The Jewish Blog

A Serious Man

2009-11-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

I've seen two movies in the last month: Zombieland and A Serious Man. This is pretty unusual for me as tickets are expensive, I am cheap, and movies are for the most part crap. However, these two were not. I liked Zombieland because it showed me how fundamentally American the Zombie myth is. I had previously contemplated how both Into the Wild and There Will Be Blood both were about how the American spirit is fundamentally misanthropic and hermitical. In one, a man hates all other people and wants to surround himself with material wealth to hold them out. In the other, a man hates all other people and wants to run away to be alone with his ideological purity. All America is here for the same thing: whether you are Jamestown or Plymouth, you are here to get away from the crush of Europe and those … people. Zombieland makes this all more literal. Everyone except your close loved ones (nuclear family) is a zombie. We hate our fellow Americans (only a little less than everyone), with a couple of exceptions for famous celebrities (who in turn should view us as a crush of deadly zombies, or else probably die or get zombified). This turns what I've said the Zombie Myth represents: fear of the humanity surrounding us constantly in modern civilization, into a representation of American style misanthropy (which always has exception for the nuclear family or their substitutes: this is the sin of the protagonists of ItW and TWBB that makes those movies tragedies instead of a comedy like Zombieland). I could go on, but this post is about A Serious Man.

Last week's Torah portion ends with the Sacrifice of Isaac. The linked Caravaggio painting was displayed in the climactic scene of the movie in Marshak's office, and it's gives insight to the Coen brother's meaning in this movie. Abraham, though not explicitly, is following the norms of the time in performing child sacrifice. This is something the Coen Brothers would be aware was referenced in the bible a number of times (exactly the sort of thing that sticks like glue to a teenage male mind bored in Hebrew School). His presumed natural urges not to follow through with this, and understanding this was a message from G-d, led him to break with norm, despite what his society told him. He accepted with simplicity the situation and did the simple thing: decided it was nuts and then carved up some ram.

But what does this mean: to "Conduct yourself with Him with simplicity and depend on Him, and do not inquire of the future; rather, accept whatever happens to you with [unadulterated] simplicity," as Rashi comments on Devarim 18:13. As the Coen Brothers see it, it is basically to be somewhat of a petulant child like Danny Gopnik.

This movie is an exhortation to not over-think, and to use your G-d given instincts when not in doubt rather than the advice of society. Danny of course, does this naturally like a child would: he smokes pot and curses (and is not malicious for the most part in his mischief, with the notable exception of stealing money that was already stolen: perhaps a comment on the Arab-Israeli conflict?). As part and parcel to this are two things: Do be appreciative of all that G-d provides, and Don't be too concerned about the consequences because they are unpredictable and usually turn out OK anyway. Be Happy, Don't worry.

Danny of course does this perfectly when he gets high right before he has to perform his aliyah at his Bar Mitzvah. And of course, rather than everything falling apart and going to hell as he stood and didn't do anything, things go kinda ok with somewhat of a bump and no one really notices. Everyone congratulates Larry and assume he takes much nachas from this occasion (and he does).

Similarly, all Larry's fretting over tenure is for naught (probably). Despite the issues going on and the forces aligned against him everything will turn out alright on that account. Indeed, Larry's only joy in the movie comes when he gets high himself while out of control of his primal instincts for other reasons.

Part of the reason that we can't rely on this common wisdom is that other people don't pay enough attention (a theme of Burn After Reading). This is touched upon when Larry goes to the three Rabbis. All three demonstrate great wisdom, yet all three don't tell Larry the things he needs to hear because they don't listen. The first should have told him to reject the situation with his divorce in some way, either get aggressive or try to reconcile. The second should have told him not to pay for the funeral of his wife's (probable) adulterous lover. The third refused to even hear him. But each of the three demonstrates wisdom: the first tells him to appreciate G-d's bounty, the second tells him not to demand answers (i.e. over analyze everything and worry). The third demonstrates that he is a child at heart.

If Danny is the positive role model in the movie, Arthur is the negative role model. Despite his brilliance, he is a shell of a man with no job nor lover nor children. He is a kind of soothsayer or diviner in that he is looking for a “probability map of the universe” to predict the future. This is exactly the prohibition that is discussed before and after the verse Rashi is commenting on in the chosen quote. He also complains, but that is to be expected. Everyone k'vetches, especially when the TV signal is coming in poorly. At the same time, he has much to be thankful for: he is a brilliant man who can mooch off his brother as long as he wants, and instead of being resented for this he is accepted and loved as a member of the family. Now if he could just stop working on his crazy divinations, he could make a good living as a professor.

Other than Danny, the goysha neighbor is also a positive role model in some ways. Though the neighbor's good life is less explicitly portrayed than Danny's, Larry seems to have a longing for the life of his goysha neighbor when he is gazing at them from his back yard or roof, or noticing them coming back from a school day hunting trip. Notably the neighbor is portrayed as wearing the exact same outfit as his son in each scene where they are both visible, and usually doing the same thing as his son is doing. This is symbolic of the child like simplicity of the neighbor. “The line is the poplar!” screw whatever the law books say, that is something a child could understand, no reason to over think it. Whether this is a fair portrayal of the goyim is another story: I have reason to believe that they are more complex but in different ways than Jews, so the complexity is less apparent (I still think we would edge them in raw amount of complex over analysis in any fair comparison, though). I am less sure of it, but the idea of helping others because it couldn't hurt may be partially illustrated by this character in the scene where he backs up Larry while somewhat threateningly handling a monkey wrench during Larry's confrontation with the Korean.

So if the message of the movie is to accept with simplicity what we are presented with, and to ignore the advice of others when contradicted by our instincts because that advice was probably given without proper attentiveness to the particulars of your situation, what light does this shed on the opening scene of the movie? Clearly this means the wife was wrong in following what others told her, both about the existence of dybbuks and the death of Fivesh Finkel's character. While we shouldn't be disappointed with a lack of answers, which G-d does not owe, we sometimes do get an answer after all.

So really the Coen brothers seem to be saying: Be a petulant child; demand F-Troop come in clearly. Sometimes G-d will not be able to accommodate your request, but he is really busy trying to do a whole lot of things, many of which indirectly or directly benefit you. However, sometimes he is able to get around to it if you're persistent. In the mean time, be thankful for all you already have.

Hope

2008-11-09T17:15:00.000-08:00

Hope may be the strongest force in the universe; Barak Obama will need a lot of strength because he is the focus of so much of it.

Educational Testing and Foreign Aid

2008-02-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

I've been neglecting my blogging for a while now and I'll have more to say about that soon. I just had an idea that I didn't want to escape back to G-d's storehouse, so I am going to jot it down here.

What if we pay foreign aid to a developing country to help fund a program that monetarily rewards young people for good performance on some sort of test on fundamental human capital accumulation, such as a math test or possibly an English test. With enough funding this could potentially become an important source of income for households in the very and ultra poor category, it could help establish a culture of learning and potentially interrupt a cycle of poverty in a developing country.

Spree Killers

2007-05-03T12:52:00.000-07:00

The recent spree killing at Virginia Tech has sparked a wave of speculation as to what causes the “recent phenomena” of spree killings, sometimes with reference to school spree killings.

Any such attempt is doomed to failure. The only difference between recent occurrences of spree killings and much earlier occurrences is possibly the ability and willingness of the media to detect and transmit information about them. Ever since humanity has been in the presence of multiple firing small firearms and effective police enforcement, men (and it seems exclusively men, providing strong supporting evidence to a Larry Summers view of sex differences) have resorted to killing sprees due to a combination of frustration, stupidity and insanity.

However, before the invention of effective law enforcement (by which I mean the application of radio technology to the coordination of law enforcement) a potential spree killer could possibly vent his frustration in a violent line of "work". In the late eighteen hundreds a person who may have been a spree killer today could potentially have gotten frustrated, killed a bunch of people, picked up some cash after, then runaway to a potentially long and successful career as a stage coach/ ferry boat/ small town bank robber.

Consider the case of John Filip Nordlund, possibly the earliest case of a modern spree killing. Apparently he was the second to last person to be executed in Sweden. He fits what could be called a “profile” of spree killers (though from my exposition, it should be clear that the idea of a “profile” is ridiculous) in that he was professionally unsuccessful as well as ostracized since childhood. In addition, because he had a reasonable chance at escape he was captured alive, at which point he made statements similar to other spree killers with regard to their motivation: a generalized dislike of society (supposedly he uttered “This was my revenge on humanity!” upon arrest). Also because he had a reasonable chance at escape, his mass murder was structured as a ferry robbery. Because he was a “robber” some may not consider him a true spree killer of the recent type, however this is the mistake made by everyone who considers spree killing the result of modern cultural influences. As the prospect of escape and survival decreased with the increasing effectiveness of law enforcement, some of these criminals were dissuaded because robbery could no longer form the basis of a somewhat stable living, however others who were in robbery simply to indulge a desire to kill may have simply dropped the robbery pretense.

To summarize: spree killers are not a result of any aspect of modern culture. Before the advent of multiple fire firearms, a person could not go on a shooting rampage (obviously). Before the advent of police radio, a spree killer was practically indistinguishable from a robber.

A clear implication of this reasoning is that prohibiting firearms will reduce the occurrence of spree killings. Even so, a more complete weighing of the costs and benefits of such a policy would be necessary, the occurrence of spree killings being an insignificant and negligible factor in all likelihood.

The Price Level and International Trade

2007-04-29T05:42:00.000-07:00

Dani Rodrik can't quite wrap his head around how international trade reduces inflationary pressure.

Basically he argues that since exporting something means additional demand, doesn't that mean that prices go up?

How can the price level go up form international trade?

It can't. For concreteness, I use Rodrik’s example of Argentina and the US in Beef. International trade causes Argentina to export Beef to the US.

US consumers pay in dollars. Those dollars are exchanged for pesos at some point. If the Argentine Beef producers turn around and buy equal international value of Other Stuff from the US then prices in pesos in Argentina for Other Stuff will fall but Beef will remain the same.

If the Argentine Beef producers try to save it instead of spending it there will be inflation, however this inflation will simply be due to the over-saving of the Beef producers (inflationary investment glut).

If the Argentine Government gives out pesos in exchange for dollars, and then spends those dollars on American goods, the price level in Argentina will rise because the price of Beef rises in pesos and the price of Other Stuff remains the same (assuming the same government domestic consumption). However in this case there exists inflationary fiscal pressure from the government (it is minting currency).

Divided Government Theory of Policy Change

2007-04-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

Many people argue that parlimentary systems are able to change policies faster because there is a unified governmental body making decisions (there exists a single "veto player" in the language of Tsebelis).

I think the Iraq surge may be an example of a policy that could possibly be more easily pursued under divided government:

Assume for a moment that both Democrats and Republicans want to pursue a counter-insurgency strategy as recommended heavily by Petraeus and Mattis (and heavily promoted by TPM Barnett). This strategy obviously has heavy political costs; consider point number one:

The more you protect your force, the less secure you are

However, under divided government, it may be possible for both sides of the political spectrum to effectively share blame for these costs while giving up no relative advantage (i.e. since the costs are shared approxiamately equally, no relative loss is incurred).

Under the current trajectory of the policy it seems likely that the Republican executive is attempting get the legislature to sign off on this change in strategy (which in fact really requires no additional troops or legislative invlolvement beyond the status quo) by creating an artificial new circumstance which will require the legislature to make a new choice of exercise of its veto power. By failing to exercise this veto power the legislature could be portrayed as offering tacit support to the policy. It seems that the Republican executive will be successful in forcing this tacit approval since there will be a very public crisis costing Iraqi and possibly American lives (depending on the foolishness of the Republican executive and the responsiveness of the American Public to the deaths of Iraqis) which will only have a short term solution coming from tacit legislative approval of the new strategy.

This was not possible under the Republican unified government of 2005-2007 because it would require the political right to bear sole responsibility for the costs of the new policy.

The key is the abilities of either branch of government to precipitate a crisis that can only be solved by the (non) exercise of the veto power of the other branch. Normally the legislative branch has the upper hand in that it can set the agenda of national discussion by passing bills and sending them up to the white house. This is a case where the opposite is true.

Ed Glaeser and Daron Acemoglu

2007-03-30T16:52:00.000-07:00

These are your economists.

And these are your economists on blogs!

Any questions?

Political Appointees

2007-03-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

Steven Teles over at the Mark Kleiman blog responded to this post from Sanford Levinson over at the Open University blog. Sanford is arguing that political influence on the bureaucracy is bad, Steve is pointing out that ideological appointees solve a principal agent problem. Steve concludes with this question:

This is, in part, an institutional problem--how do you ensure that the executive branch does not overweight its political strata with ideological hacks?

His answer is that the Senate should ensure a more publicly beneficial balance of ideology and technical expertise. This then begs the same question, reformulated with the addition "and the Senate" after "executive branch".

The real solution is that the degree to which ideology should be isolated from bureaucracy is inversely related to the degree to which you believe the democratic practices in place support the policies which are in the public's best interest.

Of course, any individual's belief in the efficiency of Democracy in supporting the public benefit is likely highly influenced by whether the party currently in power is one more ideologically aligned with their own views.

Theory of War

2007-03-21T14:47:00.000-07:00

The problem of war for rational choice theorists is that war is negative sum and agents are risk neutral or averse. Under these assumptions war should always end before it begins with a bargain in which each side walks away with at least its expectation of reward (i.e. rewards from winning * probability of winning); in addition the destruction of war will not occur, so the surplus from that absence of destruction should pacify risk neutral parties as well.

The problem is not a problem if we observe that agents are risk preferring in some situations. I believe there is a city in Nevada built on that premise.

A Brief Definition of Science

2007-03-12T02:47:00.000-07:00

Science is the unscientific assumption that the future will be similar to the past (as remembered in the present), with more recent evidence taking authority in case of contradictions.

Since by definition only statements about the past can be evaluated as scientific, the scientific assumption is unscientific because it is a statement about the future.

Note that this definition makes no reference to “truth”. While a statement “The sun will rise tomorrow” cannot be evaluated in terms of metaphysical truth, it can be said to be scientific, i.e. consistent with my remembrance of past solar cycles.

Theory of Mind

2007-03-02T14:04:00.000-08:00

For a long time I’ve wanted to write a post explaining what consciousness is and how the brain creates it. I hope to explain in later posts the implications this theory of mind has for moral and social organization. I had hoped to limit it to 2000 words, which is about as long as a long op-ed, however I decided to include a 600 word section in which I will attempt to describe quite literally what is happening in your brain while reading this sentence.

I start with some very general definitions for concreteness which imply physicalism. From there in I will attempt to outline a theory of human conscientiousness that explains how it uses neural biology to fulfill this definition. I give special attention to the description of how emotional qualia arise through statements about physical brain processes. It could be labeled as a connectionist physicalist model (I don’t know whether this qualifies it as a reductionist or non-reductionist physicalist model however). I then briefly apply the model with the example in which I describe quite literally what is happening in your brain while reading this sentence. I conclude by outlining a few suggested further implications.

A system is function from a set of input states to a set of output states (Even more generally, I postulate a deterministic universe that can only be known with probabilistic precision in any finite time period).

A mind is a system with an ordering of inputs and that changes itself over time through a learning mechanism such that inputs relatively higher in the ordering will become more likely to occur then inputs relatively lower in the ordering.

The human mind attempts to make predictions by looking for patterns in order to better manipulate its input (senses) with its output (actions). These predictions are physically embodied by the connections between our neurons; for example the series of symbols “apple” is a set of patterns of retina input (another element of this set would be “apple”) which are closely associated with a sound pattern “aah-pull” as well as another set of patterns of retina input which is roughly circular (apple shaped really) and involves the excitation of the red spectrum sensitive neurons, and is associated with taste neurons etc… which is a tangle of neural connections. This tangle may also extend to predictions about our actions involving apples, such as if we move our hand in some way we can experience picking up the apple.

The human mind’s whole conception of objects as existing in space which they occupy in a mutually exclusive manner, is a result of the tangle of neural connections between our senses of sight, touch, and inertial balance (but mostly sight), which are connected in a pattern such that, when stimulated, eventually excites neurons connected to likely subsequent sensory input patterns (e.g. an “object” “moving towards us” is in fact a pattern of visual stimulus which will be replicated in the near future, except bigger, and which may also produce the sensation of an object colliding with us and knocking us over even further into the future). Also included in these connections are neurons associated with actions, which can be interpreted as predicting the results of actions within the context of the environment. These patterns of connections are probably formed through a combination of genetic hardwiring and learning (however, as per the above definition, the genome of a population can be understood as a mind).

I am not a neuroscientist, but my hypothesis about what is happening between a human’s ears when it is thinking is that one end of the limbic system (thalamus) sends out a signal through the cerebrum to the other end of the limbic system (hippocampus). Depending on how that signal arrives at the hippocampus end, a signal is sent back to the thalmus that either strengthens the route just taken through the cerebrum, or relatively weakens it, however, instead of traveling through the cerebrum, this return signal travels through the fornix. There are many possible paths through the cerebrum which each fork and converge thousands of times, each representing a different set of predictions associated with a certain set of inputs. This can be contrasted with the relatively simple and straight forward connections of the fornix which are largely unchanging and genetically preprogrammed. In a situation where a person can sense an apple, and is hungry, the thalamus may hypothesize wiggling some toes, by sending out a signal through the cerebrum associated with the actions that we would recognize as wiggling some toes. The pattern of connections in the cerebrum (built from past experience) will eventually tell the hippocampus that we will not experience satiation of our hunger under this course of action. The hippocampus will then send a signal back to the thalamus that either weakens the thalamus’s ability to trigger this action directly, or possibly only relatively weakens that suggestion by strengthening its alternatives.

If the thalamus then suggests picking up and eating the apple, the pattern of connections in the cerebrum should tell the hippocampus that hunger will be satiated, and the hippocampus will send signals through the fornix to the thalamus that strengthen this suggestion, possibly going through several more cycles to ensure that this course of action is correct. The repetition of the cycle may gradually excite neurons more peripherally associated with the action, bringing additional layers of nuance and complexity to bear (for example, maybe there are property law neurons which need to be gradually excited before they can complete a circuit through the cerebrum to a negative part of the hippocampus in the case our apple belongs to someone else). If we pick up the apple and successfully satiate our hunger, this sensory input also will stimulate the hippocampus in a positive, pattern-strengthening way. In this way, the thalamus, cerebrum, hippocampus loop attempts to mirror the thalamus, outside world, hippocampus loop in order to produce pattern strengthening input from the outside world.

Negative experiences (i.e. disappointment, frustration, anger) are the qualia associated with the destruction, or relative weakening of stimulatory connections in the brain. This increases the relative likelihood that alternative hypotheses or actions will be investigated or will occur relative to the hypothesis or action which stimulated the destructive chemical process. Positive feelings strengthen stimulatory connections, and extreme positive feelings are attempts to build new connections on top of existing structure (forming larger and more complex patterns) by testing new hypotheses closely related to a newly strong connection.

Because connections in the brain are strengthened by use, both strengthening and relative weakening can be accomplished through excitation. This is why I believe relative weakening may be a more appropriate description then simply weakening: a negative feeling may be a quasi-random excitation of the alternatives to a hypothesis that generated a negative connection to the hippocampus. In this way the desired result is achieved (according to the connections and stimulation of my prefrontal cortex right now): the alternatives become relatively more likely to pass into action because they are being excited and the “bad” hypothesis or action recommendation isn’t. This explains why there is a superficially similar desire to dance when elated or to throw a violent tantrum when frustrated. In the case of elation, pathways branching off the idea pattern generating the elation will be most likely to be stimulated, possibly creating new successful connections (if you get news about a pay raise you may start thinking about the way you will spend it). In the case of frustration, more basic alternatives will be explored.

A word about pain and attention: The object of one’s attention is simply additional stimulatory resources being devoted to some subset of input, whether that is external sensory input or internal reflexive “input” of a loop within the brain. A painful or annoying sensation decreases the stimulatory resources one is able to devote to the previous object of one’s attention and puts more stimulatory resources into neurons associated with the source of pain. In this way it is similar to a relative weakening resulting from a negative emotion in that it causes the stimulation of a thought pathway that is likely different from the pathways currently under attention. It also likely somehow resets the thought cycle, or disrupts it through massive spikes of stimulation (to areas not necessarily at the center of attention, though when attention and such painful stimulation coincide spectacular efficacy can result, as in the case of a fighter becoming more ferocious when injured), making large complex thought patterns unlikely to achieve proper stimulation.

