Settling for a Boring Nonprofit Business

Lori Gottlieb in the Atlantic Monthly says Marry Him! Here are some excerpts from her article. Granted, this Gottlieb is one who, in a "fit of self-empowerment," conceived a baby with donor sperm and no husband, so strong was her desire to reproduce:

Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business.

...

Take the date I went on last night. The guy was substantially older. He had a long history of major depression and said, in reference to the movies he was writing, “I’m fascinated by comas” and “I have a strong interest in terrorists.” He’d never been married. He was rude to the waiter. But he very much wanted a family, and he was successful, handsome, and smart. As I looked at him from across the table, I thought, Yeah, I’ll see him again. Maybe I can settle for that.

...

Those of us who choose not to settle in hopes of finding a soul mate later are almost like teenagers who believe they’re invulnerable to dying in a drunk-driving accident. We lose sight of our mortality. We forget that we, too, will age and become less alluring.

...

But then my married friends say things like, “Oh, you’re so lucky, you don’t have to negotiate with your husband about the cost of piano lessons” or “You’re so lucky, you don’t have anyone putting the kid in front of the TV and you can raise your son the way you want.” I’ll even hear things like, “You’re so lucky, you don’t have to have sex with someone you don’t want to.”

The lists go on, and each time, I say, “OK, if you’re so unhappy, and if I’m so lucky, leave your husband! In fact, send him over here!”

Not one person has taken me up on this offer.

Flirting for Aspergers patients

The Social Issues Research Centre has an excellent guide to flirting, in the simple language best understood by the Asperger types. A highlight:

You will generally find a lot of flirting among incompetent tennis players, unfit swimmers, cack-handed potters, etc., but somewhat less among more proficient, serious, competitive participants in the same activities. There are of course exceptions to this rule, but before joining a team or club, it is worth trying to find out if the members have burning ambitions to play in the national championships or win prestigious awards for their handiwork. If you are mainly looking for flirting opportunities, avoid these high-flying groups, and seek out clubs full of happy, sociable under-achievers.

If I could do it all over again ...

Here are some unused blog names:

• Zack's Craps
• My Little Echo Chamber
• The Umbilical Record
• Navel Observatory
  

Inquisitiveness for Dummies (or Aspergers patients)

Especially in your first meeting with a stranger, showing some interest in their life may lead to acquiring a new friend. Showing this interest without making them uncomfortable is tricky business.

The safest questions are easy, but also less interesting. "How are you" is usually OK. If you're at a gathering, something like "What's your connection to this crowd" is standard fare.

Another standard question, but more interesting, is "What do you do?" Although the question is phrased vaguely, its repeated use has changed its meaning to "What do you do for a living?" Some conversation experts advise against stating the question so directly, as it may lead to awkwardness if the stranger happens to be unemployed, or if the stranger is ashamed of what they do for a living. People working in prostitution, gambling, corporate law, the military, drug dealing, or AIG may be reluctant to discuss their work.

A good alternative to "What do you do" is "What keeps you busy?" This question has not yet come to mean "what is your job," and allows people to expound on what they do during free-time or evenings instead of their career, if they prefer.

Once a stranger has revealed what they do, either as a hobby or career, you can show interest by asking more questions on that topic. But don't take this too far. Questions that reveal the stranger's incompetence or lack of knowledge in their field will make them feel defensive. Don't ask a computer programmer to explain what the program they are trying to write is supposed to accomplish in the big picture if they seem like a nuts-and-bolts personality.

A generalization of the above examples is that you should avoid asking questions that "measure" people. Even something so simple as "where did you go to school" can lead to feelings of being measured. Those that got their degree a little community college such as "Pot State" may fear being measured as inadequate. A graduate of Harvard may feel like a fake for bearing such lofty credentials, or may fear being tested on their supposed smarts.

Other measuring questions include "What do your parents do for a living," "Do you have a car," "Does that job pay well," or "What was your SAT score?" Some of these may work well in special circumstances when the question is highly relevant to the topic at hand, but if you are unsure, just avoid asking these things.

