Blogging

I missed this earlier this week. No more MaxSpeak as of September 3rd. Boo. Max’s posts felt like a very pure form of blogging: his prose style had a way of temporarily wiring you in to his thought process as it was happening. Not many people can convey that feeling well, either because there’s too much post-processing (and it all gets polished up) or there’s not enough (and its incomprehensible). Max hit the sweet-spot a lot more than most. The results weren’t pretty, but they were usually dynamic, direct and right on target more often than not. Soon, the interwebs will be just a bit more boring.

It seems like a reminder of our “comments policy”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/07/26/ct-policy-on-trolls-sockpuppets-and-other-pests/ is in order. (Maybe we should have a permanent link to it from the front page.)

Megan McArdle has a new blog over at the Atlantic, and, browsing through it I notice that “she comments”:http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/the_real_and_the_ideal.php on “John Q.’s recent remarks about Drezner”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/08/21/a-perpetual-declaration-of-war/, foreign policy etc. The following caught my eye:

bq. Many economists (not all) might agree that it would be lovely if we lived in an Edenic utopia in which everyone did the best for society without thought of themselves. But almost all economists recognize that self-interest is a powerful force that must be dealt with, and therefore that economic policy must be designed on the assumption that people will try to maximise their own good, rather than society’s. Similarly, foreign policy assumes that states will act in their own interest, and try to design a foreign policy that works within that constraint.

I have three reactions to this. The first is that McArdle’s description of the possible motivations for individuals is just absurdly simplistic: people either maximise their own good, or society’s, and since the latter suggestion is silly, we must work on the basis that of the former. Huh? How about intermediate possibilities, such as that people have a good that they try to realize, but that they also recognize constraints on the reasonable pursuit of that good (such as that other people have lives to live, have rights etc.). The second is that her justification for the self-interest assumption for states isn’t a simple consequence of her self-interest assumption for individuals. If individuals were straightforward maximizers of their own good then states would act in ways that reflect the self-interested action of the most powerful individuals within them rather than the (long term? short term?) interest of the state itself. Maybe there would be convergence, and maybe not, but McCardle isn’t entitled to the conclusion that states act self-interestedly on the basis that individuals do (if they do). My third reaction is that, as “Bruno Frey”:http://www.iew.unizh.ch/home/frey/ and others have argued, the self-interest assumption turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Design a system on the assumption that people will act to maximize their individual good and they will act on that assumption. They’d be crazy not to: why hold back from the trough when the rules of the game assume that everyone will be pushing their own snout forward? But this proves nothing fundamental. A system designed on the basis of a certain level of solidaristic or community spirit may well foster such attitudes, especially if we have effective mechanisms for punishing those who act greedily or selfishly.

Via a slightly ticked-off Max Sawicky comes this ranking of economics blogs, in which (like MaxSpeak) Crooked Timber does not feature. The author remarks,

bq. Only genuine economics blogs are included. … [and later, in a comment] By genuine, I meant not spam blogs or useless stock tips blogs, and not blogs that claim to be about economics but are really about politics (there are quite a few of those).

Usually, in the U.S., the key test of whether one is a real economist is a simple credential: you must have a Ph.D in economics. Choice of substantive topic certainly can’t be the discriminating factor, as is made clear by the position of the Freakonomics blog at the very top of the list. But by my count, we have at least as many Economics Ph.Ds writing here at CT as several of the blogs on this Top 10 list, and more than at least one of them.

If I were a cynical person — which of course I am not — I might say that the dividing line between what’s “really” economics and what’s “really” politics is itself something of a political question. (As Abba Lerner remarked, an economic transaction is a solved political problem.) Perhaps we often see instances where _I_ hold policy positions informed by scientific economics whereas _you_ are a mere advocate, pushing a political line. There was a pretty entertaining example on Mankiw’s blog the other week.

Anyway, on the measure used, Crooked Timber would be fourth on the list, if only the likes of John or Daniel or Ingrid (whose Ph.D was supervised by someone or other) could be thought of as having an informed point of view about economics.

_Update_: Aaron, the list compiler, comments below and is maybe a bit nicer than this somewhat irritable post merits. I think it was the “genuine economics” comment that set me off.