A word about the prefrontal cortex, the supposed “seat of personality”: Because the hippocampus is among its most direct outputs, this area is primarily responsible for determining a series of intermediate goals to achieve some end (i.e. delayed gratification, when a system of internal rewards is necessary to organize progress towards an external confirmation, e.g. making a tool for future use). Through its excitement patterns, it can determine whether a given hypothesis or hypothetical action moves us forward, and thus should be connected to a strengthening part of the hippocampus, or whether it is a step in the wrong direction (quite literally sometimes, 1 before 2 is a good thing when counting up, but it is a bad thing when counting down) and should be connected to a weakening part of the hippocampus.

In this section I will attempt to describe quite literally what is happening in your brain while reading this sentence.

While reading the sentence, your brain analyzes the retinal input “what is happening in your brain” and connects it with another set of sensory input, images of brains and images associated with brain processes (possibly a colorful cartoonish image of a neuron with sections revealed in cut away that is from an old textbook or classroom display, or possibly energy pulses moving on some kind of circuit board grid against a gray-spongy background), hopefully this pattern associated with “brain processes” incorporates much of the preceding discussion. This is mostly done in the rear and sides of the brain where visual and auditory input are heavily processed, possibly through an abbreviated cycle that foregoes the frontal lobes initially while forming the concept “what is happening in your brain” or “brain processes” from collections of images and other sensory patterns in that area. The retinal input pattern “reading this sentence” is another set of symbols representing a collection of sensory patterns (possibly an image of a school girl reading, or a collection of language symbols on a white background with dotted lines drawn towards a cartoon eye or face,…) formed in a similar way to that of “what is happening in my brain” in that it is mainly formed in the rear and sides (and possibly top) parts of the cerebrum.

The pattern of retinal input “describe” is likely abstract enough to excite parts of the frontal lobe and possibly the pre-frontal cortex after being interpreted in the rear and sides from the senses. What is happening is that this part of the frontal area (frontal lobe + prefrontal cortex) is being wired to test for mutually reinforcing input from the two concepts “brain processes” and “reading this sentence”, i.e. a physical connection is established or enabled to the web of sensory input representing the two concepts.

The rest of this section attempts to bridge these two concepts with intermediary concepts/neurons such as “retinal input,” “connections,” the association with physical locations within the “brain” which incorporates previous knowledge, the use of the phrase “physical connection,” or “wired,” etc. which form a path leading from the concepts/neuron webs “reading this sentence” to the neuron-webs “brain processes” such that, the bridge formed in the reader’s brain by the excitation of neurons achieved through reading the rest of this section allows a stimulation of the concept/neuron-web “reading this sentence” to travel across this bridge of excited neurons to the concept “brain processes”. The connections in the frontal areas to these concepts formed by the words “describe quite literally” serves to verify this bridge formed in the rest of the section actually connects to the concepts, and not as part of this bridge between the concepts.

If you agree that I have described successfully in my attempt, your brain is making new use of this bridge, stimulating the members of the bridge’s constituent neurons to the point that neurons more peripherally attached to the bridge become excited in an effort to enrich the connections and explore implications or extension of the hypothesis (some of which may be discussed below). If you disagree, the bridge will skip steps or fall short, in which case additional attempts to create the bridge will happen as you reinterpret my words with gradually wider and more general meaning in a broadening search for a pattern. Unable to find a pattern attention may fall onto the mystery of what caused me to fail my attempt, where your prefrontal cortex will attempt to connect the information you have about how I am different from you to the information you have about the difference in our views.

The implications of this model are thus:

Identity and consciousness are the result of our memories physically embodied by our neurons and the connections between neurons. Our most essential nature is not some immaterial metaphysical “soul”, it is defined by the shape of connections between our senses and actions. Otherwise stated: physicalism.

While this model asserts that human actions are a deterministic function of environment and genetics, the concept of moral judgment and punishment are not rendered null. The potential judgment and punishment at the hands of others (as evidenced by past instances of judgment and punishment) is an important pattern of environmental input for a (properly functioning) mind in determining future actions.

This model provides a framework for extrapolating our own experience of human emotional qualia not only into other human minds but also into non-human systems that also qualify as minds. For example, an expert system which routes currency deposits to ATM machines qualifies under my definition as a mind, with its actions being its direction of currency and its senses being indications of how often ATMs must be visited to be filled, or how often they cannot fill a customer request, as well as some kind of calendar or temporal grid of reference. When a mind is happy it may still continue to change, but further changes are refinements of existing structure, filling in details or going further into the future. An ATM expert system could then be interpreted as content when there exists a large complex structure of connections within its system that remains relatively stable across time, with many weak new hypothetical structures branching off that are unstable and tend to disappear and change (and without the expansionist genetic propensity for contentment to sour into boredom that exists in humans).

The system could be interpreted as happy or elated when a new large significant relation can be added to the old stable structure, such that most of the old stable part of the structure remains an intact subset of the new structure of connections (i.e. if represented as a graph of inhibitory and stimulatory connections between a set of nodes, node A previously stably stimulatory of node B will continue that relation, and there may be no previous stable relation between node A and C, but in the new structure there is a stable relation), the bubbly effervescent nature of elation being new weak hypotheses which either are revealed or become stronger due to their reliance on the newly stable extension of the structure.

Similarly, the system could be interpreted as confused or frustrated when parts of previously stable structure become unstable due to disconfirmation. Assuming a higher currency demand in suburbs rather then urban areas on weekends, an expert system directing currency downtown on Saturday would need a major reorganization, starting at a level so basic that it is directly connected to its most primary sense: the expert system’s internal calendar. This would be an unhappy system indeed (unless it was owned by an oddly altruistic and forgiving bank). Anything that system had supposed about the connection between its calendar and other senses, such as previous ATM traffic patterns etc, would be suspect and probably invalid due to this primary error in the system’s, umm, “thinking?”.

While this model is useful for anthropomorphization of many systems, both living and non-living, it has limits. For example, the economy of a nation-state can be understood as a mind, but I am pessimistic about the utility of doing so; the individual minds of people in the economy would be just as complex and unpredictable as they are without this description as a collective mind, or assignment of anthropomorphic emotional qualia. Similarly, if in the example of a system managing a set of ATMs there was a person responsible for manually reprogramming the system rather then some artificial learning mechanism, the description as a mind would remain valid, although it would be trivially different from the human mind of the programmer.

Simile Contest

2007-02-24T05:11:00.000-08:00

Dick Cheney attacking someone's judgement is like George Bush attacking someone's pronunciation.

Defending McLaughlin

2007-02-24T04:10:00.000-08:00

Mclaughlin has been under attack as of late and I think it is undeserved, however my previous post has left me somewhat embarrassed and in a position where it is harder to defend him. However after a couple of weeks watching the show I think I have some ammunition.

One example of an idea that would not have occurred to me if not for McLaughlin and his crew is that the most important and enduring impact of the Biden misquote of two weeks ago is that it may help Barack Obama establish his bona fides with the Black community despite his cultural distinctness (here, Black being used in a sense distinct from African-American as a reference to the descendents of African-American slaves) due to the common adversity symbolized by the misquote.

In the Open University piece linked above, Pat Buchanan is attacked as an anti-semite. This is a canard often repeated, and while I cannot remember the details of my past encounters, I do remember taking keen interest until the accusations evaporated into some statement falling well within the bounds of reasonable criticism of the US-Israeli relationship. Indeed, Buchanan’s tendency to stray into dangerous rhetorical territory is a quality I deeply admire. Raising the subject of hugely disproportionate representation of my fellow tribesmen in the US Congress when the topic is ethnicity and power in the US government is perfectly appropriate, though for reasons now obvious, dangerous.

And while reading Buchanan's Wikipedia entry to double check that my recollection of previous investigations into his supposed anti-semitism was correct, I was again impressed by the seeming prescience of his isolationist outlook in the context of Iraq. This “predictable” isolationist tendency is likely what led him to reveal another insight which would probably not have occurred to me had I not watched last night’s show: British withdrawal from Iraq would be a necessary precursor to aggression involving Iran. Obvious when you think about it, but not many do.

Predicitons: Bush's troop request

2007-01-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

The closing question on this week’s McLaughlin Group was whether Bush would ask for more or less then 20,000 for Iraq troops in the State of the Union. The panel made predictable estimates, with all being on the “more” side, except for Eleanor Clift, who said “a little less”. However, McLaughlin himself said “a lot less”, which got me to thinking:

He is probably right. Bush wants something he can use to either share blame for the Iraq situation with the Democrats or portray the Democrats as wimpy unrealistic hippies. As the fairly arbitrary number of 20,000 continues to be attacked by every media personality who wants to ride the tide of public opinion that became evident in November, Bush may attempt to jump ahead of the criticism and ask for significantly less, and possibly none. After this intense media buzz, a low number may be the administration’s best play to set themselves up as reasonable or willing to compromise. It is a move similar to the dance around the torture bill, where they made McCain’s moderately outrageous proposal seem acceptable compared to the administration’s extremely outrageous initial position.

A Dark Day

2007-01-04T12:17:00.000-08:00

For comedy.

Now the legislative leaders of the most powerful nation on Earth are more qualified for that position then 4-year old toddlers.

I mourn for Jon Stewart.

The Urban Theory of Democracy

2007-01-02T04:58:00.000-08:00

So I was thinking about the part in this past week’s Torah portion, Vayigash, where Joseph consolidates the population of Egypt into cities after buying up their rural property during an economic depression. I was convinced that urbanization was vital to the formation of a state because it somehow made the population more manageable by centralizing it, and breaking possible clan-tribe allegiances that could develop in rural isolation outside the eye of state bureaucracy. My model was the peasant revolution.

But then I realized how backward my thinking had been. Urbanization makes the population less manageable. In a situation of agricultural rural isolation, a small band of professional fighters can control large areas. An isolated farmer or three would probably have to pay any tax demanded by a band of five or six tax collectors who show up on his farm. If he got angry and decided to march to his neighbor and try to collect an army/gang to respond, a local autocrat could leverage force mobility and faster communications (using horses, literacy, and possibly some highly capital intensive communication, such as signal fires or flags) to head off a potential snowballing rebellion by quickly extinguishing sparks of discontent.

However, an urbanite could possibly have twenty of his neighbors within earshot should some government official demand something of him. Urban riots were feared by many autocrats, making the maintenance of country estates common. As the industrial revolution tilts the balance of power from rurality to urbanity, there is a shift from rural authoritarianism to urban democracy.

It is difficult to distinguish this model from Acemoglu’s. The presence of profitable agriculture and absence of industry would also produce conditions that decrease the urbanity of the population. However, it seems that one distinguishing characteristic of the models is their predictions on the effect of mineral wealth (which may produce negligible concentrations of miners). My model would predict at most a neutral effect of mineral wealth, while Acemoglu would argue it is a source of instability. In support of my model I would offer the example Norway, which possesses many mineral resources, of which oil is only recently of the highest importance (before the advent of artificial nitrates in the early twentieth century, Norway was an important source of mineral nitrates for fertilizer). Norway generates about 30 gallons of oil per citizen per day, which puts it solidly between Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi has more per person then Saudi Arabia).

China presents two interesting potential challenges to the model which I’d like to remark on briefly. One is the presence of peasant revolutions. While difficult to pull off, constant sporadic insurrections occurring in many places at the same time defeats the advantage of the bureaucracy in communication and mobilization. In addition, large scale events may also defeat the coordination advantage of the authoritarian force, such as the natural disasters which may have initiated the Red Turban rebellion against the Mongols in the fourteenth century.

Another is that China is deceptively urban. As many Chinese are in enormous metropolises, there are possibly more rural Chinese. The most recent direct clash was in 1989 in Tiananmen Square, where rural troops were trucked in to bust the heads of the loud urbanites. However, as we all know, 1989 seems like an eternity away in China.

Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

2006-10-20T01:45:00.000-07:00

I had a depressing conversation while seated next to a man from Cote d’Ivoire while traveling about a month ago. What particularly struck me about our conversation was when he was telling me about the second coup in his country since 2000, again with factions breaking mainly along tribal ethnic lines, I realized how similar that situation was to the situation in Europe before the formation of nation-states. At the time I had been reading Oscar Jaszi’s The Dissolution of the Hapsburg Monarchy, which is a detailed illustration of (failed) state formation. Feudalism is noting more then tribalism plus agriculture (and indeed, it may be more accurate to describe contemporary tribalism in Cote d’Ivoire and elsewhere as feudalism). It occurred to me that I could not think of any successful nation-state (besides the neo-Europes, US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia¹) that did not go through a period of rule by an oppressive autocratic regime, similar to the Hapsburgs: authoritarian regimes which imposed a national identity over the existing clan and tribal identities of feudalism. Henry the VIII in England demanded loyalty to the state church, as did the Hapsburgs in Spain and the Austrian Empire, the result of the consolidation of the French and Russian nation-states famously triggered revolutions. China had Qin and Japan had Tokugawa. India had the British and Turkey had Attaturk.

But most of Africa didn’t have a similar experience. Most of Africa can be characterized as having ethnic conflicts that discourage investment, causing a catch-22 of development: people fight because they are poor and they are poor because they fight.

Recently Delong posted a review of Daron Acemoglu’s new book Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, and after reading the book I believe my hypothesis concerning absolutism as a necessary stage in state formation is supported by his theories.

To summarize the book: Democracy happens when there is a credible threat of revolution while there is also a large part of the wealth tied up in easily destroyed items (like factories, railways, and equipment, which can be smashed, as opposed to a mine or fertile land, which are practically indestructible). The effect is that democracy will be granted by elites and anti-democratic coups will not be attempted after the establishment of democracy, both because elites are afraid their easily destroyed physical capital will in fact be destroyed in the possible turmoil.

That is all well and good, and indeed I can’t think of any successful democratizations (with the possible exception of Taiwan²) that do not fit into his model. However, Acemoglu and Robinson don’t really talk about transition: how do these countries caught in the development cathch-22 of belligerence due to poverty and poverty due to belligerence break that cycle and become stable successful democracies like most of the Western World? According to Acemoglu’s model, violent destructive governmental transitions happen when there is little cost to that violence; if there are no factories that could burn, then this “punishment” for the violence doesn’t exist, decreasing the disincentives for violence. This seems to mirror the development catch-22 within the Acemoglu and Robinson theoretical framework; countries that are prone to violence cannot develop physical capital, countries with little physical capital are prone to violence. How then can the fragile physical capital that will eventually be held hostage in order to stabilize democracy come into existence in this turbulent atmosphere?

It can’t. It seems that a necessary corollary from Acemoglu’s argument is that a strong and probably authoritarian leader must control and pacify all the various competing factions of the society, possibly through repression, long enough for physical capital to build up to a point where it can be ransomed for democracy.

The direct implication is that pluralistic idealism in the foreign policies of the developed world may impede the development of poor unstable countries if executed improperly. However, there are possible non-passive roles for benevolent foreign actors in this development process, chiefly, ensuring that the economy develops to a sufficient level under any extant authoritarian regime, as well as possibly assisting the destabilization of autocrats that have worn out their welcome (i.e. dictators who stay on past some point of physical capital accumulation), although this can be done non-militarily in some cases (e.g. Taiwan and South Korea, whose authoritarian governments both buckled in the eighties, partially due US policies developed by Carter that put diplomatic and public pressure on the regimes).

___________
1: The exclusion of the neo-Europes can be explained by the fact that immigration tends to destroy existing tribal identity. Arguably, the only exceptions are immigrant criminal organizations, which still are significantly weakened by immigration and tend to disappear over time.
2: Taiwan is an interesting case in that it was in many respects similar to Singapore in anti-democratic nature. Singapore was held up as an example of a country which accumulated fragile physical capital but remained anti-democratic due to the supposed benign and egalitarian nature of this particular authoritarian regime. This egalitarianism, manifested in the wealth distribution most importantly for Acemoglu, caused a lack of demand for revolution. I would argue that a similar situation existed in Taiwan, except that political pressure from the US nudged the dominant elites towards democracy.

Partisan Markets?

2006-10-06T03:48:00.000-07:00

Ezra wrote a thing on Tapped about how markets are flawed because some Stanford economists correlated suprise democrat election with stock market reaction. I don't read Tapped so I didn't see this a couple days ago. Some other guy critqued his attack on markets in general based on this one study, so Ezra responded on his site, which I do read.

Ezra:

Possible explanations abound, from rich investors rejoicing over the redistribution they're about to enjoy to businesses salivating over expected corporate welfare or regulatory favoritism. Whatever the reason…

ryan:

There is a good chance that these findings are essentially inconclusive. There’s a reasonable chance that the Bloomberg story misinterprets what the authors found. And there’s a decent chance that there is a rational explanation…

You know what the great thing is about that interweb thingy all the nerds are talking about? You can look stuff like this (pdf) up and decide for yourself. If you look at the article referenced by the Bloomsburg blurb (same pdf) you’ll see the chart on page 23 which is the important reference for the article (that’s the chart that looks at stock market reactions since 1880, the rest of the paper looks much more closely at simply Dubya I and II).

If you clicked through and look at the graph, you’ll see that the correlation is heavily reliant on three outliers that occurred during the FDR and Truman. If we confine our study to the contemporary Post-War era, looking at data since 1952, the correlation is destroyed. The coefficient on Republican election goes from 0.02 to 0.0073 and probably more importantly, the Pearson’s coefficient, (which measures how well a correlation fits) going from an already weak 0.2 to a laughable 0.048.

This seems to say that the markets really liked Republicans, until they figured out that politics won’t influence equity prices that much. So the market really does figure it out eventually. That, or possibly the market really was much more heavily influenced by politics in the pre-war era, with the policies of the Republicans much more explicitly pro-big business and/or flat out corrupt.

They Ripped Me Off!

2006-10-04T04:03:00.000-07:00

Well, probably not really.

I've been meaning to post about this for a couple days now. The NYT published a comparison between ancient pirates and terrorism (full text for non-subscribers) strikingly similar to my own. A lot of bloggers really liked the idea, including one of Leiter’s guest bloggers, so I guess I should feel flattered?

I think mine is better because I bring up the fact that Rome had also recently defeated another world superpower that helped keep these non-state bad guys in check.

I also have a comparison of Bush and King Richard I that is probably worth looking at if you like this sort of thing.

Deficit reduction

2006-10-01T02:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the tables Max references here I can make an estimate on what it would cost to balance the budget.

Max’s post is about the ridiculous comments made in the right blogosphere in response to these numbers. I’d like to point out that by my calculations, about 30% of income of all Americans not in the top bracket is taken by taxes if the 15% FICA is included (FICA is paid half by the employee directly and half by the employer directly making the cost of the employee all that much higher and therefore impacting salary). If the disproportionate effect of FICA on high incomes is taken into account (no income over $94,000 is taxed by FICA), people in the top bracket would also have an effective tax rate of about 30%.

Assuming away disincentive effects, removing the $94,000 limit would increase receipts by 120 billion and increase the effective tax rate (total adjusted income over tax paid) of the top bracket to about 42%. If we also increase the top two brackets’ marginal rates to 55% the marginal rate of taxation for the top bracket would be about 70% after including the expanded FICA and the effective rate would be about 55%, but we would get about another 130 billion on top of the 120 billion from increasing FICA. And if we eliminate the 10% and 15% capital gains brackets, moving both to 20%, we would get about 50 billion.

That would be about 300 billion without touching people who made less then $150,000 (except a few miscellaneous capital gains earners). The effective tax rate for people outside the top two brackets (people who make under $150,000) is about 16% not including FICA. If we increase that to 20% it would mean taking about a quarter more income taxes from the rest of the people; ten percent bracket would go to 12.5%, the 15% would go to 18.75%, and so on. This would increase the effective rate on people earning less then $150,000 to 34% and reduce the deficit by about 130 billion.

This all would leave about 40 billion in deficit, which seems like a reasonable amount to be able to cut from discretionary spending (most especially the bloated Bush defense budget). Note that all of this assumes away disincentive effects from increasing the top marginal rates. If indeed the increase in income inequality is due to increases in returns to education, then the disincentive effects will probably be small.

Thomas PM Barnett

2006-09-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

Tommy Barnett came up with an interesting analogy yesterday:

I just remain amazed at how little people in America understand about how much China has changed in just two generations since the Cultural Revolution. I mean, it’s a stunning distance traveled, akin to the road America traversed from 1865 to 1905.

He was arguing that the current mess of corruption and class division in China is a natural step in the industrial evolution of a society, and will pass eventually. It gave me pause, and for a short moment, hope.

Then I remembered that it took two world wars and a depression to make this phase of American history pass. In addition, America got off easy in this transition from agrarianism to industrialism, Germany, Austria-Hungry, and Russia did not.

