Tag Archives: Politics

Relative Probabilities and Why the World Is Incapable of Second Level Analysis

Politics, , ,

Yeah, the title sounds a bit complicated but it’s not. The premise is simple: People are capable of simple logic, but whenever it comes to the leap level of complication concerning logic, most people tend to fail, leaving most issues bogged down in simplistic thinking, and stupid generalizations. Think about it. How many times have you heard the start of a great argument on a subject you already know a lot about through daily exposure, like something new on immigration, but then before that new perspective can be explored, the argument gets bogged down in the old arguments with no attempt to look at the issue from the new direction? I know it happens to me all of the time. Years ago, I was watching a debate take place between two really good university debate teams from the USA and Ireland. The issue just so happened to be about immigration, and the US team looked like they were going to win by default alone (I mean, who knows more about immigration in the US than people from the US?), but then out of nowhere, the Irish team took a completely different perspective and pretty much wiped out the US team by analyzing the subject from a contributive perspective (how much immigration actually improves the economy rather than bogs it down), and it was obvious that the US team had never even considered such possibilities. In the end, after the debate (there was no real “they won” narrative after it as it was a friendly debate), one American student who was watching said: “Yeah, they had a good argument, but immigration is still bad. It takes away our jobs.”

Yes, a long story to get to the point that sometimes people just aren’t capable of handling a higher level construction of a conversation. In the end, people tend to bring things back to what they already know, so that newer breakthroughs of knowledge of rare, and quite unlikely to be achieved.

But let’s look at it from the simple method of probability. In the very beginning of the study of math, once you got past algebra. Um, we did all get past algebra, right? I hope so because there’s going to be a quiz after. Make sure you get out a pencil and some scratch paper….

Say you have a coin and decide to flip it. What are the possible outcomes? Heads or tails, right? So your probability is 50/50, or you have a 50 percent chance of achieving a head or tail on the flip of the coin. That’s pretty simple. The next step in cognitive probabilities is to use two coins. What are the outcomes with two coins, and what is the percentage chance of getting a heads twice?

The math: 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4. Basically, the formula is pretty simple. You use the original probability of 1/2 and then factor it by whatever number of coin throws you intend to do. So, 3 coins would be 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/8. But here’s where it falls apart. If you know that your odds of getting 3 heads in a row are 1/8, and you throw the first two coins and get a head, what is the chance of getting a heads on the third throw? The mathematician will say 1/2, because that would be right, but depending upon someone’s faith, belief in karma, desire for justice and whatever, that last prediction can be quite interesting. If you went by math, you’d know your answer. But I tried an experiment where I told people I was flipping a coin, and asked them what were the odds I’d get a heads. Most answered 50 percent. But then I said that I had flipped that coin twice alredy and got a heads each time. So I asked them what was the percentage chance of a heads on the “third” try. Surprisingly, quite a few of them thought about it a bit and while some of them said 50 percent, there were a few who said that it was “bound to happen” that I’d end up with a tails on the third try, so they answered with different statistics and guesses. It was almost as if there was a belief that the next throw of the coin would end with a result that was necessary rather than logical.

It is this thinking that I am referring to today when I talk about second level analysis. Most people are capable of thinking of that first coin toss, but after the logic wears off, these same people start to think with other motivations, specifically faith and belief. I’m not talking about religion here, although it can go that way, but an inate tendency to push towards a sense of justice in the universe, so that if logic dictates a coin has a 50 percent chance of going on way or another, eventually it has to correct itself if it has been drawing too many heads. There is no logic to this, but there are people who believe this because it just seems like it SHOULD be that way. This isn’t belief in a higher being but in the basics of probabilities that people tend to believe right themselves after time.

Now, let’s bring this back to arguments of a higher level. Because people believe in these intrinsic values of logic, it becomes that much harder to argue towards a philosophical understanding of complex issues. The more math involved in the decision-making, and quite often logic involves a geometric processing of common sense (using proofs and situational constructs), the less likely someone is going to be willnig to change ones original foundation of thinking. I’ll demonstrate using a common argument that comes up in pretty much any nation, the burning of the country’s flag.

There are those who believe that it is sacrilegious to burn the flag, that is means complete disrespect for one’s country. Yet, at one point during the protests of the Gulf War, a group of former combat veterans burned the US flag to point out that they were part of a country so free that it could burn its own flag. This caused all sorts of right-wing commentators to condemn these veterans as traitors to the country, being completely incapable of seeing that there was a higher level argument being made here. In the end, very few people changed their minds over the issue. Today, if someone talks about burning a flag, there’s a good chance that person is going to be considered an enigma to the country, and in some cases there has been talk of charging such persons with a crime. The enlightened protests of such veterans meant little when it came to discerning higher level analysis over complex issues.

Which brings me to a couple of comments that I think are important to make. If most people are not capable of handling higher level analysis, we are in a bit of trouble when it comes to solving a lot of current problems, including the current economic state of affairs in the world. The solutions to our economic problems require higher level analysis and complex solutions, but unfortunately, the people who put forth such ideas are limited to having to explain such processes to people who are easily influenced by tactical politicians who are interested in immediate goals, not long term stabilization and growth. So, until people actually start explaining complex issues in a way that most people can understand, WITH THE NECESSARY PATIENCE, we’re going to have serious problems in the future, unless we can come up with simple answers to very complex problems.

Some updates, cause you know you can’t live without them….

Computer Games, Movies, Politics, , , , , ,

1. Blizzard changed its mind. I wrote recently about game companies jumping the shark, and how Blizzard Entertainment was making a seriously, horrible mistake by intituting REAL ID on its customers. The customers went nuts and protested until they practically couldn’t do it any more. The CEO of Blizzard wrote a Blog Post in which he stated, “um, sorry, we hear ya and we’re not going to do what we said we were going to do.” Wise move, and you have to admire the maturity of a company for knowing when it needs to take a step back and reconsider an action. The whole thing was obviously about trying to capitalize on their customers and make insane profits above their already normal INSANE profits, but fortunately they didn’t derail their whole company to try to increase their profit.

