Category Archives: Politics

Mr. Thiel Speaks

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When you look for science news at news aggegation sites like Google News or popular publications like, well, any given magazine or newspaper, or (yawn) any given non-fiction television program, what you are likely to find are fluff pieces on topics related to medicine, automobiles, and telecommunications. To people in the news business, scientific progress means new kinds of medicines, better cars, and the latest (n+1)G cell phone or iPad.

It is possible for even successful people to apply pop-culture metrics to economic theory. For instance, the founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, has written an essay for The National Review in which he questions the motives of scientists as well as their ability to maintain the growth of scientific progress.

The state of true science is the key to knowing whether something is truly rotten in the United States. But any such assessment encounters an immediate and almost insuperable challenge. Who can speak about the true health of the ever-expanding universe of human knowledge, given how complex, esoteric, and specialized the many scientific and technological fields have become? When any given field takes half a lifetime of study to master, who can compare and contrast and properly weight the rate of progress in nanotechnology and cryptography and superstring theory and 610 other disciplines? Indeed, how do we even know whether the so-called scientists are not just lawmakers and politicians in disguise (italics mine), as some conservatives suspect in fields as disparate as climate change, evolutionary biology, and embryonic-stem-cell research, and as I have come to suspect in almost all fields?

The article goes on to paint a picture of failure on the part of the scientific community for not coming up with a Moore’s law style of continuous bounty for the consumer.

Here is where I greatly disagree with Thiel. He cites the stagnation of wages as an indicator of economic progress which, in turn, is an indicator of tepid technological progress.

Let us now try to tackle this very thorny measurement problem from a very different angle. If meaningful scientific and technological progress occurs, then we reasonably would expect greater economic prosperity (though this may be offset by other factors). And also in reverse: If economic gains, as measured by certain key indicators, have been limited or nonexistent, then perhaps so has scientific and technological progress. Therefore, to the extent that economic growth is easier to quantify than scientific or technological progress, economic numbers will contain indirect but important clues to our larger investigation.

… Taken at face value, the economic numbers suggest that the notion of breathtaking and across-the-board progress is far from the mark. If one believes the economic data, then one must reject the optimism of the scientific establishment (italics mine).  Peter Thiel, National Review.

This is where Thiel drives into the weeds. He conflates stagnant wages in the post Viet Nam era with a failure of science and technology to produce the kinds of advances he would recognize as worthy.

What is lost on Thiel is the fact that stagnant wages are a kind of benefit to employers and investors as the result of technology. Over this so-called period of stagnation in wages is a complementary increase in productivity. If anything the improvements in technology unseen by Thiel and his ilk have been applied to render human labor obsolete, thereby sustaining profits. China hasn’t gotten all American jobs. Machines have taken over much ot it.

The fact that Thiel scans the horizon from his perch and fails to see this is indicative of a kind of blindness of prosperity. In his world, technology is the internet. Apparently, people like Thiel only register scientific progress as a stream of shiny new consumer electronics, supersonic transport, or brain transplants. The advances in science and technology from the last 20 years are everywhere, not necessarily just in internet technology, cell phones, and Viagra.

Semiconductor technology is now well below the micron scale and heading to the tens of nanometers.  Bits of data are heading toward tens to hundreds of electrons per bit.  Lithographic fabrication at this scale allows for rules of thumb like Moore’s Law.  Growth in component density can multiply parabolically or more as greater  acreage of chip surface is consumed in 3 dimensions. Many doublings are possible in this domain.

But parabolic growth in aircraft or land vehicle speed is limited by other physics. A dynamic range of only a few factors of ten in vehicle speed are economically feasible.  Fossil fuels are fantastically well suited for use in transportation owing to their high energy density, low cost per kiloJoule, and ability to flow through pipes. Fundamentally new forms of energy storage are hard to find and are expensive.  All energy usage is consumption.  Science can only go so far in facilitating better forms of consumption for the profligate.  Doing work against gravity also consumes lots of energy, so the world of George Jetson never became feasible.

