Category: Social Justice

Evil corporations put profits before human life

by philg

One of my virtuous neighbors was talking about evil corporations that prioritize profit over human life, not making products as safe as possible.

Of course I had to agree that this was, shall we say, Deplorable.

I asked “What about our own town?” We don’t have Danish-style bike infrastructure, in which a curb separates an automobile road from a bike lane and a second curb separates the bike lane from the pedestrian sidewalk. A cyclist was killed in our town recently, an accident that wouldn’t have happened with a Danish-style system.

I then pointed out that we have several busy roads through town that aren’t divided, thus inviting a deadly head-on collision. Since we do not want to put a price tag on human life, wouldn’t it make sense to raise property taxes sufficiently to widen these roads and insert a concrete divider in the middle?

Had he stood up at town meeting (at which recently the good townsfolk voted to spend $110 million on a new school for about 440 town-resident K-8 students) to demand these initiatives for safer roads?

The corporate critic was horrified at these ideas: “That would cost a fortune,” he said, “to acquire the strips of land and build the barriers. It would never make sense.”

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Why are abortion laws that are anathema in Georgia okay in Europe?

by philg

Virtuous American corporations are boycotting Georgia due to some more restrictive abortion laws (list from The Wrap; article on an Amazon Studios production being pulled).

Yet the same companies that refuse to make movies in Georgia (a welcome respite for Georgia taxpayers? How much cash must they shovel out to the world’s wealthiest corporations?) happily operate in European countries that restrict abortion. For example, Netflix has a big office in Spain in which abortion is restricted beyond the first trimester (Wikipedia). Amazon has a big operation in Ireland, whose abortion laws are condemned by Amnesty International (see below; Amazon also operates in Northern Ireland where abortion is even more restricted).

If abortion is the litmus test for movie studios, why do they continue to operate in California? This chart shows that California bans abortion after “viability” (about 21 weeks with modern technology) whereas Massachusetts allows abortion up to 24 weeks. Why not pull up stakes and move to Massachusetts? (save a ton of money on personal income tax; similar winner-take-all divorce/custody/child support system) Or drive just a few hours east to Nevada, which also allows abortion to 24 weeks, and skip out entirely on state income tax? (family law plaintiffs should sue before leaving California, though; Nevada caps child support at $13,000 per year for a single child and starts from a presumption of 50/50 shared parenting)

All around the world there are countries with restrictive abortion laws (map). Why is it only U.S. state laws that get these virtuous corporations to speak up and vote with their checkbooks?

(Separately, if the idea is to help adult women in Georgia who are seeking abortions, how does it help to reduce their employment opportunities? Wouldn’t a woman in Georgia who wants an abortion at 23 weeks be better off with a movie production job with a paycheck that will enable her to hop a flight to New York or Massachusetts or fill up a car with gasoline for the drive to Florida? (see above chart))

Related:

  • “Amazon relocates operations to new Belfast Titanic Quarter site” (abortion is generally illegal in Northern Ireland (BBC), yet Amazon chooses to operate there despite the fact that it would be practical to do everything from the less restrictive Republic of Ireland and drive across the soft border as necessary)
  • Georgia family law: with child support revenue capped at less than $30,000 per year for one child, it is bad state in which to profit from a casual sexual encounter with a movie star
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Noah’s Ark story needs to be updated with additional genders?

by philg

We have a three-year-old who likes the Noah’s Ark story…

Every time I read this I realize that I’m committing the (modern) sin of Gender Binarism.

How would an updated Noah’s Ark story work? How many genders would there be per animal species? Or would the number vary on a per-species basis?

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Americans with elite educations advocate for socialism because they are shocked at not being rich?

by philg

“If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” was a common expression in New York City during my father’s youth (Great Depression and World War II).

I’m wondering if this way of thinking explains why so many Americans who’ve obtained degrees from elite institutions and earn above-median wages are advocates of socialism. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem rational for people who earn 4-5X the median wage to say that income inequality is a national emergency and to be more enthusiastic about socialism than are people who earn below-median wages.

Pre-2016, my neighbors here in Eastern Massachusetts were upset when politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. would make decisions without consulting them. Since they knew themselves to be the smartest folks on the planet, why wouldn’t President Obama, the Wise One, call them up to ask for advice? Upset turned to rage following the country’s choice of Donald Trump.

What’s even more upsetting than not having one’s desired level of political influence? Not having one’s fair level of financial reward.

In a fair market, someone with a Ph.D. in humanities would get paid more than someone with a high school degree, at least if the Ph.D. in humanities is allowed to define “fair.” Yet an American bond trader with a high school degree can easily earn 10X what a liberal arts professor may earn (100X if we compare to an adjunct!). Thus we come to slightly newer adage: “When the market gives you an answer you don’t like, declare market failure.”

Readers: What do you think? What accounts for people with incomes that are well above the median advocating for “socialism”, which would tend to narrow the income distribution? Could it be rational? As the U.S. population expands and there is a brutal competition for scraps of desirable real estate, for example, will it help the Ph.D. academic to afford a beach house if central planners won’t give the bond trader enough to buy 10 beach houses?

