Materialism?

In anticipation of going on the job market late this fall, I'm planning to make a few upgrades. In particular, I need to get a computer that will allow me to work while traveling, an expansion of my professional wardrobe, and new shoes. I'm thinking of going a bit crazy on all counts.



Computer

I've been doing some looking around, and the main computers I'm considering right now are as follows:

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3

 












Toshiba Mini NB305-N410

ASUS Eee PC 1001P

HP Mini 5102

Any tips or comments on these or other models with similar specs & price range would be appreciated.


Wardrobe

I need to get a couple suits for my job market interviews at the AEA meetings in January. I want to really convey my competence, but let people know I'm still fun. Maybe I should get something like these:

This is The Doctor.

Doctor? Doctor who?

My wife favors the three-piece suit, though. We'll see where I end up on this. (As an aside, I'd take that overcoat if it comes in my length, too. I'm a fan of outerwear.)


Shoes

My current pair (yes, I usually own one pair of every-day shoes at a time) have gotten pretty worn in the sole.  For as long as I can remember I've either worn all-white shoes or all-black shoes (except for one pair of brown shoes my wife talked me into), and always with a (partially) leather upper.

I'm thinking of really changing it up and getting something like these:

I will probably not wear them to the job interviews. Probably.

Creating Families

I've read about the hormone Oxytocin before in If you haven't read it, I heartily recommend the fantastic book Unprotected, by Anonymous, MD. The tag line is "A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student," and it was a real eye opener for me, and provided a lot of things to think about in terms of how the human mind and body work and how we're told they work. One of the most interesting things I learned about is the hormone Oxytocin. 

The book talks about how when you have sex (or breastfeed), your body releases chemicals that make you form an emotional bond with the other person present. There is a new study out involving oxytocin that got more specific about what sort of reactions the hormone produces. From the abstract:

Humans [...] self-sacrifice to contribute to in-group welfare and to aggress against competing out-groups. [...] Here, we have linked oxytocin, a neuropeptide produced in the hypothalamus, to the regulation of intergroup conflict. In three experiments using double-blind placebo-controlled designs, male participants self-administered oxytocin or placebo and made decisions with financial consequences to themselves, their in-group, and a competing out-group. Results showed that oxytocin drives a "tend and defend" response in that it promoted in-group trust and cooperation, and defensive, but not offensive, aggression toward competing out-groups.

I have not read the full study, but this really got me thinking about how our bodies are an indispensable part of who we are. They have so much power over our identities that they can make other people into family. Our bodies can do that. Sex is not just an enjoyable activity, it literally changes who the other person is to us at the neuro-psychological level. More than that, it changes who we are at the physical level by making us people who want to take care of those we have these bonds with, and to keep out those we don't. It doesn't make us attack outsiders, but it does make us shun.

To me, this makes the issue of sex and marriage much more serious. Every time you have sex with someone, you are making them into family. When you leave that person (whether because you got divorced, broke up, etc.), your family is destroyed. Every. Time. And to think the average youth starts doing this in their early teens. Over and over again, familial bonds are built and broken. Is it any wonder our culture is filled with people who don't know how to love anymore? That every affection is interpreted as sexual, and sexual affection is interpreted as casual?

My classroom isn't just filled with kids from broken homes. It's filled with kids from dozens of broken homes each. How does someone cope with that kind of trauma, a trauma they might not even be aware of? Students might even seek solace in more pain, making the wound deeper and harder to heal, like drinking vodka in the desert. What hope do we have when the thing that can comfort us, the thing we most want--love and affection--is the thing that is killing us?

He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!¹

A Proper Welcome

I've been thinking about immigration issues lately. In particular, the recent suggested challenge to Arizona's new immigration status enforcement law has me wondering why our attitude toward illegal immigrants is what it is. Certainly, they are breaking the law, and breaking the law should have consequences. But I find it incredible to suggest that the primary motive is due to a "law and order" position, because the same attitude is not applied symmetrically throughout the legal system.

There is no similar outrage that speeders or runners of red lights go un-ticketed. It's not a matter of the relative seriousness of the crimes, either, since traffic violations are much more likely to lead to third-party injuries or death than immigration violations. There is substantial overlap between the most vocal hard-liners on immigration and those willing to disrupt business activities at abortion clinics, despite the fact that abortions are quite legal. And let's not forget that tax evasion is only a big deal when the person doing it is famous and belongs to a political party one dislikes. So although I won't speculate on what the true motives behind the deeply emotional reactions really are, I don't think it's primarily about upholding the current legal code.

