Category Archives: personal relationships

Pelham G. Wodehouse would like to acknowledge

Here is the acknowledgement page of P. G. Wodehouse’s autobiography, “Over Seventy”, published 1957. Wouldn’t we all like to be able to write an acknowledgement like this (and have enough of an oeuvre to make it funny)?

Wouldn't we all like to write one like this.

You have to have a lot of hits — or an imaginary Frisby –to get away with an acknowledgement like this.

For those who don’t know, P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975)  was the author of some 150 books and plays, plus a hundred or so short stories, radio-sketches and songs. He is best known as the creator of one of the great bromance relationships: carefree Bertram Wooster and his super-competent valet, Jeeves. Wodehouse collaborated on two dozen Broadway musicals including with Jerome Kern (Showboat), Cole Porter (Anything Goes), Guy Bolton, and George Gershwin, and once had 5 running simultaneously. But, to my knowledge, he has never sold an eel, jellied or otherwise.

Robert E. Buxbaum, September 1, 2015. “It was one of those cases where you approve the broad, general principle of an idea but can’t help being in a bit of a twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect. I explained this to Jeeves, and he said much the same thing had bothered Hamlet.”  (Jeeves in the Morning).

Say no to the dress

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A popular reality TV show follows the struggles of young brides-to-be shopping for a wedding dress at a famous store, Kleinfeld’s. They’ve come to believe that this charming adornment will make their dream-wedding really perfect. There is some sort of idea that the perfect wedding is necessary (or desirable) to get you started on a perfect life. This is stated in various ways throughout the show with phrases like: “you deserve to be the princess,” or “you deserve your special day.”

Each woman brings a retinue to help her pick the gown, and to help advise her about what dress has the most pop, or looks best on her, or makes her look the most special. Often it’s someone in this retinue that will pay for the dress too, a father, uncle, or a close family member. The store caters to the retinue at lest at the beginning to get a commitment to the price, generally $5,000 to $10,000, but sometimes to “no limit on the price.” It then provides a dazzling variety of dresses and an old hand or two to guide the young lady to the right one. At first, the retinue chimes in, but eventually the retinue is detached, and the bride is made to embrace that it’s her special day, alone. Then, when the perfect dress is finally chosen (often at the high-end of the budget), the bride is asked: “are you ready to say yes to the dress?” She does, with tears, and everyone claps, especially the retinue. Often, there is a final shot of the beautiful bride at the beautiful wedding. It’s touching, but perhaps unnecessary. So here’s an alternate  thought: just say “no”. No to the expensive dress; no to the expensive cake (sorry, cake boss) and no to the fancy, big diamond. instead, throw a big fun wedding on the cheap, perhaps at a park in a rented gown; friends will get you through life, the big dress and big cake will not.

An expensive wedding didn’t keep John Kennedy faithful, nor did it help cement Elizabeth Taylors 7 husbands (two to Richard Burton). Just the opposite: a recent study on marriage stability showed that the higher priced the wedding, the more likely it is to end in divorce.

Marriage stability goes down as the wedding costs go up.

Marriage stability goes down as the wedding costs go up. If you dress costs $5,000, your wedding is unlikely to come in at less than $10k. From Francis and Mialon, “A diamond is forever and other Fairy Tales,” 2014. The average cost of a US wedding: $30,000.

The point of the wedding is to have a long, happy marriage, not a one day party, and expensive weddings appear to be counter-productive to stability. Things are worse for those who enter poor, backing up the observation that money stresses are among the main causes of marriage failure. This is not to say that you should not have a wedding party, but that spending should be watched especially if the couple isn’t that extraordinarily rich. The average, employed US 20-something earns about $26,000/year before taxes. That’s not bad money until you realize that the average US wedding costs over $30,000 not including dress, ring and honeymoon. There is a far lower chance of divorce for the couple with the $5-$10k wedding, and even lower if the couple can keep expenses in the 0-$5k range.

Give her a diamond ring, but the ideal cost is between $100 and $2000 (unless you're super rich)

Give her a ring, but the ideal cost is between $200 and $2000 unless you’re super rich.

Statistics suggest that spending on the diamond doesn’t help either, unless it’s a very expensive stone — and that, perhaps, is because the very expensive stone is only bought by the very rich groom. Still, even for the 1% who can afford it, the dress or stone should be considered a sunk cost, not an investment. You’ll never be able to resell that dress at all, and though you can resell a diamond it is virtually impossible to get even half your money back. This isn’t to say that you should not give a ring — without a ring the bride will feel cheated, but most grooms will be better served giving one in the $100-$2000 range.

It seems that having lots of people at the wedding is perhaps the single best thing you can do for marriage stability. On the other hand, this graph might show that the sort of person who has 200 good friends is the sort of person to remain happily married.

Having lots of people at the wedding is perhaps the single best thing you can do for marriage stability. On the other hand, this graph might show that the sort of person who has 200 good friends is the sort of person to remain happily married. ibid.

