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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

What are some scholarly ways that a person can investigate the reasoning behind an existing state of affairs, where the existing state of affairs in question is a law or policy?

Investigating the reasoning behind an existing law or policy can be approached from several scholarly perspectives, each employing a range of methods and analytical tools. Below are some approaches that can help uncover the rationale behind a law or policy:

1. Legal Analysis (Doctrine-based Inquiry)

  • Statutory Interpretation: Scholars may start by analyzing the text of the law or policy, identifying its purpose, and exploring its language. This involves looking at the legal provisions and examining legislative intent, which can often be found in debates, committee reports, or legislative history.
  • Case Law: Reviewing judicial opinions on the law or policy provides insight into how courts interpret and apply the law. A close reading of key decisions may reveal the underlying legal principles, norms, or objectives that shaped the law.
  • Legal Doctrines and Principles: Analyzing whether the law or policy aligns with established legal doctrines (e.g., human rights, justice, equity, fairness) can shed light on its underlying reasoning.

2. Historical Analysis

  • Historical Context: Investigating the historical development of the law or policy can provide valuable insights. This involves looking at the political, economic, social, and cultural context in which the law or policy was enacted. The scholar could examine the timing of its introduction, significant historical events that might have influenced it, and the role of key individuals or groups.
  • Comparative Historical Approaches: Comparing similar laws or policies from different times or places can highlight the factors influencing their formulation and the lessons learned from prior implementations.

3. Political Science Approaches

  • Public Policy Analysis: This involves analyzing the policy-making process, identifying the actors involved (e.g., legislators, interest groups, bureaucrats), their objectives, and the political dynamics at play. This approach may involve:
    • Agenda-setting theory: Investigating how issues gain attention and become policy topics.
    • Policy process models: Examining how the policy is formulated, implemented, and evaluated.
  • Political Economy: Scholars may look at the economic interests that shape policy decisions, such as the role of lobbyists, political donations, and the influence of businesses or advocacy groups.
  • Institutional Analysis: Understanding how the structure of political institutions (e.g., executive, legislative, judiciary) and their interrelations contribute to the law or policy’s formulation.

4. Sociological Approaches

  • Social Theories of Law and Policy: Scholars from a sociological perspective often analyze how laws or policies reflect or enforce social norms, values, and power dynamics. This includes:
    • Critical Legal Studies: Investigating how the law is shaped by social power relations and how it might perpetuate inequality or social control.
    • Law and Society: Analyzing the broader societal context of law-making, considering how societal forces (e.g., public opinion, cultural attitudes) influence policy decisions.
  • Social Movements and Advocacy: Investigating the role of activism or advocacy groups in shaping the law or policy. This includes understanding the strategies used by interest groups to influence legislation.

5. Economic Analysis

  • Cost-Benefit Analysis: Economic scholars often investigate the efficiency of laws or policies by assessing their economic costs and benefits. This includes evaluating the outcomes of a policy in terms of economic indicators (e.g., growth, unemployment, income distribution) and assessing whether the law achieves its stated goals.
  • Behavioral Economics: Examining how laws and policies affect individual and collective behavior, such as through nudges or incentives, can reveal the underlying rationale for a policy.
  • Public Choice Theory: Analyzing how political actors (e.g., lawmakers, bureaucrats) make decisions based on their own interests and incentives, rather than public welfare.

6. Ethical and Philosophical Analysis

  • Normative Theories of Justice: Examining the law or policy through the lens of ethical theories, such as utilitarianism, deontology, or Rawlsian justice. This can help clarify the moral rationale behind the law, including whether it seeks to promote fairness, equality, or liberty.
  • Human Rights Perspectives: Analyzing whether the law or policy aligns with international human rights standards or principles such as dignity, autonomy, and equality. This is particularly useful when the law or policy in question affects vulnerable populations.
  • Public Morality: Investigating whether the law reflects certain moral values or societal goals, such as social cohesion, moral order, or public health.

7. Empirical Research and Data Analysis

  • Quantitative Analysis: Using statistical tools to analyze the effects of a policy. For example, if a law was intended to reduce crime rates, scholars may analyze crime data before and after its implementation to assess its effectiveness and the reasoning behind the policy's goals.
  • Qualitative Research: Conducting interviews, surveys, or focus groups with stakeholders (e.g., policymakers, affected groups, experts) to gather insights into the reasoning behind the law. This can also involve ethnographic methods to understand the law's impact on everyday life.

