By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, I’m going to have the usual complement of buckets, but with not very much in each bucket. As promised, I’m working on an expanded worksheet, which turned into a somewhat madder endeavor than I thought it would be, after I had a connectivity issue [snarl]. –lambert
Trade
“Trump’s Trade Gimmickry” [Dani Rodrick, Project Syndicate]. ” imbalances and inequities generated by the global economy cannot be tackled by protecting a few politically well-connected industries, using manifestly ridiculous national security considerations as an excuse. Such protectionism is a gimmick, not a serious agenda for trade reform.”
Politics
Midterms
PA-18: “The Memo: Moment of truth for Trump in Pennsylvania” [The Hill]. “Money has poured into the race, with NBC News reporting on Friday that TV and radio advertising alone will amount to nearly $12 million. The NBC report, based on data from Advertising Analytics, stated that Republicans had outspent Democrats on the airwaves $7.3 million to $4.4 million. Polls indicate the race could swing to either party.”
PA-18: “Lamb has dominated the airwaves in recent weeks. Saccone hasn’t kept pace, conspicuously absent and overly reliant on outside groups. The National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund — a PAC backed by Speaker Paul Ryan — have spent in total roughly $7 million” [Washington Examiner].
PA-18: “My Union or My President? Dueling Loyalties Mark Pennsylvania Race” [New York Times]. “Whether Mr. Lamb wins or loses — polls suggest a dead heat in a district that President Trump won by about 20 percentage points — the lessons from the race will resonate throughout the heartland in November. Democrats will be defending vulnerable Senate seats and trying to pick up House districts and governors’ mansions in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other states where Mrs. Clinton fell short.”
PA-18: “How The Pennsylvania Special Election Could Matter To Trump And Pelosi” [FiveThirtyEight]. “Both Saccone and Lamb have spoken favorably about Trump’s proposal to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from certain countries, an idea that congressional Republicans have broadly rejected.”
PA-18: “Heinz, Santorum, and the GOP’s Working Class Legacy In Pennsylvania” [The American Conservative]. A good history of the district. “The 18th District, which under new boundaries is slated to disappear by Pennsylvania’s May primary, has trended Republican for several election cycles. Democrats hope that a victory will signify redemption following their party’s failures in 2016. But the district’s electorate, like any voting base, is more complex than what is commonly presented. Lamb, the Democratic candidate, is running as a conservative sympathetic toward Trump’s views. A former Marine and assistant U.S. Attorney, he hails from a Democratic dynasty in Pittsburgh-based Allegheny County. His grandfather, Thomas F. Lamb, served as the state Senate’s Majority Leader in the early 1970s, just as Heinz began holding elected office. Lamb’s Republican opponent, Saccone, entered the state House as part of the Tea Party wave in 2010. A retired Air Force counterintelligence officer, Saccone has claimed that he was “Trump before Trump was Trump.” But Lamb’s campaign seeks to establish that a Blue Dog-style Democrat can still win traditional Democratic voters… Democrats face an ongoing identity crisis, one which will become even more prominent if Lamb defeats Saccone.”
2016 Post Morterm
“Haiti hires Clinton-linked PR firm to soften image in Washington” [McClatchy]. Haven’t the Haitians been punished enough?
Realignment and Legitimacy
Remember that brief, shining moment we thought Schumer might be OK on antitrust?
Chuck Schumer is praising Google, Facebook, and Amazon. (h/t @HalSinger) https://t.co/qA1n9wQU1A
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) March 12, 2018
This is a good thread on what conservativism ought to be about:
A lot in this thread, but this really seems to misunderstand the role of the intellectual in (Burkean) conservative thought, which is precisely to rationally justify the presumed wisdom of popular/traditional intuitions and arrangements. https://t.co/DiqcxqdTJK
— Park MacDougald ? (@hpmacd) March 11, 2018
In fact, I’m in sympathy with it. I don’t think real-life conservative is much like the thread, though (and not even the milk-and-water variety purveyed on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times).
Stats Watch
There are no stats of note today.
Five Horsemen: “Juggernaut Amazon launches toward Mars on the Musk spaceship as the Silicon Valley sisters look on in awe” [Hat Tip, Jim Haygood].
NakedCap Mania-Panic Index: “Mania-panic index advanced to 54 (complacency) on Friday’s strong gain in stocks” [Hat Tip, Jim Haygood]. (The NakedCap mania-panic index is an equally-weighted average of seven technical indicators derived from stock indexes, volatility (VIX), Treasuries, junk bonds, equity options, and internal measures of new highs vs new lows and up volume vs down volume … each converted to a scale of 0 to 100 before averaging, using thirty years of history for five of the seven series.)
Rapture Index: Closes up 1 on Anti-Semitism. “There has been a increase in anti-Semitic activity” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October, 10 2016: 189. Current: 185.
Container Nook
Apparently, there is a whole subculture of young people who hop trains wearing GoPros, and then post their video journeys on YouTube. This train is a container train:
There’s probably an essay or even a post here, if only I could figure out a theme. What an enormous country this is, to be sure.
Book Nook
“Site Update – The Library” [Nina Illingworth]. This is a very impressive collection, which she had to rebuild: “Sadly however, during the late fall of 2016, I had the misfortune of losing most of my cherished personal library during a move to new accommodations.” I’ve lost at least three collections over the course of my life. So far.
Black Injustice Tipping Point
“New Racism Museum Reveals the Ugly Truth Behind Aunt Jemima” [The Atlantic]. The headline is deceptive, in that the iconography of Aunt Jemima is only implied, and never stated. But the artifacts are…. quite something. I’m glad they’re being collected.
