBM) to be the infrastructure of future economies. Just as we needed roads and trucking to be the logistics of the material economy, the digital economy needs better standards than it has been able to establish. So we really don't know what equivalent cars are going to be yet. They won't be flying cars, but they will have cupholders and airbags. None of the postwar carmakers could envision what's on our roads today. We really can't envision what kinds of bits will be flying 40 years from now. But I daresay more of people's life experiences will be conducted through digital pathways and the tolls we negotiate will be the basis of that economy. What's really interesting is to try to figure out what will be the future digital Lincoln Center.

 

And yeah. Motorcycles!

Everybody Hates Capitalists, So Far

A couple years ago I got fed up with the self-righteousness of political hacks. And trust me if you're not Winston Churchill, Dag Hammarskjöld, Nelson Mandela and King Arthur combined, you're a political hack in my book. Which is to say I don't trust much, and I'm ok to say I have trust issues. So anyway I'm wondering in particular where Leftists get the nerve. So I read enough of George Orwell to give me a clue. You know. Wigan Pier and all that. The basic lesson that I learned was that socialists and communists got their moral impetus from the obvious intransigence of the capitalist class. What they didn't anticipate was that the capitalist class would get so much larger after 50 years or so that there would be no more bullies to bully, or as I said:

If England faced socialism because the permanent unemployment of coal miners (due to a small monoculture of capitalist investors), America would not because of it larger, more diverse class of capitalist investors. This, in turn establishes a social momentum that keeps a larger literate class - the upper middle class..

A few weeks ago I finished Kevin Kelly's book, and I have finally become convinced that I should just go with the flow of every post-industrial thingy imagined up by millennial hackers and consumed by iPhone walking dead. Here are my magic words: 

Post-industrial economy, network effects, human whuffie, decentralized distributed memetic wealth. Ubiquity is more valuable than scarcity.

What the Marxists could never see coming was that there could be a nation with a million millionaires. So they figured that the could vanguardify the means of production. They had no idea how many means means meant. What we can't see is a planet with a million billionaires. Right now there are about 1900. But what if?

This afternoon while I was chilling in Manhattan Beach enjoying a U2 tribute band, it occurred to me that I should check to see if Bitcoin has dipped under 4000 USD. While I checked out the MACD on Cryptowatch, I realized that there are some 18 exchanges where Bitcoin is traded. If I wanted stock in Hewlett Packard I'm pretty much stuck buying it on the NYSE. Bitcoin's net value right about now with 16.5 million BTC out there at 4000 a pop is worth over 65 Billion USD, which is more than double the value of HP. But I suspect, well I'm betting a lot, that Bitcoin will easily triple in price by this time next year. Once enough people get a sniff of that, and ETH and all the next coins, there's going to be a lot of money in the world. New money. Fast money. Young people's money. Digital money.

Why do we think that there can't be more markets for more things more people think is valuable? Who would have thought, even when we had Dick Tracy cartoons full of the idea, that the average American would not only pay $300 bucks for the wrist radio (on credit) but another $100 a month to watch TV on it? It would have sounded preposterous. Like the valuation of Google. Like the number of satellites in orbit. Like the number of IOT devices we'll have, like the number of warehouses of massive servers Amazon and Microsoft have for rent to anybody. 

What if the huge income inequality we're seeing right now is like the income inequality of the '49ers at Sutter's Mill as compared to the Conestoga kids still trying to make Colorado into a state. Maybe everybody gets richer and we're just second guessing, Maybe this first 2000 billionaires are really fairly brutal and simpleminded as compared to the many hundreds of thousands to come. Think about it. You played Monopoly. You pay more rent for your house now than for Boardwalk with one hotel. Why can't there be more money? Why can't there be a band better than the Beatles? Why can't there be a car better than the Ford Mustang? 

I'm still pursuing the stoic, barbell theory. I am preparing for great wealth and great tragedy. But I'm beginning to think that the upside is way more up that I ever thought. 

A Straight Line

What has gotten me most upset over the past few days in the time I've spent chatting with my fellows in the Chatting Class is the temptation towards vigilantism by proxy. I am annoyed by their indications that they want to influence the progress of the law and law enforcement towards a specific sensitivity. They want the President to say something extra hostile to white supremacists, racists, Nazis, neo-confederates and other anti-semitic rabble who have infested the streets of Charlottesville. I don't need him to. I'm not sure that I want him to. So I wrote:

Some people are puzzled that I have no need for Trump to issue comforting platitudes, and that I was never impressed by those of the prior President. Perhaps this video will help you understand my perspective.

