Good lord that guy needs to be forced to stick to an analogy ban.
Also,
Formerly a Slate columnist
Hating on that asshole at unfogged : an eternal golden braid.
For a moment, I was working on a joke about him molesting his own clone after an evening of slipping his clone roofies in his Irish car bombs, but then I checked, and I got the wrong creepy libertarian economist whom Brad DeLong makes fun of. So, sorry, Steven Landsburg! You may think Sandra Fluke is a whore, but at least you don't want to raise your own clone.
4: Oh, god. Are libertarians ever not creepy?
Oddly, he's also a prolific question answerer on Math Overflow. It sounds like he was an algebraic topologist before he was an economist.
Once I looked at the link and saw "Rochester professor" I knew it could be no other.
6: Yes, that's right. His degree is in math. I actually thought he had an academic appointment in mathematics, although I guess I never checked.
There is an entertaining conversation about this asshat over at Balloon Juice, in which I offer my take.
Not to defend this clown, but is he endorsing this, or coming up with a stupid thought experiment? Crooked Timber's had discussions of these, e.g., can you consent to a secretarial job where your contract says you have to be sexually available to your boss, but I wouldn't attribute them to the bloggers.
I take the view that not being able to see the difference between being raped and having photons cause you psychic distress (?) counts as a reductio of his position.
The kind of logic that makes people think they can take copies people's artistic work for free and without compensation (because it hasn't directly destroyed someone else's physical property) leads precisely to the notion that you can finger-bang an unwitting woman so long as she never knows about it.
Stop trying to push the Overton Window on intellectual property, Halford.
That was pretty impressive trolling, Halford.
The kind of logic that makes people think they can take copies people's artistic work for free and without compensation (because it hasn't directly destroyed someone else's physical property) leads precisely to the notion that you can finger-bang an unwitting woman so long as she never knows about it.
I wonder what the story of his field switch was... His work in math looks quite good (Duke is a very good journal). He's still behind me at MO though.
His appointment appears to be in economics.
Rochester's economics department is world-famous. It's one of the schools that gives "freshwater economics" its name. I don't know if this makes this fool's microphone any bigger.
It seems quite likely to me that this is a stupid thought experiment, but at some point even stupid thought experiments can go too far... Surely he could have found a less awful example that would still be awful enough to make the same point. Also he should have prefaced his discussion with "obviously the answer is that it's wrong, but I'm having trouble identifying the right account of why it's wrong." He's phrasing it as if he's not actually sure that it is wrong, just because he's not sure why it's wrong.
6 to 19 if anyone else is confused.
15- that's a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
I also hate when people make arguments based on "but what if you assume X, where X is impossible." It's just not possible to restrict to "cases where the perpetrators take precautions to ensure the victim never learns about it."
The kind of logic that makes people think they can take copies people's artistic work for free and without compensation (because it hasn't directly destroyed someone else's physical property) leads precisely to the notion that you can finger-bang an unwitting woman so long as she never knows about it.
The kind of logic that makes people think they can take copies of people's artistic work for free and without compensation (because it hasn't directly destroyed someone else's physical property) leads precisely to the notion that you can finger-bang an unwitting woman so long as she never knows about it.
I've improved on the original so now I actually am entitled to legal protection of the previous sentence.
The kind of logic that makes people think they can take copies people's artistic work for free and without compensation (because it hasn't directly destroyed someone else's physical property) leads precisely to the notion that you can finger-bang an unwitting woman so long as she never knows about it.
I've improved on the original so now I actually am entitled to legal protection of the previous sentence.
Can I get a whole novel?
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, 'Meh' really summed it up."
Very clever, you finger-banging rapists.
Also the same logic that leads people to oppose infinite copyright terms leads precisely to the notion that you can fingerbang corpses so long as they've been dead long enough.
10: the problem isn't that he proposes the thought experiment. Its that he dismisses normal answers to the thought experiment as "red herrings" so he can drive inexorably to the conclusion that rape really is ok.
Prae, what can we reap from the rape of a pear? A pre? Aper!
