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One drawback of universal health care

There are many drawbacks to universal health care. One of them is that if the government were to be the sole provider of health care, then it would in principle be able to regulate the habits of its citizens.

Paul Hsieh of the Christian Science Monitor discusses this exact point in a recent article. I'm curious to know what the response is. Perhaps people are fine surrendering their freedom to choose what to eat, what sorts of activities to engage in, and so on.

But for those who think that such government meddling is out of sorts, what is your response? Why think that the government, faced with bearing the cost of health care, shouldn't regulate things like diet and exercise, won't fine people for being overweight or sedentary, and won't tell people they can't ride bikes without body armor, can't have babies beyond a certain number or play football? After all, if it's bearing the cost, it is reasonable that they regulate certain activities that impact the health of its citizens. More importantly, what makes you think that it won't do this? After all, as Hsieh points out, this is already happening in many places with socialized universal health care. Hell, it's happening in a place where there isn't socialized health care, namely, New York, where Mayor Bloomberg is angling to regulate the salt content of New Yorkers' food.

Bon Iver's "Blood Bank" EP

Courtesy of eMusic, I downloaded Bon Iver's new EP, "Blood Bank." It's a continuation of "For Emma, Forever Ago" in many ways: sparse instrumentation, multi-part harmonies replete with Justin Vernon's trademark falsetto, and carefully-crafted songs. The album is quite appropriate for the winter season—melancholy, but with a hint of spring in the background.

The surprise on the album is the last track, "Woods", wherein Vernon takes a page from Kanye West and embraces auto-tuned vocals. I was struck by the similarity to Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek": both songs employ auto-tuned vocals; both songs build up harmonies as time goes on; and both songs are a cappella. It's my least favorite song on the album.

The best song is the opener, "Blood Bank." What I enjoy most about Justin Vernon is his knack for taking super-simple chord structures and instrumentation and delivering beautiful, well-crafted songs. "Blood Bank" displays all of these virtues in one track.

If I were you, I would get "Blood Bank."

Seeing properties?

I am going to rant about something that really bothers me (what else would I rant about?). Many philosophers, including some really good ones, talk in a rather facile way about "seeing properties." Upon reading such a phrase, I often smack my forehead in frustration. Why? Because properties just don't seem to be the sorts of things that one can see. In fact, it just seems wrong in general to talk about perceiving properties.

Consider this bit of linguistic evidence. How weird is it to say, "I see the property of being red," or "Neil tastes the property of being bitter," or "Sherry feels the property of being spherical"? It's really weird to say these things. And rightly so (goes my argument) because you can't truly say any of these things. You can't see the property of being red, you can't taste the property of being bitter and you can't feel the property of being spherical.

Why not? Well, properties are Platonic objects. As a result, they transcend the the realm of spacetime. They are also causally-inert. Or so I say, at least.

Perhaps some philosophers think differently; perhaps you have a different theory of properties. If so, fine. But they must understand that when they talk about "seeing properties," that my head starts to spin.

A wet blanket on your inauguration euphoria

From the first book of Samuel, chapter 8:

And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

What is a national champion?

Prior to the recent bowl season, there was the obligatory hemming and hawing about the BCS system. I just finished reading the best take on the nature of the national championship in D-1A football on Chris Brown's excellent football blog, Smart Football. The key claim:

So what does a playoff give you, and why is it probably a better solution for crowning a National Champion? Let me say first that I think it would be a better system than the current BCS morass. But the advantage the playoff gives you is not anything metaphysically correct. It probably does not crown the best team. And it does not reward the best season (sorry Utah). It merely gives you relative certitude. It's not perfect -- some clunker teams can be crowned, some historically great teams will get the relative shaft -- but, before the season, during the season, and in the playoffs, everyone knows what it takes to be the champion: you must get into the playoffs, and you must win every game once you're there.

A playoff gives more weight to how teams actually perform head-to-head on the playing field. The current system gives too much weight to the fact that someone is a traditional power, marketability, "style-points" and many other irrelevant factors. But Chris is right when he says there isn't anything "metaphysically correct" about a playoff in comparison to the BCS system. At a metaphysical level, there probably isn't anything such thing as a real national champion, a Platonic ideal of sorts.

Best jobs, but by what criteria?

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal published an article about a new ranking of the the best jobs and worst jobs in the US. Mathematician comes in first; lumberjack comes in dead last. I should also note that my profession—philosopher— comes in at 12th, between economist and physicist.

What interested me are the criteria used to rank the jobs on the list.

The study...evaluates 200 professions to determine the best and worst according to five criteria inherent to every job: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress.

Who picked these criteria? Why were they picked? And why does it seem as if the rankings favor white-collar, academic jobs over blue-collar jobs? Hmmm...maybe because the people doing the study are...white-collar academics. No big surprise here.

It is easy to imagine policymakers looking at this study and saying to themselves, "Gosh, we oughtta do something about people who have jobs that rank low on the list. There oughtta be a law! Everyone oughtta have a good-paying white-collar job." The idea underlying this kind of thinking is that some jobs are more dignified than others—in this case, white-collar jobs are more dignified than others. But this is mere bourgeois prejudice. So is the opposite kind of thinking, that blue-collar jobs are more dignified than white-collar jobs (just watch any truck commercial). In both cases, people take the labor theory of value too far. Work is work: it puts food on the table. And maybe people enjoy their work, whether it's white collar or not. I enjoy my philosopher's job, and Eric Nellans likes being a lumberjack: "It's a very rewarding job, especially at the end of the day when you see the work you accomplished."