[UPDATE Dec. 4, 2023: I've decided to buy another fitbit tracker. Even so, I'll keep this post up.]
I'm taking a pause from my fitness tracker. (I'm not disclosing the brand name of the tracker I use. Just think of Bart Simpson calling his frisbee a "novelty flying disk," and you can probably guess which tracker it is.)
The reasons are many.
While walking home from work yesterday, I encountered a crowd of people protesting US policies in Israel and Palestine.The protestors called themselves pro-Palestine and wanted a "free Palestine."
One of the protestors was screaming at a police officer. I didn't witness the entire interaction, so there may be something I'm missing, but I did hear the protestor say something like the following to the officer:
You should be on our side. You're just service the white cishet male power structure.
That's a paraphrase because I don't have a perfect phonographic memory--but as far as paraphrases go it's pretty exact, I believe.
That's probably not the best tactic. As a non-activist, I'm in the cheap seats, but it seems to me the campaign for a "free Palestine" faces a lot of hurdles. One of the most important hurdles is to get people to care about it and endorse it.
I suspect that using the campaign to combat the "white cishet male" power structure doesn't do much to bring about that end. For one thing, a very large majority of people are "cishet," A smaller, but in the US still significant, number of people (maybe still a majority?) are white. A large number, maybe 50% or maybe a little less, are male. I don't think baiting them for their identities is the way to win them over.
And for what it's worth, I suspect the male cishet population of Palestine is robustly represented. "White" may be another story, depending on how you define whiteness. But while admitting I'm not expert, I venture that "whiteness" operates differently in Israel and Palestine from how it does in the US. Unlike some people, apparently, I'm not inclined to impose my western imperialist framing of whiteness onto other peoples about whom I know little.
Yes, I realize the "white male cishet" power structure is different from "white male cishet." You can be "white male cishet" and yet not support the current power structure or at the very least see the way things currently are as problematic. Someone might even argue that "white male cishet normativity" is in some way the basis of the world's problems with violence. (Add something about patriarchy, too, I guess. But I suppose that term "privileges" men somehow.)
But c'mon. The immediate problems facing Palestinians aren't the "white cishet male" power structure. That power structure, if it exists and if it's at all implicated in what's going on, is at least secondary.
I offer no comment here on my stance on the issue of "free Palestine" or Israel's response to the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks or what the response of the US should be. I have conflicted feelings. I'm all over the place.
I do hope for peace.
About 2 months ago, after years of resistance, I succumbed and bought my first smartphone.
Before that, I had the standard flip phone. I liked it. It worked well for me. But two important reasons prompted me to change.
First, I wasn't sure that the flip phone was all that durable. I didn't know when it would break, and I didn't know how to quickly (within a week or so) get a replacement when it broke. So at least a smartphone is supposedly supported and in the (big) city I live in, it's easy to find an outlet to get a replacement. Add to all that the fact I can afford a smartphone and the data costs associated with them.
Also, smartphones have a couple features I might need. The chief feature is ride share apps. I\m not enthusiastic about ride sharing, but I'd like to have the option if or when I need one. There are fewer and fewer taxi options, and I'm getting old enough that I need a plan B if the bus isn't coming for a while and 1) it doesn't feel safe to walk or 2) it's too far to walk.
Another feature (if we can call it that) is that it generally has better roaming capabilities and can be used outside the US. I travel to other countries very rarely, but it's nice to be able to have a way to call and do things. I know that theoretically a flip phone can be used out of the country if the plan is changed and something something something SIM card. But I've never once successfully managed to do that. It's easier (though still not easy) to arrange for a smartphone to do the trick abroad.
Smartphones have their disadvantages.
An obvious one is they're more of a they're more of a theft risk. Flip phones may be having their moment as a kitschy, ironic, and anti-commercialism toy. That is, in fact, one reason I'm not confident I could get a new one. Places probably don't carry them and those that do are probably out of them because of the kitsch fans. That said, I was never all that worried someone would steal the one I had. I was worried I might lose it. But that challenge comes with smartphones, too.
Smartphones are addictive. I see the temptation. I browse as much online (on my desktop) computer as anyone, and I have a video/strategy game that I can play for hours at a time, zoning out all outside encumbrances, if I'm not careful. Both browsing and gaming are fine when done in moderation and (in the case of browsing) with purpose. I don't do those in moderation. I don't need one more thing to be addicted to.
