Disturbing Bible reading example #56543
I read Judges last night and there was yet another rather disturbing story that I don't know what to make of. So a guy and his concubine go to a town on the way back to his place. They specifically picked this place in order to be in a Jewish town and not a Gentile one. Some old guy offers them a place to stay in his house. Then it's a repeat of what happened with Lot and the angels with a twist. Various townspeople pound on the door of the old man's place demanding that he put the visitor outside because they want to have sex with him. The old man says no, that would be terrible, but he offers his virgin daughter and the man's concubine instead. There is some discussion and then they throw the concubine outside. She is raped all night until she dies. The next morning, the man collects the body and goes home. He then cuts here body into 12 pieces and sends a piece to each tribe of Israel as "evidence" of the crime. The Israelites are so outraged they band together and attack the tribe of Benjamin (they were the ones responsible for the town in which this happened). There are heavy losses on both sides, but the tribe of Benjamin is almost wiped out, there are only 400 something men left. The Israelites feel bad for the men because they swore that they would never allow their daughters to mary someone from that tribe. So they arrange a plan where the men from the tribe of Benjamin can steal women from other tribes. This would be OK since they weren't given to them...
I have a very simple question. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? It seems as though there is at least one story like this in each of the old testament books I've read so far. What are we supposed to do or think about these things? What are you supposed to say to your children when you encourage them to read the Bible and they come across a story like this? I am willing to believe that there are very useful parts of the Bible, and that sometimes terrible things can be very instructive, but I haven't seen anything useful about these types of stories so far. I sure hope that the quality of material improves in the Old Testament, I'm getting downright discouraged...
I have a very simple question. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? It seems as though there is at least one story like this in each of the old testament books I've read so far. What are we supposed to do or think about these things? What are you supposed to say to your children when you encourage them to read the Bible and they come across a story like this? I am willing to believe that there are very useful parts of the Bible, and that sometimes terrible things can be very instructive, but I haven't seen anything useful about these types of stories so far. I sure hope that the quality of material improves in the Old Testament, I'm getting downright discouraged...
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A word about Yemen and religions
I've had plenty of people ask me about living here and not being a Muslim. "Aren't you afraid of, you know, them hating you because you're a Christian?" Not at all. There may be some people that don't like me, but it isn't because of my religion. There are probably more Christians that don't like my version of "their" religion, LOL. Seriously, Muslims here have a real respect for anybody that ascribes to any of the three main traditions and is a decent person. I know a Jewish woman here who is afraid of "letting down" the Yemenis because she really isn't as serious as they think Jews should be.
The people that need to watch out are atheists, polytheists, and Zionists. If you hold any of these beliefs, you can certainly come here, just don't proclaim your beliefs loudly. If you're an atheist, I would lie and claim to be a Christian. They really don't have a clue about Christianity here, so if you claim to be a Christian, they won't challenge you. Gays and lesbians shouldn't fear coming here either. The culture is such that close close contact between members of the same sex is very common. No one would ever guess, and no one would ask. Hell a guy may kiss you here, but it wouldn't mean the same thing as it does back home:-)
The people that need to watch out are atheists, polytheists, and Zionists. If you hold any of these beliefs, you can certainly come here, just don't proclaim your beliefs loudly. If you're an atheist, I would lie and claim to be a Christian. They really don't have a clue about Christianity here, so if you claim to be a Christian, they won't challenge you. Gays and lesbians shouldn't fear coming here either. The culture is such that close close contact between members of the same sex is very common. No one would ever guess, and no one would ask. Hell a guy may kiss you here, but it wouldn't mean the same thing as it does back home:-)
Book of Joshua and Cain's wife
I finished up Deuteronomy and Joshua. I think that everyone should read Joshua, not because of the deep religious insights contained in it, but to get a feel for the old testament God. When God gave the Israelites their land, He gave them orders to kill every living thing in the towns and cities. Every man, woman, child, and animal. When they did not do this once, God came down on them very hard. For every person that says that "God is love," or some such nonsense needs to read these books. The people that were slaughtered (that's the word used in many parts, at least in this translation) had never had any dealings with the Israelites, most had never shown any animosity to them either. God commanded that they be killed completely, that they be wiped off the face of the earth, so they were.
It's quite chilling really. I think that it's important to remember this episode when dealing with other religions that are still stuck in "Old Testament mode." Many Jews and Muslims still feel that they might be commanded to kill people in God's name. Christians shy away from this thank God, but they need to keep their heritage in mind.
I mentioned being confused about who Cain married. Seems like I'm not the only one. The question actually played an important role in the Scopes' monkey trial. The inability of the expert witness to identify who Cain married supposedly lead to an inability to trust scripture and thus played a role in the ultimate outcome of the trial... Cain's wife is not named, but the Bible says that he went to a city to find his wife. There are a couple of options here for the believers of the literal word. One of them is that Adam and Eve had many children, not all of them are named in the Bible. Cain simply married one of his many sisters... The fact that he went to a "city" doesn't bother these people, the word just means something different than it does today. Not that any other words would mean something different.... Here's my take, people need to embrace the fact that the Bible is not complete, that there are huge gaps in it. According to the Bible, Adam lived for 900 something years, but after fathering Cain and Abel, you don't hear anything else about him. It's as if he retired and didn't learn anything or do anything in his remaining 800 years... These gaps don't necessarily have to lead to not trusting it (although they certainly could), it just means that we have to use our heads and, dare I say it, our imaginations to fill in the blanks.