But still, a very interesting and stimulating read. And he seems to write more interesting original content (as opposed to just linking everything they read like some people) before nine AM then I do all week. Why haven’t I linked him on my blogroll?

The Conflict Between Centrists and Ideologues

2006-09-09T17:23:00.000-07:00

Brad Delong made a recent comment:

I am, as I said above, a reality-based center-left technocrat. I am pragmatically interested in government policies that work: that are good for America and for the world. My natural home is in the bipartisan center, arguing with center-right reality-based technocrats about whether it is center-left or center-right policies that have the best odds of moving us toward goals that we all share--world peace, world prosperity, equality of opportunity, safety nets, long and happy lifespans, rapid scientific and technological progress, and personal safety. The aim of governance, I think, is to achieve a rough consensus among the reality-based technocrats and then to frame the issues in a way that attracts the ideologues on one (or, ideally, both) wings in order to create an effective governing coalition.

So who are the Centrist Technocrats and who are the Ideologue Populists? Stirling Newberry wonders:

It is the talk of blogistan left, the controversial argument that he is a technocrat, and that being a technocrat is better than being populist.

To which I have to ask - is there really a conflict?

And after a discussion with Max Sawicky I think I have an answer: yes.

Populists on both sides want to spend the post-Cold War surplus, some want to spend it on tax cuts and corporate welfare, others want to spend it on new social programs. Populists also tend to oppose international trade and immigration.

Centrists want to save the post-Cold War surplus. Left Centrists want to preserve existing social programs and reduce deficits by increasing taxes, right centrists want to eliminate social programs to pay for existing tax reductions.

On both sides, the populists attempt to convince their respective centrists that irresponsible spending is necessary because if they don’t spend irresponsibly, the opposition’s populists will offer to do so and win elections. Currently it seems that the Republican Populists have had more success, but I maintain hope that right centrists will come to their senses after prescription drugs, Iraq, the Farm Bill, and the social security debacle.

If the populists are indeed correct, and it would be impossible to exercise fiscal restraint, I … I don’t know if I can finish that sentence. Suffices to say that war with China would be a real possibility.

An easy solution to the fiscal crisis we face is to create a new technocratic position similar to a Supreme Court Justice or Federal Reserve Chair who would be responsible for setting an allowable federal budget deficit.

Oops, I forgot...

2006-09-04T00:14:00.000-07:00

So I just made a comment over on Delong’s blog in which I discussed the positional aspect of the human utility function and referenced this paper. I closed with this thought:

The important liberal implication of positional utility is that we can redistribute wealth to a point of equality and still get large and significant motivation of effort by allowing tiny increases in inequality, gaining huge motivation by offering a change in social position without harming the least well off very much (and indeed not at all after making a Rawlsian accounting of incentives).

Unfortunately I did not make clear that this only applies in the case that the positional component of utility is a function of the relative ordinal wealth of the individual, not if it is a function of the magnitude of inequality; in other words, it only works if people care only about their order of wealth (as would be the case where they are concerned about which mate they are paired with), not in the case where they care more if differences are larger (as would be the case in the hypothesis suggested by Delong that rich people attempt to generate envy in others, more disparity could make more envy).

More on the causation of the growing inequality

2006-08-27T00:19:00.000-07:00

As I continue to contemplate the increase in inequality that has occurred over the last twenty five years (which everyone has been blogging about lately) I have become increasingly certain that the process is driven primarily by the increase in power of CEOs relative to shareholders. This has the dual effects of skewing the wage income distribution as well as possibly causing a flight of capital from equities to debt (which also seems present in the eighties and nineties in the top fractions of a percentile in table A7 on page 80) in order to finance these enterprises that eliminate the principal-agent problem by not having shareholders.

It may be entirely possible that CEO power was influenced by the lowered marginal rates, but I suspect some more direct method was at work. Possibly some sort of change in regulation over corporate boards enacted by Nixon or Reagan. No matter what cause has allowed corporate executives to take advantage of the shareholders, this certainly represents a disturbing breakdown in our business institutions.

Growing income inequalitiy

2006-08-25T01:56:00.000-07:00

What could be happening is that the WWII order was dismantled by Reagan and Thatcher in both the US and UK. By WWII order, I mean the tangle of regulation and large corporate entities that emerged out of the necessity of WWII, to have a concrete example, take AT&T. This deregulation created a fragmentation of firms that previously was impossible due to the necessity of size. Large size was necessary in order to bargain with government and influence regulation (the era of the man in the gray flannel suit). This fragmentation allows successes to be concentrated on smaller groups of individuals, whereas in a large corporate entity they would be reinvested diffused through the wage structure and dividends.

To summarize table A7 (pg. 81), we see the inexorable consumption of the small and medium business by the large corporate entity illustrated in the decline of entrepreneurial income and corresponding increase in wage income in lower percentiles from the fifties to the early eighties (these are still all in the top ten percentiles, so we are taking about shop owners or corporate franchise managers). In the very top percentiles we see the effects of the transfer of power away from corporate boards to corporate executives in the decline of dividend income and increase in wage income over a similar time period. However, by the late eighties there was some force that allowed a resurgence of entrepreneurial income that eventually reverses the trend towards corporatization in lower percentiles and produced an explosion of entrepreneurial income for the highest income earners (raising the level of entrepreneurial income for the top ten-thousandth to levels not seen since WWII).

Of course, it could also be that we reached some sort of technological slip point, where the stagnation that developed under corporate group think finally gave way to a spurt of pent up innovation, bursting through the relief valve of entrepreneurship. But that fails to explain the absence of similar trends in some European countries.

The gheyest shit I have ever heard

2006-08-17T11:51:00.000-07:00

Before I get to the gheyest shit I have ever heard, a few words on gheyness:

There was a time when scientist would use the ridiculous scale to measure the quantity of absurdity inherent in a given person, object, or event, however with the advent of Television there were ever increasing number of phenomena that did not fall within the commonly observed spectrum on the ridiculousness scale. After the election of Ronald Reagan, a gradual momentum built among the leading journals calling for the adoption of a super-ridiculous scale of absurdity. Though the tale is apocryphal, it is believed by some that the “gheyness” scale of absurdity was adopted in response to the Reagan administration’s response to the AIDS crisis.

The necessity of the gheyness scale is due to the lack of adequacy of the ridiculous scale to describe the quantity of absurdity produced by systems as complex as intelligent beings, let alone collections of intelligent beings. For centuries a scientist would see something like a horse trying to mount a cow and say to his companions something like “That’s ridiculous!” and it would suffice. However, after the advent of mass media it was only a matter of time before we would quickly outpace the ridiculous scale.

The gayness scale measures the degree to which a designed thing defeats the purpose for which it was designed. The more mundane the nature of the screw-up, the higher the quantity of absurdity due to the seeming ease of the task the system is mishandling. To give a sense of scale here are some things with their associated quantity of absurdity on the gheyness scale.

getting pulled over for speeding 20 miles over	not so ridiculous
a cat driving an automobile	pretty ridiculous
your car doesn’t start	fucking ridiculous
your car doesn’t start right after driving back from the mechanic	gay
getting pulled over for driving 5 miles over	pretty gay
getting pulled over for driving 1 mile over	pretty fucking gay
getting pulled over for being black	ghey
getting arrested for being black	pretty fucking ghey
Reagan AIDS policy	pretty fucking ghey
Clinton impeachment	The gheyest shit I have ever heard
Bush v. Gore	The gheyest shit I have ever heard

Few objects, entities and events achieve a state of near perfect gheyness, in a similar way to absolute zero, there can be more then one thing that can be said to be “The gheyest shit I’ve ever heard,” within measurement error.

With that said:

The misfortunate three Arabs in Michigan I wrote about a few days ago are no longer accused of plotting to blow up the Mackinaw bridge. They are now accused of buying up discount cell phones in bulk and erasing the proprietary software then reselling them. The crux of the case is whether they are allowed to call the phones Nokia phones after the deletion of the software (which tries to sell you on a prepaid cell service from a third party, Tracfone).

That is the gheyest shit I’ve ever heard.

Outrage

2006-08-14T21:29:00.000-07:00

Three Arab Americans are arrested for buying cellphones at Walmart and I have to find out about it through the MSM? Shame on you blogosphere!

This is an outrageous illustration of how our security-state is hampering individualistic entrepreneurial initiative.

In Favor of Urban Minimum Wages

2006-08-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

In this post Becker is complaining about a minimum wage law in Chicago that would be targeted at “Big Box” retailers. He uses the same basic general arguments used by all conservatives against minimum wage laws: it will simply encourage some inefficient substitution towards capital or labor outside the jurisdiction of the wage law and push up prices. He adds his Beckerian political twist by arguing this is insane for the poor citizens of Chicago to do because it will force the stores to the suburbs or encourage substitution of capital and higher skilled workers.

I don’t think either case is that plausible. How precisely could someone substitute more capital in a retail store? Robot stock boys and automated floor sweepers?

There is a location premium that comes from being in an urban center, especially one like Chicago. I would imagine that any difference between store profitability in the city and out in a suburb are accounted for in rental prices.

So what does this boil down to? Minimum wage laws of any kind in a dense urban area allow labor to capture more of the location premium at the expense of land owners. It creates an automatically higher cost for labor in these areas which depresses the amount businesses will be willing to pay in rent. This lowers rental prices for tenants and exerts upward pressure on wages.

I think this is especially applicable to urban areas, however I am too lazy to think about its broader applicability right now.

Incomplete thoughts on Delong's question

2006-07-25T13:36:00.000-07:00

So Delong wonders how we can smooth the skew in the income distribution from having a information economy in the US (or perhaps a better paraphrase is his assertion that the US is the information part of the world-wide economy) and having patents and copyrights as the only means to administer (most) intellectual property rights.

Wouldn’t risk averse agents insure against this randomness in firms that pool the results of intellectual inquiry (with properly designed contracts to incentivize effort, i.e. make tenure, become partner)? Isn’t this almost exactly the MSFT business model?

This sort of model would have to be extended further, but I suppose it could be possible to pay everyone, from gardeners to geophysicists, for their time spent thinking in the shower, on the chance that they will come up with a great idea. I envision firms that could rate people as efficiently on prospects for invention as they can now with prospect for default, competing against each other for the marginal inventor/citizen. A sentence that uses the word blogs and/or blogads should be in this paragraph.

The questions that remain are why is this process so slow, what is the role of government, and would it make more sense for entities like GOOG to manage it or the Government?

Germanization as Anti-Angell Rationale

2006-07-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

So I am doing a little work on my current paper (in my day job) by fleshing out some historical anecdotes about how much of Eurasia was as thoroughly raped as the Americas or SE Asian colonial possessions because most it was also at some point a colonial possession of some other country, when it occurs to me that Germanization is an example of the anti-Angell rationale for war. Lower classes in Germany became middle and upper class in Bohemia.

As a brief review, I posit here that Norm “War is impossible because it costs everyone involved more economic resources then they could possibly gain due to the destructiveness of modern weapons,” Angell is incorrect since he does not consider the value of relative social position, which can neither be created nor destroyed. Essentially, non-elites attempt to advance their position by becoming the elites over foreign populations (native elites are usually successful at directing the angst of the demos outward instead of allowing for internal social mobility).

Something I've been thinking about

2006-07-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

Are we witnessing the high water mark for democracy? While democracy is wonderful at eliminating corruption, it seems to be belligerent, contentious, and spendthrift.

And let me be clear, I am talking about the process of legitimating societal mores by collective expression of assent, not “freedom of expression” or other such inalienable rights. Democracy is not a very good guarantor of such rights.

Indeed, it seems that America, as a (somewhat) stable and successful “democracy,” was a novelty for quite some time before Britain and France finally also began to self identify as democracies. However, as I have stated previously, I believe that the success of our system is due mainly to its anti-democratic aspects (I could also add that the success of the British system may also be attributable to similar anti-democratic components).

However, it seems like democracy may be manifesting one of its flaws in the US currently, in the form of a massive government budget deficit. I am not entirely certain that democracy can deal with this problem. Saving money means spending political capital, and successful politicians tend to prefer saving the latter by spending the former. The problem of our growing debt could eventually fester into a serious threat to global stability.

More immediate is the situation in Israel. There, the will of the majority of Palestinians seems to be acceding to the idea of war with Israel. Does this assent legitimate that belligerence?

Less immediate is China. Would they be correct to allow the hundreds of millions of poor dissatisfied peasants in their country to express that dissatisfaction? In other words, would they be correct to put the operation of the largest political-military entity in the world into the hands of angry people with a 5th grade education? In all likelihood, the Chinese elites will direct that anger and resentment at an external foe (probably Japan) in order to protect their own position in society.

So for now, I leave the solution as an exercise for the reader.

9-11 9-11 9-11, I do what I want!

2006-07-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

Some gay dude on Fire Island wants to bring his dog onto the nude beach:

JULY 13--A New York man who says that he suffers from a debilitating skin condition and post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the September 11 attacks is suing for the right to have his rat terrier accompany him to a naked beach on Fire Island.

My impression:

"9-11 9-11 9-11, I do what I want, 9-11 9-11."

And who can blame him? It seems to have worked for the Republicans, so far.

Flashcards

2006-06-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

Battlepanda links to this article about a soldier in Iraq who has some interesting things to say.

My brother mentioned a simple solution to the problems described here:

The language barrier has done irreversible damage to our entire occupation.

“On the rare occasions that we’ve had men who speak the language with us, it has yielded key information—in one case it almost resulted in the capture of a high-value target. I can’t begin to imagine the kind of miscommunication damage we could have avoided had we had interpreters during two of our three deployments. Nothing adds to the disconnect between U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi populace like absolute miscommunication. We are astronauts and they are Martians, plain and simple.

Jew#2 imagined that some flashcards on a key ring with some important arabic phrases in english on one side and written in arabic on the other would improve the situation significantly. Things like "Lie Down", "Halt", "We won't hurt you", "Be calm", "Who", "What", "Where", "When" "How" and "How many" could be included. Also responses from the Iraqis would be as important if not more. Giving a response card with words and short phrases arranged next to translations of those phrases to the Iraqi so he can point to answers like "Yes", "No", “Certain”, "Meter", "Kilometer", "Hour", "Day", "Before", "After", “Injured, sick, disabled”, and “Help” (operating under the assumption that arabic numerals are common knowledge) would also probably help. In addition, a short FAQ could be prepared for Iraqis who are being raided. Something like:

We apologize if we are rough, but we are trying to protect ourselves and you from harm.

We are here because we have some reason to believe there may be people who are assisting the insurgents in this place. If you remain calm and follow our instructions we will not hit you or harm you.

We are sorry for the intrusion if you are not involved, we try our hardest but do sometimes make mistakes.

We may have to detain some of the young men with you. This may be simply to take them to a translator who will be better able to sort out the situation. Please direct all inquiries as to their status to xxxxxxxx. Inquiries written in English will receive priority. Please include your name and the name of the detainee you are inquiring about, as well as your relation to the detainee. Comments should be contained on one side of a single page.

All other comments and complaints can be made to XXXXX.

We give a nicely premade OODA loop to the Iraqi family at that point. We tell them what is going on, controlling the Observe part. We give them some options, make a complaint or inquiry of some kind, that’s the orient part. All that’s left is for them is to decide what kind of angry words they want to put on paper, and then bring it someplace. The alternative is to let the insurgents explain that we are rough because we are cruel, we raid randomly to instill terror, their men are being humiliated, and their only method to respond to this situation is to sit near a bomb with a cell phone trigger waiting for the Kafirim.

As for people who would object based on the idea that a letter drop would be an ideal insurgent target, I would point out that the logistics of a national election were handled, and would have been considerably more complex and dangerous then a simple mail collection. However, even if that is still an unacceptable risk to coalition lives, the letters could simply be destroyed. They would have served a purpose already by having provided a distraction that channeled much of the initial anger. However, actually following up on the detainee inquiries would be a great step forward in alleviating mistrust. Even more progress could be made if attempts to make restitution for property damage were also made.

The idea of having a complaint box fit into my larger theory of legitimacy. People need to feel empowered by an entity that they are legitimating. They need some means of control over it. Democracy can be that means, but more often it is a legal system that will address individual’s complaints (individuals have control because they can get the court to order some action). By giving individuals indirect access to the government, we are allowing the individual to be independent of the local community and family. This is especially important if there are insurgents in that community.

Welcome to Funeralgate?

2006-02-14T09:10:00.001-08:00

I forget who continues to repeat the meme, but I’ve heard that there are about a dozen low-level scandals connected to the Bush administration just waiting for something to launch them into the limelight. This current story about a hunting accident may be just that.

What the American public needs to take away from this entire fiasco is that Republicans are so constantly surrounded by cronies that if a tree falls in the woods and Cheney is within hearing distance, it probably will hit a lobbyist. This guy that just happened to be unlucky enough to get injured in a hunting accident with Cheney also happens to be lucky enough to get a Katrina no-bid contract for his funerary services company that had previously been embroiled in controversy¹.

Area surrounding Dick Cheney as viewed by satellite

The story is this: we now know where that “undisclosed location” is: on a corporate crony sponsored junket. Cheney and the Republicans have been using “security” as an excuse to cover up their dirty incestuous corporate relations, and this is a lucky accident that gives us glimpse at what is really going on.

----------------
¹: This guy ran a company called Service Corporation International that settled a lawsuit involving digging up Jewish graves and feeding the carcasses to pigs. Apparently a Texas state employee was fired while investigating the case during Bush’s term as governor. Also known as Funeralgate.

Republican Party, you are an Invasiaholic!

2006-02-09T04:55:00.000-08:00

That wasn’t easy for us to say, but we think it is time we intervene. We love and care for you and throughout this process remember: we are talking to your addiction, not you, because your addiction is what is in control now.

Republican Party: a while ago we predicted that the ultimate result of your Iraq invasion would be to effectively make Iraq a satellite of Iran. Now this seems to be the case. And now you think you have found a solution to your problem: invade Iran.

You’re is not alone in this. The usual cadre of enablers is ever present to assist in your implosion. Dershowitz is egging you on by dangling the current outburst of violence in front of your face. Fox News is touting ominous warnings every chance they get. Your suppliers at Halliburton and General Dynamics are certainly not going to say anything as long as the money keeps coming.

But, Republican Party, we are worried about you. And this is why we are going to stop enabling you. We think it is time we hold an intervention for you, Republican Party, because we think this is a problem that has gotten out of your control.

According to this worksheet developed by your most respected psychological authority, Dr. Phil, there is evidence that you are an invasiaholic, you are addicted to invasions! At first, you invaded Afghanistan. It was exhilarating and you figured you could handle it, everyone was encouraging you to invade and it seemed so right at the time. But then came the morning after and there was a whole lot of mess to clean up. You pretended that you had enough, but all you really could think about was getting more. You made up every excuse in the book to get what you were after and we just went along with it because we couldn’t see how our enabling behavior was ultimately hurting you.

Then came Iraq. You again insisted it was over, that you had achieved victory over this addiction. But as the months wore on it was clear that Iraq was becoming a part of your life. You tried to deny it, saying that you’d be done with it in just a couple months. You either lied about the progress you were making or you were just too hopped up to know the difference anymore! Soon the “Orange Alerts” were losing their temporary boosting effect and you were popping so many “Al-Queda Second in Command”-s that it was scaring me, Republican Party. I thought we had trust, but then it started to feel like I was living with a stranger.

You’re denying and hiding your activities! You said you’d be the life of the party, all you needed was a little Iraq, but when we got there the you just sat there getting tanked with that old junky, Britain. You’re using alone practically! And then when we question you, you just end up getting all withdrawn and silent, just like in the warning signs from Dr. Phil.

This whole endeavor is wreaking havoc on your finances, but that’s not the worst of it. Do you know how many times I’ve waited up at night not knowing if you’ll make it past the Mid-Term Elections? I’ve already picked out cushy lobbying jobs for you, do you know how that feels!?

Republican party: now that you have started using you can’t seem to stop. You want to solve all the problems your past abuse has caused by invading another country. That’s right, you’ve gone well past responsible use and have become an abuser, Republican Party! The only solution to your problems that you seem to see is more invasions. Just because your ill-considered attack on Iraq has gotten you into this problem doesn’t mean an ill-considered invasion of Iran will get you out! You need help, Republican Party, and treatment is the only way to get it.

The Past Quarter Century of American Politics

2005-12-17T23:53:00.000-08:00

As summarized in the 2135 History of the United States Wikipedia entry:

The right political spectrum eventually bought power with irresponsible tax cuts. The position of the left eroded quickly, with the exception of that one time the crazy billionaire split the right’s vote, while government debt soared.