Gaia
“A Warning Cry From the Doomsday Vault” [Bloomberg]. The Svalbard seed vault: “The challenge they’re facing now is that the climate is changing far quicker than they’d imagined. The facility sprung a leak last year after construction had failed to take into account that the permafrost could melt. Norway is now spending about $20 million to secure and improve the facility. But it’s not just the building….. Patrick Mulvany, an agriculturalist and adviser on biodiversity and food sovereignty said the real efforts aren’t being made where they are needed the most: on the ground with the farmers who are not getting adequately compensated.”
Our Famously Free Press
“YouTube, the Great Radicalizer” [New York Times]. “It seems as if you are never “hard core” enough for YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. It promotes, recommends and disseminates videos in a manner that appears to constantly up the stakes. Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century. This is not because a cabal of YouTube engineers is plotting to drive the world off a cliff. A more likely explanation has to do with the nexus of artificial intelligence and Google’s business model. (YouTube is owned by Google.) For all its lofty rhetoric, Google is an advertising broker, selling our attention to companies that will pay for it. The longer people stay on YouTube, the more money Google makes. What keeps people glued to YouTube? Its algorithm seems to have concluded that people are drawn to content that is more extreme than what they started with — or to incendiary content in general.” I guess “dumpster fire” made it into Merriam-Webster this year for a reason.
Police State Watch
“North Carolina police officer faces charges after beating, choking and tasing suspected jaywalker” [WHNT]. Thanks to body-cam footage. The story, which includes plenty of dialog, is even worse than the headline.
Class Warfare
“In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.” –Anatole France. Then again (DK):
— howitzer of mercy ??☠️ (@girlziplocked) March 10, 2018
“Dairy farmers in Lancaster and Lebanon County losing milk contracts” [Fox43]. From a note to the farmers by the former buyer, Dean Foods: “Additionally, we will provide farmers with resources to help them connect with counselors if needed.” Nice work if you can get it, counselling.
“‘Corporations Are People’ Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century Lie” [The Atlantic]. “How exactly did corporations come to be understood as ‘people’ bestowed with the most fundamental constitutional rights?… In 1881, after California lawmakers imposed a special tax on railroad property, Southern Pacific pushed back, making the bold argument that the law was an act of unconstitutional discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment. Adopted after the Civil War to protect the rights of the freed slaves, that amendment guarantees to every “person” the “equal protection of the laws.” Stanford’s railroad argued that it was a person too, reasoning that just as the Constitution prohibited discrimination on the basis of racial identity, so did it bar discrimination against Southern Pacific on the basis of its corporate identity.” This is just awful. Go to the link and search on “Conkling.” Anyone else remember Nicole Hollander, “The Woman Who Lies In Her Personal Journal”? That’s our Roscoe.
“Let’s have a good-faith argument about socialism” [Elizabeth Bruenig, WaPo]. With an interesting discussion of what “good faith” argument is.
News of The Wired
“When daylight saving time was put to a vote” [Quartz]. “In the end, Queenslanders rejected daylight saving 54.5% to 45.5%.”
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Today’s xkcd about Smart Home Security was written with Lambert in mind (don’t forget the mouse-over gag!)
Every time we see an Alexa ad (which is ALL THE TIME on tv), the wife turns to me and says “Never.”
We’re in our early 30s. Friendly reminder to keep black tape over your webcams, everybody…Zuckerberg does…
How about security cameras? Silly string shoots pretty far….
Spray on cooking oil is also supposed to work. It becomes more opaque as it dries…
Why not a blob of Superglue?
Ugh, galling piece re: Clintonian exploits in Haiti, unrelenting and shameful:
“The government of Haiti, so cash-strapped that its teachers are going unpaid, has retained a high-powered, top-dollar international PR firm with ties to a former member of Hillary Clinton’s staff to boost the country’s image in Washington.
The hiring of Mercury Public Affairs has raised uncomfortable questions on the island about the use of limited resources amid a reported budget deficit and customs strike that has paralyzed the country in recent weeks.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article204613419.html#cardLink=tallRow1_card1#storylink=cpy
One wonders whether this Clintonite PR firm has a secret arrangement to secretly kick back some of the money it is paid back to the particular Haitian governmental person or persons who made this decision to hire this firm.
Uggh. That thread on modern conservatism is so on point, it’s a painful reminder of what I’ve watched my parents and there friends become over the last 15-20 years. This part is particularly poignant:
“If NYT printed the *actual, real-life* sentiments of today’s conservative masses, it would print a bunch of paranoid, Fox-generated fairy tales and belligerent expressions of xenophobia, misogyny, racism, and proud, anti-intellectual ignorance.”
My parents are both well educated and raised us with strong values. They’ve both readily abandoned any inclination toward rational thought and sidelined all values when it comes to the realm of politics. If I behaved the way Trump has, I have no doubt they would denounce me as their son and never talk to me again. That Trump though, great, great guy. Says it like it is and gets stuff done. Oh, and the emails.
They’ve become Jonestown Foxies. Someone should do detailed studies, psychographic analyses, etc. on how that happened. And on what kind of mind-molding manipulation methods the Foxmasters use on their audience.
It’s been going on for decades, and as far as I’m concerned began before Fox/Rush/”Christiany”Broadcasting, but certainly all three have pushed the envelop to where it is today.
I can still remember my parents “excusing” Nixon on the basis that – and I quote almost verbatim: “He just happened to be the one who got caught. They ALL do it.” Well, maybe so, but do we just let all bank robbers/murderers/etc go because they “just happened to be the ones who got caught”???