2. Stupid politicians. I hate political season, which seems to be almost year round these days. This morning, I was on the shuttle bus when I heard a campaign ad that essentially went something like: “Michigan is suffering badly. It’s performing the worst in the entire country. So send Justin Amash to Washington to fix things!” Or something as stupid as that. Basically, I’m thinking, um, Michigan has problems, so sending a State Representative to Washington is NOT a solution. It means sending someone from a messed up state to Washington to make a messed up country. Sometimes, I think these people just don’t think these things through. It’s not Washington they’re complaining about in that ad. It’s Michigan, so unless their plan is to send Amash OUT OF MICHIGAN TO FIX MICHIGAN because he’s responsible for screwing things up, I don’t really see the point.

3. Stupid corporate contest campaigns. Pepsi is running one right now that involves Major League Baseball. The point is: You collect bottle caps until you have three of them that match, and then you send them in for a free baseball cap. Really? That’s it? I’ve had about 40 diet Pepsis that are part of this campaign, and today was the first time I actually got one that was a duplicate of another (meaning I got two of the three I need). Now, mathematically, I didn’t even think that made sense, but I don’t even have three of the same, and I’ve already gone through 40 sodas. Stupid contest, and the pay off is equally stupid. For the 50 or 60 sodas I’ll need to drink, at least give me the chance to win something cool. Oh, and every now and then I get a cap that offers me 15% off of MLB crap. Really? And read the fine print. It is valid ONLY if you buy $75 worth of stuff. I don’t think there’s $75 worth of MLB junk I would ever want in the first place, regardless of the discount.

4. Movies. They’ve sucked lately. This whole summer should have been discontinued. Not a single movie really worth the money. And the prices of movie are astronomical. No good news on that front at all.

That’s really all for now.

If the System is Broke, No One in Power Wants to Fix It

Politics, , ,

There’s an interesting political drama going on in South Carolina right now. I guess I should elaborate because there’s always some kind of political drama going on in South Carolina. But this time, it’s about a man running for office. His name is Alvin Greene, and he did what no one expected he would do. He upset a party politician of long standing in the Democrat primary for Senate this year. He was someone with no credentials, no money and no name recognition at all. Yet, he managed to get 60 percent of the vote from the Democrats and put state legislator Vic Rawls out to pasture in the election.

Well, now we’re starting to see all sorts of skeletons in his closet, including the fact that he’s up for some kind of felony for showing porn to some girl at college and trying to entice her to his room. Now, let’s be honest, what college guy HASN’T done that, but that’s really a different issue now, isn’t it? It seems there are all sorts of weird shenanigans going on in his past, including that he may or may not have been thrown out of the military. He refuses to comment, wanting to focus only on the issues. But for all I know, there may be absolutely nothing wrong there. He may just not want to talk about his past military service. I mean, that is his right, if he chooses to make it so.

But the Democrats are raging mad right now, demanding he quit the race, even though the “people” chose him. They’re aghast that this potential felony machine is on their ticket. Well, let’s put aside the fact that so many politicians seem to have felonies on their records these days and don’t seem to think it causes a problem to their political careers. What’s the real issue here? It appears that the Democrats just don’t like the fact that someone ran an end run past them, and they weren’t the ones in charge. The7’re claiming the Republicans must have been behind his campaign, claiming that he couldn’t have afforded the $10,440 filing fee to join the race, that some dark, sinister force must have fronted the money to hurt the Democratic Party.

What this issue is really pointing at is something much bigger. For too long now, the common person has felt out of the loop of politics, but has been subjected to it by people who feel they should be making all of the decisions. There’s a special club of politics that has a hefty membership approval process, and most of us don’t fit the mold. Alvin Greene certainly doesn’t. The two parties in this country have done a very good job of making sure only the well-connected get in, much like a union boss makes sure only his cronies are the ones surrounding him at any one time.

Alvin Greene refuses to leave the race and only wants to talk about the issues. The Democrats want him out of the race so they can focus their attention on people they already like and know. He’s an outsider, and they don’t like that.

But what this is really pointing at is something no politician wants to face or discuss, and that’s the possibility that the people are rejecting the party machines that are already established and deciding to go with outsiders. I mean, let’s face it. South Carolina has been a cesspool of politics and scandals lately, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the people of that state decided to just buck the system and choose anybody but the usual suspects. What is interesting is that the political machine in place doesn’t handle this sort of thing well, and we’re seeing a backlash as every political entity in the Democratic Party is moving forces into place to circumvent ANYONE from challenging their authority and power.

South Carolina could be a very interesting place to mark the beginning of something very significant, or it will serve as the place where a last stand for the people was made before it was stamped out forever.

This just in: Beating Your Head Against the Wall Leads to Results…a bruised head and a broken wall

Politics, , , ,

I’ve talked about this before, but no one really seems to listen or care, but here it is again just for the fun of it. It appears that North and South Korea are rattling sabers and could be moving from posturing to actual fighting. The North Koreans may have (most likely) sunk a South Korean warship, and right now everyone is going nuts trying to get the North Koreans to admit their crime. Secretary of State H. Clinton says they have to own up to their deed. South Korea says they have to admit what they did, because they now have proof. North Korea says “make me!”. In other words, it’s business as usual on the Korean Peninsula.

You see, this has been going on ever since the two halves of one country decided to separate. Or someone decided to separate them. They both want to be back together, and but neither one of them is ever going to happy until the other one is gone. It’s kind of a bizarre set of circumstances, but that’s where they are.