Today I have found too many people asking for things they should understand cannot be guaranteed, especially by the system which has put them in the embarrassing position of not being satisfied by political rhetoric, and yet demanding more political rhetoric. Politically correct rhetoric.

Somebody told me that Barack Obama got one million retweets today. Like that's going to help. 

I happen to drill into the simple statement by the President that there are bad actors on all sides. That is because I want the President to mete out appropriate punishment according to the law, without regard to the animus of any side against the perpetrators of civil unrest and criminal acts. In other words if anti-Nazi protesters are arrested and charged with assault and Nazis are arrested and charged with assault, they are equally wrong. My expression of this idea has been called 'moral equivalence' and I sense this objection as well as some political partisanship at work. But my rationale comes from a different place, a place relatively devoid of fear. 

When I saw the tapes of the violent rally at Berkeley earlier this year I was fascinated. There is something instinctual within me asking me exactly what I would do if I were in that situation. Because I know if that were my neighborhood, I would have to be there. I certainly would not go there from here, nor would I go to Ferguson or any other place on the map where I don't actually live. But if it came to me, how would I handle it? I ask because it is something of a foregone conclusion. I know myself. I know my instincts. I would fight. 

I don't want to. I want to talk myself out of it. I want to rationalize a kind of pacifism. But I know better. I can handle violence, I can dispense violence. I'm stronger than most and I'm better prepared than most. I know that I could make a difference and I feel a strong obligation to protect the innocent. I've done it before, and I'm likely to do it again. I would insert myself in between aggressors and innocents and I would be aggressive towards attackers. It's not my job. It's not my desire, but it is within my capacity. 

I don't have the fear that I would be helpless against aggressors. That is because I have studied what I have in the past four years. It has rearranged my sense of responsibility and civic duty. But here's one simple rule that makes even more sense than ever. Don't go to stupid places where stupid people are doing stupid things. That describes Charlottesville and Ferguson and anywhere that people have gone feral out in the streets wanting to clash and burn. I understand what it means to calculate the amount of force necessary to subdue. You don't enter into such decisions lightly. Ever. This is what it feels like to think like I think, as someone with guns and training. And even without fear, one understands that on any day at any moment a simple mistake or oversight in a confrontation can mean the end of your health, even the end of your life. As they say in college, you go big or you go home. That's easy. I'm going home. 

There's a great scene from a corny movie in which Dr. David Banner who is also The Incredible Hulk reveals his secret. In the comic book world, everyone knows that the good doctor is a mild mannered genius who, when angered, becomes a phenomenally indestructible beast. The angrier he gets, the more terrifyingly huge he becomes, and in his rage he is capable of leveling skyscrapers. As the monstrous enemy approaches Banner and his fellow Avengers, Captain America says that it's about time for Banner to get angry. He replies "That's my secret, I'm always angry". The transformation from Banner to Hulk is part of all of us. As Banner reveals that he is always angry we are shocked to know that his Hulk powers were always under his control, that he was never a madman, but that he possesses the explicit knowledge of self that channels his fury into a righteous direction. He's not passive aggressive. He's simply smarter and more powerful than anyone else and he allows the myth to remain. David Banner is heroic. 

The heroic is timeless, there is an arrow of dedication and effort in that direction. Some just look that way, some walk that way, some run. I'm a late jogger who quickly tires. But I am on the path. So I'm particularly vulnerable. I might make a stupid sacrifice. But I know why the existence of white supremacists, Nazis and other violators of the peace don't concern me to the point at which I am demanding that words from the bully pulpit calm my nerves. I recognize my brothers on that path. I know those employed in law enforcement and sworn to duty are ready to make the proper decision. They too are always angry at bad actors, and they too need no words of reassurance. 

But the most important thing about those who are sworn to protect and serve is that they understand on the daily how important it is to serve consistently. For them, a violation of the law is a violation of the law without regard to person. They are a key element in our justice system because they do not have the privilege of arresting people for evil thoughts. They don't have the need to hear specific denouncements of impassioned righteous citizens standing up for what they believe in. They don't need flags. They themselves are Banners. Now look at the picture. Here's my caption. "Whatever dude. Just don't cross the line."

