Labor laws suck
Brett Bayne
> What happens if I get pulled for jury
> duty on a murder trial?
Or, worse yet, what if you get pulled for jury duty and you want to take a
smoke break?
Lane Closure
>I have jury duty next month, and I found out that
>employers are not required to pay your wages for that either. What
>happens if I get pulled for jury duty on a murder trial? I'd lose my
>G.D. house at 12 dollars a day. (standard jury duty pay)
>
In Michigan employers are likewise not required to pay your wages when you have
jury duty. What irked me, though, was the company where I worked a few years
ago paid any men that had jury duty, but the women were either forced to take
vacation time or not get paid. I mentioned to my boss that this was illegal,
and he shrugged and said "so sue me." He was (rightly so) counting on the fact
that I couldn't afford an attorney to get involved in such an undertaking.
Bottom line, I guess, some companies suck, some don't, it's a matter of deal
with it or look elsewhere for the employee.
Alan Hamilton
>"can...@thelast.mile" <can...@thelast.mile> wrote:
>>
>> My company could require me to work 120 hours a week every week and
>> fire me for non-compliance.
>
>You could demand your employer to pay you for 120 hours of work, even
>if you only work 10 hours. And you could quit them for non-compliance
>with your demands.
>
>> Want more? There's plenty more atrocities on the NC labor board
>> website. I need to get the fuck out of this state.
>
>Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate mutually
>agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
Inso much as negotiation happens, it happens under government duress
(minimum wages, welfare, anti-union busting laws, etc.). Hence the
push for moving jobs to countries where they can legally beat to death
someone who asks for a raise.
Why don't the people in Mexico, China, or India negotiate for higher
wages and better working conditions?
--
/
/ * / Alan Hamilton
* * al...@arizonaroads.com
Binyamin Dissen
:>Candeh sez:
:>>I have jury duty next month, and I found out that
:>>employers are not required to pay your wages for that either. What
:>>happens if I get pulled for jury duty on a murder trial? I'd lose my
:>>G.D. house at 12 dollars a day. (standard jury duty pay)
Be honest about your views.
In my case, I believe that people should be able to carry guns. That is pretty
much guaranteed to knock me off most juries where such a weapon was used.
Also, I do not believe in the concept of "not guilty due to insanity".
:>In Michigan employers are likewise not required to pay your wages when you have
:>jury duty. What irked me, though, was the company where I worked a few years
:>ago paid any men that had jury duty, but the women were either forced to take
:>vacation time or not get paid. I mentioned to my boss that this was illegal,
:>and he shrugged and said "so sue me." He was (rightly so) counting on the fact
:>that I couldn't afford an attorney to get involved in such an undertaking.
I would guess that they would stop paying men as well.
That might have made you very popular.
:>Bottom line, I guess, some companies suck, some don't, it's a matter of deal
:>with it or look elsewhere for the employee.
--
Binyamin Dissen <bdi...@dissensoftware.com>
http://www.dissensoftware.com
Opus the Penguin
> Also, I do not believe in the concept of "not guilty due to
> insanity".
What if somebody had their first epileptic fit while driving and
crashed the car, killing 6 people but not himself? Since that's a brain
problem, would he be guilty? If not, can you explain how you determine
which brain problems remove or mitigate guilt and which ones don't?
--
Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)
"The question hurt my head. The answer made me cry." - Stan
Binyamin Dissen
:>Binyamin Dissen <post...@dissensoftware.com> wrote:
:>> Also, I do not believe in the concept of "not guilty due to
:>> insanity".
:>What if somebody had their first epileptic fit while driving and
:>crashed the car, killing 6 people but not himself? Since that's a brain
:>problem, would he be guilty?
Civilly? Yes.
Criminally? No.
:> If not, can you explain how you determine
:>which brain problems remove or mitigate guilt and which ones don't?
There is a Jewish proverb which roughly translates as "Anyone who does a crime
is temporarily insane".
I guess I should have qualified it as "not guilty due to temporary insanity".
Erich
Binyamin Dissen <post...@dissensoftware.com> wrote:
When your son has the flu and can't control his bowels, you don't spank
him for making a mess. You just clean things up and comfort your child.
You try to find medical help to make him better. You understand that he
didn't do it on purpose and that the problem is temporary.
If illness can cause you to lose control over your bowels, why can't a
disease of the brain cause cause you to lose control over your behavior?
... Erich
kay w
>When your son has the flu and can't control his bowels, you don't spank
>him for making a mess. You just clean things up and comfort your child.
>You try to find medical help to make him better. You understand that he
>didn't do it on purpose and that the problem is temporary.
>If illness can cause you to lose control over your bowels, why can't a
>disease of the brain cause cause you to lose control over your behavior?
It can, of course. Unfortunately, a disease that causes someone to smush
people with his car (or strangle them with his bare hands because god told him
to) is not a temporary problem, not for the permanently dead.
--
But Tonto he was smarter/ And one day said "Kemo Sabe,
Kiss my ass; I bought a boat. / I'm going out to sea."
Lyle Lovett
Helge Moulding
> Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate mutually
> agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
Some employers aren't adults with whom one can negotiate, and when ones
livelihood depends on dealing with people who have lived their entire
lives surrounded by priviledge, never once had to worry about paying
bills or what to do about sick kids, well, then it's not a lactating
teat one's looking at, but a bullet pocked brick wall. Bring on the
revolution! We'll start with libertarians, by the way.
--
Helge Moulding
mailto:hmou...@excite.com Just another guy
http://hmoulding.cjb.net/ with a weird name
Mike Kruger
news:oetting-B748D6...@news.uswest.net...
>
> If illness can cause you to lose control over your bowels, why can't a
> disease of the brain cause cause you to lose control over your behavior?
>
You clearly need some sort of place to be that's different than the normal
world.
Whether that's called a "hospital" or a "prison", you are still
incarcerated. You are just incarcerated in a different system with different
properties.
Erich
scu...@aol.comatose (kay w) wrote:
> Previously, Eric said:
>
> >When your son has the flu and can't control his bowels, you don't spank
> >him for making a mess. You just clean things up and comfort your child.
> >You try to find medical help to make him better. You understand that he
> >didn't do it on purpose and that the problem is temporary.
>
> >If illness can cause you to lose control over your bowels, why can't a
> >disease of the brain cause cause you to lose control over your behavior?
>
> It can, of course. Unfortunately, a disease that causes someone to smush
> people with his car (or strangle them with his bare hands because god told him
> to) is not a temporary problem, not for the permanently dead.
Lets look at this a bit further.
Consider the case where you pick up a prescription and someone gives you
a powerfull sedative instead of a mild antibiotic. You suddenly fall
asleep at the wheel and kill someone innocent. Should you be executed
for murder?
What if the drug makes you believe that someone is trying to kill you.
When they approach, you run and hop in your car. Then you lose control
of your car and kill an innocent person. Do you get the chair?
Would it make a difference if they gave you the right drug and you had a
rare reaction that put you the a psycotic state?
... Erich
kay w
Eric:
>> >When your son has the flu and can't control his bowels, you don't spank
>> >him for making a mess. You just clean things up and comfort your child.
>> >You try to find medical help to make him better. You understand that he
>> >didn't do it on purpose and that the problem is temporary.
>> >If illness can cause you to lose control over your bowels, why can't a
>> >disease of the brain cause cause you to lose control over your behavior?
Me(kay):
>> It can, of course. Unfortunately, a disease that causes someone to smush
>> people with his car (or strangle them with his bare hands because god told
him
>> to) is not a temporary problem, not for the permanently dead.
Eric:
>Lets look at this a bit further.
Fine, as soon as you address the irrevocably dead people. What about them?
What about their families?
Eric:
>Consider the case where you pick up a prescription and someone gives you
>a powerfull sedative instead of a mild antibiotic. You suddenly fall
>asleep at the wheel and kill someone innocent. Should you be executed
>for murder?
Why is it you seem to think there's no middle ground of culpability between
"it's ok, he didn't *mean* to" and the death penalty?
However, your example brings up a whole different area of criminal negligence
that's not the topic here.
Charles Bishop
Penguin <nospa...@netzero.net> wrote:
>Binyamin Dissen <post...@dissensoftware.com> wrote:
>
>> Also, I do not believe in the concept of "not guilty due to
>> insanity".
>
>What if somebody had their first epileptic fit while driving and
>crashed the car, killing 6 people but not himself? Since that's a brain
>problem, would he be guilty? If not, can you explain how you determine
>which brain problems remove or mitigate guilt and which ones don't?
Not guilty, with some conditions: It was his first and there was no
previous indication that he was likely to suffer one. Any indication, no
matter how small, and there has to be some discussion.
charles, not Binyamin, but willing to answer hypotheticals for food
Erich
scu...@aol.comatose (kay w) wrote:
> Previously,
>
> Eric:
> >> >When your son has the flu and can't control his bowels, you don't spank
> >> >him for making a mess. You just clean things up and comfort your child.
> >> >You try to find medical help to make him better. You understand that he
> >> >didn't do it on purpose and that the problem is temporary.
> >> >If illness can cause you to lose control over your bowels, why can't a
> >> >disease of the brain cause cause you to lose control over your behavior?
>
> Me(kay):
> >> It can, of course. Unfortunately, a disease that causes someone to smush
> >> people with his car (or strangle them with his bare hands because god told
> him
> >> to) is not a temporary problem, not for the permanently dead.
>
> Eric:
> >Lets look at this a bit further.
>
> Fine, as soon as you address the irrevocably dead people. What about them?
> What about their families?
Did Jesus teach you to forgive or seek out vengence?
> Eric:
> >Consider the case where you pick up a prescription and someone gives you
> >a powerfull sedative instead of a mild antibiotic. You suddenly fall
> >asleep at the wheel and kill someone innocent. Should you be executed
> >for murder?
>
> Why is it you seem to think there's no middle ground of culpability between
> "it's ok, he didn't *mean* to" and the death penalty?
Any reasonable person would have answered this question with a no. Why
is the driver culpable at all in this case?
> However, your example brings up a whole different area of criminal negligence
> that's not the topic here.
My intent was to find out where you drew the line about responsibility.
I also wanted to find out if you reject the entire concept of mental
illness.
... Erich
kay w
Eric:
>Did Jesus teach you to forgive or seek out vengence?
What Jesus has to do with this discussion, I have no idea.
Eric:
>> >Consider the case where you pick up a prescription and someone gives you
>> >a powerfull sedative instead of a mild antibiotic. You suddenly fall
>> >asleep at the wheel and kill someone innocent. Should you be executed
>> >for murder?
Me(kay):
>> Why is it you seem to think there's no middle ground of culpability between
>> "it's ok, he didn't *mean* to" and the death penalty?
Eric:
>Any reasonable person would have answered this question with a no. Why
>is the driver culpable at all in this case?
Any reasonable person wouldn't decide, based on no more information than you've
given, at all. The choices you gave were either the death penalty or nothing,
and that's not reasonable, even in your imaginary world. The only thing that's
likely, based on the tiny bit of info you gave, was that it seems there's some
criminal negligence involved, and you might want to note I didn't say it would
necessarily be the driver's. Might it be? It might...I'd need to know a lot
more.
Eric:
>My intent was to find out where you drew the line about responsibility.
>I also wanted to find out if you reject the entire concept of mental
>illness.
How does being given the wrong prescription impinge on any definition of mental
illness? Do you believe epilepsy to be "mental illness"? Maybe you better
give *your* definition of mental illness, since you're clearly not using
anything based on APA guidance.
