White Male Privilege (Tyler Cowen challenge)

Reading articles from other perspectives isn’t enough.  Try writing one.  -The Tyler Cowen challenge

Lack of definition
The term, "White Male Privilege" is a poorly defined concept.  It is similar to asking for "a tool".

Depending on who you are talking to, the word "tool" paints wildly different images in their heads.

To some people it might be a press line filled with 600 ton* behemoths.**

Photo mask for first Intel integrated circuit

To other people it might be a micrometer or a wrench, a hammer or a computer program or the photo mask for an integrated circuit.

To still others, the word "tool" denotes a non-sentient human used as a ballistic missile.

Because tools are tangible it is relatively easy to sort through those preconceptions and find a rational starting point for a discussion.

We are not so lucky with concepts like "White Male Privilege".  The term means pretty much whatever the debater wants it to mean...a meaning that can change minute-by-minute.

Tribal Bonding
This level of definition is good enough for tribal bonding and there is no reason to improve it if that is all you need it for.

Imagine two tribes facing each other.  One tribe is banging the butts of their spears into the ground shouting "Oo, Oo, Oo..." in time to the banging of spears.

The other tribe is shouting "Boozit, Boozit, Boozit..." in counter-time.

"Tastes Great"...."Less Filling"..."Tastes Great"....       Go Green....Go White....Go Green....

In case you still have doubts
Consider the two following statements, both made by ardent supporters of the concept "White, Male Privilege":

1. "White Male Privilege is so obvious and in-your-face that it must be accepted as a proven fact."
2. "White Male Privilege is so pervasive that it is invisible.  It is like gravity.  It is universal.  It is a drag.  Everybody accepts it without thinking because there is no place without it that can provide 'contrast'"

How can one thing be both?

Empathy
People who have been injured are angry.  As victims, they often claim to have greater insights (probably true) and rights (debatable) than non-victims.  Many times, in the heat of passion, they will deny everybody else's legitimacy.  Their victimhood gives them the only valid authority.

Most people prefer to avoid conflict.  Conflict is rarely cost effective.  They don't call "Boozit".  That would disbar them from their tribe.  It is easier to feign empathy.

The irony is that we have all been injured regardless of our tribe.  We are all victims.  And we all have deep emotional investment in others who have been victims.  We can all testify with authority.

If by...
If by "White Male Privilege" you mean Original Sin that applies only to White Males and from which there is no path to salvation through all of eternity...then I will fail the Tyler Cowen Challenge.  I cannot accept that definition.

If by "White Male Privilege" you mean that I am blessed to be in a demographic whose parents are statistically more likely to be married and stay married than most other demographics...then I agree.

If by "White Male Privilege" you mean that I have an advantage when taking standardized tests because the English that my parents spoke at home was more grammatically correct than non-white families...then I agree.

If by "White Male Privilege" you mean that society values consistent grammar and spelling because it is handy way to screw people-of-color...then I disagree.  Miscommunication is expensive, sometimes fatal.  Conventional grammar has the property of being holographic.  Its internal consistencies provides checks against error and missing portions can be safely inferred (like a knitted pattern) based on the tense, gender, passivity etc. of what was received.

If by "White Male Privilege" you mean that I belong to a sub-culture that values academic achievement...then I agree.

If by "White Male Privilege" you mean I am statistically more likely to gravitate toward college degrees that offer more job offers-per-graduate and higher starting pay then I agree.

If by "White Male Privilege" you mean I receive preferential job assignments because I belong to a sub-population that is less likely to take time off for child-bearing and rearing...then I agree.  Some assignments, many of them critical and high visibility, cannot tolerate changes in key players in mid-stream.

If by "White Male Privilege" you mean that some males have their way made smooth for them because they went to the "right" schools and joined the "right" fraternities...then I agree.  But as somebody who went to a community college and then commuted by bus to generic state university...I am probably not one of those white men.