I don't expect everybody to have the self-possession of peace officers, but I do expect them to hold off on thinking about changing the law. There is nothing in our system that is ill-prepared to handle the conflicts of the meatheads in Charlottesville. I question the sensibleness of those who set off to travel to that stupid place on that stupid day, and those who are calling for magic words. And I seek to confront, with this essay, the instinct to go tribal and ask for extraordinary law. Heroes aren't triggered.  

The problem with today's multiculturalism is that it is different than pluralism. Pluralism is the proper ethos for America, multiculturalism is not. The difference can be explained simply by assuming Americans can be divided into two tribes:

Ideological Tribe A
We believe that America is at its best when its mainstream is maintained without regard to race, creed, color, sexual preference, etc..

Ideological Tribe B
We believe that America is at its best when its mainstream is maintained with special regard to race, creed, color, sexual preference, etc.

Some might think that the presence of Nazis makes this a different kind of situation, that there is something that requires special regard for the violators of protected classes. That is the kind of distinction that is best resolved by the deliberations of judges and juries. In the streets, there is simply law and lawlessness. Cross the line and you are arrested. You might expect that the character of the counter demonstrations to matter. Let me say that it does, but let me also say, and this is important, that when I claim to be Sheepdog, that this is a tribal association. If I have any claim to the warrior mystique or the heroic path or the ways of the wise, all of that is tribal. So maybe I'm Ideological Tribe A, but I'm also in that Sheepdog tribe.

All of those tribal associations must remain subordinate to the rule of law.

The more we tinker with the rule of law from our tribal perspectives, the less applicable that rule of law becomes. When it becomes easy to defy the rule of law, when it becomes easy to mock police officer's dedication and service. So yes, when my Jewish friend says nothing is going to stop him from traveling to that stupid place to confront those stupid Nazis, I respect his tribe. I respect his motivation. But I don't respect his demand for the President to speak in defense of his tribe and specifically against another tribe. That's not how the rule of law is maintained. The rule of law does not have multicultural and tribal voodoo words sprinkled in with it. A moment's consideration reveals that is precisely what certain partisan Americans are screaming about now, the allegation that the President doesn't want to alienate white nationalists. 

That of course is a call to come up with a special policy in the law to presume the guilt of white nationalists and to jump the gun accordingly when they are found in stupid places doing stupid things. Pre-emption. Predisposition. Precrime. The existence of a Nazi, they say,  is like a man holding a sword above the head of another. Simply arrest him before he swings it. The existence of a swastika is hate speech which should be taken as incitement to a violent act. This is the blurring of the line that I cannot tolerate, not because Nazis don't deserve it, not because nobody deserves it, but because we cannot provide a system smart enough and consistent enough to have that standard as law. 

You are going to have to step out of your house and put on your suit of armor and be prepared to clash in the streets, representing your tribe in defiance of the rule of law if you want to punch Nazis. With contempt for police officers, sheepdogs, and the rule of law, you are going to have to descend to the level of Nazis who stand in contempt of American society. When America's disgust with Nazis is not sufficient for you, get out of line and go bust some heads. Do it. Cross the line. 

With regards to Ferguson I wrote:

Ferguson burning is a good thing. 

They say that good fences make good neighbors. I say that anger and frustration are just like farts in the wind. Nothing political really matters until people are ready to burn things down. It makes for good dividing lines. The Ferguson mob is a lynch mob, there's no question about that. If they could get their hands on The Man, they would stone him. That's good news. It has clarity. It shows that people actually have the courage of their convictions, they are putting their money where their mouths are. We, at long last, have a proper mob.

Go ahead and join a proper mob. If Antifa is your mob, represent. Just don't expect support from citizens who desire the rule of law. If Occupy is your mob, get out there son. Show 'em what you're made of. But understand with clarity that you have decided to abandon your faith in democratic processes and institutions. Of course they are not perfect. Of course they need maintenance and reform. Don't pretend that your chants and fists and flags are instruments of democracy and law.

Charlottesville has a bunch of tribes attempting to overthrow the authority of the courts now deliberating a lawsuit on the proper location of certain Civil War statues, a gift of artifacts of history. I hardly compare but, I consider my blog a gift of historical artifacts. Look at the picture again. My website now hosts a confederate flag, plain as day. Do I get scrubbed? I'm going to take a chance and see if Facebook can handle this kind of free speech. Maybe it can, maybe it cant. We'll see. 

