Robert Baratheon

It's a bit silly to compare chess players from different time periods because the nature of the game has changed and players today have huge advantages in terms of theory, training, team-based preparation, and computer analysis that players from earlier times did not. The greatest players from a century ago wouldn't even register on a top-100 list today because they played what we now understand were inferior moves, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have been just as competitive if they had been born at a later date. I stopped playing in tournaments in college because the memorization grind became too time-consuming at the higher levels of play. This was party due to computers and partly because theory builds upon itself over time. It got to the point where the first 10-20 moves of most games weren't my own. I still play for fun, but I don't think computers have been a positive development for the game. Cheating with handheld devices in cash-prize tournaments has also become a major problem that is nearly impossible to prevent in practice, since you can't stop players from using the restrooms during games.

Greg, The real point of insurance qua insurance is NOT to get out more than you pay in. The point is to mitigate risk. Let's take a functioning insurance market such as home insurance which is typically insurance against fire, primarily. Other insurance, such as flood insurance is typically extra. Anyway, let's assume your house has a 0.1% chance of burning down in a year. That means 1 in 1000 houses will burn down in a year. If your house would cost $300,000 to replace, then you could protect yourself by going in with 999 other people who also own $300,000 houses and each contribute $300 to a pool that would then be paid out if one of the pool participant's houses burned down. But, you're not hoping to collect. You hope your house doesn't burn down. So, why would it benefit you to join such a group? Because, you would be mitigating your risk. If the probability of your house burning down was 0.1% per year, then your expected loss per year is $300,000 * 0.001 = $300. So, your payment of $300 would just cover your expected loss. In this scenario you neither gain nor lose anything. However, you gain peace-of-mind, because a loss of $300,000 all at once would be devastating for most people, but a loss of $300 per year is manageable. If you own your house for 50 years, you essentially lose $15,000. But, that guaranteed loss is more manageable than a random loss of $300,000, though your probability of ever losing anything is not that great (about 4.9% over 50 years). In reality, you're going to have to pay someone to manage the money. That's where the insurance company comes in. They have to pay their employees and are in business to make a profit, so your actual premium is going to be something like $500 (let's say). (An online site says that the probability of your house burning down is actually only 1/16000, but home insurance covers other kinds of losses as well, so let's not get bogged down in the details). In our hypothetical scenario, your expected loss per year is $300 but the insurance company collects $500, so you lose $200 per year above your expected loss and pay $25,000 over 50 years, thereby losing $10,000 above your expected loss. However, a predictable loss of $25,000 over 50 years is still much more manageable for most people than a sudden and unpredictable loss of $300,000. That's why people have insurance. Not so they can come out ahead in some Ponzi scheme. Now, admittedly the medical insurance marketplace is screwed up, but it's still not a Ponzi scheme. Darrell P.S. Using the probability of 1/16000 of a fire destroying your house, the insurance companies come out pretty well indeed, but you still come out ahead in the sense that you mitigate your risk of loss at a very nominal cost -- less than $50 a month. A very cogent rebuttal. Thank you.

Well, not necessarily, and I think when people criticize Carnegie they are usually referring to an unspoken element in some of his suggestions. But as long as both parties are made better off, I don't think the "manipulation" is necessarily unethical. For example, if a boss tells an employee that he is a good and valued worker so that the worker will feel appreciated and work harder, I don't think there's anything unethical about that, even though the boss is not sharing the full extent of his motivations. Just like I don't think it's unethical for a man to fib a bit and tell his wife she looks skinny in a dress when all telling her she looks fat would accomplish is hurting her feelings. I'd go so far as to say, deep down, the wife wants him to fib to her. 100% honesty in all social dealings is unrealistic to expect and would be very destructive. Human beings haven't evolved to interact that way.

One criticism I've heard is that Carnegie's book encourages "manipulating" people. Maybe in the most literal sense, but if "manipulation" means influencing others in a mutually positive way, then why is that a bad thing? I always point out that Carnegie recommends taking a genuine interest in people, not a disingenuous interest.

Dale Carnegie would say that charisma is the ability to Win Friends and Influence People. His book of the same name is the best work on the subject I've ever read. I think your definition is in the ballpark but a bit overly broad. A person may be able to confer a feeling of happiness in others through their presence or speech for reasons totally unrelated to charisma. For example, a security guard on duty may make someone feel happy knowing that they are protected, or someone's parent being nearby might make them feel happy even if the parent isn't charismatic.

