Scott Adams's Blog, page 368

Wiki Ignorance Test

I often get into political debates in which one of the participants is ignorant of the basic facts. Worse yet, that ignorant person is usually me. Oh, and it's usually the other person too. We think we're entitled to our opinions, but we probably aren't.

Imagine an objective standard for deciding who is entitled to have an opinion on a topic. All we need is some sort of wiki (user created website) where the basic facts on any debate can be assembled in the form of an ever-evolving multiple choice test. When you find yourself in a debate with someone who hasn't yet passed the test on that topic with a score of 100%, you declare yourself the winner by virtue of being better informed, assuming you scored 100%.

If both of you have taken the test and scored less than 100%, you declare yourselves "not entitled to your opinions" and walk away. If each of you scored 100% then you are, by my definition, entitled to your opinion.

I suppose the website would need to send out emails to anyone who took the test whenever a new question was added or altered, just to keep everyone current. That means you would need to register when you took the test.

For example, let's say the topic is How to Reduce the National Debt. One question might look like this:

1.       Which of the following ways to reduce the U.S. national debt is impossible
          (as opposed to politically difficult,  painful, or highly unlikely):

a.       Increase taxes
b.      Cut spending
c.       Grow the economy
d.      Inflation

The answer is here, at least according to one expert.

Another question might be something along these lines:

2.       Supply Side economics holds that cutting taxes will stimulate enough extra growth in the economy to increase tax revenues by more than the amount you cut, thus reducing the deficit. According to 90% of economists polled (per some hypothetical survey), in the case of the current U.S. national debt, this approach has the following potential:

a.       Likely to succeed
b.      50-50 chance
c.       Unlikely to succeed
d.      Zero chance of succeeding

You can imagine a few dozen more questions on this topic that a person would need to understand before being entitled to his opinion. And if this dream ever comes true, I'd like to see opinion polls limited to only the people who scored 100% on the basic facts.

The second thing I'd like to see is the television media labeling pundits in real time. That sort of interview might go like this:

Media: How would you balance the budget?

Politician: I would cut spending.

Media: What part of the budget would you cut to balance the budget?

Politician: I would cut the pork.

Media: If you think that's enough, you're either a liar or an idiot. Can you clarify which one you are?

Politician: I am insulted by that question!

Media: If you understood the question that rules out "idiot."

That fantasy can't happen, obviously, because no one would agree to go on a show where the questions are tough and the outcome is humiliation. But I can dream.

Sweden

Here's a list of three things that you are unlikely to do, at least in this order:

1.       Watch a Swedish movie called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2.       Read about the Swedish sex charges against Julian Assange
3.       Book a vacation to Sweden

I am always amused by the strange impact of unintended consequences. Julian Assange simply wanted to release some embarrassing information, have hot sex with a Swedish babe then have hot sex with an acquaintance of that same babe one day later. That's just one example of why the Swedish language has 400 words that all mean "and your cute friend is next."

But things didn't turn out as Assange hoped.  The unintended consequence of his actions is that he managed to make Sweden look like a country that's governed by congenital idiots and populated with nothing but crazy sluts and lawyers. And don't get me started about the quality of their condoms.

To be fair, I don't know if Assange's alleged broken condom is because the product was defective. We have good evidence that Assange has the world's biggest set of nuts, so assuming some degree of proportionality, he'd put a strain on any brand of condom that didn't have rebar ribs.

Assange had a lot of help making Sweden look like the last place on Earth that you would want to take your penis. The aforementioned megahit movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, makes the place look like a snow-filled ass cave that Jeffrey Dahmer lived in before he got a raise. (It's a good movie otherwise.)

If you haven't read any background about the so-called rape charges against Assange, you really should. Apparently Swedish laws are unique.  If you have a penis, you're half a rapist before you even get through customs. And if your condom breaks, that's jail time. What I'm saying is that the Club Med in Sweden is a nervous place.

I was having a hard time making up my mind about Assange. On one hand, he might be hurting the interests of my country and putting people in danger. Death to him! On the other hand, a little extra government transparency might prevent more problems than it causes.  Hero!  It was a toss-up. Then Sweden turned Assange from a man-whore publicity hound into Gandhi.  Advantage: Assange.