For most good questions, you are able to state exactly why you want to know that answer to that, and how it was relevant to the conversation. Unstructured curiosity is a conversational weapon of incremental destruction.

It is best to discuss shared interests.

Book Review: Finding Darwin's God

By Ivy-League biology professor Kenneth R. Miller, and subtitled "A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution."

Miller joins a long line of scientist-philosophers who play mental hopscotch in their effort to connect science and ultimate meaning using mere words. Like all the rest, he fails miserably, at least when judged as a scientific work. (By the standards of poetic value, on the other hand, his work is just as profound as you like it!)

Miller devotes the first half of the book to providing a detailed justification of evolution by way of composting a bunch of creationist straw men. Miller defines evolution quite well. In the second half of the book, he trashes various claims that evolution challenges the existence or relevance of God. Curiously, Miller never gives a significant picture of what he means by God, other than to say that God is "Darwin's God." Darwin's God is your run-of-the-mill the Judeo-Christian Father-God, creator of the universe etc, but also the creator (and facilitator?) of evolution as the means of bringing humanity into His [sic (sick, right?)] image.

Miller reaches far beyond his area of expertise (and beyond the power of semantics) when he glibly borrows the popular interpretation of quantum mechanics as proof that some parts of reality are indeterminate. Actually, quantum mechanics has nothing to say on the topic of ultimate determinism -- at most, quantum mechanics shows that the quantum model fails to explain some experimental observations with anything better than stochastic models.

I'll give him some credit: Miller may provide some relief to committed fundamentalist Christians whose knowledge of biology causes them to fear for the integrity of their beliefs, and for their souls, should doubts overcome them.

Miller deserves one other little piece of credit: He is aware of a cute little argument that many of us may have epiphanized during a hearty breakfast of eggs and ketchup back in early childhood:

The concept of purpose, my colleagues would be quick to remind me, stands outside of science. I agree. But, if it does, then so does its exact opposite, that the human species has no purpose ...

This argument can take many forms. To explain why I'm neither a believer nor an athiest nor an agnostic, consider this: God sits far beyond the power of verbal description. Then, regardless of whether God exists, God also sits far beyond the power of verbal denial, and also beyond the even-handed verbal analysis of agnosticism. I shall now speak in tongues.

Miller.

Miller Miller.

Miller Hiller Biller Filler Schiller Killer Tiller Chiller.

Guide to conversational balance for aspergers patients

A first rule for successful social interaction is to show interest in another person by listening and asking questions. But it is important not to take this too far. Indeed, aspergers patients who rely too rigidly on interaction rules tend to overdoit, and then come across as they truly are: naive and awkward.

When monitoring your level of listening and inquisitiveness, keep in mind that in the world of regular people, there are two perfectly acceptable conversational modes, depending on the culture you are working in. These modes are two extremes on a spectrum.

In the first mode, conversants take turns talking, and they rarely ask questions. Both conversants feel heard because there is a flow to the conversation. When one conversant stops talking, the other continues on a related topic. Conversants make some (usually subconscious) effort to not hog the speaking time.

In the second mode, conversants rarely bring up a new topic, or speak for more than about 30 seconds, without being prompted by a question. The conversation is guided by questions. Conversants take turns asking questions. At times, as the conversation grows in depth, one conversant may go on longer monologues, but they periodically wind down to wait for more proding by the other conversant. This conversational mode emphasizes listening more than the first, but this style can be more lurching, and less flowing.

As you are aware of these two modes of conversation, you prepare for conversational balance by adapting to the conversational mode of the other participant. Once you are working within that mode, seek converational balance by trying to talk during a third to two-thirds of the time.

One caveat to this system is that if the other conversant is attempting to adapt to your conversational mode at the same time that you are trying to adapt to theirs, awkwardness may result. If you sense this happening, you can set the mode of the conversation yourself, either by taking off with a brief monologue, or launching into a few questions.

