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To me 1984 is really insightful not for its depiction of totalitarianism, but the way in which modern American democratic politics cynically re-imagine the past. I have always been intrigued by George H. W. Bush (and more broadly the politicians within the family) shifting from a pro-choice supporter of planned parenthood sympathetic to population control, to a conventional acolyte of New Right pro-life positions around 1980. Though some people bring this up occasionally, the reality is that there seems to be an agreement to act as if that past no longer exists (also, in the 1980s Jesse Jackson and Al Gore went from pro-life to pro-choice). Similarly, Hillary Clinton waited until 2013 to support gay marriage, after a decade opposing it. Privately I assume she supported gay marriage, but spoke against it for political expediency. When the winds had changed she shifted her public view, and now would no doubt condemn in visceral terms those who promoted a position that she herself held three years ago! A position held by most Democratic politicians in the aughts on cynical grounds of political necessity is now scourged by those same politicians as being beyond the pale.
Got Land of Two Rivers: A History of Bengal from the Mahabharata to Mujib after it was mentioned on Facebook. The more you know.
In The New York Times, Brussels Attacks Underscore Vulnerability of an Open European Society:
The cultural code of silence in the heavily immigrant district, as well as widespread distrust of already weak government authorities, has provided what amounts to a fifth column or forward base for the Islamic State.
This is in The New York Times. If Fox News said something like this the squealing about “Islamophobia” would never end. One thing that some have observed is that the terrorist networks in Belgium seem to be almost exclusively Moroccan, not Turkish. Also, there are many friends and family members involved. If you read Scott Atran’s work on terrorism these facts are not surprising. One of the most annoying things about Sam Harris’ New Atheism is that he talks as if the Koran magically transmutes normal people into ticking time bombs. The ethnographic data present a different picture, where Islamic terrorism takes root in tightly integrated social networks which exclude outsiders. As Peter Turchin says, a widening precipitation of the Islamic jihadi phenomenon was easy to predict as an outcome of the events of the past 15 years because of the historical-social premises of this civilization.
Though overall I’m not a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell, his book from 15 years ago, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, did describe a phenomenon which I think can shed some light on why Moroccan, but not Turkish, networks in Belgium are being sucked into the jihadi milieu. To some extent this is stochastic in terms of where the phenomenon begins, but once there is a large social network present to allow it to take off, then positive feedback loops kick in. There is a lot of talk about the causal factors for why some countries, such as Tunisia, send so many Muslims to fight for ISIS, while others, such as India, do not. There are some predictive variables here that are worth talking about, but some of it might just be random chance. But once participation in the Syria war on the side of ISIS becomes meritorious in one’s social network, then the dynamic might just feed back into itself if there are no dampening mechanisms.
Which gets to one of the major reasons that American Muslims are probably underrepresented in international jihadi activity: they lack asabiyyah due to ethnic diversity. The chart to the left actually oversimplifies. Though South Asian Muslims share a lot culturally for example, there is definitely an “inner circle” of cohesion defined by Pakistanis and Urdu speakers from India into which Bengali or South Indian Muslims, for example, are not totally integrated. Converts for obvious reasons often create their own communities of affinity unless they marry into a family, while black Americans have a separate culture altogether. The ethnic diversity combines with economic diversity to fracture Muslim-American identity in a way that makes cultural complexes like that of Molenbeek, where underclass and working class Moroccan Muslims set the tone, or Tower Hamlets, where Bangladeshi Muslims from Sylhet set the tone, very rare. Even the town of Hamtramck, Michigan, where Muslims are demographically very notable in the aggregate, exhibits a lot of ethnic diversity within the religion. The importance of ethnic homogeneity as an amplifying effect can be seen in the Buffalo Six, who grew up in a tight-knit Yemeni-American community, or the “Minnesota men” who are routinely reported to have died fighting for the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Shabaab in Somalia, who come out of the Somali refugee community.
To not put too fine a point on it, I think the high frequency of snitching by American Muslims is a function of the low ethnic cohesion of the religion in the United States. This is one reason why arrival of refugee communities in toto is going to be a problem in Europe. Sweden, for example, has just imported a piece of Syria, not individual Syrians. Good luck with that.