What is NOT working is how we’ve always handled this. Our foreign policy approach to Korea has always been the old game theoretic model of tit for tat. It’s such a simple strategy that even a monkey can play it. Actually, they do. Give a monkey a banana, and he eats it. He might even do some tricks. Or throw poo at you. Monkeys aren’t really good at responding the way you’d want them to. Neither are North Koreans. And technically, they’re a lot smarter than monkeys. Can monkeys fire torpedoes? I don’t think so. So, yes North Koreans are a lot smarter than monkeys. So tit for tat is one of those great strategies that should work because North Koreans are smart enough to respond in a good way when you act in a good way towards them.

Well, that would work if North Koreans were computer programs that respond in a game theoretic fashion. And that’s the problem with game theories. They’re designed for a rational world, where people do what is in their own best interests. There’s no such thing as pride and prejudice (or other Penguin classics for that matter) in the rational choice world. People do what they do because it’s in their best interests. Or so we’d like to believe.

North Korea has rarely responded successfully in this fashion. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s not because the game theory is wrong, because it’s pretty good and one of the few theories out there that consistently gets great results when used properly. That’s the problem right there. We don’t use it properly. In order to succeed with tit for tat, it requires both players to be involved in the game. And surprisingly, the wrong player is the one who never plays. We start the game, throw out a carrot, get a reaction from North Korea, and then we respond appropriately. BUT (and this, like JLo, is a big but) when they don’t respond appropriately, we go nuts and kill the game. The solution to tit for tat is to continue the game as if it was still happening, to actually escalate further in a positive manner, but we don’t. Instead, we throw a fit and wonder why North Korea never responds favorably. So that leaves us at a point where we have to start the game over again. And wonder why it fails soon after. We’ve created a second level tier of tit for tat where we’re not even playing the same game we’re starting. North Korea is still in Game 1.0, and we’re starting Game 5.7, wondering why North Korea is responding to inputs from a previous game instead.

So, what’s the solution? Stop playing tit for tat. We need a new “game” that works, and this is another one of those FOT responses I keep throwing out there. If we ever want to get at North Korea so that they become partners for peace, we need to stop trying to change them like Sandra Bullock wondering why her man keeps cheating even though she “reformed” him. FOT puts forth the simple idea that the best way to change a potential partner is to head towards a goal that both members desire. If you look at North Korea from the perspective of what makes NK tick, you can probably find something they need and want, like sustainable food. They don’t want handouts because that makes them reliant on others, something they seem to fall apart with. But find a way to make them self-sustaining, like create a program for helping them deal with very little arable land, possibly by focusing on crops that can be grown in mountainous terrain or to enhance the strategies of fishing (I mean, it is a peninsula that is not by any stretch of the imagination land-locked). For everyone else, a stable, peaceful NK is probably the end goal already. For even longer term strategies, an economically viable NK means a trading partner and potential market for future goods. The possibilities are endless.

The importance of FOT is that both partners have to be willing to change over time, not just expect change from the other member. That’s where we keep failing. We want others to be more like us, or reliant on us. But very rarely are we willing to undergo changes ourselves, even though such changes might mean the future of stabilization in more spheres than one.

Or we can continue to try to make four party talks where we focus on what we want and how our “enemies” must comply, OR ELSE. Not a lot of rational thought in that premise when you think about it. The only way to really win in that scenario is by zero sum economics (one destroys the other). Not a pretty picture.

But it’s not like anyone listens to me anyway. I’ll check and see if anything good is on TV instead.

The Complexities of Government in the 21st Century

Politics, Television, , , ,

I know this is going to sound a bit strange, but I got the idea for this post from watching a really low quality science fiction tv series imported from the BBC. The show is called Survivors (not Survivor as in the really stupid reality TV show about tribes on an island). The premise is that some kind of virus has killed most of the people in the world, and a very few people are now amongst the survivors. The story is told from the main perspective of two women (one formely very wealthy and the other somewhat dirt poor). The two women hook up somewhere around the third episode, and slowly they are traversing the outskirts of London looking for some way to survive.

The wealthy woman seems to have come to a conclusion about what needs to be done for the future, and this came from some old geezer guy who was maintaining a vigil at the school where her son was last seen (her son becomes the motivation for her to seek out any attempts to find him). The old man, realizing he’s too old to really do any “surviving” tells the rich woman, Abby that long term survival isn’t going to come from hoarding the stuff that’s left but in the ability of the survivors to reinvent the old days of basic manufacturing. An example the guy uses is that in order to build a table you not only need wood that was cut down from a tree, but you need to be able to make the ax you used to cut it down because eventually the supply of axes and tools will break and run down, meaning that we have to be able to make this stuff again. The victors will be the ones who relearn how to do such things so that we’re not just scavengers but producers as well, so that the future of humanity is not just gathering but creating as well. Well, Abby takes up this idea and pretty much tells everyone she comes across that this is needed for the future, and she becomes very convincing as a future leader for whatever institutions they create.

This doesn’t really resonate until they hit about the third episode when she comes across a former parliamentarian who has taken it upon himself to rebuild “society” by claiming control over certain sections of the local area. If you want to scavenge supplies from abandoned stores, you need to go through him and his goons, and quickly you start to realize that in all of the talk that they have about saving civilization, they are really just another version of lazy government officials who have taken it upon themselves to take control because they got there first, and everyone else is pretty much at their beck and call. Abby fights against this and decides to go it alone with her little ragtag group of people, and suddenly you start to see the beginnings of class and political struggle that results, and the reality the story shows is that no matter how much you try to avoid it, you’re forced into that paradigm one way or another.