Once Fox/Rush and the 700 Club began, it’s been a downhill slide all the way. My parents are gone now (RIP), but they got increasingly angry, fearful, racist (they really were not all that racist for their generation but sadly became more so), xenophobic, the whole nine yards after decades of rightwing FEAR propaganda.
One sibling has gone down this slippery slope. Very highly educated, well traveled, sophisticated in other ways, but a screaming (literally) ANGRY ANGRY FEARFUL nutjob in other ways.
So upsetting and sickening. There simply is NO way to “reason” with these people. Rational thought is gone and all that’s left is an endless stream of rightwing sexist homophobic racist bigoted nutty talking points… of course, all while endlessly denying that’s what’s happening, plus Bothsides! Bothsides! LIEbruls is WORSE.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
For the most part, we don’t discuss politics AT ALL in my family. No way.
Dividing and conquering is good for business, um…politics. It is a gigantic business mold, influence, and separate the marks into controllable chunks. Cigarettes, global warming, the Deplorables, Russiagate. Demonize, and worse, dehumanize some other group(s), twist the meanings of words and now kittens are evil, black is white, up is down. It is a business. Worse, the wealthy, the powerful, and their minions in the media and political organizations use the tactics not necessarily for ideological reasons, or for the children, or to do good, but for more money, wealth, power. To keep their jobs, or to get a tax break. This might be the reason for our dysfunctional society. Government is not for running the country, it is for business, and part of that is too make everyone more fearful, isolated, vulnerable, and usable.
Take the issues of guns. It is not good business for our society to reach an accord. It is good business to use the issue to power the the political whirligig. Guuuunzzzz!! OMG! The knuckle dragging, communists, gun grabbing, child killing Them!
Guns can be considered a scourge, an evil thing in society, or they could be considered an essential tool for hunting or self defense. Rate of death by guns has remained flat for decades except for mass shootings. Strangely, the numbers of mass deaths has increased along with the decline in quality of life. I believe one can make a chart and see it. The entire leadership class is complicit in this, but how often do we talk about this? Or the suicides which make the most of gun deaths? Or that almost all deaths are caused by handguns, and not rifles?
If we talked like adults, and treated everyone on the other side as human, misguided maybe, even outright wrong, but good intention, there might be progress. Nah, much easier to listen to the loud, bright, shinny whirligig.
The Republican the Democratic Parties thank you for your support.
Well said.
> Oh, and the emails.
It’s not “her emails,” a thoroughly disingenous Clintonite talking point It’s privatizing her emails on her server.*
Like parents, like chid?
* If we’re talking about the DNC emails, as opposed to the email on the temporarily unsecured server Clinton kept at one point in her bathroom in Chappaqua, I think it’s fascinating that the truth of the emails is never discussed. Odd.
Adding, the real point of that thread is what “conservatism” should be doing, and isn’t.
I’m in sympathy with efforts to contextualize seemingly irrational behavior — theology, aesthetics, eros — to see whether it is, in fact, adaptive. We should do more of that, not less. But there’s very little of that being done, by convervatives or liberals.
There is a book for train riders that has detailed information on how to hop on at most stations in the entire U.S. But you can only get it from other train riders, there are no copies in stores or on the internet, I have heard. Pretty interesting, its very dangerous though, if you don’t know what your doing, like being aware of slack action. I have heard of people being crushed to death by logs and the like. Only ride in empty boxcars
My mother’s father was a railroad detective. Yup, he was one of those. A Bull who threw the train riders off the trains during the Great Depression.
According to my mother, he seldom talked about his job. But, from what I’ve read, it was dangerous work. Because some of the riders didn’t like being caught trespassing on railroad property.
Used to walk a quiet, forested, wildflower-lined stretch of CSX track north of NYC. One day, unusually, a vehicle appeared on the dirt road that paralleled it and stopped. A railroad dick jumped out and confronted me.
“Got any ID?” he demanded.
Handed him my drivers license and watched him go through the motions of calling it in, though his SUV obviously had no radio connection to the police. After a plausible interval he returned.
“Ever been arrested, Jim?” he asked.
“No,” I lied.
“Well if I ever catch you out here again, I’m taking you in,” he warned.
I waited a week and resumed my daily walks, knowing this stretch of track was only patrolled two or three times a year … and that if necessary I could outrun him through the adjacent wetlands, which I’d thoroughly explored. :-)
Ernest Borgnine was a bull in The Emperor of the North Pole, opposite Lee Marvin.
Some of my high school classmates had their own version of freight-hopping. They’d jump on with a short bag (driver, iron, putter) then off at the nearby golf course that adjoined the tracks, where the train slowed for a crossing. When traveling really light, they grabbed just the driver for the driving range. Nobody got injured or arrested and they soon moved on to safer activities like rock climbing with more fun stories to recount!
Stobe the Hobo, the internet’s most famous train-hopper, dead after apparent accident
Thanks for the link to Stobe-world, Craig. Quite the character! His journeys put me in mind of what it must have been like for the Great Depression hobos. The movement visuals of his YouTubes gave me a vicarious sense of that life that never got from reading history books. I’m sorry I never heard of Stobe while he was alive. I spent many minutes today riding the rails vicariously with him. I ride trains (INSIDE the carriages, fare paid) on the way to a lot of places where I work. I will think of Stobe every time we roll past sidings with freight cars sitting idle.
In my youth, I hopped a few freight trains. I can still remember the ride from Grand Junction to Denver through the mountains. It was gorgeous, then capped off in Denver by getting arrested while crossing an Interstate. :-(
One big problem is that Train Hopping comes with a lot more danger these days than previously.
https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/blood-on-the-tracks-how/content?oid=25109372
It’s not quite the romantic, on-the-road thing that it may have been in the past. Not sure that I’d recommend it.