Soon after...

Captioning

2005-12-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

Condaleeza Rice negotiates how far up a detainee’s ass the US may probe with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

"Then she said ‘Not in the face,’ but it was too late…"

Master Harry Reid bows respectfully before demonstrating his mysterious and deadly dim-mok technique on the Bush administration’s Iraq propaganda.

Senator Jim Bunning uses his friend Orrin Hatch as a diversion while he attempts to find out exactly what the stench of a looming ethics scandal smells like.

In an effort to boost popular support for the war, the Bush administration held a press conference with the Iraq invasion’s chief architect.

HBO Rome

2005-09-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

According to the website there are fourteen roles in HBO’s Rome that have appeared in the series so far. Unfortunately there are only five characters:

Servila
Pullo
Verinus
Niobe
Interchangeable Noble

Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with haughtiness, but something is wrong when the only difference between characters is the age and sex of the actor playing them. All the nobles, with the exception of Servila (so far) are played as cunning completely selfish phonies who have a binary emotional range over fake smile-pleasantness and violent cursing anger fit. Even Cicero, supposedly a brilliant legal mind as well as possibly the most persuasive orator ever to exist, reacts the exact same way as Octavian or Atia or Pompey when angered: he sneers and grits his teeth and violently shakes the object of his frustration; otherwise he is usually skulking about with a cow like look of shock and incomprehension, posing questions that explain some plot point not otherwise illustrated by good writing.

And explaining is one thing this show does a lot. The entire head wound scene could have been cut to a money shot of the plate insertion or shard extraction leaving more room for character interaction rather then gory “that’s the way it was” history lessons. The fight in the senate is another example. We see the fight happen, but have no idea who started it or why, and more significantly, it just cuts to the scene where Cicero assaults the senate parliamentarian. We have no idea how the fight ends. A fight’s end is usually a better illustration of character then its beginning. Think about the fight between Swearengen and Bullock at the beginning of season two of Deadwood. Or the time the hoopleheads tried to tar and feather the N—General Fields, or the assault on the county official in Toliver’s cage, or Bullock’s fight with the Indian in the first season. The fight just seems to be in there to illustrate a history lesson. Atia’s blood rite, the scene where Atia’s household discuss who will assist the suicide of who, the opening montage, the lengthy senate scenes, the street theater scene with Pompey and Scipio, the theft of the Treasury, Corenelia’s marriage ceremony, and Pompey and Cicero’s discussion over a gladiatorial arena all are similar extraneous historical illustrations.

However, historical illustration is no evil in and of itself, only when it steals resources from character development does it become problematic. So to continue my comparison of Rome to other HBO series like Deadwood, here are some alternate characters to put into the currently indistinguishable noble Romans:

Atia- 70%Brenda Chenowith/30%Joanie stubbs

It would be interesting to see how Brenda would cope with this alternate moral system, possibly reading advice about how to whip her slaves and then fretting from natural compassion.

Octavian- as is

His youth is the only excuse for the haughtiness and self absorption of the nobility.

Octavia-40%Trixie/60% Claire Fischer

Why is every noble cunning and selfish? Why not a self-destructive teen rebel (maybe Jane is a better mix then Trixie)? Aren't there any drugs in Rome?

Timon-Dan with a wife and kids

Dan from Deadwood, except he has a family to consider while doing the dirty deeds necessary in his line of work.

Brutus-80%The Dude/20%David Fischer

He practically is The Dude form Deadwood, but he should have some of the neurotic insecurity of David Fischer. Instead of being nervous about homosexuality, he is nervous about living up to his legacy (which is basically the same thing David was worried about).

Caesar-70%Ari Gold/30%Al Swearengen

Caesar is a somewhat flamboyant hedonist like Ari, but a hedonist with a purpose. He’s older then Ari and lives in a rougher time, so he has hardened like Swearengen, but has been more fortunate in his life then Al.

Antony-Josh Weinstein while he was working for Ari/Caesar

If Caesar is basically Ari, Antony is definitely Josh Weinstein: just like his older counterpart but without as much power or as many responsibilities.

Pompey-90%Wild Bill/10%Farnum

Pompey is from a backwater of Italy and has risen to fame through martial competence. Life has been extraordinarily good to him and given his relatively unprivileged background, he has achieved a quiet contentment with life (strong silent type). However, his skills are unbalanced like Bill, and he sometimes is easily manipulated, partially due to his Farnum like somewhat naïve reverence for established power.

Cato-80%Merrick/20%Ari's boss

Cato, father of libertarians, is like Merrick in that he lives in an idealized academic reality that leaves him oblivious to the visceral world around him. He is either unaware or dismissive of the fact that Rome is cracking at the seems over class conflict. He’s also more conniving and selfish then Merrick.

Cicero-Sol Star OR Cy Toliver

Cicero is a powerful orator, not likely to lose his temper. In a tough spot he is more likely to sweet talk then let his emotions take control. For a sympathetic version, he’d have the goodness of Sol, for an antipathetic character he could take on the conniving ambition of Toliver.

The Hurricane

2005-09-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

A lot of people are heartened by the non-governmental response to the hurricane. People are giving generously to assist in recovery, news nets are covering the story well, and people are finally waking up to the utter incompetence of the Republicans. But here on this day of American solipsism I am telling you that this makes me lose my faith in humanity.

When occurrences like this tragedy happen, and people are so filled with generosity, it fills me with fury for all the other times a tragedy of larger scale occurs and the generosity that we now know is possible is withheld. When people pour out this kindness from a source that is ever present, but usually bottled up because the people suffering do not have the same face or passport, it reminds me of our status as glorified rats, a twisted image of holiness bound up in dirt and dust.

How self centered. How tribal. We like to congratulate ourselves for recognizing women as equals and ending segregation and racism in our country, but the same clan instincts that are present in rats (this flaw does not originate in our lizard brain, lizards aren’t even tribal) that drove us to these atrocities also stays our compassion when we are distanced from tragedy by geography and language instead of sex and race.

So on this day of American solipsism TheJew encourages you not to think about a handful of privileged Americans. Think about tragedies all over the globe which are preventable if given half the attention devoted to the hurricane, like the genocide in Sudan.

Captions

2005-08-29T22:30:00.000-07:00

Supreme Court nominee Roberts remarks "I like what you've done with the place" while commenting on Senator Leahy's choice to decorate his office with his hunting trophies in life-like poses.

"This thing get SportCenter?"

In response to questions about his obvious ethical violations Bob Taft pioneers the controversial "You talkin' to me?" defense.

After a long pause the Colonel remarked "Dude, I totally just spaced. What were we talking about?"

"And then you just keep strokin' the horse 'til the white stuff comes out."

President Bush was disappointed to discover that despite his weeks of meditation and the support of the crowd, he was still unable to levitate.

More Captions

2005-08-20T02:14:00.000-07:00

"No, seriously Dr. Greenspan, that's our plan for Social Security."

This picture of the missing files was taken before they made a daring escape by overpowering their female guard and taking her gun. Citizens are urged to stay away from any information if they see it, and to notify the proper authorities.

Sidy Mohamed Ould Boubacar can hardly contain his excitement when informed that he had been appointed Prime Minister of Mauritania.

“The trick is to squint. That way you look like Clint Eastwood.”

TheDubester

2005-08-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

So now that TheDubester has shown the way to circumvent “that may come up as a case before the court” dodge, here are some potential questions for Roberts:

Which is more of a threat to society: A boss who sexually harasses his underlings or an abortion provider?

Do you believe that abortion doctors are more of a threat to society then Richard Reed, the Shoe Bomber? No, not all terrorists, just him: The guy who borrowed a match to light his shoe.

What is more alarming to you, the rate of abortions in this country or the repeal of the assault weapons ban?

Is stem cell research more dangerous then medical marijuana?

Is stem cell research more of a threat to our society then Global Warming?

Is preventing prisoner abuse in Guantanamo Bay more important then protecting unborn fetuses?

I don’t think I can top that last one. Think of your own. The key is to make it something that couldn’t come before the court, like comparisons of (radically different) stuff. TheDubester used the example “Is the First amendment more important then the Second amendment?” How could that possibly come before the court or prejudice any decision that possibly could come before the court? Despite its inherent meaninglessness, any response will generate good rhetorical sound bites.

Taking care of some norbizness

2005-08-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

In his parting remarks to Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, Secretary Rumsfeld compares the insurgency to a stubborn case of constipation.

Often accused of ignoring the media, President Bush just can't see them down there.

While Mr. Cheney certainly smelt it, only General Myers was sure who dealt it.

After cracking a joke about the Air Force, Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani, left, goes for the high five without realizing who was standing behind him.

Barbara is uneasy about George’s controversial plan to save social security by “Throwing momma from the train”

Whatevah

2005-08-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

In a fit of complete boredom I found myself watching "Something's Gotta Give" on HBO. My boredom was not alleviated apparently, as my mind began to idly wander until I started wondering what ever became of Sifl and Olly.

I only knew one guy who liked the show other then me. I looked them up on Wikipedia and it turns out that the guy who did Olly also did "The United States of Whatever", possily the funniest minute ever composed. I laughed more just thinking about that song then I had during the entire movie. When I clicked the link for the song I was confronted with this wiki-statement:

This article about a musical group, band, singer, musician, album, or song does not make it clear whether the subject meets the WikiProject Music criteria for importance. For guidelines see the WikiProject Music Notability and Music guidelines. If you have the relevant information, please expand the article to include it.

Needless to say, a response was necessary.

Some brief answers

2005-08-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not myopic.

The reason that people, and especially women, rate attractiveness as more important in 1989 then in 1939 is that in 1939 "attractive" meant "cute face". In 1989 "attractive" meant "no fatties". In other words, the reason Americans rate attractiveness as more important is because we are uglier.

Empire

2005-07-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

Duck of Minerva points to this discussion of Empire over at Coming Anarchy. Chirol at CA believes:

1) Empires are always founded by successful countries/cultures
2) Thus, they spread technology, development and stability (often through overwhelming force)
3) They began globalization periods and are always at the core.

I read these statements as:

1) [Militarily] Successful countries/cultures (empires) are always [militarily] successful. They are therefore assigned the normative value “good”.
2) They spread their goodness by conquest.
3) This spread of goodness leads to greater global trade.

An alternate theory:

1) Shitty states need to become belligerent in order to distract the masses from the corruption and incompetence of the elites.
2) Shit spreads through violence.
3) Eventually the inefficient system that lead the original country to vent its pressures outwards runs out of outwards. The societal turmoil covered up by conquest reemerges and destroys the society.

Exempli gratia: Russian Revolution, French Revolution (if Napoleon stayed out of Russia), Athens, Hitler, Rome (arguably), Persia, Egypt, Spain, and the Aztecs.

Mercenary Revolution

2005-07-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

Alex Tabarrok over at Marginal Revolution suggests hiring “mercenaries” to supplement the US military recruiting. I don’t know if “mercenary” is the right word since what he suggests isn’t analogous to the example of Roman Auxiliaries (unlike Halliburton and Blackwater). He is suggesting that naturalization could be linked to military service as in the French Foreign Legion. This would produce a volunteer army that would be motivated and loyal. They are trying to gain citizenship and military training is a great socialization mechanism. It would produce disciplined immigrants that all speak English well enough to take orders and work with Anglophones.

However, I would find it disturbingly anti-American to suggest that in order to gain the rights and privileges of freedom as an American citizen a person must first give up those rights and take orders from the government. It is one thing for a citizen to voluntarily give up their rights in order to help defend them, it is completely different to demand a period of indentured servitude from a person in order for them to earn their (inalienable) rights.

None the less, I’d be willing to entertain the idea of using this as a temporary and small stop-gap measure. We naturalize about half a million individuals every year. Our current recruiting shortfalls in the military are about fifty thousand per year. As long as this method of naturalization was temporary (id est sunseted) and no larger then a tenth of our naturalizations, it may not pose a danger to the Republic.

The Essential Problem of Societal Organization

2005-07-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

The production of all goods, except utility and ideas, exhibit increasing private returns to scale.

Just wanted to get that in (virtual) writing.

The London Popping

2005-07-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

Four blasting caps go "pop" in London and it requires full live coverage. A propane tank is exploded in Baghdad and kills seventy, and it is barely mentioned. Meh. Whadya expect from a bunch of raving hairless apes.

The important thing here is that we get to talk about “National Security” again, and that means we get to talk about Iraq again, which means we get to talk about Rove again, and for the next month, until the Dread Pirate is on the hotseat. (But during that time make with the rumors. This is the perfect topic changer to halt the Republican momentum and allow us to "reframe".)

The Case of Moriarty the Holo-being

2005-07-21T07:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve been catching up on some real world work and missed Battlepanda’s bit on Nozick’s experience machine.

For the uninitiated, an experience machine is something you can put yourself inside of and simulate any experience you want. Nozick and Julian Sanchez argue that one would not want to be placed inside an experience machine because you would lose “choice”. That is just stupid.

The real reason a person wouldn’t want to be put into an experience machine is that the machine will in all likelihood fail. Unless the machine is as reliable as G-d, it will not always produce the sensory input that is desired. Something will malfunction or someone could come along and break the machine. Outside of these possibilities, the experience machine is purely good. But in order to maximize the possibility that the experience you want is the experience you get you would need to monitor the machine and the outside world. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you completely understand the intricate workings of the machine (but that would help).

In the example of the holo-being Moriarty (which is further proof that the Federation is suppressing technology that could computerize human consciousness):

1: Moriarty still exists in his prison. A similar question would be why we shouldn’t kill a poisonous tropical plant species that is on the brink of extinction. It’s deadly, but it could hold useful secrets. Similarly, Moriarty is safely contained and would appear to be much more likely to help humanity in the future then harm it. Perhaps there is some situation where his ingenuity would become useful or some way to get him to give up his murderous drive to incorporate. Until then, he’s not going anywhere, and he uses very little space and energy.

2: Only if creating new life will help life succeed. Evaluate the utility of “sentience”, in other words, take the total utility of sentient life as a collective. If the universal utility is benefited from creating new life, then they should be created. In addition, misery should be avoided.

So, if you spend a bunch of time create a lot of wanking monkeys, and then a comet hits earth, not such a good idea. If you create a bunch of squid astronomers that like to look out for comets, that’s a good idea.

The bottom line is whether it will help sentience survive. If a bunch of distracted distractions are created, then we may miss something important. If the sentiences are useful and not too costly, then they should be created.

The Dread Pirate

2005-07-20T17:50:00.000-07:00

Angelica gets what I’m going for. Ambiguity totally works in Rove’s favor here. However, right now I’m not sure whether it would be easier to get The Dread Pirate to admit his position by starting a rumor that he is pro-choice or starting a rumor that he isn’t. Maybe a little from column A and a little from column B.

Potential “dialogue”:

Democrat A: I have personal assurances from an anonymous white house source that Roberts is pro-choice.

Democrat B: Bush has proven that he will lie to protect his corporate interests before. He’s done it in the lead up to the war, and he did it again to protect his buddy Karl Rove. How can you trust Bush when he has been so misleading in the past.

Democrat A: Yes, the Bush administration is full of soulless sleaze-bags that would sell their own mothers for a profit, but this is exactly why they would compromise to protect their corrupt cronies.

Democrat B: Well let’s just agree that Bush and the Republicans are worthless human beings whether they are lying about Robert’s pro-choice position or selling out for corporate corruption.

But does this violate message discipline? Maybe, but Rove is walking the middle road. What happens to someone walking in the middle of the road? They get hit from both sides.

Let me be the first...

2005-07-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

To pass on the rumor I heard from a highly placed source that Roberts is a flaming "Pro-choice"-er.

Forget #2 below, Roberts is practically tailor made to avoid that. We gotta go strictly with #1 and force their hand.

BLITZER: Democrats sure must be squealin' now that the adminstration is trying to get a conservative on the court. Squeal piggy! Squeal for the cameras!

RANDOM DEMOCRAT: I have personal assurances from anonymous white house officials that Roberts is firmly pro-choice. We are glad to see that Bush is willing to compromise on the issue of abortion but are concerned that the Republicans are simply trying to push through a pro-corporate nominee.

A preemptive "I Told You So"

2005-07-19T15:38:00.000-07:00

A preemptive "I told you so" to all the people who doubted that Bush would make a "Pro-choice" appointment.

When Bush makes his "moderate" nomination tonight there are two ways to respond:

1 We say that we are glad that Bush has decided to compromise on Abortion, but are concerned about the nominee's pro-kleptocapitalist leanings.

This paints Bush as willing to sell out the christianists in order to enrich his corporate cronies. This is where we want the debate to go eventually but maybe first we should:

2 Question the supposed "Pro-choice" credentials of the appointee until we somehow get a more explicit endorsement of sucking out embryo brains with a surgical vacuum.

This would totally kill any ember of hope in the christianists before we moved on to #1. The risk here is that Rove or his nominee would never clarify the position because the ambiguity is beneficial. However, other Republicans (like the gang of Maine, McCain and Specter) may feel forced to join our demand for clarification once it gains momentum.

Demockracy™

2005-07-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Apparently we never planned to bring Democracy to Iraq, we were bringing Demockracy™, a product of the US defense industry:

In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday.

But:

The statement appeared to leave open the question of whether any covert help was provided to parties favored by Washington, an issue about which the White House declined to elaborate.

The article, by Seymour M. Hersh, reports that the administration proceeded with the covert plan over the Congressional objections. Several senior Bush administration officials disputed that, although they recalled renewed discussions within the administration last fall about how the United States might counter what was seen as extensive Iranian support to pro-Iranian Shiite parties.

The similarity in sound of the words would be a challenge for any transcriber. I don't blame White House administrative assistants for the confusion resulting from statements such as these:

President Bush will welcome Portuguese Prime Minister Durao Barroso to the White House on June 6, 2003 for a meeting and working luncheon. Portugal has stood from the first hour among America's closest allies in the war on terrorism and the effort to bring peace and democracy to Iraq, and was host of the March 16 "Atlantic Summit" in the Azores. Portugal is a valuable founding member of NATO with a deep-rooted commitment to transatlantic cooperation.

Which was meant to read:

President Bush will welcome Portuguese Prime Minister Durao Barroso to the White House on June 6, 2003 for a meeting and working luncheon. Portugal has stood from the first hour among America's closest allies in the war on terrorism and the effort to bring peas and Demockracy™ to Iraq, and was host of the March 16 "Atlantic Summit" in the Azores. Portugal is a valuable founding member of NATO with a deep-rooted commitment to transatlantic cooperation.

See? Peas and Demockracy™! Mission accomplished.

Where Do Suicide Bombers Come From?

2005-07-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

Poughkeepsie.

But seriously, I am very much a skeptic as to Leavitt's prospects in discovering some pattern to the lives of suicide bombers. I found out where suicide bombing as a tactic originated during my absence, while researching a comment for Battlepanda's site. And it made me realize just how odd a tactic it is. There are very few cultures that could come up with the idea of throwing away your life just to spitefully take as many of the enemy with you as possible. It is as if you are dying on principle and not for any material reason. In fact, there is only one culture that I know of that is this weirdly obsessed with suicide: the Japanese.

In 1972, three Marxist Japanese nationals attacked the Lod airport in Israel as a show of Communist solidarity with the PLO. The PLO was surprised by the idea that these Japanese terrorists were willing to attack without any plan for escape. When one of the three committed suicide on the tarmac by pressing a grenade against his body, the meme of suicide warrior passed from the tribes native to the island of Nippon to the tribes of the Middle East, ironically facilitated by the anti-tribalism of their victims.

Suicide bombing is a fad. There is no deep explanation for it. There is no rhyme or reason to it. Its development as a tactic is completely serendipitous. There will be no pattern for Leavitt to uncover, besides the usual sexual frustrations that cause men to commit serial murder, or shoot up schools, or become religious extremists. School shootings is another example, but on a much smaller scale. There was a rash of shootings in school, generally not by the quarterback of the football team, during the late nineties. Just as it would be futile to attempt to discern who was a potential school shooter, it is futile to attempt to discern who is a suicide bomber.

The motivations for suicide bombing are probably very similar to the motivations of serial killers. Sexual frustration builds for years into a quasi-moralistic outrage that demands an outlet. Take this chilling quote from the blog of Shasta Groene's killer via TalkLeft:

To be more specific, I am scared, alone, and confused, and my reaction is to strike out toward the perceived source of my misery, society. My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die.

