it would be bad for my job performance if I didn't know about the number six.
Bad for you, good for everyone else.
Is this for real? I always thought hypnosis was pseudo-scientific nonsense. Someone tried it on me once and it didn't work at all.
Has any credible research ever indicated that hypnosis works, and how exactly?
(Not saying you weren't hypnotized. Just saying I don't understand it.)
The fact that he claims to be cool with the relationship restrictions you laid out, that you were lying on a bed, and that there's a chance he could make you not remember things seems like a bad combination.
There are hypnosis skeptics, as there are skeptics for all dissociative phenomena (I'm something of an MPD/DID skeptic), but I think the majority view among psychologists is that hypnosis is real, and there's plenty of research. It doesn't work on everyone; you have to be the suggestible/dissociative type.
SP, I appreciate your concern, but I'm comfortable with him, he has been respectful of me thus far, and I trust my own creepometer to tell me what is okay or not okay to do with someone. The very fact of being alone in an apartment with someone is a risk.
"the Asperger's guy" s/b "Mister Monday"
I might be wary of allowing myself to be hypnotized by someone who lacks direct knowledge of human empathy. Be careful.
Or perhaps "Mister Monday" s/b "Svengali
Is 2 a reference to the original or the remake?
Belonging to the category of mental states in which consciousness is divided, including "highway hypnosis" (forgetting you are driving, or in the shower, forgetting whether you've washed your hair), regular hypnosis, experiences of being outside your body, dissociative fugue (leaving home and forgetting your identity), repressed memories, and multiple personality disorder.
My father (who is a psychologist) is pretty conservative when it comes to what types of treatments he uses on patients and he does believe in and use hypnosis on some people (usually for behavior modification, like stopping smoking or overcoming phobias). I think it can be overused or used inappropriately, but I wouldn't call it pseudo-science.
Hypnosis is plenty real, but individual susceptibility to it varies widely.
This reminds me of, when Steve Martin was funny, his three hostage demands: (you gotta put in one crazy one, so you can plead insanity)
1. One million dollars in cash
2. A getaway car; and
3. To have the letter "M" stricken from the alphabet.
Heh. "Getaway car".
Hypnosis creeps me out and Tia's story makes me want to cry.
As long as everyone understands that it was a distinctly pleasant experience for me...
Oh, sure, you had fun. But I'm imagining not being able to move my foot when I wanted to move my foot and feeling nothing but a rising sense of panic.
Just don't be surprised when you take off all your clothes and dance every time you hear the word "antelope."
That will be totally unrelated to the hypnosis, by the way. Just a normal part of the aging process.
Antelope.
Bawk bawk bawk bawk not funny.
I just don't quite get it though. What exactly is happening in the brain? What is different about one brain vs. another that affects "suceptibility" to hypnosis?
Does anyone have any sense at to the limits of the power of hypnotism? Can it make me gay? Can it make my handle less gay?
Could it really make someone "forget" about the number 6? What the fuck happens when you stare at a phone's keypad -- just total confusion?
It just seems like one of those things too weird to be true. I can understand "hypnosis" being used to help recover repressed memories or deal with trauma -- that makes sense. But making me drop my pants and start beating off everytime I hear church bells? I'm not buying it...
Hypnosis freaks many (non-hypnotized) people out. Here's a pretty funny example.
btw, you have to watch the video at the bottom of the page to see the hostile/distressed crowd reaction.
making me drop my pants and start beating off everytime I hear church bells?
Again, that's not hypnosis. That just happens as you get older.
It's not actually hypnosis, though, is it, apo? It's a sketch group pretending to do hypnosis.
and they were deliberately trying to instigate the crowd by leaving the "hypnotized" members of the troupe in their altered states. So I don't know what it says except that it's funny to instigate people.
My friends and I used to play around with hynopsis when we were in middle school. We got to be okay at it, but maybe that's because we got better at being hypnotized. We stopped rather abruptly when we got freaked out, though. I can't remember what it was we made someone do that freaked us out.
Later, I renounced playing around with hynopsis, Tarot cards, and ouija boards because they were Satanic Devices.
26: Right, my point was how freaked out and angry people were at the situation, which (to anybody familiar with how hypnosis really works) was very obviously fake.
What is different about one brain vs. another that affects "suceptibility" to hypnosis?
I couldn't tell you specifically, but I guess it's like how some people can see those MagicEye pictures and normal, sane people can't.
making me drop my pants and start beating off everytime I hear church bells
I don't think that hypnosis can really do stuff like this. But surely if you've ever practiced meditation or even if you have the habit of gazing off into space absentmindedly, you know how it's possible to sort of unfocus your mind so that you're not terribly aware of what's happening around you, and so that when someone asks you to do something, it takes quite an effort of will to process the request and perform the action--i.e., to "come out of it." I imagine that hypnosis is basically a way of inducing this state of mind through external stimuli.
I think what I've read about the post-hypnotic suggestion thing is that it can't really make you do something you don't want to do. I think it mostly tends to work by accessing your subconscious, e.g., with helping people quit smoking.
re: 28
Yeah, I had a friend who was into it and he hypnotised a bunch of our friends in high school. Most of them seemed fairly susceptible. A few of them seemed to respond quite well to post-hypnotic suggestions.
He tried it on me, my experience of it was that it was relaxing but I wasn't hypnotised.
Then again, I don't think I am susceptible to dissociative type experiences in general.
Tia, you have to keep us updated on how this thing works out. Does this guy just claim to be Asperger's, or does he have an actual diagnosis.
I am interested because I briefly dated an Asperger's guy not too long ago and the whole thing was a very strange experience. There were aspects about it that were awesome: his lack of understanding of subtle cues meant that I knew I had to be absolutely explicit in what I wanted and needed and when I was pissed off and why, which did wonders for my assertiveness and communication. On the other hand, it drove me fucking nuts. Not being able to read cues during sex is really, really bad.
I feel pretty horrible about the whole thing, because I ended up ditching him for a much more "normal" guy, which makes me feel like an asshole, especially since the Asperger's guy had some amazing qualities that are things I've often looked for, and found very hard to find, in men. Sigh.
Ok, going to Cubs game now.
