Media Success – A Primer (How to get laid as a social scientist)

Gabriel Mihalache over at Economic Investigations has a great New Year’s piece:

Short Guide to Media Success

Some highlights:

— Try and cultivate a healthy ignorance of everything related to the operation of free markets and finance capitalism. [...] Values come from the warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Anything else is Bushie propaganda

Always be sure to imply, but quite never spell out, that “having a right” means that the State must (forcefully, if necessary) expropriate (or de facto enslave) some people to the benefit of your chosen disadvantaged group du jour. Remember, the State is a fine mean to show your compassion, with other people’s money.

— Remember… patriots want to protect their country. So they’re protectionists! It makes sense. Anyone who says otherwise wants to have foreign corporations rape the pristine, virginal, natural landscape and resources of the land. Pie them. That’s a fine argument. It shows intellectual depth.

If you follow these easy steps, you’ll soon become a sweetheart of the media, you’ll get book deals, documentary deals, and middle-class, white, entitled, pol-sci majors from Europe, with a vague moral outrage and a head full of Galbraith, will have sex with you on your conference tour.

Read the rest HERE

Update: I was looking for a picture of J. K. Galbraith on wikipedia and this is what was listed in the article:

Hats off to the wikipedian with a sense of humor

(preserved for posterity: wikipedia-galbraith1.PNG )

The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram

I came across this article a while ago, then forgot about it. Now, rediscovered, I thought I’d share it with you.

It really is a primer on how politics work. Separate responsibility from action and people will kill for you.

Although I wonder if it’s contingent on our current circumstances, or if indeed it’s a flaw of human nature. All you can do is judge for yourself:

http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.html

Obedience is as basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to. Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the person dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, with defiance or submission, to the commands of others. For many people, obedience is a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed a potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct.

Malcom Gladwell on Human Nature

This is a fascinating speech by Malcom Gladwell.

http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail230.html

Often, what people say, know and feel can be wildly divergent.

Malcolm explores why we can’t trust people’s opinions — because we don’t have the language to express our feelings. His examples include the story of New Coke and how Coke’s market research misled them, and the development of Herman-Miller’s Aeron chair, the best-selling chair in the history of office chairs, which succeeded in spite of research that suggested it would fail.

Gladwell goes to show how preferences are inherently unstable. Unless there is some heavy and known factor to influence decisions, very often people can’t express what they want or what makes them happy.

This can also tell us one thing or two about democracy. A vote is the expression of an opinion with little to no weight, an aesthetical act subject to the same wild swings of fashion.

But go ahead and listen to it. You should find it interesting.

If you don’t have the time to spare, here is a quick overview:

(Shamelessly stolen from here)

Economic Sophistry

This little argument I came up with on while arguing on a web forum. It’s amazing how much insight a basic economic understanding can give you:

Why gay men should not marry, but lesbians should

For gay men (by definition) the value of women is less than that of men. If men seek women, this gives women power. The greater the number of suitors, the more powerful women become. Conversely, the power women have by virtue of being women is diminished. Womenfolk are naturally advantaged by a greater number of men going after them (simple supply and demand). Therefore, gayness is against feminism.

Since feminism is a naturally established doctrine of our current (“liberal”) social order, it means gayness is against society.

On the other hand, lesbianism is in favor of society. Lesbianism reduces the number of women who would accept a man, therefore, heterosexual women get to have a greater power over men by virtue of the greater scarcity of non-lesbian women.

Also, since according to feminism, the woman is the superior life form, it can only be moral and just that they consort with each other.

There you have it, the (fe)male chauvinist lesson in Economics