Friday, May 31, 2013

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to D.M.C., 49.

Good stuff:

1. Francis Wilkinson on the House and immigration.

2. Andrew Gelman on "those 'Psychological Science' papers (menstrual cycles and political attitudes, biceps size and political attitudes)."

3. And Alyssa Rosenberg on being a writer.

3 comments:

  1. I'm skeptical that many House Republicans have changed their minds about immigration because of the last election.

    Is there any other reason to think the House is more likely to pass an immigration bill than in the past?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here's a random idea, that might make a good sunday question:

    Would Prohibition have been successful (and never repealed) if it had been enacted 25 years earlier?

    I'm thinking that Prohibition arrived at a time when it became uniquely difficult to enforce that kind of law, and uniquely easy to subvert it. Law-enforcement techniques were overwhelmed by the advancements in technology that made their methods functionally obsolete.

    think about it, without the versatile and rapid transportation networks allowed by the introduction of the internal combustion engine and automobiles could prohibition have been thwarted with the complete abandon that it managed? Without electrification and telephones, would those thwarting prohibition have been able to coordinate as efficiently and effectively as they did? Without electrification would speak easys have been as popular as they were?

    And if Prohibition had become the way of life before all the advancements in technology that made it easy to thwart Prohibition, there probably would have been much less willingness to rebel against prohibition. Alcohol would be in the same position that marijuana currently is in, prohibited with most people considering it too dangerous to be legalized.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why wouldn't these technologies aid the forces of oppression even more?

      The government is still the biggest gang and has the most guns and institutional memory.

      And everyone already smokes pot. I doubt that legalization is going to lead to very much more chronic usage, because the people who are geared to really like it are already high all of the time.

      Delete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Who links to my website?