Smartphones can be socially isolating. I recall one academic event I was at about six months ago (well before I got my smartphone). I was there to judge the work of junior researchers at a fair my university was putting on. I sat at a round table with maybe 5 or 6 others, one of whom I actually knew. And they were all focused on their smartphones. Now, I'm as socially anxious and avoidant as most people, and even more avoidant than some. And I was grateful not to have to make small talk. I'm not sure how much different avoiding people by staring at a smartphone is from avoiding people by reading a book I've brought with me. But it just seemed wrong to me in a way that's different and hard to explain. (And for what it's worth, I had forgotten to bring a book to that event.)
There's another disadvantage to smartphones that's hard to explain, something malign and almost evil. Smartphones are almost like the reverse televisions from Orwell's 1984 that people were required by law to keep on. As I said in a post at Hit Coffee several years ago (A Voluntary Surveillance):
In 1984, the narrator mentions screens that enable the government to observe citizens in their own homes. Citizens were not permitted to turn these screens off. For quite a while I’ve seen a correlation between these surveillance screens and internet access, cell phones, and now i-phone technology, the main difference being that we choose to use them. We can turn them off, and we do, but we depend on them nevertheless.
These devices make us “observable” to others, not necessarily or only to the state, but in a way that potentially guides our actions and maybe even the way we think.
We are more and more legible to others. The legibility is not only to the state, but also to others: employers and vendors, for example.
And it's not just about legibility. It's also control. Smartphone technology is a system. And like most (all?) technological systems, it guides us along certain pathways. And while we can often deviate from those pathways, it's difficult to do so. In a formal sense, that problem has been around as long as there have been pathways. Thoreau discovered it at Walden pond when he noted he had worn a trampled path on a walk he took regularly around his abode. Whatever the problem is, it certainly didn't start with smartphones. The internet (the subject of my Hit Coffee post), preceded by drivers licenses, selective service enrollment--you'd have to go back pretty far to find no controls of that sort. In fact, you'd probably be forced to hypothesize some unattested state of nature.
But smartphones and the "social media" technology of which they're a part seem different. Maybe the difference is only in degree and not in kind, but the difference is in such a degree that it's almost a difference in kind. Or if it's "only" a difference in degree, then it's still a pretty big degree.
An article in the Washington Post highlights a study that supposedly shows doctors should prescribe vegetables to address cardiovascular conditions, like high blood pressure and what not. (The link, it's probably paywalled but not worth paying for if you're not already a subscriber.)
You can say the usual thing about media reporting on scientific studies. Namely, the conclusion stated or implied in the headline oversells what the study, on closer inspection, actually tells us. The study had no control group. The good health outcomes may have been from eating vegetables, but also may have been from alleviating food insecurity because the study's subjects were poorer people who were given vouchers for farmers' markets. And the doctors interviewed make the unsurprising claim that vegetables are probably good for you but we need more research (and more money for more research) in order to explore precisely why and how that's the case.
In that way, it's an unremarkable article. But I clicked on it and read it because the "vegetable prescription" seems to have worked for me.
About two and a half years ago, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. My doctor advised me to eat more vegetables. I did. My blood pressure seems to have improved, all without medication.
I'll knock on wood and maybe throw a hefty dose of salt over my shoulder. I should focus on the "seems" when I say my blood pressure improved. My home monitoring device says it's improved, but it doesn't usually seem to be all that better when I visit the doctor. I also distrust that device and my ability not to influence its score. (I'm not sure how I might influence it, but I'm just putting it out there that I might be affecting the outcome by how I measure it.) Also, I read somewhere (I forget the exact title, but it was actually a book and not a website) that even though diet can improve the blood pressure score, it doesn't fix blood pressure in the way that medication can and that therefore hypertensive people should probably still take medication.
Still, the vegetables seem to have helped. To be clear, I've also cut my sodium intake quite dramatically. And before I was diagnosed, I ate almost no vegetables. Now, I try to force feed myself 3 to 4 servings a day, along with whole grains and fruit.
I realize I'm only an N of 1, and a very privileged N at that. I've never known food insecurity and feel I don't have the standing to lecture poorer people on their dietary choices. But it all seems, so far, to work for me.
There's a certain kind of argument academics-qua-instructors use, where they boldly announce a policy and then act in contradiction to that policy. In this blog post, I'll relate one example.
