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John Quiggin 
Another Monday, another Message Board.
Could I request some clarification from you, please: You say “Post comments on any topic”. I have checked your Discussion policy again, but it is not clear whether “any topic” here refers to any topic you have actually posted on, or rather any topic that we commenters may bring up. The bit about “Side discussions … to the sandpits, please.” tends to indicate the former.
So, though “1. This is a forum for discussion.” is the discussion completely open ?
And if you wouldn’t mind, could you please open a sandpit – the most recent one (started 12th September) has had comments closed for some time now so there’s basically nowhere to take those “Side discussions and idees fixes…” to.
Here is some holiday reading for Ikonoclast.
http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/930/supplement-early-human-kinship-was-matrilineal/
And some more!
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/amazing-intact-statue-of-a-woman-unearthed-at-the-neolithic-city-of-catalhoyuk-in-turkey/
@tony lynch
I always found the whole “sleeping on top of your ancestor’s graves” thing a bit creepy.
This blog has some wonderful descriptions of gross funeral rites that humans in various cultures have made up but this particular blog is one of my favourites. it is just one example of the way archaeologists have reasoned women out of having any significance in history.
https://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/archaeological-oops-the-prince-is-actually-a-female/
From the blog “Now the remains have been studied, and archaeologists realize that they made an oops. The bones have shown that the skeletonized individual thought to be male is actually female, and the cremated remains of the ‘wife’ were actually of a male. Their re-interpretation of the site with this evidence now argues that the lance, which was previously determined to be a sign of royalty of the prince, is now thought to be a symbol of union between the two deceased.
So let’s break this down- when the skeleton was male the lance was a sign of royal status, and now that the ‘prince’ is a female the lance is a sign of marriage unity between the two individuals. Isn’t this secondary interpretation just as biased as the first one? Why can’t a female have a lance as a symbol of her power?”
There is also this book that I came across in the op shop last week. Titled When God was a Woman, the author Merlin Stone – now with a name like that who is going to read the book except hippies? But it actually has a wiki page.
I’ve only read bits and pieces from the book and there are some interpretations Merlin makes that are quite silly and obviously wrong but the basis of the book, that there was a deliberate effort to replace the “female deities who were worshipped in the most ancient and periods of human history and exasperating to then confront the fact that even the material there is has been almost totally ignored in popular literature and general education” is well argued and makes sense.
@tony lynch
It is interesting that there is no discussion in the article about why so many of the female figurines that are found on rubbish dumps. It doesn’t make sense does it to make a statue and then throw it away.
But it does makes sense if you accept the thesis that Merlin Stone proposes, that ancient writing and statuary that referred to women as ‘gods’ were deliberately destroyed by Christians, Jews and Mohammed’s followers as they deliberately wiped out any vestige of female worship.
Yahweh says in the Bible to his followers to go and completely destroy all the places where the nations you dispossess have served their gods, on high mountains, on hills, under any spreading tree; you must tear down their alters, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods and wipe out their name from that place.”
With that sort of political correctness going on, no wonder most people threw their mother goddess image away.
That is one long and complicated reading, but it seems too contrived to a particular point to me. I think we know very little about the role(s) of these female figurines. But the new finding and possible reading – that here the figure is a senior and female tribal leader – seems simple and (in part because of its simplicity) plausible. I wonder if the common, less crafted kinds found in “dumps” (and where else but “dumps” would you find archeological rubble, etc?) are not “dolls” – where I mean dolls of important figures (like the one found in the article). (Imagine Hillary or Donald dolls today, and where they would end up).
And as for it being creepy to sleep over your dead, well only perhaps if you thought that the dead might themselves creep…
“Imagine Hillary or Donald dolls today, and where they would end up).”
They would end up in op shops I think. I’ve found some Disney toys in the op shops – very expensive items originally.
I have no problem with the figures being ‘just’ an older woman who had gained respect and not a female deity – that doesn’t matter in terms of the broader story that the male god religions at some stage violently and deliberately discredited and destroyed the female cultures that pre-dated them.
There has to be a huge difference between what we do with our mass produced idols in our throw away culture and the things that would have been done with objects in the distant past when objects were not created to make a profit but to fulfil a need.
