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Do we need a virtual ‘nation’ (‘Wirtland’)?

Published January 8, 2011 Uncategorized 6 Comments
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There is on the internet, an effort going on that could be an interesting proving / testing ground for new and old ideas about governance.: some digital enthusiasts have founded a new ‘digital’ nation called “Wirtland”. It is not clear whether the name alludes to ‘virtual’ or to Wirt — German for ‘host’; and the ‘land’ part seems curiously inappropriate in that the nation pointedly does NOT have any land territory.

It claims to ahve, by now, over thousand ‘citizens’, and its founders are busy discussing nation trappings such as a national hymn, a flag, and — a draft constitution.

It is not clear to me whether this whole enterprise should be considered a serious attempt to provide something other nations do not or cannot offer, (due to their territorial boundaries, history, and traditions) or just an ambitious overreaching label for what at best might be an international association or club; or just a childish game. If the entity really attempts to provide things and services we’d need or want, these should be made clear. But to the extent these overlap with what nations also do, the legitimate question arises why such duplication is needed, don’t we have enough bureaucracy, paperwork, institutions already?

The draft of a ‘constitution’ for such an entity could be a supremely interesting arena for trying out and discussing problems of governance, which have become close to critical for almost all known forms of government given the accelerating globalization trends, the rise of superpowers, the legitimate concerns about governments being taken over by powerful forces such as the military, the security forces, the financial sector, or religious fundamentalists of various stripes. For all, the control of power, that is, providing a workable balance between giving the governance entities adequate means to provide the services they are supposed to deliver, but not fall victim to the corrupting temptations of power, is the overriding one. I guess others may consider other problems even more significant; in any case one would expect the discussion of such a new entity to address such issues.

The draft of the Wirtland Constitution is somewhat disappointing in this regard. Even to someone like me who is not at all a constitutional scholar and has never devoted much thought to such questions, It looks and sounds more like an amateurish, even naive takeoff on traditional ‘democratic’ constitutions. It does not address the obvious differences between territorial nations and a virtual / digital one; it ignores the fact that any member will likely already be a citizen of some existing nation, and subject to its laws and provisions of governance; the central question how any ‘laws’ that the legislature of Wirtland may vote into being relate and possibly conflict with those of the existing nations is not even acknowledged. There is a strange provision that members must be 13 years old before becoming Wirtland citizens. But there is no provision that identifies ‘citizens’ (for example, ensures that no virtual multiple names are submitted as members, or how to keep track of members who died and should no longer be ‘counted’.)

The provisions for ‘representation’ in the law-giving bodies (Parliament) with two ‘houses’ do not specify how groups that are entitled to elect representatives are distinguished (by nation of origin? or order of becoming citizens? or some other kind of grouping?); the entire question of representatives for arriving at ‘laws’ governing the interactions in such a virtual crowd would be one of the first I would assume could be dropped given the fact that every ‘citizen’ is by virtue of the medium of the internet, already equipped with the means for instantaneous participation by all citizens in governance.

As I said, it could be extremely interesting and significant to explore and discuss such questions. This should begin by looking at what the purpose (service, benefit) of such a new ‘nation’ would be, at the shortcomings of existing constitutions an forms of governance, at the issues of potential conflict between existing nations and their laws, and the new one, and how to resolve such conflicts — this one being the more interesting since the historically predominant possibility of conflict resolution by force is either pre-empted (since the existing nation has forces to do so while the virtual entity does not) or thrown entirely up for grabs, if adequate means can be found to resolve conflicts and respond to violations of laws and agreements entirely without forms of coercion and application of force.

The Wirtland case could be a useful forum for such discussion, If it does not (as it appears from looking at its draft constitution) entertain this challenge, other fora should be opened to carry out such explorations and discussions.

Why are we lying to ourselves?

Published December 5, 2010 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

“Hey Bog-Hubert – what in three twister’s name is making you chuckle so deviously? Somebody sending you dirty e-jokes on that thing again? Better watch out before Vodcçek bounces you out of his virtual — I mean virtuous — befogged Island Tavern…”
“Easy, Sophie my dear, nothing really on that axis of objectionableness. It’s some befogged soul on the internet asking why we are lying to ourselves.”
“Why, that’s a really good question, isn’t it? Why indeed would anybody in his right mind…”
“Or left?”
“Quit obfuscating the issues here. Why would anybody do something so self-destructive to himself? Or herself? ‘Cause it is self-destructive, isn’t it? In the long run, truth will catch up?”
“Well, it could be quite self-protective, it not even self-productive, I’d say.”
“Okay — the self-protective part I get, but only in the short run, to escape unpleasant consequences of misdeeds and such. But self-productive? As in constructing a different concept of yourself?”
“That wasn’t really what I had in mind, we might follow up on that — eh Abbé Boulah? — What I meant was something more practical. Deviously practical, you might say. Practicing effective lying, for example?”
“You’ll have to do some explaining of that one. If you aren’t lying even about that…?”
“Well, think about it. If you have to lie, it better be good, won’t it? Believable? And that takes practice. You wanna test the effectiveness of a lie: well, if you can get yourself to believe it, chances are others will fall for it too. But as I said: it takes practice.”
“What a miserable way to think about it, Bog-Hubert. Trying to improve the despicable habit of lying to others and yourself?”
“Well now: there are different kinds of lies, arent there? Even good ones? Not just bad … or evil?”
“They’re all lies though. But yes, coming to think about it, I’ll admit there might be lies that could be doing some good”
“Such as?”
“Hmm. I guess I’consider lying to somebody if the truth might cause the other pain or distress, unnecessarily.”
“Admirable, yes. And quite justifiable. So how about applying that to yourself? Would it make sense to lie to yourself to ease the pain of some awful truth? What do you think, Abbé Boulah? If you can divert your thinking away from your Zinfandel? “
“Quit picking on me Zin, my friend. Don’t you remember the old saying ‘in vino veritas’? Could you begin to grasp the possibility that I might be seeking truth in that glass of Lytton Springs?”
“You wouldn’t be lying even to yerself now, would you?”
“And even so, pray tell: why not? And what if I actually found a truthful nugget in that glass?”
“Is that what you are chewing on? So what would that kind of truth amount to?”
“Consider this: could lying not be a form of design? Constructing a picture of reality — or of a part of it — that might be more pleasant than some ugly truth? In somebody else’s mind, or mine?”
“And what purpose would that serve, other than ugly deception?”
“Well, Sophie, if I could get you to construct a better image of myself, than what I currently am capable of being, would that not give me something … to live up to?”
“You don’t really believe that, do you, Abbé Boulah?”
“Well…”
“Cheers.”

Ideas and questions for change

Published November 30, 2010 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Going beyond just complaining…

The need for change is a continuing and arguably increasing one. It has not been satisfied, in the U.S, for example, either by the election of Obama to the presidency, nor by its partial repudiation by the midterm victory of many Republican, conservative, Tea Party or Libertarian supporters. It is affirmed every day by the complaints, rants, revelations and accusations by writers and bloggers from all sides. A serious discussion of the remedies, the tools for change, the solutions suggested would therefore seem to be in order. This discussion appears to be somewhat lacking, in comparison with the complaints. If there are actual recipes behind (implied or perceived to be implied in) the complaints — depending on the alleged or admitted camp association of the respective writer — these are often not very clearly articulated. This may be because those recipes are, from the so-called ‘left’ as much as from the so-called ‘right’ or ‘independent’ camps, mostly quite well known: tried and (not so) true but found wanting, even sometimes found to be at the very heart of the problems they are supposed to remedy. Thus, a ‘return’ to the values and principles supposedly guiding the provisions of the ‘founding fathers’ for the fledgling United States inexplicably misses the fact that over time, those provisions have demonstrably not been able to prevent the emergence of the present problems, no matter how strenuously they have been invoked by politicians and others. And the revolutionary solutions proposed by critics of this system seem to have been proven equally deficient in the places where they have been tried, at least in their ‘pure’ early incarnations.

So is there anything to be learned from these developments that can be assembled into a strategy for more promising change?

It may be useful to begin by surveying things that do not look like good ingredients for such a strategy.

First, the reliance on the current ‘democratic’ apparatus of electing representatives — ‘throw the bums out’ and electing different bums into office every four or two years, appears to have become so ineffective that it must be regarded as a mere ploy to perpetuate the stranglehold of other — real — powers over the system. Powers that have so thoroughly taken control of the democratic institutions that it does not seem to matter which party is winning elections. To be sure, the traditional provisions for democratic governance were not only well-intentioned and probably, at the time, the best available means for keeping things on course: division and balance of powers, limits on the length of time representatives and office holders are allowed to serve and remain in power, free speech, free elections decided by majority decision. All if not most of the proposed remedies for today’s problems still rely on these provisions; there are few if any really innovative ideas for strengthening, improving, or even replacing them. So does the insistence on relying on these provisions begin to look like what someone described as the definition of insanity: keeping on doing what has been proved not to work?

