Well, me, for one. And I sure took a lot of heat (and vitriol and even metaphoric urine) for mentioning it at the Swamp: humans tend to be naturally cooperative. Or so argues Paul Robinson in Pirates, Prisoners and Lepers. I would quibble with his use of the word government, as I think he is restricting the word to mean our current idea of government, where I would use it more to mean governance. Surely once a group decides to mete out punishment, in any sort of formal way, they are governing themselves, and have in effect established a form of government. But taking this pedantic point, and tossing it overboard, I hope you will enjoy this latest offering from Russ Roberts. It does touch on something that helps explain the continuing attraction of the doomsayers and anarchists in that as we lose respect for government because we see injustice created and imposed by the corrupt system we have allowed to envelop us, we become sceptical about all forms of government and if the law is an ass, we will govern ourselves by our own privately derived moral codes. But we will govern ourselves, and care for the group, or probably perish.
Paul Robinson on Cooperation, Punishment and the Criminal Justice System
EconTalk Episode with Paul Robinson
Are human beings naturally cooperative or selfish? Can people thrive without government law? Paul Robinson of the University of Pennsylvania and author of Pirates, Prisoners and Lepers talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts [about] the ideas in his book. Robinson argues that without government sanctions or legislation, there is an evolutionary drive to cooperate even in life-and-death situations. In such situations private punishment and norms play a crucial role in sustaining cooperative solutions. The last part of the conversation deals with the criminal justice system and how attitudes toward the system affect society-wide cooperation and crime.
It’s not exactly karma, but the stranger you help might save your life. So here’s to compassion and cooperation … even if in the end they make one selfishly happy. The old altruism quandary: evolutionarily advantageous, and way more fun than the alternative. May you have a tremendous Tuesday … unless you have made other plans.
just finished reading. don’t disagree with anything. the right answer always lies somewhere between the extremes, and there is no way of ever knowing what the exact right answer is, even if the extremes are dumbed down to the far ends of a single line. that was the problem over there at the swamp. there were some very objective personalities that lived, or wanted to live in a black and white world. or they were just lazy intellectually.
did you read the first comment after the text of the podcast? if a case for government was not made by the speakers, then that first person to comment certainly does so, though this person completely makes the point by even more completely missing it.
I hadn’t checked the comments – that first one is a doozy – and what an asshat!
Btw, I was wrong about the platypus being the only egg laying mammal – knew I should have checked that sooner – and I have emended the WoD and put up a delightful video about monotremes, which would be a good WoD, if I hadn’t already blown it. (Ghastly pun intended.)
oddly enough this song was on my mind today.
Great minds think alike … and fools seldom differ. Hey, that would work for my invented word game of contradictory aphorisms. Like “he who hesitates is lost” would be countered with “look before you leap”.
You made me think of this fabulous song
another good one.
back on topic. and i’ve always loved this album cover and the guy on the bench. totally oblivious to it all.
good night.
one last old favorite.
Oblivious, made funny/sad. A Canadian short film classic. A small category:
I am in a big snit today, frankly. I got a response from my city councillor about the public art programme that contained amongst other irritating attitudes, like $100,000 being “a drop in the bucket” (my f&%$&^$ing drop in his f%%#&ing bucket), this sentence:
“And, I don’t think the public should pick the winner. It’s art, and I don’t think art can be a popularity contest, even if I don’t always like what the juries pick.”
To which I replied, after sleeping on it, because his email was a classic example of being super rude late in the afternoon and my temptation was to respond by asking when he last ate:
“You actually think the public cannot be trusted to pick publicly funded art, but we can be trusted to elect our representatives?”
And remarkably, he responded that he did! And used a really inane work of art to make his point, Voice of Fire
The National Gallery paid 1.8 million for it, and now it is claimed to be worth 50 million. But to whom? It ain’t for sale, so we will never see that money. In fact, it probably costs a fortune just to insure.
Why is art so difficult for people to understand? And how can he think we can pick our “leaders” but not our decor? Arghhhhhhhhh. I told him when he decided to run for council that I feared for his soul …. How quickly they develop disdain for the electorate.