While your wedding should be cheap, or at least affordable, it should not be small. It turns out that having lots of friends and family in attendance correlates strongly with having a long, stable marriage. I’m not sure if this is entirely cause and effect: perhaps those with lots of friends and family are giving and stable than those without. Still, it strikes me that friendships are good for every couple, and very worth maintaining. These are people who will be there for advice, or just be there when things get rocky. Give them a good party, and don’t drive them away by sending a message that a large gift is expected. If you get married on the cheap, it’s likely your guests will feel more comfortable showing up in business clothes with simple affordable gifts. Most bridesmaids are happier if they don’t have to buy a big expensive dress.

Honeymoons help malaise stability too.

Honeymoons help marriage stability too. ibid.

Robert E. Buxbaum, July 12, 2015. My 3 children are all entering marriageable age — and PhD age (I wrote a post comparing a wedding to a PhD.) The above are my thoughts before being hornswoggled into buying $5,000 worth of taffeta. They are also suggestive of the sort of work to get a PhD. Another good spending investment, I think, is to go on a honeymoon. I didn’t, and though we didn’t get divorced, in retrospect it seems like a good idea. I plan to finally go on a honeymoon for our 25th anniversary. Let’s toast (with Geritol) to finding the right mate. Good luck.

Marriage vs PhD

Marriage vs PhD, from Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) comics.

Marriage vs PhD, from Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) comics.

Here’s a PhD comic comparing getting married to getting a PhD. The similarities are striking. It’s funny because …

 

 

….one does not expect so many similarities between the two endeavors. On thinking a bit further, one realizes that marriage and graduate school are the main, long-term trust relationship options for young college grads, 21-23 years old who want to move out of home and don’t want to yet enter the grind of being a single, wage slave (grease monkey, computer-code monkey, secretary, etc.)

College grads expect some self-fulfillment and, as they’ve lived away from home, mostly prefer to not move back, Entry level jobs are generally less-than fulfilling, and if you move away from home as a single, living costs can eat up all your income. One could get a same-sex room-mate, but that is a low commitment relationship, and most young grads want more: they’ve an “urge to merge.” Either PhD or marriage provides this more: you continue to live away from home, you get an environment with meals and room semi-provided (sometimes in a very cool environment) and you have some higher purpose and long-term companionship that you don’t get at home, or as a secretary with a room-mate.

I suspect that often, the choice of marriage or grad-school depends on which proffers the better offer. Some PhD programs and some marriages provide you with a stipend of spending-money. In other programs or marriages, you have to get an outside job. Even so, your spouse or advisor will typically help you get that outside job. In most communities, there’s more honor in being a scholar or a wife/ husband than there is in being a single working person. And there’s no guarantee it will be over in 7 years. A good marriage can last 30-50 years, and a good PhD may lead to an equally long stay in academia as a professor or a researcher of high standing. While not all majors are worth it financially, or emotionally, you can generally do more and make more money as a PhD than with a low-pay undergraduate degree. Or you can use your college connections to marry well.

What type of job are you looking for?

Some people are just cut out for the grad-school life-style, and not particularly for normal jobs. Ask yourself: What type of job will make me happy? Could be it’s research or home-making? Then go find a mate or program.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum (married with children and a PhD), July 1,, 2015. Growing up is perhaps the most difficult and important thing anyone does; getting married or entering a PhD program is a nice step, though it doesn’t quite mean you’re an adult yet. Some months ago, I wrote an essay about an earlier stage in the process: being a 16-year-old girl. For those interested in research, here’s something on how it is done using induction, and here’s something on statistics.

Gatling guns and the Spanish American War

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I rather like inventions and engineering history, and I regularly go to the SME, a fair of 18th to 19th century innovation. I am generally impressed with how these machines work, but what really brings things out is when talented people use the innovation to do something radical. Case in point, the Gatling gun; invented by Richard J. Gatling in 1861 for use in the Civil war, it was never used there, or in any major war until 1898 when Lieut. John H. Parker (Gatling Gun Parker) showed how to deploy them successfully, and helped take over Cuba. Until then, they were considered another species of short-range, grape-shot cannon, and ignored.

1876_Gatling_gun_NPS_Fort_Laramie_WY_by-Matthew_Trump_2004

A Gatling gun of the late 1800s. Similar, but not identical to the ones Parker brought along.

Parker had sent his thoughts on how to deploy a Gatling gun in a letter to West Point, but they were ignored, as most new thoughts are. For the Spanish-American War, Parker got 4 of the guns, trained his small detachment to use them, and registered as a quartermaster corp in order to sneak them aboard ship to Cuba. Here follows Theodore Roosevelt’s account of their use.

