Author Archives: Hue White

Continuing this thread, in NewScientist (25 March 2017) Owen Gaffney may have touched on the real reason Russia interfered in the United States elections – climate denier and new EPA chief Scott Pruitt:

Pruitt’s appointment, part of a grander, darker geopolitical strategy, makes that reshaping less likely. This is not about the science. It is not about economic priority setting nor conflicting values. It is not about a desire for small government, the primacy of individual freedom or myopic belief in capitalism. The only fact that matters is that solving the climate issue means killing the fossil fuel industry – arguably the most influential on the planet. …

Dealing with climate change means summoning the economic “gales of creative destruction” – economist Joseph Schumpeter’s phrase for how innovation kills and replaces old industries to drive economic growth.

The first gales are here. Zero-carbon technology is now cheaper and easier to install. Renewables promise individual freedom through energy self-sufficiency.

The world economy is at a crucial inflection point. The US is well placed to ride the storm and capitalise on the next economic revolution. But vested interests dominate the landscape and US policy could delay the revolution.

In contrast, there are no Russian gales. Its economy is a basket case. Apart from oil and gas, it produces little anyone wants to buy. A clean energy revolution is likely to put its economy in a death spiral.

And, being a strong man country in its essence, Putin cannot afford to look in the least weak. Obama’s war on Russia has put Putin in a precarious position, and the restivity demonstrated by the citizenry recently must have made him nervous, although I suspect he works hard to keep the police corrupt. An honorable citizen is his most frightening enemy.

Russian attempts to influence elements of the United States is a subject we’ve discussed before, but it’s worth noting how Gaffney ties it to Putin through his euphemism – death spiral of the economy. But this may be more desperation than sinister plotting, because the free enterprise system, for all its faults, is tied to freedom of choice and free flow of information, and therein lies the key to proper decision-making. Are some American citizens misinformed? Inevitably. That’s part & parcel of the system. Russian influence may result in more misinformed, misbehaving citizens than normal. But so long as those who believe in truth and the essential goodness of their fellow Americans continue to speak out, disseminate real information, and practice Strong Science, industry will take note and change in order to follow the money. We’ve already seen this with the advent of Tesla, tapping into a surprising demand for electric cars. States where science is strong are moving away from polluting technologies.

Just gotta keep shouting.

It’s a continuing roller coaster for Israel’s government. First, the joy of not having a President Clinton. Now the sudden realization there’s an ambitious new President in the United States – ambitious and contemptuous of norms in a way that may make Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu yearn for the years of President Obama. Ben Caspit opines in AL Monitor:

Netanyahu had explained to the ministers that this was Trump’s request, a request that ought to be fulfilled. According to an Israeli diplomatic source, wind of something Trump had said had reached Israel. When Trump’s associates asked him what he would do if the Israelis and Palestinians failed to reach a peace deal, Trump said, according to the source, “Then I’ll do what I understand should be done.” Netanyahu doesn’t really want to find out the hard way what the president understands should be done. This strange turn of events, in which Israel’s most extreme right-wing government offers to limit West Bank settlement construction, is the tip of a giant iceberg of important events taking place under the radar.

The bottom line is that Netanyahu clearly knows how challenging the coming year will be. It might be even more difficult than the bad old days he spent dueling with President Barack Obama. He knows that Trump is determined to deliver the “ultimate deal.” While Netanyahu officially expressed his support for a two-state solution in his famous 2009 Bar Ilan speech, he has no real faith in the process or any desire to carry out significant concessions to achieve that goal. Netanyahu would be willing to gamble all his pension money on zero chances for achieving an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Therefore, Netanyahu’s game is to orchestrate the events of the coming year in such a way that the blowing up of diplomatic contacts between Israel and the Palestinians, and the sooner-or-later diplomatic dead end, will be the obvious fault of the Palestinians, not Israel. That is the whole story in a nutshell. Netanyahu knows he has no other option, assuming he will still be in power when it happens.

But surely they must be aware of the possibility – even probability – that Trump will be impeached. I’m guessing the Prime Minister will continue to prevaricate and delay until – he hopes – President Pence can take over. Pence is also a fringe radical, but may have far more respect for the Middle East than Trump does.

