I don't know if your video shows that line, but it seems quite possible. Here's a video I took from(I think) within the zone of totality. The shadow moves differently, and seems to cover the sky and land more completely.
The way a total eclipse works is, the Moon's total shadow (its "umbra") sweeps over the surface of the Earth over the course of a few hours, but any given location experiences it for only a few minutes. This means that anyone on the path of totality passes through the border twice: once when it reaches them, and once when it moves on.
I was (I believe), right in the zone, at a place called Wintergreen Studios, about 20 minutes from Westport. During the brief interval of totality, the corona was clearly visible. Not something I'll ever forget.
Ah! I know exactly where it is and (I hope I'm not going all confirmation bias here) it fits my hypothesis: You were well within the zone but not too far from the border, so, if I am correct about what I saw, you should have gotten something similar but with more of the sky in full darkness. Which you did.
"Within the zone but not too far from the border" matches the understanding I had before the event. Your analysis makes sense, so I'm sticking to it until an astronomer posts a comment showing that we're both completely wrong....
Re In praise of dumb questions - love this. It can be so powerful. In my career as a consultant, I was occasionally chided by clients for asking “dumb” questions. The implication being that I was hired for my experience / expertise and should know better. And I would then need to explain that it was the answer that was important / what I wanted to hear, not to display any supposed expertise. Over time, I adopted the practice of preempting those moments by warning at the start of projects that “I reserve the right to ask dumb questions “.
On the subject of the Supreme Court I read this in the economist and thought it was fascinating and worth sharing: “The us Supreme Court receives around 7,000 petitions each year, but only reviews 100 to 150 it deems of national relevance. Brazil’s received over 78,000 new cases in 2023, and made more than 15,000 judgements.” Wow!
You are the one who isn't representing the book accurately, I'm afraid.
1. Diminishing violence is one indicator of increasing civility, wouldn't you say? Incivility leads to more violence, right?
2. Pinker outlines the data on a lot more than violence. He does in fact write about indicators of civility - changing social norms, customs, expectations - perhaps without using the term 'civility'. E.g. people don't challenge each other to duels anymore. Catching someone committing adultery isn't an excuse for homicide anymore. Bullying in school is no longer tolerated... Many such examples of a more enlightened attitude nowadays.
It might be impressionistic, but it presents a clear picture.
So do you have a historically specific culture of civility in mind that you believe was substantively better than the present standard in public culture?
A few, although not with great confidence. And I'd have to unpack the issue first. Civility among whom? Under what circumstances? (Another reason I bristled at that statement.) I should also note that she has made her claim with so many exaggerations ("solve all problems," "compromise comes so easily") that if read literally, no, I don't think that ever existed. But then, nobody (I know of) actually makes an argument that extreme.
Do many journalists not also ask questions because they want to be seen asking about specific issues? Almost their own way of virtue signalling because they recognize they have a specific following and want this group to continue following. That is, they don’t really ask a question to get an answer for a specific purpose. Most often these are long questions with multiple clauses and issues that allow the person answering an even easier time in finding something to which they want to respond. And this tendency is re-enforced in a world where they are allowed only one question (no follow up) and any pretence of a norm that requires an answer to the actual intent of the question is long gone.
Clearly, civility waxes and wanes. But as Steven Pinker has documented in "The Better Angels of Our Nature," the overall general trend has been toward greater civility. We still shake hands as a greeting today because in the old times it was a demonstration of not carrying a knife.
But the general trend is far from a linear progression. That's why it is always child's play to cherry pick times and incidents from the past that "prove" civility is waxing of waning.
I'm a big critic of Pinker's book, but here you're not even representing the argument correctly: the book is focused on violence, not civility, not the least because quantifying civility is a profoundly difficult thing to do.
You are the one who isn't representing the book accurately, I'm afraid.
1. Diminishing violence is one indicator of increasing civility, wouldn't you say? Incivility leads to more violence, right?
2. Pinker outlines the data on a lot more than violence. He does in fact write about indicators of civility - changing social norms, customs, expectations - perhaps without using the term 'civility'. E.g. people don't challenge each other to duels anymore. Catching someone committing adultery isn't an excuse for homicide anymore. Bullying in school is no longer tolerated... Many such examples of a more enlightened attitude nowadays.
It might be impressionistic, but it presents a clear picture.
(Sorry for repeating, this was meant to be a reply.)
No. The assumption of good faith is no more valid than the assumption of bad faith. The wise person starts with agnosticism, and moves toward inferring good or bad faith based on the responses received. In the case of public figures with a long-established track record, assuming bad faith (or good faith) is reasonable. For example, what fool still assumes good faith on the part of Trudeau, or Trump?
With respect to your opening few paragraphs about the NYT piece on open letters and that author’s unsupported assertion that believing the past to have been more civil is a lie, you ask, “Does that even pass the smell test? … Does that seem even slightly plausible?”
