Been thinking for a while about the idea of making a documentary about why people continue to procreate. Would certainly lend itself to a Socratic sendup; quite often when the question is posed, nary another word need be said, people will come up with the damnedest reasons, most end up sounding selfish. Today, it occurred to me that the real function of reproduction these days is to continue a virtual property line. The Americans constitute a small portion of the world's population, but consume a majority of its resources. Consumption is itself an example of a property right, but one where only continued use keeps it alive. We call it our way of life. Wouldn't require reproduction except for the fact that we all want a good 30 years of paid retirement these days. Saw a mind-blowing statistic last week: in 1955, the average male died 1.5 years after retirement.
How can it be that all of human life has been lived as though there were no limits, and now, suddenly, we seem to be up against the wall in every direction: the ocean on its way to being empty, unsustainable food practices, oil, transportation. It's hard enough to imagine how we remained completely oblivious, but harder to imagine is how people can remain in the same modes of behavior after. Game theorists recognize this as an archetype, typified by an electricity shortage: announcements are made that there is not enough for everyone to have their air conditioner on. Most of the players end up using their air conditioner as they would have, figuring that their abstention will not make much difference.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Non-Emergent
Emergence is a subject that warps the mind and changes one's perspective on everything. It offers a valuable perspective on the sorry state of American politics. The founders were ahead of their times in countless ways (and of course, behind them in many). It's not hard to mount an argument that they were the first discoverers of an emergent process management model. The Reader's Digest version of Emergence is that it is a system in which complex things emerge from repeated iterations generated from a rather simple set of forms and rules. The element that often never gets enough attention is the role of locality. In reading the political scene from this perspective, that becomes the key, and the founders insistence that the rule in government should be to localize all issues except the ones that cannot be localized seems noble and sober.
So where are we now? There is no locality left. We have federalized everything. And even worse than that, we've instituted a system in which the whole representative system is now subservient to being overridden by this federal dependency (that was hard to foresee), as was seen repeatedly when referenda were passed that the feds did not approve of and they threatened withdrawal of funding for other programs. This process of the states having to go and beg for their own money back probably is best epitomized (probably did not start with but certainly went elliptical on) by the relationship between FDR and La Guardia. Of course, the winner is the one who puts two chips in the pot and is able to convince the pot handlers to give him three back. Begs a few questions: is it not just preposterous to argue that states rights has any meaning anymore? without states rights, can we be considered free in the same ways? are we not a soviet?
Some of the reasons this can lead nowhere good is:
a. Democracy (we know we don't have) and even a representative government, requires participation. We are at the Grand Inquisitor stage in that regard, having cast off our freedom, willfully, and we cannot blame the government for that. (They're coming for more than that next.) Without participation, how can we claim to be free? What we are is captive. Our real rulers simply craft 'concensus' in a rhetorical vacuum and then tag their results. (How often have you heard people in our free society say that if a vote goes the wrong way, it is because their message did not get through?)
b. Federalizations of issues fall in the class of problems illustrated by a scrambled egg: simple to do, impossible to undo.
Now, for the rather bizarre predictions: this is the source of the identity crisis in the two parties for the following reasons:
Republicans - Even the Reagan Revolution was based on defederalization. Nothing happened, moment is so passed, in short retrospect it looks like an artifact from the 1880s. The Republicans are sticking, beyond all reason, to the argument that the market can solve all problems (and yet, they are spending more money than the last two Democrat regimes). This formulation is an emergent notion, without the emergence; it is a headless, rudderless gambit that requires almost unfathomable denial (and/or ignorance). Energy, the ozone, drugs. These problems are not going to solve themselves. The Republicans are like the security people who were on the PA on 9/11 telling people to go back to their desks.
