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MICHAEL JACKSON MEMORIAL 7 7 2009 STAPLES CENTER I WAS REALLY THERE !!!!

Yes, I won a golden ticket!
I was there....It was crazy.....It felt historical.


It was a genuinely reverent and heartfelt event. I will definitely never forget it. I got to be a part of pop culture history.

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Michael J Zimmerman and the Puzzle of Moral Luck and Responsibility

In his 1987 article “Moral Luck and Responsibility,” Michael J. Zimmerman tries his hands at what he calls a “puzzle” that has, in varied forms, been tackled by Joel Feinstein, Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams. The puzzle (labeled such by virtue of the fact that the premises appear true and the conclusion which follows from them false):

Moral Luck Puzzle:

P1. A person P is morally responsible for an event e’s occurring only if e’s occurring was not a matter of luck.
P2. No event is such that its occurring is not a matter of luck.
? No event is such that P is morally responsible for its occurring.

Zimmerman mentions exegetically that Feinberg provisionally accepts the conclusion; Williams accepts P2 while rejecting P1; Nagel (according to Z), in determining the puzzle to be a genuine paradox, “seems prepared to accept both premises while denying the conclusion” (Ethics, Vol. 97, No. 2 (Jan., 1987) pp. 374.

Zimmerman’s own strategy employs a preliminary breaking down of the puzzle by distinguishing two types of luck and two types of control. His luck types are:

1. Situational Luck: “Luck with respect to the situations one faces, including the nature of one’s character (inclinations, capacities and so on) as so far formed.
2. Resultant Luck: “Luck with respect to what results from one’s decisions, actions and omissions” (376).

In articulating what luck is, Zimmerman says: “Something which occurs as a matter of luck is something which occurs beyond anyone’s control”; (and, in a footnote to this definition) “More restrictively: something which occurs as a matter of luck with respect to someone P is something which occurs beyond P’s control” (fn. 376).

Zimmerman then breaks down the concept of “control” which is operative in his definitions of both situational and resultant luck. His types are:

1. Restricted control: “One may be said to enjoy restricted control with respect to some event just in case one can bring about its occurrence and can also prevent its occurrence.
2. Unrestricted control: “One may be said to enjoy unrestricted control with respect to some event just in case one enjoys or enjoyed restricted control with respect both to it and to all those events on which its occurrence is contingent. (376)

I will not go into the details of Zimmerman’s entire proposed solution to the Moral Luck Puzzle in light of these distinctions, but rather, want to focus on a particular feature of his argument. But before doing this, I will give an example that I think will capture the move he wants to make.
Suppose Susie is drowning in a pond in the dark and shouting for help. Nathan and Zeb are both standing on opposite banks, equidistant to Susie, and unaware (because of the darkness) of each other. Both jump into the pond at the same time and begin swimming toward Susie. When they are both halfway to Susie (respectively), Zeb snags his foot on an underwater branch (which he had no way of knowing was there), and by the time he frees himself, Nathan has already corralled Susie back to the bank.

If we grant what Zimmerman takes to be an undeniable premise—that an agent is not praiseworthy or blameworthy for an action unless that agent is responsible for the action—then the troublesome feature of the moral luck puzzle emerges, namely, that the responsibility for saving Susie that is a necessary condition for praise or blame for the action is perhaps threatened by the uncontrollability of getting one’s foot trapped on an underwater branch en route to the rescue.

Those who accept an unqualified reading P1 of the Moral Luck Puzzle and grant that Nathan was lucky not to have snagged his foot as Zeb did, will find themselves disinclined to praise Nathan for his action (the conclusion that would follow). Others might embrace a consequentialist account of praise or blame and thus reject P1 and praise Nathan whilst not praising Zeb. Zimmerman’s position takes the line of praising both equally. His doing so is a function of his distinction between the sort of lack of control that is relevant to precluding responsibility and the sort of lack of control that is not. And so, in essence, Zimmerman dodges the counterintuitive conclusion of the Moral Luck Puzzle by rejecting an unqualified reading of “luck” in P1.

