Since we can't really see it in the middle of November in Chicago, here's what we're missing, sped up 58 times:
A couple of incidents recently got me to look up some teaching materials I created just after college to teach high-school students the basics of logical argument. Specifically, I wanted them to learn the names of basic logical fallacies to arm them against irrational persuasion (e.g., religion, politics, and advertisements).
The two most egregious arguments made in my presence within the past few days used arguments to pity and to the people, and in one case someone made an argument that a prima facie argument to force was, in fact, a meaningful choice. Here is what those terms mean, and how the arguments were made.
An argument to pity (argumentum ad misericordiam) is an appeal to your compassion rather than to your logic. It looks like this:
- "These children are suffering; give us money to help them." (Giving the person money may not do anything to help the children; the appeal is trying to short-circuit your bullshit detector by making you feel bad for the kids.)
- "Please don't give me a bad grade for this assignment, because bad grades will trigger my depression." (It's unfortunate that the student will feel down because of the grade; but that's not an argument in favor of a higher grade.)
An argument to the people (argumentum ad populi) is an appeal to your sense of belonging, or not wanting to be left out:
- "Buy our product because all the cool kids have one." (The merits of the product and the cool kids' decision to buy it are completely separate concepts.)
- "Four out of five people agree our gum tastes better." (Whether you find the gum tasty has nothing to do with anyone else's opinion.)
An argument to force (argumentum ad baculum) is an appeal to your self-preservation; it's a threat, not an argument:
- "Clean your room or you're grounded." (There is no evidence about the benefits of cleaning your room, only a threat if you fail to clean it. The kids liked this example the best, I'm told.)
- "Use our product if you don't want morning breath." (The advertiser shows a link between something he calls “morning breath” and the mouthwash, but does not define “morning breath.” Instead, he plays on the audience’s fear that “morning breath” will harm their social standing. Fear, in this case, is a force.)
- Your grandmother says, "Eat this or I'll kill you." (She has not made an argument about the value of eating her food; she has made a threat, which is irrational. Also, if she were Jewish, she would have said "Eat this or I'll kill myself," which is also a threat of force.)
So, the person I overheard said, "Even if someone holds a gun to your head, that's still a choice." No, it's not; it's a mortal threat, which completely removes the possibility of choice.
I don't expect that people will refuse to make decisions based on these fallacies, but I have a fantasy that people will at least recognize that they are not rational arguments. Doing something on the basis of an irrational argument is, it follows, irrational. And people who learn to recognize these fallacies have a better chance of making rational choices instead.
A pretty Dutch village outside Amsterdam is really a nursing home for dementia patients:
Today, the isolated village of Hogewey lies on the outskirts of Amsterdam in the small town of Wheesp. Dubbed “Dementia Village” by CNN, Hogewey is a cutting-edge elderly-care facility—roughly the size of 10 football fields—where residents are given the chance to live seemingly normal lives. With only 152 inhabitants, it’s run like a more benevolent version of The Truman Show, if The Truman Show were about dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. Like most small villages, it has its own town square, theater, garden, and post office. Unlike typical villages, however, this one has cameras monitoring residents every hour of every day, caretakers posing in street clothes, and only one door in and out of town, all part of a security system designed to keep the community safe. Friends and family are encouraged to visit. Some come every day. Last year, CNN reported that residents at Hogewey require fewer medications, eat better, live longer, and appear more joyful than those in standard elderly-care facilities.
There are no wards, long hallways, or corridors at the facility. Residents live in groups of six or seven to a house, with one or two caretakers. Perhaps the most unique element of the facility—apart from the stealthy “gardener” caretakers—is its approach toward housing. Hogeway features 23 uniquely stylized homes, furnished around the time period when residents’ short-term memories stopped properly functioning. There are homes resembling the 1950s, 1970s, and 2000s, accurate down to the tablecloths, because it helps residents feel as if they’re home. Residents are cared for by 250 full- and part-time geriatric nurses and specialists, who wander the town and hold a myriad of occupations in the village, like cashiers, grocery-store attendees, and post-office clerks. Finances are often one of the trickier life skills for dementia or Alzheimer’s patients to retain, which is why Hogewey takes it out of the equation; everything is included with the family’s payment plan, and there is no currency exchanged within the confines of the village.
What are the odds that something like that could happen in the U.S. health-care system? When they're ringing my curtain down, I want to move to the Netherlands.
And no, I didn't lose a bet.
I didn't even realize until just now I failed to post anything yesterday or today. I guess the weekend intervened. (Maybe the 18,000 steps I took yesterday had something to do with it.)