Democrats - Their argument has likewise reached a situation that could be flattered with the word intractable. The Clintonian, failed Gore follow-on argument is the 'we can manage these problems, and do it better, more efficiently.' Emergence tells us that this is almost as insane a position as the Republicans. The problems are too complex, the management abilities too feeble. As the Liberterians are fond of saying: fifty years of government agencies later (FDA, EPA, ATF, etc.) do we have cleaner water, safer food, less drugs?
Unfortunately, the Liberterians seem also a tad absurd. No government at any level, just let people be, they will solve their own problems. No, the market will not solve these problems and furthermore, the solutions to some of these problems are going to start to reach a state that looks to at least threaten terminal consequences.
Ultimately, patronage ends up looking more like an emergent and progressive approach to some of these intractable problems. The idea that the government should not patronize anything is appealing. But then localized patronage would have to emerge and it seems incredible that perhaps now that might happen. Certainly the conditions are there. A million serious patron projects could be spawned from the trash bin of this dysfunctional gorgon we call our government.
So where are we now? There is no locality left. We have federalized everything. And even worse than that, we've instituted a system in which the whole representative system is now subservient to being overridden by this federal dependency (that was hard to foresee), as was seen repeatedly when referenda were passed that the feds did not approve of and they threatened withdrawal of funding for other programs. This process of the states having to go and beg for their own money back probably is best epitomized (probably did not start with but certainly went elliptical on) by the relationship between FDR and La Guardia. Of course, the winner is the one who puts two chips in the pot and is able to convince the pot handlers to give him three back. Begs a few questions: is it not just preposterous to argue that states rights has any meaning anymore? without states rights, can we be considered free in the same ways? are we not a soviet?
Some of the reasons this can lead nowhere good is:
a. Democracy (we know we don't have) and even a representative government, requires participation. We are at the Grand Inquisitor stage in that regard, having cast off our freedom, willfully, and we cannot blame the government for that. (They're coming for more than that next.) Without participation, how can we claim to be free? What we are is captive. Our real rulers simply craft 'concensus' in a rhetorical vacuum and then tag their results. (How often have you heard people in our free society say that if a vote goes the wrong way, it is because their message did not get through?)
b. Federalizations of issues fall in the class of problems illustrated by a scrambled egg: simple to do, impossible to undo.
Now, for the rather bizarre predictions: this is the source of the identity crisis in the two parties for the following reasons:
Republicans - Even the Reagan Revolution was based on defederalization. Nothing happened, moment is so passed, in short retrospect it looks like an artifact from the 1880s. The Republicans are sticking, beyond all reason, to the argument that the market can solve all problems (and yet, they are spending more money than the last two Democrat regimes). This formulation is an emergent notion, without the emergence; it is a headless, rudderless gambit that requires almost unfathomable denial (and/or ignorance). Energy, the ozone, drugs. These problems are not going to solve themselves. The Republicans are like the security people who were on the PA on 9/11 telling people to go back to their desks.
Democrats - Their argument has likewise reached a situation that could be flattered with the word intractable. The Clintonian, failed Gore follow-on argument is the 'we can manage these problems, and do it better, more efficiently.' Emergence tells us that this is almost as insane a position as the Republicans. The problems are too complex, the management abilities too feeble. As the Liberterians are fond of saying: fifty years of government agencies later (FDA, EPA, ATF, etc.) do we have cleaner water, safer food, less drugs?
Unfortunately, the Liberterians seem also a tad absurd. No government at any level, just let people be, they will solve their own problems. No, the market will not solve these problems and furthermore, the solutions to some of these problems are going to start to reach a state that looks to at least threaten terminal consequences.
Ultimately, patronage ends up looking more like an emergent and progressive approach to some of these intractable problems. The idea that the government should not patronize anything is appealing. But then localized patronage would have to emerge and it seems incredible that perhaps now that might happen. Certainly the conditions are there. A million serious patron projects could be spawned from the trash bin of this dysfunctional gorgon we call our government.