Given this background, I want to focus on a particular aspect of Zimmerman’s position, which pertains to a principle he accepts with regard to decisively “situational” luck. Zimmerman claims that:

SL: If (i) P made decision d in what he believed to be situation s,
(ii) P* would have made d if he had been in a situation that he believed to be s, and
(iii) P*’s being in a situation that he believed to be s was not in his restricted control, then:
whatever moral credit or discredit accrues to P for making d accrues also to P*. (381)

Applying this principle to the Nathan and Zeb case I gave (which, by Zimmerman’s definition, would be an instance of “situational luck”) appears to generate Zimmerman’s position that both are equally praiseworthy.

While I am sympathetic to Zimmerman’s response to this case, I think that his principle SL runs into some troubles. This is because the conclusion that whatever moral credit or discredit accrues to P for making d accrues also to P* depends on whether the counterfactual in (ii) of SL holds true. And so, whether Zeb deserves equal praise as Nathan would depend on whether Zeb, if he believed he were in Nathan’s position (on the other side of the bank), would have decided to do what Nathan did.

In the effort of making things clear by first making them messy, I want to add a few more details to our story. Suppose the following is true about Nathan and Zeb: The bank from which Nathan jumped was the East bank. The bank from which Zeb jumped was the West bank. Prior to jumping in for Susie, Nathan believed that there were dangerous underwater stumps on the West side, but not on the East side. Additionally, if Nathan had been on the West side (where he believed that there were underwater stumps), he would not have jumped in to save Susie. Zeb, on the other hand, believed that there were dangerous underwater stumps on the East side, but not on the West side; if Zeb had been on the East side (where Nathan was), he would not have jumped in to save Susie.

The problem for Zimmerman’s view on situational luck is that, given our expanded story, he is prevented from ruling Zeb’s action as equally praiseworthy as Nathan’s because (ii) in SL is not met; (ii) in SL fails to be met because if Zeb believed he was in situation s (Nathan’s situation, on the East side of the bank), he would not have decided to do what Nathan decided to do, namely, to jump in for Susie.

Surely, though, Zimmerman would not want to accept the conclusion that Nathan is more praiseworthy than Zeb. For one thing, Both Nathan and Zeb would be prepared to jump in to save Susie from the bank that each thought was safe, and neither would have jumped in from the side each thought was unsafe; additionally, it was outside of Zeb’s restricted control that the underwater logs weren’t on the side of the pond he believed them to be.

I think that any account of moral credit that does not weigh whether Susie is in fact saved in assessing credit (as Zimmerman’s and some other deontic accounts would do) had better not rule Nathan’s action more morally praiseworthy than Zeb’s. To do so would be to disregard exactly what it is about things beyond our control that lead us to render them outside the realm of our responsibility.

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Michael Jackson

um mês sem o Michael...

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Michael Jackson Nerd

Anyone who has known me longer than a day knows I am a Michael Jackson nerd. Specificaly about his work from 1968 to 1987. I am a product of the 80s and remember Motown 25 and the premiere of Thriller fondly. Youre not going to see me on Hollywood Blvd crying over his star or anything,(I will gladly attend a very exclusive, organized , historiacl memorial you can only attend if you happen to be one of 8,000 people out of 1,700,000 chosen at random.),but I have always had a great admiration for his craft , passion and work as an entertainer. In a world filled with kids who want and expect everything for nothing , Michael Jackson is the constant reminder of working on , researching and honing ones craft.