This does not, in my opinion, mean that the second traditional ‘remedy’ should be seriously considered: that of ‘revolutionary (wholesale) change’ — the all-out radical overthrow of the existing regime, replacing it with a different one. The alternatives to the democratic model that have been tried during the last two centuries or so have all proven fatally defective. Many different reasons have been proposed to explain this. In my opinion, again, the feature they share is a profound failure to install workable safeguards against the abuse of power — a feature that also afflicts the democratic model, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent. The difference between them is that the socialist, communist, fascist and totalitarian governance models failed to control government power, in fact banked on government power as the solution to all societal problems. This eventually led either to their collapse, or to prolonged brutal stranglehold of dictators over their constituencies, in growing misery. In contrast, the democratic model failed to apply proper safeguards against the abuse of power by the private enterprise systems. In the name of ‘freedom’ (and the pursuit of economic ‘happiness’), these systems were allowed to grow to become so big and powerful that they were able to take control of the democratic institutions of government, while overtly leaving its ‘democratic’ trappings in place, such as elections, which could easily be controlled with campaign money and subsequent corrupting temptations of the elected representatives.

A third alternative must be discussed — the radical libertarian position of ‘personal sovereignty’ that seems to advocate complete disassociation from the existing collective societal entities, be they governmental or private-enterprise in nature. This remedy looks attractive as long as one considers only individuals or family-size organization of society. It becomes more difficult to imagine workable solutions for the simple survival of these entities in today’s state of humanity: even recipes such as each family ‘growing its own food’ for survival so as to escape the slavery of big agriculture and distribution chains run into familiar problems, say, of equitable allocation of land, given its undeniable differences in quality and productivity, and a growing population that would seem to call for a continuing re-sizing and reallocation (decided and supervised by what entity?) of the land available for growing food. Or: what to do if these sovereign individuals decided to embark on collective projects with some more formal organization, where inevitably, the problem of control of power by the people ‘in charge’ will again arise? So these problems will be the same as in the other collective governance models.

So with reliance on (unmodified) traditional mechanisms on the one hand, and revolutionary change on the other, both rejected as inappropriate, and the radical individualist option apparently unrealistic or in the end identical to the others, what features of change proposals should we be looking and working for? The following are some aspects — in the form of questions for discussion, that in my opinion should guide these efforts.

• Whatever alternative model will be chosen for adoption, should its implementation be in the form of a sudden wholesale ‘revolution’ imposed from ‘above’ (which in itself implies an entity wielding enough power to effect the change and thereby being in danger of falling victim to the temptations of size and power…) or a gradual piecemeal transformation? Might it be preferable to have the transformation follow a pattern similar to that of a ‘parasite’ attached to an existing hierarchy, slowly growing until it can peacefully transform its structure? The ‘skunkworks’ model of early R&D companies which survived changing conditions by harboring unorthodox and low-cost innovation groups in their basements while working on larger scale traditional projects aboveground, until the innovations developed by the ‘skunkworks’ teams became the standards for the organization, might be a worthwhile one to adopt for the needed transformation.

• Would the ‘skunkworks’ model also permit the competitive explorative pursuit of several alternative models at the same time? It is quite unlikely that only one experimental solution woud be avalable for discussion for the transformation of governance or economic systems. Some experiments with a variety of models might be needed to find out what works and what doesn’t.

• Consistent with the notion of several experimental alternative models to be tried out at any given time, would it be useful to provide for the possibility of several systems to be operating — in any given place, region, country etc. — in parallel? This would not only offer people the freedom of choice between several ways of running their lives with respect to collective activity, but also make it possible for more gradual transition between them in the face of changing conditions and emergencies.

• Should the structure to be aimed for be a ‘monoculture’, or provide choices of several forms of organization? Should too large entities be broken up into smaller independent organizations? How might this be achieved?

• Would not both the evolution of new structures (that must be able to utilize existing infrastructure and services) and the coordination, communication and conflict resolution of several ‘competing’ but coexisting structures require a basic foundation of common agreements (e.g. negotiation of conflicting interests without coercion of any kind)? The set of such necessary agreements should be kept to a minimum. What should those common agreements be? Agreements that are intended to apply not only to a single transaction or project can be adopted as ‘laws’ but should also be open to periodic re-affirmation and / or re-negotiation. (To extend the status of ‘law’ to over 90,000 or more pages of provisions pertaining to taxation (the U.S. tax laws) seems to strain this understanding of meaningful laws…)

• The set of common agreements would arguably have to include provisions for sanctions or other forms of preventing or correcting violation of such agreements. While ‘enforcement’ of agreements and imposition of sanctions traditionally require that there be an entity capable of applying greater force than any party violating agreements (‘laws’), should there be a concerted effort to develop forms of arrangements that prevent violations rather than punish them after they occur, and sanctions that are triggered automatically by the very act of transgression, not prosecuted and enforced by the ‘bigger’ enforcement agency? (This would seem necessary to prevent the larger entity from falling victim to the temptations of power, specifically, of itself engaging in violations without fear of consequences. As long as such measures cannot be found and applied, the traditional safeguards of separation ofpowers, independent judicial branch, freedom of speech and information etc. should be strengthened and improved; both enforcement and governance entities should be kept at small scale and enabled to investigate each other.)

• Should similar ‘automatic’ regulating provisions also be developed and put in place for the growth of the size and also the profits of private and public entities? Given the fact that continued exponential growth is unsustainable in the long run, it stands to reason that curbing growth e.g. of profits before they grow to cause catastrophic breakdowns would be preferable to trying to fix the breakdowns after they occur. Curbing excessive accumulation of wealth (causing the ever-growing wealth and income disparity of capitalist societies) beforehand would seem not only more prudent but also more feasible and less controversial that the unpopular ‘redistribution’ tools of progressive taxes that are so easily decried by certain talk radio programs (who tend to hide the fact that such wealth may have been the result of very undeserved inequitable distribution in the first place…)

• Just as there is universal consensus about providing at least basic survival networks for children and elderly people, should there be a basic survival safety net for every citizen, as part of any collective enterprise? One that might be covering such essentials as food, health care, education, access to information, legal services, participation in collective activities and decision-making? Should the right to access for such basic necessities continue to be tied to either ability to pay for them with funds earned from employment, in an era where human ‘work’ in production and other services is increasingly made obsolete by automation) or involuntary collective services?

• Is there a case for rethinking the very concept of ‘work’ in the form of performing activities under the command of other people in return for less money than the value they create with their work (the larger share of the value being skimmed off by the ’employer’)? For example, should the current taken for granted pattern of rewarding the most disgusting, boring, unhealthy and unpleasant work with the lowest wages, while work in which people not only take pleasure and are provided with comfortable workplaces, responsibilities and power are als rewarded with higher salaries, be re-examined? (Perhaps the pleasure of a powerful position in pleasant surroundings should be paid for, rather than reaping the highest salaries?)

• Should arrangements be considered such as the following step towards at least a more flexible work economy: a ‘dual system’ of employment in which citizens are automatically ‘public employees’ with the option of working for collective infrastructure according to their capabilities, remunerated with ‘civic credits’ by means of which they then ‘pay’ for their allotment of basic necessities, and also working for private enterprise entities? Health insurance, taxation, social security paperwork then would no longer have to be done by employers. The ratio of ‘private enterprise’ to ‘public’ work would be sliding and voluntary. This would allow private employers to simply reduce the amount of work they ask of employees in periods of financial or economic crises (such as the recent crises) instead of having to lay off worker, losing their expertise and causing disruptions in the economy because of the forced displacement of workers, moves to other locations, foreclosures of homes, children having to disrupt their education etc. The public sector would then easily absorb the extra available work capacity of such workers (if these don’t take advantage of extra time to further their own education or start independent small businesses), producing better infrastructure and services helping the private sector overcome the crisis, among other things, using the expertise and skills of workers it already has ‘in the system’.

• Private enterprise entities may choose to become involved in public work — a means of survival in times of economic downturn — by taking on the implementation and management of public programs, but at not-for-profit conditions. For example, current private insurance companies may take on the administration of public basic insurance programs (for everybody), putting their facilities, equipment, personnel and expertise to work for those programs (again, on a not-for profit basis). Thereby making it unnecessary to create large bureaucracies to run such programs, while allowing the companies to continue to market ‘enhancement’ for profit policies to their now enlarged ‘captive’ audience of the ‘basic’ public system enrollees.

• Could the introduction of ‘civic service ‘points’ — earned by certification of skills (such as driving tests or education certificates) serve not only to grant certain rights (driver license) but also as the vehicle for sanctions and penalties as well ‘ante-up’ prerequisite for positions of power, (to be automatically forfeited upon violation of agreements and abuse)? A form of rewarding officeholders for good work while actually holding them accountable — ‘paying for’ — mistakes and mismanagement?

• Should voting be extended — and tied — to actual assessment of arguments for and against proposals and candidates, rather than mere votes influenced by mindless repetition of campaign slogans paid for by entities that then will insist on legislative votes in their favor from the elected representatives? Might voting also be extended to voting for specific percentage designation for different government tasks and programs (what percentage of my taxes for this program as opposed to that one?), whose budgets then will be set according to the voted-upon percentages and the expeced tax revenues? If revenues change up or down, budget cuts would be in the form of across-the-board percentage cuts, not by simply eliminating programs and departments that have previously been voted upon as desirable by citizens. All parts of the government just will have to do their work with the funds available, — each according to their own best judgment, not according to wholesale legislative mandates that are systemically ignorant of specific conditions in each department.

