(In case you’re not aware, shul means synagogue in everyday speech — common at least to English-speaking Jews as far as I know, if not more.)

I’m back from the trip! I’ll be posting a few things about the trip, the countries I visited and things that came to mind over the next few weeks — in 11 weeks I had a LOT of bloggable experiences. But it’ll be interspersed with unrelated stuff as well since I’m not aiming to make this a travel blog.

Still catching up on errands so today’s post will be quick. Below is a very rough and massaged reconstruction of a conversation I had with my cousin in Israel during the trip. We were planning to go somewhere and she explained to me a bit about the Israeli bus system where some parts of the country are serviced by government lines but most is through private companies.

ME: So out of interest, what about those buses I’ve been hearing about in religious neighbourhoods where segregated seating is enforced?
COUSIN: Yeah, you have to sit separately [NOTE: women at the back --duh!] or there’d be problems.
ME: What I meant is are those segregated lines within the private companies’ service area?
COUSIN: Oh no, they’re also government lines.
ME: But…but…what do you mean government lines?
COUSIN: They’re run by the government.
ME: But how can the government allow something like this, for the Hareidi commuters to just dictate the bus arrangement?
COUSIN: What do you mean?
ME: Well if it’s a private company you can understand that but they don’t own the government bus lines!
COUSIN: You know there are Hareidi neighbourhoods where the streets have a mechitzah down the middle to have separate sides of the street for men and women. They don’t own the public streets either, do they?
ME: But…but…no, they don’t…But if it’s a government bus who enforces the segregated seating? The bus driver?
COUSIN: The other passengers.
ME: But if you don’t follow this?
COUSIN: It’s just not done. I mean you’ll get some looks and they’ll ask you to move.
ME: Or beat you up for refusing to move!

I was aware of the problem and the incidents of women being assaulted by mobs on the bus. But it didn’t even occur to me that on top of all that, this could happen on a government bus line. This was the new, shocking fact. Australia’s separation of religion and state is by no means complete but it’s so far advanced compared to Israel’s that such a scenario seemed almost physically impossible to my brain until I was told.

My cousin was not supporting the situation by any means. But she was so used to it, it was so normal, that her level of indignation wasn’t anywhere near mine. Familiarity is a great way of stopping change because even those opposed to a practice will often acclimatise and recalibrate their own boundaries of what’s “really” unacceptable vs what’s merely “bad”.

Is there any practice in your country that you think you’ve become desensitised to where you almost have to be an outsider to get appropriately outraged?

ManBoobz is a blog dedicated to finding the most extreme examples of misogyny and bringing them to light. And by extreme I really do mean extreme. There seems to be a certain culture in discussing gender (at least in most sites/real-life discussions I’ve seen) where if person X expresses a view you might think is misogyninist that you would utilise the Principle of Charity against them. Perhaps they express views whose outcomes are misogynist, or that it’s the logical implication of their views etc. In such forums, some people may be reluctant to imagine that many actually are misogynist in the crudest (and self-identifying!) sense. This is why Manboobz is an important site.

Most of the material comes from MRA (men’s rights advocate) sites. Of course there are many organisations that actually advocate for men’s rights in a sane manner. But most of these appear to be of the “men are the Jews for the gynocracy’s ovens”. (Click here if you don’t know the reference.) All quotes have been abridged and I’ve omitted the ellipses.

Manboobz finds an opinion on Anders Breivik the hero:

Anders Breivik sees himself as a soldier who is fighting for a worthy cause. That cause being his country. Women and leftists then make him out to be “insane” and are looking for “who is to blame”. Well they might start looking in the mirror. The most pervasive element of western civilization today is its hatred of men and all things male. There is a particularly strong hatred of fathers and husbands. I know. I used to be a father and a husband. I have never experienced hatred in my life as vehement as by women in divorce.
It is only natural and normal that some men decide to take matters into their own hands at all the hatred spewed at them and their marginalization. Men often see that some things are worth fighting for. Men often then take action to fight for what they believe in.
I have been telling women for three years now that hatred of men in general and fathers in particular is going to see men killing a lot of women and children. Well? We just saw 76.
This was an act of war and he considers himself a soldier. In different times, as in WW II, he would be called a hero.