In Leviticus, there is a rule saying that you shouldn't weave linen and wool together and that you should not wear clothes made of two different cloths. That seems really odd, at least with a lot of the other nit picking rules there was a health upshot to it. Not this one. I can imagine the conversation between Moses and God going something like this...
"YOU MAY NOT WEAR DACRON/POLYESTER BLENDS, I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD AND THIS IS MY RULE GIVEN TO MY PEOPLE"
"Ummm, OK Lord, but what is it?"
"OH, IT IS EVIL, YOU HAVE NO IDEA... TRUST ME, IT IS AN ABOMINATION TO WEAR CLOTHES MADE OF THIS COMBINATION"
"Alright, what was that again? Dcranonester?"
"DO NOT TRY MY PATIENCE! I HAVE GIVEN YOU MY RULE, NOW GO TELL THE PEOPLE!"
"Yes, of course..."
So it comes out as the only thing Moses could understand, linen/wool combinations.... I personally think that there had to be quite a few misunderstandings between the supreme being and His creations. Look at what Jesus did to Levitical law, he pretty much gutted it. Either they got it wrong to begin with, they modified it over time, or God just changed His mind... I lean towards the first two options, but the third is certainly a possibility...
Another thing that strikes you as you read the Old Testament is how everything takes place in one relatively small area of the world. There isn't any mention of Africa, Europe, the vast bulk of Asia or the Americas of course. At the time it was written, and for the people reading it, it probably covered everything that needed to be. But we are reading it now and we are aware of parallel histories happening all over the globe. Ancient Greece, ancient China and Japan, etc, these histories are completely outside of the Biblical narrative. Only a fool would deny that they existed, but what to make of them from a Christian perspective? It's a deep question. To me, the only way to make sense of it is one that many Christians don't like. God (if He truly is all powerful and the only God) most likely communicated with these people as well. I know that many, if not most Christians do not like the "many religions, one God" theory, but I don't see any way around it. I'd like to hear some other reason why "the message" still has not gotten to many people on this earth despite the fact that all this stuff happened at least 2000 years ago...
It's quite chilling really. I think that it's important to remember this episode when dealing with other religions that are still stuck in "Old Testament mode." Many Jews and Muslims still feel that they might be commanded to kill people in God's name. Christians shy away from this thank God, but they need to keep their heritage in mind.
I mentioned being confused about who Cain married. Seems like I'm not the only one. The question actually played an important role in the Scopes' monkey trial. The inability of the expert witness to identify who Cain married supposedly lead to an inability to trust scripture and thus played a role in the ultimate outcome of the trial... Cain's wife is not named, but the Bible says that he went to a city to find his wife. There are a couple of options here for the believers of the literal word. One of them is that Adam and Eve had many children, not all of them are named in the Bible. Cain simply married one of his many sisters... The fact that he went to a "city" doesn't bother these people, the word just means something different than it does today. Not that any other words would mean something different.... Here's my take, people need to embrace the fact that the Bible is not complete, that there are huge gaps in it. According to the Bible, Adam lived for 900 something years, but after fathering Cain and Abel, you don't hear anything else about him. It's as if he retired and didn't learn anything or do anything in his remaining 800 years... These gaps don't necessarily have to lead to not trusting it (although they certainly could), it just means that we have to use our heads and, dare I say it, our imaginations to fill in the blanks.
In Leviticus, there is a rule saying that you shouldn't weave linen and wool together and that you should not wear clothes made of two different cloths. That seems really odd, at least with a lot of the other nit picking rules there was a health upshot to it. Not this one. I can imagine the conversation between Moses and God going something like this...
"YOU MAY NOT WEAR DACRON/POLYESTER BLENDS, I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD AND THIS IS MY RULE GIVEN TO MY PEOPLE"
"Ummm, OK Lord, but what is it?"
"OH, IT IS EVIL, YOU HAVE NO IDEA... TRUST ME, IT IS AN ABOMINATION TO WEAR CLOTHES MADE OF THIS COMBINATION"
"Alright, what was that again? Dcranonester?"
"DO NOT TRY MY PATIENCE! I HAVE GIVEN YOU MY RULE, NOW GO TELL THE PEOPLE!"
"Yes, of course..."
So it comes out as the only thing Moses could understand, linen/wool combinations.... I personally think that there had to be quite a few misunderstandings between the supreme being and His creations. Look at what Jesus did to Levitical law, he pretty much gutted it. Either they got it wrong to begin with, they modified it over time, or God just changed His mind... I lean towards the first two options, but the third is certainly a possibility...
Another thing that strikes you as you read the Old Testament is how everything takes place in one relatively small area of the world. There isn't any mention of Africa, Europe, the vast bulk of Asia or the Americas of course. At the time it was written, and for the people reading it, it probably covered everything that needed to be. But we are reading it now and we are aware of parallel histories happening all over the globe. Ancient Greece, ancient China and Japan, etc, these histories are completely outside of the Biblical narrative. Only a fool would deny that they existed, but what to make of them from a Christian perspective? It's a deep question. To me, the only way to make sense of it is one that many Christians don't like. God (if He truly is all powerful and the only God) most likely communicated with these people as well. I know that many, if not most Christians do not like the "many religions, one God" theory, but I don't see any way around it. I'd like to hear some other reason why "the message" still has not gotten to many people on this earth despite the fact that all this stuff happened at least 2000 years ago...