Inflation = Buy a house now?

Dear Freakwenter

1: It was recently suggested to me that "purchasing a house is a good hedge against inflation." Does this claim hold any truth?
2: What is The Freakwenter's inflation forecast for the next 10 years?

Sincerely,
A Freakwenter frequenter

As a general rule, holding durable assets instead of cash protects you from inflation. As "durable" suggests, the value of durable assets does not fall quickly over time, unlike cash during high inflation.

So question 1 boils down to "how durable is the value of a house?" Houses lose value over time due to aging and wear, and property taxes eat away at your original investment. Suppose these factors cause the "real" value of an investment in housing to fall at 2% annually. In order for this investment to be serving as a protection against inflation (compared to simply holding cash), inflation rates would have to exceed 2%.

Therefore, as long as inflation rates are moderate, I think that the hedging-value of a house is negligible, especially in comparison to the broader trends which cause house prices to rise and fall relative to other assets.

My inflation forecast for the next 10 years is an average annual inflation rate of 2.4 percent. The Federal Reserve learned its lesson not to let inflation get out of control back in the 70's and 80's, and it is unlikely to happen again.

Spandrels

From Wikipedia:

Spandrel is a term used in evolutionary biology describing a phenotypic characteristic that is considered to have developed during evolution as a side-effect of an adaptation, rather than arising from natural selection.

That this term exists is a huge relief to me, since I've so often found myself trying to describe a spandrel to someone without knowing the word for it. An example of a spandrel is the navel: The adult navel does not have a clear function, but instead appears to be a byproduct of the umbilical cord. In contrast, the umbilical cord evolved for a specific purpose, and is therefor not a spandrel.

The word spandrel has great potential to leak into more general usages in everyday language. Instead of calling someone a scoundrel or a sphincter, you could say something like, "You spandrel! Who needs you around?"

Corrected: Thanks to Dr. Perfection for pointing out that "ambilical" is not a word.

Freakwenter Lyrics Award March 2009

Goes to Kristofferson Kris for "Pilgrim's Progress." Can't deny that the reference to evolution might have been the deciding factor.

Am I young enough to believe in revolution
Am I strong enough to get down on my knees and pray
Am I high enough on the chain of evolution
To respect myself, and my brother and my sister
And perfect myself in my own peculiar way

I get lazy, and forget my obligations
I'd go crazy, if I paid attention all the time
And I want justice, but I'll settle for some mercy
On this Holy Road through the Universal Mind

I got lucky, I got everything I wanted
I got happy, there wasn't nothing else to do
And I'd be crazy not to wonder if I'm worthy
Of the part I play in this dream that's coming true

Obama's Shamrock Entertainment

Maggie McCarthy, some kind of Irish Brittany Spears. The best part starts at 2:37. She's a nice person to randomly run into on the evening that you took your fiddle with you to the Irish pub and get to jam with her and her band.

Aspergers and Me

Tired of naive therapists who cost too much, I hereby strike out on my own to self-diagnose and treat my ills. The diagnosis is Asperger syndrome (AS), thanks in part to the not-too-subtle hints of family and friends.

From Wikipedia, edited for succinctness by me:

Asperger syndrome (or AS) is an autism spectrum disorder, and people with AS therefore show significant difficulties in social interaction and restricted, stereotyped patterns of behavior and interests. AS differs from other impairments by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. Physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently tied to this syndrome. Asperger syndrome is named after Hans Asperger who, in 1944, described children in his practice who lacked nonverbal communication skills, demonstrated limited empathy with their peers, and were physically clumsy.

The effectiveness of particular interventions is supported by only limited data. The mainstay of management is behavioral therapy, focusing on specific deficits to address poor communication skills, obsessive or repetitive routines, and physical clumsiness.

