Kieran Healy

Philosophy TV hosts a conversation between Ned Hall and L.A. Paul on the counterfactual analysis of causation. It is, of course, must-see TV on any plausible account of necessity.

In the interests of full disclosure, something, something, something. I’ll think of it in a minute.

I have an interview over at The Setup, for those of you who are interested in cursor-gazing.

The application you’ve been looking for:

While some so-called environments that are less free of distraction may display one, three, or even more lines of text—all at the same time—we understand that if you could only achieve the theoretical removal of all theoretical distractions, you would finally be able to write something. And we want ū— to help you almost do that.

I think what makes Merlin Mann compelling is that he knows he has something important to get across about work and creativity, but what he has to convey is a kind of non-demonstrative non-formula, and trying to say it more than once puts him in the same business niche as a legion of people he rightfully despises. He is quite aware of this, so you see him constantly tuning his anti-pitch and sharpening his anti-advice to make sure he doesn’t find himself, late one night, naked on a bed in a motel in Omaha watching himself deliver an infomercial. It’s the problem of trying to teach something that needs to be shown, or of trying to theorize a craft — the way that critics of postwar critical theory used to say that the trouble with those guys was that they had succeeded in unifying theory and practice, in theory. His advice is excellent, but the act of delivering and listening to it subverts the point of the message, or is an example of the problem that needs solving.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to tweak my citation format. I’ve nearly gotten it just right.

Last month, you may recall, the fascist octopus made a real-life appearance during the world cup. And this month, Ayatollah Ali Khameni says more or less directly that if you want to dance, you can’t be part of their revolution.

I thought that I’d never been asked to join JournoList because, unlike some people around here, I am not a member of the elite liberal-media vanguard. As it turns out, though, I was not asked to join because, truth be told, I am quite a handsome man. I take no pride in this fact, believe me, but was reminded of it when Twitter threw up this piece of genius, which argues that the liberal JouroListers were all pig-ugly losers who had been on “the business end of a fugly stick beat-down”. It brought a tear to my eye, reminiscent as it was of the good old days of blogging, when such arguments were very much to the fore. The real reason I bring this up, though, was to show you a screenshot of the piece:

Who among us has not marveled at DaVinci’s David while strolling through the streets of Venice? It’s one of the many gifts of Western Civilization that a solid conservative education teaches us about.

So, the World Cup’s most famous precognitive German cephalopod, Paul, has predicted from his tank in Oberhausen that Spain will beat Holland on Sunday, leading to various death threats, offers of state protection from the Spanish government, and a proliferation of calamari recipes circulating amongst my Dutch friends on FaceBook. All of which means, surely, that it really is true that some people are hoping that the fascist octopus has sung its swan song.

I’ll get my coat.

July 1962, the U.S. detonates a hydrogen bomb 250 miles over Hawaii. “N-Blast Tonight May Be Dazzling: Good View Likely,” said the Honolulu Advertiser. More details here.

Maybe I should have a lie down.

No, not that lot, obviously. (I hope Rooney put a downpayment on that caravan.) But even I have started to feel just very slightly bad about the recriminations and self-hatred engulfing English football writers at present. So here, as evidence of the sort of thing England is really quite good at, is The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

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Morning and Afternoon Tea are the twin social hubs of Australian academia, so it’s only natural that a disturbing tearoom phenomenon would be noticed, investigated and subsequently published in the British Medical Journal: The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute.

Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom. Design Longitudinal cohort study. Setting Research institute employing about 140 people. Subjects 70 discreetly numbered teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute and observed weekly over five months. Main outcome measures Incidence of teaspoon loss per 100 teaspoon years and teaspoon half life.

Results 56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared during the study. The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days. The half life of teaspoons in communal tearooms (42 days) was significantly shorter than for those in rooms associated with particular research groups (77 days). The rate of loss was not influenced by the teaspoons’ value. The incidence of teaspoon loss over the period of observation was 360.62 per 100 teaspoon years. At this rate, an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons.

Conclusions The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.

Follow the link and scroll down for the long correspondence that followed. Notable contributions include “Teabags and forks are confounding factors“, “Communism and Biros“, “Global Implications, Impending Catastrophe“, and “Could teaspoons be the larvae of some unrecognised adult?”

This should really be a comment to Henry’s post, but I have the keys to this car, so I’m going to drive it, too. We have Zuckerberg’s remark:

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The New York Times had a Room for Debate roundtable on presumed consent and organ donation the other day. I wrote a short piece for it. There’s already been some follow-up from Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution. This morning I came across Nurse & Lawyer, who have a dialog on the topic. During their conversation, they say the following about my contribution:

Nurse: One of the panelists, Kieran Healy from Duke, makes what amounts to a ridiculous argument that this law will rekindle fears that surgeons are standing over sick people with hack saws, waiting to harvest their organs, and that they might just take them even if you’re not truly gone. Um. . . won’t those people just sign the opt-out if they are truly so concerned? As Arthur Caplan from Penn (woot woot) points out, most people do want to be donors. Healy also makes no suggestions. Maybe he’s against organ donation all together?

Lawyer: And what’s the source of the idea that doctors have more interest in one patient than in another? What interest does the doctor personally have in harvesting organs, unless the patient is his own kid? I agree. Opt out if that’s your nightmare.

I am not against organ donation. Feel free to read any of what I’ve written on this topic. And my argument is not ridiculous.

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The other week I wrote about a report that a philosopher accepted to an NEH Summer Institute overseas “been given 12 hours to ‘demonstrate’ that she has full-time childcare arrangements for her son for the month of July that ‘are to the [completely unspecified] satisfaction’ of the Institute directors; if she fails to meet this requirement, she has been told her accceptance in the program will be withdrawn.” At the time, it seemed clear that there was no way an NEH-funded operation should be doing this and that, while there was some slim possibility of an explanation that made the whole episode seem reasonable, the Institute director or directors were very much more likely to be completely out of line in making such a demand. Well, guess what?

The National Endowment for the Humanities has apologized to a grant recipient who was told by the director of an NEH-financed seminar in Europe that she had 12 hours to demonstrate that she had adequate child care arrangements in place for her son or she would lose her spot. … An NEH spokeswoman, via e-mail, said Tuesday that the investigation by the endowment determined that the report “was, unfortunately, true. NEH has accepted full responsibility and apologized to the professor involved. We believe we are in the process of resolving the issue to her satisfaction. We have assured her that she is welcome to attend the institute to which she applied and, at her request, we have also extended the deadline to make it possible for her to apply for another seminar if she so chooses.” The spokeswoman added: “Asking an applicant to provide information regarding child care was inappropriate and should have had no bearing on the selection process. Qualified applicants who tell the NEH that they will participate full time in our programs should be taken at their word. We erred and are determined that it will not happen again.”

Good.