In (qualified) defense of the state

Updated: Found the link! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ZosnxGKgk

This is the first of a series of articles I plan on writing to refine, for myself, what my political and economic philosophy is.

I was on Youtube recently (hell, I’m on there a lot), and an interesting ad caught my attention. I actually sat through the entire 2:30 spot, which is a credit to the designers of the ad. At some point I figured out that it was a Libertarian advertisement, and indeed, it was for the Liberty Institute. Cleverly, they combine an authoritative speaker (unfortunately reading the text from somewhere slightly offset from the camera) and cartoons. It’s worth a look. But it inspired this post because I think it ultimately provides a one-sided view of top-down regulation.

But here’s the premise. The speaker is stating that he knows how to get a free suit – he’ll charge a suit from Macy’s, and then tear up the bill when it arrives. However, it means he can’t get another suit from Macy’s. But then he’ll go to JCPenney and charge a suit there. He then goes on to say that Macy’s and JCPenney share information about fraud, even though they’re competitors. That’s because they determined that its in their best interests to cooperate, and they did this without government intervention. Therefore, it seems that a lot of things are handled by the market/individual firms, suggesting that government regulation is unnecessary to achieve good results.

This can be true in a lot of areas. However, let me use a counterexample. Let’s say you need to buy food for the week. While food suppliers in America are ostensibly in competition with each other, they recognize that it’s in their own best interest to avoid a price war. Therefore, they’ll cooperate (technically, collude) to ensure a price that is significantly above the cost of production – which is what they would get in a completely free market. Because the demand for food is inelastic (in other words, we need to eat to survive, and will pay whatever it takes to eat), price increases are born mostly by the consumer, and not the producer. Consequently, because of self-interest, you have higher food prices, and possibly societal starvation and unrest. Remember, an increase in food prices was perhaps the real driving factor behind the Arab Spring.

Similar arguments lead to conclusions about the necessity of countercyclical fiscal policy and some areas of R&D. Basically, any case where what is individually rational leads to results that are bad for everyone suggests a collective action problem, and therefore a role for government. (Salient example: if everyone saves a lot, then the economy contracts, which leads to layoffs, which in turn leads to more saving out of fear, which leads to more lost jobs...)

My general point is not to defend state regulation, or, heaven forbid, corporativism. It’s to state that the pure libertarian case just doesn’t hold water. Neither does the pure corporativist argument - that the state should have control of all aspects of life. (Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, etc.) So let's ditch the extreme arguments - they lend clarity of purpose and energy, but are pretty immature ways of going about actually organizing ourselves.

What’s more productive is to argue about specific areas, and to be data driven. History shows that deregulation of utilities lead to higher prices for consumers. Also, a lot of promised efficiencies and cost savings for consumers for large mergers never materialize. There is a role for the maligned state, and in fact, we should be trying to rehabilitate the attitudes toward public service and civil servants. 

By all means keep them honest. But let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the state is the dragon that needs to be slayed. The state is our guard dog. Improperly trained and guided, will turn on us. But with proper training and guidance, it will keep the thieves from breaking in.

2012 campaign starts!

Citizens, patriots, Medicaid parasites, morons in public schools, rich morons in private schools, racists, bigots, chauvinists, pinko commies, neo-Confederates, my fellow Americans – I stand before you today a changed man, yet still a man, having man parts, and most importantly, man hearts.  For it takes no less than three beating in my chest, one God-given, the other two because of a generous PPO that indulges my whims regarding elective surgery, to even begin to represent how much I love our country, broke, broken, and brokeback that it is.

Four years ago, I ran on the ticket of the Party for a Beautiful Society. Due to the oppressive socialist regime currently in power, I was forced to disband PBS because of a combination of “trademark infringement”, “violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964”, and “crimes against muppets”. I use these air quotes because I stand by my position that Cookie Monster embodies the worst excesses of recidivism of our drug addicts, and that Bert and Ernie have not voted in a single major election in the last 28 years. Where is their patriotism? Where does it say in the constitution that blue and orange freaks are created equal? And where are those damn cookies?