I am certain that a suicide bomber expresses the same sentiment for pretty much the same reasons. There's no econometric formula for serial killer, school shooter, or suicide bomber, but there may be one for ostracized loser. Suicide bombing is just one of the many forms that frustration can take (that just happens to be a popular fad in some cultures currently). However, usually that frustration becomes a powerful creative force by inspiring religious devotion, focusing a person with a sense of purpose, or stimulating artistic creativity.

Boo Yeah! [High Five]

2005-07-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

Perfect, just perfect. The Eighth Circuit just ruled that partial birth abortion ban is unconstitutional.

Friday I mentioned that Rehnquist's retirement would be the worst possible thing that could happen; well this recent ruling is possibly the best thing that could have happened. It is the perfect news item to amplify the importance of this SC battle, especially for what I predict will be the losing side: christianists. The name of the game is alienate the christianists!

The Significance of "Heh"

2005-07-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

Ezra's commentary on the dual purges at Red State and Kos brings up a topic I've been meaning to address.

The difference between the left and right blogospheres is that the left is interested in exploring new ideas and learning what the MSM isn't saying, while the right is interested in a masturbatory circle jerk. That's why Red State eliminated comments that increasied the diversity of ideas on their page. Kos on the other hand eliminated commentaries that were all basically repeating the exact same thing and reducing the diversity of commentary on his boards. The left wants truth, so they are willing to let their ideas be attacked. The right wants isolation, so they insulate themselves.

The reason Instahack links so much is that it allows him to retain his prestige and audience coalition by distancing himself and his brand from the content on his page. When the libertarian Schwarzenegger Republican disagrees with the blockquote Instahack pulled from the bible thumping Dobsonite, he can just dismiss it by thinking "Insty doesn't think that way, he's just pointing it out," That's what the "Heh," is for. He's laughing with it if you agree, at it if you disagree. In this way, he can get away with distributing blatant falsehoods without losing credibility. He's not reporting the falsehood, he's reporting the fact that others are saying the falsehood.

But because Atrios is trying to get important new sorties out rather then repeat the party line, he doesn't really care what a bunch of bloggers siting around in their pajamas think (unless they hit upon a new story). It's just a lot harder to write a post that makes someone go hmmm rather then heh, indeed.

Skippy Needs a Million Hits!

2005-07-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

This is going to be the top post until the blogathon is over, so scroll down for new stuff. And hit Skippy!

Skippy is trying to get himself 1 million hits by July 10 in his blogathon. Skippy does blogtopia (yes, he coined that phrase!) a great service by continually, consciously, and assiduously attempting to subvert the dominant link hierarchy. So if you don’t have enough time to do that yourself, a link his way and dropping by his site once in a while is a good way to contribute.

Skippy Needs a Million Hits!

Of Course the Economic Interests of the Majority of Americans are with the Democratic Party (Duh!)

2005-07-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

Steve Rose wonders whether the economic interests of the American people are with the Democratic Party.

Of course the economic interests of the American people are with the Democratic Party. Duh.

Republicans seem just as unwilling to cut government spending, but they spend it on defense contracts instead of social programs. And as long as deficits make no electoral impact, there is no reason that Democrats couldn’t call for large tax cuts exclusively for the lower tax brackets. Let the Republicans make the argument for their tax cuts for the rich (instead of our tax cuts for the lower and middle classes) using obscure economic theory while we paint them as reverse robin’ hoods. Of course this depends on the Democrats making a lower-middle tax cut so outlandishly large that the Republicans can’t simply add it on top of the tax cuts for their corrupt corporate cronies. How about upping the ten percent bracket thirty thousand dollars? Or (triple) Sawicky's Simplified Family Credit?

However, the larger point I want to make is that all of this is immaterial. There is almost nothing that can happen to reverse the impression in the minds of the public that Democrats are in favor of large “feel good” government programs like education, healthcare, and retirement security. This is similar to the cognitive momentum built around the idea that Republicans are the party of christianists. What has the Republican leadership done for the pro-life lobby recently? Schiavo? That was a spectacle. No doubt we can turn up some victims of corporate greed to sympathetically parade in front of the cameras. Stem cells? Gay marriage? Sold out on both counts there by Bush. Remember the Gibson interview where Bush said he disagreed with the Republican platform on Gay Unions? And this current SC appointment is certainly not going to go to a “pro-life” Justice. So the christianists have been left with perpetual blue-balls, and yet still follow the Republicans (although I’m hoping the Dems wake up and use this current SC debate to change that). Convincing the dual income household that additional federal education and healthcare spending will help them spend more time with their family will be relatively easy since we actually intend to do that.

I’m Goin’ Lewis Black Over Here!

2005-07-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

Rehnquist’s retirement is the worst possible thing that could have happened you moron because now the preznit can point to his hickified bible thumping appointee as a sop for the stupid christianists and still keep recreational fucking legal in the US!!! Even after the worst fucking possible thing happened, this whole Supreme Court debate is still a fucking mine field for Rove and we are just letting him waltz right through it! Wake up you FUCKING MORONS!

Girls Gone Wild as a Cultural Phenomenon

2005-07-07T15:00:00.000-07:00

Girls Gone Wild as a cultural phenomenon signifies a resentment that has grown up around the empowerment of women due to the sexual revolution. In the name of gender egalitarianism men have (justifiably) been called upon to significantly alter their behavior, from work environment standards (i.e. “hostile work environment” sexual harassment) to affirmative action quotas, and rightfully so. However, while gender based advantage has largely been eliminated for men, there still exists a significant gender based advantage for women in that men probably have stronger libidos.

GGW videos are “of attractive, often skittish young American women simply taking off some of their clothes, on camera, often highly ambivalent about it,” according to the Washington Post. GGW creator Joe Francis says of existing pr0nography that:

"Our woman is a young woman who is very innocent and wouldn't typically pose for anything," he says. "Playboy magazine likes to say it gets the girl next door. But it gets the girl next door who went to Hollywood, slept with the guy, and went with him to the Playboy Mansion."

explicitly referencing Playboy but more generally referring to the way the sexual revolution served to empower women. The secret of Francis’s success is that he is subtly inverting this empowerment.

Normally, a woman engaged in pr0nography gains control of an otherwise out of control life through the process of pr0nography. One of the best examples of this is Jenna Jameson (CNN book review). Before GGW, pr0n was a source of empowerment. But Francis seeks out women very obviously in control of their lives, in fact explicitly seeking out college students. He then enacts a sort of morality play whereby the young privileged woman who chooses to use her sexuality to get access to alcohol and fame (in the case of GGW: Doggy Style) has that act turned against her by the exploitation of Francis, turning her attempt at using her sexuality in an empowering manner into her humiliation. All of the outrage and controversy that follows these drunken self exposures contributes to the brand image.

Hooray for Dr Dean

2005-07-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

Dr. Dean is adopting a line very similar to the one I've been pushing for the last few months: Republicans=Corruption. It's probably a case of paralellel thought but maybe someone out there is listening???

Learn Damn You Learn!

2005-07-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

It's time I link this item about House Democrats not supporting Dean with regards to corruption investgations into Republican kleptocapitalists and just say that it is stupid. Just stupid. Hat tip Kos via factesque.

The (Right Wing Spin) Situation

2005-07-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

I listened to Tucker Carlson’s new show last night. He is issuing the new right wing spin on the nomination:

GASPARINO: Let's face it. One of the problems with O'Connor was that she issued muddy decisions. The affirmative action decision, you know, was, like, you know, split 50-50 each way, this thing about religion public places, again, split 50-50 each way.

I think you want someone with a clear direction. I think that's why, in the end, he will pick someone who's basically conservative like Clarence Thomas or Scalia.

CARLSON: Yes. I hope that's true, but Bush's opponents often paint him—I believe incorrectly—as a puppet of the Christian right. Oh that he were, but he's not.

Sub-text: See, Bush is a moderate because he wants to appoint a Justice that will allow him to torture who ever he wants and help his cronies rip off the American public but will not overturn Roe! How noble of him. He really is a compassionate conservative unite-er not divider. Marvel at his bi-partisan support!

Democrats have to get out there and loudly demand Bush not appoint a “pro-life” Justice. That way when he actually doesn’t appoint a “pro-life” Justice, it will make him look spineless. In addition, we’ll accuse him of compromising in order to protect his corporate cronies, which will stick. The name of the game is alienate the christianists. Start playing!

PS: The bit of the transcript about the Texas police arresting the hero guy is pretty funny. No wonder these red-staters want smaller government with officials like these.

Putting Bush in a Compromising Position

2005-07-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

Abortion has a lot of cognitive momentum. It’s been a topic of national conversation for twenty five years. For much of that twenty five years the christianists have been prevented from reversing the decision due to either a liberul executive or legislature, causing the christianists to get blue balls. Now a supposedly christianist president has a supposedly christianist congress with which it could push through an anti-choice candidate.

But they won’t because it would be a disastrous source of unity and energy for the Left. So our message must be that precisely: Attention christianists, your Republican girlfriends are never going to put out, so dump them. In other words our message is “Republicans could make abortion illegal, but they won’t. So why bother supporting them?” We (Dem pols as well as individual libs like you and me) achieve this by braying as loudly as possible about our fear that the Republican majority could make “Choice” illegal. Something along the lines “We’ll fight to preserve the individual rights of the American people as long as possible; but Republicans control The Whitehouse and both Houses of Congress, so if they are really determined they could wipeout choice rights. I am really worried. They are wrong on this, but there is no much we can do except stick to our guns and know the American people support us.”

And when Gonzalez is nominated the rhetoric can shift to “Well we’re glad Bush has decided to compromise with the Democrats [in a shameful and wussified manner, at least as compared to the strong erect clear Democrat position] on the issue of <BLOODY UNBAPISED FETUSES BURINING IN HELL>, but we feel that his appointment of <pro-business “moderate”> is just another attempt to put the interests of his corporate cronies ahead of the American people’s interest,” Sub-text: Bush will endure burning hemorrhoidal pain in order to line the pockets of his corporate pimps.

We are so Fucked

2005-07-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

Brad Delong is wondering whether the US and China will go to war. Of course they will (and the Chinese may not start it due to the changes in US character initiated by Emperor Cuckoo Bananas). This is because, as I explained before, income inequality causes wars. Brad even touches on this concept while bringing up all his wars before 1850. But as I recall, the twentieth century has been known as a century of warfare. Wars are about distracting the masses while they are being robbed by the elites. As long as there is wealth inequality, there will be a need for distraction. And income inequality is accelerating in both China and the US.

In addition, we may not win. Western society has an advantage in innovative and experimental thinking, an advantage in curiosity. This may be enough to win a conflict with Seres. However, while reading Plumer the other day, a quote illustrated the inherent tactical advantage that a highly hierarchical legalistic bureaucratic society would create.

These days, Wal-Mart is concerned that suppliers are getting extremely sophisticated at faking records to show compliance, even coaching workers before inspectors show up.

Living in a country full of imperial officials with a highly centralized bureaucracy that uses long lines of communication to control a large area may tend to reward gifted forgers. A society whose arts are devoted to the realization of some sort of idealized form (e.g. tea ceremony, tai-chi, shi poetry, or calligraphy) is practically practicing the art of forging. This may be why China is the knock-off capital of the world. What useful tactical skill does this translate into? Hacking.

I have long suspected that the next major war between powers will be fought mostly with communications technology. It will be a contest to see who can get their messages to their computer controlled warriors and prevent the other side from getting its messages across to its electronically controlled forces, or in fact hacking the opponent and attacking them with their own weapons. And it seems to me that the Chinese are well equipped in this respect, and the US is especially vulnerable.

Everything Bad is Good for You

2005-07-04T07:37:00.000-07:00

Smoking pot may prevent cancer. 'Nuff said.

Live 8

2005-07-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

Alterman thinks Live 8 is a masturbatory exercise because they are not seeking individual donations. I disagree: arguably the more futile effort would be to attempt to organize individuals into donating enough to make a dent. It's better to pressure governments to give more foreign aid. So yeah Live 8, more foreign aid if anyone in the Bush administration really cares what I think.

Also: around 4:30 VH1 showed a ninety second clip of a band called Orchestra Baobab. I was immediately hooked and had to find out more about them. Buy the T-shirt and tell your friends!

Ok, now that you bought the T-shirt, here's the link to their concert on NPR.

Armies of Horny Angry Young People

2005-07-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

Greg Anrig wants to know how to get young people interested in politics. I have to disagree with those who say the answer is better grass-roots organization or charismatic leadership. If the Republicans make recreational sex illegal, you will have an army of horny angry young people that will fuel a strong grass-roots organization with bodies and funds, as well as follow any leader no matter how charismatic, if they promise to relieve the lustful burning in their loins.

So what does this imply about strategy going forward? As I have said before, the blunders in the first half of this year have caused cracks to form in the Republican coalition between libertarians and christianists. This makes the issue of “choice” our friend. In an encounter with undergrads yesterday, one such undergrad did not know that O’Connor was the swing vote on issues of “choice”. Democrats should make very certain that the core of this debate is about “choice”, however I recommend broadening the code phrase to “individual rights”, which has the advantage of being very broadly applicable, hauling out “choice” when the right counters with the individual rights of the fetus ("It’s about individual rights." "What about the rights of the fetus?" "Republicans are trying to take away the woman’s right to choose, a blatant assault on the rights of individuals. Individual rights are what made this country strong!"). Make sure all young Americans know that the Republicans are holding a knife to their collective balls.

Americans like recreational sex. This is a winning topic for us (and Rove knows this). And when we win, the christianists will raise hell. Disillusioned with the squandering of their best chance to asexualize America they will become politically apathetic, retreating from this impure worldly realm of politics back to the insulating and isolating spiritual religious expressions that they came from. This should mostly be due to Democrats painting Republicans as crony capitalist thieves who are simply paying lip service to their extremist religiosity.

Or they’ll actually cut off the balls of America’s youth. Then we’ll have the horny angry armies. All it would take is just one protest to end in a nationally televised orgy, and we’ll have Democrat legislative and executive dominance until a couple of Justices buy the farm.

Da Bears!

2005-06-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

Frogsdong wanted to know what a Conservative was in the same way that the word is used for Liberal. He says that their base is evangelicals. That may be true, but that doesn’t make them Conservatives. There was a time (believe me on this one) when the base of the Democrat party was armies of unionized labor that would consistently vote Democrat.

But dis guy:

Ain’ a liberal.

These labels “Liberal” and “Conservative” are designed to drive an elitist wedge between the opposition’s leadership and their base of support, not alienate their base from our own leadership. So don’t call Christians stupid. Point out that charlatan ministers are in cahoots with crony capitalist who are attacking the foundation of Family life in America. While the charlatans are busy protesting Terry Schiavo, the Crony Capitalist Republicans made it easier for credit companies to force people into working overtime and take them away from their families.

Democrats, on the other hand, want to protect Family Resources.

All jews think alike

2005-06-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

George Lakoff.

George Lakoff minus six hundred words and six days.

Ending Employer-Sponsored Healthcare

2005-06-30T01:14:00.000-07:00

A healthcare plan that I think everybody can agree on. Businesses would benefit from the added flexibility of being able to hire part time workers. Employees benefit from an increased ability to strike a work-life balance by working part time during some periods and full time in others without having to worry about finding insurance. Periods of unemployment will not necessarily immediately imply a loss of coverage. If only there were some way to eliminate Employer Sponsored Insurance without eliminating the insurance companies that sponsor powerful political lobbies.

First off, why do we have ESI in the first place? Group insurance is necessary because healthy individuals will drop out of expensive insurance plans because it isn’t worth it for them, making the plans even more expensive for the remaining people. Healthy people will congregate in insurance companies that are cheap if unhealthy people can be screened out (getting sick is an awful obvious sign of ill health), leaving unhealthy people to congregate in their own ever increasingly expensive insurance companies. The market will naturally try to determine who is going to get sick before they actually get sick and charge them accordingly, thus defeating much of the purpose of insurance. I’ll call this the non-insuring insurance problem.

So employers step in as a quasi-random group allotment. Since the quality of a person’s output is almost totally unrelated to their health (workaholics), unhealthy get stuck in with healthy all in the same group purchase. So the insurance works the way it is supposed to by reducing the risk borne by individuals, not simply identifying it. But when you are fired or if you don’t work enough hours to justify the sunk cost of enrollment, you are back as an individual with the non-insuring insurance problem as above.

Why not let the Government step in as a randomizer of group allotments? It would be just like the GSEs that run the mortgage industry, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Have a couple or a triplet of GSEs buy up individual health contracts with politically correct indicators for risk. Obviously age would be included, but also tobacco use and potentially some measure of exercise or obesity like a body fat measurement, but probably no prior history. They would then sort those contracts into balanced lots and auction them in a secondary market, just like mortgages.

Ideally there would be levels of coverage that would go from a very broad level, covering standard stuff with a low cost/benefit ratio; and then there would be higher levels that cover more experimental or higher cost/benefit procedures. Coverage in higher levels would imply coverage at lower levels, so purchasing more or less insurance would not be a way to segregate: if you want heart attack insurance, you need level 1, level 2 gets you boner pills or some such thing. So everyone that has rich people insurance will share risk of boner pill need with other rich people, but also have to share heart attack insurance with the masses.

So we’ve got individualized health insurance without the non-insuring insurance problem. By eliminating the non-insuring insurance problem we are rendering a large part of the expertise of the companies obsolete. There is a lot of invested in sorting out who will get sick and who won’t. So what do the insurance companies get out of it?

Well, the market for health insurance will almost certainly expand to include people who were excluded because of working only part-time or unemployment. In addition, much of their expertise can be easily adapted to the new securitized environment. There still will be a need for accurate forecasts of trends in medical costs based on the approved factors as well as cohort analysis. In addition, there will be a lot of expansion into individual marketing because individuals need more marketing. Also, unlike the Clinton plan, there is no government ordained limit on healthcare spending. Hypochondriacs and the wealthy can buy access to as much medical technology as they deem appropriate. There would be no cap on funds to research future technologies if the demand exists. Plus maybe we’ll subsidize the individual insurance purchasers more then we subsidize the corporations currently; that would of course translate into more money for health insurance companies.

Daily Show Withdrawal

2005-06-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

If you’re like me, then your shivering in a state of shock due to the sudden mid-week deprivation of The Daily Show. Normally you’d have a whole three day weekend to come to terms with an off week, but not today. So to assuage your most severe cravings, I found a link to Steve Colbert talking about his new show on NPR in May.

An Open Letter to Justice Ginsberg

2005-06-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

Justice Ginsberg:

There really would be no more ideal time for you to make an announcement concerning your retirement then the day after the finale of Karl Rove’s attempt to change the national discourse back to reminding people how much the Democrats resemble hippies. Not only would this immediately shift the National Discourse off of Terrorism, but it also will be sure to exacerbate tensions between libertarians and christianists within the Republican party at a time when those tensions are already high.

Obviously the rumors of your colleague’s retirement will give the story legs. You don’t actually have to retire, or announce a date for retirement. All you would have to say is that you are on a path for retirement, which is technically true no matter what.

Maybe the Borg are the Good-Guys.

2005-06-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

As promised:

Have you ever considered that the Federation in Star Trek could be a version of 23rd century christianist right wingers? In a post a few weeks ago, Ethical Werewolf displayed a letter he received from Matt Yglesias in which the topic of Star Trek economics is raised.

My hypothesis is that Star Trek exists in a computronium based economy. I don’t know the science, but I think this would explain the fact that complex items can be transported but not replicated. It could be like a telephone, in that a telephone would have existed independently of the ability to make sound recording using electromagnetics. Since replicators rely on the computer system of the ship to store their template, rather then disassembling small parts of the original and then reassembling before moving onto the next part, the storage and computational capacity of the computer could become an issue.

But with the introduction of bio-neural gel packs, it seems to be possible to store something with the complexity of a human intelligence inside a ship’s computer. The Emergency Medical Hologram on Voyager is a holo-sentience. In addition, downloading a mind seems to be a task simple enough for an out-law scientist operating in isolation, the equivalent of a mountain hermit, to achieve. Data’s creator Noonien Soong downloaded the consciousness of his wife into an android.

But Noonien did have an advantage over an ordinary hermit: he was genetically modified. Genetic modification is against the law in the Federation. This is because in their history, a genetically modified human named Khan took over almost all of Asia around the end of the twentieth century. After his defeat, a third world war was fought between the Eastern Powers and the West, which the West won. Disagreement over genetic manipulation may have been the casus belli.

