Scott Adams's Blog, page 348
February 2, 2012
Good Economic News Friday
I was chatting with a small business owner recently. He provides a service that is a purely discretionary purchase. His business had been slow for the past few years because of the economy. But over this holiday season, he had all the work he could handle, and it was all local. He considers his business an early indicator for the economy as a whole. This made me curious. Was the economy starting to revive? So I started looking for other signs of recovery.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where you'd expect signs of an improved economy to show up first. And sure enough, things around here are looking up all over the place. I thought I'd give you some examples to lift your weekend. If the economy is still weak where you live, or you're struggling personally, perhaps it will help to know that there are bright spots in the country that are likely to spread. It has to start somewhere.
Last night I was standing in line at a local fast food place and ran into a woman I've known for eleven years. She's a server at a white tablecloth restaurant in town. She told me business was slow last year, but picking up nicely so far this year. That's good to hear.
The weirdest bit of good economic news is the number of my friends who are working on startups. Most of them have good jobs already, but they're looking to get something going on the side as well. Weirder yet, I know several people who are working on more than one startup at the same time. If my wife and I threw a party at our house, and invited our usual group of friends, we'd have at least nine startups in the room. I'm probably forgetting a few. I've lived in this area all of my life, and I've never seen this much entrepreneurial energy.
A friend recently interviewed for a good job. The interviewing company offered him a choice of two positions. This happened right around Christmas. When was the last time you saw someone get a job around Christmas? And when was the last time you saw someone do one job interview and get two offers?
Two years ago I rarely saw any new construction in the area. Now I see a lot of it, including homes and roads. Road construction used to annoy me because of delays. Now it makes me happy because it's a sign of an improving economy.
Unemployment is still an issue, but among the people I know locally, far fewer are unemployed now compared to a year or two ago. That seems to be moving in the right direction.
Nationally, stocks are up, and as of this morning, unemployment rates have dropped more than expected. Economies generally don't move sideways. Usually they move up or down. As far as I can tell, things are getting better where I live. The exception is housing prices, which probably have further to fall. But the penalty for walking away from an underwater mortgage seems smallish these days, and I think people have psychologically discounted their home equity losses and are ready to move on.
We have a long way to go, but as far as I can tell, we're heading in the right direction. How about where you live? Leave a comment saying where you live and whether or not your local economy is improving. Tell me what you observe within driving distance.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where you'd expect signs of an improved economy to show up first. And sure enough, things around here are looking up all over the place. I thought I'd give you some examples to lift your weekend. If the economy is still weak where you live, or you're struggling personally, perhaps it will help to know that there are bright spots in the country that are likely to spread. It has to start somewhere.
Last night I was standing in line at a local fast food place and ran into a woman I've known for eleven years. She's a server at a white tablecloth restaurant in town. She told me business was slow last year, but picking up nicely so far this year. That's good to hear.
The weirdest bit of good economic news is the number of my friends who are working on startups. Most of them have good jobs already, but they're looking to get something going on the side as well. Weirder yet, I know several people who are working on more than one startup at the same time. If my wife and I threw a party at our house, and invited our usual group of friends, we'd have at least nine startups in the room. I'm probably forgetting a few. I've lived in this area all of my life, and I've never seen this much entrepreneurial energy.
A friend recently interviewed for a good job. The interviewing company offered him a choice of two positions. This happened right around Christmas. When was the last time you saw someone get a job around Christmas? And when was the last time you saw someone do one job interview and get two offers?
Two years ago I rarely saw any new construction in the area. Now I see a lot of it, including homes and roads. Road construction used to annoy me because of delays. Now it makes me happy because it's a sign of an improving economy.
Unemployment is still an issue, but among the people I know locally, far fewer are unemployed now compared to a year or two ago. That seems to be moving in the right direction.
Nationally, stocks are up, and as of this morning, unemployment rates have dropped more than expected. Economies generally don't move sideways. Usually they move up or down. As far as I can tell, things are getting better where I live. The exception is housing prices, which probably have further to fall. But the penalty for walking away from an underwater mortgage seems smallish these days, and I think people have psychologically discounted their home equity losses and are ready to move on.
We have a long way to go, but as far as I can tell, we're heading in the right direction. How about where you live? Leave a comment saying where you live and whether or not your local economy is improving. Tell me what you observe within driving distance.
January 31, 2012
The Right Priority
If you had to pick one priority in your life, could you do it? That's an important question because focusing on the wrong priority would get you a bad result, and having multiple priorities isn't practical. For example, if health is your top priority, you might make choices that are good for your health and bad for your career, such as saying no to having a few drinks after work with your boss.
We humans want lots of things: good health, financial freedom, success in whatever matters to us, a great social life, love, sex, recreation, travel, family, career and more. The problem is that the time you spend maximizing one of those dimensions usually comes at the expense of time you could have spent on another. So how do you organize your time to get the best result?
The way I approach the problem of multiple priorities is by focusing on just one main goal: energy. I make choices that maximize my personal energy because that makes it easier to manage all of the other priorities.
Maximizing my personal energy means eating right, exercising, avoiding unnecessary stress, getting enough sleep, and all of the obvious steps. But it also means having something in my life that makes me excited to wake up. When I get my personal energy right, the quality of my work is better, and I can complete it faster. That keeps my career on track. And when all of that is working, and I feel relaxed and energetic, my personal life is better too.
At this point in my post, I must invoke the Dog Whisperer analogy. The Dog Whisperer is a TV show in which dog expert Cesar Millan helps people get their seemingly insane dogs under control. Cesar's main trick involves training the humans to control their own emotional states because dogs can pick up crazy vibes from the owners. When the owners learn to control themselves, the dogs calm down too. I think this same method applies to humans interacting with other humans. You've seen for yourself that when a sad person enters a room, the mood in the room drops. And when you talk to a cheerful person who is full of energy, you automatically feel a boost. I'm suggesting that by becoming a person with good energy, you lift the people around you. That positive change will improve your social life, you love life, your family life, and your career.
When I talk about high energy, I don't mean the frenetic, caffeine-fueled, bounce-off-the-walls type. I'm talking about a calm, focused energy. To others, it will simply appear that you are in a good mood. And you will be.
Before I was a cartoonist, I worked in a number of energy-sucking corporate jobs, in energy-sucking cubicles. But I enjoyed going to work, partly because I exercised most evenings, and usually woke up feeling good, and partly because I always had one or two side projects going on that had the potential to set me free. Cartooning was just one of a dozen entrepreneurial ideas I tried out during my corporate days. For several years, the prospect of becoming a professional cartoonist, and leaving my cubicle behind, gave me an enormous amount of energy.
The main reason I blog is because it energizes me. I could rationalize my blogging by telling you it increases traffic on Dilbert.com by 10%, or that it keeps my mind sharp, or that I think the world is a better place when there are more ideas in it. But the main truth is that blogging charges me up. It gets me going. I don't need another reason.
As soon as I publish this post, I'll feel a boost of energy from the minor accomplishment of having written something that other people will read. Then I'll get a second cup of coffee and think happy thoughts about my tennis match that is scheduled for after lunch. With my energy cranked up to maximum, I'll wade into my main job of cartooning for the next four hours. And it will seem easy.
Manage your energy first.
We humans want lots of things: good health, financial freedom, success in whatever matters to us, a great social life, love, sex, recreation, travel, family, career and more. The problem is that the time you spend maximizing one of those dimensions usually comes at the expense of time you could have spent on another. So how do you organize your time to get the best result?
The way I approach the problem of multiple priorities is by focusing on just one main goal: energy. I make choices that maximize my personal energy because that makes it easier to manage all of the other priorities.
Maximizing my personal energy means eating right, exercising, avoiding unnecessary stress, getting enough sleep, and all of the obvious steps. But it also means having something in my life that makes me excited to wake up. When I get my personal energy right, the quality of my work is better, and I can complete it faster. That keeps my career on track. And when all of that is working, and I feel relaxed and energetic, my personal life is better too.
