The Discipline of Passion
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“The professors say they believe that high homeownership in an area leads to people staying put and commuting farther and farther to jobs, creating cost and congestion for companies and other workers. They speculate that the role of zoning may be important, as communities dominated by homeowners resort to “not in my backyard” efforts that block new businesses that could create jobs.” -
“We know that most of us, in this country, all the time, over-consume. We buy more food than we can eat, or we eat more than is good for us. We buy more things than we need and then expect other people to gift us more things. We live in houses larger than necessary, have multiple big cars, live in places that we can’t walk to work, commute long distances as if that were the only choice, watch bad tv and over-consume media.” -
“Without the participation of that generally healthy young population, insurance premiums for everyone else would increase — threatening support for a law already short of it.” —Republicans Readying New Offensive Over Health Law - NYTimes.com
I currently pay $1900 / year for insurance with a $15k deductible. I’ll happily trade that for a $500/ year fine and the right to buy insurance anytime.
I don’t see how this can work in economic terms if ANYONE does the math on the individual level.
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April ‘13 Reading Report
Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki - a bit fluff, I’ve read better books by Kawasaki
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey - it took me to the end of this book to realize this guy is a Morman! But- his premise, that our contemporary personal development literature is conceived around the false idea of of “personality ethic” - as contrasted to the more classical character development and personal responsibility angle- is right on.
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Q1 ‘13 Reading Report
Albeit a bit late.
Pocket Neighborhoods (Chapin) - I like tiny houses.
The Language Instinct (Pinker) - I love reading about language. Can’t really say much more than that, except that everything Pinker writes resonates with how I already view the world. So it’s easy reading.
The Blank Slate (Pinker) -This book, dense and deeply readable, can be summarized as a rebuttal of the popular belief of the past hundred years that people are formed by nurture, not nature. As in the title, science is evidencing that people are not blank slates, and have innate characteristics that are heritable- this is what we commonly refer to as human nature: self-interestedness, love of our genetic relatives above others, differences between men and women.
The book describes how much of marxist/ leftist thinking of the past couple centuries is based on the belief that we are a species that is plastic and moldable- lacking an innate nature- and that provided the perfect society, we can live in perfect peace and cooperation, or we will evolve to live in peace & cooperation.
Dracula’s Guest (Stoker) - free kindle reading
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A continuum of values: freedom to equality.
I think most of our big cultural questions can really be really addressed between those two primary values.
But there’s a third factor, and it’s power.
Some people value freedom more. Some people value equality more. Some people value power.
The first two values are easily manipulated by those who value power.
And the easiest side of that spectrum to manipulate, for the power-hungry- are those who prefer equality. Because equality doesn’t happen naturally.
So a power-desiring person most efficiently manipulates those who value equality more- which explains the trend of democracies becoming ever more socialistic.
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“First, if the benefit of health insurance is mostly or exclusively financial, then shouldn’t health insurance policies work more like normal insurance? Fire, flood and car insurance exist to protect people against actual disasters, after all, not to pay for ordinary repairs. If the best evidence suggests that health insurance is most helpful in protecting people’s pocketbooks from similar disasters, and that more comprehensive coverage often just pays for doctor visits that don’t improve people’s actual health, then shouldn’t we be promoting catastrophic health coverage, rather than expanding Medicaid?” -
“ “Translation” of Ecclesiastes
To give an example of what he described, Orwell “translated” Ecclesiastes 9:11—
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
—into “modern English of the worst sort,”
Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
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We seem to have become a nation of the easily offended.
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“ Euphemism treadmill
Euphemisms often evolve over time into taboo words themselves, through a process described by W.V.O. Quine,[9] and more recently dubbed the “euphemism treadmill” by Steven Pinker,[10] discussed in his The Blank Slate (2003)[11] and The Stuff of Thought (2007)[12] This is the well-known linguistic process known as pejoration or semantic change.
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“Well, I think that was a bad choice of words on my part … that word has an association with of course dictatorships in the 20th century like Germany and Spain, and Italy. What I know is that we no longer have free enterprise capitalism in health care, it’s not a system any longer where people are able to innovate, it’s not based on voluntary exchange. The government is directing it. So we need a new word for it. I don’t know what they right word is,” Mackey says.” —Whole Foods Founder John Mackey On Fascism And ‘Conscious Capitalism’ : The Salt : NPR
liberals = language police
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Review of The World Before Yesterday
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time-spending
I’ve given myself two rules this holiday season: no more newspaper reading (except for the style section or other fluff) and only 8 hour workdays, and not seven of them a week. These rules came into being after a couple of mini-tantrums/breakdowns.
Sometimes when I look back over this blog, I’m reminded a little of the classic film character, the obsessive one who gathers all these disparate newspaper clippings and posts them on the wall to create a “structure” - but it’s a crazy structure that only he can see.
I’m not crazy or obsessive here, but one of the big social mysteries I am frequently perplexed by is: how can two intelligent people read the same news, the same newspaper, the same article, and gather two fairly opposing outcomes or reactions? Because it happens all the time. I can and do read new york times, frequently, and feel that their standard reporting supports my more fiscally conservative view of the world. (not op-ed, that’s a different story, but real news articles.) I read wall street journal and feel the same thing.