I’m not recommending it. The lunatics who dive off mountaintops in those bat-wing suits also wear GoPros (goPros being a bad sign for the zeitgeist, I think, like selfies but more extreme).
That doesn’t make it uninteresting. And I think the scenery passing by could provide a really good portrait of America.
First, I watched a video on how to do a repair on my motorcycle. But that wasn’t hardcore enough for me so next I watched videos on how to replace a fuel injector on an old diesel engine. My god, I’m over the edge!
Now, if that old diesel engine powered an armoured car…you’d be YouTube Ready.
Lee: Yeah, I didn’t want to do a drive-by, but since you’re confessing, I’m confessing: I have watched a whole bunch of Laura Nyro videos. What a voice. What song writing ability. What Italo-American soul singing.
I am so radicalized that I even watched an obviously bootlegged video of an extremely fine concert she gave in Tokyo.
Also, too, I watched that Language Guy, Paul, explain about how Basque is kind of on its own. Then I mainlined his video about what the Etruscans might have sounded like.
Thanks, I haven’t thought about Laura Nyro in too long a time.
https://www.rockhall.com/10-essential-laura-nyro-songs
This is my absolute all time favorite, she would be seventy now, still trying to build the dreams. My eyes always get puddly listening to her. She’s from NYC
https://youtu.be/ShOZKLUAJU8
Inexplicably, the comments section, and the “likes” and “dislikes”, have been turned off.
Anti-Defamation League
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lULmie51-pU
The Online Hate Index (OHI), a joint initiative of ADL’s Center for Technology and Society and UC Berkeley’s D-Lab, is designed to transform human understanding of hate speech via machine learning into a scalable tool that can be deployed on internet content to discover the scope and spread of online hate speech.
Well, that linked content was terrifying in a Clockwork Orange-ish sorta way.
Is criticism of Israel or expressing anti-Zionist views hate speech? I guess the machines will let us know.
One of my college friends was as Jewish as they come. And he was an outspoken anti-Zionist. As was his first wife and her family. (First wife died 15 years ago. He has since remarried.)
I think the algorithm is, if you’re not Jewish and express criticism of Israel or Zionism or a Jewish person, you’re anti-semitic; if you’re Jewish and express criticism of Israel or Zionism or a Jewish person, you’re a self-hating traitor.
It looks like someone or something didn’t like my response to your comment. Maybe it’ll show up later. : /
Watch out for the ADL bunch. The teen members of said in my high school were a bunch of self righteous hooligans.
Any algo is only as ‘good’ as its’ design parameters. As has been said many times, “Code is Law.”
Does it automatically send out solicitations for money to targeted audiences?
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/09/15/wise-up-southern-poverty-law-centers-scam/666904001/
My son sometimes watches videos of a guy picking old padlocks. It’s soothing.
Even more soothing, and educational: a Youtube series called “Primitive Technologies.” He never talks, just is shown actually doing the stuff. Fascinating. Appears to go through thousands of years of primitive technology over the series.
Go-pro wearing train hoppers. What fun, but dangerous. That stop in Marion, Arkansas is a huge inter-modal facility outside of Memphis, very close to the Mississippi River. Must give you a totally different sense of this country. I guess there are no more Railroad Bulls like in the Great Depression. Oh well, give it time.
I think there are, just not very many, perhaps.
There’s one shot of him running along the ballast from one car to another, as if running from something; then he holds up a walkie-talkie to the camera, so I bet he’s listening to the crew.
But with trains a mile long. I’d bet the crew has little incentive to do more than make a quick show and get back in the cab (“Yep, he’s gone”).
Re: “‘Corporations Are People’ Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century Lie” — Free downloads of a play about this, “The Prosecution of Judge Waite,” are available here:
https://movetoamend.org/prosecution-judge-waite-play-script-and-powerpoint
Of course corporations have to have certain privileges accorded them by statute so that they can conduct business. Many attorneys do not seem to understand that there is a critical difference between constitutional rights, and privileges the people grant by statute, via their duly elected representatives. Only human beings are entitled to constitutional rights. Artificial corporate entities created by humans may earn statutory rights and privileges, but are not entitled to constitutional rights.
This distinction should not be difficult to understand, but for some reason, many highly educated lawyers seem to have trouble comprehending it.
To go one step further with this:
1) Per the Declaration of Independence, human beings are not merely “entitled to constitutional rights”. That sort of language implies that a government might change the constitution and take away those rights. Instead, human beings have Inalienable rights, which supersede the power of any government. The purpose of the government is “to secure these rights”, i.e. to create a just society in which the rights of the people are protected. The purpose of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution is to delineate the interface between humans’ inalienable rights and the powers they have collectively granted to the government. In other words, the Bill of Rights is not the government telling the people what rights they have, it is the people telling the government what powers the government does not have because it would infringe upon their pre-existing Rights.
2) I’d go further than you and say that Corporations don’t ever “earn” rights. Corporations are granted legal privileges by the governments instituted by the people. The purpose of those privileges is, or at least ought to be, to balance and protect the inalienable rights of the people who own and work for the corporate legal entity. For a just society, those privileges cannot supersede the inalienable individual rights.
I fear today that we are heading for the opposite limit. Too often it seems people’s inalienable rights are not respected. Instead of corporations requesting legal privileges from a government instituted by people, it seems today people must somehow plead for mere “legal privileges” to be granted to them by the government instituted by the corporations!
This, by definition, is unjust, because only when the inalienable rights are respected can there be justice!
