Scott Adams Predicts

Scott Adams, whose cartoon Dilbert I love, has gone on Fox to predict a huge, possibly record-setting turnout for the Republicans in next Tuesday's elections.

'Dilbert' cartoonist predicts huge GOP midterm turnout https://t.co/H1htybgZjj

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) October 30, 2018

Since the Republicans in 2010 got about 44 million votes and in 2014 got over 45 million, I'd say that means a turnout of over 46 million votes. I think elsewhere he's clarified that he's not predicting that the Republicans would still control the House, just the votes would be up.  His rationale is IMHO fuzzy: Republicans love the feeling of the victory of 2016 (Adams was an early and sole predictor of Trump's election), they tend to act more than talk and are bashful in talking to pollsters so the current polls underestimate GOP turnout (it's an echo of an early 21st century meme that voters who opposed  black candidates would not admit that to pollsters).

My record on predictions is bad, so I won't officially predict that Democratic turnout will top the Republicans and top 47 million votes.  We'll see. 

Even Bees Are Losing Their Privacy

Modern Farmer notes that beekeepers are being offered the ability to monitor their bees online, meaning a loss of privacy.  In partial compensation, they can also provide bees with a solar-heated hive, which will harm the varroa mites without harming the bees.  Or, if all else fails, drone bees are on the horizon.  (A possible confusion between drones that are bees and bees that are drones will ensue.)

"Loose" and "Tight" or "Hot" and "Cold"

Finished "Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World".

It's a new book getting some attention.   The author has identified a dichotomy and applied it broadly, perhaps too much so (a familiar pattern: to the girl with a hammer everything appears to be a nail).

Briefly, the idea is that a country like Germany or Denmark has a "tight" culture, one where norms are well established throughout the society.  Whereas a country like the US has a "loose" culture, norms are both less well established and less consistent through the society.  She draws out implications and argues for this distinction explaining other differences in many aspects of society. She does allow for a given society changing from one state to the other.  For example, Singapore became a very "tight" culture in the last 50 years while Saudi Arabia is trying to "loosen" a bit, at least in some areas.

I recommend the book, but it's not why I mention it.

My idea is that societies might also vary between "hot" and "cold"; both hotness and tightness being descriptors which can be applied at the society level to capture qualities we feel intuitively.

I'm triggered of course by the current controversy over whether the president's rhetoric has contributed to recent events.  I think most people would agree that US society today is "hotter" than it has been in the past. There's a lot of fighting going on, whether you see it as Trump draining the swamp and fighting for the forgotten against the MSM and the pointy-headed liberals or as the Resistance waging a battle against hate and ignorance.  That makes today's US "hot".

Global warming suggests that with more energy in the system, it's more likely that storms will be more powerful and more damaging.  Can I stretch the metaphor to argue that the hotter the social climate, the more damage the inevitable storms created by loners and fringe actors are going to cause?

The Future Is Near: The Impact of Autonomous Trucks

This piece at evonomics.com by Andrew Yang is distressing, and convincing. Perhaps the worst part is the impact on small businesses which serve the  trucking industry: the truckstops and motels. Yang doesn't note it, but those enterprises might well be the  lifeline for "flyover America"--the wide open spaces where farming no longer employs the people it used to.

Fads and Social Contagion

First we have the guy in Kentucky  who shot two people, then the mad bomber of the van who sent bombs to various people on the left of Trump, and currently the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter who's more right than Trump.

I find some solace in the idea these three events are examples of social contagion, of fads.  It's similar to the spread of anti-vaccine theories, or the sudden popularity of a set of names for newborns.  Somehow we humans are monkey-see, monkey-do (with my apologies to our simian cousins) people.  I'm not sure whether we just like to follow the path beaten down by others or also we like to outdo each other. 

Where does rhetoric come into play?  I'm not sure.  Maybe it's similar to a flu or measles epidemic.  One condition, necessary but not sufficient, is the existence of an unvaccinated population, a set of people closely connected enough to support the spread of a disease.  The other condition is the introduction of a carrier of a virus/bacteria which is infectious. 

