Remember that saying Good times elect weak leaders; weak leaders make bad times; bad times elect strong leaders; strong leaders make good times? Let's start by discussing good and bad times.
These apply to the personal and professional lives of the upper managers, administrators and policy-makers (to include the elected legislators) of the major social, media, cultural, State, political and business institutions. Ordinary people can be suffering financial crises, unemployment, dramatic changes in the labour market, and all sorts of other stuff, or of course none of that, and it doesn't count. As long as the upper-middle class (roughly) is having a cushy time, those are "good times". In the UK, that was from the passing of the Maastricht Treaty to the end of 2015: The Second Belle Epoque. Their professional lives were easy, their dominant assumptions about society, culture and economics were unchallenged. China and Russia were behaving themselves, and EU made travel easy, and legislation even easier - all one did was tweak whatever Brussels threw out.
Your kids can't afford a place of their own, that's just the economy. A journalist's kids can't afford a place of their own, that's a serious flaw in the housing market.
If life gets too hard for the Rest of Us, we will start to object, misbehave, go on strike, and make the lives of the UMC (upper managerial class) difficult. That gives them an incentive to make sure that life isn't too hard for the common people.
We can complain about the economy all we like, but one thing we must not do is question the UMC's assumptions about the society, political institutions, and culture. That is perceived not as a threat to their survival - that would be mere economics - but their vision of themselves as Good People who deserve their privilege as a reward for their Goodness. The form that Goodness takes can vary from decade to decade, but since about 1990 it has been about having Broadly-Left social views and ideals. Before that, it was about having Broadly-Right ideals. Challenge whatever is their claim to moral superiority and you threaten them with the disintegration of their identities. In Good Times, the UMC is complaisant and herd-like, and jolly comfortable that is too.
Let's turn to what leaders are. A 'leader' in this discussion is someone who gets to set policy in a particular institution, so that following that policy protects us from sanctions imposed by that institution. A strong leader can bring people along with them, and isn't scared of imposing sanctions: a weak leader is unconvincing, and won't impose sanctions. (Yes, this applies to street gangs as well as Governments.) `Leadership' is contextual: someone can lead in one institution, and follow in another.
Leaders depend on holding an institutional position, and one gets to be a leader by occupying one of those positions. Having got there, it's up to the incumbent to do something, or collapse exhausted by the climb up the greasy pole.
Most of the rest of the people in the institution will follow a strong leader - though some will resist - or they will goof off if they spot a weak role occupant - though some will throw themselves behind policies they see advantage in.
Where do the strong leaders come from in the bad times? They were there all the time, but they weren't attracted by the jobs in politics, the upper reaches of public administration, and other high-profile institutional roles. In the good times there is too much go-along-to-get-along. Too many third-class people. Too much consensus. So the strong people go to where their qualities of character can be useful, or they find a lucrative niche somewhere and enjoy the decline.
Where do the weak leaders come from in the good times? They were there all the time as well. They didn't want the jobs when times were tough, and they wouldn't have been chosen anyway. But when times are good, suddenly good chaps who go along with other good chaps are exactly what seem to be needed. Strong-minded people are all very useful, but they can be a nuisance. In good times, we need co-operation, not conflict. Weak people love co-operating. There's nothing wrong with co-operating, as long as it's with people who share your goals. 'Co-operating' with people whose goals conflict with yours is called 'giving in'.
It's possible for one institution to have strong leaders, while another has weak ones, at the same time. Think of Sweden in 2020: a weak Government of consensus-driven politicians who fortunately were not in charge of public health policy. Anders Tegnell was, and he turned out to be nobody's go-along guy. The Swedes were the only country who did not succumb to the hysteria.
One way weak leaders damage their institutions is failing to fight back against strongly-led activist groups advancing avant-garde goals that threaten the current aims and values of the institution.
Weak leaders can be distracted by internal disputes and high-profile non-issues. This is what happened to the British Parliament between 2016-2021 (Brexit) and the US Government between 2016 and 2020 (the wonderfully named 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'). It's no co-incidence that various avant-garde activist groups made so much progress with their causes during that time, or that the UK and USA Blobs started taking on lives of their own.
