Can game theory explain why there aren’t any good single guys out there?
Archive for the ‘Stragety’ Category
Where the boys are
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 10, 2008
Posted in Homo sapiens, Scientificus, Stragety | Leave a Comment »
Taking the Iraq question seriously
Posted by Ron Coleman on March 17, 2008
Slate seems to actually be interested in discussing the question, rather than posturing about it:
To mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Slate has asked a number of writers who originally supported the war to answer the question, “Why did we get it wrong?” We have invited contributions from the best-known “liberal hawks,” many of whom participated in two previous Slate debates about the war, the first before it began in fall of 2002, the second in early 2004. We will be publishing their responses through the week. Read the rest of the contributions.
The reaction to this should be interesting.
Posted in Orient, Sisyphus, Stragety | 3 Comments »
It’s all about me
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 12, 2008
The New York Times reports on what everyone in the business of persuasion, such as people who try cases before juries, already knows: The more you can make yourself come across to the people you are trying to persuade as one of them, the more open they will be to your message. The article discusses the extent to which actual, but subtle, mimicry is the key to persuasion.
Naturally this is easier to do if you’re a salesman, who interacts directly with his potential customer, than if you are trial lawyer. Jurors can’t talk to us during a trial, so we have to pick up other cues to figure out who they are. The idea is not to distort the message or to mislead, but rather to find that frequency at which other human beings are most likely to be receptive to what you have to say.
You still have to have a good case. But if you don’t, you shouldn’t be anywhere near the jury, anyway.
Posted in Homo sapiens, Scientificus, Stragety | 3 Comments »
Russians “concerned”
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 8, 2008
Meryl Yourish: “File under “’Duh!’”
Posted in Sisyphus, Stragety | 1 Comment »
Youth is wasted on the conservative
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 7, 2008
It’s bad enough being part of Instapundit’s “army of commenters” — but here I have to reprint his entire item (not a one-sentence special, either) to make my point:
NOBODY HAS TRIED HARDER FOR ROMNEY, OR AGAINST MCCAIN, THAN HUGH HEWITT. But now he’s beginning the reconciliation process: “These aren’t the years to wish a pox on your primary opponents’ heads beyond June.”
UPDATE: Thoughts on talk radio from A.J. Strata.
ANOTHER UPDATE: More from John Hinderaker.
MORE: Dan Riehl isn’t following Hugh’s lead.
What does Dan — whose work I love, we’re never-actually-met “friends” on Facebook, he’s a go-getter, he’s a bigger fish than I am, the whole thing — but what does Dan not have that the others on this list do?
Answer: From what I can figure, grey hair. That’s the only way he could write this:
The grass roots doesn’t take its marching orders from Right-side pundits. Independent registrations are growing, both parties numbers have been struggling. Many that would normally support the GOP simply won’t show up. I’ve been hearing that from plenty of people who are not bloggers, and such. They’re fed up and this would be the final straw.
I say this as a former College Republicans president, a Federalist Society chapter president in law school, and all around curmudgeon starting at age eight: Only someone who actually lacks the long view — not, as Dan and the many other young conservatives I read on the web, the other way around — would write such silly, fantastic and politically naive things.
Pardon me for repeating myself, but I am going to say this again:
The electorate is not all that conservative. We will not win the Presidency with a strong conservative candidate. You can’t deduce anything from Ronald Reagan. There was one Ronald Reagan [and as Bob Miller reminded me, only one Jimmy Carter for him to run against]. If another one emerges, we’ll know (some of us were not fooled).
And if you think that you (we) will “teach the nation a lesson,” a la Jimmy Carter, by not supporting the GOP candidate and letting a liberal run the country for four — or eight years — and appoint judges and commissioners, and sign legislation, and take control of the national political dialogue during that time… good luck. See you at the People’s Reeducation Center and Tax Labor Farm. We can plan the next revolution with the other zeks.
But if you want to win, and have any shot at having any of your ideas reign, and to make incremental progress in government, policy and the popular imagination — then you have to realize that politics is now. And act accordingly.
Will the GOP choose “principled” self-castration? Or will it call up the testosterone to fight this November?
UPDATE: Perhaps some carbs would help, for if McCain plays his cards right, as Frank J. says, “Conservatives will say, “McCain may be against us on many issues, but he’s the only candidate who gave me candy!”
ONE MORE, AND THEN MAYBE WE MOVE ON ALREADY: Roland Dodds hits it:
If Republicans want to wait around for Reagan to walk from the grave and “save the party” then they can sit out the election and “punish” the American people in the name of their superior purity. Wait until Jesus walks the earth; and then you can vote for him. In the meantime, the world will move on without you, and you won’t be able to bitch about what it looks like while your head is stuck in the mud.