Random curious things in Yemen
Here in Yemen, ATM, as in ATM machine stands for All Time Money...
Many people are very careful about ordering a "beef burger." When asked why they add beef to the front, they reply it is to make sure they don't get one made of ham...
Many people are very careful about ordering a "beef burger." When asked why they add beef to the front, they reply it is to make sure they don't get one made of ham...
Once more, with feeling...
Today in class we went over how to use "this," "those," and "that." We also went over when to use aliph lam with those as well. I had "learned" this stuff before, but it definitely needed going over again. "This" is used for things that are right here whereas "that" is used for things over there. Of course in Arabic there is the singular, the plural, and the dual. And then there are the genders to worry about... OK, no problem, but there is a catch of course. All nonhuman plurals take on the singular feminine with it comes to their adjectives and their demonstrative pronouns (these, that, those). Errr, OK, I think I have that down. If you are using numbers, you use the dual if there are 2 and you use the plural if there are 3-11 of them. If they are nonhuman, you use the plural word for the noun, but describe them with singular, feminine adjectives. If there are more than 11, you use the singular version of the noun, but continue to use the feminine adjectives (singular) regardless of the gender of the noun. Of course if you are dealing with human plurals (sisters, engineers, students), you use the plural noun and have the adjectives agree with both the gender and the plural as long as there are 3-11 of them. If there are more than that, you use the singular noun but the plural adjective (I think) and the adjective must agree gender-wise...
So if we have a sentence like, "These are the new pens." It ends up being literally translated as "This pens new." What doesn't translate is the singular feminine version of the adjective even though we are dealing with a plural masculine noun. Fun fun. If I were to add the actual numbers, it gets even better. "These are the 7 new pens," ends up closer to "This the seven pens new." If I go to a higher number like "These are the 15 new pens," it ends up like, "This the 15 pen new." Whoosh, and to think that there is much more complicated stuff than this to get through my head...
So if we have a sentence like, "These are the new pens." It ends up being literally translated as "This pens new." What doesn't translate is the singular feminine version of the adjective even though we are dealing with a plural masculine noun. Fun fun. If I were to add the actual numbers, it gets even better. "These are the 7 new pens," ends up closer to "This the seven pens new." If I go to a higher number like "These are the 15 new pens," it ends up like, "This the 15 pen new." Whoosh, and to think that there is much more complicated stuff than this to get through my head...
I just can't do it...
One of the new American students came into the school today sporting a mouaz (I call them man skirts) and a jambiya. He said that I should get them too... I dunno, I just can't bring myself to dress like a Yemeni. Maybe if I met one that I respected or even liked a lot I might be more tempted. I think that Americans dressing like that just look silly. I have never, in my adult life, enjoyed dressing up in a costume. I know that all clothing or fashion is ultimately a costume of some sort, but at least I'm comfortable in this one:-) Besides I find the entire culture around Jambiyas rather distasteful, and since it is so close to the concept of being a man in Yemen, I end up finding the male culture here a bit distasteful. So don't expect to see me in a thobe or moaz any time soon...
Numbers
OK, I've finished Numbers. This one was at least interesting since stuff happened. It's a real page turner... The Israelites did this, they killed people, the Israelites disobey God, God smites the Israelites, etc... If a cynic were to read this, it would only confirm his idea that this stuff is all made up. Despite being led around by a pillar of fire and eating manna from heaven, the Israelites continue to doubt Moses and question God. Obviously, the miraculous things didn't actually happen and people were reacting to the bossing around by Moses. How else could people rebel? I have to admit, this has some appeal, it is far easier to believe that Moses did all this stuff (minus the pillar of flame and the appearance of God) himself and this caused the Israelites to rebel. Of course that also raises the question of how did they get out of Egypt if it wasn't for the miracles? If Moses was indeed manipulating the Israelites for his (and his brother's) benefit, why didn't he go across the Jordan river?
Lots of questions either way really. I find the story of the Israelites rebelling to be rather comforting actually. They were living with obvious signs of God every day and managed to question Him anyway. I dunno, maybe they were stupid, but I think that it's a great example of human behavior. "Sure, OK, He feeds us with manna from heaven every day, leads us with a pillar of fire at night, delivered us from Pharaoh, but defeating the people across the Jordan river? C'mon, how stupid does He think we are?" That is far more extreme than the typical jew or Christian today, but the basic concept and lesson still applies...
Once again, I can't recommend this book to anyone that wants to be convinced, there is plenty to question if you are so inclined. I keep hoping that one of these books will really show me what all the fuss about the Bible really is, I haven't seen it yet...
Lots of questions either way really. I find the story of the Israelites rebelling to be rather comforting actually. They were living with obvious signs of God every day and managed to question Him anyway. I dunno, maybe they were stupid, but I think that it's a great example of human behavior. "Sure, OK, He feeds us with manna from heaven every day, leads us with a pillar of fire at night, delivered us from Pharaoh, but defeating the people across the Jordan river? C'mon, how stupid does He think we are?" That is far more extreme than the typical jew or Christian today, but the basic concept and lesson still applies...
Once again, I can't recommend this book to anyone that wants to be convinced, there is plenty to question if you are so inclined. I keep hoping that one of these books will really show me what all the fuss about the Bible really is, I haven't seen it yet...
I'm thinking about getting a job...
