Odds, Ends and Stray Musings: Three Types of People

 

The world can be split into 3 groups of people

 

1. Those who know less than they need to.
2. Those who know about as much as they need to.
3. Those who know more than they need to.

 

There are only a few things the average person needs to know about, say, showers, car tyres and garden plants to get by (as long as there are experts to call on). But there are things that many people ought to know but don’t, which is having a detrimental effect on their ability to get by. Things like how to treat people to maximise relationships, how to get the best out of your work life, and knowledge about optimum health and nutrition, to name but three. 

Lastly, those who know more than they need to fall into two camps, those who have invested more time than they need to on things, and those who acquire the knowledge they need and then dig deeper, ask more questions, and acquire knowledge that most others don’t even think about. At first glance, this might look like excess. But in reality, it’s the surplus of knowledge in this group that drives progress for human civilisation.

Group 3’s curiosity and mastery are not just personal quirks; they are the foundation on which society advances. While Groups 1 and 2 operate within what is necessary for survival, Group 3 explores what is possible for progress and pushes us into new frontiers.

Some Of The Curious Things About Supply & Demand

When it comes to goods and services in the free market, four things will happen: 

1) Increase in Supply

2) Decrease in Supply

3) Increase in Demand

4) Decrease in Demand

I'm sure readers who've been with me this long won't need explaining what the direction of the price and quantity arrows take with the various increases and decreases (here's a wiki page if anyone is unapprised).

The reason I'm writing this is that although most people know the basics, there is often a very wrong assumption made. Given the size and complexity of the market, it's fairly obvious that the variances on prices, supply and demand are impossible to predict precisely in the future, and hard to keep track of in the present. For this reason, in the short term it is not at all unusual to see prince increases and quantity increases for the same product (ditto decreases).

When we see cucumber or coffee or cereal consumption on the up (or down) while at the same time seeing the prices on the up (or down) it is simply a sign that within the laws of prices, supply and demand there are often underlying, unforeseeable events that add a bit of disorder into the mix. That is to say, in the short term, supply and demand arrows are not immutable; they are indicators that predict longer term behaviour, especially if one changes other things stay relatively constant.

Imagine Tom Joad eats lots of rice and a small amount of fish. As rice becomes harder to come by and the price starts to rise, his food budget is strained to the extent that he is has to cut back on fish and demand even more rice. The increased demand ramps up the price further and Tom Joad experiences a vicious rice-fish circle. Contrary to popular opinion, rising prices can in principle lead to increased demand, not decreased demand (this is what is referred to in economics as a 'Giffen good'). 

Put it this way, generally speaking though, if the consumption of rice, fish, cucumber or oranges steadily drops, you can be quite sure that in the long term production and (or) prices will be altered to match, and that's a general rule that's fairy reliable.

About 25 years ago in the UK, petrol pump protesters brought the country to a standstill by creating a shortage of fuel - and there was talk recently of it happening again. Naturally, prices increased and many angry consumers declared that when one or two firms hike up their prices on a particular product that that means they have a monopoly on that product. Not only is that usually not the case, it mostly reveals just the opposite; it exhibits healthy competition – it is competition revealing scarcity in this case that raises prices.

If something is in short supply (like, say, oil when there is a domestic crisis or trouble in the Middle East) it is assumed that the increase in price is due to a monopoly company hiking up its prices. If a company really could increase their supply with a supply restriction, they wouldn’t ned to wait for a domestic crisis or trouble in the Middle East to do so. The economy doesn’t facilitate the simultaneous profit from unrest and a single monopoly. 

At the time of the petrol crisis in Britain, some people even suggested that there should be a mandatory cap placed on individual sales – say of £30 or £40. As I said at the time, that’s a bad idea – a £30 or £40 cap on individual petrol sales probably would not have had the desired effect that many think – it would more than likely increase overall consumption, because even more people would head to the garage, and that would also cause more misallocation. 

It is as crazy as trying to regulate the crude oil supplies by legislation – one might as well forget the near-ineluctable law of economics, which says that prices go up when things are in short supply. That is exactly what happens – price controls play a part in controlling the wholesale level, meaning refiners minimise their fuel supply, meaning the prices at the pump go up, not down. Lower supplies means you pay more at the pump, so oil regulation has a bad effect for the consumer. 

Steelmanning Gender

Steelmanning: the practice of articulating an opponent's argument in its strongest, most persuasive form, to ensure a fair and thorough understanding before responding.

As I’ve argued in previous blogs, I think the term ‘gender’ has questionable definitional utility. Recently, a chap named Gerardo on an Evolutionary Psychology forum I occasionally visit made a fair attempt to defend the concept of gender. I came away just as convinced in my own arguments, but Gerardo made such a reasonable attempt to ‘steelman’ gender that I thought the conversation worth sharing here.  