It is impossible to objectively assess the severity of my case from within my skull. Occasionally I solicit outside opinions, but I give them little credence, since I've heard that non-impaired people often "filter" their language on sensitive topics to obscure their true meaning. It's a catch-22 situation: If I were able to understand the nonverbal clues that come with those outside opinions, I would better be able to discern whether I have AS. On the other hand, if I could understand this nonverbal communication, I wouldn't have AS in the first place. So I'll just take the middle road and say that I have at least a mild case of AS.

Before I make the case that I have a case for a case of AS, listen: I know that finding a diagnosis for myself doesn't make me anything special. Most folks have something wrong with them. I also suppose it's possible that my case of AS is not severe enough to merit such a label from a professional labeller, but this is of no consequence. If my problems are not severe, that's great, but I still want to work on them.

Social Interaction: Difficulties in social interaction is my most pronounced symptom. In almost every large-group setting, and in most small-group settings as well, I spend much of the time looking around the room and wondering what everyone is talking about. Indeed, it often seems that everyone is talking to everyone with rapt attention. I grow bored. Much of the conversation that I manage to participate in tends to center around "what are you doing with your life" kinds of questions.

Empathy: I am unsure about how to assess my capacity for empathy. As defined by Wikipedia, "Empathy is the capacity to share and understand another's emotion and feelings." A layperson's way of measuring empathy is to observe the "sensitivity" of the actions of the subject. This external measure is distinct from the internal ability to "feel" and "understand." One could theoretically be very good at seeing from the shoes of another, and yet act in a way that does not reveal such understanding. Loyalty to hidden ideology, or a fear of deviating from how I know to act, might sometimes motivate me to willfully ignore my empathic sensibilities. This is a problem, but not purely one of empathy. Nevertheless, I suspect that I do have a problem of empathy that arises, at least in part, from a lack of nonverbal (or even meta-verbal) communication skills that hamper my ability empathise efficiently.

Stereotyped patterns of behavior and interests: This one is beyond me. I definitely have a diverse range of interests, but I'm sure that some of my patterns of behavior are highly stereotypeable. But more so than for normal people?

Odd use of language: I suppose my language speaks for itself on this topic. I surely have problems with word choice at times, and my habit of saying things in weird ways could reflect as much a linguistic disability as it does fresh thinking.

Physical clumsiness: I have it. I grew up with it. Sometimes you might not notice, because I rehearsed acts of coordination endlessly throughout my youth, but it's there. I'll never get much faster or cleaner on the guitar, I'll never be great at basketball, and I'll never be good at a variety of quick reflexes and coordination games such as "slap."

So the diagnosis is clear. The only symptom I plan to tackle head-on is the first: poor/weird social interaction. Many things that others pick up intuitively, I must figure out, to the extent that I can verbalize them. Expect detailed directions on how to live socially, coming soon!

Big Technocrats and the Big Picture

Much US policy is short-sighted. Here are just a few examples:

• Our military actions abroad, which aim to promote US-friendly governance, arguably hurts our security in the future by provoking widespread anti-US sentiment, not to mention the opportunity cost of all the resources that we pour into wour.
  
• Our lack of environmental protections, and in particular the absence of a carbon tax, may stimulate economic growth in the short term, but threatens the survival of our society for future generations. Interesting fact: Your typical cow releases more greenhouse gasses in a year than your typical car.
• Massive federal deficit spending stimulates economic growth in the short-term, but weakens our society for future generations. Much public spending seems necessary, but much of this spending is not sustainable. It would be better to spread out the pain rather than having a sudden future collapse.

What explains the short-sightedness of policy? Probably the strongest explanation is that policy is ultimately controlled by elected politicians who are elected by a society that is rarely confronted with big-picture issues. Our low-population density and prominence as a world super-power promote a sense that there is no limit to our opportunities and influence.

I offer an additional explanation for our lack of foresight. Although populist politics may play the dominant role in forming policy, a large group of technocrats, academic and industrial experts who become political appointees, lurks in the shadows of politicians, and these technocrats have substantial influence on policy.

