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Quote from Tom Lehrer
(Discussing his sort of retirement from music, written from memory)
I’ve always lived by the principle that if you’ve seen Cincinnati you don’t need to see Cleveland
Meaning that if something is no longer fun, then stop.
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Quote of the day – yet another Eric Hoffer
There are crumbs of everything inside us – all you have to do is be antiquated with yourself and you will know the whole world.
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2018 Election Results
So, it seems my earlier predictions where wrong by a bit. The Dems have taken the house, and they’re doing better in the Senate than I would have thought. Stacie Abrams does not seem to have won the governor’s race, but has come very close, which is quite remarkable for a Democrat in GA. Voter turnout was way, way higher too, in contrast, as of 6:40 AM the day after the totals are
Candidate Party Votes Percentage Brian Kemp GOP 1,962,547 50% Stacey Abrams Dem 1,887,161 49% Ted Metz Lib 36,706 1% Total 3,886,414 In contract, in 2014 the results were
Georgia gubernatorial election, 2014[16]
Republican Nathan Deal – 1,345,237 – 52.75%
Democratic Jason Carter – 1,144,794 – 44.89%
Libertarian Andrew Hunt – 60,185 2.36%
Total 2,550,216A difference of 1.4 million votes in only four years which is rather staggering.
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Midterm Elections – 2018 picks
Georgia – Although the Trump wing of the right has traditionally been undercounted by the pollsters, I’m going to go with Abrams here. The get out the vote effort is exceptional for the Democratic party, and she has avoided any unforced errors. Combine that with an uninspiring Republican candidate and I think she takes it by a nose, although the libertarian candidate, Ted Metz could be a possible spoiler. Also, the Trump style tactics seem to work only for Trump, so there’s that.
Everywhere Else – I think the Republican’s do better than expected, and there is no blue wave. The Democrats seem to have nothing to offer other than hyperventilating anxiety, and nothing to counter a (currently) strong economy, whereas the Republicans have at least that, and can minimize Trump more or less at will.
I’ll update this after election to see how I did.
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Girl plus lizard
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The second Slate Star Codex Atlanta Meetup
We had the second monthly Atlanta Slate Star Codex meetup yesterday and a fine time was had by all. Fewer people attended (only four) – but I found the conversation just as interesting – it lasted the same amount of time too – a little over three hours.
Topics included
- Wonder drugs and self-reported results
- Machine learning
- The evils of the modern medical system
- “Lodge Doctors”
- China and enlightened despots
- Infrastructure spending
And for those keeping track at home – the economic theory I tried to explains was Solow’s “Steady State Theory of Capital” – essentially over time the depreciation of existing capital (essentially the same as infrastructure in our conversation) will equal investment – therefore leading to a leveling off of capital goods/infrastructure and growth. Short version – every thing rusts – the more stuff you have, the more rust. And also catch-up growth, and cutting edge growth. My thought (with phrasing in hindsight) is that America is in a cutting edge growth phase, with an old population, whereas China is still in catch up growth, with a young population (albeit one aging rapidly.)
The next meetup will be at the same place – sometime soon after Thanksgiving.
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Random insight from Jerry Seinfeld
A couple of insights from Jerry Seinfeld
- He still practices his craft every day – at the age of 64
- This excert on comedy vs rhetoric
Are you grateful these days that your comedic muse didn’t lead you down a more political path?
I like to pursue my own idiosyncratic avenues. If I thought I could do something there that the average comedian can’t do — but I watch Bill Maher or Seth Meyers and I go, I can’t do that well with that; they’re great at it. But I can talk about raisins in ways other people can’t.That’s important too.
I hate the presumption of importance. I don’t like when comedians think what they’re doing is important. That’s not a comedic perspective, for me. I was watching some W.C. Fields with a friend the other day. We could not believe the timing, the material, the performances. Perfect. We wouldn’t change a thing. That’s how eternal comedy is. What political material from 15, 20 years ago do you want to hear? None of it, really. The content of it isn’t, largely, comedic. It’s rhetoric.
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Expertise vs Scholarship
I came across this article on Ars Technica “First, Kill All The Experts” and I was reminded of the importance of language.
The gist of the article is that people distrust experts leaving us vulnerable to the dangers of global warming, privatized health care, etc. The confusion is that of scholarship vs expertise. Seemingly if you can’t run tests or repeat the same experiments over and over you’re just well versed in the theories and literature. Seemingly one would give more credence the the predictions of a structural engineer about a structure than a climatologists about the climate (or a macro-economist about the economy) .
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Morning Williamson on Puritanism
That was the basic cultural theory of America: that our Anglo-Protestant forebears were so deep-dipped in the Protestant work ethic — and so constantly mindful that they might be called before their Maker at any moment to make an accounting of their lives — that they didn’t need a king bossing them around. They bossed themselves around, like enlightened people do — that’s classical liberalism in a nutshell.
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Quote of the day – Thursday edition
From the Great War on YouTube
Peace is within sight, but not within reach