Planet Utah

Interesting fact about conservatives, liberals, and romance

If you read this article about Match.com, you will learn that in the Match universe, conservatives are much more willing to date liberals than liberals are willing to date conservatives.

This squares with my experience in life in general; conservatives are generally more willing to accept liberals as good, well-meaning people than liberals are willing to accept conservatives as the same.

Footnote: Don't bother talking to me about the intolerance of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and so on. I'm not thinking of professional politicos and members of the media here. I'm thinking of averages Janes and Joes.

Coaches, politicians, ambition, and diplomacy

Coaches and politicians. These two groups of professionals are ALWAYS looking for the bigger, better deal. Generally, as soon as they find it, they bolt.

If you've been elected dog catcher, you're just preparing for a run at city council. Once you get there, you immediately turn your eye to the mayor's chair. Once you've put in your time as mayor, you'll run for Congress, or maybe for the governorship of your state. Then it's the Senate, or the presidency, or one then the other.

If you're a high school coach, you'll take the first college job that comes along. As soon as a more prestigious program comes knocking, though, you move on. If you establish yourself there, you try to leverage that into a job at one of the elite college programs...or maybe even the pros. 

It's just understood that things like roots, loyalty, and blooming where you're planted don't apply to coaches and politicos.

In part, this is understandable. Voters and sports fans can be incredibly fickle--worshiping a coach or president today, and calling for his ouster tomorrow. So who can blame these guys for getting as much as they can, while they can, wherever they can?

At the same time, there are better and worse ways of doing this.

Worse way? Lane Kiffin. Better way? Jim Harbaugh.

Footnote: Yup, I'll be shocked if Harbaugh doesn't announce he's leaving for greener pastures in the next couple of weeks. But I'll be forever thankful that he hung around Stanford long enough to do what he did.

Harvard shmarvard

You've probably noticed that I haven't been blogging. Haven't really had much to say.

Stanford's victory over VA Tech last night got me thinking, though...

No one disputes that Harvard is the most prestigious academic institution in America. It's pretty much Harvard, then everyone else.

Stanford, though, is right there at the top of the "everyone else" list.

So, let's say that in terms of academic prestige, if Harvard rates 100, then Stanford comes in at 93 or 94.

But now let's look at sports. Stanford has won the Director's Cup--which recognizes the most successful college athletic program--for the past 16 years in a row. Harvard's never finished in the top 10. 

True, Stanford owes much of its athletic success to country club sports like tennis, swimming, and golf. But Stanford baseball is a perennial powerhouse, and the football and basketball teams are often in the top 25. This year, Stanford football will finish third or fourth in the final rankings, having lost only to Oregon, which is playing for the national title next Monday.

Harvard can't even dream of such things.

As for quality of life, Stanford's campus is as beautiful as Harvard's (though it's a different kind of beauty); the weather is gorgeous, not Massachusetts-dreary; and San Francisco is a stone's throw away, with Napa and Lake Tahoe just a bit farther. 

All things considered, this is what I conclude: If you want the most prestigious degree you can get, go to Harvard. If you want the best imaginable college experience, Stanford's got it...easily.

Can't we do better than buy and hold?

I'm roughly 20 years away from retirement, and, like most everyone else during the past few years, I saw my already inadequate retirement savings decimated by the collapse of the stock market. Also like most everyone else, I sat there and watched it happen, having been told that buying and holding a highly diversified portfolio consisting primarily of equities (or equity mutual funds/ETFs) was the only way that average Janes and Joes like me could accumulate real wealth. Sure, 40% or 50% of that wealth will get wiped out every so often, but eventually the bull market returns, and you get it all back...and then some. So, you just have to buy, hold during good times and bad, and figure that in the end you'll be looking at about 7% real returns per year. 

Here's the problem with the foregoing logic: It's only true in the long run, and on average (and only if the future is like the past...but I'm not going to deal with that in this post). In the short run, in your individual circumstances, you can take a beating that has permanent consequences. 

For example, even with a relatively conservative investment posture, you might experience a 25% wealth loss just before you retire. (Assume, for example, that you're in your early 60s, you're invested half in equities, and your equity investments lose half their value.) The only way you can hope to earn that money back is by keeping a large share of your money in equities. But once you're retired, you can't afford to take that risk. 

Here's another realistic scenario: Over a relatively long stretch, but still in the "short run"--10 years, let's say--you could see the value of your equity investments stay flat or even decline. (That's what happened in the first decade of this century.) That's fine if you're in your 20s or 30s...you've got time for your money to rack up big gains here and there over the next few decades. But what if you're in your 40s or 50s? A lost decade like that could irreversibly reduce your standard of living in retirement. 

What to do? Well, there are abundant data out there that correlate strongly with market movement, and that can be used to predict market peaks and valleys. I'm going to generate a simple little decision algorithm--actually, I've already done it, but I need to tweak it some--to help determine when it's better to be out of the equities market than in, and when it's better to be in than out. 