Gerardo
Your article argues that we do not need the term “gender” for two reasons: (1) sex is sufficient to define males, females, and the intersex minority, and (2) everything else falls under the category of maleness/femaleness. I agree with the first claim, but the second one merely shifts the problems to the category “maleness/femaleness,” and it is not clear how gender-related terms could be translated into that new terminology. For example, does "maleness/femaleness" include the bodily and psychological variations among males, females, and the intersex minority, and also the norms and categories that each society selectively imposes on males, females, and the intersex minority? In what way can each gender-related term be reformulated as referring to “maleness/femaleness”? Without answers to these issues, it remains only a promise of clarification, not a concrete alternative to current terminology.

Then your article responds to six objections: (1) discrimination against people with gender dysphoria, (2) denial of the right to have a gender identity, (3) forcing a binary categorization, (4) denial of happiness/satisfaction of transgender people, (5) discrimination against transgender people, (6) denial of the freedom to have a gender identity.

Your article responds to objections 1 and 5 by saying that the interlocutor begs the question by assuming gender, but the replies also beg the question by assuming the denial of gender. I think there are reasonably clear definitions of gender dysphoria and transgender, and raising the conceptual bar to an unreachable level is not a reasonable move.

Your article responds to objections 2 and 6 by using a strawman (the “40 genders”) and an alarmist description of problems supposedly caused by transgender people (all of which can be solved without gender eliminativism). I think this doesn’t qualify as a solid response to the objection.

Your article responds to objection 3 by appealing to the sufficiency of maleness/femaleness, but as I said above, this does not offer clear answers to the relevant questions. If we accept (as your article states) that ‘in some traits, females can appear more male than males, and males can appear more female than females,’ it is understandable that some gender-atypical individuals may naturally prefer to follow the social norms of the other sex or receive the social treatment typically afforded to that sex.

Your article responds to objection 4 by claiming that ‘testimony is not reliable’ and that ‘people who left Christianity shouldn’t be trusted when they say they are happier.’ However, it is false that all testimony is untrustworthy, and selectively distrusting Christian apostates reflects Christian in-group bias rather than the actual reliability of the testimony provided by these apostates.

James
First, I’d like to commend your reply - it’s rare that someone offers such a thoughtful reply of disagreement to one of my posts, and I appreciate your effort. I will ty to summarise what I think are your issues with my article, to confirm if I understand your position aright. Your issues fundamentally boil down to: 

1} You think I am overcomplicating the question, as in your view gender is already well defined in psychology and sociology.

2} You contend that gender is understood as the social and cultural dimensions of sex (roles, expectations, norms.

3} You believe that gender identity is a person’s internal sense of belonging to one of those gender categories.

4} You insist that people clearly experience gender dysphoria and benefit from transition, and therefore that this makes the concepts practically meaningful.

5} And if I could be so bold, you’d go so far as to say that the fact that societies treat people differently based on sex shows that “gender” refers to a real social phenomenon, and that what you call ‘eliminativism’ about gender is misguided, since the term captures socially real and psychologically useful aspects of human life.

If I have done your reply justice, it still fails to convince for several reasons. The first is you are doing the very thing I say causes some of the problems to begin with - you are conflating descriptive usefulness with ontological existence, when I am separating the two by saying that the descriptive usefulness is misjudged because the category does not track anything real. As I still maintain, personality traits, cultural roles, preferences, behaviours, aesthetics, etc, can be described directly, without creating an abstract umbrella term that falsely suggests these traits cluster in a way that forms a definable category. The term “gender” is simply an unnecessary and misleading abstraction, where ‘maleness’ and femaleness’ as I described them simply points to characteristics found within the two sexes.

Moreover, your suggested use of clinical definitions does not answer the question of what gender is, or how it escapes the circularity problem - that definitions of gender identity boil down to “Gender identity = one’s internal sense of gender.” My ‘fairydust’ analogy demonstrated that adding an abstract umbrella term is pointless if the underlying traits can be described individually. You ignored this, and did not justify (to my satisfaction, though barely at all) why the abstraction is needed rather than the traits themselves.

You then conflated DSM/clinical definitions with metaphysical definitions. “Gender dysphoria” describes distress to do with identity - not the nature of gender. I argued that there is no objective method that determines gender identity - none at all. I’d also say my “hundreds of genders” concern is not a strawman - it is a direct consequence of recklessly defining gender as “internal identity” - but it’s hard to say I’m strawmanning when I think even the single use of gender is extraneous.