Posted in Politics and Poker, Stragety | 8 Comments »
McCain and Iran
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 5, 2008
Even Frank J. pauses to reflect on the remaining GOP field, in the “shadow” of a nuclear Iran:
For the Republicans, this is where I’m sorry to say Romney doesn’t shine. McCain has the foreign policy experience, and I think he will take a break from repeatedly sodomizing conservatives to handle the Iran problem decisively. Romney may be the better conservative, but he’s a bit of a indulgence in a time of global conflict. Not saying I’d vote for McCain over Romney were I voting today, but with all the country faces and my brother in Iraq now (and most likely not for the last time), it’s a thinker. I don’t understand why the talk radio guys think it’s so simple.
“I don’t understand why the talk radio guys think it’s so simple.”
Posted in Orient, Politics and Poker, Stragety | Leave a Comment »
What’s all this about Google and Yahoo! and Microsoft?
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 4, 2008
I’m surprised that even Kara Swisher has missed this. The bloggers are going nuts, once again, over the email that a Google lawyer sent to Microsoft regarding Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Yahoo.Here’s what’s really going on:
Read it to find out what’s really going on, and to understand something about some very big pieces of the Internet business.
Posted in Gelt, Stragety | 1 Comment »
McCain and conservativism
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 2, 2008
Randall Hoven wrestles with the issue of how conservative McCain is as a Senator:
Senator John McCain’s lifetime rating of 82.3% from the American Conservative Union is often that he is conservative. Here is a closer look at that 82.3 rating. First, a rating of 82.3 is not really that high. It puts Senator McCain in 39th place among senators serving in 2006, the latest year for which the ACU has its ratings posted online. For that most recent year in particular, McCain scored only 65, putting him in 47th place for that year. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), for example, scored 64 and 75, respectively, in 2006
He demonstrates that McCain is actually on the liberal side among Republicans, despite his seemingly high ACU rating, which explains of course why the media love him. He concludes thus, however:
On the other hand, Senator Clinton (D-NY) has a lifetime ACU rating of 9 and Senator Obama (D-IL) has a rating of 8.
Not much the cheer about here.
Well, here’s something a little large, and a little more significant, to not cheer about — but something that conservatives must understand if they don’t want to relegated to a fringe: The electorate is not all that conservative. We will not win the Presidency with a strong conservative candidate. You can’t deduce anything from Ronald Reagan. There was one Ronald Reagan. If another one emerges, we’ll know (some of us were not fooled).
And if you think that you (we) will “teach the nation a lesson,” a la Jimmy Carter, by not supporting the GOP candidate and letting a liberal run the country for four — or eight — years and appoint judges and commissioners, and sign legislation, and take control of the national political dialogue during that time… good luck. See you at the People’s Reeducation Center and Tax Labor Farm. We can plan the next revolution with the other zeks.
But if you want to win, and have any shot at having any of your ideas reign, and to make incremental progress in government, policy and the popular imagination — then you have to realize that politics is now. And act accordingly.
Posted in Politics and Poker, Stragety | 13 Comments »
Nu, plug in!
Posted by Ron Coleman on January 24, 2008
The Kvetcher says energy independence is a “Jewish issue.”
Then again, he also thinks I’m a libertarian, evidently, so huge grain of salt with that matzah ball, okay?
Posted in Blogophilia, Stragety | 3 Comments »
Lawyers cause depressions
Posted by Ron Coleman on January 16, 2008
Glenn Reynolds writes, in reference to a predicted threat to the technological leadership of the US:
The big problem is that the American workplace doesn’t make technical jobs attractive enough. The pay is okay, but less than that of other professionals, like lawyers. And the working conditions for engineers and scientists are generally quite poor — too much Dilbert, not enough Skunk Works. They act as if there’s a positive conspiracy to take all the fun out of it, according several of my friends who work in the area.
Well, I have had this discussion with Instapundit before. I just don’t understand how a market-oriented guy can utter formulations like this. “The American workplace” isn’t some guy with a green eyeshade. Unless Glenn wants to see a Japan, Inc.-type “investing in winners” and pay-scale-setting government policy instituted here, which I certainly know he doesn’t, what is the point of this?
It would seem there is some structural reason that technology workers are compensated at the level they are here, considering all factors (e.g., the cost of living), if indeed it’s the case that they are undercompensated.
Bashing lawyers, again, is not the answer, because not only we can never make technology jobs competitive with the best professional jobs, but we can never make the gap here look anything like the gap in the developing world, i.e., among our putative competitors. They are not, in the long run, going to be one of possibly two or three global centers for international finance nor the sort of commerce that makes business enterprises find it worth paying attorneys $400 – $1000 an hour to protect their interests.
In short, let’s stop comparing apples and oranges. Envy is not a basis for policy-making! Like you, Glenn, I sometimes wish I were fresh out of a good law school (as we both once were, if not quite the same law school) and contemplating those starting salaries and bonuses, just for a little while. But those times, for both of us, are rare; life is basically good as a human being, isn’t it? Even human beings with science degrees would agree.
UPDATE: One Instapundit writes in to suggest a secular reason for the problem: Legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley. Well, you can indeed blame the lawyers for that one.
Posted in Americana, Gelt, Stragety | 1 Comment »
