Facta non verba

 

How much effort do you think society should put into detecting and punishing bad actions? And how much to detect and punish bad speech? And how much to detect and punish bad thoughts or beliefs?

Now how much attention do we give to thoughtcrime? Or bad words?

God, how easy it would be to do bad deeds if you had the self-restraint never to talk about it.

You choose how much free time you have.

 

Will you buy a house or rent? Live close to work or further away?

Do you want a pet? Multiple pets? What kinds?

What about a child, or multiple kids? Will you wait until you're in a stable relationship to get pregnant?

Will you see friends or family every week? Less often? Not at all?

How many hobbies will you have, and how much time will you spend on them?

We don't usually think of it this way, but when we make these decisions we are deciding how much free time we will have. You get to choose!

 

What inspired this post is the vibrant debate in the personal finance community about whether it makes sense to hire a housecleaner. Some are violently opposed. Obviously, being time-rich makes it easier to make choices on principle, whether it's cleaning your own house, living with one or no cars, or cooking your own meals. The time-poor have less slack, due to their choices.

Some choices are more easily reversible than others. Once you've decided to have three kids, two dogs, and live in a big house an hour from work, it's going to be hard to impossible to get back to having more free time. 

Are those bad choices? Eh. Everything's a tradeoff.

The more I write about this, the better the analogy between time and money seems.

“But I can't sell my house, I'd lose a fortune. And I can't give away my dogs! And of course I can't abandon my kids.”

Actually, you can. People make these choices every day. They don't make them without cost, or effort, but they make them.

Now don't confuse the statement that you CAN do something with the statement that you SHOULD do something. Of course you shouldn't abandon your kids, or give away your pets (exception for vicious dogs). But making that mental step from thinking of your life as your fate, to thinking of it as your choice, is crucial.

On socialism

 

The same people who were "liberals" 30 years ago, and "progressives" 10 years ago, have now started rebranding themselves "socialists." Why the constant rebranding? The right doesn't seem to do this. I think it's related to the shift leftwards of the Democratic party—each new generation of activists wants to prove it's more leftist than the last one. 

 

I'm probably fighting a losing battle, but it's disturbing that so many people want to affiliate themselves with socialism, an evil totalitarian system that has killed tens of millions of people. And when you ask, generally they don't actually endorse any socialist ideas. Generally they endorse garden-variety liberalism, with higher taxes, more regulations, and a welfare state. 

 

The conversation goes like this.

 

I'm a Nazi.

 

—What? That's terrible.

And by Nazi, I mean that I enjoy baking pies.

—Um, okay, I guess you CAN use the word 'Nazi' that way, but it's sure gonna confuse people. And why would you want to use a label associated with a bunch of evil murderers anyway?

Oh, the Nazis weren't TRUE Nazis. TRUE Nazism, as defined by me, is about baking delicious pies. You have some sort of problem with pies?

—No, but the dictionary—

Screw the dictionary. I can be a Nazi if I say I'm a Nazi!

But why do you want to?

How to understand me

 

Please judge my arguments and opinions based on what I say. What you imagine I might be thinking, what you intuit between the lines, and what you think you know about my personal life or history, are not reliable guides to what I think. If you can't tell whether I meant what I said or whether I meant an esoteric hidden implication of what I said, I meant what I said.

Stop making assumptions. They're usually wrong.

See What You Made Me Do: The Dangers of Domestic Abuse [book review]

 

This is a book review for "See What You Made Me Do: The Dangers of Domestic Abuse that We Ignore, Explain Away, or Refuse to See," by Jess Hill. It's also ~5000 words, so uh, you've been warned.

I'll give you a table of contents to create the illusion of organization. The actual book's table of contents has uselessly vague headings like “Shame,” “The Underground,” and “Fixing It.”

The Ballad of the Jew's Daughter

One of my favorite folk songs goes like this (sorry, I can't find a recording):

As I walked out one holiday,


The flakes of snow did fall,

And all the children in the school


Were out a-playing ball.

A little boy threw his ball so high,

He threw his ball so low,


He threw it in a dusky garden


Among the blades of snow.

