The benefits to Americans of collective security

Robert Wright notes that:
1. American hegemony is passing;
2. American unilateralism is still disliked;
3. Both 1 and 2 cost unnecessary military spending;
4. To say and act on 3 is NOT being isolationist.

Ergo, he points out, let's cut the defense budget more and stop playing global cop.

Robert Wright jumps the shark again

Wright can be very insightful at times. And, at other times, as in his book "The Evolution of God," he can be stubbornly obtuse.

He's not being quite that bad now, but, his column welcoming the greater invasion of online privacy that HTML5 supposedly will offer is close. Why does he want this? He says greater knowledge of consumers will help newspapers.

Boy, if you think that's all that's needed, you're fucking clueless.

That greater knowledge, except in certain high-rent areas of a small number of newspapers, won't drive up the value of online ads.

Wright halfway admits that himself:

Besides, the idea of a coherent demographic has broken down. Most people who read Slate’s content aren’t regular readers in the sense of going to its home page every day and perusing its table of contents. Lots of them are just link followers; they’re referred to specific Slate articles from, well, God knows where.

Links, RSS, etc.

The only possible way around all this would be if the AP formed its own search engine or something. And, no, the AP ain't that smart.

Should Palestinians go Gandhi and King?

In a provocative column, Robert Wright says "Yes." He says Palestinians should accept a one-state solution for now, then immediately demand their right to vote.

Problem is, Israel wouldn't grant that, and savvy Israelis probably would see through the stratagem from the start.

Wright also mentions how elected Palestinian officials would lose power, for the nonce. That makes it less attractive to them.

And, as for gaining "international support"? Abbas' Palestinians already have that. Is it making a difference? Nope.

So, sorry, Mr. Wright.

It IS a nice try, though!

More stupidity from Robert Wright

The author of “The Evolution of God,” a banal and inaccurate attempt to harness the one-trick pony of “Nonzero,” is engaged in more of the same type of blathering on the NYTimes op-ed page.

This time, he’s trying to get atheists and theists to Kumbaya on evolution.

As in the book, in the column he promotes evolutionary “progress,” this time connecting it with convergence.

Here’s the kicker:

And, god-talk aside, these atheist biologists could try to appreciate something they still seem not to get: talk of “higher purpose” is not just compatible with science, but engrained in it.

Bullshit.

Once again, I do not get what nontheists see in Wright.