Computers and Economics

In this wonderful age of technology we live in, computers can do amazing things.  They can bring characters like Golum to life so realistically that we can believe he can actually exist (or that a creature can be that anorexic and still kick a hobbit's ass).  They can connect people together in a mass social network that requires terabytes of memory and gigawatts of power.  They can bring us smart phones, teach us a foreign language in several weeks, or make a killing in the stock market based on a two-tenths of a millisecond faster processing speed than a competitor.

So why the hell can't all this computer power make us smarter in economics?

With the competing ideas of economics in our ridiculously hyper-divided political "system," in full scale war, what we, the people, need more than ever, is a game-like computer model that shows us just how economics works, whereby we can see how a nation like the U.S. does using various economic approaches.  In other words, you can play the computer game as the United States, tweak government-controllable factors like money spent on education, raising or lowering of taxes, raising or lowering of interest rates, raising or lowering of social programs, and then hit "fast forward" to see how the nation will look in the future.

What a great idea!  Every citizen could simply plug in Mitt Romney's ideas vs. Barack Obama's ideas to see which one produces the better future!  And with a tool like that, all the rhetoric becomes meaningless!  What an essential tool!  Every voter should have one!

Unfortunately, all we have is Simcountry.

Why is it that games that involve money and economics always need some sort of war going on?  You harvest crystals, gather spice, tap lands, or do some other inane thing for money which has nothing to do with the real world.  What a waste!

Such computer models exist.  We know they're out there.  Ben Bernanke, our current Fed Reserve Chairman, developed such a computer model back in the 1980's.  The University of Chicago has one.  M.I.T. has one.  The University of Wisconsin, I hope, has one.

What I don't get is why we all don't have one.

All it takes is one, JUST ONE  economist who has access to such a computer model to releasee it into the general public, maybe even make it into a game, and all this political bullshit we're enduring will go away.  Even if a model which is slanted to one side or the other is released, it won't matter, because the opposition will respond in kind, and people will be able to evaluate for themselves.

JUST ONE ECONOMIST!  Is that too much to ask?  Anyone out there?  Anyone?

When economic information is so very critical to our survival, both as a nation, and to ourselves personally, I guess I can no longer fathom why we all clamor with "angry birds" or internet cats.

Eric

Your Designated Driver

I'm sometimes given to quiet musings which are of little importance to anyone else but me.  It is, in fact, my favorite way to spend my free time.  But periodically I stumble upon a thought which the world must know about because it has world-changing and life-saving consequences.  This blog post shares such a thought with you.  Pay attention.

I see how our culture sometimes uses designated drivers on assigned party nights during the weekend.  Good thing, there, but not nearly enough of that's happening.  And I was watching our Brewers win over the Cardinals last night (Har, har!) when I saw a commercial for Captain Morgan, where a single rower was towing the party barge back to the Captain's ship.  The caption read, "Designate a driver.  Captain's orders."  But how lonely that one rowboat guy looked!

That's when it occurred to me:  Most designated drivers happen to be male, and they're missing out on some of the party to be the driver.  So here's my big thought, and remember, it could save lives!  If you are part of a party with a male designated driver...

Make sure that driver gets laid!

Just imagine how many more guys will be willing to be the designated driver if our culture insists that we repay their invaluable service with some well-earned nookie!  With more designated drivers lining up to get behind the wheel and get lucky, drunk driving will decrease dramatically, and lives will be saved!

So there you have it!  Call it the "tushy for taxi" rule!

Oh, and female designated drivers get their feet rubbed by a tan, muscular athlete!

Eric

More Applications of Poe's Law

The more I contemplate Poe's Law (see previous blog post), the more applications I find for it.  It was initially meant for fundamentalism, true, but there are so many other areas where something is so ridiculous that it can't be parodied without someone mistaking it as genuine.  Specifically, I've identified several other areas where Poe's law fits:
Commercial advertising
Politics
Television and film production
Sports fans
Modern art
Hip-hop culture
Country/Western music

Now, at first glance, none of these things appear to have anything in common, other than they are so ridiculous that doing a parody would result in people mistaking them for the real thing.  But why?  Could there be some common element that links these seemingly disparate subjects together?  Certainly hip-hop culture and country/western music are linked by low-brow, simplistic styles of music, and commercial advertising, politics and entertainment production all have the distinction of trying to sell sub-standard products to the masses.  But what about the others?  How do simple music styles and selling products relate?  How do they both relate to fundamentalism?  Or modern art?  How to they relate to sports fans?