Which caused me to start thinking about the moral that this story has to be telling to those of us who are living in civilized society where a virus hasn’t wiped out government yet. As I talk about from time to time, somewhere down the line we surrendered power to people who have had their hands on the reigns ever since. Sure, we can believe that we can “vote” them out, but in reality we have little ability to change anything because the vast numbers necessary to make a difference are practically insurmountable and incapable of being obtained. As Mancur Olson points out, we can get a lot of people to rally together for a cause, but once we get them together, there’s little way to keep them motivated on the end game, and even worse, as is pointed out by me, once you have those numbers of people gathered together, there’s no telling what they’re going to do on a whim. Look at the protests that took place during the first Gulf War that happened in San Francisco. At one point, there were thousands of people gathered in the streets; the next, people were climbing the railings of the Bay Bridge, disrupting traffic and getting arrested while doing absolutely nothing for the movement but everything for their critics. Look at the protests that took place in Berlin in the 1990s. People wanted to get together to protest the harsh conditions and the rumors that were circulating about future freedoms. The result: They tore down the wall and ended communism in East Germany overnight. All it took were random people throwing rocks and bricks before things went completely out of control. In Berlin, that was great for freedom. In Czechoslovakia decades earlier, it was disastrous as the government responded by opening fire on the crowds and arresting anyone who dared to protest such treatment.

Yet, there’s a problem that has emerged in the latter part of the 20th century and into the 21st century that no one is addressing, and that’s that people are no longer quiet peasants who are uneducated and willing to do whatever the forces of power tell them to do. We’re seeing all sorts of random violence taking place all across the world at government summits and economic meetings where people are angry and no longer willing to just sit on the sidelines waiting for crumbs of information from those in the know and those in power. There are powder kegs all over the world that are waiting to explode, and some already have, yet we see these as isolated incidents and pay little attention to them. Partly because we aren’t concerned, and partly because I think a lot of people want to hope that such events do not lead to horrific futures that they refuse to imagine.

People often see the Obama victory for the wrong reasons. So many people want to see it as a refutiation of the Bush Administration, as if the country wised up and “threw out the bums”. Yet, these same people seem shocked when the masses are going through the motions of throwing out government officials from Obama’s side. To them, none of this makes sense and appears to point to a public that is unsure of what it wants. But a logical mind can look at these incidents and realize that something very simple is taking place: The masses are reacting against pretty much all authority and showing its dissatisfaction with anyone who is in power.

Unfortunately, this is just a placebo that will work only long enough for people to realize that throwing some people out of office will only strengthen the ones that manage to stay in, and even worse, create a new group of cronies who will quickly grow into the types of people the masses don’t want in power. The masses can only get angry for so long before one of two things happens: Things REALLY change, or they take their anger out in other ways. The first alternative is the best course, but it hasn’t ever happened that way, and it isn’t happening that way. Lobbyists still control government in the shadows, and as long as they continue to do so, and the rich continue to use government to enrich themselves as the expense of the public, then the first alternative will never happen. Oh, we can hope for it and pretend it’s working, but convincing ourselves is not the same as convincing the angry masses who aren’t easily appeased with government cheese handouts and pretending that a loss of jobs is really an uptick in jobs because we turned the statistics chart upside down and said all is well. The second alternative is the dangerous one, and if things go that way, there is no going back to the first alternative because once things start moving down that road, they don’t stop. And there is no controlling events either because once things start to go into anarchy, only the gods of anarchy can be appeased, and they are appeased by chaos and uncertainty.

Could make for an interesting future.

Do Superpowers Recognize When They’re Losing Their Significance?

Politics, Television, ,

I’ve often wondered what it must have been like to be a citizen of France at the end of the first World War when it can be argued that the French Empire was finally no longer the superpower they once were. Almost overnight, the German war machine built itself up and rolled right over the forces of France, forever destroying their ability to posture like…well, like the French. At the same time, I also wonder how a British Empire citizen must have felt when he or she realized that the imperial power of the once great British Empire was no longer significant. Some might argue this happened right about the time the American colonists kicked them out of the colonies, but it’s quite possible that this demise was coming sooner than that, and that it may have taken a bit longer than 1789 to finally occur.

But what gets me wondering is how those citizens must have not believed that it was possible their empires were no longer the behemoths they once were. Having said that, I start to wonder if the United States might not be in the same boat today, having once been the emergent superpower in the world, but now somewhat irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Oh sure, like most superpowers, we’re still up there at the top of the list, but at the same time I don’t think we evoke the respect and fear that we might have had maybe 50 years ago. Look at how nations like Iran react to the United States today. In the 1960s, a country like Venezuela would never have dared say half the things Chavez says on a daily basis. His country would have been invaded, and he’d be sharing a prison cell with Noriega. Remember that guy?

But not today. Today, the US is seen as one of the most powerful countries in the world, but it’s not seen as the hegemony that it tends to think it is. At one point, in response to 911, we invaded Afghanistan and then for any number of irrational reasons, we invaded Iraq. But then we got bogged down in those stupid wars and we really don’t have a way out. I don’t even think we have a rational reason for why we’re still there, other than “we’ll leave when everything calms down”, which is a pretty scary thought because these are areas that have never really been calmed down, at peace or even stable. Well, Iraq was, but we wiped out the guy who stabilized it, and well, who knows?

During the Cold War, it was probably okay to be one of the main hegemonies in the world, but we were directly at odds with the Soviet Union, and today, I’m not even sure what it is our point is any more. We keep building up a huge military to fight against some mysterious enemy that doesn’t exist, although Russia keeps seeming to want to become the enemy it used to be, even though there really doesn’t seem to be a rational reason to let them do so. There’s nothing about Russia that is really a problem for the United States other than the idea that they’re the “other” hegemony, but in reality aren’t really powerful enough to be just that these days.