Friday, July 23, 2004
Pharmaceutical Trigger
Saw a piece on Glen Campbell's drunk driving arrest on Dateline. The first half looked like the typical piece on drinking: the history, the typical behaviors, the typical conclusions. But then, an amazing thing happened. They mentioned the fact that Campbell had had some kind of medical procedure and was then prescribed pain meds that produced anxiety attacks. That made him turn back to alcohol.
Nevermind the fact that the line between legal and illegal drugs, like so many other things in this winded culture, has become arbitrary to the point of utter meaninglessness. But the really evil part is that there is a straw man out there, the patsy, the cliche, that covers for the new, unregulated money-makers that wreak far more havoc in a month than pot has in millions of years.
Does this argument seem disjointed? As though the connection is tenuous? But isn't all drug prosecution about explaining the source of behavior? In this case, the source is a first layer that drops into another. The absolute inculpability of legal drugs under any circumstances is one of the most damning indictments of the preposterous drug war.
Nevermind the fact that the line between legal and illegal drugs, like so many other things in this winded culture, has become arbitrary to the point of utter meaninglessness. But the really evil part is that there is a straw man out there, the patsy, the cliche, that covers for the new, unregulated money-makers that wreak far more havoc in a month than pot has in millions of years.
Does this argument seem disjointed? As though the connection is tenuous? But isn't all drug prosecution about explaining the source of behavior? In this case, the source is a first layer that drops into another. The absolute inculpability of legal drugs under any circumstances is one of the most damning indictments of the preposterous drug war.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Making of Martha
Ok, let's throw out the false dichotomy of nature and nurture for a minute. Nash's first paper on game theory was about equilibriums. Martha is a monster that shows just how sick our culture is: in the guise of the quaint, humble and helpful retro matron comes a dried and pitted monomaniac who makes one wonder if Napoleonic is still a usable adjective. Her bio-graphy is rather hilarious in that there was no secret where her caisson was headed: stock broker cum cookie baker? Oh, please. There is no journalism left, we just let people take the micro-phone, if they can pay for it. There is something great about that though, since they very often pour the water over their own heads and then give us the opportunity to watch them melt as they sing 'woe is me.' Martha's rendition has been insane, from her commercial on the courthouse steps to her comparison of herself to Nelson Mandela. Her books are a crock, her recipes don't work and everyone who has worked with her hates her.
But what Martha really shows us is how sick we are. As people retreat further from actually living, they become more prone to falling for a proxy, even a completely phony, money-grubbing one. Not so much a diva (she has NOTHING to say/sing), she is a priestess: mere middle-woman (midwife). Ultimately the pill she issues is the illusion of recapturing time: feeding a nation of people who have scarcely a minute to do anything that doesn't make them money (note the irony), Martha is serving up the illusion of having time to make gunnysack thread holders or doilies for your next garden party.
But what Martha really shows us is how sick we are. As people retreat further from actually living, they become more prone to falling for a proxy, even a completely phony, money-grubbing one. Not so much a diva (she has NOTHING to say/sing), she is a priestess: mere middle-woman (midwife). Ultimately the pill she issues is the illusion of recapturing time: feeding a nation of people who have scarcely a minute to do anything that doesn't make them money (note the irony), Martha is serving up the illusion of having time to make gunnysack thread holders or doilies for your next garden party.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
Son of Sam
Saw a great Dateline piece tonight about Son of Sam that pretty much convinced me that Berkowitz was not the lone killer. This after the central park wilding case is just more evidence that the NYPD is a complete joke. Another huge point that I found out for the first time: a witness told the police that the man she passed in the street took a ticket off his car. I had always heard it told that the police were dutifully trying to find anyway they could to discover who might have been in the area, making the matching of the ticket a brilliant turn. The reality conforms perfectly to Poe's Dupin depiction of the police, the one that is on display in all the real forensics shows like 'New Detectives': the cops don't figure out anything, they sit back and eat donuts until someone walks in the door and solves the case for them.
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