In conclusion, I recognize all sorts of American tribes. Ideological tribes. All of which participate in our system of elections and are subordinate to the rule of law. That law should make no exceptions and be no respecter of persons or tribes. I oppose the idea that the Executive Branch make any exceptions or call out specific partisan enemies for any reason, that it treats all Americans equally with respect to their standing or what stupidity they profess or enact in public. They are either law upholders or law breakers. There is no social justice, there is society and all its tribes and the American justice system which stands in place for those who break the law. It's a simple and straight line. Know which side you're on and stop trying to bend it. Yeah yeah yeah I've heard your arguments before. Whatever dude. Just don't cross the line. 

Obligatory Seriousness on White Nationalists, Antifa & Charlottesville

So I figure that when we end the last term of Donald we will enter the seventh inning stretch of the Culture Wars. The game is not nearly over, shit hasn't gotten real enough yet. It will only come when there are enough burned buildings and dead bodies to stop the blathering in its tracks. 

I've been thinking about the hug. Men in Los Angeles, particularly straight black men (since such things have to be said) essentially starting grasping each other after the Riots. It was an evolution in dap that was created by the fact of the Riots over the beating of Rodney King, and the failure of a jury to crucify the four officers complicit in that beating. It was only after the buildings were burned to the ground, after Korean storekeepers hardened up their defenses to the level of lethality, after 64 people were dead, after similar riots in cities all over the country were over and people were picking up fragments of their lives from the ashes. It was only after all that when people responded with tenderness and a new kind of civility arose. It was only after the election of Riordan as mayor of Los Angeles that calmer heads prevailed. It was only after people lost fingers that they stopped pointing fingers and demanded healing. It was only then that these black men in Los Angeles started acknowledging their own humanity in a new and purposeful way. It was the peace that war demanded. And now American men hug that way on the regular. 

Our identity politics have been ratcheting up the stakes of the continuing Culture Wars but they haven't reached a crescendo. The failures of the multiple intersectional third wave theoretical tentacles on the appropriate pronouns for pet groups, while crumbling to its foundations, have not yet lost their grip on the popular imaginations of the Chatting Class. So 'racism', 'sexism', 'homophobia' and various other accusations have not lost their cachet despite actual progress against these very real sins. That a lone wackjob like Dylan Roof can kill nine in Charleston and not set off so much acrimony as the gang of neo-confederates in Charlottesville tells us something very important. We have political groups of Americans who wish to see the destruction of other politcal groups of Americans. As I say, there hasn't been enough violence to satiate that bloodlust.

In a way, we are fortunate to have Antifa and Alt-Right to enact these fantasies. Call it the boneheads vs the skinheads. So far we, we meaning Left and Right, remain willing to send them into ritual combat as non-official proxies for the never ending stream of invective that is our contemporary political dialog. We are in that same perverse way, fortunate to have a President whose oratorial vacuity allows all sides to interpret whatever they wish to project as emanating from his bully pulpit. Americans are not actually having to deal with leadership in anyway resembling a responsible republic. So the wars between ourselves against ourselves continues. And it shall continue as the Congress, the Executive and the Press continue to fail to lead and America stumbles into a triple witching hour when all three fail simultaneously. Charlottesville is just a test. Our good fortune will soon run out and real riots will begin, but we now benefit by watching all the ingredients. Time will provide us another OJ Simpson or another Timothy McVeigh or another James Damore or another Matthew Shepard. Somebody whose fate will align the political opposition like Alt-Right and Antifa into a perfect storm. America will rage. Then America will hug. But first we must suffer the fire next time.

What strikes me as particularly notable about this latest non-event in Charlottesville all due respect to mere three deaths in Virginia, a number that MS-13 would consider a weak showing, is the actual symbol at the heart of the matter; the fate of a statue. You see there's still a lawsuit. And while lawsuits are generally the respectable and civilized way to resolve disputes, nobody is really talking about that lawsuit. The focus of our finger-pointing is the animus of the non-official proxies and what pronouncements we in the Chatting Class are demanding of their putative leaders. The legal process and the legal solutions for violence and rioting and municipal statuary are not what we really care about. We demand that the right people make the right sounds. We demand rhetorical satisfaction, ultimately a pledge of fealty. We are demanding satisfaction for something with great historical import and mythological power to validate our claims of sovereignty.