It's six kinds of fucking stupid. Given that he's in an economics department, if he wanted to be contrarian about "it's not a crime if nobody sees it," he could have said something about an embezzler who pays back what he stole before it is noticed but is later caught.
So it's okay to steal a million dollars from a billionaire as long as he's never going to miss it? Come on, freshwater economists - where's my contrarian Slate post on that...
Is it ok to steal a hundred million dollars from a billionaire who dies before he knows its missing, and has, as his sole heir, a child who never knew he was the heir of the billionaire? It's irresponsible not to.
I dunno: I kinda don't think that's an ok thought experiment to pose (full stop) because the terms of the question are so offensive and tie so close to the hideously patriarchal and disgusting history of laws around sex. I mean, it's like, legal philosophy has spent a fair bit of a time on these questions and one aspect of that has been the realisation that hey! sexism exists. Erasing that sexism the way this hypothetical does is pretty fucked up I reckon.
I'm kind of with 10 and 23: it's reasonable as a thought experiment, and raises potentially interesting questions. Which are answerable questions! I could see someone posing a similar question to a philosophy class: why is it wrong to rape someone if (s)he will never know about it?
Why he focuses solely on 'psychic' harms to the victim is unclear. No longer-term physical harms? Okay, I gather that's stipulated. Why he focuses on effects solely to the victim is egregiously, er, ill-framed. Don't economists like to talk about so-called externalities? Even if it's stipulated that the victim will never know about the rape, and it's further stipulated that nobody else will either, the rapists will. Their behavior will become that much more normalized. Etc.
I am *totally ignoring* the Farnsworth McCrankypants and Granola McMustardseed obnoxiousness.
You know, I had a teacher pose this question, essentially, to us in high school---and he skillfully got us to grow our "WTF, that's just wrong"s into actual, thoughtful articulations, and when we had all come to an articulation that we were happy with he said with a flourish, "and now I hope this *also* means none of you will ever take advantage of a drunk person in college!" I had completely, totally forgotten about this until just now. It seems like an exercise like that, in a small classroom, with students who are used to you punking them and realize that this is a cue for them to work harder, and with the necessary restatement of actual values at the end, had value. The funny thing is I never remember the exercise, but I always remember the short story which prompted it (an item in a collection of contemporary African literature) when I think about why it's so amazing to me that people are unclear on this point. Asshole economist, on the other hand, seems inclined to approach the issue in exactly the opposite way: in public, not to teach but to pontificate and shock and show off, with no foundational moral grounding. Asshole economist also seems to be one of those mathy/philsophy people who badly needs some lessons in actual experimental physics and biology. There's a REASON I have no reason to complain when a neighbor turns on a porchlight. I do have a reason to complain if they turn on an extremely bright spotlight or a terrawatt laser pointed at my house.
Thought Experiments that tend to validate rape culture are bullshit. In any way shape or form. In the smallest measure.
I'm kind of surprised this guy is at Rochester -- but this thing was on his personal blog, not presented in a course. Anyway, some of the people at Balloon Juice are declaring that he should be fired, and I can't agree.
I didn't say that it was reasonable, but I wasn't clear on what he was endorsing. It takes a very delicate touch to propose a case like that.
If a tree falls in the woods and one of the branches penetrates someone's vagina, did it make a sound?
It takes a very delicate touch to propose a case like that.
Phrasing?
Landsburg does not seem to have an invisible touch, yeah.
He reaches in, and grabs right hold of your... ok, enough of that.
46: Yeah, "reasonable" applies only to the cleaned-up version (i.e. "Why is it wrong to rape someone if (s)he will never know about it?") As numerous people have said, the presentation of this thought experiment is unacceptable.
It's too bad, in a way, because it reminds me of questions like "Why is it wrong to engage in cannibalism?"
In any event, Landsburg seems to be a hack of some sort.
I mean, it almost seems like an April Fool's joke. But everyone knows you can't joke about rape, for god's sake.
The Armchair Economist was the first economics book I ever read, and I found it highly entertaining. That said, Landsburg does have an irritating habit of always trying to be as controversial as possible.
