For reference

This was written about a year ago, and I think inspired my earlier post about the warrior mentality, so I'm including it for attribution purposes.

https://angrystaffofficer.com/2016/12/14/stop-calling-us-warriors/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

School Update

Finals are done (finally!), and I'm just waiting for the grades to come out.  I expect 2 As, and the other two classes are somewhere in the B+ to A- range, so we'll see what comes out of that.

During this winter break I set myself the goal of building a virtual sandbox and messing around with analyzing malware.  I bought the parts for a PC previously, though I set it all aside to get through finals week.  Yesterday I put the finishing touches on, booted it up...

And can't get it to work.  It keeps cycling through the reboot process, never displays anything on the screen or gets into the part where I can actually do something with it.  I can probably figure it out (I can search online with the best of them), but I'm not sure the time/effort is worth it...after all, if I spend all break making the computer work I'll never get to the point where I'm messing around with malware.  Or rather (what with the holidays and everything) I might not get much time before school starts up again.

So I'm debating taking the computer to a repair shop, see if they can figure out what's wrong.  I did do some initial tests (i.e. removed various components to try and narrow down where the problem is coming from, re-read the manuals on how to connect various cables, etc) but I'm worried it's something I did wrong with installing the CPU cooler.  I think the choice depends on how expensive it's likely to be.  :/

So anyways.  I figured I'd get back around to typing some of the other things I'd put on hold for the past week or so.

Lessons Learned

I got a 99% on one of my major semester programming projects.  I think it was the first truly complex programming assignment I've had (though that perspective might change as I get more experience) and I kind of wanted to jot down some thought on how it went.

When my previous workplace changed to our new Warehouse Management System, I experienced on a large scale something we all have as end users - attempts to fix one issue would often create another issue somewhere else.  It got to the point where every update we were left wondering what was going to go wrong this time, and how bad it would be.

For the first time, I experienced this from the other side.

We were simulating an ant colony, where each ant had specific tasks (i.e. the queen ant hatches new ants, the scout ant explores the area, the forager ant brings back food to the queen, and the soldier ant fights off enemy ants.)  I'd run it step-by-step for ten full turns, and suddenly all the ants would stop moving!
I'd figure out what was going on with that, would move on to other things, and then somehow whatever I did next would give me the exact same problem.  Again!  Though for a different reason of course...

You fix one thing, and it breaks something else.  It's very hard to capture the sheer level of frustration I felt as (yet again) my ants wouldn't act like they were supposed to!

On a related issue - I had a very hard time predicting how long it would take to finish the project.  I'd seem very, very close - ants were all acting perfectly - only to wind up right back where I started after making changes on something else.

I also learned that one of my dogs prefers to go out in freezing weather than sit in the warm, cozy living room while I  yell at my computer.

See, I have a bell hanging by the back door that they ring when they want to go outside.  I'd let out a particularly loud yell of frustration, and my dog would casually wonder over to the door and ring. 

It might be 10pm and below freezing outside, but she'll ring the bell.  And wait.  And if I don't get up to let her out, she rings it again.  And waits.   (To be fair, sometimes when I'm focused it'll take two or three rings before it registers that she's asking to go out).  I tell myself she's nuts to go out in weather like this, and she'll ring it again. 

When your dog is that persistent, then I guess she really wants to be outside.  In the cold.  (She generally gives a distinctive and repetitive yip at the door when she's ready to come back inside.)

So - right - my dog prefers freezing cold weather when I'm deeply frustrated.

Anyways, that's all done and I'm glad I got a 99%!  I missed one point on something that would have been an easy fix, and I probably should have caught it beforehand, but I'll take the 99%.  I've been a borderline A/B for this class and I really wanted to do well on this project.

A Continuation

Getting the right people in the right place with the right resources at the right time.

That involves the rather boring and unglamorous work of organization.  Org charts, supply chains, accountants, audits...all those things that most people hate in life.  Especially when it's done wrong, and supplies go to the wrong place, money goes missing, and nobody  quite knows who to go to in order to get the thing done.

It also requires leadership pipelines.  Identifying talent and giving people the right resources and experiences to grow into future leaders.  After all, experience commanding a platoon, company, and battalion will make you much more effective when given command of a brigade.

That's what the article on innovation reminded me of.  It's essentially saying that our innovation pipeline is broken.  That people with wealth, who are connected to a network of other innovators, are generally identified and innovating just fine.  But the system for identifying and developing innovators from the less advantaged is essentially broken.

See, here's the thing.  I've heard people at the top talk about a talent shortage, and for the most part I think that's BS.  Humans are just bursting with talent.  I am in awe, for example, of some of the talent you can find on YouTube, or Instagram, or what-have-you. 

Talent isn't the problem. 

Finding and developing it is the problem.  To get those awesome YouTube videos, for example, someone (or some search algorithm) has to look through a bunch of crap.  And there is a LOT of crap out there.

A Start

I've been re-watching some anime lately (Netflix is cheaper than feeding my book fix).  In particular Rurouni Kenshin and Bleach. 

Rurouni Kenshin is set in a very interesting era in Japanese history.  Japan was transitioning from a feudal system to a more modern nation/state, and much of the story arc is related to the upheaval this caused.  In particular, many samurai and warriors were at a loss about how to live in a world where they weren't needed - or wanted - any more. 

There's a particularly tragic episode reminiscent of The Last Samurai where a group of fighters take on government forces and get slaughtered by gunfire.  There are questions about the warrior way of life, about the values of the samurai and what it would mean when they are lost.

I find the storylines appealing because they touch on issues we deal with today - the paradoxical power and powerlessness that comes from living in a modern nation/state.  How do these empowered, highly skilled and dangerous people find purpose in a world that doesn't need them any more?

Isn't it a good thing, that we don't need to be skilled with arms any more?  That we have a society where the vast majority of us don't need to carry around weapons?  What have we lost,  in the process?

This tension between power through large scale organization and the loss at a more individual level is, in a sense, the same issue at the heart of the warrior/soldier debate.  The "Warrior Mentality" has been a big topic in military circles, and I don't want to sound overly critical with what I say next:

Warriors bring to mind lone fighters.  Skilled fighters, but a warrior essentially standing by himself.  The barbarian Goths, Vandals, Franks, etc. fighting as tribal or clan warriors. 

Defeated by the powerful Roman army, who were some of the best professional soldiers of the time.

Soldiering requires working as a team.  If you go off to be Rambo, you leave your team open and vulnerable.  Back in the sword and shield era you had to march in rank, because the shield in your left hand protected the soldier to your left...creating an impenetrable wall through which you could stab forward with your sword or pike.  This (naturally) limits the range of motion you can use in an attack.  Instead of a lone warrior standing in a circle, you have a group of people marching in lockstep.  A moving, spiky wall.  (In the modern era that tactic now makes you a major target for artillery and grenades, so marching in formation isn't a great idea.  You still, however, have to move in a different type of formation and anyone who leaves the formation leaves their team vulnerable.) 

To make that moving spiky wall, to succeed on the battlefield, you don't necessarily need the best swordsmen.  You need the ones best able to keep their shield up (i.e. stamina) and stay in formation.  Ones who can follow orders and shift (in sync with their fellows, without whacking each other with their shields or pikes or swords) to move in whatever direction is required.

If you talk about the 'warrior mentality' in terms of willingness to fight, to dedicate yourself to having the necessary skills, the ability to endure pain and difficulty in order to achieve your goal - with honor, and integrity - then soldiers do, indeed, need the warrior spirit. 

Yet they also need skills that are less glamorous.  Like giving up on individual glory in order to succeed as a team.  The Romans grew strong not because they had the best warriors, but because they had the best soldiers.

Warriors are sexy and glamorous.  They stand out from the crowd.  An army, on the other hand, is strong in the way of ants or bees.  Each individual isn't quite as important as the weighted mass of the whole, organized to put the right people with the right resources in the right place at the right time.

So many, many problems are because we are designed to work in a more feudal, personal world...and yet strength and power comes from those faceless organizations - bureaucracies and corporations - that excel at putting the right resources together on a large scale.

Or do they?