They have some pretty banal songs, but also some quirky gems.
And speaking of wanting to rule the world, and stuck firmly in 1985,
This kept showing up on the sidebar on Youtube, not sure why but maybe because of The Big Snit, and I ended up watching the whole thing. Sort of hauntingly beautiful.
What a thunderstorm last night. Lightening so close and one clap even turned the tv off and back on. Luckily Mouse isn’t much fazed by storms. One of my nieces had a very large dog that would become catatonic during storms … alarming to say the least.
And good morning.
check it out Xty. that ugly tree thingy is going to function as a great big lightning rod.
Ooh, it could get struck by lightening. That would be awesome, and might make the paint more interesting. Can you imagine what we (like you, me, and 44) could have constructed for that much money? I would always want to make public art sort of interactive, and at least the tree could have a fort in it. But then there would be liability issues I am sure. I remember they banned kids from the play structure in our K-6 school in the winter because the ground was too hard. But then they put these enormous rectangular rocks all around the big tree, and they were hard year round, but somehow the kids survived. But tunnels and benches would by cool, and maybe some shade. It is at a crossing right near an alternative K-6 school and the bike path so there are always kids about. Frankly a play structure would be better for a million reasons, but mostly a tree and a bench would have been just fine. And I think the city currently charges residents only $10 bucks for a tree, and benches just don’t cost $99,990, so there would be some spare change. Now here is public art that serves both functions, and I rather like. It is in the arrivals area of the Ottawa Airport, and the fellow sitting is our first, and drunk like a skunk, Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, and the other fellow is George Etienne Cartier, who apparently was also a scoundrel and helped persuade the French to join in Confederation and so these two clowns are considered our Founding Fathers. And probably some others, too. We don’t have much history, and it was mostly not very interesting, and I have forgotten most everything except the fur trader stuff up to maybe 1812. And then I doze off … But back to benches:
And this one, called the Secret Bench of Knowledge, that apparently has been cast a number of times and can be found throughout the world, sits in front of a large library and the National Archives:
you could just blow the damn thing up. but make sure you get it right the first time.
http://www.clevelandart.org/research/in-the-library/collection-in-focus/rodins-thinker
Became human with this answer, 11.
I scratched around just a little but can’t find how much the City of Norfolk paid for those crappy-ass garbage cans, but did see were some percentage of our taxes get set aside and shoved towards junk like that, and I suspect nepotism is somewhere in the mix.
My water bill is tied in with storm water drains (which don’t work, we flood instantly here) and the recycling program which is mandatory (some kind of semi-quasi gov/private sector criminal group that immediately raised my bill about $35.00 a month) and you can’t opt out if you want water and sewage service. One of those groups that took a junket to Vegas to see how others do it better…you know, in my best interest and all.
And tonight I see on the local news that Va Power (our electric monopoly) has been using a percentage of our payments to make favorable political contributions. And get this, it’s tied into the base rate! Of course they have now decided to stop at once.
I hate this city.
Quality
running seriously low, and I will enjoy my evening and what remains.
Alright. I’ve cheered up.
Begonias for the lady.
Another one of those ones that I couldn’t find the version of the one that I though I was looking for. Makes perfect sense,…right?
Ah, city politics. The art programme here apparently gets 1% of the city budget, which has to be a considerable amount of money. And it just reeks of nepotism I agree. In good news, the morons who shovelled their snow onto my lawn have finally got a sold sign on their for sale sign. They asked way too much and the house was so poorly built it took over a year to sell in a neighbourhood where things tend to sell super fast. But I look forward to new neighbours – I hope. And yes,
is my plan. I have almost stopped smoking, but still using the vape, but just once or twice a day and here comes twice!
And speaking of begonias, I took a picture of our “fall detectors” as my kids named the pink flowers that might be sedums to send to our far flung daughter, and remembered that DP, I think, asked after my inukshuk. It hasn’t lost its head in ages, and is quite happy, thank you very much!
let me know if you guys need crackers or bread.
and what a lovely inukshuk.
