In Tenure Veritas: Libations From The Ivory Tower

 Last week, I wrote about the second book in RF Kuang's Poppy Wars  trilogy, which I found disconcerting for a variety of reasons.  The first book was an interesting examination of how the drive towards vengeance could lead to dark places, set amid a metaphor for the Second Sino-Japanese War in a fantasy world.  It was, at least as I read it, a cautionary tale.  Yet the second book in the trilogy seemed to throw that ethos by the wayside, embracing the urge to avenge, not just blind to the lessons of the first novel, but blind to the specific lessons of historical reference.  I recoiled.  Yet it is at least worthy of note when a book keeps me thinking, as The Dragon Republic  did, about other types of stories.  Specifically, vengeance fantasies.  Consider a few prominent movies by Quentin Tarantino with historical reference points:  Django Unchained , and Inglourious Basterds  [sp].  (Sorrynotsorry about the "[sp]") Both are good movies, in my opinion, and in fact, I woul

 You prefer A to B.  Whatever A is, whatever B is, whatever distinguishes between the two within the common space shared by the propositions, you prefer A to B.  Or perhaps you shall be contrarian, and assert that you  actually prefer B to A, even though they are arbitrary labels, so I can reverse them, change nothing, and the statement would have held.  Why?  Not, why were you such a contrarian as to force me to switch the labels , but... why did you prefer A to B?  Were I to assign you a paper defending the choice of A rather than B, I am certain that you could construct a five-paragraph, three-point snoozer following the formula provided to you by high school teachers and perhaps some especially shitty professors.  If you have had some better writing experience, you could write something more cogent, and more enjoyable for the reader.  But would it be the real answer to the question of why  you prefer A to B?  The cause?  The thing in your head?  The truth?  The real  truth?  Would

 Throttle Elevator Music, "Recovery," from Throttle Elevator Music IV

 Trump lost.  Ha-ha!  Yes, in some sense, it matters.  It matters that Trump will not be able to call up the Secretary of State in Georgia and flip however many votes he needs to get those electoral college votes.  He may win Georgia fair-in-square, but he'll have to do so, rather than just stealing the state by getting the Secretary of State to steal it for him.  This matters.  What else matters?  That is harder to say.  Trump tried to flip a bunch of races, and he did not succeed, but I keep telling you that his endorsements are not magic pixie dust.  Why not?  Because endorsements are never  magic pixie dust.  They matter in low-profile elections, but in high visibility races, they just don't matter all that much.  Not even Trump's endorsements.  There is no contradiction between this observation and the centrality of Trump's role in the GOP.  He just isn't a magic pixie. However. Narratives can matter, not because they are right , but because they create self-fu

 Blah, blah, the Constitution says nothing about a popular vote at any level.  Yadda, yadda, originalism.  Take note, kids.  We're having the 2024 presidential election a little early, by electing those who will select the next electors.  Debate theory amongst yourselves, but don't delude yourselves otherwise. Is something happening in Georgia today?  Either one.  Take your pick.

 A few weeks ago, I wrote about an interesting novel by RF Kuang,  The Poppy War .  It was the first in a trilogy, with enough interesting ideas and strange timeliness that of course I was going to read the sequel.  Alas, The Dragon Republic  did not quite live up to the first in the trilogy, but there is much to be said about the book, about the politics within the novel, and the politics behind the novel, which may actually be more interesting, if frustrating.  The shortest possible version is that I am not certain that the author fully understands the moral complexity in her own creation.  What made the first book so fascinating was that Kuang told a story which was a metaphor for the Second Sino-Japanese War in which the protagonist is ultimately, if not the outright villain, then close enough to it that a conscientious reader would recoil from her.  In the conclusion, she commits an act of genocide , yes, genocide  out of anger, vengeance and hatred.  In The Dragon Republic , Kuan