Currents of Thought

So the mixed jumble I want to make sense of includes such topics as:  inequality and it's costs, samurai, complicity in sexual abuse (I know I linked to this earlier and the NYTimes just released an article in a similar vein that I haven't read yet), how monkeys act when they see another monkey getting paid more for the same work, inflation and it's effects, a meme on the internet:

A discussion on neoliberal economic policy, as well as the warrior mentality, perennial human problems, chess endgames, talent pipelines, and our capacity for organization.

Whew.  That's a lot, no?  

My starting point for putting it all together has more to do with what I've read or watched most recently than anything else.  Different articles or TV shows remind me of different points on that list...though I'll have to give you more details before the points will make much sense.

So, after all that build up, I suppose it's time to begin.

What's the Point

The second issue with writing this post has to do with figuring out why I need to write it in the first place.

I keep coming back to "for my own clarity", and it's mostly for the following reasons:

I don't like to write something that is essentially saying "ditto" to what's already out there.  There's no value added, unless it's adding one more grain of sand or one more straw to a given point of view.  Yes, sheer weight does have a value of it's own.

Still, if I see that others have said the same things (and often better), I don't really see the point in adding my two cents. 

And some of what I planned to write - well, for the bulk of Americans they're kind of "no duh".  The problem is, for a small subset of our population, it isn't.  So I can add my weight to the mountain of people who agree that (as an example): the Republican tax plan sucks (not that tax reform itself is a bad idea, just this particular attempt at it) , or that net neutrality matters (or at least not ending it in this boneheaded way), or that we should do something about the shrinking of the middle class, or that we should decriminalize marijuana...but then it's another "ditto" post...

Or I could try to explore why the heck someone in power would say something like this:

“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies,” he told the paper.

Those types of posts are mostly just guesswork, though, as it's not like I have one-on-one conversations with anyone in the top 1%. 

And I'm not sure that what I say would make a difference to anyone who was.  Like - if they're in so much of a bubble that they honestly don't see the problems here, it's because they're not really looking.  Don't care to look. 

Have no incentive to look.

Or maybe they look, and acknowledge the problems, but their proposed solutions will only exacerbate things.

Either way, what's the point in writing for some fictional one-percenter?

So these days I'm writing either because I see something I can uniquely contribute, or I'm waiting until the swirling jumble of ideas are at the point where I need to jot them down.  There's a clarity that comes from writing a blog post that I just can't get if I don't. 

I know when I was younger I disregarded the idea that journaling mattered, but since I started blogging I've changed my mind.  Writing these things down helps me connect thoughts in a way I just can't otherwise.  I get the beginnings, generally, but then life happens.  It's time to do homework, or make dinner, or what-have-you...and they all just blow away.  I don't get to delve that deep into them.

Writing it down, however, lets me make connections and dig deeper.

So anyways, on to the latest bit of mindstorm.

Framing Events

I've had some thoughts jumbling around in the ol' noggin, though I have had a hard time figuring out which parts to get into, and in which order.  (again).

It doesn't help that it's the end of the semester, which means I mostly have been putting it aside to focus on homework.

Part of the issue is that I can't figure out what 'story' I want to tell.  The way you frame the issue shapes everything.  So, for example, I could go with a "We're headed for World War II and we're all going to die!!!" or "Here comes the American version of the French Revolution!!!" or any other disastrous prediction.

Or I could go with some version of "Nothing to see here, move along".  After all, the status quo is a powerful force - right up until it isn't.  (I distinctly remember some analysis on intelligence efforts that discussed the problems with accurately predicting the future.  There's so much incentive to foresee - and hopefully forestall - negative events that predictions are slanted towards disaster, even though most of the time those dire predictions don't really occur.  The only problem with that is we then become complacent and assume that the status quo is going to stay, right up until the Soviet Union topples or the French revolt or whatever.  All of which we can find the evidence for when we look back, yet always miss when surrounded by the regular white noise of our own time.)

After all, despite the noise and furor over whatever horrible news story is out there today, most people are still quietly just going about their lives, doing their own thing.  (Though there are undercurrents of potential problems.  There always are.  I heard a couple people say we need to completely overhaul or system, maybe have another Constitutional Convention.  People are pretty fed up with the system as is, and they're looking for alternatives.  In counterinsurgency terms - the public has grievances.  It remains to be seen whether our system can address those grievances legitimately (i.e. through elections, as we've done - more or less - for the past couple of hundred years) or whether the perception that our elite have locked down the system to such an extent that elections are useless will grow.  With potentially dire consequences down the road. (God, I hate predictions like that!  You can't really set a time or date.  Can't say if it's 10 years, or 100 years...and there's so many things that can happen to forestall or foster such an event that it's almost useless to say.  And yet...and yet there's the ring of truth to it.  Mostly for reasons I planned to cover in the jumble of a post coming up.)


It also doesn't help that we, Americans at least, put serious pressure on ourselves to always be upbeat and positive.  I find that I don't really want to write anything too negative for a couple of reasons - it's probably not going to get that bad, too dire a prediction doesn't really give us much of an option to do anything about it (i.e. if World War III is right around the corner, then screw it!  I'll stop trying to be sensible and just blow all my money living it up until we die in a nuclear conflagration.  Yes, I'm exaggerating that for dramatic effect), but  mostly because I hate feeling like a Debbie Downer.

So most of what I shoot for is clear-eyed, open analysis of our system that confronts our problems head on while making it clear there's still room for hope.

Which is tricky.  For example, when I said "we're losing our democracy" in an earlier post, it was meant more as a call to action, a dire prediction meant to help encourage a discussion regarding what we can do to avert that disaster.  Not as a cynical statement of hopelessness.

Marvel's Runaways

Over Thanksgiving my family and I watched Justice League - and although we did enjoy it, I think the critics were right about how one-dimensional the villain was.  He was just sort of...there.  Big, bad villain out to destroy everything.  Because that's just what he does.

I brought that up because the Justice League's Steppenwolf is a great counterpoint to the villainous parental units in Hulu's show Runaways.

I find myself wondering what led these guys to do what they do.  Where did they cross the line?  They raised some apparently great kids, after all.  Kids who know right from wrong.  The parents have the typical annoyances of any social group (like hating on one parent's homemade brie).  They question what they're doing.  They're sometimes very nerdy, or comforting, or parental...they are sometimes so very ordinary.

And yet they unequivocally are doing wrong.  I'm sure we'll get more of the backstory as the series unfolds.  See what the parents are trying to do, why they think it's acceptable.  We've already heard some of the self-justification (i.e. one mother mentioned that she takes in runaways and helps them live well for about six months, six months she feels they wouldn't have had otherwise...as she apparently assumes they'd have died living out on the streets.  And so she justifies killing them.  Which is wrong in and of itself, of course.  Yet on top of that, she's telling herself that she's making some sort of deal by giving them a good life - for a time - and it's a deal she's making without the knowledge or consent of the other party.)

I'm also kind of fascinated by how the group affects each other.  There have been moments where one or another has expressed...concerns.  Misgivings.  Doubts.  As one parent noted, the runaway they sacrificed was almost the same age as their own children.  So it's interesting how they reinforce each other, keep everyone on track (for their villainous goals...)

Which ones are driving the group?  Which ones might break away as the story gets told?  How far will the parents go?  Especially when they realize their kids oppose them?

This kind of ties in with some of my previous topics regarding how we confuse self-interest with the public good, and the ways that power corrupts.  In cartoons and TV, we often show the angel and demon sitting on someone's shoulder, trying to persuade them to act one way or another.



Yet what happens when they look alike?  When you can't tell the angel apart from the demon?

How can you tell when you've crossed the line then?

Update

Well, Thanksgiving is done and I've got your typical end of the semester schoolwork to do (a couple of projects, some final exams, etc.)  Oddly enough, I think I prefer doing a computer project over the large writing assignments I've had in most of my previous classes.  I dunno, frustrating though it is when my programs don't work it's still more fun than researching and citing sources for a 12+ page paper.  Plus it's kind of cool to see all my work actually do something.

I visited with the fam last week.  Did our usual holiday movies (watched Justice League and Thor: Ragnarok), played a bit of Pandemic (Season 2, the second legacy set.) 

For those who were unaware, legacy games are boardgames that change over time, based on what you did in previous games.  With Pandemic they tell a story that takes place over the course of a year.  The things that happen in each game will affect your ability to play in later games, so you have to strategize not just on how to win your current game but also on how to set yourself up for success in the later games. 

