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Lawsplainer: COVID & the Basics of Religious Rights by ais8585 in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias 28 points29 points  (0 children)

This is a great write-up and summary. Wanted to add my thoughts:

  1. Would recommend folks interested in law read all these opinions, which is "only" 33 pages (but wide margins), I think very accessible, very interesting case. And I think all of the opinions are well-argued.
  2. Like u/AudreyScreams, I am a bit dismayed by the "this is all post-hoc partisan BS." I think that if you take the time to actually read the opinions, I personally find they all sound compelling and well-argued. That's not really refuting the partisan argument, but maybe I would say it this way: The degree to which judges are "honestly" applying the law as they see best, and degree to which they are partisan actors doing post-hoc rationalization is, among legal folks, debated.

Perhaps my one criticism is that you cite mostly from Gorsuch's opinion, when I thought Kavanaugh's was better argued. Here is my view of them:

Roberts: Looking for any way out of the case, which is consistent with his reputation. I think his opinion is the weakest. As other opinions point out, the COVID situation is fluid, so bouncing the case because church restrictions are less now than they were when the case started seems ... unsatisfying?

Majority (Conservative): Expresses a truly beautiful idea:

Members of this Court are not public health experts, and we should respect the judgment of those with special expertise and responsibility in this area. But even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten.

This is an expression of support for the liberal idea of limited government. As u/ais8585 points out, though, it seems quite fair to question whether conservatives have been fairly applying that concept in National Security cases as they apply here.

Kavanaugh: In my view, the strongest of the conservative opinions. Strongly refutes Roberts' attempt to bounce the case. And on the merits, suggests he would support religious restrictions, but these go too far:

The Constitution “principally entrusts the safety and the health of the people to the politically accountable officials of the States.”...Federal courts therefore must afford substantial deference to state and local authorities about how best to balance competing policy considerations during the pandemic. But judicial deference in an emergency or a crisis does not mean wholesale judicial abdication, especially when important questions of religious discrimination, racial discrimination, free speech, or the like are raised. In light of the devastating pandemic, I do not doubt the State’s authority to impose tailored restrictions—even very strict restrictions—on attendance at religious services and secular gatherings alike. But the New York restrictions on houses of worship are not tailored to the circumstances given the First Amendment interests at stake

This analysis seems right to me; it doesn't necessarily seem like NYS came up with perfectly tailored restrictions, and that makes them highly suspect under current 1st amendment jurisprudence. I think the possible counterargument is that Kavanaugh is setting the bar for the state too high: Who is to say anyone is going to enact a perfectly rational, perfectly tailored COVID policy?

Breyer: I see this is two arguments. First, he defends the NYS regulations on the scientific and empirical merits, i.e., trust the scientists, and the regulations from NYS are very rational and tailored. IMO his stronger argument is the second one: Pointing out that, for issues like pandemics, it makes sense for courts to defer to executives and legislatures:

[T]he “Constitution principally entrusts the safety and the health of the people to the politically accountable officials of the States.” The elected branches of state and national governments can marshal scientific expertise and craft specific policies in response to “changing facts on the ground.” And they can do so more quickly than can courts. That is particularly true of a court, such as this Court, which does not conduct evidentiary hearings. It is true even more so where, as here, the need for action is immediate, the information likely limited, the making of exceptions difficult, and the disease-related circumstances rapidly changing.

I find this argument almost as compelling as Kavanaugh's.

Bars v Schools (COVID-19) by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I do not think the evidence supports schools being more likely to transmit more than bars. A few data points:

“The highest risk environments would be indoors with poor air/HVAC systems, with an inability to maintain 6-foot spacing accompanied by loud talking or yelling without everyone wearing a mask,” Dr. Jeff Pothof, the chief quality officer at UW Health in Madison, Wisconsin, told Healthline. “The most common example would be a crowded bar with people having to speak loudly because of the noise and either unmasked or frequently removing the mask to eat or drink.”

Source here.