Of course, politicians tell the technocrats what to say in many cases, but I believe that the influence runs just as strongly in the opposite direction, especially on policy issues that are of such a technical and important nature that the opinions of the experts are the primary sources of direction. Case in point: Bernanke at the Federal Reserve. Politicians and the general public are completely baffled by monetary policy, and few politicians dare to pretend otherwise.

To the extent that policy is dictated by the expertise of technocrats, you would think that policy would be well-founded. Many technocrats are the best and brightest in their respective fields.

Unfortunately, few Big Technocrats are experts in the Big Picture.

• Robert Gates at the DOD knows how to combat terrorism, but less about promoting friendly foreign relations 50 years down the road.
• Bernanke at the Federal Reserve knows how to direct monetary policy for steady economic growth within a 5-year forecast period, but very little about how to model sustainable growth over the the next 50 years while accounting for contraints imposed by the environmental implications and resource limitations of our industry-based economy.
• Geithner at the Treasury knows how to confront immediate problems posed by a financial crisis, but less about how to form regulations that will ensure a smoothly functioning financial sector into the indefinite future.
• Surgeon General Steven Galson knows how to promote public health awareness on the topics of exercise, diet, and drugs, but less about the long-term consequences of health policy on the direction of future human evolution, or about the psychological implications of the exodus from laboring in the fields into pumping iron at fitness facilities.
  
• Surely there are other examples. I know little about other fields, because I aspire to become technocrat.

I believe that the excessive focus of technocrats on the isolated short-term problems of their respective fields is largely a consequence of the fact that people like to address problems that they already know how to solve. Industry and academics trains experts to come up with quantitative solutions to extremely specialized questions. As the proverb goes, to a person with a hammer, everything appears as a nail.

Few experts in the Big Picture exist, and even fewer are appointed by politicians as advisors. Jesus weeps.

Faith in the Workplace

I was recently warned that I may have to publicly discuss the role of my faith in my vocation. I find this a difficult topic to address from my position in my Lofty Place of Employment.

I'm considering something along the lines of "I'm not sure how my faith comes into play when I spend all day communing with computer programs. And in the bigger picture, my institution is a spiritual desert and I am a cog in this huge man-made machine."

A colleague waxed even more poetic: "I like to think that I am doing the Lord's work. But I wonder sometimes: are we merely the handmaidens to the money changers that Jesus cast out of the temple? The apologists for theft? Is my soul not but a windswept and dessicated plain, a void echoing with the nihilistic howl of complete emptiness?"

Dear Lord

I stole the following from this blog (which cites the original source). I omit the title, because I feel that the title Dear Lord is more appropriate for my favorite excerpt of the poem, which I reprint here.

- - -

[Dear Lord][excerpt]

I am not made to pray. I close my eyes
and float among the spots behind my lids.
I chew the name God, God, like habitual
gum, think about dusting the shelves, then sleep.

words by Tania Runyan

Chocolate chip pumpkin raisin cookies!

I invented a moderately sweet confection tonight. The cool thing is that it doesn't require measuring cups. Just mix it up and bake at 365 degrees, one for each day of the year.

One cow-pie-sized blob of canned pumpkin
A couple of partial sticks of butter
A couple of nice-sized heaps of white and brown sugar
A dribble of vanilla
Some cinnamon and cloves and salt and baking soda
A mound of flour
One slew of chocolate chips
One heaping handful of raisins

What evolution means to me

A professor once became exasperated with my habit of reconciling all ideas about humanity with our evolutionary history. "But people care about much more than reproducing," he demanded.

Natural selection is the simplest and least controversial of the three established categories of the forces driving evolution. The layperson often uses the terms "evolution" and "natural selection" interchangeably, even though the roles of genetic drift and gene flow are no less important.

The simplest implication of the role of natural selection in our evolutionary history is that humans have adapted to reproduce as "efficiently as possible." As evolution is a slow process, taking hundreds if not thousands of years for small changes to appear, we can look to the conditions of humanity in the last several thousand years to gain some understanding of the environment for which our bodies adapted for maximum reproductive effectiveness.