So the Feds have a seemingly irrational fear of modification of humans. Data is only allowed to hang around because he is purely non-human. Jordy is the only cyborg, and even then he had to lose his sight naturally to qualify for modification. Genetic engineering is grounds for being ostracized from society. So it is only natural that the Feds would object to steps that would lead towards the downloading of humanity into faster thinking and more efficient computer-based holo-beings.

The Federation is so close to computer consciousness that an engineer who is trying to design an emergency doctor hologram practically invents artificial intelligence by accident. Indeed, it seems possible that Zimmerman was ordered or had to artificially hamper the program’s learning ability in order to avoid creating an artificial intelligence, as the EMH is supposed to start losing memory after 1500 hours. This problem was apparently small enough to be eliminated by the crew of a small ship isolated from communication within a few weeks, suggesting an artificial origin. The whole Daystrom Institute, which sent an agent to potentially sabotage or destroy Data, seems like a way to monitor and control genetically engineered scientists to take advantage of some of their talents while steering them away from “dangerous” research. Bio-neural gel packs seem to be able to store complexity on such a large scale that they are able to maintain not only the ordinary duties of running all aspects of a star ship, but also to store and operate the sentience of the EMH. So downloading of human intelligence seems only a hop skip and jump away, especially considering transporter technology, even for non-genetically modified humans.

The Federation could probably transform humanity into near omnipotent Q like beings if it chose to download our consciousnesses into computers and use the holographic/forcefield technologies instead of meat-bodies. Maybe the Borg are a species that didn’t go down this path of extremist species purity, experimenting with genetic modification early on, “assimilating” new species simply by sampling their genetic material and adopting interesting and inventive new genes. By the 24th century they have advanced technology and probably have largely abandoned organic tissue, but keeping the old meat bodies around as convenient sources of material and platforms for tools. They probably have a virtual existence in the collective, leaving their hollowed out shells outside to perform menial tasks. They may view assimilation as the preservation of distinctiveness since they are transporting consciousnesses from vulnerable meat bodies into the quasi-immortal computer network at their core.

The seeming zombie like quality of the Borg then becomes a sign of liberation from organic flesh into a sort of spirit existence. Maybe Seven of Nine’s actual consciousness is happily enjoying life (?) in a virtual Eden inside the computer network at the core of the Borg civilization, the hollow shell left may be modified to serve as a tool for exploration. Most of the organic consciousness generating mechanisms may be left intact but adapted or deactivated to prevent distress and make the Borg drone more efficient. When a drone does have an accidental reactivation of certain areas of its organic consciousness generating mechanisms, the resulting distress and disorientation is only natural and may be misinterpreted by other organic consciousnesses.

The Principle of the Bogeyman

2005-06-26T11:01:00.000-07:00

I have recently begun contemplating whether having an effective bogeyman is key to building a successful coalition. Generally, the various factions that make up a party are in a zero-sum competition to move their own bits of policy to the top of the agenda, bits that do not necessarily enjoy majority support; being behind a losing agenda item may destroy the party’s base of power before action is taken on your own item. So there is a lot of intra-party bickering. We are witnessing this exact difficulty in the Republican party, which is fracturing because of Social Security reform and Terry Schiavo among other social issues. But all the various factions of the Republican party can always put aside their differences to get together for a good old fashion hippy ass-whomping. The hippy is their Bogeyman.

A Bogeyman is somewhat different from a Scapegoat. A Scapegoat is something to blame when times are getting tough. A Bogeyman is an entity that arouses a combination of fear and potency in the audience because it represents an enemy easily defeated, and indeed that has already been largely defeated. It is a scapegoat for when times are good. The two are really identical, the use of one term or the other is really a socioeconomic barometer. I hypothesize that Hippy would morph into Intellectual as we move from Bogey to Scape territory.

So who is our Bogeyman? The Crony Capitalist. Just like the Republicans and hippy-ass-whompings, there isn’t a Liberal on the planet that doesn’t get a smug sense of self-satisfaction when they see a man in an expensive suit getting led away in hand-cuffs. We may not all agree on universal healthcare, tax rates, or gay marriage, but we all love watching this Abramoff thing unfold. We may not agree about gun control, but we all love that sense of satisfaction we get when we see a company being busted for dumping pollution. And we all love to hate Halliburton.

The more we concentrate on grinding our boot into the face of crony capitalists, the better our internal cohesion will be as well as scoring points with swing voters. Boot grinding is an all around inclusive democratic activity, and the party that can organize a more effective (which is to say more enjoyable and satisfactory) stomping will usually control the democratic process. (Of course, that is a weakness of the democratic process. Thank G-d America isn’t a democracy.)

Beating Rove with a Figurative Baseball Bat

2005-06-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

I know you’re pissed. What Rove said was wrong. But Rove would gladly be burnt in effigy, kicked in the teeth, or beaten with a baseball bat in order to discredit liberals. Yesterday, I said the media narrative revolves around the question “Are the Democrats anything more then annoying flies to be swatted aside?” Karl Rove actually is an insignificant fly. He’s a staffer.He actually is to be swatted aside. What he says can be dismissed.

But if you really want to hurt him you have to beat him with a figurative baseball bat: call Republicans corrupt crony capitalist thieves. Amanda calls it a double bind, I call it a Bogeyman, either way it’s exactly like hippy; it’s a characterization close enough to the truth that it is dangerous for its target to acknowledge it, even to deny it.

An example of a quote that puts this into action:

RUSSERT: Should Rove apologize?

DEMOCRAT: Well, Timmah, apologize or not, Karl is just trying to distract attention from the corruption of Delay and Abramoff. From day one, this Republican leadership has been looking for ways to bilk the American taxpayer, from No-Bid Contracts to missing billions in Iraq, to the Prescription Drug plan, to Social Security and now we are learning about Tom Delay getting bribes from Jack Abramoff. Of course they want to make a distraction.

UPDATE: This was originally intended as a clarification of my post from yesterday, although it could also be construed as a response to Digby.

Glass ⇒ Industrial Revolution

2005-06-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

By popular request:

Thrm: Glass ⇒ Industrial Revolution

Prf:

Glass ⇒ Lenses
⇒ Observation of Operation of Gravity on Extraterrestrial Moons

Observation of Gravity on Extraterrestrial Moons ∧ Observation that Objects of Different Density Do Not Fall At the Same Rate in an Atmosphere ⇒ ∃ Vacuum

Vacuum ⇒ Atmospheric Pressure ⇒ Steam Engine
∴ Industrial Revolution

Commentary:

I am very much a technological determinist. To translate from Mathematical proof: The discovery of lenses is predicated on existing glass polishing technologies. Lenses are what allowed Galileo to see moons orbiting other planets. Through observation the operation of gravity on these moons, he was able to determine that the density of the planets was different, yet the action of gravity on each of them was the same. This led to his historic postulation that objects in a vacuum fall at the same rate.

The idea that interstellar space was filled (?) with vacuum was iconoclastic. It destroyed the notion that “Nature abhors a vacuum,” and led to subsequent research on atmospheric pressure by Torrcelli among others, this research eventually culminating in the discovery of the Steam Engine. Indeed, the Neucomen Steam Engine relied on the generation of vacuum to provide power, rather then the generation of positive pressure as in modern steam and internal combustion engines.

There are other inventions that contributed to the industrial revolution, such as the micrometer, which were developed due to the precision required by Astronomy. In addition, the use of lenses on the micro scale led to the development of the biological sciences. Indeed, the whole story of Astronomy is that doing things like staring off into space may radically change the way humans live in a positive way. Because of the recreational use of lenses, lenses made out of a material as valuable as gold in some times and places, we discovered science, medicine, and industry. I guess I should point to this post explaining that glass technology was relatively less advanced in the Orient then in the West until contemporary times.

I'm at Ezra's

2005-06-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

I'm at Ezra's. Thanks for the opportunity.

Might put some stuff up over here though. Probably another trip to Bizarro World depending on the cable TV interviews this week.

Bizarro World Gephardt

2005-06-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

So, I was thinking of not mentioning that the following quote is an actual quote form Gephardt because it seemed obvious in context. On second thought, the quote seems so outlandish that it may not be clearly an actual quote.

Dick from Inside Politics June 17, 2005:

Let me take you back to 1983. I know history's boring, but you've got to look at it to learn.

Note to Gephardt, it ain’t 1983.

Dick Gephardt desperately needs a time machine to get back to the present; that, or a quick tour of Bizarro World!

KING: Thanks Kitty, have a great weekend.

And now back to INSIDE POLITICS.

When Richard Gephardt was the House Democratic leader, he supported the decision to war in Iraq, no some of Gephardt's old colleagues in congress are calling on President Bush to establish the time table to begin withdrawing the troops. The president says no.

Today I talked with the former congressman and I asked him what he thinks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEPHARDT: We’ve got to succeed in Iraq. Put aside the whole debate about why we're there and even how we went there. I've been critical of the president and the way he went without the U.N. But now that we're there, if we leave arbitrarily before we've gotten a good result, we're going to buy ourselves lots more security problems here in the United States. We'll have terrorists galore in Iraq. And we'll send a message to the whole region that we don't clean up our messes and we don't do what we say we're going to do.

That said, this war has been mismanaged by the Republican leadership from day one. We went in without international support. We went in without the right number of troops. And we went in without equipping the troops we had with body armor and armored vehicles. That’s the fault of the Republican leadership that didn’t want to listen to those who said we were unprepared. Now some of my Republican colleagues think that exiting Iraq is the best solution. It may or may not be, but we must stop the mismanagement and corruption the Republican leaders are piling on top of this problem.

KING: Let me ask then, what specific policies are Democrats pursuing help our situation in Iraq?

GEPHARDT: Well first off, we need to get better congressional over-site of what is going on over there, You know, no more secret no-bid contracts. [Insert folksy business colloquialism here]. Then we’ve got to eliminate all the waste we find and find out what are the better ways of doing things and where we are currently going wrong.

You see, I believe in the power of the ingenuity of the American people. The shield of secrecy this administration is holding up prevents the American people from exercising that ingenuity and fully eliminating corruption [Sub-text: Screw their crony capitalism and the secrecy they use to justify it].

KING: Let's move on to the domestic front and the conduct of your party in the Congress in opposing this president. The president this past weekend at a big Republican fundraiser, he said this. He said, "on issue of an issue, they stand for nothing except obstruction.", They being, of course, the Democrats in that case.

There are some Democrats in Washington who think that's the right strategy, say no when it comes to Social Security, say no when it comes to the Central American Free Trade Agreement, say no on other issues and take that into the midterm elections a little more than a year from now. Is that enough, sir? Or do the Democrats need to be more articulate about what they would do in the alternative.

GEPHARDT: Well, John, you know, the Democrats stand up to protect the resources Americans need to succeed, like retirement security and education, we stand to protect the diversity of ideas that made this country great, and we fight corporate corruption.

Now when Republicans are attacking those values, when they attack retirement security by trying to privatize social security, when they attack the ingenuity that made America great by disallowing stem cell research, when they attack our individual rights like they did in the Schiavo case, and they enrich their buddies at Enron and Halliburton, of course Democrats are going to fight. Now of course, Bush isn’t going to like it, but I think that the American people appreciate it when we stand up and defend them, John.

KING: Assume nothing changes in the dysfunctional -- to use a kind word -- relationship between the president and Democrats at this moment moment, your party has underestimated this president and his political team many times in the past. Let's just take Social Security, is it enough for the Democrats to say we don't like his plan, his plan is bad? Or do they need to go to the voters and say here's what we would have done in the alternative?

GEPHARDT: What are you asking, John? If you’re asking if the Democrats will help the Republicans dismantle Social Security, I think the American people know the answer on that is no.

But I’ll tell you where the Democrats are taking action. We think it’s time that the minimum wage gets moved. We think its time hybrid technology gets looked in a serious way in this country. And we think we need tighter regulations on corporations so that we don’t have disasters like Worldcom and Enron.

KING: Let me ask you I question about Howard Dean, the man who leads your part. You just tried to take me back in history to the internet boom. I'll take you back to the last presidential campaign. He was one of the Democrats seeking the nomination. Many would say he has a habit of his tongue getting out ahead of him, saying things that get quite controversial. Is he doing a good job as chairman? Does he need to reign in some of the more controversial things he has said of late?

GEPHARDT: Well, let me first say that Howard is a very talented individual. I have high hopes for his leadership in the Democratic Party. My personal opinion is that some of the comments aren't helpful, but then again it wasn’t helpful for George Bush to call our invasion in Iraq a crusade. Now, I won’t attack the President or Vice President because they have an occasional slip of the tongue, but I think Howard agrees with me that their incompetence and corruption are inexcusable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING; Congressman Dick Gephardt, former Congressman, a bit earlier today.

Commentary: Bizarro Gephardt manages to talk about the withdrawal proposal and turn it into an attack on the Republicans without expressing his own support for withdrawal nor disparaging the effort. The Bizarro Dems are completely agnostic on the issue until it shows whether it will succeed or fail on its own, then they will bandwagon. Until then, all the bad aspects of the proposal are the Republican supporters’ fault. If the audience likes the idea, it’s the Democrat supporters’ fault.

On this plane of existence Gephardt really makes the somewhat newbie-ish mistake of questioning the prudence of bringing up withdrawal. King punishes him for it, as you’ll see. The italic paragraphs are a question and its answer that was substituted in Bizarro World where Bizarro John King attempts to attack the weakness of Bizarro Gephardt’s first response in a way similar, but less effective, to the way the John King attacked Gephardt’s mistake in this plane of existence.

Other than that, the Bizarro Dems still use the elevator pitch in appropriate places, still connect any reference to Dean’s statements to the Crusader’s own mis-quotes as I explained before, still don’t apologize for “obstructionism” and call it fighting, and generally try to maintain solid message control.

As always, for comparison, the exchange as it manifested on this plane of existence:

KING:When Richard Gephardt was the House Democratic leader, he supported the decision to war in Iraq, no some of Gephardt's old colleagues in congress are calling on President Bush to establish the time table to begin withdrawing the troops. The president says no.

Today I talked with the former congressman and I asked him what he thinks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEPHARDT: I think I agree with the president on this. We've got to succeed in Iraq. Put aside the whole debate about why we're there and even how we went there. I've been critical of the president and the way he went without the U.N. But now that we're there, if we leave arbitrarily before we've gotten a good result, we're going to buy ourselves lots more security problems here in the United States. We'll have terrorists galore in Iraq. And we'll send a message to the whole region that we don't clean up our messes and we don't do what we say we're going to do.

So, I don't think this is a good idea. I think the discussion of it in a democracy, legitimate. And I admire the people that want to talk about this. But, you know, we're not sending the right message when this is becoming the dialogue here in the United States.

KING: Then how do you have the responsible political debate about the administration's policy without, as you say, Democrats going too far, even some Republicans going too far in demanding a date and timetable?

GEPHARDT: Well, in a democracy, you always have these debates. And that's part of the health of our democracy. And you know, some people will read it wrongly, but that's the price of having a democracy.

I have no problem with having the debate. I just hope that we make the decision that we're going to stick it out, try to get the Sunnis involved in this government. Try to get the Iraq security forces to be beefed up enough so they can do the security without us. And then get our people out at the right time when we've achieved the result that we set out to achieve.

The whole world is watching this. And you know, we need to hang in there. I do also though think the president's got to be more clear with the American people about the costs that we all have to bear to make this a success.

War is an ugly thing. This is tough stuff. We need people. We need money. And the American people have to be behind this effort, and the president's going to have to be very clear about why we're doing this, why it's important that we succeed, and then leading the American people, which is what his job is.

KING: Let's move on to the domestic front and the conduct of your party in the Congress in opposing this president. The president this past weekend at a big Republican fundraiser, he said this. He said, "on issue of an issue, they stand for nothing except obstruction.", They being, of course, the Democrats in that case.

There are some Democrats in Washington who think that's the right strategy, say no when it comes to Social Security, say no when it comes to the Central American Free Trade Agreement, say no on other issues and take that into the midterm elections a little more than a year from now. Is that enough, sir? Or do the Democrats need to be more articulate about what they would do in the alternative.

GEPHARDT: Well, John, you know, there's an old saying it takes two to tango. And I'm afraid that applies to this political situation. You know, the president does need to gain the cooperation, not only of his own party, but the opposite party in the Congress.

But to do that, you've got to reach out to people at the earliest moment when a debate really begins and try to collaborate with them, listen to them, respect their views, even if you don't agree with them, and then try to find common ground.

He's never done that on Social Security. He's not done that really on health care. He's not done that on a lot of the issues that are before the Congress now, the energy bill. You can go down the list.

KING: Assume nothing changes in the dysfunctional -- to use a kind word -- relationship between the president and Democrats at this moment moment, your party has underestimated this president and his political team many times in the past. Let's just take Social Security, is it enough for the Democrats to say we don't like his plan, his plan is bad? Or do they need to go to the voters and say here's what we would have done in the alternative?

GEPHARDT: Well, they're very right, I think in saying, look, if you want to get a collaborative solution, let's sit down, put everything on the table, let's throw off the table what neither side can live with, and let's figure out a solution.

Let me take you back to 1983. I know history's boring, but you've got to look at it to learn.

KING: Let me ask you I question about Howard Dean, the man who leads your part. You just tried to take me back in history to the 1980s. I'll take you back to the last presidential campaign. He was one of the Democrats seeking the nomination. Many would say he has a habit of his tongue getting out ahead of him, saying things that get quite controversial. Is he doing a good job as chairman? Does he need to reign in some of the more controversial things he has said of late?

GEPHARDT: Well, let me first say that Howard is a very talented individual. I have high hopes for his leadership in the Democratic Party. My personal opinion is that some of the comments aren't helpful. But I think he at the same time is motivating some in our base and he's also, I think, working hard to build the structure of the party at the grass-roots level.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING; Congressman Dick Gephardt, former Congressman, a bit earlier today.

The Dangers of Neo-Edwardianism

2005-06-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

Majikthise makes some good points about the fact that excising the remnants of Victorian and Gilded Age elitist culture from American society is a good thing. However, we still have to be on guard for trending too far in the opposite direction. About a year ago, right before I started blogging, I posted on a subject related to this. In the post, I compare the youth or “Hook-up” (as it was dubbed in a NYT magazine article Yglesias pointed to) culture to the Edwardian culture of Gilded age Britain.

The intricate etiquette of Edwardian Britain is inverted in many ways, but just as strictly enforced, among the neo-Edwardian MTV generation as both cultures seek to maximize the utility of interaction with others. As Edwardian etiquette dictated that one must dress so as not to offend the sensibilities of others, neo-Edwardian etiquette suggests one must not dress as to give the impression that one would be offended at the appearance of others: one must appear to put no effort into one's appearance. As Edwardian etiquette dictates that banal and sexual language is to be avoided in order to give companions opportunity to exercise their higher faculties, neo-Edwardian sensibilities mandate that only banal and sexual conversation is permissible in order to minimize alienation due to incomprehension. What is missing in each case is a genuine interest in the humanity of one's companions. Whereas Edwardians used companions for stimulation and entertainment, neo-Edwardians use companions as endless fonts of approval and affirmation. This objectification is the problem with hook-up culture, not its polyamorous nature.

If you’re interested, read the whole thing. I try to blame Utilitarian philosophy, at least partially, and get into an argument about it in the responses.

Why Americans pee on your holy books

2005-06-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

Dr. Black raises a topic I’ve been ruminating on.

I recently saw the movie Control Room which showed me how confusing it must be for Arabs to have the US Army come over and arrest them in the middle of the night, haul them away, pee on their holy books, and shove objects into their various body cavities. I’d like to take a moment and explain exactly why it is we are doing this.

First of all, it isn’t because anyone wants to steal your oil. That is way too blatant. The worst that we’ll do to the Iraqi economy is give you USA brand machines so that after we leave, you have to buy USA replacement parts with your oil money. So this might make you a little worse off if French (or Russian, or Japanese, or whatever) replacement parts are less expensive, but only because we are giving away the machines in the first place and buying all new French machines is too expensive. So all in all, Arabs benefit.

Second, there really wasn’t any real chance that the invasion would help Israel in any way significantly different from the way it would help Turkey or Saudi Arabia. America knew that if we were successful in making Iraq a rich stable country, all countries in the region would benefit from not having to worry about a big unstable cesspool of criminals and outlaws. However, should we fail and Iraq descends into chaos, Israel would almost certainly be harmed more then the rest of countries in the region, mostly due to its position as scapegoat.

So how do we as Americans benefit from the invasion? Well, if successful, the invasion would have created a stable country in Iraq and possibly provide a moderating influence on the region. But going in, there were many who knew we did not have a good chance at succeeding. So why did we still do it?

