East Meets West – Podcast

Milton Friedman's works are really good stuff, got me interesting in economics and I decided to make that one of my majors in college (the other being computer science). It's really interesting stuff - he takes very radical positions for the free market even by today's standards (considering many of his books were written in the 60's and 70's). His works were inspired by F.A. Hayek who wrote the Road to Serfdom in the 40's, which was super radical for its time. I know Roger is a libertarian, and these 2, Hayek and Friedman, are at the center of libertarianism with out the dogma that Tom hates.

Just listened to my first East meets West episode and I'm hooked. Love it! All topics I'm interested in and a sprinkling of American Gods to boot. However, in the "Oh-no-you-did-nt" department, Tom, please explain why you think muscle memory is B*llsh*t.

I know that as I'm typing here I'm not consciously thinking about each keystroke. There has to be some direct link between my unconscious brain and nervous system to be able to type so quick. Would it be so weird, or wrong, if some of that information was stored in the local muscle? Try undoing the way you talk. You don't think about how your tongue is moving when you are speaking, that's why you'll nearly always have an accent when speaking a foreign language because your current muscle memory is so ingrained. I'm certainly not saying you can't undo it, but the reason it's not immediate, or easy, is because there IS some level of memory there.

Of course, perhaps, you agree with the existence of these connections and it's merely the term you dislike. Dislike enough to say a naughty word over. I'd just like your take on this if you do indeed believe it to be bull-dookie.

Hi Guys,

Have to comment on the Wikipedia thing. I don't use Wikipedia since they are doing all this heavy editing and deleting now-a-days. I'm not going to put up with their non-sense. So, I block Wikipedia in my HOST file on several systems.

Kelly

@SoCalJess

Likewise it's great to know SoCal is representing on EMW.

To me politicians, policy and the real estate market go hand in hand when it comes revitalization (call me jaded). However, I was at a East L.A. cityhood meeting where Rep. Grace Napolitano said any politician worth their salt, and hoping to stay elected, NEVER uses the words "eminent domain".

I think MacArthur Park is so much better now. And we can attribute that to a higher police presence. So while I still disagree on some of the mayor's policies I understand this is only a stepping stone for his state and national hopes (governor or a Clinton cabinet position as you said). Although with his whole affair with Telemundo reporter Mirthala Salinas I wonder how short public memory is.

Oh and man, there is so much more to L.A. than Hollywood, the beaches and downtown. Totally agree!

Oh Roger, Roger, Roger.

You’re so very wrong about Downtown Los Angeles. Your general and narrow impression from your last visit sounds very much as if you were in one depressed neighborhood of downtown LA. Next time round, you really should venture outside of the convention area and the block where your hotel was. And it’s not like downtown San Francisco doesn’t have its own sad sides. On my last visit there, the Tenderloin and Civic Center (on a weekend afternoon) were pretty sketchy areas. Thanks Tom for your voice of reason and sharing your LA experience. RC – Give LA another chance.

Local activities such as farmers markets, street shows, chalk art events, etc., esp. in recent years, are actually tools of city revitalization efforts.

The Knight Rider talk brings memories of my teens and twenties driving my Pontiac Firebird “KITT” car.

When I think of Pete Townsend’s album title “All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes”, I think of California’s Gold Mountain and Chinese immigration during that period.

@Adalid in East LA – It’s good to find another SoCal listener on EMW. I think it’s more the real estate market rather than politicians driving out the blue collar or ethnic businesses along downtown LA Broadway corridor and MacArthur Park area. Certainly when the adaptive reuse policy (i.e. live/work conversions) was adopted by LA City Council, coupled with the then burgeoning real estate market (1999/2000) and an increasing middle/high income group in Central LA, Downtown LA did change dramatically. I think the focus on downtown LA has led to improved efforts to aid the homeless and bring in more customers to the local botanica shops and eateries. Efforts to regulate vendor sales, as in MacArthur Park, will alleviate potential health risks to consumers and environment and rid the area of illegal drug trafficking forced upon the vendors. I think Mayor Villaraigosa has helped bring attention to revitalizing downtown LA and will continue to do so…well, until he gets appointed to Secretary of Education or something under the 2009 Clinton administration.

Man, I don’t have time to go through my thoughts that “social contact actually leads to a social contract”. Oh well.

FPP systems are inherently stable, especially when compared to the myriad ways of divvying up the various proportional representation systems. In systems which are dominated by two parties you get the reasonable stability of the balance shifting either one way or the other. But it goes deeper than that, I think. Stability in a government, i.e. that the elected winner gets to do what they please for the term of their election, basically pegs you as a republican (small 'r'), perhaps even a royalist - one that believes that the citizen serves the state and should abnegate their needs to the sole winner. Proportional representation will probably not give you stability - if you believe that one half of a two party system being in total control is stable. This is the democratic (small 'd') perspective. The view that the government should listen to all and decide for the benefit of the majority.