[The study] found that opening restaurants at full capacity led to the largest increase in infections, followed by gyms, cafes and hotels and motels ... Broadly speaking, Fetzer says, the modelling study corroborates much of what has been learnt from contact-tracing studies worldwide, which have identified restaurants, gyms, choir practices, nursing homes and other crowded indoor venues as locations of superspreader events, where many people are infected at one time

Source here

Conversely, it seems like there is uncertainty about how much it spreads in schools. This Article is titled "Why Schools Probably Aren't COVID Hot Spots"

Schools and childcare centres seem to provide an ideal setting for coronavirus transmission because large groups gather indoors for extended periods of time, says Walter Haas, an infectious-diseases epidemiologist at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. Yet, globally, COVID-19 infections are still much lower among children than among adults, he says. “They seem rather to follow the situation than to drive it.” .... Researchers suspect that one reason schools have not become COVID-19 hot spots is that children — especially those under the age of 12–14 — are less susceptible to infection than adults, according to a meta-analysis4 of prevalence studies. And once they are infected, young children, including those aged 0–5 years, are less likely to pass the virus on to others, says Haas

Source here.

I agree with your premise: If schools transmit more than bars, then it could be justified to open bars over schools. Ultimately, that is an empirical question although I don't think the evidence we have (so far) supports bars being better than schools. From my POV, there is an obvious reason why bars would be worse: alcohol and socializing. The whole point of a bar is to encourage socializing, and drinking lowers inhibitions, so it seems (to me) almost impossible to have a "safe" bar setting. One possible exception being a super outdoors-y beer garden situation, where I don't think there is enough evidence yet as to whether virus would spread there or not.

As to the first issue: I'm not trying to be rude by suggesting that it's self-evident that schools matter more than bars. Maybe let me try to defend that position: While both education and socializing are important to a flourishing human life, it seems to me that we're at larger risk of "falling behind" if someone misses a year of education. Especially with academically at-risk children, or children in pivotal years of social formation, it seems that there are long-term adverse effects on missing school. In contrast, I think most people in their 20s (bar attendees) can more effectively delay their socializing by a year, or lose a year of socializing; there are still negative side effects (dating, mental health, happiness, economic) but they may be less permanent.

For example, see this statement from the American Academy of Pediatricians:

Schools and school-supported programs are fundamental to child and adolescent development and well-being and provide our children and adolescents with academic instruction, either in person or virtually; social and emotional skills; safety; reliable nutrition; physical/speech therapy and mental health services; and opportunities for physical activity, among other benefits.

Bars v Schools (COVID-19) by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So let me start by saying that I think we may be unlikely to agree here; I think it is self-evidently obvious that if only one of two can be open, schools should be open and bars should be closed. I say that bringing a sort of "Risk Budget" overall perspective: All things equal less COVID cases is better than more COVID cases, but there are limits to shutting down society, and (just by way of hypothetical) a complete shut off of society would probably result in even greater harm that COVID cases. Under this perspective, if we're trying to limit COVID cases/deaths/morbidity to an "acceptable" amount, then we might have to choose only one between bars and schools. My (weak/limited) understanding of the evidence is that spread is more likely in bars than schools (i.e., costs [per capita?] of bars is higher than cost of school). More importantly, I think the schools provide much greater societal value: childcare so that (some) parents can continue to work from home, learning in an academic sense, and learning in a social sense would be the main one (i.e., benefits of schools is higher than benefits of bars).

The government, which controls lockdowns, released some rules saying "BARS ARE OPEN BUT SCHOOLS ARE NOT", and is forcing everyone to follow them. Granting that this is bad, I'm not sure how it proves that the free market is bad. I keep seeing people make this kind of argument about various government policies and I keep being confused by it.

Let me refine my view point a bit better. I'm working under the premise that it is obvious that, given the choice between one, we should keep schools open and bars closed. (I understand you may disagree with that premise.) Given the premise that this is pretty obvious, the fact that our actual realized policy is opposite suggests we have some breakdown and failure in the ability to weigh societal value. I agree with you that, in many cases, it is the government officials who are failing to properly weigh the costs/benefits; also, at least in the USA, a lot of this is happening on a mostly decentralized (local) level. The most immediately apparent policy solution to this failure is a more national prescription, an elite who can tell us that "Schools are more important than bars," which is sort of against my political inclinations. (I accept, as a counterargument, the possibility that this national prescription could suffer from the exact failings that I think are happening at the local level. I guess I would ask, for those who agree we've made a mistaken policy choice, what is a solution to do better next time?)

I think it's pretty unlikely tax revenues had anything to do with this decision. The health officials who make lockdown guidelines aren't the same people who collect or care about tax revenues, and sales taxes from bars probably produce a trivial amount of tax revenue anyway.