I think it mostly tends to work by accessing your subconscious, e.g., with helping people quit smoking.
This worked amazingly well for my parents.
I wonder where Lamaze breathing as pain control fits into this? It worked very very well for me, but I've heard more other people than not say it was completely useless. The impression I had was that a sort of dimwitted willingness to be suckered into playing along was what was making it work for me -- that waking up the cynical side of my brain would have been a problem.
Not all stage hypnotists have co-conspirators in the audience. At least some of them have real subjects. (I know because I knew one of the subjects.)
Susceptibility to hypnotism is based basically on how imaginative you are, and how open you are to the idea of being hypnotized, and maybe a couple other things. People who don't want to be hypnotized, or who don't believe they could be, never can be. Some people who want to be can't.
Hypnotism cannot help you recover repressed memories. The memories you "recover" are just as likely, or more, to be fabrications as they are to be true.
A subject being hypnotized does not lose any willpower or critical thinking. They will not accept suggestions that they wouldn't accept while not hypnotized. (Stage hypnotism can be explained by the disinhibitory effect of the situation ("Don't blame me, I was hypnotized") and the great performance pressure put on the subjects.)
That video is hilarious.
I don't think dimwitted willingness is fair, which is why I compared it to meditation. I think that being able to quiet one's mind is a great advantage.
That said, I'm pretty bad at meditating, although the breathing/focus thing during childbirth actually worked fairly well.
They're starting to use hypnosis instead of/along with Lamaze to help with labor pains, too.
The concept of one's "subconscious" is not supported by any real cognitive science.
Many people who are hypnotized don't realized that the hypnotic state is really nothing more than being very relaxed and very non-defensive. It doesn't really feel any different.
Hypnotic suggestions probably work by strongly decreasing the activity in the parts of your brain that are normally responsible for doing certain kinds of filtering on verbal input. For example, (and very roughtly,) normally telling yourself "I want to stop smoking" is going to get reject somewhere along the line by the part of your brain that's addicted to nicotine. When you're hypnotized, that part of your brain is relaxing and not paying attention, and so when you hear that phrase, it has more emotional impact. That's one theory, anyway. It's really pretty controversial.
I was going to try and answer urple's question but 31 and 35 covered it nicely. Hypnosis is real, but not a very big deal and unable to deliver on any of the more dramatic claims attributed to it.
Oh, and your skepticism unit is probably miswired if you took the existence of repressed memories for granted but doubted hypnosis.
I realize that my two comments are partly contradictory. How can it be that you're not open to suggestions that you would reject when not hypnotized, and yet still be open to suggestions that would not help when you're not hypnotized? Actually, I don't know.
sorry pdf23ds, but the following:
"The concept of one's "subconscious" is not supported by any real cognitive science."
is so off base it's not even wrong. Half of the experiments in cognitive science are all designed in such a way to eliminate conscious reflection so that you can get at what's going on unconciously, where most of the work gets done.
And as far as hypothesizing about what hypnosis is, as stated above, its nothing more than a normal state that many people fall into naturally (reading a good book, zoning out on a movie, daydreaming) but that can sometimes be induced artificially.
41: It's obvious that humans have quite poor self-reflection capabilities, and thus much of what goes on in the mind happens without conscious awareness. So, yes, there is an "unconscious" mind.
But when people talk about the "subconscious" in the context of hypnotism, there's a strong tendency to overly personify the subconscious, as if it were a separate person, a mind of its own. And *this* isn't supported by science.
In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen a cognitive scientist use the term "subconscious" seriously.
Once when I was in Hyde Park (I think it was Hyde Park), a young Chinese* man came by and told me that he was in some religion I'd never heard of and was on a mission to London to spread his religion. Being in a touristy and relaxed frame of mind, I listend to him even though I thought he was obviously some kind of whacko. Anyway, his explanation was basically that he wasn't out to proselytize (which I bothered to look up this time, btw, Mr. SB smartypants), but just to give people the gift of holiness or some such. So then he asked if I would be willing to receive this gift. (I know, I know.) Feeling patient and magnanimous, I said, sure, so he asked me to close my eyes.
At which point of course I got a bit nervous. My purse is right next to me but I'm not holding onto it, I've been shopping and my bags are at my feet, I'm thinking, this guy is gonna have me close my eyes, he's gonna grab my bag and run. But of course I'm also embarrassed about being suspicious of the poor sincere religious whacko. So I kind of quickly size him up, realize he's standing about 4-5 feet away on gravel, figure I'll hear him if he steps towards me, and close my eyes.
I have no clue what he did while I sat there with my eyes closed for, I'd guess, a minute or two. But when he told me to open them, I honestly did feel just amazingly relaxed and warm. Whether this can be attributed to relief that he didn't steal my purse, to feeling good about the trust experiment, to sitting on a park bench in a relaxed frame of mind on a warm day with my eyes closed, or to some kind of hypnotic/spiritual "gift," I have no idea. But it really is a memory I'm awfully fond of.
*For the life of me, I cannot remember what this religion of his was called. Since I pay very little attention to religion for the most part, I've hypothesized that it might have been Falun Gong? Or maybe I'm just doing that "all weird Chinese religions look alike" thing.
Okay, let's cut to the chase: what do I need to do or say to induce hypnotised women to start giving me blowjobs by the hundreds?
(And don't give me any of this stuff about how hyponotized people will only do things they really want to do in a non-hypnotized state. I'm talking about giving blowjobs here... of course they want to do it.)
I'm pretty convinced that I'm susceptible to hypnosis. I had to stop playing computer solitaire and all such similar games because I would "see" the graphics during very relaxed moments. Like during sex.
Lots of people do that, though. Isn't 'seeing' Tetris as you fall asleep fairly common if you've been playing a lot?
46: Play guitar for a famous band.
I had to stop playing computer solitaire and all such similar games because I would "see" the graphics during very relaxed moments. Like during sex.
Okay, put the red queen on the black king . . . that's it . . . that's it . . . YES!
I have to do something (something really simple, like tetris or sudoku) for at least four hours a day for several days before images start popping up in dreams and other odd places. I've never had the experience with anything more complex than that.