Ultimately, though, one vote isn't enough to swing a presidential election, ergo, every vote could be considered a wasted vote. There's no reality in the Socratic persuade or obey ethos in the modern system unless you live in a town where the number of voters can be counted on your fingers. In my country - the UK - very few constituencies are likely to swing (although that model has changed a little, Labour did enjoy an unusual amount of swing in 1997), and in those constituencies comparatively few voters are likely to swing, so unless you're a likely vascilator in a low majority seat ... well, you're not going to be making the difference no matter how many you attempt to persuade.

Modern politics demands slow change and by giving people the illusion of involvement, this is maintained.

My thing is history, not politics so I am interested in your talk of the American voting system. Tom may or may not know about the New Zealand voting system which underwent a radical change from the 'first past the post' system where majority rules to the MMP (mixed member proportional) system which started in 1999. FPP meant that you voted for an MP in your electorate who represented a party and the party with the most MPs won. Many people figured that to vote for anyone else except for MPs of the two main parties was a 'wasted' vote. This lead to MMP where you have two votes. One for the electorate MP and one for the party. This means that parties can get into parliament even if they don't win any electorate seats, as long as they get at least 5% of the national vote. I know I'm not explaining it very well, better to check http://www.elections.org.nz/mmp.html . Now there are some people complaining that this gives too much power to minor parties, but I think our parliament now represents a broader range of interests and is more representative of our society.

Hey Tomulus and Rogerina, I just wanted to provide a small counterpoint to the idea that malls are a bad example of social contact/contract. People meet others at malls, sometimes make new
aquaintances, and are policed by both a degree of morality (somewhat, at least) and "police" (mall security). Like a market place, most people do not steal at a mall, and behave themselves, and that is a small part of the greater concept. (just trying to convey some simple examples.) do how exactly would a mall be so far from the concept of social contract?

Sorry if this comment makes little sense, it's early.

Roger...Beirut is better than downtown L.A, really? :-D It's bad in part because it's become terribly disjointed and will only become more so in coming years IMO. Mayor Villaraigosa's present plan is to revitalize downtown in a way that many L.A. residents have no interest in.

There is a large working class population of shoppers, vendors and residents who are being pushed out by L.A. politicians trying to copy Times Square. I mean have you tried a bacon-wrapped street hot dog (a blend of Mexican & American culture)? You still can but it's technically illegal. In anticipation of the new downtown, health officials have cracked down on these vendors and continue to add to the gentrification of downtown.

You made a great point in saying that downtown revitalizations are half-hearted. While the new Nokia Theatre, condos and historic theatre facelifts are great, there must be a middle-ground. Otherwise you're just pushing out the working-class and ignoring the homeless in the name of aesthetics.

Here's a link to great article on the L.A.'s bacon-wrapped hot dog from the LA Weekly.

http://tinyurl.com/3ywslm

P.S. I miss the old "attack on the senses" E3, having attended in '06 in Beirut, err downtown L.A.

Just very quickly Tom. I loved the fact that you didn't bleep the word "bullshit" that you mentioned on your latest episode.

I don't like it when podcasts bleep bad words that are justified because they are used in context with the conversation and do not mean any harm. Though I understand they want to maintain their "clean tag" in iTunes.

I don't think anyone likes to listen to podcasts where they drop F-bombs every other word. But I love it when the conversation leads to a necessary bad word, and it is mentioned without hesitation, and no bleeping. After all, that's how we all talk when we're off the air, don't we?

I don't mean to get you and Roger started on a discussion about bad words censorship, but if you must, then by all means :)

What kills me about Knight Rider (and a lot of shows / movies recently) is the obvious product placement. I can't watch 24 without obviously noticing the brand of the cell phone or company since they're sticking it right in the camera. Transformers is a glitzy GM ad, and even Jericho has put me off a bit with the second season; Nukes went off all over the US, and the nation is divided and in turmoil, but GMC can still pump out a bunch of new Acadia SUVs? Maybe GM is actually a wholly owned subsidiary of Jennings and Rall. :)

On a side note, If you're looking for a youtube time sink, check out some 'Connections' episodes I found. Though the first season is almost 30 years old, they hold up remarkably well, in content and with his special humorous delivery. Reminds me a bit of Douglas Adams, how he goes off on a topic and manages to bring it around to relevance.

Yet another Steve (online) / YaSo / NewOrderrr

(And sorry for the long post above)

@Yet another Steve
re: Smash Lab
I watched a single episode and about 5 minutes of another of Smash Lab and the only reason I watched that much of it is because of the train wreck factor. These people are probably doing the absolute worst "science" I have ever seen on TV and I'm counting fictional science from CSI, Bones, etc in this statement.

I made it through about 5 minutes of the episode where they try to hurricane proof a house. How did they create their baseline? They built a shed and put it in front of wind machines. Which might be ok except they built it badly and didn't attach it to a foundation of any sort, so the wind bends the bottom of the wall until it gets inside and tears the "house" apart. Seriously? A "house" with no attachment to the ground and not even a floor will rip apart in high winds? Who would have thought?