“On the morning of July 1st, the dismounted cavalry, including my regiment, stormed Kettle Hill, driving the Spaniards from their trenches. After taking the crest, I made the men under me turn and begin volley-firing at the San Juan Blockhouse and entrenchment’s against which Hawkins’ and Kent’s Infantry were advancing. While thus firing, there suddenly smote on our ears a peculiar drumming sound. One or two of the men cried out, “The Spanish machine guns!” but, after listening a moment, I leaped to my feet and called, “It’s the Gatlings, men! It’s our Gatlings!” Immediately the troopers began to cheer lustily, for the sound was most inspiring. Whenever the drumming stopped, it was only to open again a little nearer the front. Our artillery, using black powder, had not been able to stand within range of the Spanish rifles, but it was perfectly evident that the Gatlings were troubled by no such consideration, for they were advancing all the while.

Roosevelt and the charge up Kettle Hill, Frederick Remington

Roosevelt, his volunteers, and the Buffalo soldiers charge up Kettle Hill, Frederick Remington.

Soon the infantry took San Juan Hill, and, after one false start, we in turn rushed the next line of block-houses and intrenchments, and then swung to the left and took the chain of hills immediately fronting Santiago. Here I found myself on the extreme front, in command of the fragments of all six regiments of the cavalry division. I received orders to halt where I was, but to hold the hill at all hazards. The Spaniards were heavily reinforced and they opened a tremendous fire upon us from their batteries and trenches. We laid down just behind the gentle crest of the hill, firing as we got the chance, but, for the most part, taking the fire without responding. As the afternoon wore on, however, the Spaniards became bolder, and made an attack upon the position. They did not push it home, but they did advance, their firing being redoubled. We at once ran forward to the crest and opened on them, and, as we did so, the unmistakable drumming of the Gatlings opened abreast of us, to our right, and the men cheered again. As soon as the attack was definitely repulsed, I strolled over to find out about the Gatlings, and there I found Lieut. Parker with two of his guns right on our left, abreast of our men, who at that time were closer to the Spaniards than any others.

From thence on, Parker’s Gatlings were our inseparable companion throughout the siege. They were right up at the front. When we dug our trenches, he took off the wheels of his guns and put them in the trenches. His men and ours slept in the same bomb-proofs and shared with one another whenever either side got a supply of beans or coffee and sugar. At no hour of the day or night was Parker anywhere but where we wished him to be, in the event of an attack. If a troop of my regiment was sent off to guard some road or some break in the lines, we were almost certain to get Parker to send a Gatling along, and, whether the change was made by day or by night, the Gatling went. Sometimes we took the initiative and started to quell the fire of the Spanish trenches; sometimes they opened upon us; but, at whatever hour of the twenty-four the fighting began, the drumming of the Gatlings was soon heard through the cracking of our own carbines.

Map of the Attack on Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in the Spanish American War.

Map of the Attack on Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, July 1, 1898 The Spanish had 760 troops n the in fortified positions defending the crests of the two hills, and 10,000 more defending Santiago. As Americans were being killed in “hells pocket” near the foot of San Juan Hill, from crossfire, Roosevelt, on the right, charged his men, the “Rough Riders” [1st volunteers] and the “Buffalo Soldiers [10th cavalry], up Kettle Hill in hopes of ending the crossfire and of helping to protect troops that would charge further up San Juan Hill. Parker’s Gatlings were about 600 yards from the Spanish and fired some 700 rounds per minute into the Spanish lines. Theyy were then repositioned on the hill to beat back the counter attack. Without the Parker’s Gatling guns, the chances of success would have been small.

I have had too little experience to make my judgment final; but certainly, if I were to command either a regiment or a brigade, whether of cavalry or infantry, I would try to get a Gatling battery–under a good man–with me. I feel sure that the greatest possible assistance would be rendered, under almost all circumstances, by such a Gatling battery, if well handled; for I believe that it could be pushed fairly to the front of the firing-line. At any rate, this is the way that Lieut. Parker used his battery when he went into action at San Juan, and when he kept it in the trenches beside the Rough Riders before Santiago.”

Here is how the Gatling gun works; it’s rather like 5 or more rotating zip guns; a pall pulls and releases the firing pins. Gravity feeds the bullets at the top and drops the shells out the bottom. Lt’ Parker’s deployment innovation was to have them hand-carried to protected positions, near-enough to the front that they could be aimed. The swivel and rapid fire of the guns allowed the shooter to aim them to correct for the drop in the bullets over fairly great distances. This provided rapid-fire accurate protection from positions that could not be readily hit. Shortly after the victory on San Juan HIll, July 1 1898, the Spanish Caribbean fleet was destroyed July 3, Santiago surrendered July 17, and all of Cuba surrendered 4 days later, July 21 (my birthday) — a remarkably short war. While TR may not have figured out how to use the Gatling guns effectively, he at least recognized that Lt. John Parker had.

A new type of machine gun, a colt browning repeating rifle, a gift from Con'l Roosevelt to John Parker's Gatling gun detachment.

Roosevelt gave two of these, more modern, Colt-Browning repeating rifles to Parker’s detachment the day after the battle. They were not particularly effective. By WWI, “Gatling Gun” Parker would be a general; by 1901 Roosevelt would be president.