Well, yes, I am starting to wonder what kind of job I could get when I get back home. I've become convinced that my Arabic will not be good enough to get any sort of job as a translator, certainly not after a single year here. I do think I'll be able to have basic conversations and read newspapers and the like. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for a potential job back home I'm all ears...
Right this second, I'm thinking about getting a job here. I would be teaching English of course. It's a hot job market here for native English speakers. Of course the pay sucks when compared to other places despite the fact that it is a hot job here. As a conversational English teacher (i.e. a native speaker that is articulate but does not have a degree in English or any certification for teaching English) I can make about 10 bucks an hour. That doesn't sound like much (it isn't) but remember, country wide the average yearly income here is only $400 US dollars a year. So it turns out to be a rather well paying job for this country. If I could work 10 hours a week, I could make an average yearly salary here every month. If I have 10 hours a week of class and 10 hours a week of a job, that is only 20 hours a week taken up. That should leave plenty of time for me to do whatever else I need to do, like study:-) From my perspective, it would allow me to extend my stay here and hopefully learn the language better. There's no way in hell I will spend Christmas here, but if I can get a job I will be able to afford a round trip ticket back to the states and come back for more. I'm going to start looking around this week for positions. I feel pretty confidant that I can get a job since I have the very desirable "neutral" American accent. I know that some schools supplement the pay with Arabic lessons as well, so that could be a plus. We'll see what's out there for me...
Right this second, I'm thinking about getting a job here. I would be teaching English of course. It's a hot job market here for native English speakers. Of course the pay sucks when compared to other places despite the fact that it is a hot job here. As a conversational English teacher (i.e. a native speaker that is articulate but does not have a degree in English or any certification for teaching English) I can make about 10 bucks an hour. That doesn't sound like much (it isn't) but remember, country wide the average yearly income here is only $400 US dollars a year. So it turns out to be a rather well paying job for this country. If I could work 10 hours a week, I could make an average yearly salary here every month. If I have 10 hours a week of class and 10 hours a week of a job, that is only 20 hours a week taken up. That should leave plenty of time for me to do whatever else I need to do, like study:-) From my perspective, it would allow me to extend my stay here and hopefully learn the language better. There's no way in hell I will spend Christmas here, but if I can get a job I will be able to afford a round trip ticket back to the states and come back for more. I'm going to start looking around this week for positions. I feel pretty confidant that I can get a job since I have the very desirable "neutral" American accent. I know that some schools supplement the pay with Arabic lessons as well, so that could be a plus. We'll see what's out there for me...
Prediction markets, Wikipedia, and dispersed knowledge
Hayek is generally credited with the insight that the problem with socialism and command economies in general is that knowledge is widely dispersed throughout the population. Everyone knows something, and as a whole, we know much more than any small group or individual. Capitalist economies tend to extract this knowledge through price signals whereas command economies take their best guess but end up not having enough information to make the proper decisions.
A fascinating (to me at least) result of this is the ability of large numbers of people to properly guess random things like the weight of the horse that won the Kentucky derby. Several studies have been done on this and they always end up being within a pound or two of the actual number. There are other examples as well, but how do they work? The idea is a simple one. If people have an idea of the right answer, the "average" of their answers will converge on the correct one given enough answers. Now most people don't have a very good idea about the specific weight of horses, but we all know that they aren't 5 pounds, and we know that they aren't 5000 pounds either. So we have a good enough idea that we guess within a reasonable amount plus or minus around the actual value. This statistical "noise" cancels out with enough answers and you're left with the proper weight.
Things get even more interesting when you start dealing with "experts." It takes far fewer answers for the average to come to the correct number. This makes sense since we would expect that experts would have far less variance to their answers. How do you limit these questions to "experts?" The simplest way is to put some money on the line, make a bet. This keeps the people who really don't have a good idea from contributing and limit your answers to expert opinions. This is curious when dealing with the weight of horses, but it gets downright amazing when you start talking about policy issues, business decisions, and even presidential candidates.
Google has been using these sorts of "Prediction markets" with great success when dealing with internal questions, and there is a thriving market for presidential nominations. This may sound kind of strange, but it is a way of extracting knowledge from a dispersed population. Imagine if before the recent invasion of Iraq, a decision market was formed in the CIA asking what they thought the likelihood of WMD being in Iraq. If you allow anyone with some knowledge to contribute instead of a select few that may be guided by politics moreso than facts, you are much more likely to come up with the right answer. If people from not only the Iraq and middle east bureaus were allowed to vote but also anti-terrorism, Africa, nuclear proliferation teams, in short anyone that would have some sort of expertise on the proliferation of these sorts of things were allowed to vote, you would gain much more information than just following a handful of "experts" advice. There's a good chance that the opinion CIA-wide about the probability of WMD in Iraq would have been negative. Of course who knows if that would have changed anything....
There is a potential problem of course. If there is a systemic bias among the "experts", the results can be way off. It has to be systemic though, if only a few suffer from it, the results will wash out with enough contributers. I learned about this from a recent podcast from econtalk. There are some amazing examples given where this has worked very well. Of course the host gave a chilling counter example. he regularly holds seminars for the press and people up on capital hill. One of the questions he usually asks everyone is what percentage of Americans are paid the minimum wage. He claims that the median answer given to him is usually between 15% and 20%. The actual percentage is just below 3%. Clearly, this approach won't work with everything, but it has promise and is being used successfully in the business world.