 As we approach the reversal of Roe v. Wade  and continue other tediously repetitive discussions of policy stalemates tied up in claims of majoritarian mandates, I think it is important to step back and consider some basic elements of democratic theory and the structure of policy-making.  A few of these observations are scattered throughout my commentary, but I'd like to draw them out, and put them into more coherent form.  Or as coherent as any of my ramblings ever are.  I regularly write that nobody truly believes in majoritarianism, that nobody says, "OK, you have the majority on Issue X, so I demand to lose as a matter of democratic principle," and so forth.  There is actually a lot of complexity here, though.  Some of these issues are basic concepts that one might remember from the old classics, and some of what follows will just be my own twist on some basic democratic theory that just gets brushed to the side as true but too inconvenient for most people to consid

 Charlie Hunter, "Huggy Bear," from Return of the Candyman .  Get it?  Do not actually hug the bear.  Just don't panic and pull your money out of the market like an idiot.

 It will take a few more days to see who wins the Pennsylvania senate primary, but following up on yesterday's observation, note the following.  Those who rush to declare Trump's endorsement to be some sort of magic pixie dust will point to Mastriano's victory in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial primary, while ignoring, for example, Madison Cawthorn.  You cannot do that.  The whole point of yesterday's post is that you have to look at the totality of Trump's record.  You cannot look at the victories of Trump's endorsees and declare them to be determined by Trump's endorsement, post hoc ergo propter hoc , and then look for excuses to throw out all of the observations of his endorsees who lost.  Nope.  You have to look at the complete data set, and yes, the data set is still in the process of compiling, in the form of a win-loss record.  You don't get to count the wins while throwing out the losses.  That's not how social science works.

 It is Groundhog  primary day.  Need you ask my assessment of Mr. Oz?  Note that I do not grant him the honorific of "Dr."  Frauds and quacks should be stripped of their titles, degrees and positions, yet there is a phenomenon known as "affinity fraud," which is not actually the mutual affinity between frauds.*  Alas, the term is taken, but there should be a similar sounding phrase to describe the mutual affinity between liars, con artists, cheats, and general dingleberries.  Like Mr. Oz and Donald.  Of course Donald endorsed Mehmet.  In social science terminology, this decision was what we call, "over-determined."  Donald endorses based on a variety of factors. The social science question is whether or not they influence outcomes.  Here is how you arrive at the yes  answer.  You look at the times his endorsees win, and throw out all of the observations when his endorsees lose. In the Ohio Senate primary, I noted that the timing of Vance's rise in the

 Yes, bitcoin is still bullshit.  And getting funnier.  Those paying attention to this particular pyramid scheme may have noticed that its value has collapsed, yet again, and if you ask me whether or not the price will inflate again my answer is:  maybe.  Dunno, don't care, but you're a fool to gamble your money on such things.  You might make a lot of money.  Assuming you pull it out at the right time.  As in, not this  week!  When SCOTUS is about to overturn  Roe v. Wade , might I recommend that you not bet too much on the pull-out method? So what's-a-goin' on? Having made a few crude jokes, let's turn to economic theory, which is far more obscene.  Remember one of the core arguments in favor of cryptocurrencies.  It is the same argument for gold, and against fiat currency controlled by a central bank.  Central banks influence the money supply (along with setting several other policies) in order to manage inflation and unemployment, with the catch being that the t

 Admit it.  Some part of you really wants to know this.  Roe v. Wade  is going to fall, and while this is a dramatic change to the legal landscape about which you probably have some rather salient attitudes, part of you wants to know what this means for the 2022 midterm elections, and beyond.  And the answer is somewhere been "I don't know" and "not much." I will not do yet another recap of how we construct election forecasting models, but here's a thing we don't include:  big Supreme Court rulings.  Such things are not variables we include in our models.  Might we?  In principle, sure, but in historical terms, which rulings would we plug into the models, estimating effects? Roe v. Wade  was handed down in 1973, but abortion did not polarize along party lines in the way that we now see until the 1980 election.  Weird, but true.  Without that party polarization, it could not have had immediate effects, so no dice there, and that is obviously the immediate