Manboobz finds a classic MRA will from 1930:

At Le Mars, Iowa, the probated will of T. M. Zink, deceased attorney, revealed:1) His $100,000 estate is to be placed in trust for 75 years; 2) In A. D. 2005 the accumulated principal is to be used to establish, equip and maintain a library on whose shelves will be no woman author, on whose catalogs will be no woman’s name, over whose portal will blaze: “No Women Admitted”; 3) To his daughter went $5; 4) To his widow not 1¢.
“My intense hatred of women is not of recent origin or development nor based upon any personal differences I ever had with them but is the result of my experiences with women, observations of them and study of all literatures and philosophical works.”

Manboobz finds an opinion on Slutwalks. Again, if you’ve never seen the site before you might think this is someone making fun of a hypothetical non-existent viewpoint, but they’re not:

Every woman marching in the Edmonton Slut Walk is publicly declaring herself a slut. This means every woman there desires sex with any and all partners. Any sexual activity you initiate with them comes with implied consent. They cannot say no, and if they do understand all their ‘no’s mean yes. They are all asking for it. They want it bad. Now. From you. Go get ‘em!
The organizers of this event are not oblivious to this point: what they want is a fake sexual revolution. They want to be able to impersonate sluts without actually being sluts, and that’s unacceptable. If you don’t want to be treated as a piece of meat, don’t marinate and grill yourself and sit perched on a piece of garlic toast. You dress slutty, you show off the goods, you try to get a reaction, you will get one. Hint: it’s not always going to be the one you want.
[W]hen you impersonate a slut we don’t fine you, and we don’t throw you in jail. There’s really only one punishment for dressing like a streetwalker when you aren’t one: you do have to endure the occasional rape. You should really suffer it in silence. Accept the character flaw within you that caused this, and move on. Police and court resources are already busy enough with real criminals: like actual rapists who do nasty things to their niece or the homeless native chick passed out under the bridge, or a conservatively dressed urban professional walking to her car, or a girl out jogging in a track suit. To equate the act of actually violating and raping one of these people with having sex with a girl who’s every square millimetre of public persona screams anybody who wants to can screw me right now is ridiculous.
If you go out on the street in an outfit that would make Britney Spears feel uncomfortable, you do so knowing that your ultimate aim is to make men want you. Well, they want you now. Congrats. Oh, wait, you mean you didn’t understand what that implied? I call bullshit. You do know. But you want to be a virginal slut, to dress in ways that makes men helpless to their urges but still leaves you fully in restrictive control.
If your wife is one of them, I’m very very sorry. Maybe a good rape might make her a little more manageable around the house.

A quick follow-up to last week’s post about the dancing squid. An interesting related post was made on the Seed of Reason blog in 2009. The post speaks of the danger of basing too much of our conclusions about the lives of animals on direct observation — which I would count as including our intuitions about (say) whether a squid is alive or not.

Animals have a tendency to think outside of our cultural boxes in their choice of behaviors. Consider another experiment in which the experimenters attempted to teach a primate how to make stone tools (with which they could cut a string that would allow them access to a food reward). The primate was shown how to knock rocks together to make a sophisticated stone tool. The primate was shown how the tool could be used to cut the rope to access the treat. Then the primate was given two stones, and the treat, string were reset. The primate dropped the stone on the floor, retrieved a sharp shard and used it to get the treat. The experimenters carpeted the floor to prevent this unintended solution to the problem. The primate then located the edge of the carpet, lifted it up and dropped the stone onto the floor again. The experimenters subsequently glued the carpet to the floor. The primate just dropped one stone onto the other and the experimenters had to admit defeat. The point here is that the primate was behaving intelligently but did not see the task in the same way as the experimenters.

