James Nestor on How Bad Mouth Breathing Is
Mouth breathing is proverbial as a sign of being “uncool.” But in his very valuable book Breath, James Nestor argues that mouth breathing is also profoundly unhealthy. As one part of his argument, James writes convincingly of what a horrible experience it was for him when he subjected himself to the experiment of having his nose plugged for ten days. His account of an experiment on monkeys is also convincing:
Egil P. Harvold’s hideous experiments in the 1970s and 80s would not go over well with PETA or with anyone who has ever really cared for animals. Working from a lab in San Francisco, he gathered a troop of rhesus monkeys and stuffed silicone deep into the nasal cavities of half of them, leaving the other half as they were. The obstructed animals couldn’t remove the plugs, and they couldn’t breathe at all through their noses. They were forced to adapt to constant mouthbreathing.
Over the next six months, Harvold measured the animals’ dental arches, the angles of their chins, the length of their faces, and more. The plugged-up monkeys developed the same downward growth pattern, the same narrowing of the dental arch, crooked teeth, and gaping mouth. Harvold repeated these experiments, keeping animals obstructed for two years. They fared even worse. Along the way, he took a lot of pictures.
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Mouthbreathing, it turns out, changes the physical body and transforms airways, all for the worse. Inhaling air through the mouth decreases pressure, which causes the soft tissues in the back of the mouth to become loose and flex inward, creating less overall space and making breathing more difficult. Mouthbreathing begets more mouthbreathing. Inhaling from the nose has the opposite effect. It forces air against all those flabby tissues at the back of the throat, making the airways wider and breathing easier. After a while, these tissues and muscles get “toned” to stay in this opened and wide position. Nasal breathing begets more nasal breathing.
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Sleeping with an open mouth exacerbates these problems. Whenever we put our heads on a pillow, gravity pulls the soft tissues in the throat and tongue down, closing off the airway even more. After a while, our airways get conditioned to this position; snoring and sleep apnea become the new normal.
James also points to many ancient and traditional cultures that talk of the virtues of nose-breathing and the troubles with mouth-breathing. The most entertaining was his second-hand account of many Native American tribes:
Catlin would spend the next six years traveling thousands of miles throughout the Great Plains, covering more distance than Lewis and Clark to document the lives of 50 Native American tribes.
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The Native Americans explained to Catlin that breath inhaled through the mouth sapped the body of strength, deformed the face, and caused stress and disease. On the other hand, breath inhaled through the nose kept the body strong, made the face beautiful, and prevented disease. “The air which enters the lungs is as different from that which enters the nostrils as distilled water is different from the water in an ordinary cistern or a frog-pond,” he wrote.
Healthy nasal breathing started at birth. Mothers in all these tribes followed the same practices, carefully closing the baby’s lips with their fingers after each feeding. At night, they’d stand over sleeping infants and gently pinch mouths shut if they opened. Some Plains tribes strapped infants to a straight board and placed a pillow beneath their heads, creating a posture that made it much harder to breathe through the mouth. During winter, infants would be wrapped in light clothing and then held at arm’s length on warmer days so they’d be less prone to get too hot and begin panting.
All these methods trained children to breathe through their noses, all day, every day. It was a habit they would carry with them the rest of their lives. Catlin described how adult tribal members would even resist smiling with an open mouth, fearing some noxious air might get in. This practice was as “old and unchangeable as their hills,” he wrote, and it was shared universally throughout the tribes for millennia.
Some change in our behavior in the last few hundred years has made a big difference to the average shape of the human skull:
Every one of the ancient skulls was identical to the Parsee sample. They all had enormous forward-facing jaws. They had expansive sinus cavities and broad mouths. And, bizarrely, even though none of the ancient people ever flossed, or brushed, or saw a dentist, they all had straight teeth.
The forward facial growth and large mouths also created wider airways. These people very likely never snored or had sleep apnea or sinusitis or many other chronic respiratory problems that affect modern populations. They did not because they could not. Their skulls were far too large, and their airways too wide for anything to block them. They breathed easy. Nearly all ancient humans shared this forward structure—not just in the Morton Collection, but everywhere around the world. This remained true from the time when Homo sapiens first appeared, some 300,000 years ago, to just a few hundred years ago.
Evans and Boyd then compared the ancient skulls to the modern skulls of their own patients and others. Every modern skull had the opposite growth pattern, meaning the angles of the Frankfort plane and N-perpendicular were reversed: chins had recessed behind foreheads, jaws were slumped back, sinuses shrunken. All the modern skulls showed some degree of crooked teeth.
Later on in Breath, James points to a shift toward eating soft food that leads to facial underdevelopment as well as the (probably related) shift toward mouth-breathing as possible causes. I find the effects of soft food evolutionarily plausible: just as evolution could assume in the environment of evolutionary adaptation that we would go through frequent periods of very little food, and design some repair processes to happen then, evolution could design facial development based on the assumption—reasonable for the environment of evolutionary adaptation of humans—that we would be eating a lot of tough-to-chew food.
I find myself convinced by James Nestor’s arguments that nose-breathing is better for me than mouth-breathing. So much so that I want to encourage myself to do nose-breathing in the way that requires as little conscious attention as possible: making sure I breathe through my nose at night. This is a straightforward matter of an intervention James discusses: taping my mouth shut at night. I know it seems weird, but I have gotten used to it quite quickly. It is important to have the right kind of tape, or pulling it off in the morning will hurt. This is what I use:
Link to the Amazon page for this microfoam tape: “3m microfoam tape 2" x5 1/2 yd, stretched box: 6”
I use the Hitler-mustache taping: a narrow (2” wide) vertical strip in the middle of my lips. That way, if I get thirsty at night, I can drink through a straw through the corner of my mouth without having to remove the tape.
I can report that, subjectively, I feel better with the additional nose breathing. I feel better especially right when I wake up in the morning. I know this intervention needs more in the way of randomized controlled trials to document whether it has genuine benefits, but I would be optimistic about the results of such randomized controlled trials. (James reports some amount of relevant evidence that has been collected, though I don’t remember exactly a randomized controlled trial of mouth-taping at night.)
I confess, before I read it, I thought the theme of Breath—that we are breathing all wrong—sounded weird. And having read it, I am now doing an additional weird thing. But I found myself convinced of most (though not all) of what the book claimed. I recommend it. I plan to follow up with posts on some other ideas from Breath.
The Federalist Papers #12: Union Makes it Much Easier to Get Tariff Revenue—Alexander Hamilton
For a nation whose formation was propelled by a tax rebellion, the question of which taxes were most acceptable and manageable was a crucial one. In the Federalist Papers #12, Alexander Hamilton argued that tariffs were likely to be more politically acceptable and manageable than taxes on land or personal property.
One reason taxes on land or personal property could be difficult is that some farmers whose farms produced quite a bit might still not have much currency because they consumed much of what they produced and used barter for much of the rest. Trade would have been monetized to a much greater extent.
Alexander Hamilton goes on to argue that the states united could enforce a tariff relatively easily because most trade had to come in through the Atlantic coast. By contrast, divided states would have a hard time enforcing a tariff because smuggling from other states—including smuggling of transshipped goods from abroad—would be quite easy. He points to France as an example of how much effort it requires to enforce tariffs when many different land and river routes are available for smuggling.
As another advantage of tariffs over other taxes, Alexander Hamilton points to the importance in imports of one particular luxury: liquor. He views any reduction in the consumption of imported liquor as a good thing.
It is easy to read between the lines Alexander Hamilton’s keen awareness of the political power of American farmers in the 18th century. In addition to speaking ill of taxes on land, he makes a point at the beginning of the Federalist Papers #12 to argue, apart from his main theme of tax revenue, that union will yield a great deal of commerce—not only foreign trade, but also trade between the states—and that that commerce will raise land prices.
