Prisoners Dilemma and the Democrats

 Some discussion this morning on the Democrats maneuvering in Congress led to this idea:

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a part of game theory where, per wikipedia: that shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so. In the game, if both players trust each other they can end up with an outcome which is good for both, but if they only look to their own interests with no consideration of the other player they end up with the worst result.

I see Senators Manchin and Sinema (MS) as one player; the progressives as the other player.  MS want the infrastructure bill; the progressives want the Biden "Build Back Better" bill. If the two groups cooperate they can get both; if they don't they may get neither.  Partially this boils down to how much trust the two parties have in each other, but mainly it rests on whether there's a compromise on the size and contents and tax provisions of the BBB which both can live with. 

A Parallel Between Chinese and American Development?

 A lot of media attention to China, specifically the possible bankruptcy of Evergrande due to overdevelopment of housing, triggered me. 

China's economic development in the last 45 years or so seems to have been based on privatizing land, or at least selling individuals and corporations a long-term right to farm or develop on a piece of land. (I'm hedging because I vaguely remember that perhaps they used long-term leases in some cases, rather like the Brits did sometimes.)

Anyhow, how did the Chinese state get the land? My impression is that as a result of the Chinese Revolution the Communist Party nationalized land in the 1950's, which they've been privatizing since 1980's. 

To me in a broad view that seems like what the English/Americans did--they nationalized the land held by Native Americans and then fueled economic development by privatizing. 

Best Women Characters from Dead White Males

 Yesterday I tweeted a comment about Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series and its lack of women characters.  Got a lot of adverse comments, which is fine.

Got to wondering about American literature and female characters. I couldn't think of memorable characters written by dead American authors, except for Hawthorne's Hester Prynne. Hemingway's Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises and Fitzgerald's Daisy Buchanan also came to mind, but I'd have to go to Cather and Wharton for better characters. 

It's sort of funny--I resist the idea that authors are restricted to writing only about their own, that a white male can't write a black woman, etc. But it does seem from my self-poll that similarity between writer and character makes a difference.

Searching google results in hits for English language works, so characters from Bronte, Austen, and Rowling come up, not to mention Chaucer.

My Prejudice Against Obesity

 I follow Tamara Haspel on twitter, whose feed included this response, the beginning of a thread on the genetics of obesity:

As requested by @TamarHaspel here is a brief tweetorial on my latest @NatureRevGenet review on the #genetics 🧬 of #obesity https://t.co/OsLHqyvy6w 🧵👇 1/7 https://t.co/RrxTOZQmkf

— Giles Yeo (@GilesYeo) September 23, 2021

If I understand he says there are relatively rare cases where a mutation in a gene causes obesity and more common cases where a constellation of genetic markers leads to obesity.  

For as old as I am, I think I keep up pretty well with the changing social norms, at least the more important ones. But I still have a hard time with obesity--I have a knee jerk reaction when I see a picture which includes obese people, particularly obese Americans. I'd like to think I don't act on my first feelings when I'm dealing with obese people in person, but you never know.

Maybe science will finally disprove the idea that obesity is a matter of willpower?

Landslide by Michael Wolff

 Wolff's book gets some 1-star reviews on Amazon, partly for bad writing and for finding Trump to be innocent of bad designs.

Needless to say that's not what I get from it. While there's some problems (many references to Giuliani's drinking and farting) and often the sourcing is clear, he moves the narrative along.  His conclusion about Jan 6 rings true: there was no plan because the "adults" had deserted Trump and those who were left in the White House were incapable of forming a plan, much less executing it. 

That reminds me of Dana Milbank's take from the Mueller report--while the Trump team wanted to collude with Russia, they were too incompetent to do so. 

Our Imagined Communities--Justice O'Connor

 LInda Greenhouse writes about Sandra Day O'Connor--two bits struck me: "Imagined communities" are the groups we think we belong to,

“Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?” Here O'Connor is writing an opinion, and her "we" refers to "Americans".

“I guess you know Senator McCain pretty well,” I ventured. Her response was instantaneous and almost fierce. “I do not,” she declared. “I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. He’s a newcomer to Arizona.” (Unlike Barry Goldwater, born in the Arizona Territory before statehood, John McCain had moved to Arizona after his discharge from the Navy in 1981.) Here Greenhouse is trying indirectly to find who O'Connor voted for in 2008 (and takes Greenhouse's reaction as indicating she voted for Obama.) Here I think O'Connor is identifying herself as a "true Arizonan", in contrast to the newcomer McClain.

I liked the way there were two examples of how the psychology of imagined communities works in the one article.  Note in the McClain example she's excluding, establishing a boundary, while in the religious example she's more appealing for people to include themselves. 

What FSA Employees Have to Deal With

 I'm taking the liberty of doing a screenshot of a post in the Facebook FSA Employees group:

When you're serving many people in all parts of the country all year round, you run into unusual situations, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic.  County employees have to deal. 

(While I'm on FSA, I'd mention farmers.gov, which has developed over time. There's also some Youtube videos--I'd have a link which I found yesterday but am having problems with Chrome.  Here's a starting point.

Empire of Pain

Finished Empire of Pain, by Patrick Keefe.  I think because of the sources which were available it's more interesting about Arthur Sackler, the elder brother and the initiator of the Sackler empire, than he is about the younger brothers Raymond and Mortimer, the grandson Richard who is most closely connected with oxycodone. and the rest of the descendants.

The New Yorker has an item on another scandal in biomedicine--Theranos, where Elizabeth Holmes is now on trial.  I found this applicable to the Sacklers as well:

It is incredible. I think there’s an entitlement to Elizabeth Holmes and her clan that you can’t underestimate. There’s a combination of self-righteousness and entitlement, and an absolute refusal to concede to mistakes or errors, much less fraud.

For the Sacklers, their contributions to many arts and educational institutions seem to be modern versions of the Catholic church's indulgences, which set off Martin Luther. It is a rejection of complexity, an unconscious assertion that a person is either all good (because of contributions) or all bad.  That's BS.

The Face of Our Nation

Benedict Anderson had the concept of "imagined communities"--essentially the idea that people develop a concept of nationhood through shared media, specifically print. 

I'm thinking about the face of America as I experienced it in my youth (1941-63), and how it has changed now, considering print and broadcast media. The America of my youth was white, basically WASP. I don't mean I didn't know of all the non-WASP residents, but WASP was the default, the presumed identity of any person mentioned in media. 

Our actors were Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Alan Ladd, John Wayne and actresses were the Hepburns, Marilyn Monroe. Our TV series were Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Bonanza.  Our radio shows were One Man's Family and Gunsmoke. You'll notice the mythology of my America was Western, the individual trying to do right. Our sex was heterosexual and rarely mentioned; gender was not considered.

These days the face of America as I experience it is multi-racial, multi-cultural, etc. 

I like most of these changes in America, but some, perhaps most, of my demographic cohort has real problems with them.  Change is hard.

Understatement of the Month: China Lobby

 Josh Marshall at TPM writes about foreign policy: "For years in DC there’s been a vocal China Hawk community".  

Actually it was decades, almost a century.  The China Lobby was old in the 1950's.  As I recall, it started with influential figures who were associated with missionaries in China, such as Henry Luce. (My aunt and uncle worked for the Y in China in 1910's-20'.) 

It was influential, meant we didn't recognize the People's Republic of China as real, and permit it to take its seat on the UN Security Council, until Nixon and Kissinger recognized it in the 1970's.  People such as George Will fought consistently against Republican and Democratic presidents on the issue, eventually focusing on the effort to keep Taiwan well armed.