The day after the battle, Col. Roosevelt gifted Parker’s group with two Colt-Browning machine guns that he and his family had bought, but had not used. According to Roosevelt, but these rifles, proved to be “more delicate than the Gatlings, and very readily got out-of-order.” The Brownings are the predecessor of the modern machine gun used in the Boxer Rebellion and for wholesale deaths in WWI and WWII.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, June 9, 2015. The Spanish-American War was a war of misunderstanding and colonialism, but its effects, by and large, were good. The cause, the sinking of the USS Maine, February 15, 1898, was likely a mistake. Spain, a decaying colonial power, was a conservative monarchy under Alfonso XIII; the loss of Cuba seems to have lead to liberalization. The US, a republic, became a colonial power. There is an inherent friction, I think between conservatism and liberal republicanism, Generally, republics have out-gunned and out-produced other countries, perhaps because they reward individual initiative.

From Princeton: dare to be dumb.

Let’s say you have a good education and a good idea you want to present to equally educated colleagues. You might think to use your finest language skills: your big words, your long sentences, and your dialectically organized, long paragraphs. A recent, Princeton University study suggests this is a route to disaster with the educated, and even more so with the un-educated. In both groups, big words don’t convince, and don’t even impress, like small words do.

Most people won't care what you know unless they know that you care.

Like this fellow, most folks aren’t impressed by fancy speeches. (cartoon by Gahan Wilson)

http://web.princeton.edu/…/Opp%20Consequences%20of%20Erudit…

People, even educated ones, want ideas presented in simple words and simple sentences. They trust such statements, and respect those who speak this way more than those who shoot high, and sometimes over their heads. Even educated people find long words and sentences confusing, and off-putting. To them, as to the less-educated, it sounds like you’re using your fancy english as a cover for lies and ignorance, while trying to claim superiority. Who knew that George W. was so smart (Al Gore?). Here’s George W. at the SMU graduation yesterday (May 18). He does well, I’d say, with mostly one-syllable words.

This is the sort of advertising that people notice -- and trust.

Lower yourself to be one of the crowd, but don’t go so far that you’re the butt of jokes.

Reading this study, I’ve come to ask why fancy language skills is so important for getting into  college, and why it adds points when writing a college paper. Asked another way, why are professors pleased by something that’s off-putting to everyone else. One thought: this is a club initiation — a jargon to show you belong to the club, or want to. Alternately, perhaps professors have gotten so used to this that it’s become their natural language. Whatever the reason, when outside of university, keep it simple (and) stupid.

Some specifics: at job interviews, claim you want to work at their company doing a job in your field. Only when dealing with professors can you claim your goal is capitalizing on your intellectual synergies, and phrase that means the same thing. Don’t say, you’ll do anything, and remember it’s OK to ask for training; poor education doesn’t hold-back American productivity.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, May 19, 2015. Here are some further thoughts on education, and some pictures of my dorm and the grad college at Princeton back in the day.

Zombie invasion model for surviving plagues

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Imagine a highly infectious, people-borne plague for which there is no immunization or ready cure, e.g. leprosy or small pox in the 1800s, or bubonic plague in the 1500s assuming that the carrier was fleas on people (there is a good argument that people-fleas were the carrier, not rat-fleas). We’ll call these plagues zombie invasions to highlight understanding that there is no way to cure these diseases or protect from them aside from quarantining the infected or killing them. Classical leprosy was treated by quarantine.

I propose to model the progress of these plagues to know how to survive one, if it should arise. I will follow a recent paper out of Cornell that highlighted a fact, perhaps forgotten in the 21 century, that population density makes a tremendous difference in the rate of plague-spread. In medieval Europe plagues spread fastest in the cities because a city dweller interacted with far more people per day. I’ll attempt to simplify the mathematics of that paper without losing any of the key insights. As often happens when I try this, I’ve found a new insight.

Assume that the density of zombies per square mile is Z, and the density of susceptible people is S in the same units, susceptible population per square mile. We define a bite transmission likelihood, ß so that dS/dt = -ßSZ. The total rate of susceptibles becoming zombies is proportional to the product of the density of zombies and of susceptibles. Assume, for now, that the plague moves fast enough that we can ignore natural death, immunity, or the birth rate of new susceptibles. I’ll relax this assumption at the end of the essay.

The rate of zombie increase will be less than the rate of susceptible population decrease because some zombies will be killed or rounded up. Classically, zombies are killed by shot-gun fire to the head, by flame-throwers, or removed to leper colonies. However zombies are removed, the process requires people. We can say that, dR/dt = kSZ where R is the density per square mile of removed zombies, and k is the rate factor for killing or quarantining them. From the above, dZ/dt = (ß-k) SZ.

