Dean's World — Defending the liberal tradition in history, science, and philosophy.
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Dean's World
Defending the liberal tradition in history, science, and philosophy.
the curious case of Conrad Murray
by Aziz Poonawalla on October 6, 2011
in Blogs and Blogging
My friend Aamer is a practicing cardiologist in LA and he has started blogging on his own site, courtesy of wordpress.com. One of his first posts is about the Conrad Murray case – Dr. Murray is being prosecuted for manslaughter in the death of his patient, Michael Jackson, and Aamer argues quite convincingly that the case should not be a criminal case but rather a simple malpractice one.
Aamer also shares his perspective on the “job creator” debate – in a nutshell, he IS one, but a reluctant one!
In general, check out his thoughts. Well worth reading for a non-cookie-cutter view of politics and issues. He’s a great writer and an incisive intellect, even if he still insists on his Huntsman for President nonsense!
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RIP, Steve Jobs
by Dean Esmay on October 6, 2011
in History,technology
Holy ….! Steve Jobs has died.
I don’t even know what to say. I was not an admirer, exactly, yet his influence on my life, and the world, is simply not possible to calculate.
I’ll have to collect my thoughts and figure out if there’s anything more to say besides: “Wow. Just wow.”
*Update*: This commencement address he gave at Stanford in 2005 gives the flavor of the man’s accomplishments and the better side of his personality.
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Thin-Client World?
by Dean Esmay on October 5, 2011
in technology
I suppose it marks me as old to note that the big buzz in the 1990s was the so-called “thin client,” which (back in the late ’90s) was supposed to supplant the traditional desktop PC, with a very bare-bones computer that depended on a server to do most of its work. I remember being extremely skeptical at the time. My skepticism was justified; it never worked out.
When “the cloud” came along I at first thought the same exact thing, but the more I read about it, analyzed it, and looked at the trends, the more convinced I became that no, this probably is the future.
Although I have been repeatedly accused of saying the Personal Computer would “die,” I have never said that and do not believe it. What I do believe is that it’s in the process of disappearing, and that this is an exponential trend. What I’ve said for the last few years is the trend has started, and that some time around the end of the decade (the decade that ended with 2010) that would start becoming more apparent to more people. Well, perhaps I’m still a little ahead of the curve on that, but it’s increasingly apparent to me that more and more people are showing a preference for not having to know where their data is, they just want it to be there for them wherever they are. The increase in use of personal devices–smart phones and tablets–is now undeniable. The number of people who actually need a PC is slowly dwindling, although the number who use one is probably dwindling even slower.
Still, I see that even the Open Source companies are starting to adopt the technology. As much as I love open source, I ruefully note that when it comes to the cutting edge, they’re usually a few steps behind. But I think when even that community is starting to realize “hey I really would like my data in a cloud,” it means the changes are accelerating.
I suspect that by the time this decade’s out, the Personal Computer as we know it will be much like it was when we first got to know it back in the 1980s: something that scientists, engineers, geeks, gamers, and specialists use. Everyone else will be on their phones, tablets, and God knows what else. And that today’s children will grow up rather amused at the notion that your personal data storage is actually in some physical thing you have to be aware of, rather than just generally available wherever they go.
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Man I Love This Guy
by Dean Esmay on October 3, 2011
in Science
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The European Dream
by Dean Esmay on October 1, 2011
in Best Discussions,Economics,History,Politics
So, uhm, it sorta looks like the Euroskeptics were right after all, although not necessarily always for the same reasons.
I was always skeptical of the project because it was based on the wrong premise, that great wars were caused by economic and ethnic tensions and that unifying Europe would end centuries of warfare. But that’s not what caused Europe’s centuries of war, nor was ending those things what caused them to stop. And while you can unify people of varying language and ethnicity (Switzerland and India being living proof) it’s always a dicey proposition (see Pakistan and Bangladesh’s former status as part of each other and India for living proof).