How do the required strong leaders get back into the institutions when they are needed? In the UK, it's not by coup or vigorous campaigning. it's by a slower process in which the people who select and elect the candidates for key positions decide that the current lot are a bit wet, and some drier people are needed. A major donor to an activist organisation decides it no longer advances his various goals (it may have become a liability to their social standing or business interests, for instance) and withdraws their money. A Board of Governors decides the last CEO got on perhaps too well with everyone, and now they need someone who can focus on the business needs. These decisions will be made against the backdrop of what the various people sense to be a prevailing sentiment amongst the public - whatever that 'public' might be.
That mechanism relies on the general population containing a range of views on almost everything: this is why enforced consensus is a liability. A variety of views is needed, so that when the time demands this or that view, there will be people ready to explain, publicise and propose ways of implementing it. If everyone thinks, or makes a show of thinking, the same, when circumstances demand a response outside the permitted range, that society will fall victim to those circumstances. This is all basic On Liberty.
The idea that society consists of homogeneous 'Generations' is an artefact of the media and academic obsession with certain institutions, that are able to impose the appearance of a high level of conformity on the behaviour and opinions of the staff. As soon as the institutional control slips, so does the conformity.
Friday, 13 October 2023
Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Fresh Local Fish
The hut with the sign has fresh fish, the converted container is where they serve the cooked stuff. It's about a ten minute walk from Dungeness Station. Worth every step. There's a reason there was a crowd.
Friday, 6 October 2023
Into The Sun - Away From The Sun
My grandfather, who was a mainstay of the Sheffield Photographic Society back in the day, used to say that one should never shoot into the sun. All sorts of bad things would happen: blown-out skies, over-dark shadows and the like. However, sometimes it works.
Tuesday, 3 October 2023
The Hill Garden and Pergola, Hampstead Heath
Get off the 210 bus at the Inverforth House stop. The house itself
is privately-owned, and the Garden and Pergola are at the back of it, but outside its walls. Walk down a path at the end of the House's walls and after no more than thirty yards is on your right is a gate that opens into the Hill Garden. Walk too fast and you'll go right by it. If you reach a path at the bottom of the incline, you've gone too far. The path will take you to the lower terrace of the garden, and on the left is a small building with a spiral staircase that leads to the upper terrace.
It's well-worth the visit, though on the day Sis and I went, they were repairing something and had closed the Pergola itself because of "safety".
is privately-owned, and the Garden and Pergola are at the back of it, but outside its walls. Walk down a path at the end of the House's walls and after no more than thirty yards is on your right is a gate that opens into the Hill Garden. Walk too fast and you'll go right by it. If you reach a path at the bottom of the incline, you've gone too far. The path will take you to the lower terrace of the garden, and on the left is a small building with a spiral staircase that leads to the upper terrace.
It's well-worth the visit, though on the day Sis and I went, they were repairing something and had closed the Pergola itself because of "safety".
We think the last photo is of is four yew trees grafted onto a common trunk and then left to grow and be shaped over, you know, fifty years or something. Gardens like this need the long view.
Friday, 29 September 2023
What is Jazz (Again): Laufey, Adam Neely, Andy Edwards
What is jazz, and why does it matter? Can we define jazz in such a way that it does matter if something is or is not jazz?
That's effectively what the National Endowment for the Arts did back in the 1970's when it decided that jazz was America's Classical Music, and started handing out grants and awards. Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis locked the NEA into a definition of jazz as a) swing, b) blues, c) improvisation, d) in a pre-1965 style. Here's the list of NEA Jazz Master Fellows since it started https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEA_Jazz_Masters. All great players, all started before 1965, which includes Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor, who are avant-garde. Nope, there aren't many white names on the list, but then that's probably statistically representative of jazz musicians.
So maybe jazz is whatever the NEA says it is, and they have the money and publicity to prove it. In the same way the teachers at Berklee, Juilliard and all the other jazz schools get to say what jazz is, because they set the syllabus and award the credentials for a "degree in jazz". Both institutions adopt the Crouch-Marsalis definition.