Is shooting someone while in a meth induced paranoid state excusable as a
product of mental illness? Is forgetting to get your toddler out of the car
because you're tired a result of mental illness? Driving into a schoolyard
because you're drunk? Running into a farmer's market because you're old and
get confused? Where do *you* draw the line about responsibility?
Erich
scu...@aol.comatose (kay w) wrote:
> Previously, and snipped:
>
> Eric:
> >Did Jesus teach you to forgive or seek out vengence?
>
> What Jesus has to do with this discussion, I have no idea.
I happen to believe in forgiveness.
It's something you should consider as an option, but apparently don't.
It's called an altered mental state. The bad medicine prevents you
from acting as you normally would. My simple first example caused you
to pass out, the later ones you snipped were more complicated. In
those cases, the drug caused you to act just like someone with a mental
illness.
This is not just hypothetical. A couple years ago, I had to drag a
close friend to the hospital due to an altered mental state. The
culprit turned out to be a rare reaction to a prescription antibiotic.
During the episode, this normally quite and gentle guy was combative
and overwhelmed with feelings of fear and panic. We had to use
restraints to keep him from harming himself and others. If he had hurt
someone while in this state, would you consider him a criminal?
If not, what if that same mental state was caused by a chemical
imbalance or injury to the brain that was treatable?
... Erich
Erich
"Mike Kruger" <Mik...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> "Erich" <oet...@qwest.net> wrote in message
> news:oetting-B748D6...@news.uswest.net...
> >
> > If illness can cause you to lose control over your bowels, why
> > can't a disease of the brain cause cause you to lose control over
> > your behavior?
> >
> If you have no control over your behavior, what should be done with
> you?
I have no problem with keeping someone in an institution while they are
a danger to others. Or even a danger to themselves.
> You clearly need some sort of place to be that's different than the
> normal world. Whether that's called a "hospital" or a "prison", you
> are still incarcerated. You are just incarcerated in a different
> system with different properties.
The question is what we do after the hospital has done it's job. After
your kid gets over the flu, you don't punish him for each time he
soiled himself. Yet some seem to think that treatment of mental
illness should just delay criminal punishment.
... Erich
kay w
Erich:
>> >Did Jesus teach you to forgive or seek out vengence?
Me(kay):
>> What Jesus has to do with this discussion, I have no idea.
Erich:
>I happen to believe in forgiveness.
>It's something you should consider as an option, but apparently don't.
You have no idea what I believe about forgiveness, but isn't forgiveness beside
the point here...what's to be forgiven if the person is faultless, as you
insist?
Me(kay):
>> How does being given the wrong prescription impinge on any definition
>> of mental illness?
Erich:
>It's called an altered mental state.
That's not the same thing as mental illness.
Then Erich snips and ignores all the questions I asked to try to establish some
basis for a conversation, so never mind...I'm gone.
mike
> Why don't the people in Mexico, China, or India negotiate for higher
> wages and better working conditions?
if they did, daimlerchrysler mexico de SA would tell em to take a hike.
theres millions of people down there that would work for $2.00USD/hr.
mike
> >I have jury duty next month, and I found out that
> >employers are not required to pay your wages for that either. What
> >happens if I get pulled for jury duty on a murder trial? I'd lose my
> >G.D. house at 12 dollars a day. (standard jury duty pay)
you can file for hardship and not have to serve. i think theyd prefer having
people in the jury pool that would get paid by their employer and not have
possibly losing their house in the back of their mind the whole trial.
Binyamin Dissen
:>In article <p25m00p63lhlc0plb...@4ax.com>,
:> Binyamin Dissen <post...@dissensoftware.com> wrote:
:>> On 18 Jan 2004 22:58:48 GMT Opus the Penguin <nospa...@netzero.net>
:>> wrote:
:>> :>Binyamin Dissen <post...@dissensoftware.com> wrote:
:>> :>> Also, I do not believe in the concept of "not guilty due to
:>> :>> insanity".
:>> :>What if somebody had their first epileptic fit while driving and
:>> :>crashed the car, killing 6 people but not himself? Since that's a
:>> :>brain problem, would he be guilty?
:>> Civilly? Yes.
:>> Criminally? No.
:>> :> If not, can you explain how you
:>> :> determine
:>> :>which brain problems remove or mitigate guilt and which ones don't?
:>> There is a Jewish proverb which roughly translates as "Anyone who
:>> does a crime is temporarily insane".
:>> I guess I should have qualified it as "not guilty due to temporary
:>> insanity".
:>When your son has the flu and can't control his bowels, you don't spank
:>him for making a mess. You just clean things up and comfort your child.
:>You try to find medical help to make him better. You understand that he
:>didn't do it on purpose and that the problem is temporary.
Well, what were the verifiable medical problem in the vast majority of TI
cases?
:>If illness can cause you to lose control over your bowels, why can't a
:>disease of the brain cause cause you to lose control over your behavior?
If it can be verified? Certainly.
If some psychologist says it was because your mommy spanked you? No sale.
Binyamin Dissen
:>In article <20040118212326...@mb-m18.aol.com>,
:> scu...@aol.comatose (kay w) wrote:
:>> Previously, Eric said:
:>> >When your son has the flu and can't control his bowels, you don't spank
:>> >him for making a mess. You just clean things up and comfort your child.
:>> >You try to find medical help to make him better. You understand that he
:>> >didn't do it on purpose and that the problem is temporary.
:>> >If illness can cause you to lose control over your bowels, why can't a
:>> >disease of the brain cause cause you to lose control over your behavior?
:>> It can, of course. Unfortunately, a disease that causes someone to smush
:>> people with his car (or strangle them with his bare hands because god told him
:>> to) is not a temporary problem, not for the permanently dead.
:>Lets look at this a bit further.
:>Consider the case where you pick up a prescription and someone gives you
:>a powerfull sedative instead of a mild antibiotic. You suddenly fall
:>asleep at the wheel and kill someone innocent. Should you be executed
:>for murder?
Murder would require intent.
Let us discuss "manslaughter".
In that case the one that messed up the drugs is at fault.
:>What if the drug makes you believe that someone is trying to kill you.
:>When they approach, you run and hop in your car. Then you lose control
:>of your car and kill an innocent person. Do you get the chair?
:>Would it make a difference if they gave you the right drug and you had a
:>rare reaction that put you the a psycotic state?
Let the medical evidence prove it.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>Fine, as soon as you address the irrevocably dead people. What about them?
"What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump
or in a marble tower on the top of a high hill? You were dead, you
were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like
that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just
slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or
where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now..."
>What about their families?
Presumably they could sue someone.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>Lactating fucking teat, my ass.
Hmm, ok.
>We have old ass fuckers working as
>supervisors
The ass fucking biz apparently not being what it used to be
>No I can't. I can't demand a damned thing from them except maybe a
>safe workplace, protection from working OT without pay, etc.
You could demand a raise, you could demand the right to wear your PJ's to
work, etc. You can demand whatever you want. Now, how people react to that
demand is another thing, but nothing's stopping you from demanding whatever.
> Basically
>they could fire me because they don't like my "looks."
Right, and you can quit because you don't feel like getting out of bed that
day
>If I attempted
>to "blow the whistle," I may not get fired for doing that, per se, but
>they could find something else to justify it. Something that I would
>have no protection against, under NC law, even though I perform the
>job satisfactorily and come in to work on time every day.
Maybe you should find another job, if this one is so hateful to you.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>Unfortunately, a disease that causes someone to smush
>people with his car (or strangle them with his bare hands because god told
>him
>to) is not a temporary problem, not for the permanently dead.
The permanently dead have no problems.
Erich
scu...@aol.comatose (kay w) wrote:
> Previously, and snipped:
>
> Erich:
> >> >Did Jesus teach you to forgive or seek out vengence?
>
> Me(kay):
> >> What Jesus has to do with this discussion, I have no idea.
>
> Erich:
> >I happen to believe in forgiveness. It's something you should
> >consider as an option, but apparently don't.
>
> You have no idea what I believe about forgiveness, but isn't
> forgiveness beside the point here...what's to be forgiven if the
> person is faultless, as you insist?
You made the point that we need to punish people because of the
families of the deceased. Learning to forgive is also a way the family
could deal with the loss.
> Me(kay):
> >> How does being given the wrong prescription impinge on any
> >> definition of mental illness?
>
> Erich:
> >It's called an altered mental state.
>
> That's not the same thing as mental illness.
It's what doctors call it when you have a sudden behaviour change
and they don't yet know what is going on.
> Then Erich snips and ignores all the questions I asked to try to
> establish some basis for a conversation, so never mind...I'm gone.
I was trying to discuss the kind of mental states that can cause
someone to commit what would normally be considered a crime and not be
held responsible. We need to look into the nature of conditions that
can cause a loss of control over one's own behaviour.
Posting a laundry list of horrible crimes does not further that
discussion.
... Erich
kay w
Erich:
>You made the point that we need to punish people because of the
>families of the deceased. Learning to forgive is also a way the family
>could deal with the loss.
Are you talking to me? I said no such thing. Go back and read, very
carefully.
Me(kay):
>> >> How does being given the wrong prescription impinge on any
>> >> definition of mental illness?
Erich:
>> >It's called an altered mental state.
Me(kay):
>> That's not the same thing as mental illness.
Erich:
>It's what doctors call it when you have a sudden behaviour change
>and they don't yet know what is going on.
They call it mental illness? No, they don't.
Never mind about going back and reading...I really am gone from this thread.
tooloud
> Xho snarled,
>> Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate
>> mutually agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
>
> Some employers aren't adults with whom one can negotiate, and when
> ones livelihood depends on dealing with people who have lived their
> entire lives surrounded by priviledge, never once had to worry about
> paying bills or what to do about sick kids, well, then it's not a
> lactating
> teat one's looking at, but a bullet pocked brick wall. Bring on the
> revolution! We'll start with libertarians, by the way.
Is someone making you work for someone like that?
--
tooloud
Remove nothing to reply...
tooloud
> On 18 Jan 2004 20:45:17 GMT, ctc...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> "can...@thelast.mile" <can...@thelast.mile> wrote:
>>>
>>> My company could require me to work 120 hours a week every week and
>>> fire me for non-compliance.
>>
>> You could demand your employer to pay you for 120 hours of work, even
>> if you only work 10 hours. And you could quit them for
>> non-compliance with your demands.
>
> No I can't. I can't demand a damned thing from them except maybe a
> they could fire me because they don't like my "looks." If I attempted
> to "blow the whistle," I may not get fired for doing that, per se, but
> they could find something else to justify it. Something that I would
> have no protection against, under NC law, even though I perform the
> job satisfactorily and come in to work on time every day.
I can't think of anyone that doesn't claim to do their job "satisfactorily"
and coming in to work on time isn't really all that much a feat.
>>> Want more? There's plenty more atrocities on the NC labor board
>>> website. I need to get the fuck out of this state.
>>
>> Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate
>> mutually agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
>>
> Lactating fucking teat, my ass. We have old ass fuckers working as
> supervisors who do absolutely nothing but putter around, play card
> games with other hourly employees who are "in the loop" and basically
> just sit around watching for the slightest infraction of the rules by
> someone who doesn't belong to their daily session of "spades."
You have a couple choices then: a) get "in the loop" so you can slack off
all day too, or b) take the skills you seem so sure you possess to another
employer that might appreciate them. If you're half of what you claim to be,
you shouldn't have a hard time finding a better job.
> And they make damn good money at it, even though their office duties
> are a sham.
Shit, I make damn good money and I don't have to work in an office and
didn't even finish college. If I described my daily duties to you, you'd
probably say they were a sham too. Hoo-hah!
> "office duties." HA!
Hoo-hah!
