Speaking of Politically Correct Brainwashing

The last two videos in this Video Saturday post on Mark Perry’s Carpe Diem blog are good examples of people correctly going against the politically correct brainwashing and are worth a watch.

Getting Old Sucks

I wasn’t impressed with Ezekial Emanual’s article, Why I Hope to Die at 75.

Arnold Kling calls it “excellent and important” and asks commenters to spare him the “snark about Emanuel, Obamacare, and death panels.”

I’m not sure what annoyed me more, Emanual’s article or Kling asking to be spared the blindingly obvious, and in my opinion, wholly deserving snark.

I’m assuming the snark Kling doesn’t want is something like:

Since, Emanual is an architect of Obamacare, you see, and now he’s writing that he doesn’t want to live past 75 because life just isn’t worth living past that point (according to him), you see, and there was this whole (we were politically-correctly brainwashed to believe) stupid political meme about Obamacare leading to government “death panels” deciding who is worthy of being allocated precious medical resources and who is not and should just die so as to not be a burden on “society”, you see, it kind of seems like…uh…there may have been something that stupid meme, but we are still too brainwashed want to admit that?

The resistance to snark reminds me of the resistance people like Elie Wiesel’s family and friends had to the warning signs that their lives were changing in early 1940s in Transylvania as German troops approached and occupied their enclave.

The secondary title of Kling’s blog is “taking the most charitable view of those who disagree.” Wiesel’s enclave took a too charitable view with those approaching troops and Hitler’s intentions and they suffered mightily for it.

David Henderson is less charitable on Emanual’s article. He found the article and Emanual “troubling”. Thank you! He describes Emanuel’s attitude as:

“Sometimes wrong; never in doubt.” The man (Emanuel) really does seem to think he knows how everyone should live.

In his article, Emanual tries to convince the reader that this whole dying at 75 thing is just his personal opinion and he’s not suggesting anything by it. Henderson says to that, “Basically, I just don’t believe him.”

My opinion on Emanual’s article: It’s dumb.

I think it’s a good example of personal preference bias. At age 57, Emanual holds a personal preference for his life to end at 75 because of some stats that says he has a 50/50 shot have reduced faculties after 80.

While he assures us he’s properly taken his current age and state of mind into account and will not change his mind as he approaches 75 (though he doesn’t plan suicide), talk is cheap.

The rationale he provides in the article affirms for me that he is a dangerous idiot. His view on what constitutes a life worth living at a different age is unimaginative and narrow, and reminiscent of all of us proclaiming at 18 that if life can’t be like it is when we’re 18, it ain’t worth living.

Tyler Cowen is more imaginative in thinking about how life could be worth living at an old age with reduced faculties:

And to sound petty for a moment, I don’t want to pass away during the opening moments of a Carlsen-Caruana match, or before an NBA season has finished (well, it depends on the season), or before the final volumes of Knausgaard are translated into English.  And this is a never-ending supply.  The world is a fascinating place and I fully expect to appreciate it at the age of eighty, albeit with some faculties less sharp.  What if the Fermi Paradox is resolved, or a good theory of quantum gravity developed?  What else might be worth waiting for?

For those who make it another 23 years, look forward to Emanual’s follow-up: Life after 75: I was wrong! Why I was still thinking like a teenager when I was 57.

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Winning and Losing Part I

As a parent and a coach of youth sports, I’ve learned a few things about winning and losing over the last several years.

For example, wins and losses are often not what they appear to be. And, for many parents too much of their own ego depends on whether their kids win or lose.

Wins and losses can be great teachers, but they can be deceiving, too. Drawing the right lessons can be a challenge. Adults are excellent at drawing the wrong lessons.

It’s easy to convince yourself that your team is really good and has made a lot of progress after beating a weaker opponent. I’ve done it. I’ve seen parents do it. I’ve seen pro teams do it.

It is then a let down when you face a superior team and find out that you’re not quite ready for the college scouts just yet.

But, I think it’s important to understand that there’s much more that goes into a win or loss — especially in youth sports — than whether you’re good or not.

One factor, for example, is the relative age effect, which I wrote about in this post. It’s the idea that kids born closer to the age cutoff tend to do better because they have a few extra months of body development.

I had my doubts whether it really existed. Though, it seems there is plenty of evidence for it and now I believe it matches with my personal experience.

As I’ve watched a group of kids age over a few years (admittedly small sample size), I noticed that the kids born closer to the age cutoff tend to dominate — at least, physically. But, I still had my doubts.

The most convincing evidence for me, though, was when we played younger teams. Our B/C-players suddenly looked very good against players that they had the same age advantage over as the A players on our team had on them.

Many wins and losses in youth sports leagues are nothing more than an age mismatch.

Schools that teach marketable skills

I saw a commercial for a career college make the claim that the school teaches real skills that are in demand in the marketplace and allow you to earn money.

I thought that was a good shot at traditional colleges, where that isn’t always the case anymore. I think they do still have quite a few degree programs that teach marketable skills, but they also have quite a few that should be adult community education courses.

 

Merit or Relative Age Effect?

From Seth Godin’s blog: The wasteful fraud of sorting for youth meritocracy:

Ask the well-meaning coaches and teachers running the tryouts and choosing who gets to play, ask them who gets on stage and who gets fast tracked, and they’ll explain that life is a meritocracy, and it’s essential to teach kids that they’re about to enter a world where people get picked based on performance.

Or, they might point out that their job is to win, to put on a great show, to entertain the parents with the best performance they can create.

This, all of this, is sort of dangerous, unhelpful and nonsensical.

I explored this in my post, The Great Participation Trophy Debate.

I agree. Most kid sports, even at the beginning levels, is structured to entertain parents, and like it or not, select on ‘merit’ rather than teach the kids and have fun.

As Gladwell points out, this quest for wins really sorts out the relative age effect, rather than true merit.

I wonder how many potential stars — or just run of the mill good players — this chases away before they realize that the primary reason they weren’t as good as their teammates is because their teammates had several crucial months of development on them.

And, the reason they never got much of a chance to develop was because too few youth coaches do their job and give them chances to improve.