The Environmental Defense Fund has been releasing maps of methane leaks for various US cities, created with the help of Google Map’s vehicles. Here’s Pittsburgh:

Pittsburgh methane leaks, Source: EDF.

Here’s Indianapolis.

Indianapolis methane leaks. Source: EDF.

Who do you think spends more on fixing methane leaks?

Megan Treacy on Treehugger.com comments:

Why don’t more cities replace the pipes? The upgrades are very expensive. Replacing just a mile of pipeline can cost between $1.5 and $2 million. Utilities typically only replace pipes where major leaks are found while slower leaks are left alone.

The exception is in New Jersey where the state’s largest utility is taking on a major pipe replacement project. The Public Service Electric & Gas (PSEG) worked with the Environmental Defense Fund and Google to map out hundreds of miles of urban pipeline and found that their own estimates were way off. The utility now has a detailed plan to replace 510 miles of pipes and reduce methane emissions by 83 percent by 2018.

At a price of $1.5M / mile, that suggests New Jersey will be spending something like $750M to $1B. Has anyone told GOP Governor Chris Christie about this?

And the importance of methane? Jason Mark of the Sierra Club explains in Earth Island Journal:

Actually, any CH₄ released today is at least 56 times more heat-trapping than a molecule of CO₂ also released today. And because of the way it reacts in the atmosphere, the number is probably even higher, according to research conducted by Drew Shindell, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Center. So why is the 21 times figure the one that gets bandied about? Because methane breaks down much faster than carbon dioxide. While CO₂ remains in the atmosphere for at least a century (and probably much, much longer, according to Stanford’s Ken Caldeira), CH₄ lasts only about a dozen years. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had to come up with a way for comparing different greenhouse gases, it decided to use a century baseline to calculate a molecule’s “global warming potential.”

In light of the repeated falsehoods coming from Senator McConnell regarding the confirmation of Supreme Court justices (“we never do that in election years“, his reference to the non-existent Biden Rule, his misleading interpretation of Biden’s proposal, his suggestion there’s no principled stand against Gorsuch, and some minor stuff that can be found here), I think there’s an opportunity next time Mitch comes up for election, an opportunity for Republican or Democrat.

Suggest to voters he’s suffering from dementia.

Sure, someone could lie and poorly rationalize this badly. But it’d be more fun watching him and his supporters become angry at the suggestion that he’s incompetent.

But the alternative, of course, is admitting he’s just lying and therefore betraying sacred Senate traditions.

Sure, he’ll wiggle and scream foul. But reminding voters of his preference for party over country will certainly break a few votes loose. And he just might lose his cool.

Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare can share the pain of the Trump transition team, as he too has been incidentally collected. The information was used to warn him that he might be the target of spear-phishing attack:

My point here is that incidental collection in and of itself is not a bad thing. It’s merely an inherent feature of surveillance. To say that the Trump transition was the subject of incidental collection communicates nothing of interest at all. Of course it was.

And guess what? So are members of Senate of the United States and the House of Representatives.

To know whether incidental collection is good or bad or neutral with respect to the civil liberties of its subjects, you have to know not merely that it occurred, but what happened to the information afterwards. In my case, it was a very good thing. And if for any reason there exists some intelligence reporting around the government that the FBI warned “US Person Number 437” about a spear-phishing attack planned against him after a presidential tweet, and if any official is wondering who that “US Person Number 437” may be, let me save you the trouble of asking the bureau to unmask him.

That would be me.

And please guys, feel free to incidentally collect on me like that any time you like.

Realism from a professional.

First heard in conversation yesterday.

Planning to waterski on Mars? Not so fast. Following up on earlier speculation concerning what appears to be water on Mars, NewScientist (25 March 2017) is reporting that what has been thought to be streaks of water may be something else:

“There’s part of your brain that immediately tells you that it should be ice melting,” says Sylvain Piqueux at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. “The problem is, it’s really hard to melt ice on Mars.”

Now, Frédéric Schmidt at the University of Paris-South and his colleagues have an idea that needs no liquids: sand avalanches caused by sunlight and shadow.