The King used to be called democracy, due process and rule of law. But we don't really want that right now. We want the so-called King to bend the knee.

For myself, I didn't pay attention to the Taliban in Afghanistan until they started blowing up statues. When you decide to blow up statues, when you are offended by symbols, when you burn flags, books and buildings, you are expressing a desire to exterminate. That's what's going on here. A desire to rewrite history and to undo any claims that Others might make that stand in the way of your full dignity. It used to be that Americans, all of us, aspired to one national identity. But we've gone radically and multiculturally autonomous and self-serving. We've abused pluralism into a perversion of itself. The warm fires of the melting pot have gone damp and we have been served cold kale salad and told that's as integrated as we're going to get. Pick out the fruits and nuts you don't like. It's your salad, we are told. Common purpose is epistemologically impossible. Or at least faith in it has declined abysmally. That's what it means when you are compelled to rename, reclaim, resist, reinterpret. It's only one step from remove. 

What I hear in the back and forth is a call for others to imagine their ox being butchered. The interwebz are full of madlib scenarios of offense. "What if it were a statue of (insert inviolable icon here)?" We only offer sympathetic imagination of the Others when they are incited to rage beyond reason. Isn't what the screening of movies like 'Detroit' are all about? Of course it is. All of our dramas are about pushing people to the limits of tolerance. We are encouraged to all be inglourious bastards. Today is national punch a Nazi day. One step closer to the edge and we're about to break. 

American institutions of the humanities and mainstream mass communications are broken, but we people are not. The longer we pay attention to those broken institutions, the more we fail to see our own humanity both in ourselves and in the so-called  'Others'. I have lost my faith in the ability of these old mainstays of society to be repaired or reformed, although I am confident about our basic humanity and the evolution and growth of new institutions. A new kind of hug is coming, but it will take a while. It will come after the fire. We have already created our Alts and armed these outcasts with the imprimatur to fight for 'our' version of America. I'm telling you now that they have been dignified by our callous disregard for our common purpose and they will clash and that clash will not be contained. 

Psy Ops for Da Norks

After I finish writing this essay, I'm going to read the article that Niall Ferguson recommends on the matter of President Trump and North Korea. To Ferguson, this is his make or break moment. I think it's not but it should be. I really don't expect anything persuasive out of the White House. Americans did not vote in either Obama or Trump for their facility for understanding the world, as is evidenced by the current mawkish blather over punching Nazi's in Charlottesville. Then again, I'm sure PT Barnum had something to say about the moral perspective of the average American sucker too. I'll not dig up that nugget, and I'm not even tempted to find another clever insult against the current state of American political discourse. 

While I'm making loud pronouncements about foreign policy, I may as well say that if Carolyn Glick is to be believed, all of the Palestinian authorities are wheezing out their dying breaths over an even more balkanized set of inner tribes. Their last best hopes for nationhood are about go out with a whimper, but for random First World billions, wherever they trickle. So yeah. One state solution. I said as much a decade ago, and i didn't really care then either.

Speaking of one state solutions, that's my prescription for Korea. I wonder where the Seoul boys stand on that idea. Of all the ideas, there seems to be only one with a possible happy ending which is that the people who speak the same language and eat the same food give the Norks a taste of Gangnam Style. Actually, they should drown them. Here in California, lots of folks have gotten a taste of KPop and their daytime dramas. It's a contagious, and I think powerful way forward. Psy Ops. 

I am convinced that any military coup-like action by China would produce a huge refugee crisis that they seriously don't want to handle, presuming that the DMZ stays intact. Bodies floating down the Yalu is not a pretty sight, but it is preferable to bombed out cities to the south. So everybody ought to be urging the South to welcome the starving millions. Still, we know (don't we?) that the only way to keep a country from eating itself alive in the vacuum left by a deposed despot is to keep the powerful bureaucracies in power no matter how corrupt they might be. At least they know where all the secret accounts are that move money around with any semblance of order, something which would have to be very disciplined under a supreme leader. Nothing America does that doesn't encourage and empower the Seoul contingent to march towards pacific unity can be of any help. No matter how much of a beating Guam might take, the US is going to have to suck it up and work through Seoul, period. We have Hyundaied, Kiaed and Samsunged them onto the world stage, so let's give them more and more billions to become even more irresistible to their Northern cousins. Buffett is into POSCO, and for the sake of peace, I bet even Apple's CEO would shake more hands. 