Yet the times have changed, though we remain steadfast in our principles that ugly people should be denied the vote, and that I am uniquely qualified to steer this rickety ship of state at least as capably as that great Italian navigator of history. No, not that one – the other one. The newly organized New Pretty Republic Party believes in the traditional principles of “new is better”, and “ugly people are sad”. NPR will work day and night to deliver the message, in a gentle monotone if need be, to achieve the brainwashing –er, education of the people of this not-so-fair land.

I’ll keep this brief, as Bank of America has purchased the time that would have been allotted for the second half of this speech. God bless Citizens United! Today we face a wretched economy, rising healthcare costs. For the first time in generations, our children may look forward to increasingly large and annoying numbers of old people, with job opportunities only in fields directly related to washing the stank behinds of said old people, and replacing blown out colostomy bags.

For this reason, and for their distressing comfort with wrinkles and “graceful aging”, I believe I have the fix to our jobs problem, our healthcare costs, productivity, and underinvestment in speculative investments. As part of citizenship and residency requirements, we will institute an Internet technology literacy test. All residents and voting members of the public must complete a simple, standard, 12-hour set of exercises designed to test one’s tolerance for crappy Youtube videos and savviness/chauvinism regarding Internet search engines and providers. Naturally, forwarding emails about cats from one’s AOL account will be grounds for immediate deportation.

This is not a campaign against the old, as some have argued. The old may be ugly in general, but there are exceptions. (Damn that Betty White is hot!) Rather, by one simple, self-evident policy, we increase Internet productivity, cut down on Spam by an estimated 27%, reduce healthcare costs for companies, free up millions of job positions, and reduce landfill waste as our consumption of disposable diapers drops by 88%. Glory Hallelujah!

Due to previous problems caused by would-be VPs, I have decided to choose Elmo as my candidate. Some will argue that this is a cynical attempt to paper over previous issues with the Muppet community. Others will say it’s a cheap trick to get the 3-10 age group of voters. I agree on both points. But it is not cynical, and it definitely isn’t cheap. Elmo demanded half of the SuperPAC money up front, in small, unmarked bills.

In closing, let me say that it will be my honor to represent you once more in the upcoming, apocalyptic election of the end-of-the-era-according-to-unwashed-hippies. Remember: a vote for me is a vote for a more beautiful America.

Cheating in science

A friend posted an interesting two-part article from Psychology Today about cheating in science. Part 1 Part 2. Coincidentally, this dovetails with another story about cheating (in journalism) posted by CNN a few days back.

I am happy to report that I did not witness - or at least was not aware - of any fraud during my time at Cornell. It might be harder to get away with in astronomy and the natural sciences, as opposed to the behavioral sciences discussed in the articles, simply because there are fewer excuses for nonrepeatability of results. Mice could behave differently, but photons generally don't.

That said, it's an opportunity to share my personal experiences with cheating. Rather, it's a single experience, but it's bothered me enough to admit it.

I never cheated on any homework or test in K-12. In fact, I even turned in a poor guy who was cheating on an 8th grade science test. I did it discreetly, and I have hope that the teacher was gentle, but I still feel guilty about it. I should've approached him directly. But I didn't, maybe because I had a rigid view of right and wrong, and maybe because I was particularly hierarchical in my value system.

Thanks to a belief in both Harvey Mudd's Honor Code and my own (somewhat unrealistic) belief in my own abilities, I never cheated in college. There were a few reported incidents of cheating by peers in college, but they were largely regarded as one-offs. I'm sure it happened, but, charitably, I'd like to think it happened less frequently than at other colleges.

At Cornell, I remember the stress, panic, and depression starting to set in toward the end of the first semester. My grades were reasonably good, but my research was not, and the doubts I had about pursuing astronomy were beginning to be confirmed. It was perhaps a product of my decreasing confidence that I cheated for the first and last time on an academic test. I don't recall which class it was, but I recall using outside materials and seeking outside help.

I felt terrible about it, terrible for a long time. It may or may not have made a difference in my final grade, but as the difference was perhaps between a B+ and a B, it didn't matter by grad school standards.

It did, however, profoundly impact my view of myself as an honest scientist.

Much later, I did hear about other tales at Cornell of academic dishonesty. They included the absurd - a former professor, well before my time, was caught double-billing his travel expenses to NSF. They also included the depressing - an employee admitted to working half-time for the last few years on a program, but then proceeded to hold the project hostage. Such are the perils of smaller research projects - one person really can be irreplaceable.

