Republican Senator Tom Coburn has issued a report on waste in government — a two hundred page report of excessive spending in the millions and as small as $300. As a former intern for Sen. William Proxmire (D., Wis.) who used to issue his Golden Fleece Award, I always find such reports interesting. However, one small item caught my eye: $30,000 to the University of Washington and Cornell University for a study that proved that “Gaydar” actually exists. Of course, you might ask why the government has an interest in such a study but do not be surprised if the next DoD budget has $30 billion in research and development of a stealth gay project for the evasion of Gaydar.
The National Science Foundation contributed $30,000 to fund a study done by the University of Washington and Cornell University to measure “Gaydar.” They found it to be 60 percent accurate. That is only 10 percent over a random 50-50 bet, it would seem. However, the result were considered significant. According to the Science Daily, the study found “After seeing faces for less than a blink of an eye, college students have accuracy greater than mere chance in judging others’ sexual orientation.” The authors argue that this may assist in establishing the basis for discrimination claims.
The study involved 129 college students who were given 96 photos each of young adult men and women. Notably, the selection of gay women showed a higher percentage of accuracy: 65 percent. Even when the faces were flipped upside down, participants were 61 percent accurate in telling the gay and straight women apart. That means, that we can still peg the sexual preference of “Silly Sally” even after she “Went to Town Walking Backwards Upside Down.”
For men, the accuracy rate was only 57 percent. So there you have it. I am just not sure what it is except that I am pretty sure we could have used the money better in adding more science books in one of our struggling public schools. This is particularly the case when the limitations of the study are considered. Even assuming that this is a valuable exercise for federal funding, the subjects were shown simply still pictures of individuals. These pictures were further made more uniform by removing facial hair and other characteristics. I am not sure how such a display offers a real measure. Of course, the researchers could note that the percentage of accuracy is all the more remarkable given the lack of such distinguishing characteristics or the use of moving images.
Here is one serious concern that I have. The study actually shows slightly over random selection for males and a bit better for women. However, while I see the marginal value for a discrimination lawsuit (though I am skeptical of its admissibility in a given case), it also will likely reinforce the belief of many (including many homophobes) that they can tell someone is gay. Such suspicions are often wrong and based on stereotypes. From secondary school to employment environments, people are often subject to such rumors or harassment. I take from this study that there is actually a high level of inaccuracy in such assumptions.
I do not object to the universities pursuing such research. This is a major social and political segment of our population and the perception of the sexual orientation of individuals has, as the authors note, significance in a variety of different contexts. However, there is a legitimate question of whether public funds are justified.
Source: Townhall
“The social contract is not about liberty.”
Ever hear of a little something called the Declaration of Independence and that other thing, the Constitution, Bron? They spell out our social compact and the word “liberty” appears quite frequently. Thanks again for another meaningless contribution of your Objectivist ideology over historical fact and illustrating what it looks like when someone reads something without understanding it (in context or otherwise).
“Ad hominem commentary is a common device at law, where what the truth is may sometimes lie secret in a witness’s mind, and his probity is central to whether or not the truth he alleges is the real truth – but ours is not, was not a discussion of that kind. In argumentation, the “veracity of a speaker” is never relevant.”
Feel free to be as wrong as you like. The fact is that ad hominem arguments are not always fallacious. An agenda of greed rationalization is always relevant.
“The “social contract” is amenable to so many constructions that it is useless to argue from it, unless one were intent to argue for it (i.e. a given construction or a new one).”
If you want to ignore the very foundation of modern jurisprudence, you go right ahead. I referred you to the alternative constructions that are most widely accepted. If you have a problem with that, it is your problem.
“All social contracts must fail when that mutuality fails sufficiently.”
No shit, Sherlock. That’s why the social compact theory is used to discuss legitimacy of governance: to ascertain whether a particular form or instance is legitimate. You aren’t very bright, are you? (That was a rhetorical question.)
“at what point does society’s abridgment on property rights threaten the mutuality of the social contract?”
Asked and answered if you were smart enough to synthesize the answer. I’ll use small words that don’t require you to understand what I wrote: when the costs to society outweigh the benefits.
As to your Wikipedia quip?