If by "White Male Privilege" that I am less likely to be a victim of homicide than a person-of-color...then I agree.


Summary
If by "White Male Privilege" you mean that many...maybe even most...of the factors that made me successful were not under my control...I must agree.

If by "White Male Privilege" you mean that I bear a stain of guilt so heinous it cannot be shriven simply because I lucked into success, then you are throwing away much of what makes Western Culture great.  You are setting a precedent that people can be held accountable and punished for events they have no control over.  And I must disagree.

*Metal presses are rated by the force they generate, not their weight.  A 600 ton press can generate 1,200,000 pounds of force, twenty times a minute, twenty-four hours a day for five years straight.  A 600 ton press is not all that big but larger ones are usually contained in sound-suppressing enclosures so they are difficult to get images of.  Those enclosures also contain any shrapnel that flies around when metal parts fracture.

**Apologies to the industrial accountants.  In their world, production equipment that is specific to a product, i.e. it touches the product that is shipped, is a tool.  If it holds the tool and services multiple products then it is capital expenditures.  I am a simple guy.  To me it is all "tools".

Send in the Feds. NOT!

President Trump tweeted:

If Chicago doesn't fix the horrible "carnage" going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!

Sending in the Feds is a horrible idea.

It rates right up there with casually becoming embroiled in an Asian land war.

What is the exit strategy? 
It is not a matter of "You break it, you bought it."  It is already broken.  It is a matter of "You touch it and you bought it."

It gives every official permission to walk away from the problem.

Sending in the Feds gives every person in Chicago the right to seek damages for malfeasance or nonfeasance from the very deep pockets of Uncle Sugar.

If policing is failing due to Us-Them attitudes between the policed and the police, then sending in the Feds will simply increase that gulf.

Sending the Feds into Chicago sets a precedent.  Every failing city can go into free-fall knowing that the Feds will backstop them.

Sending in the Feds will fail.  It will fail badly.

Chicago's problems belong to Rahm and Rahm's political party, to Black Lives Matter and the citizens of Chicago.  If Rahm and BLM cannot solve this issue, then the citizens should solve it by moving out of Chicago.

Overland Undersea

"Avocado coffee: This drink works so well because avocado and espresso have similar nutty flavor profiles. The creaminess of the avocado is lightened with the milk, so it’s not too thick, and the whole concoction is lightly sweetened with syrup (or condensed milk) so it smoothly eliminates the bitterness of the espresso."

One of the things I enjoy most about blogging is that I get leads on great websites.

Watching my back-trail is a habit I picked up while wandering the woods and swamps.  I do the same while blogging.

The Blogger platform makes some statistics available to the blogger.  Many bloggers watch the high runners.  I like looking at the thinnest slices of time so I can see the onesie-twosies. 

You, my readers, are a fascinating bunch of people.  You have a wide range of interests.  This blog post is about one of the more interesting websites I stumbled into this way.

Overland Undersea
Overland Undersea is a travel blog.  If you only read one blog post, I recommend that it be How to save money...

Let me excerpt a few bits

Eating is an important social ritual in our society, and sometimes you have to spend money going out to keep your social network intact...This is a necessary aspect of modern life, and this is spending that’s not quite food spending, and more social upkeep.

Food spending becomes unnecessary spending, poop spending, when you spend money on a meal at a restaurant that you could have easily prepared for yourself.  (That's right, Sally said "poop spending", it just becomes poop.)

Image from  Overland, Undersea

Young people especially are terrible at limiting food spending. Eating habits left over from college and a lack of proficiency in preparing basic meals mean that they resort to buying most of their meals out of convenience.

Image from Overland Undersea

Cutting down spending on food has been an important way that I’ve maximized my budget and not only paid off all of my student loan debt in less than two years, but put away more money in savings for my trip than I ever had in loan debt.

 It is heartening to see "kids" with their heads screwed on straight.

