Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Tuesday, May 10. 2022

Tuesday morning links


 In the Ukraine Proxy War, What Price Victory?
Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:30 | Comments (25) | Trackbacks (0)

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“For years we were warned that ‘climate change’ would cause food shortages, but now it appears that climate policy will be one of the biggest factors in causing food shortages,”

A recurring theme - government messes up everything it touches. The decision makers have no skin in the game, no incentive to economize, just the massively inflated egos to imagine that they are gods who can control the Universe. Often mistaken, but never in doubt.
#1 Jerryskids on 2022-05-10 09:00 (Reply)
World Gripped By Fertilizer Crisis

Clearly the Global Bullshxt Ratio (bullshxt/fertilizer) is seriously out of whack.
#1.1 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2022-05-10 14:37 (Reply)
With the modern environmentalist movement, famine isn't a bug, it's a feature.
#1.2 DeGaulle on 2022-05-11 03:51 (Reply)
Why does anyone continue to treat people as experts when they are so consistently wrong?

Well in (((zahcriel's))) case she can't help herself. She's a stereotypical liar, so she likes to quote other liars.

For everyone else, it's a matter of putting your faith in something. The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' If you do that, you'll still have faith, but it will be in the absurd.
#2 DrTorch (Link) on 2022-05-10 09:14 (Reply)
The experts are right in most things, but prediction is hard, especially about the future. We might fault them for being so arrogant as to even try, and we love to laugh at them when they get it wrong, but we do usually need someone to take a stab at it.

Experts fly our planes, do our surgery, cook at expensive restaurants. It's when they start predicting where the air industry, or medical care, or restaurant startups are going to go that they tend to go wrong, because they aren't quite experts there. And in fact, no one is, but if we are to take action in the future, someone has to give it a try.

As usual, American Thinking isn't thinking, it's just cherry picking and trying to be entertaining and give the people what they want to hear. I knew I shouldn't have clicked through.
#3 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-05-10 09:16 (Reply)
We're in danger of putting the cart before the horse. People are reasonably called experts AFTER they demonstrate a consistent ability to predict things accurately. Let's don't fall into the fantasy of assuming they can predict things accurately just because they call themselves experts, or have gotten some (not very reliable) institutions to label them experts.

Expertise is both verifiable and falsifiable. If we don't stop and take the time to closely quiz each pilot or doctor in an emergency, it's because he's been vouched for a system we've learned to trust on the ground of its own demonstrated predictive power. We never escape the necessity to keep verifying.
#3.1 Texan99 on 2022-05-10 09:56 (Reply)
There's a small corollary exception to this which is, the more publicly-recognized the expert figure is, the less willing they are to change their position when the facts suggest they should reconsider. And it's a perverse rule, because these experts command quite a bit of (un-elected) authority which they are often not at all reluctant to wield.

We use public figures to sell policy in this country. An expert's opinion shapes a defacto policy, and the policy takes over the story, leaving the expert to prop it up, come what may. Over time, that has soured America on the use of experts. Too often, experts are chose on their ability to put their seal of approval on policies that many disagree with. And of course there are many that object to policies being created in this way to begin with, as it evades legislative process and is prone to be used to promote ideological positions.
#3.2 Aggie on 2022-05-10 10:04 (Reply)
Pfft.

You choose your own definition (or examples) of expert, then accuse others of "cherry picking."

Your false equivalence is sort of cherry picking itself.

It's comical to see how you can't actually make an argument on merits when you disagree with another position.
#3.3 DrTorch (Link) on 2022-05-10 10:32 (Reply)
Ooh, you have never admitted that I have scored on you repeatedly when I have said that to you, but you just revealed how much it has stung. I actually gave examples, dude, not just insults. I could have given more. You still have not manned up on these things.