Gender lacks a coherent ontology - and to function as a real category, it would require clear definitional boundaries, measurable criteria, externally verifiable properties, and non-circular definitions - and it has none of those. And everything gender is supposed to explain can already be described via better categories, like sex, temperament, personality traits, preferences, socialisation, societal norms, hormones, sexuality, aesthetic choices, psychological distress and cultural narratives - the term “gender” adds no new explanatory power. 

Gerardo
I do not think that the concept of gender is always well defined in psychology or sociology; I think there are multiple definitions, some defensible and others not. I also do not think that all definitions refer to the sociocultural dimensions of sex, nor do I accept a rigid nature–culture dichotomy. I do not think that gender identity is limited to an internal feeling, and I do not consider transition to be universally beneficial: it can help in some cases and not in others. My rejection of eliminativism is not based on claiming that “gender is real,” but on the fact that eliminativist arguments are methodologically deficient. I do not confuse descriptive usefulness with ontology: I consider that what exists are human beings with their properties and processes, and that gender-related terms are useful for describing some of their regularities. You have not shown that it is possible to describe the same regularities using an eliminativist terminology. To have a serious discussion, you need to respond to the arguments I’ve presented and avoid attributing to me a position that I do not hold.

James
I tried to carefully consider your arguments and respond to each of them. I do not believe I have done your reply a disservice. Perhaps the best recourse, then, is this. You tell me the condition and context under which you believe the term "gender" is most aptly used and most definitionally valid - just give me your single best argument - and I will respond to that.

Gerardo
If you want to respond to my arguments, here’s a list of 8 objections, so you can address them one by one: (1) my objection that you don't explain how “maleness/femaleness” can replace every gender-related term; (2) my objection that you beg the question in the debate about discrimination by assuming the denial of gender; (3) my objection that there are reasonably clear definitions and it's unreasonable to raise the conceptual bar to an unreachable level; (4) my objection that you created a strawman about the “40 genders”; (5) my objection that you made an alarmist description of problems supposedly caused by transgender people; (6) my objection that all the problems you mentioned can be solved without gender eliminativism; (7) my objection that you adopt the false assumption that testimonies of trans people and apostates of Christianity are untrustworthy; ( 8 ) my objection that you adopt a Christian in-group bias when you selectively distrust the testimonies of trans people and apostates of Christianity.

James
You made a good start with your first reply, but since you've been disappointing in not absorbing my replies. I believe gender is an extraneous construct and that we don't need the word at all. So it's up to you to state why you think we need it. And therefore I repeat my request: You tell me the condition and context under which you believe the term "gender" is most aptly used and most definitionally valid - just give me your single best argument - and I will respond to that.

Gerardo
I expected you to address my eight arguments in detail and to avoid speculating about my position, but that didn’t happen. I’ll answer your last question as soon as I have time, but please note that dialogue must be reciprocal, and that I have as much right to expect answers to my arguments as you have to expect answers to your questions.

James
I've simplified it so we don't talk past each other. And by offering to address what you think is the single, strongest argument for the existence of gender, I'm showing willingness to address your best.

Gerardo
I understand that your intention was to simplify so that we wouldn’t talk past each other, but I think your choice was not optimal, because by attributing to me a position I do not hold, your reply forced me to clarify that I do not think that. Furthermore, by not responding in detail to my eight arguments, your reply did not allow me to understand how you would address each point. In my initial message, I first tried to faithfully represent your position and then respond to it. I think it would be good if you tried to do the same and respond in detail to my eight arguments.

You asked me which elucidation of the term “gender” I consider most appropriate and most definitionally sound. I hold that the concept of gender is a hyperonym that groups together a set of related hyponyms. Both the hyperonym and the hyponyms it comprises can be improved, but this implies a reformist project rather than an eliminativist one. The need for the hyperonym is based on its use in fruitful and naturalistic research programs (please note that I am not saying that every use of a gender-related term is of this type; I am strongly critical of postmodern and anti-biological views about gender).

The hyperonym could be defined as follows:

G(I)=(S(I),T(I,S),B(G,T(I,S)),B(I,B(G,T(I,S)))), which reads:

The gender of the individual I is an ordered collection of interrelated elements, and its components are:

• S(I): the individual’s membership in a population defined by sex, either male, female, or the intersex minority.

• T(I,S): the typicality or atypicality of the individual's bodily and behavioral traits relative to the sexual population to which the individual belongs.

• B(G,T(I,S)): the group’s behaviors toward the individual’s typical or atypical bodily and behavioral traits.

• B(I,B(G,T(I,S))): the individual’s behaviors in response to the group’s behaviors toward the individual's typical or atypical bodily and behavioral traits.

This approach rejects the nature-nurture dichotomy found in postmodern approaches to gender, and is compatible with naturalistic approaches as proposed by the biological and social sciences.