A couple of the more specific statements in this regard that I often hear are (1) "They should wait in line like all the hard-working citizens who played by the rules!" and (2) "They'll bring violence, drugs, and prostitution, destroying the American dream!" (Both actually came up in a Ray Stevens music video recently emailed to me. As the video contains a blend of bad jokes, misinformation, and borderline racist visual gags, I will not link.)

There are a couple of recent articles from Reason magazine that should put these claims to rest. The first points out that those "hard-working citizens who played by the rules" either started out privileged or just plain got lucky:

What's the best-case immigration scenario? Five or six years: If you are the spouse or a minor child of a U.S. citizen, you should be able to enter the country and get a green card. Then, after three to five years, you can apply to become a citizen.

Unskilled workers just have to hope they get lucky. That's because only 10,000 green cards are given to these workers each year and "the wait time approaches infinity." Skilled workers may have better chances, but still face strict caps, thousands of dollars in fees, and an 11 to 16 year wait to obtain a green card and gain U.S. citizenship.

The costs and restrictions, combined with the fact that there is no "line" for people to really wait in year after year, are designed so that except for a remarkably small number of lucky ducks, the only people who can find a better life in America are those who already have things really good somewhere else. David Beckham didn't have any trouble immigrating, since the system makes it easy for people to bring their millions of dollars with them. (Take a look at the chart discussed in the article for a more complete picture of the process)

The second article points out that in cities with very high illegal immigration populations, crime is actually lower than in those without them:

Here's the surprise: There were just 18 murders in El Paso last year, in a city of 736,000 people. To compare, Baltimore, with 637,000 residents, had 234 killings. In fact, since the beginning of 2008, there were nearly as many El Pasoans murdered while visiting Juarez (20) than there were murdered in their home town (23).

[...] Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that, in fact, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be behind bars than are the native-born. This is true for the nation as a whole, as well as for cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border such as San Diego and El Paso.

And just in case you don't see the connection between large immigrant populations and large illegal immigrant populations, sociologist Rubén Rumbaut makes the case explicit: "The evidence points overwhelmingly to the same conclusion: Rates of crime and conviction for undocumented immigrants are far below those for the native born, and that is especially the case for violent crimes, including murder." Economists, criminologists, and sociologists who study immigration, documented and otherwise, all point out the same thing: people willing to leave their families and risk their personal well-being in order to make enough money to provide a better life for their children--which characterizes those coming here illegally as much as those coming legally--are very unlikely to be prone to criminality.

So hopefully this clears up some stereotypes about the people at the center of the immigration debate. Of course there will always be anecdotes to the contrary, and I don't mean to make light of those. But if we're going to pre-judge people we don't know and have no intention of understanding at an individual level, lets at least make the right assumptions on average.

Why is understanding why we think the way we do on this issue so important to me? For one thing, for Christians at least, how we treat foreigners and outsiders--people who obviously don't deserve the perks this country provides--says a lot about how we view ourselves.

Is this "love your neighbor" or "love your enemy"?

For another, the article points out that the attitude we take towards illegal immigrants may actually cause them to be either beneficial or harmful to country:

You don't see "Latinos Need Not Apply" or "No Mexicans" signs posted on public buildings the way you did with the Italians and the Irish, two groups who actually were disproportionately likely to turn to crime. The implication makes sense: An immigrant group's propensity for criminality may be partly determined by how they're received in their new country.

[...] "Most people in Washington really don't understand life on the border," El Paso Mayor John Cook told the Post. "They don't understand our philosophy here that the border joins us together, it doesn't separate us."

Food for thought.

Friday Video Extravaganza

Hit the jump for a couple of life lessons.

They Don't Want Pity

I have several friends, and one in particular, who are pursuing careers in the humanities, so this article caught my attention. Apparently, academics of the humanitarian bent don't enjoy being told their job prospects are not good:

Apparently, though my program is excellent, I will be among the snookered, vagabond English adjunct scholars milling around the countryside, doomed to a life of the vicissitudes of enrollment and discretionary spending. Or, more likely, I will pursue my second career choice: swamp hermit. I will scream my Lacanian analyses at unsuspecting families hiking through my territory. There will be some dignity in my bog.

Did you notice the academic/humanities vocabulary? To thine own self be true, unemployed scholar.