A bunch of rightwing blogs are getting excited yet again about Scott Beauchamp. For those who haven’t followed the story, Beauchamp is a US soldier in Iraq who wrote some pieces for The New Republic which, among other things, described bad behaviour by US troops, such as deliberately running over stray dogs and taunting a woman disfigured by burns. The pro-war lobby has worn out dozens of keyboards seeking to discredit Beauchamp, his story and the very possibility of running over dogs in an armoured vehicle. Now it appears the US Army has denied Beauchamp’s claims. (To reiterate, I don’t care about or intend to debate, or even to link to, the details of this case).

Some might suggest that the truth or falsity of these stories doesn’t matter much in the light of this. or this or this or this, to list just a few of the disasters have taken place while the wingnutosphere has been defending the US Army’s commitment to animal welfare.

But that would miss the point. What matters, in the world of rightwing postmodernism, is not reality but the way the media reports it. One bogus memo is enough to turn George W. Bush from a scrimshank who used his family connections to line up a cushy billet to avoid war service, and then shirked even that, into a war hero.

So, lets stick to media criticism. Not long after Beauchamp’s piece ran in a single magazine of modest circulation, all the major MSM outlets ran a story by well known critics of the war, Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack whose intrepid journey through recently pacified parts of Iraq had convinced them that the surge was working. Here, for example, is their piece in the NY Times.

[click to continue…]

All this harshing on Michael Ignatieff for his ponderous, air-filled essay on Iraq reminded me of a characterization of him I’d read a few years ago. I couldn’t remember the source, only the phrase. But Google remembers:

bq. The staff of BBC2’s late Late Show used to have a little joke about one of its presenters, Michael Ignatieff. Everyone knows what an idiot savant is: someone who appears to be an idiot but in fact is a wise man. Well, Ignatieff was a savant idiot.

Yes, I know that’s not really what an idiot savant is, but you get the point.

Autogoogling, as you do, you find out interesting things about namesakes around the world. My most prominent namesake is Canadian terrorism expert Tom Quiggin, who is a good source of information on quite a few topics. Now, Technorati tells me, he has a blog His opening posts seem very promising

Why Bush Has it Wrong
Intelligence and the Moral High Ground

Dean Barnett, after digging up ranty stuff in a Kos comment box, then noting the post itself was mild-mannered:

With the Yearly Kos about to convene, I think it’s important to note what the Daily Kos is and, more importantly, what it isn’t. Markos Moulitsas and his front-pagers had nothing to do with these comments. He and they have grown much too smart to engage in such public displays of idiocy. But Markos doesn’t lead the Daily Kos; he sits atop it.

An interesting standard: blogs are to be judged exclusively by their comment boxes.

This seems like a useful snippet for someone to have, for talking points purposes, if they are getting interviewed about the whole ‘Kos Hate Site’ thing. Prominent right-wing blogger admits Kos postings are, on the whole, even-keeled – as befits the site’s prominence. After all, surely right-wing blogs generate their share of angry comment box froth? Barnett is judicious, possibly to a fault:

the right has its sliver of kooks and misfits who jam every event into a one-size-fits-all-events ideological prism

Ahem.

Tyler Cowen has a “secret” blog and he made a deal with his readers: pre-order my book and I’ll send you the URL. Don’t link to it, and don’t tell anyone. Inevitably, now, we have this request from this guy:

bq. DO YOU KNOW THE URL OF TYLER COWEN’S SECRET BLOG?? IF YES, PLEASE, SEND ITS URL TO CHRIS MASSE. ANONYMITY GUARANTEED. AND I PROMISE I WON’T PUBLISH IT.

YES I KNOW HE’S SHOUTING. I haven’t pre-ordered Tyler’s book, because pre-ordering things is for suckers. Nor have I been in touch with Tyler. So he didn’t send me the link. But I read Tyler’s secret blog, because it is trivially easy to find it using Google. It took me about 90 seconds when I looked for it. So now I have an interesting dilemma.

[click to continue…]

The rightwing blogosphere, with assistance from the usual MSM types like Howard Kurtz has spent the last week or two trying to discredit a soldier, Scott Beauchamp, who wrote a “Baghdad Diary” for The New Republic, which included various examples of casually callous behavior on the part of US soldiers (nothing on the scale of Abu Ghraib or other proven cases).

For the wingers, this is a continuous pattern. Before this, there was a flap about a report that failures by contractors were resulting in troops in the field not getting adequate food. Before that, it was the Jamil Hussein case, a months-long brawl with AP arising from a report by a stringer about attacks on mosques. Before that, it was reports from Lebanon of ambulances being hit by Israeli fire. And so on.[fn1] There’s too much of this to try and give comprehensive coverage, and I’m not interested in debating the details, but a search on Instapundit will usually get you started.