So- I don’t really believe in the standard-issue news bias theory- that the papers are presenting a biased view of the world.
Onto Point #4:
The Discipline of Passion is about caring deeply about how one lives and spends time.
Which is exactly why I’m not reading the papers anymore this season. What I read was interfering with my mood, my sleep, and my optimism/pessimism gauge.
What I am doing: things that contribute to happiness and stability.
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money & choice
Point #3 in this project:
The Discipline of Passion is about a responsible and realistic relationship with money
As an aside: one night over dinner last week Daniel and I were at the Petite Jacqueline bar and this book was sitting there. (The Secret Language of Birthdays) We both read our birthdate descriptors- mine was dreadfully accurate, and went something like this (paraphrased) “you are a strong judge of others, but have trouble seeing yourself accurately.” Keep that in mind as you keep reading this tumblr. I’m one of the most judgmental people I know- I’m smart, and I make a concerted effort to see the other side- but I can’t see my own biases well.
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Our national debt is $16.2 trillion dollars. i.e: 107% of GDP. Does it matter? I don’t know, but I’d love to see the federal government shrinking, not growing.
I’m also pretty sure most people don’t really understand the difference between millions, billions, and trillions. I say this because I periodically question the people around me- college educated people- to see if they can readily identify the difference.
The federal government of the US has grown a half trillion dollars in size over the past four years and grown by 123,000 employees in those same four years. That is four million dollars per additional employee added. (cnn link)
As a comparison, Walmart worldwide is $419 billion in net sales, and 2.1 million in employees. ($200k per employee) Obviously, not a direct comparison, since net sales is NOT THE SAME as government expenses. (source) Also, obviously a good portion of the growth in the federal government is passthrough to welfare programs.
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Something a dear friend (who I think reads this) quoted to me- and I’m going to mangle it- “wealth is no more than proximity to capital.” In context, this means- you want to earn lots of money, go do something that is close to the money.
The bit that drives me crazy is that people don’t recognize this as a choice. If you want to study some esoteric academic thing all your life- something that there really is no financial market for- that’s cool, just don’t through words or actions try to punish people who want to study money. (occupy wall street.) It’s no different- money is as interesting to some people as esoteric acadamia is to others.
(moreover, if you are priviledged enough to be studying some esoteric academic thing anyway- you should just be quiet. Because you obviously aren’t recognizing your own priviledge.)
The point is, money is a choice. Focus on doing things that earn money, and earn money. Focus on doing things that have no market, and live a simpler lifestyle. It’s a choice. Remember: our poor people are fat. Being poor in the US is nothing like being poor in a third world country. We are so focused on our first world problems that we’ve stopped caring about the philosophical & ideological approaches that made this country interesting.
Why anyone would take a loan for tens of thousands of dollars to get an education? I do understand why someone would borrow 2 grand to get a computer- because that’s all you need to get an education. That and reading everyday. Not watching videos- which take dramatically more time and make it difficult to get numbers out of- but reading the newspaper for an hour or two everyday.
I think living simply is a really virtuous choice: it’s environmentally low-impact, clearly. It frees up time to do things that may be more creative or spiritually fulfilling. But things get warped when living simply is viewed as a hardship, OR, as evidence that people who aren’t into living simply are doing something wrong. Because: everyone is developing on their own moral/ experiential timescale. Some people really, really want to experience lavish living and are willing to pay for it via hard work.
From personal experience: everyone I’ve ever met who was really wealthy also worked really hard, basically non-stop, for most of their life- or was the child/spouse of someone who did (good karma?.) And they LOVE working. But the key thing is: they worked really hard on projects that have a market value. Now of course, I personally know tons more middle class people: who appear to take much more time off, and spend much more effort on their hobbies, families, children, etc. THIS IS A CHOICE! And I don’t really understand what would drive someone to choose the former, but why make it seem like something worth punishing?
So, combine these ideas: we have a federal government that is growing at a crazy rate: $4m per added employee. And we have a president who wants to punish hard work.
We have a democratic majority in the senate that is overly focused on making women act like hysterical illogical people (rape & abortion! rape & abortion! — it’s propagandish. ) - and distracting from the really important elements of our government- overspending and overspending.
We’ve made immigration into a huge issue because it’s linked to our extensive welfare system. We should be reorganizing our welfare system, simplifying our tax code, and welcoming more immigrants (who, historically, are fans of hard work.)
We’re trying to fix our marketless healthcare system by adding 16,000 new IRS agents. That’s $64Billion at current government employee cost structures.
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So. The point is: a realistic and responsible relationship to money recognizes a few things:
one can live a simple, healthy, and pleasant life on $20k a year, easily- in a small, walkable city.
government employees cost us $4M a year- 200 times the prior number.
financial lifestyle is a choice.
education does not come from universities.
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“What motivates college administrators to act so viciously? “It’s both self-interest and ideological commitment,” Mr. Lukianoff says. On the ideological front, “it’s almost like you flip a switch, and these administrators, who talk so much about treating every student with dignity and compassion, suddenly come to see one student as a caricature of societal evil.”
