"Peace is just. Without justice, all you've got is quiet."
I
composed that, but it sounded familiar. Which I realized is because
it's a paraphrase of something MLK said, repeatedly and in a variety of
formulations:
"True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."
—written on the memorial in DC, it seems like this may be a phrase or paraphrase from a sermon entitled "When Peace Becomes Obnoxious", March 18, 1956
"There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice."
—from a speech to Vietnam protesters, January 14, 1968 (audio here, partial transcript here)
It turns out my other pithy aphorism was a knock-off as well (also not that pithy). At least I'm unoriginally retreading the thoughts of worthy thinkers.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Saturday, October 15, 2016
A little death, with no warning
The memory that comes most immediately to mind when I think about pregnancy loss is of a particular moment riding my bike through a particular intersection. Which is pretty weird. You would think there would be stronger and more relevant memories, and in fact there are--seeing friends who we don’t see often and realizing their due date was within weeks of the one we had just found out was cancelled; an ultrasound tech who was too quiet and then left the room for way too long--but those aren’t the ones closest to the surface. (In the case of the latter, at least, there’s a pretty obvious self-preservation explanation for that being so.)
On the day of that ride home from work, I had begun to think of the hope I felt in expectation of our first child in terms of a mental image of some sort of luminous thing growing inside me. I might as well be specific, since it really is that specific, and say it looked like an iridescent puffball. That was the retrospective part of the mental image, because what I had inside me by then was what remained after that luminous thing died, collapsed, and putrefied. Which felt like a dark ball of sorrow-rage-despair-anger-depression slamming around inside my chest. The reason the memory of that moment is so vivid is that in the few seconds I was riding through that intersection, I had gone from sorrow to rage to despair. And then that, too, lifted for a moment and I thought, “Whoa.”
From a distance, I think there’s a sort of terrible beauty in the places where life and death (and not-life, and not-death) are so intimately intertwined as in early pregnancy. But up close, in practice, how can it be borne? With hope, I guess, because what else? Even if hope sometimes turns into something else that makes a very credible attempt at destroying you.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Meta-blogging/Not-blogging/Checking in
I’m officially recognizing what has been true for a little while now: the update schedule of this periodic opus has changed from “monthly” back to “unlikely”.
I have one mostly-finished draft and one big looming obligation to myself and others, but the purpose of starting this blog was to work out some ideas that I kept turning over in my head, and the purpose of setting a schedule was to make myself carve out time to do so. Now that I’ve written the ones I had a burning desire to write (and some others. Which ones are which? I’ll never tell. Actually I would if anyone asked), I’m content to fall back to the pattern of writing something if an idea strikes me and I want to get it down, but otherwise not worrying about it.
And to attend to one other bit of housekeeping: the About page, written just under two years ago, noted that we were expecting another kid who would probably not fit that well into the blog title. Indeed, it took us a while to figure it out, but we’re pretty sure at this point that she’s a goat. And the title is staying as-is. Add it to the long and growing list of little indignities and neglects she suffers as a second child.
I have one mostly-finished draft and one big looming obligation to myself and others, but the purpose of starting this blog was to work out some ideas that I kept turning over in my head, and the purpose of setting a schedule was to make myself carve out time to do so. Now that I’ve written the ones I had a burning desire to write (and some others. Which ones are which? I’ll never tell. Actually I would if anyone asked), I’m content to fall back to the pattern of writing something if an idea strikes me and I want to get it down, but otherwise not worrying about it.
And to attend to one other bit of housekeeping: the About page, written just under two years ago, noted that we were expecting another kid who would probably not fit that well into the blog title. Indeed, it took us a while to figure it out, but we’re pretty sure at this point that she’s a goat. And the title is staying as-is. Add it to the long and growing list of little indignities and neglects she suffers as a second child.
 |
| The Goat (or, as I usually say it in my head because it has a better ring to it, La Cabra!) and the Wolverine playing "climb the headboard and jump off backwards". |
Thursday, December 18, 2014
In which we infer that the Oatmeal guy has neither faith nor kids
Why does The Oatmeal’s famous comic about religion bother me so much? I’m not usually troubled by internet atheists [1]. At least, no more than by other varieties of internet ideologue, and often somewhat less, since they’re generally not pushing plans or policies that would be bad for the world. They can be foolish and annoying, but they’re not my problem.