James
Thank you for elaborating – but your definition still does not show that these need an umbrella term at all. I remain convinced that the hyperonym is redundant. You can describe all the parts adequately without the umbrella. Moreover, your model still cannot answer the key definitional challenge: What is gender?

You say “Gender is sex + trait typicality + group response + individual response.”

But that is not a natural kind or a unified construct. It is a suite of unrelated variables stapled together.

I appreciate you’re making a better attempt than most, but it still leaves the term ‘gender’ redundant, in my view.

You say "My point is simply that current eliminativist proposals do not offer a better alternative." But my assertion is we do not need a better alternative to a term that was, in my estimation, constructed erroneously and superfluously. I believe you're trying to find justification for a term that humanity just does not need.

Gerardo
Your arguments don’t seem convincing to me.

Your first argument says that the hyperonym is redundant and that we can describe the parts without the hyperonym. But this is a problematic reductionist assumption, because the description of isolated parts ignores their interactions, and the interactive phenomenon deserves a name. It would be equivalent to saying that society is nothing more than a sum of individuals, and that an individual is nothing more than a sum of atoms. We need terms that name systems and patterns of interaction, and this is an example of a term with that function. It would be absurd to claim that science should eliminate all names that refer to such kinds of patterns.

Your second argument says that it is not a unified construct but “a suite of unrelated variables stapled together.” This is false, because each variable depends on the previous on: the second cannot exist without the first, the third cannot exist without the first two, and the fourth cannot exist without the first three. Therefore, it is false that they are “unrelated.” Defining the fourth requires all variables: an individual’s response to the group response to the typicality of the individual’s traits relative to the distribution of the trait in the sex to which the individual belongs. This is the opposite of an example of “a suite of unrelated variables stapled together.”

Your third argument is that it is not a “natural kind.” But this is problematic and depends on how you define “natural kind” and which category you contrast it with. And if you exclude this from “natural kinds” because it involves social variables, you are adopting a nature–nurture dichotomy that is objectionable, because society and culture are also natural phenomena.

Your fourth argument says that, in your view, the term is erroneous, superfluous, and unnecessary, and therefore does not require a better alternative. But this is more a case of begging the question than a solid argument, and it does not address the problems I mentioned in the three previous objections: the need for names that refer to interaction patterns, the falsity of the claim that the variables are “unrelated,” and the unjustified assumption that it is not a “natural kind,” presumably because it involves social variables.

James
I’m feeling mixed emotions here – a combination of very mild frustration that we can’t seem to converge on what is the fundamental issue with gender, and positive regard for your efforts that you are trying your best to give it a good whack. Usually at this stage I start to suspect that the interlocuter doesn’t really wish to believe anything different, but I don’t sense you’re guilty of this. But to get to this point and be where we are is problematic, because I maintain that you do keep talking past the central issue.

Your analogy to “society” or “systems” doesn’t work here, because you still have not shown that this particular grouping of variables constitutes a coherent category rather than an arbitrary bundle. The fact that variables interact does not automatically generate a new ontological category. Lots of things interact. Not all of them deserve new names.

My remaining issues are: 

1. You still haven’t shown that these need an umbrella term at all. Interaction alone does not justify a hyperonym. You need a principled reason for grouping these variables together rather than hundreds of other interacting social and psychological variables. So far you haven’t provided one that satisfies, in my view.

2. You assert dependency, but dependency ≠ unity. Variables can depend on each other and still fail to form a natural kind. Your model is still – sex, trait typicality, group response, individual response – and those are ontologically different kinds of things - biological, statistical, sociological, psychological. Interaction does not magically turn them into a single construct. This is why I said it is a “suite of unrelated variables stapled together.” – yes we can try to relate things tangentially, but in the case of an invented word like gender, interaction does not erase heterogeneity.

3. The natural-kind objection stands. You keep reframing my point as though I am denying that social phenomena are natural. That is not what I said. The question is whether your specific cluster meets the criteria of a natural kind - cohesive, explanatorily unified, and projectible. Your model doesn’t. It is heterogeneous, overinclusive, and its boundaries are arbitrary. Calling something involving social variables “natural” is not the same as demonstrating that it is a natural kind.

4. You still haven’t answered the core definitional question. I ask: What is gender? Your definition is: Gender = sex + trait typicality + group response + individual response. But nothing about that list is principled or unified. It is a verbal wrapper around multiple independent domains of explanation. You haven’t shown why this combination deserves a name like gender, why the boundaries are drawn here, or what explanatory work “gender” performs that cannot be performed more clearly by discussing each part directly as I did in my original article.

Until you do that, I maintain that your hyperonym remains unnecessary and conceptually inadequate.