Never argue with institutional doctrine: nobody is going to give up their income and status over a point of logic or a matter of fact. Change the subject: hit 'em where they ain't.
Let's do that. Because the heck with institutions.
For Adam Neely, well-trained graduate of Berklee, jazz is a well-defined cultural practice, gate-kept by academics, the NEA, and some music industry figures. For Andy Edwards, West Midlands drumming legend and epic You Tube ranter, jazz is about creativity and technical accomplishment in the service of freedom and experiment. Which is why he fights for the word.
Sir Karl Popper told us not to fight over words. Fight for your right to party, but not over whether to call it a party.
The party is individual improvisation while playing as a member of a band, within self-imposed limits that might be about chord progressions, modal changes, tunes, or the style of a genre. That genre might be the Blues, Hard Bop, Be Bop, Cool, Modal, Time No Changes, Flamenco, or whatever else (even ghastly chord-scale).
It's about developing your own voice, and being able to find others whose voices fit with yours; it's about producing music that (some) people appreciate and want to hear, without turning into a hack. The material doesn't need to be original, but the expression needs to be sincere: a tribute band can do this, if they love the music they are playing.
Between (about) 1930 and (about) 1966, nobody partied as hard as a handful of men who gave us some of the most sublime, hip, and swing-ing-est music ever played. From Louis Armstrong through Lester Young and Charlie Parker to Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, to name a few. It was the chosen music of the misfit, the hip, and people who wanted to stay up late drinking. It was a fabulous moment, but it passed, as all fabulous moments must do. And we have it on record.
Does it matter what "jazz" is? If you're after that sweet NEA moolah, or the recognition of a bunch of old guys and academics, or playing at venues or for records labels which are snobby about these things, then yes. Otherwise NO, it does not. If you're a professional musician, what matters is making money and enjoying what you're being paid to do. If you're an amateur, what matters is that you can have a good time playing with some people who aren't totally weird. And if you're a, uh, home musician, what matters is that you get out of playing whatever it is you want to get out of it.
That's effectively what the National Endowment for the Arts did back in the 1970's when it decided that jazz was America's Classical Music, and started handing out grants and awards. Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis locked the NEA into a definition of jazz as a) swing, b) blues, c) improvisation, d) in a pre-1965 style. Here's the list of NEA Jazz Master Fellows since it started https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEA_Jazz_Masters. All great players, all started before 1965, which includes Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor, who are avant-garde. Nope, there aren't many white names on the list, but then that's probably statistically representative of jazz musicians.
So maybe jazz is whatever the NEA says it is, and they have the money and publicity to prove it. In the same way the teachers at Berklee, Juilliard and all the other jazz schools get to say what jazz is, because they set the syllabus and award the credentials for a "degree in jazz". Both institutions adopt the Crouch-Marsalis definition.
Never argue with institutional doctrine: nobody is going to give up their income and status over a point of logic or a matter of fact. Change the subject: hit 'em where they ain't.
Let's do that. Because the heck with institutions.
For Adam Neely, well-trained graduate of Berklee, jazz is a well-defined cultural practice, gate-kept by academics, the NEA, and some music industry figures. For Andy Edwards, West Midlands drumming legend and epic You Tube ranter, jazz is about creativity and technical accomplishment in the service of freedom and experiment. Which is why he fights for the word.
Sir Karl Popper told us not to fight over words. Fight for your right to party, but not over whether to call it a party.
The party is individual improvisation while playing as a member of a band, within self-imposed limits that might be about chord progressions, modal changes, tunes, or the style of a genre. That genre might be the Blues, Hard Bop, Be Bop, Cool, Modal, Time No Changes, Flamenco, or whatever else (even ghastly chord-scale).
It's about developing your own voice, and being able to find others whose voices fit with yours; it's about producing music that (some) people appreciate and want to hear, without turning into a hack. The material doesn't need to be original, but the expression needs to be sincere: a tribute band can do this, if they love the music they are playing.