At this point in my post, I must invoke the Dog Whisperer analogy. The Dog Whisperer is a TV show in which dog expert Cesar Millan helps people get their seemingly insane dogs under control. Cesar's main trick involves training the humans to control their own emotional states because dogs can pick up crazy vibes from the owners. When the owners learn to control themselves, the dogs calm down too. I think this same method applies to humans interacting with other humans. You've seen for yourself that when a sad person enters a room, the mood in the room drops. And when you talk to a cheerful person who is full of energy, you automatically feel a boost. I'm suggesting that by becoming a person with good energy, you lift the people around you. That positive change will improve your social life, you love life, your family life, and your career.
When I talk about high energy, I don't mean the frenetic, caffeine-fueled, bounce-off-the-walls type. I'm talking about a calm, focused energy. To others, it will simply appear that you are in a good mood. And you will be.
Before I was a cartoonist, I worked in a number of energy-sucking corporate jobs, in energy-sucking cubicles. But I enjoyed going to work, partly because I exercised most evenings, and usually woke up feeling good, and partly because I always had one or two side projects going on that had the potential to set me free. Cartooning was just one of a dozen entrepreneurial ideas I tried out during my corporate days. For several years, the prospect of becoming a professional cartoonist, and leaving my cubicle behind, gave me an enormous amount of energy.
The main reason I blog is because it energizes me. I could rationalize my blogging by telling you it increases traffic on Dilbert.com by 10%, or that it keeps my mind sharp, or that I think the world is a better place when there are more ideas in it. But the main truth is that blogging charges me up. It gets me going. I don't need another reason.
As soon as I publish this post, I'll feel a boost of energy from the minor accomplishment of having written something that other people will read. Then I'll get a second cup of coffee and think happy thoughts about my tennis match that is scheduled for after lunch. With my energy cranked up to maximum, I'll wade into my main job of cartooning for the next four hours. And it will seem easy.
Manage your energy first.
January 29, 2012
Writing Yourself Off
One of the many disadvantages of being me is that sometimes I have awful ideas that get stuck in my head and I have to purge them to make room for what I hope is something better. Today is one of those days. I apologize in advance for the post that follows. You should stop reading now. Seriously. Don't say I didn't warn you.
We humans can't tickle ourselves as effectively as strangers can tickle us. Scientists think it has something to do with the element of unpredictability. When you try to tickle yourself, you know what's coming just ahead of the sensation and your mind prepares for it.
Likewise, it feels better when someone else rubs your neck. I suppose part of the reason is that your hand can't get a good angle on your own neck, and you can't simultaneously relax the rest of your body while rubbing with just one hand. Add to that the lack of predictability and a self-neck-rub isn't ideal.
There is at least one other human activity that feels better when someone else does it for you. It's not exactly tickling, and it's not exactly a massage, and I can't exactly describe it in my otherwise PG-13 blog. But if I know my readers, all of you know what I'm talking about and 50% of you are doing it right now. That activity is the topic for the remainder of this post. I'll refer to it as noodling. And let's assume I'm only talking about females doing the noodling just to keep the engineering simpler. That will make sense in a minute.
Suppose we want to invent a system that might be described as a self-noodler, and we want it to have the element of unpredictability. Could we make such a device? Yes, obviously you could write a program that would cause a hypothetical noodling device to vibrate at random intervals. But the problem I anticipate with that design is the lack of humanity. My guess is that a user would perceive machine-made randomness as boring and impersonal. Noodling is at its best when the recipient has the perception that some sort of human intention is behind the action. Can we solve that without the involvement of another human while maintaining a lack of predictability?
Suppose you wrote a program that translated written words into vibrations. Perhaps the specific vibration would depend on the length of words, number of syllables, tone of the sentence, punctuation, and other factors. Presumably, Hemingway's text would create different pattern of vibrations from Shakespeare's sonnets, and so on. My hypothesis is that we humans are so wired for language that the patterns of the vibrations that originate from the written word would register to us as both human-made and - here's the best part - unpredictable. That's the Holy Grail.
If my hypothesis is correct, a user of this marvelous self-noodling system could choose whatever text works best in her particular case. One user might prefer translating the text of an interview with Brad Pitt. Another might find some emails from an old boyfriend and run those through the text-to-vibration system. Some might find a favorite author that does the trick. If the system works, it will give new meaning to the phrase "He wrote me off."
I don't know what the other presidential candidates are doing today, but if they think they can make you happy by fiddling with your taxes, I would respectfully suggest they don't understand your priorities.
We humans can't tickle ourselves as effectively as strangers can tickle us. Scientists think it has something to do with the element of unpredictability. When you try to tickle yourself, you know what's coming just ahead of the sensation and your mind prepares for it.
Likewise, it feels better when someone else rubs your neck. I suppose part of the reason is that your hand can't get a good angle on your own neck, and you can't simultaneously relax the rest of your body while rubbing with just one hand. Add to that the lack of predictability and a self-neck-rub isn't ideal.
There is at least one other human activity that feels better when someone else does it for you. It's not exactly tickling, and it's not exactly a massage, and I can't exactly describe it in my otherwise PG-13 blog. But if I know my readers, all of you know what I'm talking about and 50% of you are doing it right now. That activity is the topic for the remainder of this post. I'll refer to it as noodling. And let's assume I'm only talking about females doing the noodling just to keep the engineering simpler. That will make sense in a minute.
Suppose we want to invent a system that might be described as a self-noodler, and we want it to have the element of unpredictability. Could we make such a device? Yes, obviously you could write a program that would cause a hypothetical noodling device to vibrate at random intervals. But the problem I anticipate with that design is the lack of humanity. My guess is that a user would perceive machine-made randomness as boring and impersonal. Noodling is at its best when the recipient has the perception that some sort of human intention is behind the action. Can we solve that without the involvement of another human while maintaining a lack of predictability?
Suppose you wrote a program that translated written words into vibrations. Perhaps the specific vibration would depend on the length of words, number of syllables, tone of the sentence, punctuation, and other factors. Presumably, Hemingway's text would create different pattern of vibrations from Shakespeare's sonnets, and so on. My hypothesis is that we humans are so wired for language that the patterns of the vibrations that originate from the written word would register to us as both human-made and - here's the best part - unpredictable. That's the Holy Grail.
If my hypothesis is correct, a user of this marvelous self-noodling system could choose whatever text works best in her particular case. One user might prefer translating the text of an interview with Brad Pitt. Another might find some emails from an old boyfriend and run those through the text-to-vibration system. Some might find a favorite author that does the trick. If the system works, it will give new meaning to the phrase "He wrote me off."
I don't know what the other presidential candidates are doing today, but if they think they can make you happy by fiddling with your taxes, I would respectfully suggest they don't understand your priorities.
January 26, 2012
Who Benefits More?
Do the rich get more benefits from the government in return for their tax dollars? In a recent post, I casually mentioned that all citizens get roughly the same benefit from the government. Several readers objected. Let's throw some more gasoline on that campfire.
This question matters because if the rich get more benefits from the federal government, some would say it is "common sense" that they should pay a higher tax rate. But, as regular readers of this blog know, common sense isn't a real thing. And its ugly cousin, fairness, is a concept invented so dumb people could participate in arguments. Fairness isn't a natural part of the universe. It's purely subjective. So let's agree that fairness can be ignored in this discussion. We'll stick with what can be quantified, sort of. (If it were easy, it wouldn't be fun.)
We'll also limit our discussion to federal income taxes because that's the main topic of national debate during this election year.
On the payment side, we all agree that the rich pay far more per person in taxes than the poor. And the vast majority of the rich pay a higher tax rate as well. The exceptions are some subset of the superrich, who are perhaps 1% of the top 1%. Let's ignore the superrich for now because any discussion of that special group drags us into the unrelated topic of capital gains taxes.
We can also exclude from this discussion the 49% of American adults who pay no federal income taxes. They pay plenty of other taxes, but for now that is a separate discussion. To keep things clean and simple, the question boils down to this: Does the average millionaire get more benefits from the federal government than the average member of the middle class who pays federal income taxes?