Humans have changed their means of survival and lifestyles so drastically in the last 80 years that evolution has not had time to catch up. The biggest (literally) example of this lag is obesity. Since the vast majority of humanity struggled to find enough food to survive in the last several thousand years, we evolved to store calories readily for leans times. Now, in the age of abundance, obesity is considered an undesirable trait, and could, in principle, reduce the potential for reproduction of those who suffer its effects. Unfortunately, I don't have comparative data on the reproduction rates of the fat and lean.

I care about evolution, and here is why. The modern life is so far removed from our natural history that the lives we live now are not the lives that our bodies evolved to live. Although a historical connection between happiness and reproductive success is not obvious, my intuition strongly suggests that moderately happy people, before the age of birth control, reproduced more than sad ones, which is to say that our happiness is directly tied to our pre-modern lifestyles.

This suggests, gently, that I may be happiest if I live a life that resembles the lives that my ancestors physically and mentally evolved to live. Therefore, as I look for ways lead to a more fulfilling life, I hold in the back of my mind this question: "Where, in the common lifestyles of my ancestors, might I find inspiration for life decisions that will enable me to lead a healthy life by not running against the grain of my genetic code?"

In particular, I am interested in those habits which the extremely recent industrial system powerfully obscures from my everyday thoughts:

• Several hours of physical labor per day, preferably in the areas of gardening with simple tools.
• Occasional hunting trips, involving simple projectiles, lots of running, and up-close-and-gory attack.
• Eating moderate quantities of lean meat.
• A diet high in roughage and low in processed foods.
• A lot of time out in the woods and field.
• Working with my hands for much of the day.
• Walking long distances regularly.
• Interacting with people and animals on a regular basis.
• Doing all of these activities as a means of providing myself with food and shelter.
• Reproducing.
  

On this last item, I think my professor was right: People don't have reproduction on the top of their minds. Birth control is so new to humanity that natural selection has not had time to select for the genes of folks who consciously care to reproduce. Until recently it was enough for natural selection to dictate that men should simply have sex on the top of their minds, and that women should prioritize finding supportive friends and/or committed mates. But, as with the rest of the things on the list above, reproducing may benefit our psyches, even if we don't consciously have the urge to do it.

To listen or not to be, this is my question

How are you? How are you? And, less often, How are you? The question offends me when it is asked too lightly, like when I take a deep breath to respond with my life story, only to notice that the inquisitor has already disappeared around the corner. The question annoys me if asked too seriously, like if I respond with a very thoughtful "pretty good," and the response is Are you sure?

Even if all goes well, if they say How are you, and I have time to respond and they accept what I say, the question perplexes me. The question perplexes me most when I ask it to myself, as I do whenever the inquisitor seems to want a genuine reply. How am I? How do I feel? What is there to feel? What should I choose to feel? Not that I have any choice about what feeling feels like, but there is some choice in what part of neuro-space to zoom in on.

If I focus on the fig newton in my hand I'll say I'm doing great, 'cause I love fig newtons and here I'm eating a fig newton. Or I can look back over the past week and try to remember exactly how much fun versus stress I've been having lately. Or I may contemplate my life as a hole and say This really sucks and I'm actually going to die. The methodical assignment of emotions to context is a truly dismal science. Or a highly energizing and interesting science. How does it feel?

How are you? seems to request an up-or-down assessment of the quality of my existence, preferably substantiated with reasons such as events or circumstances. Is there necessarily any meaningful or useful relationship between the things that happened to me today and how I am right NOW? On some level I suppose the answer is yes, but I can still be alert and "feel" without consciously analyzing any particular aspect of my situation. This low-context feel (not to be confused with sleep) is very difficult to label with any kind of modifiers.

I am that I am how I am when I'm listening. Listening to what? Sensing. Sensing what? What does it feel like to listen and watch for nothing in particular? Is there anything left after everything in particular is irrelevant? Try it.

How are you? Are you listening?