I think it’s time for Twitter to admit that it is a specialized service and focus on its core constituency.
At 10 yr anniversary, @Twitter adoption curve looks a lot different than other concurrent tech pic.twitter.com/DfldT4Uucv
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) March 26, 2016
The Rise of Donald Trump. Important:
Many of Trump’s supporters are already convinced that mainstream America is against them. They believe, with justification, that they are mocked and ridiculed. And they are especially indignant that they are not allowed to voice their concerns about immigration, about Black Lives Matter, and about globalization and multiculturalism more broadly, without being called racists or bigots.
At minimum Trump will do better in the general elections than polls predict.
No evidence for extensive horizontal gene transfer in the genome of the tardigrade Hypsibius dujardini. “We show that the extensive horizontal transfer proposed by Boothby et al. was an artifact of a failure to eliminate contaminants from sequence data before assembly.” Oops!
Why won’t you pay to read? I’m lucky to have been paid to blog for many years (and thanks to Ron Unz in particular, obviously!). I’m also lucky that this is not, and has never been, my primary source of income. That gives me a lot of freedom to say whatever I want.
Speaking of which. “Disclosure notice,” I am joining Embark, a genomics firm which will focus on dogs for my “day job.” Also, I’m still finishing up my Ph.D., doing some consulting for Gene by Gene, and writing for publications now and then. On the last issue, please make sure to subscribe to my total feed, as I am pretty busy and might not remember to post stuff here as a link all the time. Here’s an article on what Embark aims to do: Doggie DNA startup wants to learn about human diseases from dog drool.
Vinyl record sales produce more rev ($416M) than streaming sites like YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music ($385M) https://t.co/cV9MAIyKl2 @nytimes
— Jenna Mukuno (@jmukuno) March 25, 2016
Researchers Find Fish That Walks the Way Land Vertebrates Do.
If you are interested, Support Gila monster research.
Also, I should be at the Evolution Meeting this June in Austin.
Adaptation in protein fitness landscapes is facilitated by indirect paths.
In Facebook’s Hometown, the First Responders Aren’t Local. One reason I’m leaving California is that it’s not really congenial for young families. I was talking to a friend whose family has been living in San Francisco for four generations, and we got to discussing real estate. Her family own houses because their roots are so deep in the region, and I told her it was critical to start building vertically if the area wanted newcomers to stay for the long haul. Her response was “but it would ruin the views.” My response was “views are why San Francisco is so expensive.” Basically if there was more vertical development allowed in the Bay area, as is common in an Asian city, then there’d be more housing supply. But regulatory, cultural, and contingent (i.e., stakeholders who dominate zoning boards and benefit from inflated rents and property values) make it almost impossible to change the situation in California.
It’s a great state, but if you are middle class, you had better be single, or dual-income-no-kids, or have deep roots in the state so you can inherit property your parents purchased when it was affordable to do so on less than $300,000 per year in income. Otherwise, come for your 20s if you are a professional, but move elsewhere to raise kids. Perhaps if you become wealthy you can move back to Carlsbad when you retire.
Biologists Have Learned Something Horrifying About Prairie Dogs. Vegetarians can be violent. Hitler was a vegetarian by the end of his life.
Romeo Dallaire in Rwanda. Is anyone surprised he had a soft spot for the RPF? What exactly was he supposed to do? This gives me an opportunity to promote Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. Great book that everyone should read, especially in light of what’s going on in Syria now.
It turns out there are no saints, though there are many sinners. Too often today the past and present gets reduced to Manichaean caricatures, but there’s a reason that Manichaeanism is a recurrent feature of religion, but it tends to whither over time. It doesn’t engage with reality, and appeals just to our hopes and idealism.
This is an important paper: Genetic risk for autism spectrum disorders and neuropsychiatric variation in the general population.
Minding the Beeswax. Farmers and bees have a long history together.
PCASO has already been great for collaboration/data sharing:
Got #PCA data? Be like @razibkhan, and fluidly explore it w/everyone! https://t.co/tgG1QFXQQ8 #Pcaso pic.twitter.com/7wTuBYRXbo
— Nathan Pearson (@GenomeNathan) March 22, 2016
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I’d love it if a politician just straight-out said that they’ve shifted their positions because the parties have become much more ideologically cohesive over time in the US (or at least the Republican Party has – Democrats are getting there, but they still seem to be divided between pro-labor and business-friendly Democrats). Any Republican politician is going to have someone from one of the anti-choice groups “score-carding” them and threatening a well-funded primary challenge if they deviate at all from doctrine.