Consider national defense. The rich pay far more per person to fund our military. Some would argue that is "fair" because the military is protecting far greater assets for the rich. For me, that doesn't pass the sniff test. If our military disbanded tomorrow, the rich would move their money and their families to a safer country and leave the middle class to become slaves to the conquering Elbonians. The argument that our military gives greater protection to the rich, because the rich have more assets, assumes our national enemies are nothing but burglars looking for loot. It also assumes money can't escape across borders with its owners. Granted, the rich might lose their mansions and businesses if they escaped with the rest of their wealth, but the middle class who can't afford to escape would end up working in the Elbonian salt mines. According to my calculations, the middle class get more benefits from the military because national security prevents them from becoming Elbonian slaves. The rich are only at risk of losing a portion of their stranded wealth when they head to Switzerland. And depending on the ambition of our hypothetical enemies, we all benefit equally by not being killed. A rich dead guy is not happier than a middle class dead guy.
How about education? The rich benefit from an educated workforce because it allows them to staff their companies and grow their wealth. The middle class benefit by having job opportunities and a non-zero chance of someday becoming wealthy. In my case, a government-subsidized education system allowed me to go from lower-middle class to rich. And that makes me...oh, say 50% happier than I would have been otherwise. Meanwhile, the rich got richer, but I doubt they increased their overall happiness by more than 10%. If the goal of life is happiness, including health and physical security, I benefited the most from the government during my journey through the middle class, during which time I paid far less than I do now in taxes. Now that I'm in the top 1%, and paying at the top tax rate, even if I doubled my income tomorrow, it wouldn't have much impact on my happiness. So while a functioning government allows the rich to stay happy, it allows the middle class an opportunity to substantially increase their happiness. I'd call that roughly a tie.
How about safety nets? Compared to the rich, the middle class have a far greater risk of someday becoming poor. That risk is magnified if they have relatives who might need assistance too. But arguably, safety nets also prevent the poor from forming marauding gangs of cannibals preying on the rich. If I didn't pay taxes to provide safety nets for the poor, I'd spend a fortune on a private militia to defend my house. Benefit-wise, I'd call safety nets an equal benefit for all.
In discussions such as these, I like to call upon my automobile analogy. You can argue all day long whether a car's engine is more important than its wheels, but unless you have both, the car is useless. It might be true in some technical sense that one class of citizen benefits more from taxes than another. But from 30,000 feet, it looks to me as if you're arguing whether the engine or the wheels are more important to the car.
So far, we've acted as though we can compare one average rich person to one average middle class person. That makes sense when discussing the present. But the future is infinitely larger than the present, and therefore should be weighted more heavily in this discussion. That brings us to the question of birthrates. If the middle class person has two kids, and the rich person has one, the benefits of a stable government flow disproportionately to the family with the most offspring. Keeping two people alive is better than keeping one person alive. So if it's true that birth rates decline with income, it must be true that the middle class get more FUTURE benefits than the rich from their tax dollars today. But the bottom line is that whoever has the most kids, regardless of income, benefits the most from the government. If fairness were a real thing, taxes would be based on your number of offspring, not your income.
I look forward to your disagreement.
This question matters because if the rich get more benefits from the federal government, some would say it is "common sense" that they should pay a higher tax rate. But, as regular readers of this blog know, common sense isn't a real thing. And its ugly cousin, fairness, is a concept invented so dumb people could participate in arguments. Fairness isn't a natural part of the universe. It's purely subjective. So let's agree that fairness can be ignored in this discussion. We'll stick with what can be quantified, sort of. (If it were easy, it wouldn't be fun.)
We'll also limit our discussion to federal income taxes because that's the main topic of national debate during this election year.
On the payment side, we all agree that the rich pay far more per person in taxes than the poor. And the vast majority of the rich pay a higher tax rate as well. The exceptions are some subset of the superrich, who are perhaps 1% of the top 1%. Let's ignore the superrich for now because any discussion of that special group drags us into the unrelated topic of capital gains taxes.
We can also exclude from this discussion the 49% of American adults who pay no federal income taxes. They pay plenty of other taxes, but for now that is a separate discussion. To keep things clean and simple, the question boils down to this: Does the average millionaire get more benefits from the federal government than the average member of the middle class who pays federal income taxes?
Consider national defense. The rich pay far more per person to fund our military. Some would argue that is "fair" because the military is protecting far greater assets for the rich. For me, that doesn't pass the sniff test. If our military disbanded tomorrow, the rich would move their money and their families to a safer country and leave the middle class to become slaves to the conquering Elbonians. The argument that our military gives greater protection to the rich, because the rich have more assets, assumes our national enemies are nothing but burglars looking for loot. It also assumes money can't escape across borders with its owners. Granted, the rich might lose their mansions and businesses if they escaped with the rest of their wealth, but the middle class who can't afford to escape would end up working in the Elbonian salt mines. According to my calculations, the middle class get more benefits from the military because national security prevents them from becoming Elbonian slaves. The rich are only at risk of losing a portion of their stranded wealth when they head to Switzerland. And depending on the ambition of our hypothetical enemies, we all benefit equally by not being killed. A rich dead guy is not happier than a middle class dead guy.
How about education? The rich benefit from an educated workforce because it allows them to staff their companies and grow their wealth. The middle class benefit by having job opportunities and a non-zero chance of someday becoming wealthy. In my case, a government-subsidized education system allowed me to go from lower-middle class to rich. And that makes me...oh, say 50% happier than I would have been otherwise. Meanwhile, the rich got richer, but I doubt they increased their overall happiness by more than 10%. If the goal of life is happiness, including health and physical security, I benefited the most from the government during my journey through the middle class, during which time I paid far less than I do now in taxes. Now that I'm in the top 1%, and paying at the top tax rate, even if I doubled my income tomorrow, it wouldn't have much impact on my happiness. So while a functioning government allows the rich to stay happy, it allows the middle class an opportunity to substantially increase their happiness. I'd call that roughly a tie.
How about safety nets? Compared to the rich, the middle class have a far greater risk of someday becoming poor. That risk is magnified if they have relatives who might need assistance too. But arguably, safety nets also prevent the poor from forming marauding gangs of cannibals preying on the rich. If I didn't pay taxes to provide safety nets for the poor, I'd spend a fortune on a private militia to defend my house. Benefit-wise, I'd call safety nets an equal benefit for all.
In discussions such as these, I like to call upon my automobile analogy. You can argue all day long whether a car's engine is more important than its wheels, but unless you have both, the car is useless. It might be true in some technical sense that one class of citizen benefits more from taxes than another. But from 30,000 feet, it looks to me as if you're arguing whether the engine or the wheels are more important to the car.
So far, we've acted as though we can compare one average rich person to one average middle class person. That makes sense when discussing the present. But the future is infinitely larger than the present, and therefore should be weighted more heavily in this discussion. That brings us to the question of birthrates. If the middle class person has two kids, and the rich person has one, the benefits of a stable government flow disproportionately to the family with the most offspring. Keeping two people alive is better than keeping one person alive. So if it's true that birth rates decline with income, it must be true that the middle class get more FUTURE benefits than the rich from their tax dollars today. But the bottom line is that whoever has the most kids, regardless of income, benefits the most from the government. If fairness were a real thing, taxes would be based on your number of offspring, not your income.
I look forward to your disagreement.
January 24, 2012
State of the Union Hypnosis
Last night, CNN was getting audience reactions to President Obama's speech, and asked a man his opinion on the idea of ending subsidies to oil companies. My fellow citizen responded that during times of government subsidies, gas prices rose, so maybe if the government removed subsidies to oil companies, gas prices would fall.
Huh?
How hard would it be to run for President and try to satisfy both the smart people in the country and the voters who don't understand . . . well, anything? The classic solution is to lie to the dumb while winking to the smart. If you do it right, the dumb people are pleased with what you say and the smart people understand you're only saying it to keep the slow learners happy.
But apparently President Obama isn't a fan of the obvious lie. Perhaps because of his lawyer training he prefers using a bit of hypnosis to bamboozle the dumb with lies that aren't technically lies yet operate the same way. Want an example?
If you did a poll today, and asked the average citizen whether or not the following statement is true, how many would say yes?
Statement: Warren Buffett pays less in taxes than his secretary.