Personally I think they should just live up to the name and smash things. It doesn't need to pretend it has science content and it would just be fun. Think of it as Discovery Channel presents: Will it Blend? Just to keep it in the Discovery family I'd have it hosted by the American Chopper guys.... they like to smash stuff. :-)

Sounded much better this week. One thing though, you guys mentioned the Australian GM/Holden car the Monaro. Sorry, but the pronunciation made me cringe! It's pronounced Ma-na-row. Thanks guys, love the show.

Long time listener, and a long time since I've posted. Just got back into the comments here, and was mightily impressed with last weeks comments. Here's a few miscellaneous ramblings:

-I voted for Ross Perot in 96' in the presidential election. Not because I was voting with the crowd (I thought Clinton would be re-elected and my vote wouldn't sway New Jersey for Perot), nor did I disagree vehemently with Clinton.

I liked many of Perot's plans, but mostly thought "This old guy is a hoot! He's got serious moxie and wow, is he ever passionate about his beliefs!" I thought he'd be an interesting president, a change of pace, and definitely entertaining to hear about in the news.

So, did I 'waste' my vote? Either I (a) was fine since I used my vote as I saw fit, or (b) wasted it since I thought it wouldn't matter anyway and Clinton would be re-elected, or (c) was reckless since I voted somewhat whimsically and could have ruined Clinton's chances by voting for Perot and helped Dole become president, effectively 'spoiling' the election as many thought Nader's campaign did for Gore's election bid.

-I just saw the Knight Rider movie online, having searched around for it for about fifteen minutes. I don't want to spoil it for those who want to see it and haven't done so yet (check out sidereel or hulu for the video) but, can someone tell me if this is enough of a train wreck to tune in next week? I had similar feelings on Discovery Channel's 'Smash Lab' which I feel is a horrible rip off of 'Mythbusters' I stuck with it for a few episodes beyond the pilot, but feel my would have been better off watching reruns of American Chopper.

-What happened to the old British import shows on TLC and Discovery like James Burke's 'Connections' or Junkyard Wars, or Michael Palin's 'Around the world in 80 days'.

Hiya guys,

I enjoyed the little side note on the Journey to the West, and thought I would diverge onto one of my scatterbrained tangents. It is one of my favorite tales. It is probably one of the most reinvented tales as well. I enjoy the variety of takes on the tale of the mischievous monkey king, Goku or Sun Wukong.

The Japanese manga Dragonball Z is a somewhat far-fetched version of this story, but is quite enjoyable nonetheless. A version that more closely adheres to the story is a tale told by my favorite manga artist, Kazuya Minekura in her popular series, Saiyuki. Although it has some offbeat offerings such as a murderous, swearing, smokestack of a monk, it also has many fine details of the original tale, like the golden diadem placed around Sun Wukong's head to make him behave.

The original tale, penned in the Ming Dynasty (I believe) by Wu Chen-en, is considered one of the four great classic novels in China during that period. The tale is one of both Buddhist and Taoist ideals and beliefs. Buddhism seems to coexist with other religions and many times even filter it's practices and beliefs into the worship of other religions (and believe me I do not consider this a bad thing), but that's an entirely different subject, so before I digress any further I will leave you with a couple of fun websites if you‘d like to take a look.


Tata for now,
Jo

PS. you'll often find people refer to this story simply as, Monkey, just in case you come across some weird search results..

http://www.china-on-site.com/monkey.php
http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/curriculum/monkey/journey/
http://www.vbtutor.net/Xiyouji/journeytothewest.htm

As a Terminator nerd, I have to profess my affection for The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Each episode has progressed the story along really well. I won't spoil anything, but episode five introduces a really interesting story arc.

If you like the Terminator mythology, I highly suggest checking out the first five episodes.

I'm gonna start a new discussion (before i start, i still maintain that when it comes to new media, wikipedia is B.R.O.K.E.N.). When we (people) built the web, one blog described it as "filling an impossibly large land-fill with huge amounts of varying quality food, to create a sea of food"-in this case the food is the content on the web, and that tools like digg, Reddit and del.icio.us are part of the natural course in terms of building tools to sift through the land-fill to find the best quality "food" from within the land-fill. To a certain extent i agree with this, but do you agree with this? the blogger goes on to say that that we are nearing the end of the land-fill (i'm not sure about that, but ok..) and that what we need NOW is tools to sort and ANALYSE the land-fill to find the "food" that "i" (the metaphorical web user) like. This is an interesting arguement, have we reached the point where thanks to user-generation, there is a seemingly endless supply of content, and what we want know is something to serve us the best content.

Techpriest

I may have mentioned this before, but regarding wikipedia...

I only use it to find sources (at the end of articles) but a few year ago my history teacher had us make a list of vocab from readings in our European history book. Myself and my friend decided to make up a person who apparently played a very large part in a certain war. I posted an article on wikipedia about that person, and it's has been up now for coming up on two years. Others have even edited / linked to it.