Trump doesn't have a leg to stand on beating up the Norks, despite their Axis of Evil status. It's not what he was elected to do. A simple firm hand is all. Tit for tat. But if anybody takes it on the chin from a DPRK first strike, I wouldn't mind seeing one week of shock and awe. OK maybe two days of taking out air power and telecoms. The Norks would have about one week's sympathy for shelling the South or lobbing missiles at Japan even from the most diehard America haters. Essentially all America would have to do is provide one sure-footed kick in Pyongyang's balls, turn around and walk home. I presume that our best military minds know exactly where those balls are located and are stretching their hamstrings. IE, standard readiness, elephant walks and all that generic saber polishing. 

So that's my take. Seoul needs to get its reunification rhetoric engine tuned up and be prepared to make arrangements with the remnant DPRK state bureaucracy. America and the world need to see eye to eye on this and push the South as well. There is no other reasonable way. One Korea. 

The Best Racial Joke Ever

I've been thinking about what kind of people know enough about America to be worth listening to if you're just an average American. I'm saying it's Louis CK. He's our best comedian. He travels the road all year, and he speaks to every audience in America face to face. He knows how much he can assume about what Americans know, and where their moral limits are. You can't be funny if you don't know where the line is or how to push it. So right now, I'm saying that our sharpest comedians are truly the poets of American society. I think musicians and other recording artists are too isolated in their craft from their audiences and that the interaction of laughter is much more useful feedback than flashes of cigarette lighters or people saying 'ho'.

Louis CK is also wise to the ways of the interwebz and has captured many of his routines on YouTube. Here is one I've recently found very interesting. 

Louis CK's Connecticut friend is having a very tough time explaining his discomfort with the use of the term 'nigger' to describe anyone, and as we laugh our way through the story we get to the end. It's not about the name calling, it's about falling asleep at a forklift. But if we used the term 'bastard', the whole joke would not be funny because Americans don't really care about who is a literal bastard or not. It's not about John Snow or the King in the North. The fact that Game of Throne's John Snow is a bastard is a very big deal - it is a fundamental essentialism that cannot be ignored in the mythical kingdom of Westeros. In the mythical kingdom of America, primogenitor and other birthrights are not at issue, but we are colorstruck.

Then again who do we mean 'we'? 

The more I think about this routine, the more I appreciate Louis CK's powers of perception. It is perhaps the smartest way anyone could identify the discomfort of whitefolks around whitefolks in dealing with race. I say 'dealing with race' rather than 'dealing with racism' because while most folks would easily agree that it is racist to call someone a nigger, it's hardly actually racist. It would be more clearly racist to fire the sleeping forklift driver if white sleepers were not, but the black sleeper was not fired as the story is told. It's about the aggravation of the white Connecticut friend not being able to convey his sense of outrage at this act of 'racism', yet time after time, everybody else in the story only reacts to the act of sleeping, not the epithet. 

This is instructional to the degree that it illustrates where we are. I say so because I also understand how Louis CK deals with other taboos. In another bit, he talks about how he is annoyed by people literally saying 'N-word' as it makes him think 'nigger' because the person saying 'N-word' is actually too much of a 'faggot' to say 'nigger'. That's brilliant too. 

I came across thinking about Louis CK this morning as I was reading some autogenerated blurbs from a Twitter account I newly followed. The blurb started off.."Thanks for following me! Having witnessed the downward spiral of the USA for too many years, it is my hope that.." Then he goes on to talk about a 50 word solution. Such are the pains of trying to grow your Twitter following. But then I asked myself what exactly is spiraling downward in America and what kind of person has the proper perspective on all that? The answer that came forefront in  my mind was the matter of self-regard that shortcuts the ambition of Americans from believing that they can participate in any noble aspect of society. It's a kind of navel-gazing that accepts the self as shit and the world as shit and the danger of giving a shit. In that, Louis CK's comedy, the stuff that really launched his popularity, embraces that shitty self-regard. Doing so with the contrast of what he must do to be a good father is what gives his comedy the biting tension. He's got something excellent there, an extraordinary balance of semi-porn mixed with a kind of brutal self-deprecation that informs his observations. He's a sinner. He makes no bones about the fact that he's a sinner and it allows him to tell stories that remind us of our own sins. And much of that is the whole slavish self-regard. In this routine's beginning he mocks with blistering accuracy the person who gives the non-apology for being in trouble. "Whoops", he says. Lies are perfectly magical. How can we liars tell children not to lie? 