The Jeffersonian Just Society, in 2018 language:
All humans are created with equal unalienable Rights, including but not limited to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Justice exists when people’s Rights are secure, respected by all and carefully balanced so that one person’s Rights do not infringe others’.
To establish justice and secure these Rights, people institute Governments.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Any other powers are not just.
When the Government fails to do its job, it is the right (and obligation) of the People to withdraw their consent, to alter or abolish the government, and to institute a new Government organized to better protect their Rights and thus effect their Safety and Happiness.
You said it better than I did — thank you! This is why I love Naked Capitalism ;-)
And you got me thinking about something I normally wouldn’t ponder, which is why I love NC too!
However, I actually disagree with Lambert’s original citation; the “corporations are like people” meme began a long time ago, long before the railroad barons. Even Wikipedia has some of this story (see Corporate Personhood) for a perspective broader than The Atlantic’s. Corporations being associations of people, they actually should inherit some of the rights of individuals, particularly regarding contracts, property and equal protection. Placing a specific, discriminatory tax upon a specific group of people could violate the equal-protection clause of the 14th amendment; that picture doesn’t really change when those people are grouped together as a corporation. (For the same reason, I still do not understand how the current implementation of Obamacare isn’t a 14th Amendment violation; Congress really should have no right to tax just those people who refuse to participate in a particular type of contract…)
However, other than for political color, there’s no way that this should ever have been legally rendered as “Corporations have the rights of people”. The Supreme Court has at least not lost its sanity regarding the Fifth Amendment. But Citizens United, which claims that corporations have identical First Amendment free speech rights as individuals, remains an abomination. Only human beings have inalienable rights.
Here’s a little more color on how far back the pernicious meme that corporations-have-rights-of-people may go.
From Wikipedia article on Corporation:
(Emphasis added.)
It has certain rights but they are not inalienable. It also has obligations
Yes, and by the way, the press has First Amendment rights because it is the press, not because of its corporate form.
Yes, the corporations sought recognition as having the same rights as people from the moment they existed. That’s not the same thing. The fact is the entire foundation of corporate personhood as defined by SCOTUS since 1881 is based not on a legal decision but on a side opinion noted on the Southern Pacific decision by the court clerk.
That’s why I wondered the other day whether the entire body of corporate-personhood decisions couldn’t be challenged on that basis. The courts have been acting as if there’s a legal precedent—and there isn’t.
That’s a point I’ve wondered about since I first read about Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad (I thought it was 1886, not 1881). The Justices have uniformly treated it as if it was precedent even though it wasn’t even mentioned in the case. Why they chose to do so has puzzled me.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
What if a robot has to choose between saving one life and another? Does it do a credit check or engage in actuarial considerations, or body counts when multiple lives hang in the balance?
What about vandals who just want to destroy the robot for the fun of it? Will it consider its own asset or utility value to its owner. What about the precious stockholders if its a corporate asset? Frankly, I just can’t wait to bash one over the head. Is that hate speech?
They have earned certain privileges…one is the privilege of not being hit on the head.
“Flippy, there is a hair in my burger!!! How do you explain that?”
Taking the fifth is not one of those privileges.
>What if a robot has to choose between saving one life and another?
As long as it picks one (hopefully based on higher odds of success not relative worth of the subjects) it is not guilty of “inaction” and thus won’t freeze up.
Of course, it will probably be loading Microsoft updates at the time so won’t be able to actually do anything, but that’s not quite the same thing.
>What about vandals who just want to destroy the robot for the fun of it?
I thought that was covered by the Third Law or I misunderstood your question? If the robot cannot successfully defend itself without breaking laws 1 or 2 (law 2 always brings up the “what if I tell it to blow itself up” question, of course), then the owner needs to sue just like if you took a baseball bat to his car.
I think there is a much deeper issue. As I observe about monotheism, a spiritual absolute would logically be the essence of awareness from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom from which we fell. More the new born baby than the wise old man, but since organized religion is more about social order than spiritual insight, its function is validating authority.
God might be dead, but we still live in its shadow.
“Corporation
n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
I believe that’s probably the shortest version of corporate law in existence – and correct.
However, read the article. Roscoe Conklin is important because at the time of the case he was the only living drafter of the Fourteenth Amendment, and for his interpretation, he pointed to a passage in his journal that he said he wrote at the time. But he lied!
This story makes the anti-corporate personhood talking points much more vivid.
Regarding the highlighted bit, no, they won’t. I can guarantee you your average resident of say Missouri doesn’t know whether PA-18 is currently held by a D or R and couldn’t give a [family blog].
But the beltway political class that the NYT caters to certainly do like the smell of their own farts.
Thanks, lyman alpha blob: The quarrelsome sisters of the six Great Lakes States are highly unlikely to take direction from either Pennsylvania or Missouri. But “heartland,” a term only used in Indiana, so far as I know, is another way of saying “those flyover people.”
Taking direction from Pennsylvania? We’re too busy bossing ourselves around. And that’s a full-time job.
Says Slim, who’s a Pennsylvanian living in Arizona.
Reading about PA and Charles Schumer (D-Wall St & Israel) reminded me of his pre-2016 election strategy:
How’d that work out for ya, Chuck?
BTW I retrieved that timeless quote from The Intercept, which among other Schumer quotes has this one:
–Chuck Schumer: The Worst Possible Democratic Leader At The Worst Possible Time (Nov 2016)
Sadly I’m old enough to remember feeling elated when Schumer beat Al d’Amato way back when. Days of innocence…
Ah, the ol’ worst case scenario.
Lets use another example: if you come home and find your wife drowning your kids in the bathtub, do you lay hands on her?
If you answer yes, does that automatically mean that we should legalize wife-beating?