People in the past didn’t throw useful things away and stone for carving is useful and not always plentiful. It seems to me to be more likely that a piece of stone suitable for carving would have been used for something else or re carved into a more useful object, even a mortar and pestle, rather than thrown away, unless it had become a taboo object.
Oliver Hart (ex UK, now Harvard) and Bengt Holmstroem (ex Finland, now MIT) won the 2016 (Bank of Sweden) Nobel Prize in Economics for their work in contract theory.
Prof Hart’s CV, http://scholar.harvard.edu/hart/publications?page=3, and
Prof Holmstroem’s CV, http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/bengt/cv.
EU countries are not necessarily following what well known US academics promote. Prof Holstroem’s CV may also provide a source to compare the Peter Drucker type management education with what happens where Holmstroem has influence.
Brandis some thoughts
Really has there ever been a more despised politician[bar Clownshoes/Howard] let alone Attorney General.
Like Turnbull we have been fed an illusion of their “legal skills” yet the 1. Spycatcher case was won on basic evidence about privilege 2. George has not yet apologised for his wrong advice about Craig Thomson’s offending under the NSW Crimes Act which section was not law at the time [subsequently acquitted of all bar circa $5000 despite the Coalition/Georgie allegation of $500,000].
About his targets – successful Professor Trigg [a real lawyer and human being] now Gleeson SG [obviously respected by his peers] also new DPP[ex tainted Trade Union Enquiry RC counsel along with Heydon Stolje] appointed early May now 5 months later advises the AFP insufficient evidence against Brough, Ashby, Pyne, Roy, Bishop, Kelly, McArdle etc. really the evidence of Ashby being procured by Brough and Lewis,the Murdoch boy, to steal Slippers’ diary is overwhelming and to suggest Slipper would have consented contrary to his Court pleadings to his diary being taken is ridiculous. Incitement to offend is a basis for prosecution under the Commonwealth Criminal Code.
There is a theme here of Georgie’s odious presence in the public domain compounded by the fact he is the AG and paid for by us! He survives as there is a paucity of real legal talent in the Coalition
I have a comment in moderation. It contains a web reference to O. Hart’s and Bengt Holmstroem’s CVs
He survives as there is a paucity of real legal talent in the Coalition
Basically noone with any talent has signed up to the coalition since the mid-nineties — twenty-five years ago — and precious few for the ten or fifteen years previous. There are very, very few people with any talent in any field remaining in the party room and not many more in the branches, and all of them are closer to retirement than the start of their careers. Nor will there be any younger ones coming through.
The liberal party has fifteen years left in it, tops.
The Queensland Government’s sell-off of odd parcels of land which are surplus to requirements is perfectly reasonable. It does not constitute a breaking of the promise about not selling off major assets. People understand this promise relates to publicly beneficial, natural monopoly infrastructure. The LNP continue to show their crass opportunism and complete hypocrisy by pretending to not know the difference.
Nigel Farrage has likened Donald Trump to a silverback gorilla. I don’t think either Nigel or Don know much about silverback gorillas.
“Gorillas display substantial sexual dimorphism. (Humans do not)
“Specifically, the males are more than twice as large as the females and powerfully built. This underscores their evolutionary legacy of male contest competition and polygyny. Indeed, gorillas were long thought to exist almost exclusively in harems, small multi-female groups led by one powerful silverback.
“Eating mostly leafy greens and seasonal fruit, the herculean strength and sharp canine teeth of silverbacks are used only for fighting each other. (but their size means they can’t get to the best leafy greens at the top of the tree and none of the females have ever been observed to share these things with their silverback)
“Typically, young males leave their birth group upon reaching adulthood and go through a solitary period before attempting to take over a harem or start a group of their own. Most are not successful.”
“Beginning in the 1990s, something unexpected happened. Some younger males stopped leaving their groups and the basic harem social structure fundamentally shifted for about one-fourth of the park’s mountain gorilla population.
“Instead of groups with one, or occasionally two adult males, scientists began observing very large groups including several adult males and females living together in relative harmony. Some groups hosted up to nine adult males, and one group topped out at 66 total animals.