But I guess the thing that does tend to bother me about internet atheism [2] is particularly strong in that comic, namely the assumption that religious people are not serious, that we don’t actually believe what we’re saying. Besides being a way of begging the question, it seems like a major failure to empathize with those on the other side of the position. He sees religious claims as meaningless, so he assumes that anyone making them is just expressing team loyalty, and seems unable to imagine that someone would actually see such ideas as true.
The way I stated it there makes it seem a little different, but it reminds me of a phenomenon Paul Krugman occasionally talks about, whereby economists from other teams misunderstand Keynesian ideas or proposals in a way that makes them obviously stupid, then attack Keynesians for being so stupid. His point is that they would do better to try to make sense of an idea by putting themselves in the position of a hypothetical intelligent Keynesian, because it makes them look foolish to fail so badly to understand the theory. Though there, as here, it may be that the current approach works just fine with those economists’ target audience, so they’re not looking for advice from Krugman on how to sound smarter to him.
The part that has stuck in my head most from the comic is the panel where a kid asks what happens when we die and the hypothetical parent who’s doing it right says “I don’t know, sweetie, what do you think?” So now he’s failing to empathize with both the believer and the kid. The believer because he can’t imagine a person thinking seriously about the question and coming up with an answer besides his, and the kid because he’s treating what I would assume is a serious question as if it were an obviously fanciful one. If the Wolverine asks me the name of a person she’s just added to one of her drawings, I might turn the question back like that (especially since she tends to have an answer in mind and reject all suggestions in those types of situations), but if she asks what happens when we die, I’m going to take her seriously and do my best. (She has, of course. Not an easy one, though not as tough as “What is God’s name?”)
Re-reading the comic today, I discovered something that had not stuck in my mind–that that exchange is part of a sequence in which he comes out and says that religious convictions are akin to favorite colors. I.e. that they contain no truth claims and only the mildest subjective importance. I’m surprised that didn’t stay with me, because it encapsulates the problem nicely. So let me try to be clear as well: when I say something like “God loves you”, it has very little in common with saying “I like purple.” I’m not making a statement about what seems aesthetically nice or where I observe my inclinations pointing more often than not, I’m saying that to the best of my ability to interpret the world, and according to how I understand truth and truth claims to work, it is the case that God loves you.
I kind of want to end there, but apparently the stronger part of me wants to talk more. Which is pretty standard. Specifically, I want to note that his notion of the evils of indoctrinating your children is just weird to me. Where are kids supposed to learn things if not from the adults in their life? Is he aware that after “keep them from becoming dead”, indoctrination is pretty much the primary goal of child rearing, because children left to their own devices will form value systems in which fairness and respect for others are way less prominent than we would like?
And yeah, the problem discussed above affects this, too. Obviously he has a clear idea of what should be shared with the kiddos and what should not–teach your children true things, don’t indoctrinate them in falsehoods–but he’s forgetting that we’re not all working from the same list of which is which.
[1] I wasn’t sure if “internet atheist” was a standard term, but it seems like it is. Obviously not all expressions of atheism on the internet would fall under it. The word “troll” is not unrelated. The first association for me would be with the Dawkinsian heroes who are always ready to share the gospel of What You See Is What You Get in the comments of any Humans of New York post that makes reference to anything religious.
[2] Aside from the smugness. That is also exceptionally strong in this case, but smugness is more an intensifier than a problem in itself. If something is unequivocally true, then stating it confidently is just normal. Smugness happens when the tone reflects way more confidence than the substance of an argument supports, so it depends on what you think of the argument itself.