This coming week I'll be in all-day training from Tuesday to Friday, which may have some effect on posting. Or not, depending on how interesting the training is.
Damion Searls, writing for Paris Review, finds the link between language and the soon-to-be-extinct penny:
One thing we’ll lose, when the penny eventually goes the inevitable way of the half cent and the Canadian penny (extinct as of 2012), is the last possible link between our language of money and the everyday physical world.
A quarter is a fourth of a dollar, a dime a tenth (Old French dîme, Latin decima), a cent a hundredth or one percent—all math. Anyway, a cent is not a piece of money: a U.S. penny is technically a cent or one-cent coin, but in spoken language, a cent is a value and a penny is a coin. We offer someone our two cents, not two pennies; pennies can clink in your pocket, cents can’t. (When Americans adopted the British term penny in 1793, they took over the distinction, too: in England between pennies and pence.)
As for penny, its etymology is uncertain, though the ending implies a Germanic origin—the word used to be penning, with an -ing, like shilling and farthing, instead of a -y. The root may be Pfand, which turned into the English word pawn meaning “a pledge or token”: in that case, penny basically just means money. Or it may derive from the German Pfanne, “pan,” the round metal thing that you cook in. My head says it’s pawn: the pan pun sounds like classic folk etymology that somebody simply made up. But my heart belongs to Pfanne: surely the original coin goes back to some concrete reality, an object of actual use.
That said, the American penny isn't going anywhere. It's going to keep coming back like a bad...yeah.
Except for one minor problem, this has been a good trip. I'll have photos of the super-cute hotel probably this weekend. And the meeting today went surprisingly well, notwithstanding the 10 times I had to leave the room.*
One amazing thing happened: at the end of the meeting, we stopped by reception and asked about getting a taxi. The receptionist pushed a button on a small device, which promptly spat out a receipt, which she handed us. By the time we got outside the building, there was a taxi waiting. Amazing. Why don't we have these things in the U.S.?
* The minor problem seems to have come from a salad I ate Monday for lunch, and has has made it unlikely I'll get to experience any great dining here in Oslo. I am not pleased.
The Apollo Chorus of Chicago will perform at 3:30 this afternoon at St. John Cantius Church in Chicago, right by the Chicago/Milwaukee Blue Line stop.
We'll perform two movements from Schubert's Mass in A-flat, five choruses from Händel's Messiah, and a few other pieces (including a beautiful soprano duet by Monteverdi).
The church is gorgeous. I mean, gorgeous. Even if you don't hear us perform you should at least poke around the space.
Oh, did I mention the concert is free? You should still subscribe, so you can hear us perform the entire Messiah in December and the entire Schubert in March.
The New Republic yesterday declared the British men's suit to be the island's greatest invention:
We have to thank the members of the Romantic movement for the sober colors of suits. It was their love of the Gothic that put us in grey and black but the suit stuck. It said something and it meant something to men around the world; it said and meant so much that they would discard their local dress, the costumes of millennia, their culture and their link to their ancestors, to dress up like English insurance brokers. There is not a corner of the world where the suit is not the default clobber of power, authority, knowledge, judgement, trust and, most importantly, continuity. The curtained changing rooms of Savile Row welcome the naked knees of the most despotic and murderous, immoral and venal dictators and kleptocrats, who are turned out looking benignly conservative, their sins carefully and expertly hidden, like the little hangman’s loops under their lapels.
Every man imagines that he will turn his suit like a double agent, that it can be twisted to his will with irony or comedy, that the man can undermine its origins. Every chap thinks he’s a match for his suit and, every year, clever and witty designers offer a twist, a take, a rejig; but for over 200 years, the suit has remained impervious, maintained its bland menace, kept its implacable secrets uncreased. You think you wear the suit: the suit wears you. It is woven magic, necromancy, the black art that hides in plain sight. No one knows or can say what the spell of the suit is, or how it works, but still it exudes its inoffensive writ.
Sure, but hey, I look good in a suit.
The final score from my FitBit challenge over the weekend was: friend, 33,800; me, 37,800. Yesterday I gave Parker 3 hours of walks and also walked home from dinner instead of taking public transit or a Divvy, which got me almost to 23,800 steps (and 17.7 km) for the day.
There was a cost. My feet hurt, Parker was lethargic this morning, and I ate too much. And this week it's not likely I'll get 10,000 steps in every day this week because I've got an all-day meeting Wednesday. Which is probably a good thing, according to my feet and my dog.