I believe the answer has to do with one thing.  These ridiculous behaviors all come into play whenever there happens to be a large group of people following a trend or charismatic leader blindly.

It makes sense.  When people follow blindly, rationality goes out the window, and with it, the sense of "Oh, my god, I'm really making an ass out of myself!"  There's something about getting swept up in the mob mentality which appeals to our primal, animal brain, the core of which is, essentially, that of a rodent.  Yes, there's a little bit of lemming in each of us.

Perhaps we might wake up to certain things in our lives as a result.  We might say of hip hop culture, "You know, the music's only good because the Motown greats it raps over were originally good.  These clowns have no musical talent."  Or, "You call THAT art?  My five-year-old could do that!"  And it begs the question, just what OTHER areas are there in my life where I'm following blindly?  Do I really have to tolerate commercials which announce "Omnaris, To The Nose!" by spending my money on their product?  Indeed, can't we all just not buy any shit which REPEATS the same nonsense over and over again?

Homework assignment:  Look yourself in the mirror and ask, "What am I doing in my life where I'm following stupid stuff blindly?  And what can I do to change it?"  We ALL have such areas in our lives, so no fair trying to insist that you've got no such areas.  Go on, explore your life.  Find that area where you're being led about by the nose.

And then eliminate it.  Liberate yourself!

Eric

Class Warfare?

It seems that Our Trophy President is making a big push for job creation, and is using tough language to get it through congress.  He's even used the v-word (gasp!), which he hasn't used in the three and a half years we've been watching him.  He says he'll veto any bill which balances the budgets solely on the backs of ordinary people, without ending the loopholes which allow the rich to be taxed at a much lower rate.

Bully for you, Barry.  We knew you had a bit of fighter in you there, somewhere.

John Boehner, in response, said that he didn't feel "class warfare" was showing good leadership.

And with that "class warfare" comment, both Fox News and MSNBC have proceeded to fall all over each other in a comical effort to see who can miss the point the most.  This is hardly unusual - we've come to expect this kind of partisan myopia from these sound-byte generators.  And seemingly as always, I appear to be the only one in the Dairy State cursed with realizing what's going on.

The heads on the Right are insisting it's class warfare, while those on the Left are assuring us that it's not class warfare at all.  Naturally, this is all an irrelevant tangent that both sides have gone off on.  Even if it is somehow "class warfare," it does not follow that it would automatically be bad legislation as a result.  Class warfare has often produced good legislation, such as the liberation of slaves, or the sufferage of women.  So class warfare, if it is such, is entirely moot.  The question we should be asking is whether or not it is fair legislation to ensure Warren Buffet's secretary gets taxed at the same percentage rate he does.  So far, the public agrees that when Buffet highlights the discrepancy in taxation rates between low income and high income people, he's got a valid point.

That having been said, I wish to do something very rare.  For once, I'm going to agree with John Boehner!  That's right, I agree with him!  This IS class warfare.  And the Left is absolutely wrong in denying that.  But it's not class warfare of the poor against the rich.

No, it's class warfare of the rich against the poor!

And those waging the war are the ones bent on denying anything remotely close to fair opportunity to the masses, and keeping the playing field as tilted as possible in favor of the super-rich at all costs.  (Three guesses who.)  In other words, it's not the poor waging class warfare against the rich, but rather it's the poor trying to get the rich to stop waging class warfare upon them!

And to those who insist "government spending has not created one job," I assign this homework assignment: Walk up to any police officer, fireman, teacher, highway-construction laborer or groundskeeper, and ask him/her if more government money has helped create his/her job.  Yes, private industry creates most jobs, but some jobs are, in fact, government-paid, and we'd be very foolish to deny that.

It seems Our Trophy President's opponents are bent on a two-part plan: First, to keep Obama from being effective, and second, to then attack him for his ineffectiveness. (Brilliant, that!) Oh, and hope that no one fingers them as the cause of the ineptitude!

Here's a thought: How about for once, instead of making everybody suffer just to deny Obama one little victory, we let the President win one, and put people to work for once?  We need jobs now! Not after 2012!  I don't know about you, but I'm sick and damned tired of the scorched-earth mentality which is willing to sacrifice us all to the false idol of talk radio.  Someone needs to come down from the mountain and put that particular golden calf out of its misery.

Come to think of it, I wonder if maybe the golden calf of the Biblical book of Exodus was not a cow's calf, but rather an elephant's calf?