Dude, sometimes I dream of these fucking comment threads.
I never have. My dreams are remarkly free of content that is obviously related to my everyday life. I dated someone for three months without ever dreaming of her. (That I recall. I don't recall many dreams.)
Dude, sometimes I dream of fucking these comment threads.
47 -- yeah, I think fantasizing about computer solitaire during sex is a pretty common phenomenon. A natural part of growing older.
Not if you cut the solitaire out of your life for the sex's sake, it isn't.
Actually last night I dreamed that some troll put together my identity b/c of these threads and then was literally stalking me at my house. Very horror movie. He ended up somehow crawling around inside the house's foundation, and Mr. B. shot him several times through the floor with a shotgun. Afterwards I told him how glad I am that he owns a shotgun which, of course, he doesn't.
Analyze that.
(BPhD's comments today brought to you by her fucked-up subconscious and her desire not to go to work in order to talk to her department chair about quitting.)
Hypnotism cannot help you recover repressed memories. The memories you "recover" are just as likely, or more, to be fabrications as they are to be true.
I think the second sentence here is true, but I'm not sure about the first one. Maybe "it is not a good idea to attempt to use hypnosis to recover repressed memories" would be a better phrasing.
Hey Jackmormon, speaking of solitaire -- it occurs to me that you would probably be familiar with this version, on which I spent many many hours of my 13th and 14th years: Deal all cards in the deck face up in columns of 4 cards each. Remove the aces. Each move consists of filling a hole (ATM), which you do by moving the next-lower denomination of the same suit as the card to the left of a hole. If a 2 is to the left of a hole you cannot do anything with that position. If a hole is in the leftmost column, you can move a king onto it. Play continues until you cannot move, at which point you have won if each row is K-2 in one suit, otherwise you have lost. Ever play it? I never met anyone who had except my Grandpa, my uncle and my dad.
59: Mr. B's job working out? or is there another plan?
I told him how glad I am that he owns a shotgun which, of course, he doesn't. Analyze that.
Guns always represent penises in dreams.
That will be $50 and I'll see you next week.
I don't know that variant, Clown.
Does this guy just claim to be Asperger's, or does he have an actual diagnosis.
He doesn't claim anything. I asked him, because I felt there was something weird in his wiring and that was the best nomination I could come up with, and he said "many other people" (he didn't say whether that included medical professionals or not) had suggested the same thing. I'll get a clarification. Maybe he doesn't have Asperger's, because I haven't yet sensed a problem with sex, although maybe he's just taught himself what kinds of things he should respond to or ask about. I see it a ton in our interpersonal relationships and in his conception of other people and their relationships. I had to explain yesterday why it was not a good idea to call someone "sensitive" if they've just finished telling you you pissed them off, even if you don't think sensitive is a bad thing. This morning we had a heated discussion (well, I was heated) over why his lack of sympathy for people who might lose their houses because they financed them with adjustable rate mortgages, and for American soldiers who died in the Iraq war, was unjustified.
61 - That sounds similar to (but not exactly like) clock solitare, which I used to love as a kid. (Made a good programming exercise for data structures classes, too.)
64 -- It is fun if you like solitaire -- I find it more engaging than the standard solitaire game.
actually, the first "relationships" should probably be "relations" or something. Ach, why do I bother even going down this road.
My wife used hypnotism to control pain for our second child. The only thing it did was lead her to yell FUCK OFF! at a nurse who was coaching her using this technique during labor. It was a fun moment.
he wasn't out to proselytize (which I bothered to look up this time […])
B, that time before, I wasn't mocking you.
66 -- I never played that game. Looks kinda interesting. Except the thing I liked about the game I describe in 61 was, at any moment there are up to 4 possible moves, and which one you take will affect what moves are available subsequently. So you can think ahead and stuff. Clock Solitaire looks a little more constrained.
It is fun if you like solitaire
But come to think of it, if you'd rather be having sex, that is probably a more productive field of study anyways.
61: Montana solitaire! My grandma taught me.
Tia, maybe your guy is just a libertarian. They chose to buy the houses and they chose to join the volunteer army.
To expand on the not-mocking: your error was one of those happy accidents worth exploring as if they were intentional, or not errors at all. You could think of all such playing around as prefixed with, "I know what you meant; but wouldn't it be neat if…".
I don't think so, Cala. When I brought up that some people join the military because it provided economic or educational opportunities, he then granted that those dead soldiers were worthy of sympathy. We haven't discussed politics much, but my impression is that he's left-wing. He has U.S. troops out of Iraq buttons on his nightstand, anyway, although I guess that doesn't mean he's not a libertarian.
(When I further pointed out the value of civilian control of the military, he seemed to see my point there, too.)
You know something I don't get? The animosity between so many liberals and libertarians. I'm actually sort of between the two groups ideologically, so maybe that explains why I don't get it. But could someon explain it?
It's because libertarians are wrong, that's why.
78 - This quote comes pretty close to summing it up for me:
I want to be a Libertarian, I really do. But I'm reminded of what Berke Breathed said: "I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners."
Yes, in theory, Libertarians want government to stay out of our lives and uphold this principle equally with regards to all the ways government is intrusive. In reality, almost every Libertarian I've ever met is a greedy a-hole who doesn't want to pay any taxes but expects all the roads to get paved anyway. If the party tried to focus more on "hey, we're the party for freedom" instead of "hey, vote for us and no income tax" then I think they might get more of a following.
78- I'd say it's the empirical/ideological divide. Liberals (now) like to think of themselves as fond of policy that works, and see libertarians as committed to an ideological vision at all costs.
78 -- there is a sense that Libertarians are not sincerely placing personal freedoms above all else, but rather using that claimed belief system to mask a "propertarian" ideology which puts personal wealth foremost.
Very bright liberals and very bright libertarians share high intelligence & in some cases, exceptional privilege, but nothing else. For liberals tragically afflicted with Bartlet's Syndrome, where they believe that everyone would agree with them if only they were smart enough to understand the nuances, the existence of libertarians puzzles and annoys them.
On a more serious note, this says it really well:
If Wishes Were Horses, Beggars Would Ride -- A Pony!