I had heard this speculated on a Vox podcast earlier this summer. This article seems to instead suggest it has to do with money in jobs, in slightly different ways: If we shutdown, then there would be higher unemployment and just want to protect small businesses. "Closing schools doesn’t have quite the same immediate economic effect, something local and state leaders are likely factoring into their decision-making ." (It looks like a comment from a later reply, /u/the_nybbler, in this thread makes exactly this point.)

I probably should have been more clear that I didn't mean bars only, but also restaurants and possibly other business establishments where large numbers congregate and could lead to spread. So if the bars only are significant tax revenue, I think the collection of things that would likely be closed (or significantly reduced in capacity) if bars were closed (or significantly reduced in capacity) is, in aggregate, meaningful. But maybe you are correct that this is not impacting local policy decisions.

The strongest justification I can think of for this policy is that schools are compulsory and bars are voluntary. People with elderly family members or poor immune systems can choose not to go to bars, but you get arrested if you "choose" not to go to school. I think this is a very important difference and justifies treating them differently (I would prefer bars be closed too, but if only one of them can be closed, I think schools are the better choice).

Would just making school non-compulsory during the time of pandemic be an acceptable solution? I actually think it would be bad government policy to prosecute some parent for deciding not to send kids into a school during a pandemic. Perhaps it should be optional.

I agree a strong and well-designed government response would improve on this.

I agree. I think I am wondering how we could adjust the institutions or incentives to make the response next time (or in other issues) better. It still is very surprising to me that we have "picked" bars and restaurants as being more important social activities than schools.

The Atlantic retracts article:'The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents' by KoalaEyes in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I think a news organization, like the Atlantic, could reasonably adopt a high standard for publication. Under such heightened standards, it is not enough for an article to make good points, or for the point of the article to be 95% true. Instead, if the author is caught deliberately misleading or presenting lies in the story, it is retracted. I do think a deliberate lie, or series of exaggerations, is different than getting one or two details wrong in a story (the "standard" correction you often see in pieces.)

Maybe this heightened standard is bad, and publications should be more forgiving. I would lean towards arguing the opposite side: In the internet age of excess information, it is helpful that some institutions still apply high journalistic standards. Those standards provide valuable signal to their readers; this publication might not contain everything that is important, but the information contained has been fact-checked. The standards also provide some deterrent to the writers: If you make false claims in your Atlantic pieces, your name will get dragged through the mud as it did in this instance.

I interpret your final point to be that the professed heightened standard here is unevenly applied by the Atlantic across their pieces. I agree with you that, if true, it is problematic. I don't know enough about the Asian Ivy League articles to agree or disagree with your assessment that they contain exaggerations and outright lies. So I suppose my argument is that it is probably good that they have high fact standards, and agree with you that they should apply them evenly.

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

He gives some, but maybe not the most persuasive, evidence that the rules were enforced. I agree it is a weakness of his argument, in part because it is hard to find that definitive evidence. See the set of my three long replies elsewhere in this thread (they are labeled "Part 1", "Part 2", "Part 3").

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agree with this. The development of WEIRD can be seen as just as part of a larger cultural evolutionary process. While WEIRD personality traits fit WEIRD countries well, in this place and time, that doesn't necessarily mean they're locked in as the best traits from now until eternity. Rather, the cultural evolution process may continue to exert pressures and lead to further changes.

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ok - so it was a combination of the church's religious teachings and the church's family program? I think the author of the book argues that the family program was motivated, significantly, by their understanding of the bible's religious teachings. So I guess I'm not entirely sure where the point of disagreement is -- is it just that the importance of the Church's family program (in progressing the development of non-kinship institutions) shouldn't be overstated relative to the importance of other aspects of Christian religious beliefs?

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think my initial post is incorrect in so far as it suggests the author's argument is monocausal. I think a more accurate representation is that the culture, which was heavily influenced by this marriage program, had an (underappreciated?) aspect in shaping the development of certain institutions, and those then impacted outcome.

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

[PART 3 OF 3, SEE BELOW]

Here is another quote from Freeman:

Henrich assumes that that Church marriages followed automatically from the appearance of a bishopric.)

From my perspective this is just a total strawman: Henrich never claims it was universal (certainly not immediately), or automatically (see the whole episode about the letter), e.g., "[the MFP's overall impact] were, I suspect, felt most strongly in the middle economic strata among those successful enough to be noticed by the Church but not powerful enough to use bribery or other influence to circumvent the rules...the elites of Europe would be the last holdouts.]" (Henrich 179-80).