Regulations - of any kind - tend to favor big business because larger firms have the resources, as well as the legal savvy and technical expertise, to comply with them while smaller competitors do not. In every federal rulemaking, big business submits written comments, arranges meetings with regulators, and speaks to their Congressmen, always lobbying for additional or stronger regulations on their industry, not deregulation. "We have a great safety program, but you should see that other guy..." is the most common theme. They would much rather use government regulations to their advantage by raising barriers to entry than having to compete on an equal footing with competitors. Ironically, "leveling the playing field" is commonly used by progressives and big business alike as a justification for increased regulation. This encourages de facto monopoly privileges in some industries because only the biggest players can meet their myriad, ever-changing legal obligations and satisfy all regulators. Yes and no. Regulations that are so layered and complex that nobody can practicably comply with them (e.g., the tax code, local health codes) give government a kill switch that can be activated at any time. Piss off the mayor and your restaurant will get a visit from the Health Department, which *will* find violations because every restaurant is guilty. As you stated, the purpose is not that they will be enforced on every violator. The power of the Sword of Damocles is not that it falls, but that it dangles.

Most people don't realize that it is perfectly legal for a company to *be* a monopoly in the United States. Only certain "anti-competitive" practices are prohibited by antitrust laws. In practice, these laws are almost never enforced because the practices just aren't that common or productive. One oft-repeated progressive myth is that Walmart is a monopoly. In reality, Walmart's practices are supercompetitive - the quintessential anti-monopoly. Capitalism allows for winners like Walmart to emerge, and importantly, it also allows for them to fail once they become complacent and inefficient. Interventionist types tend to underestimate the ability of new technologies and new firms to emerge. For example, in the 1960's, the government sued IBM for running an illegal monopoly on mainframe computers. The case dragged on for over a decade, sucking up millions of dollars in legal fees, until it was finally dropped. At that point, IBM wasn't even a major player in the mainframe market anymore - it had been outcompeted. It's also important to remember that one firm having a large market share (even 100%) doesn't necessarily mean that a market is not competitive. As long as other firms are threatening to enter the market, the dominant firm will be forced to stay competitive. Contrary to popular belief, more regulations tend to encourage monopolies rather than discourage them by creating a "level playing field." For example, environmentalists tend to assume Big Oil is lobbying for deregulation of their industry - quite the opposite, they are very pro-regulation. I'd be happy to provide a regulator's view on why that is if anybody is interested.

Exit polls are suggesting that Cuccinelli's statements on abortion cost him the election, with unmarried women overwhelmingly voting for McAuliffe and giving abortion rights as the reason. This is why education in law and government is so important - when people mistakenly believe the governor can unilaterally revoke their abortion rights over established case law, they make poor and emotionally driven voting decisions that impact issues that actually matter, like the economy.

No matter how much you tug and pull, you can't get milk from a bull. --Brant no matter how much you rant and rave, Greg always gets away Moralist's arguments are circular and not falsifiable. He's pushing the objectivist equivalent of religious fundamentalism. It took me one or two threads before I realized the futility and gave up.

Michael - What do you mean by "going down"? Obama doesn't have to run for re-election - he is safely in office for the next three years. You also assume that the types of people who voted for Obama care about whether his statements are 100% accurate or not. They don't.

My beef is that liberal Democrats already have two nearby states in which to live and experiment with their brand of governance. If they want to live in an aspiring socialist paradise, it's not like they can't do that already in Maryland or Washington, DC (okay, not technically a state). They don't want to do this because those areas have high taxes, burdensome regulations, corrupt politics, and cultural problems that make life unpleasant, so they choose to live in idyllic Virginia instead. Once they move, instead of reflecting on why Virginia is a superior place to live in the first place, they robotically set about trying to "turn the state blue" and replace its existing government with the social democracies they left behind. If somebody is voting for political upheaval, shouldn't they at least be able to point to some substantive grievances with how the state is being governed? In my experience, Virginia progressives can't do this. They *like* the way Virginia is, but incomprehensibly, they don't connect what they like about the state with the existing structure they are itching to reform. I don't think priorities are hopelessly subjective. There are rational priorities and irrational priorities. There are priorities that serve as distractions, and priorities that address compelling real-world issues. There are priorities that raise quality of life, priorities that lower it, and priorities that don't affect it at all. I don't demand that people's priorities exactly align with my own, but I do ask that they explain themselves if their priorities demand a major political shift in a state that by all indications is doing perfectly well without it.

This movie has a 3.9 out of 10 rating on IMDB.com. As a frame of reference, the worst-movies-of-all-time list begins at 2.5 out of 10.