When sunlight hits the sand, it heats up the top layer while leaving deeper layers cool. This temperature gradient changes the pressure of tiny gas pockets around the sand particles, shifting the gas upward. This in turn jostles grains of sand and soil, causing them to slip down the Martian slopes.

The effect should be most pronounced in afternoon shadows cast by boulders or outcrops. In this situation, the contrast between the cooling surface and the still-warm layers just below creates a pressure gradient as well, shifting the gas and sand even more (Nature Geoscience, doi.org/b4jr).

Killing is not a context-free activity.

The old morality of a man defending his honor by killing the man his wife is sleeping with comes under fire in Human Desire (1954). We see it unfold from the viewpoint of a man, Jeff, caught in the outer swirl of the vortex of doom which is pulling down the murderer and his wife. Jeff”s a Korean War vet, fresh home from the war, the romantic fixation of a fresh young lady, and a railroad engineer; the murderer, Carl, assistant to the station master, loses his cool with his boss and is fired for his troubles. Knowing his much younger wife has some influence with a railroad customer, he presses her to ask him for a favor.

The job is won back, but it slowly dawns on him that the price she paid for his job was a trifle high. Knowing the customer’s schedule is putting him on the train, he forces his wife to write a note indicating another opportunity to thank him for the job, and on the train he avenges his honor in the ways of old, and appropriates the incriminating letter to boot.

Through lucky happenstance, she finds an ally in Jeff, and she works her charms on him, looking for a way free from the vortex whirling about her. The fresh young lady, too much of a novice to the ways of warfare, fades from the engineer’s mind, as the carnal desires take over. Meanwhile, the murderer himself is not insensitive to his act, and his drinking worsens, the sprite of guilt riding his hefty shoulder.

The moment comes, she strikes for her freedom – will it work? How much more dark death will be dealt?

This is a plot of shifting glances and lifted chins, of dawning thoughts and insecure egos, of men aware of their limitations – and being pushed past them, relying on the old, outdated instincts which evolution installed in us – and forgot to remove when they became inappropriate. Of fighting against instant gratification – and losing.

This is film noir.

And if you like it, this is Recommended.

In view of the GOP‘s violent reaction against the JCPOA (aka the Iran nuclear deal), the apparent close ties between Russia and Iran must be making them doubly uncomfortable, since about half the party seems to think Russia’s completely harmless and is even eligible to interfere in our elections. From Rohollah Faghihi in AL Monitor:

Rouhani first met with Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev. Following the meeting, Rouhani said, “There is no doubt that cooperation between [our] two countries positively impacts stability and security in the region and in the world.” Medvedev described the Iranian president’s visit as a significant step in the development of relations and said it can aid the development of deeper bilateral ties.

On March 28, Rouhani received an honorary degree from Moscow State University and addressed professors and students at a ceremony. “Resolving the issues of today’s world requires cooperation among scientists and governments,” Rouhani said, adding, “The decline of the West’s dominance and the end of the monopoly on wealth is a historic opportunity to build a new world.”

Noting that “there should be a global consensus to root out extremism and violence,” Iran’s president emphasized, “Islamophobia, racism and takfiri [jihadi] ideas have common roots.”

Note how he combines the roots of Islamophobia with takfiri. While the GOP might want to just shrug it off, it may make an impression on those outside of the GOP’s roost.

Also on March 28, Rouhani and Putin held “important” and “intensive” negotiations about regional and global issues as well as about the bilateral relationship. Referring to the 515 years of diplomatic ties between Tehran and Moscow, Putin said, “Iran is a good neighbor and a stable and reliable partner.”

On his part, Rouhani said, “The cooperation between Tehran and Moscow is not targeted at a third country.” He added, “Iran and Russia’s relations are being conducted to enhance stability in the region, and the main intention of the two countries is to strengthen regional peace and tranquility.”

In another year, a less incompetent and controversial Administration, this might get more attention. And it should. The Trump’s Administration’s ties to Russia has now made it an inadvertent, and probably exceptionally reluctant, ally of Iran. It may also put Trump on notice that Putin will not be pleased if he messes with Iran – and the general suspicion is that Putin has something on Trump.