But I guess the thing that does tend to bother me about internet atheism [2] is particularly strong in that comic, namely the assumption that religious people are not serious, that we don’t actually believe what we’re saying. Besides being a way of begging the question, it seems like a major failure to empathize with those on the other side of the position. He sees religious claims as meaningless, so he assumes that anyone making them is just expressing team loyalty, and seems unable to imagine that someone would actually see such ideas as true.
The way I stated it there makes it seem a little different, but it reminds me of a phenomenon Paul Krugman occasionally talks about, whereby economists from other teams misunderstand Keynesian ideas or proposals in a way that makes them obviously stupid, then attack Keynesians for being so stupid. His point is that they would do better to try to make sense of an idea by putting themselves in the position of a hypothetical intelligent Keynesian, because it makes them look foolish to fail so badly to understand the theory. Though there, as here, it may be that the current approach works just fine with those economists’ target audience, so they’re not looking for advice from Krugman on how to sound smarter to him.
The part that has stuck in my head most from the comic is the panel where a kid asks what happens when we die and the hypothetical parent who’s doing it right says “I don’t know, sweetie, what do you think?” So now he’s failing to empathize with both the believer and the kid. The believer because he can’t imagine a person thinking seriously about the question and coming up with an answer besides his, and the kid because he’s treating what I would assume is a serious question as if it were an obviously fanciful one. If the Wolverine asks me the name of a person she’s just added to one of her drawings, I might turn the question back like that (especially since she tends to have an answer in mind and reject all suggestions in those types of situations), but if she asks what happens when we die, I’m going to take her seriously and do my best. (She has, of course. Not an easy one, though not as tough as “What is God’s name?”)
Re-reading the comic today, I discovered something that had not stuck in my mind–that that exchange is part of a sequence in which he comes out and says that religious convictions are akin to favorite colors. I.e. that they contain no truth claims and only the mildest subjective importance. I’m surprised that didn’t stay with me, because it encapsulates the problem nicely. So let me try to be clear as well: when I say something like “God loves you”, it has very little in common with saying “I like purple.” I’m not making a statement about what seems aesthetically nice or where I observe my inclinations pointing more often than not, I’m saying that to the best of my ability to interpret the world, and according to how I understand truth and truth claims to work, it is the case that God loves you.
I kind of want to end there, but apparently the stronger part of me wants to talk more. Which is pretty standard. Specifically, I want to note that his notion of the evils of indoctrinating your children is just weird to me. Where are kids supposed to learn things if not from the adults in their life? Is he aware that after “keep them from becoming dead”, indoctrination is pretty much the primary goal of child rearing, because children left to their own devices will form value systems in which fairness and respect for others are way less prominent than we would like?
And yeah, the problem discussed above affects this, too. Obviously he has a clear idea of what should be shared with the kiddos and what should not–teach your children true things, don’t indoctrinate them in falsehoods–but he’s forgetting that we’re not all working from the same list of which is which.
[1] I wasn’t sure if “internet atheist” was a standard term, but it seems like it is. Obviously not all expressions of atheism on the internet would fall under it. The word “troll” is not unrelated. The first association for me would be with the Dawkinsian heroes who are always ready to share the gospel of What You See Is What You Get in the comments of any Humans of New York post that makes reference to anything religious.
[2] Aside from the smugness. That is also exceptionally strong in this case, but smugness is more an intensifier than a problem in itself. If something is unequivocally true, then stating it confidently is just normal. Smugness happens when the tone reflects way more confidence than the substance of an argument supports, so it depends on what you think of the argument itself.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
What’s good about money and freedom is how you spend them
Once again I find myself responding to ideas I’ve read but didn’t bookmark because I didn’t know until later that I might be actually writing something that responds to them. Alas, you’ll have to take my word for it. And maybe someday I’ll find the posts I’m thinking of or ones like them and add them here.
Anyway, what I’m responding to is the idea that money is freedom. Specifically, I’ve read blog posts where people wax poetic about how wonderful it will be to be financially independent and cast off all constraints to swim in the boundless ocean of possibility.