Ordinary automobiles that comprise a part of the stagnancy that Thiel bemoans are coated in highly advanced polymer coatings made from specialty monomers, catalysts, and initiators. The polymeric mechanical assemblies are highly engineered as well as is the robotic assembly of the vehicle. The implementation of automation in the manufacture of plain old cars is just a part of the overall issue of low job growth. In this case, technological advancement => stagnant growth in wages and employment.

Business and Government

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There is a common conceit out there that business people are in possession of some kind of skill set that makes them uniquely suited to occupy congressional and executive seats in government.  While business folk have organizational experience in general, it is hard to reconcile why the citizens of the USA would want the autocratic style of business lorded over them. Business serves the interest of shareholders primarily and stakeholders a distant second. Government serves at the interest and pleasure of citizens.

The imperative of business is to grow for the profit of the shareholders. Given this basic reality, I fail to see why a businesslike template should be applied to governance. We do not want government to grow for it’s own sake. 

Business, in principle at least, has better command and control feedback. Or so goes the thinking.  Have you ever tried to get an answer or some kind of satisfactory resolution to a problem from a very large company? As an individual with average cash resources, your singular pull is usually not very large.  If we are going to let market forces have control of national and state governance in the manner conceived by hard-right political candidates, what of the individual?

The marketplace is a kind of 24/7 professional wrestling match. It is a Darwinistic contest of the strong vs the weak. Do we really want to be governed by this kind of system? Do we really want every single aspect of our lives to be a dog-eat-dog competition? I thought the purpose of civilization was to buffer some the harshness out of our lives.  Do the proponents of 100 % laissez-faire really want the system to snuff out the weak and those of lesser means?  That would be those who occupy the opposite side of the bell curve from those of means.

The notion that we should let market forces freely influence governance is popular among those of means.  The privatization of government services will immediately benefit those who are already flush with resources. Because only those with current resources will be able to step into such a position.  It would represent a transfer of power to those who already hold commercial power. Power is in the ability to allocate resources.

Why low and medium income republicans favor privatization of government services is a complete mystery. The loss of control over the influences in their lives to unrestrained market forces is contrary to the common self-perception of rugged individualism.  Money and power tend to accumulate into the hands of a few. Examples are all over the place.  This is the lesson from the age of monarchy and of robber barons. 

Privatization in and of itself is not the answer. It is just another type of concentration of power that favors corporations and individuals who already have the resources to buy a seat at the table. Why would citizens of ordinary means want this? 

Well, they wouldn’t want this ordinarily. But if you create a stampede of frightened citizens, it is possible for a small group of highly motivated demagogues to steer a frightened herd in whatever direction they want. This is precisely what is happening today.  The overthrow of the prevalent system by such means has many examples on history.  Just look around.  The manufacture of consent is a thriving business.

Play it forward. Science as an extended subsidy.

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I search chemical abstracts nearly every day. What occurs to me is that this vast treasure of knowledge is substantially the result of tax revenue channeled into scientific research by numerous technologically advanced societies. While at the time of any given publication, the value might seem minimal. But over time people like me, people in applied industrial science, consume this treasure for the purpose of generating new goods and services. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we consult the subsidized results of other workers in the field. Subsidies of the past play forward to subsidies of the future. If we can’t lift an exact procedure from the scientific literature, then often we can apply new substrates to known transformation. 

In a very real sense, a resource like Chemical Abstracts is an engine of ingenuity. It’s content provides the means to innovation by outright disclosure or by sparking the imagination.  This work is enabled by government organizations funding people and institutions for the purpose of placing technology into the public domain.

While industrial or private organizations have the ability to generate a knowledge base as substantial and as in-depth, the fact is that the imperatives of private business are not in the direction of public disclosure. The imperative of the private sector is to channel wealth to the ownership. The free exchange of knowledge, in the context of business, is discouraged in that it amounts to the free distribution of cash. 

