Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

I helped with a project for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy and learned that tuition, room, and board is $26,000 per year for four years compared to a starting salary of $120,000 per year (to be on a ship for 6 months per year). A graduate from two years earlier said that he has paid off all of his loans and now is shopping for a house and an airplane. Within five years, the pay can rise to $180,000 per year. After that, the sailor is qualified to be a captain and earn $240,000+/year, but these jobs are scarce and cannot be obtained immediately or by everyone. The true dream job is to be a harbor pilot (see “Earn $400 per hour in a government-regulated job“), but these may require family connections.

How are the gender wars doing at the academy? “About 5 percent of the cadets are women,” said the recent graduate. Why so few when the school offers such a great ROI? “A woman doesn’t need to go out in 80-knot weather to spend a third mate’s pay.” [I think that he was referring to marriage, but under Massachusetts family law, she will be able to spend approximately one third of the paycheck after a brief unmarried encounter.]

The above salaries are for U.S.-flagged cargo ships, which are required to have 75 percent American crew members (all unionized). Foreign-flagged cruise ships pay half as much. There wouldn’t be any U.S.-flagged ships at all if not for government regulations that restrict foreign-flagged vessels from certain kinds of operations and also direct payments from the U.S. military, which wants military cargo to go on U.S.-flagged vessels. Note that U.S.-flagged does not mean U.S.-owned, U.S.-built, or U.S.-managed. My source is working on a container ship that was built in South Korea and is owned and operated by Maersk.

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The women I know who are most likely to characterize Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as a liar are business executives who compete with men for jobs. The men who say that they believe Dr. Ford tend to be lower income, lower status guys who wouldn’t be worth targeting under #MeToo, for family court profits, etc. This cannot be a partisan issue because nearly everyone in Massachusetts is a Democrat.

Here’s Janice Fiamengo, a literature professor at the University of Ottawa, in a YouTube lecture on Dr. Ford:

I was shocked by the woman herself. By her whole demeanor.

This is a professional career woman? With that little-girl croaky voice and poor-me face and the trembly “I’m going to cry at any moment” narration supposedly because of the trauma of reading out a prepared script about something discussed in therapy and rehearsed dozens, if not hundreds, of times with a legal team and other advisors.

A trauma that required putting two doors on a big costly house.

Yes, this is the elite professional woman that feminism has created after 50 years of nonstop grievance-mongering.

Let’s assume that Professor Fiamengo has correctly characterized the impression given by Dr. Ford. I.e., that viewers of her testimony will be more likely to see women as helpless damaged victims.

Who is hurt by that? Women who compete with men! They don’t want an employer choosing to hire a man because of a belief that a woman might be terrified to get on an airplane to see a customer and/or need an extra day on either end of a trip to dose herself with benzodiazepines and wine. If the kind of experience that Dr. Ford says she had is common, typically unreported (at least in a job interview), and leads to decades of damage, why would an employer want to take a chance on hiring such a person?

So the executive women that I know are hoping to be promoted to CEO, not seeking to be pitied for having been born with XX chromosomes, and a TV parade of female victims does not help them to get that CEO job.

What about women who work for enterprises that run quota systems for women? Or women who are in primarily female occupations that are demanding higher pay? They may benefit from the perception that women are victims in need of assistance. This will help ensure the continuation of the quota system and/or the opening of taxpayer wallets to pay out some more cash.

The analysis gets a little more complex for men. Any man can potentially get a boost in status by being a knight in shining armor rescuing a victimized female. And it is pretty much free of cost in the case of Christine Blasey Ford to mumble some words of disapproval as Rapist Kavanaugh is confirmed. The low-status, low-income guys can potentially enjoy a career boost if competing women are seen as fragile and damaged and when job openings are created by the #MeTooing of high-status men. The high-status, high-income men, though, are vulnerable to attacks from anyone who wants to make a #MeToo allegation (and, locally, also to predation in Massachusetts family court).