On Lawfare Seamus Hughes and Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens overview the sociology of American jihadi recruitment:

Hussain was always happy to advise potential jihadis on matters large and small. In one case, he provided an Ohio man, Munir Abdulkader, with the address of a U.S. military officer, and suggested that he be killed. Abdulkader relied on Hussain to provide material details. “Make sure the soldier was in Iraq or Afghanistan,” one text stated. “Do you know his work schedule? When he home etc?” said another. Abdulkader went further in his requests: “How do you make Molotov? You have a link? And what’s the knife to use? Sharpest?” He gave Hussain a play-by-play of his surveillance of targets and the supposed ease of purchasing a AK-47. At each step, Hussain was online and encouraging. Abdulkader was arrested shortly after that, having plotted part of his attack with an accomplice who was an FBI informant.

Heavy reliance on IS virtual entrepreneurs’ knowledge and connections is not unique to Abdulkader. Jihadist propaganda has been easily accessible through various online platforms over the last decade, and has played a role in radicalizing Americans. Now, with the advent of numerous social media applications (many of which use encryption technology), a would-be recruit can access real-time support and be given a stronger sense that he is part of the wider movement. This online support therefore sustains and encourages the recruit’s continued participation in the Islamic State.

In the past, American jihadis also sought religious justification and validation for their intended actions from recognized extremist leaders. Now, they can receive this from foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, who have reached “rock-star” status due to their presence in the Caliphate. Their communications with these virtual entrepreneurs has in many cases been seen to provide them with the affirmation they think they need. The deaths of figures like Junaid Hussain may help stem the number of homegrown attacks and plots, but the experience of the last three years points to an emerging online approach that is likely here to stay.

In other words, a role model accepted with their only requirement being success. Sure, it doesn’t hurt that they’re fighting “for God” – but in any heavily hierarchical environment, it’s easier to recruit someone young to fight for a cause, because they lack prestige. Add in the human brain’s tendency to not mature until the late 20s, and you might as well shoot fish in a barrel.

Ironically, I suspect Trump’s xenophobes will just exacerbate the problem by denying potential jihadis a place in society, as well as a ladder of success, through the promotion of racism. There really is a point to an open, tolerant society – but sometimes I wonder if we all get it.

The lead in Igby Goes Down (2002) is the youngest son of a wealthy New York City couple. He has an older brother (“young fascist”), a father (now residing in a “befuddlement home”), a godfather (“D.H., who is amazing. His mind functions only to make money. He thinks he has everything he could possibly want, so he walks around acting the way he thinks a happy and content man should act. He’s a parody.”), and Mimi (“Why do I call my mother Mimi? Because ‘Medea‘ was already taken.”).

And this is the story of how a boy who witnessed his father’s permanent breakdown handles the pressures of conformity and exacting expectations: by becoming a nihilistic, occasionally funny, contrarian. Repelled by learning, as it only seems to lead to fulfilling Mimi’s expectations, he bounces from incident to incident, occasionally getting laid (gah!), eventually reaching the level of drug dealer.

And then Mimi, ill with breast cancer, announces she wants her sons to kill her.

A sometimes mystifying film, it seems to be a condemnation of the underside of high society, the schemes, the constant pressure to achieve in order to thrive in a society of perhaps dubious value – the single minded pursuit of wealth, and how it can break people in more than one way.

And whether you want to be part of that.

At least he’s not alone.

The initial post on this thread mentioned Representative Chaffetz’ submission of a bill that would authorize the government to sell of public lands, and the public reaction that caused him to withdraw it. Well, Walter Einenkel on The Daily Kos is reporting that, under the cover of fog, Chaffetz is trying again:

Rep. Chaffetz told the public he was “withdrawing” his bill on February 2. Eight days later the bill was referred to a subcommittee. Here’s a refresher on H.R. 621:

To direct the Secretary of the Interior to sell certain Federal lands in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming, previously identified as suitable for disposal, and for other purposes.

And here’s the early spin, right in Section 1:

(a) Short Title.—This Act may be cited as the “Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act of 2017”.

There’s only one thing “excessive” in our government these days and it’s politicians like Rep. Chaffetz.

It appears Representative Chaffetz is quite the weasel. It appears it might be time to contact your Representative and let them know what you think of this bill.