Which sounds lovely, of course, but (and I wish I could find one so I could show rather than tell about this) it felt to me like they were misunderstanding the value of both money and freedom. Because they were thinking only about having them, and the value comes from how you spend them.
This is pretty well understood in the case of money. On the mild side, hoarding money can be merely overcautious and unimaginative--you put too much of your energy into thinking about negative contingencies and forget to live well and plan for the possibility of things turning out alright. On the extreme side… well, there are plenty of angles and examples to choose from, each grotesque in its own special way. But I think most people who have an unhealthy relationship to money would at least acknowledge in the abstract that it’s a means to an end, even if they’ve lost sight of that in practice.
Freedom, though, people tend to view as an end in itself. And it probably is, on some level. But I think on a practical level there’s a pretty good analogy to money. Hoarding freedom, for example, has its own forms of ugliness--fear of commitment would be a big one, whether to individual relationships or social ties. Unwillingness to make a choice for fear of foreclosing other alternatives seems to fit as well. And then there are extreme cases like the anti-government militia people, who are so focused on preserving their freedom that they lock it in a box, build a bunker around it, and never set eyes on it again.
So what’s the alternative? Spend it. One example I’ve thought about was inspired by my father-in-law, who retired a couple years ago. He loves being retired, but has taken on enough regular volunteering that it kind of seems like a part-time job, complete with having to pre-arrange vacation time. That kind of commitment is different from just helping out. It costs more in freedom, because he’s allowed people to count on him showing up week after week, and it confers more benefit on the organization.
I should think of examples in between, but the other ones that are coming to mind are the really big ones: marriage, kids, being there for friends and family.
Is there an analogy to investing as well? Probably. It would have to be something that you spend freedom on and end up with more freedom. Education, perhaps. And marriage might fit, in some cases and from some angles, at least. Kids, for me, definitely don’t. Copious freedom has been laid out (also money) and I don’t expect to see it again. I feel it’s freedom well spent, though, at least so far.
Perhaps my half-remembered interlocutors would find this reasonable and totally compatible with their outlook, but as I half-remember them, they seemed to be imagining a glorious future of frolicking, Scrooge McDuck style, in their towers full of freedom. So if I could find any of the posts, I might leave a comment along the lines of “Sounds lovely, but what are you going to actually do with it?”
Monday, October 20, 2014
Survival probability calculator
It’s calculator time again! When I posted the last one, someone referred to it as depressing. I hadn’t seen in that way, though I believe this was someone who pays New Jersey property taxes, so I guess any reminder of how much that costs would be a downer.
Anyway, probably everyone will agree that this one is depressing. In fact, whereas I linked to the other one at the top, middle and bottom of the accompanying post, I’m going to save this one for the end of the post so people can decide whether or not to even use it.
So with that inspiring introduction, I present… a multi-person survival probability calculator!
The immediate idea came from a post at the Hull Financial Planning blog (I don’t follow it, though I’ve followed links to it several times and it seems good) about evaluating your need for life insurance. Sensibly enough, that calculation requires knowing approximately what your chances of actually filing a claim are. But also, I’ve long had a bookmark to the SSA’s Actuarial Life Tables and occasionally spent some time studying what they have to say.
What the calculator does is simple: given any number of people, with age and sex, and a number of years, it uses the SSA table to calculate each person’s cumulative probability of surviving for that long, plus the combined probability of everyone in the group making it.
And then there’s another sobering statistic: for some age groups, suicide is the second leading cause of death. That seems like one where you can have at least some idea of how big a risk factor it is for you personally.
I think I’ve done some of all of these. Even the first one, since I spent a few days thinking “Yeah, I probably don’t need to do that” between thinking of the idea and figuring out my own number. I haven’t freaked out much, but there have certainly been moments of internal panic. I wasn’t expecting a double-digit number for my 20-year downside risk.