Gerardo
You say that you appreciate my effort, but you think that I don’t address the central issue, and that you are frustrated because we do not converge in our conclusions. I think I do address each point you raise, and that the lack of convergence does not stem from a lack of goodwill, but from assumptions and criteria we don’t share—and that we should make explicit in order to avoid relying on them as question-begging premises.

You say that I haven’t shown that the grouping forms a coherent category, or that the variables and their interaction justify a hyperonym. I think I have justified the notion according to the standards used in the social, cognitive, and behavioral sciences. What I don’t know is what criterion you use to decide whether a grouping is coherent and whether a pattern deserves a name. That evaluation depends on the criteria we adopt. I don’t consider "gender" to be as firmly established as an atom, nor as dispensable as the ether. I place it alongside notions such as depressive disorders, intelligence, stress, institutions, racism, identity, poverty, social roles, or mental health: complex concepts that bring together different mechanisms and are useful and necessary for fruitful research programs. We can debate these notions, but I believe that efforts to discard them are often driven more by ideology than by sound methodological reasoning. The relevant question is whether the notion allows us to study and explain phenomena that would otherwise remain scattered and difficult to analyze or account for. And in the case of “gender,” I believe it fulfills that function more effectively than eliminativists are willing to acknowledge.

You say that my model brings together biological, statistical, sociological, and psychological elements without becoming a single construct. But my model is not the mere addition of those elements—as your formula “sex + trait typicality + group response + individual response” suggests—but rather the characterization of a pattern of interactions among them. It concerns the interaction between individual and group responses in shaping how typical and atypical traits are negotiated within each sex population, and this phenomenon has enough relevance, interest, and distinctive interaction patterns to warrant both a name and its own field of study—just as other psychosocial phenomena that meet similar criteria do. The relevant point is whether those interactions produce a stable pattern that is useful for explanation and prediction, and that does occur at a level comparable to concepts such as intelligence or depressive disorders. If your criterion is that patterns of interaction never deserve a name, I don’t see how that criterion could be defended, nor do I see it applied consistently in science.

You say that my model does not constitute a natural kind because it is heterogeneous. But if we apply that standard, we should also have to discard many other psychological and social notions that are useful and necessary for current, fruitful research programs. That criterion would be methodologically harmful for the social, cognitive, and behavioral sciences, and that is a strong reason to reject it. Concepts that group patterns of interaction allow us to identify stable regularities and accumulate knowledge. So here, your objection depends on an assumption that I don’t share.

You say that my definition of “gender” is a verbal wrapper with no explanatory unity, adding nothing beyond what could be studied separately. But this does not address my central point: when the components are analyzed in isolation, the study of their interactions is lost. And there is solid evidence of identifiable interaction patterns with specific causes and specific consequences. If you accept that these interactions should be analyzed, then the disagreement becomes terminological—whether we call them “gender” or something else. I have already said that I am willing to adopt alternative terminology, provided it is rigorous and offers advantages. In that sense, the notion is not an empty wrapper but a tool for studying a set of interaction patterns that explain important phenomena—just as we do with concepts like depressive disorders, intelligence, stress, institutions, identity, poverty, social roles, or mental health.

James
I still haven’t been convinced that there is justification for the word ‘gender’ as a concept with any definitional utility. It offers far more confusion and invitation for abuse of language than it does utility.

Biological, statistical, sociological, and psychological phenomena do not magically form a unified construct called ‘gender’ simply because they interact. I maintain your model is still a list of interdependent variables, not a natural kind. Because “gender” is unnecessary, conceptually redundant, and adds ambiguity rather than clarity, it has become a repository for imaginary constructs, false additional attributions - and therefore, even if you could come up with a satisfactory justification for its inclusion (which to me you haven’t) - it still would do much more harm than it would do good.

Note: Conversation ended at this point

Some People Might Be Just Too Hard To Satisfy

 

As I argued a few years ago in my blog about the Easterlin Paradox, individual happiness is fairly hard to measure, and global happiness is prohibitively hard to measure. Here are a few things, however, that my experience tells me are obvious. It's better to be rich enough to have the basic necessities for survival, comfort and pleasure than it is to be in poverty. Happiness can increase as income increases, but there will be a point at which this levels off. While richer people may find greater thrills in their status-mongering and individual accomplishments, less wealthy individuals who are not driven by status to the same extent may be happier in their relationships and internal motivations. 

The upshot is, if by magic we had a perfect measuring device for happiness, I wouldn't be surprised if the people who registered the highest levels of happiness were people who were (in no particular order) 1) reasonably well enough but not extremely rich, 2) pretty smart, 3) in a loving relationship, 4) involved in good inter-personal relationships, 5) in a relationship with God.