That’s the problem right there. We seem to exist to counter a great enemy somewhere, but there is no great enemy anywhere any more other than ideological ones, like the concept of terror. But how do you counter a concept? You really can’t. You can talk about it, scream at it, and claim you will stop it, but it’s an idea, not an actual enemy. It’s like declaring a war against smoke but not recognizing fire as an enemy but something to be coddled in hopes that it will make smoke go away. That’s why I hate these concept wars, like the war on poverty.

But what no one wants to face is the possibility that the United States really has no meaning any more. Think on that for a moment. If someone was to ask you what the United States stands for or means, the usual answers of “freedom” are pretty limiting because “freedom” exists in many places, some of which have more of it than the United States. The idea of the “melting pot” also comes to mind, but in reality it’s more a fantasy and a promise that we don’t actually live up to any more. If you go to any major city, you’ll find more people interested in ethnic and racial separation (within those ethnic and racial identities) than you’ll find that are interested in “melting”. In the old days, the melting pot metaphor was useful because when people melted into society, they still tended to look a lot alike and didn’t seem to want to fall back into their identity separations. But not today. Nowadays, we spend a great deal of energy with politically correct dogma that requires us to work on separating ourselves from each other by color and creed, all in the name of this bizarre fantasy that somehow this will make us all want to live together in harmony. Something really wrong happened in this country, and people are too scared of being branded racists, bigots or haters to want to do anything about it, when in reality the people who want cohesiveness and racial harmony are the ones who most often have least chance of achieving it. It’s pretty hard to advocate for racial harmony when there are people who owe their entire political careers to making sure those separations never go away. Sorry, but that’s a sad sate of our current affairs.

But back to the thesis of this post, and that’s that what we don’t seem to realize might be exactly what is happening all around us: The entire foundation of what makes America “America” has been falling apart for many decades now, and no one is doing anything about trying to bring things to a better place. Instead, every time someone talks about “fixing” America, it ends up being someone who wants to do things that make America that much worse, doing stuff like creating barriers to immigration, forcing English on the population, or just making it so that more and more people hate each other all in the name of some ideal that no one really intends to emulate.

Sadly, most people won’t realize there’s a problem because the fantasy of America is much stronger than any reality can ever be. It’s because of this that we can rack up a massive deficit that is reaching proportions we may never be able to repay. And instead of deal with it, we just stick our heads in the ground and figure that it will all fix itself, or we’ll all live long enough to die before we ever have to deal with the consequences. Well, I have a feeling that many people in the numerous republics of the Soviet Union were probably thinking that nothing bad could ever happen even as the warning signs started appearing in the 1980s, not realizing that in a decade the whole foundation would collapse on itself.

As a huge fan of Stargate SG1, a sign of my eternal geekdom, I have to say that I’ve always been a fan of the one dialogue they kept bringing up, where they’d talk about their main plan, and then realize that if it doesn’t work out well, they’ll have to fall back on Plan B. And in the show, one of the running gags was that they never really had a Plan B, but they’d always just keep running until things worked themselves out. Well, that’s the United States today. Plan A is to hope for a miracle that no one is actually working towards. Which means Plan B is already in place, and we’re running forward, hoping that the evil aliens don’t end up killing us and destroying everything we believe in. Fortunately, in the TV universe, they usually came out ahead. Let’s hope that fantasy is somewhat based on a sense of reality. Otherwise, we might be in a whole heap of trouble, and there’s only so many “To be Continued” episode endings we can use before the network finally realizes it has to cancel the show.

Reflections on Life in General

Politics, Religion, , ,

I spent a few hours this weekend paying bills. You know, the usual, where you sit down with your check book and write out checks for all of the bills that have been building up over the last few weeks. The kind that build up not because you can’t afford to pay them, but just because you don’t want to take the time to pay them. I find myself doing that a lot, and have even paid some bills really late because I just didn’t feel like filling out the paper work that is required to fill out in order to pay a simple gas bill. I really hate  paying bills, and no matter how many times I pay it, that feeling just doesn’t change.

For me, it feels like my life has very little meaning when it comes down to it, because when I’m sitting there with a handful of utility and credit card bills, one starts to feel that there’s really little purpose in life other than paying bills to people who don’t provide anything for me other than little nuances that one needs to endure in order to live somewhat comfortably. I pay a gas bill because I don’t want to freeze, and sometimes I like to cook food without having to rub two sticks together and hope that millions of years of evolution don’t put me back a couple of thousands years to where I’m still required to provide my own fire. I pay an electricity bill so that I can watch TV, turn on the lights, run the microwave (avoiding that rubbing sticks together thing), fire up my computer to write this blog, and other things that come from Ben Franklin’s kite discovery a couple of centuries ago. I pay my rent bill so I don’t get kicked out on my behind and actually have a stuff to put my, to put what George Carlin eloquently referred to as, “stuff”. I pay my car payment so I can avoid having to take the bus to work, and then I get to pay my insurance bill so that I’m legally allowed to drive my car on the road. Add in credit card bills and other little nuanced payments here and there, and honestly, I’m paying a lot of money to maintain a very low level of existence.

But what’s the meaning of it all? I mean, why continue to pay all of this money to entities that don’t care one iota about me in any way just so one can continue to survive? Throughout history, reflective souls have constantly asked the inward-looking questions of “why am I here?” and each generation seems to have one or two philosophers that think they have it all figured out, yet why is it that we still keep having to ask this question? I mean, we can read all sorts of philosophers and think we have it all figured out, but I get the impression that no one has ever really figured it out, because we still have to keep asking the questions. But we don’t seem to come up with any real answers.