43: Asshole economist also seems to be one of those mathy/philsophy people who badly needs some lessons in actual experimental physics and biology. There's a REASON I have no reason to complain when a neighbor turns on a porchlight.
I object! Philosophy types aren't particularly prone to think one has reason to complain of bodily invasion from the photons emanating from a neighbor's porch light.
I find it odd that he's so quick to dismiss his first two scenarios (but admittedly not as odd as the idea that the three scenarios are comparable in the first place) as bases for policy decisions. The attitude toward pornography in the first one may not be very influential in policymaking now, but it certainly was until fairly recently, and the attitude toward wilderness in the second is hugely influential and has been for a long time.
Jeez, I just read the actual linked article even though I knew it would not make me happy and he LITERALLY NAMES STEUBENVILLE?
... Where the rapists weren't doing anythig to make sure the victim would have no physical aftereffects, and the social aftereffects were guaranteed? That isn't even the example he seems to be trying to make.
Given that he's in an economics department, if he wanted to be contrarian about "it's not a crime if nobody sees it," he could have said something about an embezzler who pays back what he stole before it is noticed but is later caught.
Sometimes I fantasize about doing a very simple graph of a representative set of thought experiments, to illustrate how very unpleasant it is that rape/various violations of bodily integrity represent such a disproportionate number of them. I honestly cannot believe this is so widespread, and yet I keep being presented with evidence that it is.
Given Landsburg's history, I don't see any reason to assume this was an innocent thought experiment that happened to involve an unfortunate choice of examples rather than a deliberate attempt to use the Steubenville case as a hook to write something "daring" and "provocative."
58: I'd be interested to see that graph. Where would you be getting your representative examples from?
I don't see any reason to assume this was an innocent thought experiment
Not unless he's stupid.
Right. I think the only plausible options here are that he's an idiot or an asshole, and all the other available evidence points toward asshole.
I questioned my moral intuitions about this and they all said, unanimously, they think he's an asshole and an idiot.
Why on earth is an economist trying to do amateur hour legal theory anyway? Like, what academic purpose does this fulfill?
This was a post on his personal blog. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with his academic position. Also, this is the sort of thing economists try to do all the time.
Right. It's just mysterious to me why he would bother, since it was on his personal blog, and he's not writing for Slate any more, and presumably he doesn't need web traffic. I guess he likes being a minor celebrity for a day. Or it really is possible that he doesn't see the difference between scenarios 1, 2, and 3, but he's, like, trying hard to figure it out.
A master troll, it would seem.
A master troll, it would seem.
A professional, even.
65 -- I guess it's part of the traditional "economist tries to be as offensive as possible" game. Even more assholish, I suppose.
he's not writing for Slate any more
I had a vague sense that Slate was getting (a little) better---now I know why.
Also, this is the sort of thing economists try to do all the time.
IT IS ??! I find myself somewhat horrified if that's true.
What, so, they're trying to game out a plain, flat utilitarian view of ... morality? Not just of human behavior.
I'm pretty sure -- although not positive -- that Landsburg is the guy they hired after Krugman left Slate for the NY Times.
I had a comment to post but then I realized the post title pwned me.
Krugman used to be on Slate? I did not know that.
55: sorry! you're right. :-)
44: Hmm. I feel like really good literature, by its nature, is going to sometimes bring up thought experiments that *involve* rape culture, inasmuch as rape culture is a prevalent part of real culture. In my teacher's defense, he made it pretty clear that he was punking us with the "thought experiment" and that the goal was for us to articulate our opposition rather than merely shriek it, and moreover, this was prompted by short story that included a date rape in it, and forcing us to talk about why it was wrong made a real impression on all of us, and especially on some of the boys more inclined-to-be-a-douche. When I think back to the boys who had strong douche leanings in, say, 8th and 9th grade but seemed to have become much nicer by 12th grade and become upstanding gentlemen by the time we reunited after college, at least two of them were in this class. And as a naive girl who was pretty sheltered and wide eyed, I think it was helpful for me to articulate what was not acceptable to me very clearly in what was a pretty safe and nurturing space, so that years later I didn't have to freak out about it on the fly. My point was, there can be good contexts to play, very briefly, the "eat babies" card---and this was not one of them.