One of Alexander Hamilton’s great strengths was his ability to combine considerations of political philosophy, political expediency, public economics and monetary economics. The Federalist Papers #12 is a good example of that strength.
Below is the full text of the Federalist Papers #12:
FEDERALIST NO. 12
The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue
From the New York Packet
Tuesday, November 27, 1787.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
THE effects of Union upon the commercial prosperity of the States have been sufficiently delineated. Its tendency to promote the interests of revenue will be the subject of our present inquiry.
The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares. By multipying the means of gratification, by promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals, those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify and invigorate the channels of industry, and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness. The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer,--all orders of men, look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils. The often-agitated question between agriculture and commerce has, from indubitable experience, received a decision which has silenced the rivalship that once subsisted between them, and has proved, to the satisfaction of their friends, that their interests are intimately blended and interwoven. It has been found in various countries that, in proportion as commerce has flourished, land has risen in value. And how could it have happened otherwise? Could that which procures a freer vent for the products of the earth, which furnishes new incitements to the cultivation of land, which is the most powerful instrument in increasing the quantity of money in a state--could that, in fine, which is the faithful handmaid of labor and industry, in every shape, fail to augment that article, which is the prolific parent of far the greatest part of the objects upon which they are exerted? It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary; and it is one, among a multitude of proofs, how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and refinement, is to lead men astray from the plainest truths of reason and conviction.
The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury. The hereditary dominions of the Emperor of Germany contain a great extent of fertile, cultivated, and populous territory, a large proportion of which is situated in mild and luxuriant climates. In some parts of this territory are to be found the best gold and silver mines in Europe. And yet, from the want of the fostering influence of commerce, that monarch can boast but slender revenues. He has several times been compelled to owe obligations to the pecuniary succors of other nations for the preservation of his essential interests, and is unable, upon the strength of his own resources, to sustain a long or continued war.
But it is not in this aspect of the subject alone that Union will be seen to conduce to the purpose of revenue. There are other points of view, in which its influence will appear more immediate and decisive. It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation. Tax laws have in vain been multiplied; new methods to enforce the collection have in vain been tried; the public expectation has been uniformly disappointed, and the treasuries of the States have remained empty. The popular system of administration inherent in the nature of popular government, coinciding with the real scarcity of money incident to a languid and mutilated state of trade, has hitherto defeated every experiment for extensive collections, and has at length taught the different legislatures the folly of attempting them.
No person acquainted with what happens in other countries will be surprised at this circumstance. In so opulent a nation as that of Britain, where direct taxes from superior wealth must be much more tolerable, and, from the vigor of the government, much more practicable, than in America, far the greatest part of the national revenue is derived from taxes of the indirect kind, from imposts, and from excises. Duties on imported articles form a large branch of this latter description.
In America, it is evident that we must a long time depend for the means of revenue chiefly on such duties. In most parts of it, excises must be confined within a narrow compass. The genius of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of excise laws. The pockets of the farmers, on the other hand, will reluctantly yield but scanty supplies, in the unwelcome shape of impositions on their houses and lands; and personal property is too precarious and invisible a fund to be laid hold of in any other way than by the inperceptible agency of taxes on consumption.
If these remarks have any foundation, that state of things which will best enable us to improve and extend so valuable a resource must be best adapted to our political welfare. And it cannot admit of a serious doubt, that this state of things must rest on the basis of a general Union. As far as this would be conducive to the interests of commerce, so far it must tend to the extension of the revenue to be drawn from that source. As far as it would contribute to rendering regulations for the collection of the duties more simple and efficacious, so far it must serve to answer the purposes of making the same rate of duties more productive, and of putting it into the power of the government to increase the rate without prejudice to trade.
The relative situation of these States; the number of rivers with which they are intersected, and of bays that wash there shores; the facility of communication in every direction; the affinity of language and manners; the familiar habits of intercourse; --all these are circumstances that would conspire to render an illicit trade between them a matter of little difficulty, and would insure frequent evasions of the commercial regulations of each other. The separate States or confederacies would be necessitated by mutual jealousy to avoid the temptations to that kind of trade by the lowness of their duties. The temper of our governments, for a long time to come, would not permit those rigorous precautions by which the European nations guard the avenues into their respective countries, as well by land as by water; and which, even there, are found insufficient obstacles to the adventurous stratagems of avarice.
In France, there is an army of patrols (as they are called) constantly employed to secure their fiscal regulations against the inroads of the dealers in contraband trade. Mr. Neckar computes the number of these patrols at upwards of twenty thousand. This shows the immense difficulty in preventing that species of traffic, where there is an inland communication, and places in a strong light the disadvantages with which the collection of duties in this country would be encumbered, if by disunion the States should be placed in a situation, with respect to each other, resembling that of France with respect to her neighbors. The arbitrary and vexatious powers with which the patrols are necessarily armed, would be intolerable in a free country.
If, on the contrary, there be but one government pervading all the States, there will be, as to the principal part of our commerce, but ONE SIDE to guard--the ATLANTIC COAST. Vessels arriving directly from foreign countries, laden with valuable cargoes, would rarely choose to hazard themselves to the complicated and critical perils which would attend attempts to unlade prior to their coming into port. They would have to dread both the dangers of the coast, and of detection, as well after as before their arrival at the places of their final destination. An ordinary degree of vigilance would be competent to the prevention of any material infractions upon the rights of the revenue. A few armed vessels, judiciously stationed at the entrances of our ports, might at a small expense be made useful sentinels of the laws. And the government having the same interest to provide against violations everywhere, the co-operation of its measures in each State would have a powerful tendency to render them effectual. Here also we should preserve by Union, an advantage which nature holds out to us, and which would be relinquished by separation. The United States lie at a great distance from Europe, and at a considerable distance from all other places with which they would have extensive connections of foreign trade. The passage from them to us, in a few hours, or in a single night, as between the coasts of France and Britain, and of other neighboring nations, would be impracticable. This is a prodigious security against a direct contraband with foreign countries; but a circuitous contraband to one State, through the medium of another, would be both easy and safe. The difference between a direct importation from abroad, and an indirect importation through the channel of a neighboring State, in small parcels, according to time and opportunity, with the additional facilities of inland communication, must be palpable to every man of discernment.
It is therefore evident, that one national government would be able, at much less expense, to extend the duties on imports, beyond comparison, further than would be practicable to the States separately, or to any partial confederacies. Hitherto, I believe, it may safely be asserted, that these duties have not upon an average exceeded in any State three per cent. In France they are estimated to be about fifteen per cent., and in Britain they exceed this proportion.[If my memory be right they amount to twenty per cent.] There seems to be nothing to hinder their being increased in this country to at least treble their present amount. The single article of ardent spirits, under federal regulation, might be made to furnish a considerable revenue. Upon a ratio to the importation into this State, the whole quantity imported into the United States may be estimated at four millions of gallons; which, at a shilling per gallon, would produce two hundred thousand pounds. That article would well bear this rate of duty; and if it should tend to diminish the consumption of it, such an effect would be equally favorable to the agriculture, to the economy, to the morals, and to the health of the society. There is, perhaps, nothing so much a subject of national extravagance as these spirits.