We now have three, non-linear, indefinite differential equations. As a first step to solving them, we set the derivates to zero and calculate the end result of the plague: what happens at t –> ∞. Using just equation 1 and setting dS/dt= 0 we see that, since ß≠0, the end result is SZ =0. Thus, there are only two possible end-outcomes: either S=0 and we’ve all become zombies or Z=0, and all the zombies are all dead or rounded up. Zombie plagues can never end in mixed live-and-let-live situations. Worse yet, rounded up zombies are dangerous.

If you start with a small fraction of infected people Z0/S0 <<1, the equations above suggest that the outcome depends entirely on k/ß. If zombies are killed/ rounded up faster than they infect/bite, all is well. Otherwise, all is zombies. A situation like this is shown in the diagram below for a population of 200 and k/ß = .6

FIG. 1. Example dynamics for progress of a normal disease and a zombie apocalypse for an initial population of 199 unin- fected and 1 infected. The S, Z, and R populations are shown in (blue, red, black respectively, with solid lines for the zombie apocalypse, and lighter lines for the normal plague. t= t Nß where N is the total popula- tion. For both models the k/ß = 0.6 to show similar evolutions. In the SZR case, the S population disap- pears, while the SIR is self limiting, and only a fraction of the population becomes infected.

Fig. 1, Dynamics of a normal plague (light lines) and a zombie apocalypse (dark) for 199 uninfected and 1 infected. The S and R populations are shown in blue and black respectively. Zombie and infected populations, Z and I , are shown in red; k/ß = 0.6 and τ = tNß. With zombies, the S population disappears. With normal infection, the infected die and some S survive.

Sorry to say, things get worse for higher initial ratios,  Z0/S0 >> 0. For these cases, you can kill zombies faster than they infect you, and the last susceptible person will still be infected before the last zombie is killed. To analyze this, we create a new parameter P = Z + (1 – k/ß)S and note that dP/dt = 0 for all S and Z; the path of possible outcomes will always be along a path of constant P. We already know that, for any zombies to survive, S∞ = 0. We now use algebra to show that the final concentration of zombies will be Z∞ = Z0 + (1-k/ß)S0. Free zombies survive so long as the following ratio is non zero: Z0/S0 + 1- k/ß. If Z0/S0 = 1, a situation that could arise if a small army of zombies breaks out of quarantine, you’ll need a high kill ratio, k/ß > 2 or the zombies take over. It’s seen to be harder to stop a zombie outbreak than to stop the original plague. This is a strong motivation to kill any infected people you’ve rounded up, a moral dilemma that appears some plague literature.

Figure 1, from the Cornell paper, gives a sense of the time necessary to reach the final state of S=0 or Z=0. For k/ß of .6, we see that it takes is a dimensionless time τ of 25 or to reach this final, steady state of all zombies. Here, τ= t Nß and N is the total population; it takes more real time to reach τ= 25 if N is high than if N is low. We find that the best course in a zombie invasion is to head for the country hoping to find a place where N is vanishingly low, or (better yet) where Z0 is zero. This was the main conclusion of the Cornell paper.

Figure 1 also shows the progress of a more normal disease, one where a significant fraction of the infected die on their own or develop a natural immunity and recover. As before, S is the density of the susceptible, R is the density of the removed + recovered, but here I is the density of those Infected by non-zombie disease. The time-scales are the same, but the outcome is different. As before, τ = 25 but now the infected are entirely killed off or isolated, I =0 though ß > k. Some non-infected, susceptible individuals survive as well.

From this observation, I now add a new conclusion, not from the Cornell paper. It seems clear that more immune people will be in the cities. I’ve also noted that τ = 25 will be reached faster in the cities, where N is large, than in the country where N is small. I conclude that, while you will be worse off in the city at the beginning of a plague, you’re likely better off there at the end. You may need to get through an intermediate zombie zone, and you will want to get the infected to bury their own, but my new insight is that you’ll want to return to the city at the end of the plague and look for the immune remnant. This is a typical zombie story-line; it should be the winning strategy if a plague strikes too. Good luck.

Robert Buxbaum, April 21, 2015. While everything I presented above was done with differential calculus, the original paper showed a more-complete, stochastic solution. I’ve noted before that difference calculus is better. Stochastic calculus shows that, if you start with only one or two zombies, there is still a chance to survive even if ß/k is high and there is no immunity. You’ve just got to kill all the zombies early on (gun ownership can help). Here’s my statistical way to look at this. James Sethna, lead author of the Cornell paper, was one of the brightest of my Princeton PhD chums.

For All Fools Day, April 1, 2015

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On this April Fools day I’m reminded of:

Democratic Senator Thomas Hart Benton, of Missouri. Before being elected to the US senate, he had been the lawyer for another Democrat, Andrew Jackson (before he was president). Like most prominent Americans of their day both men liked to settle arguments through by use of gunnery at close range. After Andrew Jackson participated in a duel with Benton’s brother, Benton himself challenged Jackson to a duel (I try to avoid this with my lawyers).

