Links - 23rd December 2019 (2)

In the long run, wars make us safer and richer - The Washington Post - "When looking upon the long run of history, it becomes clear that through 10,000 years of conflict, humanity has created larger, more organized societies that have greatly reduced the risk that their members will die violently. These better organized societies also have created the conditions for higher living standards and economic growth. War has not only made us safer, but richer, too... the winners of wars began incorporating the losers into larger societies. The victors found that the only way to make these larger societies work was by developing stronger governments; and one of the first things these governments had to do, if they wanted to stay in power, was suppress violence among their subjects.The men who ran these governments were no saints. They cracked down on killing not out of the goodness of their hearts but because well-behaved subjects were easier to govern and tax than angry, murderous ones. The unintended consequence, though, was that they kick-started the process through which rates of violent death plummeted between the Stone Age and the 20th century... People almost never give up their freedoms — including, at times, the right to kill and impoverish one another — unless forced to do so; and virtually the only force strong enough to bring this about has been defeat in war or fear that such a defeat is imminent... Reagan’s great fear — that bloated government would stifle individual freedom — shows just how far the continuing debates over the merits of big and small government have taken us from the horrors that worried Hobbes. “The 10 most dangerous words in the English language,” Reagan said on another occasion, “are ‘Hi, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ ” As Hobbes could have told him, in reality the 10 scariest words are, “There is no government and I’m here to kill you.”"

Opinion: Evolution Isn't a Dirty Word - "When it comes to understanding human behavior, it has become increasingly acceptable to denigrate biology and evolution as sexist, and to dismiss the scientific method more generally. Consider some of the papers that have been published in academic journals lately, claiming that science consists of "[male insecurity](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00033790.2017.1416672?journalCode=tasc20male insecurity)," that women care about the way they look because of the patriarchy and that a commitment to empiricism and objectivity leads women to be “devalued and marginalized." As well, an online Coursera lecture on “Science and Philosophy” from the University of Edinburgh equated evolutionary biology with creationism, claiming that both are based in faith. The course claimed that evolution is no better than “fairy tales” and questioned whether we should teach it in schools without a disclaimer that it isn’t scientific... In order to know whether your perspective is correct, you must be willing to hear arguments against your position. Nowadays, it's become commonplace for pejorative terms like scientism and biological essentialism to be thrown around by critics who don’t have the slightest understanding of what the scientific method or biological explanations entail. They are preoccupied with advancing their unfounded theories, and what’s most insulting is they make no efforts to hide their ignorance.The Norwegian documentary series Hjernevask perfectly captures how clueless gender scholars are. Its first episode examines why women and men tend to gravitate toward different occupational preferences, even in cultures that have the highest rates of gender equality. When a “gender researcher” is asked, “What is your scientific basis to say that biology plays no part in the two genders’ choice of work?” she responds, “My scientific basis? I have what you would call a theoretical basis. There’s no room for biology in there for me.” It exemplifies what this argument, in the end, boils down to: scientific truths that have been deemed controversial, and ideologues who don’t care to have a clear comprehension of what they’re arguing against, but who will stop at nothing to stifle opposing views... If they aren't willing to entertain how contradictory evidence might change their opinion, you know they are ideological. I have watched as these changes have infiltrated the sciences over the last several years and it’s been a pernicious process"

On Being an Arsehole - "One of the norms governing ordinary conversation is that to disagree too much is to be disagreeable. Just as socially competent individuals tend to encourage whoever’s speaking by nodding or giving other affirmative signals, so they also tend to agree with most of what is being said unless something really important is at stake... Agreeing is a way of preserving a bond between people, so you have to weigh the importance of the truth against the importance of that bond. Among friends the bonds are often strong enough to withstand a lot of disagreement, but it might still be necessary to avoid certain subjects, like politics or religion or the ethics of eating meat, in the interests of getting along. The trouble for philosophers is that they find disagreement to be one of life’s higher pleasures... the social role of philosophers is to help people think things through by confronting them with counterarguments to their current views. But since there’s no way to do that in a non-philosophical context without coming off as an arsehole, there’s no way for a philosopher to be a good citizen without having the courage to look like a bad one. Which brings us, with inexorable familiarity, to the figure of Socrates, who injected philosophical reason into the Athenian body politic and got sentenced to death for his troubles... while Socrates may have annoyed people, that was never his goal; he simply wanted to convince his fellow Athenians that they lacked wisdom and needed to care for their souls. The troll, by contrast, intentionally aims to generate “confusion and strife among a community who really agree,” whether for amusement or for profit or for partisan gain. Socrates was a philosopher, in other words; the troll is just an arsehole... disagreement is hardly incidental to philosophy: when people are forced to think seriously about an argument, they tend to realize that they disagree with each other far more than they had thought. Nor is the shattering of consensus always to be regretted from a political perspective. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” addressed to white clergymen who had asked him to reduce social conflict by limiting his battle for civil rights to the courts, Martin Luther King, Jr. invoked Socrates to support his argument that “constructive nonviolent tension … is necessary for growth.”"