On Lawfare Andrew Kent discusses the various legal maneuvering involved in General Flynn’s offer of immunized testimony. I found this devious bit interesting:

The immunity statute grants only “use immunity.” An immunized witness before Congress does not get blanket immunity for the entire transaction about which he or she testifies. Rather, no testimony under the court order granting congressionally-requested immunity, “or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony,” “may be used against the witness in any criminal case, except a prosecution for perjury, giving a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with the order.”

Why seek such apparently limited use immunity from Congress? In practice, use immunity can turn into full transactional immunity. It turns out that it can be devilishly difficult for prosecutors in a later criminal case to prove that no evidence they are presenting was “directly or indirectly derived” from immunized testimony before Congress.

The prosecutions of Oliver North and John Poindexter for Iran-Contra crimes fell apart in just this way. Both were granted use immunity by a select congressional committee investigating Iran-Contra, and the public testimony under the immunity grants was televised. In the later criminal prosecutions, the D.C. Circuit ruled that protecting the defendants’ Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination essentially required the prosecution to affirmatively demonstrate that none of its witnesses were in any way affected by that testimony. This proved impossible.

Witnesses can compound the problems for prosecutors by ranging widely in their immunized congressional testimony. If Flynn were immunized by Congress, it would be for testimony about Russia. But a friendly House committee member, say Chairman Nunes, might lead him to talk about his potentially illegal work for Turkey, thereby extending the immunity in practice to that topic.

An unwillingness to take responsibility for bad behavior? Or another Ollie North “I know what’s good for this country!” attitude? Or is this just hypotheticals and General Flynn really wants to dump the dirt on Trump?

Here’s a poke. I swear there’s a pig in there somewhere.

I was hoping she’d end up with just her feet kicking weakly after this crash into a sand pile.

In The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) we have a powerful, subtle plot: A young woman, Viktoria, survives the concentration camp at Belsen, but neither her family nor her best friend at the camp were so lucky. Knowing that her friend has a child, sent to America before Poland was invaded to live with her husband’s family, and now kept by a wealthy branch of the family, Viktoria assumes her friend’s identity during the confusion of repatriation. She travels to America, becomes Karin, tracks down her new family, and soon enough she finds herself married to the man who is the guardian of the now 9 year old boy.

But something is wrong. Her new husband, another member of the family, seems more interested in the fortune inherited by the child; the child’s nanny, Margaret, clashes with her, and yet her motivations are obscure. Is the nanny a lover of her husband? A gold-digger? Neither seems to fit And over everything looms Aunt Sophia, the matriarch of the family, who passed away five years ago, leaving all to the child.

The discovery of an explosion-riddled shed in the backyard enhances the mystery. And then she loses control of her car when the brakes fail, on the hilly streets of San Francisco.

For all the views and family life, important information is doled out grudgingly. So much as Karin is confused and suspicious of her husband and the nanny, as Viktoria she suffers a double dose of survivor’s guilt, feeling she has stolen her friend’s identity.

It all winds up in one frightening night of dead phones, dreadful glances, obscure information … and orange juice.

A strong plot is enhanced by fine acting, adequate dialog, and beautiful views of San Francisco. Especially through the floor of the shed.

Recommended.

I realized yesterday that this will lead to a new class of epitaphs:

John Doe
His password killed him

A terribly sad thought.

Cumbrous:

cumbersome [Merriam-Webster]

Another definition called it a “literary synonym for cumbersome”, which makes some sense in that cumbersome is, itself, a cumbersome word, yet literary fiction yearns for grace. Seen in “The Secret of Hollywood’s Oldest Restaurant? Don’t Change Anything,” Michael Callahan, Los Angeles Magazine:

It seemed as if the restaurant were expecting Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn for dinner: Calf’s liver, Welsh rarebit, sweetbreads, and lamb kidney with bacon were (and continue to be) mainstays. And there is that virtual ocean of beef—Flintstonian porterhouses and bone-in rib eyes, filet mignons in varying sizes, New York steaks and Manhattan steaks and ground beef steaks, all prepared in plain view on the seething Musso grill. From 1922 until 1976, the kitchen was the domain of Jean Rue Sr., a bantam Frenchman whose ego belied his size and who was the driving force behind the cumbrous cuisine. Status was conferred not only by having an assigned booth but bartenders who knew exactly how you liked your drink and chefs who would custom-make your dinner. Years after her husband’s death, Barbara Sinatra would still come to Musso’s to order “sand dabs à la Sinatra” (read: nice and crispy).