Your best course is to step back and reconsider whether you actually do know as much as you pretend. But you won't. It's a personality thing. You will keep doubling down. You rely on experts every day, but you find it fun to feel smarter than them when they appear - usually only on selected media - to look wrong. They aren't wrong. I say this as a person who spent my career taking on people who pretended to be experts in mental health and mental health law, so I know that all who make the claim aren't real. Yet there are real ones, and over the last few years conservatives have decided to disbelieve them because...they want certain things to be true. I used to love your computer tips. You switched to being an expert outside your field, with predictable results.

I'm doing you a favor. You are going to be unhappy until you fix this.

Read Screwtape, dammit.
#3.3.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-05-10 15:48 (Reply)
Yet you come across as a pompous ass.
#3.3.1.1 Zachinoff on 2022-05-10 16:27 (Reply)
I don't recall you ever saying those things to me. Just another one of your mistakes.

Usually you just whimper that I called you out for your straw man arguments when you put words in someone else mouth to make your point.

So this is a new tack for you, just making up lies about me.

Meanwhile, you boast about providing examples, the very ones I demonstrated were wrong. You missed the actual discussion. So it's not me who needs to reassess himself, since it's your mistakes that keep getting pointed out.
#3.3.1.2 DrTorch (Link) on 2022-05-12 13:24 (Reply)
QUOTE:
Why does anyone continue to treat people as experts when they are so consistently wrong?

If Alfred is an authority, then the claim "Whatever Alfred says must be true" is a fallacy. However, if Alfred is an expert in a valid field under discussion, and there is adequate agreement among experts in the field, and there is no evidence of undue bias, then the expert is more likely correct than a non-expert. It's an inductive argument. A valid argument against a valid appeal to authority is to the evidence, however, non-experts rarely have the knowledge or methods to make such arguments — which is why most people rely on expert opinion.

That does not mean not seeking a second opinion (verifying consensus), or not being suspicious of someone with ulterior motives (undue bias). It certainly doesn't mean the evidence doesn't matter (Twain's single-blind reliability test).
https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/Issue-01-23.pdf

In fact, everyone, including scientists, rely on expert opinion in fields outside their own expertise. For instance, a general practitioner might make a referral to an oncologist; or a court may summon a fingerprint expert to help determine guilt or innocence; or a paleontologist looking for a transitional fossil might confer with a geologist to find exposed strata of the appropriate age; or an accountant might hire a mechanic to work on his car.
#3.4 Zachriel on 2022-05-11 09:01 (Reply)
Here’s a prayer that Putin is not as insane as everyone is trying to make him out to be. That our idiots don’t push him to going nuclear. Because, at this point, it sure seems like our idiots are trying their very best to get Putin to launch nuclear missiles. And Lord, I know that you warn against calling people idiots. But when the shoe is so well fitted, what other word do I have?
#4 B. Hammer on 2022-05-10 09:20 (Reply)
Here's a question to ask: Why are we getting involved in Ukraine? There are finely-crafted legends in circulation regarding Putin's nostalgia for the Soviet empire, and retaliation for NATO encroachment. There are other legends about the plucky Ukrainians defending their homeland. There is a blank spot with respect to US policy and objectives, nothing terribly convincing or coherent. Nothing about the chronic corruption in both Russia and Ukraine and its effects on making war. What are our goals? None of our 'experts' are talking past battle tactics.
#4.1 Aggie on 2022-05-10 11:16 (Reply)
Why are we involved in Ukraine? I would think that a giant clue can be found in Joe Biden’s family dealings with Ukraine. Remember the video of Biden telling the world that unless a certain prosecuting attorney was fired, then American tax dollars were going to be held up? Perhaps there are multiple European ’ruling’ class people using Ukraine for money laundering? John McCain was very interested in Ukraine. So is Lyndsey Graham, Nancy Pelosi. The fact that can’t escape my attention is how important the Ukraine border is, and how unimportant America’s southern border is to these same people.