The one thing I know for sure is that I'm a fan of the hackers who are dispensing vigilante justice. Here's another unintended consequence: The hackers could end up organizing over this issue and ultimately forming a shadow government of their own, if they haven't already.  I welcome my hacker overlords.

Prediction: The governments of the world can't let Assange become a martyr. He would be too powerful. They'll pressure Sweden to release him on some sort of technicality.

 

 

Taxation

Today's idea is totally impractical. Let's get that out the way.

The idea is to change the tax code in the U.S. so that the so-called rich are the only taxpayers funding social services, while the taxes collected from the middle class go exclusively toward defense and the other nuts and bolts of running the government. For this discussion, imagine that these tax pools never mingle. (That's just one of the many impractical parts.)

I think we can make the math work by jiggering with the level at which "rich" is defined. On day one of this new plan, the government gets the same amount of tax revenue as it would from the old system. The interesting part comes in future years.

Once you give the rich the full burden of social services for the poor, the rich have a deeper interest in solving those problems to put a lid on their own future taxes. In twenty years, if the rich have figured out a clever way to reduce poverty, their taxes would drop.

In our current system, reducing poverty doesn't help the rich in a direct way. For the most part, the rich don't even know any poor people. And with today's system, if half of the poor suddenly got good jobs tomorrow, the taxes paid by the rich would just be diverted to some other black hole. Our current system gives the rich no financial incentive to go after the root causes of poverty. The rich are primarily incented to lobby their own government to cut services for the poor. That's a perverse incentive.

In this new imagined system, the middle class would be responsible for funding the basic operation of the government. They too would have a new financial incentive to make government smaller and more efficient. If successful, they wouldn't need to worry that their tax dollars would simply transfer to the poor, since the rich are funding that group. If the middle class finds a way to reduce military spending, they get to keep that gain in the form of lower taxes.

I'm thinking along these lines because we need a radically different approach to funding the future. I doubt we can ever raise taxes enough to pay for a world that is rapidly filling up with old people who have no savings, while the climate is ravaging the world, and North Korea is selling nuclear-tipped drones to terrorists. Put another way, any version of our current approach leads to certain doom.

But I'm an optimist. I think we can find a way to reduce the cost of living by 60%, at least for the poor and the elderly, while making life more meaningful at the same time. That has to be the solution for a future where there will be only one worker for every five retired people. There's no practical way to tax the workforce of the future enough to keep the world out of a death spiral. You can't get there from here. Society needs to change its...well, just about everything.

And so I imagine that the rich people of the future will pursue their own best interests by designing and funding entire new cities that are relatively protected from global warming, powered by clean energy, absurdly inexpensive for the inhabitants, and optimized for a satisfying and social lifestyle.  While these cities (or suburbs) are being constructed, maybe on the oceans or in deserts, many jobs will be created. The new cities will be designed so that even an 80-year old can have a part time job if his mind still works. The cities will be operated for profit, with the main benefit being a lid on what would otherwise be terminal tax rates or a crushing national debt.

As I said, this isn't a practical idea. But it's worth noting that no one has a practical idea for avoiding economic collapse in your lifetime. The triple threat of global warming, an aging population, and spiraling debt pretty much guarantees doom. (It's called math, bitch!) The solution, if one exists, will appear impractical when it is first introduced. Impractical is the antidote to doomed.

National Discard Day

Christmas is an excellent holiday for children. But we adults need our own holiday - one that is something like the opposite of Christmas. Let's call it National Discard Day. It could be in June, just for symmetry. The concept for this holiday is that each of your friends and loved ones gets to decide which of your current possessions you have to get rid of. It's like reverse gift-giving.

In December, people say "Happy holidays!" and "Happy New Year!" In June, around National Discard Day, you might hear something more along the lines of "Lose the Crocs, dipshit. You're not Woody Harrelson." National Discard Day would be cruel but practical.

I came upon this idea after hearing stories of old people's houses that are cluttered beyond all reason. The elderly often have three of everything. I always assumed that the packrat impulse comes from growing up during the Depression. There's no point in giving away something that you might need to barter for food.