Out came the neighbor’s youngest daughter


All dressed in fairy green.


“Come in, come in, my lad,” she said,


“You may have your ball again.”

She took him by his little white arm,

and led him through the hall

She took him in a little dark room,

where no one could hear him call.

She sat him down in a golden chair

She fed him with sugar and sweet

She laid him down on a dusty board,

And stabbed him like a sheep.

Pray put my Bible at my head,

My prayer-book at my feet,

And if any of my playmates should call for me,

Pray tell them I'm dead and asleep.

Some take hold of locks of hair

And others the soles of his feet

And drag him down in a deep dry-well

Fifteen fathoms deep.

Some take hold of locks of hair

And others the sole of his feet

And drag him down in a deep dry-well

Where weary travelers sleep.

I love that the murder is so completely unmotivated here. Is she angry about the ball? Is she a serial killer? Is she a fairy or a witch (that sinister green)? And who are the mysterious “others” who show up to get rid of the body?

Recently, reading Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (which I recommend to anyone interested in the history of English poetry) I found that the original of this song is much less mysterious. The “lady” is a Jew's daughter, and naturally she kills the child because she hates Christians and wants their blood. The song is based on the historical case of a 13th-century child murder which was blamed on a dozen of (coincidentally) the richest Jews in England and supposedly witnessed by ALL the Jews in England. Here's the original, and although too explicit for my taste, it has some lovely cruel parts. 

 

The rain rins doun through Mirry-land toune,
Sae dois it doune the Pa;
Sae dois the lads of Mirry-land toune,
Whan they play at the ba.

Than out and cam the Jewis dochter,
Says, Will ye cum in and dine?
'I winnae cum in, I cannae cum in,
Without my play-feres nine.'

Scho powd an apple reid and white,
To intice the young thing in:
Scho powd an apple white and reid,
And that the sweit bairne did win.

And scho has taine out a little pen-knife,
And low down by her gair;
Scho has twin'd the yong thing and his life,
A word he nevir spak mair.

And out and cam the thick, thick bluid,
And out and cam the thin,
And out and cam the bonny herts bluid;
Thair was nae life left in.

Scho laid him on a dressing-borde,
And drest him like a swine,
And laughing said, Gae nou and pley
With your sweit play-feres nine.

Scho rowd him in a cake of lead,
Bade him lie stil and sleip;
Scho cast him in a deip draw-well,
Was fifty fadom deip.

Whan bells wer rung, and mass was sung,
And every lady went hame,
Than ilka lady had her yong sonne,
Bot Lady Helen had nane.

Scho rowd hir mantil hir about,
And sair, sair gan she weip,
And she ran into the Jewis castel,
Whan they wer all asleip.

'My bonny Sir Hew, my pretty Sir Hew,
I pray thee to me speik:'
'O lady, rinn to the deip draw-well,
Gin ye your sonne wad seik.'

Lady Helen ran to the deip draw-well,
And knelt upon her kne:
'My bonny Sir Hew, an ye be here,
I pray thee speik to me.'

'The lead is wondrous heavy, mither,
The well is wondrous deip;
A keen pen-knife sticks in my hert,
A word I dounae speik.

'Gae hame, gae hame, my mither deir,
Fetch me my windling sheet,
And at the back o Mirry-land toun,
It's thair we twa sall meet.'

When I was kidnapped, they took away my books. If you know me, you'll understand how bad this was. What do people do with free time, without books? Within a few weeks, I talked my therapist into letting me have a copy of the Bible. I figured they couldn't refuse, because religion, and although the therapist was well aware I was not a believer, he was, and must have figured it would be good for me.

The Bible I was given was a thick, cheap paperback, and after a month or so tumbling around in my hiking backpack and being read while I was in my sleeping bag on the desert ground, the pages were folded and dirty and the cover came off. So, when I went to my boarding school, they wouldn't let me keep it. I tried playing the "but it's the Bible!" card, but it didn't work. They said I could have another Bible, but I couldn't have this one, because it didn't look nice. I never got another Bible.