Joy is having our innermost desires met

Image from HERE

Contentment is having our needs met.  Joy is having our innermost desires met.  There is a difference.  We can be unhappy with life and still have moments of joy.

Joy is having somebody scratch that itchy spot between your shoulder blades, the one spot you cannot reach. 

Hinge cut area

Stakeholders
As noted earlier, the principal in the Landscaping for Wildlife project is a passionate deer hunter.  He is aware that not everybody shares his passion.  He also knows that he sometimes gets tunnel vision.  So he is working at finding ways to engage other stakeholders in his project.

It is a given that most of the "side cover" along the south edge of the hinge cut area will soon die.  It is elm and ash.  A forward thinking person would develop a succession plan to smooth that transition.  And therein lies an opportunity.

Image from HERE

The principal's wife and his sister-in-law are spectacular cooks.  For example, they don't just make "cookies".  They make meringue pinwheels dusted with powdered sugar and topped with glazed fruits.

The entire concoction is undoubtedly held together by magical Etruscan incantations uttered by vestals in the light of the full moon.  Regardless, they are delicious.

Image from Quizzle's Food Quest

They also make pesto to kill for.  Pesto requires basil and garlic, which both ladies are masters of growing, pine-nuts, oil and hard cheese.  Being able to serve pesto made with home-grown basil and garlic and "family estate grown" pine-nuts would be almost as cool as owning a quarter acre, private label, vineyard in Primitivo di Manduria....and a whole lot cheaper.

In addition, the principal's brother has an affinity for filberts.  Filberts, incidentally, can be pressed for oil.  It does not matter the brother might only pick two pounds every couple of years.  The idea captures his imagination and is tangible evidence that an entire universe exists outside his work cubical.  For him, filberts are a classic fantasy anchor.

Since it is much better to have your family as allies than foes,  a forward thinking person would plant nut pines and filberts if those species came close to meeting the need for side cover. 

Green circles are tentatively planned to be nut-pines and the orange circles are to be filberts.

It may never come to pass that the pine-nuts or filberts are harvested by humans.  But it scratches an itch and will bring joy to the other stakeholders.

Water stress by country

Water stress by country.  From the World Resources Institute.

There is an old saw that goes something like this:  "Cadets debate strategy, junior officers debate tactics and generals lose sleep over logistics."

Staying alive is a matter of keeping your logistical tail as compact and as continuous as possible.  One way to do this is to have "production" move to secured areas close to the front.

Drought
Animals and humans rarely die of thirst during a drought.  They die from a famine and disease (and war).  Crops do not produce when the rains stop.  Crops do not produce as much when the irrigation water is limited or is heavily laden with pollutants and dissolved salts. 

What would any rational person do?  They would immigrate even if they were moving to areas with radically different cultures.

A decent article from the Russian perspective can be viewed HERE

They would do what the Jewish people did after leaving Egypt and wandering the desert for two generations, they would move into the land of milk-and-honey.

Muslims are no more militant than they were 30, 300 or 1300 years ago.  What is different is that they are experiencing the unpleasant side of population over-shoot.

I was surprised to see China is only listed as "Medium to high" stress.  My perception of China's water challenge is that the areas that are richly endowed with water have virtually no slope/gradient.  Much water but little flow, a bit like the Florida Everglades but with 900 times the area.  Minimum flushing effect means that pollutants build up.

The other half the challenge is the other areas are environmentally degraded, erosion is continuing and the climate is "brittle".  Sometimes it rains.  Some times it does not.

We live in interesting times.

You CAN Change Culture!

During the course of a casual conversation the person I was talking with opined, "...but you cannot change culture."  I think it was something that he heard in college and accepted without thinking about it.

It should be obvious that I have a different opinion.

My favorite story about changing culture involves a deer camp (hunting club) in Michigan.  They owned some property "up North" and managed it in ways that were traditional for the time.  Nearly all the members "got their buck" each year.  A few of them were dandy but most were run-of-the-mill.

