Category: Psychology

Compare estimates of white male economic importance from TV viewers, streamers, and readers?

by philg

I often ask folks outside of Florida whose primary source of news is from New York-based media for their estimate of how often a typical house in coastal South Florida is hit by a major hurricane. The estimates range from between 1 and 5 years. (The historical prevalence if more like every 50+ years; Palm Beach County was last hit in 1949 and Tampa has gone more than 100 years (since 1921).)

While watching an NCAA Final Four game with our local basketball fans I observed almost no white males in the commercials. There was an occasional white female with a Black sex partner (spouse or “date”). There was an NCAA house ad in which a fictitious college classroom was presented and there were a few white male students learning from the wise (Black) professor. The overwhelming number of people presented as business executives or valuable consumers, however, appeared to be either Black or Hispanic. A viewer might easily imagine that a restaurant, for example, would be able to prosper without any white male customers and, certainly, any business could be run without any white male employees.

I wonder if this suggests a good subject for a sociology or social psychology master’s thesis:

Compare the estimates of white male economic importance in the U.S. made by the following groups of people: (1) those who watch broadcast TV with commercials, (2) those who watch streaming services such as Netflix, and (3) those who neither watch TV nor stream (all four of them in the U.S. who actually read books?).

What actually is the importance of non-Hispanic white males in the U.S.? ChatGPT says that white males are 30% of population, pay 37-40% of all federal receipts, and receive only 10-15% of welfare. In other words, they’re perfect “tax cattle”. How about in driving the S&P 500’s apparently unstoppable rise? ChatGPT says white males are 72 percent of Fortune 500 senior executives, which is inconsistent with its earlier estimate of “37-40% of federal receipts” because Fortune 500 execs are rich and the top 1% of Americans alone pay 40% of federal individual income taxes. Maybe white males pay 80% of federal income tax and then a more equal share of other taxes, such as Social Security? Income tax is about half of federal revenue. A better estimate might be 60% of federal receipts.

(What about white women who do appear in the TV commercials that I saw, but at low levels of representation? ChatGPT says “as a group, women almost certainly receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes, especially if you include benefits tied to children” (the “single mom” cheat code for 18+ years of taxpayer-funded life) and “White women, as a group, likely receive slightly more in government benefits than they pay in taxes over their lifetimes—but they are much closer to balance than women overall.”)

Related…

Some examples of a white-male-free U.S.:

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What do we tell the AI-fearful?

by philg

A lady here in Florida asked me to reassure her that AI wouldn’t kill all humans. “I’ve seen the movies about Skynet, so I know what could happen,” she said. I reflected that an AI fed on a diet of the New York Times and Greta Thunberg could easily come to the conclusion that humans were destroying the planet via CO2 emission and, therefore, the best course of action would be to kill all humans. She responded, “You’re not making me feel better.”

What is the correct answer? If AI is embedded in networked robots and at least one robot is walking near every group of humans, what stops the robots from killing us in a coordinated attack? Maybe the AI will study the Lebanese Civil War in which 150,000 people were killed by their neighbors due to “religious diversity” and say “I can do a more thorough job than the Lebanese did with their neighbors back in 1990.”

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Is U.S. immigration policy a form of animal hoarding?

by philg

People in the U.S. who say that we have a critical shortage of affordable housing and that income and wealth inequality are a “crisis” simultaneously say that we must keep our borders open to low-skill migrants, elderly and disabled migrants, and others who will never be able to pay a median rent. The people who observe that the U.S. health care system is unusable due to lengthy waiting lists and capacity shortages also say that we should bring in child migrants with diseases that will entail months of hospital stays (at a cost of $millions and with a result of extending waiting lists for native-born Americans; see, by contrast, Australia).