Like the average American, the average Ukrainian pays the price for what ever these people are up to. Putin is a tyrannical thug, but our people are not much better. And that is the saddest thing.
#4.1.1 B. Hammer on 2022-05-10 16:26 (Reply)
It is unfair and inaccurate to call it NATO encroachment. NATO is a mutual protection organization that a country can choose to join. To try to stop a free country fromn joining would in fact be the encrouchment.
#4.1.2 OneGuy on 2022-05-10 21:27 (Reply)
'African Politicians Must Stop Blaming Others For Africa's Economic Woes'

African people in general need to stop blaming others for their woes, especially Whitey.
#5 Maniac on 2022-05-10 09:46 (Reply)
A Peace Corp volunteers take on a nation in Africa.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/01/what_i_learned_in_africa_trump_is_right.html
#5.1 indyjonesouthere on 2022-05-10 10:49 (Reply)
Powerful article.

Casual immigration supporters should be forced to read this...a dozen times minimum.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 should be brought back and made law again. It never should have gone away.
#5.1.1 DrTorch (Link) on 2022-05-10 11:30 (Reply)
Wow. A real eye opener.

But, I hear from a reliable source, that there ain’t much thinking going on over there at American Thinker. Just cherry-picking, rabble rousing propaganda to please conservatives. We live in a bubble, don’t you know?
#5.1.2 B. Hammer on 2022-05-10 16:51 (Reply)
Beware of social programs that require us to ignore accurate facts with proven relevance to a decision. The LSAT is strongly predictive of success in studying law. There are types of legal practice in which it's less relevant than others, just as the bottom quarter of med school graduates find useful work, but other areas of law are impossible without the necessary horsepower.

If only some law schools ditch the LSAT, the ones who don't will quickly scoop up the ablest students, and we'll merely accelerate the hierarchy among schools. What the ABA would like to pull off is a nationwide abandonment, so that there would be nowhere for dissenters to go. It's the standard progressive playbook: avoid acknowledging failure by suppressing competition and truth.
#6 Texan99 on 2022-05-10 10:07 (Reply)
While it is obvious that under any admissions scheme that a bottom 25% of the class will exist, getting rid of admissions testing is guaranteed to ensure that the bottom 25% will be less capable and qualified than before.

I don't know if you've ever had the experience of having a non-obvious medical problem and gone to a physician who had evidently graduated in the bottom quartile of his class, but I'd recommend avoiding it if at all possible. Around here, back when HMOs were all the rage, there was one that was famous for its collection of these shuffling, mumbling bottom-feeders. My wife was an ICU nurse for years and saw many of those knuckleheads in "action", if that's the word for it. Most of them were associated with that particular HMO. Some of her best "saves" came from getting the families to take their loved one somewhere else (naturally, that has to be done with all appropriate deniability) before it was too late.

I'd reckon much the same applies to law, if one ever is in a real jam and needs a real lawyer.
#6.1 Hairless Joe on 2022-05-10 17:56 (Reply)
California obliterating bias by getting rid of grades.

They have been getting rid of crime by refusing to prosecute...making those felonies disappear.

And heralding a new era of smash and grab shopping. A brand new era of "can't we all just get along".
#7 indyjonesouthere on 2022-05-10 10:28 (Reply)
Why does anyone continue to treat people as experts when they are so consistently wrong? Stupidity!

Why does NYU Law support anti-Semitic terror? It/they hate Jews???

California Eyes Obliterating 'Bias' by Getting Rid of Grades; California is dumbing down, Down, DOWNnnnnnnnnnn, outa SIGHT!!
#8 Sam L. on 2022-05-10 11:41 (Reply)
I thought Maggie's would appreciate this:

A new $10 million dollar Bob Dylan center has a Grand Opening in......(wait for it)... Tulsa~!.

..."The Bob Dylan Center’s first Artist-in-Residence, Joy Harjo, also read a piece titled “Tangled” inspired by Dylan’s 1975 song, “Tangled Up in Blue.”.

Wait, what? ..."Although the entire center is dedicated to showcasing all of the different works and artifacts from Dylan’s life and music career, Dylan himself has not engaged with the center." Judge Roy Bean all over again.
#9 Aggie on 2022-05-10 20:37 (Reply)

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