I mention this not as another philosophical commentary on the nature of happiness, but to probe another avenue of consideration. Are people unreasonably hard to satisfy? And is that especially true of people who are more left-leaning? That is to say, despite the financial difficulties of the past few years, and how admittedly dire politics is at present, if you measure over a much longer distance, then the economic growth and increased standard of living for UK citizens in the past 150 years has been so astounding that if you were transported from the Victorian age to the present day to see the astronomical progress we've made, you might justifiably expect there to be far fewer people always going on about how bad things are. I'm working on the almost certainly justifiable presumption that we all agree that being well off materially is preferable to being badly off materially. I know this on account that just about everybody behaves as though this is true, even though they are free to make decisions that support the alternative view.

What's been happening, it seems, is that the better off the UK has become, the more things people find to be angry at - and that seems to be because our enhanced standards of living afford us the luxury to complain about things our forebears would have been too poor to complain about. Today we think of people in hardship who our forebears would perceive as abundantly blessed. It's as though the better off we've become, the worse not being better off is relative to our advancements. Think of it like this; Geoff, who drives a Ford Sierra, is still using a 1990s phone, a VHS video player and portable colour television would seem to be struggling compared with the majority of the population who have better cars, a digital phone, and an HD smart television with access to hundreds of channels and thousands of films and programmes. But to a Victorian, Geoff's life would look absolutely amazing. We get unhappy about Geoff's life only because our fantastic increase in living standards has made his life seem worse than the expected average.

Look at how our lives have been enriched by technology, by increased knowledge, by supermarkets, by millions more jobs than ever before, by more leisure time than ever before, and by the countless ways that machines and devices now do things for us in seconds that once would have taken us minutes, sometimes hours, in the past. We can buy things cheaply (tax add-ons excepted), we can do most things without having to travel or make phone calls, and we have access to more knowledge, information, other people, goods and services than ever before. For most of us, our lives are economically and socially blessed (at least compared with the alternatives that have plagued our forebears, and still continue to plague many people in developing countries) - yet so many people fail to give this the proper regard.

Now, I'm not saying that none of the following deserve any of our complaints or calls for improvement at all - but I believe that everyone can be more enhanced by adopting a much better sense of perspective and gratitude. Supermarkets have revolutionised the shopping industry, saving us millions of pounds each year, yet many just want to complain about CEOs' pay. Amazon is the world's greatest ever shopping experience, saving us billions of pounds each year, yet so many complain about its tax contributions. And then there are social media platforms like Facebook, which enable us to socialise, organise events, share experience, have good discussions, meet people around the world we'd otherwise never meet. Skype lets us speak face to face with anyone in the world in a way that would seem like science fiction to people of 100 years ago. YouTube gives us access to pretty much everything that's ever been filmed - interviews, debates, films, music, education, and extraordinary moments across the world captured on camera, from the absurd to the shocking to the dangerous to the hilarious - it's fantastic. 

And then there's Google - giving us access to just about anything we could ever want to know. Here's the remarkable thing - every online product I just mentioned is provided free of charge: endless socialising, endless knowledge, endless entertainment - all readily accessible at no financial cost to just about all of us. And all that aside from the immense benefits that such enrichment confers to the wider world in terms of outside investment, access to trade and opportunity to develop. Yet when many think of Facebook and Google, they are so often preoccupied with wealth inequality and access to their data - when a few years ago they had no platform on which to have any data and to use those free services. 

There are, of course, justifiably grave concerns about big tech - especially the negative effect social media is having on young people. Although that does not mean its overall effect is net negative. I see it as a bit like alcohol; excessive use generally correlates with negative outcomes, whereas balanced, assistive, creative, relational use generally correlates with positive outcomes. 

Given the extent to which humans are hard to satisfy anyway, it seems to me that in the case of the vast majority of people regularly complaining about so much (especially on the left), they are unreasonably hard to satisfy. Even if we magically flicked a switch and wiped out all their current so-called 'injustices', they would probably just carry on coming up with more and more complaints - because, like Parkinson's Law, where work expands to fill the time available for its completion - I believe it's quite possible that the human tendency to complain expands to fill the space left by material progression and higher living standards. 

Knowing The Price Of Sex And The Value Of Nothing

As I was cycling through the city earlier this evening, I felt my regular lament at the ugly sight of graffiti tagging that spoils so many buildings. As far as I’m concerned, graffiti tagging on private property is carried out by selfish young men who have no respect for the buildings they are defacing or the people who are associated with them. And sometimes I think, if only females looked down on graffiti tagging (or other acts of criminality or irresponsibility like that) with more ridicule and contempt, boys would eventually stop doing it.