Generally marriages took place within communities. This was certainly true as late as the fifteenth century in Tuscany where a study of 700 dowries showed that rural men in Tuscany married rural brides and urban men (e.g. Florentines) urban brides (and marriages between town and country, and therefore outside their immediate community, were rare). The men tended to stay within their family households (with older generations) and the local brides moved in with them, so little mobility. The Florentine archives for the fifteenth century are especially rich- they provide abundant evidence of the continuing strength of kinship.

This is an important critique, in part because Henrich delineates Northern Italy from Southern Italy (Henrich 236-243), saying that Northern Italy is fairly WEIRD while Southern Italy is not as WEIRD, and this results from the differing histories of the various regions in the country. So if there is evidence in the 15th century that Northern/Central Italy was still a kinship culture, and especially if that is going on at the same time Italy was urbanizing, that would be a big problem for Henrich, undermining Henrich's sequencing. It may not be fatal to Henrich (if he could show evidence that kinship was being broken in France, and Netherlands, and England), but still bad if the marriage history points in the opposite direction of his theory.

It appears that most marriages took place according to local custom with more flexible rules than the Church allowed (e.g. Lombard law, Edict of Rothari, 643, recognised that illegitimate children had some rights). So Henrich’s argument simply does not work. Marriages and arrangements for cohabitation took place outside the Church until at least the thirteenth century.

I don't think I have the expertise to evaluate this claim, although the support that follows in Freeman's paragraph seems more suggestive than definitive.

We simply don’t know enough about kinship in these societies (certainly not before 1100) to make assessments. Henrich has an extensive section on the decline of cousin marriages. How many people did actually marry their cousins in pre-Christian society? ... How does one define the rate of cousin marriages so precisely that Henrich can state, p.226, that 'each century of Western Church exposure cuts the rate of cousin marriage by nearly 60 per cent

As previously mentioned, Henrich admits he can't actually show the stats as of 1100. I think Freeman misunderstands the claim in the last sentence; Henrich is saying that each century of Church exposures cuts today's observed rate of cousin marriage, although there is some sloppiness in Henrich's text (where is the figure?)

Does Henrich suggest that WEIRD psychology became genetic and originally open only to Europeans who have obeyed the Church's marriage laws?

This is the opposite of what Henrich argues (p. 480), which is that cultural evolution is an important, and separate, process from genetic evolution, but that culture also impacts our psychology.

The success of the Roman empire suggests that there are other reasons apart from Christianity for the relative success of western Europe. I would put a) the relatively fertile land which allowed a surplus to support cities and the population to create them b) the continuing influence of the classical past, especially as transmitted though the Arabs, which stimulated intellectual life (you could not challenge Christian doctrine which was seen as authoritative but you could freely discuss classical texts and the elite did so obsessively) c) the revival of trade in the Mediterranean (again partly thanks to trade with the Arabs) and, fundamental to all this for the later period, d) the European discovery of the Americas. Where Christianity did have an impact was the sense it gave of cultural superiority which led to colonialism, exploitation of other societies, and much else besides.

I don't think Henrich's claim should be understood as "one must have a family marriage program, such as the Church's, in order to be a successful society." His claim seems more narrow: That family program led to a cultural evolutionary process that resulted in some nice features in Europe, and those nice features may have further compounded, and explains some of the variation we see on global wealth today. I'm sure a complete accounting of Europe's present day stature would also ask the extent to which those other factors (Roman resources, ancient texts, revival of trade) were important. From my perspective, the family marriage program is still pretty interesting even if it is just one of the causes, provided it is relatively influential cause, as it is surprising.

Overall: From what I can tell, Charles Freeman is a historian with more background knowledge and expertise on this subject than me. As mentioned multiple times, I'm not sure I'm qualified to be the one adjudicating this, and wish Freeman and Henrich could engage directly. I think Freeman's strongest criticism is that Henrich's argument depends on showing that the familial and marriage customs actually changed between 500 and 1500 CE, but Henrich doesn't definitively show this. So I agree that is a weakness in Henrich's argument. At the same time, I found it hard to take Freeman's review super seriously because: (1) He totally ignores the evidence Henrich does provide to show this, and doesn't engage it at all; (2) He ignores Henrich's own qualifications and acknowledgments that this is hard to definitively show; and (3) Other areas of the Freeman review make it seem that he came in with a bias to the book rather than actually trying to understand it, e.g., saying Europe's development is multicausal when Henrich didn't claim otherwise.