What will be the consequence, if we are not able to avail ourselves of the resource in question in its full extent? A nation cannot long exist without revenues. Destitute of this essential support, it must resign its independence, and sink into the degraded condition of a province. This is an extremity to which no government will of choice accede. Revenue, therefore, must be had at all events. In this country, if the principal part be not drawn from commerce, it must fall with oppressive weight upon land. It has been already intimated that excises, in their true signification, are too little in unison with the feelings of the people, to admit of great use being made of that mode of taxation; nor, indeed, in the States where almost the sole employment is agriculture, are the objects proper for excise sufficiently numerous to permit very ample collections in that way. Personal estate (as has been before remarked), from the difficulty in tracing it, cannot be subjected to large contributions, by any other means than by taxes on consumption. In populous cities, it may be enough the subject of conjecture, to occasion the oppression of individuals, without much aggregate benefit to the State; but beyond these circles, it must, in a great measure, escape the eye and the hand of the tax-gatherer. As the necessities of the State, nevertheless, must be satisfied in some mode or other, the defect of other resources must throw the principal weight of public burdens on the possessors of land. And as, on the other hand, the wants of the government can never obtain an adequate supply, unless all the sources of revenue are open to its demands, the finances of the community, under such embarrassments, cannot be put into a situation consistent with its respectability or its security. Thus we shall not even have the consolations of a full treasury, to atone for the oppression of that valuable class of the citizens who are employed in the cultivation of the soil. But public and private distress will keep pace with each other in gloomy concert; and unite in deploring the infatuation of those counsels which led to disunion.
PUBLIUS.
Here are links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:
The Federalist Papers #1: Alexander Hamilton's Plea for Reasoned Debate
The Federalist Papers #3: United, the 13 States are Less Likely to Stumble into War
The Federalist Papers #4 B: National Defense Will Be Stronger if the States are United
The Federalist Papers #5: Unless United, the States Will Be at Each Others' Throats
The Federalist Papers #6 A: Alexander Hamilton on the Many Human Motives for War
The Federalist Papers #11 A: United, the States Can Get a Better Trade Deal—Alexander Hamilton
Matt Adler's Critique of Methods Based on the Value of a Statistical Life
Matt Adler is a law professor economists should be aware of. He is doing serious work related to constructing social welfare functions. And he explains the current state-of-the-art for constructing social welfare functions in a very understandable way.
A Critique of Typical Value-of-a-Statistical-Life Methods
“What Should We Spend to Save Lives in a Pandemic? A Critique of the Value of Statistical Life” is a nice introduction to Matt Adler. Reading it, I realize, for example, the naivete in how I used the value of a statistical life in “Logarithms and Cost-Benefit Analysis Applied to the Coronavirus Pandemic.” The value of a statistical life is the marginal rate at which an individual would trade off a small extra probability of death with small dollar cost. There are at least three problems with common ways of using the value of a statistical life:
Some interventions are non-marginal. In particular, lockdowns can cause large reductions in income and consumption that are more-than-proportionately costly to an individual than smaller reductions in income and consumption would be. Hence, a naive application of the VSL formula will understate the utility cost of the lockdowns.
The value of a statistical life can easily differ by age—both because of the number of years that would be lost from death at that age and because of the different financial situations individuals have at different ages.
A good social welfare function should treat a dollar’s worth of value to someone living on $500 a month as being a bigger deal than a dollar’s worth of value to a billionaire.
Two notes: (a) The first two issues are problems even if one is treating a dollar as a dollar, regardless of whose dollar it is. (b) The different financial situations of older individuals mentioned in (2) are the kind of issue raised in (3).
On these three issues, it is worth quoting this passage from “What Should We Spend to Save Lives in a Pandemic? A Critique of the Value of Statistical Life”:
As for intuition: textbook VSL is quite counterintuitive, because it places a dramatically higher value on risk reductions for richer individuals; population-average VSL fails to differentiate with respect to age; and all three versions on the cost side are completely insensitive to the incidence of the costs of social distancing policy.
Prioritarianism
How should things be done if not through naive value-of-a-statistical-life methods? The current state-of-the-art for constructing social welfare functions can be described as “Prioritarianism.” Here is Matt Adler’s definition of Prioritarianism:
Prioritarianism is a variation on utilitarianism that has emerged in ethics over the last several decades, and (as suggested by the name) gives extra weight to the well-being of the worse off. It is appealing to those who are impressed by utilitarianism’s consequentialist structure and attention to individual well-being, but believe that utilitarianism’s exclusive focus on the sum total of well-being is too narrow. Instead, prioritarianism considers both the sum total and the distribution of well-being.
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Prioritarianism sums expected transformed utilities, using a concave transformation function (so as to give greater weight to the worse off).
I am in agreement with Matt Adler on substance here, but I have a terminological disagreement, as follows:
To an economist, what Matt calls "transformed utility" is also "utility," since any monotonic transformation of utility is also a utility function that represents the same preferences. I think this needs to be explained, at least in a footnote.
Because transformed utility is also utility, Prioritarianism is not a variation on utilitarianism, but a type or species of utilitarianism in which the particular representation of utility is chosen not based on convenience of functional form or some empirical or metaphysical principle, but based on ethical reasoning to make sure that that particular transformation of utility used as the utility function adequately deals with distributional issues.
For example, logarithmic utility is primarily based on convenience and therefore typically has little behind it that should be taken seriously in forming a social welfare function. Convenience leads to wide use; then some people mistake prevalence as a hallowing by tradition that must have some basis back in the mists of time. But often the basis back in the mists of time was only convenience.
As a technical note, it is assumptions of anonymity plus a separability condition that make it so ethical considerations about inequality can be dealt with by using a particular transformation of utility as the intermediate object for aggregation. (Fleurbaey and Maniquet say this on separability: "separability conditions state that indifferent agents should not matter in the social evaluation of two alternatives.")
Conclusion
One of the most important things to be aware of is that welfare economics and the idea of constructing social welfare functions have risen again from the ashes like a phoenix after its reverses from the Arrow Impossibility Theorem and other impossibilities results. In particular, interpersonal comparison of a monotonic reference path of consumption bundles—together with a mapping for each individual of which indifference curve they are on to a point on that monotonic reference path—can substitute for interpersonal comparison of utility; thus interpersonal comparison of utility is not necessary for the construction of social welfare functions. Many economists and a few law professors and others are working hard on making theoretically sound social welfare analysis a reality. Our Well-Being Measurement Initiative (for which Dan Benjamin, Kristen Cooper, Ori Heffetz and I are the senior investigators) is marrying these principles to other principles specific to well-being measurement.
Don’t miss these other posts on the coronavirus pandemic:
Logarithms and Cost-Benefit Analysis Applied to the Coronavirus Pandemic
Seconding Paul Romer's Proposal of Universal, Frequent Testing as a Way Out
Also, click on this link to see other posts tagged “happiness.”
State-by-State Graphs of the Effective Reproduction Ratio for COVID-19 over Time →
Hat tip to Joshua Hausman
Savannah Taylor: Lessons of the Labyrinth and Tapping Into Your Inner Wisdom
I am pleased to be able to share a guest post from my friend Savannah Taylor from my Co-Active Leadership Program Tribe. One of Savannah’s themes is about labyrinths, which I also love: I was surprised by how the labyrinth I walked sparked ideas about what matters in my life. Another theme is what I say in “Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life”: “ideally, everyone would have a coach, or more than one for different areas of their lives.” Here is Savannah:
Most of my life, (up until last summer when I got divorced and started my entire life over), I've made a habit of looking outside of myself for answers. I constantly gave my power away and sought permission from others to live my life the way I wanted. After making the life changing decision to get divorced and start a new chapter on my own, I began the process of unlearning all of the habits where I was giving my power away, staying small and quiet, and being "acceptable." The path has been unpredictable, with so many twists and turns, but ultimately I knew deep down inside that there was a version of my life with so much more joy, ease, and alignment than what I had been living. I was ready to discover who I really was and I wasn't going to give up until I found her.