[1] I realized partway through thinking about and writing down these responses that they map fairly well to the “stages of grief”, if you put anger and depression together under “freak out” and group “examine your priorities” in with acceptance (which makes sense, as a different form of acceptance, i.e. “This is real and it applies to me. What am I going to do about it?”).
[2] Note re data/privacy: this calculator operates entirely in your browser and doesn’t transmit anything. I kind of wish I had made it at least tell me when it’s been clicked, because I’m curious how many people will actually run it, but I didn’t.
Anyway, probably everyone will agree that this one is depressing. In fact, whereas I linked to the other one at the top, middle and bottom of the accompanying post, I’m going to save this one for the end of the post so people can decide whether or not to even use it.
So with that inspiring introduction, I present… a multi-person survival probability calculator!
The immediate idea came from a post at the Hull Financial Planning blog (I don’t follow it, though I’ve followed links to it several times and it seems good) about evaluating your need for life insurance. Sensibly enough, that calculation requires knowing approximately what your chances of actually filing a claim are. But also, I’ve long had a bookmark to the SSA’s Actuarial Life Tables and occasionally spent some time studying what they have to say.
What the calculator does is simple: given any number of people, with age and sex, and a number of years, it uses the SSA table to calculate each person’s cumulative probability of surviving for that long, plus the combined probability of everyone in the group making it.
What to do with this information?
Here are some possibilities:Ignore it
Don’t even run the calculator. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, right? Let’s just go with the working hypothesis that we and our loved ones are immortal.Figure out why it doesn’t apply to you
Plenty of fertile ground here. For one thing, are you in better shape than the average of your peers? And some of the people who die every year start the year knowing they have a potentially fatal condition. So if that doesn’t apply to you, that must help the odds at least a bit. Actually, you can do a little better than mere speculation on this one. I recently came across a pair of web sites that ask you a bunch of questions then predict your personal life expectancy. They’re called Living to 100 and Blue Zones. (Note: unfortunately, both require an email address. But I think it might work to use a fake one.)And then there’s another sobering statistic: for some age groups, suicide is the second leading cause of death. That seems like one where you can have at least some idea of how big a risk factor it is for you personally.
Examine your priorities
The question, as I see it, is “If the moment comes when I discover that I’m going to get the bad side of this equation, what will I think about my choices? Is there anything I could be doing to make that hypothetical future self feel better about my life, without messing things up for the other future self who’s living in the much more likely hypothetical world where everything turns out OK?”Freak out
Plenty of directions to take this--extreme risk-aversion, frantically piling up experiences, depression, … I’m sure there are others, and you could also bounce between them all.Acceptance [1]
Maybe your priorities are in decent shape and you’re willing and able to take this in and see it as just one of the many uncertainties of life (“Anything can happen”).I think I’ve done some of all of these. Even the first one, since I spent a few days thinking “Yeah, I probably don’t need to do that” between thinking of the idea and figuring out my own number. I haven’t freaked out much, but there have certainly been moments of internal panic. I wasn’t expecting a double-digit number for my 20-year downside risk.
And finally... the calculator! [2]
[1] I realized partway through thinking about and writing down these responses that they map fairly well to the “stages of grief”, if you put anger and depression together under “freak out” and group “examine your priorities” in with acceptance (which makes sense, as a different form of acceptance, i.e. “This is real and it applies to me. What am I going to do about it?”).
[2] Note re data/privacy: this calculator operates entirely in your browser and doesn’t transmit anything. I kind of wish I had made it at least tell me when it’s been clicked, because I’m curious how many people will actually run it, but I didn’t.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
The Do-It-Yourself Decision Calculus: Cheaper, Better, or Fun
File this under rules of thumb or guidelines that I formulated in my head at some point and refer to occasionally. This one is probably 5-8 years old.
The rule: it's worth doing something yourself (vs. buying a product or hiring out a task) when it's some compelling combination of cheaper, better, or just plain fun to do.
A particular decision could be made on small contributions from each factor, or it could be based entirely on the strength of one of them, but it has to meet that test somehow. (If you flip it around, it sounds pretty obvious: if you'd be suffering to do/make something that will cost more and turn out worse, obviously that's something you should buy or do without.)