“Twenty years in, this trend shows no sign of reversing.”
https://thehumanevolutionblog.com/2016/06/06/what-mountain-gorillas-can-teach-us-about-gendered-behaviors/
@Julie Thomas
Well, consider the quality of workmanship issue. The newly found large female figurine from the tomb/grave is of much greater quality of craftsmanship that the “dolls” typically found elsewhere. This suggests that perhaps the “dolls” are “cheap” (labour time/skills training), and so not as freighted with deep significance as the high quality example. From here, of course, all sorts of speculations are possible – but it is all more complicated than “price” versus “need”.
@tony lynch
It is just the throwing away something that was once valuable because of losing interest bit that doesn’t make sense to me.
Context. I live among poor people who do not throw away things no longer valued that could possibly come in handy later with some modifications.
@Ernestine Gross
Your #9
“Prof Holstroem’s CV may also provide a source to compare the Peter Drucker type management education with what happens where Holmstroem has influence.”
Which is both too much and too little – would you care to elucidate your viewpoint and thinking about that ?
@Julie Thomas
Your #14
So, do you reckon that the gorillas are on the way towards becoming bonobos-ised ?
@GrueBleen
This is the bit I thought most relevant
David Buss, has said it best: “Human behavior is enormously flexible – a flexibility afforded by the large number of context-dependent evolved psychological adaptations that can be activated, combined, and sequenced to produce variable adaptive human behavior.”
I am sure that as a species we have the potential to live in ways that we cannot even imagine now. You might find David Buss interesting reading. Google David Buss and Freudian psychiatry and there are a few articles of his that are worth reading if you are interested in evo psych.
And these points also provide some interesting ideas that we could consider as we are working out how to give according to our ability and take according to our needs.
“While blank slate proponents ignore the role of genes in creating behavior, evolutionary psychologists may be underappreciating the role of environment.
“We are very far from knowing what males and females might naturally aspire to and be capable of, absent the influence of a social environment that shapes them to be, and to want to be, different.”
Interesting bit of gorilla information there, Julie. I would expect that small groups of gorillas are easier prey for poachers while larger groups would be easier for game wardens to protect.
Of course, predation/protection by humans may have nothing to do with the change in their social dynamics.
Ronald,
I was wondering if it could be just the observation by the humans that has changed the dynamics. Simply being there and watching could be enough of a perturbation to create this transition to a new organisational system.
But yeah, the protection that the humans are providing is more specifically what could be the salient or significant factor.
And bringing it back to the Donald and the idea that silverbacks are more to be pitied than admired, there is some speculation about his sniffing and if it was or is a tic due to anxiety on the part of a man who is not sure of his attractiveness. It seems to me that he understands that he can only do what he does to women without consequences because he is a celebrity.
And if the sniffing is due to cocaine use that brings us back to the idea that he suffers from anxiety because anxiety is one of the factors that we use drugs to control.
@Julie Thomas
“Imagine Hillary or Donald dolls today, and where they would end up).”
Only if I can stick pins in them.
@Crocodile
I’d think they would end up in an op-shop. I’ve seen branded Disney dolls that look unused in the toy bins selling for $2.
But the kids I know in town and my grandchildren don’t recognise these dolls as valuable or desirable because they don’t participate in the dominant materialistic culture.
In response to James who posted on the other Monday Message Board, the only reason I think there is to prefer Hillary is that I imagine that she will be less likely to double down on her warmongering, her support for wall street and her other less than admirable behaviours.
I can hope that her experience as a non alpha male means she is more likely to be emphatic toward the types of people – non alpha women, lgbts, beta and gamma males 🙂 who are damaged by the Trump alphamaleism.
@Julie Thomas
Hillary was certainly emphatic about Gaddafi – “He came, so saw, he died”.
@Apolcalypse
In the future I mean. The point is that there is nothing in their pasts that would incline me to like either of them but if I think about what behavior is likely in the future would be likely, I am inclined to see that Hillary is more able to move the US toward something more functional – but of course functional is not adequate but it will have to do in this context -than Donald would be.
Do you not think this to be the case?
That cynical and ghoulish humour is more tolerable and understandable to me than is the humour of Donald and his supporters. But that is beside the point except to acknowledge that I have a lot of personal reasons for hating on alpha males. But I do try to take steps to address my prejudices when I am aware of them.