I know that sounds like an outlandish thought, but it has truths that are supported by evolutionary history and psychology (especially in the work of psychologist Roy Baumeister) regarding the dynamics of sex and attraction, where we know that women are largely the "gatekeepers of sex," and influence the behaviours and ambitions of men accordingly. Baumeister posits that women determine the standards men must meet to access sex, which complements a long-standing evolutionary principle that women primarily do the choosing and men compete to be chosen.

Although it works both ways, of course - while women are the primary gatekeepers of sex, men are primarily the gatekeepers of commitment and long-term relationships. Women, due to higher reproductive costs (such as pregnancy and childcare), are typically more selective in choosing sexual partners. This selectivity drives men to compete and adapt to meet women’s standards, shaping behaviours such as ambition, status-seeking, and displays of loyalty. But men are often more selective when it comes to committing to long-term relationships or marriage. While casual sex may require fewer standards, commitment demands more from potential partners - such as trustworthiness, compatibility, shared values, and longevity. Men historically needed to ensure their investment (e.g., time, resources) would be directed toward raising their biological offspring, which meant they were more likely to commit to women they deemed faithful and emotionally supportive.

Here, then, we see how responsibility is shared between the sexes. Women can provide good quality control for male behaviour, and men can improve their conduct to make them more desirable in terms of selectability. In fact, I don’t just mean that as a fanciful whim where one or two minor improvements could make a bit of difference (although that is still true) – I mean that if there were radical societal changes in terms of improvements of attitude, conduct, and mutual accountability between the sexes, we could start to reverse a negative trend and be on the way to becoming a Christian country more than ever before.

In economic terms, this goes back to the price of sex within societal norms. In a Christian society, the price of sex is higher than in a society run ragged by promiscuity and hedonism. This aligns with the Christian ideal of chastity. The female beloved insists on not just commitment, but virtue, respect, patience and noble intentionality from their prospective beloveds. And with sexual intimacy being a sacred act reserved for marriage, males share the responsibility in taking the lead to ensure the relationship is built on friendship, trust, love, and shared Christian values that transcend fleeting physical desire. This higher "price" for sex necessitates a framework where males must rise to moral and ethical standards of Christianity, and chastity would function not as a limitation but as a transformative force. Relationships of such stability, integrity and self-discipline benefit not only the couples themselves but also their roles and influence in the broader community.

As the "price" of sex has decreased in the modern time of easy divorce, sexual liberation and the breakdown of family values, so too have the efforts some men make to meet higher standards and women to insist on them. If sex is too freely available, men won’t aim for higher standards and societal decay will continue. Remember too that there is strong evidence in psychology that delaying gratification to prioritise long-term rewards over short-term pleasures is one of the cornerstones of emotional and psychological maturity.

Take Power Back: The Latest Egoistic Juvenile Pantomime

Here’s the latest halfwit cult of narcissistic entitlement; little upstarts who call themselves Take Power Back - who have decided that the best way to “help the poor” is to march into Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and other supermarkets, steal food, and hand it to food banks, while claiming the moral high ground. As always, the problem with the half-brained ideas of entitled, embittered leftist extremists of this kind is that the world doesn’t work that way – you don’t just get to change the world for the better with a “throw toys out of prams if we don’t get what we want now” mentality. That’s what immature, uninformed children do, not people serious about doing good in the world.

Here are just a few things that these petty thieves don’t understand. The people who pay for the theft of these goods aren’t the CEOs or shareholders of these supermarkets. It’s the customers – the very people trying to make an honest living, feed their families, and get through the week without their grocery bill creeping up yet again. As I showed in a previous blog post (see here) supermarkets are actually a huge force of social good to consumers, not an enemy from whom one should feel entitled to steal. Not only do supermarkets help us shop in the most affordable and efficient way, they employ hundreds of thousands of people across the UK, they invest millions into local communities, and they donate huge quantities of food to charities and food banks every single week.

And to think that supermarkets are swimming in ludicrous profits is to express economic ignorance of the most absurd kind – most large corporations operate on tight margins (see my past blog posts on the nature of profit and margins), because profit totals are not the same as profit margins. These stores are not cartoon villains to be looted from by the latest puerile left wing buffoons - they are the backbone of the UK’s food supply chain that have huge operating costs. They make relatively small profits at the margin, and yet across the nation they keep customers fed, shelves stocked, prices competitive, and people employed.

So, when activists stroll in and help themselves to “free” food, they’re not helping to administer justice; they’re heaping injustice on the consumer, the checkout worker, the delivery driver, the hard working families doing their weekly shop, and the pensioner counting pennies – and ultimately, on food banks too. Every time these so-called activists fill their boxes and walk out, they’re not “helping the poor.” They’re making food more expensive for the very people they claim to care about. It’s economic illiteracy dressed up as moral heroism - performance activism designed to make the activists feel righteous while causing wider harm in society, just like all the similar groups that came before them.