These are only a few examples of principles and ideas that might guide the development of better ways of running society. There are obviously several problems with such proposals. One prominent difficulty will be the development of ‘legal’ forms of organizations that can begin to operate as ‘skunkworks’ alongside of the current one, to experiment and gain experience for an eventual transformation of the entire system by peaceful and constructive means. Another will be to find ways to overcome the widespread opinions that people or groups harboring different ideas are irredeemable criminals that must be destroyed, defeated, or idiots that must be institutionalized (unless the respective institutions have also fallen victim to budget cuts or eliminating government ‘waste’…

On the Middle East

Published July 5, 2010 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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1 Middle East Lamentation

Abbé Boulah, in the Fog Island Tavern, lifting His Hoarse Voice in Lamentation:

Ah, the barrenness of discourse in the so-called ‘social’ media, the discussion fora that have been degraded to mudslinging pits of nonsequitours de force and unspeakable epithets — did not the holy scriptures warn ‘whosoever calls his neighbor ‘thou fool’ is deserving of eternal damnation’?

What brought this on? A noble — or naive? call for articulation of visions for a region in constant turmoil and danger of erupting into worldwide conflagration immediately returned into a pit of placing blame and taunting insults — the original question ignored — or worse: answered by the repetition of the underlying assertion that peace for that region can only be maintained by application of ‘superior force‘ discouraging the other party form trying to assert its presumed rights by its own force? Confirmation of the notion that one must ‘fight’ (including kill) the opponents of one’s world view — if they cannot be cowed into submission and perversely seek to maintain their own dignity even in the face of superior force? Has no one heard the message, by all the gum in my favorite arguments?? Has no one received in their oh so rational minds, the insight that ‘victory’ by destruction of the opponent (the still ‘infidel’ or not yet ‘enlightened’ one) does not, emphatically not, demonstrate the superior truth, logic, nobility, appeal, or morality of the view of the victor?

Does it take AbbéBoulahean despairing pleas and wailing to remind the fervent and passionate (though apparently of limited one-sided compassion) advocates for their respective sides, of the possibility that we might all be on the wrong side? Of the very fact that engaging in a fight to destruction reveals the poverty of our faith in its truth and beauty: If I have to crush you to accept the beauty of my view, contorting my face in doing so, relying on the superior length of my sword or the greater destructiveness of my stupid smart bomb — what does that do to your insight about my faith? If the last thing I see on this earth is your contorted face, in your ‘victory’ of crushing infidel me: what does that tell me about the beauty and truth of your faith? You are betraying it, we have both betrayed the truth of our faiths, by choosing to fight. Woe be to us: Whose supreme deception could have lured us into such treason, such betrayal? Those of us who are believers: Are we not insulting the Almighty by our presumption that we, in our limited knowledge and wisdom and proneness to error, in our own sinful confusion, should fight and kill for His truth — as if we could ever gain full knowledge of it to justify the death of others who believe they’ve understood it, but it’s a different version? — As if He could not punish his enemies by Himself?

Yes, yes, I hear you, Bog-Hubert: What should we do instead? Let us sit down and share some time and a cup of calming beverage, break some bread together. Then: Tell me again, convince me again — I may not have paid enough attention –, show me again the beauty of your convictions and your vision. And let me try once more to tell you, argue with you, demonstrate to you the beauty of mine. Then let us dream a little: might we not endeavor to design a common vision, one more beautiful than either of us could achieve alone: let us together build a house, a garden, in which our children can play together and grow to become even better builders and gardeners?

You say: let me have the land upon which you stand, to grow the fruit so that I can show and share it with you, to let you taste its sweetness. Even if that will deprive me of my livelihood, and kill me just as surely as a sword? And deprive me of the possibility of showing you what beautiful fruits I can grow? But doing so, I would deprive you of the same possibility?

Truly, my friends, this is a dilemma and a challenge. One worthy of our full and dedicated ingenuity and efforts, our reasoning powers and creativity. Yet here we are continuing in our childish games of pointing fingers, placing blame for who did what first, and calling each other names. And (committing the sin of) invoking the Almighty One’s name to justify what essentially are our own base desires of greed, of acquisition, of power, and of revenge for defeats in past misguided fights. (Some Almighty One, if it really is Him — or Her — and that’s what He or She wishes us to do — and not some impostor…)

Surely, if we cannot find a way out of that dilemma, we are not worthy of the fruit we prevented each other from growing. What will be our just reward? So, fellow nonbelievers and believers, even in the same God with different names, why not together use the precious gifts given to us: our creativity, our imagination, our powers of reasoning and our delight in the good and just and beautiful? Let us together design and build a house and grow a garden. Let us fly different flags from its four or fourscore corners if we cannot agree on one, but let us together show what we humans can do other than killing each other in the name of God, with swords or rockets or blockades.

Yes, we will have to get to implementation. What will be the first steps? Finding different lands in which to build separate gardens? Making sure they have good soil and fresh water? Or getting into the same garden together? And start digging to lay some new foundations? Starting to discuss a plan, a vision for what the place might look like before we start digging?

How to apply such dream-like visions to the ugly reality of lands fought over by different tribes that each wish to realize their own dreams on the disputed territory, and have embarked on the path of relying on force for implementation? Will we not have to devote some more social media kilo-or-megabytes to exploring this question, than we have on insulting and denigrating each other? You are quite justified in berating me; I beat my breast in contrition: I have myself spent too much of my precious time with frivolous and trivial pursuits of truths that are meaningless to starving children. In my own wilderness, I am only beginning to think about applying my tools of Systematic Doubt and Argument Assessment to these issues. Help me continue on this path, on which I found one first meager result, for your contemplation and relentless discussion:

What about designating a piece of land on both sides of the border between the warring tribes, for cooperative projects? All those who wish to contribute to such projects — from both sides — would be given access, on the condition of leaving weapons out; the buffer zone both will prevent attacks from both sides (since members from both sides are there) and demonstrate the possibility and superiority of cooperation? The support by other well-meaning nations and parties will then be predominantly aimed at this zone. Projects such as power stations (preferably by renewable and non-polluting sources); desalinization plants to provide fresh water; research facilities, innovative gardening, hospitals, schools, kindergartens, sports facilities as well as mosques, synagogues, schools and churches. If successful, this zone can be expanded over time. Build the mosques, synagogues, kindergartens and schools — give the children the information and the choice for designing their own future! — in that zone.

‘Behind’ it, the current structures and policies relying on maintaining ‘defense’ and ‘deterrence’ force can continue — until shown to be obsolete.

What about sanctions for breaching the agreements needed to keep this zone going? Automatic shutoff of information channels, power, water, to the respective ‘main territory’? What about governance, peacekeeping, justice systems? I agree there’s work to do, my friends: But have we not developed intricate cooperative systems for international transactions, guidance systems for missiles and smart bombs and interplanetary exploration? Can we not design better governance systems that are not vulnerable to the temptations of power and corruption? Are we that blind and narrow-minded?

Are there no other visions here than all the talk about blame and justifying, even glorifying the atrocities of both sides with the tattered mantles of self-defense, self-determination, revolutionary spirit, ‘fighting for peace’ (think about it, all you logical minds: fighting for peace?) Are we all condemned of driving into the future with our views fixated on the rear-view mirror?

Is all our talk of freedom (which is empowerment) just idle talk hiding the sellout of our freedom to all the powers with the ‘superior force’ — military, economic, psychological… — in exchange for the choice between seventeen different brands of gene-manipulated breakfast cereal?

The current path of relying on ‘superior force’ — on both sides — can only result in incidents of application of such force. The hope and confidence in force is fed on one side by the sheer superiority and efficiency of the weaponry, on the other side the growing evidence that ‘partisan’ and guerrilla force can be as if not more effective in many cases. Not even mentioning the fact that the dignity of the ‘weaker’ (the one with the weaker force) must be maintained, the more so, the more ‘unequal’ (‘asymmetric’) the weaponry. Thus, the path of reliance on force must be abandoned to achieve peace.

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2 Rear View Mirrors

Al-Bey Bullah the Stranger, wandering in the desert of stony fruitless arguments searching for the oasis of plausible double vision, stumbles upon a group of vehicles furiously racing around, kicking up clouds of dust while attempting to push the other vehicles out of their way. Having lost the view of the road out of the desert, and even of which vehicles hold their friends, and which their enemies, their drivers are endlessly struggling to put together the pieces of their broken rear-view mirrors — shattered from careening into too many other vehicles both right and left along their errant way — trying to derive, with their convoluted logic, the road forward. Hurling the shards of broken facts at each other, claiming each one to be a precious fragment of the Truth: do they not know that — even if they could put all the pieces back together, the picture shown in the rear view mirror of the road taken in the past, with its many wrong turns, does not, will never show the road forward? That the distorted mirror will not reveal if what lies ahead is a dead end? Do they not know, He cries in vain, that mirrors are tools of the Great Deceiver: when they look at themselves in the fractured mirror, they see right and left, right and wrong reversed? Do they not see the writing on the bottom: that the objects in the mirror — the horrors of the past, the demons of hubris and delusion, confusion and hate and death — are closer than they seem? They do not hear his wails to stop their furious race, to get out and start paving a new road ahead, together. With bloody fingers — their own, their children’s blood, and that of the children of their ‘enemies’, they keep rearranging the fact-fragments of their rear view mirrors, while racing towards disaster.