That this guy has any type of a prominent position in a country should tell one all one needs to know about such a country…. the fake, smug look on his face tells it all (and remember, he is the one of the
“”Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday evening on MSNBC after host Rachel Maddow informed him that intelligence sources told NBC news that the briefing had not been delayed.”)
Which foxhole that he’s been in is Schumer referring to?
Harvard, Harvard Law, JD, New York State Assembly 1975-1981 (took over mentor’s seat), House 1981-1999, Senate since 1999…
So he’s never had an actual…what do we call those out here in the real world…oh yeah…an actual “JOB”.
Why this person is consulted on anything but the weekly crossword puzzle is beyond me.
The lessons, such as they are, will resonate around the beltway for 2 to 3 weeks, and most of the resonating will be in the form of duelling spin.
The lessons will be problemmatic because what Lamb is running, first and foremost, is a LOCAL campaign. He is not a #resistance candidate trying to run against the idea of Trump. Not being a doctrinaire free trader, he really doesn’t fit the format of previous Blue dogs. And he’s one of a handful of democrats with the sense to use his opponent’s past votes on unemployment benefits against him. He’s not a Sanderista but also not really a wall street conservative.
His district doesn’t fit the preferred dnc model, lacking all those upscale Trump disliking gopers to futilely appeal to. Maybe this is why DCCC has come in with very little bread. In any case, unlike Ossoff, he seems a competent campaigner and has retained control over his own message.
Hopping freight trains is a great shout out to first depression, but I look forward to reports of people hopping the self-driving trucks soon to be cruising the 5, or of skateboarders ‘pooning’ them a la YT in Snow Crash.
According to DownWithTyranny blog, Conor Lamb is running a trainwreck campaign, so if he wins it shows that the Trump brand is truly toxic.
That’s painting with an awfully broad brush, no?
LOL then let’s watch the “toxic brand” when he gets four more years.
We don’t need brand labels, we need an actual opposition party
From DWT:
>The thing is, a Lamb victory on Tuesday might give Democrats exactly the wrong lesson– that all they need to do is fire a few rounds from their semi-automatic and mansplain Pelosi and they can buy a one-way ticket to Reagan National-
The thing is, the Democrats are going to take that lesson from anywhere they can get it, and ignore anything other sort of information even if Jesus (family blogging) Christ comes down and delivers it. Saccone is gross, Lamb is an improvement so I’m going to hold my nose and allow myself to enjoy the R loss if it happens, not so much the D win.
PS: I didn’t get the impression from DWT that it was a “trainwreck campaign”, maybe I missed it TLDR.
But I live in W. Pa so I wouldn’t care what they said anyway as I have my own impressions to go on. And it is slightly better, in that the rhetoric is slightly less empty, than Saccone’s crap FWIW.
Some years ago, Ted Nace put his very interesting history of corporate personhood online:
http://www.gangsofamerica.com/gangsofamerica.pdf
The book (on paper) is an excellent Deep Dive into corpersonhood. I will never look at a corpo the same again after reading it. Not that one CAN look at a corporation, since they’re ephemeral, not personable. Also, (potentially) undying, unfeeling and sociopathic by design. (It’s all about THEM. Your natural life is less important than the legal duty to shareholders. Stay out of the way or be squashed for profit, humanbug.) I consider corporations to be an evolved artificial “life” form, a type of thought-parasite that came along with (and simultaneously helped create) complexified human society. If there’s ever a decomplexification in some sort of Collapse, that’ll kill most of the corproaches! Glad Nace put it online, fer free. How un-corporate!
Late-stage Bubble III triumphalism:
“This way to the egress,” as PT Barnum used to urge the rubes who thought it was some kind of exotic newborn eagle.
Might Deluard be deluded?
Well he said it was a “story”. So if he meant in the “not really real” sense, maybe not.
I do prefer your pun, or whatever it’s called, as the explanation though.
If you say it softy and quickly, egrets and egress can sound the same.
Even reading them on paper (on a screen), if you speed read (or at normal speed, for some people, sometimes, including myself, it’s easy to confuse the two, unless, your mind, following the text, already projects what the word should be.
“The novel just writes itself.” At some point (sometimes, again), the book itself can finish the story. So, it’s not surprising, even the human can project a little, and the writer or the reader can do the same.
The Bolton NSAdvisor rumour is bad enough, but now we’re regaled by the possibility of Larry “Kokehead” Kudlow taking over the Gary Cohn Economic Advisor position…one is prompted to posit that Trump is pulling a massive ratf**k against the media, the Demos, and anybody else who still believes that there still can be “adults” steering Trump away from his worst excesses. He quite deliberately is and has brought in grifters, chancers, wideboys, and sheer incompetents (hi, Betsy DeVos) into government because, (a) he can, and (b) he simply doesn’t give a stuff about capable hires, as they are (rightfully) seen as “crimping his style”, cos – you know – he da boss. Clown show doesn’t even begin to describe this crowd.
There’s also c) nobody who is part of the establishment seems to want to work for Trump other than military types. Also some of his worst appointments–Nikki Haley comes to mind–may have been the work of Pence who was in charge of the transition.
Of course that doesn’t change the reality that Trump has never bothered to be presidential. The other day at a rally he said “if I was presidential you would be so bored.” In other words the media are his enablers not his victims. As a narcissist he’s living the dream.
I hope Trump doesn’t own a horse.
Re: moving book collections:
.
Books are stupidly heavy and therefore you should only use little boxes when moving them – I used to use banana boxes in my twenties, but now I tend to go with beer cartons; the 24 packs are a near perfect size for anything other than large format coffee-table books.