Max C. Webster III
If so, said employer should make two books required reading, 1) any "fair and
balanced" history of the Soviet Union and 2) Atlas Shrugged.
Yeah, let's put the men of ability against the wall. That'll work *so* well.
- Max -
=======
The most favorable posthumous history the
stay-at-home traitor can hope for is--oblivion.
- Ulysses S. Grant
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>Yeah, let's put the men of ability against the wall.
Bill Gates and especially Ken Lay are no Hank Reardon.
Opus the Penguin
> Erich:
>>It's what doctors call it when you have a sudden behaviour change
>>and they don't yet know what is going on.
>
> They call it mental illness? No, they don't.
Uh oh. Conflicting statements from two personalities. Any of the others
want to break the tie?
--
Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)
You snipped my sig!
Michael T. Belrose
>
> Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate mutually
> agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
>
> Xho
>
This is only possible if you have the power to shop around for jobs. I
keep hearing people talk like the job market is some sort of
supermarket, and jobs are as easy to come by as apples. The job market
is more like an anitques market, where you can't necessarily get what
you want even if you have the money. You can always buy apples, and
stores can always sell apples. You are free to shop around, and the
stores have to compete for your business. If you need a rare vase,
though, you have to hunt just to find one, and who knows if the seller
will part with it. He can always find other buyers, but you can't
always find other sellers.
Jobs exist in perpetual scarcity, and a person's resources are
always limited. If you want a halfway decent wage, you have to take
whatever work comes along, and you can't spend a lot of time looking.
Conversely, your employer can always find other people to take your job,
his only loss is inconvenience. This situation is in no way a balanced
negotiation. Your boss doesn't risk losing his business, but you risk
losing everything you own.
I know there are exceptions, but people seem to think that everyone
is a professional with skills that are in short supply, and that if
you're not there is something inherently wrong with you. Does the
evidence really support this? Is every non-professional person you meet
somehow defective? Do you not believe people when they say they are
having trouble finding work? Haven't you ever had trouble finding work
yourself?
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>ctc...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>
>> Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate mutually
>> agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
>>
>> Xho
>>
>
>
> This is only possible if you have the power to shop around for jobs.
Everyone has at least some power to shop around for jobs.
> I
>keep hearing people talk like the job market is some sort of
>supermarket, and jobs are as easy to come by as apples.
Well, obviously some are. I bet you could get hired at, say, Burger King
tomorrow.
> The job market
>is more like an anitques market, where you can't necessarily get what
>you want even if you have the money.
I think obtaining any given antique would be mostly a matter of having enough
money. If you want to have a special exception for museum pieces, okay, but...
even there, you could presumably hire some sort of burglar, or whatever, to run
off to Gary Land.
> You can always buy apples, and
>stores can always sell apples. You are free to shop around, and the
>stores have to compete for your business. If you need a rare vase,
>though, you have to hunt just to find one, and who knows if the seller
>will part with it. He can always find other buyers, but you can't
>always find other sellers.
Right, so now you see why apples cost less than rare vases. Labor is also a
commodity, and some people's labor is like an apple, and some is like a rare
vase. Most people are somewhat in-between. If you don't want to work at Burger
King, at least not for less than twenty dollars an hour, well, I'll find
someone else who does. If you can average 20 ppg, 7 rebounds and 5 assists
against NBA defenses, well, it's a little harder to find someone else who can
do that, and the other people who want him on their team can afford to pay him
large dollars.
> Jobs exist in perpetual scarcity,
Right, which is why someone'll pay you to do them. Apples, of course, and
anything else that costs money, exist in perpetual scarcity, too
> and a person's resources are
>always limited. If you want a halfway decent wage, you have to take
>whatever work comes along,
Well, or at least whatever work offering a halfway decent wage comes along,
sure.
> and you can't spend a lot of time looking.
>Conversely, your employer can always find other people to take your job,
>his only loss is inconvenience.
Well, and money, if there are sufficient numbers of you not willing to take
that job. I understand, for example, in a city like Columbus. Ohio, you'd be
hard pressed to stay unemployed. Serously, you might wake up after a party with
a massive hangover and a new job. This means that a job like McDonald's has to
pay nearly twice minimum wage, because otherwise their labor pool prefers
easier, more respectable work like stripping, working in a used record store or
head shop, selling dope, whatever. Sponging off your parents and student aid,
any of that stuff.
> This situation is in no way a balanced
>negotiation. Your boss doesn't risk losing his business, but you risk
>losing everything you own.
Many bosses are risking everything they own to go into business in the first
place, and complain they can't find enough qualified employees who'll come to
work every day, on time, etc.
> I know there are exceptions, but people seem to think that everyone
>is a professional with skills that are in short supply, and that if
>you're not there is something inherently wrong with you.
Well, or at least you should be realistic about the value of your labor as a
commodity, and if it really bugs you that much, borrow some money to go to
paralegal school or buy the data transcription books, something like that.
Charles Bishop
Belrose" <mi...@belrose.net> wrote:
>ctc...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>
>> Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate mutually
>> agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
>>
>> Xho
>>
>
>
> This is only possible if you have the power to shop around for
jobs. I
>keep hearing people talk like the job market is some sort of
>supermarket, and jobs are as easy to come by as apples. The job market
>is more like an anitques market, where you can't necessarily get what
>you want even if you have the money. You can always buy apples, and
>stores can always sell apples. You are free to shop around, and the
>stores have to compete for your business. If you need a rare vase,
>though, you have to hunt just to find one, and who knows if the seller
>will part with it. He can always find other buyers, but you can't
>always find other sellers.
> Jobs exist in perpetual scarcity, and a person's resources are
>always limited.
[snip]
This isn't true, mostly because you used "always" There was a time here in
Silicon Valley when certain jobs were so plentiful a qualified person
could have her pick of them. It's not as easy as buying apples, I'll
grant, but again there was a time within my memory, where if you wanted an
apple in August, say, you had to do without. I suppose there may have been
a way to get one, but you couldn't go into a local market and expect to
find one.
Previously in history, after the black plague, laborers were in high
demand. There are cycles in employment. Also, if you haven't ever hired
anyone for a job where they were paid with your money, you may not have
complete information on jobs.
charles
tooloud
> ctc...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>
>> Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate
>> mutually agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
>>
>> Xho
>>
>
>
> This is only possible if you have the power to shop around for jobs.
Everyone's got the power to shop around for jobs. Some times it just comes
down to whether you have the balls or not.
> I keep hearing people talk like the job market is some sort of
> supermarket, and jobs are as easy to come by as apples. The job
> market is more like an anitques market, where you can't necessarily
> get what
> you want even if you have the money. You can always buy apples, and
> stores can always sell apples. You are free to shop around, and the
> stores have to compete for your business. If you need a rare vase,
> though, you have to hunt just to find one, and who knows if the seller
> will part with it. He can always find other buyers, but you can't
> always find other sellers.
Eh, I don't know that that's necessarily true. My SO, with a plain old
4-year engineering degree, had her pick of jobs several months ago when she
was told it would be a tough market.
> Jobs exist in perpetual scarcity, and a person's resources are
> always limited. If you want a halfway decent wage, you have to take
> whatever work comes along, and you can't spend a lot of time looking.
> Conversely, your employer can always find other people to take your
> job, his only loss is inconvenience.
Not if you have something to offer the employer that other applicants don't
have.
> This situation is in no way a
> balanced negotiation. Your boss doesn't risk losing his business,
> but you risk losing everything you own.
A boss risks losing all kinds of things if s/he doesn't have qualified
people working for him/her.
> I know there are exceptions, but people seem to think that
> everyone is a professional with skills that are in short supply, and
> that if you're not there is something inherently wrong with you.
> Does the evidence really support this? Is every non-professional
> person you meet somehow defective? Do you not believe people when
> they say they are having trouble finding work? Haven't you ever had
> trouble finding work yourself?
Personally, I've never had trouble finding work. I'm 25 years old, didn't
finish college, and have worked for the same company for the past four years
or so. I did it the old-fashioned way; started at the bottom and worked my
way up. I've had several job offers in the past year or so for a larger base
salary but didn't accept them because they didn't offer all the perks of my
current job (company car and larger expense account being the two main
ones).
I've got friends my age that work for six months at a time in pizza joints
and telemarketing agencies that seriously don't understand why I'm
successful and think I've just been lucky. I don't have the heart to explain
to them that they're lazy and refuse to stick with anything and that's the
reason their income sucks.
Helge Moulding
> Yeah, let's put the men of ability against the wall. That'll work *so* well.
I don't see no men of ability.
--
Helge Moulding
mailto:hmou...@excite.com Just another guy
http://hmoulding.cjb.net/ with a weird name
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>To make a long story short,
It's too late for that.
Seeing you will only break my heart again...
> And there's nothing I can do about it.
> You
>should see the classified section in that rag we print.
Move?
> There ain't
>shit for jobs in there right now, and hasn't been for about a year
>now.
Light out for the territory ahead of the rest? I can't imagine Norf Carolina
was the last bastion of high quality printing in the US. Even as ubiquitous as
apples are, you still have to go to the store to get one.
Michael T. Belrose
more. The job scarcity only applies to people who don't have
specialized skills. My problem is people act like everyone has these
skills, and anyone without them is inferior and deserves what they get.
Not everyone can go to college. The reasons vary, and they're not all
laziness. Even if everyone had a degree, it wouldn't change the job
market. The world really does need ditch diggers. The guy who checks
my groceries probably has a high-school diploma. This is a non-trivial
amount of education, and more than is needed to do his job. Somehow,
though, he still doesn't have a great salary, security, or the ability
to negotiate freely with his boss.
Keep in mind that I'm being optimistic here, and just pretending
that it's all a supply-demand curve. In the real world, there is
racism, intimidation, and corruption. Meanwhile, a lot of people get
ahead because of nepotism, favoritism, or outright inheritance. Even
under fair conditions, many people who are valued still lose their jobs
if an entire compay or department goes down. A job isn't like an
antique, you can't just wait around for a good opportunity, you have to
take what's available.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
> There's a point to my rant that I probably should have emphasized
>more. The job scarcity only applies to people who don't have
>specialized skills. My problem is people act like everyone has these
>skills, and anyone without them is inferior and deserves what they get.
well...yeah. I mean...yeah. you know, at least for narrowly defined values of
"inferior" and "deserve what they get." You're inferior to Gary Payton in Dr.
Jerry Bus's eyes, for instance.
> Not everyone can go to college. The reasons vary, and they're not all
>laziness.
Yeah, well...damn near anyone can afford it, or at least some kind of
marketable job training. Jeez, you know what interest rates on student loans
are like these days? And you can get one just on the basis of signing your name
and answering a few questions.
> Even if everyone had a degree, it wouldn't change the job
>market.
You know, I bet it would.
> The world really does need ditch diggers.
Sure, and even in your magic world there are recent immigrants and high school
students and people working their way through college. Otherwise, if everyone
had a degree, well...first of all, I bet we'd have robot butlers by then, and
second of all, if everyone has a college degree, there's a lot of money out
there bidding for wage earners. What do you think it costs to get someone out
to your house to dig ditches in, say, Boston?
> The guy who checks
>my groceries probably has a high-school diploma.
Huh. Cause most of mine don't, or if they do they're retirees.
> This is a non-trivial
>amount of education, and more than is needed to do his job. Somehow,
>though, he still doesn't have a great salary, security, or the ability
>to negotiate freely with his boss.
For all you know he may be in a union and have medical and dental benefits,
mandatory holidays and breaks, and a 401k. Certainly at least some grocery
store workers do.
> Keep in mind that I'm being optimistic here, and just pretending
>that it's all a supply-demand curve.
it's all a supply-demand curve. Why do you think anyone earns more than
minimum wage in the first place?