Also this:
85 is essentially the reason that Libertarians are seen as not being serious about personal freedoms.
Liberals (now) like to think of themselves as fond of policy that works
This was always implicit in the liberal perspective, I think. Once upon a time, conservatives hurled the phrase "social engineer" at liberals, and it was largely true. I think the empiricism is implicit in the engineering. The problems were that (a) our models really, really suck, and we refused to acknowledge that for a while, and (b) there was disagreement about goals and the prioritizing of goals. It's (b) where lots of libertarians got off of the bus, I think.
And there's the clever-teenager saying silly stuff syndrome: The Onion, as usual, says it best: Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Department.
But that's snide and unfair. Um, howsabout this -- liberals believe that their concern with personal freedom is as intense as libertarian's is, and that the differences between the philosophies are mostly in the area of goofy stuff like not paving the roads. Hence, to the extent that they agree with libertarians, liberals think that there's no good reason for the libertarians not to be content with liberalism -- to the extent that liberals disagree with libertarians, liberals think they're just being silly.
Also, the Libertarians I know, at least, seem unwilling to acknowledge that society has an impact on people's opportunities. If you're poor, it's because you aren't working hard enough or it's otherwise your own damn fault. They think everyone can pull themselves up by their bootsteps if they just try hard enough -- and they often provide themselves as examples, without acknowledging that any accidents of birth provided them with opportunities for better education, better health care, etc. than other people.
See also PZ Myers' libertarian parable.
Oh, 87 is good. Yeah; liberals think the difference between themselves and the sort of sensible libertarian who isn't going to shut down the fire department is a matter of who is a better social engineer, and is perfectly willing to argue about what the pragmatically preferable policies are within the liberal framework. We get annoyed at libertarians for acting as if pragmatic differences about policy were matters of principle.
My biggest beef with libertarianism is that it cares only about reducing de jure restrictions on liberty, and fuck-all about de facto.
Plus, you just know some of it is thinly veiled Ayn Rand fanwankery.
None of this should be read as applying to Jim Henley.
89 -- Just the other day I was reading this awesome quote from (I think) a 19th- or early 20th-century American preacher, to the effect that If in this day and age and country you are afflicted by poverty, it is not just your fault but a consequence of your sinfulness. Was I reading that on this very site, or a related blog? I do not remember.
Seriously, though, I'm too cynical to be a libertarian, though I have a lot of libertarian tendencies.
It basically boils down to this: 1) Libertarianism only works in Magical Libertarian Land where people are perfect rational actors who are smart enough and thoughtful enough to forgo short-term pleasure for long-term gain. On my planet, people buy lottery tickets and believe in astrology. 2) Every hardcore libertarian I know is a whiny upper-middle class white guy whose parents paid for his college education and first car who nevertheless insists a) that he made it all on his lonesome so everyone else can, too, and b) that scholarships to blacks & women are keeping him back from his true potential.
I think libertarians make perfect sense on personal liberty questions, but dilute that with perfectly batty economic theories.
Of course, that's what they think about me too, so I guess we're even.
Also, they make me think of freshmen who read Nietzsche and become convinced that they are the übermensch, and it's not that their essay sucks, it's that they're too evolved for the likes of me to understand it.
62: Yeah, the day after they cancelled it? They called back and offered it again. It took me about four days to stop feeling like I was going to throw up from the goddamn roller coaster ride. And I'm still not 100% I have confidence in this thing, even though he's supposed to start at the end of July (nor am I sure I have confidence that the house will be painted by then, let alone the new roof and extensive fucking yard work our empty lot needs done before we can put this fucker on the market).
As it turns out, our outgoing chair is already gone, and the new guy doesn't arrive 'til next week. Which gives me a chance to call my rockin' mentor chick and consult with her, which is just as well, I suppose. Argh.
SB, it's okay if you were mocking me. A little light mockery is all part of the fun and games. Anyway, I prefer to think you were mocking me. So there.
The first paragraph of 80 ("tax-dodging professional whiners") goes a long way. Add to that my own personal encounters with self-labelled libertarians who seem quite willing to glibly wave off any concerns with things like civil rights, and my sense is that "Libertarianism" = "I got mine, the rest of you can fuck off."
94: Crooked Timber quoting Henry Ward Beecher.
I've been able to reconcile liberalism with the instinctive appeal and insights we associate with libertariansim by reading up on and following its left-wing version, political anarchism. I mean that long tradition, traceable directly to Godwin, of seeing the malforming effects of government while believing passionately in the people and society, and their capacity for improvement and making better arrangements.
I say reconcile, because I am after all a liberal and believe in government. Even some anarchists, I would name the British Author Colin Ward, the Canadian George Woodcock, Dwight Macdonald, and others, realize that for now government is something on which we must depend, and which we must make effective. But still, if libertarianism appeals but seems too selfish to you, give Anarchism a look.
The Scottish socialist Ken MacLeod, linked to from Making Light, seems to be nearby although sometimes hard to categorize.
Anyway, I prefer to think you were mocking me.
Weirdo. I mean, whatever floats your boat.
And when a prominent web libertarian muses calmly about the desirability of public torture, well let's just say it's not only pretty f&*king annoying but also hard to take anything he says about liberty seriously ever again.
Here's the Mineshaft discussion, with lots of good comments and links to other discussions:
It's Dirty and Uncivilized and We Shouldn't Do It
And B, thank God if it's true, and really works out.
101: Mockery is easier to flippantly throw back in someone's face than just making a stupid spelling error. So there.
) Libertarianism only works in Magical Libertarian Land where people are perfect rational actors who are smart enough and thoughtful enough to forgo short-term pleasure for long-term gain.
It's more than that, though. The area where libertarians have some common ground with conservatives is that both agree that we have broadly sorted out how society works. Libertarians think that once you've been given the rules of the game, it really is on you. Liberals don't think we've sorted out the rules of the game, and we're pretty sure that libertarians aren't counting some of the unacknowledge ones. After all, libertarians and liberals are both all about meritocracies. But they think that the US has a meritocracy, and we think it's a little more complicated than that. For example, I don't think smart and thoughtful enough to forgo short term-pleasure for long-term gain are nearly sufficient for success in the US, at least if you're willing to look at it at a sufficiently grainy level.