I know the claim, which I think is plausible, interesting, and important. But I don't think it's evidence here as it speaks to our unsupported illusions here in the present, not to the reality of whether civility varies from time to time and place to place. To put that another way, if I had evidence that civility did NOT vary, and I wanted to explain why we perceive it to vary nonetheless, I might cite this. But it doesn't work the other way around.
I’m sorry, I’m not clear about your answer. I read that the NYT author is, in fact, claiming that civility does not vary, and perceptions that it has varied (i.e., diminished) are wrong. Not the other way around.
Specifically, she refers to the illusion that the past was more civil than the present. As you say in your reply above, that is precisely the illusion that Mastroianni & Gilbert’s evidence refutes (not really a “claim” as it is supported by an awful lot of data), and which supports the NYT author’s assertion.
She's making a claim (X) that civility does not vary. Which she doesn't support at all. She simply asserts X. Mastroianni and Gilbert's paper is not evidence of X. It could explain why people nonethless believe civility varies, if in fact it doesn't vary, but it does not support X, the claim she makes.
So if the author had used “illusion” in place of “lie,” you’d feel Mastroianni & Gilbert’s conclusion would support that statement? I guess I find the distinction between a (false) illusion and a lie to be mighty slim, at least in this case. Or else I’m just being dense about your distinction, which seems to be that, just because Mastroianni & Gilbert find no evidence that civility has varied over time, even though we tend to believe it has, they don’t have (sufficient?) evidence that it has in fact not varied over time.
Sorry, I don’t mean to beat a dead horse. I just don’t understand your strong objection.
One of my philosophy professors in the 1970s used to point out that there has been a steady stream of letters to the editor in London (UK) newspapers going back to the time of Dickens complaining about declining education standards in that country. Who concludes from this observation that schools today must be much worse that the places described by Dickens?
As I say below, civility obviously waxes and wanes, at different speeds and directions in different places. As I mentioned in response to last week's post, the ethnic groups comprising the former Yugoslavia got along tolerably well and even intermarried sometimes, before the regions of that country descended into a bloodbath in the 1990s. Heraclitus observed, "The only thing that is permanent is change."
Dumb question: do I need to wear a welding helmet to safely watch these videos?
I don't know if your video shows that line, but it seems quite possible. Here's a video I took from(I think) within the zone of totality. The shadow moves differently, and seems to cover the sky and land more completely.
https://x.com/TweetsCoffman/status/1779156749217337465
Huh. Interesting. Where were you in the zone? Close to the border?
The way a total eclipse works is, the Moon's total shadow (its "umbra") sweeps over the surface of the Earth over the course of a few hours, but any given location experiences it for only a few minutes. This means that anyone on the path of totality passes through the border twice: once when it reaches them, and once when it moves on.
I was (I believe), right in the zone, at a place called Wintergreen Studios, about 20 minutes from Westport. During the brief interval of totality, the corona was clearly visible. Not something I'll ever forget.
Ah! I know exactly where it is and (I hope I'm not going all confirmation bias here) it fits my hypothesis: You were well within the zone but not too far from the border, so, if I am correct about what I saw, you should have gotten something similar but with more of the sky in full darkness. Which you did.
"Within the zone but not too far from the border" matches the understanding I had before the event. Your analysis makes sense, so I'm sticking to it until an astronomer posts a comment showing that we're both completely wrong....
By the way, happy birthday!
"I would rather have questions without answers than answers without questions." -Richard Feynman.
Re In praise of dumb questions - love this. It can be so powerful. In my career as a consultant, I was occasionally chided by clients for asking “dumb” questions. The implication being that I was hired for my experience / expertise and should know better. And I would then need to explain that it was the answer that was important / what I wanted to hear, not to display any supposed expertise. Over time, I adopted the practice of preempting those moments by warning at the start of projects that “I reserve the right to ask dumb questions “.
Excellent. "Would you prefer that I impress you with how clever I am or that I learn?"
On the subject of the Supreme Court I read this in the economist and thought it was fascinating and worth sharing: “The us Supreme Court receives around 7,000 petitions each year, but only reviews 100 to 150 it deems of national relevance. Brazil’s received over 78,000 new cases in 2023, and made more than 15,000 judgements.” Wow!
You are the one who isn't representing the book accurately, I'm afraid.
1. Diminishing violence is one indicator of increasing civility, wouldn't you say? Incivility leads to more violence, right?
2. Pinker outlines the data on a lot more than violence. He does in fact write about indicators of civility - changing social norms, customs, expectations - perhaps without using the term 'civility'. E.g. people don't challenge each other to duels anymore. Catching someone committing adultery isn't an excuse for homicide anymore. Bullying in school is no longer tolerated... Many such examples of a more enlightened attitude nowadays.
It might be impressionistic, but it presents a clear picture.
So do you have a historically specific culture of civility in mind that you believe was substantively better than the present standard in public culture?