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3 Bystanders Pondering Vicious Cycle Patterns

Trying to understand controversies in online discussions as parts of a larger struggle (not even discourse any more in most cases) that is noteworthy because its outcome is perceived to be one of life or death. In the case at hand, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, that was recently once again exacerbated by the incident of the attempted breach of the Gaza blockade.

Both parties:

– perceive their position to be justified, morally and historically;

– perceive any ‘backing down from their resulting demands as the prelude to their inevitable annihilation;

– have chosen force (military and ‘guerilla’=‘terrorist’) strategies as the means to pursue their goals and /or prevent the other side to achieve theirs;

– but both depend on other parties for ‘moral’, financial, military support, which in turn depends on the maintenance of public opinion favorable to their cause in the countries providing that support.

The effort for the last item takes several different forms:

1) Providing information, evidence and arguments supporting the justification of their sides;

2) Providing countering information, counter-evidence and counterarguments to those efforts;

3) Persisting in ‘defensive’ military or violent actions — both to maintain their sense of dignity (not giving up) and to convey the seriousness of their struggle to their supporters (who wouldn’t provide support unless they were seen to be serious about their struggle);

4) Enticing the respective other side into actions that can be shown to be ‘illegal’, ‘evil’, ‘malicious’, ‘criminal’ to the world, so as to decrease the willingness of the other side’s supporters to continue support;

5) Depicting the other ‘side’ and its supporters — as misguided, ignorant, biased, hypocritical (hiding their own dishonest interests behind the pretense of the ‘just’ cause for the side they support); therefore as criminal, evil, murderous. The accusation of ‘racism’ of any participant in the discourse is a part of this tactic. It is interesting because on its face, though it may be seen as a tool to shame the opposition into silence, it cannot be expected to enlist support among those so accused. Thus the information effort can be seen to have two distinct forms: one aiming at gaining support — more support — among parties who were thus far not ‘taking sides’ or were even aligned with the opposing side; the other merely focused on strengthening support and morale among its own supporters. It is at least questionable whether the insinuation of racism (on one side) or ‘terrorism’ etc. on the other is effective in the pursuit of the former, or just a sign of having given up on that and just concentrating on the latter.

6) The insistence, on both sides, that following the logic of confrontation embarked upon, other parties must ‘take sides’; that refusal or disinterest in doing so ipso facto constitutes support for the other side. This is conveyed with common slogans such as ‘’if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem’ and the like.

The ‘pattern’ of actions and ‘communication’ in the Israel-Palestine conflict shows considerable symmetry in the use of all these tactics — except with respect to the superior threat of force available to one side — which is why the threat or suspicion of that advantage being challenged causes such anxiety and desperation to prevent the acquisition of means to do so, but also semblance of hope for eventually prevailing, on the other.

The symmetry of the situation must, in the (mostly unacknowledged) view of both parties, be maintained, but with care so as to prevent it from escalating into confrontations that would damage the success of the tactics — and thus ensure continued support. The danger of escalation to disturb the symmetry emanates from the party that at any given time sees itself as having ‘less to lose’ (and thus more to gain?); the balance is therefore very precarious and volatile.

It is a classic example of a ‘vicious cycle’ in which every action serves to increase the antagonism. The ‘solutions‘ that can be expected based on history of all such confrontations having chosen force as the deciding element — ‘victory’ of one side, and ‘defeat’ of the other, even the traditional strategy of inventing and battling a different ‘common’ enemy — should be seen as unacceptable not only to whatever ‘global’ community might be distinguished in the chaotic scene of the world today, but also to any of the supporting parties of either side, as well as any still ‘disinterested’ (innocent?) bystanders: since any such ‘solution’ will likely have disastrous consequences for all. So the effort on the part of everybody involved must focus on breaking this vicious cycle.

The plausible choice, it would seem to this befuddled bystander, would be to engage in cooperative projects of common vital interest — a common desirable vision. There is no shortage of potential projects to explore, of problems for which we need innovative solutions to try out as common experiments, arguably of sufficient interest not only to the two opposing parties but to the world at large to justify generous support from others: developing different models of urban development, of agriculture, of providing fresh water, of finding alternatives to the prevailing dysfunctional governance structures, to education, to the arts, science, so many challenges worthy of the best we can offer of creativity, ingenuity, imagination. This of course contradicts the logic and strategy of confrontation sketched out above — which is why all such suggestions of approaches (‘visions’) to break the vicious cycle mentioned so far in these threads have been met with stony silence, and continued efforts consistent with the adopted strategy: justification of claims to prevailing (with selective presentation of historical ‘facts’), denigration of the opposing side, as before.

The proposed approach of embarking on common cooperative projects may not be the only way out of this vicious confrontation cycle. But we don’t hear about any interesting alternatives; the ‘road-maps’ to ‘two-state’ or ‘one-state’ outcomes currently being bandied about, and the kind of ‘peace’ they promise, are just about as unexciting and un-motivating as Brussel bureaucracy: Can we blame some folks for at least wanting to go down fighting? But it is not at all clear why we should have to choose sides in what looks either like a clear win-lose game (where winning is not a result of moral superiority or justification but of application of greater force) or even, and more likely, a disastrous lose-lose situation.

Flat World Rings Hollow

Published May 6, 2010 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Flat World Rings Hollow

A recent discussion on a Linked-In network on the appropriateness of Thomas Friedman’s “Flat World” idea and book prompts me to post an excerpt — a chapter of my 2007 book “Abbé Boulah!”, (available from the publisher XLibris or from the author at just like other titles — ‘Time Management for Architects and Designers’, ‘The Fog Island Argument’ and ‘The Fog Island Tavern’ — the latter two offering irreverent treatment of profound topics, disguised as Tavern discussions between Abbé Boulah and his weirdo buddies in the Fog Island Tavern). It explores a contrarian view triggered by the gushing reviews of Friedman’s book. An email with an attachment of of this item sent to Friedman himself rendered him speechless (meaning that he was, at the time, and to this very date, unable to respond.)
—-

Was it anger, admiration, despair or derision that made Abbé Boulah’s voice ring so hollow across the expanse of his sandbox in which he created one little sculpted landscape after another, only to sweep them back time after time to a pure — even flat?– plain in which to inscribe again the symbols of new dreams? But it was not the sandbox and its creations that had aroused him to these emotions which still awaited their clear definition. He was excitedly waving a piece of paper, and exclaiming:

“Flat world! By the acrophobic flatness of my left foot! What new depth of simplification is flattening out the human discourse about these great and complex questions!”

“Explain yourself, Abbé Boulah: what flatness of discourse, what ponderous questions are you raving about?”

“Bog-Hubert, my friend: here goes a fine journalist, a columnist whom I hold in high regard — in spite of certain exacerbating disagreements concerning recent historical developments — and writes a book. One whose very title seems to preemptively exhaust the subject it could possibly be treating, and whose slogan-like simplicity seems destined to become a fixed and preconceived cornerstone of popular attitudes about very serious issues.”

“You are speaking in mysteries. What journalist and book are you referring to? And what are those questions that you seem to feel are deserving of more lucid treatment?”

“I am talking about Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist on foreign affairs, and of his new book “The World Is Flat”.

“That’s one that has just come out, isn’t it? Have you read it already?”

“No.”

“So what are you getting so preemptively excited about? It’s not your style to indulge in hasty judgment without really knowing what you are judging?”

“By all the qualifying semicolons in my collected treatises, you are right in chastising me for such a sin. And I should make it clear that I really don’t wish to pass judgment on the substance of the book, which I take to be the elaboration and providing supporting evidence for its central thesis, namely that the world — or rather, its economic dimension — is getting smaller, and that the playing field of the games played in this economic realm is being leveled. Leveled to the extent that many people living in areas that previously had little or no chance of even being admitted to play, can now engage in it on equal footing with residents of the so-called developed nations, and even win.”

“So what’s wrong with that? Does this not conform to long-held sentiments of fairness and equal rights in human affairs? Sentiments that you yourself have endorsed many times, if memory does not deceive?”

“I grant you that I at times fall victim to the temptation of contrarianism — which seems to approach me whenever a closely held conviction suddenly is embraced by the multitudes. And here, the danger of being embraced in this way is infinitely more pronounced because of the seductive simplicity of the slogan — flat world, level playing field — that so seamlessly meshes with those idealistic sentiments that for most, closer study of its merit and justification seem unnecessary.”

“Including for you yourself, seeing as how you allow yourself to express distinct if not entirely comprehensible judgments about the book without having read it?”

“Touché. But it is precisely this very property I am objecting to: the seductiveness of the flat-world notion that invites me to embrace it without critical scrutiny.”

“So what alternative viewpoints are you cooking up in your contrarian alchemist’s cauldron? You are already doing that, if I know you?”

“Got me again. Yes, the idea immediately led me to consider various alternatives. Both as to what the real underlying issue might be, as well as to the proper geometric analogy for it.”

“You don’t seem to have too many choices there, if my scant knowledge of geometry does not fail me? Are you simply defending the accepted view that the world is round?”

“Ah, you underestimate me. Yes, in one sense I do adopt the spherical hypothesis. But remember, our columnist is not challenging the accepted knowledge about the physical shape of the world: he is using the flat world idea as an analogy.”