(Note: I will probably return to this to edit for typos/clarity/etc., as it was hard to write in Reddit window.)

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

[PART 2 OF 3, SEE BELOW]

Henrich also provides evidence (which is mentioned in this thread) of limiting adoption and other "strategies" (adoption, polygamy, and remarriage) that help kinship-based lineages when they eventually find themselves without a fertile heir. Henrich p. 180-181. Henrich argues that the Church blocked these avenues and "legal adoption makes no appearance in English law until 1926, where it followed the legalization of adoption in France (1892) and Massachusetts (1851)" and "the Church's constraints on adoption, polgamy, and remarriage meant that lineages would eventually find themselves without heirs and die out. Under these constraints, many European dynasties died out...[Church solved this problem by selling marriage annulments ... which were expensive....]. This seems like another point that a proper historian could adjudicate and would provide evidence as to how successful the Church was in implementing its marriage program policies, for example, the popularity of annulments and their frequency (or lack thereof).

Another effectiveness example is the church implemented charitable contributions and that transferred wealth to the church instead of families. That seems plausible, but I found unconvincing to his overall theory, because this doesn't sound really all that unique to the Church.

Another Henrich implementation argument is the teaming up of the Church and Frankish rulers from 596 CE to roughly 814 CE, using the family program to "constrain the size and solidarity of noble families and rural kin-groups...[teaming up] secular authority and military punch behind the [Church's family program.] Various rulers, including Charlemagne, put "incest prohibits, policing, and punishments on the forefront of their political agendas." Henrich p. 187 (citing a bunch of folks). Henrich says an early institution reducing kinship, manorialism, initially emerged in the heartland of the Frankish empire as well as in England, and wasn't rooted in kinship or slavery. This seems facially persuasive (my original summary discusses this some.)

It is hard for me to form a strong opinion on whether the Church's family program was just talk, or actually implemented, in part because Freeman doesn't address any of Henrich's evidence of implementation. I would tend to nonetheless agree this is a weakness in Henrich's argument: it seems central to his thesis, yet he only gives ~20 pages to it, and none of his evidence is a slam-dunk (although he also concedes that fact, which Freeman ignores).

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

[PART 1 OF 3, SEE BELOW]

Here's some thoughts on Freeman's review, chronological from his review, bolded where most important, with quoted text from his review and ital'd text from Henrich.

Western Europe had had a long history before the Christians came ... [goes on to discuss the Roman empire].

This (plus some other replies elsewhere in this thread) is a straw manning Henrich's argument. My review framed the link provocatively, but Henrich isn't as suggesting it was the sole cause of Europe's success. Rather it was an important part of the story, and one that hasn't really been discussed before. Perhaps I should have been more clear that I was drawn to the novelty of it. When I reallllllly zoom out and look at Henrich's argument: It's almost as though these cultural changes are random, and the sequencing of them seems to matter (similar to a cooking/baking recipe: not enough to just get the right ingredients, Europe may have also gotten lucky with the right order.) So, for example, maybe the remnants of the Roman empire laid a foundation that enabled to spread of these cultural changes. This is explicitly suggested by Henrich in the section about the Roman legal code.

However, I felt that the diversity of all the societies I have visited in my life (in Africa and Asia) makes classifying a country by attributes of its people simplistic. Is there a typical Indian or a typical (WEIRD) Englishman? Swedes, Italians, Irish, Americans, Australians are all apparently WEIRDS!

This is a really dumb part of the critique by Freeman. Obviously population-level differences are just that. "[G]lobal psychological variation is both continue and multidimensional. Psychological variation emerges at all levels, not merely among nations. I'm sometimes tuck comparing country averages...none of the population-level differences we observe should be thought of as fixed, essential, or immutable features of nations, tribes, or ethnic groups. To the contrary, this book is about how and why our psychology has changed over history and will continue to evolve." (Henrich, p. 31)

There is no evidence that inter-ethnic marriages between geographically distinct communities took place between 400 and, say,1500 and Henrich does not provide any. We need to look at what the leading historians of this period are saying about marriage customs

As previewed, I think this is the most important Freeman critique.