The European project had no sound theory underlying it and no strong reason for doing it except a vague ideology with vague goals. Had it just been an idea for one big free trade zone it might have worked. Had the Euro been a separate currency that all the other European currencies floated against it might have worked. But the whole thing as they did it was an incoherent mess from start to finish. Or so I always thought anyway. I mean, I guess you could say Europe itself has always been an incoherent mess, but fixing an incoherent mess with an even bigger, messier incoherency dressed up to look like a government-that’s-not-a-government just always looked foolish to me.
Prediction: a few riots. A lot of name calling. Further recession, reform. Stabilization eventually. They’ll mostly otherwise keep taking it out on each other on the soccer field.
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Hacked…..?
by Dean Esmay on September 30, 2011
in About the Blog
This site was down almost all day today. I’m not sure what happened but the ISP has us back up.
Sorry about that. But now I really am getting paranoid. I don’t know as yet what happened exactly but we’re back.
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Psychopaths Among Us
by Dean Esmay on September 29, 2011
in Law and Morality,Science
Recent discussions here on Dean’s World led the Fabulous Gi to send me an interesting article, which notes that recent study has concluded that about 1 out of 25, or 4%, of high-level company managers are psychopaths, which is about 4 times the number of psychopaths in the general population.
I would like to get ahold of the original study–I rarely trust mainstream news sources to report on science correctly–but I am willing to accept at face value that this number is reasonably close to correct. Intuitively, the number sounds about right. Having been a manager, and having worked at, or with, multiple companies from very small all the way up to the Fortune 500 level, I’m quite certain I’ve encountered these people. They aren’t everybody (not even close) but they’re clearly almost always there. In fact I’m pretty sure most anyone who’s worked in corporate America has encountered them; the very traits that make a psychopath would allow many of them to be tremendously successful on a personal level, although I would expect them to wreak all sorts of damage on whatever organization they’re attached to in the long run. I would also expect most of them to eventually fail personally as the very traits that made them successful would often wind up destroying them.
Although the study probably did not look at this question, I am fairly certain a similar percentage of psychopaths are to be found among politicians. Some might say the number is higher in politics, but I’m not inclined to think so. Despite my admitted cynicism about politicians, I believe most people who enter politics do so out of a genuine desire to improve their city, state, country, etc.
This leads to the natural question of “what is a psychopath? And can it be defined objectively?” The answer there is yes; it has been defined fairly well by psychiatric researchers for decades. The shorthand definition is a person who is incapable of feeling empathy, guilt, or remorse. Although it’s controversial to say so, it appears to be a brain-wiring issue; they literally lack this capacity. Having no capacity for guilt, remorse, or empathy would lead to all sorts of things, but not necessarily the Hollywood stereotype of the psychopathic killer. Being unable to feel guilt would not make you automatically sadistic, for example, although if you had sadistic impulses you would have little to hold you back from acting on them (except maybe wishing to avoid being caught). It would not make you prone to commit murder, but if you did commit a murder, or even an accidental killing, you would not feel bad about it. It would not lead you to steal, but you wouldn’t feel bad about it if you did.
If you had this lack of any ability to feel guilt or remorse, and you also had a tendency toward violence, theft, vandalism, etc. then you would probably be more likely to commit those acts. Thus the psychopath is not necessarily dangerous, but what you would expect is for psychopaths to make up a large percentage of the population of criminals. But you would also find them in higher numbers in any endeavor–military positions, politics, business, etc.–where being utterly without a conscience might serve you well. If killing people doesn’t bug you a bit, then bombing a city into oblivion wouldn’t even make you flinch. If screwing someone over in a business deal wouldn’t bother you, you’d be willing to do anything to get ahead. If you just wanted sex, you’d have no problem lying to someone to make them think you loved them just so you could get them into bed. And so on and so forth.