I hear people saying or implying that all things government are bad and that the private sector is inherently “more efficient” and therefore more meritorious.  What we have gotten from government subsidized science is an everlasting fountain of knowledge available to all to put into practice for whatever lawful purpose they can envision. 

An efficient life seems like a puritanical and regimented life.  And the application of efficiency will always fall under the control of the dominant social order. Is this really so desirable?  

Intellectual property has two sides. On one side, the generators of intellectual property can have the right to a timed monopoly on their art via patents. On the opposite side, the public treasury releases national treasure in order to educate the citizens who then generate proprietary art that is withheld from public use.  This amounts to a subsidy of the private sector.  It is a subsidy that sees little acknowledgement in the politics of today.  But such a thing has actually worked well for generations.  

What we are seeing in contemporary politics is the attempt to vilify and deconstruct government. But government has been central to the technological and consequently the economic expansion in the post WWII era.  The mechanism of collecting resources and focusing them on the solution of certain kinds of problems cannot be matched by the private sector. How would you operate the Centers for Disease Control on a greed based system like capitalism? 

Libertarians are always acknowledging the fundamental nature of greed and how it can be channeled into the efficient use of goods and services. I don’t disagree. What I take issue with is that greed must then be acknowledged as the dominant and true influencing force in society. We cannot allow this to be true. We must make provisions for tight control of greed. It is a useful but savage animal. 

In my view, the generation of knowledge and expertise is time and resource consuming. In order to have a particular amount of practical expertise on any given thing, you have to turn over a great many stones and learn an amount of art that is in large excess of the problem of the day. This actually applies to a definition of expertise- the ability to deal with problems that at first seem to be bigger than you can get your arms around. Expertise brings knowledge in the form of facts and problem solving skills. In order to attain expertise you have to absorb to information that at the moment seems superfluous.  In the end, the expert has a grasp of the length and breadth of a topic in excess to any given problem.

Our national system of scientific discovery and information abstracting serves to provide the reservoir of information that serves users into the future.  This information forms the basis of economic growth well into the future. As we go forward with the seemingly inevitable deconstruction of government, let us not forget what government has given us.

Challenging the paradigm

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Increasingly I am a fan of LinkTV. It is one of the very few alternative content networks around. I try to catch Deutche Wella  and Al Jazeera on Link a few times per week for a different perspective of world events. 

News programming in the US evolved decades ago into a business model which delivers manufactured consent to those who’ll pay for it.   News programmers in the US for the most part seem to have a notion that only they know what we really want to see. So they roll their tape for us.  Who really decides where the beady eye of scrutiny is pointed?

Really now. Why do we have the same tedious group of talking heads making the rounds on the news programs? In a country of 300 million, we can’t find a few others who will say something new or at least unexpected?  It’s just like the stars who appear on Leno.  In exchange for a free “performance”on the show, they get to promote their latest gig. It’s about low cost content.

In the case of news, the network gets “compelling commentary” for free by a guest who is calculated to cause eyeballs to linger a few moments.  News content has the shelflife of squid. It is no good tomorrow.

If you’re not alarmed by this kind of thing then you’re not paying attention.  Knock knock!! I’m talking to the 2/3 of the bell curve who may suspect that Fox, for instance, occasionally makes things up to suit the needs of its backers.  The 1/3 who watch Fox assiduously are perhaps not recoverable from their trance.

Numerous coworkers claim to be independent thinkers, but to a man or woman, will spout the same vocabulary and pre-framed concepts. They get their talking points from Fox, as directed.  I love these people, but their view of the world is a cartoon drawn by a couple of guys in a sound booth. It is sad.