One of my brothers, my Dad and I have played Pandemic pretty much every time I visit, and we rather enjoyed the first legacy set (season 1).  The only issue is that once your year is up (which can be anywhere from 12-24 games, since if you lose a game you play another game corresponding to that 'month') you can't really go back and play it again.  You've changed up the board, destroyed cards, and done various other things that make it really hard to reset and start over. 

At the same time, that's part of what makes it fun.  Different. 

So anyways, I'm taking a break from my latest homework (dealing with mySQL and databases.  It's not too bad, though figuring out the proper syntax for complicated queries can be a pain.) and I wanted to talk about the Hulu show Runaways.

Since I started off with more humdrum stuff (see all of the above), I decided to write this as two separate posts.

Character, Heroism, Humanity, and Current Events

For the past few days I've had some thoughts circling around regarding current events, but I couldn't quite find the right string to pull in order to start untangling my thoughts.  Whichever way I started would have unduly influenced the direction of the post, in ways I wasn't quite ready to write.

So I went back, to my own personal history.

I began my intereset in politics more out of a childish whim than any reasoned knowledge.  A decision made while competing with my brother and sister.  I did encounter, and even partially accept some of the common beliefs about politics:

All politicians lie.  Politics are an ugly, nasty business.  Politics is how some incompetent but smooth-talking a$$-kisser gets promoted while better talented, more deserving people get overlooked.  Power corrupts - sometimes followed by "and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

At some point, I decided that if every good person just threw their hands up and said "ugh, politics!!!" that would basically leave all the decision making to people who were NOT good.  The ones who live up to every negative stereotype regarding power and politics.  If we want something different, if we want politics to be better, then we have to be involved.

This raises questions regarding what is 'good' politics and what is 'bad' politics.  Where do you draw the line?  How do you know when you've been corrupted by power?

As I studied political science, I developed a more nuanced understanding...I think.  You see, we distrust politicians partly because we all know it's an act.  On some level, at least.  Like movie stars and other celebrities, there's the public persona...and it doesn't always match what the person acts like when the cameras and microphones are off.  In a small community you can figure out whether someone is genuine or not...but in a nation of over 300 million individuals most of us can't. 

The Fables comic books had an interesting claim that elections are like a seduction, which is why Prince Charming did so well.  And (like many seducers and politicians) winning the election often involves making promises you can't really keep.  And yet we want to be seduced.  (Part of Trump's appeal, horrible though he is, was that people felt that they saw the real deal.  They distrust the stage persona of a professional politician, and felt more comfortable with Trump - warts and all.  That comment, btw, is not meant to excuse or justify voting for Trump.  I do think his obvious 'warts' are worse than the hidden 'warts' of his opponents.)

Yet I don't think many politicians believe they are corrupt, or knowingly are passing legislation that will hurt the nation.  (I might make an exception for the current Republican tax plan, however.  As just one small example of how terrible it is, the potential impact on grad students would be devastating.  It seems like they're not even trying to pretend that they care about the rest of us any more.) 

Many even got their start because there were real issues they wanted to address (Danica Roem seems like the most recent example.) I suspect that any corruption, if it happens, occurs because of typical human fallacies.  Primarily our tendency to confuse policies that are good for us with policies that are good for everyone (after all, you have to win re-election...and if you don't get re-elected how can you help anyone?) and the tendency to believe the ends justifies the means.  After all, you know you're right, you know you've got everyone's best interests at heart, you know everything would go great if you could just make your plans a reality - and if people would just stop interfering with you - and what does it matter if you spread false rumors, or mislead the public on what science says about a topic, if those actions help you make the 'right' policies a reality? 

That's a rather rich topic all by itself, but it's only part of the tangle I wanted to discuss.  So moving along-

Somewhat tied in with the discussion of 'good' politics and 'bad' politics is some assessment of which politicians were 'good' and which were 'bad'. 

Which comes perilously close to judging our neighbors.  Hmmm.  This gets into my Catholic upbringing, which still influences me despite being rather lapsed.  So let me rephrase that.  I think that "judge not, lest ye be judged" is a reminder that people are inherently complex.  If we truly knew someone, inside and out, the way God would, then we would understand and forgive our transgressions.  And the forgiveness we want for ourselves is the forgiveness we should give to others.  Like in the Lord's Prayer -

forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.

We all judge each other, and in some ways it's inevitable and required.  We make decisions, daily, about who we spend time with.  Who we cultivate.  Who we vote for.  Yet I try to lessen any truly harsh judgements by reminding myself that I know only part of anyone's story.  The public persona (good or bad) we see on TV gives a very superficial sense of who anyone is.  Heck, we don't even know people we've been friends with for decades.  Not as well as we think we do, at least.  You might figure out 90% of who someone is in a few days, or months, or years...but you can spend the rest of your life learning the other 10%.

And that's another small thread to the tangle...not yet the whole of it.

Sometime around seventh or eighth grade I remember a priest talking to our class about faith, and he described it as an ongoing interaction.  The gist of what I recall is this:

Our initial beliefs are often very black and white.  Saints and sinners.  Good and bad.  Then sometimes we start questioning things.  We learn that it's more complicated than we thought.

And this is good.  The goal, hopefully, is that as you get your questions answered that you gain a stronger, deeper, and more nuanced understanding.

The discussion was related mostly to faith in God, but I think the same can be applied to people (and judging people) as well.

For example, there are three presidents that I would consider the 'best', though granted I haven't exhaustively studied them all and don't know much about the more obscure ones (Chester Arthur, anyone?)  Those presidents would be Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin Roosevelt. 

I feel a bit cliche for saying that, since those are some of the presidents 'anyone' would know...even after they've forgotten whatever they were taught in grade school.  And yet they remain well liked and popular for good reason. 

George Washington, whose public persona is still influenced by the Cherry Tree Myth, established the tradition of a two-term president.  He was the very first president, and he probably could have served longer if he'd chosen to.  To have that power and willingly set it aside is a pretty amazing thing.  And it helped establish - even solidify - our democratic system at the very onset.  Washington giving up power is part of what makes our system strong.  It makes us less dependent on a cult of personality, or some specific person being in charge. 

Abraham Lincoln, "Honest Abe", who led us through the Civil War and freed the slaves. 

And FDR, who led us through the Great Depression and World War II.

Current trends have given us a more nuanced understanding of these men.  George Washington owned slaves.  Abraham Lincoln may have freed the slaves only because it made political sense at the time (or perhaps he truly believed in abolition but didn't feel it was politically feasible until the end of the Civil War.)  FDR ordered the internment of Japanese Americans, broke the tradition of a two term president and tried packing the Supreme Court with his supporters.

None of these men are the heroes we built them up to be.  Does that mean they weren't great?  Does greatness excuse such behavior?  Are we wrong to judge them by our standards, when by the standards of their time they were not unusual?  Or perhaps it's even more heroic, to achieve what they have done despite being flawed and imperfect human beings.  (And yet that still doesn't make what they did right...)

In Goodwin's book Team of Rivals, she mentions a discussion Abraham Lincoln had on whether George Washington was perfect or not.  Lincoln argued that "It makes human nature better to believe that one human being was perfect, that human perfection is possible."

I understand and, to a certain extent, share that sentiment.  Not that it's okay to cover up our human frailties in order to keep that mirage...

But the modern world is so very, very cynical.  Movies are full of anti-heroes, not heroes.  Writers try to show nuance and depth by making flawed human beings, which sometimes works well and sometimes just makes the main character rather distasteful...and the cumulative result is kind of depressing. 

It makes you feel like there's no hope, whatsoever, of finding someone who can live up to our expectations.  Every politician has dirty laundry. 

It's funny, in that I know so many people who would never do the things we've come to tolerate from politicians on a regular basis...I don't know how many of them would change if they were ever given the power of an elected official, but I can't imagine it is that hard to find candidates who are free from baggage.  (Though, to be fair, some of it could be made up smears to win elections...how many of those good people I mentioned would end up looking just as terrible once their opposition got done with them?)

How much of that is unrealistic expectations, and how much of it is our settling for poor candidates because we've cynically decided it's impossible to achieve more?

This has gotten rather long already, but I did want to add one more thread to the tangle. 

