What if he’s just as good as he thinks he is?

Posted on February 26, 2016 by lawofmarkets

This is Scott Adams – the Scott Adams who draws Dilbert – explaining How to Spot a Narcissist (Trump Persuasion Series). The caricature drawn here should be compared with the greatest Walter Mitty character of all time, the One who is president of the United States at the moment, a narcissist who may have broken the mold. Now for contrast.

Donald Trump is the most famous narcissist in the world. That fact probably seems obvious to you, given Trump’s continuous self-promotion. Mental health experts agree with your assessment. Trump hits most of the checkboxes for the diagnosis.

The biggest tell for narcissism is a belief that you are better than other people. For example, if Trump believed he could run for President – with almost no political experience – and dominate the Republican party in only a few short months, that would be an example of…

Okay, wait. That one doesn’t work. Apparently his self-image was spot-on in that one specific case. It was the rest of us who got that one wrong.

But still, Trump obviously has an inflated self-image. For example, there was the time he thought he could transition from being a real estate developer to being a best-selling author of a book about negotiating, but then…shit. Okay, that example doesn’t work.

Okay, how about this example: Remember when Trump thought he could transition from developing real estate and being a best selling author to becoming a reality TV star and then…okay, forget that one. That sort of worked out for Trump.

Um…okay, I have one. Remember all of the Trump real estate and casino businesses that failed? I think there were a handful of big failures. That’s a terrible track record when you consider Trump’s hundreds of successful projects that…shit. Okay, that example doesn’t work when you put it in context.

But the ego on that guy. For example, Trump thinks models are attracted to him. Models! Ha ha! And they are, but my point is that I forget what my point is. Something about his ego? Yes, that’s it.

Anyway, Trump thinks he is smarter than most people just because he has a high IQ and went to great schools. Usually that does mean you are smarter than 98% of the public, but in this case it was probably just luck, because obviously all of us are smarter than Trump. I mean, look at his haircut!

Narcissists also seek attention from others. That is Trump all over! Compare his attention-seeking ways to other people who license their brands for a living. Those other people like to stay quiet or maybe say their brand is not so good. That is what good mental health looks like. But narcissist Trump actually promotes his brand every chance he gets, which is gross. Sure, it makes him a lot of money, but capitalism is about more than that. For example, something about the Fed.

Anyway, unlike Trump, the other candidates for President of the United States do not seek attention. Okay, technically they are seeking it as hard as they can, and failing. But to me, that seems exactly the same as not trying.

Narcissism is more than having an over-inflated ego and a need for attention. Narcissists also lack empathy. That’s Trump all over. He has no empathy whatsoever. Sure, he says he loves wounded veterans, underemployed Americans, and even the undereducated. But you know all of that is lies.

How do you know? Simple! You know because you are far smarter than normal people. You might be an unrecognized genius, given your modesty. Maybe you’re not the test-taking kind of genius, but you are definitely a beacon of common sense. For example, you know for sure which candidate would be the best president while idiots like me can only guess. In fact, you are so smart that you can peer into Trump’s soul from a distance and see his lack of empathy. Impressive! And, I might add that you are an ace at diagnosing mental conditions despite your total lack of training in the field. You, my friend, are indeed better than other people because you see Trump for the over-inflated, uncaring buffoon that he is. And unlike Trump, you do not seek attention. So don’t leave a comment below to showcase your brilliance.

Narcissism is definitely a thing. But we also need a name for the mental condition in which you believe you are so smart you can diagnose narcissism from a distance.

I won’t call you a narcissist unless you state your opinion in a public comment forum and insult other voters and commenters as if you have no empathy. So don’t do that.

The music of the spheres – now settled science

Posted on February 24, 2016 by lawofmarkets

The strangest story I may ever have encountered on the net, which is compensated for by being almost certainly untrue: Physicists Prove Classical Music Inhabits Separate Realm, Inaccessible To Humans. Let us work under the assumption it is only a joke. Since I listen to nothing but classical myself, I am willing to take on the idea that Beethoven and Brahms really is the music of the spheres and representative of a higher form of art. It’s a post-modern world so I can believe what I like. Here is the article in full:

Physicists affiliated with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) released a report Wednesday revealing that classical music exists in a field of reality entirely removed from the four-dimensional spacetime inhabited by human beings.