@Julie Thomas
I should have spelled it out. Did you mean to write emphatic or empathetic?
@Apolcalypse
Surely it is obvious from the context?
If not never mind. You go water your horses and I’ll use my spell checker next time so you are not confused.
and apolcalypse do you understand about not ‘shoulding’ on yourself?
Statement from John Barry
John Barry is a cousin of Summer Zervos, who is one a number of women who, have just now, very conveniently for Hillary Clinton and to those whom she owes favours including the mysoginist dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, come forward with claims that republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump sexually molested her.
“I am completely shocked and bewildered by my cousin, Summer Zervos, and her press conference today. Ever since she was on The Apprentice she has had nothing but glowing things to say about Mr. Trump. For almost a decade, my cousin would talk about how much she looked up to Mr. Trump and viewed him as her friends and our family to become Trump supporters even though we’ve never been active in politics before.an inspiration – a success story she wanted to copy. Summer would also talk about how kind and caring Mr. Trump was on the show, and how he would even visit children in hospitals without telling the press. She has praised the good things he’s done for her life, and in fact she converted
“That was until Summer invited Mr. Trump to her restaurant during the primary and he said no. I think Summer wishes she could still be on reality TV, and in an effort to get that back she’s saying all of these negative things about Mr. Trump. That’s not how she talked about him before. I can only imagine that Summer’s actions today are nothing more than an attempt to regain the spotlight at Mr. Trump’s expense, and I don’t think it reflects well.” – John Barry, Mission Viejo, CA (first cousin of Summer Zervos) (Other boldface my own)
John Barry is a first cousin of Summer Zervos.
Henry Bolingbroke was a first cousin of Richard II.
King George V and Kaiser Wilhelm II were also first cousins.
Is it important to find out what the first cousins of Jessica Leeds, Kristin Anderson, Jill Harth, Taggart McDowell, Mindy McGillivray, Rachel Crooks, Natasha Stoynoff, and Cassandra Searles have to say?
J=D,
Are you alleging that John Barry has completely contrived all that he stated about his cousin Summer Zervos and Donald Trump? Why do you think that he would do that to his cousin, if she had truly been molested by Donald Trump? If you are not saying that John Barry is a liar, then the point of your previous two posts escapes me.
Should you look at the page I linked to, you will find an image of letter sent by Zervos Summer to Donald Trump’s office only 6 months ago on 14 April 2016:
If you are not saying that Summer Zervos is a liar, then the point of your previous two posts escapes me.
So, evidently, J-D is not able to comprehend the documentary evidence above that I have copied and transcribed.
Does anyone else not find it suspicious that, suddenly, in the midst of a ferocious mainstream media campaign against Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, that Summer Zervos suddenly makes this allegation against Donald Trump, given what she herself wrote to Donald Trump’s office only six months ago during the Republican Presidential primaries and what her cousin John Barry has recently said?
(Corrections to my previous post: 1. ‘J=D’ should be ‘J-D’ and 2. ‘Summer Zervos’ was once mis-typed as ‘Zervos Summer’.)
“Is it important to find out what the first cousins of Jessica Leeds, Kristin Anderson, Jill Harth, Taggart McDowell, Mindy McGillivray, Rachel Crooks, Natasha Stoynoff, and Cassandra Searles have to say?”
Trump uses only the best witnesses, J-D. Nobody has better witnesses than Donald Trump:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/gilberthorpe-claims?utm_term=.bvOZPxbMr#.avZnQPebq
I’m glad you post comments here, James. Given the cataclysmic nature of Trump’s presidential campaign run, Professor Quiggin’s blog wouldn’t be the historical record that it should be without contributions from at least one Trumpkin.
@James
I comprehend that you have provided no documentary evidence that Summer Zervos is lying; also, I comprehend that you have provided no documentary evidence that Jessica Leeds, Kristin Anderson, Jill Harth, Taggart McDowell, Mindy McGillivray, Rachel Crooks, Natasha Stoynoff, and Cassandra Searles are also lying.