Eric

Laws Of Human Behavior

About four days ago, Penn Jillette was a guest on the Lawrence O'Donnell show.  After the two of them watched a video clip from Michelle Bachmann's pre-political Fundamentalist days, where she ridiculously preaches that "God wants you to be a fox" (meaning sexy, although she tried to spin it into a spiritual context), they both laughed, and Penn reacted by quoting Poe's Law.  Poe's Law (for those who don't know about it) was invented by the internet debater and blogger, Nathan Poe (no relation to Edgar Allen), and goes something like this:

"Unless it is blatantly labeled as humor, no one can create a parody of Fundamentalism without someone mistaking it for the real thing."

What a brilliant thought! It illustrates so economically how religion makes one so incredibly blind to the ridiculousness of itself.  At a stroke, it describes how wild-eyed religion is a joke that its followers don't get!

It is precisely Poe's Law which explains the success of shows like The Colbert Report.  Stephen Colbert simply acts like a Fundamentalist Conservative, and it's automatically a joke! It also explains the view that some conservatives have regarding the hyper-homophobic preacher, Fred Phelps, who is seen by them as being a "deep undercover" liberal, out to discredit the fight against homosexuality by parodying it.

This leads to my corollary of Poe's Law, which goes like this:  "Unless it is blatantly labeled the real thing, no one can display Fundamentalism without someone mistaking it for a joke."

Classic example of this: Bibleman! The battle-armor-wearing superhero, portrayed by actor Willie Ames (formerly of Eight is Enough and Charles in Charge), is so face-slappingly insulting to Christians that one can't help but wonder if it wasn't invented by a bunch of atheists who were simply trying to make fun of Evangelicals.

So here's where my pondering of Poe's Law has me at a loss: It seems that one can come to the realization that certain beliefs one was raised on are silly, but it's a difficult process. It requires effort, courage, and enough receptiveness to new ideas to be able to change. In other words, you might finally get the joke, but when you do, you won't be laughing! I, for one, broke free of Fundamentalism, even when being so firmly committed to it as to want to enter the ministry and "save the world for God." But I managed to wiggle out of it when it stopped making sense. I broke my chains.

Why do I seem to be the only one?

I suppose I could try to pat myself on the back, assert to everyone that I'm of exceptional intelligence, and take all the credit. But while it's true that I happen to be a Mensa member, and probably am a little bit above average in the I.Q. department as a result, I refuse to be so narcissistic as to pass off my own liberation as "being gifted." No, I'm not a Mensa member because I'm especially gifted. I'm a member of this elite class of smart-cookies only because I kept pounding on the door of educational establishments until they finally let me in. I never declared my education "done." (And I never will.) If intelligence were likened to speed, I'm not a hare, I'm a tortoise. But I won the race, only because I refused to give up!

But even with that firm commitment to self-improvement, I still could very easily have remained a Fundamentalist.  Suppose I'd married some nice, Christian girl, and become a father? I would have found myself in a situation where leaving the faith would have meant a messy divorce, or worse. And even if I'd done so, I would still have needed to put in extra work to pay for child support, and watch the kids on alternating weeks. It would have been so much easier for me to simply remain inside the faith, even if I felt it were stupid, just for the sake of the kids, and to avoid a bad situation.

The extra time I would have been able to devote to learning, would have been gone.

And here's where I sadly realize why I seem to be one of the lucky few to have escaped the confines of my childhood indoctrination: With no spousal ties to religion, I was free to explore, and to change my mind with few consequences. With no children, I was free to spend my free time furthering my education, both in college and in private study. I avoided the "two kids and a mortgage pitfall," and so was able to dig myself out of the hole that tradition and religious upbringing threw me down into at birth.

Okay, technically, I'm not the "only one." And there are plenty of people who, with kids and mortgage both, have freed themselves of their religious limitations to be able to think freely. To them, I'll grant the title of "gifted," for gifted they indeed are. But how insufficient their numbers are to make a difference! What a small percentage they make of the overall population! This leads me to another of my own new laws, somewhat a corollary of Poe's Law, but mutually exclusive of it.  I call it the law of general stupidity.  It goes like this:

"Humanity will always be doomed to general stupidity, because the most important years of cognitive exploration, one's 20's and 30's, are wasted on child-rearing."

By the time one has sufficient time to explore the complex issue of this world, one typically is in one's mid-40's or 50's, and by that time, the limitations of the human brain simply make it un-receptive to new ideas or radical changes in thinking.  Any cognitive talents such a person has would then be spent, not embracing new truths, but defending old falsehoods. What a sad state to be in with this modern world, so full of science, and yet so populated with people ignorant of science.  We are all trapped in a tomb of our own making, committed to populating a world already overpopulated, and consigning ourselves to ignorance as we do so.