In the same podcast they also discussed the Wikipedia phenomena. For those of you not familiar with it, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is written by the people that read it. Anyone may contribute to it, and may edit whatever entry that they are reading. Most people never would have thought that this could work, but it does, and amazingly well. Errors are usually seen quite quickly and corrected. Once again, the idea is that everyone is knowledgeable about something, and our collective knowledge is far greater than any ad hoc group formed with the idea of writing an encyclopedia. The amount of knowledge out there is impressive, not just in depth, but in breadth. Wikipedia has articles on things that would never be in a regular encyclopedia, primarily because the publishers wouldn't think of including some topics. Even if they did think about it, they may not have access to people that know much about them. Wikipedia keeps growing, both in the number of topics it covers and the amount of information included on any given topic.
The CIA is using a variation of this, their own intellipedia. The idea is that people can post articles on whatever topic that they feel is important. People then read the articles and they can add to it or edit it as they see fit. The article can be edited and reedited numerous times until some sort of consensus is formed, either in agreement or in opposing camps. By allowing the free flow of information among all of the people there, topics can be fleshed out quite a bit more completely and quickly than if it went through the traditional editing process. It also allows people from widely differing specialties to offer their expertise. Even if an expert that has tangential interest only qualified one sentence in the report, that is information that wouldn't have been in there if done the traditional way. Once again, the idea is to take advantage of the dispersed knowledge that is out there. If enough people contribute, just about everything that is known about a topic can be gathered.
A fascinating (to me at least) result of this is the ability of large numbers of people to properly guess random things like the weight of the horse that won the Kentucky derby. Several studies have been done on this and they always end up being within a pound or two of the actual number. There are other examples as well, but how do they work? The idea is a simple one. If people have an idea of the right answer, the "average" of their answers will converge on the correct one given enough answers. Now most people don't have a very good idea about the specific weight of horses, but we all know that they aren't 5 pounds, and we know that they aren't 5000 pounds either. So we have a good enough idea that we guess within a reasonable amount plus or minus around the actual value. This statistical "noise" cancels out with enough answers and you're left with the proper weight.
Things get even more interesting when you start dealing with "experts." It takes far fewer answers for the average to come to the correct number. This makes sense since we would expect that experts would have far less variance to their answers. How do you limit these questions to "experts?" The simplest way is to put some money on the line, make a bet. This keeps the people who really don't have a good idea from contributing and limit your answers to expert opinions. This is curious when dealing with the weight of horses, but it gets downright amazing when you start talking about policy issues, business decisions, and even presidential candidates.
Google has been using these sorts of "Prediction markets" with great success when dealing with internal questions, and there is a thriving market for presidential nominations. This may sound kind of strange, but it is a way of extracting knowledge from a dispersed population. Imagine if before the recent invasion of Iraq, a decision market was formed in the CIA asking what they thought the likelihood of WMD being in Iraq. If you allow anyone with some knowledge to contribute instead of a select few that may be guided by politics moreso than facts, you are much more likely to come up with the right answer. If people from not only the Iraq and middle east bureaus were allowed to vote but also anti-terrorism, Africa, nuclear proliferation teams, in short anyone that would have some sort of expertise on the proliferation of these sorts of things were allowed to vote, you would gain much more information than just following a handful of "experts" advice. There's a good chance that the opinion CIA-wide about the probability of WMD in Iraq would have been negative. Of course who knows if that would have changed anything....
There is a potential problem of course. If there is a systemic bias among the "experts", the results can be way off. It has to be systemic though, if only a few suffer from it, the results will wash out with enough contributers. I learned about this from a recent podcast from econtalk. There are some amazing examples given where this has worked very well. Of course the host gave a chilling counter example. he regularly holds seminars for the press and people up on capital hill. One of the questions he usually asks everyone is what percentage of Americans are paid the minimum wage. He claims that the median answer given to him is usually between 15% and 20%. The actual percentage is just below 3%. Clearly, this approach won't work with everything, but it has promise and is being used successfully in the business world.
In the same podcast they also discussed the Wikipedia phenomena. For those of you not familiar with it, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is written by the people that read it. Anyone may contribute to it, and may edit whatever entry that they are reading. Most people never would have thought that this could work, but it does, and amazingly well. Errors are usually seen quite quickly and corrected. Once again, the idea is that everyone is knowledgeable about something, and our collective knowledge is far greater than any ad hoc group formed with the idea of writing an encyclopedia. The amount of knowledge out there is impressive, not just in depth, but in breadth. Wikipedia has articles on things that would never be in a regular encyclopedia, primarily because the publishers wouldn't think of including some topics. Even if they did think about it, they may not have access to people that know much about them. Wikipedia keeps growing, both in the number of topics it covers and the amount of information included on any given topic.
The CIA is using a variation of this, their own intellipedia. The idea is that people can post articles on whatever topic that they feel is important. People then read the articles and they can add to it or edit it as they see fit. The article can be edited and reedited numerous times until some sort of consensus is formed, either in agreement or in opposing camps. By allowing the free flow of information among all of the people there, topics can be fleshed out quite a bit more completely and quickly than if it went through the traditional editing process. It also allows people from widely differing specialties to offer their expertise. Even if an expert that has tangential interest only qualified one sentence in the report, that is information that wouldn't have been in there if done the traditional way. Once again, the idea is to take advantage of the dispersed knowledge that is out there. If enough people contribute, just about everything that is known about a topic can be gathered.