A Modest Proposal for the Eurozone

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Here is what I propose as a solution for the European debt crisis.  Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Ireland should be given the option of swapping land in exchange for their debt. What land? Take a line of latitude from the southernmost tip northward until an area of land redeemed is equal to (debt (Euro) / 5000 Euro/hectare) which covers the debt. 

It should be pointed out that Napoleon voluntarily swapped the Louisiana territory for cash to raise operating funds for his adventures. After all, he was coming into new property in Europe.

As my consulting fee, I’ll take the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. It’s a charming spit of land and will be more than suitable.

Texas Justice. Fishing Crimes.

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You know, I really do like Texans. I lived there for a few years and I think I have an accurate sense of the place.  But Texans are Texans. It really is “like a whole ‘nother country” sometimes.

The Texas legislature recently passed the Fish Fraud law which specifically addresses the problem of fraud at fishing tournaments. The bill passed the house 142 to 4 and the senate 30 to 1 and awaits signing by the governor.  The bill provides penalties for fraud starting at a Class A Misdemeanor for the first offense to a third degree Felony for fishing crimes involving greater than $10,000 in prize money.  

According to the article, game wardens and prosecutors approached Representative Dan Flynn about  a fish fraud incident at Lake Ray Hubbard east of Dallas in October of 2009. Rep Flynn jumped on this outrage and brought the beady eye of scrutiny to bear on those dark hearted anglers who dare to flim-flam fishing tournaments. Case in point:  A semi-pro angler forced a 1 pound weight into a 9.5 lb bass, misrepresenting the weight of the fish and thus defrauding the tournament organizers. 

Without the benefit of a Fish Fraud law, the crooked angler got 15 days in jail, 5 years of probation, and loss of his fishing license for the duration of his probation.

It certainly seems to me like Texas Justice was swift and unblinking in this case without a special law on the books. The miscreant who perpetrated this act was nabbed by the local constable and thrown behind bars.

Ever wonder why there are so many laws on the books? This is an example of how it happens. Somebody games the system and legislators rush in to pack legislative caulking into a perceived hole in the wall. The Texas legislature has felonized yet somethng else. 

Are we really better off with an ever expanding definition of felonious acts?  The fisherman’s wickedness is plain for all to see. But does this one case merit the enactment of yet one more piece of legislation?  If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Maybe it’s best if we take some time off from inventing new laws and look at what we’ve wrought?

The 21st Century. The Century of China or Malthus?

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I’m trying hard not to be gloomy, but I’ve just been over at the The Oil Drum reading a post written by Jeremy Grantham, Chief Investment Officer at GMO Capital. This essay is notable in that it is written by someone in Grantham’s position. What I find so gloomy is the sense that our modern world is like a runaway train in terms of resource consumption.

People have been talking about peak oil and the importance of petroleum in nearly every material aspect of our lives since the Arab oil embaro of the 1970’s.  What free market enthusiasts and libertarians fail to emphasize is that the market is a social phenomenon; it is not physics. It is a phenomenon that is driven by desire.

The market is like a stomach- it has no brain. It only knows that it wants more.

The idea that you remove all elected government oversight and allow this stomach to reign free across the world is just another type of politics. Inevitably and always, money aggregates into the hands of a few percent of the human population and into the wire-transfer hands of synthetic people called corporations.

In a world of increasing scarcity the prospect of reduced consumption confounds political and business practices devoted to growth, since growth typically means increased consumption.

The key psychological barrier is this- How do we feel like we’re improving as we’re making do with less?

As the cost of manufacturing increases due to increased raw material costs, unit prices will rise. The invisible hand of price elasticity of demand will inevitably partition out the elastic from the inelastic goods on the market.  Whole industries relying on discretionary income will feel exposed. 

The challenge for our leaders is to maintain a vibrant economy even though natural resources are becoming ever more scarce. Power is manifested in the allocation of resources. China has pointedly focused on Africa as a source of raw materials for its growing economy.  The act of power is the fact of power. By throwing a lot of money around, and by controlling the flow of resources, China is exercising power. You don’t need to march an army around to demonstrate your power.