I’ve not only read Rawls, I can spell his name correctly unlike you. It’s John Rawls, R-A-W-L-S, not Rawles. Maybe you’d know that if you weren’t working from a poorly prepared troll script and had actually read the man’s work. You know, repetitive errors like that are a sure sign of incompetence to most people. Me? I’ve got plenty of other reasons for that opinion, starting with your attempt to use commercial contract theory to discuss social compact theory. What’s next? You going to use the Rule Against Perpetuities to discuss Criminal Procedure? Did you go to law school at Fred’s Mobile Law School operated out of the back of a van down by the river? Enquiring minds want to know.
I’ll gladly deconstruct your crap arguments ultimately based in false equivalence and incomplete comparison along the way if you want to spew more of your meaningless crap about the supposed sanctity of your property rights being somehow paramount over all other considerations in civilization – much like the Objectivists. Some things that benefit society are simply worth the cost if you are seeking an equitable and just society.
Along the way, I’ll also be glad to point out what a venal materialistic pig you are as well, just like the Objectivists. Yeah, I know. It goes to your character or lack thereof. Too bad greedy people suffer from a character flaw that automatically makes every thing they say suspect. But I will continue to shred your “arguments” such as they are too. It’s a little like shooting fish in a barrel.
Put that in your ad hominem and smoke it, jackass.
If any of this offends you? I really don’t care.
EJC:
in regards to the vacant homes, you could gentrify the area or just let people own them if they fix them up [assuming of course they have been abandoned].
enoch:
very interesting post.
Most here are very progressive and spread the wealth types. The answer, if one is forthcoming, will be on the general welfare of society. As long as the general welfare of society is met whatever is left belongs to the individual unless some other societal need arises. So in essence for most here there is no individual right and the social contract is nothing but a one way street between government and governed.
They will grant some rights and admit mutual protection but that is about all. The social contract is not about liberty.
Another example of the shamelss, immoral and utter degredation of this society! What a waste of tax-payer dollars. The money can be spent via so many countless ways, for example in the city of Baltimore, MD, there are thousands upon thousands of waste-land properties…why, the thousand of men and women who are unemployed can be trained as carpenters, brick-layers, electricians, plumbers, etc…then can then go into the wastelands and renevate the millions of boarded up, broken and vacant homes…they can repair and re-do roads, they can, paint, and beautify: What I would do?
I am the government: I will MANDATE, that every homeless person who wants consideration MUST sign up for educational programs which would also mandate that NO GARBAGE, NO CIGARETTES, NO THRASH be disposed of in the environment. With many cameras around, with compulsory educational classes on health, home mangement, and by stipulating that one must be gainfully employed (jobs created with such project), (in-house bakeries, laundry, exercise, FUNDAMENTALS ON MARRIAGE, CHILDREN & RESPONSIBILITY: Teaching positions, PERHAPS CLINICS..why, we’ll have a little heaven down here:
NO THATS WHERE THE $$$ OUGHT TO BE GOING…RE-EDUCATION CENTERS OF LIFE & LIVING.
THIS HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED, DONE! THE HOLISTIC APPROACH. WE CERTAINLY DO NOT NEED MINDLESS STUDIES ON ISSUES THAT ARE UN-NATURAL & IMMORAL! BUT THATS THE GOVERNMENT WE HAVE, AN UN-NATURAL IMMORAL AND SICK GOVERNMENT!
Someone told me, that this present government body is made up of Alien hybrids & human genes…NO WONDER!
EliZ.JC,
Are you aware that you sound like a NAZI?
Gene,
Ad hominem commentary is a common device at law, where what the truth is may sometimes lie secret in a witness’s mind, and his probity is central to whether or not the truth he alleges is the real truth – but ours is not, was not a discussion of that kind. In argumentation, the “veracity of a speaker” is never relevant. Only the truth of the various propositions is relevant. Propositions are not true or false because he or she has uttered them, but they are true on their own, independent merit. For this reason, the ad hominem is always logical fallacy. It is deemed an informal logical fallacy, not because it is not always fallacious, but because it occurs only in the context of informal argumentation (“x ≠ y ⇔ ¬(x = y)” is an example of a formal argument).
