Adages
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New insight
As I approach middle age the harder it becomes to distinguish between hobbies and divine purpose. Hmmm…
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The Soviet Star Wars Fallacy
A new concept I sort of came up, or at least categorized – I define it as not taking easily available substitutes into account. For example it is a common belief that the Soviet Union collapsed because Reagan (and Congress) tricked them into an arms race, and they went bankrupt trying to keep up. However, this does not take into account that the Soviets were going to spend the money on something, and spend it poorly. Failure to use resources wisely is pretty much the definition of the Soviet system, and if they didn’t spend it on their military they would have blown it on a five year plans, canal to nowhere, sea draining or something like that.
For econ nerds, let it be said that they did not have a meaningful price structure, which basically meant that whatever they did was inherently wasteful.
Similarly people claim that if drugs are legalized that hard drug use would skyrocket, forgetting that the readily available hard drug, (and substitute) alcohol is already legal. There would be some switching between the two, but no meaningful increase, or so I would predict.
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More quotes of the day from Slate Star Codes
Communism, which basically took all of the worst ideas in history, combined them together into a package deal, and said “Let’s do all of these at once”
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Greatest comeback ever – Alexandre Dumas edition
It turns out he was of mixed race – or so says wikipedia anyway
Despite Dumas’ aristocratic background and personal success, the writer had to deal with discrimination related to his mixed-race ancestry. In 1843 he wrote a short novel, Georges, that addressed some of the issues of race and the effects of colonialism. His response to a man who insulted him about his African ancestry has become famous. Dumas said:
My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends.
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World Health Indicators
The prime indicator of whether the economy is in a recession is if people complain about Walmart – if more people are complaining, we are in a recovery, if people stop complaining we are in a recession. WalMart related angst is a luxury good.
If the military spends untold billions developing fighter aircraft that are too expensive to actually use (we’ve had air superiority for generations now, no one else is close, and missiles have huge advantages of human piloted craft) then America faces no real threats in the world, and the power that be feel free to reward constituents and districts with interesting graft instead of focusing on saving the country. Similarly, (while Peter Thiel is right, mass NSA surveillance is not a sign of competence, rather the opposite) the fact that the NSA devotes a lot of time and energy to spying on Americans by solving interesting technical puzzles instead of their legal job is a sign that there is no looming terrorist threat.
One universal truth I now recently recognize is the importance of projects to the middle aged – I’ve got my cnc machine and prediction tracking site, others have universal democracy and government health insurance, but at a certain age the projects become pillars of your worldview. I need to flesh that idea out a bit more.
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Quote of the moment
From Robbie Fulks
When an invention is ready six guys will come along and invent it at the same time.
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Quote of the day
From MMM
The older I get, the more I realize that the future really does arrive on a regular basis.
The ability to image is a crucial part of day to day functioning…
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Thought for the day
Engineers create value, designers reveal value.
I had that thought while watching a documentary on the early history of Silicon Valley – it was entirely dominated by hard core engineers, all of them making components, not products.
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Another from MR
From Marginal Revolution comes this adage
It is through exchange that difference becomes a blessing, not a curse.
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Words of wisdom from surprising sources
From Understanding Wood Finishing comes this little nugget of wisdom:
The real reason for secrecy is the necessity of concealing the fact that there is nothing to conceal.
I wonder if historians will look back onto our age and note that the war on terror was won, as much as it could be won by mid 2002 and we just kept on going. That would explain the decision to go into Iraq, that is to say the short term problem was solved for a while, so why not work on the long term problem?
Update – I mis-phrased this. It should read more like “we solved the problem, and then tried working on the condition with no avail.”