I was thankful that I'm not like that. Then one day I noticed that we have three vacuum cleaners in the garage. One is lightweight, and good for quick jobs, but it has no hose attachment. The other is useless except for the hose attachment.  We need both of those vacuum cleaners, obviously.  The third vacuum cleaner is the "good" one that does everything well, but it is literally too complicated to operate. It's like the bastard son of Iron Man and Optimus Prime. I can't tell if I'm preparing to use the hose attachment or giving it a goddamn happy ending.

Topping it off, our new home has a whole house vacuum system. You just plug a hose into the wall and go. And not long ago I owned a Shop-Vac, until it lost a cage fight with me in the garage, may it rest in pieces. I'll probably get a new one for Christmas. If you're keeping count, we will soon have something like 5.5 vacuum cleaning systems, assuming the Dust Buster counts as a half.

Apparently The Great Depression isn't the cause of hoarding. There is always some perfectly good "reason" for keeping stuff. For example, you can't throw away an old chair because someday you might need it for a party. You can't throw away an ugly knickknack because it was a gift. You can't throw away your stained sweatshirt because nothing else is quite as comfortable.

That's where National Discard Day comes in. You need the help of other people to make the hard decisions for you.  In a perfect world, once your home reaches some point of possession saturation, one item must be discarded for every item that enters. No exceptions. If you disagree, I label you a hoarder.

In my case, our loved ones would presumably force us to get rid of our Dust Buster and our two semi-crippled vacuum cleaners. The only downside is that trying to figure out how to use the "good" vacuum cleaner looks a lot like porn for gay robots. But I can live with that.

I discovered a contributing factor in the clutter problem when I visited my old home town of Windham New York. At the local dump, a sign said it costs $7.50 for any "appliance" that you discard. That includes anything from a toaster to an old bed frame. For that price, and in this economy, it makes more sense to move a broken appliance out to the porch and just leave it there. Better yet, use duct tape to strap your half-broken toaster to your new one and be the first person in town with a three-slicer. My point is that Windham's dump fees are not helping to beautify the town.

Who's with me on National Discard Day? I think it could be big.

Two Conspiracy Theories

I'm a fan of conspiracy theories. I'm fascinated by the fact that any wild story can be engineered to sound feasible to some portion of the public. Let's call this the ordinary kind of conspiracy theory, such as the idea that a small group of rich people are secretly running the world, or that aliens are abducting people and implanting chips in their necks. These conspiracy theories are hugely unlikely by their nature.

But there's another category of conspiracy theory that is way cooler. These are the theories that are far more likely to be true than not, although no smoking gun has been found. I give you today, two conspiracy theories of my own design. I'm not saying these are true. I'm just saying they are far more likely to be true than false. We'll probably never know.

Conspiracy one: The stock markets of the world are manipulated by highly sophisticated and undetectable software viruses. Some group is forcing its own automated trades to the front of the line just before every market move. Or perhaps the program is causing market fluctuations on its own. You might have noticed that for the past ten years, the stock market fluctuates quite a bit, often in an opposite direction to what the news would predict. Analysts explain it away by saying, for example, "The market was hoping for even better news than the good news they got." A simpler explanation is that the market is being manipulated.

This conspiracy theory wasn't as plausible sounding before we learned of the Stuxnet virus attack on the Iranian nuclear facility. (See my earlier post on that.)  We learned that experts can indeed create undetectable viruses that can penetrate computers that are not physically attached to the grid. Now throw in a trillion dollars of incentive, and the odds that it has already happened to the financial markets approach 100%. In fact, the likelihood is that a dozen or more viruses are running loose in the financial networks, probably laundering their gains through hedge funds who claim to have top secret algorithms for predicting market moves. Compare these two claims and tell me which one sounds more likely:

1.       Our hedge fund has a secret algorithm.

2.       Our hedge fund is using existing technology to steal your money.

Conspiracy two:  The recent Wikileaks about the United States were intentionally leaked by our government. Have you noticed that nothing in the leaks is news? It's everything we already knew. Pakistan isn't a reliable ally in the war on terror? Shocking! Saudis hate Iranians? Shocking! Saudi Arabia funds Al Qaeda? Shocking!