It is not surprising that all these reports have emerged close together in time during a Presidential campaign; it is normal for anybody who becomes a major Presidential candidate to attract a lot of attention and for people to be prompted to make public reports of the candidate’s past acts; it is also normal for a public report of any person’s past misdeeds to prompt the making of other similar reports (for example, each time somebody reports publicly on an incident of sexual harassment by a named individual, it prompts other people to report publicly on other like incidents).
It is also normal for people who have been victims of sexual harassment or sexual assault to refrain from immediate reporting and to attempt to behave as if it had not happened, partly because of a natural reaction to trauma and partly because of justifiable fear of negative consequences from reporting; therefore, this does not by itself make later reports implausible.
I am still waiting for J-D to respond to the substance of my previous posts of October 15th, 2016 at 18:05 and October 15th, 2016 at 14:57.
@Luke Elford,
If, as Jessica Leeds claims, Donald Trump groped her like an octopus without her consent, then why couldn’t she simply have complained to the airline crew?
So, evidently, J-D is not able to comprehend the documentary evidence above that I have copied and transcribed.
“Comprehend” does not mean “agree with”. “Documentary evidence” does not mean “irrefutable proof”, or even “compelling evidence”.
Something you need to understand: your errors do not look to you like errors. From your internal perspective, the mistakes you made don’t look special, or distinctive: they represent your genuine best efforts like everything else you do, and they look the same as everything else you do: as long as your perspective remains unchanged, there’s no way — it’s theoretically impossible — for you to distinguish between “genuine best efforts that is largely correct” and “genuine best efforts that have gaping holes you don’t know about”.
Only from the outside does that show, or if you change your perspective slightly.
Which means: if your errors are invisible to you, then a naive “show me that I’m wrong” effort will be futile. People will say, “look over here”, and you’ll say, “looks fine to me”. Unless you positively engage with people’s critiques, move your mental perspective slightly in response to what they say, you’ve got no chance of seeing what they’re telling you is there. It’s like one of those impossible-cube photos: it’ll look fine, it’s only when you move your head slightly that the problems will show up.]
And even then there’s no guarantee; you might not be able to move your perspective far enough for the problems to show.
WHICH MEANS: you can’t expect people to be able to show you where you are in error, and a person’s failure to convince you that you are in error should not be taken as evidence that you are not in error.
Why are you waiting for me to respond?
See above:
@Collin Street
Your #38
Well I was going to throw in a few words on this topic myself, but I think you really haven’t left much unsaid, Coll. And quite eloquently spoken, too.
Ok, well maybe there is just one thing I want to throw into the ring and it is this: did Trump, and his despicable minions, really think that if they opened up this can of words that it wouldn’t splash out on them too ? Does Trump and/or minions, really believe he is just a righteous innocent lad who, apart from some “mid-adolescent locker room banter” is as pure as the driven snow ?
I guess I’m just curious as to how delusional he actually is. And how much that afflicts his minions.
@J-D
Your #39
You really do go in for La Manchian crusades, don’t you. Do read, and consider, Collin Street’s very fine contribution (#38) because I think you can understand it even if James will never be able to.
Well I was going to throw in a few words on this topic myself, but I think you really haven’t left much unsaid, Coll. And quite eloquently spoken, too.
Well-polished. I’ve written basically the same thing about a half-dozen times in various places, and deleted it unposted at least that many times again.
[the purpose of accellerated or extension learning is to expose smart kids to failure so that they know how to recognise it.]
BREAKING : Airplane Witness Comes Forward “Jessica Leeds is a LIAR, she was FLIRTING WITH HIM” (14 Oct 2016) By Amy Moreno | TruthFeed
The mainstream media is in full “desperation mode” as they try to protect and cover up for their “Dear Leader” Hillary Clinton, and destroy Donald Trump with lies and slander.
They have a lot of hoaxes going at the moment – almost too many to count.
The one I am referring to here is the “airplane” hoax – where Jessica Leeds claims that thirty years ago she was on a plane with Donald Trump and he “lifted up the armrest” in first class and just started “GROPING” her.
Ok, well in the 80’s the armrests did not “lift up,” but anyway …
Leeds is also connected to the Clinton Foundation and one of Hillary’s SuperPACS.
…
(Professor Quiggin, I did not mean to boldface the whole post. My apologies. Please delete the earlier version.)