None of this should be read as applying to Jim Henley.
He's one of the good ones.
Yeah, everyone cross their fingers for B.
108: Oh, all right. Busted as condescending. But there are certainly 'libertarians' who I really don't have much of any problem with, other than not understanding why they call themselves that.
108 gets it exactly right. And not just because we're on each others' blogrolls.
OK, so do people here think that Catallarchy is a good exemplar of the type of Libertarianism under discussion here? Because that's probably the most exposure I've had to it, besides Richard Chappell, who is probably one of those libertarians LB talks about in 110.
Dunno, I haven't read them much. They were cross at my badmouthing Reynolds, but that doesn't say much about their philosophy.
I seem to know a bunch of the British ones, Na/talie So/ent, A/lice B/achini, & Jac/kie D, and like them reasonably well as people, have had some very good discussions. Also happen to think they're living in fantasyland.
I probably understand N/atalie the best--she worked in government for a long time. And has that "my office was totally insane" thing going. The frazzled air of bad personal experience.
that doesn't say much about their philosophy
So what does it speak to? Their choice in friends? Their mothers' lack of discretion? Personal grooming habits?
114 -- Sol/ent said something on CT today that struck me as particularly batshit crazy.
I don't agree with her conclusions on just about anything, but having worked in a dysfunctional government office (and having heard all my mom's stories from her social work and Board of Ed days), I can see how you despair of anything being done properly by one. I can relate to the origin, if not the end result, of her ideas.
117: Whereas in private enterprises, everything always runs completely rationally, smoothly, and efficiently.
You don't think there is some special je ne sais quoi about government work? Really?
Thanks for the good wishes you guys--how many times can I milk this on again/off again sympathy thing? Is it like getting married repeatedly? Is there some point at which the announcement arrives and everyone goes, "yeah, whatever"?
118: This is the point I repeatedly find myself making when arguing with libertarians.
Is it like getting married repeatedly?
It certainly costs less.
118, 122: Private enterprise leads to perverse incentives. So does government. Those incentives affect different kinds of services and products differently, such that for some things government will be largely free of perverse incentives and private enterprise full of them, and for others it's vice versa. Deciding which incentives apply in which situations, and which are better and worse, is a matter for careful analysis, and it's terribly unlikely that any blanket statements can be made.
Can't everyone agree to that?
Can't everyone agree to that?
Well given that libertarianism consists largely of a blanket statement to the effect that the perverse incentives introduced by government administration are worse than the private ones, I think not. (And of course yes, some libertarians, the good ones per 108, moderate this statement and approach it thoughtfully.)
One man calmly discusses a particular drawback of private enterprise.
it's a choice b/t markets and voting/preference aggregation. There aren't many real Liberals in America, if by Liberal we mean someone devoted wholly to preference aggregation systems and against markets. But there are an awful lot of Conservatives, if by Conservative we mean someone devoted wholly to markets.
The democratic party, by and large, supports a case-by-case analysis as to whether an individual service is more appropriately handled by a market system or the government. And in studying both models, has come to terms with the practical benefits and difficulties in both systems. It's a very small-c conservative approach (how the word was traditionally used for the thousand or so years before 1960).
the republican party just favors markets everywhere, deregulated markets, with little analysis as to why that system is preferable. At this point, I think the republican party is pretty disengenuous about this stance, and the way it portrays the democrats' position.
I have, personally, little use for what people call themselves aside from which of the two approaches they support. I think the latter approach is dangerous.
basically, what we have in America is a far right wing party, and a centrist party, without any far left party. As a result, everything skews right, and words stop meaning what they used to mean.
M/t/ch, you do remember the most concrete outcome of the discussions you linked to in 102, right? Not that it means it should never be discussed again or something like that.
Why are these the choices, when we are talking about beliefs, and what ought to be, not the compromise we'll need to make tomorrow?
I seem to have a whole shelf of broken records, but there is a left libertarianism, which has something insightful and invigorating to say to most concerns raised here, that oppresses no one, and the great texts of which are written predominantly in English. If we are not the people to know and use this tradition, who the hell is?
hmmm. The Modern English language wasn't quite kicking in 960, was it? But whatever latinate/french/germanic/viking roots it's got meant "favoring slow, incremental change" I'll bet.
127 is the best thing I've ever heard on the internets.
You don't think there is some special je ne sais quoi about government work? Really?
Given that private enterprise doesn't seem inclined to provide any sort of solution to the problems your mom was trying to deal with, I'd say the government trying to do something about it is a good thing. That it's grossly underfunded and may have stupid policies is undeniable, but I don't see how cutting / eliminating taxes a la the libertarian model would help things or make girls shelters better-run or make children less likely to be used as projectiles therein.
I'm sure libertarians have had bad experiences dealing with private enterprise too, but does it make them want to give up on the whole idea of private enterprise?
Also, 125 is very well put. Of course the devil is in the details.
the republican party just favors markets everywhere, deregulated markets, with little analysis as to why that system is preferable.
I don't think this is remotely true. "Favoring markets" is just a rhetorical stance, and is ignored when it comes to lining supporters' pockets. For example, see the preponderance of no-bid contracts wrt the Iraq war. Or steel tarrifs.
I guess I just want to put what people say in the context of what they actually support. If you want to be a left-leaning libertarian, what does that mean you will do? If you will vote for Bush, I don't see the use.
As I joked over at B's blog once, a libertarian is anyone waiting in line at the department of motor vehicles. And if you think that's fun, try dealing with immigration. Hint: the illegal immigrants are totally smart in cutting out the paperwork. (Please take this as the tongue-in-cheek remark it is intended.)
But private enterprise's record in some things is great. In others it's really, really bad. Safety regulations don't lead to profits. ('Oh yes, they will, because they will be unable to hire workers who will wisely choose the company with safe practices.' These guys had different textbooks.)
Most of the libertarians I know are in real life. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a label they claim because they want to vote Republican but don't like the religious right.
I agree with M/itch's point in 134. Which is what I meant to say when I said the republicans are disingenuous about their own position. What should be said is they favor corporate interests. They disfavor voting/choice aggregation systems unless those systems are weighted heavily in favor of captains of industry.