> In the real world, there is
>racism, intimidation, and corruption.
Right, but there's also the bottom line.
> Meanwhile, a lot of people get
>ahead because of nepotism, favoritism, or outright inheritance.
Sure.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>I like
>it here.
When I go out to eat, I often make a choice between the best steak in town, or
a place that has TV's the size of bedspreads. One place does not have the other
thing. Now, sure, it would be nice, but, uh...no one said ubiquity and
simultaneity would become infinite, even in the freest of markets.
tooloud
<snip>
>> I've got friends my age that work for six months at a time in pizza
>> joints and telemarketing agencies that seriously don't understand
>> why I'm successful and think I've just been lucky. I don't have the
>> heart to explain to them that they're lazy and refuse to stick with
>> anything and that's the reason their income sucks.
>
> Just hope the place doesn't burn down or get shut down by some
> conglomerate that doesn't give a damn how many years you have invested
> there.
Actually, the former happened a few years before I started there; the whole
place burned down, though no one lost their jobs and when the company was
rebuilt, they actually hired more people. Also, one of our main competitors
was just bought out by one of those conglomerates you mention and I saw
firsthand how my company's owner felt about big corporations taking over
family businesses, so I don't think I have to worry too much about that.
I realize I'm very fortunate. In previous posts, I've denounced unions and
said good things about the management team at my company, neither of which
were real popular statements. I'm lucky to have many people around me that
*do* genuinely care how many years I've worked there or how much I do for
them, so I've never found a need for a union--I already make more than I
think I probably deserve and have all the benefits I need or want.
tooloud
> There's a point to my rant that I probably should have
> emphasized more. The job scarcity only applies to people who don't
> have specialized skills. My problem is people act like everyone has
> these skills, and anyone without them is inferior and deserves what
> they get.
Specialized skills are remarkably easy to come by.
> Not everyone can go to college.
I disagree. I managed to for a couple years before deciding that I didn't
really care for it, so I quit. I'm still OK..
> The reasons vary, and
> they're not all laziness.
And potato chip bags aren't filled mostly with air.
> Even if everyone had a degree, it wouldn't
> change the job market. The world really does need ditch diggers.
> The guy who checks my groceries probably has a high-school diploma.
> This is a non-trivial amount of education,
A high-school diploma isn't a non-trivial amount of education? In my state,
it's all of 1-2 years more than you're *required* to go. Big whup.
> and more than is needed to
> do his job. Somehow, though, he still doesn't have a great salary,
> security, or the ability to negotiate freely with his boss.
How do you know? When I started out making pizzas at 16, I thought I had a
great salary (couple hundred a week while in HS was plenty), security (hey,
I *was* the best damn pie-maker they had), and the ability to negotiate
freely with my boss (I asked for a raise, she made me earn it, we we both
happy).
> Keep in mind that I'm being optimistic here, and just pretending
> that it's all a supply-demand curve. In the real world, there is
> racism, intimidation, and corruption. Meanwhile, a lot of people get
> ahead because of nepotism, favoritism, or outright inheritance. Even
> under fair conditions, many people who are valued still lose their
> jobs if an entire compay or department goes down. A job isn't like an
> antique, you can't just wait around for a good opportunity, you have
> to take what's available.
Take what's available or make room for yourself?
Opus the Penguin
And over here there's favoritism.
Michael T. Belrose
> For all you know he may be in a union and have medical and dental benefits,
> mandatory holidays and breaks, and a 401k. Certainly at least some grocery
> store workers do.
Heh, sorry, kinda baited you there. Yes, most grocery workers do have
fairly good benefits, more than some professionals. The fact is, they
did not earn these benefits because their bosses thought they were so
valuable. They had to form a union to gain these benefits by brute
force. The main reason I have so little faith in a free job market is
because I know how some people were treated back when there was such a
thing.
>
> Right, but there's also the bottom line.
I would argue there is nothing "real" about the bottom line. Our
economic system is not the only way to handle things, and it does not
thrive without constant government interference.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>Incredible Rhyme Animal wrote:
>
>> For all you know he may be in a union and have medical and dental
>benefits,
>> mandatory holidays and breaks, and a 401k. Certainly at least some grocery
>> store workers do.
>
> Heh, sorry, kinda baited you there.
Well, you're certainly a master baiter.
>Yes, most grocery workers do have
>fairly good benefits, more than some professionals. The fact is, they
>did not earn these benefits because their bosses thought they were so
>valuable.
They must think there's some benefit to signing the union contract.
> They had to form a union to gain these benefits by brute
>force.
well, or negotiation, anyway, and wasn't someone saying you couldn't negotiate
with your employer?
> The main reason I have so little faith in a free job market is
>because I know how some people were treated back when there was such a
>thing.
I am aware of that, and think there's probably something to what you guys are
saying. I'm not prepared to just dismiss out of hand workplace improvements by
collective bargaining or legislative fiat, not to mention public education,
both general and vocational. So, sure, there's some role for the state in
making things better for citizens. Hell, even Ayn Rand believed in unions..
However, I think you have to admit at least some of that is due to an improved
bargaining power even an unskilled laborer enjoys, thanks to the increases or
improvements in the diversity of skills a given laborer may acquire and
exploit, etc, division of labor, that kind of business.
>> Right, but there's also the bottom line.
>
> I would argue there is nothing "real" about the bottom line.
yeah, well, I would. I don't buy my goods or contract for services on the
basis of a company's only hiring men, or women, or the CEO's brother-in-law. I
buy them on the basis of quality, or percieved quality, relative to price. I
suspect I am not alone in this, either, as I don't see too many stickers on too
many boxes that say "Nabisco is proud to employ only white males," but I sure
see "Shop and compare! Our price 2.38! Theirs...50 dollars!" Thus, I imagine a
company engaging in very much racism or nepotism or other market inefficiency
is at a relative disadvantage against its competitors.
> Our
>economic system is not the only way to handle things,
it seems to be the one that sucks the least.
>and it does not
>thrive without constant government interference.
To me, the essence of liberalism, and I mean that in the way J. S. Mill would
understand it, and shame on AFCA for never going there on me with all the
mileage I've gotten out of his "stupid people tend to be conservatives" quote,
is that no voluntary transaction between competent parties is improved by
throwing someone like Jim Traficant into the mix, and so the main result of
interference is less of everything for everybody.
I think.
Michael T. Belrose
>
> well, or negotiation, anyway, and wasn't someone saying you couldn't negotiate
> with your employer?
>
Just a bit of thread drift. The original poster was told to negotiate
with his boss for better conditions. Forming a union is a bit different
from that, both for better and worse.
>
>> The main reason I have so little faith in a free job market is
>>because I know how some people were treated back when there was such a
>>thing.
>
>
> I am aware of that, and think there's probably something to what you guys are
> saying. I'm not prepared to just dismiss out of hand workplace improvements by
> collective bargaining or legislative fiat, not to mention public education,
> both general and vocational. So, sure, there's some role for the state in
> making things better for citizens. Hell, even Ayn Rand believed in unions..
I respect you saying that, and I admit the free market has a certain
evolutionary strength on its own.
> throwing someone like Jim Traficant into the mix, and so the main result of
> interference is less of everything for everybody.
>
> I think.
>
>
I mean free markets don't exist without constant government
interference. It sounds like a contradiction, but the point is we don't
really want free markets, we want competition and darwinism, and those
states are not sustainable naturally. We also interfere with commerce
for reasons like environmentalism, but that's not even expected to help
the economy, it just means there are outside effects to worry about.
mike
> Now I work at a damn newspaper that really is kind of a joke compared
> to where I used to work. I have split days off, slim raises no matter
> what your performance is, and although I usually work nights, very
> often my schedule calls for me to come in at 6:30 a.m, a total about
> face from my usual hours. And there's nothing I can do about it. You
> should see the classified section in that rag we print. There ain't
> shit for jobs in there right now, and hasn't been for about a year
> now.
its not a field id wanna go into. papers have it rough thanks to the
internet and 24 hr news channels.
ctc...@hotmail.com
> Xho snarled,
> > Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate
> > mutually agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
>
Then get a different job.
> and when ones
> livelihood depends on dealing with people who have lived their entire
> lives surrounded by priviledge,
I think a manager who has to deal with people like Candeh (or me, for that
matter) can't be considered to live lives surrounded by priviledge.
> never once had to worry about paying
> bills or what to do about sick kids, well, then it's not a lactating
> teat one's looking at, but a bullet pocked brick wall.
What makes you think businesses don't pay bills, and businessmen don't
have kids? I'm pretty sure that the guy in charge of Coco's doesn't
get the bottles of Fetzer and slabs of cow for free.
> Bring on the
> revolution! We'll start with libertarians, by the way.
Hunh. I'll bet the libertiarians are better armed.
Xho
--
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Usenet Newsgroup Service New Rate! $9.95/Month 50GB
ctc...@hotmail.com
>
> >
> > Or grow up and view employers as adults with whom you negotiate
> > mutually agreeable conditions, rather than a lactating teat.
> >
> > Xho
> >
>
> This is only possible if you have the power to shop around for
> jobs. I keep hearing people talk like the job market is some sort of
> supermarket, and jobs are as easy to come by as apples.
Well, maybe you keep interpreting what they are saying that
way, anyways.
> The job market
> is more like an anitques market, where you can't necessarily get what
> you want even if you have the money. You can always buy apples, and
> stores can always sell apples. You are free to shop around, and the
> stores have to compete for your business. If you need a rare vase,
Who the well "needs" a rare vase?
> though, you have to hunt just to find one, and who knows if the seller
> will part with it.
Presumably the antique dealer does?
> He can always find other buyers, but you can't
> always find other sellers.
He can't always find other buyers, either. Life's a bitch.
> Jobs exist in perpetual scarcity, and a person's resources are
> always limited. If you want a halfway decent wage, you have to take
> whatever work comes along, and you can't spend a lot of time looking.
That doesn't make any sense. So if you want a crappy job you can be choosy
and bide your time?
> Conversely, your employer can always find other people to take your job,
Not always.
> his only loss is inconvenience.
Businesses can go out of business from "inconvenience". Managers
can lose their jobs for "inconvenience".
> This situation is in no way a balanced
> negotiation. Your boss doesn't risk losing his business, but you risk
> losing everything you own.
Your boss certainly does risk losing his business (assuming you work
directly for the owner.) And if you don't work for the owner, if your boss
exercises careless hiring and/or firing, the inconvenience to his boss can
lead to his firing, and he could lose everything he owns.
> I know there are exceptions, but people seem to think that everyone
> is a professional with skills that are in short supply, and that if
> you're not there is something inherently wrong with you.
Which people seem to think that?
> Does the
> evidence really support this?
Probably not. So why do did you make the claim?
> Is every non-professional person you meet
> somehow defective?
Yes. [1]
> Do you not believe people when they say they are
> having trouble finding work?
Sometimes. Sometimes not.
> Haven't you ever had trouble finding work
> yourself?
No, I've never had trouble finding work. It didn't always
pay above minimum age (or even minimum wage, for that matter),
but I could always find it.
Xho
[1] Doctor, will I be able to play the piano when my cast comes off?
ctc...@hotmail.com
>
> >
> > well, or negotiation, anyway, and wasn't someone saying you couldn't
> > negotiate with your employer?
> >
>
> Just a bit of thread drift. The original poster was told to
> negotiate with his boss for better conditions. Forming a union is a bit
> different from that, both for better and worse.
Geesh, if I told you to brush your teeth would I have to tell you to put
toothpaste on the brush first?
> I mean free markets don't exist without constant government
> interference.