BREAKING : Airplane Witness Comes Forward “Jessica Leeds is a LIAR, she was FLIRTING WITH HIM” (14 Oct 2016) By Amy Moreno | TruthFeed
The mainstream media is in full “desperation mode” as they try to protect and cover up for their “Dear Leader” Hillary Clinton, and destroy Donald Trump with lies and slander.
They have a lot of hoaxes going at the moment – almost too many to count.
The one I am referring to here is the “airplane” hoax – where Jessica Leeds claims that thirty years ago she was on a plane with Donald Trump and he “lifted up the armrest” in first class and just started “GROPING” her
Ok, well in the 80’s the armrests did not “lift up,” but anyway …
/
Leeds is also connected to the Clinton Foundation and one of Hillary’s SuperPACS.
…
Armrest trutherism has already been debunked. You should have gone with the God-will-use-Trump-like-he-used-harlots-in-the-bible defence. Undebunkable, that one.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/10/politics/trump-supporter-god-harlots-bible/
@Collin Street
Your #43
Well, practice really does make perfect, doesn’t it. 🙂
And I sincerely hope that some of us in here are just “smart kids” enough so that exposure to failure will indeed teach us how to recognise it. Though I do have to say that from where I sit, there’s way more failure than success, so we might just get an insurmountable surfeit of learning opportunities.
There is just one small point I would add: that of epistemic closure (which was once a favourite thought of ProfQ’s). You can look it up in Wikipedia if you wish, but the key idea is:
So, James knows that Trump is just this great, wonderful, honest guy, and that entails that all that Trump does is great, wonderful and honest and hence anybody who says anything against Trump is a lying hoaxer (at best). And that closes the belief system. [Are you paying attention here, J-D ?]
Which can be clearly see from James’s #44/#45: the closure is palpable and you can huff and puff and blow your heart out, but you are never going to penetrate those impenetrable epistemic closures.
Ok, next topic ?
Clinton’s Sexual Victims Testify For Trump
Paul Craig Roberts writes:
Pat Buchanan has an interesting perspective on the second debate. Notice also in the video of the CNN propaganda report that the CNN female presstitutes did their best to shift the attention away from the Clintons’ deeds to Trump’s mere words.
The Donald Lives!
By Patrick J. Buchanan (includes 10:36min embedded video of press conference)
October 13, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – Donald Trump turned in perhaps the most effective performance in the history of presidential debates on Sunday night.
As the day began, he had been denounced by his wife, Mike Pence, and his own staff for a tape of crude and lewd remarks in a decade-old “locker room” conversation on a bus with Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood.”
Tasting blood, the media were in a feeding frenzy. Trump is dropping out! Pence is bolting the ticket! Republican elites are about to disown and abandon the Republican nominee!
Sometime this weekend, Trump made a decision: If he is going down to defeat, he will go out as Trump, not some sniveling penitent begging forgiveness from hypocrites who fear and loathe him.
His first move was to host a press availability, before the debate, where a small sampling of Bill Clinton’s alleged victims – Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick – made brief statements endorsing Trump and denouncing the misogyny of the Clintons.
“Mr. Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me,” said Broaddrick, “and Hillary Clinton threatened me.”
The press had to cover it. Then the women marched into the auditorium at Washington University to watch Hillary Clinton defend her behavior toward them after their encounters with Bill.
…
The Clintons are bad news in a number of ways. Trump is even worse. Hillary Clinton will be less bad as a President than Donald Trump. Clinton will be less bad on domestic human rights issues. Clinton and Trump will probably make equivalent total messes of foreign policy unless they are well managed by their minders. These minders will make their own kind of mess of those matters anyway. Neither Clinton nor Trump will or can change the actual US political economy in any substantive way. They are probably more puppets than actors.
The choice for the people of the USA is between a really, really bad President (Hillary) and a really really, really, really bad President (Donald), roughly speaking. It’s Hobson’s choice. I don’t expect any good or wise US policy in the rest of my lifetime… or ever, really.
@James
The name of the purported witness who has called Jessica Leeds a liar is Anthony Gilberthorpe.
There is substantial information about him available on the Web for anybody who wants to assess his general reliability as a witness.