So I’m wondering if there is an element of “vote your checkbook” here. People who will get a boost in income and status via Christine Blasey Ford being believed will believe her. People who will suffer a career disadvantage if Dr. Ford is believed will think she is a liar.

Readers: What have you seen? Where is the liar/not-liar line falling among the people you know and what factors correlate with their position?

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I’ve stopped paying attention to hysterical headlines because… all headlines are now hysterical. Hurricanes do seem to live up to the hype, at least sometimes. What happened with Hurricane Michael? How severe an event did it turn out to be in terms of loss of lives and destruction of property?

What about Disney’s bet that Orlando wouldn’t get hit by a hurricane? Does that need to be reevaluated in light of Hurricane Michael (the strongest in more than 100 years for that section of Florida, right?).

And how is Seaside, Florida doing? (The Truman Show location.) It was planned only in 1985. It is officially 13′ above sea level. They embarked on a big dunes restoration project in January 2018 (story).

[Separately, why do journalists always use the same stock phrases for hurricanes? A hurricane moving at 10 or 15 miles per hour is “barreling toward” a destination. A hurricane does not “contain” winds of 85 knots; it “packs” winds of 85 knots. If hurricanes are becoming more frequent and severe, do we need some new vocabulary to describe them?]

A bad METAR..

KPAM 101719Z AUTO 07075G112KT M1/8SM R14/0600V1000FT +RA FG SQ M 25/25 A2729 RMK AO2 RAB1658 SLP244 CHINO RWY32

(At the Panama City Tyndall Air Force Base, October 10 at 1:19 pm. Wind from the NE at 75 knots, gusting 112 knots. Less than 1/8th of a mile visibility. Between 600 and 1000′ of visibility on Runway 14. Heavy rain, fog, squall (SQ). I don’t know what the “M” after the “SQ” means. Temperature and dewpoint are both 25C. The altimeter setting is a low 27.29. The rain began at 12:58 pm.)

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Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified that she was permanently damaged by Brett Kavanaugh, suffering from reduced academic performance, an inability to tolerate airline travel (except cross the Pacific to surf destinations in French Polynesia because driving to a California beach would be even more intolerable?), and various other maladies of PTSD (transcript). As a Ph.D. psychologists, she also testified that almost anyone who suffered what she suffered would have similar lifetime damage.

Yet as a matter of policy, the U.S. seeks out immigrants from among would-be “asylees” and “refugees,” each of whom must tell a tale of far more severe assault than what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford allegedly suffered. Consider the Honduran who crosses the border illegally, is apprehended six months later, and then requests asylum. If the Honduran says “two drunk teenagers rolled on me in a bedroom and then eventually I rolled out from underneath them,” it would be “asylum denied,” right?

If Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony is correct, wouldn’t all of the folks we admit based on how badly they were assaulted or abused end up being unable to adapt to life in an advanced economy that requires education and concentration in order to flourish? Shouldn’t we expect them all to be lifetime welfare recipients in virtue of the disabilities that they’ve incurred through PTSD?

Righteous Democrats all #Believe Dr. Blasey Ford (I hope!) and support maximum immigration of refugees/asylees. But if they believe Dr. Blasey Ford what is their rationale for wanting to import millions of people who are so damaged that they can never be self-sufficient?

[What kind of experiences must a person have had in order to be admitted to the U.S. as a refugee? “Immigrants May Be Fed False Stories to Bolster Asylum Pleas” (nytimes, 2011) includes some examples: “Often, the applicant is misled by various actors with a story that is much more compelling,” said Claudia Slovinksy, a longtime immigration lawyer. “Weren’t they soldiers? Wasn’t it a gang rape?” A Santa Clara Law Review article “Telling Refugee Stories: Trauma, Credibility and the Adversarial Adjudication of Claims for Asylum,” notes that a survivor’s story of having been raped twice while in prison was insufficient. Another 2011 article, “The Asylum Seeker” (New Yorker), says that the U.S. is looking for survivors who’ve been both raped and tortured.]