The author finds examples of how pure observation might be misleading. In humans, seeing a middle-aged man refuse to get a lump checked out by a doctor might lead us to think the man doesn’t fear cancer! Similarly, animals are often seen as less intelligent if they’re harder to train, whereas they might simply be uncooperative. “Animals that do not recognize themselves in the mirror might just not care enough about their own appearance to react in the way we expect them to. Animals that engage in posturing behavior in front of a mirror may be doing this because they enjoy practicing behaviors (people do similar things). The point is, that we really don’t know, why animals engage in the behaviors they do.”

The whole post is worth a read.

The squid example shows how our judgement about life can misfire. Perhaps similar misfirings about animal distress are suffering. I’ve seen the point made, and it’s a good one, that part of the reason we are less empathetic to say the dismemberment of some animals is that they do not scream or squeal or struggle in a way that fits in with our anthropomorphic expectations. I would at least predict that in a parallel universe where fish squealed and screamed like piglets when being gutted, less people would draw the line of what to eat “above” fish and “below” mammals.

I believe that one day we’ll have a robust theory of mind which will include the minds of animals and will enable us to make well-supported judgements on what an animal is feeling or why animals do what they do. Until then, the best we can do is admit that many of our current views are not well-supported and stem from animal behaviour that may or may not be arbitrary in terms of what’s in question (eg. is the animal feeling pain or not).

Cracked is a humour magazine in the style of MAD magazine and the Cracked.com blog is a surprising treasure-trove. Yes, much of the user-submitted stuff is a tad juvenile, trollish and linkbaity (think “X reasons why Y sucks”). But about 10% of those lists are of actual interest and since there are a few posts per day it translates to a good stream. There’s trivia, current events you might not be aware of. And (strangely enough for that type of sight, you might think) there’s some critical thinking and good old takedowns of BS, such as this look at 5 cryptozoological pseudostories.

And of course they mock the ridiculous, such as these:

Cracked finds the 4 most homophobic comics ever created:

Cracked on free speech kerfuffles:

#6.
Going to Jail For Bad Restaurant Reviews
Just the other week, a Taiwanese blogger was sentenced to 30 days detention, two years probation and about $7,000 USD in fines for ripping into a shitty restaurant on her blog.
Now, a couple of caveats — she probably will get out of the jail time, and the verdict wasn’t mainly about her review of the food so much as the fact she exaggerated how unsanitary the conditions were. However, the judge actually took into consideration in his ruling the fact that it was unfair for her to claim the restaurant’s food was too salty since she only tried one dish, which sounds like something a mom should be saying, not a judge.
A lot of people have been blogging about this and lumping it in with other cases where people have been sued for bad restaurant reviews, which is really unfair to Taiwan, because in all those other cases it was a civil suit filed by the restaurant owner (and almost never won by the restaurant), whereas this was a criminal case with the cops and the jail and everything. Taiwan’s actual government has actually arrested and convicted someone for saying a restaurant was a filthy shithole with oversalted dishes, and I think that’s something few other governments can brag about.

#4. You Can’t Say “Le Marketing” in French Marketing
The French Word Police isn’t going to break down people’s doors and stop them from saying “cool” or “le week-end” (that’s real French slang, by the way), but they forbid foreign words from being used in official documents, science papers, advertising, radio and television, and fine companies from $150 to $1,000 for making such a faux pas.
In 2008, they showed they were “with it” and banning things that mattered to the French youth of today by letting everyone know it was not OK to say email, blog or podcast, so that hip French podcasters would have to ask people to download their “diffusion pour baladeur,” and sound like a dork. And instead of using “corner,” sportscasters were expected to use the pithy phrase “coup de pied de coin,” by which time the goal would already be scored and everyone would be on the other side of the field.

Cracked on 10 unbelievable true stories about Donald Trump:

#5 Suing Deutsche Bank (For Mentioning How He Ripped Them Off)
Trump burrowed $640 million from Deutsche Bank to finance the Chicago Trump Tower and hotel[...]When they asked him to pay it back he instead sued them for three billion dollars. That’s not a typo, though the bankers probably thought so when the lawsuit arrived. Instead of making a token good faith payment towards over three hundred million owed at the time, he took them to court[...]
Trump claims that the “force majeure” clause in the loan contract — the one that protects borrowers from forces beyond anyone’s control like lightning strikes and earthquakes — should apply to the real estate market. He was claiming that the housing market crash was a literal Act of God. His argument was essentially that he should only have to pay back his loan if he made money.
When Deutsche Bank noted in court that “Trump is no stranger to overdue debt,” he sued them for damaging his reputation[...]Both sides eventually dropped their cases, which pretty much sums up his business plan: successfully make things so stupid the people who are actually trying to make money would rather lose forty million dollars than continue to be involved with you.