All indications are that shady businessman Terry McAuliffe (D) will win the Virginia governorship today, and with his incoming administration's tie-breaking vote, swing the 50-50 Virginia Senate under the control of the Democratic Party. Here's what a CNN contributor found so noxious about Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli: "Tea party favorite and self-described "Second Amendment-supporting Christian right-to-life home-school dad," Cuccinelli has built a political career on a foundation of strident social conservatism. Proclaiming "homosexuality is wrong," supporting abstinence-only sex education and devoting himself to abortion restrictions as a matter of faith and law, Cuccinelli has been eager to use political office to advance an ideological agenda." http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/04/opinion/avlon-virginia-cuccinelli/index.html?hpt=hp_c2 These words could just as well have been written by several of our resident Virginian commenters who regularly warn about the imminent tyrannical theocracy waiting to be unleashed. Some of them may be out at the polls voting for McAuliffe at this moment, nodding approvingly as they witness their state making the historic transition from red to blue. I'll sum up in one word why I feel their laser-like focus on trending social issues is destructive: prioritization. I disagree with every one of Cuccinelli's social positions grieved about in the CNN passage above. So, not being a partisan voter, why do I feel the Turn-Virginia-Blue movement is so fundamentally misguided? Not coincidentally, the social issues that are getting the most attention are the lowest practical priority issues in the election. This is exactly what progressives want to drown out the debate: feel-good, quick-fix social causes that make next to no practical difference in real quality of life. Cuccinelli can't overturn Roe v. Wade or impose harsh new abortion restrictions, so why is it even part of the discussion? Abstinence-only sex education - who cares? Parents should be educating their children about sex, not the schools, in any event. And with apologies to my gay friends, though I support gay marriage, it is not even close to being the overriding social issue of our time. Only economic policies can account for the dramatic swings in living quality that we see from state to state. Nobody I've encountered disputes that Republican-controlled Virginia is a lovely, thriving place in which to live, which unfortunately, is part of the problem. The state has enviable jobs creation, relatively low taxes, tolerant people, and low levels of corruption. This has attracted an influx in progressive/liberal migration from the Northeast United States and nearby DC and Maryland, where taxes are high, jobs are fewer, and the cost-of-living is perpetually skyrocketing. These progressive migrants choose to live in Virginia, then vote to recreate it in the progressive image, furiously voting out every "Tea Bagger Republican" that appears on their radar. Like a swarm of locusts moving from field to field, they reflexively rage and rally against the political traditions that made their destination states so successful in the first place. Why let the perfect be the enemy of the good? If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

deleted as premature Wow... this literally jumped right out of your drama: She receives no support of any kind from her family or anyone else. Why not? That's what families and friends do. It's called love. Greg What a dumb statement. Not everyone has family or friends that can financially support them, and some people's families are cruel or abusive.

Not so. We are influenced by our upbringings, but our actions define us.

Veteran's preference is the result of political pandering with little regard for consequence. Everyone knows it's problematic, and yet political forces ensure that nothing is ever done. There are far more reasonable ways of employing veterans without torpedoing the entire federal hiring process such that convoluted HR workarounds have become the norm. One way would be committing to pay a percentage of the veteran's salary out of the general fund instead of the agency's budget. This would incentivize hiring veterans in those close cases, but at the same time it wouldn't bind the agency to selecting an inferior candidate. Unfortunately, most veterans don't want to hear that military service isn't a bona fide job qualification that warrants all manner of special privileges, so any attempt to reform the mess of a system would be shouted down as "anti-veteran." I'm not mentioning any names regarding that last statement.

Such an explicit policy would be unconstitutional in the United States under the 14th Amendment because it would involve the use of a hard quota. However, the Supreme Court has (incomprehensibly) ruled that organizations may use a subjective "weighting" system of affirmative action and not violate the Equal Protection Clause. I don't doubt that there is some kind of concerted effort to weight the applications of female applicants because there is no way the proportion of female engineering managers could have become so skewed if there wasn't. It also seems to be more pronounced the more technical the position is, to the point where if a chemical engineering office manager position is posted, it is almost certain to be filled with a female applicant. I haven't been around long enough to rise to the managerial level, so it hasn't affected me directly in any way - I'm rabidly pro-merit/anti-affirmative action as a general rule. Interestingly, the most destructive federal hiring policy which everyone complains about is veteran's preference. If a veteran applies to a position, the position will typically be closed because it is practically impossible to avoid hiring the veteran, even if they are one of the worst technically qualified candidates.

