Month: November 2012

In this age when conspiracy theories abound and you can find entire communities devoted to group-think, finding dragons in the clouds and believing them to be real, I think it’s a great idea to revisit Michael Shermer’s Conspiracy Theory Detector. Summary below the break.

1. Proof of the conspiracy supposedly emerges from a pattern of “connecting the dots” between events that need not be causally connected. When no evidence supports these connections except the allegation of the conspiracy or when the evidence fits equally well to other causal connections — or to randomness — the conspiracy theory is likely to be false.
2. The agents behind the pattern of the conspiracy would need nearly superhuman power to pull it off. People are usually not nearly so powerful as we think they are.
3. The conspiracy is complex, and its successful completion demands a large number of elements.
4. Similarly, the conspiracy involves large numbers of people who would all need to keep silent about their secrets. The more people involved, the less realistic it becomes.
5. The conspiracy encompasses a grand ambition for control over a nation, economy or political system. If it suggests world domination, the theory is even less likely to be true.
6. The conspiracy theory ratchets up from small events that might be true to much larger, much less probable events.
7. The conspiracy theory assigns portentous, sinister meanings to what are most likely innocuous, insignificant events.
8. The theory tends to commingle facts and speculations without distinguishing between the two and without assigning degrees of probability or of factuality.
9. The theorist is indiscriminately suspicious of all government agencies or private groups, which suggests an inability to nuance differences between true and false conspiracies.
10. The conspiracy theorist refuses to consider alternative explanations, rejecting all disconfirming evidence and blatantly seeking only confirmatory evidence to support what he or she has a priori determined to be the truth.

Examples of conspiracy theories that fail the test: “Birther” theory, “9/11 planned demolition”, and “Clinton Body Count”. If you hold up the Benghazi ambassador assassination to the same scrutiny, I don’t see how anyone can come up with any other explanation than that there WAS a conspiracy of Islamic militants who decided to attack the compound on the same day as anti-American demonstrations took place in many other highly-populated places in the Middle East.

It’s also useful to note that most conspiracy theorists share common traits likely to cause them to believe conspiracy theories:

1. Backing more than one conspiracy theory,
2. Talking about conspiracy theories with like-minded people,
3. Endorsing democratic procedures,
4. An imaginative outlook, (this is not a compliment; it means imagining things and believing they exist in the real world)
5. Mistrust of authority,
6. Feeling suspicious of others.

Conversation with my staff over the phone in India today. I love colloquialisms.

Me: “In this case, our application is just the canary in the coal mine. ” Them: “A what?” Me: “A canary in a coal mine. If it is dead, it’s not because it had a pre-existing health condition.” Them: “What health condition did it have?” Me: “… Uh. It was poisoned. By being in a coal mine.” Them: “Why would a coal mine poison a bird?” Me: “The coal mine may contain poisonous gases. That’s why miners would take a bird down into the mine with them: so if the canary dies, they could know to run to the surface.” Them: “That’s so cruel. If there are poisonous gases in a mine, they shouldn’t bring a bird with them in the first place.”

Had to go on mute. Laughing too hard!

Comment thread: https://www.facebook.com/ihenpecked/posts/10151254231702458?comment_id=24876373&notif_t=like

This morning, I decided to sit down and analyze some statistics, and from them I arrived at a hypothesis that I still need to validate. What do you think?

If you look at the statistics, as of 2012 the median household income is RISING in the USA, and in fact is at the highest levels in history in inflation-adjusted dollars. It’s easy to see where the money is coming from if you analyze income over time by gender, race, and education. The overall national economy is not a zero-sum game (the US economy overall is expanding without taking away from other economies; in fact, economies world-wide are expanding, too) but wages within the total at any given time appear to be a zero-sum game.

Hispanics and Blacks are increasing in income, while Asians and Whites are decreasing. Women are increasing in income, while Men are decreasing. Pay for those with at least an Associate’s Degree is increasing, while for those with less it is decreasing; more women than men are getting those degrees, and Hispanics and Blacks are increasing their share of degrees while Whites are decreasing their share.

Therefore, if you are a white man with less than an Associate’s Degree — a really, really gigantic block of voters! — you’ve probably experienced a profound negative shift in your socioeconomic status over the past decade. From this point of view, Barack Obama is a nightmare for America, accelerating this shift, and representing the “evil” that is destroying a way of life.

From my perspective, there’s a simple — but not easy — cure. Get an education and get on-board the gravy train of the “knowledge economy” that is at the heart of America’s current economic domination of the planet.

But it seems to be more popular to rail at perceived injustice than to improve one’s own situation.