#2 Fencing A Married Couple Into Their Own Home (And Sending Them The Bill)
Trump engaged Disney-movie levels of villainy by applying for planning permission on land he didn’t own, and trying to bully a married couple out of their home of 20 years once he realized he didn’t own it.
He sent workers to fencing off of the whole house from the outside then sent Mr & Mrs Milne a four thousand dollar bill for the work. Trump has apparently realized that it’s everyone else’s fault for letting him act like this, so he’s decided they should pay for it too. It’s such an over-the-top dick move we’re expecting him to be foiled by a talking computer-animated animal.

You might have seen this video making the rounds a few months ago. It’s of a whole (small) squid on a bowl of rice in presumably a Japanese restaurant. The diner pours soy sauce over the squid and it starts to wriggle around coming alive. My first impression of the video was of horror — despite what the website I found it on said, I thought “there’s no way this squid is anything but alive”. Having been primed with my commentary I invite you to watch this short video:

[Video link] NOTE: the original video was taken down for copyright infringement, which shows how bad the abuse of DMCA takedowns has become on YouTube. If this video gets taken down too just search for the dish name: “odori don”.

After this I read the explanation again. The salt in the soy sauce makes the tentacle neurons fire — the squid’s death does not inactivate them straight away. The first time I read the explanation I was not prepared for the effect to be so dramatic which is why I thought the squid was alive. On subsequent viewing, the soy sauce explanation seemed right. If you’re not convinced, read this news article which explains the effect and embeds the video. It also shows another video of disembodied frog legs shaking about when salted, which is a lot more convincing.

I also remember a few years ago when I was pan-frying some baby octopuses they produced a very realistic wriggling effect while being fried. It also shocked me and creeped me out a little at the time. I’ve been meaning to film the effect for a few years but I guess there’s no point now. At the time I thought this was because I soaked them in water before frying to defrost them, but it was probably because I added some sauce with salt.

Of course all of this has a wider point. The dancing octopus shows that when we make judgements about living creatures (especially about basic things such as whether it’s alive), we probably use a fairly basic brain system. We pick up on some very crude cues and extrapolate them, basically because those extrapolations make sense most of the time. (When you see such wriggling, it’s likely to be something alive.) That the cues are crude and not “intellect-driven” we can see from some research. Even when we see an animated dot moving about on a screen, we interpret the dot as “alive” when the movement is jerky, with changing speed and direction.

In a way this is another example of the optical illusion analogy. We obviously know the dot is not alive. We would probably write “alive” in scare-quotes and talk about it “looking” alive. So we know the facts intellectually, and yet we can’t suppress our sense of looking at a living creature. Similarly, no matter how much I accept the soy sauce explanation part of my brain says “that’s a live squid”.

An accurate picture of the world requires us to (at times) suppress our intuition and subdue it to the intellect. I think a world which minimises suffering as well should be based on facts too — whether you’re trying to minimise human or animal suffering. Too much of our moral discourse goes through that part of the brain that wrongly interprets the squid is dead, which is how we get the moral panic started by the video.

GiveWell is (IMO) your best resource for evidence-based philanthropy. It started when a few hedge fund managers had a sizeable sum they wanted to donate to a worthy cause. Being in the finance industry they’re used to doing due diligence and seeking evidence that their investment will get the results they are hoping for. What they found was that almost no charities are able/willing to provide this level of evidence (instead relying on things like testimonials).