Maybe it's the artist (sort of) in me, but I always think empty space in real life is just as intentional as it is in landscape compositions. The lack of bombshells in the Wikileak materials looks mighty suspicious to me.  Some observers are going so far as to say that the report does little more than show that U.S. diplomats are doing a fine job. Compare these two theories and tell me which one sounds more likely:

1.       U.S. Diplomats are the only group of people on Earth who are all doing a fine job. And they never write down anything that is worse than just baaarely embarrassing.  And someone risked being executed as a traitor to release this non-news.

2.       The U.S. government leaked the information itself, after taking out the good parts, because somewhere buried in the pile is an idea that they want "accidentally" released to the world.

I give this theory a 60% chance of being true because it would be easy for the government to pull it off, there's a good chance it would be useful, and it is well within the normal political bag of tricks. If you see a "leak" revelation in the next few days that seems to help the government's strategy more than it hurts, I might raise my estimate.

Impractical Solutions to Intractable Problems

Today's impractical suggestion is to make all voting online. My theory is that this simple change could solve just about every major problem in the world. Is that an exaggeration? You be the judge.

Imagine we set a target date for online voting, five years out. That's enough time to solve any voter identification issues and other logistics. For voters who have no computers of their own, the local high school could provide iPads and human helpers for walk-ins.  In ten years, that service would be phased out. By then, if you don't have access to a computer, voting is probably going to be low on your list of priorities.

The first benefit of online voting is that more people would vote, especially the young. When you can vote from your cubicle, or from your bed, you might bother to take the time, at least for the issues that you care about.

When young people become a larger voting force, change becomes easier. For example, it would be easier for politicians to support cutting the military and Social Security budgets if they had lots of young voters on their side.  The young have a natural tendency to shake up the status quo, and that's necessary for a society to evolve and prosper. The alternative is the deadlock and death spiral we seem to be in.

Imagine that this future online voting interface has links to the best arguments for each issue, with simple supporting graphics. Voters could peruse the candidates' voting records and positions. All relevant information that a voter needs would be clearly presented, and compared and contrasted, in a way that traditional media can't handle. As a result, voters would become far more informed, even if it only happened minutes before the actual vote.

My observation is that voters often unwittingly vote for candidates that disagree with their own positions. Imagine that voters could answer questions about their own political preferences and then the system would color code the candidates that most closely match their own views.  Such a system   would alert voters when they are voting against their own interests, while still allowing the option to do so. Online versions of what I'm describing already exist but they aren't integrated with the actual voting interface. That's a big difference. Convenience matters.

Imagine, as part of this voting interface, an online model of the national budget that you can tweak on your own, so you can see how much difference it makes to raise taxes on the rich, or cut specific budget categories. (Such models exist online, but I haven't seen a great one yet.) Before you vote, you could fiddle with the online budget model to get a visceral feel for what sorts of budget cuts and tax increases make the biggest difference. In my view, understanding the budget, at some high level, is the minimum knowledge a voter needs to cast an informed vote.

In our current political model, candidates take advantage of what I call (usually in a business context) a confusopoly. They make general philosophical comments about the budget that are logically and mathematically impossible. Everyone else is doing the same, and because the budget is complicated and confusing, candidates can get away with it. But a viable third-party candidate with a specific budget plan would make the confusopoly candidates seem like empty suits.

In our current system, viable third-party candidates rarely emerge.  But online voting would make third-party candidates more viable. Voters could easily see each candidate's background and views on the issues, plus video clips of speeches.  A qualified candidate could run for president on a shoestring budget. All he'd need is a lot of Facebook friends to get things started. Social networks would replace primaries.

Our current system, which features massive traditional advertising aimed primarily at older voters, would become obsolete. With online voting, the average age of voters would shift dramatically lower. The young are less susceptible to advertising because they use technology such as DVRs and ad-blocking software to avoid ads. And they avoid traditional print media altogether.  When big advertising budgets become less effective, special interests become less powerful because their money can't help politicians get elected.