Let’s compare this to animal hoarding, as explained by the Minnesota-based Animal Humane Society (I picked Minnesota because the noble citizens there are passionate about importing as many Somalis as possible, regardless of education level or propensity to work):

Animal hoarding is an accumulation of animals that has overwhelmed a person’s ability to provide minimum standards of care. … Rescue hoarders believe they’re the only people that can adequately care for their animals. Their hoarding begins with a strong desire to save animals. They also may have an extensive network of enablers, and are in complete denial about the dangerous or unhealthy conditions in which the animals are living.

Does the analogy hold up? Below, from Politico, a situation that has changed exactly nobody’s mind in Maskachusetts regarding the merits of open borders.

Related:

  • the UK is jammed with advocates for open borders despite a 2023 report by Human Rights Watch about “this system [of taxpayer-funded everything for migrants] has increasingly been plagued by serious deficiencies, in violation of people’s human rights to housing, food, education, health, and social security”
  • national ASPCA page: Animal “hoarding” can be identified when a person is housing more animals than they can adequately and appropriately care for. … guardians believe they are helping their animals and deny this inability to provide minimum care.
  • “‘You’re not welcome here’: Australia’s treatment of disabled migrants” (BBC): It is one of few countries that routinely rejects immigrants’ visas on the basis of their medical needs – specifically if the cost of care exceeds A$86,000 ($57,000; £45,000) over a maximum of 10 years. New Zealand has a similar policy but Australia’s is much stricter. … The government defends the law as necessary to curb government spending and protect citizens’ access to healthcare.
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Young Americans see Kamala Harris as the “candidate of change”

by philg

“Poll Finds Harris Rising as She Challenges Trump on Change” (NYT):

A national Times/Siena poll found Kamala Harris with a slim lead over Donald J. Trump. Voters were more likely to see her, not Mr. Trump, as a break from the status quo.

Ms. Harris, who is 59, was seen by a wide margin, 61 percent to 29 percent, as the change candidate among voters who are not white. Younger voters see her as the change candidate by a lopsided margin: 58 percent to 34 percent.

Is this the first time in history that an incumbent has been able to persuade American voters that he/she/ze/they is the “change candidate”?

On the other hand, maybe the perception is legitimate. Let’s try to figure out what might change. First, if Kamala Harris has a good idea right now, what is stopping her from implementing it? Is Joe Biden the obstacle? The person who is actually running the U.S. is the obstacle? Why is this person obstructing productive change from a member of his/her/zir/their own party?

For the sake of this post, though, let’s assume that Harris-Walz do have big new ideas and somehow they are being prevented from implementing them.

The principal passion for Democrats is abortion care so let’s look at that first… Kamala Harris is promising a federal law that would legalize abortion care for pregnant people at all stages of a pregnant person’s pregnancy. That would be a change, at least in stages that outlaw abortion care after a certain number of weeks of a pregnant person’s pregnancy. But Joe Biden has also promised this kind of legislation so we’re left with two questions: (a) is expanding abortion care at the federal level an example of “change”, and (b) why hasn’t the Biden-Harris administration done it?

A close second to abortion care is a passion for open borders. But Kamala Harris was Joe Biden’s “Border Czar” so we shouldn’t expect any change in this area.

At least among young Democrats, Queers for Palestine is just as important as open borders. Perhaps this is an example of real change. It looks as though Harris-Walz are promising to force Israel to surrender to the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”). “Walz, Appealing to Muslim Voters, Says War in Gaza ‘Must End Now’” (NYT, 10/3/2024):

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, on Thursday made a direct appeal to Muslim voters, decrying “staggering and devastating” destruction in Gaza and saying that the war between Israel and Hamas should be brought to an immediate end.

“This war must end, and it must end now,” Mr. Walz said in a three-minute video address to the virtual “Million Muslim Votes: A Way Forward” event, which was hosted by the group Emgage Action.

As Hamas was elected by Palestinians on a platform of military conquest and has promised to defeat Israel militarily, the only possible “immediate ends” for the Gaza fighting are (1) Israel switches to US-/UK-style destruction of the enemy population until the Palestinians surrender unconditionally as the Japanese and Germans were forced to, or (2) Israel surrenders to Hamas. I don’t think (1) is what Mx. Walz had in mind, despite his/her/zir/their background as a combat hero. That leaves us with (2), in which the U.S. uses its own military power to destroy Israel, including its Muslim citizens, unless Israel surrenders. The Biden-Harris administration hasn’t done that yet.