Seantor Thomas Hart Benton

Senator Thomas Hart Benton; his feud with A. Jackson, ended by common hatred of the Federal Reserve Bank

When asked about it later, Benton said, “Yes, sir, I knew him, sir; General Jackson was a very great man, sir. I shot him, sir. Afterward he was of great use to me, sir, in my battle with the United States Bank.” Ain’t that America. You can be shooting enemies one day, best of buddies the next.

In world politics and life this doesn’t happen as regularly as perhaps it should, but it happens. A few years after WWII we were allies with Germany and Italy, but enemies with the USSR. After WWI we were allies with Japan, until we weren’t; now we are again. Some day ISIS and Iran will be friends (won’t Mr A Bomb be sad).

I should also mention, and recommend the most amusing work of philosophy you are ever likely to encounter: St Erasmus of Rotterdam’s panegyric, “In Praise of Folly”. The thesis, if I may summarize: that most people like a fool and some folly; so does God. That most people don’t like long, boring lectures; neither does God. Etc. Good folly is likely to hurt you in a way you don’t mind (e.g. music, drinking, chasing women, reading long boring books if you like them); bad folly hurts others, e.g. when priest lives royally off of charity.

You might imagine that Erasmus would be executed for this but it seems he was not. It seems to me that Erasmus did something even more remarkable and made himself into a saint by claiming that God would not mind if people prayed to him for all good things. Apparently they started to, and got answered. A cheerful answer from a world of fools.

Robert E. Buxbaum, April 1, 2015.

He/she gave it to him/her/them – the new grammar of transgender

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When I was in grad school, at Princeton there was a grammar joke about a ghetto kid who comes to Princeton. The kid asks, “Where’s the library at?” and is told, “This is an ivy league school. One does not end one’s sentences with a preposition here.” So the kid rephrase: “Where’s the library at, asshole?” What makes this joke poignant was that I found language divides class, and is a weapon of class war, too. At Princeton, I was of lower economic class along with virtually all of the grad school. It was not that we had less spending money, but we came from public schools, while the undergraduates were virtually all from private, “prep school”. It showed in wardrobe, tastes, and especially language.

Protesting at Fergusson; white radicals marching against cops and the system.

Ferguson rally; white radicals in a black neighborhood. Are the locals as against cops and the system?

To the prep-schooler, the working class was cheap because they were racist, or apartheid, and the preppy was trying to remedy this through activism. Rarely mentioned was that daddy was a major landlord, a college president or ambassador to Chad, or that they planned to go off to jobs in finance, law, or politics as soon as they were done rallying against class, racism, and the system. I imagine that their radical politics was partially sincere, but partially a social tool to keep the unwashed bourgeois at arm’s length. The best answer, I thought then, and now, is in grammar: we are not stingy racists, just being frugal.

The sexist label of today seems similar to the racist label of those days: partly sincere, partly a social tool built on fear, and the answer too, I think is grammar. Most people see no problem with a name change (just file the paperwork), or with a change in driver’s license sex indicator (who knows or cares?). The problem comes in with the loudly gender fluid: those who’re male today and female tomorrow and want to be respected for it. Are they a legitimate 3rd gender, or an over-pampered minority with no good claim to victimhood or anything else.

Transgender does not have to do with bed partners. Some people like to "keep it fluid" and this is where the grammar problems come in.

Transgender does not have to do with bed partners, but with self-image. Some people are confused and like (need?) to “keep it fluid”; this is where the grammar problems come in. Yet others are sons of privilege trying to make a point. Is this person confused or trying to make a point? Does it matter?

In this, and all such cases, I think it pays to respond to the legitimate complainant first and see if that answers all. One popular option is to use the words “they” or “them” when male or female labels don’t fit. Thus: “I gave my homework to them,” even though only one person received it. This is bad in my mind as it solves one problem but creates at least two others. It’s confusing to call one person many, and gives that person’s opinion extra weight. “They voted yea”, implies many people, not just one. Most Americans cringe when the queen of England says, “We request…” The queen gives her request extra weight by speaking in the plural. Similarly, “L’État, c’est moi.”

More republican would be to avoid all pronouns and use the person’s name, e.g. “I gave it to Dennis”. But this can be awkward if the name is long (Hermione) or repetitively used, or if the person’s name is in flux too. What to do with someone who’s Ernestine to some, Dr. Peters to others (and Ernest in the country). Once a person settles on a single gender the grammatical problem pretty well resolves: good manners suggest one use the pronoun “him” for one who dresses male and calls himself Alphonse, not Alice.

Carrie Nation, If she says she's a woman, good manners suggests I agree

Carrie Nation, prohibitionist. If she says she’s a woman, good manners and common sense suggest we agree — no matter how masculine her behavior or dress.