A few, although not with great confidence. And I'd have to unpack the issue first. Civility among whom? Under what circumstances? (Another reason I bristled at that statement.) I should also note that she has made her claim with so many exaggerations ("solve all problems," "compromise comes so easily") that if read literally, no, I don't think that ever existed. But then, nobody (I know of) actually makes an argument that extreme.
Do many journalists not also ask questions because they want to be seen asking about specific issues? Almost their own way of virtue signalling because they recognize they have a specific following and want this group to continue following. That is, they don’t really ask a question to get an answer for a specific purpose. Most often these are long questions with multiple clauses and issues that allow the person answering an even easier time in finding something to which they want to respond. And this tendency is re-enforced in a world where they are allowed only one question (no follow up) and any pretence of a norm that requires an answer to the actual intent of the question is long gone.
Certainly. There are many, many reasons why journalists ask questions, some of the them admirable and professional, lots neither.
Clearly, civility waxes and wanes. But as Steven Pinker has documented in "The Better Angels of Our Nature," the overall general trend has been toward greater civility. We still shake hands as a greeting today because in the old times it was a demonstration of not carrying a knife.
But the general trend is far from a linear progression. That's why it is always child's play to cherry pick times and incidents from the past that "prove" civility is waxing of waning.
I'm a big critic of Pinker's book, but here you're not even representing the argument correctly: the book is focused on violence, not civility, not the least because quantifying civility is a profoundly difficult thing to do.
You are the one who isn't representing the book accurately, I'm afraid.
1. Diminishing violence is one indicator of increasing civility, wouldn't you say? Incivility leads to more violence, right?
2. Pinker outlines the data on a lot more than violence. He does in fact write about indicators of civility - changing social norms, customs, expectations - perhaps without using the term 'civility'. E.g. people don't challenge each other to duels anymore. Catching someone committing adultery isn't an excuse for homicide anymore. Bullying in school is no longer tolerated... Many such examples of a more enlightened attitude nowadays.
It might be impressionistic, but it presents a clear picture.
(Sorry for repeating, this was meant to be a reply.)
Edit: "...waxing OR waning."
"The wise person starts by assuming good faith."
No. The assumption of good faith is no more valid than the assumption of bad faith. The wise person starts with agnosticism, and moves toward inferring good or bad faith based on the responses received. In the case of public figures with a long-established track record, assuming bad faith (or good faith) is reasonable. For example, what fool still assumes good faith on the part of Trudeau, or Trump?
With respect to your opening few paragraphs about the NYT piece on open letters and that author’s unsupported assertion that believing the past to have been more civil is a lie, you ask, “Does that even pass the smell test? … Does that seem even slightly plausible?”
To provide some compelling evidence that the answer to your question is yes, I offer you this article in the scientific journal Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06137-x), a synopsis of which was published in NYT Opinion last year (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/opinion/psychology-brain-biased-memory.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb)
(Sorry, I don’t know how to cleanly include links into text in the comments section)
I know the claim, which I think is plausible, interesting, and important. But I don't think it's evidence here as it speaks to our unsupported illusions here in the present, not to the reality of whether civility varies from time to time and place to place. To put that another way, if I had evidence that civility did NOT vary, and I wanted to explain why we perceive it to vary nonetheless, I might cite this. But it doesn't work the other way around.
I’m sorry, I’m not clear about your answer. I read that the NYT author is, in fact, claiming that civility does not vary, and perceptions that it has varied (i.e., diminished) are wrong. Not the other way around.
Specifically, she refers to the illusion that the past was more civil than the present. As you say in your reply above, that is precisely the illusion that Mastroianni & Gilbert’s evidence refutes (not really a “claim” as it is supported by an awful lot of data), and which supports the NYT author’s assertion.
She's making a claim (X) that civility does not vary. Which she doesn't support at all. She simply asserts X. Mastroianni and Gilbert's paper is not evidence of X. It could explain why people nonethless believe civility varies, if in fact it doesn't vary, but it does not support X, the claim she makes.
So if the author had used “illusion” in place of “lie,” you’d feel Mastroianni & Gilbert’s conclusion would support that statement? I guess I find the distinction between a (false) illusion and a lie to be mighty slim, at least in this case. Or else I’m just being dense about your distinction, which seems to be that, just because Mastroianni & Gilbert find no evidence that civility has varied over time, even though we tend to believe it has, they don’t have (sufficient?) evidence that it has in fact not varied over time.
Sorry, I don’t mean to beat a dead horse. I just don’t understand your strong objection.
BYW, I do enjoy your posts.
One of my philosophy professors in the 1970s used to point out that there has been a steady stream of letters to the editor in London (UK) newspapers going back to the time of Dickens complaining about declining education standards in that country. Who concludes from this observation that schools today must be much worse that the places described by Dickens?
As I say below, civility obviously waxes and wanes, at different speeds and directions in different places. As I mentioned in response to last week's post, the ethnic groups comprising the former Yugoslavia got along tolerably well and even intermarried sometimes, before the regions of that country descended into a bloodbath in the 1990s. Heraclitus observed, "The only thing that is permanent is change."
That is a good video.