I was never, ever pressured to deliver results by others; in that, I think I was far more fortunate than most people in grad school. (It helped I had my own money - the NSF fellowship.) However, I can understand and sympathize with the self-imposed pressures of individuals - some of whom, let's admit frankly, are the product of a selection effect that discourages those who are well-rounded or have developed a healthy self-esteem across multiple areas - who would be so obsessed with academic approval that we would compromise our values to keep the supply flowing. This in no way applies to my former colleagues - most of whom, I confess, I was jealous of because they did seem pretty well-adjusted.

All this to say that self-imposed pressures can lead good people to cheat. And, like so many sins, once it is committed, it becomes easier to continue along that path.

I never cheated in school again - honestly, it wouldn't have helped. But I can imagine that those who find a way for it to work, those who have a combination of bad fortune to have an onerous PI, or uncooperative project, coupled with disinterest in making the project work, or perhaps a desperate need to be a "success", would feel that cheating was a way out.

Cheating, is of course, not limited to the sciences. As I mentioned earlier, there was a fascinating case about a journalist who fabricated stories for The New Republic - it's a worthy read for the psychological insight into the man and his motivations.

It also brings up the issue of redemption - in science, there is none for cheating. What about in the rest of life? Do we really believe in the possibility of transformation stories - to use a biblical reference, the conversion of Saul to Paul - or do we really ascribe to a view that reform is impossible?

I think our words and our actions reveal two different answers. For a Christian nation, we do believe in the death penalty, life without parole, incarceration over rehabilitation, and marking individuals who are released with their own version of Jean Veljean's yellow convict papers. We hold people's past misdeeds against them, and forget their good actions. We're bad at weighing things in a balanced fashion. There may be evolutionary reasons for this, but I'd hope that we depend upon more than evolutionary selection to base our moral philosophy.

Have you cheated? Academically? Personally? Did you feel remorse? Did you get away with it?

Santa Monica, Faith, and the Great Recession

Today I write about the showdown in Santa Monica about Nativity Displays. A coalition of atheists has managed to secure the vast majority of permits for lots in a Santa Monica park, historically dedicated to nativity displays. It looks like yet another showdown between Christians and atheists. But I believe this is a great opportunity masquerading as a crisis. All parties currently involved, and those on the sidelines, to take the opportunity to use that space to serve those hardest hit by economic downturn.

I respect both the desire to celebrate faith and the desire to defend one’s right to not believe. As someone with scientific training and a religious upbringing, I’ve lived in both worlds, among both peoples. And I’ve found remarkable degrees of both compassion and rigid thinking in both camps. I have treasured friends and family members entrenched in both camps who each, in their way, demonstrate the great virtues of courage, compassion, and generosity. For them, I write this appeal.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if something positive could come of this? What if the churches used this as an opportunity to reassess the value of spending thousands on nativity scenes, and choose, at least this time, to use that money for a living testament to Christian faith? What if, in turn, the atheist organization used this opportunity to humanize their cause, to demonstrate that an absence of God does not mean an absence of values – perhaps one of the most vehement arguments leveled against atheists? What if, given the option between confrontation and cooperation, these two camps chose to spend their efforts fighting the poverty that now grips Santa Monica and our country in general?

I propose that the coming fights and lawsuits be abandoned, in favor of a hunger luncheon, sponsored by people of all faiths, and those of no faith, dedicated to the common cause of alleviating poverty and hunger in Santa Monica this season.

Churches have not been immune to the downturn. Though the bankruptcy of Crystal Cathedral ministries might be the most conspicuous victim, many smaller churches have struggled. Yet in the face of the hard times, some churches, reaffirming their values and recognizing an increased need, have actually increased their efforts to provide food assistance and shelter. Here is the opportunity once again to demonstrate the tradition of giving and service that is both in keeping with the spirit of the season and the finest traditions of the faith, admired by those of any creed.

The atheist coalition has already scored a valuable coup in securing the permits and space. But what will come of it? Will a large display of one community’s values be supplanted by another’s? And will this continue a trend whereby any space must be contested, lest an opposing view take it? Or, perhaps, will the opportunity be seized in order to make the point that social service need not be necessarily tied to a specific religious faith? I can think of no greater way to demonstrate the virtues of their cause than by graciously working with others to host a hunger lunch.