There is thus a need for a good singular pronoun for the gender-fluid, and the socialists have one ready: call all people “comrade,” a word specifically chosen to be gender neutral. It further implied political solidarity and economic unity. This is fine, for some, but uncomfortable for a capitalist. Another option, one Karl Marx himself used, is “citizen.” But this word carries its own baggage from revolutionary France. Instead, I suggest “yer mate” for him/her and “matey” for he/she. Both are based on pirate lingo. Thus, ‘Matey looks t’ be drunk’. or ‘Give yer homework over to yer mate.’ It’s’s strange, but works. Give it a try on “talk like a pirate day,” September 16 every year.

It’s now to be asked, have we addressed the broader problem of those who see any gender identification as an injustice of the capitalist, repressive system? I answer, does it matter? I suspect these folks are unhappy with themselves, and will never be otherwise, but that’s just a suspicion. Even unhappy folks do good, and sometimes it’s when they try to do bad.  Here’s a poem “International Women’s Day” (1920) by–Alexandra Kollontai (1920).

Down with the world of Property and the Power of Capital! Away with Inequality, Lack of Rights and the Oppression of Women – The Legacy of the Bourgeois World! Forward To the International Unity of Working Women and Male. Workers in the Struggle for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat: The Proletariat of Both Sexes!

Suffragettes -- Meeting at Cooper Union. Not quite the poor, oppressed, but bringers of positive change, when they were not fighting for prohibition.

Suffragettes meeting at Cooper Union. Not quite the oppressed, but bringers of positive change– and also of prohibition.

Ms Kollontai was a main founder of Women’s day, and this is/ was a good thing. She was also a daughter of privilege and a fan of Stalin’s brand of social engineering: the sort that hung engineers from the lamp-posts as a warning to anti-proletarians. She was Soviet ambassador to Sweden, and as ambassador, kept Sweden from helping Poland or Finland when Stalin and Hitler joined forces to simultaneously invade those countries and murder the population. She did her good and bad together as one package. I find that the world is crazy this was, and so are the people who do things. You just have to try to take the good with the bad, and laugh if you can. Matey here owes as much to yer mate.

Robert E. Buxbaum, March 30-31, 2015.

Is college worth no cost?

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While a college degree gives most graduates a salary benefit over high school graduates, a study by the Bureau of Labor statistics indicates that the benefits disappear if you graduate in the bottom 25% of your class. Worse yet, if you don’t graduate at all you can end up losing salary money, especially if you go into low-paying fields like child development or physical sciences.

Salary benefits of a college degree are largely absent if you graduate in the bottom 25% of your class.

The average college graduate earns significantly more than a high school grad, but not if you attend a pricy school, or graduate in the bottom 1/4 of your class, or have the wrong major.

Most people realize there is a great earnings difference depending on your field of study with graduates in engineering and medicine doing fairly well financially and even top graduates in child development or athletic sciences barely able to justify the college and opportunity costs (worse if they go to an expensive college), but what isn’t always realized is that not all those who enter these fields graduate. For them there is a steep loss when the four (or more) years of lost income are considered.

risk premium in wages

If you don’t graduate or get only an AA or 2 year degree the increase in wages is minimal, and you lose time working and whatever your costs of education. The loss is particularly high if you study social science fields at an expensive college, and don’t graduate, or if you graduate in the bottom of your class.

A report from the New York Federal Reserve finds that the highest pay major is petroleum engineering, mid-career salary $176,300/yr, and the bottom is child development, mid-career salary $36,400/yr (click to check on your major). I’m not sure most students or advisors are aware of the steep salary difference, or that college can have a salary down-side if one picks the wrong major, or does not complete the degree. In terms of earnings, you might be better off avoiding even a free college degree in these areas unless you’re fairly sure you’ll complete the degree, or you really want to work in these fields.

Top earning majors Fed Reserve and Majors that pay you back.

Top earning majors: Majors that pay.

Of course college can provide more than money: knowledge, for instance, and learning: the ability to reason better. But these benefits are likely lost if you don’t work at it, or don’t go in a field you love. They can also come to those who study hard in self-taught reading. In either case, it is the work habits that will make you grow as a person, and leave you more employable. Tough colleges add a lot by exposure to new people and new ways of thinking about great books, and by forced experience in writing essays — but these benefits too are work-dependent and college dependent. If you work hard understanding a great book it will show. If you didn’t work at it, or only exposed yourself to easier fare, that too will show.

As students don’t like criticism, and as good criticism is hard to give — and harder to give well, many less-demanding colleges ,give little or no critical feedback, especially for disadvantaged students. This disadvantages them even more as criticism is an important part of learning. If all you get is a positive experience, a nice campus, and a dramatic graduation, this is not learning. Nor is it necessarily worth 4-5 years of your life.

As a comic take on the high time-cost of a liberal arts education, “Father” Guido Sarduchi, of Saturday Night LIve, describes his “5 minute college experience.” To a surprising extent, it provides everything you’ll remember of 4 year college experience in 5 minutes, including math, history, political science, and language (Spanish).For those who are not sure they will complete a liberal arts education, Father Sarduchi’s 5 minutes may be a better investment than a free 4 years in community college.

