CS Cracks Me Up

"I'm doing homework and came across something called a *-property.  Pronounced star property.

Why?  Because nobody could come up with a name.  It was written that way in a report so it'd be easy to find and update once they came up with a name, but they never did.

This field is sometimes so...goofy.  They make jokes all the time, like naming the programming language C++ because it meant "add one to C" in computer programming, or rather its a way of saying "one better than C"

I've always kind of enjoyed how humanity seeps out in unexpected ways (like how telegraphers develop a distinct style and personality even when transmitting something as straightforward as Morse code), but I somehow still don't expect it to essentially permeate my textbooks like this.

Marketing, Influence Operations, Etc.

I almost forgot.  A few weeks ago I had a discussion with one of my brothers (Kawphy) that spurred some thoughts I wanted to capture here.

What I kind of liked about philosophy classes is that we all can read the famous philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard, Sartre) and draw on our own experiences to debate their thoughts and ideas.  That is, there's no 'right answer' handed down from on high.  When you debate topics - like justice, or virtue - we all have our own personal experiences that we can draw on.  The best philosophers make sound arguments, make us look at things in a new light, make us think things through more deeply than we otherwise would have...but ultimately we're still the ones who have to decide for ourselves whether what they're saying matches our own experiences. 

I don't like how focused they get on technical details (like spending an entire chapter defining a specific word), though I get why they do that.  Still, there's something sort of fun about coming up with your own answers to the questions posed.

Why did I bring that up?  Because comparing what you are taught to your own personal experience is a pretty useful skill.  It's part of why I think you should have a healthy sense of skepticism towards economics, for example.  I'm not criticizing the field as a whole, but when I consider my own personal experiences as a consumer, I don't think it quite fits the model of rationality and utility they describe (or you have to expand the notions of 'utility' to include things like 'how pretty is the package').  I brought that up in a previous post where I discussed how I'd select a bottle of wine. 

The same process holds true when you consider the impact of marketing, information operations, and possible Russian influence on our democracy.  Or, conversely, our influence on Latin American countries during the Cold War.

Consider commercials for cars.  The thing is, if I'm not in the market for a car then those commercials are pretty much wasted on me.  I'm not buying a car, they're too expensive to do casually, there's not much point to it unless I'm at the point where its time for a new one anyway.  (And when it does come time, I generally look up cars by the traits I want first...and consider deals such as family or company discounts.  My last two cars were Fords, and that's mostly because I have an aunt who worked in a Ford factory and can get me a discount...and my company had a deal with Ford so I could get a discount through them.  I could go with whichever deal was better at the time.) 

This is not to say that all car commercials are useless.  For those looking to buy, they can be very useful.  You'd have to get into the statistics on how many people they want to draw in with their commercials to get some sense of why/whether the cost of advertising pays off.  Plus, even if I'm not in the market for a car, the brand or image presented might have a role in my decision when I am ready to make that purchase.  1-10 years down the road, that is. 

But do I see a commercial for a new car and immediately rush out to buy one?  Not at all.  Or only if I already know I want a new car. 

Things are slightly different with food commercials.  See, most people don't buy a new car every year...but everybody has to eat.  And we all have to eat multiple times a day.  Which means that food commercials are more likely to work, as I might see an ad and think to myself "I haven't had that in a while, okay."  Next meal I'm ordering pizza, or getting tacos, or whatever.  (Though it's not necessarily from the company doing the advertising.  Taco Bell might remind me of tacos, but then I'll go to a local Mexican restaurant instead of Taco Bell.)

The point I want to make here is that attempts to influence people are...well, complicated.  They work best when someone is already open to being influenced (i.e. if I'm not in the market for a new car the car commercials are mostly wasted on me.) 

Though it's not quite as black and white as that, either, as good salespeople can persuade us even when we don't think we're in the market for something.  (I think we've all had the experience of purchasing something we had no intentions of buying originally.)

Anyways, the same things hold true when you're trying to conduct information operations, influence operations, etc.  Russian accusations of Western meddling, for example, deny the fact that Western 'meddling' wouldn't have any sort of impact at all if there weren't disgruntled Russians with unaddressed grievances.

And vice versa - Russian meddling in the recent 2016 election would not have been possible if they weren't tapping into our own domestic fault lines.  It's like a car commercial targeting someone who's realized they kind of want a new car.

You can focus on those outside influences, I suppose.  It's not completely wrong.  Yet I think we'd all be better off focusing more on why our people are susceptible in the first place.  What problems are being unaddressed, that people would rather believe x or y or whatever?

Also - don't overestimate the threat.  Thinking you can somehow make another nation do the things you want is about as likely to lead to disaster as success.  Just consider our attempt to reinstate the Shah of Iran.  The 2016 election might make Russia think they've got a good thing going, but if they misunderstand the source of success they're just as likely to make their own mistakes - like ours in Iran - as they are to have future success.

This 'N That

I haven't posted much because, well...

I'm focusing on what I can do, I guess.  That is, I'm pretty disturbed by what I see in the news...but for the most part all I can do is vote (and contact my Congress person...which given his response last time I did, isn't going to do much good.) So I'll just show my displeasure with my vote.  And if enough other people feel the same way, then come mid-terms things may change.


I sort of feel as though things are so far past f'd up that there's no point yelling and screaming about it any more.  The people I'd want to persuade are clearly not interested in listening, or they wouldn't be doing the things they're doing in the first place.  You sort of have to be willfully ignorant (or in a pretty serious bubble) to be doing the things these guys are doing.

So whatever.  The drumbeat of war is beating, even though nobody sane wants that. 

Or rather, as Sun Tzu says -

 "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.  If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.  If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

If you truly have that level of knowledge, going to war is not necessarily a gamble.  Or it's a calculated gamble that may get the result you want.  Yet who can say that they really know the enemy and know themselves?  Historically, we're pretty lousy at that...and there's nothing worse than getting all aggressive, thinking it will be a "short, victorious war" and winding up in the deadly slog of WWI.  Maybe if you have the talent of Otto von Bismarck you can accurately assess the situation and make it happen, but if you don't you wind up losing far more than you gain.

Given our track record for the past half a century or so (Vietnam, OEF, OIF) I do not think there's any grounds for feeling confident in how well we "know the enemy and know yourself".

Honestly?  Eh...it could be Trump is an able negotiator and that acting like a crazy person will somehow end the decades long tension with North Korea.  Maybe. And even though those game theory studies show that trying to be a harda$$ tends to backfire and make things worse, maybe in the real world things will be different and what he does will work.  (I'm saying that in order to acknowledge my preconceptions on such things, and to be open to the possibility that I could be wrong). 

In some ways, I do hope I'm wrong.  I hate feeling all doom and gloom.  On the other hand, I feel there are some potential parallels between Trump and Wilhelm Kaiser II, who alienated most of Germany's allies, came across as a threat to England, and contributed greatly to the disastrous political environment leading up to WWI.

I'm not in a position to do anything about that, though...so I guess I'm just going to work on some more homework and watch more Naruto or something.