I'm not talking about stock picking or day trading here. I'm talking about looking at readily available data for red flags and for "all clear" signs in the equities market as a whole...indicators that might change, at most, two or three times a year. 

I'm not talking about trying to make huge profits, either...mainly, I'm talking about not taking huge losses. In other words, I'm talking about abandoning buy and hold. 

Once I finalize my algorithm, I'll share it here. You can then use the information as you wish.

Footnote: I've already verified that the algorithm outperforms buy and hold in the S&P 500 over the past 35 years...not by much, though. That's why I want to tweak it some more.

Go Duke! (and a totally unrelated political point)

I'll be the one guy outside of the state of North Carolina rooting for Duke tomorrow night. Why? As I told you many years ago, I like dynasties. I like underdogs, too, but if you pit a dynasty (Duke) against an underdog (Butler), I'm typically going to root for the dynasty. 

The primary reason I enjoy watching sports is that I get to see athletic (and often strategic) excellence in practice. And while excellence is hard to achieve in sports, sustained excellence--i.e., a dynasty--is damn near impossible. So, when a team's got a shot at that level of achievement, then as a sports fan, that's what I want to see. 

And now, the unrelated political point: You should check out this Byron York article about Chris Matthews' reaction to Rush Limbaugh's use of the word "regime" when describing the Obama administration. It illustrates perfectly why political discussion and debate are hardly worthwhile any more--namely: (a) the only people who want to discuss/debate are ideologues; but (b) ideology tends to make you deaf, dumb, blind, and stooooopid (talking about Matthews here, not Limbaugh).

Footnote: The first sentence of the preceding paragraph reminds me of a recurring MST3K joke: "Lawrence Olivier is Gene Hackman as Vanessa Redgrave in 'The Montgomery Clift Story.'")

Darwinism at work

You probably saw the sad story about the Sea World trainer who was killed by an orca. Well, that same orca has apparently been involved in the deaths of three different people. Below I'm going to paste a brief description of one of the incidents (not the one that happened this week). Maybe I should be ashamed of myself, but this made me laugh:

Tillikum was involved in another death in 1999 when a 27-year-old man hid in the SeaWorld park and apparently tried to go swimming with the whales. The next morning, staff found the nude body of Daniel Dukes draped over Tillikum's back.

Tiger got the deal

My sister and her husband have a phrase they use to describe relationships. It's called "the deal," as in, "he got the deal" or "she got the deal."

In this context, "getting the deal" refers to snagging a partner who is more desirable than you are. So, in situations in which you look at a couple and say "what is he doing with her?" or (more frequently) "what is she doing with him?", you could also just say, "He/she got the deal in that relationship."

I thought of that when I heard this morning that Elin Woods was going to divorce Tiger. In particular, I thought of some comments from Mia Parnevik, who set up Tiger and Elin. Paraphrasing, she said something along these lines, right around the time they got engaged: "People consider this a fairy tale for Elin. But really, Tiger's the one who made out well here."

Looking at the way everything has played out, it's hard to disagree.

Footnote: All of this Tiger stuff had me thinking about the nature of sin. It's not uncommon to find people who reject the idea of sin--particularly as it relates to sex. They will say things along these lines: "Oh, all of that stuff was just invented by a bunch of uptight old men who were trying to control everybody's sexuality."

Uh, okay, maybe. But sometimes I think that the concept of sin really was divinely inspired. Think about it this way: Most sin is stuff that is enjoyable in the short run but makes you unhappy in the long run. It's "sinful," i.e., bad, not because it's enjoyable, but because that enjoyment is transitory...and because it interferes with lasting enjoyment, happiness, and contentment. So, defining certain behaviors as sinful is God's way of saying, "If you engage in these behaviors, you won't end up happy."

Case in point: Tiger Woods. If Tiger could rewind the clock, give up all of the sex with random cocktail waitresses, and get back his marriage, his privacy, his endorsements, the personal relationships he's ruined or jeopardized, and his unsullied reputation, don't you think he would?  

Anklenote: I doubt this line was original with the guy who said it, but a married friend of mine said this about Tiger, in all seriousness: "I can barely deal with one woman. How do you manage 15 of them?"

Evolutionary psychology and the double standard on age

Does that sound like the title of a journal article? Well, I've been reading evolutionary psychology again lately. Among other things, it's the study of how contemporary behaviors may have resulted from evolutionary adaptations during the hunter-gatherer phase of human development. The way we chose our partners then, and the way we learned to present ourselves to potential mates, may still govern our behavior today.

Consider, for example, the issue of age. In general (everything here is a generality; there are always exceptions), women are considered more sensitive about their age than men, and it is considered rude to ask a woman her age. Not so regarding men.

Why would this be? If getting older is bad or undesirable, then it should be equally so for men and women. But that's clearly not the way things work in our culture.

So, what's the deal? Evolutionary psychologists would say something along these lines: With women, age is strongly correlated with reproductive capacity. After a certain point, women simply become incapable of bearing children. At the same point, though, men are still capable of fathering children...and will be for three or four decades after that, too.