Enjoy Austin, not a surprise on leaving the overpriced bay area.
I always tell young people to go to grad school somewhere they will hate, so leaving will feel so good 😉
Your comment on politicians brings to mind the (I hope not apocryphal) quote from William Jennings Bryan: “The people of Nebraska are for free silver and I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.”
Just saying that would actually be more honest. We do live in a representative democracy. If a politician is going to represent the people and those people change their minds, perhaps the politician should change theirs too.
I’m getting one of those dog kits!
Gotta be honest, I think it’d be a shame to change Hitchcock’s San Francisco too much. I kinda like it the way it is too.
A better reason for not building vertically in SF is that an earthquake might hit the Bay.
(This is also a good reason for moving away from it.)
no. tokyo has plenty of tall buildings. modern buildings are built to withstand earthquakes. it's old buildings going down and fire than is the big risk.
Because we prefer the writings of blockheads?
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson
I always tell young people to go to grad school somewhere they will hate, so leaving will feel so good ;-)Replies: @John Massey
My daughter heard you.
First, does Razib (or anyone else) know how Belgium got so many Moroccans to begin with? I know that France actually has a larger absolute number, but Belgium apparently has the highest percentage in Europe. Google is not being helpful here. I’m supposing it was some sort of guest-worker relationship going back decades, considering most under 30 have Belgian citizenship. But why did Belgium turn to Morocco rather than Turkey, as Germany did?
Secondly, I’ve read a lot about urban planning since marrying my wife (who is an architect) and come to believe that while it started for well intentioned reasons (such as ensuring houses wouldn’t be built next to a slaughterhouse) zoning as it’s practiced within the U.S. has been a nearly unmitigated evil. All of the older, interesting urban neighborhoods (such as in San Francisco) look the way they do because they came into being before zoning applied straightjackets to neighborhood development. California’s problems are deeper than merely zoning – Proposition 13 was probably one of the worst initiatives in U.S. history. But the Bay Area in particular would be so much better of a place if it wasn’t normal for incumbent property owners to stop other people from doing what they wished with their own property.
Regarding Trump, I will agree there is no way he will do as poorly as his current polling suggests. That said, given the demographics of the U.S. electorate, I do not see how it is possible he does significantly better than Romney did in 2012. Working-class whites who identify as Republican have real reasons to be dissatisfied with the bipartisan political consensus. That said, they don’t come close to being a majority of the U.S. electorate.
The radicalization isn't just in Europe, by the way. It's part of a general increase in rigidity on the matters of Islam in those countries and their diaspora. I was discussing this with some colleagues here that are from Morocco and Algeria, and 20 years ago, one could sit at a terrace in Algier or Rabat and sip beer or a glass of wine without problems. Today, you get inside the bar for that glass. If you drink alcohol on a terrace, you can expect a passer-by to start insulting you or even sometimes knock your glass.
Zoning is also now a form of collectivism where owners are able to band together to keep others out be restricting development of multi-family housing.
Personally I am not sure that is the worst thing but it ossified areas like the Bay Area. I live on the SF Pennisula in an area where multfamily housing and better mass transit are highly in demand but the majority here don't want it and with local land use control will avoid it.Replies: @Karl Zimmerman
The Netherlands also seem to have a lot of Moroccans from what I gather (e.g. that one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Bouyeri).
Congrats on the job. With that punny name the company sounds a fun place.
Secondly, I've read a lot about urban planning since marrying my wife (who is an architect) and come to believe that while it started for well intentioned reasons (such as ensuring houses wouldn't be built next to a slaughterhouse) zoning as it's practiced within the U.S. has been a nearly unmitigated evil. All of the older, interesting urban neighborhoods (such as in San Francisco) look the way they do because they came into being before zoning applied straightjackets to neighborhood development. California's problems are deeper than merely zoning - Proposition 13 was probably one of the worst initiatives in U.S. history. But the Bay Area in particular would be so much better of a place if it wasn't normal for incumbent property owners to stop other people from doing what they wished with their own property.