Each day, each week, has been a beautiful unfolding of discovering more of myself. The more I lean into loving and accepting who I am and what I bring to the world, the more trust I've built in my inner knowing. This knowing is a still and quiet voice that is dependable and true. It will guide you to your authentic life of fulfillment and purpose if you get quiet enough to listen.
Almost 1 year later, I have cultivated a level of self-acceptance I couldn't have dreamed of. I have discovered the woman I was made to be and consciously created a life by my design. My relationship with my inner wisdom is growing stronger every day and it has led me to the most incredible friendships and opportunities I could have ever imagined.
Most days after working, I take time to walk down to the lake by my house to soak in the goodness of the peaceful water, the fresh air, and get present with myself and nature as the sun gets lower and more golden in the sky. After spending some intentional time there on the old wooden dock, I continue on my normal walking path for more exercise before heading back home.
There are two routes to get back home. I can choose to walk the route back along the water, which is my usual favorite, or I can go through downtown Kirkland and a residential area. I almost always walk back along the water, because it just gives me so much life at the end of the day, but something told me to go the residential route this one day. I decided to listen to my quiet inner nudge. As I headed back home, I stumbled upon this labyrinth. I've been on this particular route several times before and never noticed it. It is in PLAIN SIGHT right next to the sidewalk, with no obstructions. This made me stop and think, "What else is in plain sight that I haven't noticed?"
Not sure what a labyrinth is? Here's a snippet from the internet to give you an idea:
A labyrinth is a complex and circuitous path that leads from a beginning point to a center (and back out again). One of the two types is a Meander, with a single, undivided path and no choices to make other than traveling onward through the winding pattern to an assured goal. The meandering pattern may tease the traveler by leading inward, then suddenly outward, but eventually it arrives surely at the goal. A labyrinth may have served to help one find their spiritual path by purposefully removing one from the common understanding of linear time and direction between two points. As one traveled through the labyrinth, one would become increasingly lost in reference to the world outside and, possibly, would unexpectedly discover one’s true path in life.
Before I stepped into the labyrinth, I stopped at the entrance and considered what intention or question I wanted to meditate on as I walked the path. I ended up asking, "What is my next step?" As I walked the meandering path of the labyrinth, considering my question, these are the lessons that revealed themselves to me through the experience:
Stay on the path and keep putting one foot in front of the other and you will reach your goal (even when the path seems to be taking you further away from it)
Even though you can't tell how you get "there" you WILL GET THERE
The journey requires TRUST that you will indeed find your way and get "there"
When you start to enjoy the process and the journey, you get "there" before you know it
Your path and your pace is yours, comparison and judgement aren't helpful or necessary
These lessons were exactly what I needed to hear in the moment as I was contemplating how to move forward with next steps in my business and life. And though this didn't give me any specific action steps, it reminded me of how I needed to BE as I moved forward. I walked this labyrinth a couple weeks ago and as I've stepped into more TRUST that I just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and enjoying the process, I have realized so many creative solutions, next steps, and A-HA moments. It was exactly what I needed. Sometimes it's so easy to feel stuck or lost, but you ALWAYS have the answers inside you. If you have a hard time hearing your inner wisdom, hire a coach that can help you tune in and facilitate it's uncovering.
Savannah Taylor is a sweet and sassy powerhouse of courage and vulnerability, kindness and compassion. In her presence, you will feel like you are ENOUGH, supported, and championed to the highest version of yourself. She is the Founder of the ME FIRST: Self-Care for Leaders community and a Co-Active Adventure Coach. She utilizes exploration and shared experiences in nature to empower Leaders to expand their limits of what's possible. From 1:1 local nature walks (near Seattle) to multi-day retreats of sailing, hiking, scuba diving, and obstacle courses, she guides you to expand through discovery and wonder as you connect to yourself and others outdoors.
Savannah grew up in Seattle with a family that was not “outdoorsy.” After spending 3 years in Hawaii in her late 20's, she began hiking, sailing, and challenging her fear of water by snorkeling and getting scuba certified. Through her journey of exploration and pushing her physical and mental limits, she discovered the power of expansion through nature and adventure coaching. Savannah is on a mission to empower you to trust your inner knowing and cultivate self-acceptance while challenging the self-imposed limits you’ve set for your life. Our greatest work is to uncover our own alignment, joy, and values and build our life around them. Making the world a better place starts inside you.
Book a sample coaching session with Savannah here:
https://savannahtaylorcoachingcalendar.as.me/?appointmentType=5241465
Visit her website:
www.savannahtaylorcoaching.com
Join the Community, ME FIRST: Self-Care for Leaders:
Don’t Miss These Other Posts Related to Positive Mental Health:
Interstellar Travel and Uploaded Humans
Many difficulties of space travel go away when human consciousnesses have already been translated into software. For example,
“Suspended animation” is a simple matter of not running the software program and sticking with a copy
Even if the stored human consciousnesses are physically traveling on a spaceship, the danger from radiation can be taken care of by having many backup copies and doing periodic error correct. Other dangers such as muscle wasting from zero gravity are absent.
Even if the stored human consciousness are physically traveling on a spaceship, the total weight needed is likely to be much, much smaller than the weight of humans.
There is no need to worry about food and oxygen for the journey. And power needs should be relatively low if for most of the human consciousnesses on the journey error correction is the only operation being performed.
This should make even interstellar travel realistically possible without any space travel technology beyond what we can already foresee. Michio Kaku raises the additional possibility of transmitting a human consciousness on a laser beam. Here is a summary of that idea plus a little background from Adam Kirsch’s June 20, 2020 Wall Street Journal article “Looking Forward to the End of Humanity”:
Ultimately, however, the hope is that we won’t just use computers—we’ll become them. Today, cognitive scientists often compare the brain to hardware and the mind to the software that runs on it. But a software program is just information, and in principle there’s no reason why the information of consciousness has to be encoded in neurons.
The Human Connectome Project, launched in 2009 by the National Institutes of Health, describes itself as “an ambitious effort to map the neural pathways that underlie human brain function.” If those pathways could be completely mapped and translated into digital 0s and 1s, the data could be uploaded to a computer, where it could survive indefinitely. The physicist Michio Kaku has theorized that this is how humanity will overcome the logistical challenges of deep-space travel: “We’re going to put the connectome on a laser beam and shoot it to the moon. In one second, our consciousness is on the moon. In 20 minutes we’re on Mars, in eight hours we’re on Pluto, in four years our consciousness has reached the nearest star.”
However, Robin Hanson’s book The Age of Em, which I feature in “On Being a Copy of Someone's Mind,” gives economic arguments for why interstellar travel of software humans, while it is likely to happen, wouldn’t be central to early historical developments after technology to upload human consciousness’s becomes available. Basically, there are a lot of economic reasons why human beings, whether flesh and blood or software humans, want things done fast. And by the time we have the technology to upload human consciousness at all, it is likely that software humans can operate at a much faster pace than flesh-and-blood humans: a thousand or a million times faster.
What would a trip to Pluto look like if the typical software human is operating at 1000 times flesh-and-blood speed? Traveling at the speed of light on a laser beam, it then takes 16000 subjective hours of the software humans back home to go to Pluto and return, which is 22 months. That would seem like a long time to be gone. On the other hand, one copy of you could go while the other stays behind to keep working. So that could be quite attractive.
But even if a receiver station was in orbit around Alpha Centauri at the beginning of the age of software humans, a roundtrip of 8.6 years of flesh-and-blood human time would be 8,600 years of software human time. That would make it seem like a one-way trip. The one-way trip could be quite attractive if copies of all one’s family and friends and many other potential friends took the trip too, but anyone who went to the Alpha Centauri system wouldn’t have any influence on software human civilization for a period of 8,600 subjective years (of the average working software human).