On the other hand, a good majority of government interference doesn't
do a damn thing to improve the free markets.
> It sounds like a contradiction, but the point is we don't
> really want free markets, we want competition and darwinism, and those
> states are not sustainable naturally.
Hey, Opus and Helge, I think this guy just solved your arugment. Evolution
is proof that God exists.
Xho
Opus the Penguin
> "Michael T. Belrose" <mi...@belrose.net> wrote:
>
>> It sounds like a contradiction, but the point is we don't
>> really want free markets, we want competition and darwinism, and
>> those states are not sustainable naturally.
>
> Hey, Opus and Helge, I think this guy just solved your arugment.
> Evolution is proof that God exists.
Suddenly Opus becomes an atheist and Helge starts going to church. I'm
out of job and Helge's out half his weekend. Thanks a lot.
--
Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)
"The Pillsbury Doughboy was also open to interpretation." - M C Hamster
Adam Smith
<snip>
> no voluntary transaction between competent parties is improved by
> throwing someone like Jim Traficant into the mix, and so the main result of
> interference is less of everything for everybody.
Yes, exactly. Economics as a science consists of 228 years of
discovering how true this is.
Adam Smith
> I would argue there is nothing "real" about the bottom line. Our
> economic system is not the only way to handle things,
No, it isn't.
and it does not
> thrive without constant government interference.
Really? Then how come Hong Kong managed to develop a standard of
living higher than Great Britain's in ony 50 years in that the
government began and ended at preventing riots in the streets and its
resources were a bare rock in the middle of nowhere?
It is not the HIGHLY regulated countries that are wealthy, it's the
ones with fewer regulations.
Did the Interstate Commerce Commission make the US richer? Or did its
elimination? You always hear about deregulation making new products
and services available. Meditate on that, since its the products and
services that make a nation wealthy.
James Gifford
> Yes, exactly. Economics as a science consists of 228 years of
> discovering how true this is.
And, of course, since there are absolutely no aspects to life beyond those
described in economic theory, it's a major mystery as to why we don't just
live by the Truths of Economics.
--
| James Gifford * FIX SPAMTRAP TO REPLY |
| So... your philosophy fits in a sig, does it? |
| Heinlein Pages Updated! See www.nitrosyncretic.com |
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>loc...@hotmail.com (Adam Smith) wrote:
>> Yes, exactly. Economics as a science consists of 228 years of
>> discovering how true this is.
>
>And, of course, since there are absolutely no aspects to life beyond those
>described in economic theory, it's a major mystery as to why we don't just
>live by the Truths of Economics.
I just read an amusing book by Charles Murray. I have to admit, a lot of it is
fairly tendentious, like his ascribing some evolutionary basis for men being
better at catch than women, but other parts of it are pretty interesting. One
of them is a statement along the lines of the less we know about something, the
more we tend to ridicule the idea there's such a thing as "expertise" in that
area, or that having acquired such expertise, a given person may be able to
make a better judgement than a layman. Once we've acquired some actual
knowledge or training in that subject, the more we ridicule people who think as
above.
let's see if I can actually find the quote:
Ah, here we go:
"On topics about which we know little, we are dismissive of the importance of
expertise. On topics about which we know a great deal, we are dismissive of
amatuer opinions. The difference between these two reactions is that one has an
empirical basis and the other doesn't. On topics about which we know little, we
by definition have no way of knowing that expertise is unimportant. On topics
about which we know a lot, we have concrete reasons for concluding amateur
opinions are either wrong, or boringly obvious."
He also then goes on to compile lists of the important figures in the sciences
and humanities using historiometrical techniques, basically correlations of the
quantity of discussion in survey literature, for instance in the graphic arts
he used history text books like Janson and Granger, books in wide use in
university level courses.
. I include this because it supports what I was saying about art to a certain
poster some time ago, that france is a weak sister in the visual arts compared
to Italy, or even Spain and the Northern European states, and thus why you
should listen to economists even when they say things you disagree with, or, if
you're going to disagree with them, find a real economists criticism of the
natural rate of unemployment or the Coase theorem or whichever. you know, "but
people don't think like that!" or "you can't put a price on human life" doesn't
fly, at least not if you're as smart as a typical AFCAn likes to think of
himself as being.
Here's Murray's list for the most prominent western artists:
Michaelangelo (I1)
Picasso (S1)
Raphael (I2)
Leonardo(I3)
Titian (I4)
Durer(NE1)
Rembrandt(NE2)
Giotto(I5)
Bernini(I6)
Cezanne(F1)
Rubens(NE3)
Caravaggio(I7)
Velazquez(S2)
Donatello(I8)
Van Eyck(NE4)
Goya(S3)
Monet(F2)
Masaccio(I9)
Van Gogh(NE5)
Gauguin(F3)
So, actually tied with Spain, but anyway. Behind Northern Europe, and even just
The Netherlands in a stricter sense. Now, you might complain that David or
Ingres or Fragonard or Boucher are left off the list, but would you contend
they're more significant artists than Rembrandt? Or Raphael? Not if you knew
very much about art history, you wouldn't.
For a control, see how much or little you agree with this ranking by volume
devoted to in survey literature:
Beethoven
Mozart
Bach
Wagner
Hayden
Handel
Stravinksy
Debussey
Liszt
Schubert
Schumann
Berlioz
Schoenberg
Brahms
Chopin
Monteverdi
Verdi
Mendelsson
Weber
Gluck
here's a quote which may be illuminative.
"Fans of concert music, asked to guess the top four, usually guess Beethoven,
Mozart, and Bach, but are likely to guess Haydn or Brahms as the fourth. Few
think of Wagner. In contrast, a professional violist whom I asked to guess said
Beethoven and Mozart were number one and two ("of course") and asked
matter-of-factly, "who came in third, Bach or Wagner?" His reaction reflects
Wagner's high standing among experts, consistent with his index score."
If you want I could provide their index scores, but the most interesting thing
about them is apparently there's a virtual deadlock, and both Mozart and
Beethoven were scored 100, even with a bigger sample than that used for the
other pools.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
> Then how come Hong Kong managed to develop a standard of
>living higher than Great Britain's in ony 50 years in that the
>government began and ended at preventing riots in the streets
This, by the way, ain't so. British-run HK had nationalized health services and
the government was everyone's landlord.
> and its
>resources were a bare rock in the middle of nowhere?
Well, no...it was a bare rock between relatively poor Asia and the relatively
wealthy west. You could get rich just by copying, mutatis mutandis, KFC's
business model. Now, sure, it helped there were no laws against doing just
that, but...well, actually that probably would work in Cuba, but anyway...
Opus the Penguin
> For a control, see how much or little you agree with this ranking
> by volume devoted to in survey literature:
This is a little confusing. Is the author applying a count 'em up
method of ranking? The more talked about they are, the more
important? Who gets a vote here?
> Beethoven
> Mozart
> Bach
> Wagner
Those would be my top 4. But I'd put Bach second or tied for first.
> Hayden
I'd tend to spell that without the e.
> Handel
Too high on the list.
> Stravinksy
Definitely.
> Debussey
I'd leave off the e here as well. Too high on the list.
> Liszt
Way too high on the liszt. There is no way Franz baby is better than
the two that immediately follow--Schubert and Schumann--to say
nothing of Brahms, Chopin, and Verdi.
> Schubert
> Schumann
Sure, once you get rid of the ones I said were too high, these come
next. Maybe Brahms should come before them. I have trouble getting
Brahms, though.
> Berlioz
Might belong on the list a little lower down.
> Schoenberg
Whatever. Some people get him, I guess.
> Brahms
I can't comment for the aforementioned reason. I'm generally
Brahms-pervious.
> Chopin
Yeah. Way down here 7 guys below Liszt. That's a joke.
> Monteverdi
Could be. Don't know his stuff.
> Verdi
Once you get rid of the bad choices above, this may be a good spot.
> Mendelsson
Needs an h.
> Weber
> Gluck
What the heck? How did we get all the way down to these goombahs
without mentioning Mahler or Bruckner or Puccini or Sibelius? They
belong somewhere above Berlioz. MAYBE Weber and Gluck should come up
after Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Richard Strauss,
Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Dvorak, Vaughn Williams, Saint Saens, Bizet,
Bellini, Rossini, Bartok, Gershwin, and Ravel in no particular order
and off the top of my head.
> here's a quote which may be illuminative.
>
> "Fans of concert music, asked to guess the top four, usually guess
> Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach, but are likely to guess Haydn or
> Brahms as the fourth. Few think of Wagner. In contrast, a
> professional violist
<snicker> Sorry. Can't help it.
> whom I asked to guess said Beethoven and
> Mozart were number one and two ("of course")
The idea that this is "of course" is ridiculous. I could see saying
that Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach were in the top three positions "of
course" without specifying which came first.
> and asked
> matter-of-factly, "who came in third, Bach or Wagner?" His
> reaction reflects Wagner's high standing among experts, consistent
> with his index score."
I still don't get this "index score." Who gets a say? Does a famous
conductor like Bernard Hatink (who stopped scheduling Liszt concerts
years ago because he thinks Liszt isn't that good) get a vote, even
though he doesn't publish much? Who's more of an expert, Bernard
Haitink or Norman Lebrecht?
> If you want I could provide their index scores, but the most
> interesting thing about them is apparently there's a virtual
> deadlock, and both Mozart and Beethoven were scored 100, even
> with a bigger sample than that used for the other pools.
Part of the reason for that has more to do with how people specialize.
Bach is a specialty unto himself and so may not get as many votes from
people who are more focused on music that uses a relatively modern
orchestra. Turning the author's argument against him, the people who
were consulted for this poll may not have enough Bach expertise to
evaluate him fairly.
Opus the Penguin
> . I include this because it supports what I was saying about art
> to a certain poster some time ago, that france is a weak sister
> in the visual arts compared to Italy, or even Spain and the
> Northern European states,
Well, what you said was that you can name more important pre-18th
Century Dutch artists than the other poster could name total for French
artists.
That didn't turn out to be the case.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>george...@aol.comWerewikf (Incredible Rhyme Animal) wrote:
>
>> . I include this because it supports what I was saying about art
>> to a certain poster some time ago, that france is a weak sister
>> in the visual arts compared to Italy, or even Spain and the
>> Northern European states,
>
>Well, what you said was that you can name more important pre-18th
>Century Dutch artists than the other poster could name total for French
>artists.
That was to support a larger point that another poster was over-emphasizing
the French contribution to western art.
>
>That didn't turn out to be the case.
I haven't actually seen that poster name any French artists. I think he
plagiarized someone else's list, and even then it included many Germans and
Russians, like Arp and...the one guy who painted the farm I thought was a
circus for many years.
Opus the Penguin
> I haven't actually seen that poster name any French artists.
Yes you did.
> I think he plagiarized someone else's list,
Is it plagiarism if he cites his source?
> and even then it
> included many Germans and Russians, like Arp
Many? Check the list again.
As far as Arp goes, throw him out if you like. Or start a new challenge
in which you cite more reference works that don't call him French in
the first line than I can that do.
> and...the one guy who
> painted the farm I thought was a circus for many years.
Chagall? You might have more of a case there.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>This is a little confusing. Is the author applying a count 'em up
>method of ranking?
Yes, apparently.
>The more talked about they are, the more
>important?
Right, more or less.
> Who gets a vote here?
No one, at least not as a person. Rather, it's a measure of how many surveys,
encyclopedia, biographical dictionary, and/ or histories you get into, and how
much space within you occupy. You know, or in a reasonable sample thereof. I
cannot find the music sources as a single list, but I am sure they're there.
Oh, here we go.
Abraham: "Concise Oxford History of Music."