Scientists were performing a routine search for fifth-dimensional activity using the Large Hadron Collider, the immense particle accelerator famous for proving the existence of the Higgs Boson, when they came across the entire corpus of Western classical music from 9th-century plainchant to Nico Muhly.

According to the report, the innumerable works making up this body of repertoire exist in a continuum that resides just beyond the limits of human perception.

“Classical music transcends both the linear, forward flow of time and the Euclidean space we are used to,” said Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director general of CERN. “A musical work is a mysterious entity whose essence totally eludes our senses.”

Physicists claim that any given performance or recording of a classical music piece is a kind of audible hologram projected into our everyday reality by the true musical work, which vibrates eternally in an ethereal medium floating in and around us at all times.

“Think about Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Sure, maybe you’ve looked at the score, and maybe you’ve heard this or that orchestra play it. But have you ever encountered it in its pure form?” Heuer asked. “When you leave a museum, you know the paintings are still there. But where does Beethoven’s Fifth go when you’re not around? Now we know.”

While scientists have measured classical music’s density and charge and tracked its position in the cosmos, its role in the universe still cannot be explained.

Some astrophysicists have speculated that the Western classical canon may in fact be the so-called “dark matter” that is thought to account for 95% of the matter in the universe. Others are less sure.

“Classical music exists in a dimension impenetrable to human beings, so we may never fully comprehend it,” said Stanford theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind.

“It’s exciting that science has finally proven that classical music inhabits an independent, autonomous realm, detached from our mundane experience,” he continued. “But the question remains, what is classical music even doing in our universe in the first place?”

Still looks like a joke, but certainly more plausible than if it had been rock or jazz. And it has come via the ever-reliable Instapundit so what else is there to say?

Understanding the death of the West – READ THIS!

Posted on February 22, 2016 by lawofmarkets

This is an article of such uncommon sense that it amazes me that it could be published at all. The title says it all: How the Feminists’ “War against Boys” Paved the Way for Islam. You must open at the link and you must read it. I will add a quote here but again, you have to read it all. I have chosen the quote only to bring to your attention the writings of Phyllis Chesler:

American writer Phyllis Chesler has sharply criticized her sisters in books such as The Death of Feminism. She feels that too many feminists have abandoned their commitment to freedom and “become cowardly herd animals and grim totalitarian thinkers,” thus failing to confront Islamic terrorism. She paints a portrait of current U.S. University campuses as steeped in “a new and diabolical McCarthyism” spearheaded by leftist rhetoric.

Chesler has a point. Judging from the rhetoric of many feminists, all the oppression in the world comes from Western men, who are oppressing both women and non-Western men. Muslim immigrants are “fellow victims” of this bias. At best, they may be patriarchal pigs, but no worse than Western men. Many Western universities have courses filled with hate against men that would be unthinkable the other way around. That’s why Scandinavian feminists don’t call for Scandinavian men to show a more traditional masculinity and protect them against aggression from Muslim men. Most Norwegian feminists are also passionate anti-racists who will oppose any steps to limit Muslim immigration as “racism and xenophobia.”

Now read it all. If this doesn’t scare you, you have not been paying attention, although many very unpleasant things will be brought to your attention in the very near future.

[Picked up at Instapundit]

Dogs have owners, cats have staff

Posted on February 18, 2016 by lawofmarkets

The core message of this article, Fat Cats on a Diet: Will They Still Love You? is that yes they will.

“We say, ‘dogs have owners, cats have staff,’” said Dr. Richard E. Goldstein, chief medical officer at the Animal Medical Center in New York. “A cat learns to manipulate us very well: when she’s hungry, she’s the most affectionate cat in the world. And people will do anything to keep their cats happy.”