Thus, interstellar travel, while a lot easier when there human consciousness can be uploaded, and likely quite consequential for the galaxy, would have very little effect on human history on earth for what will seem like a long, long time for many software humans.
In closing, let me several background points about the predicted scenario.
First, flesh-and-blood humans would not be central to this future simply because the ease of copying software humans would mean that there could easily—and profitably would be—trillions and trillions of software humans, while the number of flesh-and-blood humans would be measured in billions. Flesh-and-blood humans willing to be uploaded would be important as the source of real variety among software humans. Also, from the perspective of flesh-and-blood humans, the subsistence cost for a software human would be tiny compared to the subsistence cost for a flesh-and-blood human. That means that from the perspective of a software human, a flesh-and-blood human would seem incredibly rich. (The only alternative to a flesh-and-blood human seeming incredibly rich to a software human would be for the flesh-and-blood human to be at below a subsistence level for a flesh-and-blood human and therefore to die. Big, hulking things such as flesh-and-blood humans are expensive.)
Second, one should not think of software humans as being incorporeal. It would be very easy for a software human to move back and forth between being embedded in some kind of physical android form (though that physical form need not be human-shaped) and being embedded in a virtual world—that is, being purely electronic in form. A software human might specialize in one role or another, but fundamentally doesn’t need to choose. It is an easy transition back and forth. Generally speaking, a physical form not needed for work purposes is likely to seem relatively expensive to a software human, so most wouldn’t have a physical form outside of work hours. And as Robin Hanson writes, a large share of software humans, like most flesh-and-blood humans in advanced countries now, are likely to do office work, which leaves them without much reason to incur the expense of a physical form.
A scene from “Upload”
I have started in on the fun TV series “Upload.” It is interesting to compare what happens in the series with Robin Hanson’s predictions (conditional on plausible future technology):
The idea in “Upload” that there might be a period of time when the only connectome scanning technology available destroys the brain that is scanned is plausible enough. Probably at some later period, non-destructive scanning of the connectome will become possible.
“Upload” raises the issue of software humans working, but assumes a law prohibiting it. The commercial advantages of letting software humans work are likely to make such a law difficult to maintain politically in all jurisdictions. And the jurisdictions that allow software humans to work will get much richer than jurisdictions that don’t. As Robin Hanson points out, giving flesh-and-blood humans a small share of the gains from software humans working—even through something as simple as an income tax on software humans—is likely to make the flesh-and-blood humans to not only acquiesce in allowing software humans to work but to actively encourage it.
One of the plot-driving challenges in “Upload” is low-quality virtual reality for software humans. This is quite unlikely for one simple reason: human-brain-emulating software will be vastly more complex— and therefore vastly more expensive to run—than quite high-quality virtual reality software. Some kinds of virtual reality will have an expense that is a substantial fraction of the cost of running a software human—for example, running a scanned cat or dog as opposed to a simplified virtual-reality cat or dog—but many, many high-quality virtual reality features will cost a tiny fraction of running software needed to create human experience for that software.
Finally, “Upload” shows zero recognition in the first few episodes that software humans can operate at a different speed than flesh-and-blood humans—either faster or slower. This possibility would change so many decision points in the first few episodes that it will be hard for the writers to introduce this possibility later on without creating many retrospective plot holes in the first few episodes. As it is, they can hope viewers simply don’t think of this possibility. But technologically, once you have software, it is easy to rig it to run at different speeds. For example, I am now running Peter Attia’s podcasts at 1.2 speed. No problem. One important consequence of the different speeds of software humans and flesh-and-blood humans is that while interactions between these two groups will be easy, ordinary relationships might well be difficult: running at a speed that allows a software human to have a deep relationship with a flesh-and-blood human would mean sacrificing ease of having relationships with the bulk of other software humans. (And even among software humans, there would be divisions based on different operating speeds—perhaps driven by occupational differences in economically optimal speed. But with trillions of software humans likely in existence, there would be many software humans in each speed category to form relationships with.)
I find thinking about the future that Robin Hanson has conditionally predicted fascinating. It is a good topic to return to again and again. And as should already be clear, I highly recommend The Age of Em.
Related Posts:
America's Struggle
Our Home Owner’s Association puts little flags out in front of all of our houses. This year, that flag symbolizes for me how proud I am of the United State of America that in quick succession, it has confronted some of the worst abuses of sexism through the #metoo movement, and now is confronting the continuing abuses of racism in a way that seems to me especially powerful compared to most of the antiracism efforts I have seen since, say, 1980.
Our republic was born unfinished, with a huge fraction of its people (notably African Americans and women, but others too) disenfranchised and treated as lesser beings. But the ideals articulated at the founding of our republic—even when articulated by men who acted in abhorrent ways, such as holding slaves—were universal in their application and appeal, and the charmed circle of those treated as full human beings is expanding, though still far short of where it needs to be.
One frontier of social justice that is near and dear to my heart is the struggle to get people to view and treat individuals who were born outside the United States as full human beings. I know that some are angered by people immigrating in ways that flout our laws. But if that is the concern, then dramatically increase legal immigration! If people have a fair chance to immigrate legally, then there is less temptation for them to immigrate in an unregulated way.
I know it is a matter of dispute, but I think our immigration laws are driven in important measure by racism. If we had large numbers of immigrants—even illegal immigrants—from Northern Europe, I don’t think the push for immigration restrictions would be nearly the same. And I think that would run into less opposition than immigration that brought in people who had excellent English of all ethnic backgrounds from all around the world.
May we quickly extend the charmed circle of those we care about as full human beings to all the people on this planet! Only when we care deeply about all human beings will we have a chance at social justice.
2020 First Half's Most Popular Posts
The "Key Posts" link in navigation at the top of my blog lists all important posts through the end of 2016. Along with "2017's Most Popular Posts," “2018's Most Popular Posts” and “2019's Most Popular Posts,” this is intended as a complement to that list. (Also, my most popular storified Twitter discussions are here, and you can see other recent posts by clicking on the Archive link at the top of my blog.) Continuing this tradition, I give links to the most popular posts in the first half of 2020 below into six groups: popular new posts in 2020 on diet and health, popular new posts in 2020 on political philosophy, popular new posts in 2020 on other topics, and popular older posts in those three categories. (However, the set of new posts in the first half of 2020 on political philosophy with 100 or more pageviews is the empty set.) I provide the pageviews in the first half of 2020 for each post as counted when someone went specifically to that post.
I am pleased to be able to report 331,250 Google Analytics pageviews in the first half of 2020—over 55,000 pageviews per month. Of these, 17,264 were pageviews for my blog homepage. One other thing that stands out from the data is how well my back catalog does because of Google search.