The truth is that Buffett pays a lower tax rate, but he pays millions more in actual dollars. And Buffett and his secretary receive roughly the same benefits from the government. (Everyone reading this blog knows that.) The President was careful to specify "tax rate" when he started talking about the Buffett rule, but he capped it off with a hypnosis-like summary by saying Americans know it is just "common sense" that a billionaire should pay more than a secretary. By the closing summary, the clarifying word "rate" was gone. What started as a discussion of tax rates transmogrified into a discussion of who should pay more. Then the President slapping the label "common sense" to his near-lie and imbued it with an undeserved logic. That's a classic technique of manipulation.
Smart observers understand the Buffett tax question to be about rates. But I'm guessing that many of the dumb viewers came away with the impression that Buffett paid less in in real dollars than his secretary. And I'm sure President Obama and his advisors intentionally chose language that furthered that misunderstanding while winking at the smart observers.
When I'm president, I will end this deceptive practice and treat every voter the same way I treat the smartest voter. Wink, wink.
Huh?
How hard would it be to run for President and try to satisfy both the smart people in the country and the voters who don't understand . . . well, anything? The classic solution is to lie to the dumb while winking to the smart. If you do it right, the dumb people are pleased with what you say and the smart people understand you're only saying it to keep the slow learners happy.
But apparently President Obama isn't a fan of the obvious lie. Perhaps because of his lawyer training he prefers using a bit of hypnosis to bamboozle the dumb with lies that aren't technically lies yet operate the same way. Want an example?
If you did a poll today, and asked the average citizen whether or not the following statement is true, how many would say yes?
Statement: Warren Buffett pays less in taxes than his secretary.
The truth is that Buffett pays a lower tax rate, but he pays millions more in actual dollars. And Buffett and his secretary receive roughly the same benefits from the government. (Everyone reading this blog knows that.) The President was careful to specify "tax rate" when he started talking about the Buffett rule, but he capped it off with a hypnosis-like summary by saying Americans know it is just "common sense" that a billionaire should pay more than a secretary. By the closing summary, the clarifying word "rate" was gone. What started as a discussion of tax rates transmogrified into a discussion of who should pay more. Then the President slapping the label "common sense" to his near-lie and imbued it with an undeserved logic. That's a classic technique of manipulation.
Smart observers understand the Buffett tax question to be about rates. But I'm guessing that many of the dumb viewers came away with the impression that Buffett paid less in in real dollars than his secretary. And I'm sure President Obama and his advisors intentionally chose language that furthered that misunderstanding while winking at the smart observers.
When I'm president, I will end this deceptive practice and treat every voter the same way I treat the smartest voter. Wink, wink.
January 22, 2012
Non-Believerdar
It's starting to look as if Newt Gingrich will be the Republican nominee. If so, this might be the first time two non-believers ran against each other for President of the United States.
What?
Oh, that's right: You still think Gingrich and Obama believe what's written in the Christian Bible. I understand why you think that. After all, both men say they believe in god, and they do churchy things. The trouble is that Gingrich and Obama both set off my non-believerdar. (That's like gaydar for non-believers.)
I'll bet if you did a test in which you showed volunteers pictures of believers and non-believers, the volunteers could do better than chance in picking out the non-believers. That hypothesis isn't too wild. There have been studies in which volunteers tried to identify political conservatives by photographs, and the volunteers beat chance. And at least one study says women can identify gay men just by looking at them.
You could also walk into a room and pick out the person who is most likely to be good at math. You wouldn't be right every time, but if you saw a guy who looked like Dilbert, and a guy who looked like David Beckham, which one do you think could help you with your computer problem?
There's a hypothesis that the ability to believe in God has a genetic basis. That hypothesis is far from proven, but the smart money says there is some truth to it because most mental capacities have a genetic component. There's probably even a genetic basis for why my favorite color is green.
The skeptic in me takes with a grain of salt any study that purports to demonstrate the existence of gaydar or conservativedar or any other form of human radar. It's hard to design a test involving humans that doesn't have some leakage. And the people designing the tests might have agendas. So the strongest claim I can make about my non-believerdar is that it feels to me as if I can identify non-believers with an accuracy that is better than chance. But it's just a feeling.
Based on what feels like the power of non-believerdar, my assumption is that both Gingrich and Obama believe in the utility of belief while remaining skeptical of the details, up to and including the existence of a supreme being. In other words, I see them as pragmatists. If you plan to be a politician in America, you need to pretend you believe. Everything about Gingrich and Obama tells me they look for solutions that make sense within the context of what is proven and practical.
What does your non-believerdar tell you about Gingrich and Obama? Do you think they believe in the supernatural, or do they pretend they believe for practical reasons?
What?
Oh, that's right: You still think Gingrich and Obama believe what's written in the Christian Bible. I understand why you think that. After all, both men say they believe in god, and they do churchy things. The trouble is that Gingrich and Obama both set off my non-believerdar. (That's like gaydar for non-believers.)
I'll bet if you did a test in which you showed volunteers pictures of believers and non-believers, the volunteers could do better than chance in picking out the non-believers. That hypothesis isn't too wild. There have been studies in which volunteers tried to identify political conservatives by photographs, and the volunteers beat chance. And at least one study says women can identify gay men just by looking at them.
You could also walk into a room and pick out the person who is most likely to be good at math. You wouldn't be right every time, but if you saw a guy who looked like Dilbert, and a guy who looked like David Beckham, which one do you think could help you with your computer problem?
There's a hypothesis that the ability to believe in God has a genetic basis. That hypothesis is far from proven, but the smart money says there is some truth to it because most mental capacities have a genetic component. There's probably even a genetic basis for why my favorite color is green.
The skeptic in me takes with a grain of salt any study that purports to demonstrate the existence of gaydar or conservativedar or any other form of human radar. It's hard to design a test involving humans that doesn't have some leakage. And the people designing the tests might have agendas. So the strongest claim I can make about my non-believerdar is that it feels to me as if I can identify non-believers with an accuracy that is better than chance. But it's just a feeling.
Based on what feels like the power of non-believerdar, my assumption is that both Gingrich and Obama believe in the utility of belief while remaining skeptical of the details, up to and including the existence of a supreme being. In other words, I see them as pragmatists. If you plan to be a politician in America, you need to pretend you believe. Everything about Gingrich and Obama tells me they look for solutions that make sense within the context of what is proven and practical.
What does your non-believerdar tell you about Gingrich and Obama? Do you think they believe in the supernatural, or do they pretend they believe for practical reasons?
January 18, 2012
SOPA Update
Yesterday I wrote about SOPA and solicited your comments. I was delighted to discover that this debate is more interesting than I had hoped.
For all practical purposes, SOPA is very dead now, and the Internet killed it. Your human-centric view of the world might be that freedom-loving activists killed SOPA, and the Internet was their tool. But I don't share the common view of human beings as the center of the universe. From my perspective, the Internet defended itself from a virus that came out of Congress. The Internet is essentially alive now, and we work for it. That's also a plot device in my book, God's Debris, in which God is presented as an evolving entity, moving toward a state of supreme power, with the Internet as his mind. Humans are like drone insects, driven by an impulse to support this emerging entity. But I digress.
A number of blog posts ago, I opined that the country needs a "dashboard" for monitoring and controlling its government. The idea is that if citizens had useful information about our economy, our budget, the money flow of political donations, and handy access to the best arguments pro and con for each issue, we could steer our elected officials in the best direction. It's a pipe dream, you say. And maybe we don't want that sort of world because we citizens could never be as brilliant as the leaders we elected in our beloved Republic which is, as you were taught in school, a perfect system that was invented by our genius Founding Fathers.
That's one way to look at it.
When Google and Wikipedia and Reddit waded into the SOPA fight, it created a sort of ad hoc user interface that helped citizens focus on the issue. It wasn't a perfect user interface, but it worked. The results were swift. The cockroaches in Congress are already scurrying from the light.
Meanwhile, the traditional news media was finding it easy to go to a newish site called maplight.org and find out how much money the companies that back SOPA were donating to politicians. The President and co-founder of Maplight emailed me yesterday and summarized the impact of his company this way:
-------------------------
Dear Scott,
I hope that your new year is off to a good start. At MapLight we've been shining a light lately on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). A few highlights:
New York Times: "Why the political support? Various amendments intended to tone down SOPA or limit its damage were voted down by large majorities in the House Judiciary Committee in mid-December, an indication that the indignation of various constituencies on the Web is having little impact. "That's partly because entertainment companies have deep and long-lasting relationships inside the Beltway. MapLight, a site that researches the influence of money in politics, reported that the 32 sponsors of the legislation received four times as much in contributions from the entertainment industry as they did from software and Internet companies."