I started this post by claiming online voting would solve almost every problem in the world. My observation is that our planet doesn't suffer from a lack of resources, just a lack of competence in managing those resources. Online voting could replace a broken government with one that allocates resources efficiently. And that one change, in time, could stimulate and release the economy to solve almost every problem in the world.

 

Holy Nerdgasm!

I don't like to post links to other content and call it a day, but I'm making an exception. This is the most fascinating thing I've read in a year. And if I know the people who visit this blog, you'll agree.

You already know the basic story. This report adds some wonderful flavor.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/

Unions

Imagine members of the U.S. military forming a union to improve their working conditions, job security, benefits and compensation. Right, you can’t imagine it. Military unions are illegal for a good reason. The military is designed to optimize national defense. You don’t want soldiers going on strike when they should be attacking. Homeland defense is clearly the highest priority. Or as Spock says, the good of the many outweighs the good of the few.

Now imagine that U.S. schoolteachers form a union to improve their own working conditions, job security, benefits and compensation. Right, that already exists.  But why is it legal?

In the long run, education is as critical to national defense as the military. Education is the engine that drives our economic wellbeing. And a robust economy gives us the means to fund every element of defense, from Homeland Security, to research and development, to the military itself.

A strong economy, along with active foreign trade, turns potential military rivals into customers and suppliers. It’s unlikely, for example, that China and the U.S. would get into a war anytime soon because our economies are too dependent.  China and the U.S. have literally educated their respective countries out of potential war with each other.

Obviously one can argue that unions have a useful role in some types of industries.  Without unions, or the threat of unions, business owners would drift toward abusiveness.  And obviously one can argue that unions cause problems of their own. It’s an imperfect system. But for now, let’s ignore the question of whether unions are good or evil in some general sense and focus on the question of why teachers can have unions but soldiers cannot. Why the difference? Spock would not see the logic in this.

At the moment, education is treated about the same as the Department of Motor Vehicles. It’s something the states should worry about. Imagine how things would be different if education were treated as a national defense issue. In a world where education is branded as the foundation of national defense, if we didn’t get enough high quality volunteer teachers, a draft would be instituted. If parents didn’t ensure that their kids finished their homework, the entire family would be deemed unpatriotic.

I assume we can’t get to that imagined place from here because of the political clout of unions. But just for fun, imagine a third-party candidate for president who cleverly brands education as a national defense issue, and labels anyone who disagrees with him as both unpatriotic and soft on defense.  That would be some fun.

Here I remind you that cartoonists don’t know much about education, politics, unions, or national defense. And if you happen to know my sister, who is a teacher, please don’t tell her I wrote this.

Shopping Tips for Men

Men, this holiday season, when you find yourself in your automobile with your wife or girlfriend, returning from some sort of entertaining event, watch out for any of these early indicators of a shopping bait-and-switch:

"I just remembered something I need to pick up."

"We'll be driving right past..."

"This will only take a minute."

For a man, shopping with a woman is a state of existence that is neither living nor dead. It's a shadow world. Technically, you still have a pulse. But like a corpse, you have no control over where you are or what you're looking at. You might try to settle the ambiguity by trying to contribute to the shopping experience, in a way that you imagine a living person might, but it won't work. That looks something like this:

Man: "How about this one?"

Woman: "No."

Repeat.

So you try to go the other way, slumping into a chair if you're lucky enough to be in a furniture store, or sleeping on your feet like a horse if not. That's called "not helping," and in the long run it is a worse option than death. You know you'll pay for it later, but sometimes you can't help it. Shopping drains you.  Your vision narrows until it seems as if you're viewing the store through a hose. And your heart stops circulating your blood because it just doesn't see the point of it. Before long, you're full of stale blood. You reach for your phone, like smelling salts, to give you some stimulation, but dear God there is no signal in the store.

Maybe you think you can find relief by pushing the shopping cart. To the ignorant observer, that looks like helping. And you hope it will be enough stimulation to keep your brain above room temperature. But it's a rookie mistake. In the context of couples shopping, pushing the cart is a process of relocating your selected products from one wrong location to another. For example, you might move the cart from a position of not being close enough to the shopper-in-chief to a new position that is crowding an old lady, or blocking a popular shelf. Repeat.