Realising the problem is a deep one and seeing a niche in the market they started GiveWell — an organisation dedicated to evaluating individual charities as well as causes and issues in the world of aid. Their recommended charities (2% of those they evaluated so far) give good evidence your donation will make a marginal difference. Their blog about the issues is essential in an area where there’s so little skepticism and so much marketing, misinformation, and misaligned interests.

Snippets from GiveWell’s report on VillageReach, their top rated charity, which shows the level of evidence they are aiming for:

VillageReach has provided estimates of the “incremental children vaccinated” projected for its six-year project.[78] These assume that “Total children forecasted to be vaccinated with new system is 80% in the first year, 85% in the second year, and 90% in the third year. The exception is Cabo Delgado where it is 90% for all 3 years.”[79] These assumptions do not strike us as overaggressive, seeing as the pilot project achieved 95% coverage in Cabo Delgado (see above). Also note that these estimates count only incremental children vaccinated while VillageReach is active in a given area, and thus could substantially underestimate impact if VillageReach’s work has lasting effects (as intended).

We have calculated the “cost per additional child vaccinated” based both on the Mozambique-only costs and on VillageReach’s overall costs as an organization, excluding contract engagements (i.e., all activities that unrestricted funds support).

The aggregate cost-per-vaccination over the duration of the project is $31.88 looking at only Mozambique costs,[80] and $58.28 when including other costs.[81] If, as discussed above, $15 per additional immunized child corresponds to $200 per life saved, these two estimates would imply around $400 or $800 per life saved, respectively. Note that the latter estimate assumes that VillageReach activities such as IT development will have zero impact aside from its contribution to VillageReach’s main logistics program in Mozambique.

GiveWell on some of the hype around microfinance:

• The large U.S. charities are rarely clear even about what their value-added is. To the extent that I’ve been able to see their due diligence on partners (most of which is unfortunately confidential), it seems focused on financial performance, with much weaker examination of social impact-related questions.

• Something as simple as the “repayment rate” turns out to be reported, by standard practice, in what we feel is a highly misleading way. We’ve been shocked at how hard it is even to get what we consider the “real repayment rate” out of a microfinance charity.
• We’ve also been surprised by how often people drop out of microlending programs, generally for negative reasons.
• All in all, the picture we have is of a sector that tells stories about helping people but largely measures and rewards financial performance. As a result, microfinance institutions seem to have strong incentives to maximize their scale and their profits, even if doing so isn’t good for the borrowers.

GiveWell on room for more funding:

If a charity’s core program is outstanding, is this enough reason to donate to it? We say no. There is still the question: how will the charity’s activities be influenced by additional donations?
There are several reasons that a charity may not use additional funds the same way it used past funds, or the same way as the donor hopes.
A successful program can rely on many factors besides money, such as skilled labor, political support, and appropriate target populations. Thus, more money can’t necessarily be used to do more of it.

• For example, we have argued that the surgery charity Smile Train has a shortage of skilled surgeons, not a shortage of funds, for its core program. More examples below.

• The programs donors want to fund don’t necessarily match the programs charities want to carry out. Thus, a charity may focus on one program in solicitations, when its intent is to use donations for another program or simply add them to reserves. We have seen charity representatives make explicit statements to this effect.[1] (We almost never come across a charity whose representatives state that it has enough money and doesn’t seek more donations).

It takes a Jeff Foxworthy style list to mock this properly. Each entry has a link in case you think I’m making it up (page references are to Inside Central Asia by Dilip Hiro).

I am only listing the more cartoonish elements that belong in a black comedy. There are of course much more horrible things (like boiling people to death) that don’t belong on the list.

