Hopefully Anonymous

The window is closing for Obama to Bring In Clinton or Sebelius as Veep

Looks like Palin is the real deal. In my  opinion Obama already missed his best opportunity to switch his Veep to Hillary Clinton or Sebelius and to move Biden to Secretary of State: he should have done it shortly before Palin's convention speech. It would maximize the degree to which Obama would appear to be acting out of strength.

I don't think his window has passed: simultaneous to McCain's convention speech (for example, going onto O'Reilly with his new female Veep and Biden) would be another great opportunity.

But once we're more than about a day out of the Republican convention, I think it's too late, and he loses the moral reality that McCain's pick was completely reactionary to Obama's.

Obama-Biden could still win in theory against McCain-Palin, but I think Obama adds unecessary extra risk to his likelihood of winning by not running with a white female Veep that's more experienced than Palin.

http://www.slate.com/id/2199250/

A Better career path for the presidentially ambitious

This is a work in progress, some of the counties should be replaced with large cities (like the New York Counties, Mayor NYC should be at the top of the list).

I'm looking at the credentials of the governors of the largest states and the county executives of the largest counties within their states.

I think ambitious presidential aspirants should be encouraged to get JD, MPAs from top schools (or their top state school) and then go this route, rather than running for state senate, congress, and the like. I think they should also become residents of the large states (and large counties within the states) in their region of the U.S. Bill Clinton should've been running something bigger than Arkansas, and Obama and Hillary should've been running large states, not serving as Senators, if nothing more than to give them better preparation for running the US. Better to graduate to something only one order of magnitude bigger, utilizing a familiar skillset, than to graduate to something 2 or more orders of magnitude bigger and/or employing an executive, public administration skillset for the first time.

01 California, Arnold Scwharzenneggar, high school diploma

-Los Angeles County, William T Fujioka, BA in Sociology (Social Research), University of California, Santa Cruz, Cum Laude.

-Orange County, John M. W. Moorlach, CPA, BA, California State University in Long Beach

 -San Diego County

 -San Bernadino County

 02 Texas, Rick Perry, Texas A&M Bachelors, Animal Science

-Harris County, Edward M. Emmett, Rice University in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and from the University of Texas at Austin in 1974 with a Master of Public Affairs degree.

 -Dallas County, Jim Foster, Dallas Baptist University's Police Academy (no bachelors degree?)

 -Tarrant County

 -Bexar County 03 New York, David Paterson, Hofstra Law School, failed New York Bar Exam

-King's County, Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn College bachelor's degree in Political Science

-Queens County, Helen Marshall, Bachelor's Degree in Education from Queens College. She has also taken graduate courses in Education at the Bank Street College, and Public Administration at Long Island University. (no graduate degree?)

-New York County

-Suffolk County 04 Florida, Charlie Crist, Cumberland Law School

-Miami Dade County, Carlos Alvarez, bachelor’s degree in business administration from Florida International University.

-Broward County, Lois Wexler, Florida Atlantic University and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education. 

-Palm Beach County

-Hillsborough County

Are lesbian eugenicists reducing our existential risk?

Interesting old article from Steve Sailer.

I'm disappointed mainstream social scientists (think Andrew Gelman) follow so many majoritarian taboos. We could really use people smarter than Steve discussing the topics he discusses with a similar lack of politically correct restraint. At least anonymously.

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050705_immigration.htm

Lakoff's play for Celebrity: Mythmaking over Empiricism?

Lakoff seems to me to be heading in the direction of mythmaking/promotion over empricism with his latest book. He throws out a lot of theories and concepts stated authoritatively, but doesn't provide us with empiricial underpinnings for them. I haven't seen him called on it yet, so I'm doing it here. His huffblog that finally got me to post about his recent descent into celebrity pundit-seeking myth promotion:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/the-palin-choice-and-the_b_123012.html

I recall bloggers pointing out that most of Palin's kids shared the same names as witches in a popular tv show. But in an interview with People recently, apparently she claims the names came from random sources like places in Alaska, hobbies, and the nordic language. It seems possible to me to work out the statistical odds that several of her kids would coincidentally share names with witches in a popular tv show.

If the odds are very low, I doubt it'll hurt her politically (very few voters are statistically literate), but it'll lend credence to the idea that she's a smart person who performs dumbness (or averageness) very, very, very well.

She may be shaping up to be a bit of the Anti-Nerd (using Michael Vassar's definition of a nerd).

The andrew sullivan post which sparked these musings:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/interviewing-th.html

The Utility of Counteracting Irrationalities: An empirical question, not a given.

A comment I just made in Yudkowsky's "rationality quotes" thread.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/rationality-q-1.html#comment-128643684

"Those quotes seem rather weak to me. Especially the last one. Armchair psychology, you're worried about your own propensity towards irrationality, so you seek to master it by focusing on irrationality external to you, as by seeking to wipe it out. Kind of analogous to evangelical christianity. I'm not sure rational heroes and irrational villians in a morality play is as valuable to us trying to build our best models of the world, including of various irrationalities as natural phenomena. Whether we should expend effort to convince people not to engage in various irrationalities is an empirical question, and maybe one that has different answers in each instance.

Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous | September 01, 2008 at 05:50 PM"

Empiricism and Myth in Psychology

Mindhacks has an interesting post linking to some writings discussing empiricism and myth in psychology. I think the rest of the social sciences would do well to attempt meta-awareness and self-critiques on this level.

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/08/minds_and_myths.html

Economic Successes of Nazi Germany (Buchanan Essay)

Interesting essay describing autocratic market capitalism as a competitor to democratic, liberal market capitalism, and starts by pointing out Nazi Germany's economic achievements. What do the experts attribute Nazi Germany's economic successes to?

I recall reading elsewhere that every bureacrat would find guidance in what to do from "what the fuhrer says" rather than any written law. That made me wonder if there was a kind of de facto decentralization going on with the lawmaking, and perhaps that helped Germany economically. Alternatively, perhaps some bounded rationality as well as collective action economic problems can be solved, or solved more efficiently, in an autocratic social order.

http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/08/pjb-democracy-a-flickering-star/

Should Obama move Biden to Secretary of State and Pick a Female Veep?

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/08/is-sarah-palin.html#comments

"I agree with some that Palin has the potential for killing the Obama campaign (if she shows she can perform well at the national level). Frankly, security moms might break for McCain in significant margins, and the dirty secret is that women are already a strong voting majority. For that reason, the Obama campaign might be wise to consider shuffling Biden to Secretary of State position -so he won't put up a fight about losing Veep- and bringing in Hillary Clinton as their new Veep selection (alternatively another female with a longer resume than Palin, like Sebelius).

The ideal time for them to do that might be at an opportune moment during or shortly after the Republican convention.

Posted by: Hopefully Anonymous at Aug 30, 2008 5:24:05 PM"

[I grade this post an F in terms of helping me understand reality to maximize my persistence odds.]

Jonah Goldberg provides good political horse race analysis

The Palin/Obama discussion has mostly been an empiricism-free battle of myths. Here I think a commentator actually gives some good analysis of both. Other than one partisan line (that he thinks McCain's judgment is superior to Obama's) I think his analysis of this political horse race hits the mark.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2NjY2FmN2RhOGE0MTIzMjlhZjU3YTBmY2NlYTYwYTA=

[I grate this post an F in terms of helping me understand reality to maximize my persistence odds]