For those who missed it, here was George Washington’s 1796 farewell address to the nation, touching on political parties:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

If you have a few minutes and are interested in an unbiased graphic of political trends in the House and Senate, check this out. It shows the shifts in power based exclusively on economic voting bloc patterns of the House and Senate over time. There are some fascinating patterns here, especially if you click the “large” graphic and pan around…

* The near-complete complete collapse of the Center Right in the House and voting dominance of the Far Right, starting around 1984 and continuing today. The last time we saw such an evisceration of the Center Right was under William McKinley at the start of the 20th century, but even then a few holdouts remained. Today, the only Center Right congressmen in the House are Democrats. * Voting Far Right seems to be a winning strategy for Republicans in the House for the past thirty years. While I often disagree with the Far Right ideology — I’m very much a Centrist — it’s hard to argue with the success of the takeover. * It’s hard to pick out the Policy Pendulum from this graph, but it looks like House voting patterns swung from Center Right to Center Left in 1930-1940, 1956-1966, 1974-1993, and 2006-2008. * Joe Biden’s trend from Far Left to Centrist during a long Senate career. * Newt Gingrich’s voting record looks very much like that of Gerald Ford. * That centrist candidates really tend to get their teeth kicked in in swing states; one is much safer on the Far Right or Far Left if the goal of the politician is longevity. * Senators Hatch and Byrd have one thing in common: they both kept their Senate seats far, far too long. I wonder if they’ll both die in office, too?

http://xkcd.com/1127/ Blogged at: http://barnson.org/node/1883

I just read an Open Letter to Republican Strategists, and gotta say I can’t agree more. I’m not quite as affluent as this guy, nor do we align on every issue. Nevertheless, I’m a bread-and-butter type of voter for the Republican Party — my party, by the way — but I handed in my vote that helped hand the Democrats the election.

Our party needs to get out of the business of being up in everybody else’s business, and focus on a core message that actually resonates with my kind of voter:

• Fiscal conservatism in deed, not just in name as it has been for my entire lifetime.
• Be pro-science. The current Republican anti-science stance is repugnant. Arguing over the benefits and disadvantages of cap-and-trade proposals is just fine. Arguing over the existence of settled conclusions in climate science, rape-induced pregnancy, evolution, and physics just makes you look like “the party of the stupid”.
• Be in favor of fixing health care. Being squarely anti-ACA is inimical to this goal; enhance, improve, and adjust the legislation. Your promise to “repeal ObamaCare” on Day 1 in office is a big part of what led to your defeat. Give productive suggestions, instead of a promise to tear down necessary improvements to US health infrastructure.

There is more, but that would be a good start. Instead of deciding to double-down again on an extremist form of anti-American fascism, why not entertain the notion of finding out what a winning constituency actually wants?

Today, like each Veteran’s Day for the past several years, I am grateful for veterans who have defended our country. Even those on both sides of the conflict dating back to 1860, when the Confederate states illegally seceded, roused others to support their secession due to the election of an unpopular President (Abraham Lincoln), then took violent action at Fort Sumter to spark the Civil War.

I pray the extremists of today do not attempt to repeat the failed effort of the Confederacy once again.

I’ve recently been researching social, economic, governmental, and other historic developments leading up to conflicts within the United States and other civilizations, specifically the Civil War, WW1, and WW2. Our country’s history is very unique in some ways. For instance, it’s the first secular government based on enlightenment principles to survive as more than a solitary nation-state of roughly the size of a city. But starting with the Civil Rights Movement up to a peak with the re-election of the nation’s first Black president, the country seems to be on a track towards the same kind of fundamental, ideological, extremist disagreement that fueled the Civil War but started forty years earlier.

Lincoln was not even on the ballot of ten states due to lack of support, yet won anyway. His election on a platform positioned to oppose the Conservative platform of Southern Democrats was extremely divisive, and conservatives in the South saw Lincoln’s election as an assault upon their sovereignty, their dignity, and their way of life. Secessions began even before his inauguration as a result of policies that ultimately would unite the nation, but not before a terrible cost of lives.

We ignore the lessons of history to our peril. My chief political concern today is what seems to be the pending inevitable loss of life squandered in an ideological conflict within the United States unless the impact of extremist factions can be mitigated. The gulf of understanding is deepening, making it extremely difficult to maintain a position as a moderate in today’s political climate.

The voting alignment of the most-recent election along almost purely racial divisions is alarming and dangerous to the health of the country. Romney lost due to a seemingly-inevitable decline of his primary voting bloc: non-Hispanic ethnic whites, both males and females. Unless we do something FAST to come to some kind of New Middle, we’re going to see a new revolution along such racial and loosely geographic lines within our lifetimes due to this decline of influence.

Just like the South as the Union expanded from 1840 to 1860.