In a recent (August 29, 2023) Washington Post column, Jonathan Zimmerman, a college professor, announces he has no AI policy for his students [pay walled, probably]. His university--i.e., his employer--requires him to make a policy, and his response:
So here's my AI policy: I don't have one.
Instead, he offers his student a version of the "if you cheat, you're only cheating yourselves" argument. An excerpt of what he tells his students:
I want you to be intelligent. I want you to stare at a blank page or screen for hours, trying to decide how to start. I want to you to write draft after draft and develop a stronger version of your own ideas. I want you to be proud of what you accomplished, not ashamed that you cut corners.
After writing a bit more on this theme, he finishes with the assertion that AI
will never do: make you into a fully autonomous human being, with your own ideas, feelings and goals. I want that to be your ambition.
And if that’s what you want, too, then avoid the bots.
As far as "reasons not to cheat with AI" goes, his argument is pretty good. I do suspect that something like AI has crept into the way we (the royal we) have been thinking and writing about things for a long time, and that even Mr. Zimmerman relies on it sometimes. But he's right, and good for him.
But I'd bet a small, yet undisclosed amount of money that he actually does have an AI policy. Some students will use some AI programs to write their papers, and a subset of those will be so embarrassingly and obviously AI-produced that Mr. Zimmerman will report those situation to whoever is the academic honesty czar at his college and the student will be appropriately punished.
In that, I suspect AI will be a lot like student plagiarism. Some students, when they plagiarize, might lift a phrase here or there form Wikiepedia or the class-assigned textbook and fail to attribute it. (I personally don't think that practice should entail the intense opprobrium and swift and sure punishment it commands when discovered, but most university policies and plagiarism hunters I've seen seem to disagree.) There are some edge examples, where we know the student probably plagiarized, but we can't prove it. And then there are the obvious examples, where the student uses an entire paper or encyclopedia article or whatever that is very easy to find.
I bring up that distinction because when I was a TA and adjunct, I knew a lot of people who claimed that they didn't worry about plagiarism, because plagiarized papers were so bad that grading on the merits would be punishment enough for the student. But even those instructors would "bust" the student for obvious plagiarism.
Back to Mr. Zimmerman. He'll almost definitely punish the obvious examples. I suspect his college requires it. Maybe he has tenure and can therefore write columns explaining how he is defying the work rules his employer sets. And remember: professors cannot fail, they can only be failed. But there is almost definitely a "shall be punished" (not "may be punished") policy at his college, and if he openly defies that policy, even tenure might not protect him.
So yes, he can give the "don't cheat yourselves" lecture without sanction. But a student would be foolish to take that lecture at face value and go about AI'ing on the assumption that they're only cheating themselves.
Concerning the recent Supreme Court cases that are reputed to end most race-based affirmative action programs for higher education, I mostly agree with Freddie DeBoer at this link (substack, so probably pay walled). But I have a few other thoughts.
(I should disclose that I have only now started reading the court decision. I may think differently after reading it.)
Thought #1: I'm surprised (though again, I haven't read the decision) that the admissions practices of a private institution like Harvard can be subject to this federal lawsuit. I understand that Harvard, like most so-called "private" universities, are subsidized in many, many ways by state and federal governments. But I'm still a bit surprised they don't (apparently) have more leeway to make race-based decisions.
Thought #2: This decision seems to address only admissions and not financial aid. I don't know how it will affect any race-based financial supports. If this decision significantly curtails those, too, then, right or wrong, it is very unfortunate.
Thought #3: I understand that the more wealthy top-tier schools make a point to financially support poorer students at close to 100% of costs. I suspect that such financial support is not all it's cracked up to be, but curtailing admissions at those places probably, in its own way, curtails some financial supports a la thought #2 above.
Thought #4: I don't shed a lot of tears for someone who doesn't get into Harvard or Yale and instead has to go to a "lesser" ivy league or go to one of the many other top-tier undergraduate schools.
Thought #5: Notwithstanding thought #4, I'm not convinced we're talking only of top-tier schools. If we're talking about a selective enrollment, local private school that offers robust financial supports and a easy-to-win-admission local public school that offers almost none--in that case, someone not admitted under an affirmative action policy may find they'll end up at an institution where they have to pay much more, maybe prohibitively much more, than they would have at the private one.
Thought #6: The retort that "white males have had affirmative action for 100 years" is glibly dismissive of many well-reasoned, sincere concerns about race-based affirmative action. It's especially unhelpful when offered as the only response to any and all objections: it's a way to shout down someone who disagrees with you.