The Beauchamp case fits the general pattern pretty well. First, the wingers claimed that the Diary was a fabrication and that “Scott Thomas” was the creation of a writer who’d never been near Iraq. Then, when it became evident he was a real person, they rolled out the slime machine to discredit him. Then they engaged in amateur forensics to discredit particular items in his account (acres of screen space have been devoted to the question of whether the driver of a Bradley fighting vehicle can run over a dog). Then they got to the central point – true or false, material like this is bad for the cause and shouldn’t be printed.

All of this, of course, is an attempt to replicate the one undoubted triumph of the blogospheric right, Rathergate. For those who somehow missed it, Dan Rather and CBS fooled by a bogus memo purportedly from Bush’s National Guard commander, and Rather eventually lost his job as a result.

As I said, I’m not interested in, and won’t debate, the details of these stories. The main question is: How anyone could imagine that this kind of exercise can have any value?

[click to continue…]

Hundreds of blogs are being updated every half hour right now as part of Blogathon 2007. I recommend checking out these sites, their authors are working hard not only to bring you interesting content, but also to raise money for various important charities. There is a list of participating blogs here. The topics vary with some blogs focusing on a theme while others blogging in a more freestyle manner. There’s a blog looking at names from children’s literature and collecting donations for First Book, which disseminates books to children from underprivileged backgrounds. (Another participating blog collecting for this charity is Potterthon, perhaps of interest to some here.) This Book is For You is collecting donations for the American Library Association Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund and looking at related topics throughout the 24 hour period. A la cuisine is posting some very intriguing recipes (with pics) and collecting funds for the National Kidney Foundation in honor of the author’s good friend who just received a kidney transplant three days ago. Some people are running contests such as this man in Texas blogging from atop a forklift. His charity is Midland Fair Havens, which offers support to women with pre-teen children who are homeless or who are in danger of becoming homeless. The contests at hello, Yoshi! have readers/listeners guessing movie quotes (with the possibility of winning prizes). The choice of charity there is Susan G. Komen for the Cure. I could go on and on, there are lots of dedicated folks participating in this today.

I took part in Blogathon four years ago and it was a fun unique experience. If I wasn’t in the midst of moving and travelling right now I would have posted a note earlier about all this to encourage more people to participate. When I did it in 2003, I decided to do it in the grad student computer cluster in the Princeton Soc Dept so people could stop by easily and say hi. Over a dozen friends kept me company (and brought me food!) throughout the event. And I got to raise some money for Planned Parenthood from forty generous contributors.

It’s not that easy to stay up for 24 hours straight and blog in a coherent manner. Putting up a post every half hour means constant work. So show some of these folks some appreciation by reading their blogs and if inspired, consider donating to some of these very worthy charities.

From time to time, I think of winnowing down and revising my published work into a collection of essays. And then kicks in the memory of having a player in literary publishing in New York (fully “made,” as they say in the Mafia) tell me, in the tone one would use in explaining things to a child, “You can’t publish a book of essays until you are somebody.”

Well, now I’ll keep in mind the example of John Emerson, whose writings appear at Idiocentrism and who regularly intervenes in the CT comments section. He has launched the Éditions le Real imprint with a book of his poems and a volume of essays.
[click to continue…]

I was going to pass over this, but I am a shallow person. Fresh from “schooling me”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/07/15/dept-of-being-savaged-by-a-dead-sheep/ on the treatment of outliers, Megan McArdle has expanded her ambition and now “takes Cosma Shalizi to task”:http://www.janegalt.net/archives/009901.html for his “bizarrely beside the point” “views”:http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/495.html on the heritability of IQ, the statistical estimation and interpretation of _g_, and his failure to understand the analytical methods of “the serious IQ guys.” Megan may not be aware that I “taught”:http://www.stat.cmu.edu/~cshalizi/754/ “Cosma”:http://www.santafe.edu/profiles/?pid=236 “what little”:http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/prob-notes/ he “knows”:http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/research/ about statistics. He’s also much nicer than me. So she’ll have no trouble disposing of him.

_Update_: Yeah, on second thoughts I should have just passed over this.

Maybe not a resume, as such; but uncannily familiar even so.

via Chris Hayes