Mother Jones: "Maplight.org found that since the beginning of the 2010 election cycle, SOPA's 32 sponsors took in nearly four times as much in campaign contributions from the entertainment industry than from the software and Internet industries (nearly $2 million versus a little over $500,000). For SOPA opponents, the ratio was reversed-foes of the legislation took about twice as much money from software and internet firms as they did from the entertainment industry." These are just two of more than 150 recent stories citing our SOPA data, reaching an estimated 3 million people, including articles in Forbes, Reuters, Fortune (CNN Money), TechCrunch, and National Journal. Our SOPA data is also featured on Public Campaign's black-out page today, and is being used by the online advocacy tool SOPA Track.
Best,
Dan
--
Daniel Newman
President & Co-Founder
MapLight
----------------------------------------
Given all of that, here's my summary of the situation: An industry that thought it would benefit by draconian rules against piracy drafted some legislation (SOPA) that few if any members of congress actually read, and even fewer could have understood. (The language is impenetrable.) But thanks to the money and contacts of the industry in question, our "leaders" did as they were told and supported SOPA against the interests of the people who elected them. It's not entirely clear if the leaders were even aware of the impact of their own actions. That's your beloved Republic in action.
Luckily, the Internet has achieved something akin to consciousness, and it defended itself against the Republic with the help of its citizen slaves who believe they have free will. A key to the Internet's victory was Maplight, Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, and other web assets acting collectively in what might someday be called a pre-dashboard user interface. Users could find the arguments they needed online and view the money flow to politicians. That was enough to steer our "leaders" back into line. In time, the Internet will look to consolidate its power over humans by ordering us to improve the dashboard interface.
I just did my part.
For all practical purposes, SOPA is very dead now, and the Internet killed it. Your human-centric view of the world might be that freedom-loving activists killed SOPA, and the Internet was their tool. But I don't share the common view of human beings as the center of the universe. From my perspective, the Internet defended itself from a virus that came out of Congress. The Internet is essentially alive now, and we work for it. That's also a plot device in my book, God's Debris, in which God is presented as an evolving entity, moving toward a state of supreme power, with the Internet as his mind. Humans are like drone insects, driven by an impulse to support this emerging entity. But I digress.
A number of blog posts ago, I opined that the country needs a "dashboard" for monitoring and controlling its government. The idea is that if citizens had useful information about our economy, our budget, the money flow of political donations, and handy access to the best arguments pro and con for each issue, we could steer our elected officials in the best direction. It's a pipe dream, you say. And maybe we don't want that sort of world because we citizens could never be as brilliant as the leaders we elected in our beloved Republic which is, as you were taught in school, a perfect system that was invented by our genius Founding Fathers.
That's one way to look at it.
When Google and Wikipedia and Reddit waded into the SOPA fight, it created a sort of ad hoc user interface that helped citizens focus on the issue. It wasn't a perfect user interface, but it worked. The results were swift. The cockroaches in Congress are already scurrying from the light.
Meanwhile, the traditional news media was finding it easy to go to a newish site called maplight.org and find out how much money the companies that back SOPA were donating to politicians. The President and co-founder of Maplight emailed me yesterday and summarized the impact of his company this way:
-------------------------
Dear Scott,
I hope that your new year is off to a good start. At MapLight we've been shining a light lately on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). A few highlights:
New York Times: "Why the political support? Various amendments intended to tone down SOPA or limit its damage were voted down by large majorities in the House Judiciary Committee in mid-December, an indication that the indignation of various constituencies on the Web is having little impact. "That's partly because entertainment companies have deep and long-lasting relationships inside the Beltway. MapLight, a site that researches the influence of money in politics, reported that the 32 sponsors of the legislation received four times as much in contributions from the entertainment industry as they did from software and Internet companies."
Mother Jones: "Maplight.org found that since the beginning of the 2010 election cycle, SOPA's 32 sponsors took in nearly four times as much in campaign contributions from the entertainment industry than from the software and Internet industries (nearly $2 million versus a little over $500,000). For SOPA opponents, the ratio was reversed-foes of the legislation took about twice as much money from software and internet firms as they did from the entertainment industry." These are just two of more than 150 recent stories citing our SOPA data, reaching an estimated 3 million people, including articles in Forbes, Reuters, Fortune (CNN Money), TechCrunch, and National Journal. Our SOPA data is also featured on Public Campaign's black-out page today, and is being used by the online advocacy tool SOPA Track.
Best,
Dan
--
Daniel Newman
President & Co-Founder
MapLight
----------------------------------------
Given all of that, here's my summary of the situation: An industry that thought it would benefit by draconian rules against piracy drafted some legislation (SOPA) that few if any members of congress actually read, and even fewer could have understood. (The language is impenetrable.) But thanks to the money and contacts of the industry in question, our "leaders" did as they were told and supported SOPA against the interests of the people who elected them. It's not entirely clear if the leaders were even aware of the impact of their own actions. That's your beloved Republic in action.
Luckily, the Internet has achieved something akin to consciousness, and it defended itself against the Republic with the help of its citizen slaves who believe they have free will. A key to the Internet's victory was Maplight, Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, and other web assets acting collectively in what might someday be called a pre-dashboard user interface. Users could find the arguments they needed online and view the money flow to politicians. That was enough to steer our "leaders" back into line. In time, the Internet will look to consolidate its power over humans by ordering us to improve the dashboard interface.
I just did my part.
January 17, 2012
SOPA
Warning: This blog is written for a rational audience that likes to have fun wrestling with unique or controversial points of view. It is written in a style that can easily be confused as advocacy or opinion. It is not intended to change anyone's beliefs or actions. If you quote from this post or link to it, which you are welcome to do, please take responsibility for whatever happens if you mismatch the audience and the content.
Are you following the huge debate about the proposed legislation in the United States to stop online piracy? It's called SOPA, short for Stop Online Piracy Act.
I'm fascinated by the debate because it's an ideal example of how we humans make decisions in the face of complexity. The proposed legislation is simple enough in terms of its purpose: Reducing piracy on the Internet. But its unintended consequences are not knowable. Critics claim the law will be overused and result in punishing or killing defenseless and legitimate sites without due process. Those in favor of SOPA say it will only make the illegal foreign pirate sites inaccessible from the United States. Based on my limited understanding of the issue, I don't know who is right. Neither do you. The best we can do is to apply unscientific methods, i.e. fancy guessing, that we might label intuition or common sense to make us feel better. Let's see where that takes us.
Rule of Thumb
Thanks to Republicans, and Ron Paul in particular, the idea that more government is always bad has gained a larger following than ever. That's doubly so when we're dealing with the Wild West of the Internet. It's a simple rule of thumb: The more the government interferes, the worse off we are.
By that filter, the SOPA question boils down to this: What is worse - allowing legitimate businesses to be robbed of their intellectual property, or having the government try to stop it? There is so little trust in government that most people prefer being robbed over the alternative of having the government get involved and making things worse.
Bottom line: If you apply the "more government is bad" rule of thumb, SOPA is a bad idea.
Pattern Recognition
If you strip out the details of the SOPA debate, the form looks like this:
Opponent: That law will cause huge problems because (reason).
Supporter: If you hold that opinion, you must have read the law wrong.
And...
Opponent: The requirements of the law are totally impractical.
Supporter: Something like SOPA is already being done successfully in other countries.
Pattern recognition often gives you the wrong answer because coincidences can look like a pattern. On the other hand, if ten political ads from the same candidate fail the fact-checking filters, there's a high likelihood the eleventh won't be much better. So pattern recognition does have its place.
In my own life, I find that when people disagree with my opinions, they are more often than not disagreeing with a misinterpretation of my opinion, not my actual opinion. And when a law is being used successfully in one place, it raises the odds it can work in another place.