“An analogy to what?”

“An analogy to the plane — the playing field, that our sense of justice tells us should be level — of economic interaction among humans. And for such analogies, therefore, we may consider alternatives which do not even relate to the actual reality of the shape of the physical world.”

“What do you have in your convoluted mind?”

“Convoluted is almost right, even if I should take umbrage to the intended insult there, my friend: you better watch it all the time. Involuted is the word: Hollow.”

“Now you have me seriously worried. Why on earth, be it flat or round or hollow, would you allow your thinking to even stray into the vicinity of those crackpot hollow-world theories that surface from time to time only to be subjected to renewed ridicule?”

“Ah, why indeed? Living dangerously? But if you care to explore this idea further, I think I can demonstrate to you that a hollow world analogy might present a number of advantages. But first, let me explain what I consider the real underlying problems that make the precipitous adoption of simplistic views and corresponding remedies so dangerous.”

“Your Boulahistic Ominosity, you’ve got my attention.”

“Insult or Flattery, such remarks will get you nowhere, especially not onto a flatter world premise. Here is my concern: In the issue of economic human interaction, two variables are essential: the speed (and cost) of travel — movement of people and goods — and communication — movement of information and ideas.

Now in a simpler age, both of these would be achieved by the rightly so labeled pedestrian mode of walking. For the time being, let’s leave out the slight problem of water bodies.”

“Lest we get too far out to sea?”

“Your sophomoric word play cleverness only serves to impede the speed of our inquiry here, my friend.”

“So sorry. Go on.”

“Let us assume, for the sake of simplicity, that this activity takes place on a surface that is entirely uniform so that walking on it everywhere could be done at the same speed. Then, in the absence of technological complications, communication would be achieved at the same speed as pedestrian travel, so any geometric model for physical travel can be used as a valid and convenient analogy for the conditions of communication. And if that surface is uniform everywhere, according to our simplifying assumption, this would indeed present a ‘level’ playing field for any economic activity involving both physical travel and communication.”

“You are asking me to accept the same kind of simple premise as your friend Friedman here — but OK, go on: what next?”

“Well, I think that there is still a stronger argument in favor of the spherical assumption than for the flat world idea — simply because we know that we can reach the same faraway spot on the surface by moving in two (or more) different directions, something that is easily explained in the spherical model but presents considerable difficulty in the flat world model.”

“I agree. So our columnist friend leaves himself open to potentially uncomfortable criticism. And?”

“Consider this: as long as we are moving only on a pedestrian plane in a pedestrian mode, does it make any difference whether we are moving on the outside of a spherical world (as we have come to accept after some centuries of difficult internal struggle?) or on the inside of a hollow sphere?”

“By the hollow rumblings of my empty stomach: you are right, it doesn’t!”

“Good. Now you will see that for any further refinement of the embryonic theory we are about to develop, the hollow world analogy will present some distinct advantages.”

“For this I will delay my lunch, which I would otherwise have insisted upon before Vodçek’s hollow soup cauldron becomes too empty.”

“May I remind you of the old Latin insight regarding hollow stomachs: ‘plenus venter non studet libenter’.”

“Ok, Ok, enough already. Go on with your story.”

“Well. It’s now time to introduce technology. First in the form of, say, roads, with some super-leveled surface that makes even pedestrian locomotion easier. And faster. Not to speak of travel by horseback or carriage. Do you see — with your precious inner eye — that in the hollow world we are presenting to its gaze, a network of roads would form a system of ridges on the previously even surface. And because they are elevated, that is, closer to the center of the hollow sphere, the distances which are, as postulated, analogous to travel time, become shorter?”

“Indeed they do. And I agree that this is an analogy that the ordinary model of a sphere where we move on the outside would be considerably more difficult to sustain.”

“Quite. Unless you want to consider the ruts in the old mud highways to take on that job. But that would become even more difficult once you introduce air travel: Do you see that such technologies can be represented in the hollow-world analogy model simply as new ‘spheres’ inside the outer one: spheres in which the time distances now are proportionately shorter than on the outer sphere — and on the intermediate spheres representing other technologies such as the automobile, high-speed trains, and the like.”

“Beautiful.”

“And if we now add the ‘spheres’ of communication, we see that technologies like the internet, even the telephone system, constitute spheres that are very small, close to the center of our world sphere, with correspondingly small time-distances that are actually approaching zero. Instant communication.”

“So what happens to the sky in this mess of intervening spheres?”

“Good point. Actually, I was afraid you’d mention subways. Every analogy has its limitations. Though you must admit that given all this maze of technological innovation, there are very few people who even take the time to look at the sky. It becomes negligible. Or the sky may be a black hole, imploding towards the center of the universe…”

“I’ll have to chew on that for a while.”

“Do that. Meanwhile, let me point out some corollaries and implications of this amazing model. For one, let’s make some corrections to the outermost sphere.

“As we know it is not at all uniform and smooth, presenting considerable and very variable obstacles to cross-country travel, whether on foot or ATV. There are wildernesses, deserts, mountains. And we can represent these — or rather, their required travel time — as actual mountains, poking their summits outward — and thus increasing the geometric distances to be traversed accordingly. But even swamps and deserts with quicksand pits would be outward bulges in this model. In fact, a quicksand pit resulting in a final termination of your voyage should be represented by a bulge reaching outward into infinity.”

“There is a certain poetic but terrifying beauty in that model, I admit.”

“Yes. Grist to the mill of contemplation of an almost transcendental nature. But there are more mundane aspects and problems to the model of our interlocking spheres.”

“Oh, I had hoped the preceding observation would have a satisfying terminal quality to it. Satisfying, as in lunch, for example. But I can see you are relentlessly insisting on pursuing all transcendental and mundane aspects of your idea. What are the problems you are worrying about?”

“ Well, if you pay some closer attention to the details of this hollow world, you will notice that some modes of travel, for example airplane travel, is represented by a ‘sphere’ which is not at all a complete surface, but rather a web of flight corridors. Even if, in theory, you can fly anywhere along its surface. The point is, you can’t start and land anywhere, but only in certain well-defined places”

“You mean airports?”

“Indeed. But even railroads, and ocean liner routes have such distinct, aptly named terminals. This is where the transfer from one to another mode of transportation is achieved. Because you can’t decide to hop onto a jet plane in mid flight from somewhere in the middle of the Apalachicola National Forest, or from the top of your favorite mountain in the Carinthian Alps. You have to go to an airport. And because those are few and far between, you need to take trains, or cars to get there.”

“So? I know that.”

“Don’t you see? The real question is not the speed or efficiency, or even cost, of each individual technology by itself. It’s the entire system of technologies and transfer points between them that is the problem. And if you consider that, it is truly a miracle that technologies such as air travel are competitive, their time advantage notwithstanding. Just look at the sequence of things you go through. You leave your house. If it’s in a major city, it may be a building with elevators. Then you may take a cab to the airport, or to some subway or local train system to take you there. The train station, more likely than not, involves escalators or elevators to take you to the proper level; and the station at the airport likewise. Inside the airport, you take a convoluted route involving more escalators, moving sidewalks, perhaps shuttle trains to get you to the proper terminal, and then more escalators. Meanwhile, your baggage takes a very different path through the terminal, one involving an equal number of conveyances, conveyor belts, small trains of carts taking them to (hopefully) the right plane, moving it by means of another conveyor belt. You board the plane, through a moving tunnel to which the plane is docked, and after arriving at your destination airport, the entire process is repeated in the reverse order. Not only is this process so convoluted and cumbersome — the increased security provisions don’t help either — it is also so expensive that the whole system borders on insanity.”

“I have often thought so myself. In fact even the time savings are fast evaporating. To travel to Atlanta from Tallahassee, the flight itself takes less than an hour. But if you add the travel time to the airport, parking, checking in and getting your baggage checked, going through security, waiting for the boarding call, getting seated, waiting for takeoff, and the reverse in Atlanta, getting your baggage, then finding a car rental place, completing the paperwork, going out to the parking area to find your rented car, making your way out of the congested freeway feeder roads from the airport and spending another hour to get to where you want to go in Atlanta — if you just got into your car and drove the 250 miles, you’d be there in almost the same time.”

“Unless you got stuck in the freeway traffic jam around the Atlanta airport… Yes, it’s a good example of an originally good idea going hopelessly haywire. So we are down to considering the cost of the entire enterprise. And I think we can say that there are some people — in business — who do benefit enormously from these technologies. I don’t know if any studies have been made, however, how the costs and benefits are distributed. Freeways, airports are paid for with tax money, that is, the costs are fairly evenly distributed. But the benefits clearly are not.”

“But isn’t it a benefit that average people can go on vacation to nice places they’d otherwise never get to?”

“True. If the average working Joe can use a charter plane to go to some vacation destination once a year, that is a nice touch. But it’s a far cry from the benefits business derives from the same infrastructure. And this is the nasty, decidedly un-flat problem with most of these technologies: the benefits are accruing disproportionately to part of the population.”

“What you are saying is that they contribute to widening the gap between rich and poor? But I always thought that technology — take mass production of automobiles, for example, raised the average income and living standard, to where now just about everybody can afford one?”