I’d drive this.

Source: Electrek

The body is a reproduction of the Shelby Cobra, and the engine? Tesla electric. Unfortunately, it’s a one-off.

Anyone in Detroit paying attention?

More here.

Blogging – at least for me – is in many ways a manner of talking to myself. It’s more discrete than physically muttering to myself in public, as most folks don’t really appreciate the potential facial mannerisms that might accompany such activity. But it also makes no claim to worldly originality. In this post, I talk about a concept of which I’ve never run across in all my reading, but since I don’t do any specialty reading in genetics nor anthropology, I can only say that, on consideration, surely this has been brought up – and possibly roundly dismissed – by many, many scientists much better trained than I.

But I enjoy the act of creative thinking, and the blog provides a place to talk to myself on such topics. I’ve refrained from using the blog for fiction writing, as that’s a messier endeavour than I wish exposed publicly. But this sort of thing – original only in the sense that I came up with it without consciously having read about it – makes it fun for me. I hope you enjoy it as well.

I’ve continued to think about some of the issues I raised and/or sidestepped on this rumination on President Washington’s farewell address, which was mainly concerned with Washington’s exhortation for Americans to attend to their religions. It occurred to me this morning that there’s a rough – perhaps very rough – correspondence between institutions such as various religious sects, as well as, say, Masonic lodges, or even theories of reality, and any other entities concerned with advocated behavior – and genes.

Genes, in modern biological theory, are the carriers, both alone and in combination, for many of our phenotypic (physical) characteristics, from our gross physical formation to the subtle manner in which our brains function. They pass on to our offspring, modified by our mate’s genetic pool, and are also vulnerable to disturbance by the environment, primarily by radiation, but also through some chemicals, as well as even viral intrusion. All these areas are matters of active research.

A gene may have various types, known as alleles, and for my purposes, they can be considered to be in competition with each other. That is, if a gene contributes some feature to the general organism which is important to survival, and a particular allele improves that feature’s performance in the environment the organism commonly finds itself, particularly when it comes to reproduction, then that allele may become dominant within the general population; it’s allele frequency becomes higher, much higher, than its’ competitors’. Contrariwise, an allele which contributes to an inferior feature will have a very low allele frequency, and appear infrequently as a recessive allele, or due to external environmental factors interfering with the genetic reproduction.

As a final point, some alleles simultaneously have negative and positive features in their phenotypic end-point. Perhaps most famous is the allele which contributes to sickle-cell anemia, a blood disorder. Its positive feature? It’s protective against malaria, a parasite.

So let’s draw a rough equivalence between an institution, which might be a religious sect or some other institution advocating a set of behaviors, and a gene. For our purpose, an institution advocates some set of behaviors, both overtly (that is, publicly) and covertly; the two may actually conflict. Additionally, the institution may perform work. As its members join and leave/die, it may be said to reproduce in situ, surviving within the greater organism of society, contributing to the survival of that society through the behaviors and works of its members.

The correspondence between genetics and societal institutions, while rough, is not that rough. Genes may contribute to more than one feature. Similarly, an institution commonly advocates more than one behavior, and may do work as well.

But, for me, the correspondence to alleles is also reasonable and often seen. The societal equivalent? I see a societal gene as a particular type of institution, and the alleles are the various attempts to fill that institution. One example might be medical theories of reality. The dominant allele would be mainstream medicine, its measure of success being the cessation of many illnesses, the abolition of smallpox; the subordinate, inferior alleles would be the various competitors, such as chiropractic, homeopathy, and others of even more dubious merit; an up and coming allele would be evidence-based medicine.

But perhaps of more interest is the overt institutions for moral & ethical behavior. Overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, of a religious nature, the various sects of society compete with each other in the area of teaching and perpetuating various moral theories. The high probability that much of the theory is propounded based on myths and imagination has little impact on the success or failure of these alleles, because, as mentioned in the post on Washington’s farewell address, the question is efficacy, not truthfulness.