And so, you might be a Central Asian dictator if:

• You arrange for the passing of a law that requires presidential candidates opposing you to produce 100,000 signatures of support. [p247]
• And give candidates 8 weeks to do so. [p247]
• And when someone actually comes close to doing so despite all odds, have militiamen attack him on the street and snatch the list of signatures from him. [p247]
• And hence run unopposed. [p247]
• You extend your presidential term by referendum…by bundling your term extension with the right to private property, the character of statehood and the official language, require a single yes/no on all 4 issues. [p259]
• You preside over a constitutional amendment limiting the number of times a person can run for president…and then pass another amendment that excepts YOU PERSONALLY from the previous amendment. [Source 1, Source 2]
• Your opponent in the presidential election publicly states that he voted for YOU — since you’re the better candidate! [Source]
• You tend to personally handpick the candidates who will run against you. [Source]
• And even name the opposition parties and come up with their platforms. [p160]
• And they start their speeches by heaping you with praise. [Source]
• You require opposition parties to register officially and collect tens of thousands of signatures in the process. [Source]
• And you give them one day to do so. [Source]
• You make a referundum on allowing you to stay in office after your constitutional term expires. [Source]
• And you count blank ballot boxes as a “yes”. [Source]
• You create the amusingly-named GONGOs or “Government-Organized NGOs” [Source]
• You say the following in a public statement following a wave of terrorist attacks on the capital: “I’m prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace and calm in the republic… If my child chose such a path, I myself would rip off his head.” []
• You allow a Supreme Assembly which is a multi-party parliament…that meets twice a year. [p153]
• You refer to yourself as Turkmenbashi (Leader of all Turkmen). [Source]
• You win 99.9% of votes in a referendum to extend your term to 10 years. [Source]
• You decide to rename the names of the months and days of the week. [Source]
• And the names include yourself and members of your family. [Source]
• You write a rambling work that’s part autobiography, part moral/spiritual guidance, part revisionist history, part poetry. [Source]
• And you get mosques to paint quotes from it on the walls next to quotes from the Quran. [Source]
• And you make it a mandatory work of study in schools. [Source]
• And you make questions on it part of the test to become a government employee of any sort.
• Or to get a driver’s license. [Source]
• You build a gold-plated statue of yourself on top of an arch in the capital. [Source]
• And have it rotate through a full circle every 24 hours, so that it always faces the sun. [Source]
• You make doctors swear an oath to you instead of the Hippocratic Oath. [Source]
• And outlaw lip synching [Source for all following]
• And dogs in the capital (because they smell)
• And opera, ballet, the circus
• And gold teeth (since your “natural” teeth should get exercise in chewing for health)
• And makeup on TV anchors (since Turkmen women are already beautiful and shouldn’t need makeup)

Jewish Philosopher is a blog by Jacob Stein that’s invaluable both for humour and as a reminder about the perniciousness of extreme religiosity. Because it’s about Judaism it also provides an opportunity for many people in Christian-dominated countries to see a fundamentalism from the outside, in a form they haven’t been desensitised to.

Most of Stein’s posts are so ludicrous that you get the feeling he must be a Poe. And yet from having read the blog extensively and from my own knowledge of Orthodox Judaism, I am very confident that he is for real. This is some of what he believes.

JewishPhilosopher on how Source Code proves dualism:

No one would make a movie about an iPad waking up in a PC; it makes no sense. The iPad and PC are different machines and each is what it is.

This shows that we intuitively see ourselves as inhabiting our bodies but we don’t identify ourselves by it. Therefore it is at least conceivable that “we” could “wake up” in a different body. We don’t identify ourselves with our bodies but rather we are an incorporeal essence which could conceivably move to another body.

In other words: We are not merely a bag of chemicals produced by mindless natural forces. We have a soul.

JewishPhilosopher on atheism:

Atheism is a popular modern religion.
Founder: Charles Darwin.
Sacred text: Origin of Species.
Core beliefs: There is no Biblical God and evolution created us. Evolution is different from God in that it has no intelligence, therefore it demands nothing.
Basic proof: The fossils prove the Torah is false and evolution is true.
Debunked: In this post and this post.
Pope: Richard Dawkins
Bishops: Secular professors.
Cathedrals: Secular universities which teach evolution as fact and God as fiction.
Priests: Secular public school teachers.
Churches: Secular public schools which teach evolution.
Common rituals: Psychological therapy, supporting liberal politics, substance abuse, promiscuity, meditation.

JewishPhilosopher proves atheists are lying:

Proof #2: Atheists do not advocate global warming.