China is executing  industrial policy by forging alliances and allocating resources to global sourcing action. The USA dithers with self-destructive party politics, foreign military adventures, and a narcissistic indulgence in “greatness”.  Instead of wearing our hearts on our sleeves, we should roll them up and get to work building a robust and healthy culture.

American Plutocrats and Commoners

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It is really interesting how American commoners can support a political party that obviously serves interests of the top money earners and wealthy elites in this country. Perhaps they are waiting for some scraps to fall off the table? Or some of that lucre to dribble down their way in the form of a fabulous $9.00/hr retail job?   But, “commoners”?  What does that mean?

I figure that since the country seems bent on heading in the direction of a 19th Century-style society of stratified income classes, we may as well dust off the Victorian terminology and talk about how life is going to be. 

Power is the ability to allocate resources. As more and more resources come under the control of a wealthy minority, government seems to align itself increasingly to a small pool of influential and wealthy elite.  With the election of the upcoming congressional class, it is very clear that wealthy corporations and individuals are getting what they paid for-  statutory favors and influence in the deconstruction of the federal system of government. It is no coincidence that politicians from southern states, where an upswing in antebellum sentiment is afoot, are especially keen on the topic of states rights and other confederate sympathies.  Old antipathy is being dusted off and tried on for size.

Since SCOTUS has affirmed that money equals speech in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, and that corporate funding of broadcasts cannot be limited under the First Amendment, anonymous streams of cash from conservative donors have flooded the 2010 election.  Such is the power of persuasion made by big money that a class of deconstructionists has been elected to the next session of congress.

Americans commoners have a fetish about the ways of the megawealthy.  Dial up CNBC sometime when Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are interviewed at one of the Ivy League B-Schools. Watch all of the gaga-eyed MBA students as they hang on every utterance proffered by these two American Plutocrats. It is a form of rapture. The students and faculty are under a kind of enchantment. But this is no different from the country at large. Watch how commoners behave around Donald Trump, or Oprah for that matter.

One of the things that will have to change in the near future is a rewrite of the local zoning codes pertaining to shanty towns and squatting.  As the population grows, as raw material scarcity increases, and as wealth continues to shift toward the wealthy side of the bell curve, more and more people will find themselves unable to house themselves. Increasingly we see a housing system heavily relying on credit and background checks, high rents, and the need to commute in America’s now balky system of suburbs.  The suburb system places a great distance between work centers and living centers, making transportation problematic for our up-and-coming dirt poor class.

As the population of dirt poor and destitute rises due to deindustrialization and dissolution of social safety nets (say, by 2030), all flexibility in the system will begin to play out and people will find themselves living in shanties and refrigerator boxes. They’ll become squatters. The local constables will have to deal with them because municipalities will refuse to compromise property values and will shun the homeless.

Let’s see.  What will the growing class of homeless do with their time? Write poems about the joys of laissez faire orthodoxy? I think that somebody will put together an appealing manifesto on insurrection.

Maybe our own village idiot, Glenn Beck, is right. Maybe there is a revolution underway. But I don’t think it is the one he is expecting.

Terrorists Successful. Americans Terrified.

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While the underwear and shoe bombers may have been unsuccessful in their attempts to bring down a jetliner in flight, they were successful in inducing other manifestations of terror.  The US has been installing whole body scanners capable of penetrating clothing so that nameless and faceless citizens employed by TSA or whomever may inspect our body topography.  In addition to this radiological peepshow during check-in at the airport, TSA security has been authorized to pat down our private parts.   

Cause:  Two imbeciles board airplanes and attempt to initiate their explosives. They failed.  Effect:  The USA, the most powerful military-industrial complex for maybe hundreds of parsecs in all directions, is so freaked out by the presence of a mouse on the kitchen floor that it contrives to supply absolute security.  History is full of many examples of foolish attempts by states to provide absolute security.  The impulse to attain absolute security becomes the lever by which authoritarian states pry liberty from the hands of its people. 