I have always valued character in political candidates.  That's partly because of a poli-sci class on political psychology, where we explored the ways that personality affected the leadership of various presidents.  (It's generally easier to see the difference in presidents, rather than trying to consider specific members of Congress...though we do place undue influence on the position.)

Character is what determines how the President handles the inevitable unexpected crisis.  Character determines how well they will work with allies and enemies to get things done.  You can study where they stand on the issues, but to be honest our system requires more than one person to get anything done politically...I could handle a President with whom I disagree politically if Congress opposes them (which is part of why I wasn't too worried about Bernie...no matter what his political leanings he'd have had to get legislation through Congress, after all.)

Yet there was one article during the 2016 election that made me reconsider some of my position.  It said the Civil Rights Movement was able to accomplish as much as it did because it focused on working with whoever they could, and didn't get bogged down with questions of character.  That, to a certain extent, focusing on character was a sign of privilege. 

I could see the point, at least about the Civil Rights Movement. 

And yet I can't stand this casual belief that character doesn't matter, and the acceptance of lying and cheating so long as someone's political positions match yours. 

To tie this in with current events - every day we hear more and more horror stories about sexual harassment.  It's kind of overwhelming, and  yet it's also long overdue.  The things women have been dealing with are so widespread and prevalent that I don't want anyone to feel pressured to stop...but it also contributes to this sense that 'everyone is flawed'.

Power corrupts.

It's like...can't we do better than this?  We had Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, surely we can select people who are less...flawed.

Can't we?

"This is how it happens"

I started following this site in order to diversify my information stream, and sometimes there's something really good.  Like this.

School Update

I'm preparing for a mid-term this evening.  This class only grades four things - a mid-term exam, final exam, and two projects.

On the one hand, it's kind of cool not to have quizzes and homework every week.  On the other hand, it's kind of scary to think that I'm over halfway through the semester and don't really have any idea what my grade will be.  Plus, if I flub this mid-term it'll be pretty darn hard to recover from it.

Then again, the professor says if you study and do the homework you tend to do well (regardless of whether your grade comes from two exams and two projects, or whether he assigns quizzes and homework every week).  And that seems like a credible claim to me, especially if the exams are open-note and open-book.

So anyways.  Mid-term tonight.  This class is on operating systems, and it's really rather interesting.  (To be fair, I think almost everything is interesting, so that's hardly much of a claim).  I wasn't aware of the trouble with race conditions before, or the Dining Philosopher's Problem. 

And next week I've got my third calculus exam, we've moved on to integration.  After Thanksgiving I'll be headed into the home stretch, with various end of semester projects and exams coming due. 

On Roy Moore

I haven't posted anything on this yet because a) I like stories to develop a bit before commenting, saves me from backtracking too much as new info comes out and b) most of what I'd say is pretty much what everyone else is saying.

Namely "WTF!?!"

I mean, I get innocent until proven guilty (and not trying someone in the court of public opinion), but the people trying to defend Moore just make him (and them) sound like there's no reason to doubt the accusations.  For example:

"Joel Pollak, an editor at Breitbart, appeared on MSNBC to argue that three of the four women's accounts had "no business" in the national news, because a 30-something Moore pursuing relationships with 16- to 18-year-olds was not inappropriate. "As far as we know, there's only one relationship that's been alleged that's problematic," Pollak said, referring to Moore's alleged sexual contact with a 14-year-old."

Umm, no.  A 30-something pursuing teenagers is just plain creepy.  It's definitely inappropriate. 

The Alabama Republican county chairs opinions were even worse! 

They seriously see nothing wrong here?!?

And I'm not even getting into Jim Ziegler's comments, which I agree with Stetzer were "simultaneously ridiculous and blasphemous."

SMH.

On Losing Our Democracy, Cont.

I am not happy that Trump is President.  At the same time, I don't necessarily feel that Hillary's loss is a sign that democracy is a loss.

I already discussed how rigged the system was in the first place.  That social contract is fraying.  We're losing our democracy.

Although there are academic studies that explore this, I think there's an even better example.  Just consider marijuana.  61% of Americans think it should be legal.  To give you some perspective, about 59% think abortion should be legal.  62% think the government should ensure access to healthcare.

Marijuana legalization has more support than healthcare and abortion.  When we had a townhall meeting on the topic, people came out in droves.

And in this last election?

...

...

Crickets.

What we, the average American, care about is not reflected by our politics.

Too much of this, and whoever gets elected to office will lack legitimacy.  After all, they'll be elected by the wealthy.   Not us.

I get why Trump appealed to so many Americans.  I mean, I think he's a con artist who couldn't possibly deliver on what he promised.  He's an arrogant blowhard who can't control his emotions, has no class, is crass and rude and loves being so.

But Americans were so starved that they went for him anyway.  I know conservatives have made a thing about the 'out of touch, arrogant liberal elite'...I think Trump's win shows the same accusations can be applied to themselves. 

Hillary, btw, played into that narrative all too well.  I'm not sure how much room she had to gain new supporters, as I said before she has a long political history and most people already have an opinion about her.  What I do know, though, is that Madeline Albright's comments seemed remarkably tone deaf and alienating for someone who wasn't already a Clinton supporter.  My instinctive reaction is "Yes, mother.  Whatever you say, mother.  I will support her just because her genitals happen to be shaped like mine. Even though I don't think she has the character I hope for in a president, and I think she showed poor judgment - most recently for how she handled the e-mail scandal - but sure, I'll vote for her because she's a woman like me." *sarcasm*  *eye-roll*. 

That might not have been Hillary saying that, btw, but far too many of her supporters failed to see the problem.

Most Americans might not know what the 'right' answer is to the complex problems of today.  They don't necessarily know what tax policy or federal reserve rate we need, or what sort of regulations should be placed on banks.  Don't necessarily know whether charter schools are the way to go or not.

We just know that we've been screaming "Fix it!" for at least a decade.  And nobody is fixing a damn thing.

On Losing Our Democracy

I want to talk a bit about the Electoral College, and why our Founding Fathers created it in the first place.  The wikipedia page has a great breakdown on some of the topics/issues/questions, to include

...fears of "intrigue" if the president were chosen by a small group of men who met together regularly, as well as concerns for the independence of the president if he were elected by the Congress.

Alexander Hamilton argued that - 

The electors come directly from the people and them alone for that purpose only, and for that time only. This avoided a party-run legislature, or a permanent body that could be influenced by foreign interests before each election. Hamilton explained the election was to take place among all the states, so no corruption in any state could taint "the great body of the people" in their selection. 

 And James Madison argued -

against "an interested and overbearing majority" and the "mischiefs of faction" in an electoral system. He defined a faction as "a number of citizens whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." What was then called republican government (i.e., federalism, as opposed to direct democracy), with its varied distribution of voter rights and powers, would countervail against factions.

The comments about fears of 'intrigue' if the president was chosen by a small group of men, the worries about a party-run legislature, or influence by foreign interests...they're all rather interesting given where we are today.  How  justified were those fears, in hindsight?

But the one I wanted to dwell most on today was James Madison, who worried that citizens could be united by some "common impulse of passion" that was adverse to the rights of other citizens.

Mostly because he captured the tension and dissonance in our Founding Fathers towards creating a democracy.  On the one hand, there's the entire concept of a social contract and the belief that people should have a say in their government.  On the other hand, there's this fear that democracy could degenerate into a "tyranny of the masses".  This, honestly, is what I think about whenever I see some internet mob raised in anger.  Most of the time I sympathize.  I understand why everyone is so upset.  But there is something disturbing, almost chilling, about seeing a mass of people decide to take justice into their own hands and punish someone else.  Who decides when someone has been punished enough?  How do you even know how much punishment the recipient has received?  Where was the trial, the evidence?  There's a reason why cases are tried in court...and not the court of public opinion.

It's easy to talk about protecting minority rights when it means protecting the ones we now accept as deserving.  People who have been persecuted for the color of their skin, or religion, or sexuality.  It's not so easy to talk about it when it's most important, i.e. when the group needing protection is unpopular and disliked.  Back before it became acceptable to speak out on behalf of minorities.  You don't get to pick and choose who you decide is worthy of free speech, because then it's no longer about the principle of the thing...it's now about who you agree with and who you don't.  (That said, there are ways to allow people to speak their mind...and make it clear that you disagree with them.  And I personally do hope the voices of disagreement are louder on certain topics.  I think the real question is "what's the difference between honestly voicing your opinion, vs bullying someone into submission for holding a different one?")