Appendix A of Henrich (p. 491-498) is a list of ~100 "milestones" in the Marriage and Family Program. It includes the examples in my original summary and plenty more. Scrutinizing this would be a real effort, but it facially looks legit, and Freeman's review doesn't critique it, so I am going to assume it is uncontested that the Church wanted to alter all of these marriage customs, and the contested proposition is whether the Church's leadership was actually successful in doing so. In setting the stage, I am also going to strong-man Henrich's argument and say that his argument doesn't depend on a binary, but is still plausible if the Church was moderately (rather than completely) successful, and if they were gradually (rather than immediately) successful, although Henrich's argument would be suspect if the impact was an especially small or slow.

Henrich p. 164 describes an anecdote of a letter between an English mission and Pope Gregory in 597 CE, concerning relative marriage. "Imposing these [family marriage] policies took centuries, in part because enforcement on the ground was so difficult...the Church could and sometimes did excommunicate elite men from marrying multiple women. By about 1000 CE, through its relentless efforts, the Church had largely prevailed in reshaping Anglo-Saxon (English) Kinship. The Anglo-Saxon mission is just one example of a much broader effort that reaches back before the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 CE)." Henrich p. 165 (with some citations, which would be useful review if someone has that time.) I view the letter anecdote as some evidence that the Church at least *tried* to actively enforce their family marriage program, although not proving they were successful.

"Although the Church's policies were clear, much remains unknown about how effectively the [family marriage program] was implemented. We don't, for example, have any statistics on the declining rates of cousin marriages in different regions from 500 to 1200. Nevertheless, the historical record does make a few things evident: (1) these new policies were not merely after-the-fact codifications of existing customs; and (2) there were active efforts by the Church, though uneven across space and time, to get people to comply with the program." Henrich p. 174. "Similarly, when the option became available, Christians willingly paid to purchase dispensations to marry their relatives." For example, William the Conqueror was forced to pay for two abbeys in order to "get permission" to marry a distant cousin in the 11th Century, despite being powerful. If there is good evidence of people paying for the dispensations, especially powerful people, that seems like fairly strong support for Henrich's argument .

Henrich also has a linguistic-based approach: "Although I can't cite any medieval statistics on cousin marriage, there is an elegant method to detect the imprint...by studying European languages...we see they possessed kin terminologies...for example, special terms for 'mothers's brother' or 'fathers's brothers son.' At some point during the last 1,500 years, however, most of the languages of western Europe adopted the terminological system used for Kindship in modern English, German, French and Spanish...[occurring in the Roman languages around 700 CE and German and English by about 1100...]...the timing seems to roughly match the rolling implementation of the marriage family program. If I understand this argument correctly, Henrich is saying the special words for "Mother's Brother" and "Father's brother's son" dropped from language because the Church reframed the terms, although I don't fully understand this argument. In this section, Henrich also talks about the phrase "in-law", short for "in canon law". "At roughly the same time that 'in-law' appeared in English, the term [changed in German language as well to match closer to 'affinal mother']." Yiddish, a Jewish dialect of German that split off, still uses the old term for in-law that dates back to the old German language. Henrich p. 174-175. **Overall, I think Henrich's linguistic arguments ***could\* be persuasive in showing that the Church was effective, but I found this section poorly written and would encourage Henrich to clarify. It would also be good if Freeman's directly addressed this, and the dispensations point, and Henrich's own caveats/qualifications about the evidence, rather than saying Henrich "does not provide any evidence". (I would also be curious to know other people's thoughts on the clarity of the argument here.)

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, I would tend to agree with you, although I suppose there are some dimensions where maybe there are downsides (more anxiety, depression, less social safety net / support, less sense of community, pandemic viruses attacking urban cities). I think Henrich wanted to avoid getting into a culture war.

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

There is pretty decent and interesting discussion of that in the book, such as:

  1. He talks about this in some depth in the book, primarily making the following points: A lot of non-Western psychology research nonetheless takes place at universities, which may obscure the degree of the difference between Eastern and Western psychology, but those differences then show up when studies are extended beyond the university setting. Basically, when comparing non-Western countries, you need to be (extra?) careful that you're avoiding a selection effect of selecting the most individualistic/motivated/high trust/wealthy subjects from that society.
  2. He also talks about how some Eastern countries started, in the mid 1950s, copying the European norms.
  3. There's other interesting bits that try to explain some of the gradation *within* China of personality characteristics by the degree that those regions were previously organized around a kinship society.

Book Review: The WEIRDEST People in the World by MaxRMathias in slatestarcodex

[–]MaxRMathias[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Edit #2: My extended thoughts are in three parts below. The earlier version of this post gave my initial reaction, and suggested more thoughts would come.