“I think there’s increasing evidence to the effect that this trend has reached its peak and is rapidly reversing. But think about our clogged-up sphere of the hollow world with its different levels of technologies and transfer points again: don’t you think that rather than trying to improve each technology by itself all the time, what we should really worry about is the design of the entire system of different levels and their transfer nodes?

“For example: how many different levels should we aim at? Are more levels better than fewer? What about the efficiency, accessibility, cost of transfer nodes? How do the different levels work together? And if you consider the empty space between the improved transportation routes bulging-out voids of even pedestrian inefficiency: how vast should those neglected regions be, how far should they be allowed to bulge out (a measure of inequality similar to the sagging curve of GNP distribution in a national economy)? And how do we treat those who have to still live in those bulged-out areas (that can be physically quite close, just as the slum dwellers living right next to the elevated train taking more fortunate travelers to the airport in speedy comfort) but actually are in an outward bulge of light years of inaccessibility?”

“You are raising some profound and uncomfortable questions there, my dear Abbé. But what about the communication technologies that led Friedman to his flat-out flat world claim?”

“Right. Remember, we already observed that the communication technologies have achieved speed that place their time-distance spheres very close to the center of our little hollow world. And the difference between jet travel and the internet, for example, is that the latter has infinitely more transfer points — as many as there are computers connected, wired or wireless, to the telephone network. And there are few if any intermediate levels for which cumbersome transfer nodes would be necessary. The simplicity of this system — in terms of number of access points and levels of modes to reach the desired level — is one of the huge advantages of modern communication. But..”

“I knew you’d get around to some but..”

“You are getting to know me too well. Yes. There’s a but. It is the fact that the speed and convenience of the internet has been achieved at the expense of sacrificing mass. Persons and goods still have to travel by more old-fashioned means. A rule of thumb is: the heavier, the more old-fashioned, slower and more costly the transport. It seems that there are serious imperfections in the levelness of the playing field Friedman is so excited about — involving communication technologies — and movement of goods and real people. From that point of view, it’s not all that level, and I am not sure we have even studied these relationships well enough to begin to understand them, let alone applaud them as the ultimate in economic and social fairness as Friedman seems to do.

“And most of all, the vehicle for his unreserved praise of this development, the flat world image, does not help the growth of such understanding: its simplicity if not simple-mindedness rather gets in the way of reflection and insight. And that could become quite dangerous, because policies based on such common views can quickly and devastatingly become counterproductive, their implementation tending to use the most advanced modes of transportation and communication. Which, as experience should show, does not in the least guarantee that what is being transported or communicated is either beneficial or true.”

“Or beautiful, weren’t you going to add?”

“Bogubertissime, by all the gum in my favorite collection of arguments, you are learning! And whether you are concerned about the beauty of a balloon from the outside or inside, flat just flat-out ain’t beautiful!”

******

On the Redistribution of Wealth

Published October 25, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Much heat is generated on the airwaves these days about the appropriateness of the administrations efforts to get the economic crisis under control, efforts that include attempts to influence the salaries and bonus payments to corporate CEOs and high level officers. These efforts are being decried as ‘redistribution’ of wealth, which in turn is described as ‘taking from some (A) to give to others (B), as violation both of the ten commandments (‘thou shalt not steal’) and of the constitutional provisions for the sanctity of property. The ‘redistribution’ label isn’t even disputed by proponents of these efforts, not even by the president who is being quoted as advocating the ‘spreading around’ of wealth.

What is getting lost in this flurry of rhetoric are some basic underlying issues. The attacks — most vocally offered by ‘conservative’ talk radio and TV hosts — on the one hand raise the impression that the A’s whose property is being ‘taken’ not only have ‘earned’ their wealth though their hard work and ingenuity, but that their ranks include (or will soon) middle class folks who really do work hard and stand to lose their livelihood. And on the other hand, that the B’s to whom the wealth are supposedly given are undeserving bums who are too lazy to work for their living and expect ‘the government’ wo provide for them what they need: shelter, food, education, health care, insurance. And of course, the attacks always provide striking and outrageous examples of such people, on both sides, enough to make the viewers’ and listeners’ blood boil with anger at these ‘socialist’ or even communist shenanigans of the government — which in turn is portrayed as promoting these efforts not for the sake of the country’s welfare but for the sinister purpose of increasing its own size and power, ‘enslaving’ not only the current taxpayers but untold future generations with the tax burdens of having to somehow repay the deficits and debts incurred by the administration. Not to mention the incessant chant of how government can’t do anything right and therefore will always create more trouble, so it should stay out of

These assumptions and allegations should be examined with more care, since all of them contain elements of truth and validity, and all of them also therefore lend themselves to exaggeration and distortion.

1. Are the incomes and resulting wealth of top earners (that are to be ‘taken’) ‘earned’ — and earned on what might be recognized as a ‘level playing field’? (In other words, has the wealth been ‘distributed’ fairly in the first place?) If yes, should this be made more clear and acceptable to the public? And if not, how can the lacking degree (if any) of fairness be re-established? For example, would a strategy of prevention of unfair allocation of wealth (in the first place) be preferable to a redistribution after the fact — which will necessarily encounter the justified or unjustified but always more determined resistance on the part of the A’s?

2. Are the prospective recipients of ‘redistributed’ wealth undeserving, lazy, just out to have government provide for them? If yes, should efforts be made to change this mindset, and how? And if it can’t be changed, what would be the precise (compassionate conservative) plan for how these people ought to be dealt with? And if there are at least some among them who are more victims of circumstances than causing their own misery — such as having lost their jobs not because of their own ineptitude but because of corporate policies to mover operations overseas, for example — how should such people be dealt with?

3. Is the motivation of the administration primarily to increase the role of government aand its own power? (‘Primarily’ — meaning over the concern of solving the nation’s problems and thereby gaining the right to another term.) There is good reason to suspect that power is addictive, and may tend to act in self-serving ways motivated by self-preservation rather than the for the purposes the power holders were granted their power. If so: what adjustments and safeguards (that are currently NOT in place to control power) should be introduced to contain such tendencies? This should be asked both of the opposition and of the administration — the latter because it might increase its chances of being entrusted with a second term or winning future elections if people were more reassured that the temptation to power abuse is contained. But if power is addictive, is this only true in government, and not, for example, in the business world and high finance? Would it not be prudent to ask this question as well, and whether the standard argument of ‘competition’, vying for consumer acceptance, are sufficient safeguards against corporate power? What should be the strategy for dealing with this question? The issue becomes fully explosive as soon as one entertains the possibility that the corporate world has already extended its power influence to government: That rather than ‘government taking over private enterprise’, private enterprise has already taken over the control of government?

4. An extension of the last question: The assertion that ‘government is the problem’ — already sounding somewhat curious coming from the same people who otherwise take such great pride in the USA ‘government of, by, for the people’ — is getting even more strange considering that it sounds like an inadvertent admission that this great nation that had put a man on the moon etc. is not able to fashion itself a government that is NOT the problem? Is this an unchangeable law of nature, that we have to accept just like we accept the law of gravity? Or are there reasons, factors involved that might be rearranged so as to make government more of a solution than the problem?
Especially in view of the fact that some government functions are accepted as quite unquestionably appropriate even by those who feel attacked by the adminstration’s redistribution moves and power grabs: the military and law enforcement agencies are — of course — proper government services to protect the lives and property of citizens from evil redistribution attempts by others.

All these question, like many others, would seem to be proper topic for discussion and exploration; the answers are not at all as clear-cut and obvious as they are made out to be by the talking heads from both sides. The fact that the discourse is getting more acrimonious but strangely avoiding such detail is cause for concern indeed.

Ethics: “hardwired in character or molded by environment”?

Published September 24, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Jeremy Waldron, in reviewing Kwame Appiahs’ book on “Experiments in Ethics” (NYRB Oct. 2009) poses an interesting dilemma. The observation that people are capable of making quick ‘intuitive’ — i. e. not carefully and elaborately deliberated — judgments and decisions about ethical choices seems to suggest that the basis of such decisions must be ‘hardwired’. That is, they must be based on some characteristics in the makeup of the person. But experiments and observations show that such decisions are not consistent — that such snap judgment are very much influenced by elements or features that happen to be present in the environment.

My study of arguments we use in design and planning (and political) decision-making has led me to realize that whereas efforts of ‘justification’ (or attempts to persuade others of the value of proposed designs or plans) are to a large extent reflective, aiming at being reproduced and accepted by other parties in the discussion, and containing both ‘basic principle’ as well as context information in their deontic (ought) premises, there are frequent quick judgments that occur especially during the ‘creative’ work of working out a design solution. They tend to be aesthetic or ethical /moral in content, and we tend to call them ‘intuitive’ when there is no further explanation or reflection on their justification in turn.

But sometimes they take a form, or are expressed in ways that may shed some light on the above dilemma. The are often expressed (mostly in the internal dialogue of the designer that they can only be coaxed to speak out loud with some awkwardness and difficulty: designers often make such quick decisions on the basis of whether they ‘fit’. Fit — within what? The overall design vision? Which is not yet worked out but clearly must have some mood, some character that allows the designer to feel whether and how a new detail would ‘fit’. Could it be that the vision is a more general one — an image (as I call it in my thinking about the role of occasion and image in architecture) of how we want to live, who we want to be, and how our built environment therefore ought to look.