 

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“Facebook Accused of Allowing Bias Against Women in Job Ads” (nytimes):

The job seekers, in collaboration with the Communications Workers of America and the American Civil Liberties Union, filed charges with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Tuesday against Facebook and nine employers.

The employers appear to have used Facebook’s targeting technology to exclude women from the users who received their advertisements, which highlighted openings for jobs like truck driver and window installer.

Hillary Clinton:

20 years ago, women made 72 cents on the dollar to men. Today it’s still just 77 cents. More work to do. #EqualPay #NoCeilings

Putting these together, we conclude that trucking companies and window installation firms will go out of their way (targeting ads to men only) to avoid paying 23 percent less for qualified labor.

Related:

• “Gender equity should be measured by consumption, not income?“

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At a geriatric wine-soaked tennis match last night, I got a little insight into how people with different political affiliations are able to witness the same event and come away with opposite conclusions.

The Trump voter: Listened carefully to Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony regarding her fear of flying, her history of air travel, her stated need for a “second front door”, and her current status as a landlord to a tenant who uses that second front door to enter a rental bedroom. Concluded that Dr. Ford was a liar. Did not evaluate the likely truth of what Judge Kavanaugh was saying. Decided that the original FBI background check for a nominee plus the supplemental check would have revealed any serious character flaw. (i.e., the person who is skeptical of big government in general thought that the FBI would have done a reasonable job in this matter)

The Hillary voter: Listened carefully to Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony regarding high school and college years. Concluded that Judge Kavanaugh was lying regarding his history of partying. Decided that it was highly probable that Kavanaugh was a regular participant in “Devil’s Triangle” group sex during high school. Opined that it was highly probable that Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony regarding her sexual assault experience was correct, including that she abandoned her friend to face the multiple rapist boys alone and somehow got a ride home. Simply did not process anything having to do with Dr. Ford’s fear of flying and history of airline travel. Opined that the FBI investigation was a joke and a sham. (i.e., the person who wants big government to get bigger and solve more of society’s problems thought that the FBI did a sloppy job in this matter) Opposed Justice Kavanaugh on the grounds that he expressed anger in a public forum.

(As a libertarian voter who had not been a Kavanaugh supporter from the first, and who had not watched or listened to the testimony (only skimmed the transcripts), I stayed neutral.)

The hostess: Described having been attacked at knifepoint in a parking garage in the late 1970s (her screaming eventually caused the guy to run away), her resulting actions, and the resulting level of trauma. Said that she had concluded that Dr. Ford was a liar based on her own experience from what she characterized as a much more frightening and serious attack.

[The previous night we had dinner with friends and their daughter who is in her 20s. She grew up in a Boston suburb that is 90 percent Democrat and attended an Ivy League university. I was surprised to find that she was unpersuaded by Dr. Ford (also by Kavanaugh).]

So… I wonder if one way that intelligent people come to opposite conclusions is through selective listening/attention.

 

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From a Millennial friend on Facebook:

It happened to me. And he was one of my best friends. And we’d been drinking. And we’d slept in the same bed plenty of times before. And that night we’d even made out until I said I wanted to stop because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. And when I woke up in the middle of the night to him f**king me, I froze. And in the morning; I made him breakfast. And for the rest of the school year we were friends. And sometimes more than friends. And one day, months later, on the phone, I blurted out in the middle of an unrelated conversation that the sex that first time had not been consensual. That I had not wanted it. And he said, “thank you for telling me.” And we went on as before. And that fall, he showed up at my apartment, crying, and sat down on the floor, and told me that I had ruined his life. And after that I only spoke to him one more time, and I told him he was a monster.

And then my whole world blew up. I was a wreck for a long time. Sometimes I still am. And my anger is corrosive. Sometimes if feels like it is eating me alive.

I’m tired of hearing how the victims are ruining the lives of men like Kavanaugh. I am fucking exhausted by the willful ignorance of nearly all the GOP senators. Believe me. Believe us. We are trying desperately to tell you something. Listen.