First, understand that it is not the entirety of the American people who wanted to go through with this invasion. The opposition’s reasons are about as varied as the reasons of the invasion’s supporters. Personally I am in the opposition because of the low chance the invasion had of turning Iraq into a rich successful country.

So who are these supporters and why did they support the war? The real impetus for the war came from a group of businesses that work to steal from the American people. Similar to the way your leaders may blame hardships on foreign businesses driving hard bargains, our leaders impose hardships on us that they justify by blaming faraway peoples. This manner of the leaders stealing not for themselves, but for the benefit of foreign thieving leaders (who then steal from the foreign people for the benefit of the native corrupt leaders) is not detected by some of the usual methods of detecting corruption, since they may blame the foreigners.

What is happening is these businesses, who are run by the same people as the people who are currently in control of our government (Bush and the Republicans) are taking money from Americans (in the form of taxes) and using some of it to help Iraq, but also keeping much for themselves, and sending much to their partners in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The reason the average American may have supported the invasion (and as I said, many did not) is that they are too busy with their everyday life to understand the complicated corruption going on. The media are partly to blame, since they could explain the situation. But they didn’t because they had a reason to go along with the war, and not inform the people of the corruption. This is because, effectively, the American people are going to pay for an expensive and exciting new show for their television networks. So they are also stealing from the American people in a way similar to Bush and his Republicans and their businesses.

None of these actors bears any particular malice for Arabs or Iraqis in particular. In fact, I suspect they have a mild wish for good things to happen to the Iraqi people since it would make further theft easier. However, even though the problem is not hatred, a possibly worse problem is the apathy of these interests. They simply don’t care if a lot of people (both American and Iraqi) die. They don’t care if Iraq succeeds. Much like Chalabi, they only care about enriching themselves, and helping or hurting others only in so much as it enriches themselves.

For similar reasons we are imprisoning random Arabs in GITMO. The corrupt interests in charge do not actually care about helping or hurting anybody, they simply do what they can to give the appearance that they are trying to help Americans (at least). Rounding up civilians within our borders that we can label terrorists is a lot easier and cheaper then actually attempting to prevent future attacks by making genuine attempts to create peace and justice. In addition, advocating for the rights of these detainees does not serve the purpose of giving the appearance of fighting terrorism. This creates the dangerous disregard for the well being of the detainees, the results of which you see in the torture scandals. This is definitely not intentional, since it does nothing to help steal more money, and in fact makes it harder. So the result is policy intended to minimize scandal only in as much as it minimizes costs.

What's the matter with Ezra and Kevin

2005-06-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

Ezra Klein and Calpundit are all worried about what specific economic policies the Democrats are going to pursue in order to win over Thomas Frank’s Kansans. What he doesn’t understand is that it’s not what you say about the issues, its what the issues say about you. As I explained before, family resources are the obverse of family values, and as such, Democrats act towards family resources the way Republicans act towards family values.

The Democrat positions on the minimum wage and Canadian drugs are ~~about as lame as~~ a lot less lame then the Republican positions on stem cell research and Terry Schiavo. What policies do Republicans pursue that really advance “family values”, even the in the perverse meaning they have imbued in those words? Bush jumped ship on the gay marriage thing right before the election, and considering how unpopular abortion prohibition is, I don’t expect much action on that front either.

Why mine is better then Kos'

2005-06-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

Kos is making attempts at a Democrat elevator pitch. Also, someone misunderstood his comments about abortion, which seem to amount to the idea that “abortion” conjures up bad images of fetuses, while something more abstract leaves more unsaid. I would compare it to old people having sex, another issue the Democrats support but avoid mentioning it by name since they speak in more abstract notions of keeping the government out of the bedroom. But as far as his discussion of the elevator pitch, even though I agree with his formulation I have to say that mine is better.

We practically come up with the exact same thing. All I have to add to it is that environmental issues fall under anti-corporate corruption because who is against the environment? Corrupt corporate interests. This is the liberal bogey to the conservative bogey: hippies. Who could be against a strong national defense? Smelly wooly headed pot-smoking hippy-dippy sixties relics. Boo! Also, a statement on foreign policy is unnecessary. Republicans house isolationists, neoconservatives, and realists in one party. Democrats also will have isolationist, neo-liberal, and realist elements.

Leisure Externalities

2005-06-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

Klieman gives me an excuse to say something about leisure:

Solving the TGIF problem would, of course, leave unsolved another problem: according to the hedonics studies, a large proportion of people also don't much enjoy their leisure, and spend it watching television programs they don't much enjoy. But one problem at a time.

In my day job I am thinking about what made poor countries rich and rich countries poor since 1500, a question posed in a talk from Dr. Acemoglu. An aspect of the solution (IMHO) involves externalities in the production of human capital that pervert incentives.

For the uninitiated, an externality is a cost or benefit others receive when someone does something. If you smoke in a bar, the second hand smoke is an externality. Same for your green house gas emissions. An example of a positive externality is your participation in a telephone network. Since your participation makes everybody else’s participation more valuable (by increasing he number of people they can communicate with through the phone), this is an externality.

I think that leisure activity produces significant externalities that increase the value of leisure participation in others. So we may get into a situation where individuals start leaving the leisure sector because it makes private sense for them to enter the work sector, but the damage to the social fabric may be greater then the private benefits because the externalities produced for others is not taken into account.

Thus we may be worse off as a society. Sitting home alone watching bad sitcoms seems to indicate a coordination problem that prevents the realization of collective participation externalities. In other words, if all of our work schedules weren’t so hectic and all-consuming, we could hang out and watch bad sitcoms together, or throw a BBQ, or play a game of baseball, or argue politics, or etcetera. [Incidentally, that last one before etc. is very important.]

Update: I should have mentioned in the original that depressing the value of leisure also makes people more willing to accept crappy jobs. In other words, you don’t care about endless hours of tedious data entry because all you could do otherwise is watch stupid sitcoms.

Bizarro Dems on Dean

2005-06-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

The current row over Howard Dean’s controversial statements has compelled me risk bending reality to open the portal to Bizarro World!

BASH:And, a short while ago, I spoke with Senator Harry Reid. We talked about a wide range of topics, but I asked by asking him about his meeting today with Howard Dean, and in the first part of my interview, I asked Senator Reid what the Democratic chairman said to him today and if he would describe Dean as apologetic or defiant.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REID: We meet every month. I was there with Senator Schumer, Senator Durbin, Senator Stabenow -- my leadership. And we talked about the issues before the American people. We didn't discuss any statements that any of us have made.

BASH: Didn't come up at all?

REID: No.

BASH: Let me just ask you about the statement -- he said recently, Monday, that the Republican party is pretty much a white, Christian party, not very friendly to different kinds of people. Recently, he has called Republicans -- he said Republicans have never made an honest living in their lives. Are those mistakes to say?

REID: There are a lot of statements that people make in public life that they wish they hadn't made, like the time the Republican leader of the Senate said life would have been better under the racist Dixiecrat policies of Strom Thrumond, or the time George Bush hurled an obsenity at a reporter, but what we're going to talk about is not statements that people have made. We want to talk about the our fight for the American people. The American people care that the Republicans are attacking fundamental aspects of American life. The Democrats are fighting to protect the resources the American people need to succeed, fighting to protect the rights of individuals that made our country great, and fighting the Republican corruption in Washington.

BASH: I hear you talking about those issues a lot, and clearly you're trying to talk about that now, but the question is, even when your top leader, the chairman of your party, talks about those issues, because, perhaps, not necessarily of the message, but the messenger, because he makes other statements and those are reacted to, and have -- they're such -- they end up being so controversial, doesn't that step on exactly what you are trying to do?

REID: Look, everybody mis-speaks at some time. George Bush labeled the war against terrorists a crusade-- not exactly the best phrasing when trying to win hearts and minds in the middle east. But I am not going to criticize his slip of the tongue. I will criticize the disastrous way he has managed our war against terrorists. He ignored the advice of high ranking generals, he manufactured intelligence, and he sent our troops over there without adequate body armor.

Through their incompetence and corruption, with no-bid contracts and missing billions in Iraq, the Republicans are practically making the case for us.

BASH: With all due respect, I have to ask you one question about, not just about Howard Dean, but about a statement that you made. You caused a little bit of a dust-up recently when you called the president a loser, then you apologized for that, but then you also said he was a liar and that you didn't apologize for that. Why is the president a liar?

REID: Of course, one statement I made about the president was four years ago, when he said he was involved in nuclear waste in Nevada and he misled the people of Nevada, clearly, without any question, and I said so.

In the past couple of years, he has lied to the American people about, he’s lied about saving social security, he’s lied about the cost of his prescription drug plan, and he lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I think the American people want the truth and I'm going to do the best I can to get the truth.

BASH: Last month is a speech, you said, quote, "Americans are sick and tired of getting caught in the crossfires of partisan sniping." Listening to Howard Dean and even, you know, using a word like liar, are the Democrats also contributing be to the partisan sniping that you say is eroding Washington?

REID: Dana, we have 1,700 American dead in Iraq, 15,000 wounded and the Republicans are doing nothing. If the Republicans are hurting this country, I think the American people will expect Democrats to stand up and fight.

Commentary: Other then the comparison between Dean and Trent Lott/ The Crusader, the Bizarro World Dems have abandoned apologetics for “partisanship”. Also, please note that complaining about the nuclear option at this point is lame (and will continue to be lame until a SC nomination comes up, then it’s the destruction of the republic). The original text is below.

REID: We meet every month. I was there with Senator Schumer, Senator Durbin, Senator Stabenow -- my leadership. And we talked about the issues before the American people. We didn't discuss any statements that any of us have made.

BASH: Didn't come up at all?

REID: No.

BASH: Let me just ask you about the statement -- he said recently, Monday, that the Republican party is pretty much a white, Christian party, not very friendly to different kinds of people. Recently, he has called Republicans -- he said Republicans have never made an honest living in their lives. Are those mistakes to say?

REID: There are a lot of statements that people make in public life that they wish they hadn't made, but what we're going to talk about is not statements that Ken Mehlman made or Howard Dean made. We want to talk about the positive agenda for the American people. American people don't care about statements that people make that may not be totally accurate. What they do care about is what we're doing about the war in Iraq; what we're doing about high gas prices; what we're doing about education, both secondary and elementary education; what we're doing about the staggering deficit that we have; pension reform; and on and on with issues that we think are positive and the American people care about.

BASH: I hear you talking about those issues a lot, and clearly you're trying to talk about that now, but the question is, even when your top leader, the chairman of your party, talks about those issues, because, perhaps, not necessarily of the message, but the messenger, because he makes other statements and those are reacted to, and have -- they're such -- they end up being so controversial, doesn't that step on exactly what you are trying to do?

REID: I think we have to focus on what is happening around the country. For example, in Nevada we just had some municipal races. The national party was involved in those races. We did well, and in the city of Las Vegas, we had a race that we probably wouldn't have run -- won -- but for him.

We have, in 18 different states, grass roots organizations are now established as a result of what Governor Dean has done. He's doing a great job in having grassroots activity across the country that were never there before.

BASH: With all due respect, I have to ask you one question about, not just about Howard Dean, but about a statement that you made. You caused a little bit of a dust-up recently when you called the president a loser, then you apologized for that, but then you also said he was a liar and that you didn't apologize for that. Why is the president a liar?

REID: Of course, one statement I made about the president was four years ago, when he said he was involved in nuclear waste in Nevada and he misled the people of Nevada, clearly, without any question, and I said so.

In the past couple of months, he said, on this nuclear option, told me personally he wasn't going to get involved. That wasn't true, and I said so. I think the American people want people to tell the truth and I'm going to do the best I can to tell the truth.

BASH: Last month is a speech, you said, quote, "Americans are sick and tired of getting caught in the crossfires of partisan sniping." Listening to Howard Dean and even, you know, using a word like liar, are the Democrats also contributing be to the partisan sniping that you say is eroding Washington?

REID: What I think is partisan sniping is when we have two months of our time taken to deal with five people who already have jobs, when, during that period of time we could have been done the Defense Authorization Bill. We have 1,700 American dead in Iraq, 15,000 wounded and we're not even taking that bill up here in the Senate. We should do that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Harry Reid, standing by his words.

Compensation and the Trade Deficit

2005-06-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

Let me dispute Kash's assertion that compensation has moved in the same direction as the trade deficit. That hasn’t been true since 1998 according to the National Compensation Survey’s Employment Cost Index deflated by the CPI. The deflated ECI has exhibited anemic growth between Q4 2003 and Q4 2004 (and receding to no growth in Q1 2005 for that matter). Between Q4 2003 and Q4 2004 the trade deficit widened from 528 to 621 billion. Between Q4 2002 and Q4 2003 the deflated ECI grew 1.9 percent and the trade deficit grew from 515 to 528 billion. Between Q4 2001 and Q4 2002 the deflated ECI grew 1.0 percent and the deficit grew from 425 billion to 515 billion. Between Q4 2000 and Q4 2001 the deflated ECI grew 2.5 percent and the trade deficit grew from 397 to 425 billion. Before that, the deficit had been growing at about 100 billion a year since the Asian financial crisis in Q3-4 1997 through the internet boom, the ECI grew about 1.7 percent each year in ’97 and ’98, but slowed to .7 percent growth each year in ’99 and 2000.

Bizarro World Hillary

2005-06-02T02:46:00.000-07:00

In the interests of humanity I have risked existence by bending the laws of Jewish Physics in order to peer into a nearby dimension where Democrats have evolved passed gelatinous masses of tissue into creatures with backbones and strong message control. These exotic alien creatures have been dubbed Bizarro-World Democrats. From Inside Bizarro Politics, May 26, 2005:

WOODRUFF: Many political observers say they believe Hillary Rodham Clinton has tacked to the center since becoming a senator. But our new poll shows that 54 percent of Americans would peg Senator Clinton as a liberal. 30 percent say they see her as a moderate.

During our interview today, I asked Senator Clinton about efforts to moderate her party's stand on abortion, and she insisted Democrats no longer need to be on the defensive on that issue.

CLINTON: I think that our goal as Democrats is to preserve people’s ability to make decisions for themselves, especially over their own body. This is why we have to oppose government interference in our most private decisions, especially concerning our bodies. You know, it’s why we had to oppose policies like the interference in the Terry Schiavo case.

WOODRUFF: Similarly, on the question of gay rights, aren't Democrats always going to be on the defensive? You now have 11 states that ban gay marriage. Should Democrats think about changing their position?

CLINTON: Well, Democrats believe that diversity is a large part of what makes this country great, and we seek to encourage that diversity. Sometimes I’m not sure the Republicans see it that way. How could the Democrats fail to protect this vital part of America when it’s under attack?

WOODRUFF: But Senator, how are the Republicans attacking when gay marriage is not already legal? Aren’t Democrats on the attack by suggesting a new idea?

CLINTON: Well, some people may think like that, Judy, but the fact is the Republicans are constantly trying to take away the rights that created our diverse society. Their intervention into the Terry Schiavo case was only the most recent example.

WOODRUFF: A lot of people give -- more broadly -- the Republicans credit for giving a narrative that they can say in just a few sentences. And criticize the Democrats for so often sounding like a string of policy statements from different interest groups. What, to you, in just two or three sentences, should be the narrative for the Democratic party?

CLINTON: Well, the Democrats want to provide families with the resources they need to succeed, like retirement security, education and healthcare. Democrats believe diversity of ideas is what made this country great and we want to protect that diversity. Most importantly Democrats stand against corporate corruption such as the scandals with Worldcom and Enron.

WOODRUFF: Three other quick things. 2006, you're running for re-election?...

Commentary:

For the next seventeen months the following equation will hold true:

Conservative social issues = Choice (or Control) over one’s own body = Terry Schiavo

Unlike my first encounter with Bizarro World Democrats, here the topic was social rather then fiscal issues. The case for how men making out with each other will make our country stronger is about as complex as the case for why giving money to rich people will help our country. That’s why abstraction is so important in the debate for the respective issues on the respective sides. If the individual details of the Bush tax cuts were discussed, it would probably be a losing issue, but since all the nasty give-aways to the rich are hidden under the ambiguous and abstract cover of improving economic growth [Don’t you see, the recession would have been worse if we didn’t cut taxes!], they succeed. In truth there is probably a stronger link between cultural tolerance and economic success then low taxes and economic success.

The italicized paragraph illustrates what happens should the press try to call the copious amounts of BS that is being shoveled. First, undermine the comment’s (and it is a comment) importance, possibly by saying “Well, Judy, the important thing really is…” or attributing the comments to a nebulous entity like “some” or an entity with questionable motives like “naysayers”, then repeat the relevant 1/3 of the elevator pitch.

For comparison, this is how the exchange was experienced on this plane of existence:

WOODRUFF: Many political observers say they believe Hillary Rodham Clinton has tacked to the center since becoming a senator. But our new poll shows that 54 percent of Americans would peg Senator Clinton as a liberal. 30 percent say they see her as a moderate.

During our interview today, I asked Senator Clinton about efforts to moderate her party's stand on abortion, and she insisted Democrats no longer need to be on the defensive on that issue.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLINTON: I think our goal is to reduce, as low as possible, the number of unwanted pregnancies, to try to help young women and young men make responsible decisions, to be there with adoption as an alternative for young women who do proceed with their pregnancy, to talk sensibly about providing emergency contraception after a woman's been raped. You know, I think that on the overriding goal of whether or not we want to criminalize abortion, criminalize women, criminalize their doctors, a vast majority of Americans say no.

But I think there is a very strong feeling that we should work together to try to create better conditions to reduce abortions. And I would just add that during the Clinton administration, abortions went down. And they've gone back up under the Bush administration. So clearly, what is being done by the current policies are not necessarily working.

WOODRUFF: Similarly, on the question of gay rights, aren't Democrats always going to be on the defensive? You now have 11 states that ban gay marriage. Should Democrats think about changing their position?

CLINTON: Well, I don't know many Democrats who support gay marriage. In fact, I don't and haven't for, you know, years before I became a senator. But I support giving people the right to enter into recognized relationships, that whether you call him civil unions or domestic partnerships, enable them to own property, to have hospital visitation. To me, that's a human rights issue.

Maybe I have just known more people than some of my colleagues, have because I've been blessed to know thousands of thousands of wonderful, patriotic, decent Americans, some of whom have committed relationships to their partners and who have suffered because when one was sick, they couldn't have that person by their bedside. I don't think that's right.

So, we basically have a lot of ‘on one hand, but on the other’ from Clinton on this. Normally she is quite good, like in the first half of the interview, but here the disunity and uncertainty of her party leave her in a compromised position. Naturally Woodruff nails Clinton with the punchline, ‘winning’ the exchange:

WOODRUFF: A lot of people give -- more broadly -- the Republicans credit for giving a narrative that they can say in just a few sentences. And criticize the Democrats for so often sounding like a string of policy statements from different interest groups. What, to you, in just two or three sentences, should be the narrative for the Democratic party?

CLINTON: Well, the Democratic party is responsible for most of the progress of the 20th century. It is the Democratic party that fought and stood for democracy and freedom. It is the Democratic party that created the ladders of opportunity that enabled millions of people to lift themselves into the middle class and fulfill their God- given potential. And it is the Democratic party that battered down the obstacles that stood in the way of women and minorities and others, having the opportunity to fully participate in American life.

And I think that if you really look at narrative of the 20th century, we're on the side of the continuing progress on behalf of the American people, and of America's leadership in an effective way at home and around the world. And the Republicans' narrative is really one that wants to turn the clock back. I think our narrative is better. We may not have done as good a job, perhaps, in communicating it and connecting with people, but that doesn't change the facts of what we stand for.

WOODRUFF: Three other quick things. 2006, you're running for re-election?...

I've said this before, but

2005-05-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

Part of the reason I don’t really post that often is because I feel I’ve said what I need to say on the subject before. That happened twice today. The first is a couple of comments I left at Levitt’s blog. The second is this comment I am leaving at TalkLeft about how to solve the heroin problem in Afghanistan. This one is short enough to repost in its entirety from Slate. Originally written 5-18-04.

We need to legalize heroin in Afghanistan

I was watching Dave Barno's talk (audio available at the csis site) about how poor the security situation is in Afghanistan and how little reconstructive work has been done (the ring road is the only serviceable road in the country) when it became clear how much of the mission in Afghanistan is preoccupied by interdiction of the opium trade. If you listen to the audio, you'll see how he emphasizes this factor as consuming a large part of the resources in that theater, apparently including his own attention.