There's also a pattern that tells me I shouldn't put too much stock in claims that a proposed law will rob my freedom and destroy the economy. Every law robs citizens of one sort of freedom or another, and costs money too. And yet most laws are sensible and work just fine in the long run. On the other hand, stopping piracy feels a lot like Prohibition, and that didn't work out.
Speaking of the liquor analogy, bar owners are in an analogous situation under current laws. If a bar over-serves a customer, or serves minors, it can lose its license. And yet most bars inadvertently over-serve customers, and every bar has served minors that have good fake I.D.s. Here's an example where the government could easily over-apply the law, but it rarely happens. I owned two restaurants, and I would say the draconian laws were helpful in keeping the over-serving to a minimum, and the I.D. checking to a maximum. So there's precedent that makes me optimistic that reasonable humans wouldn't apply SOPA death sentences to web sites in cases of trivial copyright infringement. But you never know.
Bottom line: The supporters of SOPA have an argument structure I most often associate with the superior argument. That doesn't make them right. It's just an observation about the pattern of the argument when you strip out the content.
Expert Opinion
Lots of heavyweight corporations and organizations oppose SOPA. Some of the opponents are kidnap victims with guns to their temples (GoDaddy.com). Other supporters look like Stockholm Syndrome types. Still others have a financial interest in passively aiding and abetting the theft of intellectual property. Some have no credibility whatsoever, e.g. anyone in Congress. And it's hard to trust anyone with a balance sheet who claims to be fighting for my freedom.
Then there's the philosophical bias problem. Ron Paul and others would presumably forgo a million dollars of benefits if it required one extra dollar of government expense, or one extra law that reduces freedom. For some folks, it's the principle of the thing, and I respect that point of view. But are the anti-big-government people comparing the size of the benefits to the size of the costs, or are they simply rejecting anything that looks like a government overreach, complication, or interference?
Some big-name lawyers say SOPA will be a nightmare if implemented. But I'm guessing the law itself was crafted by lawyers, and presumably those lawyers have a different opinion.
And who came up with SOPA in the first place? Wasn't it a bunch of corporations who wouldn't mind pushing some costs on other people if it helps their profits?
Bottom line: Money and philosophical bias make all of the experts in this case unreliable.
Self-Interest Crossover
You would expect artists and content owners to support SOPA, and you would expect the people who would be caught in legal dragnets to oppose it. The interesting people are the crossovers: The parties who take the "wrong" side of the issue. And indeed, many creators do just that, publicly arguing against SOPA even though it is specifically aimed at protecting their financial interests. But at the risk of being unkind, a lot of people become artists because they aren't good at things like math and legal analysis. When I want an opinion on the Constitution, or economics, I rarely consult an artist.
Bottom line: The crossovers aren't persuasive.
My Self-Interest
I have one of the most widely stolen intellectual properties in the history of the world. Emotionally, I'm okay with that. It feels like a compliment. Financially, I have no idea if piracy has hurt me in any meaningful way. I made the decision years ago to make Dilbert available on the Internet, including the entire archive. To the surprise of most observers, sales of Dilbert to traditional newspapers continued to grow briskly.
Bottom line: As a creator, my bias is in favor of protecting intellectual property. But in my specific case, SOPA probably wouldn't have any impact on my life or income.
Verdict
I'm unbiased in the sense that SOPA probably wouldn't have any impact on me one way or another. And I'm not qualified to look at the language of the law and make judgments about its unintended consequences. When I look at the applicable rules of thumb, the pattern of the argument, and the expert opinions, I don't get a clear answer about SOPA. And when I don't have a clear answer, I default to the "do nothing" point of view. Therefore, I conditionally oppose SOPA, not because I know it will be bad, but because I can't predict its impact.
I reserve the right to flip-flop at any moment. Make your best arguments in the comment section and see if you can flip me.
Are you following the huge debate about the proposed legislation in the United States to stop online piracy? It's called SOPA, short for Stop Online Piracy Act.
I'm fascinated by the debate because it's an ideal example of how we humans make decisions in the face of complexity. The proposed legislation is simple enough in terms of its purpose: Reducing piracy on the Internet. But its unintended consequences are not knowable. Critics claim the law will be overused and result in punishing or killing defenseless and legitimate sites without due process. Those in favor of SOPA say it will only make the illegal foreign pirate sites inaccessible from the United States. Based on my limited understanding of the issue, I don't know who is right. Neither do you. The best we can do is to apply unscientific methods, i.e. fancy guessing, that we might label intuition or common sense to make us feel better. Let's see where that takes us.
Rule of Thumb
Thanks to Republicans, and Ron Paul in particular, the idea that more government is always bad has gained a larger following than ever. That's doubly so when we're dealing with the Wild West of the Internet. It's a simple rule of thumb: The more the government interferes, the worse off we are.
By that filter, the SOPA question boils down to this: What is worse - allowing legitimate businesses to be robbed of their intellectual property, or having the government try to stop it? There is so little trust in government that most people prefer being robbed over the alternative of having the government get involved and making things worse.
Bottom line: If you apply the "more government is bad" rule of thumb, SOPA is a bad idea.
Pattern Recognition
If you strip out the details of the SOPA debate, the form looks like this:
Opponent: That law will cause huge problems because (reason).
Supporter: If you hold that opinion, you must have read the law wrong.
And...
Opponent: The requirements of the law are totally impractical.
Supporter: Something like SOPA is already being done successfully in other countries.
Pattern recognition often gives you the wrong answer because coincidences can look like a pattern. On the other hand, if ten political ads from the same candidate fail the fact-checking filters, there's a high likelihood the eleventh won't be much better. So pattern recognition does have its place.
In my own life, I find that when people disagree with my opinions, they are more often than not disagreeing with a misinterpretation of my opinion, not my actual opinion. And when a law is being used successfully in one place, it raises the odds it can work in another place.
There's also a pattern that tells me I shouldn't put too much stock in claims that a proposed law will rob my freedom and destroy the economy. Every law robs citizens of one sort of freedom or another, and costs money too. And yet most laws are sensible and work just fine in the long run. On the other hand, stopping piracy feels a lot like Prohibition, and that didn't work out.
Speaking of the liquor analogy, bar owners are in an analogous situation under current laws. If a bar over-serves a customer, or serves minors, it can lose its license. And yet most bars inadvertently over-serve customers, and every bar has served minors that have good fake I.D.s. Here's an example where the government could easily over-apply the law, but it rarely happens. I owned two restaurants, and I would say the draconian laws were helpful in keeping the over-serving to a minimum, and the I.D. checking to a maximum. So there's precedent that makes me optimistic that reasonable humans wouldn't apply SOPA death sentences to web sites in cases of trivial copyright infringement. But you never know.
Bottom line: The supporters of SOPA have an argument structure I most often associate with the superior argument. That doesn't make them right. It's just an observation about the pattern of the argument when you strip out the content.
Expert Opinion
Lots of heavyweight corporations and organizations oppose SOPA. Some of the opponents are kidnap victims with guns to their temples (GoDaddy.com). Other supporters look like Stockholm Syndrome types. Still others have a financial interest in passively aiding and abetting the theft of intellectual property. Some have no credibility whatsoever, e.g. anyone in Congress. And it's hard to trust anyone with a balance sheet who claims to be fighting for my freedom.
Then there's the philosophical bias problem. Ron Paul and others would presumably forgo a million dollars of benefits if it required one extra dollar of government expense, or one extra law that reduces freedom. For some folks, it's the principle of the thing, and I respect that point of view. But are the anti-big-government people comparing the size of the benefits to the size of the costs, or are they simply rejecting anything that looks like a government overreach, complication, or interference?
Some big-name lawyers say SOPA will be a nightmare if implemented. But I'm guessing the law itself was crafted by lawyers, and presumably those lawyers have a different opinion.
And who came up with SOPA in the first place? Wasn't it a bunch of corporations who wouldn't mind pushing some costs on other people if it helps their profits?
Bottom line: Money and philosophical bias make all of the experts in this case unreliable.
Self-Interest Crossover
You would expect artists and content owners to support SOPA, and you would expect the people who would be caught in legal dragnets to oppose it. The interesting people are the crossovers: The parties who take the "wrong" side of the issue. And indeed, many creators do just that, publicly arguing against SOPA even though it is specifically aimed at protecting their financial interests. But at the risk of being unkind, a lot of people become artists because they aren't good at things like math and legal analysis. When I want an opinion on the Constitution, or economics, I rarely consult an artist.