From Pintrest

The board of directors were familiar with Quality Deer Management and it made sense to them.  A buck grows a new set of antlers every year.  The maximum antlers are typically grown when the buck is five-to-six years of age.  The challenge of implementing Quality Deer Management was one of culture.  Not getting your annual buck was perceived as a loss of manhood.

The solution they came up with was simple.  Every hunter had to have every buck they shot professionally mounted as a cape or shoulder mount.  The trophy was to then be displayed in the hunt club's lodge for a period for two hunting seasons....starting with the next one.  Failure to supply the trophy resulted in expulsion from the club.

Members could still shoot does to have meat for the freezer.

No, this is not a picture of me.  This is a hunter in Ohio.

Approach this through the lens of Game Theory.  There you are in your deer stand and you see a young buck.  In previous years you would have dropped it, field dressed it, hung it on a "buck pole" for a day, transported it to a butcher shop to be turned into sausage sticks....and then you would have bragged the rest of the year.  Absolutely no downside to shooting a young buck.  Heck, they even taste better than the old ones.

Now, the hunter would be forced to pony up $400 for the professional mount and have to endure two full deer seasons of being ribbed by the guys who had the patience to wait---an adult trait---for a big buck.  The hunters were held accountable.  They had been talking-the-talk, now they also had to walk-the-walk.

It became very easy to not shoot the little ones.

From a more macro perspective: Hunters kill bucks for status.  Displaying those bucks for two seasons will enhance that status.  It was the next logical step.  Surely an adult would not shoot an animal he was not proud of...would he?

It was also a great motivational and recruiting tool for the club.  It is easier to wait for a big one when you walk the Hall of Heroes twice a day and see the actual mossy-backs that are on the property. 

Why do so many people believe "You cannot change culture"?
I believe that most people do not want to believe that culture can be changed because they would have to discard some of their most cherished beliefs.  Or, if not discard those sacred cows, then soften them from immutable laws to something squishy like "desirable ends".

They quail at taking "the next logical step"  especially if the next logical step involves holding people accountable.

In many cases they perceive "accountability" as bad.  They fail to recognize that "accountability" is the prime marker of adulthood.  Absolving humans of the need to be accountable puts them into a state of arrested adolescence.  The same drive that motivates hunters, "I am a competent man. I am a person to be respected.  A force to be reckoned with."  becomes twisted and toxic when the person is trapped in a state of arrested adolescence.

In the long run, absolving people of accountability is not doing them any favors.  How would you feel if you were always treated like a daffy, irresponsible 15 year old?  Angry?

Nannyberry (Viburnum lentago)

Nannyberry is auditioning as a specialist in the Landscaping for Wildlife project I am helping with.

Area "F" is swamp/marsh

There is a significant amount of "swamp" and marsh that would benefit from patches of cover and winter forage for birds.

It is not very photogenic this time of year.  This specimen gives you a sense of how it forms a thicket.

The seed is slightly larger than a watermelon seed and nearly the same shape.  It tasted a bit like a date.  Nothing special but not obnoxious, either.

Each spear-shaped terminal bud will become a sloppy "snowball" in early June.  Literature suggests that more berries will be produced if another clone is nearby to provide pollination.

Close-up of the terminal bud.  As always, you can click on the picture to make it larger.

The plant suckers profusely from the shallow roots.  It can grow up to the edge of standing water.  The branches are smooth and not too difficult to push through.

Many of the bushes are still retaining fruit, even in mid-January (all pictures taken January 22, 2017)

This species is much easier to find when in flower.  Once you are keyed in, you will see them everywhere. This image is from gobotany.

Unfortunately, these flowers do not smell very good.  I wonder if it can hybridize with V. carlesii? Image from Prairiehaven.

Bonus pictures, a local hawthorn

Not very many thorns.

It tasted like an over-ripe Golden Delicious apple.