Dr. Robert Hare appears to be the researcher who has done the most to define what psychopathy is, and is not, in clinical terms. And he’s expressed many concerns over the use of his work, since it can be misapplied in many ways. For example, while psychological tests can indicate with a high degree of reliability whether or not someone is psychopathic (and again, their percentage in the pgeneral opulation appears to be about 1%), the questions about what to do with that information are huge. For example, as already stated, most psychopaths are not violent and do not commit criminal acts. We just know they’re more likely to do so, since their lack of empathy, pity, or remorse makes them more impulsive and less prone to give a damn what anyone thinks of them. They instinctively tend to like themselves and be narcissistic–but, although most psychopaths will be narcissists, all narcissists will not be psychopaths.
Furthermore, what do you do if through testing you can nail down with high certainty that a person is a psychopath? Do you incarcerate them or place them under constant observation, just on the theory that they might do something wrong? Do you immediately remove them from any position of power, on the theory that they might do damage? Such questions are not theoretical; in some countries such laws have been proposed, and apparently, in criminal cases, someone testing positive for psychopathic traits has been used in trials against accused criminals, or in sentencing them. Is that even ethical? And what about misuse of these tests by unqualified individuals?
Then there’s the really hot-button issue: psychological treatment to help criminals identify their own dysfunctional behavior may help them be less likely to repeat their offenses and become better people–but with a psychopath (which, again, is specifically defined as a person incapable of empathy or remorse), such treatment may only make them more likely to offend, as they learn the buzz words and tricks necessary to make them look rehabilitated when all you’ve done is make them more clever at disguising their misbehavior.
Dr. Hare maintains his own web site here, and it includes a fascinating article on all these matters here.
Although you probably want to read all of the above first, a fascinating documentary is available about a genuine self-admitted psychopath who is willing to talk about it. He hasn’t killed anyone, but he’s been a ruthless businessman who’s gained and lost several fortunes, and now makes money promoting himself and his views on psychopathy. It’s fascinating stuff and while I haven’t watched it all yet, I’ve watched a good chunk and intend to watch the rest: I, Psychopath, a film about self-admitted psychopath Sam Vaknin.
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Patriots–or COMMUNISTS?
by Dean Esmay on September 28, 2011
in Economics,Politics
In a recent discussion, these people were actually called not just socialists, but outright communists.
Really?
I mean, really really?
There is a temptation in politics to demonize those you disagree with, and there is always a trend for the most strident voices to stick out. But I have to ask: can’t we just disagree with people without calling them names, armchair psychoanalyzing them, or otherwise denigrating their character?
I used to consider myself a libertarian; I don’t really anymore, mostly because I think our economic system is far more artificial and government-supported than many libertarians are willing to acknowledge. And that our elaborate system of corporate law is mostly a state invention. That doesn’t mean we do away with corporations–that would be silly–but it does mean that they need to be watched and regulated. You don’t have to agree with me–we don’t all have to share the same values or ideas–but it’s foolish to draw sweeping conclusions. Capitalism has produced many things, and capitalists have done many great things; destroying it or them would be foolish in the extreme. And I have learned a lot from libertarian economic thinkers over the years, and they often made me think about things differently even when I didn’t always agree with them, or have changed my mind on some things now.
I don’t think any of that makes me or anyone else a socialist or a communist. I don’t think that’s true of the people in that video, and I don’t think it’s true of people like Warren Buffet either. I suspect they’re mostly people who agree with the belief that our society, and the system of government which is an integral part of it, has made most of their wealth possible, and that it’s right to ask that if you benefit disproportionately, you pay disproportionately–not to destroy you, envy you, hate you, or anything else. Again, you do not have to agree, and disagreeing doesn’t make you evil; it makes you part of the national dialogue. It makes us all part of it.
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Hacked!
by Dean Esmay on September 27, 2011
in About the Blog
Some time in the last couple of days this site got hacked. If you tried posting anything you’d be instantly redirected to a site trying to sell you Viagra and other pharmaceuticals. If I were paranoid I’d wonder whose political or religious sensibilities I’d so annoyed. But I’ll just go with the explanation that this is a high-traffic site and there’s no end of scummy things some people will do to make money.
Anyway, we appear to have it fixed. If you see it again please alert us.
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Light Barrier Broken?
by