Regarding Trump, I will agree there is no way he will do as poorly as his current polling suggests. That said, given the demographics of the U.S. electorate, I do not see how it is possible he does significantly better than Romney did in 2012. Working-class whites who identify as Republican have real reasons to be dissatisfied with the bipartisan political consensus. That said, they don't come close to being a majority of the U.S. electorate.Replies: @Vincent Archer, @granesperanzablanco, @German_reader
It’s a bit of randomness, plus colonial past, I presume. Morocco was a french protectorate, and people there still speak french. As a bilingual country with french widely spoken in the SE, moroccans were probably more comfortable emigrating there than turks. But otherwise, Belgium didn’t have the same relationship to north africa that France had, so no real idea.
The radicalization isn’t just in Europe, by the way. It’s part of a general increase in rigidity on the matters of Islam in those countries and their diaspora. I was discussing this with some colleagues here that are from Morocco and Algeria, and 20 years ago, one could sit at a terrace in Algier or Rabat and sip beer or a glass of wine without problems. Today, you get inside the bar for that glass. If you drink alcohol on a terrace, you can expect a passer-by to start insulting you or even sometimes knock your glass.
Could there be a linguistic element to the more potent Islamization of the Moroccan community vs. the Turkish one? I would imagine that the bulk of social-media / recruiting content would be in Arabic.
My understanding is Moroccan Arabic is so divergent from the Arabic spoken in the near east that it’s functionally an independent language (similar to Chinese “dialacts”). Maghrebis often have to use English to talk to Near Eastern Arabs if both parties aren’t conversant in Classical Arabic.
Re dogs http://evoandproud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/low-hanging-fruit.html?showComment=1362865404234#c774981512922782503
Belgian police could not track an elephant in six feet of snow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabant_killers
(This is also a good reason for moving away from it.)Replies: @granesperanzablanco, @Razib Khan
Don’t know if you really believe this but this is a common subterfuge in SF why we just can’t built up.
The area needs to build up but it also needs more and smarter investment in public transit to move people.
Secondly, I've read a lot about urban planning since marrying my wife (who is an architect) and come to believe that while it started for well intentioned reasons (such as ensuring houses wouldn't be built next to a slaughterhouse) zoning as it's practiced within the U.S. has been a nearly unmitigated evil. All of the older, interesting urban neighborhoods (such as in San Francisco) look the way they do because they came into being before zoning applied straightjackets to neighborhood development. California's problems are deeper than merely zoning - Proposition 13 was probably one of the worst initiatives in U.S. history. But the Bay Area in particular would be so much better of a place if it wasn't normal for incumbent property owners to stop other people from doing what they wished with their own property.
Regarding Trump, I will agree there is no way he will do as poorly as his current polling suggests. That said, given the demographics of the U.S. electorate, I do not see how it is possible he does significantly better than Romney did in 2012. Working-class whites who identify as Republican have real reasons to be dissatisfied with the bipartisan political consensus. That said, they don't come close to being a majority of the U.S. electorate.Replies: @Vincent Archer, @granesperanzablanco, @German_reader
Spatially zoning or not, the interesting neighborhoods are scaled for people and not cars. Further cars allowed people to remove themselves and their familes from the cities like never possible before.
Zoning is also now a form of collectivism where owners are able to band together to keep others out be restricting development of multi-family housing.
Personally I am not sure that is the worst thing but it ossified areas like the Bay Area. I live on the SF Pennisula in an area where multfamily housing and better mass transit are highly in demand but the majority here don’t want it and with local land use control will avoid it.
yes
(This is also a good reason for moving away from it.)Replies: @granesperanzablanco, @Razib Khan
A better reason for not building vertically in SF is that an earthquake might hit the Bay.
no. tokyo has plenty of tall buildings. modern buildings are built to withstand earthquakes. it’s old buildings going down and fire than is the big risk.
