Psychological Christians

(Note: this does not apply to all (or perhaps even most) of psychology or psychologists. I mean to blog about the most dangerous parts and ones.)

The efforts of psychologists to pathologize aspects of the human condition remind me of the Christians' view that man is inherently and inevitably by his nature corrupt and evil. Additionally, just as Christianity offered a solution to the view of life it propagated, so too has Psychology offered a solution. In fact, both the psychologists and the Christians have offered us many, many solutions. In Psychology we have the different theories and schools of thought (and not to mention drugs). And in Christianity we have the different denominations and even offshoots of the faith. But while they both provide multitudes of choices, we still must accept their own premises.

Their ideas of the good life, or rather the mode of existence worth striving for, are importantly similar in that they are both idyllic: Christianity's heaven ("Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst."), and Psychology's conception of a life without any stress, any grief, even from loss and any feeling of lacking. Though I do not believe Psychology has reached the extreme of Christianity yet, I do see psychology as approaching it.

As the psychologists identify an increasing amount of different behaviors and attitudes as being pathologically significant, the scope of what the good life could (or even may) be becomes narrower and narrower. This obviously has a powerfully normalizing effect on society, similar to that of the tyranny of monotheism.

On the timing of Palin's quitting

If Palin's decision to step aside as governor of Alaska were part a political strategy to bolster her chances of winning the nomination/election in 2012, then why did she do it the Friday before July 4th, when no one is paying attention to the news?

There might be more to this story. Perhaps a looming scandal to surface? I sure hope so.

Is The Interregnum Too Long?

There seems to be somewhat of a vacuum of leadership between the time the US president is elected and the time he finally takes office. This has been amplified this time around by the financial crisis and by Bush's extreme unpopularity, rendering him bereft of any political capital (even less than other lame duck presidents.)

All this has me wondering if the interregnum is too long. I did a little research, and it seems that other countries have much shorter interregnums. President Sarkozy of France took office ten days after being elected. Recently in New Zealand, John Key, leader of the wining party in last month's election, was sworn is as prime minister 11 days after last month's election. Although, it might be that given New Zealand has a parliamentary system of government, Key, being the leader of the opposition, was more apprised of day-to-day operations of the government than he would have been in a presidential system.

Curtailing the interregnum would not necessarily mean curtailing the transition period. After the president succeeds to the office, the preceding president and his staff could remain in Washington for some time to aid in the transition process. An incoming president immediately taking power needn't cause chaos. If he didn't yet have the operational knowledge of governing, he could simply defer to the preceding president on those troublesome areas.

Texas: a swing state?

In the 2008 presidential election, McCain won Texas by a margin of about 11.7%. Obama won New Mexico by a margin of 14.7%. If NM is considered to be a swing state, then why not TX? Given its increasing Hispanic population, I would bet that by 2012, Texas will be in play.

Asymmetrical Regulation

In a recent blog post, economist David D. Friedman made a good point about government regulation: while the ideal is a government policy of complete non-involvement in the economy, once the government does get involved, there are instances in which less regulation is worse than more regulation. The problem arises when the government provides insurance (for an investment, property) with no strings attached. The sub-prime mortgage crisis is one example of this, as Friedman explains.


Another example of this is how the government provides disaster-relief for areas which are known to be disaster-prone. This policy produces an inefficient outcome since the residents don't pay the full cost of living in such areas. Ideally, under a free-market system, local residents/communities would have to pay the cost (through insurance premiums, if they wish), which would adequately disincentivize people from living there, without the federal government being involved at all. However, being that the government is involved, a more efficient policy would be to require the local governments to pay a premium to the federal government, compensating them for their effort. This way, the federal government would impose some disincentive on choosing to live in these areas, given that the local taxes would have to be higher.

Rational Tribalism

Personally, I think its wrong to lump people into groups. In my opinion, people should be judged on their own merits as individuals. However, I've thought of how tribalism might exist even if everyone were philosophically opposed to it.

Imagine a club which has a history of having exclusively black members. However, the current members don't particularly care to carry on the tradition. Race is irrelevant to them. They are charged with selecting one new member from a list of five candidates, one of which is black, four of which are white. For a candidate to be selected, he needs a majority vote from the members. If no candidate attains a majority, then there is a runoff.

It just so happens that the candidates' resumes are all equally impressive, making it difficult for the members to choose who to vote for.

Given that the selection process imposes some cost (time, energy, etc.) on the club and that a runoff would impose an additional cost, I believe that the black candidate would win even though the members have no racial preference. The reason is that his race is a Schelling point, a kind of meta-expectation, that the members would naturally arrive at. Each member, wanting to avoid a costly runoff wants to vote for a candidate that others will also vote for. Given the history of the club preferring black members, black-ness is a natural schelling point. Each individual member has no personal preference for the black candidate, but he votes for the black candidate because he expects others to vote for him. It's kind of a positive feed back loop.

This all depends on the relative strength of the schelling point. By that I mean, it depends on how costly extending the selection process would be verse the cost of taking the risk of not selecting the best candidate.

Is Pakistan Not a Sovereign Nation?

In reaction to Russia's invading South Ossetia, Georgia in early August, president Bush condemned Russia for violating the "territorial integrity" of a sovereign nation. A few weeks later the US launched missile attacks into Pakistan absent permission of the Pakistani government.

Could the hypocrisy be any more obvious? Not that Bush wasn't already a hypocrite given his preemptive invasion of Iraq, but this must set a new record for how long it takes a government to make a statement, then go back and completely contradict that statement through its actions. I wish the mainstream media would call Bush out on his hypocrisy. They have raised questions about the US's violating Pakistan's sovereignty by crossing into its territory, but I haven't read/seen any pieces questioning the US's moral authority (or lack thereof) to condemn the actions of other nations given its past actions.