It is a testament to the evolutionary power of the sex-drive.

To those reading this with kids and mortgage, let me not leave you depressed. My "law" is not necessarily a law at all. I strongly feel that by realizing this state more fully, we can likely circumvent it. The more we realize we are the prisoners of our own upbringing, the better prepared we are to break free.  Explore the issues freely with your children! You will set the example of free inquiry to those who need it most.  And when, in your 40's and 50's, you find yourself with free time to explore again, be willing to abandon your old ideas. Never mind about pissing off mom & dad, grandma or grandpa, your friends at work, at church, Father Mokehe, or whomever. Your mind is your own.

Commit yourself to truth, no matter what conclusions you must reach.

Eric

The Truth Behind Conservative Vs. Liberal

What is the difference between liberal and conservative? Why is it that we tend to polarize into one or the other? Why, when this dichotomy so handicaps us, do we insist on lobotomizing ourselves and our culture in this way? These fundamental questions are ones I’ve obsessed over as I’ve watched, with increasingly nauseous horror, the transformation of our media from one where both sides were at least prone to giving token attempts at balance to one in which one-sided media remains entrenched on one channel, or the other – Fox news and talk radio on the right, and MSNBC and Comedy Central on the left. (And isn’t it odd that there is no comedy channel devoted to making fun of liberalism!)

What it boils down to is two of our very dearest values clashing together, not because they are incompatible, but because they tend to diverge among different personality types, and our naturally handicapped, tribal, hunter/gatherer brain takes over from there. On the one side is Freedom, compassion, and fairness. In short, a desire for a utopian condition. On the other side is purity, loyalty and security, a recognition of a tragic condition. I think, at heart, both sides recognize that both utopian desire and tragic recognition are necessary for the best possible society, but because our differing personalities prefer one over the other, we polarize, and then fight with each other about shit which is ultimately about as important as a mosquito, and equally as annoying.

As such, we wrongly demonize our opponents: With liberals being a bunch of latte-drinking, hybrid-driving, granola-crunching bleeding-hearted, atheistic Marxists, and conservatives being a bunch of coffee-chugging, SUV-driving, Wall-Street-hogging, heartless, Bible-thumping Rockerfellers. But, of course, neither of these caricatures is even remotely accurate. We both want the best possible world. We just disagree on the finer points of how to get there.

Take religion vs. government, for example. Both sides agree that some form of reciprocity needs to be in place to prevent criminals and freeloaders from spoiling society. Historically, there have been two forms of this (and not always separate): religion, and government. Those who favor the liberal side favor freedom, and so want maximum opportunity while young in life. As such, they favor large-scale solutions which benefit them, and so favor government. Those who favor the conservative side favor security, and prefer small, community-based solutions which benefit them while elder in life. As such, they prefer religion, and would rather government stayed out of it, except in matters of keeping everyone safe. This explains so many dispositions between the two sides that it’s mind-boggling. It explains why conservatives prefer small government, but will nevertheless spend ridiculous amounts of money on police, the military, and prisons. It explains why liberals, desiring to maximize freedom for all sentient beings, will be vegetarian to protect the rights of fellow sentient mammals, while being pro-choice, since an early-term fetus is not yet sentient. It explains why conservatives oppose abortion and euthanasia, but are typically in favor of the death penalty. It explains why conservatives want lower taxes to better enjoy their golden years while liberals would rather have more taxes and programs to benefit them right away before old age sets in. It explains why liberals want a strong separation between religion and government, and why conservatives prefer or pretend that the wall of separation between church and state doesn’t exist. It explains why colleges and universities are rife with liberals – because science requires the questioning of one’s elders as a major tenet, and so freedom to explore is the order of the day for scientists, engineers, philosophers and sociologists. The language arts must, of necessity, be populated by cultural explorers and this sieves out all but the most ardent of moral relativists. (And this would be true even if universities didn’t receive loads of tax-dollars.) The one exception is the obligatory business school, where one department preaches VonMises, and loathes and despises the sea of liberal thought it finds itself floating in.

It also explains why liberals want big government and conservatives small government, UNLESS the subject of sex comes up, in which case conservatives want drastic, government-imposed restrictions, and liberals would prefer big government to stay out of it! This would seem like a hypocritical shift, until one sees the underlying cause. Freedom of business vs. freedom of gonads. Fascinating!