But the metaphor isn't good enough--there's just two conditions going on.  With our recent events there's more conditions: the availability of guns, the availability of bomb technology (knowledge and materials), the existence of people somewhat (or very) nutty, the knowledge that others share the feelings and conceivably can be impressed by deeds, the triggering event, etc.

AI, Dark Swans, Google Map Directions, and Moore's Law

Some further thoughts on the Google map episode I described yesterday.

It strikes me that AI in general will have problems with "dark swan" events.  That's true by definition--if AI is trained by using a big database of past information, it can't be trained to handle events which aren't reflected in the database.  In many cases, like autonomous cars, the algorithms can be set to do nothing.  It would be similar to the "dead man switch" found on locomotives--if there's no longer an intelligence at the controls which can react properly to events, you stop the engine.  But in other cases it may be harder to define such cases.

In cases like I encountered yesterday there may be salvation found in Moore's Law.  Presumably Google samples current traffic volumes using some priority rules--sample most often the most traveled routes.  But priorities are needed only when resources are scarce; as technology becomes cheaper it would be possible to sample everything all the time (which is almost what the human sensory system does).

Victims of Google Map Directions

Had an interesting experience in NY last Saturday, which I blame on Google Maps and the limitations of AI.

We drove from Kingston where our B&B is located to Rhinebeck, where the NY Sheep and Wool Festival was taking place on the Dutchess County fairgrounds.  That meant crossing the Hudson and taking 2-lane rural roads.  I've an off-and-on experience with Google Maps--this morning it was on.  So the friendly voice advised me to take a right at the first light after crossing the bridge.  While my usual route would have continued on to the second light, I decided to cede my judgment to the Google gods. 

All went well--we drove a few miles (maybe 8 or so) over a series of winding roads but with no traffic.  Came out on Rte 9 just south of the fairgrounds but was able with a break in traffic to hand a left and get to the fairground.

Evening came and we're ready to return to Kingston.  Each year they seem to organize the exit from the parking areas differently.  This year I ended up heading south, not north, on Rte 9.  Traffic was stop and go, mostly all stop very little go.  Somehow I had to head north to the bridge.  The Google voice advised me to take a right, retracing our route of the morning going the opposite direction.  I did.  Big mistake. 

I think what the Google algorithm must do is periodically sample the times on alternative routes, and recommend the fastest.  I suspect in areas such as we were in, they don't sample very often.  Consequently, maybe at 4 pm the alternative route was marginally better than the main Rte 9 north.  But the algorithm kept sending cars that way.  The problem was likely not only the winding roads, but the light where the route met the road to the bridge.  Since the big volume of traffic was on the main road (199 I think), the traffic light favored that, only permitting two or three cars at a time from the alternative to come onto the bridge road.  The end result: immobility.  At about the 1:30 mark I yielded to the advice of my better half, found a way to do a u-turn, and went back to Rte 9, which turned out at about 7 pm to be almost empty. 

The problem IMHO is Google couldn't keep track of how many cars it had directed the alternative way compared to the carrying capacity of the road. 

A President Who Knows the US Seal!

I'm tempted to suggest that all presidential candidates take an exam on US iconography.  (i.e., what was almost the role of the turkey, what's the significance of the direction the eagle faces, what does it hold in its claws, etc. etc.).

That would be unrealistic, although there is at least one president who could do well on the exam.  Putin has got to be smart.

Traveling Time

Time for our annual trip to the NY Sheep and Wool Show, so blogging will be slow.

MFP and Farmers.gov

Got a tweet announcing the latest figures on MFP applications and payments.  I now can't find the tweet, not sure what's the matter. 

Two things I'd like farmers.gov to do:

1. provide online access to FSA data, like the applications and payments.  It seems to me that FSA administrators at each level should be watching the data.  (That was true when I worked for them, but we never did. But with the centralization of the payment process it should be easy to do, and there's no privacy concerns that I can see.)
2. provide a user-friendly interface to the USDA data silos.  Does anyone outside USDA understand which data ERS has and which data NASS has?  Damned few, is my guess.  It shouldn't be too hard to present the data without regard to the organizational parents.