Such images are not, usually, detailed nor coherently constructed in any detailed and systematic way. They are holistic, an general ‘sense’ of how things should be. An example from a different context is the way we monitor the performance of a car we are driving: we do not — cannot possibly — pay any kind of systematic monitoring attention to all of the car’s systems and components. Rather, what we perceive, in the background, is the way the vehicle is ‘humming’, overall, in various driving conditions, when everything is running right. Any significant changes in that humming will make us sit up and pay attention to specific components and their individual monitoring devices, if any. It is how a new noise ‘fits’ within that general humming that makes us take a sometimes quick, apparently intuitive decision.

The vision or image of who we want or should be, what life should be, can be extremely self-centered on the one hand — driven by our individual needs, preferences, desires, — or one determined more by what we might want to be seen as by others, or at the other extreme, by what we might wish our entire social environment could be like. And anything in-between. It can be described in some cases by general rules or principles that are assumed to cover all or most life situations and behavior, or by detailed descriptions of individual scenarios and environments. In this, we re-encounter what philosophers of ethics have done: Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, tries to formulate general principles of ethical behavior, — but then proceeds in the rest of the book to describe in considerable detail his vision of what a ‘good’ society in his day and culture would be like — and how individual ethical judgments and behaviors then would fit into that overall image.

From this point of view, it is not as surprising as writers on experimental ethics seem to think, that individuals’ and especially children’s reactions to ethical challenge situations are not as consistent as either theory (that ethical principles are embedded in character, on the one hand, or that they are entirely molded by environment) would lead us to expect. Neither the imagery or visions we carry around in our kinds, nor the stories we convey to each other or to children are consistent, and they change over time. There are as many ‘hero’ stories about how to escape the dependency on others, on imposed authority, on how to outwit, outsmart others in games and life, as there are wholesome stories about how to be good citizens, helpful, generous, compassionate, polite even to those who may be rude to us, etc. In personal life, in business, in politics, in wars. And now in each new situation we encounter, there will be context elements that will trigger a different blend of predominant vision or image (on any of the scales individual-social, or compliant – competitive etc.) into which the person will ‘fit’ the decision at hand.

These ideas were hinted at in several places in the article; I needed to pull them into a clearer focus for myself, and think the perspective from design is a helpful one in this; helpful in resolving the dilemma raised. A perspective that strengthens, I feel, the scattered items of valuable advice offered, such as “always insist on more than one description of a difficult situation before deciding what to do”. Which in turn, since it does not help much in situations where snap judgments have to be taken, further suggests the importance of education and public discourse in developing both the understanding and tolerance for different visions, and at the same time the overall principle that we must all develop visions and images for which we can take responsibility, into which we can then ‘fit’ our snap judgments about ethical choices when needed.

Reforming the banking system?

Published September 21, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Hey Bog-Hubert — what’s the matter — you seem more than usually incensed by your morning paper. Perhaps you should quit that habit entirely? It does not seem to be good for your digestion…?

Yeah, and mercifully hasten the inevitable demise of the print news media? Has anybody thought about what will happen if the internet conks out or there is a prolonged power failure that will put a wholesale gag on TV and radio, including all the wingnuts?

By all the space junk in ol’ Gaia’s orbit, you really can scare an old man even before his morning coffee. But what is it that is getting your goat today?

It’s the hubbub about the financial institutions.

What about it?

Well, here they go, blatantly returning to their evil ways, the same that caused the financial meltdown a year ago, after having received all those billions in taxpayer money — as if nothing happened. And people — even supportters of the administration — beginning to wonder how badly it really is beholden to Wall Street, because it doesn’t seem willing to impose the regulations people expect. Hey, look, even Paul Krugman is starting to complain about it, here’s a column in the New York Times (9/21/09) where he is berating the president for not doing anything about it — and he was one who supported the bailouts. if I remember correctly…

Well, you could argue that regulations wouldn’t really be much use in all this.

Look, the financial institutions are so vehemently against them, — why wouldn’t they? — that no matter how much of the suspicions about the administration being ‘beholden’ to them, they surely would be powerful enough to spike them with so many loopholes and amendments and compromises that they’d be impossible to monitor effectively much less to enforce. And they already have all those loud voices — we don’t have to mention names, right? — screaming socialist takeover of the banking system and big bad government interfering in private enterprise.

But what should they do? You can’t let them just go back to the way things were, that everybody says led to the trouble we’re in and that will surely just get us into the same kind of trouble again?

I guess you are right. But perhaps there’s another way. How about encouraging, instead, the founding of banks or credit unions — perhaps with tax incentives or some such device — that voluntaily will adopt practices conforming to the desired patterns? Some meaningful rules about executive pay and bonuses, for example. How about getting them to agree to some kind of ‘ante’ or escrow system — and account that specifies not only what bonuse they will get for successful performance, but also what they will forfeit if they screw up?

Sounds good. And perhaps they should do something about the interest and profit rates as well.

What do you mean?

Well, the widening income gap between the rich and the poor — isn’t that caused at least in part by such practices as the interest rates people earn for large deposits as opposed to the measly rates you get for a little savings passbook where small-income earners are encouraged to park the remainder of their weekly paycheck (if they even have a job)? What more deserving ‘hard work’ or inventiveness or intelligence is involved in earning a much higher intererest rate for the big sum somebody inherited from his rich real-estate bubble uncle? I say there should be some automatic regulating device put in place as a diminishing marginal profit and interest rate — the higher the amounts involved, the lower the rate. Or some mechanism by which even small saving account holders get cut in on the overall earnings of the bank, like a dividend, really, if the bank does well in the market.

You think that will encourage people to save and invest more? Perhaps it might help.

Yes, I think so. But what it really would do — if ‘we the people’ really do want some such reforms, they should be willing to switch their investments and loan activities to such institutions, voluntarily. And wouldn’t you think that could in the long run might nudge the entire industry into more wholesome habits — rather than draconian regulations from above?

You might have a point there — especially since people these days don’t seem to trust any regulators any more than the folks they are supposed to regulate. So when are you going to run for office?

Me? A dam furriner? Abbé Boulah!…

Bog-Hubert’s Theory of Consciousness

Published July 15, 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment

Bog-Hubert shook the rain from his coat, entering the Fog Island Tavern. Seeing his friends Abbé Boulah and Renfroe at the bar, he approached them with a greeting and inquiry about current states of their well-being. To his consternation, Abbé Boulah did not respond at all, while Renfroe turned around with a helpless gesture, pointing at Abbé Boulah with his thumb and whispering: “Sumthin’s got to him — ben sittin’ there unconscious-like for better’n half an hour”.

But the shuffling and scraping of the barstool Bog-Hubert pulled up aroused Abbé Boulah from his strange mental state. He turned around and said: “Funny you’d mention that — I mean the consciousness bit. That was just what I was trying to figure out.”

Bog-hubert looked at him, while signaling to Vodçek the bartender for his usual, and asked: “Consciousness? when you seemed to Renfroe here to be — let’s say — out of it? What got you into that? Can you enlighten us?”

“Well” said Abbé Boulah, slowly. “It’s not that easy when I’m just trying to make sense of it myself. But all right. Here I was reading this exchange of comments by Artificial Intelligence experts on one of their hi-faluting internet forum networks, about this theory of conscience one of those experts had come up with.”

“What are those guys getting into theories of conscience for — Isn’t that a subject of , well, several different disciplines?” asked Bog-Hubert.

“True enough — but you know, one of the ambitions of those AI guys is to develop a system — say, a computer program, or even a robot, that has conscience just like a human being.”

“Ah, now I understand, yes. Then they need to know what this thing is, of course. Have a theory. Of consciousness. Makes sense. So this fellow had sprung such a theory on them? What about it? Weren’t they happy with it?”

“Well, there was a lively discussion — but I’m not sure it was a happy one. Frankly, I was surprised any of them really cared to get into a discussion about this particular theory — it seemed, let’s say, not very coherent to me. What do I know. But it got me thinking about consciousness.”

“What was the problem with that theory — I mean, you have some pretty clear ideas about what makes a viable theory, don’t you? This one didn’t live up to those standards? “

“I’ll let you make up your own mind about that — here’s the link to that file — he wrote a whole article, with references and and all. And yes, you might ask yourself whether it does what we expect of a good theory.”

“A good theory: what’s that?” asked Renfroe. “Aren’t all theories just that: theory — not practice, not reality? So what do you expect?”

“Well, it’s really not that complicated. A theory is just a collection of statements about something we want to know about, some aspect of reality. And while you can make up all kinds of stories about anything for yourself, if you want to communicate with somebody else about it, the statements must be understandable to that person. Usually, in general, they must be expressed in a language that person understands, satisfy the rules of grammar of that language, and use words that refer to concepts the other person understands, that is, they have to have the same meaning for both folks. To make sure of that, it usually takes a whole bunch of explanations and definitions at the beginning of any story or book or paper about a theory — because all that can’t be taken for granted. Then of course, the statements must be coherent, and support each other. That means that there should be some connection, some common elements, from one statement to the next. The whole thing must make sense. But then there are several levels of expectations, depending on what you want the theory to do.”

“Levels of expectations, huh? Sounds more complicated than what you said a while ago.”