+++ Amen on smallish cartons for moving /mailing books
Wine and liquor boxes are perfect for books and papers. They are designed to be strong and are sized for easy handling of heavy items. Liquor and wine stores have stacks of them by the front door.
Bank boxes are good. Built in handles. If you can still get those.
Yes, but those are hard to find for free though, thus reducing money available for booze and books.
In Australia, Baxter deliver hospital medication orders in sturdy boxes around 15 x 11 x 7 (inches, although we haven’t used those for two or three decades), and they’re perfect for books.
Our removalist supervisor whinged about the large number of boxes, but the young lad who was doing all the lifting thanked us profusely, more than once.
Re: North Carolina jaywalking beating
I believe this is a classic example of what the NFL players were kneeling during the national anthem about. It sounds like a worthy cause to kneel during an anthem over. I can’t imagine that our soldiers were fighting fascists and terrorists overseas to preserve the right of the police to beat black people for jaywalking.
As a very white person from northern Europe heritage, I wish Colin Kaepernick the best in his lawsuit. He is by no means in the top tier of NFL quarterbacks, but he is certainly better than many of the back-ups and some of the starters that have been signed over the past few years. He also hasn’t been doing things like domestic violence, drugs, etc. unlike some other current players in the NFL.
BTW – if you can afford good lawyers, here is how difficult it is to get prosecuted successfully for white collar crime. https://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/percoco-corruption-trial-cuomo-albany-1.17327726
Asheville is pretty liberal by NC standards. The cop must have thought he was in Baltimore.
Ttried to post this on the new 2018 mid-term election worksheet, to no avail. After hitting Post Comment, page goes blank and freezes. So, here goes, and apologies if this comment in fact did post.
WA-8 is quite an interesting seat, as long-time Repub Dave Reichert is hangin’ ’em up, as the district went for HRC in 2016, has been slightly trending Demo, and Reichert knows that anti-Trump sentiment is rife in the district. Problem is that the Repubs have gone all in on perennial candidate Dino Rossi (Gov, Sen., lost both), and is as usual throwing huge amount of money to hold the seat. Demos running are largely political novices, and splitting the fundraising, though pediatrician Dr Kim Schrier is seemingly quite adept at raising campaign dollars. Name-recognition could be a factor here, even though Rossi has the odor of a loser who’s been to the well once too often. After the primary, one should a better idea of how well the Demo candidate can pull together necessary anti-Trump Repub suburban
votes away from Rossi. Rossi not notably a hard-right Tea Party type, but again he’s not only running against the Demo, but inferentially against Trump as well. Tough balancing act, and I doubt that he can pull it off. Blue wave this Nov in WA!
Russia highly likely to be behind poisoning of spy, says Theresa May
https://news.google.com/news/explore/section/q/Russia/Russia?ned=us&hl=en&gl=US
James Bond, courtesy phone please.
M of A takes down May.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/03/theresa-mays-45-minutes-claim.html#more
May should declare war on Russia over this attack. No, seriously, just out and out declare war on them and re-invade Crimea like they did back in the Crimean War.
It is going to be harvest time soon in Russia and they could do with the POWs to help them bring in the crops, what with the booming agricultural sector due to sanctions there.
James, Russia is calling…with love.
And it’s starting up all over again. Prime Minister May gave the Russians 48 hours to explain the poisoning and Tillerson said the nerve agent used in Salisbury attack ‘clearly came from Russia’ and will ‘trigger a response’ (bangs head on keyboard). There are even threats to attack the Syrians floating around because of Jihadist gas attacks. Do these people really want a shooting war with the Russians? Are the arms manufacturers not making enough money yet? Do they want an economic blockade on Russia to make them submit? What is wrong with these people?
She’s definitely running again:
Hillary Clinton: I won the places that are ‘dynamic, moving forward,’ while Trump’s campaign ‘was looking backwards’
Just in time for her 73rd birthday!
Advanced age sure isn’t stopping Bernie Sanders!
Very true, I find the American gerontocracy really bizarre.
Is it true that the drink machines on Capitol Hill not only dispense Coke, Pepsi and Lemonade but also Geritol?
So… since she lost the U.S. presidential election doesn’t that mean she just implied that the U.S. is, on the whole, a backward looking nation? She’s the Volkswagen of politics – just when you think she can’t possibly say or do anything more egregiously offensive and self destructive she manages to top herself again!
Where’s an ice floe to push out into the polar bear feeding grounds when you need one…
I supported Sanders because I have reading comprehension skills. She fixed the primary. And now 18 months and counting of this drivel.
HRC is perhaps more than any other individual — and her ilk and organization CERTAINLY more than any other group — the largest reason the Democrat brand is in the toilet. If she refuses to shut up and go away and take the stench of wall street money with her, we’re going to lose again in 2020.
With democrats like Clinton, Schumer, Pelosi, Feinstein, etc, who needs republicans?
Not sure her financial backers are willing to shell out another billion or so. I think they’d rather go with a heal-the-nation’s-wounds type guy like Biden.
Dem primary time should be fun.
Biden will have to answer to all the students [and their parents] [and their grandparents] burdened with college loans. He’s toast. At least, I hope he’s toast.
In 2015, I put a Sanders/Warren bumper sticker on my pickup truck. I’ll gladly drive about with a Sanders/Gabbard sticker. Here in Alabamistan, no one will no what I’m talking about anyway.
You never know. In Knoxville I’ve had multiple Bernie magnets stolen off of my car while parked at the airport (one during the 2016 DNC! The other two weeks ago). So at least one strangely aggrieved someone is paying attention.