Kamala Harris has promised to make housing more affordable. But that’s not change because it was also the Biden-Harris plan, according to whitehouse.gov in September 2021:

(the cost of buying a house, factoring in purchase price and interest rate, has roughly doubled since the Biden-Harris administration implemented its plan)

Kamala Harris promises to give first-time homebuyers (“fresh idiots”?) $25,000. I guess that would be change, but if it is a good idea why hasn’t it been done?

Circling back to the original theme… can the Harris-Walz campaign be credited with an unprecedented achievement in the area of voter psychology/propaganda? Or, given that older voters aren’t as likely to be persuaded that the incumbent represents “change”, can we attribute their success to the declining IQ here in the U.S.? Note that U.S. IQ remains higher than in places that have been in the news lately (source):

Loosely related… A reminder that the war (not the recent battles) in Gaza started well for the “Arab” side (the term “Palestinians” hadn’t yet come into use) back in 1948. I guess one could argue that, after 76 years, the war is still going well for the forces opposing Israel in that they’ve enjoyed tremendous population growth and increasing political support worldwide. The original military objective of destroying Israel hasn’t been achieved yet (maybe Harris-Walz can make it happen?), but the forces opposing Israel managed to create a group of approximately 6 million Arabs who are entitled to unlimited food, health care, education, etc. funded by taxpayers in the US and EU. On balance, though, I think the Arab war on Israel shows that Helmuth von Moltke was correct in saying “No plan survives first contact with the enemy”. Who would have predicted that the professional militaries of Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria couldn’t defeat Jewish civilians? And who would have predicted that the Democratic Party here in the U.S. would become the primary financial sponsor and military ally of Islamic government in the region?

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Kid perspectives on contracts

by philg

We recently had some windows added to our house. If you live in a northern lockdown state, this might not sound like a big deal: cut out some wood with a reciprocating saw, get a glass module (double pane to save the planet), frame around the glass module, touch up the paint. In the Florida Free State (TM), however, you need to do the following:

  • cut through cinder block and rebar
  • put a lintel above the opening that you just cut so that the house doesn’t fall down
  • pour some new concrete with rebar around the window opening
  • add wood framing just inside the new opening
  • bring in a window company at $3,700+/opening to install an impact-rated window into the wood and concrete with massive screws every 7 inches or so
  • deal with the building inspector multiple times already by this point
  • install new stucco on the concrete that you’ve just poured
  • paint the exterior
  • install new drywall on the interior
  • paint the drywall

The window company said that in pre-Biden times it was possible to find a general contractor to do all of the above (except the window item itself) for $5,000 per opening. We had four openings so it should have cost us about $20,000+ for the general contractor and $14,750 for the windows themselves.

Of course, the old $20,000 is the new $40,000 or maybe $100,000. The window company’s usual partners refused even to look at the project, deeming it too small. Our architect worked with a mid-sized contractor regularly and he quoted $37,250 for his part of the work. A small-time guy who’d done some stuff very reasonably for us in the past quoted $18,000. We’d had huge price discrepancies for some other items at the house, e.g., install a mini-split A/C in the garage so it didn’t occur to us that the $18,000 was a mistake until after we saw how many guys and subcontractors the contractor put on the project and how many weeks it took.

Towards the end of the project, he came back to me and opened by saying that he knew that I owed him only $18,000 because that’s what he quoted. But he had some paperwork to show that the proper cost was closer to $40,000 and explained that he’d made mistakes in preparing the quote, leaving out a lot of concrete work.