I just mean that the atmosphere of a government job can get pretty damn bizarre. Isn't the DMV the iconic dysfunctional operation?
Me, not a libertarian.
Sorry text, I guess that wasn't plain. Left libertarianism is an alternate name for political anarchism. I used it to suggest the appeal it might have for those here who have expressed that libertarian ideas have some resonance for them. If, as your comment seems to suggest, the word Libertarian is now tainted with association with the sort of people who would vote for Bush, for whatever reason, than my purpose in using it is defeated from the outset.
I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a label they claim because they want to vote Republican but don't like the religious right.
DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!
Or: I want policies that favor the wealthy like myself, but I don't want anyone thinking I'm CRAZY or anything!
The DMV in S/ttle has an espresso stand inside so you can get coffee while you wait in line. Makes the whole experience quite pleasant.
Isn't the DMV the iconic dysfunctional operation?
Just so you know, you owe that baby to Al Smith. (Since eb brought him up in the other thread.)
I'm probably stuck about a hundred comments ago, expressing why I don't like libertarians.
Of course there's nothing wrong with turning us on to new political ideas. I am wrong to have implied otherwise.
Years ago I happened to be at the DMV and I just wanted to ask them if I could get an ID card quickly, or if it would just be better to get the full driver's license. The line wasn't moving at all so I went to a payphone, called the DMV, heard one of the phones in one of the cubicles ring and stop ringing at the same time my call was answered, found out it would take a few weeks to get the ID card, and left.
135: I think that's another matter entirely. It's not terribly hard to get wide swaths (swatches?) of people to vote for a candidate who less ideologically compatible with them than the opposing candidate. Mostly because so many people don't evaluate candidates based on ideology, or do so based on a vision of the candidate's ideology extrapolated from shallow campagin speechs or news articles.
On the other hand, we would expect this effect to be much less severe among vocal and coherent proponents of a given ideology, and often when we speak of "liberals" or "libertarians" we exclude those who have no clue. And in those cases, I think 135 is applicable.
The post office also produces the iconic disgruntled employee. This is not to say that these sorts of problems don't occur in the private sector--I was just arguing for certain extra something. At least in the public imagination.
"My dreams are remarkly free of content that is obviously related to my everyday life. I dated someone for three months without ever dreaming of her."
Given how fascinating other people's dreams are, as a rule (that's sarcasm), I'll note that I had a deeply unusual (for me) dream last night, in which I was working in the same office as Peter Beinart and Matt Yglesias, and spotted Beinart more or less completely contradicting himself in two separate written pieces, and attempted to engage him in discussion about this, but Beinart proceeded to begin explaining about how he didn't "get" this whole "blogging" thing, or quick online writing in general, and why it was unreasonable, so the discussion moved onto that, and Matt wound up being very oblivious to how impolitic he was being, and I started trying to explain that to him, but around that point the dream digressed into a lot of stuff about needing to find a clean bathroom, and I shortly awoke desperately needing to pee.
But I have no memory of ever actually dreaming before about anything relating to blogging, bloggers, or political magazines or their writers, despite my keen interest in all those topics. Neither had I even read anything by Yglesias or Beinart in days, or had anything particular by or about them on my mind of late.
The dreaming about needing to find a place to pee: not so unusual.
In I think one of the bonus scenes on the DVD for Fog of War, McNamara has this story that at whatever car company he worked for a manager would know he was fired when he arrived on Monday to find that his office furniture had been chopped up on the weekend.
138: Oh, I know you're not a libertarian. And yes, it's extremely difficult to set up the right incentives in an undertaking that was created specifically because the activity involved meets a need that the private market won't or can't supply. So in practice you often get situations like the DMV, and yes the atmosphere can get pretty bizarre working in such places.
It's just I think the whole "government and its workers are all ambitionless, lazy, wasteful, etc." charge is harmful, largely false, and gets thrown around too freely. I'm not saying you said or implied any of this, it's just something I'm (perhaps overly) sensitive about.
I've been to our version of the DMV three times in recent weeks, on three unrelated matters. The dispatch and thoughtfulness and efficiency I saw there were quite impressive, and I write as a person very often deeply frustrated by inefficiency in stores and offices.
You'd best find another example.
M/t/ch, you do remember the most concrete outcome of the discussions you linked to in 102, right? Not that it means it should never be discussed again or something like that.
You mean the falling out between ogged & bitchphd? Yeah, I remember.
Ancient history.
Wait, now I seem to remember that the falling out was more over B calling Kevin Drum a "fuckwad" or something like that. Somebody remind me.
I was born a Canadian, but I've been a member of the Illinois Bar for 21 years. I'm talking Chicago, home of the ghost payroller.
I helped write the DMV software for two different states.
(*ducks*)
which dmv, idp? The ones I've been to in that city are atrocious.
what am I saying? those were tow lots. and they were miserable. But private tow lots I don't imagine would be more comfortable.
I once convinced people in high school that I was tinfoil hat-style paranoid by weaving an elaborate conspiracy tale about how the DMV was just a scam to get people voluntarily to give up personal information by manipulating their desires to drive. Sort a you think driving is freedom but you're giving up your rights kind of a story. It was fun.
"121--Holy crap."
This is why it was so impressive that my crazy father was so crazy that he actually manged to (after many years of manic-depressive nutso-cuckooness) get fired from his job as a social worker at the Board of Ed.
The death threats he's casually (and madly) make against co-workers, and the conspiracy theories he'd whisper, for instance, weren't remotely enough to get there; all that got him was disability payments.
But I shouldn't get started on that topic.
"In I think one of the bonus scenes on the DVD for Fog of War, McNamara has this story...."
Great game, though; the bonus level where you could do thermonuclear war with China was awesome.
Elston Avenue. As you may know, the previous Governor, George Ryan, was brought down and has just been convicted for corruption at the Division of Motor Vehicles when he was Secretary of State.
The current Secretary, Jesse White, has made customer service very important, apparently. Morale seemed good, and I'm sensitive to that. I can remember bad experiences a few years ago, so don't think we live on different planets. But there have been dramatic changes for the better.