8. Critical and Interdisciplinary Approaches

  • Feminist Legal Theory: Examining laws or policies from the perspective of gender and power dynamics, considering how policies might reinforce or challenge gender inequality.
  • Critical Race Theory: Analyzing how race and racial dynamics influence the creation, interpretation, and implementation of laws or policies.
  • Intersectionality: Exploring how multiple social identities (race, gender, class, etc.) interact to shape both the policy’s creation and its effects on different groups in society.

9. International and Comparative Analysis

  • Comparative Law: Analyzing how similar laws or policies in different jurisdictions (e.g., countries or states) reflect differing priorities or reasoning. This may reveal the influences of international legal trends, global standards, or local conditions.
  • International Relations: Understanding how global agreements, treaties, or transnational issues (e.g., climate change, trade, human rights) shape domestic laws and policies.

By combining these various methods, scholars can develop a multi-dimensional understanding of the reasoning behind laws and policies, exploring their origins, implications, and effectiveness. This interdisciplinary approach helps reveal not only the practical considerations that led to the policy’s creation but also the broader social, economic, and political forces that shaped its development.

So, I don't think you're saying that the only thing we can do is start with Item 1 on that list (in fact, so far, I don't think this has been a significant point of discussion yet). I'm sure we can work through many of these methods, but I put in a bit of effort to make sure that we got Item 2 down, yet I can't tell what you think. Do you think we've gotten that one mostly figured out, or do you think that I'm still missing some information on that one?

Friday Fun Thread for November 22, 2024

That's fair. I do wonder why tabs are so widely hated, given the flexibility like you said.

Friday Fun Thread for November 22, 2024

In the end I just put down turret pods in their territory and let nature take it's course.

Did it take a lot of turrets? I just made it to Vulcanus tonight and did some science shooting the first demolisher I found using my submachine gun, and it went as poorly as I expected. I wasn't even scratching its health regen. Obviously turrets would increase my DPS, but I have no idea how many it would take to get through the regen.

Transnational Thursday for November 14, 2024

Ukraine could build a crude nuclear bomb within months, similar to the Fat Man bomb dropped in Nagasaki, from spent plutonium

They could do it, but the description (what I can see of it before the paywall) undersells the difficulty. You can't just reprocess "spent" fuel and get weapons-grade plutonium; you get plutonium, but too much of it is 240Pu and 242Pu, which cause predetonation, and your bomb fizzles. You need "fresh" fuel that's only been in the reactor a few weeks. You also need a reprocessing plant; it appears Ukraine doesn't have one, and it's not like Zelensky can go to Western Europe and say "here's some fuel, please extract the weapons-grade plutonium and give it back to me" (the NPT specifically prohibits doing that, not that they would anyway), so they'd have to build one; "months" would be an optimistic estimate there (on the plus side for them, they can put in fresh fuel for weapons production right away, so there's no extra time lag from that), particularly since if the Russians notice such a plant being constructed it's going to eat All Of The Missiles.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

There is a debatable correlation between wearing Goth clothing as an adolescent and going through troubled times, but teachers do not routinely make a habit of notifying parents of such things, and rightly so.

I read a book by Michael Moore in which he claims that he went to an American high school and one of the students pointed out to him that all of the students were wearing neutral colours like white or pastels. Moore asked why they were doing that, and the student explained that if they came into school wearing black clothing, the principal would pull them into his office and ask them if they were planning on committing another Columbine. No idea how common this is.

Moreover, many American high schools have dress codes, and if a student is sent home from school for violating the dress code, presumably their parents are going to hear about it.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

Put another way, a public school's goal is to indoctrinate children with the beliefs that are commonly accepted in the society they're a part of.

Many components of gender ideology are not commonly accepted in the broader society, but educators indoctrinate children with them anyway. Because they are not commonly accepted, educators have to do this by subterfuge. Sure, they'll claim that they're only doing this because of a minority of far-right fundamentalist Christians who might kick up a stink about teachers informing children that "trans people have a right to exist", the reality of the situation is that, while almost everyone in the West thinks that trans people should be left alone to do their own thing, the percentage of people who believe that "sex is a spectrum" or in the "genderbread person" is low, perhaps single digits.