It is useless to invite Rand into the discussion. She offers nothing to the conversation that cannot be introduced from scores of other sources. It was Mike who assumed that, because I have read Rand, I must be taking my positions, beliefs and/or arguments from Rand. I am not responsible for his assumptions or their errors.
Yes, of course, I was speaking of John Rawles. I’m glad Wikipedia has been able to help you with him. Rawles, however was simply one writer from which I might have thought to ask about persistent interests and what degree of removal must they be considered, and I said as much in the post in which I first mentioned him. The book I actually had in mind was John Roehmer’s, “Theories of Distributive Justice,” and his treatment of baseline good and distribution in the first chapters.
The “social contract” is amenable to so many constructions that it is useless to argue from it, unless one were intent to argue for it (i.e. a given construction or a new one). Passing that argument (for the moment, if you like), the question goes to one of the few universal terms of any social contract: “mutual” benefit. The question I asked (and you have not deigned to address), is at what point does the regret or resentment of one of the parties (I used the word, “privity,” because, if it is not strictly appropriate to the social contract, it nevertheless made my meaning as clear as if it were) contradict that predicate of mutuality.
All social contracts must fail when that mutuality fails sufficiently. Society benefits (in some ways, at least) from slave labor; but does slave labor so deny the notion of mutuality that the social contract involving slave and society fails as well? What of choice? I hope we can agree that the society in which NO free choice is allowed is tyrannical, and its social contract invalid as such because of it. What if ALMOST all free choice were forbidden? Most free choice? When does mutuality approve of one relationship, but not the other?
And the same applies to property rights: at what point does society’s abridgment on property rights threaten the mutuality of the social contract?
Rawles asks that question (I’ll cite chapter and verse if I must). Nozick asks it. Rand asks it. Locke asks it.
I’m asking it.
And I’d be glad if you’d stop beating around the bush and answer it, say you can’t/won’t or agree to discuss it, WITHOUT the ad hominems.
enoch,
Too bad for you, you don’t know what you are talking about. “To the man” arguments are perfectly acceptable when seeking to impeach the veracity of a speaker under certain conditions. For example, seeking to expose bias in a claimant about a statement of fact when there is no other evidence to the veracity of the claim other than the declarator’s word. Ad hominem attacks, which are an informal fallacy, are not technically always a fallacy. This is in part why they are an informal fallacy when they are use fallaciously. You’d know this if you’d ever been trained to argue properly.
“Regarding the social contract, thank you. Now, would you be kind enough to give an account of “mutually derived benefits,” and how they differ from persistent interests of those in privity.”
Again, read the column Mike referred you to as I’m not interested in watching another Randian fanatic chase their own tail to have the argument end the same place it always ends.
As to discussing Rawls with you? I’m going to assume you meant John Rawls, not the survivalist James Wesley Rawles. If you didn’t? We have nothing further to discuss. John Rawls hits the high points of classical liberalism in defining basic rights to include freedom of speech, free association, freedom of conscience (which would include such things as freedom of religion), and property rights. Unlike Rand, who abused Locke’s position that ownership of property is a natural right, Rawls explained his inclusion of property rights framed in terms of moral capacities and self-respect. While this relates to your use of privity (a contractual concept), you are still illustrating a fundamental misunderstanding about the social compact. It is not a contract in the classical sense of a contract. Your consent is conferred by your place of birth and/or your parental circumstances of citizenship generally speaking. In most Western countries, this relationship becomes voluntary at the age of majority. This is not the case in all countries however. This does not negate that privity generally applies to commercial contracts. The social compact, although it is often referred to as a social contract, is really a separate beast altogether.
A contract in the terms where privity applies is not what a social comapct is, so what is a social compact? Firstly, it’s a legal theory/model, that addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of state power or the authority of the state over the individual. As noted, this the consent to this compact is either tacit or express (in the case of naturalization) and the matter consented to is the surrender or place limitations on some freedoms and/or rights and submit to the authority of the law (regardless of where that authority rests which is largely dependent upon the form of the government in question) in exchange for protection of their remaining rights and sharing in resources built for the commons such as roads and other common infrastructure. There is your persistent interest if you insist on applying commercial contract terms to a social compact argument: your interests as a citizen in the commons. If you don’t think you are getting a fair deal? As noted, in the West, citizenship become voluntary upon reaching the age of majority. Feel free to move any place that suits your needs or desires and will take you as either a resident alien or a naturalized citizen. The choice is yours. You are also free to sue the government if you feel your rights are being infringed upon, thus again preserving the analogy of privity as you can bring suit to seek remedy as party to the transaction in the alternative of simply leaving the compact.