Many owners “free-feed” cats, letting them graze at will. But bored indoor cats, like bored indoor humans, may eat beyond satiety. “Cats don’t self-regulate well,” said Dr. Goldstein.

Concerned with the human role in feline obesity, Cornell researchers asked: If a cat’s food were reduced, would its behavior change? If so, how would owners translate those changes? For the study, 48 cats, each at least 25 percent over ideal weight, were put on one of three restricted diets, equal in calories. Owners answered extensive questionnaires about their cats:

Before the diet, when your cat was hungry, did it beg? Meow? Pace? After feeding, did it jump in your lap? Since the diet, does your cat bat at you? Hide? Hiss? Steal food?

Good news, cat owners! More than three-quarters of the cats lost weight. And though the frequency of pre-feeding behavior increased — begging, meowing, pacing — it did not begin earlier. (Translation: The cats may have intensified owners’ guilt about giving them less food, but did not protract their misery.)

Better yet, owners felt that despite the restricted feeding, the cats did not turn vindictive. Instead, owners believed the cats showed more affection. After feeding, the cats would more often purr and sit in the owner’s lap.

“We don’t know why,” said Dr. Beaver. “But cats don’t hold a grudge if you limit their food.

I wonder if there is a message here about the welfare state in general.

[A more than usually important question answered, found at Instapundit.]

It’s funny, but these people also get to vote

Posted on February 11, 2016 by lawofmarkets

From Tim Blair. These are real students but the dog is a fake.

The study of the history of economic thought is a crucially important part of economics

Posted on February 7, 2016 by lawofmarkets

First there was a notice posted at the History of Economics online discussion thread advertising a conference to be held later this year on “The Relevance of Keynes to the Contemporary World”. So I wrote a note which read:

I would like to note a concern I have about this conference.. I will concede that I do not know all of the scholars who have been invited to speak, but what strikes me as a serious problem is that none of the invited speakers whose views I do know can be described as a critic of Keynesian theory. Whatever anyone might think about what makes Keynes “Keynesian”, and which has kept his name alive today, it is this:

“Keynes’s insights for the management of domestic economies in the times of a global recession and European crisis”

One would hope that after the universal failure of the Keynesian stimulus after 2009 that there might at least be some effort to examine the flaws in the Keynesian system. Not a single economy has returned to full employment and robust rates of growth, and we are now seven years since the stimulus packages were first introduced. Debt and deficits are the central problems every economy is now having to deal with. By all means examine Keynes’s work, but at the same time in looking at its relevance, there should surely also be some attempt to look at its irrelevance, indeed at the strong likelihood that Keynesian policies are harmful and destructive.

Later this year a volume I have edited will be published presenting the views of a series of modern critics of Keynesian economic theory and policy. The most astonishing aspect in editing this book was to find how few vocal critics of Keynesian economics there are. They exist, but are very rare. I would think that for this conference to be a proper evaluation of Keynesian ideas, at least some of its critics should be invited to speak as well.

After a brief flurry of discussion, there was a note put out by the moderator of the discussion thread.

I distributed a few messages on the fiscal stimulus and hoped the discussion would die a natural death, but I am now getting quite a few messages, pro and con.

I would like to remind everyone that this is a history of economics list, so I do not think it is appropriate for a discussion of current economic policy. In addition, a list such as this is a poor vehicle for such a conversation, which we all know will end badly, with much more heat than light.

If you wish, I would be happy to send everyone who is interested in this discussion a list of like-minded folks and you can continue this conversation in private. Judging from the replies, there is really is great interest in this question, but I repeat that it is not within the bounds of our list.

Yours in moderation

To which I have now replied.

I complete agree with our moderator that this list is not the place to debate the merits of Keynesian economic theory and policy. I did not seek to open such a debate, but only meant to comment on the nature of a conference that looks at only one side of the issue, which its organisers are perfectly entitled to do. It is noteworthy, all the same, that there is an interest in just such a debate, but more interesting is that there is nowhere that it can be held. I do, however, also believe that this kind of debate is part of the history of economic thought. I go further and argue that one of the most important purposes in studying the history of economic thought is that we economists have a forum in which such issues can be discussed. This does not mean that an examination of Keynesian theory is only part of the history of economic thought. What I take this to mean is that a study of the history of economic thought is a crucially important part of economics.