What, so, they're trying to game out a plain, flat utilitarian view of ... morality? Not just of human behavior.
Well, they probably wouldn't agree that there's much of a distinction there. But they do have a tendency to try to take over any and all other disciplines they can.
One of his hobbies is Aerial Silk. Neither here nor there.
73: At the bottom of the page linked in 76 is one video titled "I Bet You Paul Krugman Can't Do This."
But they do have a tendency to try to take over any and all other disciplines they can.
Like Aerial Silk!
[\archer]
Impressive.
Like, what academic purpose does this fulfill?
Disciplinary hegemony? Didn't you know that there's no field that can't be improved by the disciplined mind of an economist?
It's sort of like physicists who think every other scientific discipline must be pretty easy, but for the social sciences and humanities.
But they do have a tendency to try to take over any and all other disciplines they can.
That does seem to be true. You'd think they'd become embarrassed at some point.
You'd think they'd become embarrassed at some point.
I think the sort of person who would be embarrassed by this is unlikely to become an economist.
The videos in 76 are admittedly pretty impressive.
To trivialize your competitors, see them defunded before you, and to hear the lamentations of their grad students!
The utility of the self respect, self reflection and social graces inherent in embarrassment is probably harder for them to compute, and therefore acknowledge, than the cold hard cash of getting a grant for a study you're totally unqualified for, or lots of book deals and speaking gigs. I'm not under the impression that world of Big Ideas cademics selects highly for self reflection or intellectual humility, and economics is sort of the mother of Big Ideas academia. (It's so hung up on its first big idea it can't ever fully come to grips with empirical contradictions.) There are a lot of great economists out there who are both very empirical and very self-reflective, obviously, it just seems like a field with a culture that's particularly tolerant of the weeds of a certain kind of hubris. They're sort of like theoretical physicists permanently set free from the need for eventual experimental validation. String theorists also often think they attack any problem better.
String theorists also often think they attack any problem better.
Just like everyone who has ever commented on the internet thinks they can judge the validity of string theory.
The utility of the self respect, self reflection and social graces inherent in embarrassment is counter-productive from the perspective of rational, if careerist, self-interest.
Hey, I only think I can judge the validity of string theory because I totally know this one physicist online who's knocked it, so obviously it must be BS, right?
so obviously it must be BS
Apparently, it's not even wrong.
With BS, it could be right or wrong, but the BSer doesn't care which.
76, 82: The videos in 76 are a nice thing for people to try to do: I associate that stuff with total hippies. You see incredible aerial silk work at hippie gatherings (Rainbow). I'm surprised that Landsburg is so snotty about Granola McMustardsee, in light of this.
People say red meat'll kill ya. That's bullshit: green meat hairy frankfurters'll kill ya.
What's "big ideas academia"?
I was about to make some comment about how long it will take for Gladwell to start raking in honorary degrees, but apparently he already has done.
Meh, no one thinks honorary degrees mean anything, do they? I mean, you can't put it on your bio/resume/CV/book jacket flap as though you actually earned the degree, can you? It's more like having the magic princess fairy ding you on the head with her sparkly wand.
They mean honor, which is something.
If by "magic princess fairy" you mean "riot cop" and "sparkly wand" you mean "Monadnock PR24 side-handle polycarbonate baton", then, yes.
98: What was it the Spartan women said? "Come back carrying your honorary degree, or on it"
What was it the Spartan women said?
"Come home with your shield. There's a $50 deposit on it."
98: I feel the urge to argue (that honorary degrees are bestowed in such a profligate way that they don't confer much of honor), but that probably means I should go to bed.
101 is funny.
I was wondering if Gladwell listed his honorary degrees on his bio page, and it turns out he doesn't, although the agency that represents him for speaking engagements does list his honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Toronto under his credentials. His own site does, however, include a lengthy disclosure statement addressing his massive conflicts of interest.
He only has to produce forty to fifty thousand words a year for the NYer? Shit, I could do that.
Shit, I could do that.
And it would all be one sentence.