I remember a colleague and I once joked in political science that we were challenging the paradigm Americanist belief that all representatives do what they do in order to be re-elected. We posited that perhaps the rationale behind congressional representatives was a little simpler, that maybe they did what they did in office, and to achieve office, because they were interested in dating. In other words: Attracting a potential mate. Sure, those of us in the discipline laughed at us, and we chalked it up as a joke, but if you think about it, there’s probably something there. If you look at it from a basic biological necessity, most people tend to do the things they do in order to perpetuate the species. Men fluff their feathers in hopes of attracting a mate, so why couldn’t it be seen that in the end congressional representatives do everything they do in hopes of perpetuating their species as a biological necessity? Sure, getting elected, or re-elected, may appear to be the end goal, but what if it’s really just a step in a biological direction? I honestly think that scientists aren’t all that interested in examining such issues with sincerity because then it would present all sorts of dilemmas that they don’t want to deal with, especially if the base values of a politician are narrowed down to simple reproductive functions.

Which brings me back to my original question of “why are we here?”. I mean, is that all there is? Are we here specifically just for reproducing, and thus, all of our mannerisms and manifestations mean nothing but achieving survival through offspring? I’d really hate to think that life is as simple as that, and the bigger picture is really nothing more than just the continuation of the species.  Wouldn’t that be truly sad to discover that after all of this evolution we’re no different, or better, than a snail slug? What a joke that would be if our achievement of sentience means absolutely nothing but an ability to acknowledge that we really don’t have a purpose in the first place.

All of this discussion makes it really difficult to conclude without at least mentioning the concept of religion because when it comes to this type of conversation, there’s always this tendency to try to find answers through a “higher” meaning. Having been brought up in the methodist sense of spirituality, I often find it interesting that there are people who can so easily surrender to the idea that it’s all just a part of a religious purpose, that there’s no need to think any deeper than that. In a Penrose sort of way, it’s hard not to be able to acknowledge the possibility of something deeper than basic humanity, but at the same time it’s so difficult to accept that we have managed to figure it all out because someone in an earlier age, with less ability to understand the bigger picture, had it all figured out and wrote it down in a book for the rest of us to follow, especially when the book is so damn confusing, is interpreted so many different ways (often leading to war, subjugation and hatred), and no two copies of “the book” are believed to be any more valid than any other. And then the followers of those books do such horrific deeds and offer up such hatred towards other people, all in the name of doing the right thing.

Anyway, I’m starting to ramble now, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

The Problem for the Future Might Not Just Be the Government

Politics, , , , ,

As an advocate of free speech and very (extremely) limited government, I’m often talking about the problem of government control and its intrusive nature. For those like me, we’re often seeing the future as a variation of “1984” and fear the process of new-speak and Big Brother. But one thing that has emerged over the latter part of the 20th century and into the early part of the 21st century is the revelation that the problem may not be coming from big government, but from big business. This is somewhat ironic, or tragic, because most people who tend to advocate for less government are usually big fans of privatization and the freedom of business interests. But what has happened is that big business is slowly usurping big government as the entity we most need to fear.

Look at Microsoft, Google and Facebook for examples of what I’m talking about. Microsoft won the operating system wars by dogmatic policies and, as some lawsuits would have you believe, through some pretty crappy business practices involving monopolies and claims of stolen innovations. Whether or not there’s any truth in that latter claim, I don’t really care about, but what arguments can be made is that by having huge monopolies of this nature, we’ve really made it practically impossible to innovate in new directions because dogmatic companies just don’t let you do that.

But to make matters worse, these types of companies are now going out of their way to innovate their own successes on the backs of most of their customers. Facebook, lately, has shown itself to be a behemoth that no longer cares what people think as it buys and sells our own personal information, and it laughs at us if we think what they’re doing is wrong in any way. I love their procedure for dealing with you when you decide to quit them. Instead of actually allowing you to delete your account, they “allow” you to “deactivate” your account so that they can still use your information and treat you as one of their products rather than one of their customers. To ACTUALLY delete your account, you have to go through a four or five click process to finally reach a page that then informs you that it will take 2 weeks to delete your account, as if the owners of Facebook realize that you’re being rash and hotheaded, so they’ll give you some time to think about it before they’ll allow you to make the “mistake” of leaving. Even when you deactivate your account, they make you feel so guilty about it, reminding you that if you should dare to deactivate your account, you will no longer be able to communicate with your friends, your wife, your loved ones or your family EVER again.

The biggest problem with some of these companies is that they buy and trade our own private information as if it is their own. And read the legalese they make you click and agree to before you ever access their pages. THEY OWN YOU and your information, and you’re only living in THEIR worlds. That’s really how they feel about it.

Lately, there has been a new movement to pretty much dump Facebook because of their unilateral strategies in ownership of information. The backlash has been a claim of “if you don’t continue with Facebook, then you can never communicate with anyone ever again”. It’s straight out arrogance and stupidity, but people fall for it.

What we used to fear was government becoming too powerful, which is why we made rules of what government could and could not do. But private enterprises don’t have this same type of hold on it, unless you count the government itself. Right now, Congress is looking into a number of these different large companies to stop their approaches to ownership over data and information, but these companies are doing an amazing thing as a response: They’re appealing to citizens and acting as if government is using its power to stop them from donig what is their right to do, which essentially means they are upset that government is stopping them from doing to us exactly what we wanted to make sure government could never could do to us. The irony is that because they’re not government, they think it’s okay that they get to do things that we would never allow government to do.

As big businesses are becoming more aligned with the wants and needs of government, and often use government to back up their plans (police agencies have always responded to the needs of large businesses before they respond to the common folk), this collusion may one day reach a point where we are going to find ourselves being detained by government at the behest of these organizations. Recently, when Gizmondo printed a story about the new iPhone, the government raided their offices and took all of their computer equipment. No one knows who pulled the government’s strings on that as Apple claims it was the individual who lost the iPhone, while many others claim it had to have been Apple because the government agencies involved then went silent when questioned further.