Bullseye. 

I have something of a theory about how America has changed for the better as a society relatively free of repression while at the same time embracing universally low expectations with heedless ferocity. We are the nation that has capitulated to the culture of weed smokers. That's why niggers are falling asleep on the forklifts. We're all niggers now. Who among us sleepers needs to be any better than that? Damn good question. 

 

Obligatory Seriousness on the Google Manifesto

I haven't read it. I'm probably not going to. That's because my interest in gender balance in the computer industry is low. I care about the software, not the people. Ironically (or perhaps not), this is what makes me a computer geek, and I can testify that for most of my life it has cost me socially. Everybody knows the stereotype of computer geeks. If you don't, then watch the video. The point I'm making is just that small and it should come as no surprise to anyone. Except for that fragment of the population who has extraordinary admiration and hopes for Google as a model of our society, which I happen to think is one weird fragment kissing another weird fragment's butt. 

In the news this morning, I read that Rockwell, which is now called Rockwell Collins (since when?), is the object of a takeover bid of around $20 billion. A lot of us keep forgetting about those big businesses that don't listen to our every word, and sell ourselves back to ourselves. In Google news, the GoogleManifesto, some essay written by a dude named James Damore, is all over the place. Evidently it went viral within the company and then I read about it first on Quillette and tweeted it out Monday. I'm generally attracted to articles that get actual scientists to comment, which is rare all over the net. Quillette is the bomb anyway and on my RSS. Right now Quillette is either getting DDOSed or slashdotted. Good for them. Fortunately, I have my own Evernote copy of the article in question.

So my basic and abiding interest is how computer systems add or detract from the ability of humans to make decisions. In fact, that's my career. So I find it rather disturbing that systems can be abused, then again, some people are just poor decision makers no matter what facts may lay at their feet. So my new favorite quote, from Game of Thrones, is "I trust an honest man's eyes more than I trust what everybody knows." And here, Damore is vindicated by Quillette's experts. 

This is the core of my support of Quillette's article:

Here, I just want to take a step back from the memo controversy, to highlight a paradox at the heart of the ‘equality and diversity’ dogma that dominates American corporate life. The memo didn’t address this paradox directly, but I think it’s implicit in the author’s critique of Google’s diversity programs. This dogma relies on two core assumptions:

• The human sexes and races have exactly the same minds, with precisely identical distributions of traits, aptitudes, interests, and motivations; therefore, any inequalities of outcome in hiring and promotion must be due to systemic sexism and racism;
• The human sexes and races have such radically different minds, backgrounds, perspectives, and insights, that companies must increase their demographic diversity in order to be competitive; any lack of demographic diversity must be due to short-sighted management that favors groupthink.

The obvious problem is that these two core assumptions are diametrically opposed.

Since I've tweeted out soundbites, I need to be here to catch flack downwind of the hot air spewing right now. Let's see what happens.

If this is an Affirmative Action discussion, then the simple fact is this: 18% of computer science degrees go to women. If Google wants 'parity', then 18% should be their target. If Google wants 'equality' then they're going to have to make some controversial discriminations. I am convinced that there is a demand within the non-bell curve of Silicon-Valley-Americans that far outstrips the supply of qualified women. So the mechanics of creating equality is bound to create a very bumpy playing field, despite all rhetoric to the contrary. Balanced workforce does not produce the kind of tokens people want. Well it very well may create outsized tokens, but that's not what I see as a proper pursuit. Either way, the office politics of such companies I find to be rather twisted. You and I both know that people would figuratively kill to land a job at Google. So I cannot imagine that they don't figuratively kill for promotions inside Google. 

I tend to believe that too many people have bullshit jobs, and that of the responsible industries, IT has done less than it should in insuring that productivity goes up. There has been and continues to be more bullshit, which is now often embedded in bullshit processes abetted by bullshit software. But I'm just a cranky old bastard who has been programming since 1974. What do I know? I know I very rarely work with female peers. But my cranky gripe has more to do with what millennials get away with in startups and the thrash that causes. On the whole and in the long run, more than half the industry is still running Windows. See? We're not all getting better software. The industry is generating masturbatory systems. But I'm sure that's not the tangent people embroiled in this controversy wish to discuss. Well, let them come here and discuss it. I can't guess.  

