[Phys-L] valuable traits +- opposite traits ... in jest and otherwise

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

I am reminded of old joke that describes various traits, describing 
each one twice, in opposite ways:

 a) I am steadfast;  he is stubborn and pig-headed.
 b) I am flexible;  he is vacillating.
 c) I am nuanced and tolerant; he is an unprincipled, pandering hypocrite.
 d) I am a team player;  he is an authoritarian conformitarian fascist.
 e) I am an innovative, original thinker;  he is a loose cannon.
 f) I am an inspiring leader and orator;  he is a demagogue.
 g) I am a realist;  he is a cynic.
 h) I am idealistic;  he is naive.
 i) I believe in free markets and the invisible hand;  he is selfish.

My point (1) is that AFAICT every trait that is good in one situation is 
bad in another situation, especially if taken to extremes.

The irony is that point (1) is itself a nuanced observation.  It is not
universally accepted.  There are plenty of people who have a very very 
low tolerance for nuance in any form; see joke (c) above.

I emphasize that there are some things I will tolerate and some things I
won't.  I am nuanced about some things and not about others.  That is to
say, I have a nuanced view of how much nuance I will tolerate.

I claim that each person possesses all of the traits mentioned in the
jokes above ... but sometimes one end of the spectrum is emphasized far 
more than the other.

In particular:  It is easy to see where authoritarian, conformitarian
impulses come from.  Suppose that one group of Neanderthals has a powerful
leader and strong tradition of following the leader.  Meanwhile a second
group of Neanderthals is sitting around bickering, vacillating, and
micro-optimizing everything.  The result is that the first group kills
and eats the second group.  The only ones who survive are the team players.

Let's be clear:  A sub-optimal battle plan is better than no battle plan.

Continuing the story:  Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.
A month later, the aforementioned strong leader leads almost the entire
group into a quagmire where they perish.  The only ones who survive are
the ones who refused to follow orders.

Mark Twain said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."  Sometimes
believing in stuff that ain't so can lead you into grave danger.

I mention all this because it helps to answer the question that is implicit
in a couple of contentious discussions that have returned to the front
burner in the last day or two:
  How could people be so stupid as to legislate the sea-level?  Did
  they not understand what King Canute was trying to tell them?  In
  particular, how could they be so stupid as to legislate economic
  policy in general -- flood policy in particular -- based on something
  they read in the book of Genesis?

My point is that this is behavior is not incomprehensible.  It is not 
a random mistake.  It is only a slight exaggeration of traits that are 
in other situations perfectly reasonable and valuable, namely the 
"respect for authority" and "team player" traits.

Last but not least, this leads us to the moose on the table, the huge
dead rotting stinking moose on the table, namely selfishness and
corruption.  The Koch brothers have a selfish vested interest in
destroying the EPA.  They are spending huge sums of money to get
people to lie about the causes and effects of climate change ... just 
as other vested interests paid huge amounts of money to get people to
lie about the health effects of smoking.  Politicians, out of respect
for the Koch brothers' authority -- by which I mean the Koch brothers'
money -- are quick to rely on what it says in Genesis about flooding.
I daresay if the Koch brothers were in the flood-insurance business
they would be citing different scriptures, perhaps the passages about
dominion, stewardship, and humility.

My advice:  If you are going to follow a leader, you should first choose 
a leader who is not foolish, selfish, or corrupt.

On 07/02/2012 11:03 AM, chuck britton wrote:
> that dratted exponential term was 'inconvenient' for coastal
> developers - so it was outlawed. (really).
>
> So seaside development can continue unabated.
>
> If the sea should be so disrespectful as to IGNORE the law - well -
> the developers will have their money and the only recourse for buyers
> will be . . . . . . . . . . .

Actually, that cuts both ways, depending on how stupid you think the 
buyers will be.  Insufficient regulation can /hurt/ the real-estate
market, both short-term and long-term.

Would you prefer to (a) buy property that was protected against the actual
threat, or (b) buy property that was protected only against an artificial
low-ball estimate of the threat?

In particular, consider disaster preparedness in Japan.  As bad as last
year's triple disaster was, it would have been far, far worse if they
had not spent billions of dollars on disaster preparedness and mitigation.

It goes without saying that no matter what you are doing, you can always
do it wrong ... but the fact remains that *some* forms of disaster 
preparedness are verrry good investments.  For example, using brackets
and gusset-plates to prevent a hurricane from ripping the roof of a
house adds only a tiny amount to the cost of building the house, yet
can result in tremendous savings.  In a hurricane-prone region, I would 
not buy an unprotected house at any price.

To those who suggest that libertarian free-market forces will take care
of all such issues, I reply that that only works in a fantasy land where 
the buyers are fully informed.  Life is not like chess;  it is not a game
of perfect information.  When the same people who are touting ultra-
libertarian views are also manipulating the sources of information, I 
call it selfishness and corruption.  I call foul.