A REALLY bad night...

As a Giants fan, last night was disheartening.  I probably spent more time than I ever have studying the different prospects, and so I came into the draft with stronger opinions than usual.  Maybe I was too smart for my own good.  In any event, the part of me that demurred on the idea that Dave Gettleman turned the team into a laughing-stock relented last night.  The GM is a joke and should be fired.  The team will be a dumpster fire until that point.

It’s not just who he picked, but when he picked them.  And the strategy implemented this year actually now confirms the notion that I have long denied and resisted – that drafting Saquon last year, instead of a QB, was the wrong choice.  As remarkable and transcendent as Saquon is, even that pick is now diminished because of how this draft was handled.

To wit, Gettleman explained last year that you don’t pick for need, you pick the best player available.  Saquon is a gold-jacket guy, and you don’t pass them up, even for a QB – unless that QB is a great talent in his own right and you need one.  To be clear, as Gettleman made that case, the Giants definitely needed a QB last year.  Well, after suggesting the same logic applies this year, and in a weak QB class (which it should be noted falls one year after a strong one, with another strong one likely to come in the 2020 draft), he overdrafts a sub-par prospect and passes over potential gold jacket defensive talent.  Incidentally, the Giants are not very good on defense either, and could very much use one of the guys that were available when they selected at 6.

To make matters exponentially worse, as the draft played out, it became clear that the team could have drafted the same underwhelming QB prospect, Daniel Jones, with their second first round pick.  Or, better yet, they probably could have gotten him on day 2 of the draft.

Now, add to this poisonous concoction, the Cardinals drafted Kyler Murray and suddenly devalued the other QB prospect on their roster who would have been a great fit in a Giants uniform – that guy being Josh Rosen, the 10^th pick in last year’s much stronger QB draft.  But, no, Dave Gettleman demurred on such a blatantly obvious and logical path.  Well, because Dave Gettleman.

So, to summarize, the Giants passed over a QB last year to pick a guy who I think is remarkably good, only to pick a really unimpressive QB prospect this year when there were oodles of defensive talent to pick from, with better QB options available through trade (Josh Rosen) or by simply waiting until next year (the Giants are likely to be a top-5 pick for the 2020 circus).

Remarkably, I root for more than one team where ownership and/or management have proven to be a major obstacle to success.  Maybe this bad news is a precursor to the Knicks getting Zion.  A boy can dream…

Whiteshift

The subtitle is Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities and the author is Eric Kaufmann (2019).

An interesting topic that the author covers.  His view is that white ethnicity, as a political topic, must be given air for discussion in polite company without accusations of racism automatically flying back.  The rise of Trump, Brexit, and populism generally, are the result of immigration and the discomfort that it causes for white majorities.  Without an ability to talk about the issues that it creates, without being allowed to express the concerns about losing some element of the national culture because of rapid demographic changes, the conversation gets couched in state interest terms and engenders movements and solutions which only exacerbate stress points.  In other words, discussion about economics and being left behind, or national security and increased crime due to the growth of out-groups, is really cover for the concern about immigration at a rapid pace.  That topic, in and of itself, does not have to be racist.  But, given social norms and growth of neoliberalism in elite circles, any allusion to the issue is immediately met with insults and claims of deviance.  Ergo, the growth of movements that are deemed xenophobic and parochial.

In Kaufmann’s estimation there is now a mandate for diversity without any reconciling for how it effects the majority stakeholders in western countries.  The inherent contradiction that Kaufmann points out is how minorities are allowed to take pride in their group and advocate under that banner.  The white majority cannot do the same and is besmirched as racist if any interest is couched in such terms.  And the irony is how the greatest defenders of that reality are the cosmopolitan members of the majority.  But, as the pendulum swings too far, a voice will emerge that cares not for political-correctness, thereby validating the unspoken belief of many citizens and the pushback against certain norms begins.  It is why Trump can say as many ridiculous things as he does, but still maintain his base of support.  His base is the group that endures the burden of rapid ethnic change without any say, and then gets accused of racism when it objects.

Kaufmann is big on statistical analysis and conducting surveys to assess viewpoints.  An interesting corollary that he speaks to is how diversity actually acts to “impede the sense of common fate to facilitate redistribution”.  So, again, ironically, the biggest proponents of unheeded immigration, who also commonly call for higher taxes and universal health care, ultimately are creating a cultural and demographic dynamic which prevents such policy changes from willingly taking hold.  The common refrain from liberals of how one-payer health care in the Scandinavian countries works, and should be the model for the US, clearly misses that places like Sweden have highly homogenous populations.  If they were more diverse, it is entirely plausible that they would not be the beacon to hold up any longer.

Ultimately, Kaufmann believes that a more moderated pace of change, through more controlled immigration, whereby assimilation, cultural adjustment, and inter-marriage can occur, in the face of calls for maximalism by positive liberals, is the answer.

A few final takeaways from the book:

-Kaufmann states the obvious which is often missed: equality of opportunity is important, while trying to mandate equality of outcome is a doomed mission.

-The definition of hate speech continues to be expanded as a way to silence debate.  That methodology is commonly utilized to stifle many areas of potential disagreement, and is the opposite of the scientific process, ensuring outcomes that will only makes problems worse.  It also prevents any real measurement of what is serious versus minimal harm.

-It is intuitive and accepted that minorities will vote for politicians who best represent the interests of their ethnic group – why should such considerations on the part of majority populations suffer greater agita?

-“Invoking the history of racism to justify harsher treatment of whites reflects a Hatfield-McCoy theory of justice that leans on pre-Hobbesian notions of intergenerational culpability, collective punishment, eternal sin and retributive justice.”

-“…it is a left-modernist conceit to think that because countries must treat citizens equally without regard to cultural characteristics they must extend this to non-citizens applying for citizenship.”

Can You Outsmart an Economist?

The subtitle is 100+ Puzzles to Train Your Brain and the author is Steven Landsburg (2018).

An interesting book of logic problems, with some math thrown in, to help keep the brain active.  It also does a good job of introducing some key economics principles.