The main thrust of the article is that graduate students need to broaden their horizons beyond professorships at research universities (and that departments and advisors should be more encouraging of those who pursue these paths). The author very much wants PhDs to be applying to jobs in public schools and nonprofit organizations. Even more than that, though, the author wants those offering guidance to warmly say:

Yeah, you're all screwed in terms of work for a research institution, but there are these other things out there that are great options. Your degree is not useless, and you are doing valuable work.

The problem with this, of course, is that there is little reason for getting a PhD in a humanities field to do a nonacademic job. Public schools and nonprofits would be equally well served by those with a masters degree (or less), so the extra investment in the dissertation is essentially wasted effort. Despite the desires of the author, for the positions she is describing her degree is precisely useless. Not that she wants pity:

We, the humanities graduate students of the United States of America, do not want your pity, or your smug, self-congratulatory admonishments of our choices. What we want is your help formulating a path that will lead us into careers where we can be useful, not exploited.

I think she fails to realize that most commentators aren't admonishing or offering pity. They are trying their hardest to do exactly as she asks. The path to a useful career for most in the humanities is to stop sinking more time into a dissertation that will not avail them; "avoid the sunk cost fallacy" might be the best advice they can get.

Now, I don't want to be too down on graduate work in the humanities. I think there will always be a demand for teachers in these areas for consumption and signaling reasons (as an aside, I find that I've only blogged about these functions of university in passing commentary before. Perhaps I should discuss them in more detail?). For foreign language studies, there may even be some productivity gains due to learning Spanish or Chinese or even Italian that result. As such, I think there is certainly a place for academic pursuit of these disciplines, especially at the best departments. But in general I find it's not a good idea to try for the terminal degree unless you are willing to make some major sacrifices for your love of the discipline. If you've spent a couple of years working on a degree and you don't absolutely love it, poverty and all, do yourself a favor and drop out. You can prove your worth  to society in some better way, and without spending years of your life hating it.

Modern Day Patrons?

First off, sorry for not posting much for a few weeks. Illness and travel got in the way. I am planning to be back on a regular schedule at this point, though, which means full posts on Mondays and Thursdays, with video collections on Fridays. My inconsistency would no doubt be remedied if I had enough followers to make some money on this blogging gig, but as the following will point out, it's easier theorized than actualized.

We live in a tough world for professional content creators: authors, photographers, filmmakers, and the like. We've been hearing for years that journalists are an endangered species, and in a world where novels are self-publishable and available on e-book readers for under $10, it's not hard to imagine a world where everyone is an amateur story-teller but nobody can make a living doing it. And while there are some safe havens for those with a truly creative flair, even in those cases very few can do so for a living.

It's as if we live in a world where the superstars make more money than they know what to do with, and everyone else works for the Man, transforming these creative minds into mere evening hobbyists.

In response to this mainstream narrative, there are those out there favoring a different approach to professional creativity. They say you don't have to be a megastar to support yourself and your family, you just need 1,000 True Fans. What exactly is a "True Fan," you may ask?

 A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

This is an appealing idea to an artist, since it gives you an audience that genuinely appreciates what you like to create, and the marketing level is manageable at an individual level.

True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate. 

The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. They are giving you their support directly. [...]  The technologies of connection and small-time manufacturing make this circle possible.

How is this an effective way to make a decent income? The idea is that, on average, your True Fans will spend "one day's wages per year" on what you create. The article suggests this is about $100 per year, leaving you with $100,000 per year to cover your living and production expenses. It's a chance to turn the demise of many professional content-producing institutions into an opportunity.

Of course, there's the practical question of whether the theoretical structure works in practice. According to the follow-up post, The Case Against, it can, but usually doesn't:

What my research tells me: there are very few artists making their entire living selling directly to True Fans. The few that are, are selling high-priced goods, like paintings, rather than low-priced goods like CDs. But there are many that partially fund their livelihood with direct True Fans. However, most of these artists make it very clear in their notes to me: It takes a lot of time to find, nurture, manage, and service True Fans yourself. And, many artists don't have the skills or inclination to do so.  The fact that very few creators wholly sustain themselves with direct True Fans may be because it is a job few want to do for very long.  

The results reminded me of this piece by Cowen and Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution. The paper focuses on the complex trade-offs between pleasing customers and pleasing yourself in how you do your job. It also points out that artists are most inclined to pursue their own tastes when their final product is hard to market to the masses--paintings are usually avante-garde, but movies are usually popular.

All things considered, it's a pretty interesting way to use the technology of tomorrow to simulate the patronage system of yesterday. I think I'll stick with working for the Man, though.