New Posts in 2020 on Diet and Health
New Posts in 2020 on Other Topics
Logarithms and Cost-Benefit Analysis Applied to the Coronavirus Pandemic 934
Responding to Negative Coverage of Negative Rates in the Financial Times 285
Seconding Paul Romer's Proposal of Universal, Frequent Testing as a Way Out 278
Narayana Kocherlakota Advocates Negative Interest Rates Now 240
How Even Liberal Whites Make Themselves Out as Victims in Discussions of Racism 238
Vicky Biggs Pradhan: How Crises Make Us Rethink Our Lives 218
The Mormon Church's Counterpart to a Sovereign Wealth Fund 146
Marc Lipsitch: The New Coronavirus May Be Worse Than You Think (link post) 136
Michael Lind: College-Educated vs. Not is the New Class War 136
Recognizing Opportunity: The Case of the Golden Raspberries—Taryn Laakso 101
Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Diet and Health
Which Nonsugar Sweeteners are OK? An Insulin-Index Perspective 24,857
Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid 23,475
How Fasting Can Starve Cancer Cells, While Leaving Normal Cells Unharmed 10,751
Why a Low-Insulin-Index Diet Isn't Exactly a 'Lowcarb' Diet 7,991
Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon 2,529
Using the Glycemic Index as a Supplement to the Insulin Index 2,405
What Steven Gundry's Book 'The Plant Paradox' Adds to the Principles of a Low-Insulin-Index Diet 1,963
Jason Fung's Single Best Weight Loss Tip: Don't Eat All the Time 859
Meat Is Amazingly Nutritious—But Is It Amazingly Nutritious for Cancer Cells, Too? 723
Jason Fung: Dietary Fat is Innocent of the Charges Leveled Against It 658
David Ludwig: It Takes Time to Adapt to a Lowcarb, Highfat Diet 568
Layne Norton Discusses the Stephan Guyenet vs. Gary Taubes Debate (a Debate on Joe Rogan’s Podcast) 543
Don't Tar Fasting by those of Normal or High Weight with the Brush of Anorexia 496
My Giant Salad 428
Best Health Guide: 10 Surprising Changes When You Quit Sugar 396
Kevin D. Hall and Juen Guo: Why it is So Hard to Lose Weight and So Hard to Keep it Off 302
Anthony Komaroff: The Microbiome and Risk for Obesity and Diabetes 294
A Low-Glycemic-Index Vegan Diet as a Moderately-Low-Insulin-Index Diet 277
How Important is A1 Milk Protein as a Public Health Issue? 252
After Gastric Bypass Surgery, Insulin Goes Down Before Weight Loss has Time to Happen 230
Eggs May Be a Type of Food You Should Eat Sparingly, But Don't Blame Cholesterol Yet 181
The Case Against the Case Against Sugar: Seth Yoder vs. Gary Taubes 137
Is Milk OK? 126
Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Political Philosophy
John Locke: Freedom is Life; Slavery Can Be Justified Only as a Reprieve from Deserved Death 2,025
John Locke on Punishment 1,399
John Locke: The Only Legitimate Power of Governments is to Articulate the Law of Nature 915
John Stuart Mill’s Vigorous Advocacy of Education Vouchers 785
Freedom Under Law Means All Are Subject to the Same Laws 575
John Locke: People Must Not Be Judges in Their Own Cases 416
John Locke's Smackdown of Robert Filmer: Being a Father Doesn't Make Any Man a King 362
On the Achilles Heel of John Locke's Second Treatise: Slavery and Land Ownership 354
John Locke: How to Resist Tyrants without Causing Anarchy 301
John Stuart Mill on Balancing Christian Morality with the Wisdom of the Greeks and Romans 298
John Stuart Mill on the Protection of "Noble Lies" from Criticism 224
An Experiment with Equality of Outcome: The Case of Jamestown 209
Brian Flaxman—Bern Notice: Why Bernie Sanders is the Best Candidate to Take on Donald Trump in 2020 208
John Locke: The Right to Enforce the Law of Nature Does Not Depend on Any Social Contract 196
John Locke: Defense against the Black Hats is the Origin of the State 193
Social Liberty 180
John Locke Off Base with His Assumption That There Was Plenty of Land at the Time of Acquisition 176
John Stuart Mill on the Sources of Prejudice About What Other People Should Do 169
On Despotism 156
John Stuart Mill’s Brief for the Limits of the Authority of Society over the Individual 129
John Locke: By Natural Law, Husbands Have No Power Over Their Wives 121
John Locke: The Law of Nature Requires Maturity to Discern 110
John Stuart Mill on Being Offended at Other People's Opinions or Private Conduct 109
The Federalist Papers #2 A: John Jay on the Idea of America 108
John Locke: If Rebellion is a Sin, It is a Sin Committed Most Often by Those in Power 101
Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Other Topics
The Medium-Run Natural Interest Rate and the Short-Run Natural Interest Rate 1,601
Monetary vs. Fiscal Policy: Expansionary Monetary Policy Does Not Raise the Budget Deficit 1,534
Adding a Variable Measured with Error to a Regression Only Partially Controls for that Variable 1,365
The Logarithmic Harmony of Percent Changes and Growth Rates 1,216
Greg Shill: Does the Fed Have the Legal Authority to Buy Equities? 842
Why I Write 746
The Complete Guide to Getting into an Economics PhD Program 703
Supply and Demand for the Monetary Base: How the Fed Currently Determines Interest Rates 610
The Message of Mormonism for Atheists Who Want to Stay Atheists 525
Reza Moghadam Flags 'Enabling Deep Negative Rates to Fight Recessions' in the Financial Times 455
There's One Key Difference Between Kids Who Excel at Math and Those Who Don't 431
Returns to Scale and Imperfect Competition in Market Equilibrium 381
Netflix as an Example of Clay Christensen's 'Disruptive Innovation' 377
How and Why to Eliminate the Zero Lower Bound: A Reader’s Guide 287
The Deep Magic of Money and the Deeper Magic of the Supply Side 248
Even Central Bankers Need Lessons on the Transmission Mechanism for Negative Interest Rates 246
What to Call the Very Rich: Millionaires, Vranaires, Okuaires, Billionaires and Lakhlakhaires 232
The Most Effective Memory Methods are Difficult—and That's Why They Work 230
Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life 228
Negative Interest Rate Policy as Conventional Monetary Policy: Full Text 212
Marriage 101 206
Economics Needs to Tackle All of the Big Questions in the Social Sciences 180
Michael Weisbach: Posters on Finance Job Rumors Need to Clean Up Their Act, Too 178
Rodney Stark on the Status of Women in Early Christianity 175
What is the Effective Lower Bound on Interest Rates Made Of? 169
18 Misconceptions about Eliminating the Zero Lower Bound 160
The Shape of Production: Charles Cobb's and Paul Douglas's Boon to Economics 152
Markus Brunnermeier and Yann Koby's "Reversal Interest Rate" 148
The Mormon Church Decides to Treat Gay Marriage as Rebellion on a Par with Polygamy 143
Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang on the Three Basic Types of Business Models 141
How Subordinating Paper Currency to Electronic Money Can End Recessions and End Inflation 126
Silvio Gesell's Plan for Negative Nominal Interest Rates 122
Roger Farmer and Miles Kimball on the Value of Sovereign Wealth Funds for Economic Stabilization 120
Let's Set Half a Percent as the Standard for Statistical Significance 116
When the Output Gap is Zero, But Inflation is Below Target 108
Ezra W. Zuckerman—On Genre: A Few More Tips to Academic Journal Article-Writers (link post to a pdf) 103
How and Why to Expand the Nonprofit Sector as a Partial Alternative to Government: A Reader’s Guide 100
Taryn Laakso: Righting Your Ship Before You Capsize
The Co-Active Leadership Program I am in has given me a wonderful “tribe” of 17 new friends. Taryn Laakso one of these impressive new friends. She appeared on this blog before with “Recognizing Opportunity: The Case of the Golden Raspberries.” Here is another guest post playing off of her love of sailing. Taryn ends with a pitch for Co-Active coaching. (You can see my pitch for Co-Active coaching here: “Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life.”) Here is Taryn:
The seas out in the world right now feel choppy with gusts of high winds and a heavy fog of information making it hard to navigate through it. Being faced with so much information in the news and social media, it is hard to not feel like our boats are about to capsize. And maybe a few of the boats out there need to tip over but many more need to be righted.
It's spurred curiosity in me to know how balanced the keel of your life feels right now. I was starting to feel my keel heel to the left last week and I was at risk of capsizing. I wanted to find a sheltered cove, drop anchor, and hunker down out of the storm which I knew wasn't going to help anyone!