Comments (2)
Lazy lazy lazy
I had the day off and had great plans. I figured I'd clean my room (I've been threatening to do this since I got back), do my laundry, do extra homework, etc. Of course I woke up late and haven't done a damn thing. I have zero motivation to do anything, even fun things. Just lazy lazy lazy....
Reading the Bible...
My mother brought me a Bible when we met up in China. I'm interested in some of the things that people can get out of it on matters of freedom of choice. I have read some books in there before (Genesis, Job, John) but I've never read the entire thing before. I'm starting at the beginning and making my way through it. So far, I've gotten through Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. I'm halfway through Numbers...
I've said it before, Genesis doesn't make much sense from a religious standpoint. It tells the story of the creation of course, but it also tells the story of the earliest people. For me, it gives me more questions than answers. Who did Cain marry? Why did everyone, including babies and animals, need to die in the flood? Genesis also has many examples of betrayal, incest, lying, etc. among the "chosen" people with no commentary given. Lot's daughters get him drunk and have sex with him to have children. Was that good, bad, or what? What the hell are we supposed to think of that now? Jacob stole Esau's blessing and birthright with no consequences. So is lying and deception OK? Genesis is, IMO, a terrible thing to read if you're looking for information or clarification on... anything really.
I also do not understand the relevance of Leviticus. The ark of the covenant does not exist so there is no reason for the tabernacle to exist either. Granted, if you are jewish, there are parts of Mosaic law explained there, but what are Christians supposed to do with this information? I also have a very hard time believing and/or understanding why God would care about the tiny details of the tabernacle. What materials to make it of, what dimensions each piece should be, the exact dimensions of the buildings, etc. A cynic might say that Moses was just making it up as he went along, setting his brother up with the sweet position of high priest etc. I of course would never suggest such a thing..:-) Anyway, it seems like most, if not all of the book is overturned for Christians, so I'm not sure why we read it...
I'm reading the New Living Revised translation and I have to say that it is very readable, but sometimes the language is a little jarring. Language like "bumper crop" is very clear, but doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the language of the old testament. So far, my opinion that the Bible is a lousy book to read if you want to understand Christianity is fully supported. I'll report back if something changes my mind.
I've said it before, Genesis doesn't make much sense from a religious standpoint. It tells the story of the creation of course, but it also tells the story of the earliest people. For me, it gives me more questions than answers. Who did Cain marry? Why did everyone, including babies and animals, need to die in the flood? Genesis also has many examples of betrayal, incest, lying, etc. among the "chosen" people with no commentary given. Lot's daughters get him drunk and have sex with him to have children. Was that good, bad, or what? What the hell are we supposed to think of that now? Jacob stole Esau's blessing and birthright with no consequences. So is lying and deception OK? Genesis is, IMO, a terrible thing to read if you're looking for information or clarification on... anything really.
I also do not understand the relevance of Leviticus. The ark of the covenant does not exist so there is no reason for the tabernacle to exist either. Granted, if you are jewish, there are parts of Mosaic law explained there, but what are Christians supposed to do with this information? I also have a very hard time believing and/or understanding why God would care about the tiny details of the tabernacle. What materials to make it of, what dimensions each piece should be, the exact dimensions of the buildings, etc. A cynic might say that Moses was just making it up as he went along, setting his brother up with the sweet position of high priest etc. I of course would never suggest such a thing..:-) Anyway, it seems like most, if not all of the book is overturned for Christians, so I'm not sure why we read it...
I'm reading the New Living Revised translation and I have to say that it is very readable, but sometimes the language is a little jarring. Language like "bumper crop" is very clear, but doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the language of the old testament. So far, my opinion that the Bible is a lousy book to read if you want to understand Christianity is fully supported. I'll report back if something changes my mind.
My friend Aliph Lam
Aliph Lam are the two letters that make up the ubiquitous AL everything in Arabic. In general, it is the definite article, their equivalent of our "the". Of course it isn't as easy as just sticking AL in front of a word you want to make definite, there are different rules you have to follow. Today's class was all about the correct placement of AL... Take these English sentences for example:
This is a beautiful house.
This is the beautiful house.
This house is beautiful.
This beautiful house is mine.
All of them are similar but have slight differences in meaning, mostly due to the placement of the definite article. It gets a little more tricky in Arabic because the verb "to be" is not used in the present tense, so the definite article also serves the purpose of pointing out where the (assumed) verb is. So the first sentence literally translated is:
This house beautiful.
The second sentence literally translated is:
This the house the beautiful.
The third sentence:
This the house beautiful.
I'm doing Ok with the rules, but the slight shading of the meaning is making my head spin. In other words, I can write and speak them OK, but I get confused by the meaning. I've got all of tomorrow off (Amin has to do something), so I'm hoping that I can figure it out and use "sadiqy aliph lam" properly soon...
This is a beautiful house.
This is the beautiful house.
This house is beautiful.
This beautiful house is mine.
All of them are similar but have slight differences in meaning, mostly due to the placement of the definite article. It gets a little more tricky in Arabic because the verb "to be" is not used in the present tense, so the definite article also serves the purpose of pointing out where the (assumed) verb is. So the first sentence literally translated is:
This house beautiful.
The second sentence literally translated is:
This the house the beautiful.
The third sentence:
This the house beautiful.
I'm doing Ok with the rules, but the slight shading of the meaning is making my head spin. In other words, I can write and speak them OK, but I get confused by the meaning. I've got all of tomorrow off (Amin has to do something), so I'm hoping that I can figure it out and use "sadiqy aliph lam" properly soon...