Funny. This neighborhood that i’m in is kinda nice, i like it here and everybody know’s everybody well enough, good stuff. And the house next to me (i’m on a corner, so just the one) keeps transferring, and it’s always military families (Navy & Air Force) on 3 yr stints, just kinda passing thru.
But anyway, the thing that i was going to say is that i’ve met them all. Our yards roll together out front, so we meet.
This will sound strange but of the 6 different families that i’ve met, on every occasion, either the man is friendly or the woman is friendly, but for some reason, not both.
I ponder this stuff.
Don’t bother with that last tune Xty, i didn’t realize the quality was so bad.
I swear, there was once a good Scarlet Begonias video.
random none the less.
Robert Palmer with some pure Little Feat as the band.
Weird, the one friendly, other hostile thing. Here both were hostile – and everyone else is pretty much really nice and has lived here for ages, or looks like they will stay. But this pair have managed to befriend absolutely no one, which is bizarre because we actually have a word, “neighboured”, which explains why when you went outside to take out the garbage you return 4 hours later, possibly slightly inebriated. But these guys have barely spoken.
And I do like my inukshuk. There is a quarry nearish by that has that white rock whose name DP will know that they make drywall and toothpaste out of, and we would go and pick from the tailings out by the road. White and sparkly, but soft as far as rocks go, but I have them scattered here and there. I suspect the shoulders came from the Ottawa River.
And I think I remember that other Scarlet Begonias video …
That is a very funky version of Sailing Shoes.
Sweet.
And I forgot to mention that meat and cheese tray – I am meant to eat more protein – well more food in general – but the cheese arrangement! I am at a loss for words….
Our odd little moment in time.
You got me with the Golden Slumbers … I am not happy about this but they did find some evidence of osteoporosis and gave me an injection that I wish I didn’t kind of agree is a good idea and it has left me a little wonky. Once every six months, and I don’t understand the action well enough to describe it, but future son-in-law worked on bone density in mice during his bio-chem undergrad and I am going to ask him to explain it better. But sleepy (hence the golden slumbers) and warm and my back hurts … these are known side effects and I just hope it is temporary. Moral of the story is you cannot replace food with smoking, and it is reversible apparently. The real culprit is probably lack of exercise, and the vicious circle of pain related problems continues. But I have exercises to do, and excellent support (including you lovely fellows – who I trust by now know who you are!) and I will cheer up.
In the park where we often walk Mouse there is a gentleman named Clifford who I assume has severe cerebral palsy. He walks very awkwardly with a walker and it takes him ages to get to the park. He can barely talk – it is a real struggle for him to get the words out at all understandably, and he has to tilt his head way back to get out the sounds, and he never learnt to read. I think he is about my age, but it is very hard to tell. Anyhow the point of the story is my hubby befriended him and now I have too. I find I can watch his face and wait and often figure out what he is trying to say, and I natter cheerfully at him and try to give him a hug or some sort of physical contact because most people are finks and shun disabled people – it ain’t like it is catching for heaven’s sake! So the day before yesterday I bumped into him as I struggled with my cane, and what did he want to know? How was my leg doing. I showed him the x-ray and how the pin worked etc. So how am I doing? Awesome. It is truly all relative and if Clifford can face the day with a smile, maybe I can too.
Good morning. No work today and Monday is a holiday, so a 4 day weekend. Major head and chest cold going on 2 weeks now, so,much rest is all that i have planned. Low 80’s with a NE breeze arriving as well. For whatever reason, that Sting tune prompted this Willie tune.
Nice to get a long weekend … It is hot and sunny here, in stark contrast to my mood. But we are home bound for a number of reasons, mostly good, as hubby has work that pays and a hard deadline of the 9th of Sept. And it sounds like we could both use a restful time. I love this song, despite loathing the Christian message of accepting crap from this world because somehow “our loving master” thinks suffering is a good thing – a message from the elite to the peons. But it is still a beautiful song, and I do hope that things will improve in the future, but hopefully this terrestrial future! And listening to Willie I have to say that I am surprisingly happy that gay marriage passed in the States … although I can’t tell if that was the rainbow connection he meant to be singing about. I have pretty much come 180 degrees on that one. Much Ido about nothing …