Instead, I wondered if I took down some sail area and slowed down, would it help get my boat re-centered? If I got my keel balanced by being in right relationship with myself first, could I continue forward on my journey, so I can step forward supporting causes that make social and systematic changes in our world? Being in the right relationship with myself means that I know my values, my purpose and that allows me to make decisions that are in alignment with my core beliefs. I was righting my ship. How did I do this?
This may feel counter-intuitive to what is being publicized right now, but I knew I needed to retreat a bit so I could have the energy to read, learn, engage in conversations, and study causes that can support long term changes in our world that will bring balance to many more people's boats. I did this by resting, talking, walking, and dancing through my feelings.
How are you taking care of yourself so you can continue supporting what you are passionate about without the risk of your boat heeling over? Which one below describes how you are feeling right now?
My boat is about to heel over
My boat is listing a bit to the left
The keel is balanced and I feel energized
If you are in the 3rd bucket, please share with me how you are keeping yourself balanced and energized! Share your wisdom so I can share it with others. On the other hand, if you are in either of the first two situations, would you like to explore how to balance your keel so that you can continue moving forward without capsizing?
I invite you to spend some time with me and we'll explore what is causing you to feel unbalanced and how you can support what matters to you! That could be social issues, your family, your team, or yourself.
Click here to find time on my calendar. You don't need to navigate this on your own. I've got you.
Wishing you smooth sailing,
Taryn Laakso, CPCC | ACC
Leadership & Life Coach
www.unlaakingyourpotential.com
(206) 310-9409
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The Federalist Papers #11 B: Union Will Make Possible a Strong Navy, Allowing America to Chart Its Own Destiny—Alexander Hamilton
Link to the Wikipedia article “History of the United States Navy,” from which this painting of the 1799 battle between the Constellation and L’Insurgente is taken. That battle resulted in the capture of L’Insurgent
In the second half of the Federalist Papers #11, Alexander Hamilton makes the case that union is crucial for keeping the states from falling under European domination, because union is crucial for creating a strong American navy. Let me intersperse in bold my interpretation of the points of his argument between passages in the second half of the Federalist Papers #11:
The United States could have a navy powerful enough to make a real difference:
A further resource for influencing the conduct of European nations toward us, in this respect, would arise from the establishment of a federal navy. There can be no doubt that the continuance of the Union under an efficient government would put it in our power, at a period not very distant, to create a navy which, if it could not vie with those of the great maritime powers, would at least be of respectable weight if thrown into the scale of either of two contending parties. This would be more peculiarly the case in relation to operations in the West Indies. A few ships of the line, sent opportunely to the reinforcement of either side, would often be sufficient to decide the fate of a campaign, on the event of which interests of the greatest magnitude were suspended. Our position is, in this respect, a most commanding one. And if to this consideration we add that of the usefulness of supplies from this country, in the prosecution of military operations in the West Indies, it will readily be perceived that a situation so favorable would enable us to bargain with great advantage for commercial privileges. A price would be set not only upon our friendship, but upon our neutrality. By a steady adherence to the Union we may hope, erelong, to become the arbiter of Europe in America, and to be able to incline the balance of European competitions in this part of the world as our interest may dictate.
Divided, the effective naval strength of the American states would be so low they couldn’t even maintain the rights of neutrality:
But in the reverse of this eligible situation, we shall discover that the rivalships of the parts would make them checks upon each other, and would frustrate all the tempting advantages which nature has kindly placed within our reach. In a state so insignificant our commerce would be a prey to the wanton intermeddlings of all nations at war with each other; who, having nothing to fear from us, would with little scruple or remorse, supply their wants by depredations on our property as often as it fell in their way. The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.
A strong navy of the states united would enable maritime flourishing:
Under a vigorous national government, the natural strength and resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the irresistible and unchangeable course of nature.
Divided, the states would be weak enough that foreign powers could take most of the gains from trade:
But in a state of disunion, these combinations might exist and might operate with success. It would be in the power of the maritime nations, availing themselves of our universal impotence, to prescribe the conditions of our political existence; and as they have a common interest in being our carriers, and still more in preventing our becoming theirs, they would in all probability combine to embarrass our navigation in such a manner as would in effect destroy it, and confine us to a PASSIVE COMMERCE. We should then be compelled to content ourselves with the first price of our commodities, and to see the profits of our trade snatched from us to enrich our enemies and p rsecutors. That unequaled spirit of enterprise, which signalizes the genius of the American merchants and navigators, and which is in itself an inexhaustible mine of national wealth, would be stifled and lost, and poverty and disgrace would overspread a country which, with wisdom, might make herself the admiration and envy of the world.
Union is also important for American power over offshore fisheries and key inland waterways:
There are rights of great moment to the trade of America which are rights of the Union--I allude to the fisheries, to the navigation of the Western lakes, and to that of the Mississippi. The dissolution of the Confederacy would give room for delicate questions concerning the future existence of these rights; which the interest of more powerful partners would hardly fail to solve to our disadvantage. The disposition of Spain with regard to the Mississippi needs no comment. France and Britain are concerned with us in the fisheries, and view them as of the utmost moment to their navigation. They, of course, would hardly remain long indifferent to that decided mastery, of which experience has shown us to be possessed in this valuable branch of traffic, and by which we are able to undersell those nations in their own markets. What more natural than that they should be disposed to exclude from the lists such dangerous competitors?
This branch of trade ought not to be considered as a partial benefit. All the navigating States may, in different degrees, advantageously participate in it, and under circumstances of a greater extension of mercantile capital, would not be unlikely to do it. As a nursery of seamen, it now is, or when time shall have more nearly assimilated the principles of navigation in the several States, will become, a universal resource. To the establishment of a navy, it must be indispensable.
Union would contribute to a strong navy through a greater variety of resources as well as a greater quantity:
To this great national object, a NAVY, union will contribute in various ways. Every institution will grow and flourish in proportion to the quantity and extent of the means concentred towards its formation and support. A navy of the United States, as it would embrace the resources of all, is an object far less remote than a navy of any single State or partial confederacy, which would only embrace the resources of a single part. It happens, indeed, that different portions of confederated America possess each some peculiar advantage for this essential establishment. The more southern States furnish in greater abundance certain kinds of naval stores--tar, pitch, and turpentine. Their wood for the construction of ships is also of a more solid and lasting texture. The difference in the duration of the ships of which the navy might be composed, if chiefly constructed of Southern wood, would be of signal importance, either in the view of naval strength or of national economy. Some of the Southern and of the Middle States yield a greater plenty of iron, and of better quality. Seamen must chiefly be drawn from the Northern hive. The necessity of naval protection to external or maritime commerce does not require a particular elucidation, no more than the conduciveness of that species of commerce to the prosperity of a navy.
Free trade among the states will increase the gains not only from trade among the states but also the gains from foreign trade:
An unrestrained intercourse between the States themselves will advance the trade of each by an interchange of their respective productions, not only for the supply of reciprocal wants at home, but for exportation to foreign markets. The veins of commerce in every part will be replenished, and will acquire additional motion and vigor from a free circulation of the commodities of every part. Commercial enterprise will have much greater scope, from the diversity in the productions of different States. When the staple of one fails from a bad harvest or unproductive crop, it can call to its aid the staple of another. The variety, not less than the value, of products for exportation contributes to the activity of foreign commerce. It can be conducted upon much better terms with a large number of materials of a given value than with a small number of materials of the same value; arising from the competitions of trade and from the fluctations of markets. Particular articles may be in great demand at certain periods, and unsalable at others; but if there be a variety of articles, it can scarcely happen that they should all be at one time in the latter predicament, and on this account the operations of the merchant would be less liable to any considerable obstruction or stagnation. The speculative trader will at once perceive the force of these observations, and will acknowledge that the aggregate balance of the commerce of the United States would bid fair to be much more favorable than that of the thirteen States without union or with partial unions.
