Jerks

‪"The jerk culpably fails to appreciate the perspectives of others around him, treating them as tools to be manipulated or fools to be dealt with, rather than as moral and epistemic peers.” ‬

‪- Eric Schwitzgebel‬

Pack It Up

Even if differences in human behavior are accepted as having an important genetic component, society might still choose to focus on improving the environment. Responding to a 1977 comment by hereditarian psychologist Hans Eysenck (1916–1997) that genetic interpretations of a twin study on “earning capacity” suggested that the British Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth should “pack up,” the American economist Arthur Goldberger (1930–2009) wittily responded:

If it were shown that a large proportion of the variance in eyesight were due to genetic causes, then the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Eyeglasses might as well pack up. And if it were shown that most of the variation in rainfall is due to natural causes, then the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Umbrellas could pack up too. (Goldberger, 1979, p. 337)

– Jay Joseph in The Trouble With Twin Studies 

The Wild Words Of Keynes

“Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.” 

“When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?” 

“If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.” 

“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back” 

“Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.” 

“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”

– John Maynard Keynes

The Decent Drapery Of Life

But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.

 – Edmund Burke "Reflections"