It might not be something people realize is a problem just yet, but when it becomes a problem that everyone notices, it will then be too late. But when has that ever caused anyone to be proactive about one’s own rights and responsibilities?

News Round Up

Politics, , ,

Just thought I would take a few moments and comment on some of the important news stories that seem to be in the news lately:

The Oil Spill: See here.  My initial comment is that this is one of those stories where I so much want to point fingers and laugh because I have been against drilling for oil on the coasts for about as long as the idea has been around. I was against it when Bush was in office, and I’m against it while Obama is in office. What shocked me was that when Obama changed his mind and suddenly was for it, a whole chorus of people who used to be against it were suddenly for it. Now, they get to experience the consequences of what happens when you drill for oil close to the coast. Not a good idea. Ever.

Country singer Chely Wright reveals she’s a lesbian. Story is here.  If this was Shania Twain, I’d cry. But it’s not. It’s Chely Wright, someone I’ve never heard of before. And I’m a big country music fan. Don’t know who she is and don’t really care. Judging from some of the comments I’ve read from others who have been following this same story, none of them know who she is either, and the consensus seems to be that this is generally someone who hasn’t been selling a lot of music who is now looking for a gimmick to sell more music. Probably not going to work because country music fans aren’t real open to diversity. Sorry, but most aren’t. I am, but I’m not the average country music fan, so I’m chalking her career up to being somewhat over, unless she somehow reinvents herself so that she is appealing to those who aren’t part of this genre.

Arizona’s Immigration Problem. Story is here.  I’m sorry, but why is this a problem or a debate? Honestly, don’t we have more important problems in this country to deal with than whether or not immigrants are sneaking over the border and taking jobs? Yes, there are crime problems, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. Fix immigration and you’ll STILL have a crime problem. The crime problem is caused by disparities in wealth, a desire to achieve something for little work, and very stupid people; none of these really has anything to do with immigration, both illegal and legal. Solving immigration doesn’t fix that anywhere else but in fantasies.

Apple’s New IPad. Story can be found here.  My only comment to this one is a source quotation, the source being P.T. Barnum, and the quotation being one that everyone should know by now. If not, I apologize for laughing at you.

Another week or so of very unimportant news masquerading as important news. We’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rich people are still getting paid way too much money and upset that they can’t keep more of it while they employ the very poor to work for them and make them even richer. Politicians are still more interested in a photo op than they are in helping people but are willing to spend millions of our dollars pointing out how much money they saved us. There’s a lot more, but this is where people stop listening and go look for other “interesting” things to read.

The Inalieable Right to Power

Politics, , , ,

I may be strange, but every now and then I’ll sit back and think to myself, “what must have been going through Charlemagne’s head when he convinced himself that it was appropriate for him to chase Guntram across Europe, destroying his cities until he finally managed to wipe him out and claim his lands as conquered.” What sort of gall does it take to convince yourself that you have the right to a particular territory, mainly because you have a larger army than your neighbor or because you don’t like the idols a particular civilization worships?

The funny thing about such thoughts is that people dismiss them as unimportant as they go about their normal lives, yet don’t realize that each and every day we live in an environment where such choices have been made for us. We just don’t think about it. Instead, we feel secure in the idea that we live in a democracy, choose our own leaders and no longer live in the barbarism that once existed where a more powerful foe could take your property just because he was faster with a sword or had more buddies that carried lots of weapons.

American society is predicated on the premise that somewhere in the past our forefathers decided these things for us, that we were somehow living in a Hobbesian nightmare of an existence and then banded together to put someone in charge of us to make our lives that much safer. Or we buy into the Lockeian fantasy (not the one where John Locke is a dead guy on an island leading the castaways to find out the “LOST” secrets of the island in hopes of escaping, but the John Locke where the name of that character really comes from) that we all accepted this governmental system because there are certain inalienable rights that we understand are being protected because we wish to avoid a state of war in contrast with our state of nature. Or we could argue that we’re all social beings, banded together because we all want what is best for all of us, and that we’ll do whatever is necessary to make such things happen, because we’re all in it together, holding hands and singing kum-bay-ya.

Or we could think of it all as Charlemagne did and realize that somewhere down the line someone took power and has been justfying that power grab ever since.

Oh, it’s easy to dismiss such a concept when you exist in a government where people “vote” for their leaders, but as Rousseau once argued, we’re only a democracy during the periods when we vote. The rest of the time, we’re some type of authoritarian government where people feel it is part of their privileges to tell others what they can and cannot do. They can usually back it up with “laws” or “needs” but in the end, there is someone who uses the status of power to tell other people what they can and cannot do. It doesn’t even have to be right; and often it may not be. An example is a stop light. If I am standing on a corner about to cross the street, and there is a red light that is in my path, I will generally  not cross the street because of several reasons. The first is the obvious danger to myself. If I cross the street, there is a good chance that I might get hit by a car that is going through the intersection perpendicular to me because that driver has a green light in his lane. I might die. But if there is no car there, and I’ve checked both directions to reveal that there isn’t a car for many blocks, I still cannot cross the street because there is also the fear of being fined for an infraction. Sometimes, it’s the fear of a police officer who might write me a ticket, a camera that automatically spits out a ticket when your car enters the intersection on a red light, or any other number of little nuances that might keep me from crossing the street.

But if I’m in a hurry, and the street is safe, I now take a chance on my own safety and personal freedom if I decide to break this law. Now, I didn’t negotiate at any time in my life to decide whether or not I would ever follow such a rule. That rule was made for me. Oh, they can say that I was part of the process because it was voted for, but think about that one for a moment. When was that last time anyone ever voted on whether or not a red light is an infraction that can be punished by law? Even if there was a heated debate between city leaders, chances are pretty good that the common citizen had little to no effect on the making of such a law. A citizen might be able to show up at a town meeting and announce his displeasure, but in the end, that citizen has zero choice whatsoever on that decision. As a voting citizen, sure that citizen can vote out someone who decided for that law, but that’s a pretty crappy argument when you realize that the majority of people in a democratic society have very little input in the choosing of a society’s leaders.