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Friends weigh in on Dorco versus Gillette

by philg

An MD neighbor had the temerity to put a Trump sign on his lawn back in 2016 (error swiftly corrected by righteous neighbors) so I thought it was safe to bring him a Dorco Pace 7 as a gift to free him from supporting Gillette’s campaign for gender justice. Recent text message, appended to a geriatric tennis invitation:

By the way, I like the Dorko [sic] razor very much. It gives a much closer shave than my Gillette. Thank you for introducing it to me.

I had purchased four Pace 7s to give away. From another recipient:

Dorco gives best shave I’ve ever had.

Whether spelled “Dorco” or “Dorko”, I hope that we can all agree this company has suffered in the marketplace due to its name!

Related:

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Microsoft is out of step with Silicon Valley?

by philg

“Microsoft staff are openly questioning the value of diversity” (Quartz) quotes from an internal Microsoft discussion forum:

“Because women used to be actively prohibited from full-time employment many decades ago, there is now the misguided belief that women SHOULD work, and if women AREN’T working, there’s something wrong…. Many women simply aren’t cut out for the corporate rat race, so to speak, and that’s not because of ‘the patriarchy,’ it’s because men and women aren’t identical, and women are much more inclined to gain fulfillment elsewhere.”

James Damore was the Google heretic because he shared the company’s goal of increasing the number of women doing the dreary job of coding, but suggested that they go about the project in a different way. It seems that Microsoft is nurturing actual infidels who reject the entire religion of gender diversity. It is just one step from the above quote to the Harvard undergraduate who told us “I used to want to be an investment banker, but then I realized that I could just marry an investment banker.” (Presumably nobody could survive at the company after asking “Why would an intelligent person want to work 80 hours/week at Microsoft when having sex with two Microsoft employees can yield roughly the same spending power?”)

[Anecdote: Our suburb is packed with women who have elite professional degrees and yet work part-time or do no W-2 wage labor at all. These women worked full time for 5-10 years following the completion of their education and then, as suggested by the Microsoft infidel, decided to “gain fulfillment elsewhere”. Most of their current spending power is derived from the wages of someone else, either a current spouse or a person whom they sued for alimony and/or child support.]

Readers: Measured against the coastal elite pillars of faith, are these Microsoft programmers more severely deviant than were the Googlers who questioned the company’s diversity schemes?

Related:

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Rejected white male

by philg

A friend is an MIT graduate. His son scored 750 math/730 verbal on the SATs, has a perfect high school record, and is a super-nice kid who is passionate about building software. When filling out the application forms, he checked “white male”.

MIT rejected him.

Related:

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Separate but equal facilities for blacks and whites at Columbia University

by philg

Back in 2014, I wrote about Oberlin College setting up special dorms for students with darker skin and/or less family money.

Much funnier is this recent video (not de-platformed by YouTube/Google yet!) of white Columbia students singing the praises of separate but equal.

[Video source: a deeply closeted Harvard professor (thus far he has managed to conceal his sinful thoughts from colleagues and administrators).]

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New York Times tells Muslims how to be Muslim

by philg

“Brunei’s Royal Barbarity and Hypocrisy” is from the New York Times Editorial Board:

The oil-rich sultanate imposes harsh Shariah law on its subjects, while members of the royal family enjoy lives of conspicuous luxury.

Brunei’s cruel, inhuman and degrading penalties are not a relic of history, like the sodomy laws that stayed on the books of American states well into the 20th century, but the whim of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, 72, who has ruled the Lilliputian nation since 1967 and ranks among the most ludicrously wealthy people on earth. He has long pushed his predominantly Muslim nation toward a conservative and restrictive form of Islam, and he first announced the new penalties — which, in addition to death by stoning for gay male sex, include amputation for theft and 40 lashes for lesbian sex — six years ago.

Besides the barbarity of the penalties, there is the danger that the law could nudge neighboring Islamic giants Malaysia and Indonesia toward tightening their own national or regional versions of Shariah laws targeting homosexuals.

The biographies of the authors do not suggest any expert knowledge of Islam or Shariah law. What qualifies these folks to tell Muslims in Brunei how to organize their lives in accordance with Islam? Is this “Amerisplaining”?

Also interesting… “The U.S. Immigration System May Have Reached a Breaking Point” (nytimes), from the same newspaper that said, three months ago, Donald Trump had manufactured a crisis. Now it seems that the “crisis” started five years ago:

The very nature of immigration to America changed after 2014, when families first began showing up in large numbers. The resulting crisis has overwhelmed a system unable to detain, care for and quickly decide the fate of tens of thousands of people who claim to be fleeing for their lives. … The country is now unable to provide either the necessary humanitarian relief for desperate migrants or even basic controls on the number and nature of who is entering the United States.

Trump is on the wrong track, as usual:

Mr. Trump has insisted on simply trying to stop people from getting into the country in the first place — a policy of deterrence that not only has failed but has made the problem worse.

Only a rookie would try to stop people from crossing the border into the U.S. by trying to stop them from crossing the border!

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