Threading through the Tangle

These are a hilarious sort of pun. And the commentors on the NYT blog have produced some real gems:

“Oh I dropped my toothpaste behind the sink,” he said, crestfallen.

This piece is so fundamentally naive that it’s really not worth considering. The author clearly does not understand evolution, or the nature in which humans participate in evolutionary, or economic systems (i know, the author is in neuroeconomics. I’m surprised too).

First, humans manipulate evolutionary systems for our benefit. Livestock and plant husbandry have served us well over several thousand years, and are really quite integral to individual survival and our survival as a species. Additionally there are a number of animals which have co-evolved with us, and have influenced and been influenced by our evolutionary trajectory (dogs, cats, mosquitoes, etc).

Second, economic systems are not like evolutionary systems, in that we have goals and objectives that our economic systems are supposed to meet. Survival of the fittest business is inappropriate if the fittest do it by turning people into soylent green.

Third, the premise that regulation can only stifle fitness in an economic system is simply and grossly incorrect. If you wish to preserve diversity in an economy then you want regulations that break up monopolies. You want regulations that tell telecom companies that they must lease their phone lines to competitors.

Fourth, there are cases where we simply must demand for the bar for economic fitness to be raised. It is in our collective best interest to ensure that banks are properly capitalized and are able to pay their debts. In fact, it’s of vital interest to the entire economic system, as the past year has demonstrated.

This article is frustrating/misleading/incorrect, and frankly i expected better, both out of a neuroeconomist, and a magazine called Psychology Today.

I can’t find enough pejoratives to describe the ways in which the Bush administration has reinvented the executive branch. They created a shameful, callous, uncaring, soul-eating machine, built to serve their ideology. A device with no regard for the lives it destroyed, any notion of justice, or question of efficacy. Every time i think that i’ve become inured to the rank and unfettered injustice perpetrated by the Bush Administration, some new low comes to my attention and it is sad that this information has only come to light now, after the Bush administration has left office.

The behavior of Immigration & Customs Enforcement as described by the NYT is a damning example.

They have made me ashamed to be an American. How sad is it that 26 year olds have begun lamenting the loss of nation we used to be?

Here’s a link to an earlier NYT article regarding a Chinese man who was detained, developed cancer and a fractured spine, and was denied treatment because officials thought he was “faking” until 5 days before his death, when he was taken to a hospital, “his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.”

This Washington Post piece is extremely well put together. These are tragic stories, evocatively and heart-wrenchingly explained. More importantly though, the piece does an effective job of discussing the cognitive (even momentary distraction can have horrible implications) and sociological (this can happen to anybody from any background, and does happen).

WELL worth the read.