Between (about) 1930 and (about) 1966, nobody partied as hard as a handful of men who gave us some of the most sublime, hip, and swing-ing-est music ever played. From Louis Armstrong through Lester Young and Charlie Parker to Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, to name a few. It was the chosen music of the misfit, the hip, and people who wanted to stay up late drinking. It was a fabulous moment, but it passed, as all fabulous moments must do. And we have it on record.
Does it matter what "jazz" is? If you're after that sweet NEA moolah, or the recognition of a bunch of old guys and academics, or playing at venues or for records labels which are snobby about these things, then yes. Otherwise NO, it does not. If you're a professional musician, what matters is making money and enjoying what you're being paid to do. If you're an amateur, what matters is that you can have a good time playing with some people who aren't totally weird. And if you're a, uh, home musician, what matters is that you get out of playing whatever it is you want to get out of it.
Friday, 22 September 2023
Sheerness
The main employer on the island must be the port, through which a large proportion of imported cars arrive. Also fruit and meat. And timber. There isn't a lot of industry, the tourism is mostly day-trippers during the school holidays, and there is one large school. I think back in Nana's day, the kids went to school on the Sittingbourne bus.
Look up "backwater" in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of Sheerness.
Anyway, we went there recently (no matter your route, you will change at Sittingbourne for the shuttle service). The pleasant promenade with its open steps from the street has been replaced with a nasty lump of concrete, and the amusement arcade half-way along the walk into the town along promenade has all but disappeared. Nobody was selling candyfloss, but we might have come too late for that. There were a couple of bunches of lads playing football, and a lot of old people (which now means 60+ but in bad nick from hard lives) hanging around the streets having old people arguments. Also a couple of girls taking their younger sisters out in the pram ("That must be her sister, right" - The Eels). The seafront looked almost exactly as it did (cough, splutter) years ago, except a) the Council have let the tidebreaks rot, and b) on some of the beaches have been turned into hump-and-ditch "defences", whereas in Nana's day, all the beaches sloped into the water.
There were some geezers fishing, a few people walking and some cycling, but all were locals.
The Robert Montgomery is still out there somewhere, still allegedly capable of producing the largest conventional explosion the UK has or will ever see, but if there was any sign of it, I'd forgotten.
Across the river is Southend and its extension down to Shoeburyness. Not only across the river, but also in another economy.
Tuesday, 19 September 2023
Data is Expensive, Conclusions Are Cheap: How To Fix Research Fraud
It's probably just my echo chamber, but I've seen a number of YT's on scientific fraud recently. This does not shake my faith in Quantum Mechanics, because this isn't happening in real science. It's happening in psychology (evolutionary or otherwise), behavioural economics and other such pseudo-subjects with lousy replicability, and a tendency to pass off small samples of undergraduates as sufficient data. I've read my share of pop-science from these people, and while I've been amused and intrigued, I've never been convinced. The samples are too small. The conclusions are too darn cute, and fit way too well into the current academic Goodthink. Also a lot of it is just plain wrong.
What does one do about all this nonsense research?
Realise that statistical analyses, summaries, graphics, and conclusions are cheap.
It's the data that matters.
Any research project funded by the taxpayer must make its raw data publicly available, along with a detailed description of how the data was obtained.
With no controls over access. In CSV format so we don't have to write complicated scripts to read it.
And at no charge. We already paid with our taxes.
Give us the data, and we will draw our own conclusions, thank you. Research will become valuable because it produces data that people use.
Not because some publicity-savvy academic produces an eye-catching claim.
The infamous thirty-undergraduate sample will simply vanish.
Researchers who provide lots of dimensions of analysis that can be correlated with ONS data will get readers, those who use a few that maybe can't be matched against anything else will be passed by.
It works like this.
Hypothesis: children from single-parent families do better at school than children from two-parent families. 'Do better' means more and better grades at GCSE. So get a sample of single-parent households with kids who just did their GCSE's and another of dual-parent households with kids who just did their GCSEs. Same size, as there are plenty of both.
Recognise that the initial question is attractive but silly. It's the kind of question a single-purpose charity might ask, and if it liked the answer, would use in their next fund-raising round.