And there, for the moment, things now lie.

Can it really be against the law to say something that someone else says they have been offended by?

Posted on February 7, 2016 by lawofmarkets

According to 18C, as I understand it, it is contrary to the law to say something that someone else says they have been offended by. But how do we know they have been offended? Because they have said so. But how do we know they are telling the truth that they have been offended? Again, because they said so. As circular as this may seem, the nature of the law as it is now constructed is that it merely takes the word of someone to say they have been offended by something someone else has said and off to kangaroo court we go.

If being offended was all it took to start this process going, you would think these courts would be filled to the brim and their calendars would stretch into the future for years ahead. There are plenty of offensive statements being made all the time everywhere. There is, however, a catch. Only some groups are officially designated as potential offendees. Only they can get these kangaroo courts to act. So hidden away under lock and key is the list of people and groups who will set this process in motion by saying they have been offended, while with others they can offend to their heart’s content and no one will say boo to a goose.

Andrew Bolt discusses one such case, under the heading, Even Christ would be banned under our laws against speech that offends. Of course, the superfluous word there is the word “even”. The real point is that it is especially Christians who are banned from stating their beliefs, you know, the beliefs that have been the basis of our civilisation for the past 1500-2000 years. And if someone should find themselves offended by some anti-Christian rant, of which there are many from which to choose, is there a tribunal available to which they could take their complaint? You have only to ask to know the answer.

Then there is this story on Watchdog kept 18C respondent in the dark about QUT complaint which contains this scandalous detail:

The AHRC has a legal duty to inquire into all complaints which it accepts and to attempt to conciliate them. If the commission determines that the complaints cannot be resolved, they are given a green light to advance in the courts.

“I am not aware of anything done by the commission either to investigate Ms Prior’s complaint so far as it concerns myself or to attempt to conciliate Ms Prior’s complaint against me,’’ Mr Powell said in his February 3 affidavit. . . .

Ms Triggs said last night she could not comment on the individual case but “generally, the commission notifies all respondents about complaints made against them to gain their version of the facts and to invite participation in conciliation wherever appropriate”. “There will be times however when this is not possible,” she said.

Generally, is it, but not always. 18C has to go. It cannot be equitable to have a law that allows someone merely to say they were offended by what someone else had said and then be potentially in line to collect thousands of dollars in compensation while the person who has supposedly done the offending must endure the stigma from having been so accused while having to spend both time and money to see their case resolved.

All comedy is critical

Posted on February 3, 2016 by lawofmarkets

Here is a story on John Cleese and the modern left. And I have to say that the title of the story, John Cleese is tired of campus political correctness, as well as the title of original story from which it is linked, We Can’t Have Comedy and Be Politically Correct at the Same Time (which is better since it does not restrict its compass to a university campus), still doesn’t get there. The title of the video “1984” does get you there, which has the statement scrolled across the top, that “political correctness can lead to an Orwellian nightmare” which makes it very plain how serious he thinks this issue is. It tells you exactly what he really means, that if you forbid people to say certain things in the name of political correctness, then you are living on the edge of a totalitarian state. This is what he said, which you can see is transcribed directly from his own words in the video:

Cleese said that it’s one thing to be “mean” to “people who are not able to look after themselves very well,” but it was another to take it to “the point where any kind of criticism of any individual or group could be labeled cruel.”

Cleese added that “comedy is critical,” and if society starts telling people “we mustn’t criticize or offend them,” then humour goes out the window.

“With humour goes a sense of proportion,” Cleese said. “And then, as far as I’m concerned, you’re living in 1984.”

And the point, of course, is not restricted to humour but all statements of any kind about any subjects whatever. You might also after this then look at George Carlin’s Political Correctness is fascism pretending to be Manners……………….

[Picked up at Instapundit]

Is Trump a “conservative”?