There's also the plainly obvious fact that there's a world of difference between factual education (gravity is what pulls you down when you jump in the air; every sentence must contain a subject, a verb and an object) and normative education (it's wrong to hit your classmates). Gender ideology is objectionable at least from the former perspective, as many of its assertions are pseudoscientific woo or simply unsupported by the best available evidence ("puberty blockers are completely reversible"), and probably from the latter as well.

Friday Fun Thread for November 22, 2024

The thing is that indentation should be tabs. Then everyone can set whatever depth they want their tabs to render as.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

Especially with only half a mil in the brokerage account, not much room for extravagant spending.

I chuckled.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024
  • Mouth tape
  • Sleep mask
  • Ear plugs if you live in the city and have the window open
  • Bedroom temperature below 19c / 65f
  • Blackout curtains in summer (if you live far north/south of the equator)

That plus 7.5-8 hours of sleep has been what I’ve found to work best, and has significantly improved my life.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

Which is why we have laws against it.

Laws which in practice aren't really enforced when a man is perceived to have gotten himself in over his head -- that's the point.

We have a system for establishing a policy of "Do not do $THING or There Will Be Consequences."

Where $THING <> "force other people to pretend that you've changed your gender" I guess -- y'know, the topic of this thread? Then it's the opposite, right?

People have spent thousands of years moving us up the entropy-slope

No, people have spent about 20 years convincing people like you that resort to violence is not a part of the masculine story -- to the extent that anything's actually changed if you step outside of your coddled environment, it's been at the earliest since after I went to high school.

In which case one approaches the problem by degrees -- prosecute the man who becomes violent over a tiny slight before the man responding to a more serious insult; prosecute the man who attacks someone smaller than himself before the man who picks on someone his own size, &c.

Who's this 'one'? Nobody does that.

Tim Walz' Golden Rule.

What does Tim Walz being a huge hypocrite have to do with anything?

Friday Fun Thread for November 22, 2024

Someone here recommended history of the Germans and I've liked it well enough.

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

I've never been in your position, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I think you should try to make it work. You're head-over-heels for her, and the way you describe it seems somewhat rare to me. Best case scenario, the LDR works out and you're with her. Worst case, the LDR doesn't work out, and a year from now you've broken up and are looking for someone new. Which is the exact same position you are in now. To me, the potential losses from trying to make it work seem much smaller than the potential gains.

I think you should give her the benefit of the doubt (fool me once, etc.). Assume she saw this was getting serious, but she would have to leave, so she tried to nip things in the bud before it went too far. But now she's reconsidering.

Transnational Thursday for November 21, 2024

Russia has consistently had full coverage of entire Ukraine territory with its weaponry, there's nothing new in that. Ukrainian government is well aware of that fact.

Transnational Thursday for November 21, 2024

Pivdenmash is indeed a large missile factory, and has been repeatedly attacked during the course of the war.

Transnational Thursday for November 21, 2024

Not an ICBM, a mid-range MIRV missile.

Transnational Thursday for November 21, 2024

he'd declare a national emergency and use military assets to institute a mass deportation program

That makes a lot of sense. Military knows how to house, feed and clothe large groups of people, and has logistical chains to do stuff like that. Why reinvent the wheel?

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

I think it was the paying for sex part.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

No, I was merely acknowledging the circumstances in which the argument for an absolute never-respond-to-words-with-violence-never-ever-never-forever policy is at its weakest. (They are also circumstances in which it would be reasonable for Adam to fear that Bob, if not deterred, might escalate to violence against Adam or his relatives. Prior to the genocide in Rwanda, certain Hutu radio broadcasters regularly referred to Tutsi as 'cockroaches' (inyenzi); 'Useless eaters' (Nutzlose Fresser) and 'Life unworthy of life' (Lebensunwertes Leben) were terms used to refer to disabled people by the Nazis prior to murdering them in 'Aktion T4'.)