105 written with love and respect. F'reals.
I'm pretty sure the New Yorker still pays its writers truly impressive sums: either $2/word (which, before the crash was the Conde Nast rate -- sigh (for what once was)) or maybe even $5/word. Either way, neb's sentence is going to be worth low six figures. Not bad!
||
Mmmm, beer. Take that, Passover!
|>
108 explains why so many New Yorker articles include so much description of clothes.
It also explains why they keep so many of them paywalled on their website.
93:TED talks are nothing. I mean people whose speaking fee dwarfs their already inflated salary.
88: in my case it's approximately 7, all offline.
A similar but less unpleasant scenario appears in one of Iain Banks' books - one character wonders if one should legalise murder as long as the victim doesn't suffer, because surely it's suffering that's wrong?
What about the effects on their families. another asks?
No one pretends we prosecute murderers because of the effects on their families.
Ah, says the other character, but if everyone knew that you could be killed with impunity, any time, then everyone would suffer anxiety. Whoever you killed, they'd still have suffered.
The character who wants to legalise murder is, obvs, the sociopathic villain.
A commenter chez John Cole says there's a petition going round to censure this bastard, but advises against signing it on the grounds that people who know him say he would take being censured as a major moral victory and bang on about his first amendment right being attacked forever.
A commenter at LGM notes that Rochester was notably more forward in defending Dickface's right to free speech in advocating rape than URI was in defending Loomis' rhetoric about heads on sticks.
I've said this before, but there are a lot of economists around who think they have discovered a fascinating paradox when actually they're just not teaching very well.
I presume Landsburg has no moral objection to digging up corpses of women. As long as no relatives of the "bride" ever find out, where's the possible harm?
116. Indeed. If somebody wants to fuck my corpse when I'm dead, I'll be totally cool with that, what with being dead and all. I just don't want to meet them while I'm still alive.
113. I was sorry to learn that Iain Banks is on the way out.
117: In the linked article, nobody appears to be having sex with the corpse.
114: I noticed that. URI behaved like a bunch of little cowards over a tweet using a common metaphor.
The post title does say it all. Also, fact that he can't tell the difference between a photon and a penis doesn't speak well of his penis. Or his critical thinking skills.
I am but mad north by northwest
When the wind is southerly I can tell a photon from a penis.
When quickly skimming the thread I misread 109 as bear, momentarily thought that was odd, but then thought "hey, Alaska."
In other "libertarian asshole is asshole" news, Kleiman's resident troll turns out to be a comically awful parent: http://www.samefacts.com/2013/03/woolgathering/quote-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-150261
It sucks when religious law restricts you to eating unleavened bear.
OT & interesting: "Modem and Taboo marks our [the Baffler's] first issue with contributing editors Susan Faludi and David Graeber"
||
Psssst, no one tell bob, or we'll never hear the end of it.
|>
125: God, I fucking hate that guy. He used to infest CT until he got banned.
This is probably the right thread to note that Lauren Chief Elk is worth following on Twitter.
I went to UR, actually, but if it helps, I took almost no math classes. I guess I got out lucky.
but advises against signing it on the grounds that people who know him say he would take being censured as a major moral victory and bang on about his first amendment right being attacked forever.
This.
But God, I am so sick of this dynamic.
Sociopathic (and pathologically stupid) hatemongerer puts forth vile and anti-social (perhaps racist; perhaps misogynist; perhaps anti-immigrant; perhaps a combination of some or all of the above) claims (which rarely if ever rise to the level of argument) under cover of "just pushing the boundaries of received opinion as a contrarian thought experiment, because: liberty of thought! liberty of expression!" and then, when said sociopath's idiocy meets with a predictably outraged response: "Well, see? It's just like I told you. Liberalism = Stalinism. Feminism = Feminazi thought police."
Thought experiment: Steven Landsburg on a previously uninhabited Lord of the Flies-type island. Would he be Piggy? or would he be The Beast?
Marcotte brings the snark on Landsburg.
(I think she kind of misinterprets his Alaska example, but that's okay because I think that example was kind of dumb and ill-informed to start with.)