"Single-parent homes" are not all the same. Neither are "dual-parent homes". Families are all different. And they are an effect, not a cause. Parental behaviour, sibling examples, household economics, the location, the religion and the culture are causes.
Here's your chance to get some data-kudos.
Get a decent sample size. 10,000 or so of each.
Get the results for the kids. Grade by subject. With the exam board. No summarising or grouping. I've got a computer to do that if I want it.
And get the number of GCSEs the kids were entered for, because Head Teachers game the stats like crazy. While you're doing that, find out how else the Heads game the stats.
Get the details about those households. Age, religion, nationality, gender, political allegiance if any, car owner, rent / mortgage, highest level of education reached by parent(s), subject of degree, employed / self-employed / unemployed / retired / not able to work, occupation if working, postcode (all of it), place of work, large or small employer, private or public sector. Income and sources, expenses and spending patterns. Savings. Help from relatives. Drug use. Exercise regimes.
How long had the parents been divorced before the GCSE exams? How long had they been co-habiting or married? What are the childcare arrangements? What are the visitation rights? How often are these denied? Has the divorced partner lost touch with their children? Are the divorced parents still co-operating with each other over raising the children? Has the custodial parent moved home? How far away are the parents from each other? Was a family member in jail when the kids were taking the exams? Is the father in the dual-household away a lot? Do any of the parents work unsociable hours? Do they use daycare?
See how that data could be interesting to certain groups? Even if they weren't interested in GCSE results?
Did the parents arrange private tutoring? Help their children with their homework? Do the children have long-term health problems? Did they have health problems at the time of the exams? Were they able to revise? What is the school's record in the league tables?
You get the idea. Ask a wide range of detailed questions to cover the vast complexity of human life. Notice when a colleague demurs at something that allows the data to show the influence of (enter taboo subject here). Find somewhere else they can be useful and send them there. Do the same to yourself. The question you resist the most is the one everyone wants answered.
Test the questions. Test the interview process and the online questionnaire (if you must). Do A/B layout and question-order tests. Learn and make adjustments.
Now go out and ask the questions. Tabulate the answers. No leaving anyone out because they missed a bunch of answers. I can deal with that in my analysis. No corrections for this or that. No leaving out the answers to some questions because of "sensitivity" or "mis-interpretation".
That's where you put in the effort. If too many people give incomplete answers, go recruit some more people. Comparing those who gave complet(er) answers to those who didn't to see if there's a pattern.
Put the raw results up on Github or wherever. Along with the questionnaire, the times and dates of each interview, and a video of the whole thing if possible. I want to see their body language to judge which questions are likely to have, uh, aspirational answers. (Okay, that's asking a lot.)
I'll do my own analyses.
The researchers can publish a summary and conclusion if they want. With a keep-it-simple press release for the science journalists. The rest of us will dig into the data and draw our own conclusions.
The people who don't do data analysis can get some popcorn and follow the disputes.
Data financed by private money? Make it public or we get to treat it as self-serving.
Faced with some conclusion about medicines or human behaviour, ask if the raw data and research protocols are publicly available. If the answer is NO, or "you have to pay", dismiss the conclusion, because there is no evidence that you can judge for yourself. Without the data, we have to take their word for it or not, which means we need to judge their competence, honesty and career pressures. That makes it about the researchers, and it isn't. They may be insightful and honest, or they may be academic hacks. You can't judge that either. What you can judge is that they are hiding their data. If they are, it fails the smell test.
What does one do about all this nonsense research?
Realise that statistical analyses, summaries, graphics, and conclusions are cheap.
It's the data that matters.
Any research project funded by the taxpayer must make its raw data publicly available, along with a detailed description of how the data was obtained.
With no controls over access. In CSV format so we don't have to write complicated scripts to read it.
And at no charge. We already paid with our taxes.
Give us the data, and we will draw our own conclusions, thank you. Research will become valuable because it produces data that people use.
Not because some publicity-savvy academic produces an eye-catching claim.