According to atheism, microbes developed into people through the process of evolution. Mass extinctions have accelerated evolution in the past. Global warming is now causing a mass extinction. Global warming should therefore be a positive thing in the long run which should be encouraged.

However no atheist suggests this because no atheist sincerely believes in evolution.

Did you know that North Korea has a homepage? It’s true. They call it the Official Webpage of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea — but it is a homepage with all the 1990s retro web design ideas the word conjures.

There is a top level domain for North Korea: .kp. However it was only established in 2007, probably after the homepage was created (which according to the copyright footer is also 2007). So, the URL is a prestigious http://www.korea-dpr.com/, perfect for a 90s style homepage.

There is multiple language content but the basic site is in English. They provide the usual stuff: info on the country, a gallery, images, tourism and so on. Some choice tidbits below. Here is how the state is described overall:

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is an independent socialist state that represents all the interests of the Korean people. The old exploiter capitalist class is a thing of the past, and today, the various sectors of traders, peasants and industrial workers, who once labored as pawns on a private-property chessboard, have become proud, dignified socialist workers[...]The main tasks of the government of the republic are to bring about total socialism in North Korea and to achieve peaceful reunification with south Korea completely independent of external forces. This will mark the achievement of national independence on the whole of the Korean Peninsula.

There is an eLibrary with about 30 PDF downloads of works, mostly by Kim Jong Il, as well as 100+ raw PDFs of unprocessed works. There is also a page on DPRK music, with mp3s of classic hits like “I love my Motherland”, “Don’t ask my name” and “Raise your weapons to wave the Supreme commander”. There is information about booking a tour of North Korea. There are links to North-Korean run English language news services that counter the “misinformation” of non-DPRK news and documentaries. And what 90s style homepage is complete without an FAQ? I’ve rearranged some items for rhetorical effect.

10. I’ve heard that everbody starves in North Korea. How is the food situation?
It is no secret that there was a crisis during the mid 1990′s in the DPRK. Because of the collapse of the Socialist market, and due to the isolation caused by US embargo and sanctions, the country suffered a difficult period. A natural disaster caused floodings, and combined with the other factors, it created a period which we now call the “Arduous March” where the DPRK had to recover from this situation, and the collapse of the Soviet union while still unduring hostilities by the US who continually to this day try to stifle and isolate the DPRK. Since the end of the 1990′s and around year 2000, the country has completely recovered from the “Arduous March” and has survived as a country which has now become even stronger and more independant than before.

13. Is North Korea a dictatorship?
No, the DPRK is a single-united-party constitutional democracy guaranteeing freedom of speech and assembly to all citizens. DPRK citizens play an active role in their nation’s political life at the local, regional and national levels, through their trade unions or as members of one of the nation’s three political parties, which include the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Chondoist Chongu Party and the Korean Social Democratic Party.

17. I hear that North Koreans are very poor. Is this true?
By international standards, DPRK citizens enjoy a very high standard of living. In Socialist Korea, the state guarantees all citizens the right to quality healthcare, education, stipends for the disabled, retirement pensions and access to recreational facilities, as well as a wide array of other state-supported services. Indeed, DPRK citizens are guaranteed many provisions that are uncommon in many developed capitalist societies, which are home to real poverty. Unlike in many countries of the capitalist world, the DPRK is a state free of homelessness, unemployment, prostitution and starvation.

8. Can I travel to North Korea as a backpacker? (Independent travel)
No. You must travel as a group only, even if you are the only participant you must be with Korean guides at all times.

4. Can I work in North Korea as a teacher/interpreter/(other)?
No.

Regarding the standard of living, item 17 is particularly interesting next to their page promoting doing business with DPRK. They list a few selling points in bold, the first being “Lowest labour cost in Asia”. Well, no shit Sherlock. “Stable. A government with solid security and very stable political system, without corruption.” Again, no shit, except for that last bit.

This of course reminds me of Soviet propaganda. According to my parents’ recollections of their childhood/teenage years, one of the most vocal bits of propaganda they were exposed to was that people in the west are incredibly poor. It was made out like half of the US population was homeless. Of course it is true as per item 17 that Soviet citizens did have socialised medicine, education and other services that many in the west did not have, and still don’t. But the overall average standard of material living was still orders of magnitude lower.