#ibelieveher

I wonder what the generally elderly senators (from either party) would do differently if they did hear this story…

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Today we’re celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day here in Massachusetts. Four weeks to go before Election 2018, in which everyone who righteously hates Brett Kavanaugh is being urged to vote. If you’re prepping for this momentous decision by watching more TV, here are a couple of suggestions…

Especially great for kids on Indigenous Peoples’ Day: I found a documentary on Netflix about Elizabeth Warren (the only current Native American senator?) and the impact of immigration on natives. I can’t remember the exact title, but maybe readers will help out in the comments section by providing a link.

If you’re planning to vote socialist: Black Sea. An evil profit-seeking corporation sheds the fat. The discarded workers have also mostly been discarded by their female partners who use Britain’s no-fault-divorce system to take the kids and hook up with wealthier men. With nothing left to lose, twelve guys decide to take on significant risks in pursuit of sunken gold. Jude Law decides on an even-shares compensation scheme and the film shows how the resulting inequality-free underwater society plays out. Streaming on HBO, Amazon, YouTube, et al. Submarine buffs will appreciate that much filming was done within a real Foxtrot class submarine (retail value: $200,000).

Readers: What else to watch before voting? (My personal ballot is mostly candidates running unopposed. What’s the best way to prep for that?)

(Sadly, this $500 per-person cruise to Cuba and Haiti does not leave until December 9. The trip would enable a voter to see if Bernie Sanders is right about socialism yielding a superior median lifestyle compared to whatever it is that we have now (crony capitalism plus a huge welfare industry?). Also to evaluate whether Donald Trump is right about Haiti not being as nice as Norway.)

Related:

• The 1977 William Friedkin movie Sorcerer, about four guys with nothing left to lose and a dangerous high-paying job (the big oil company is more interested in profit than in complying with OSHA regulations)
• tweet from Donald Trump: “Christopher Columbus’s spirit of determination & adventure has provided inspiration to generations of Americans. On #ColumbusDay, we honor his remarkable accomplishments as a navigator, & celebrate his voyage into the unknown expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.” (Columbus was also remarkable for being stubbornly wrong about the dimensions of the Earth)

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An overnight bus company has developed a bump-canceling bed with an active suspension (WIRED). I’m not sure how critical this will be in the long run, e.g., if every vehicle has an active suspension like the one on the latest Audi A8 (but who has actually driven in one?). But maybe it be a key enabling technology for the self-driving RV. From my post from 2015 on the subject:

If Google can make us a self-driving car, why not a self-driving 40′ Class A motorhome? Now the RV becomes like a cruise ship. You spend the day in a National Park, tuck everyone into bed, and then let Google drive you to the next National Park overnight. You wake up to find that Larry and Sergei have selected a campsite for you, extended the awning, and put out the lawn chairs and table for breakfast.

Readers: What do you think? Will this be useful in the long run because a motorhome is too heavy for the Audi A8-style bump-killer to work?

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A friend ordered a Tesla Model 3 five weeks ago. It is ready for delivery in Florida today. If we assume a two-week transit time to get from The Land of Virtue (TM) to The Land of Permanent Alimony, the factory backlog is only three weeks.

This is a “performance” model with an after-tax-credit price of about $70,000 (actually less because she is getting free super charging for life). Maybe Tesla will still have a backlog of orders for the basic Model 3, but I wonder if they will soon simply run out of orders and customers. If they’ve already sold a Tesla to every virtuous American, what then?

Related:

• “The Least Attractive Cars for Sale in 2018” (Car and Driver) puts the Tesla 3 among the ugliest 10, along with the Toyota Prius and Mitsubishi Mirage. “Sure, the Model 3’s headlights and taillights and the shape of its side-window openings vaguely resemble those of the unassailably attractive Model S. Too bad they’re applied to a tall, bulbously shaped body caught somewhere between a car and a crossover. In lieu of a grille, the faceless front end features a grille-shaped scallop in its bumper that resembles a large dent.”

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