152: That's what I was referring to.
The documentary, largely made up of interviews with Robert McNamara, which eb refers to is very good.
my bad experiences, I just came to realize, were at a tow lot, and not a DMV. I don't recall any negative DMV experience. Morale was very bad at the tow lot, and I thought for awhile I would never escape. I should never comment again.
Just drink more heavily. In fact, I hereby propose that 'Becks-style' be renamed 'text-style'. ('Bext-style'?)
The impression I get of the Libertarian Party is that it consists of people whose philosophies are either:
a) give us our guns
b) give us our drugs
c) give us our guns and drugs
I don't actually have a problem with anyone having any of those (even if I find the combo slightly questionable), but it doesn't impress me as a basis for one's philosophy.
I find it really bothersome that this is the impression I get, however, because if I stop and think of the Libertarians I know personally almost all of them have much more complex philosophies than those summaries, and I would bet they all voted for Kerry.
My own politics are somewhere between libertarianism and socialism. Let people do what they want and leave 'em the hell alone, but tax us enough to make enough basics (power, healthcare, education, fair-hiring policies) available that everyone has an equal shot when they get that diploma in their hands. What they do with that shot, after that, is entirely up to them.
The problem with my system - and with all systems - is that they all depend on everyone living in Magical System Land. If everyone in the world treated everyone else with absolute good intentions, any economic and political system we have available would probably do the job just fine. The problem is that people will game any system, no matter what system it is, to screw someone else for their own benefit.
'Bext-style'
Eh, good enough for government work.
My own politics are somewhere between libertarianism and socialism.
Liberal, isn't this?
Thanks LB. I couldn't accept that accolade, for Becks made the style, I'm just a squirrel trying to get a nut as it were. But I certainly can follow the advice.
Well, yes.
Right now I really wish I were at home so I could drag out the Bloom County books and quote Opus before the Un-American Activities Committee.
re: 95
Damn right. Especially (2).
As I-Don't-Pay also said, there's a lot of interesting left libertarian stuff around. Kevin Carson over at the Mutualist blog has a lot of interesting posts from a left-libertarian free-market but anti-capitalist perspective.
The answer is "Republicans on drugs". What is the question?
Late to the party as usual. I guess we've moved from one kind of individual hypnosis (Tia) to another (libertarianism).
But if you're still interested in the first kind, and associated tricks and cons, check out Derren Brown at work. Fun. I like this one and this one the best, and sincerely hope they're not staged.
A lot of the bad press libertarians get comes from the antics of those who continue to like Ayn Rand after their sophomore year of (high school | college, depending on background.)
174: and the rest comes from the antics of those who don't.
I was permanently soured on Ayn Rand when, as a sleepy teenager, I thought "well, I'll just read through to the end of this radio speech and then turn out the light." Blech.
re: 173
Brown is fairly open about the fact that a lot of his 'psychological' trickery in fact involves traditional magic methods and setups. However, he's also adamant that he doesn't use stooges. It's a combination of hypnosis, simple mind games and some relatively sophsticated psychological trickery/suggestion and old-fashioned magic tricks.
He's doing what good stage magicians have done for years but dressing it up in a novel schtick.
I've also seen some of his TV shows where the tricks have clearly not gone exactly as planned. He seems fairly open to the occasional failure. Of course, that could also be a setup to make his successes seem even more impressive.
138, 146: I suspect "The Office" would have been funnier if it had been set in some kind of low-level government agency.
A few years ago the NM MVD started letting private companies open mini-MVD offices where you can get simple stuff done (license renewals, registration, stuff like that). It's amazing how much faster and more pleasant they are. Well worth the extra expense.
Our friend Bruce in Canberra may discover some left-libertarianism down under. I wonder if he's up yet?
He just commented on another thread, so I think he's up.
Why do you keep calling anarchism "left-libertarianism," IDP? I mean, I know they're the same thing, but the former term's a lot more common and better-known.
Because we know and can feel the appeal of libertarianism. A libertarianism against selfishness, for society and social change is something that may appeal, and doesn't invoke a wild-eyed, bearded guy (like me) with a cartoon bomb, you know, a duckpin ball with a fuse?
"A lot of the bad press libertarians get comes from the antics of those who continue to like Ayn Rand after their sophomore year of (high school | college, depending on background.)"
As was discussed at some length at ObWi during Hilzoy's recent three left-libertarian posts, and their extremely long discussion threads, most libertarians aren't Objectivists, and most Objectivists deny they are libertarians.
I'm pretty talked out on the topic of libertarians; as I've previously written, I first encountered them in the form of Samuel Edward Konkin the Thud, at age 14, at Lunacon, 1974, and was very disimpressed. But I eventually learned there were also sensible, non-jerk, libertarians, who weren't simply all about I'm-All-Right-Jack, which is what the jerk-types seem to be about.
Never been able to identify as a libertarian, though, myself, due to my need to balance values of freedom with those of economic and social justice.
"Why do you keep calling anarchism "left-libertarianism," IDP?"
One reason could be that there are so many flavors of anarchism, many quite in conflict with others. As an unmodified phrase it's quite useless.
"V the comic book character is an anarchist. V the movie character gives no indication of being one." I deem that useful.
"A libertarianism against selfishness, for society and social change is something that may appeal, and doesn't invoke a wild-eyed, bearded guy (like me) with a cartoon bomb, you know, a duckpin ball with a fuse?"
There's another reason. Following up on that, America doesn't have a history of hysteria about, frantic investigations of, illegitimate prosecutions of, and deportations of, libertarians. (Much though it's tempting as regards the more obnoxious outliers, though not the Good Ones.)
I see (to both IDP and Gary). I guess other people have different associations with the word "anarchism" than I do; I mainly associate it with the Spanish Civil War, and I think that's basically the kind of ideology IDP's talking about here: libertarian but socialist. Personally I don't really see the appeal, though. I'd rather just stick with liberalism.
Haven't read the whole thread, but 92 gets it right. If "libertarian" meant "maximizing positive as well as negative liberties" I would be one. But also, possibly, a socialist.
I just can't get with the thought that taxes are a restraint on liberty, but (say) having to take a job where they make you risk your life in order to support yourself isn't.