Anyways.  Our Founders wanted democracy.  But not too much democracy.

And that dissonance is still here today.  Heck, that dissonance is true for me, as an individual, aside from the larger public.

Frame the issue this way: There is a social contract between government and the governed,  and that the consent of the governed is critical for having a legitimate government (and stable society.)  Democracy makes that consent legible, and renews it on a regular basis.  The ability to have your say, to tell your government what issues you care about (and have those issues addressed) helps prevent the government from becoming unresponsive to the will of the people.  It prevents that government from turning away from their duty as stewards to the public, prevents that government from deciding that their interests are more important...and backing that up with force.  Democracy means that government cannot grow brittle and inflexible, since any such government will be voted out of office and a more responsive person will be placed in charge.  It helps prevent stagnation and decay, and reduces the rot that seems almost inevitable.

As such, democracy is important.  Giving the people a say is important.  And all the problems I touched on previously - gerrymandering, voter registration, money, etc, are serious problems.  Too many people no longer feel like their say matters, the government no longer represents our interests.  And, as such, it risks losing it's legitimacy.

Frame it another way, though, and you will question all of that.  After all, how many people still believe Elvis is alive?  Or that 9/11 was an inside job?

People are crazy, man!  You'd have to be nuts to leave something as important as governing up to them.

Especially if you're educated, and you follow the issues, and you know what's what...and then you see people voting for things that are just so...so...*sputter in incoherent rage*.  (You know that's what happens.  You've seen it on social media, if you haven't felt it yourself.  Remember these thoughts.  We'll come back to it later.)

And yet even though there are a LOT of people who can't tell you the difference between Sikh and Muslim - or accurately place Syria on a map - we do tend to act wiser than the sum of our parts.

I think Malcolm Gladwell explained the dynamics rather well in his book The Tipping Point.  You've got your political junkies, your news junkies, the people who pay attention to this stuff.  And they have friends and family.  You have those Thanksgiving dinner discussions (*groan* I have to talk to them?!?  They're so ______!   Liberal, conservative, take your pick.)  You have Christmas.  You get in an argument over the phone.  Maybe you see an argument on the internet that actually persuades you.  Not the flame wars and trolls, of course.  *eye roll*.  But something thoughtful, well thought out, and it makes you see things in a new light.

Picture a 'typical' person with a full time job and a family.  Wake up, and they have to make breakfast and get the kids to school.  Then it's off to work.  Work, work work.  Time to pick up the kids from school.  Make dinner.  Get the kids ready for bed.  And maybe you have to set aside time to help your kid with homework, or run out to the store to get poster board for some project they forgot about until the last minute.  Or they participate in a sport, or band, and you have to get them to practice or a concert or a play.

That's your typical day.  It's hectic and rushed, and when you get a few minutes to spare you're scrolling through facebook or checking your e-mail.  You might sit down to watch the evening news, and then relax with Game of Thrones (or the television show of your choice).   Or read a book, or play cards.  Whatever.

Point is, that day you might have spent a half hour or less following politics.  And some of it will come from the facebook posts of your more political friends.  You don't have time to go cross checking and digging deeper into the issues - that's what reporters are for.  So you go to the news source of your choice (CNN, Fox News, whatever)...and you see what your more political friends post.  You may not do all the fact checking yourself, but if your friend is doing that (or is friends with someone else who is doing that) then the result may not be too far off.

So now I've come full circle around to trusting democracy again.  There are concerns about how effective this is (especially in the age of fake news), but again you need 'experts' who help sort out what's real and what it isn't...and over time the more credible ones gain sway.

Ideally.  It's not as perfect as I make it sound, and it can take time for the facts to catch up with the story. 

Now is where I want you to recall the thoughts/feelings I mentioned above.  The frustration of seeing  masses of people support or agree with things that just plain wrong.

Because the natural urge, if you don't watch out, is to start thinking you know better than everyone else.  And that you're justified in doing what's best for them.  Even if it means fudging the appearance of a rally so that it looks like someone has more support than they really do.

Or clearing the path for a candidate of your choice, even if they are disliked by a large portion of Americans.  (And if that candidate loses, it just reinforces the idea that the masses are too stupid - or sexist, or racist - for democracy.  After all, if they had any brains your candidate would have won.)

Fits in with the previous posts...

I hadn't thought about it this way, but this article makes a lot of sense.

I think it fits with my previous post, since these ideologues are the politically active people voting in primaries.

And, as the article puts it, that makes them weird.

On American Elections - So What Now?

We are losing our democracy.

I know this is somewhat ironic, since recent elections have excited Democrats and seem to prove once again that voting matters.  And it does.  I will circle back to this...

In my discussion on election rigging, I stuck with some of the very basics of our political system.  I didn't bring up concerns about purging voter registration lists, or details on primary debates that may or may not have had an impact.  It's very hard to say what impact those things had, and whether it was deliberately done to have the alleged impact in the first place.

I also didn't get into the role of money, or lobbyists.  Nor did I discuss the re-election rates for incumbents.

Instead, I want to emphasize that every presidential election our candidates are decided by a very small portion of our population.  See, since we have this duopoly, most of our candidates are decided on by the primaries...

Except most of the population doesn't actually vote in the primaries.  If you aren't the party base, if you don't consider yourself Democrat or Republican, or if you only sort of consider yourself one but don't really get involved enough to know the candidates and vote in the primaries...

Then you don't really get a say in who our president will be.  By the time the general elections come around, it's too late.  You're left choosing between whoever the Democrats and Republicans nominated.

The New York Times broke it down rather well in August over a year ago.  In a nation of 300 million, only 14% of the eligible voting population (and 9% of the entire population) voted for Trump or Clinton.

The vast majority of Americans no longer feel as though we have much say in our system.  The irony is that we could change that. 

If...

If we were engaged.  If we voted, especially in the primaries.  In 2016 only 28.5% of eligible voters participated in the primaries.  As I keep saying...if you wait for the general election it's too late.

In political science, it's well known that candidates have to cater to their base to win the nomination...then pivot more towards the center to win the general election.

In the past decade, as politics have become more divisive and compromise is seen as betrayal, it's gotten harder and harder to do that.  The influence of money (and party control) on politics hasn't helped.  There was intense pressure to get rid of the RINOs and DINOs, with the end result that too many politicians seem concerned with toeing the party line and catering to their base...

as opposed to representing their constituents as a whole.

This lack of voter engagement means we generally provide corrective action well after the fact.  Late, and it's not always clear what the correction is for in the first place.  Republicans and Democrats have this tendency to think they were given a green light for whatever, they take things too far, and voters get energized and punish them at the next election.

It's part of why midterms are notorious for strengthening the party not currently holding the presidency.

The problem is that the people who accept this system are the engaged political types...the ones who actually vote in the primaries. The 9% who voted for Trump or Clinton.

They've accepted the system as is, so they don't really see the need to change it.  After all, why make it easier for a third party to run?   So the ones best suited to changing things have no incentive to do so.  (Not saying that the general public can't, if enough were engaged in the first place.  Which is part of the problem, since none of this would really be an issue if they were.)

That 9% generally is more concerned with helping their party win elections.  With exploring why Hillary Clinton lost, and how they can do better next time.  With figuring out what Trump's success means for the Republican Party, and what that means.  With deciding whether Democratic donors should select Kamala Harris as the next 'serious' contender three years before the next presidential election.  (Not to pick on Kamala Harris, so much as the donors and political influencers who are essentially picking the candidate years before the rest of the population has a chance to even vote in the primaries.)

It will only change if one of two things happens - the general population becomes more engaged and votes for something different (and there are various suggestions on how to do that) or the powers-that-be realize that this is not acceptable and work to change it.

Economic Policies

Came across this today and really liked it, so posting it to share.

On Rigging Elections, American Style III

Campaigning is a funny thing.  I mentioned the media before, and now's the time to talk about them.

The media have a way of influencing our political choices...not control, necessarily.  But influence.

See, they tend to decide which candidates are 'serious', even ahead of time...and they decide who to write stories about and who to cover.  Every presidential election has candidates who we never, ever hear about.  Like Rocky de la Fuente, Mike Smith, Richard Duncan, or Laurence Kotlikoff.  Candidates we never hear about, don't even know are running. 