Why will no one in entertainment ever match what Michael has done ? This is why: No one in entertainment history has ever or will ever work harder and learn more about their craft than MJ did. When he was 10 years old MJ studied other performers, broke down their process and art , and perfected it! As he grew he started looking outside of his own craft and started to study and incorporate all art. He studied the sculpture of Michaelangelo for the design of a pose. He studied Charlie Chaplin , Buster Keaton , and the great mime Marcel Marseau for the design of movement and silhouette. He studied Gene Kelly and Fred Astair Dance routines relentlessly , getting to the essence of their performances. The reason MJ wore short tight pants and thick bright socks (Motown 25 , Thriller , Beat it) Is because Gene Kelly did that to create a clear silhouette and make the feet the focus of the performance. You can track these bright socks like anchor points for the movement.
Jackson studied Indian Dance , the movement of sports athletes , Sword play and fencing , He studied animation for movement. Michael searched out the best street dancers , found them, and learned most of his moves (Moonwalk , Hits , Glides, etc...) from Bugaloo Shrimp , POPPIN TACO , Poppin Pete, Shabadoo, Sugar Pop , Hugo Huizar , and all the Electric Boogaloos out here in California. That is straight from Kid Flash(Pete Gomez)who was part of it all. Taco and Poppin Pete are seen leaning on either side of MJ in smooth criminal(Moonwalker), and are the first two pop locking prisoners MJ frees from their pillar prisons in Captain EO. AMAZING! AND so much more. THEN MICHAEL APPLIED EVERYTHING HE LEARNED AND HONED IT WITH HARD WORK and tireless experimentation !
It is so easy to brush off accomplishment , craft , and passion like that with all the weird stuff surrounding Michael Jackson. And yes I think it is really weird and sad too. But , man that guy was talented. He knew entertainment like nobodies business.

I was at Disneyland on Thursday , June 25th 2009. I was eating a Dole whip in front of the Tiki Room when someone in the crowd started talking about it. I had to interrupt the person and inquire. The person said: "yeah I just got a text about it." I said "What? Come on." Then other people started getting phone calls and texts. More murmers. Then the guy I asked pulled up a news web page on his phone : " MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD". WHAT ? Now everyone was talking about it. Friends were calling me. Then from all over Disneyland you started to hear people yelling: " Michael Jackson Died!!!"Everyone was talking to everyone else about it. "They need to bring back Captain EO in remembrance"... some woman said.
Then a couple hours later I was sitting in Tomorrowland (home of Captain EO) , when Suddenly the Tomorrowland stage starts to rise and a very distinctive beat starts playing: "So you wanta be startin somethin , got to be startin Somethin"... People started cheering and running towards the stage. It was NUTS!! Everyone was dancing . Then immediately after that they played Thriller! By this time people were just mobbing the area . It was so surreal.
So here are some MJ doodles....Quick impressions of some of my favorite MJ moments over the years. HEEEE HEEEEEEE ! WHOOOOOOOOO!

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Michael Lewis Embarrasses Himself on the Volcker Rule

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about the Volcker rule in the popular press, and how it’s going to be implemented. Most prominently, Michael Lewis wrote a widely-read column last week about how the banks are simply shifting their prop trading to market-making desks. While I’ve said before that the poorly-drafted language of the Volcker rule will make it very difficult to enforce effectively for precisely this reason, Lewis’ column is an absolute disaster. Lewis badly misstates the law, identifies the wrong loophole (which is amazing, since there are so many actual loopholes), and generally demonstrates no understanding of the issue whatsoever.

Lewis claims that the loophole is the bill’s definition of proprietary trading as investing “as a principal.” He then goes on to claim that the government agency who must “determine precisely what the phrase means” is....the Government Accountability Office!

First of all, the GAO has absolutely nothing to do with it. The GAO doesn’t write banking regulations. It’s the Fed’s job to write the Volcker-rule regulations for the big banks. The GAO just has to do a study on proprietary trading sometime in the next 12 months, which is completely separate from the rulemaking process for the Volcker rule. Hence why the GAO spokesman clearly had no idea what Lewis was talking about when he called. (The FSOC also has to do a study on prop trading, which actually is part of the rulemaking process for the Volcker rule. Don’t ask.)

Second, the phrase “as a principal” isn’t a even loophole. Everyone understands that both proprietary and market-making trades are entered into “as a principal,” and no one has a problem with that. (That is, after all, what a market-maker does.) There’s no need for banks to try to pretend like they’re not entering into trades “as a principal,” because trading as a principal isn’t prohibited! What’s prohibied is trading as a principal “for the purpose of selling in the near term (or otherwise with the intent to resell in order to profit from short-term price movements).” If Lewis doesn’t understand this much, then he really has no business writing multiple columns about the Volcker rule.

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