I asked out 8- and 10-year-olds what they would have done in the situation. I tried to prepare them for the scenario by asking what if the Honda dealer quoted us $1,000 for new tires and then said they’d made a mistake and asked for $2,000 when the car was completed. They both said that the Honda dealer should be held to the contract. Then I asked them about our specific contractor, whose friendly careful people they’d seen in the house for all four months of the one-month project. They gave the same answer: hold the guy to his bid. I tried to get them to back off from this position by pointing out that the Honda dealer might be worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars while our contractor was just a regular working guy and had a lot of subcontractors to pay, but I couldn’t make them see a distinction.

From shwinco.com:

Excerpts from the Notice of Acceptance that is part of the building permit:

(Readers might reasonably wonder what I decided to do. I paid $37,250, which the competitor had quoted, since that was the only reference that I had for a correctly quoted job. It seemed like a fair price for the quality and quantity of work that was done. (Plus, the guys who were sawing concrete blocks and doing other onerous tasks in the Florida heat and humidity will need money to pay off college graduates’ loans transferred by Joe Biden to the general taxpayer.) It wouldn’t be logically consistent, but if the Honda dealer made a mistake and gave me a written quote that they later said was lower than it should have been, I wouldn’t voluntarily pay more.)

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Situationism in the news thanks to the Berkeley professor who suggested moving out of the Bay Area as a dating strategy for heterosexual men

by philg

“UC Berkeley professor under fire for telling student to ‘get out’ of California’s Bay Area if they want a girlfriend” (New York Post):

“If you want a girlfriend, get out of the Bay Area. Almost everywhere else on the planet is better for that. I’m not kidding at all,” [Berkeley Computer Nerdism prof Jonathan Shewchuk] reportedly said, according to screenshots of the comment posted to social media.

“You’ll be shocked by the stark differences in behavior of women in places where women are plentiful versus their behavior within artillery distance of San Jose and San Francisco.”

The professor was highlighting Situationism:

… the theory that changes in human behavior are factors of the situation rather than the traits a person possesses. Behavior is believed to be influenced by external, situational factors rather than internal traits or motivations. Situationism therefore challenges the positions of trait theorists, such as Hans Eysenck or Raymond B. Cattell. This is an ongoing debate that has truth to both sides; psychologists are able to prove each of the view points through human experimentation.

The last part of the Wikipedia intro is interesting. It’s #Science and everyone collects a fat paycheck, mostly from taxpayers, but there are no answers!

CNN, 2015, “I have a fiancé, a girlfriend and two boyfriends”:

Miju Han lives in the Bay Area, works as a product manager and shares a charming apartment with her fiancé.

Here’s what makes her love story a bit different: She’s also in three other relationships. In addition to her fiancé, Han has been seeing a woman for two years (they recently said, “I love you”). She also dates two other men.

Han, 27, says she never quite colored inside the lines. She grew up in the South, was attracted to women and fascinated by programming. In 2010, she moved to the Bay Area and has since worked at several major tech companies.

Professor and Mrs. Shewchuk:

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Randomized controlled trial of therapy for teenagers

by philg

“These Teens Got Therapy. Then They Got Worse.” (Atlantic, by Olga Khazan; paywalled, but readable in the Google cache):

Researchers in Australia assigned more than 1,000 young teenagers to one of two classes: either a typical middle-school health class or one that taught a version of a mental-health treatment called dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT. After eight weeks, the researchers planned to measure whether the DBT teens’ mental health had improved.

The therapy was based on strong science: DBT incorporates some classic techniques from therapy, such as cognitive reappraisal, or reframing negative events in a more positive way, and it also includes more avant-garde techniques such as mindfulness, the practice of being in the present moment. Both techniques have been proven to alleviate psychological struggles.

The author and editors forgot to capitalize “Science”!

This special DBT-for-teens program also covered a range of both mental-health coping strategies and life skills—which are, again, correlated with health and happiness. One week, students were instructed to pay attention to things they wouldn’t typically notice, such as a sunset. Another, they were told to sleep more, eat right, and exercise. They were taught to accept unpleasant things they couldn’t change, and also how to distract themselves from negative emotions and ask for things they need. “We really tried to put the focus on, how can you apply some of this stuff to things that are happening in your everyday lives already?” Lauren Harvey, a psychologist at the University of Sydney and the lead author of the study, told me.