Famine?
The latest issue of the Yemen Times has an article warning about a potential "famine" in the works for Yemen due to the rising costs of the food. It then goes on to demand that the government "do something" to fix the problem... Ok, first of all, famines are not caused by high prices, high prices are a consequence of short supply. Not having enough food definitely can cause a famine, but of course the question is why isn't there enough food? There certainly isn't a food shortage world wide, why doesn't someone see the "high" prices of food here in Yemen and cash in? I'm sure there is an enterprising Omani or Saudi that would like to make some money, so why don't they? If they could compete with the current suppliers, the price should come down as the supply rose.
I personally haven't seen the rise in prices, but maybe I'm not buying the stuff that has gone up in price. If the supply is indeed limited, who is limiting it? As a general rule, the only way that can happen is with collusion with the government. If there is a problem of high food prices, don't expect the government to do anything about it because they are most likely the cause of it. Whether it is through import duties, granting of monopoly privileges, or just general corruption, the government is involved somehow. There is plenty of food to go around, why isn't it getting to Yemen?
I personally haven't seen the rise in prices, but maybe I'm not buying the stuff that has gone up in price. If the supply is indeed limited, who is limiting it? As a general rule, the only way that can happen is with collusion with the government. If there is a problem of high food prices, don't expect the government to do anything about it because they are most likely the cause of it. Whether it is through import duties, granting of monopoly privileges, or just general corruption, the government is involved somehow. There is plenty of food to go around, why isn't it getting to Yemen?
New teacher today
Had my first class with my new teacher today. Amin is an interesting guy, has a degree in Arabic and is working on one in English. Last semester he was studying Shakespeare, I think that's a pretty impressive thing for a nonnative speaker. Anyway, the class went well, we're going to concentrate on listening and pronunciation mostly. Listening is probably my worst area at this point and today I learned part of the reason why. When you speak Arabic, many words get connected together. This helps explain why I have so much trouble picking out words when I listen to people. Even if I read along with someone speaking I have difficulty following along, everything just blends... So hopefully that will get better. It's always tough to work on your weakest area. Yes, it can show the most improvement, but it is also the hardest thing to work on. Oh well... Wish me luck!
But wait, there's even more on "gouging"...
So why is it that people will buy all of the gasoline when the prices are lower than the "market clearing" price? Why don't people evaluate the situation and think to themselves, "Gee, there's not much to go around, I better cut back?" The answer is one of the more misunderstood, and I think one of the more interesting aspects of price. Many, if not most, people view prices as being fairly arbitrary and motivated out of greed. Prices are much more complicated than that. As a matter of fact, accurate price setting is critical to the proper functioning of the economy.
Prices are a reflection of the incidence of supply and demand. Even without going into the details, it should be pretty obvious that when prices are low, either there is a ton of supply, not much demand, or both. On the other hand, when prices are high, demand is high, supply is low, or both. Nobody goes around trying to calculate relative supply and demand for every item they purchase to make sure they aren't doing something they shouldn't be doing like taking gas from a hospital or ambulance. The reason is because price tells us everything we need to know. Accurate prices are the quickest, easiest, and most efficient way of communicating the relative supply and demand of anything. If the gas is very expensive, we know that there is a lot of demand and/or a low supply. The beauty of this is that no one needs to make that insightful leap, it is enough that when it gets too expensive, we no longer buy it and others with higher demands can then have access to it.
This explains why price controls (like anti gouging laws, rent control, minimum wage, price supports for dairy, etc.) are so dangerous. If there is a disaster someplace and gasoline is in short supply, the price needs to go up in order to signal the smaller supply to consumers. If the price is held down at "regular" prices, there isn't any signal that things are now different and that consumption should be different as well. Assuming a modicum of competition (and there always is with gas stations no matter where you are in the US), prices will come back down as the supply comes back to normal. The lower price signals to consumers that it is OK (and maybe even desirable) to consume more.
It works the other way too. If prices are made artificially high, producers will make more than is necessary. Not only are the higher prices a hit on the pocketbooks of the consumers, but the extra production is a waste of resources that could have been used for something whose actual demand is higher (i.e. is something that people actually want.) A perfect example is price supports for the dairy industry. They are allowed to set a higher price than what the market would bear (and a higher price than would occur if imports were allowed to freely compete). This causes us to not only spend more than we would otherwise, but they make too much milk. Luckily for the dairy industry, they also had the connections to make sure that they could not only set higher prices, they have Uncle Sam buy the excess.... Any other price floor (like the minimum wage or mandatory union hiring) or subsidy (like ethanol) has the same effect. Too much is made, more than the demand requires. It's a huge waste of resources.
In a market with competition and minus government interference, prices will adjust to balance out the supply and demand for that product. Gum, labor, gas, homes, and even babysitters will have their prices determined by the constant feedback of market prices. The thing to remember about this is that there is no one person, group, or company that can determine prices. That's right, you can't set whatever price you want on your home and expect to sell it. WalMart cannot set wages arbitrarily low and expect to get the people they want to fill the positions they want. It also means that you shouldn't be able to buy gas at $2.50 gallon right after a hurricane with no supplies coming for a while. If you can't get paid what you want, it's because either people don't particularly want what you have to offer or there are many people offering the same skills.
Price is a critical indicator of relative supply and demand and it is the prime determinant of weather someone decides to buy (or sell) something. You can't screw around with that without consequences....