Bottom line: The crossovers aren't persuasive.
My Self-Interest
I have one of the most widely stolen intellectual properties in the history of the world. Emotionally, I'm okay with that. It feels like a compliment. Financially, I have no idea if piracy has hurt me in any meaningful way. I made the decision years ago to make Dilbert available on the Internet, including the entire archive. To the surprise of most observers, sales of Dilbert to traditional newspapers continued to grow briskly.
Bottom line: As a creator, my bias is in favor of protecting intellectual property. But in my specific case, SOPA probably wouldn't have any impact on my life or income.
Verdict
I'm unbiased in the sense that SOPA probably wouldn't have any impact on me one way or another. And I'm not qualified to look at the language of the law and make judgments about its unintended consequences. When I look at the applicable rules of thumb, the pattern of the argument, and the expert opinions, I don't get a clear answer about SOPA. And when I don't have a clear answer, I default to the "do nothing" point of view. Therefore, I conditionally oppose SOPA, not because I know it will be bad, but because I can't predict its impact.
I reserve the right to flip-flop at any moment. Make your best arguments in the comment section and see if you can flip me.
January 15, 2012
Anatomy of a Fake Deal
Warning: This blog is written for a rational audience that likes to have fun wrestling with unique or controversial points of view. It is written in a style that can easily be confused as advocacy or opinion. It is not intended to change anyone's beliefs or actions. If you quote from this post or link to it, which you are welcome to do, please take responsibility for whatever happens if you mismatch the audience and the content.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the keys to ending the Cuban missile crisis in the sixties was a fake deal. In return for the Soviet Union removing missiles from Cuba, the United States agreed to remove obsolete missiles from Turkey. That looked enough like a legitimate deal that the Soviet Leaders with their controlled media could sell it to their own people as a win. I think it's time to trot out that strategy again and propose a fake deal to Iran in return for nuclear inspections.
I'll pause now to address your main objection. I know some of you will point out that we can't negotiate with Iran, using either a fake deal or a real deal, because some Iranians have an irrational, suicidal religious desire to destroy Israel, create chaos, and speed up the return of the Twelfth Imman. If you need some background on that situation, here's a good explanation from a Canadian academic.
We can't know for sure what sort of craziness is in the heads of the Iranian leaders, and we can't know how that situation might change in the future. If you're a leader in Israel, common sense says you must treat any risk of nuclear annihilation the same as if it were a certainty. We would do the same thing. If the United States thought Elbonia posed a 10% threat of nuclear attack next year, our military would pave Elbonia this year. So from a practical perspective, Israel doesn't need to know the exact odds of a future Iranian nuclear attack. Their strategy for dealing with the risk would be largely the same no matter the specific odds.
Today I'll describe a potential fake deal that gives the international community what it wants from Iran: full and open inspections of Iranian nuclear sites. The interesting question is this: What fake benefit do we offer Iran in return for their cooperation?
My idea is that the United States, China, and Russia - the three biggest nuclear powers - sign a joint agreement that goes like this: The three powers agree that if any country in the world, excluding the big three nuclear powers, uses nuclear weapons, the offending country will be denied military and economic aid for the next hundred years. In return for this agreement of non-support from the big three nuclear powers, both Israel and Iran would be asked to agree to nuclear inspections. Israel's inspections would be handled by the United States military. Iran's inspections would be handled by an international team of inspectors excluding the United States and Israel. That's the fake deal.
What Israel gets in the fake deal is something real: a nuclear weapons-free Iran without full-scale war. What Iran gets, thanks to its controlled media, is the ability to declare victory over Israel's nuclear arsenal. Under the deal as described, Israel could never use its own nukes without losing military and economic support from the United States for a hundred years.
Iran could spin the story internally with news stories such as this: "Iran's nuclear prowess has created a great victory over Israel, by causing the United States to withdraw its unconditional support of the Zionists, thus rendering Israel's nuclear arsenal useless."
One kink in this plan is that Israel wouldn't want to give anyone full access to its nuclear facilities, even if the inspectors were from the United States. So let's assume the fine print of the agreement says the United States can design the inspections any way it wants. That gives us wiggle room under the fake deal to certify Israel's nuclear facilities as "okay" without access to every sensitive site.
China and Russia would presumably have no problem signing the agreement of non-support because they don't want rogue nations launching nukes, and the agreement would not be binding on their own arsenals. Realistically, they could always change their minds and withdraw from the agreement if it suited their national interests someday in the future.
Israel would presumably agree to the deal because inspections of Israeli nuclear sites would be limited, and Israel would still have a nuclear deterrent.
If Iran turns down the type of fake deal I'm describing, it will help generate international support for deeper economic and military pressure on Iran. From a public relations standpoint, a fake deal offer helps Israel and the United States even if Iran rejects the deal.
The only downside to my plan is that the Nobel committee can't award me the Nobel Peace Prize for this idea once it goes into play because it would draw too much attention to the fakeness of the deal. I will be forced to live with the knowledge that I averted war and didn't get anything to show for it.
The interesting thing is that this blog is probably only three degrees of separation from the decision-makers in Washington D.C. Thanks to the Internet, this idea will spread quickly if it is deemed by readers to have merit. I don't know what the other candidates for president of the United States did today, but I just created a non-zero opportunity to avert nuclear war without bloodshed. I'm sure whatever the other candidates did today was awesome too.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the keys to ending the Cuban missile crisis in the sixties was a fake deal. In return for the Soviet Union removing missiles from Cuba, the United States agreed to remove obsolete missiles from Turkey. That looked enough like a legitimate deal that the Soviet Leaders with their controlled media could sell it to their own people as a win. I think it's time to trot out that strategy again and propose a fake deal to Iran in return for nuclear inspections.
I'll pause now to address your main objection. I know some of you will point out that we can't negotiate with Iran, using either a fake deal or a real deal, because some Iranians have an irrational, suicidal religious desire to destroy Israel, create chaos, and speed up the return of the Twelfth Imman. If you need some background on that situation, here's a good explanation from a Canadian academic.
We can't know for sure what sort of craziness is in the heads of the Iranian leaders, and we can't know how that situation might change in the future. If you're a leader in Israel, common sense says you must treat any risk of nuclear annihilation the same as if it were a certainty. We would do the same thing. If the United States thought Elbonia posed a 10% threat of nuclear attack next year, our military would pave Elbonia this year. So from a practical perspective, Israel doesn't need to know the exact odds of a future Iranian nuclear attack. Their strategy for dealing with the risk would be largely the same no matter the specific odds.
Today I'll describe a potential fake deal that gives the international community what it wants from Iran: full and open inspections of Iranian nuclear sites. The interesting question is this: What fake benefit do we offer Iran in return for their cooperation?
My idea is that the United States, China, and Russia - the three biggest nuclear powers - sign a joint agreement that goes like this: The three powers agree that if any country in the world, excluding the big three nuclear powers, uses nuclear weapons, the offending country will be denied military and economic aid for the next hundred years. In return for this agreement of non-support from the big three nuclear powers, both Israel and Iran would be asked to agree to nuclear inspections. Israel's inspections would be handled by the United States military. Iran's inspections would be handled by an international team of inspectors excluding the United States and Israel. That's the fake deal.
What Israel gets in the fake deal is something real: a nuclear weapons-free Iran without full-scale war. What Iran gets, thanks to its controlled media, is the ability to declare victory over Israel's nuclear arsenal. Under the deal as described, Israel could never use its own nukes without losing military and economic support from the United States for a hundred years.
Iran could spin the story internally with news stories such as this: "Iran's nuclear prowess has created a great victory over Israel, by causing the United States to withdraw its unconditional support of the Zionists, thus rendering Israel's nuclear arsenal useless."
One kink in this plan is that Israel wouldn't want to give anyone full access to its nuclear facilities, even if the inspectors were from the United States. So let's assume the fine print of the agreement says the United States can design the inspections any way it wants. That gives us wiggle room under the fake deal to certify Israel's nuclear facilities as "okay" without access to every sensitive site.