But what happened was not what Harvey and her co-authors predicted. The therapy seemed to make the kids worse. Immediately after the intervention, the therapy group had worse relationships with their parents and increases in depression and anxiety. They were also less emotionally regulated and had less awareness of their emotions, and they reported a lower quality of life, compared with the control group.

Most of these negative effects dissipated after a few months, but six months later, the therapy group was still reporting poorer relationships with their parents.

Last year, a study of thousands of British kids who were put through a mindfulness program found that, in the end, they had the same depression and well-being outcomes as the control group. A cognitive-behavioral-therapy program for teens had similarly disappointing results—it proved no better than regular classwork.

Related:

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Elon Musk and videogames

by philg

When not working, does the world’s greatest innovator sit in a cardigan reading books, à la Jimmy Carter or Bill Gates? Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson:

One key to understanding Musk—his intensity, focus, competitiveness, die-hard attitudes, and love of strategy—is through his passion for video games. Hours of immersion became the way he let off (or built up) steam and honed his tactical skills and strategic thinking for business.

Musk had enjoyed all types of video games as a teenager in South Africa, including first-person shooters and adventure quests, but at college he became more focused on the genre known as strategy games, ones that involve two or more players competing to build an empire using high-level strategy, resource management, supply-chain logistics, and tactical thinking.

His only indulgence was allowing breaks for intense video-game binges. The Zip2 team won second place in a national Quake competition.

In 2021, he became obsessed with a new multiplayer strategy game on his iPhone, Polytopia. In it, players choose to be one of sixteen characters, known as tribes, and compete to develop technologies, corner resources, and wage battles in order to build an empire. He became so good he was able to beat the game’s Swedish developer, Felix Ekenstam. What did his passion for the game say about him? “I am just wired for war, basically,” he answers.

This seems like a good time to drag out a TED talk by a neuroscientist, Daphne Bavelier. This was sent to me by a neuroscientist who hates video games and has spent years trying to prevent his son from playing them. He admits that there is no scientific basis for his hatred and cites Prof. Bavelier.

What is the rationale for telling kids to get off their Xboxes if Elon Musk thrived on shooter games and #Science says that games are beneficial?

Related:

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On the effectiveness of the Anti-Defamation League

by philg

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) claims expertise in eliminating hatred. When they started, they were experts in getting American haters to love Jews. In their own opinion, at least, they were so good at this that they expanded. Here’s just their civil rights section:

They want to make sure that low-skill Americans have plenty of competition from low-skill immigrants:

ADL fights tirelessly for immigrants and refugees seeking safety and a better life in the U.S. Through legislative advocacy, amicus briefs, and public awareness efforts, we have promoted just and humane immigration and refugee protection policies throughout the decades.

The ADL will make haters realize that #LoveWins:

ADL has long fought in the U.S. and abroad to advance LGBTQ+ equity, encouraging legislation that protects individuals’ rights and providing education resources that make schools, workplaces and communities more welcoming and inclusive.

What have we seen in the past few weeks? Muslim immigrants to the U.S., whose right to settle here was pushed by the ADL, rallying and pointing out that the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) is not a terrorist organization, but the Israeli government and all supporters of Israel are (video). Twitter and Facebook jammed with anti-Israel content. A young woman in a hijab in NYC and her friend giving the finger to a billboard truck advocating for the return of hostages held by Hamas (video). Depending on your political point of view, you might agree with these anti-Israel positions, but I think that everyone can agree this is not what the ADL was trying to accomplish.

Maybe the ADL could be more effective with people if they would spend more time soaking up the ADL message? From the New York Post:

One of the NYU students who brazenly ripped down posters of Israeli hostages is an activist “extremely passionate about fighting racial profiling” who blamed her behavior on misplaced anger.