Alberti "Musica nei Secoli"
Patier "Historie de la Musique"
Borroff "Music in Europe and the United States"
Dahlhaus and Eggebrecht "Brockhaus Riemann Musiklexikon"
Grout and Palisca "A History of Western Music"
Hamburger "Musikens Historie"
Harman and Mellers "Man and his Music: The Story of Musical Experience in the
West"
Headington "The Bodley Head History of Western Music"
Honolka et al "Weltgeschichte der Musik"
Kennedy "Oxford Dictionary of Music"
Kroeber "Configuration of Culture Growth"
Lang "Music in Western Civilization"
Randel "The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music"
Rebatet "Une Historie de la Musique"
Thompson and Bohle "The international Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians"
Vuillermoz "Historie de la Musique"
>> Hayden
>
>I'd tend to spell that without the e.
I would, too, if I were looking and typing at the same time. There may well be
spelling and transcription error throughout.
>Way too high on the liszt. There is no way Franz baby is better than
>the two that immediately follow--Schubert and Schumann--to say
>nothing of Brahms, Chopin, and Verdi.
However, he is apparently more emminent. We're making judgements, not
sentiments here. Truth be told, I like George Thorogood better than any of
them, and I gather you like any pre-raphaelite better than Picasso, and I'd
take Graham Ingels over Mondrian. but that doesn't really matter. If Steve
Ditko appears in even one art history book, it's only to mention him as a
source for Roy Lichtenstein, even though Berni Wrightson is probably a better
draughtsman, all the way around.
>What the heck? How did we get all the way down to these goombahs
>without mentioning Mahler or Bruckner or Puccini or Sibelius?
They just don't have the inches in the literature. Bruckner's EI is 19,
Mahler's is 23, Puccini is 10, and so is Sibelius's. I recall when I was
taking History of Jazz, we didn't spend a lot of time discussing Billie
Holiday, which the teacher defended by saying she hadn't really come up with
any new ways of doing anything, and wasn't especially any better a singer than
lots of other people, which you can't say about, say, Ella FItzgerald. Miles
Davis, on the other hand, changed music three or four times and recorded two or
three quintessential jazz albums, and so we spent a couple weeks talking about
him. There may well be some Ken Arrow type stuff there, but...you know, you'll
have to put that together. I think that's a good compromise between my lawyer
mode and my scientist mode; I'll point you in the direction, and you construct
the case.
>MAYBE Weber
27
> and Gluck
26
> should come up
>after Shostakovich,
12
Rachmaninov,
7
>Prokofiev,
12
>Richard Strauss,
26
>Tchaikovsky,
20
>Grieg,
11
> Dvorak,
13
> Vaughn Williams,
"Wow! Vaughn Williams is screwed!"
>Saint Saens,
13
> Bizet,
10
>Bellini,
9. On the other hand, his namesakes in the graphic arts rate a combined 30
> Rossini,
22
> Bartok,
18
> Gershwin,
6
>and Ravel
23
> in no particular order
Yeah, tell me and my index searching fingers about it.
to all of this loose talk, I can only let Murray himself reply:
"The shortcoming of the 50 precent rule is that it does not provide a clear
bright line. No qualitative difference separates the people just below the
cutoff from those just above. Whereas it is easy to argue the qualitative
superiority of those at the top, it is not possible to do so for the
significant figures who barely qualified versus the non-significant figures who
fell just short.
Consider some Americans close to the cutoff line in the arts. Cliffed
Odets and Willa Cather qualify as signifcant figures in Western literature
while Maxwell Anderson and Pearl Buck (despite her Nobel Prize) do not. Duke
Ellington and Jerome Kern quality in Western Music while Cole Porter and
Richard Rodgers do not. George Bellows and Thomas Hart Benton quality in
Western art while Frederic Church and Frederic Remington do not. In each of
these instances, those who qualified and those who failed did so by narrow
margins. I cannot imagine an objective case to be made fo the superiority of
the names that qualified, and I can easily imagine those names switching places
if I were to add or subtract a few sources.
But let's not go too far. Those who failed to qualify by larger margins
typically have resumes that are qualitatively inferior to the resumes of those
who made the cut."
><snicker> Sorry. Can't help it.
I thought something along the same lines myself when typing the word "viola,"
but as I cannot actually play any musical instrument well enough that anyone
would willingly listen for free, let alone support myself in whole or in part,
and I suspect your skills here are rather more like mine, I think a certain
graciousness is called for.
>> whom I asked to guess said Beethoven and
>> Mozart were number one and two ("of course")
>
>The idea that this is "of course" is ridiculous.
Apparently the concert violist has read a lot of musical surveys and
dictionaries.
>I could see saying
>that Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach were in the top three positions "of
>course" without specifying which came first.
Bach's third place is 87, compared to 100 for M and B, which is no mere
statistical oversight. It is something Murray feels compelled to explain, and
even refers to a "rappid minority," including even Beethoven from at least one
quote, who would rank him first.
>I still don't get this "index score."
I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but it's something to do with the volume of
professional literature a given personage occupies.
>Does a famous
>conductor like Bernard Hatink (who stopped scheduling Liszt concerts
>years ago because he thinks Liszt isn't that good) get a vote, even
>though he doesn't publish much?
No.
>Part of the reason for that has more to do with how people specialize.
Well, sort of, but not really.
>Bach is a specialty unto himself and so may not get as many votes from
>people who are more focused on music that uses a relatively modern
>orchestra.
Bach was surprisingly unpopular and even unkown until the 19th c, and remains
at least somewhat into conteporary times, certainly compared to Beethoven and
Mozart.
"In Bach's case, one reason why his reputation took time to develop was the
physical inaccessibility of his work. Those who didn't happen to be attending
church services in a certain part of Germany on certain Sundays never heard
much of Bach's oeuvre. As late as the 1940's, music historian Paul Lang could
write of Bach's work, " How tightly the scholar's room is still closed, how
inaccessible to millions of music lovers." lamenting that "The large concert
hall, the only place we encounter Bach's music, is not his rightful element." A
decade later, with the invention of the long playing record, that barrier began
to shrink.
Murray also says "He would've ranked lower in an inventory of musical
accmplishment prepared in 1800 than he does today, but he would've been a major
figure even then. By 1900 he would have been about as near the top as he is
now."
>Turning the author's argument against him, the people who
>were consulted for this poll may not have enough Bach expertise to
>evaluate him fairly.
Since the thing being evauluated here is emminence, you're basically saying
most snakes are very small, if you don't count the tail.
Helge Moulding
>>Bring on the revolution! We'll start with libertarians, by the way.
> Hunh. I'll bet the libertiarians are better armed.
This is no doubt why.
--
Helge Moulding
mailto:hmou...@excite.com Just another guy
http://hmoulding.cjb.net/ with a weird name
Helge Moulding
> Suddenly Opus becomes an atheist and Helge starts going to church. I'm
> out of job and Helge's out half his weekend. Thanks a lot.
No way! I'd have to go shopping for a church to go to. Deference to the
sensitivity of others in this group prevents me from listing the
tortures that I would rather undergo than that.
Derek
> scu...@aol.comatose (kay w) writes:
>
> >Fine, as soon as you address the irrevocably dead people. What about them?
>
> "What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump
> or in a marble tower on the top of a high hill? You were dead, you
> were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like
> that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just
> slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or
> where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now..."
Who said this?
Derek
Opus the Penguin
>><snicker> Sorry. Can't help it.
>
> I thought something along the same lines myself when typing the
> word "viola," but as I cannot actually play any musical instrument
> well enough that anyone would willingly listen for free, let alone
> support myself in whole or in part, and I suspect your skills here
> are rather more like mine, I think a certain graciousness is
> called for.
Yeah, you're right. It was an involuntary reaction based on the number
of violist jokes I've heard.
Opus the Penguin
>
>
>>Way too high on the liszt. There is no way Franz baby is better than
>>the two that immediately follow--Schubert and Schumann--to say
>>nothing of Brahms, Chopin, and Verdi.
>
> However, he is apparently more emminent.
Eminent as in talked about, not necessarily positively. There's
apparently no attempt to judge these composers based on the content of
the articles.
Eminent as in talked about by people who write about music rather than
make music. I'd be more interested in the assessments of world class
conductors, performers, and composers. There's a different sort of bias
there, of course, but to me a more interesting one.
Opus the Penguin
> Oh, here we go.
>
> Abraham: "Concise Oxford History of Music."
> Alberti "Musica nei Secoli"
> Patier "Historie de la Musique"
> Borroff "Music in Europe and the United States"
> Dahlhaus and Eggebrecht "Brockhaus Riemann Musiklexikon"
> Grout and Palisca "A History of Western Music"
> Hamburger "Musikens Historie"
> Harman and Mellers "Man and his Music: The Story of Musical
> Experience in the West"
> Headington "The Bodley Head History of Western Music"
> Honolka et al "Weltgeschichte der Musik"
> Kennedy "Oxford Dictionary of Music"
> Kroeber "Configuration of Culture Growth"
> Lang "Music in Western Civilization"
> Randel "The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music"
> Rebatet "Une Historie de la Musique"
> Thompson and Bohle "The international Cyclopedia of Music and
> Musicians" Vuillermoz "Historie de la Musique"
Hence my point about Bach. The tendency may well be to refer the reader
to the huge amount of specialized material on the subject and only try
to hit the highlights. Bach's the kind of composer where, if you try to
expand the article a little, you end up expanding it exponentially. You
end up saying, ok, if I mention x then I have to mention y.
At the same time, Bach's influence on other composers may not be as
great since he is inimitable and unsurpassable. So he doesn't get his
word count padded out with a section on all the composers who
plagiarized him or who advanced what he'd started.
This whole approach seems to be kind of a cross between a popularity
contest among the cognoscenti (arbitrarily defined and delimited) and a
Consumer Reports approach to who's good.
Opus the Penguin
>>What the heck? How did we get all the way down to these goombahs
>>without mentioning Mahler or Bruckner or Puccini or Sibelius?
>
> They just don't have the inches in the literature. Bruckner's EI
> is 19, Mahler's is 23, Puccini is 10, and so is Sibelius's.
To me that's a big so what? How many recordings of Weber are there
out there as opposed to Mahler? Or if we want to stay within the
world of scholarship and writing, how many scholars out there are
specialists in Weber vs. Mahler? I doubt it's even a contest. Mahler
will lap Weber several times.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>george...@aol.comWerewikf (Incredible Rhyme Animal) wrote:
>
>> I haven't actually seen that poster name any French artists.
>
>Yes you did.
>
>> I think he plagiarized someone else's list,
>
>Is it plagiarism if he cites his source?
Yes, I think so, since the challenge was "name," rather than "look up," and in
context you can see where "off the top of your head" requires a certain
eminence googling around doesn't.
>> and even then it
>> included many Germans and Russians, like Arp
>
>Many? Check the list again.
How about we tot up relative emminence as given by Murray's meta-survey?
>
>As far as Arp goes, throw him out if you like. Or start a new challenge
>in which you cite more reference works that don't call him French in
>the first line than I can that do.
>
>> and...the one guy who
>> painted the farm I thought was a circus for many years.
>
>Chagall?
Have I told many people that story? huh.
> You might have more of a case there.
I also wonder...Cassatt was an American woman who painted in a Japanese, or at
least Japanese influenced style, in France. So, I wonder if that's...of course,
her ranking is 3, so she hardly counts, but still...
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>Hence my point about Bach. The tendency may well be to refer the reader
>to the huge amount of specialized material on the subject and only try
>to hit the highlights.
I'd suggest that's generally true of all of them, or if not, you're leaving out
the tail and then acting like you haven't controlled away the variable you're
most interested in.