China and Russia would presumably have no problem signing the agreement of non-support because they don't want rogue nations launching nukes, and the agreement would not be binding on their own arsenals. Realistically, they could always change their minds and withdraw from the agreement if it suited their national interests someday in the future.
Israel would presumably agree to the deal because inspections of Israeli nuclear sites would be limited, and Israel would still have a nuclear deterrent.
If Iran turns down the type of fake deal I'm describing, it will help generate international support for deeper economic and military pressure on Iran. From a public relations standpoint, a fake deal offer helps Israel and the United States even if Iran rejects the deal.
The only downside to my plan is that the Nobel committee can't award me the Nobel Peace Prize for this idea once it goes into play because it would draw too much attention to the fakeness of the deal. I will be forced to live with the knowledge that I averted war and didn't get anything to show for it.
The interesting thing is that this blog is probably only three degrees of separation from the decision-makers in Washington D.C. Thanks to the Internet, this idea will spread quickly if it is deemed by readers to have merit. I don't know what the other candidates for president of the United States did today, but I just created a non-zero opportunity to avert nuclear war without bloodshed. I'm sure whatever the other candidates did today was awesome too.
January 12, 2012
The Yoke of Credibility
Somehow, I've pulled off a rare feat: I have a fairly extensive readership for this blog, and zero credibility. That's just the way I like it. I imagine that credibility is a type of addiction. Once you have it, you naturally want to keep it. I'm guessing credibility feels good, and it probably has economic advantages too. If I ever experience credibility, I'll probably want to have it forever.
But credibility comes at a high price. Credibility makes you edit your ideas down to what you imagine are acceptable forms. No one wants to slip from being a credible expert to a ridiculous buffoon. That's a steep drop. Credibility makes you avoid risk. It makes you boring, and leaves you too often stuck in the past.
Critics can be harsh, and often dishonest, when discussing credible people. See how the media is treating the Republican candidates for president. About half of all the news generated during an election year involves quotes deliberately taken out of context to make these otherwise credible candidates seem like flip-flopping, racist, fat cats. People who are not credible hate the people who are. And the people who are credible feel a duty to attack the other credible people who have opposing views. Being credible is a hard job.
On the opposite end of the credibility spectrum you have me, and this blog. My goal is to be thought-provoking, but never credible. I embrace my ignorance and irrationality with enthusiasm. I consider both of those qualities assets for what I do. But what the hell is it that I'm doing? Maybe I should explain that.
First, we need some context. We humans naturally see ourselves as the center of the universe. That point of view probably has survival advantages, and it is a valid way to approach life. But it's not the only way to see the world.
I take more of a robot's view of the world. According to my robot perspective, ideas are the most important force. Humans merely serve as incubators, filters, and transmission facilities for the ideas. It's a symbiotic relationship because wherever you see the healthiest environments for ideas, humans are usually thriving too. You know who has the fewest ideas? North Korea, that's who.
We humans like to think we control ideas, but it's probably more accurate to say we do little more than bury the ideas that are broken on delivery. If you suddenly have an idea for a car made entirely of potato chips, you probably keep it to yourself. But if you have a bad idea about how the President should manage the country, you'll probably have a few drinks at your next social gathering and let it fly. Human are transmitters, not filters. By analogy, the Internet can detect bad data packets, but not bad ideas. We're like the Internet.
In this context, I see myself as a collector, combiner, and broadcaster of ideas, both good and bad. I spray ideas into the universe and let the ideas fight for their own survival. With the help of their human hosts, the best ideas will evolve and reproduce, and the worst ideas will go to their resting places on the Internet.
You'd be surprised who reads this blog, either directly or indirectly. In the new biography of Steve Jobs, there's a story about Jobs forwarding one of my posts about his brilliant handling of the iPhone antennae issue. I assume Jobs wasn't normally a reader of this blog, but the ideas in my post that day hopped from host to host until they found him. Each of my posts finds a different path from host to host, depending on the topic and the quality of the writing.
I'm explaining all of this because of a comment that user Unlost made about my post yesterday. After reading my ideas for how I would run my presidency, Unlost said, "Priceless, yet this will all go unheeded." I understand the pessimism, but I see it differently. The ideas I unleashed yesterday are already waging a guerrilla war with the status quo. The ideas are hopping from host to host, and if any are worthy, they will evolve and survive. Change doesn't happen quickly, but I guarantee that any good ideas generated by this blog - if there are any - will find their way. The weak ideas will fade to backup storage, as they should.
I see life as a process, not a goal. If my goal had been to create world-changing ideas that worked right away, I would be a complete failure. But I don't have that goal. Instead, I have a process that involves seeding the universe with ideas and waiting for the strongest to evolve and make a difference. The worst case scenario is that my ideas cause the eventual best ideas to compete harder and evolve to even better forms. When you use a process that makes sense, even the unanticipated outcomes are good.
But credibility comes at a high price. Credibility makes you edit your ideas down to what you imagine are acceptable forms. No one wants to slip from being a credible expert to a ridiculous buffoon. That's a steep drop. Credibility makes you avoid risk. It makes you boring, and leaves you too often stuck in the past.
Critics can be harsh, and often dishonest, when discussing credible people. See how the media is treating the Republican candidates for president. About half of all the news generated during an election year involves quotes deliberately taken out of context to make these otherwise credible candidates seem like flip-flopping, racist, fat cats. People who are not credible hate the people who are. And the people who are credible feel a duty to attack the other credible people who have opposing views. Being credible is a hard job.
On the opposite end of the credibility spectrum you have me, and this blog. My goal is to be thought-provoking, but never credible. I embrace my ignorance and irrationality with enthusiasm. I consider both of those qualities assets for what I do. But what the hell is it that I'm doing? Maybe I should explain that.
First, we need some context. We humans naturally see ourselves as the center of the universe. That point of view probably has survival advantages, and it is a valid way to approach life. But it's not the only way to see the world.
I take more of a robot's view of the world. According to my robot perspective, ideas are the most important force. Humans merely serve as incubators, filters, and transmission facilities for the ideas. It's a symbiotic relationship because wherever you see the healthiest environments for ideas, humans are usually thriving too. You know who has the fewest ideas? North Korea, that's who.
We humans like to think we control ideas, but it's probably more accurate to say we do little more than bury the ideas that are broken on delivery. If you suddenly have an idea for a car made entirely of potato chips, you probably keep it to yourself. But if you have a bad idea about how the President should manage the country, you'll probably have a few drinks at your next social gathering and let it fly. Human are transmitters, not filters. By analogy, the Internet can detect bad data packets, but not bad ideas. We're like the Internet.
In this context, I see myself as a collector, combiner, and broadcaster of ideas, both good and bad. I spray ideas into the universe and let the ideas fight for their own survival. With the help of their human hosts, the best ideas will evolve and reproduce, and the worst ideas will go to their resting places on the Internet.
You'd be surprised who reads this blog, either directly or indirectly. In the new biography of Steve Jobs, there's a story about Jobs forwarding one of my posts about his brilliant handling of the iPhone antennae issue. I assume Jobs wasn't normally a reader of this blog, but the ideas in my post that day hopped from host to host until they found him. Each of my posts finds a different path from host to host, depending on the topic and the quality of the writing.
I'm explaining all of this because of a comment that user Unlost made about my post yesterday. After reading my ideas for how I would run my presidency, Unlost said, "Priceless, yet this will all go unheeded." I understand the pessimism, but I see it differently. The ideas I unleashed yesterday are already waging a guerrilla war with the status quo. The ideas are hopping from host to host, and if any are worthy, they will evolve and survive. Change doesn't happen quickly, but I guarantee that any good ideas generated by this blog - if there are any - will find their way. The weak ideas will fade to backup storage, as they should.
I see life as a process, not a goal. If my goal had been to create world-changing ideas that worked right away, I would be a complete failure. But I don't have that goal. Instead, I have a process that involves seeding the universe with ideas and waiting for the strongest to evolve and make a difference. The worst case scenario is that my ideas cause the eventual best ideas to compete harder and evolve to even better forms. When you use a process that makes sense, even the unanticipated outcomes are good.
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