Moreover, do these selfish brats really think that food banks wish to be associated with being on receipt of stolen goods? Food banks rely on trust, generosity, legality, good intentions, and partnership with retailers. If these activists want to help the poor, they should get a job, fundraise, volunteer at Food banks, give their own money to charities etc – things that actually require effort and good deeds, not narcissistic, virtue-signalling, selfish ones.

The Next Ten Years Are Going to Be Ridiculous

Scientific and technological progress is accelerating so quickly that I regularly reassure my readers that the coming decades will bring unprecedented scientific, technological and economic progression on a scale so prodigious that they won’t be able to believe it. The trouble is, given that most people who most urgently need to hear this don’t read my blog - on account that statistically most people in the world don’t read my blog - the message of encouragement isn’t getting out there fast enough.

According to research I’ve read, current trends even in just AI show capacity growing more than 25× per year, vastly outpacing human research growth. Even if these rates slowed by a factor of 100, the combined cognitive labour of humans and AIs would still expand far faster than anything in history, potentially delivering hundreds of years of innovation within a single decade. Rapid gains in computational capacity, algorithmic efficiency, model scaling, and inference costs all contribute to the next phase of what I call the progression explosion, which will trigger a corresponding unprecedented surge in technological development, robotics, and industrial output.

There may, of course, be fresh things to contend with, with such acceleration - like misaligned AI, power concentration, entrenched authoritarianism (which is, alas, already happening), and other challenges posed by advanced digital minds. But they will probably be a spit in the ocean compared with the huge potential benefits - especially extreme abundance, medical breakthroughs, and rapid scientific and material progress.

And as I’ve blogged about before, these advances will create unprecedented possibilities for solving long-standing “future problems” like climate change. If AI-driven research acceleration really does condense centuries of innovation into years, then technologies we are still working on - ultra-efficient batteries, carbon-negative industrial processes, fusion breakthroughs, and advanced materials for energy storage - will arrive with prodigious application far sooner than most people imagine. Rapid scientific iteration, combined with autonomous experimentation, would allow AI systems to explore billions of design possibilities for catalysts, solar materials, carbon-capture membranes, and so forth, before you can say “Greta Thunberg hates cheeseburgers served at BP Garages”.

 

On Negative and Positive Desert

 

I think Jimmy McGovern’s The Street is one of the best British TV dramas ever. One of the many memorable episodes, like the one I rewatched recently, involves a racist called Kieran getting credit for saving a 7-year-old Polish girl, Anna, from a house fire, when, in fact, it was actually his friend Duffy who committed the heroic act. But Duffy dares not claim credit for his heroism because he fears it will jeopardise the invalidity benefit he’s claiming. Huge tension ensues when Kieran willingly accepts all the adulation while Duffy begrudgingly laments his lack of recognition.

During the episode, this got me thinking about something else; whether an act is still heroic if the person had no memory or awareness of it - and acted it out in a trance-like state, where they did not consciously undertake the deed through any sense of bravery or moral duty. Probably not, or at least, much less so. Put it this way, if the person claimed no memory or awareness of the good act, it seems inappropriate to reward them. But that being so, does the reverse also apply - that if someone acted out a wicked deed in a trance-like state, with no memory or awareness of it, should they go unpunished?

In one sense, I can understand the temptation to argue that if a lack memory or awareness negates positive desert, it similarly negates negative desert. But that can’t be wholly satisfactory for one key reason. Negated positive desert means that the hero is merely not afforded deserved recognition and adulation. But negated negative desert means the general public are not protected from a criminal who has not only harmed at least one victim, but may go on to harm others - so should be incarcerated on that basis.

On What Humility Really Is

 

“God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.”
(Proverbs 3:34, James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5)

From my experience, humility is one of the most misunderstood of all human qualities. So often, people consider humility to be things like timidity, circumspection, or a lack of self-confidence regarding a viewpoint. But that is not right; humility is best thought of as accurate self-assessment. That is, humility is not thinking less of yourself than you ought, it is thinking accurately about yourself. 

To be in true humility means you don’t inflate or diminish your worth, abilities, or moral standing. Humble people are willing to see themselves as they truly are - capable of love and goodness, but also deeply fallible - which is why God calls us to live a life full of humility.

The opposite of humility isn’t self-confidence, as many think - because self-confidence is justified alongside competence. The real opposite of humility is narcissism - which is the refusal to acknowledge one’s own faults, limits, and responsibility for the bad things one is doing or contributing to. That is why humility is much rarer than many imagine, and narcissism is more common. Humility threatens the ego’s carefully constructed narrative, whereas narcissism reinforces it.

And that is why revelation begins with humility: only the humble can hear God clearly, because only the humble are willing to know themselves truthfully before Him.