As a consequence of basic form of the social compact and secondly, the differences between natural and legal rights is often a topic of discussion when addressing the social compact. Key to this is Hobbes notion of “the state of nature” – i.e. the state of the human condition without political order where an individuals’ actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience. What is funny is that the Objectivist ideals can be fairly encapsulated in part to say that the state of nature is not only an optimal outcome but a desired outcome. This, of course, leads to the tyranny of the strong over the weak, thus creating oppression and contradictorily the thing Objectivists whine about the most: their being oppressed from having absolute rights of some sort, usually property rights. If you wish to see a variety of arguments as to why a rational person would voluntarily consent to give up his or her natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order? I refer you to the works of the aforementioned Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, John Locke (not as abused by Rand), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They each address this issue in different ways.
It is an axiom that correct answers may be reached my multiple paths, but its natural corollary is that wrong answers may also be reached by multiple paths. Where the Randians go wrong in their worship of the right of property as absolute, you are going wrong trying to apply the framework of commercial contracts to the social compact. Property rights exist outside of your ability to personally defend them only because a government exists to aid in both defining and defending your interest(s) in property. Absent that? You’d better be a real badass to defend all your stuff in the state of nature. And how long can your badassery last? Until you get old? Until you get sick? Until you meet a bigger badass? Yep. And guess what? Your privity in contacts is only as good as the laws and the courts that enforce contracts. Without such common infrastructure, your contracts wouldn’t be worth the paper they were printed on unless you were once again just so badass you could enforce them yourself.
So that is how your mutually derived benefits of society relate to privity: to the same correct conclusion as against the Objectivists assertions. Namely that your property rights are only absolute under the state of nature and that their defense (and necessary definition) are part of the mutual benefit of the social compact which is compensation for the restriction of your rights. If you don’t like the “deal you are getting” in America, you are free to negate your consent at any time past the age of majority and you will no longer be subject to the social compact. This isn’t to say love it or leave it but rather pointing out that you have a real option in re privity in that you can both sue for remedy or opt out.
Now, if you were not referring to John Rawls, but rather the ultra right wing Christian survivalist novelist? This is all moot because you’d be, like Objectivists, simply someone adhering to the “teachings” of the demonstrably mentally unstable. Not all ideas are created equal. That’s one of the utilities of critical thought: triage the treasure from the trash using logic and evidence.
None of this changes that if you were arguing the Objectivist perspective (which is actually quite similar to your leading question) that dismissing you out of hand would be proper in this forum as that dead horse has been beaten to a smooth paste in this forum many times previously. Thank you though for illustrating that you can reach a wrong answer by multiple paths. That your path was philosophically and ethically less odious than the path of Objectivism is nice and consequently deserves less derision than the tenets of Rand’s deranged and ethically bankrupt pseudo-philosophy, but ultimately irrelevant to the conclusion reached by applying commercial contractual theory to social compact theory. They are, after all, different areas of study for a reason.
Thank you for playing.
It’s interesting that my comments have attracted two rather nasty critics, both of whom openly avow their belief that reason is not necessary toward addressing an argument or to make one, one going as far as to admit openly that an appeal to emotion, or attacking one’s opponent’s motive or character, is a legitimate mode of reply to propositions with which he disagrees. On the one hand, both of these critics insist that disputing with me is a waste of time – in posts that dispute with me.
Both of these posts, too, seem fixated on Ayn Rand, as if the notions found in her works are to be found nowhere else, and as if anyone expressing a notion found in Rand must necessarily have taken that notion from Rand. Apparently, these critics are unfamiliar with another notion, that of the venn diagram.
A.C. Doyle, in his novel, “The White Company,” writes, “Grace and learning have ever gone together”. The evidence of my two critics could not affirm that proposition more perfectly.