Robert. E. Buxbaum. January 21-22, 2015. My sense is that the better part of education is what you get when you don’t get what you want.

Of Scrooge and rising wheat production

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The Christmas Carol tells a tale that, for all the magic and fantasy, presents as true an economic picture of a man and his times as any in real-life history. Scrooge is a miserable character at the beginning of the tale, he lives alone in a dark house, without a wife or children, disliked by those around him. Scrooge has an office with a single employee (Bob Cratchit) in a tank-like office heated by a single lump of coal. He doesn’t associate much with friends or family, and one senses that he has few customers. He is poor by any life measure, and is likely poor relative to other bankers. At the end, through giving, he finds he enjoys life, is liked more, and (one has the sense) he may even get more business, and more money.

Scrooge (as best I can read him) believes in Malthus’s economic error of zero-sum wealth: That there is a limited amount of food, clothing, jobs, etc. and therefore Scrooge uses only the minimum, employs only the minimum, and spends only the minimum. Having more people would only mean more mouths to feed. As Scrooge says, “I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned [the workhouses]. They cost enough, and … If they [the poor] would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge, the poor rich man.

Scrooge, the poor rich man with a tiny carbon footprint.

The teaching of the spirits is the opposite, and neither that of the Democrats or Republicans. Neither that a big government is needed to redistribute the wealth, nor that the free market will do everything. But, as I read it, the spirits bring a spiritual message of personal charity and happiness. That one enriches ones-self when one give of and by ones-self — just from the desire to be good and do good. The spirit of Christmas Present assures Scrooge that no famine will result from the excess population, but tells him of his 1800 brothers and shows him the unending cornucopia of food in the marketplace: spanish onions, oranges, fat chestnuts, grapes, and squab. Christmas future then shows him his funeral, and Tim’s: the dismal end of all men, rich and not:  “Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live.” And Scrooge reforms, learns: gives a smile and a laugh, and employs a young runner to get Cratchit a fat goose. He visits his nephew Fred, a cheerful businessman for dinner, and laughs while watching Tom Topper court Fred’s plump sister-in-law.

The spirits do not redistribute Scrooge’s wealth for him, and certainly don’t present a formula for how much to give whom. Instead they present a picture of the value of joy and societal fellowship (as I read it). The spirits help Scrooge out of his mental rut so he’s sees worthy endeavors everywhere. Both hoarding and redistribution are Malthusian-Scroogian messages, as I read them. Both are based on the idea that there is only so much that the world can provide.

World wheet production

World wheat production tripled from 1960 to 2012 (faostat.fao.org), but acreage remained constant. More and more wheat from the same number of acres.

The history of food production suggests the spirits are right. The population is now three times what it was in Dickens’s day and mass starvation is not here. Instead we live among an “apoplectic opulence” of food. In a sense these are the product of new fertilizers, new tractors, and GMOs (Genetically modified organisms), but I would say it’s more the influence of better people. Plus, perhaps some extra CO2 in the air. Britons now complain about being too fat — and blame free markets for making them so. Over the last 50 years, wheat production has tripled, while the world population doubled, and the production of delicacies, like meat has expanded even faster. Unexpectedly, one sees that the opulence does not come from bringing new fields on-line — a process that would have to stop — but instead from increased production by the same tilled acres.

The opulence is not uniformly distributed, I should note. Countries that believe in Malthus and resort to hoarding or redistribution have been rewarded to see their grim prophesies fulfilled, as was Scrooge. Under Stalin, The Soviet Union redistributed grain from the unworthy farmer to the worth factory worker. The result was famine and Stalin felt vindicated by it. Even after Stalin, production never really grew under Soviet oversight, but remained at 75 Mtons/year from 1960 until the soviet collapse in 1990. Tellingly, nearly half of Soviet production was from the 3% of land under private cultivation. An unintended benefit: it appears the lack of Soviet grain was a major motivation for détente.  England had famine problems too when they enacted Malthusian “corn acts” and when they prevented worker migration Irish ownership during the potato famine. They saw starvation again under Attlee’s managed redistribution. In the US, it’s possible that behaviors like FDR scattering the bonus army may have helped prolong the depression. My sense is that the modern-day Scrooges are those against immigration “the foreigners will take our jobs,” and those who oppose paying folks on time, or nuclear and coal for fear that we will warm the planet. Their vision of America-yet-to-be matches Scrooge’s: a one-man work-force in a tank office heated by a single piece of coal.

Now I must admit that I have no simple formula for the correct charity standard. How does a nation provide enough, but not so much that it removes motivation– and the joy of success. Perhaps all I can say is that there is a best path between hoarding and false generosity. Those pushing the extremes are not helping, but creating a Dickensian world of sadness and gloom. Rejoice with me then, and with the reformed Scrooge. God bless us all, each and every one.

Robert Buxbaum, January 7, 2015. Some ideas here from Jerry Bowyer in last year’s Forbes.