Regardless, I’ll second Sanders/Gabbard. You know it’s at least partway in the public conciousness when there are grifters selling so-named 2020 campaign merch on Amazon
Forward? Hah.
Hers was a pure Culture of Contentment campaign (per the book by J.K.Galbraith), right down to the retreading of a Grand Old American™ like Henry Kissinger.
Please note that Robert Lightfoot’s retirement is a big deal. Trump’s nominee is a fool who should be opposed by all who support space exploration (or science in general). Both manned and unmanned missions are at risk given the rabid enthusiasm ex-House Freedom Caucus member Mick Mulvaney has for the fiscal knife.
Note: Mulvaney’s undergraduate degree from Georgetown is in economics.
http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/china-banking-crisis-warning-signal-still-flashing-bis-says-1/amp
Canada in the same warning with China.
Fabulous day on the slopes @ Mammoth, doesn’t get much better…
I always wanted to hop a train and go somewhere, but never did~
…thanks for the video
No avalanches?
In the trade as natl security dept, I see Trump invoked national security to block the Broadcomm bid for Qualcomm today.
Predictions of reactions, anyone?
Wolf Richter has a piece up on this:
Trump’s Order Stops ALL Foreign Takeovers of Large US Tech Companies | Wolf Street
When daylight saving time was put to a vote
I think that geography is rearing its head in this case as a factor. Queensland itself is enormous and is bigger than Texas and its northern end actually extends into the tropics so is living there you already have extended hours of daylight. You certainly don’t want more there. You have these groups rear up from time to time wanting daylight savings but they always fizzle. Anybody against daylight saving is derided as being like those little old ladies who complain that the extra hour of daylight fades their curtains faster so that goes down really well with those against.
There was one campaign where it came out that the leader of the group pushing to have daylight savings introduced didn’t even live in Queensland. He lived across the border in New South Wales but drove across daily as it was cheaper to have his business under Queensland laws. It just got under his collar that he was in one time zone while at home and another when he went to work each day and wanted to have the same time for his convenience. Put these campaigns down as ‘not gunna happen’.
I’m in the group that wants to set the clocks ahead three years.
Years ago when Queensland had a hick rural, conservative government that ran on paper bags full of money and was firmly against daylight savings, it was said that when an aircraft landed at the main airport in Brisbane, that the pilot would say that: “We have now landed in Queensland so please set your watches back one hour and twenty years!”
Lol, sounds a lot like Ozarks Airlines before it became unpopular, passengers didn’t manage their mud jugs very well and tobacco juice would run all over the floor of the plane.
Something important I ran across, the global majors have been backing away from the basin.
Alberta’s oil exports face ocean of trouble
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/albertas-oil-exports-face-ocean-of-trouble/
One supertanker port has turned the economics upside down.
OK – so this doesn’t have that much to do with today’s postings…but I felt the need to share.
As someone who for the past 20 years watched little to no TV, it’s pretty surprising how much TV I have had to watch as I recuperated from major surgery. And I don’t mind it that much (since it is short term) but I have been surprised at what I actually got back from it.
I must have been, to a certain degree, in a kind of cultural vacuum/bubble….so many icons (Kardashians, etc) that I really had no knowledge of. But as I picked my way through the media bog, I was pleasantly surprised that there are some amazing programs on TV…!
Life Below Zero – OK – who is now my favorite woman hero but…Sue Aikens! A fifty yr old “fat” (in her own words) chick, taking on crazy ass predators and wilderness….
Chef’s Table – Gorgeous photography and stories about food that any food lover would…love. The episode about Jeong Kwan – the Buddhist chef that is now friends with famous NYC chefs is especially wonderful.
If you watch…I hope you will enjoy!
Lambert, I love YOU Man! Here’s a March Madness Video for you;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv58UKls95k
My father’s dad was shot to death on his front porch on Blessing Street in Pittsburgh, Pa after an altercation that occurred during a funeral procession of Irish/German/Polish and people cutting in from the Hill (Black Americans).(You can look up the caese if you have access to the legal search engines.) Long story short, to make ammends the African Americans from our famous Hill District (August Wilson’s hometown) sent down to Blessing Street, a friend and this man, known to me as Jr. Thomas,, would sit on the bottom of the steps and wait for my dad, who was four years younger to finish his breakfast and then took him around Pittsburgh to play basketball, all day in the summer. Both my father and his older brother William,who was also Jr. Thomas’s age but wanted nothing to do with playing with his younger brother,both went to college on full academic/basketball scholarships, Bill to Fordham and my dad to Pitt. Jr. Thomas went to Vietnam not having either the connections or education of Central Cathothic.(Harvard and Yale wanted my dad, athlete and scholar, but his older brother told him he wouldn’t be able to even buy shoes there, so he went to Pitt, plus Pitt gave his mother what would be called according today’s NCAA rules , illegal payments .) Years later, Jr. Thomas died while serving in the Navy. My dad watched the announcement on WTAE and that was the first time I saw my dad cry and then he lay in bed for days mourning. And now my Uncle Bill and his daughter, Molly, coach North Catholic (renamed Bishop Wuerl) and Molly is in the Pa Hall of Fame for coaching girls HS basketball and trying again for another State Championship.
I love basketball, especially pick-up games!The only games I played. It is a damn shame how our city has 10 tennis courts, a track, a soccer field, a golf course. an ice rink but no basketball courts in our beautiful Schenley Park. Hope you someday have a meet-up here. I’ll show you around but encourage not to stay and drive up prices further,
> It is a damn shame how our city has 10 tennis courts, a track, a soccer field, a golf course. an ice rink but no basketball courts in our beautiful Schenley Park.
Hmm…