One of my critics – unknowingly and, even more, unwittingly – affirms my original question. I phrased that question, “If public money is taken for anything, does not the taking raise the ethical question of the persistent interest in its use of the owner thus deprived?” My critic affirms that question with the statement, “the persistent interest in the mutually derived benefits of the social compact”. The significance of his inclusion of the qualifying, “mutually,” seems to have escaped him: it requires a “persistent interest in its [the public money’s] use of the owner thus deprived [in his dues expropriated].”
Ultimately, of course, there is no constituent of the universe so small or distantly removed from all other constituents of the universe that does not affect and is not affected by every other constituent part, also however small or distant. This is as true of social dynamics as it is in physics: there is nothing that can affect any that does not affect all in the finest analysis. The qualifier, “interest,” in the disputed proposition, however, implies that of which a party is cognizable. An interest is that which one may pursue or defend, and one cannot pursue or defend that of which one is not cognizant. Hence, my challenge to one critic to give an account of “mutually derived benefits:” does mutuality demand cognizance of all parties to the proposition; and, does that remain MUTUALLY beneficial which one party resents or regrets?
These are not “objectivist” questions. They are not questions of some lunatic fringe, but they are questions that every philosopher in the fields of ethics and/or law has to address, because they touch directly on the alternative notion of harms: to what extent is the diminution of one party’s baseline of good/liberty permissible in pursuit of the universal baseline of the good/liberty?
But, as Doyle has already observed, “Grace and learning have ever gone together,” and I sincerely doubt, given their want of grace, my critics have the learning to pursue this line of inquiry.
Mike Spindell – ” I clearly stated that I wasn’t interested in debating someone like you”
Then why persist in trying?
Gene – From http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/ad%2Bhominem:
Definition of ad hominem
adverb & adjective
1(of an argument or reaction) arising from or appealing to the emotions and not reason or logic.
attacking an opponent’s motives or character rather than the policy or position they maintain: vicious ad hominem attacks
====
In fact, the ad hominem IS – always – a logical fallacy. I suggest you consider the distinction between a declaration and an argument. You’ll find your error there.
Regarding the social contract, thank you. Now, would you be kind enough to give an account of “mutually derived benefits,” and how they differ from persistent interests of those in privity.
For the balance, you make a great deal of Rand. Perhaps you missed it when I asked: “More to the point, have you read Rawles (for example); and, if you have, mightn’t I arrive at very much the same question, viz. property, simply in objection to that author [without having Rand in mind at all]?”
Technically speaking, ad hominem attacks are not always fallacious, but that is beside the point.
The rather dull witted question was “If public money is taken for anything, does not the taking raise the ethical question of the persistent interest in its use of the owner thus deprived?” Spoken like a true Randian. See, the persistent interest in the mutually derived benefits of the social compact, something Objectivists fail to recognize because they erroneously think no such thing as society really exists. This stance is contrary to what science and jurisprudence tells us but it is required when your ideology is based on selfishness as a virtue to obscure the manifest evil of selfishness under a thin veneer of “concern” over property rights (which are only absolute in the state of nature, but in no society). Yours is a loaded question meant to illicit yet another opening for yet another pointless discussion of Rand’s pseudo-philosophy that has been discredited as a facile rationalization of sociopathic behavior (namely greed and selfishness) many times here in the past. It’s also a question thoroughly addressed here (as Mike S points out) more than once.
We’ve even got a pet Objectivist who persists in beating his head against the wall. He’ll occasionally rears his greedy lil’ maw and he is promptly discredited and laughed off stage at this point. We don’t need another one.
Quite frankly giving you much more response than this is indeed a waste of time.
Fact: Rand was a sociopath by both the WHO and DSM diagnostic criteria. Her followers are either disaffected teens, the emotionally and intellectually stunted and/or sociopaths themselves looking for rationalizations that prove their bad acts are somehow virtuous. Should you persist, her ideas will simply be proven to be wrong headed and based in her mental defect (again) should your tangent be encouraged.
Or you could read the thread Mike suggested and see the whole game already played to conclusion.
Watching dogs endlessly chase their own tails is of limited entertainment value.
Mike Spindell – “Now if you suspect in your dimness and arrogance that this attack was ‘ad hominem’, you would be correct, I refuse to waste my time.”