I don't have any reason to believe female engineers are inherently more competent managers than male engineers, so I have no reason to believe the selection pool would vary significantly from the overall engineering workforce. I'm both, so I wonder if that places me above, below, or somewhere in the middle. In my somewhat less limited experience, I agree with your assessment.

Mixed feelings is a good description. There is much I despise about the nature of the animal, but being part of it gives me the unique opportunity to make it less of a beast. If I honestly answer the question of whether the taxpayers are getting a good return on investment by retaining me, then the answer is no. But I also recognize that if I quit tomorrow, the position would not be eliminated - it would be filled, and most likely with a progressive ideologue who views American business as a scourge to be whipped and shamed into compliance. A generous take is that I'm making government more libertarian by occupying a fixed regulator position and serving as a voice of reason. But it's equally likely that I'm fooling myself. I've stated here many times that working in DC has brought me squarely to the conclusion that limited government is a lost cause. The game isn't only over, it's been over for years, and it wasn't even a close contest. I think this is all a bit different from voting. If a group of three friends is deciding on what type of pizza to get, and everyone agrees to put it to a vote, then it would be improper for one friend to cast a vote and then later object in the event of an unfavorable outcome. They agreed to the terms of the decision-making process and therefore agreed to any outcome which could naturally arise from it, so they forfeit their moral standing to dispute the outcome later. By not voting, I'm making it clear that there are certain types of pizza I would not under any circumstances accept, and I don't want a vote held unless they are removed from the options list. That is what our Constitution is *supposed* to accomplish, but it hasn't functioned that way for quite some time.

I have a female manager who is overall very good and supportive (aside from the specific frustration I voiced earlier), but I've noticed a disturbing pattern in my agency of hiring a hugely disproportionate number of female engineering/technical managers. It's roughly 50-50 at this point, which can only be the result of affirmative action on steroids considering 10-20% of engineers are women. If a woman is truly the best candidate, then she should be hired, but hiring so many women just based on the "novelty" of it or to make the agency look "diverse" is a disservice to everyone. Of course, I could never say anything publicly.

It's tricky but not impossible to prove. The on-paper difference between the pay grades is something like "performs tasks with some supervision" and "performs tasks with minimal supervision." In practice, we all have a good sense of who should be where, and nobody is disputing that I should be promoted. In any event, I don't particularly want to sue or grieve my employer for the next two years. The most likely outcome would be an order that I not receive work above my pay grade with the possibility of a little back pay. As Daunce pointed out, it's really more of an ethical line they crossed. I don't approve of how they handled the situation. Lots of soft factors in play.

I interviewed with Air Force JAG out of law school. The lieutenant colonel said my 200lb weight at 6' (I was in good shape) was "dangerously close" to their 215lb weight limit, and he complained that I wasn't entirely clean-shaven and didn't have a military-length haircut for the interview. It took every fiber of my being not to tell him to go eff himself. I'm thankful every day for that rejection letter. It would not have ended well - I don't like taking orders from idiots.

As I have pointed out before, this painfully one-dimensional analysis ignores the widely recognized public-choice problem that voters often don't or can't know what they are truly getting. It assumes the fantasy of perfect information.

I had an interview last week. I have another interview this week. I'm confident I'll hear back about a third interview soon. It could all work out for the best, but keeping commitments is VERY important to me and I'm upset about being led on. As for seeing myself as a victim, I suppose I do to an extent, but it's inspired me to take things into my own hands to remedy the situation, and I think that's the appropriate response.

I appreciate the input, and I would completely agree if not for a few additional wrinkles I didn't mention (part of the "longer answer"). Work rules prevent my agency from promoting me without publicly advertising the higher position and allowing others to apply. This is, theoretically, supposed to promote merit hiring and discourage institutional cronyism, but in practice it only interferes with the hiring and promotion process by adding additional layers. The universally adopted workaround for years has been preselection of a candidate (in this case me) by management, HR publicly posting the position, and then selection of the candidate out of the applicant pool. Unfortunately, this means I wasn't able to get anything in writing, and I have no legal claim to the promotion. Having said that, nobody is disputing that I deserve the promotion - they're just telling me I have to wait whatever amount of time HR takes to post it. The problem is that could literally take years, or it might never happen without management elevating the issue to a sufficiently high level. I do have a valid legal claim for being assigned work above my pay grade, which is a violation of the contract, but that would only prohibit management from giving me the work - not the outcome I'm seeking.