The whole homepage is almost cute in its childlike naivety. I don’t think there’s any irony to be had in the whole website. It seems to be genuine outreach to promote the Juche ideology outside of North Korea. As such, it should serve as a great example of the kind of tone-deafness and wilful ignorance that countries sometimes exercise about how they’re perceived from the outside. This is true for many other countries but here it is at its purest.

This is a followup to the post about LessWrong.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a novel-length bit of Harry Potter fanfic by Eliezer Yudkowsky (founding author of LessWrong). In it, he tries to apply the ideas about rationality developed in the original posts to the Harry Potter universe.

I’ve never seen any of the HP movies or read any of the books (and I probably won’t) but even so I’m enjoying this a lot. The HP in this universe definitely has elements of the annoying know-it-all but I believe that’s part fo the effect. Essentially this HP is a boy genius who knows more about science and rationality at age 11 than the vast majority of people in the world, so when he goes to Hogwarts things are a bit different. Namely, he tries to systematically study the world as it actually is (now that he knows that magic exists) and exploit it for the good of humanity.

Hermione points out Harry’s mistakes in the science of magic:

“Okay! So you gave me this whole long lecture about how hard it was to do basic science and how we might need to stay on the problem for thirty-five years, and then you went and expected us to make the greatest discovery in the history of magic in the first hour we were working together. You didn’t just hope, you really expected it. You’re silly.”
“Thank you. Now -”
“I’ve read all the books you gave me and I still don’t know what to call that. Overconfidence? Planning fallacy? Super duper Lake Wobegon effect? They’ll have to name it after you. Harry Bias.”
“All right!”
“But it is cute. It’s such a boy thing to do.”
“Drop dead.”

Harry actually influences Draco to test the blood-purist hypothesis:

“Good,” Harry said, “remember, it might not be happening, and then you won’t have to believe it, either. First we just want to know what’s actually going on, which world we actually live in.” Harry turned back to his work, scribbled some more, and then turned the parchment so Draco could see it. Draco leaned over the desk and Harry brought the green light closer.
Observation: Wizardry isn’t as powerful now as it was when Hogwarts was founded.
Hypotheses:
1. Magic itself is fading.
2. Wizards are interbreeding with Muggles and Squibs.
3. Knowledge to cast powerful spells is being lost.
4. Wizards are eating the wrong foods as children, or something else besides blood is making them grow up weaker.
5. Muggle technology is interfering with magic. (Since 800 years ago?)
6. Stronger wizards are having fewer children. (Draco = only child? Check if 3 powerful wizards, Quirrell / Dumbledore / Dark Lord, had any children.)
Tests:
“All right,” Harry said. His breathing sounded a little calmer. “Now when you’re dealing with a confusing problem and you have no idea what’s going on, the smart thing to do is figure out some really simple tests, things you can look at right away. We need fast tests that distinguish between these hypotheses. Observations that would come out a different way for at least one of them compared to all the other ones.”
Draco stared at the list in shock. He was suddenly realizing that he knew an awful lot of purebloods who were only children. Himself, Vincent, Gregory, practically everyone. The two most powerful wizards everyone talked about were Dumbledore and the Dark Lord and neither had any children just like Harry had suspected…

Harry finds out about the financial system in the wizarding world:

So not only is the wizarding economy almost completely decoupled from the Muggle economy, no one here has ever heard of arbitrage. The larger Muggle economy had a fluctuating trading range of gold to silver, so every time the Muggle gold-to-silver ratio got more than 5% away from the weight of seventeen Sickles to one Galleon, either gold or silver should have drained from the wizarding economy until it became impossible to maintain the exchange rate. Bring in a ton of silver, change to Sickles (and pay 5%), change the Sickles for Galleons, take the gold to the Muggle world, exchange it for more silver than you started with, and repeat.[...][O]ne competent hedge fundie could probably own the whole wizarding world within a week. Harry filed away this notion in case he ever ran out of money, or had a week free.