Santa Monica is a city whose recent history has seen controversy regarding its attitudes and approaches toward homelessness. It is also, from what I can tell, unusual, if not unique, in its use of an annual Homeless Count, currently scheduled for January 25, to monitor and track trends of homelessness and the effectiveness of its policies to alleviate it. Here is an opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to help those most at-risk in its community.

Our nation is tired of wars of bombs and words. We can scarcely afford either. And it has been known since the beginning of religion and philosophy that one cannot preach effectively to a hungry person. Feed the hungry, and then, if necessary, make the case for your cause.

This season belongs to everyone. So, too, do the poor. Here’s hoping Santa will bring Santa Monica the gift of common purpose.

OOPS is just POOPS without PEE

Oops

Testicles

At this time, it may pay to remember that Greece, for all its present troubles, was the birthplace of some of the greatest figures in history. We remember Themistocles who fought at Marathon, successfully foresaw the need to create a massive navy and defeated the greatest military power on Earth at Salamis, and experienced a tragic defeat politically that left him exiled and in service to the very power he had defeated. We remember Alcibiades for his brilliance and unorthodox tactics, as well as his lack of loyalty to any one power.

But history has neglected one famous figure who has much to teach us about Greece’s, and the world’s, present crisis.

I speak, of course, of Testicles.

The story of Testicles can be summed up as follows:

As a young man, Testicles was a harmless, innocent member of society, overly sensitive and not particularly useful, as seen by his peers. Scorned, ridiculed, and misunderstood, Testicles would flee from the cold world into a warm, inner world fueled by growing hatred. One day, Testicles descended into the Underworld, seeking fame and glory to rid him of the taint of worthlessness ascribed to him by his fellow villagers.

No one knows quite what happened next. Some said the Gods took pity on him and endowed him with greater vigor and aggressiveness, to correct for his previous timidity. Others say he slew and drank the blood of Cerberus, taking on the fiend’s strength and power, at the cost of furriness. Whatever the case, the world would be forever changed by Testicles’ descent.

For after this time, Testicles was no longer content to engage in the day-to-day chores and menial labor that characterized his previous experience. Returning, stronger, larger, and more aggressive to his home village, he shunned the acts of farming and fishing to seize power from the wise council of elders that had led through years of peace and modest prosperity. And, once seizing control of the body politic, Testicles was not content to stop at his home village. He sought new conquest, and new glory, abroad.

There was initial shock of seeing the outcast in a position of command and dominance. Yet the people forgive and forget, especially as victory followed victory and the village grew to the center of a kingdom, with Testicles in charge. Testicles’ people grew rich, and forgot the wisdom of the elders, and celebrated their new lives as conquerors in conflict and commerce.

All the lands around the village now followed Testicles. Yet Testicles, never one for genuflection or to solicit outside advice, sought more. Attempts to moderate Testicles' impulses fell short; having spent most of his life in the shadows, Testicles refused to be handled by anyone.

Year after year, his empire grew. And with every conquest, Testicles felt he could do no wrong, and that he was destined to be a God. People worshiped Testicles, and he celebrated that the taint of failure that characterized his early life receded further and further behind.

But, as tyrants often do, he ultimately overreached.

After conquering a vast empire, he now sought to conquer the Undeworld itself. By overthrowing Hades, the God of Death, he believed he would become immortal and a God himself.

Testicles raised a massive army. The people, blinded by their loyalty to their Testicles, followed him into the underworld. Again, no one knows precisely what happened. But legend says that, in pitched battle, Hades himself smote Testicles, and kicked him into the fiery pits of Tartarus, where fire consumed Testicles, and the smell of burning fur and flesh terrified the army into fleeing.

In the aftermath, the empire disintegrated, and humbled, the Council of Elders was reconstituted. To this day, Greek schoolchildren in the small village remember the defeat by kicking Testicles in effigy over and over, and finally burning the effigy of Testicles, complete with fur and animal flesh, so that their children remember, viscerally, the horror of the defeat. As the Elders say, it is a painful, but necessary, reminder of the dangers of hubris, and the importance of being content with modest blessings.

Hopefully, we, too, can learn the lesson from this tale of what happens when we let Testicles guide our destiny.