From an evolutionary perspective, our primary drive is to pass on our genes. From an evolutionary perspective, then, as women pass into their late-30s, age becomes a sensitive issue for them. If you choose a woman in this age range as a mate, she may not be able to bear children. That makes her a less attractive mate...if, that is, you know her age. So, she and her single sistren in their 30s (or older) begin to withhold that information. Over time, a norm develops under which it is considered rude to ask a woman about her age.

And now you know the origins of that norm...at least from the evolutionary psychology perspective.

Footnote: I wonder if the norm against asking how much money someone makes is the flip side of the age question. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, how much money a man makes--or, back in the day, how much mammoth blubber he brought home--represents his capacity to care for any offspring that might arise out of a union. Men with less money make less attractive mates: not because women are "gold diggers," but because they want to pass on their genes. Other things being equal, a man with more money will be better able to provide for the needs of his mate and their children. This raises the odds of having healthy offspring that go on to have children of their own.

Now, if you're a guy who doesn't have any money--or at least has less than your competition in the mate selection process--this works against you. So, when the question of money comes up, you either have to lie or insist that it's not an appropriate question. Over time, this may be how we developed the norm against asking about someone's income.

Anklenote: Yes, you say, but it's also considered rude to ask women about their income. In evolutionary terms, their resources shouldn't have mattered for mate selection (because men were expected to be the providers). So why would the norm apply to women, too?

My guess is that the norm was probably in place for tens of thousands of years before it was possible for women to be the primary resource providers for their family. For tens of thousands of years, then, there was no need for men to say, "It's impolite to ask a man about his earnings (or mammoth blubber haul)." Men were the only ones who had earnings, so there was no need to distinguish men from women. You could just say, "It's impolite to ask about earnings/mammoth blubber haul."

Could be, anyway.

What a black belt doesn't mean

I'm still studying Krav Maga. In May it will be a year. I still enjoy it, but my learning process has slowed a lot. When you know nothing, you learn a lot quickly. I had to learn a ton in order to pass my yellow belt test last September. The next belt, though, the orange belt, requires technical modifications to and expansions of everything I learned at the yellow belt level. So, it's more demanding. It's also harder to learn, which means that class is less enjoyable because it makes me feel like an ass. So, I don't go to the intermediate classes nearly as often as I went to the beginning classes. Long story short, it's going to take me much longer to earn my orange belt than it took me to earn my yellow belt.

Anyway, one thing I've learned in the course of my training thus far is that black belt does not mean what I thought it meant. Here's what I thought it meant: "You are a bad ass."

Not necessarily so, for a whole bunch of reasons.

First, while Krav Maga is organized around the concept of street fighting, many other disciplines are organized as sports. Learning to excel at a sport won't necessarily help you in a fight. Sports have rules designed to keep things safe and fair. Street fights do not. In a street fight, for example, a guy would be stupid not to take a free shot at your groin if he had one. In some karate dojos, on the other hand, a groin shot is considered dishonorable. So, you don't learn how to deliver one, and you don't learn how to defend against one. If you get in a street fight, that could be very problematic.

Second, even the disciplines (like Krav Maga) that are oriented toward training for a real fight can never simulate the conditions of an actual fight without people getting hurt. In a martial arts studio, things are very structured. There's no real surprise, no adrenaline pumping, plenty of "do-overs," and an endless supply of cooperative training partners who: a) don't want to hurt you; and b) want to help you practice whatever technique you're working on. In a street fight, though, you may catch a surprise fist to the nose before you even realize you're in a fight. Your adrenaline and crazy heart rate may keep you from performing techniques properly that you've done a thousand times in the studio. You may land a kick that always causes your cooperative training partner to double over, but that barely seems to faze your tough guy opponent. Your street opponent may try something on you that you've never seen in the dojo, and that you therefore have little idea how to defend.

All of this adds up to the following: if you pit a guy with no formal martial arts training but plenty of street scraps against a guy with a black belt but no actual altercations under his belt, the latter may very well get his butt kicked.

Third, no two black belts are exactly the same. Some disciplines grant them after almost no time at all, while others grant them only after a decade of study. Some black belt practitioners are highly skilled in their discipline, while others are not. (Think about a college grad from Harvard vs. one from a party school.) Knowing that someone has a black belt won't tell you much until/unless you know: a) what discipline he studied, and b) what he had to do to get his belt.

Fourth, some guys who fight in the street are good at things that martial arts may not be good at. Krav Maga, for example, is largely a stand-up, offensive discipline. But what if the guy who starts trouble with me manages to get me to the ground? Then I'm in trouble, particularly if he's on the large side.

Fifth, anybody can get knocked out. A good shot to the chin or the jaw or the temple can rattle your brain so much that it just shuts down. Even a guy who's never been in a fight before can throw a haymaker with a lot of force, and even a trained martial artist can have trouble blocking it. If that haymaker lands in the right spot, down goes the black belt.

Poor Grandma

This is the biggest baby I've ever seen! His nana looks like she's falling over backwards from the weight:

She might want to consider shaving those legs, too.