What is the cost of not going metric? - "1. My experience with metrication in the building industry in Australia suggests that a well-planned and well-executed metrication program will increase gross profit by between 10 % and 15 % leading to a net profit increase between 15 % and 20 %.
2.   In General Motors when they began their metrication program (in the1970s) they created a group to monitor the costs so that they could claim them back later from the government. Then, when they discovered how much metrication was saving General Motors, they quietly disbanded the metric costs accounting group.
3.   The Confederation of British Industry was established in 1965 to act as a pressure group promoting the interests of the UK's larger businesses. When the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) surveyed its members about metrication in 1980 — after 15 years of British metrication — they found that
'... the extra cost of continuing to work in dual systems of measuring was around £5 000 million every year'.
For companies on which the survey was based, increased production costs were equal to 9% of the companies' gross profit and 14% of their net profit when compared to fully metric CBI companies. To put this into perspective: in 1980 £5 000 million was roughly half the cost of the entire UK National Health Service; in today's currency,5 000 M£ is equivalent to about 12 000 M£; and the net saving from1980 to 2006 is about 110 000 M£ – plus compounding interest.
With reference to the USA, if you take the cost estimates from items 1and 3 and make a bold, but not wild, assumption that it costs about 9% of gross turnover to use dual measurements (metric and U.S. Customary) then based on a 2005 estimated Gross Domestic Product for the USA of $12.735 trillion dollars it costs the USA about 1.15 trillion dollars per year to use dual measures; this is a bit more than $3850 per person per year.Remember, also, that metrication is a one-off expense, but not going metric is an on going expense that goes on year after year... Any discussion of metrication costs should begin with the observation that companies and industries that have made successful metrication transitions typically increase their gross profits by about 9 % and their net profits by about 14 %"

6 Reasons the Imperial System is better than the Metric System - "#6 – The Metric System Stinks for Everyday Life...
The imperial system is based on the way our brains work and based on what we actually use measurements for.
#5 – Our Brains Can’t Handle Certain Numbers...
The imperial system is designed to allow our brains to handle it easily. You never need to visualize more than 11 inches. With the metric system, you have to measure things with up to (and often exceeding) 100 centimeters. That’s extremely hard for our brains to comprehend.
#4 – Conversion Isn’t that Important
#3 – Visualizing is Important...
Human height has to be the most common use of feet/inches in everyday life! Yet, the metric system is HORRIBLE at measuring people. Outside of the U.S. people’s height is measured in centimeters! That’s insane! It takes a lot of work for the brain to be conditioned to the point where 133 centimeters can be visualized.For most things that we need to measure, a centimeter is too small and a meter is too big! But, feet and inches are naturally easy to visualize and they are the perfect size to measure most things we deal with.
#2 – The Imperial System is Based on Things that Make Sense...
What do we use measurement of temperature on probably 90+% of the time? The temperature of the air, right? We want to know how hot or cold it is outside, or what the thermostat is set on! This is why Fahrenheit makes sense. It’s based (intentionally or not) on the temperature we can tolerate. If it is higher than 100 or below 0 outside, stay inside! That’s the typical range of weather. In Celcius, that’s -17 to 37 degrees and it relies heavily on decimals because it’s a much larger range of temperature per degree...
#1 – It’s Easier to Learn"
This is amazing. Maybe something in the air in America makes them incapable of visualising metric measurements - the rest of the world has no issue with it. Or maybe American brains work differently
Unsurprisingly most of this site is religious

HLN Apologizes for Censoring Pro-Donald Trump Shirt (Video) - "HLN says it made a mistake by blurring out a pro-Donald Trump shirt that was worn by a man being interviewed by the network for heroically saving a baby.Steve Eckel, a retired New Jersey police officer, selected a shirt that said “Trump for President 2016” to wear during his TV appearance, and his message was seen loud and clear the first time the interview aired. However, when the segment was re-ared on the network, the Trump shirt was blurred out."

Do nonphysical punishments reduce antisocial behavior more than spanking? a comparison using the strongest previous causal evidence against spanking - "The apparently adverse effect of spanking on antisocial behavior was replicated using the original trichotomous covariate for initial antisocial behavior. A similar pattern of adverse effects was shown for grounding and psychotherapy and partially for the other two disciplinary tactics. All of these effects became non-significant after controlling for latent comprehensive measures of externalizing behavior problems.
These results are consistent with residual confounding, a statistical artifact that makes all corrective actions by parents and psychologists appear to increase children's antisocial behavior due to child effects on parents. Improved research methods are needed to discriminate between effective vs. counterproductive implementations of disciplinary tactics. How and when disciplinary tactics are used may be more important than which type of tactic is used."
According to "scientific research", you shouldn't discipline your child at all - since that leads to worse behavior

Virtue Signal: The Game of Social Justice - YouTube - "Virtue Signal: The Game of Social Justice is a card game parody of social justice activism.
Our Kickstarter just went live and you can look at it if you want to."

Make Men Men Again - Posts - "Ever Notice How the Media always asks Ivanka about her father's treatment of women but they never ask Chelsea That Question?"

Johnny Depp's dogs: their only crime was being born into a life of privilege - "On Thursday Joyce said Depp did not have the proper certification and permits required to bring dogs into Australia, and “snuck them in”. Now it’s a life-or-death race against the clock to get them offshore."
Apparently non-celebrities' pets are never ill-treated
The Guardian strikes again

John Marsden on the 'toxic' parenting pandemic: 'I’ve never seen this level of anxiety' - "In The Art of Growing Up, billed as a manifesto, Marsden writes of the problematic state of parents being in love with their children, rather than loving them. He warns of parents playing eternal advocate for children who may not be as gifted or guileless as adults may like to imagine. He despairs at “curling parents” – the Scandinavian term for those who furiously clear all paths for their children. “Toxic parenting,” he writes, is having serious impacts... Marsden says that this contemporary crop of teenagers is outperforming generations past in terms of academic achievement, political engagement and so on – but he is fearful about their emotional health, borne out by statistics on the prevalence of mental health issues among the young... “It’s ironic that in Australia, which has more free space than about anywhere in the world, children are put into school campuses which have recreation areas the size of a few basketball courts. And the rules are: you’re not allowed to run, you’re not allowed to touch other people, you’re not allowed to share food … you certainly can’t pick up a stick, you certainly can’t climb a tree.” He is incredulous."
On helicopter parenting