Posted on January 31, 2016 by lawofmarkets

I don’t vote according to labels but there is no doubt that so far as modern political labels go, conservative is the closest it gets. This is from an article on Why I Support Donald Trump and Not Ted Cruz which begins by addressing what does it mean to be a “conservative”:

“Conservatism,” as [Russell] Kirk explained it, encompassed an inherent distrust of liberal democracy, staunch opposition to egalitarianism, and an extreme reluctance to commit the United States to global “crusades” to impose American “values” on “unenlightened” countries around the world. Conservatives should celebrate local traditions, customs, and the inherited legacies of other peoples, and not attempt to destroy them. America, Kirk insisted, was not founded on a democratic, hegemonic ideology, but as an expression and continuation of European traditions and strong localist, familial and religious belief. Indeed, Kirk authored a profound biography of Senator Robert Taft, “Mr. Conservative,” who embodied those principles.

It’s a long article and well worth reading through. Here, however, is the core point on why Trump is preferred to Cruz:

What is needed in this nation now is dramatic, even radical change. What is needed is not someone who will simply raise Hell, but someone who will be more like a bull loosed in a terrified china shop. Half measures and regular politicians, “mainstream conservatives” like Ted Cruz, I don’t think can pull it off. Trump, I believe, just maybe can.

“Just maybe can” is a better probability statement than is attached to any other candidate at the present time. Interestingly, and by no means a coincidence since this is a central issue in this election, Byron York has asked Trump what makes him a conservative. Here is the Q and A:

Conservatives are very worried about you. They concede that you’ve brought attention to issues that are important to them, like immigration or radical Islamic terrorism. But they don’t believe you’re one of them. Are you a conservative?

I am, and I’ll tell you what will happen, I think, is they’ll maybe see it more and more as time goes by.

If you think about it, if you take a look at what I’ve done, I’ve brought millions and millions of people to the Republican Party, and to the conservative party, because, as an example, the debate had 24 million people. If I wasn’t in the debate, would it have had three, or four, or two, or what would it have been? And you look at the kind of numbers that they’re doing on television, where every one of the stations, the networks that are covering us, and honestly in particular covering me, because I do seem to get a lot more coverage than anybody else, but their ratings are through the roof. So that focus is a very important focus because other people are allowed to take advantage of all of the eyeballs that I’m bringing to the screen.

But what makes you a conservative? What does being a conservative mean to you?

Well, I think it’s just a conservative value. I’m very conservative fiscally. I mean, we owe $19 trillion, this is going to destroy our country, we’re going to be destroyed by what’s going on fiscally. And in terms of the economy, in terms of jobs, we’re losing our jobs to everybody. You take a look at the kind of numbers that we’re talking about with the closures and just pure and simple the number of jobs that have been lost, it’s incredible. To places like China, Vietnam is the new hot one, they’re taking our jobs. Mexico, always. They’re outsmarting us at every turn, and we don’t seem to be able to do it. I mean it’s an incredible thing.

I will say this. In terms of conservative, I’ve had tremendous polling numbers with conservatives, I think to a large extent because of the border. Nobody has that issue like I have it, whether it’s building the wall or closing the border and letting people in but they have to come in legally.

So why have you so many conservative leaders — the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, National Review, lots of them don’t think you’re a conservative. They would look at what you just said about trade — they would say protectionism and tariffs, that’s not conservative.

No, no, not protectionism — fairness. China is making hundreds of billions of dollars a year with us. At some point, we have to say, look, you can’t do that. I mean we have rebuilt China virtually. Now, I am a free trader, 100 percent. But we can’t continue to lose tremendous amounts of money to these countries. We’re losing with virtually everybody, everybody that we do business with. The fact is, our leaders have been outsmarted at every step of the game. And we just can’t do that.

Much more again at the link. But if conservative means to preserve what is good while allowing positive change to occur, the Donald may well be the most conservative candidate in this election. It is also what I liked about Tony Abbott even though no two people may be as far apart personally from each other than he and Donald Trump.

The original meaning of “conservative”