If Bob said to Adam "Your mum threw herself at me and ten of my friends last night.", or "You can't $OCCUPATION worth beans, they just promote you because you're golf buddies with half the C-Suite and have pictures of the other half in flagrante.", or "It looks like you have a dead rodent glued to your scalp.", Adam would be justified in being upset, but would not be justified in escalating to assault.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

I looked up the scandal on Wikipedia. He allegedly had sex with a 17 year old (who he claims he thought was 19)? That's what's made him radioactive? Is there anything else I'm missing? The wiki section for this says "UNDERAGE SEX TRAFFICKING" so I was expecting he was ordering 9-year Ukrainian war orphans to his house or something, but this really underwhelming. Technically a crime, yes, blah blah blah, but reminds me of the pearl clutching over Lewinsky.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

ou (and most other people) are not complaining that all the English majors and all the physicists can't leave your kids alone, because (presumably) you agree with the majority of them.

The object level question actually matters here. English and physics usually aren't controversial, and to the extent that they are, parents are justified in complaining about them too.

There is a debatable correlation between wearing Goth clothing as an adolescent and going through troubled times, but teachers do not routinely make a habit of notifying parents of such things, and rightly so.

Secret social transitions are a problem because social transitions are a step towards a medical transition, so parents should have some say in that process. Schools don't need to notify parents about Goth clothing because it doesn't lead to anything (except maybe a piercing? I don't know how common that is).

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

I don't want to get too deeply into my own experiences, but I doubt that I'm completely unique, and in cases like mine, it doesn't feel like a choice, but rather like a grudging admission of something that I could no longer deny. It usually doesn't feel like deciding to believe in God, but often the opposite, as if one tried to decide not to believe in God, but after long trial and effort it proved impossible.

Perhaps the most famous example of a Christian like this would be C. S. Lewis. From Surprised by Joy, ch. 14:

People who are naturally religious find difficulty in understanding the horror of such a revelation [the reality of God]. Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about "man's search for God." To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat. The best image of my predicament is the meeting of Mime and Wotan in the first act of Siegfried; hier brauch' ich nicht Spärer noch Späher, Einsam will ich.... (I've no use for spies and snoopers. I would be private....)

Remember, I had always wanted, above all things, not to be "interfered with." I had wanted (mad wish) "to call my soul my own." I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering than to achieve delight. I had always aimed at limited liabilities. The supernatural itself had been to me, first, an illicit dram, and then, as by a drunkard's reaction, nauseous. Even my recent attempt to live my philosophy had secretly (I now knew) been hedged round by all sorts of reservations. I had pretty well known that my ideal of virtue would never be allowed to lead me into anything intolerably painful; I would be "reasonable." But now what had been an ideal became a command; and what might not be expected of one? Doubtless, by definition, God was Reason itself. But would He also be "reasonable" in that other, more comfortable, sense? Not the slightest assurance on that score was offered me. Total surrender, the absolute leap in the dark, were demanded. The reality with which no treaty can be made was upon me. The demand was not even "All or nothing." I think that stage had been passed, on the bus top when I unbuckled my armor and the snowman started to melt. Now, the demand was simply "All."

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

To the extent that they are not pushier than straights, this is a problem that happens with straights too. To the extent that they are pushier than straights, it's a problem, but it's not a problem with being gay; pushiness is not part of the definition of gay.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

This goes against what many of Trump’s isolationist supporters want. It’s almost certain that Trump is making these picks extremely haphazardly, deciding on names after a bare modicum of thought and prioritizing vibes, “loyalty”, and Fox news appearances over any other concerns.

This is like a self-confession: You have no theory of mind for Trump or Trump-supporters. If you really think Trump is totally arbitrary foppsical and whim: I don't know what to tell you. I think you have a unique theory of how Trump operates. Even the most liberal publications I consume have picked the theme: Trump is nominating people with grudges against the bureaucracies they will lead, or who plan to destroy those institutions. If you genuinely think Trump has no purpose or motive I guess I'd like an explanation for how Trump succeeded at anything. It would be extremely interesting.

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

(Although I could see the case for dismissing charges against Adam if Bob had referred to Adam's ethnic group as 'cockroaches', or called Adam's disabled relative a 'useless eater' or a 'life unworthy of living', or accused Adam of some grave act of moral turpitude such as sexual assault against an infant; but anything short of that....)

So it's all who/whom after all. If Bob does something you find offensive, Adam is excused for hitting him.

Friday Fun Thread for November 22, 2024

Have any very good new history podcasts popped up in the last couple of years?

I used to enjoy stuff like History of Rome, history of byzantium, norman centuries.