Some of it is because they don't have that (D) or (R) by their name.  Some are jokes, like Vermin Supreme.  Some of them are probably not deserving of much media attention.  Who knows?  We never saw enough of them to decide for ourselves.

In politics, name recognition is huuuuuge.  A third party candidate with name recognition and significant resources (i.e. is independently wealthy) might have a chance.  Anyone else?  Good luck.

So campaigns...well, this gets highly speculative in that there are many people out there who build careers off of trying to run a successful campaign.  Their tactics and techniques vary, and after the results are in there can still be tremendous debate over what worked and what didn't.  And why it worked (or didn't).  It also doesn't help that we are adaptive.  That things that worked one year may fail the next, especially as people become used to it. 

All of which is a way of saying this is not a hard science, and there's a lot of room for speculation.

That out of the way -

Campaigns have a certain...hmmm...lifecycle?  At the beginning there's the well-known names, and they tend to soak up all the media attention.  Then there's the campaign process, where a relatively-unknown candidate may get surprising support.  Or not.  If they get that surprising level of support, they may start getting more media attention...and more people take notice of them...and that leads to more media attention...and more people take notice of them.

They build momentum.  They build support.  Everything kind of feeds off of and reinforces everything else. 

This, btw, is part of why I don't really support having all the primaries at the same time.  That seems to favor the well-known candidates and doesn't give time for a relatively unknown candidate to build support.  Politicos may know all about the Dennis Kucinich's and Evah Bayh's of the political world, but unless the candidate has a history in that state most voters don't.  Honestly, most voters don't even know who Nancy Pelosi is, or Kevin McCarthy (I had to look that one up.)  They don't know what a Majority Whip and Minority Whip does (Steve Scalise and Steny Hoyer).  You're lucky if they know who their own representatives are, much less any of the other state representatives.  Or state governors, for that matter.  So watching who outperforms expectations in a primary is part of what starts the momentum.

And voters...well, voters can be funny.  They don't always vote just off the issues, or which candidate is best for them.  It's well known that superficial things like appearance and height play a role.  This article, for example, explores whether polls create self-fulfilling prophecies.  People like to think they voted for a winner...so much so that they will even forget and lie about who they voted for after an election. 

So what's the point of all this?  Mainly that in 2016 we had Hillary Clinton as the clear front runner, from the get-go.  Campaigning on her inevitability.  Trying to convince people she was the clear winner, to create a self-fulfilling prophecy where people would vote for her and make her the winner.  (And boy, were people angry when Bernie Sanders interfered with building that momentum!). 

Some of which is...well, pretty much what every campaign does, right?  It's not necessarily nefarious or illegal. 

Yet it also means that we are left with all sorts of questions, all sorts of "what if's" that can never be truly answered. 

The push to make her appear 'inevitable' was, to my mind, pretty heavy-handed.  How many people voted for Clinton because they didn't see an alternative, and assumed she'd be the winner all along?  Bowed to the inevitable and voted for the presumed winner?  How many people would have voted for Joe Biden or some other candidate if they'd had the chance? 

And how much did her relationship with the media matter.  That...well, I could write a long bit about that by  itself.  Mostly because people have such varied impressions of her relationship with the media - her supporters claim she had little support, negative news cycles, and blame the media in part for her loss.  Others talk about the 'Clinton News Network' and see a lot of puff pieces and media support that (from their perspective) gave her an unfair advantage.

Snopes has a good article breaking down who does and doesn't have ties to the Obama administration - and presumably wanted ties with a future Hillary administration.  The article notes that a relationship does not necessarily mean biased reporting, and discusses which relationships were outdated by that time.  Still, it's interesting that the very last sentence was "...the ban on politics isn’t total; in April, Shipman filed a report on the “buzz” about former secretary of state Clinton’s 2016 presidential ambitions."

I don't know about all that, but I do know that something funny appeared to be going on with my newsfeed in 2016.  That is, I've monitored a news aggregator site for the last decade.  It allows me to keep tabs on the headlines of the day, dig deeper on the topics I'm interested in, and I don't have to waste my time sitting through crap I'm not interested like you do if you watch the news on a TV.  Since I check it periodically throughout the day, I see which articles seem to blow up, which disappear, etc.  There's kind of a lifecycle to it, depending on what other news is going on at the moment.

In 2016 I noticed something funny, though I've got no solid data to illustrate with.  Basically any time an article critical of Hillary came out, almost immediately there were two or three articles refuting it...and then the whole thing seemed to get buried remarkably quickly.  I do believe the e-mails found from the DNC hacks (as reported by the Intercept.  The e-mails of which have not been refuted as false yet) explain some of it.  Particularly the way her campaign planted stories and controlled reporting about Hillary.  All of which means I think there's quite the Clinton media machine.

Which is funny, given the complaints about hostile reporting...from my perspective they made things a lot easier for her than they should have.

Anyways...to bring this back to rigging the system, it's hard to say just how much media influence and the constant refrain of 'inevitable' boosted Hillary's chances beyond what they otherwise would have been.  From certain perspectives, you could even argue that everything was what any good campaign would do - if they had the connections and pull to do so.

And yet that level of control, that sense of a political machine pushing a candidate (despite her high unfavorability ratings) also contributed to the sense that the system was rigged. 

Or rather, that it was her connections and party support that made her the lead candidate even though she was always one of the most unfavorable candidates.

On Rigging Elections, American Style II

The design of our political system favors two parties, and most of my previous post can be applied to both parties.  The media also plays a role in this, though I'll get to that a little bit later.

This next bit gets into speculation and reading between the lines.  I am not, by any means, saying my opinion is an accurate reflection of the situation. 

In 2008, the Democratic Party had Obama and Hillary...those are the two main candidates everyone remembers.   You might remember Joe Biden (selected for VP), and maybe even John Edwards. Not sure how many people remember Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, Evan Bayh, Chris Dodd, Tom Vilsack or Mike Gravel.  

I think everyone remembers how upset Hillary supporters were when Obama, then a rather new and unknown candidate, ended up defeating Hillary.

In 2016, the Democratic Party had Hillary and Bernie Sanders (who some argued wasn't truly a Democrat, and who clearly resented him for running in their party).  You probably don't remember Jim Webb, Lawrence Lessig, Martin O'Malley, or Lincoln Chafee.  It's not just that they didn't get enough support to win.  None of these four candidates was on the same level as Joe Biden or John Edwards in 2008.  There was practically no competition from them.  (Somewhat related to the media.  It's coming, I promise.)

Now, part of what I want to speculate on has to do with RUMINT (for rumor intelligence, like HUMINT for human intelligence.)  You have to be careful with rumors, since there are people who deliberately spread lies.  Sometimes knowingly, sometimes not.  At the same time, you sometimes can important info from it.  Sort of like how 'everyone knew' about Harvey Weinstein.

When I first started hearing jokes calling Dick Cheney a vampire, for example, I pretty much dismissed it.  While reading about the Bush presidency, though, I came to think that those jokes were speaking a truth of sorts.  That Dick Cheney held a level of control as VP that was not typical for the position, and that he used that power in ways that were ultimately detrimental. 

In a similar fashion, people were joking about Hillary's 2016 run as a 'coronation'...and comparing the candidate list of 2008 to 2016, I can see why.  Add in reports that Obama discouraged Joe Biden from running, and it seems clear the Democratic Party was clearing the way for Hillary.  Now, not all elections are competitive, of course.  It's sort of accepted that the vice president of a sitting president is the lead contender for the next election (when said president's two terms are over).  That's part of why Al Gore didn't have much competition in 2000.  But 2016 was an election year where Obama was not eligible, and the vice president would have been - Joe Biden.

Clearing the path for Hillary is not the typical move.  I have to wonder how much of it was done out of fear that a more competitive primary would lead to a repeat of 2008.  That is, some unknown candidate would take the nomination and yet again Hillary would be passed over.  (Never mind that if you have to clear the race for a candidate, they probably aren't that competitive to begin with.)  Or maybe it was some sort of agreement between Obama and Hillary, especially after her loss to him in 2008.  Who knows? 

Still, limiting the 'serious' candidates so that Hillary is pretty much the only candidate is Hobson's choice. 