As a citizen of a city, I might be able to vote for my city leader, the mayor, or a couple of the council members, but I have very little say in what they do. Chances are pretty good that my vote isn’t even considered significant enough for them to listen to anything that I have to say. Most politics these days are coaxed in financial affairs, meaning that most people have access to the chambers of power if they have a stake in the huge money that gets moved into the system. If you’re not part of that elite group, you have no say so in what happens in government. Sure, you could run for office, but your chances of becoming a part of that elite are slim, if even that lucky. So, just being a part of your own city government is a pipe dream. Now push that even further and realize how unlikely the common person is able to influence county and then state governments. The people who make up the power halls at this level have almost no incentive to listen to the common people, and they don’t. Quite often, they care so little about what the people think that they’re willing to do some of the most despicable things, including serious corruption. And even when they’re caught, they don’t care. They’ll laugh it off and STILL manage to convince enough people to keep them in the halls of power. The incumbent effect has serious coattails.

So, let’s talk about some of these people who do get into the system. How many of them can be considered a Cincinnatus, the Roman dictator, who in 439 B.C. quit being dictator because “his work was done” so he went to retire to his farm? Way too often, people pursue power rather than get forced into it, which leads to an endless quest for more and more power, which then leads to massive corruption and complacency. I was reminded of this during the last run up to the 2008 presidential election when I examined the different people trying to become their party’s nominee for president. I kept asking, “why you?” and what I kept seeing was this ego-driven platform of people who were convinced they “deserved” power, and that because of some feature (education, intelligence, time of service, or whatever), they felt they should be put into a position of great power.

This got me thinking as to why does someone honestly believe that he or she deserves power. Quite often, the answer seems to be that they feel they are deserving of it because of intelligence. They feel they are smarter than everyone else, and thus, they should be the leader.

That’s the sort of leadership that scares me. I’m a big fan of the leader of circumstance, which is a rare entity these days. This is a person who becomes a leader by accident rather than by choice. He or she was at the right place at the right time, and when the crisis was over, that person went away. Imagine Guliani, or at least the hype that was put out for Guliani when 911 took place. You can argue back and forth as to whether or not he was REALLY a good leader, but a general consensus was that he took charge well and did a good job during this period. Then he tried to rely on that image to propel him to national prominence. Fortunately, it didn’t work, but he was definitely no Cincinnatus.

The same thing can be said for Boris Yeltsin in 1991 when he stepped up to the plate and literally stopped a coup d-etat from taking place in the Soviet Union. He didn’t back down, and he became a beloved leader because of it. He wasn’t a great leader after that, again failing the Cincinnatus test, but during that one period in time, he was a great man.

We don’t have that sort of behavior anymore. People are after the end game, not the lead up to it. People want to be perceived as having put in the time without actually putting in the time. It’s why every presidential election there’s this huge conversation about someone’s leadership past, and how much he or she has done before the nomination. It’s why someone can compare a senator with a governor and act like one has leadership and the other doesn’t, which is ludicrous to say the least.

The other rationale someone uses for why he or she deserves power is the infamous “I paid my dues”, as if a lifetime of continuous grabs for power makes someone a good leader. As much as I like Al Gore (being the inventor of the Internet and all), I used to laugh every time the argument was made that his vice presidential service was his paying his dues towards his run for the presidency. Being vice president is a huge power grab, and it should be considered a gift of power, not a sacrifice someone pays before getting the brass ring of the Oval Office, yet it’s often treated that way. Now, I could see someone having spent his entire life as a career enlisted soldier who then announced he or she has paid his or her dues, because THAT is paying one’s dues. I don’t even see someone being a general as someone who paid his or her dues, because that’s like being given a job as a CEO of a company and then claiming you paid your dues as well as the guy who scrubbed floors each day in the same building. I’m sorry, but I don’t see the huge pay off one gets from these types of positions as dues paying.

So, when Hillary Clinton was constantly being hailed as someone who deserved the presidency because she had paid her dues (several commentators even referred to the whole Monica Lewinsky blow job scandal as part of those “dues”), I just laughed and chose Obama when I saw a far better candidate. However, when the election was over, it didn’t surprise me that she was still “awarded” a position in government because people felt she “deserved” it.

The time of service argument is another one of those made that tends to get on my nerves because the halls of power end up becoming a social club where you pretty much have to be a member of that club in order to get in. They reward each other by continuing to promote within, and anyone on the outside is seen as an outsider unless someone does something outrageous to gain entry. Putting one’s time into politics is the opposite of what should be done. Politics should not be a career but a vocation of necessity. John Adams had it right when he looked to Athens for the framework for democracy but then he failed to bring along the most important attribute, and that was the lottery. People in government served by lottery (for the most part), not by election. You served in government because your name got chosen, like jury duty, and if you couldn’t figure out a way to get out of it, you were in that position for as long as was part of the process. With such a system, the corruption that comes with democracy would be almost nonexistent.

Instead, we have people serving their entire professional lives as politicans, constantly climbing the rungs of the ladder of power, because they don’t know how to do anything else. And we keep electing them because we recognize their names because they’ve been in power for so long it would be impossible NOT to recognize their names. It leads to one of those cycles that just doesn’t end.

So, next time you’re walking down the street and see the old crazy guy yelling at the stop signal, “Damn you, Charlemagne and your stop light power grabs!” it’s probably just me because I think I’m the only one who really cares.