>At the same time, Bach's influence on other composers may not be as
>great since he is inimitable and unsurpassable.
Beethoven apparently thought he was the "human god of harmony, " which comes
from one of the above sources, and so I find these charges easily enough turned
aside.
>This whole approach seems to be kind of a cross between a popularity
>contest
Everything is a popularity contest.
>among the cognoscenti (arbitrarily defined and delimited)
Nah. Those are pretty standard references, and the confidence interval is
really high. Historiometry is fairly standard, straight forward stuff. Mike
Shermer and those guys use it, too.
>and a
>Consumer Reports approach to who's good.
Well, or emminent, yeah. Really, I don't know how else you'd measure it.
Mike Kruger
news:20040125203601...@mb-m12.aol.com...
> Opus the Penguin nospa...@netzero.net writes:
>
> >This is a little confusing. Is the author applying a count 'em up
> >method of ranking?
>
> Yes, apparently.
>
> >The more talked about they are, the more
> >important?
>
> Right, more or less.
>
It's empirical and more objective, although of course it still has its
limitations.
For one thing, who gets to vote? Lots of other white males who write in
English, disproportionately.
-- not that there's anything wrong with that ;)
For another, I would think you would tend to rate those who have a certain
degree of infamy more highly -- i.e. they may get written about more. It's
possible (probable?) that somebody writing about the history of black
musicians of the last 100 years might end up paying more attention to
Michael Jackson than, say, to Thelonious Monk just because there might be
more possible dissertation topics in the entire Michael Jackson fiasco.
Still, it allows there to be at least some metrics in the humanities, even
if controversial ones.
Opus the Penguin
> For another, I would think you would tend to rate those who have a
> certain degree of infamy more highly -- i.e. they may get written
> about more. It's possible (probable?) that somebody writing about
> the history of black musicians of the last 100 years might end up
> paying more attention to Michael Jackson than, say, to Thelonious
> Monk just because there might be more possible dissertation topics
> in the entire Michael Jackson fiasco.
Exactly. Bach led a pretty dull life, Beethoven and Mozart fairly
colorful ones. This has nothing to do with the composers as composers
but may well figure into the number of lines of text devoted to each.
This would especially be the case, I'd imagine, in something called
_The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music_, one of the works Murray
vetted.
I think Murray's proposal is an attempt to measure something that can't
really be measured. It's going to produce some predictable results--
Beethoven, Mozart, Bach at the top. But it's also going to produce some
weird anomalies--Liszt way too far up, Gluck and Weber on the list at
all.
Ask 100 orchestra conductors to list the most eminent composers and
Gluck and Weber will be quite a bit further down the list. As I say,
such a survey has a bias, but it's ridiculous to pretend Murray's
doesn't.
One of the reasons, by the way, that Liszt is so far up is that he was
also an eminent pianist and conductor. A good chunk of any entry on
Liszt is going to deal with the way he affected performance practices.
(None of the works cited limit themselves to composers only.) It pads
out his line count by talking about something that doesn't really
affect his eminence as a conductor. Murray's metric would need to take
content into account to be anything more than the crudest of tools.
I don't think that even then Murray's measurements are really valuable
except as discussion starters. It's kind of like the American Film
Institute (or whatever they're called) coming up with the 100 best
heroes and villains in moviedom.
Opus the Penguin
> Nah. Those are pretty standard references,
Except I didn't notice the Grove Dictionary of Music in the list.
That's kind of like doing a survey of English dictionaries and not
consulting the OED. Murray may lack the expertise to do a proper
analysis on this subject.
> and the confidence
> interval is really high. Historiometry is fairly standard,
> straight forward stuff. Mike Shermer and those guys use it, too.
It's thought provoking, I'll give you that. Thanks for keying it in.
Opus the Penguin
> Opus the Penguin nospa...@netzero.net writes:
>
>>Hence my point about Bach. The tendency may well be to refer the
>>reader to the huge amount of specialized material on the subject
>>and only try to hit the highlights.
>
> I'd suggest that's generally true of all of them,
Sure. But it's more true of Bach.
> or if not,
> you're leaving out the tail and then acting like you haven't
> controlled away the variable you're most interested in.
In that analogy, what I'm saying is this. The reference books are only
measureing length minus the tail. They don't take into account girth
(i.e. the number of things a composer did in a given style or
whatever). And they don't take into account the tail (i.e. the number
of things that have been left unsaid to conserve space).
Bach's girth is greater and he has more tail than most composers. That
may explain why he had all those sons. Ba-DUMP-bum.
Jerry Bauer
(in message <Xns947C3D9E2B9A0op...@127.0.0.1>):
> george...@aol.comWerewikf (Incredible Rhyme Animal) wrote:
>
>> Nah. Those are pretty standard references,
>
> Except I didn't notice the Grove Dictionary of Music in the list.
> That's kind of like doing a survey of English dictionaries and not
> consulting the OED. Murray may lack the expertise to do a proper
> analysis on this subject.
>
>> and the confidence
>> interval is really high. Historiometry is fairly standard,
>> straight forward stuff. Mike Shermer and those guys use it, too.
>
> It's thought provoking, I'll give you that. Thanks for keying it in.
>
>
Yeah, did anyone ask the historiometry experts what sources to use?
And how does one become an expert -- by being cited by other experts?
Is it sort of like a Google ranking? How did Charles Murray become
an expert on this?
But this is incidental to the point that George raised, that people
who do not understand a subject are inclined to be suspicious of
experts in that subject.
Sic et non. I do not like wine -- I've never tasted a wine that I
like, and I don't even like the smell of wine. However, I have no
doubt that there are people who can tell the difference between a
1957 Chateau de Quelquechose and a 1959. Nonetheless, I'm as sure
that there are a great many pretend experts, too, and I've no way to
distinguish them from the real thing.
In areas where I'm competent (hey! there are some!), I too frequently
find alleged experts who lack my expertise. I have been disappointed
by such experts.
So, while there may be experts on a given subject, there may also be
less-than-experts who pass as experts. It is these who contaminate
the pool, and make reliance on authority a precarious position. (And
it is these who enable the sale of aligned-crystal-structure
multi-stranded $$$ speaker connection wire.)
Especially in matters of taste, where there is substantial individual
variety in what constitutes "goodness", an expert's opinion, however
well-informed, may carry very little weight. Back to my taste in
wine, it just does not matter to me what the expert has to say about
a particular species of wine. I don't like wine, and someone's
opinion that one wine tastes better than another sounds to me like
degrees of badness, not goodness.
If I were to catalog my classical-music CDs and sort it by
minutes-per-composer, would that show anything other than
preferential whims over time? Perhaps it would -- it would show
something of a preference for the odd "edges" of classical music.
"Air time" would be perhaps even more telling: Carl Orff and Steven
Reich and Charles Ives get more play than does Beethoven.
So, over time, I've learned that (1) some experts know what they're
talking about, (2) many don't, (3) it's hard to tell the difference,
(4) I'm usually right about what I like and don't like.
Roll over, Beethoven.
--
Jerry Randal Bauer
Opus the Penguin
> One of the reasons, by the way, that Liszt is so far up is that he
> was also an eminent pianist and conductor. A good chunk of any
> entry on Liszt is going to deal with the way he affected
> performance practices. (None of the works cited limit themselves
> to composers only.) It pads out his line count by talking about
> something that doesn't really affect his eminence as a conductor.
Composer! Grrrrr.....
--
Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)
You snipped my sig!
Dana Carpender
ket...@checkmysig.com wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 20:34:34 -0700, Erich <oet...@qwest.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Consider the case where you pick up a prescription and someone gives you
>>a powerfull sedative instead of a mild antibiotic. You suddenly fall
>>asleep at the wheel and kill someone innocent. Should you be executed
>>for murder?
>
>
> That's not difficult. The pharmacist is at fault, not you.
>
>
>>What if the drug makes you believe that someone is trying to kill you.
>>When they approach, you run and hop in your car. Then you lose control
>>of your car and kill an innocent person. Do you get the chair?
>
>
> Again, the pharmacist/your prescribing doctor is the one who should answer
> to any charges there. I'm not saying that it's a case of someone should
> obviously hang, but it's still not the patient's fault.
>
> NOTE: I do advocate that anyone getting a prescription should at least do
> a Google and see what the drug does, any side effects, and any
> interactions. It's just the smart thing to do. If one can't Google, one
> can go to the library and look it up.
One can ask one's pharmacist. Knowing about drugs is their job. I
*always* ask my pharmacist "What should I know about this? Side
effects? Interactions?" when I get a new prescription.
It's a good idea to always use the same pharmacy, too. Makes it much
more likely that any potential bad interactions will be caught ahead of
time.
Dana
ctc...@hotmail.com
>
> >loc...@hotmail.com (Adam Smith) wrote:
> >> Yes, exactly. Economics as a science consists of 228 years of
> >> discovering how true this is.
> >
> >And, of course, since there are absolutely no aspects to life beyond
> >those described in economic theory, it's a major mystery as to why we
> >don't just live by the Truths of Economics.
>
> I just read an amusing book by Charles Murray. I have to admit, a lot of
> it is fairly tendentious, like his ascribing some evolutionary basis for
> men being better at catch than women, but other parts of it are pretty
> interesting. One of them is a statement along the lines of the less we
> know about something, the more we tend to ridicule the idea there's such
> a thing as "expertise" in that area, or that having acquired such
> expertise, a given person may be able to make a better judgement than a
> layman.
So, does this apply to fields like nuclear physics, rocket science, and
brain surgery?
> Once we've acquired some actual knowledge or training in that
> subject, the more we ridicule people who think as above.
>
> let's see if I can actually find the quote:
>
> Ah, here we go:
>
> "On topics about which we know little, we are dismissive of the
> importance of expertise. On topics about which we know a great deal, we
> are dismissive of amatuer opinions. The difference between these two
> reactions is that one has an empirical basis and the other doesn't. On
> topics about which we know little, we by definition have no way of
> knowing that expertise is unimportant. On topics about which we know a
> lot, we have concrete reasons for concluding amateur opinions are either
> wrong, or boringly obvious."
This kind of reminds me of the way that denying you are an alcoholic
just serves as more evidence that you are an alcoholic.
Xho
--
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Tendentious 'R' Us
ctc...@hotmail.com
> great since he is inimitable and unsurpassable.
I now have a purpose in life. I want to be known an inimitable and
unsurpassable.
Xho
--
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Usenet Newsgroup Service New Rate! $9.95/Month 50GB
Opus the Penguin
> Opus the Penguin <nospa...@netzero.net> wrote:
>>
>> At the same time, Bach's influence on other composers may not be as
>> great since he is inimitable and unsurpassable.
>
> I now have a purpose in life. I want to be known an inimitable and
> unsurpassable.
>
> Xho
>
Then you'll be just like Bach. Only not as good.
--
Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)
You snipped my sig!
Opus the Penguin
> Opus the Penguin nospa...@netzero.net writes:
>
>>george...@aol.comWerewikf (Incredible Rhyme Animal) wrote:
>>
>>> and even then it
>>> included many Germans and Russians, like Arp
>>
>>Many? Check the list again.
>
> How about we tot up relative emminence as given by Murray's
> meta-survey?
How about we consult a psychic with a talking potato?
--
Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)
You snipped my sig!
Opus the Penguin
>>At the same time, Bach's influence on other composers may not be
>>as great since he is inimitable and unsurpassable.
>
> Beethoven apparently thought he was the "human god of harmony, "
> which comes from one of the above sources, and so I find these
> charges easily enough turned aside.