Thought #7: Notwithstanding thought #6, that retort has more than a kernel of truth. Those, like me, who have benefited from the system need to acknowledge that truth.
Thought #8: In the world as I would like it to be, a college degree would not be nearly as much of a requirement for employment as it seems to be now. But the world isn't as I'd like it to be, so that default requirement suggests, to me, that we need some way to help others meet this requirement.
I've read over the federal indictment against Mr. Trump, and I fear the case isn't quite as strong as some commentators claim it is. I can see how a non-biased juror (if such an animal exists) can find reasonable doubt not to convict Mr. Trump. I also believe that the indictment makes certain arguments for public consumption that in my view are overwrought and borderline irrelevant to the case at hand.
So....this blog post, like Gaul, will be divided into three parts. In part 1, I'll state that I'm not a lawyer and don't have much legal training. I'll also make the usual claim that I really really truly truly believe that Mr. Trump is a bad person and really really truly truly probably committed the crime and really really truly truly deserves to go to jail. In part 2, I'll raise what I see as the political and legal weaknesses of the indictment. In part 3, I'll repeat my disclosures from part 1, and that won't matter because if anyone actual reads this (long) blog post, they'll accuse me of being a Trump apologist anyway. So it goes.
The "law and order" candidate for mayor in my city says that law and order is a "civil right." I've already explained that I'm voting for that candidate in part because of his "law and order" position, but I disagree with him. Law and order isn't a civil right.
I see a civil right is a claim we as individuals have against the state. It's not a claim on the state. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't make claims on the state, but that making such a claim isn't claiming a civil right.
We could probably dispute why states exist and what purposes the do serve and ought to serve. But any such discussion will have to contemplate the state's responsibility to promote public order as a good for all people to enjoy. There are a lot of value-laden words in that last sentence: "public," "order," "a good," and "all people" all require extensive discussion. But waiving that discussion, I do think I can say a state should promote public order as a good for all people to enjoy.
A civil right is something an individual can invoke against the state as the state seeks to provide that "good."
I have probably, in the past, described certain things as a "right" or as a "civil right" that go against the definition I'm using in this blog post. I almost definitely described state-assured health care as a right. I say now that I was wrong to do so. That doesn't mean I oppose state-assured health care. I support it and wish the state assurance were more robust than it is. But I no longer see it as a "right."
Now, that candidate isn't really trying to summon a philosophical debate on the nature of "rights" and the obligations of government. He's trying to win votes and to do so in a way designed to appeal to two groups. The first is poorer people, especially persons of color, who see, and are often right to see, appeals to "law and order" as code for terrorizing and targeting black and brown persons. The candidate wants to argue that law and order is a good thing from which those very persons can and deserve to benefit. The second group includes relatively affluent, liberal-leaning people like me. His rhetoric assures us that we can support law and order without being racist or being against poor people.
I think he's right on the merits. poorer people stand to benefit greatly from a system that secures public safety. If someone isn't safe on the street or on mass transit, they can't do the other things that make life livable or worth living.
But even so, we need to recognize that the law and order position, which I'm inclined to support this time around, comes with real costs. Those costs are curbs against civil liberties along some margin. I hope that margin is very slim, but it exists. Calling law and order a civil rights obfuscates the tradeoff, and we shouldn't do that.
Two people are running for mayor in my city. One is the "law and order" candidate and the other isn't. I plan to vote for the law and order candidate and largely because he's the law and order candidate.*
Of course, both candidates claim to want to make my city safer. Each, when pressed, will probably say he supports the "rule of law." But the "law
and order" candidate is much more likely to promote aggressive
enforcement and much more likely to strengthen the prerogatives of the
police department and its officers. If he's successful, we just might see fewer carjackings and fewer muggings. I actually might feel safer.
The other candidate claims to want to address crime "holistically,"
I get the point behind this Washington Post article (paywall, probably) by Robin Stern and Marc Brackett. People use words like trauma, gaslighting, narcissism, and depressed in ways that don't match what mental health professionals (MHP's) mean by them. When people do that, they're usually exaggerating the severity of whatever situation or person they are facing. That causes harm because it ignores and in some ways even trivializes the challenges faced by people who do suffer from according-to-Hoyle trauma, gaslighting, narcissism, and depression.
I have two problems with Stern and Brackett's argument.