Our fidelity to moral behavior is often a dictate of our collaborative success, but only if the morality taught results in effective behavior – society & its members survive and prosper. In a sense, a naive approach would suggest that society is a monstrous calculating machine for calculating the most effective morality.

A more seasoned approach would suggest drawing a parallel to the gene causing sickle cell anemia – the behaviors may be effective to greater or lesser extents, but its origins in unverifiable myths, imaginings, and no doubt outright lies, leaves the adherents vulnerable to unscrupulous sect leaders – and with a temperament to trust them when their response should be “Wait, what?” The calculation of effective behaviors vs personal vulnerabilities becomes non-trivial.

So why is this all interesting to me? Mathematicians (I’m not one) can be quite excited when working on isomorphisms. An isomorphism, if I recall the informal definition from Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Hofstadter), is a mapping from one domain of values, and a similar mapping back. The excitement comes from realizing that a problem for which no solution is known in one domain may be translated to the other domain, where a solution exists, and the result can be translated back. In similar, if strictly illicit fashion, I’ve roughly shaped an isomorphism between societal facets, if you will, and genes; between societal institutions and the alleles they represent. From that work, we may speculate, given what we know about genes, about how society has evolved: the nature of institutions and, despite insistent nattering on about the eternity of this or that sect, how malleable it has been – and how that has contributed to its survival.

In turn, using lessons derived from the speculations and follow-on research confirming those speculations, we might predict future behaviors of these societal alleles and genes – and replacement institutions which have a more rational basis.

*The visual aspect of this post composed by my Arts Editor. Thank you, dear.

This morning our house suffered an intrusion of monstrous proportion, and a ravishment did occur.

The poor fish will be traumatized forever.

Quotidian:

Of or occurring every day; daily.
‘the car sped noisily off through the quotidian traffic’ [Oxford Living Dictionaries]

Seen in a book review, “How we lost the world-changing power of useless knowledge,” Simon Ings, NewScientist (18 March 2017):

At a time when academia is once again under pressure to account for itself, the Princeton University Press reprint of Flexner’s essay is timely. Its preface, however, is another matter. Written by current institute director Robbert Dijkgraaf, it exposes our utterly instrumental times. For example, he employs junk metrics such as “more than half of all economic growth comes from innovation”. What for Flexner was a rather sardonic nod to the bottom line, has become for Dijkgraaf the entire argument – as though “pure research” simply meant “long-term investment”, and civic support came not from existential confidence and intellectual curiosity, but from scientists “sharing the latest discoveries and personal stories”. So much for escaping quotidian demands.

Steve Benen on Maddowblog has a retort to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ desire to introduce vouchers throughout the United States, which ricochets by my own interpretation of the problem:

OK, so maybe DeVos’ vision is overly myopic. But so what? Why not treat education and transportation as comparable service commodities?

The answer is that the two have very little in common. If you want to turn to taxis and ridesharing to get to where you’re going, you pay a fare. It’s a business venture that relies on profit. If you want to turn to a school to educate you child or children, it’s a very different model, at least if you rely on the public-education system, which doesn’t even try to turn a profit because the kids don’t pay tuition.

Even private schools operate in fundamentally different ways. Imagine, before you could take advantage of a ridesharing service, you had to pass an entrance exam. Or had to profess certain religious beliefs. Or faced discrimination based on your sexual orientation. That would be absurd, of course, with Uber or Lyft, but in private education, parochial schools have operated this way for decades.

So he skips by the fundamental problem of processes optimized to make money, rather than educate kids.

But an alternative approach to a riposte is also opened up by the entire tenor of the post. There is an unspoken question of benefit – that is, why should someone get educated? Why, to benefit them – but they should pay for it. That’s the unseen bone in the creature of this debate. (I’ll skip trying to make a carapace work.)

But this common libertarian skips entirely over the other entity that benefits from education – society. As a society, we benefit only insofar as the members of society contribute to society – and it’s common knowledge that higher education results in far, far greater contributions to society, in most cases, far out of proportion to the cost.