The members of the booboisie who promulgate this foolish notion are not automatically bad people. As viewed from lunar orbit, their intentions are superficially honorable. The gaping flaw is that they accept the premise that trading in the protection against unreasonable search and seizure for what can only be a miniscule uptick in security, is a fair trade. 

It is most assuredly not a fair trade, but it seems to have already been made for us. I strenuously object.

Update:  A friend advises that there are already countermeasures available f0r the scanners.  I would recommend a screen printed lead-based paint with an appropriately artful design that would hide, or perhaps exaggerate the body part to be shielded. Alternatively, a witty slogan may be printed.  Perhaps we can source the lead-based paint in China?

Not-so-brave new world

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A blog called The Legal Satyricon has an excellent essay on the demise of Senator Russ Feingold. I am compelled to chime in and second the motion. Feingold understands the social equilibrium principle of civil liberty. But a growing population of voters apparently do not.  Feingold’s opposition to the Patriot Act was truly an act of integrity.  He understood the ratchet-like progression of governmental power and saw the Patriot Act, a piece of legislation that seemingly appeared overnight, for what it was. An overreach into the lives of American citizens. An overreach that involves weapons, surveillance, and more rigid control over citizens.

But fearful citizens wielding felt tip markers filled in the ballot bubble for the other candidate and Feingold is out. The fearful imagine they are for basic virtues like liberty, but in fact they pull the covers up to their eyes and vote away civil liberties.

Fear of terrorism is fear of an idea. The “War on Terror” is a blindingly stupid and misleading slogan. This kind of sloganeering betrays a basic educational deficit on the part of elected officials. The same applies to the “War on Drugs”. 

Al Qaeda and the extremisms born of Islamic fever are actions based on a philosophy. There are no armies to fight. There are no uniforms and no enemy insignia’s to put the cross-hairs on.  Only the civilian believers in a notion carry this fight forward.  You can’t hope to win a war on an idea by military invasion.  The War in Afganistan is a bug hunt.  As soon as the lights go off, the bugs come back out. The Soviets discovered this the hard way.

Al Qaeda, then based in Afganistan, slams civilian jets into architectual symbols of American power.  The US responds by lavishing massive invasion forces upon Iraq and sending modest forces to Afganistan.  America’s leaders, lead by that vacuous symbol of virtue, George Bush II, seemed bent on knocking somebody down .  So we went and knocked somebody down. 

We tipped the hornets nest of Iraq and unleashed a pornographic orgy of fratricide. Perhaps the tragedy of Iraq’s expression of rage was inevitable no matter how its evolution played out.  Political outrage fueled by inconceivable injustices and inhumanity brought into sharp focus by Iron age religious doctrines lead to a suicidal conflagration of Iraqi society.  In truth, as a Russian colleague once suggested while we sat in my living room drinking vodka and watching Gulf War 1 unfold on CNN, westerners have no business meddling  in that part of the world because we do not understand it. Its history and rythms are alien to us.  He was right. Meanwhile, Afganistan continues to produce most of the worlds morphine which, when acetylated, gives heroin.

America’s ability to project power is a wondrous thing to behold. We are genuinely good at it. Ask us to solve the problem of poverty or drug abuse and we’ll come up with some rheumatoidal public apparatus to throw money at some of it while the smug and secure bitch about socialism.

But ask us to deliver a missile payload of high explosives into a window from 12 thousand miles away, we’ll spare no expense and put the best minds on it.  We’ll put DARPA on the trail and devise new materials and electronics. Hell, we’ll even put up satellites just so’s we can watch a million dollar explosion on TV.  At least a part of the tragedy of 9/11 is the unleashing of our reflex to make war.  There is a dubious future in armed conflict and we should hold elected officials more accountable when they make war in our name.