Why? Because other composers revered Bach? I never denied that. It's
one reason he belongs in that tri-pantheon as at least an equal if not
first among. If Murray's lesser experts don't get that, it's their
loss.
--
Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)
You snipped my sig!
Greg Goss
>>Would it make a difference if they gave you the right drug and you had a
>>rare reaction that put you the a psycotic state?
>
>Nobody is at fault in that instance. Everyone acted in good faith toward
>the patient, who acted in good faith when taking the prescription.
There are two questions here. Everyone agrees that there is no
criminal liability here.
But there is also the question of civil liability here. Person A
caused damages to person B. The question of whether civil liability
happens even when there is no willful intent is a major one. I don't
have a consistent opinion on it.
Binyamin Dissen
:>ket...@checkmysig.com wrote:
Jewish law would assign civil liability here.
--
Binyamin Dissen <bdi...@dissensoftware.com>
http://www.dissensoftware.com
Opus the Penguin
> I haven't actually seen that poster name any French artists. I
> think he plagiarized someone else's list,
Was it a schlong-waving contest where you were saying you personally
could come up with more names than the other poster? I thought it was
more a question of fact than that. I though the point wasn't whether
your basic assertion was right or wrong, simply that you'd overstated
your case.
If a contest is all it is, here's my personal list, off the top of my
head, of French artists where I'd recognize at least one work as
being by them:
Renoir
Monet
Manet
Magritte
Matisse
Seurat
Rodin
Degas
Delacroix
Duchamp
Cezanne
Gauguin
Ingres
Pissarro
Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Rousseau
Dada
Now you come with a list of pre-18th Century Dutch dudes. I think I
agreed, in a fit of magnanimity uncharacteristic of me, to allow the
Flems as well.
What have we got?
Rembrandt
Vermeer
Van Eyck
Van Dyck
Rubens
Brueghel (elder)
Brueghel (younger)
Bosch
Those are the ones that come to my mind. Who else?
Feel free to ridicule my omissions in either category.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>george...@aol.comWerewikf (Incredible Rhyme Animal) wrote:
>
>>>At the same time, Bach's influence on other composers may not be
>>>as great since he is inimitable and unsurpassable.
>>
>> Beethoven apparently thought he was the "human god of harmony, "
>> which comes from one of the above sources, and so I find these
>> charges easily enough turned aside.
>
>Why?
Well, to start with, you don't really seem to grasp the nature of
historiometry.
> Because other composers revered Bach?
Enough so that his influence is discussed in music history surveys and
biographical dictionaries, yeah.
I also find "inimitable and unsurpassable" to be hyperbole, subjective,and
relatively uninteresting claims. Certainly Bach is imitable, as, say, George
Martin might attest, and I don't totally understand what unsurpassable means in
this context.
> I never denied that. It's
>one reason he belongs in that tri-pantheon as at least an equal if not
>first among. If Murray's lesser experts don't get that, it's their
>loss.
This is apparently the critical consensus.
If you'd like to make a relevant attack, by all means, do so. You seemed to be
on to something when you complained Grove was left out of the sample. Claiming
he has an emminence that isn't reflected in his appearance in professional
literature and scholarship is sort of like claiming you're as fluent in
English as Shaw, just not as skillful in using the language.
As for remarks to the effect that Mozart and Beethoven were interesting
fellows, and so they'd have more lines devoted to them in a biographical
dictionary, uh...Paganini was an interesting fellow, I would suspect his EI
score is fairly low, despite that. Let's see...yeah, he's not actually listed.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>george...@aol.comWerewikf (Incredible Rhyme Animal) wrote:
>
>> Opus the Penguin nospa...@netzero.net writes:
>>
>>>george...@aol.comWerewikf (Incredible Rhyme Animal) wrote:
>>>
>>>> and even then it
>>>> included many Germans and Russians, like Arp
>>>
>>>Many? Check the list again.
>>
>> How about we tot up relative emminence as given by Murray's
>> meta-survey?
>
>How about we consult a psychic with a talking potato?
Because that wouldn't give us nearly the picture of relative influence and
significance a historiometrical meta-survey does.
Opus the Penguin
Judging by your description, I sort of think it would. Plus, the method
would have two advantages: 1) People don't get bamboozled into
overstating the importance and accuracy of an analysis when it comes
from a talking potato. 2) Hey, it's a talking POTATO!!!
Opus the Penguin
>> I never denied that. It's
>>one reason he belongs in that tri-pantheon as at least an equal if
>>not first among. If Murray's lesser experts don't get that, it's
>>their loss.
>
> This is apparently the critical consensus.
No it's not. It's Murray's flawed take on the critical consensus.
> If you'd like to make a relevant attack, by all means, do so.
I have pointed out numerous flaws in Murray's methods. Please re-read
them. The fact that he doesn't account for Liszt being a performer as
well as a composer is a simple one. The fact that he doesn't account
for whether the literature is positive or negative, merely that the
verbiage exists is another.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>This sounts basically like using a citation index to determine value.
yes, I think it's very much like that.
>It's empirical and more objective, although of course it still has its
>limitations.
>For one thing, who gets to vote? Lots of other white males who write in
>English, disproportionately.
>-- not that there's anything wrong with that ;)
Murray addresses this in his book, and I've already done enough typing. Still,
you know, it's the dead white males who've done most of the work, especially as
"western civilization" goes.
>For another, I would think you would tend to rate those who have a certain
>degree of infamy more highly -- i.e. they may get written about more.
My Stokstadt is downstairs, but my Janson doesn't mention Carravagio's having
killed a guy.
> It's
>possible (probable?) that somebody writing about the history of black
>musicians of the last 100 years might end up paying more attention to
>Michael Jackson than, say, to Thelonious Monk just because there might be
>more possible dissertation topics in the entire Michael Jackson fiasco.
It's possible, sure, but...you know, I dont think there's a whole lot in my
history of Jazz about heroin, even though Charlie Parker and Miles Davis were
addicts, and indeed apparently all the musicians recording "Kind of Blue" were
narcotic addicts. You'd also think Paganini would make the list, and he
doesn't.
>Still, it allows there to be at least some metrics in the humanities, even
>if controversial ones.
It's not just the humanities, you can do this with the hard sciences and even
engineering.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>Was it a schlong-waving contest where you were saying you personally
>could come up with more names than the other poster? I thought it was
>more a question of fact than that.
"Hey, want to play a game? I'll name Dutch and Spanish painters of merit and
influence, limiting myself to artist who did the bulk of their work before the
18th century, and you can name any french artists, ever. What do you think
Vegas would open the odds at for who can come up with the longer list?"
The idea there was it was reasonable to compare the French contribution to art
to the English, although certainly the Italians dwarf all others.
> I though the point wasn't whether
>your basic assertion was right or wrong, simply that you'd overstated
>your case.
Also, you being able to come up with them off the top of your head was a
reasonable metric for eminence, although now we have a better one now. After
all, you're more likely to have heard of a notorious but relatively minor
paiinter, like Toulouse Lautrec (16) while skipping a relative giant like David
(22)
>Renoir 25
>Monet 35
>Manet 29
>Magritte
Belgian
>Matisse 33
>Seurat 19
>Rodin 23
>Degas 26
>Delacroix 30
>Duchamp 24
>Cezanne 44
>Gauguin 33
>Ingres 23
>Pissarro 16
>Toulouse-Lautrec 16
>Henri Rousseau 10
A total of 386. I may have added wrong, I often do.
>Dada
This is actually a movement, and while its membership included Frenchmen like
Duchamp, major contributors were also the American Man Ray (6) , German Max
Ernst (14), and Romanian Tzara (nl)
>Now you come with a list of pre-18th Century Dutch dudes. I think I
>agreed, in a fit of magnanimity uncharacteristic of me, to allow the
>Flems as well.
I think I get Spanish, too, and some Germans. The netherlands were a spanish
ruled state for much of their history, and the rise of protestantism and
mercantilism influenced art in much the same way such that you'd see that
region called "Northern Europe" in an art history book, ie "the renaissance in
northern europe," gothicism was the style, etc.etc. However, I shant, just to
make it fair.
>What have we got?
>
>Rembrandt 45
>Vermeer 20
>Van Eyck 37
>Van Dyck 17
>Rubens 41
>Brueghel (elder) 24
>Brueghel (younger) 1
>Bosch 19
>
>Those are the ones that come to my mind. Who else?
Franz Hals 18
Robert Campin, or whoever the Master of Flemalle was 9
Rogier van der Weyden 18
van Eyck, 9
258.
>Feel free to ridicule my omissions in either category.
Well, I would've included David, Fragonard, Boucher, and Watteau, but then I
had to memorize these things as well as copy them, so...still, it does not
appear I was up to the challenge I set before myself, and even including Van
Gogh and Mondrian wouldn't really have changed much.
Opus the Penguin
> "Hey, want to play a game? I'll name Dutch and Spanish painters of
> merit and influence, limiting myself to artist who did the bulk of
> their work before the 18th century, and you can name any french
> artists, ever. What do you think Vegas would open the odds at for
> who can come up with the longer list?"
I think I'll stick to the original game you proposed rather than
letting you add things on your side.
Incredible Rhyme Animal
>george...@aol.comWerewikf (Incredible Rhyme Animal) wrote:
>
>> "Hey, want to play a game? I'll name Dutch and Spanish painters of
>> merit and influence, limiting myself to artist who did the bulk of
>> their work before the 18th century, and you can name any french
>> artists, ever. What do you think Vegas would open the odds at for
>> who can come up with the longer list?"
>
>I think I'll stick to the original game you proposed rather than
>letting you add things on your side.
That is the original game I proposed. You could look it up.
Rick B.
news:Xns947C3E656523op...@127.0.0.1:
> Bach's girth is greater and he has more tail than most
> composers. That may explain why he had all those sons.
> Ba-DUMP-bum.
>
Actually, it's because he didn't have enough stops on his organ.
Boron Elgar
Opus the Penguin
Well shut my mouth. By "come up with the longer list," I assume you
mean out of our respective heads? 'Cause I already showed you where an
online art encyclopedia gave the longer list to me. So Vegas would have
to suss out our respective expertise to decide whether my relative
deficiency in art knowledge will count more than the the larger pool of
potential names you've offered me.
--
Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)
Opus the Penguin
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:18:49 GMT, "Rick B." wrote:
>
>>Opus the Penguin <nospa...@netzero.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Bach's girth is greater and he has more tail than most
>>> composers. That may explain why he had all those sons.
>>> Ba-DUMP-bum.
>>>
>>
>>Actually, it's because he didn't have enough stops on his organ.
>
> Pipe down!
You don't like his bellows?
Charles Bishop
Penguin <nospa...@netzero.net> wrote:
>If a contest is all it is, here's my personal list, off the top of my
>head, of French artists where I'd recognize at least one work as
>being by them:
>
>Renoir
>Monet
>Manet
>Magritte
>Matisse
>Seurat
>Rodin
>Degas
>Delacroix
>Duchamp
>Cezanne
>Gauguin
>Ingres
>Pissarro
>Toulouse-Lautrec
>Henri Rousseau
>Dada
>
>Feel free to ridicule my omissions in either category.
Not to ridicule, but I'm partial to Galliabote. There is one in
particular, that of the floor workers (they're scraping a hardwood floor
prior to refinishing) that is astounding to me when I see it. I only have
a postcard of it, not the same as the original, but when I see it, it
brings back some of the profound feelings I had when I first saw it.
There was an article in yesterday's WSJ, which I thought I saved, but
cannot find, on the change in value of various artists. Some are up, some
are down. Would measuring artists by value add anything or would it be a
popularity vote? The article mentioned that some artists lost value when a
well known person, who had been collecting them, stopped doing so.
charels