The Muslims in the US lack critical mass and are not cohesive . A possibly underated factor is the FBI is a very effective disruption of organisations they don’t like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO#Methods
With the various organisation calling themselves “the Klan” many of the leading members were in the pay of the FBI, who also spread paranoia throughout the Panthers. US Muslims know anyone turning up at the mosque talking terrorism is most likely a paid FBI provocateur. Any jihad advocate not controlled by the FBI will be assumed to be working for them. Nonetheless, in Belgium and the US brothers are the prime moving core.
Endearing little penguins being faithfully protected from evil foxes by a special dog breed on an Oz island. There are plans to make it into a film, but very light coloured coats that breed has (maybe an idea to have some black labradors in the cast).
Zoning is also now a form of collectivism where owners are able to band together to keep others out be restricting development of multi-family housing.
Personally I am not sure that is the worst thing but it ossified areas like the Bay Area. I live on the SF Pennisula in an area where multfamily housing and better mass transit are highly in demand but the majority here don't want it and with local land use control will avoid it.Replies: @Karl Zimmerman
I am of the belief that self-driving cars will change how U.S. cities are structured dramatically on the 10-30 year horizon. People who now own cars but seldom use them will switch to ride-sharing services, and many two-car families will reduce their car usage to one (you can always send the car back home for your spouse). At the same time, remote parking will become feasible, meaning there will be no real need for garages or even surface parking in business districts. Thus I think the future of U.S. cities will be more focused on people-focused streets again, and turn away from a car-focused life.
One of the major issues with local zoning codes is that it’s not even collectivism – it gets into the realm of, for lack of a better term, busybodyism. To give a local example here in Pittsburgh, there is block in a neighborhood on the North Side of town, close to a gentrified neighborhood, which has stood vacant for years due to various bad development deals. A new deal was hatched last year which could save the historic buildings on this block by incorporating them into a new, 82-unit apartment building. Zoning variances were needed to account for not following the height limits and parking minimums, but were granted with the support of the major community groups. But two homeowners (one of whom actually lives in NYC) were able to appeal the decision to a judge, who overturned the zoning board’s variances. Thus it appears the project is dead and the buildings will be condemned. I’ve seen the same dynamic play out locally time and time again. A handful of people willing to hire a lawyer can block any development, regardless of what the majority thinks.
Secondly, I've read a lot about urban planning since marrying my wife (who is an architect) and come to believe that while it started for well intentioned reasons (such as ensuring houses wouldn't be built next to a slaughterhouse) zoning as it's practiced within the U.S. has been a nearly unmitigated evil. All of the older, interesting urban neighborhoods (such as in San Francisco) look the way they do because they came into being before zoning applied straightjackets to neighborhood development. California's problems are deeper than merely zoning - Proposition 13 was probably one of the worst initiatives in U.S. history. But the Bay Area in particular would be so much better of a place if it wasn't normal for incumbent property owners to stop other people from doing what they wished with their own property.
Regarding Trump, I will agree there is no way he will do as poorly as his current polling suggests. That said, given the demographics of the U.S. electorate, I do not see how it is possible he does significantly better than Romney did in 2012. Working-class whites who identify as Republican have real reasons to be dissatisfied with the bipartisan political consensus. That said, they don't come close to being a majority of the U.S. electorate.Replies: @Vincent Archer, @granesperanzablanco, @German_reader
Germany actually also got some “guest workers” from Morocco, an agreement was signed in 1963. Can’t really tell you how many of them stayed though.
The Netherlands also seem to have a lot of Moroccans from what I gather (e.g. that one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Bouyeri).
Congrats and good luck on new job and moving to a new city.
Sad to see you go. Myself, I’m leaving for San Diego, in a few months. Perhaps, ill return, having inherited property makes it easier.
Razib, Breitbart has a “guide to the Alt-Right,” and they include mention of your writing.
I’m unimpressed with how much the authors emphasize this type of idea:
“Asking people to see each other as human beings rather than members of a demographic in-group, meanwhile, ignored every piece of research on tribal psychology.”
My sense of the alt-right is that none of the authors are willing to argue against these irrational memes, so the alt-right gets taken over by them.
Readers who don’t actively mentally oppose these memes end up absorbing them by osmosis. Many readers develop a subconscious response of viewing humans of other ancestries from themselves as visually distasteful and unwelcome.
*Article link in case the above doesn’t work:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/an-establishment-conservatives-guide-to-the-alt-right/