What's funny is that even with those limited choices, even with a remarkably un-competitive primary, Hillary Clinton still struggled to defeat the one lone candidate that refused to play along - Bernie Sanders.  The nomination was practically handed to Hilary, the path cleared, and then an outsider came in and almost defeated her.  Again.  (No wonder the true believers resent Bernie so much!).


That's still not all...

On Rigging Elections, American Style

The latest news has brought this topic up again, with the usual "it was rigged"-"no it wasn't" debate. 

I want to put on my old poli-sci hat for a bit and go over some things about our political system.

First.  We have what's called a 'first past the post' system.  The candidate with the most votes wins.  End of story. 

This may seem commonsensical on the face of it, until you learn more about what some of our fellow democracies have done.  (This, btw, is not meant to criticize our Founding Fathers for what they came up with.  It was a grand experiment, very different from the world of kings and queens they lived in, and some of the things I'm pointing out only developed later.)

France, for example, is on it's Fifth Republic.  They experimented with quite a few different governments after the French Revolution (which was in 1789, so we're talking about a little over 200 years to go through Napoleon, restoration of the monarchy, and on to this fifth republic.)  Their elections have a two-round runoff voting process.  What this means is the winner has to get a certain number of votes.  If you got 40% of the vote, the second candidate got 30%, and the remaining candidates split 30% of the vote you DO NOT WIN!  Instead, the bottom candidates are eliminated (precisely what percentage counts as a win, and which candidates are eliminated can vary from country to country) and a second round of voting occurs. 

If we had a system like that, you could vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein free and clear...knowing that you aren't going to split the votes for your second-best choice (thus making your least favorite candidate the winner).

Unfortunately, a third party, even if it got 30% of the vote, would have absolutely no representation in our system.  Not unless their support was concentrated in a small enough area to win an election (like the libertarian plan to move to New Hampshire). 

That's part of why I like mixed member proportional representation.  You get to vote for a party, you vote for a specific candidate, and you get a legislature that represents the political platforms in proportion to the voting population's desires.  I don't think our Founding Fathers came up with it because a) there were no political parties in America at the time and b) they had major concerns about the dangers of partisanship (see Federalist Paper No. 10 and the debates with the Anti-Federalists).

Our first-past-the-post process, in and of itself, shapes our political system and pushes us towards a two-party duopoly.

On top of which, the current parties have taken steps to strengthen their hold on the system.  States, for example, have different requirements for an independent who wants to get on a ballot than they do for people with a (D) or (R) next to their name.  Plus there are all the arcane rules about when you must register to the vote, whether you have to declare a party before voting in a primary or not, and so on and so forth.  All of which gives candidates from the two established parties significant advantages.  And I haven't even touched on gerrymandering, and it's pernicious effects.  (I'm throwing out the big words in this one.)

Those systemic advantages for a duopoly are further exacerbated by our history with candidates like Ralph Nader and Ross Perot.  Too many people feel as though voting for the candidate they truly desire would make things worse, since it would split the vote.

Which is part of why every time I hear a Democrat all offended that Bernie came and ran in their primary, I think they have a very limited understanding of the role their parties play in our political system.   And that they're putting their party above the good of the nation.

The Democratic and Republican primaries are not just their own internal selection process.  Given the built in advantages to their party, those primaries determine which two candidates everyone else will have to choose between. 

All of which means our elections start out 'rigged'.  You can vote for anyone you want, sure.  But the only 'serious' contenders come from the two major parties.

It isn't quite as bad as all that, of course.  Our two parties end up being more like umbrellas than a true party...in part because of all I listed above.  Plus the success of a third party can encourage the two primary parties to appropriate the issue.

Umbrella parties just makes things more confusing, though, since it's hard to say which faction of the party is going to win the most votes.  There's something to be said for coalition governments - at least it's clear how much the voters support the various platforms.  (Not like the bickering we see within both parties as they try to figure out why they lost key elections and how to win the next one.  Cater to fiscal conservatives?  Or evangelicals?  Or identity politics?  Or economic issues?   If each was it's own party, we'd know the level of voter support for their ideas.  And if none has an outright winning majority, they can do some horsetrading to build the winning coalition.)

But that's not all...

Sunk Costs and Groupthink

Okay, one more thought for the night.  I'm still reading The Confidence Game, and the author is talking about the disaster at the Teton Dam.  Mostly because the thought processes behind the desire to continue something once it's started are the same, whether you're talking about a con or the unwillingness to hear concerns about building a dam once you've started.  Kind of like the Sunk Costs Fallacy, except you aren't really thinking of it as sunk costs.  Just, in this case, you've already started building the thing.

Since the story of the dam reminded me of research on groupthink, I found myself wondering how closely they tie together.

That is, how much was something like the decision to launch the Challenger (and marginalizing those who disagreed, dismissing reasons to question the decision), comes from the level of investment involved in launching a shuttle. 

Biases

So Leverage inspired me to read up on con-artists.  I finally picked up The Confidence Game, which had been on my very large to-read list for a while.  It's interesting stuff, and I wanted to quote something specific:

"... when it comes to ourselves—our traits, our lives, our decisions—our personal attachment overshadows our objective knowledge.
            We systematically misevaluate evidence based on our own characteristics, and if we're given evidence that something about us poses a threat, instead of thinking about how to change our own behavior, we call the evidence itself into question."

I've seen that a lot lately, particularly when it comes to politics (and probably done it, too.)  She goes on to say:

"To put this in conning terms, if I paint a picture of a perfect mark for you, and you recognize yourself in it, you are more likely to think I’m a poor researcher than yourself a good target. Nah, you’ll say. Those aren’t actually the things that get someone conned. I bet this girl didn’t do any research and is just constructing this out of thin air."

Rage Quitting

In the Leverage episode The Gold Job, the hacking expert took a turn leading the con by making a real life video game. 

Spoiler warning - his plan (though not the con as a whole) failed when the marks got frustrated and quit.  Rage quitting.

So a little while later, I found myself wondering how many of our shooters are basically rage quitting life.

Sort of a "I can't win, this isn't fun, screw everyone" sort of thing.  I wonder if there's any research on that.

Wanted to Add...

I don't post as much about Trump because there's plenty of other people out there, saying the same things I would say.  He is deeply unpopular.  I know of a very, very few people who outright support him...

So I speak up when Hillary Clinton's name comes up because there still seems to be a large number of people who seem to think she was the best candidate in 50 years, and that the only reason she didn't become president was because of sexism, Russian interference, or the Comey investigation.

I  have heard plenty of people acknowledge the flaws in other candidates while still saying they will support them.  Heck, that's sort of how I am most of the time...you pick the candidate that seems the lesser of two evils, or the best you can get out of the choices you're given. 

Hillary Clinton had a problem with her high unfavorability from the get go.  The thing her supporters shouted the most (that she had been under the spotlight for so long that nothing new could come, that she was proven and tested) was actually the thing that hurt her the most.  That is, after decades in the spotlight almost everyone had already made up their minds about her and it would be very difficult to change that.  Especially since so many had a negative impression.

She was supposed to have 'electability', but how can you judge electability right when you totally ignore those unfavorables?

This isn't actually about Hillary Clinton herself, you see.  I don't know her well enough, she sounds like a very complicated lady, and while I have not been too impressed with her character and judgement that's just my personal opinion.

The reason I keep speaking up isn't about her, so much as the party base that is so unwilling to question her candidacy.  The one that dismisses every criticism as part of the "vast right wing conspiracy", tolerates any character questions as "that's just what politicians do.  Everyone else does it, too."  Yes, there are people on the right who rabidly hate on the Clintons.  I shuddered to think of 4-8 years of Republican witch hunts, which you know would have happend if she'd won.  But that 'vast right wing conspiracy' would have targeted Obama, too.  You could say that they did.  It's just that the whole birther thing was so ridiculously stupid that only fringe elements bought into it.  It never gained the traction of something like the Lewinsky scandal or Hillary's e-mails. 

There's a reason for that.

Hillary's supporters get really, really, really upset at the Bernie bros, or Russia, or Comey, or whoever it is they blame for Hillary's loss without ever questioning what sort of system puts two of the least liked politicians ever in a competition for the presidency.  (I keep asking myself how, in a nation of over 300 million people, we wound up with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the leading contenders for the presidency.  I know we have better choices out there!)

