Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/e...s-up-with-capitalism.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The new history of capitalism is less a movement than what proponents call a “cohort”: a loosely linked group of scholars who came of age after the end of the cold war cleared some ideological ground, inspired by work that came before but unbeholden to the questions — like, why didn’t socialism take root in America? — that animated previous generations of labor historians.

Instead of searching for working-class radicalism, they looked at office clerks and entrepreneurs.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

That is very exciting, I changed my major to history with the intent of doing just that (though my plan of late has changed somewhat). The Marxist school of thought has dominated history books for the last few decade and, while I do think the Marxist revisionism has its merits, it is very exciting to see that I will be following on the tails of this new wave of historians. Subsequently, though I suppose I've been thinking of what I will be doing in grad school a few years too early, it seems like my recent plan of changing from a pro-market historian to a historiographer was a good move.

 

[Dak]

I think that one of the reasons this is being looked at now, even if not in a purely conscious manner, is the growth in the black market, or "System D". "System D" is expected to account for a 1/4 of global GDP in the near future IIRC, and it is the closest thing to "Free enterprise" we are going to see for some time.

 

[SentinelSlain]

I think that the whole manner and method that states organise themselves to "combat the illicit trade in narcotics" has been so ineffective, wasteful and dangerous that it will ultimately be abandoned if governments which are democratic enough to truly represent more educated populations emerge across the nations. Russia is a good example of this, they have a massive HIV problem and the governments tough on drugs approach is almost as bad as them saying that HIV is good for you, go and fuck that skanky ho bareback.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

annnnnnnnd this is why this guy is an ass. Man, I thought this guy was a reasonable dude.

Stefan Molyneux on gays - "There is always a premature sexual experience aka some form of child molestation"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQa_NAwDQ9Y

 

[Dak]

Yeah I think I quit listening to Molyneux a while ago. His best work is his video series on the state, and it all goes downhill from there, between the emphasis on DFOOing or whatever and his crusade against all forms of corporal punishment.

There is some level of correlation between child abuse and homosexuality, but it's not always and it's correlation, not causation.

 

[Chimaera]

Margaret Thatcher is dead.

 

[Einherjar86]

Yeah I think I quit listening to Molyneux a while ago.

Are you unsure whether you still listen to him or not?

There is some level of correlation between child abuse and homosexuality, but it's not always and it's correlation, not causation.

The uselessness of making even this point is that child abuse happens just as frequently among those who will grow up to be heterosexual. There's nothing normative about heterosexuality.

 

[Dak]

Are you unsure whether you still listen to him or not?

I don't remember when I stopped, but it's been quite a while. Didn't take long to drain his site of useful info.

The uselessness of making even this point is that child abuse happens just as frequently among those who will grow up to be heterosexual. There's nothing normative about heterosexuality.

All abuse, or only sexual? Either way, unfortunately it's so hard to find any authoritative statistics on such behavior.

I do think it's interesting that of all people, Molyneux takes a relatively hard line against homosexuality. Possibly remnants of his childhood/family background he hasn't dealt with?

 

[Einherjar86]

All abuse, but that includes sexual. Abuse is just as rampant among those that "become" heterosexual.

 

[Dak]

Completely different subject: I was published in my CC's magazine as the prose winner for the 2013 edition (although I wrote/submitted it almost a year ago lol).

Includes a cash prize

 

[Einherjar86]

Congrats! What was the piece; something for class, or something you wrote on your own?

 

[Dak]

Congrats! What was the piece; something for class, or something you wrote on your own?

Yeah it was for English class. I can't remember for sure but I think it was the short story about my "ghost" experience.

 

[Einherjar86]

Oh, I thought it was a nonfiction piece.









































BOOM!

That was a dick move, but couldn't help it. Seriously though, you said "prose" and I assumed you meant it was a critical piece you wrote. Either way though, that's still awesome; and a cash prize!

 

[Dak]

I think I submitted two different papers. I don't remember which though.

 

[Einherjar86]

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/nature-and-cosmos/kenneth-weiss-anne-buchanan-genetics/

In keeping with the DNA metaphor, the idea of the genomic approach is to assume that genes simply must be causing a trait of interest, and to look across the entire genome to find variants that are more common in individuals with the trait than in those without it. The hope was that we would soon eliminate the debilitating or fatal diseases to which most of us now fall victim, once we had exhaustive knowledge of genome-wide variation.

Genomic studies searching for causal genes have grown ever larger and more expensive, but commensurately important results have yet to roll in. Most of the estimated overall genetic influence on the traits or diseases of interest is still unidentified. What we’re finding instead is ‘polygenic’ causation, that is, that many different parts of the genome contribute mainly trivial individual effects.

A typical well-studied example is Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease that runs in families, and thus would seem to have a major genetic component. However, the most recent study, by Heather Elding and colleagues at University College London, published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, estimates that the number of genes associated with the disease is around 200, most with very small effects, which explains only a small amount of the genetic background of this disease. To liken this again to coin-flipping, variants at each ‘causal’ gene affect risk in some probabilistic way, usually very small — far from 50-50 — and with no guarantee whatever that the same variant provides the same risk in different people who carry it, or in different populations, or in men or women, or at different ages. It’s as though each coin keeps changing its probability of coming up heads. Thus, the predictive power of this type of ‘personalised genomic medicine’ is generally very weak, like trying to predict the outcome of hundreds of individual-specific coin-flips. That’s why, with some fortunate exceptions, the clinical or therapeutic value of all these genetic studies has so far been slight.

 

[Dak]

^And that's why blaming family history for something is no excuse. Lifestyle choices are more important.

Anyway, I found out both my submissions made it into the magazine, but it was indeed the ghost story that one an award. The other was on boot camp.

 

[Einherjar86]

Or it's just a combination of lifestyle choices and genetic makeup. Trying to say whether one is more important is sort of like trying to decide whether a novel's beginning or ending is more important.

 

[Dak]

Well genetics play a part,but overall it's pretty limited. Genetic predisposition towards X isn't a guarantee. You just can't abuse yourself in that respect and "Get away" with it as much as someone else might. Like sugar consumption when predisposed to diabetes.

 

[Dak]

http://bastiat.mises.org/2013/04/ill-bet-you-didnt-expect-this/

I noticed that bit in that article but I didn't get a chance to post it. Eventually the truth will be recognized as "Self evident".