Mike, it’s rare to find someone willing to openly declare that their views are founded on nothing more than a logical fallacy. It’s hardly rare at all to find critics of Rand (or of people who think) to evade answering questions by hiding behind logical fallacies.
So. let me thank you for, at once, being refreshing and reassuring.
Oh; and, as for “wasting your time,” that’s an odd perspective to take on the invitation to express a well-thought, reasonable answer to a question. You see, as I didn’t answer YOU with the above (but, in addressing you, I really spoke to the other readers here), you might have made a point – if you have one to make – under the pretext of answering me.
If, indeed, you are older than I (a doubtful prospect in itself), I’m sorry you haven’t lived those years to better use.
However, Enochwisner,
Were I trying to debate you logically then an ad hominem attack would be a logical fallacy. However I clearly stated that I wasn’t interested in debating someone like you because I find those of your ilk dull and dimwitted and/or sociopathic and full of unwarranted hubris. Since you had politely tried to engage in debate by positing a question, my characterizing you as I did was clearly ad hominem. Unlike the sociopatic Ms. Rand, or the pompous Austrian school?, I try to be honest in my dealings.
A=A
I don’t know about gaydar, really. It never occurred to me to care what somebody’s sexual preference was unless I particularly was interested in sex with that person, so that significantly cut down on my “field of interest” and although I understand practice makes perfect, I never practiced! When one of my friends told me he was gay, I was surprised but frankly didn’t care because he never seemed attractive to me.
On the other hand, I embarrassed myself by my own ignorance once. I have a friend who is a very beautiful woman and she has the WORST luck with finding decent men; she’s like a movie script. One guy after another who really belongs in the “Hall of Shame” but she gets “smitten” — don’t ask. So at one point, she and I had a mutual friend who was just fabulous and wonderful and intelligent, handsome, capable, professionally successful, you name it, and she seemed totally uninterested in him. So I was at dinner with her and I said, “hey, how about [name omitted] — why don’t you try dating him?” She looked at me pityingly and said, “He goes to the wrong CHURCH!” I was appalled and called her out for prejudice, which really surprised me because one of her husbands was Jewish and she was Christian. She had a good laugh and then informed me that “goes to the wrong church” was theater-speak for “gay,” which I never knew.
“Damn!” I said. “He would be perfect otherwise,” and she added, “They usually ARE!” 😎
Gene,
Funding for college labs is weird, with lots of different revenue going to several different studies, and people getting paid from one stream, but not the other, even though they work on both studies, etc. Whoever’s project this was probably helps out with other studies, but their stipend may very well may have come mainly from this one.
Slart could probably tell you more.
Oh, and there’s the added cost of all the oversight involved in doing any study that involves people.
Gyges,
Also, don’t get the idea I have an issue with the information from the study just because I think the cost was high. It revealed interesting findings and would have had the effect been observed to be simply random chance instead of better than chance. I’m all for knowledge even for the simply the sake of knowledge, but I do like it to be a transaction that is economical.
Gyges,
Wow! They must pay a lot more for studies than when I was in school. We’d have been clubbing each other (metaphorically speaking) to take a $100/hr. survey. Even so, I’d like to see an accounting.
pete, I think a David Souter photo for “asexual” would be appropriate.
Gene,
That’s actually pretty cheap. I’ve gotten paid $100 for an hour of my time for this sort of study. That means it had administrative costs of $132, and that assumes that no results were thrown out, which isn’t a very good assumption. Oh, it assumes that the people that posed for the photo (who also probably had to fill out a survey) weren’t paid.
Also, the information from the study itself isn’t necessarily the only net gain. It’s at UW, so chances are this study helped several people learn how to create, manage, a study, how to process the information, etc.
i would be curious as to whether or not they put in random pictures of bi-sexual or asexual people.
but since the source here is townhall.com our only response is suppost to be outrage.
arg
I’ve always had some gaydar but my gaydar improved when I spent more time with people who were out.
In the larger context the study probably has value but it is limited. I agree that more goes into effective gaydar than a photo.
But does effective gaydar matter? Only if you have a reason to discriminate. There are lots of reasons for a date refusal, wrong gender being only of them.