Re: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage?
This seems the most fool proof way to me. -Original Message- From: ArmChair List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Crampton Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 4:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: How do I convince New Agers that not everybody should get the same wage? Why not offer to run a sharing scheme for them? They all give you their weekly paycheques, and you share them out equally to all of them. Make your money on the side by running betting pools on how long it'll be until 10% have dropped out, 20%, 50%, etc. Call them hypocrites if they won't take part in your scheme. On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Robert A. Book wrote: Since beautiful women make me stupid, and since I am a bit curious, I have become involved in a local currency project. One reoccuring theme is that everybody should be paid the same wage for their labor. Doctor or bagboy, judge or record store clerk, the only fair way to do things is for everybody to get the same pay per hour. I fail to see the wisdom in this. The sentiment seems to revolve around social justice: No person is worth any other, etc. How would you suggest I argue otherwise. Ask why anybody would take an unpleasant job like garbage collector if they didn't get paid more for that than for a pleasant job (record store clerk? adjust the example to your audience). For doctors, you could ask why anybody would spend years going to school, doing 24-hour calls/rotations, being an intern, etc., if they didn't get paid more for that than for a job that did not require all that preparation (you probably should use a word like preparation instead of investment). (This was the arguement my father used when I was 7 or 8 years old to convine me to drop my tendencies toward what I now recognize as communism/socialism. Which says something about the mental age of leftist -- or my precosity, or both! ;-) --Robert
Re: Oscar Political Business Cycle
It could partially be a function of the holiday season. More movies tend to be released around holidays anyway (also around July 4, for example), given that people are more likely to see a movie during these times (since they have the day off). Not only are people more apt to go because they have time off, there's probably a significant seasonal effect. People seem to prefer seeing Christmas-themed movies around Christmas and action blockbuster movies in the summer. Taking off from this, what kind of movies win the Best Picture award? Generally it's serious type movies about feelings, issues, and whatnot, as opposed to Spider-Man or The Hulk. If there's a seasonal advantage (maybe people like action in the summer when they can go out and do things?) for non-serious movies in the summer, it might make sense to release the Oscar candidates in the winter season (and if the holidays are a time for family and whatnot, there may be some advantage to selling a serious movie at that time as well). It'd be interesting to see how things work for somewhere like India (Bollywood), which I think has its big awards in June. -Original Message- From: ArmChair List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bryan Caplan Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 2:07 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Oscar Political Business Cycle The Political Business Cycle story has not fared well empirically in recent years (though Kevin Grier has done interesting work on Mexico's PBC). But it seems overwhelming in the Oscars. It seems like roughly half of the big nominees get released in December. What gives? Is there any way to explain this other than Academy voters' amnesia? I guess there is a small intertemporal benefit - if you could win Best Picture of 2004 with a January 2004 release, or Best Picture of 2003 with a December 2003 release, the present value of the latter prize would presumably be higher. But can that one year's interest (presumably adjusted for a lower probability of winning due to tighter deadlines) explain the December lump?
Re: why aren't we smarter?
Having taken the WWI era Army IQ test that was the basis for some of this, I can verify that a significant amount of it seemed to be education based (questions regarding brands of motor engines and whatnot probably posed issues for immigrants who'd rarely seen and never driven cars, for example). -Original Message- --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: American Jews tested below average on Army intelligence tests conducted around the turn of the last century (1900) I suspect this was not a pure IQ test but had a bias towards education, and at that time, American Jews, especially recent immigrants, many not have been so well educated, and now they are. I do wonder about the meaning of IQ tests. I test out in the top 1% of the IQ distribution but have been singularly unsuccessful. Although it's anedotal, I know many other unsuccesful high IQ people as well. Clearly high IQ and success don't automatically go hand in hand. David Levenstam Success in what? Many high-IQ persons do not have wealth as their highest goal. Also, chance falls equally on the high and low IQs. Fred Foldvary =
Re: A deep look at media bias
Better late than never, but I would argue the opposite happens quite a bit too- journalists spend a lot of time digging to find someone who disagrees and to give them some semblance of an equal voice even when the position they represent is laughably unequal. If Bill Clinton or George Bush say the Earth is round, you can be sure some reporter will have the Flat Earth Society on the phone for a denunciatory quote. I agree that the press likely has a bias because it has an easy (low-cost) means of getting both sides via official PR pronouncements, but I'm not sure that this effect is as important as that of the dynamic you describe in objective presentation of both sides. So long as balance is being sought on a particular story, it makes little difference whether the two sides represent a 50/50 or 99/1 percent distribution of actual opinion. Each is presented as equally believable. At some point, it seems rational not to give equal weight to the 1% opinion against the 99 (or possibly to not mention it at all). Yet, journalists often have it as their stated goal to seek and give voice to minority opinions. -Original Message- From: ArmChair List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kevin Carson Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 1:55 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: A deep look at media bias You're on to something here. The press has a bias toward official sources in general, both government and corporate. A huge part of a newspaper's non-advertising column inches are taken up either by press releases generated in PR departments, or by direct quotes from press conferences. Here's a couple of relevant quotes on the nonsensical nature of the both sides model of objectivity: The norms of 'objective reporting' thus involve presenting 'both sides' of an issue with very little in the way of independent forms of verification... [A] journalist who systematically attempts to verify facts--to say which set of facts is more accurate--runs the risk of being acused of abandoning their objectivity by favoring one side over another [J]ournalists who try to be faithful to an objective model of reporting are simultaneously distancing themselves from the notion of independently verifiable truth The 'two sides' model of journalistic objectivity makes news reporting a great deal easier since it requires no recourse to a factual realm. There are no facts to check, no archives of unspoken information to sort through If Tweedledum fails to challenge a point made by Tweedledee, the point remains unchallenged. From Justin Lewis, Objectivity and the Limits of Press Freedom Project Censored Yearbook 2000. pp. 173-74 ...I find myself increasingly covering Washington's most ignored beat: the written word. The culture of deceit is primarily an oral one. The soundbite, the spin, and the political product placement depend on no one spending too much time on the matter under consideration. Over and over again, however, I find that the real story still lies barely hidden and may be reached by nothing more complicated than turning the page, checking the small type in the appendix, charging into the typographical jungle beyond the executive summary, doing a Web search, and, for the bravest, actually looking at the figures on the charts. From Sam Smith. Project Censored Yearbook 2000. p. 60 I also recall a quote from David Halberstam in which he said that objectivity, as professional journalists understood it, was adopting a pose of naivete and gullibility toward official pronouncements. What he meant, I think, is similar to Lewis' point. From: rex [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: rex [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: A deep look at media bias Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 11:06:07 -0500 or another spin on that topic is that whether it is supposed left- (or right) wing media bias, I have never seen an article that addresses the more fundamental issue that most media space is devoted to statism (as compared with your word politics) where almost every news item is the government did THIS today... or the government passed THAT law today or the government sued that business today. Indeed sometimes, no matter what the issue, someone from the government is asked for a comment, as if the news item was The government had this to say about that! Sometimes I pick up the newspaper and almost every article is simply telling the reader what the government (e.g. politicians) said or did about various issues. (even sports?!?!?) The government did this about a tax for another stadium...; The government said this about big sports salaries; It is very depressing. I've devoted a couple of webpages to the problem http://members.ij.net/rex/media.html http://members.ij.net/rex/mediapoint.html I also think that the problem you describe is proof that government schools violate the first amendment free of press and speech because government schools not only destroy the market