A Persistent Threat

I like this article because it shows how persistent cyber threats operate.  That is, this was a sustained effort that only had to succeed once.

As an aside, I read one of the Hillary supporters trying to say this latest round of allegations are yet another nothingburger, and referred to this opensecrets site.

I have questions about the info here I don't know how to look up, since my desired search terms bring up the most recent issues.  I might try a deeper search on my computer (i.e. limit the date range).

Those questions are mostly related to a perennial problem, with Clinton scandals in particular but not exclusively.  Namely this argument that whatever-it-is is something "everyone does" and nothing to be worried about. 

Sometimes those arguments are fair.  I recall reading about the poor IT situation at the State Dept, for example, and it did explain some of what I'd consider malfeasance if done in the SCIFs I worked at.

At other times, these arguments sound like something a six year old would say.  "But everyone does it!" And I'd wonder how supposedly astute politicians try making arguments that wouldn't fly with said six year old's mother.  If you can counter the argument with "two wrongs don't make a right", or "and if 'everyone' decided to jump off a cliff would you do that too?" then maybe you shouldn't be using it as a grown adult.

And sometimes we just don't have enough information to evaluate the claim.  I looked at that opensecrets list and wondered a) when were the states given that money and b) how does the breakdown compare to similar payouts in previous years.  In total dollars as well as a percentage of it all.

It still doesn't justify or explain some of the almost willful ignorance about the agreement giving the Clinton campaign total control over strategy (of somewhat more concern to me than the finances, only because the DNC was apparently broke and it would have taken a better person than most to give the DNC a lot of money without any strings attached.  Though I'd like to see more about how/why the DNC was broke, and why so many  Democratic donors apparently chose to give a lot of money to Hillary, and not to the DNC or state orgs.  More of that 'don't know what's normal so can't really judge' type of problem.)

I saw one poster, for example, point out that some of the language in the agreement preserved DNC neutrality -
“nothing in this agreement shall be construed to violate the DNC’s obligation of impartiality and neutrality through the Nominating process” and that “all activities performed under this agreement will be focused exclusively on preparations for the General Election and not the Democratic Primary.”

Now, the problem I have with that is that saying one thing and doing it are often different. To stick with the Clintons, saying (for example) you take "personal responsibility" for your election loss is just words when your actions show you really, really don't.  I know it doesn't feel fair, and it seems like letting others 'get away with it' or win, but there's a reason I was taught as a young cadet to say "No excuse, sir."

Even if you really do have an excuse.

It sucks, we all have the urge to defend ourselves and argue.  But something funny happens when you take ownership, full stop, and stop trying to explain or excuse.  It's like, everyone is able to move on and (more importantly, if you really are unable to accept a possible poor impression - even when you have time to correct it by performing well in other areas) you can sometimes let those explanations come to light later, where they're more likely to be understood and accepted since you weren't trying to dodge responsibility.

Anyways, saying in the agreement that the DNC would still be neutral doesn't mean it is, and it's hard to imagine how that would even be possible if they're running strategy by the Clinton campaign.

Politics Today, Part II

So I've got a calculus test today, and I'm typing this in between reviewing formulas for taking the derivative of logarithms, calculating elasticity, and evaluating interest rates (whether continuous interest or compound interest).

I'm trying to figure out what to say that won't turn into basic Clinton bashing (I am definitely not a fan, you see). 

And that's kind of the problem.  Or rather, the fact that we can't have an honest discussion about Clinton without sounding like it's Clinton-bashing is a problem.  The true believers have all their counter-arguments and defenses already lined up.  Don't like her? 

You must be a Republican.

Or too credulous, and willing to believe Republican lies.

Or sexist.

Or it was all Comey, and Russia, and you are letting them 'win' if you talk about Hillary's mistakes.

It kind of bothers me that we are almost a year past the election, and Hillary Clinton's name is still coming up all too often.  Some of that is on the Republican side - they seem to like using her as a distraction - but some of that is Clinton herself.  Who just refuses to go away.

And her true supporters laud her for that, even as the 2/3rds of the population who don't support her are sick of it.

I find myself wondering, why is she so desperate to hang on?  Like - I know that you have to believe in yourself to run for office.  That you have to convince yourself that you need to be the candidate, that nobody else can do it better.  (After all, if they could do it better you'd drop out and vote for them...right?)

But at some point you have to understand the distinction between what's best for you and what's best for the party.  And I really don't think Hillary hanging on is best for the party.  She lost to one of the most unpopular presidential candidates ever.  Some of that may be because of Russian meddling, or Comey, or any of the other excuses...but the race wouldn't have been close enough for those things to matter if she had been a better candidate in the first place. 

The true believers act as though her years of experience were a good thing, since it proved nothing the Republicans did could stick.  They were so focused on defeating the Republicans (and calling them out for all the 'lies' against their own candidates) that they didn't care at all about what the casual voter thought. 

Or how it looked, that the entire Democratic party supported a candidate who was under an FBI investigation.  After all, they all 'knew' the investigation was just Republican shenanigans, and not anything anyone should take seriously.

And now that the election is over, why, we've got better things to worry about.  Like Trump.  Or Russia.  No need to look at how and why the entire Democratic party supported such a flawed candidate.

So much of the commentary on that tweet is avoiding exactly that. 

Politics Today, Part I

This morning I saw this tweet, and decided to check out the comments.  I know, I know...people have stopped doing that.  It's ugly, negative, and you can't really tell who are bots, or paid responders, or just trolls trying to get people wound up.

Still, I like doing it for certain articles because it feels like I'm taking a pulse on an issue.  That is, the media may decide what to write about and may even slant the article a certain way, but the comments is where you get readers responses.  A sense of how they are interpreting the article.  And it's not always in the way the author expected or intended.  Plus, if there are bots or paid responders it's kind of worth knowing what sort of narrative is being pushed. 

Let me rephrase that - comments may not accurately reflect the viewpoints of the population, but it can and does reflect the strength of certain narratives (whether genuine or paid) and it's worth knowing what those narratives are and how many responders take the time to share it.

I have to admit, I was disappointed/disturbed by the narrative thus displayed, and what it says about America today.

This post is pretty much an attempt to sort through why it bothered me.

When I was a kid, I argued with one of my younger brothers a LOT.  I remember one particular argument - not the details, of course.  I remember Mom got involved, and it didn't go the way I wanted it to.  I wanted her to clearly back me up, see my brother's misdeeds and punish him.

What I do remember, however, is when she asked me "Do you think your brother thinks he won?"

Now, as a child I really didn't want to hear that, of course.  I was right, he was wrong, and it was very black and white to me.  But that question did kind of stick in my mind, because (now that I'm older) it brings up a very good point.  Namely, that just because we think someone 'got away with it', or wasn't punished appropriately doesn't mean that they feel the same way. 

I could go into a speech on human nature, on our tendency to exaggerate the hurts done us and minimize the hurt we do to others (thus making our evaluation of 'just punishment' flawed, as instead of "an eye for an eye" we feel that taking both eyes is just punishment for their taking one of ours) but I think that would take too long, so I'll skip it for now.

The point was that in a dispute we tend to focus on defeating the other, and in doing so we lose sight of the bigger picture.  So, for example, in a counterinsurgency we start focusing on killing insurgents rather than the bigger picture (i.e. killing insurgents as well as reducing their ability to recruit new insurgents through a combination of policies.  Like addressing the grievances that motivate new recruits, making it clear that there is a way out if they give up the fight (so they don't feel like they have to fight to the death), and remembering to create a safe place for neutrals and people caught in the middle.  That way there clearly IS an alternative.  You basically want to make it clear that supporting you is better than supporting the bad guys, not just morally...but also in terms of safety and your ability to protect those who support you.

On a less violent, less visceral level the same thing happens in politics.  That is, true believers (on the left and the right) focus on their opponents.  On wanting to clearly win, and make the other side clearly lose.  They get tunnel vision, and lose sight of the bigger picture.  They pander to their base, and stop caring about persuading those who aren't already true believers (like them.) 

And they want to make the other side lose.  Badly. 

So they consider any attack on their own to be lies...while any attack against their opponent is God's honest truth.  And anyone who doesn't see it their way is too stupid to know better, or misled by the lies of their opponents.  Either way, it's not worth considering.  And definitely not worth changing course - after all, that would mean their opponent won.