This is a phenomenal waste. The degradation of governmental legitimacy that results from prohibition is having harsh real world effects in Afghanistan. This isn't just about letting a few people get high, it is a matter of life and death. Because the western occupation forces in Afghanistan are actively attempting to destroy its most profitable (and only) export, they are receiving very little cooperation from the populace.

If we allow the gangsters of Afghanistan to organize and profit off of the opium trade, we create a source of power that is alternative to the central government. Large western powers have periodically entered and left the life of most Afghanis while heroin gangsters have been a perpetual presence. If we force the Afghanis to choose between the two, the smart money will be on the gangsters.

The Big Idea

2005-05-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

Plumber wants to know why wealth inequaltiy hurts GDP growth.

Abstract: If risks increase societal wealth, and people care about relative position, then when people are far apart on wealth, they will not risk as much because they won’t be able to change their social position higher and are also not afraid of having their position lowered.

Inequality represents our relative positions in society. Paris Hilton probably does not have a whole lot of better chance at survival to reproduction then Brad Plumber (and in fact may have less due to drug use and promiscuity), but she has access to many times his wealth (presumably). In theory, if she were fall ill to some obscure disease, she may be able to accelerate research in that disease somewhat, but outside of this obscure chance, there is little that her wealth can create something to personally benefit herself. Her wealth can signal that she is near the core of society. This is of advantage because the aggregate probability that humanity will survive fluctuates, as in the case of, say, the Black Death. If a world wide epidemic were to occur, Paris Hilton, or her eventual heirs will be holed up in her villa outside Naples telling sexually titillating stories to her other obscenely rich friends.

So being at the core of society will increase your chance of survival in a somewhat zero sum manner. A successful society organizes itself so that the people who increase the probability of survival for the whole society are also the people who are closest to the core of society.

People wish to maximize the survival of their genes. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that genes wish to maximize their survival (yes, I believe genes can be analyzed as quasi rational agents), and people are for the most part at the mercy of their genes.

Presume there are two distinct goods, wealth and looks. Wealth reflects a non-zero sum good that is proxy for absolute survival (survival without regard to human behavior), looks reflect a zero sum good that may improve societal standing. Suppose further that some individuals specializes in one good, and the others specializes in the other good.

If people are at approximately equal wealth and society is organized to make good bets in wealth, i.e. blowing up your neighbor’s factory is not rewarded by society (by making your factory more valuable, say), then people will invest liberally. Even if you do not expect to benefit a significant amount from an increase in your own personal chance of survival by increasing your wealth, you will attract a mate that increases your gene’s chances of survival by a significant quantum if you increase your wealth a little over your neighbor’s level. So if you take a risk by investing, you have a better chance of leapfrogging your neighbor and landing the high “looks” mate. Seeing that you are investing, they may wish to counter invest to increase their chances of getting the high “looks” mate. To which you may counter, and etcetera.

On the other hand, if there is a significant wealth disparity, the high wealth individual will not feel any threat to their social position even if the poor individual increases their wealth. The poor individual also will see that the raw increase in chance of survival from increasing their wealth good will not outweigh the costs if their investment does not turn out, and that they have little chance of leapfrogging the high wealth individual and mate get the high “looks” mate.

How arson is like WMD

2005-05-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

In my day job as an economist I had reason to look into the colonial history of slavery in the northern US, and forty one minutes ago I realized that the incident of the 1741 New York slave insurrection proves false the notion that we are in a situation unique in history in that an individual may inflict great harm on a mass of people through a biological or radiological weapon.

For the impatient, the 1741 New York slave insurrection was a series of arsons that occurred while slavery was still legal in that colony. Like a biological weapon, fire only needs an initial spark to possibly destroy whole cities in times before plumbing. Like today, the possibility of widespread destruction caused by a single individual created a hateful rabid frenzy in desperate need of a witch hunt to quench its blood lust, resulting in a series of kangaroo court convictions of brown people and persecution of local intellectuals and non-conformists as well as a general crack down on the individual rights (of the poor, see below). Since this was a case of a short string of arsons, it is unlikely that there was any actual conspiracy, or that there was more then one person involved. The only evidence of an organization is the coerced testimony of the victims of the witch hunt.

An autogyro in every hangar?

2005-05-17T02:30:00.000-07:00

Battlepanda, Delong and Matt Yglesias all discuss this NYT article about the growing inequality and what the Times writer calls decreasing appearance of class.

What all miss is that the metric of class is the degree of independence from the larger society that individuals are allowed. Looking back at the Gilded Age / Edwardian period, few inventions were not widely available shortly after becoming baubles of the rich. Electrification and telephone networks were initially available in urban centers and available to wide swaths of society, much like today’s cellular and high speed internet networks. However, you would be about as likely to get electrification or long distance telephone service in Ogallala Nebraska in 1905 as Mike Jones would be likely to be able to text message from his T-Mobile Sidekick™ or download his album over high speed lines in 2005. You would be able to buy a Victorola for $15-$300, or about $300-$6,000 in 2005. In addition, like today, luxuries were widely available in smaller quantities. While the rich would have a private fireworks display, performance by musicians or actors, or displays of novelties such as quack science or motion pictures, the public could enjoy similar experiences in public displays or by renting the experience, as in the case of the selling of individual photo portraits, plays on a juke box record player, or purchasing tonics to participate in the latest quack medicine fad.

This difference was especially notable in transportation, where the ability to afford a team of animals to pull a coach for only one person or perhaps a family could be approximate to the ability to afford a private jet or helicopter in 2005. While a middle class individual could possibly afford to rent such a conveyance, he could not afford to purchase for personal use. Before the socio-economic leveling that was the result of WWII, autos were definitely the playthings of the wealthy and not the means of commute for factory workers. There was nothing preventing a worker from buying a house with a yard instead of row house ten feet from the street except that to do so would require moving too far from the rail lines that take him to work. (So maybe the next step is an autogyro in every hangar?)

The bottom line is that the rich did not have any really exclusive experiences except scale, but because of that scale, the rich were able to construct a bubble around themselves, a sort of alternate society where they could live free of the restrictions that were increasingly necessary to impose on the rest of society due to the growing resource consumption of the top. While the Edwardians were busy nailing actresses behind the backs of the Victorian morals enforcers, the common people could not afford such indiscretions. While the Gilded isolated themselves from the rest of society, social ills like police corruption and environmental pollution became the problems exclusively of the poor as the rich could isolate themselves with private security and better transportation (to the country estate). Looking at the situation on the Isle of Manhattan, where a person educated on the luxurious consumption of wine can make more then a middle class family in Philadelphia, it seems a new bubble has formed. Indeed, is it more likely that video tape duster is able to enjoy a few “bowls” without fearing a piss test or the “Chet” that does the I-Banking for Blockbuster? Is it more likely that you, dear reader, or Paris Hilton, a nubile young female whose nakedness has already been exposed to the world on several of the internets, will suffer the indignities of a strip search in the name of ~~Fatherland~~ Homeland security on a trip from the East Coast to the West Coast?

This is not to say that there is a hard and fast line. There is a sliding scale from less police harassment and better schools to walking around the metal detectors. Does this imply that there are no class distinctions? Maybe. But it certainly suggests that income inequality is problematic even if there do not exists rigid discreet segments of society with widely divergent experiences.

The Evolution of Religion and Why Being Religious is (Usually) Hard

2005-05-14T04:42:00.000-07:00

Brad Plumer wonders how strict religions survive.

To understand religions, we must understand the evolution of a religion. Every religion begins as an attempt to rearrange the social order, and thus must involve some quasi-anti-materialist quality since the materially plentiful rarely need to upset the social order. However, most successful religions have origins that can be interpreted as a liberalization of the existing religious practices for broader audiences and/or convenience.

After a religion has become relatively established, gradually more and more strict interpretation of the set of norms and mores is driven by attempt to maximize individuals’ own access to the resources of the society defined by the religion through display of piety. Since pleasurable displays of faith are easier to replicate, more difficult displays of faith are necessary in the tournament competition to be considered pious. In other words: Since not everybody can be “pious” (and thus entitled to the various societal rewards of that designation), but everybody can feast in celebration, it will take more then stuffing your face to be designated as pious. So the religion escalates in a war of masochistic piety over the resources of the religion, possibly fracturing, until the people get fed up and have a new reform movement.

I was going to write a long post about how this paradigm applies to Judaism, the split of Rabbinic off of the Tzedukim (Sadducee) tradition; Saul’s Christianity, the eventual calcification of the Roman branch and reform; Confucianism, Buddhism, and Marxianity, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Why the economy grows faster under Democrats

2005-05-12T04:39:00.000-07:00

Calpundit brings up the fact that the economy does better under democrats. I have argued before that this phenomena is mostly due to republican policies being more popular during the peak of a business cycle and democrats being more popular at the nadir. The most straight forward examples of this are FDR, Clinton and Bush Jr.

Preznit Dubya, the Lionheart

2005-05-05T20:45:00.000-07:00

Dubya: An over-mothered, incompetent and weak ruler that had a youth as an irresponsible partier whose conversion to religious fundamentalism functions both as a counter balance to his father’s conflict with religious conservatives and cover for his own past misdeeds, develops an inferiority complex to his over achieving father which he has opportunity to quench when, by happenstance, Islamic aggression gives him an excuse to simultaneously distract the masses and impress a bunch of insulated Jewish intellectuals through invasion of the Middle East, saddling his populace with the incurred debt.

Richard I: An over-mothered, incompetent and weak ruler that had a youth as an irresponsible pillager whose conversion to religious fundamentalism functions both as a counter balance to his father’s conflict with religious conservatives and cover for his own past misdeeds, develops an inferiority complex to his over achieving father which he has opportunity to quench when, by happenstance, Islamic aggression gives him an excuse to simultaneously distract the masses and impress a bunch of insulated French intellectuals through invasion of the Middle East, saddling his populace with the incurred debt.

On the Mechanism of the Elevator Pitch

2005-04-30T04:01:00.000-07:00

“It’s not what you say about the issues, it’s what the issues say about you,” or so claims the Decembrist.

But I think he gets it wrong. He says that the Republican strategy is to show that Bush is resolute and reliable by having consistent positions, repeating the same thing. Rather, the purpose is to assert a pseudo-principle, a sound bite as principle, to avoid analysis. Since principles are not subject to analysis, kind of like feelings, reporters can’t really attack it so much as repeat it. The elevator pitch meme is basically a fusion of three statements that act as pseudo principles:

“Smaller government, family values, and national security.”

It works like this:

Q: Mr. President, your policies in Iraq could be characterized as a total failure with the whole Middle East appearing to slide into the Iranian sphere of influence, preserving a formerly weak regime and possibly allowing it to develop nuclear capabilities, how aren’t your policies a complete waste of time, money and young American lives?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Flounder, you don’t mind if I call ya flounder, do ya? Sure, some of my opponents may say those things, but what they don’t understand is that I care about this nation’s security and/or spreading freedom, and I will do anything to protect it. My opponents may not be so devoted to our nations security and/or the Iraqi people’s freedom. Saddam was a threat to our security and he had to be taken care of, and now the Iraqi people are free. Next question.

So every question turns into an opportunity to state the relevant point (candidate/party of national security). It then turns from an opportunity for the reporter to analyze the position, by discussing facts and, well, talking about the issue, and into the politician questioning the reporter’s persistence when the answer is so obvious (TP:I am red. Q:Red could be viewed as bad, why are you red? TP: I am red, don’t you get it?)

To better illustrate, here is a hypothetical conversation with Judy Woodruff using part of my Democrat elevator pitch in appropriate places.

WOODRUFF: Senator, now that the president has laid out his plan, or more of his plan on Social Security, isn't it incumbent on the Democrats to do more than just say no to everything?

SCHUMER: Well, so far the President seems to be endangering the retirement stability that so many American families have come to rely on. We can’t support the current policy proposals from the president because we want to preserve this important resource for families.

WOODRUFF: But isn’t that like just saying no and not coming up with an alternative?

SCHUMER: Judy, you have to understand, American families are being squeezed all the time by the Republicans, in education, in health care, and now in retirement security. We want to make sure families have the resources to confront the challenges of the future. And that is why we take this position, because we are the party of family resources.

WOODRUFF: He said I'm willing to listen to good ideas from either party. The American people look at this and they see the Democrats not even willing to come halfway. Not even willing to engage in a conversation. Why couldn't that come back to hurt the Democrats?

SCHUMER: What, defending the resources American families need to succeed? I think the American people know better then that, Judy. [Sub-text: How stupid are you Judy?]

This illustrates the use of the “elevator pitch”. I mean how stupid are you Judy? We are the party of family resources!! Never mind what that actually means, if you do not stop everything you are doing and acknowledge that not only are we the party of family resources, but that any party that is not us is devoted to completely depriving every family of every resource it has, we will continue to repeat this point until you get it (meaning you start repeating it). This is principle! It is completely impervious to your analysis, Woodruff the Dense, for it cannot be analyzed. We feel it deep in our Democrat bones “family resources”. Viewed through the eyes of the average American TV surfer, you see a common sense folksy (Jewish Senator from NYC) guy demonstrating the complete incompetence of the flashy network news anchor. “Even I am smarter then Judy Woodruff,” they think to themselves, “The Democrats are the party of family resources! Duh.”

That is how it works. It makes the viewer feel smart as the news agent tries in vain to pull apart and deconstruct this (quasi-meaningless) statement. Instead of delving into the motives of the Democrat position, it practically begs the question of the press “Why aren’t you communicating this,” reversing the roles so that the news agent is the antagonist and the Democrat is the protagonist.

To see how we fall into the role of antagonist when discussing the issues (as opposed to what the issues say about us) the actual exchange (from Friday's Inside Politics, out of Lexis):

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Nice to talk to you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Senator, now that the president has laid out his plan, or more of his plan on Social Security, isn't it incumbent on the Democrats to do more than just say no to everything?

SCHUMER: Well, let me say first, he hasn't laid out a concrete plan. We're awaiting in the Finance Committee a legislative proposal. They haven't even been called up to testify. We have the outlines of what president wants and they're not very good. He was in a hole when he talked about privatization and now he's digging the hole a bit deeper by talking about these dramatic cuts to even middle-class people on Social Security.

It's our view that the president was the one who called this a crisis. Social Security is going to be in good shape 'til 2042. That doesn't mean we wait till 2041, but it doesn't mean we need to do something by this summer. And if he feels that it's incumbent, that it's a crisis, send us a detailed plan on what he believes and then will react to it.

But we're not going to, on the basis of one press conference and one speech, come out with our detailed plan, particularly in light of the fact that, again, we don't believe it's a crisis. We believe Social Security needs some changes, but we want to keep it basically the way it is. We're not recommending dramatic overhaul.

WOODRUFF: Let me read to you one of your Democratic colleagues in the Senate, Ben Nelson of Nebraska said. He said, "while the president did not lay out a complete plan to address solvency," he said, "I'm pleased that he did present one idea for us to consider as part of a solvency solution." And that of course is referring to the proposal to protect benefits for low-income workers and the benefit cuts for others.

SCHUMER: Right.

Well, couple of things here. He did talk about in general terms the plan that Mr. Posen had out together. But we don't know the details. And as you know the devil is off in the details.

Second, what he has talked about we don't find -- I think the vast majority of Democrats -- don't find to their liking. And privatization would entail such a dramatic overhaul of Social Security, fundamentally it's destruction as we know it from an insurance policy to an investment policy, that we believe he has to take that off the table before we sit down and negotiate.

WOODRUFF: Well, the president is saying also though, senator. He said I'm willing to listen to good ideas from either party. The American people look at this and they see the Democrats not even willing to come halfway. Not even willing to engage in a conversation. Why couldn't that come back to hurt the Democrats?

At this point, she has Schumer, the rest is just watching him squirm. There is pretty much nothing at this point Schumer can say that will distract attention from the seeming incongruity.

SCHUMER: Well, because I think most of the American people believe we are defending a program that they love. And the president is trying to radically overhaul a program that they recommend. And that's why he's in so much trouble. The more he speaks about it, the less happy they are with his plan.

And there is a simple solution. We brought it up a lot of times. First, the president has to take privatization off the table. We believe privatization's equal to the destruction of Social Security as we know it. Then, my view -- and this is the view of many Democrats -- he could do just what Ronald Reagan did. Put together a grouch of respected Democrats and Republicans who would make the adjustments, twist the dials if you will, and preserve Social Security for this generation and for future generations.

Ok, three lines of what he should have been repeating all along and then back into responding to the Republican talking points. Point: Woodruff. Fifteen – luv. Serve:

WOODRUFF: Let me ask you about judicial nominees…

At this point I realize that the point maybe this: fuck refuting their talking points, just make up shit.

Elevator Pitch

2005-04-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

The Republican elevator pitch according to Matt Yglesias is "low taxes, traditional family values, and a strong military," This fits well with a point I’ve been wanting to make for a long time. There are three kinds of Republicans.

First, there are the Falwellian masses who vote on Republican because of the reasoning mocked here. They own the second verse in the triplet above, although I would hypothesize it came first in the original.

Then there are the libertarians who vote for Republicans because they have been hypnotized by Ayn Rand, Von Mises, Von Hayek, or Nozick. They like the first line.

Then there are the real Republicans, the people whose asses fill the seats of power (and most who are behind that seat), otherwise known as crony capitalists. These are the people who were the real motivating force behind the seemingly unnatural coalition of the other two groups (one chosen for its laughable gullibility, the other for its absurd coincidence of policy goals). They explain such odd events as the prescription drug benefit, the airline bail out, the farm bill, the invasion of Iraq, and the bankruptcy bill. The third line is for them.

The Democrat counter to this triplet: “low taxes, traditional family values, and a strong military,” is to turn the two support groups against each other from our perspective, and nullify the third. The appropriate counter triplet is then: “For family resources, not financial resources; For diversity of ideas, to encourage innovation; and against crony capitalism,” This, I believe, conforms to Matt’s conditions of being acceptable to the left and repulsive to the right at least as much as the original triplet.

I am so drunk

2005-04-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Passover!

My point exactly

2005-04-22T02:20:00.000-07:00

Brad Delong illustrates my point in the below post in his parody of Brook's column.

Judicial Tyranny

2005-04-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

is the genius of American “democracy”. As designed, the Constitution gives practically all power to the Judicial Branch. Since the Judiciary has the Power of Interpretation, the Constitution’s Legitimacy backs whatever they say. As I have pointed out before, if they interpret “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office,” to imply that they are owed sexual Favors from interns, who is to say it means otherwise?

And this is the way it should be. Good Government is a complicated affair (apparently), not easily understood by the majority of people. That or, more likely, as I have hypothesized before, people are stupid. Now, some of my readers may be thinking that I have this all backwards: the Legislature orders around the Executive, and the Judiciary exists just too make sure the Executive does what the Legislature tells it too. That is the genius of the design.

I will make and analogy, and compare the government to a television. The Legislature is like a bunch of people on the couch telling the Executive how to adjust the color Settings, Volume, and Channel Number. The Judiciary is a TV repairman/cable guy. While he is fixing the cable box, he lets the technically deficient crowd occupy themselves by arguing over what channel to watch. That way, since they feel potent by being able to change channels, so they are distracted enough that they don’t disturb the Judiciary while he installs the Fox Blocker. In this way, the Judiciary really has total control. He could, in theory, make it so the TV only plays on one channel at a certain volume, but that would defeat the primary purpose of the Elected Branches of government: providing the people a toy to distract them while the Judiciary does the real work.

Do I mean to say the best government is produced from a tyranny? Almost. The weakness of hierarchy is that it does not punish complacency, allowing corruption and inefficiency to spread (observe the problems of a standing army). A democratic means of succession prevents corruption and inefficiency from spreading (one corrupt [nepotistic] administrator appoints further corrupt administrators, etcetera) through the system.

Without democratic input to the succession process, corruption takes over the system causing stagnation. However, direct election is inferior to appointment by elected officials. Elected officials have to pick someone who will act as an advertisement for the quality of their party. If the elected officials appoint Judges who do not advertise for their party well, they could be forced out of power for half a century or longer. Since there is only a limited amount of litmus testing that can be done before an appointment, technical proficiency and integrity become more important qualifiers then raw ability to marshal power.

Even if Our Judicial despots are less then benevolent, their Power is severely limited. They are not actually in control of the apparatus of government, the Executive is. If the Judiciary does not practice care in the execution of their despotic Duties, the Legitimacy of the Constitution suffers. In a state of moderate Chaos, the Executive assumes greater Authority due to the weakening of the Legitimacy of the Law which is the result of inept Judicial Tyranny. (If the Executive then squanders its own remaining authority, the ensuing chaos would be ruled by the people themselves, who are supposedly represented in the Legislature.)