The infamous thirty-undergraduate sample will simply vanish.
Researchers who provide lots of dimensions of analysis that can be correlated with ONS data will get readers, those who use a few that maybe can't be matched against anything else will be passed by.
It works like this.
Hypothesis: children from single-parent families do better at school than children from two-parent families. 'Do better' means more and better grades at GCSE. So get a sample of single-parent households with kids who just did their GCSE's and another of dual-parent households with kids who just did their GCSEs. Same size, as there are plenty of both.
Recognise that the initial question is attractive but silly. It's the kind of question a single-purpose charity might ask, and if it liked the answer, would use in their next fund-raising round.
"Single-parent homes" are not all the same. Neither are "dual-parent homes". Families are all different. And they are an effect, not a cause. Parental behaviour, sibling examples, household economics, the location, the religion and the culture are causes.
Here's your chance to get some data-kudos.
Get a decent sample size. 10,000 or so of each.
Get the results for the kids. Grade by subject. With the exam board. No summarising or grouping. I've got a computer to do that if I want it.
And get the number of GCSEs the kids were entered for, because Head Teachers game the stats like crazy. While you're doing that, find out how else the Heads game the stats.
Get the details about those households. Age, religion, nationality, gender, political allegiance if any, car owner, rent / mortgage, highest level of education reached by parent(s), subject of degree, employed / self-employed / unemployed / retired / not able to work, occupation if working, postcode (all of it), place of work, large or small employer, private or public sector. Income and sources, expenses and spending patterns. Savings. Help from relatives. Drug use. Exercise regimes.
How long had the parents been divorced before the GCSE exams? How long had they been co-habiting or married? What are the childcare arrangements? What are the visitation rights? How often are these denied? Has the divorced partner lost touch with their children? Are the divorced parents still co-operating with each other over raising the children? Has the custodial parent moved home? How far away are the parents from each other? Was a family member in jail when the kids were taking the exams? Is the father in the dual-household away a lot? Do any of the parents work unsociable hours? Do they use daycare?
See how that data could be interesting to certain groups? Even if they weren't interested in GCSE results?
Did the parents arrange private tutoring? Help their children with their homework? Do the children have long-term health problems? Did they have health problems at the time of the exams? Were they able to revise? What is the school's record in the league tables?
You get the idea. Ask a wide range of detailed questions to cover the vast complexity of human life. Notice when a colleague demurs at something that allows the data to show the influence of (enter taboo subject here). Find somewhere else they can be useful and send them there. Do the same to yourself. The question you resist the most is the one everyone wants answered.
Test the questions. Test the interview process and the online questionnaire (if you must). Do A/B layout and question-order tests. Learn and make adjustments.
Now go out and ask the questions. Tabulate the answers. No leaving anyone out because they missed a bunch of answers. I can deal with that in my analysis. No corrections for this or that. No leaving out the answers to some questions because of "sensitivity" or "mis-interpretation".
That's where you put in the effort. If too many people give incomplete answers, go recruit some more people. Comparing those who gave complet(er) answers to those who didn't to see if there's a pattern.
Put the raw results up on Github or wherever. Along with the questionnaire, the times and dates of each interview, and a video of the whole thing if possible. I want to see their body language to judge which questions are likely to have, uh, aspirational answers. (Okay, that's asking a lot.)
I'll do my own analyses.
The researchers can publish a summary and conclusion if they want. With a keep-it-simple press release for the science journalists. The rest of us will dig into the data and draw our own conclusions.
The people who don't do data analysis can get some popcorn and follow the disputes.
Data financed by private money? Make it public or we get to treat it as self-serving.
Faced with some conclusion about medicines or human behaviour, ask if the raw data and research protocols are publicly available. If the answer is NO, or "you have to pay", dismiss the conclusion, because there is no evidence that you can judge for yourself. Without the data, we have to take their word for it or not, which means we need to judge their competence, honesty and career pressures. That makes it about the researchers, and it isn't. They may be insightful and honest, or they may be academic hacks. You can't judge that either. What you can judge is that they are hiding their data. If they are, it fails the smell test.
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