Let’s conduct a thought experiment: let’s become a society of deliberate simpletons. A high school diploma might be the ambition of the deviant, the non-conformist; the rest of us trot about, doing menial labor over the day and then trudging home at night to pray to God for his guardianship and deliverance.

Is there any doubt whatsoever that within two generations we’d be a subjugated people, our resources stripped, perhaps our best people removed as well – even voluntarily in disgust at what we’ve become? In case you wish to dispute, calling upon God’s wrath as our shield, let me introduce an element of doubt to you by reminding you of an old Army aphorism: God fights on the side with the biggest artillery.

Using this result, I think it’s entirely probable that the entity that benefits most from consistent and excellent education is society. What benefits the student, intellectually, will also benefit society – and the farther our students go in their education, the greater benefit to both parties. Indeed a highly educated person in a sea of mediocrity may have great prestige, but the accomplishments may be small compared to the same person embedded in a society of similarly educated and enthusiastic people, as the well-known network effect results in laddering of effort. If you are doubtful, consider why Silicon Valley exists.

I’ve explored the theoretical foundations of the problems of the private sector running educational institutions, and the recent collapse of various private educational institutions¹ such as Corinthian Colleges and several other institutions, noted on this blog, as well as various other problems such as the collapse of tenure systems at such institutions, bolster the legitimacy of such analyses. Since we should demand excellence in our education, both theoretical and initial real-world results strongly suggest that the traditional, conservative approach to education appears to work best – and we should use it. To the extent that any student does not attain minimal standards due to failure to extend both opportunity and motivation, society suffers. This single argument, in its fullness, should be adequate to the case for public schools as the dominant form of education.

The fact that society pays for public schools, and via taxes, is completely rational & proper in that society benefits most from it. Anyone familiar with the private sector should find this result unambiguously normal, proper, and moral. The fact that society as a whole and in its parts benefits from the higher education of its members suggests that the taxation should fall on nearly everyone’s shoulders, in one form or another. The bare minimum education should be entirely free, as it generally is now; whether this should apply for college-level education is a debate of some complexity, involving such factors as resource scarcity, facility costs (particle accelerators aren’t cheap, for example), and others that, quite frankly, I don’t care to think about just at the moment.

But in the end, neither DeVos nor Benen are completely properly characterizing the debate. Understanding the full benefits, and upon whom they fall, is important in assessing how to deliver a good education.

¹I do not include Trump University, as it appears to have been either a trade school or a simple scam from the get-go.

The guy on the left gets better dialog.

Having just finished watching Day of the Animals (1977), I’m a little speechless because it’s actually fairly hard to find anything good to say about this dogged bear of a story. We start off with a cautionary message concerning the hole in the ozone layer and how something might happen if we don’t fix it, and then off we go with a dude hiker group. Dropped off in the mountains by helicopter, they plan to hike back to civilization, sans weapons and only a little food, living off the land as they go.

But this time the land is fighting back, as they find mysteriously abandoned camping sites and forest land that seems changed. Eventually, the animals attack, and the bodies begin to stack up. A boy’s radio works intermittently, so they learn that the areas about 5000 feet in altitude are being abandoned because of frantic animal attacks. Then the group falls apart, some wanting to continue on, some to retreat to a known area. More bodies drop.

Soon you need a scorecard to figure out who’s left and who’s kibble. Little of it is memorable, but Leslie Nielsen trying to bear hug a, errr, bear did catch one’s imagination.

But with flat characters (the actors had little chance with this script), cliched dialog, bad sound, and video choices possibly influenced by the background introduction, but still very irritating, about the only constant source of pleasure were the wildlife shots. That, and guessing who’s the next to go down under a pile of pissed off fur & feathers.

Don’t waste your time on this one.

Ectoparasites:

Parasites that live on the outside of the host, either on the skin or the outgrowths of the skin, are called ectoparasites (e.g. lice, fleas, and some mites). [Wikipedia]

Found in a book review, “How did the zebra get its stripes?” Matthew Cobb, NewScientist (18 March 2017):

Caro lists dozens of theories, most of which boil down to five common factors: camouflage (protection from predators); warning coloration (zebras can bite); communication (social behaviours); temperature regulation (stripes may help resist the heat); and ectoparasites (biting flies might not like stripes).