Humans in Action

I like Dan Drezner, very perceptive and open minded even though a bit conservative. He was at the WTO meeting and posts this note:

"A side note: one of the amusing features of being in the press room is seeing the pack mentalityof journalism in action. If a sufficient number of journalists are congregating around person A, then that group starts acting like a powerful magnet attracting the individual iron fillings of other journalists. Sometimes this makes a great deal of sense -- as when the EU tspokesman contradicts the India statement. Sometimes it makes no sense -- as when a great throng materialized to get their hands on... a schedule of the Ministerial's closing ceremonies. No one gives a flying fig about that."

Of course, the pack mentality is not journalists--it's humans. It's why the most popular blogs get more popular, etc....

Spiders and Angry Gods No More

The Times does an article on an ABC Barbara Walters special tonight:

"Unfortunately, indeed. The program says nearly 90 percent of Americans believe heaven exists; most of them, presumably, think they have a shot at it. It's a nice idea. As Mr. Albom, the best-selling author of 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven,' says, the idea alone can make life on earth better, sprinkling a little stardust on the drudgery and meaninglessness of daily life.

Mr. Albom goes on to describe the dysphoria of being ordinary: 'If you're not a celebrity, you can start to feel like you don't matter.'

So that's it. The implication is clear. In the American creed - the one articulated on network news programs like this one - heaven is a place where we all get to be celebrities. At last."

We've come a long way from Jonathan Edwards' sermon on sinners in the hands of an angry God, with the image of God dangling the sinner's soul over an open fire, with only his grace keeping the sinner from eternal torment. Then the default position was hell, now it's heaven.

Why We'll Stay in Iraq

Looking at the initial results from the Iraq election I predict that we'll end up staying in Iraq and some liberals will support it. Why? Because the religious Shiite bloc seems to have done well. That increases the likelihood that what we end up with in Iraq is a 3 party conflict because the middle is too weak to hold. The politicians won't be able to make deals to bridge the gaps between the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunni.

In that case, it's likely the Sunnis will end up being odd-man out, which may well lead to their leaders doing a 180 degree reversal and calling for the US to stay in order to serve as a buffer. We might see a small precursor of that recently, as US troops and officials have been involved in uncovering and condemning the Interior Ministry's mistreatment of prisoners.

Game theory says that 3 party games are unstable. Orwell knew that--if you remember 1984 the three powers switched sides easily. (In the 3 party game among Iran, Iraq and the U.S. we've seen changes in sides over the last 25 years. Kissinger and Nixon's approach to China was another instance of this.) T.E.Lawrence may have delineated a future role for an outsider when he described shooting the thief to avoid the vicious cycle of violence that would be caused if tribal rules were applied (a thief must be shot, but a killing of a member of one's tribe by another tribe called for retaliation).

In Iraq we've screwed all sides during the past 30 years, so protecting the minority Sunnis from oppression may be the next turn of the screw.

Bah, Humbug III, Ag Budget Cuts that Aren't

Jim Wiesemyer of Agweb summarizes the effects of the budget reconciliation legislation on farm programs:

AgWeb - Your Spot for Futures Trading, Commodities Info, Successful Farming Tips, Ag News & More: "Comments: As was signaled in an earlier column, the most surprising development is no across-the-board cuts in direct payments -- commodity program participants clearly escaped a budget-cutting bullet. Conservation program cuts are clearly the major reduction category, especially when you consider the fact that the percentage reduction in advance direct payments still does not decrease the final direct payment [emphasis added] made to eligible producers. Groups who frequently attack farm program spending will easily focus their attention on the lack of major cuts for commodity program participants. "

So much for the Administration's proposal to change payment limitation rules that surfaced at the beginning of the year. And so much for the food stamp cut. And note the italicized words--I'm not clear how CBO costed this, but if Jim and I understand the provision, all it means is moving money from one FY to a later one. In other words, a billion or so of "savings" really isn't. Your illustrious elected representatives at work.

Bah, Humbug II: Bling

I guess the holidays are the season of excess, at least of writing about it. The NYTimes had this article yesterday: Hey, Bartender, Can You Break $1,000?:

"'People are drinking less, but they're drinking better,' said Mark Grossich, owner and operator of the World Bar in Trump World Tower in Manhattan. 'You don't find a lot of generic drinkers anymore.'

When the World Bar opened three years ago, it introduced the World Cocktail. The $50 mixture of Remy XO; Veuve Clicquot Champagne; Pineau des Charentes, a sweet aperitif; white grape juice; freshly squeezed lemon juice; Angostura bitters; and 23-carat edible liquid gold was billed as the world's most expensive cocktail.

'We started the trend of very expensive cocktails,' Mr. Grossich said. 'We thought: 'What the heck? Where better than in a Trump building to create something excessive?' '

But now, Mr. Grossich said, cocktail prices have 'gotten out of hand.'"

The Post had a similar article, focusing on the use of precious metals as ingredients in drinks. That followed a Post article earlier this year on expensive bar and bat mitzvahs. The Jewish Week has this article, tying a $10 mill party to Iraq!