If the states are divided, free trade among them won’t last long:
It may perhaps be replied to this, that whether the States are united or disunited, there would still be an intimate intercourse between them which would answer the same ends; this intercourse would be fettered, interrupted, and narrowed by a multiplicity of causes, which in the course of these papers have been amply detailed. A unity of commercial, as well as political, interests, can only result from a unity of government.
Europeans are into domination. We need countervailing power:
There are other points of view in which this subject might be placed, of a striking and animating kind. But they would lead us too far into the regions of futurity, and would involve topics not proper for a newspaper discussion. I shall briefly observe, that our situation invites and our interests prompt us to aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs. The world may politically, as well as geographically, be divided into four parts, each having a distinct set of interests. Unhappily for the other three, Europe, by her arms and by her negotiations, by force and by fraud, has, in different degrees, extended her dominion over them all. Africa, Asia, and America, have successively felt her domination. The superiority she has long maintained has tempted her to plume herself as the Mistress of the World, and to consider the rest of mankind as created for her benefit. Men admired as profound philosophers have, in direct terms, attributed to her inhabitants a physical superiority, and have gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America--that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere[“Recherches philosophiques sur les Americains”]. Facts have too long supported these arrogant pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it. Disunion will will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!
PUBLIUS.
Here are links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:
The Federalist Papers #1: Alexander Hamilton's Plea for Reasoned Debate
The Federalist Papers #3: United, the 13 States are Less Likely to Stumble into War
The Federalist Papers #4 B: National Defense Will Be Stronger if the States are United
The Federalist Papers #5: Unless United, the States Will Be at Each Others' Throats
The Federalist Papers #6 A: Alexander Hamilton on the Many Human Motives for War
The Federalist Papers #11 A: United, the States Can Get a Better Trade Deal—Alexander Hamilton
On Policing: Roland Fryer, William Bratton, John Murad, Scott Thomson and the American People
This is a golden moment for police reform. Above, I have links to the four most interesting sources related to the specifics of police reform I have read or listened to in the last few weeks.
First, Roland Fryer gives statistics to understand the problem. Perhaps surprisingly to some, but in what I think makes sense theoretically, the racist tilt of police interactions with civilians is much stronger at lower levels of force that receive less scrutiny than it is in shootings. Here is what Roland writes in the June 22, 2020 Wall Street Journal op-ed “What the Data Say About Police”; I have added bullets to distinguish passages:
My research team analyzed nearly five million police encounters from New York City. We found that when police reported the incidents, they were 53% more likely to use physical force on a black civilian than a white one. In a separate, nationally representative dataset asking civilians about their experiences with police, we found the use of physical force on blacks to be 350% as likely. This is true of every level of nonlethal force, from officers putting their hands on civilians to striking them with batons. We controlled for every variable available in myriad ways. That reduced the racial disparities by 66%, but blacks were still significantly more likely to endure police force.
Black civilians who were recorded as compliant by police were 21% more likely to suffer police aggression than compliant whites.
… when we use our data to calculate the descriptive statistics used in popular databases such as the Washington Post’s, we find a higher percentage of black civilians among unarmed men killed by the police than they do. Those statistics, however, cannot address the fundamental question: When a shooting might be justified by department standards, are police more likely actually to shoot if the civilian is black? Only our data can answer this question, because it contains information on situations in which a shooting might meet departmental standards but didn’t happen. The answer appears to be no.
Our data come from localities in California, Colorado, Florida, Texas and Washington state and contain accounts of 1,399 police shootings at civilians between 2000 and 2015. In addition, from Houston only in those same years, we had reports describing situations in which gunfire might have been justified by department guidelines but the cops didn’t shoot. This is a key piece of data that popular online databases don’t include.
No matter how we analyzed the data, we found no racial differences in shootings overall, in any city in particular, or in any subset of the data.
Roland isn’t as clear as he might be in the last two passages above, but he seems to be saying that “situations in which gunfire might have been justified by department guidelines” involve black civilians with more than proportional frequency, but that for each such situation, blacks are no more likely to be shot than whites.
Importantly, Roland Fryer also says the research he has been involved with suggests that federal investigations of a policy department prompted by a video of policy brutality that went viral are a blunt instrument that causes police to pull back dramatically, at great cost in life:
… investigations not preceded by viral incidents of deadly force, on average, reduced homicides and total felony crime. But for the five investigations that were preceded by a viral incident of deadly force, there was a stark increase in crime—893 more homicides and 33,472 more felonies than would have been expected with no investigation. The increases in crime coincide with an abrupt change in the quantity of policing activity. In Chicago alone after the killing of Laquan McDonald, the number of police-civilian interactions decreased by 90% in the month the investigation was announced.
Importantly, in the eight cities that had a viral incident but no investigation, there was no subsequent increase in crime. Investigations are crucial, but we need to find ways of holding police accountable without sacrificing more black lives.
The Manhattan Institute article “Precision Policing: A Strategy for the Challenges of 21st Century Law Enforcement” by William Bratton and Jon Murad is well worth reading in its entirety. It has two points I found especially interesting. First, that it helps a lot to set priorities in policing that distinguish between serious offenses that need to be immediately addressed by an arrest and what are offenses that people need to be told to stop but can and should be dealt with initially by a warning. Second, historically, rage at police brutality often subsides when innocent police officers are brutality murdered by someone’s hatred of the police. An innocent civilian being killed inflames rage by civilians. An innocent policy officer being killed tamps down rage by civilians at the police.
William Galston, in the June 23, 2020 Wall Street Journal op-ed “The Police Reform Americans Want” collects a remarkable set of poll results showing a majority of Americans calling for dramatic police reform. Again, with my bullets added to distinguish passages, here is what William Galston reports:
A ban on chokeholds and strangleholds is supported by 68% of all Americans and 52% of Republicans, according to the Kaiser poll.
Requiring police to give a verbal warning, when possible, before shooting at a civilian is favored by 89% of Americans, including 83% of Republicans.
More than three-quarters of Americans, and more than 6 in 10 Republicans, favor requiring states to release officers’ disciplinary records …
Most Americans want to create stronger incentives for police to do the right thing—and to pay a price when they don’t. A remarkable 95% would require police to intervene against, and report, the excessive use of force by fellow officers, a measure that could help tear down the “wall of silence” protecting wrongdoers from scrutiny.
Seventy-three percent of Americans, including 55% of Republicans, favor allowing individuals to sue police officers when they believe excessive force has been used against them. Given this consensus, legislators should be able to reach agreement on the court-created doctrine of qualified immunity, which makes it hard to hold officers accountable when they violate constitutional rights.
I won’t try to summarize the podcast “The City That Disbanded Its Police.” But it is well worth listening to. A restart involving police having to reapply for their jobs in a new police department with the old police department disbanded can be an effective way to institute new policing practices if done well. As you listen, it is useful to compare the actual changes in detailed policing practices in this Camden instance to the changes in New York City policing practices discussed in “Precision Policing: A Strategy for the Challenges of 21st Century Law Enforcement.”
Conclusion: Social science became big only with the expansion of colleges and universities after World War II. At least the half century after that, there was a large fraction of inadequate social science. In my view, the last quarter century has begun to have better percentage of decent social science. Knowledge about how to do effective and as-gentle-as-consistent-with-effective policing is one of the areas of social science that is only now beginning to come into its own. We have a long way to go, but there is hope. I hope we do a powerful round of police reform now while we can, but also include in that police reform plenty of data collection and funds for research on and dissemination of effective policing strategies as we continue to learn.