Yazmeen Deyhimi — a junior at the top university who once worked for the Anti-Defamation League — admitted to tearing apart banners that were plastered outside NYU’s Tisch Hall, in a shameless act that was caught on video.

“I have found it increasingly difficult to know my place as a biracial brown woman, especially during these highly volatile times,” she wrote.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Deyhimi is an advocate against Muslim bigotry and spent a summer working with the ADL as a CSC education intern when she was just 15 years old.

“After review, we can confirm that one of the participants was part of an ADL high school level summer internship in 2019,” a spokesperson for the organization told The Post.

The ADL had a whole summer to convince this young person that Jews are lovable!

If the ADL has failed spectacularly at its original mission, at least the Ministry of Truth is working effectively there:

The ADL has since taken down a blog post announcing the Long Island native as one of the 12 student leaders joining the program, describing Deyhimi as “extremely passionate about fighting racial profiling and championing gender equality.”

Does supporting Hamas impair a migrant’s claim for asylum in the U.S.? Not according to the Deplorables at the Daily Wire… “The U.S. Gov’t Hired A Pro-Hamas PLO Spokeswoman To Handle Asylum Claims”:

Speaking of Deplorable, what does Ron DeSantis have to say about the ADL’s passions for Islamic immigration and using propaganda to eliminate hatred? From Twitter:

No Gaza refugees, period.

It’s a fools errand to think we can separate a terrorist from a ‘freedom lover’ in Gaza.

Related:

  • the College Terror List, which was disappeared by the Ministries of Truth at Google, archive.org, DuckDuckGo, and all of the other righteous folks. This page contains various statements by elite college students who don’t seem to have been reached by the ADL’s message about the wonderfulness of Jews. Harvard: “We … hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence”; Stanford: “while Palestinian resistance is legal under international law, Israel’s breathtakingly violent actions are illegal collective punishment under the Geneva Convention”; Swarthmore: “Since early Saturday morning, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have valiantly confronted the imperial apparatus that has constricted their livelihoods…”; George Mason: “Every Palestinian is a civilian even if they hold arms. A settler is an aggressor, a soldier, and an occupier even if they are lounging on our occupied beaches.” (preserved by Ghostarchive; the only way to find it is with the Kagi search engine (see below))
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Tesla price cuts and human psychology

by philg

People who paid last month’s price for a Tesla are upset that this month’s price is a lot lower. See “‘I feel duped’: Tesla price drop angers current owners” (Bloomberg/LA Times), for example:

Marianne Simmons, a self-professed “Tesla fan girl,” bought her second electric vehicle from the company in September: a white, high-performance Model Y costing more than $77,000. Then the company slashed prices on Thursday and she realized she could have bought the same car today for $13,000 less.

That’s the reality facing owners of Tesla vehicles after the company cut the price of its cars as much as 20%, part of a push from Chief Executive Elon Musk to increase sales volume in the face of weakening demand. For existing customers, the resale value of the cars they own will take a hit along with the drop in prices of new models.

Throughout coronapanic and Bidenflation, I’ve been wondering why car makers didn’t just auction every car as it came off the line (to dealers, not to consumers, except for Tesla). Why bother having a list price at all? Maybe the reaction to the Tesla price cut is part of the reason. Let’s move our minds back to the pre-Biden era. When sales slow down and car companies offer massive incentives to clear inventory, consumers don’t get upset. The list price of a car stays the same, but the price would come down from MSRP to dealer invoice to dealer invoice minus $2,000 “cash back” (back when $2,000 was real money!). Somehow people were okay with this variation. But a variation in the official list price cannot be tolerated!

I’m in Cambridge, Maskachusetts this week and the residents deal with this upsetting issue by continuing to operate their beloved Saabs:

(I didn’t see it when I lived here, but looking at these 140-year-old wooden houses brings to mind my Houston friend’s comment that the entire Northeast is “dilapidated”. He won’t go anywhere north of Washington, D.C. without a compelling reason.)

Related:

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