Bah, Humbug I: Reps try to outlaw Golden Rule

When I woke this morning I was sour as a lemon. Like Scrooge. Then I read a small piece in the Post, which changed my mood to vinegar. It sounds as if the Republicans think that the Golden Rule applies only in the profane version: "he who has the most gold rules" and not the Biblical:

"When Tim Holt spotted Maria Rabanales of El Salvador lying still in the Arizona desert this summer, he believed he had a God-given duty to save her.

He forced water through the woman's swollen jaws and poured ice down her shirt. Border Patrol agents later took Rabanales to a hospital, where she was revived.

Holt was praised by Humane Borders, sponsored by First Christian Church of Tucson, where he is a volunteer. But his actions that June day might soon be considered a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison or property forfeiture, if a Republican-sponsored bill that passed the House along partisan lines on Friday becomes law."

(The law makes it a crime to aid illegal immigrants.)

Stripes and Golden Fleece

This week came reports of the death of Sen. William Proxmire, whose fame is tied to his Golden Fleece awards, rather than his pushing of the Genocide convention. (See what's-her-face's book on genocide.) The Golden Fleece was given monthly for a [supposed] instance of bureaucratic waste of money. Sometimes bureaucrats need embarassment, sometimes not. His award seemed to me to be an example of someone searching for uniqueness.

Proxmire often ridiculed various research projects funded by NSF or whoever. Had he remained in the Senate he might well have awarded the Fleece to a project researching why the striped stickleback fish had their stripes (almost sounds like a Rudyard Kipling Just-so story: how the stickleback got their stripes). But also announced this week was a surprising outcome of that research: an explanation for whiteness. Turns out the scientists identified a gene in sticklebacks that controls melanin, giving them their stripes. They then found the same gene in humans, but the gene in caucasians has mutated, leading to white skin in Europeans. (Apparently Asians have a different mutation.)

Of course one butterfly does not make a summer and one instance of research that provides unexpected results does not justify all scientific projects. But it is a reminder that we don't know a lot and mockery assumes we do.

New Computer/DSL

Bringing up a new PC and a DSL connection yesterday and today. Temporary interruption in blogging.

Torture and Knowledge

Michael Kinsley is almost always good. His piece, Torture for Dummies - Exploding the "ticking bomb" argument, is no exception.

He discusses the torture justification used by Charles Krauthammer--if there's a ticking bomb and you have captured someone who knows its location but won't talk, you must torture.

He mentions the idea, which Kevin Drum has also used--you can justify a law against torture because in such extreme circumstances the law will be violated. I like it. We have laws against speeding without written exceptions for speeding accident victims or pregnant women to hospitals. Recently an officer was acquitted of murder in a case where he killed an Iraqi, rationale was that the Iraqi was mortally wounded and it was a mercy killing. Kinsley doesn't like it, and IMO dismisses it too quickly.

But the gist of his argument is this:

"But college dorm what-ifs like this one share a flaw: They posit certainty (about what you know and what will happen if you do this or that). And uncertainty is not only much more common in real life: It is the generally unspoken assumption behind civil liberties, rules of criminal procedure, and much else that conservatives find sentimental and irritating."

In other words, in the real world there's much we don't know, including as Rummy says, what we don't know we don't know. See Cromwell to the Scottish Parliament. Laws and rules must be made for uncertainty, not certainty.

"Over-Imitation"

This article in today's NYTimes has an interesting article on "over-imitation", which is a psychologist's term for what happens when someone imitates an inefficient process. It's like playing "follow the leader" around the sides of a city square rather than cutting across the diagonal. Apparently chimps mostly don't over-imitate, but children do. It's the result of a series of lab experiments where food was enclosed in a clear plastic box and the experimenter demonstrated to the subject (chimp or child) how to open the box, except he threw in a couple extra steps. Chimps would bypass the steps, children wouldn't.

Here's an excerpt:

Children Learn by Monkey See, Monkey Do. Chimps Don't. - New York Times: "If they rush through opening a puzzle, they don't skip the extra steps. They just do them all faster. What makes the results even more intriguing is that the children understand the laws of physics well enough to solve the puzzles on their own. Charlotte's box ripping is proof of that.

Mr. Lyons sees his results as evidence that humans are hard-wired to learn by imitation, even when that is clearly not the best way to learn. If he is right, this represents a big evolutionary change from our ape ancestors. Other primates are bad at imitation. When they watch another primate doing something, they seem to focus on what its goals are and ignore its actions.

As human ancestors began to make complicated tools, figuring out goals might not have been good enough anymore. Hominids needed a way to register automatically what other hominids did, even if they didn't understand the intentions behind them. They needed to imitate."

It seems a commonsense adaptation, like developing a general-purpose computer rather than a specialized one. The psychologist was, after all, considerably simplifying real life when he set up the problem of the food in the box. In real life, you have to identify the problem for yourself and see whether anyone has a solution. That takes time and effort. So it's easier to apply the general rule of "follow the leader" if the leader seems to be halfway competent. The burden on evolution then turns to deciphering people to know what leaders to follow. (Is that why Bush is President--maybe evolution needs to do some more work?)