My point is that Google itself (not Alphabet) crowdsources all of its value. Google is valuable to the masses because it caters to the masses. When it comes to evolutionary biology, the masses don't get it. They don't care to get it, and they want what they want despite what the experts say. If Google is decidedly democratic (or wishes to present such an image) then it must pretend to aspire for a democratic definition of equality in its workforce, because that is what the masses will want to hear. Thus the dilemma. I think Damore will sue. I think Damore will win. I think there will be more pussy hat parades of disgust. 

PBR vs Cosmo

Fareed Zakaria is somebody I don't like. In many ways, he represents to me the wrongheadedness of Pinker's assertion that mankind's societies have evolved beyond war on the scale of the 20th Century. And so people like FZ have a kind of smug satisfaction that their occasional stupidity and arrogance will never be met by a punch in the nose. I don't think they have any idea how many people work out at the UFC gyms. Be that as it may, I don't like the way people are using the term 'cosmopolitan' to describe such part-time snowflakes. As I have expressed my ire about the dainty elements of the chatting classes, this should come as no surprise to regular Cobb readers. However I do use the term cosmopolitan. Here's how.

An old saying of my abut NYC is that at any moment there are 10,000 people doing exactly what you're doing and half of them don't speak English. As much as I appreciate how any successful life in the big city gets compressed to a handful of efficient options in any endeavor, the big city does avail itself to providing any observer with that mind-boggling number of different humans using their own schemes to achieve. And in this, whether the ambition is naked or not, one is bound to find something odd and unfamiliar ore even shocking about the modus operandi. Therefore one who is cosmopolitan accustoms oneself to this variety. One who is cosmopolitan adapts to the wider set of actions that can be expected when all sorts of human diversity is at play.

This bears directly on a matter of character. It is a matter of character I expect from people who have a direct interest in interacting with a large number of individuals of all sorts, which is something opposite to the pig farmer who has less incentive to develop certain social skills. Speaking another language is the very first that I think of. In fact endeavoring to speak a standardized version of one's native language should reflect in the cosmopolitan mind not so much a social signaling as an ability to employ a standard. Without going into a lot of exemplifications, this is what I mean - the understanding that the use of standards, conformities, etiquette and chivalry is the gateway to a more catholic ability with larger numbers of humanity. 

It is not, on the other hand, a substitution for morality, and this is where I think people might confuse my meaning. I simply mean that the cosmopolite does not get confused or disoriented by human variety because they have a reason to invest in the skill of communication across provincial lines. So to me, cosmopolitan is the 'opposite' of provincial. If your local pub only sells beer in cans, you are not likely to drink a cosmo martini. There is nothing superior or inferior about Pabst Blue Ribbon. It's an alcoholic beverage. One should not confuse aestetics with ethics. How often will we draw inferential patterns that are incorrect? Well, our computers will tell us. In the meantime, let us also not presume some level of intelligence (or g, as it were) tied to cosmopolitan skills. Pig farmers are smart too. They know what you don't, and they make money doing so. 

The cosmopolite is often forced by big city circumstances to grow an understanding between the Spanish of Dominicans and that of Puerto Ricans. Coming from LA to NYC, I thought those were Mexican restaurants. For me, Spanish = Mexican. When I moved to Boston, I was surprised to see janitorial staffs made of Eastern Europeans. My cosmopolitanism was actually local to Los Angeles. New Yorkers on the other hand are hard pressed to tell Thais from Japanese from Pilipino. In this way, cosmopolitan ways have their limits as well, although we assume that the step to globalism is a short one. I think we're playing percentages and doing so incorrectly. If you can make it there, doesn't mean you can make it anywhere, even if you're in the top 20%. 

I find myself very impressed with the clever, and not so much with the inventive. That's just where my head is at these days, and I think that has some bearing on my take on the provincial and the cosmopolitan. In a certain way, the cosmopolitan relies more on conventional wisdom - the intersection of common sense and popular sentiment. In some way that is not seriously tested in our open society. But the bohunk must know what he knows. He doesn't have a market to sell that which isn't proven. That makes him, from the point of view of risk management (and Incerto) more likely to succeed being called out. 

The other thought to add to this regards the possibilities of escalating civil conflicts. I think it requires the thinking free man consider chivalry.