Posts from — September 2006

Seed: Girl Shortage Could Cause Rise in Crime:
The authors assert that over the next 20 years, in parts of China and India, there will be a 12 to 15 percent excess of young men—men who will have to remain single in societies that also place a high value on marriage. Because women will be able to select high status males to marry, the men who remain single are most likely to be members of the lower classes or those who are otherwise undesirable.

These unmarried, low-status males are the people most likely to be perpetrators of violent crime, the authors suggest. Previous research has shown a strong correlation between sex ratio and violence.

——-
the lumpenproletariot will lead the revolution? to what… we’ve seen this demographic shift in the past, and yes, two factors increase in male youth and unmarried males both contribute significantly to crime rate… what we’ve not seen is this sort of ’scale’ of problem.

The Globalist | Global Economy — U.S. Universities and Global Competition:
Traditional assumptions about who can and should attend college are no longer adequate, if we are to remain competitive.

Without the economic success that is the product of education, we as a nation may face a reduction in our quality of life in the next generation, something unheard of in our past.

To avert what sometimes appears to me an impending societal train wreck, education must become the central focus of our society.

In China, I witnessed an unprecedented effort now underway to build from scratch approximately 100 research universities.

——-
larger population means larger talent pool, larger talent pool means more possible genius’s and innovators… the question becomes whether that can be centralized through universities in china, much like the u.s. did in the 50’s-60’s or not.

Yesterday, the Pratt Manhattan Library started the first of what I hope will be a very long tradition of hosting the September Project, we had a good sized audience for the starting event and 3 speakers. Professor Bencivengo presented on the Patriot Act and the ethical issues it raises. Professor Rabina presented on the recent practices and legal aspects of security classified information, specifically the movement to reclassify documents that were previously released. I spoke to the broader issues of where the normative foundations of information professional and librarians might lie in the digital age through my presentation on cosmopolitan democracy: dissent and informational power. Our librarian, Jean Hines, did an excellent job in pulling this effort together and I look forward to working with her on the September Project in the future. Thanks also go to David Silver and his colleagues at University of Washington for imagining the project and providing the network of information that makes it interesting and successful.

xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – COMPLY:
Escher Bracelet

—

indeed…. these are some of the funniest cartoons i’ve seen in a while.

Greg Mankiw’s Blog: Yes, education, but what kind?:

Reviewing specific programs, Carneiro and Heckman find that preschool education is highly effective, although with more impact on noncognitive than cognitive abilities. Schools are much less productive, and returns are low to increased investments in K-12 education in the form of higher salaries, smaller classes, and so forth. They suggest that structural changes that increase school choice and competition should have higher returns, but are careful to note that returns to increased investment in schools are limited by what families contribute to the production process. They also conclude that added investments in job training and higher education have low rates of return, particularly for lower ability adolescents and adults.

Brooks is right to focus our attention on education, but our aspirations should be modest. Even the best designed human capital policies are unlikely to reverse the rise in inequality observed over the past several decades.

——-

the question here, in my mind, is really about the current system. returns are low because the architecture of learning in the u.s. cannot utilize investments. it is not that making the institutions ‘capitalistic’ will change things either. it is the innate practices of education, the classroom, the sitting in rows, the rote knowledge, it is the way that we make students think, their future mode of thought, that is the real problem. it centers on the wrong sort of structures, mainly it is still factory-based and submission based instead of future-oriented and equality-based. if you invest in an old factory, the money generally is wasted on maintenance, making new technologies fit, etc. huge transition costs and because everyone that worked there is still working there, you haven’t changed the habitus, and thus are impinged significantly by traditions, ideations, and practices that limit change. if you build a new factory, build in new practices, you can sometimes save the transition costs and have huge gains.

‘The Best War Ever’ Publicity Video:
‘The Best War Ever’ Publicity Video
The publicity video for ‘The Best War Ever’

Much more accurate than P2911.

———-

geeze, i hope we don’t get a sequel to this book, or this administration.

Yes, It’s Torture:
Kevin Drum asks (rhetorically), Torture?:

President Bush announced yesterday that 14 “high value detainees” would be transferred from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay. ABC News describes the interrogation techniques that have been used on on them:

The first — the attention grab, involving the rough shaking of a prisoner.

Second — the attention slap, an open-handed slap to the face.

Third — belly slap, meant to cause temporary pain, but no internal injuries.

Fourth —long-term standing and sleep deprivation, 40 hours at least, described as the most effective technique.

Fifth — the cold room. Prisoners left naked in cells kept in the 50s and frequently doused with cold water.

The CIA sources say the sixth, and harshest, technique was called “water boarding,” in which a prisoner’s face was covered with cellophane, and water is poured over it (pictured above) — meant to trigger an unbearable gag reflex.

Is this torture?

I can’t see how anyone can call waterboarding anything other than torture. I’d also include some of the others on this list — even “open” or “belly” slapping prisoners sounds like a milder form of torture and, whatever you call it, is banned by both the Geneva conventions and every code of practice we use domestically.
And it’s all wrong.
——
to abuse someone, physically or mentally that you have completely in your control is always psychological torture, they have no means of escape, they have no means whatever other than their mind and this will put an immense amount of stress on those people. It is torture. It is banned by the Geneva convention and it should not be used because in using it, the whole nation becomes complicit in its use, and we all must then carry the psychological burden of being a nation of torturers and fundamentally that means that we must be a nation that does not respect the dignity of the human being, the rights of a human being, and the freedoms of mind and conscience that is fundamentally what makes us human. we must instead be a nation that preys on the rights, freedoms and dignities of other peoples and nations in order to get what we want. That is not treating people equally or rationally… it is being a monster. Monsters torture people and as such create monsters.

Computer,September 2006 (Vol. 39, No. 9):

September 2006 (Vol. 39, No. 9)

ISSN: 0018-9162
——–

there are some interesting articles in this month’s issue of ieee computer.

Your daily Rorschach test:

——–

….. its icy.

Wired News: The Ultimate Blog Post:
Metafilter: Unhelpful link text. Extra links added for padding that have little to do with the main topic of the entry. Are extremely loaded rhetorical questions the only thing that can save us now?

——-
a listing of ultimate blog posts…. somewhat funny