Sometimes, for reasons involving senseless cruelty, your shopping companion will ask you which one of two items you prefer.  You know it's a trap. But you also know there's no way to wiggle out of it. Now you have two choices. You can either be an unhelpful and indecisive wimp, or you can be a frickin' idiot. There are no other options.  I recommend the frickin' idiot path because it's more masculine. That choice goes like this.

Woman:  "Which one do you like?"

Man: "Definitely this one."

Woman: "Why do you like that one better?"

Thus begins your chance to prove that you have not been listening to anything she has said about this entire category of her life, beginning with your first date and continuing all the way through the car ride that got you to this horrible, horrible place.

Husbands have been trying to weasel out of this trap since the dawn of time. Your best bet - the Hail Mary play - is misdirection. Try changing the subject. At the very least it can buy you some time. For example...

Man: "I like the yellow one because it reminds me of your eyes."

Woman: "What the hell? My eyes aren't yellow!"

Man: "They are a little bit. Have you had your liver tested lately?"

Scan or Pat Down

I was traveling this weekend, and for the first time had to choose between an airport pat down search and an intrusive full body scan.  Did you know that those TSA guys don't have a sense of humor? The conversation at the security checkpoint went something like this.

TSA Guy 1: Do you want a pat down or a full body scan?

Scott: They both sound good.

TSA Guy1: What?

Scott: If I do the full body scan, am I allowed to twirl?

TSA Guy1: Excuse me?

Scott: Can I see who's doing the pat downs before I decide?

TSA Guy1: It's that officer (pointing).

Scott: (sexily) Ooh, yes. That will do nicely. Grrrrrr.

TSA Guy1: (Dirty look) Step over there.

Scott: Can you help him? It will be twice as fast...for both of us, if you know what I mean.

TSA Guy2: (angry look)

The pat down guy waves me into position and tells me to put my arms up. I let out a creepy moan of delight. He sneers at me with a "Let's just get this over with" attitude and starts in.

TSA Guy2: This will only take a second.

Scott: What if you find a suspicious package?

TSA Guy2: We don't search for packages, sir.

Scott: That's not what my scanner says.

He ignores me and starts patting my right leg, from low to top.

Scott: (creepily) That's it...oh yeah...That's what I'm talking about.

The TSA guy stands abruptly and motions over his supervisor, a woman in her early forties. By this point, I'm all in. Before she gets to us, I say one last thing to the TSA guy in a hushed voice.

Scott: Now it's a party. She can do from my waist up.

He ignores me. The supervisor comes over.

Supervisor: (sternly) What is the problem here, sir?

The TSA guy tries to explain what's happening, but he discovers that it doesn't translate when repeated in a serious monotone. So he changes his approach and says something vague about me not taking the process seriously. His supervisor decides to back him.

Supervisor: Sir, if you don't take this seriously, I'll have to have you handcuffed.

Scott: Can I choose the handcuffs and the full body scan at the same time? I've been practicing some dance moves at home.  Can they burn a DVD for me?

At this point in my story I should confess that none of this actually happened. And I don't recommend that you try anything like it.

I'm fascinated by the fact that humor and reality are intertwined. The only thing that made this story funny (if you saw it that way) was your assumption, to a point, that it really happened. This same story in the context of a fictional novel wouldn't be nearly as interesting. That's why you rarely see humor books on best seller lists. Fictional humor doesn't interest modern readers, and real life is rarely rich enough to fill a book. Case in point, the best humor writer of our time, David Sedaris, apparently has the triple advantage of:

1.       Immense talent

2.       An astoundingly dysfunctional childhood

3.       No shame about embarrassing loved ones.

The reality-as-humor trend is a fairly recent phenomenon, at least in its fullness. In my opinion, Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series wouldn't have been successful if it came out today. In its time, it was a treasure. Society's notion of humor evolves.

I have a theory that kids of this generation don't laugh at manufactured humor, even though they consume it in great quantities on TV and in movies. The exception is any sort of fart joke. But for kids, farts are about reality.

If you have kids, do they laugh out loud at humorous TV shows or movies that do not depict reality? You might think they do, or assume they do, but pay close attention over the holiday. You might be surprised.