“Relax, Renfroe. It’s not that difficult. See, a first expectation about anything we want to discuss is that the concepts and statements allow us to describe that part of reality we are talking about: which means that the statements of the theory actually, understandably — to you and me — describe what we are talking about. We need to name that, of course, distinguish it from other things so we don’t confuse matters, which usually means that we have to agree on some kind of definition: That thing over there, that’s what we are discussing. Give it a name, and agree that’s what we refer to when we use the name. Without such an agreement, it’s pretty hard to carry on a meaningful discussion — but it doesn’t mean that we can’t change our minds about that as we learn more. Then we can adjust the definition. But we got to start with one.”

“Makes sense, so far”

“Okay. In other words, the theory at this level must allow us to describe everything we know about that thing. So at this level, we are dealing with a ‘descriptive theory’, and a good theory at this level is one that covers all those concerns of description. Now, that’s usually not all we want from a theory, is it? What do you say, Bog-Hubert?”

“Well, uh. To me, a theory ought to give me some ideas about why and how things are the way they are and why things happen.”

“Right you are: what you are talking about is an ‘explanatory’ theory: one that explains why things happen the way they do. That mostly takes statements like those we call ‘laws of nature’ or laws of behavior. We make hypotheses about such laws and try to find out whether they are true: a good explanatory theory allows us to set up such statements that explain the relationships between things that happen.”

“How do we know if those explanations are any good? Not just wild speculations and nonsense?”

“Good question, Renfroe. That’s the task of science, to find out, or test, whether such theories are valid. To do that, they use the explanatiosn to make predictions: If we do so-and-so, and the theory — or rather the specific hypothesis of a given theory — is true, then we should see such and such happening. If Hypothesis that A causes B is true, and we do A, then we should expect to see B. So we perform such a test: we do A, and see if B happens. If it does, we have a better reason to think that the hypothesis is true — we can’t really be totally sure, because as the philosopher of science Karl Popper emphasized, the reasoning pattern
“If H is true then E must follow
Now E is true (we observe)
therefore H is true”
Is not a deductively valid argument — it just provides a bit more support (corroboration) for H than we had before, but no definitive proof. While the pattern
“If H is true then E must follow
E is not true
therefore H is not true”
is a valid and conclusive reasoning scheme: H is ‘refuted’ — and Popper emphasizes that this is really how science progresses: conjecturing hypotheses, then testing them by making predictions, trying as best we can to refute them — if they stand up to all the tests we can think of then we can be more comfortable accepting the hypothesis as ‘corroborated’ (not proved!) — until somebody comes up with a better one. So a theory is a good one to the extent is lets us make predictions we can test, and those tests turn out as predicted: it has ‘predictive power’. Popper turns this around to say that a theory that can’t be tested, at least in principle (even if it would be very difficult to actually carry out a test) simply is not a scientific theory”.

“Interesting. But why would those AI folks need all that — and for consciousness?”

“Good question, Bog-Hubert. But wait just a while — the question may become more clear after we clarify one more level of theory: the normative level.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, one major reason we want to know things, how things work, and so on, is because we want to do things in the world, make plans, solve problems. And now there are many statements that aim to tell us what to do and how to do it: those stories are what we call the normative level of theory. Not all theories go to that level, but that’s what we are always quarreling about in human life, isn’t it” what we ought to do. And of course, this is where science gets into trouble, because it has no way of etsting, and therefore no business setting up statements about that we ough to do. That’s a whole different topic. But you might use this brief rundown of levels of theories to look at this proposed theory of consciousness: I think you’ll see that it falls far short of the basic expectations even at the descriptive and explanatory level, offers no predictions anybody might test, but then jumps to a claim that it has implications of ethics, without any further justification or explanation. Have you read that paper?”

“Give me some time, I’ll go over it”
—
“So, what do you make of it?”

“Sorry, I don’t really understand it at all. The paper makes a bunch of audacious claims for which I can’t see the evidence or coherent arguments, so I can’t really comment on that. The audacity must be contagious though, it made me think I could come up with a theory of consciousness myself. One that’s much simpler. But of course I don’t know if it would be of any use for the kinds of things those AI researchers are trying to do with it.”

“Right. It brings us back to the question we sidestepped a while ago: what do the AI researchers need a theory of consciousness for?”

“Beats me. What I know about that is that they want to build things like robots to do things for people, machines that are smart enough to do things faster, better, more efficiently. Don’t know why consciousness has to be a part of that.”

“Maybe they think that to get them to be smart enough, intelligent enough, they need to not just do things, but have a sense of what they are doing and when to stop, or when it doesn’t make sense to begin or continue doing it?”

“Yeah, that’s just what I was thinking: they must be able to look at a situation, get the messages from their surroundings, and check them against the rules, the program that tells them what to do. But that still doesn’t need any consciousness as far as I can see. I’ve seen robots sweeping the floor; when they hit the wall, they stop or turn around. Are they conscious?”

You are getting closer here. — They ‘stop or turn around’, you say. That means that the thing, the machine or entity, whatever, makes choices. And that’s what requires that there’s something in it, — in the entity — that looks at not only the message from the outside, but also at itself, asking: is there something up my memory chip that could let me do something other than going on butting up against the wall, or stopping? Like turning around in a different direction?”

“ In other words; the thing, the entity — we’ll have to allow for both living things and machines here, right? — must have some internal representation not only of the outer world it operates in, but also a representation of itself. Then it receives messages from the outside, matches them against what it has on its representation board, and uses another program to decide what to do about them.”

“Wait a minute. That bit about the representation of the world outside and of itself makes sense to me. Are you saying that these representations are what we call consciousness? I could go along with that. But why do we need the responses, the action? Can’t a thing be conscious just sitting there taking it all in, but not responding — like you did when I came in a while ago?”

“Good observation, Bog-Hubert. But you are asking two different questions here, let’s take them one at a time. One is whether having such a representation already is equivalent to consciousness. And the other is whether the response, the action is a necessary part of that . The second one actually has to do with why the AI and the theory folks are having so much trouble with this: We could imagine something having consciousness just sitting there taking it all in, as you say. But how would we know about it if it doesn’t do anything that we can observe? I think that might explain all the complications in that paper as well: the questions about what such an entity might do that we could observe as a sign of consciousness, are getting all mixed up with the questions of what we can observe, and how we can interpret that, how we can know whether something, some reaction indicates consciousness or just a regular physical or chemical reactions — reactions that aren’t registered on some inetrnal representation board. But these issues don’t really have anything to do with what consciousness itself is, do they?”

“That would make things a little easier on the one hand, if we can cut all those reaction recognition and interpretation problems out. So, for the AI and robot folks, it would mean that giving a machine such representations both of what the outside world is like and what its own organization is like, that would meet their needs at least to some extent, wouldn’t it? They could say that they actually are simulating the effects of consciousness that way. — But it still leaves the question of whether having those kinds of representations really make for consciousness, doesn’t it?”

“Right. And you could say it makes that question even harder.”

“Why?”

“Because you have to admit that we don’t really know much about that representation. People try to make such artificial representations on computer chips and memory boards, to make computers behave like people as much as possible — as if they had consciousness, which tricks some folks into saying that our brains are like computers. But that’s as much nonsense as saying the brain is just like an abacus, or some other mechanical device. We don’t know how those representations are organized. And we can imagine many different ways they might be done, can’t we?”

“What you are saying is that there might be ways all kinds of things or entities can have such representations and therefore consciousness — even pet rocks? But we can’t know about them unless they start talking back somehow?”

“That’s what it boils down to, right. We have to keep an open mind about that, and refrain from judgments about things we can’t know. But I ‘m not sure yet that having just one representation already is consciousness. What if it takes another level of representation that looks at its representation — both of the outside reality and its own representation of it? And starts evaluating it: how it’s organized, whether there are gaps or contradictions in them, how the elements are related to one another, and so on. Doesn’t that sound more like ‘being conscious’: having a sense both of the outside world — as it is represented in one’s own system — and of the structure and quality of that entire representation?”

“Whoa! You are making me dizzy here — you realize that there’s no end to that line of thinking, don’t you? For who’s to say that in addition to the first level — A — of representation of the outside world A(w) including the representation of the entity itself A(s) , and the next level or representation B, of both A and its structure, which would be B(As&As), but in order to ‘inspect’ that system you’d need a third level C in which the structure and quality of B is represented and evaluated. And another one — D — to inspect C, and so on. There’s no end to that: you are falling into a bottomless pit. Or looking into that endless sequence of images in the opposing mirrors in the barbershop.”

“Now I see what they mean by ‘levels of consciousness’ — each one higher — or deeper in the pit — than the previous one.”

“Right, Renfroe. And the barbershop mirror image is an apt one: it shows us that we can’t really see the whole sequence: If the mirrors are truly parallel, our own first image gets in the way.”

“But it also explains the way you were sitting there, lost in contemplation: it seems that in order to inspect things at the higher (or lower) levels, we can’t pay attention to the messages coming in at the first level. Made it look like you’re unconscious. Scary, huh?”

“Yeah. Could plumb drive a fellow to drink.”

“Ah, Renfroe. Drink himself into unconsciousness?”

Published July 10, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Abbé Boulah He Say:
The Stimulus doesn’t work? Let them give it back!

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