My definition of "libertarianism" here is Nozick and Catallarchy's Micha Ghertner, etc. Most blogospheric libertarians–the ones who support Bush's power to lock you up without trial–are better described as 'anarcho-fascists'.
Oh, 179. I've met Chappell here but we didn't talk politics.
"I'd rather just stick with liberalism."
Digressing, I've yet to reconcile myself to the recent vogue of some (mostly relative young 'uns, sez wizened me) to start calling themselves "Progressives." Unless they're declaring that they favor the program of the Progressives, the Progressive Party, of Teddy Roosevelt, I don't know what program this actually denotes; it's not, as I've gone on at length in the past at ObWi, as if "liberal" and "left" mean the same thing, or as if communists were just extreme leftists (LB, you never came back to that discussion, where I took strong issue with your interpretation of what I'd said), so what "progressive" otherwise means than it historically means, I really have little idea.
(My dire suspicion is that some of the people now calling themselves "progressives" don't know very well what they mean, either, but I'm a tad cynical.)
I have problems with some liberals' versions of "liberalism," and I choose my policy (and political) positions a la carte, but in a time when "liberal" is used as a dirty word to the Enemy, and given the proud history of the word and cause, and given that it reflects more of my views than any other single term, reductionist as it is, and much as I sometimes bridle at any implied Procrusteanism, I'll identify as a "liberal" as much or more than any other term.
But I'm fogeyish; I haven't yet really bought the notion that there's a coherent "netroots" position, or that that term has much meaning, beyond as a convenience for some who want to gain political power around it, either. Yet, at least.
A few years ago the NM MVD started letting private companies open mini-MVD offices where you can get simple stuff done (license renewals, registration, stuff like that). It's amazing how much faster and more pleasant they are. Well worth the extra expense.
My problem with schemes like this (and I do have experience with them, even specifically with DMVS, see 155) is that the competition isn't level. It starts out that they're going to allow "private competition" and then they gut the budget for the DMV so there is no way they can compete with the private agencies or provide a comparable level of service. The "private agencies" then charge a "convenience" premium and they were always a HUGE crony/patronism racket used to reward the campaign contributers of elected officials (the number of licenses to run the private agencies were capped and handed out by the gov't bigwigs --it was obvious what was going on as ownership of the agencies always turned over with an election that resulted in a change of party). It sucks for the taxpayers -- they're having to pay more for a service than they should or suffer with bad service from the DMV in order to perpetuate a system of dirty campaign contributions.
AND! I just want to add that DMV functions are the last thing you want to turn over to private contractors because of the sensitivity of the data and the fact driver's licenses are the primary form of personal identification in this country. BAD BAD IDEA. I'd guarantee that most of these private agencies have total crap security.
Becks makes valid points, and I'm sure there was plenty of cronyism involved in this decision. New Mexico is not known for clean government. I'm just saying that they're much faster and easier despite all the problems. And I wouldn't trust the security of the NM DMV too much either.
Also, Gary's 189 gets it exactly right. I was thinking something similar when I wrote the line he quotes.
I'm not really a libertarian, I promise.
Actually, this: "or as if communists were just extreme leftists" should have been "or as if communists were just extreme liberals." (I've known an unfortunate number of not particularly historically aware and particularly naive liberals, over th years, who more or less did hold such a silly belief.)
Also, "as a dirty word to the Enemy" should have been "as a dirty word by the Enemy."
"New Mexico is not known for clean government."
Whaddya think of Richardson?
I like him. His obvious presidential aspirations sometimes get in the way of his performance as governor, but he's done some really good stuff for the state.
198: Are those the only two choices for what to do with text? If so, I pick "use".
197: google that and I reckon you'll find plenty of website to suit your particular fetish, text.
199: You already mentioned him, so fair enough. How far is it from Austin to Nashville?
Becks, didn't you get the memo about 200 having a name now, like 100 = Kobe?
I remember you saying there should be names for the higher numbers, but I don't remember you assigning any except for 500.
I delegated it out to a subcommittee, and told them to send out a memo. You mean they haven't done so? Lazy BASTARDS!
200: Spearmon!
300: Xerxes! (or Spearmon!)
400: Truffaut!
With all due respect, fuck that shit.
I've seen Derren Brown live 3 times, and I'm pretty sure everyone involved was for real, as he picks people at random e.g. by throwing a frisbee around. Some of his tricks are just ordinary magic tricks dressed up as mind-reading, but he uses a lot of hypnotism too, amongst other stuff. I have a massive crush on the man tbh, and I'm sure the hypnotism is part of that!
I have libertarian leanings I think. (On that political compass quiz, I was slightly left and quite far along the libertarian axis.) But I don't think I have an entirely consistent political outlook - should I?
I've gone on at length in the past at ObWi, as if "liberal" and "left" mean the same thing, or as if communists were just extreme leftists (LB, you never came back to that discussion, where I took strong issue with your interpretation of what I'd said), so what "progressive" otherwise means than it historically means, I really have little idea.
I'm forgetting this conversation. Remind me where it was?
How is "by throwing a frisbee around" the same as "at random"? A frisbee is highly aimable.
206: I likes it. You're moving up in my rankings, apostropher.
207: But why, Bruce?
213: Oh, did you put it in already?
210: "I'm forgetting this conversation. Remind me where it was?"
Here.
Geez, you are definitely slippin', apostropher. I leave you this HUGE OPENING in 214, and you just sit there like a bumpkin on a frog.
211: I posted that and went out and it was preying on my mind that someone would come back with that point! I'm not sure how aimable a frisbee is when throwing it to a theatre full of people though? There's always the chance someone will lean over and grab it.
Anyway, I saw two different tours, in one he used a beach ball iirc, and the other was actually an aerobie. He would throw it and then whoever caught it would have to throw it on again, which was usually repeated. I guess there's always the chance that there are about 40 stooges in the audience, all with very good aim (even when throwing things over their heads backwards!) though.
you are definitely slippin', apostropher
I blame the lube and your huge opening.
And weiner, I repeat my question in 212 above. Why?
Didn't expect this to be answered so quickly.