My primary examples: beer and applesauce.
I've been asked before whether I brew beer, because it seems like something I'd be into. But in fact I've never even really been tempted. It certainly doesn't sound very fun—a bit of planning and cooking, a lot of waiting, and a lot of tedious sterilizing and processing—and while home-brewed beer is cheaper, my impression is that it's not way cheaper, and at the rate I drink beer (which I guess might increase a bit if I had larger quantities sitting around, but not drastically) it would take a long time to make up for the investment in gear. But the biggest factor for me in this case is the "better". There's so much really good beer out there, I just don't see myself managing to make something that would compete.
You can buy applesauce cheaply and you can buy pretty good applesauce (not cheaply), but can you get applesauce that's as good as our home-canned Fuji/Honeycrisp blend? I'm not sure you can. And can you get it for about $1.70 per quart? No, you cannot. I can't say it's particularly fun (as a small-scale activity with friends or family it might be, but the way we do it these days is I stay up late processing a bushel at a time with a hand-powered Foley mill), but it's totally worth it.
The rule: it's worth doing something yourself (vs. buying a product or hiring out a task) when it's some compelling combination of cheaper, better, or just plain fun to do.
A particular decision could be made on small contributions from each factor, or it could be based entirely on the strength of one of them, but it has to meet that test somehow. (If you flip it around, it sounds pretty obvious: if you'd be suffering to do/make something that will cost more and turn out worse, obviously that's something you should buy or do without.)
My primary examples: beer and applesauce.
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| For example, that's Two Hearted on the right. |
Beer
I've been asked before whether I brew beer, because it seems like something I'd be into. But in fact I've never even really been tempted. It certainly doesn't sound very fun—a bit of planning and cooking, a lot of waiting, and a lot of tedious sterilizing and processing—and while home-brewed beer is cheaper, my impression is that it's not way cheaper, and at the rate I drink beer (which I guess might increase a bit if I had larger quantities sitting around, but not drastically) it would take a long time to make up for the investment in gear. But the biggest factor for me in this case is the "better". There's so much really good beer out there, I just don't see myself managing to make something that would compete.
Applesauce
You can buy applesauce cheaply and you can buy pretty good applesauce (not cheaply), but can you get applesauce that's as good as our home-canned Fuji/Honeycrisp blend? I'm not sure you can. And can you get it for about $1.70 per quart? No, you cannot. I can't say it's particularly fun (as a small-scale activity with friends or family it might be, but the way we do it these days is I stay up late processing a bushel at a time with a hand-powered Foley mill), but it's totally worth it.Other cases:
- Knitting: it's not even close on price (decent yarn is expensive, manufactured goods with the same quality materials cost less), and I think in most cases there's no quality advantage. So this is something you should do if you find it fun (of course the fun can be in wearing or giving away something you made, but it's probably best if you enjoy the activity itself at least somewhat). I used to, but at some point it stopped being worth it for me.
- Home/car/bike repairs: all about cost. Though in some cases I think quality benefits, because you have the time and motivation to be as careful and do as good a job as you can, whereas someone else's main goal might be to finish and get paid as fast as possible. Obviously quality can also suffer if you don't quite have the hang of what you're trying to do (solution: more YouTube videos!). There can be a fun factor, too, if we stretch the definition of "fun" to include "sense of satisfaction at one's own increased competence and self-reliance."
Roasting coffee: I would like to get back to doing this. The cost is roughly even, but I found it enjoyable. And while there's no shortage of good coffee out there, I think in this case there's something to the claims that extreme freshness makes a noticeable difference.- Granola, hummus, yogurt: I've been making these three recently (yogurt very recently, and it might not stick, but the other two are part of my routine now). I do like my versions, but there are plenty of store-bought versions that are excellent. So this is purely a cost issue. Not that we're actually saving money, I don't think, but we get to eat more granola and a lot more hummus than we would if we were paying store prices for them.
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