Telling is how these two sides tend to divide among the values shared by young and old. The young want to strike out, explore, be sexual, live life to the fullest. As such, they prefer the freedom aspect of the ideal society. The old prefer safety, sanctity, the recognition that life can be cruel if you’re not careful. As such, they prefer the security aspect of the ideal society. But as the young grow old, they grow increasingly more like their elders, preferring to nurse their arthritis quietly and live the stress-free lifestyle as their hormones go into remission. This is perhaps why the once biggest liberal juggernaut ever – the Baby Boomers – have gone from being pot-smoking, anti-war hippies at Woodstock who elected Bill Clinton, to being grey-haired, Tea-Party, anti-drug activists irrationally afraid of the same sort of black president they would have begged for in their youth. The only similarity between the two is their staunch willingness to get out and march in protest. How have the mighty fallen!

Young and old divide among their planning perspectives as well. The old prefer a long-term solution strategy, having lived a long time themselves, and knowing that they will not be around to see it through. The young, by contrast, see no point in waiting until the next generation or two (or three) before real solutions to injustices manifest, and so desire intervention right away to make justice more immediate. This explains why conservatives would rather minorities strive for wealth on their own, while liberals tend to prefer affirmative action programs minorities so that opportunity isn’t something only enjoyed by their grandchildren. In reality, long term solutions are always better than short-term ones, as long as there’s no racial favoritism involved.

It’s the ancient battle between constrained vs. unconstrained, change-embracing vs. change-averse. Desire for utopia clashes with the acceptance of tragic reality. Science fiction author, Nick Sagan (son of my hero, Carl Sagan), phrases it this way: It’s the battle between the primal forces of delicious and nutritious. Delicious wants to enjoy. Nutritious wants to survive. And fittingly, just as our modern world has glutted us with foods which are artificially sweet and savory, with added sugars and highly-salted poly-saturated fats, as well as artificially nutrient-bearing vitamin supplements, so also has our media given us excessively sweet, salty, or bitter content. Right now, it seems as if liberals are gorging themselves upon Oreo-cookie soft-serve, while conservatives are turning their urine blue choking down all their vitamin pills. What ever happened to meat and potatoes?

You see, in the battle for delicious vs. nutritious, it isn’t impossible to have both. Ice cream for dessert is a good thing, and a vitamin pill in the morning is healthy. In between, a balanced meal with the occasional salad is just fine. In like manner, a little bit of Bill O’Reilly and Rachel Maddow is fine, but let’s not go overboard! Let’s get the bulk of our data from unbiased sources, shall we? How about eating foreign food once in a while (BBC or Canadian news services)? The variety does a body good.

And this balance begins with the ability to abandon the irrational hatred of our obviously bipartisan President.

Eric

How To Change The Things That Matter

When I look at the things that matter the most to the quality of our lives, and the key issues that most directly effect whose side I prefer politically, I'm amazed that two things always repeatedly come up: economics and education. Economics comes up obviously because we all want better jobs, and want to punish those politicians who aren't doing a good enough job at helping us get them. Education comes up because everything about our society ties in to it, whether it be crime, money, stability, security... Nothing doesn't go south without good, quality education. And since education affects the economy, education is the more important of the two.

Yet what do we really know about these two key factors? If we want to change the things that matter, we must be more competent about these two things than anything else. But are we? Ask yourself: what's needed to give a child a quality education. No, I mean REALLY needed. Be specific. Phonics in grades K through 4? Algebra in grade 5 instead of 6? What is the ideal class size? 15? 20? 30? Is a central teacher-in-classroom model even effective? Or is perhaps a direct-tutoring model more efficient? Perhaps a more multi-faceted model is needed, where two or three teachers handle three levels of learning, depending upon a child's needs? Perhaps boarding schools, the one form of school which has proven effective for inner-city children, should be assigned across the board?

And how about economics? Will tax cuts for the rich really work? What kind of tax cuts? How big should a corporation get? At least some regulation is necessary - as we learned the hard way - but how far should rules of regulation go? What kinds of reforms would work? Why would they work? What measures would make it fail, and why would the failure take place?

When it comes down to it, we don't know jack. ALL of us! Even the smartest people know very little about the fundamentals of both education and economics. And yet poor quality, as well as poor quality of understanding, of both these topics is a sure-fire recipe for disaster for any civilization.

And where are the most radical changes happening right now? Yeah, you follow me. And you understand why we should be concerned. We're blind, at the helm, and have no clue where to steer clear of the rocks.

I certainly don't have all the answers. I don't know how exactly education should be reformed, nor have I yet worked all the kinks out of my synthesized economic model. But I know this much, and it's a reform that both political parties can agree to, and can be implemented right away. I hope everyone writes their legislators in support of this idea. And it is simply this:

Teach economics as a required course in high school!

Eric