Prices are a reflection of the incidence of supply and demand. Even without going into the details, it should be pretty obvious that when prices are low, either there is a ton of supply, not much demand, or both. On the other hand, when prices are high, demand is high, supply is low, or both. Nobody goes around trying to calculate relative supply and demand for every item they purchase to make sure they aren't doing something they shouldn't be doing like taking gas from a hospital or ambulance. The reason is because price tells us everything we need to know. Accurate prices are the quickest, easiest, and most efficient way of communicating the relative supply and demand of anything. If the gas is very expensive, we know that there is a lot of demand and/or a low supply. The beauty of this is that no one needs to make that insightful leap, it is enough that when it gets too expensive, we no longer buy it and others with higher demands can then have access to it.
This explains why price controls (like anti gouging laws, rent control, minimum wage, price supports for dairy, etc.) are so dangerous. If there is a disaster someplace and gasoline is in short supply, the price needs to go up in order to signal the smaller supply to consumers. If the price is held down at "regular" prices, there isn't any signal that things are now different and that consumption should be different as well. Assuming a modicum of competition (and there always is with gas stations no matter where you are in the US), prices will come back down as the supply comes back to normal. The lower price signals to consumers that it is OK (and maybe even desirable) to consume more.
It works the other way too. If prices are made artificially high, producers will make more than is necessary. Not only are the higher prices a hit on the pocketbooks of the consumers, but the extra production is a waste of resources that could have been used for something whose actual demand is higher (i.e. is something that people actually want.) A perfect example is price supports for the dairy industry. They are allowed to set a higher price than what the market would bear (and a higher price than would occur if imports were allowed to freely compete). This causes us to not only spend more than we would otherwise, but they make too much milk. Luckily for the dairy industry, they also had the connections to make sure that they could not only set higher prices, they have Uncle Sam buy the excess.... Any other price floor (like the minimum wage or mandatory union hiring) or subsidy (like ethanol) has the same effect. Too much is made, more than the demand requires. It's a huge waste of resources.
In a market with competition and minus government interference, prices will adjust to balance out the supply and demand for that product. Gum, labor, gas, homes, and even babysitters will have their prices determined by the constant feedback of market prices. The thing to remember about this is that there is no one person, group, or company that can determine prices. That's right, you can't set whatever price you want on your home and expect to sell it. WalMart cannot set wages arbitrarily low and expect to get the people they want to fill the positions they want. It also means that you shouldn't be able to buy gas at $2.50 gallon right after a hurricane with no supplies coming for a while. If you can't get paid what you want, it's because either people don't particularly want what you have to offer or there are many people offering the same skills.
Price is a critical indicator of relative supply and demand and it is the prime determinant of weather someone decides to buy (or sell) something. You can't screw around with that without consequences....
More on "gouging"
It occurs to me that the efforts to make gouging illegal are really efforts to outlaw greed. If you are making policy, it is much more important to legislate against results instead of motivations. While it is certainly possible that a gas station owner might have a master's degree in economics and will raise prices to insure availability of product and stimulate resupply, it is far more likely that the owner will simply see an opportunity to raise prices and make a buck. In the former case, the owner is looking out for the good of the community, in the latter, the guy is just "being greedy." In either case, the results are the same. If we were actually worried about people's well being in emergencies, we would pass laws requiring business owners to raise the prices during emergencies. This would cause self imposed rationing of important resources on the part of consumers and will ensure the quickest flow of goods to the affected areas. Instead, what we are given are laws that are concerned with how people feel about the situation and ignore what the consequences of that law are. Ideally, the government would stay out of it altogether, but the law I suggested would do less damage. High gas prices are never a "crisis", but no gas certainly is.
"But people should react out of good intentions," yeah, that would be nice. Here's the thing, the saints that are in the situation will always rise to the occasion, the trick is to get the nonsaints and saints that are removed from the situation involved in doing good. Even if some gas station owners are willing to forgo potential profits and sell gas at the old price, will there be enough saints to understand the situation and only use gas when it is absolutely necessary? Sure, there are some businesses and people that will immediately flock to the affected area to help and bring supplies. Would more people come with supplies if they were poised to make some money at it? Would people in Georgia load up their pickup truck with plywood and drive to Florida after a hurricane if they were going to make 600-700 bucks doing it? You better believe it.. Trying to legislate morality is at best a fool's errand and at worse is an excuse to impose one type of morality over everyone (see anti gay laws for example). Yes, sometimes people do not have everyone else's best interests at heart, but as long as the results are the same as someone that does, who's business is it what people think?
economics gouging congress free trade
"But people should react out of good intentions," yeah, that would be nice. Here's the thing, the saints that are in the situation will always rise to the occasion, the trick is to get the nonsaints and saints that are removed from the situation involved in doing good. Even if some gas station owners are willing to forgo potential profits and sell gas at the old price, will there be enough saints to understand the situation and only use gas when it is absolutely necessary? Sure, there are some businesses and people that will immediately flock to the affected area to help and bring supplies. Would more people come with supplies if they were poised to make some money at it? Would people in Georgia load up their pickup truck with plywood and drive to Florida after a hurricane if they were going to make 600-700 bucks doing it? You better believe it.. Trying to legislate morality is at best a fool's errand and at worse is an excuse to impose one type of morality over everyone (see anti gay laws for example). Yes, sometimes people do not have everyone else's best interests at heart, but as long as the results are the same as someone that does, who's business is it what people think?
economics gouging congress free trade
