Casey Zak’s Mighty Blog

Got something stupid to say, and nowhere to say it?  Now is the time and here is the place.

Bill Kristol has an op-ed in today’s NYT where he parses a Barack Obama commencement address and finds several glaring ommissions.  Among other things, Obama forgot to mention that his $14,000 salary as a grass-roots activist was a competitive inflation-adjusted entry level wage in today’s economy.  He forgot to mention that he spent two years doing other things after college besides activism.  But the greatest sin of all is that Obama forgot — gasp! — to list military service when ticking off a list of public service options.

Let’s think about those criticisms.  Obama’s $14,000 salary wasn’t nothing, but I’m sure it was a fraction of what he was making at one of his post-college jobs, a research associate at Business International Corporation.  Does he need to be starving and naked in the streets in order to have made an economic sacrifice?  Oh, and the other post-college job that Obama held during the two-year gap between college and activism in Chicago?  Obama worked for NYPIRG.

Finally, let’s think about military service.  Is parsing a commencement address for any and all errors and omissions the way to infer Obama’s opinions on military service?  I mean, look hard enough and you’ll find something missing from any speech by any candidate to support whatever view you like.  Reading into such ommissions is like a interpreting a Rorschach, and says more about the analyst than the candidate.  If you want to know whether he supports our troops, look at his direct statements and actions.  Like his support for the GI bill vs. McCain’s opposition to it.

This sort of politics — the deliberate cultivation of misperceptions — is certainly not without precedent, and it will always be present in a democracy.  The problem is that thanks to guys like Kristol, it has become the discursive style of the entire Republican establishment.  Republicans now think more about how to spin public opinion than what they’re doing.  Over time, this inversion of priorities leads to a departure from principles.  You wind up with a “conservative” party that supports huge government, crippling deficits, the elimination of civil liberties, torture, foreign policy adventurism, et cetera.

This was not always the way of things.  There has long been a sort of Goebellian subculture within the Republican party (in counterpoint to the liberal PC thought police), but it traditionally served to advance core conservative principles.  Recall, for example, its use in advancing the “Contract with America” and the Republican Revolution of 1994.  The problem has been that with the Bush administration, Republicans became tied to a whole series of crappy policies that violate classic conservative principles.  The propaganda arm fell in line and committed itself to defending these policies (recall Rush Limbaugh’s infamous complaint about having to “carry the water”).  As a result, the entire party is now lost in a political fog of war, often using its considerable polemical weaponry to attack positions that are essentially conservative.

A movement can only lose its soul in this way when those at the forefront have no regard for its principles.  To wit, witness Bill Kristol, conservative intellectual Godfather, attacking a man who certainly outranks most of us in terms of patriotism and sacrifice for the common good not by questioning his policies, but by questioning his patriotism and the nature of his sacrifices.  Now, Obama is far from being a conservative.  But to my mind, a man who attacks the patriotism of a citizen on the basis of his considerable public service is farther still.

In response to faculty criticism during my qualifying presentation, I’m presently developing a model which formalizes my thoughts on how consumption, investment, financing, and risk should move together.

I’m about the billionth guy in economics to do this.  Everyone’s take is of course slightly different from the others.  But mine is really quite different from all of them.

I don’t like deferring to convention.  I don’t like modeling something in a certain way simply because the field does it and considers it acceptable.  You can get a job by doing this.  But your research will be total crap, much like about 90% of what gets published these days, because it is based on total crap.

At the same time, convention exists for a reason.  Researchers assume that everyone can be collectively treated as a single representative person who values things according to a certain mathematical function, or that all uncertainty reduces to a coin flip, because the math is much easier under these assumptions.  Forfeit the first assumption, and you wind up with chaotic equations to describe even the simplest economic behavior.  Forfeit the second, and statistical tests become much more difficult and much less certain.  Yet if we make either assumption, we are beginning an inquiry into reality by assuming it away.

I haven’t been blogging much lately, or doing much of any normal activities, because I’ve been totally consumed with working this stuff out.  I don’t think I’ll come back to reality until I’m finished with the model.  For now, I sort of identify with my work.  When I figure something out, life is imbued with a sense of harmony.  When I’m struggling, everything feels haphazard and discordant.  Until I have a final result, the whole enterprise seems an uncertain mix of worthy struggle and vain intellectual masturbation.

In the mean time, I’m thankful to all those close to me for putting up with my remoteness.  It seems to me that a better person could be both a devoted researcher and a proper human being.  Ultimately I care more about the latter, but my cares are compromised by necessity.  Being a good person is easier when one has a job

Ah, how wonderful to have a blog to ramble on. 

I recently had a discussion with someone over when it is appropriate to assume that you are at fault.  For example, let’s say that you bump into someone walking through an airline terminal.  In the case of a mutual mistake, such as two people colliding while looking askance at a departure display, the polite thing is for both parties to apologize.  But what if you have a sense that someone pulled a jerk move?  For example, suppose you were being inattentive, but you’re pretty sure that you did see the other person out of the corner of your eye being attentive and walking straight into you anyways, as though they were entitled to a particular path through the airport.  Do you apologize, apologize with sarcasm, say nothing at all, or take some other option?

I think the answer given to this question reveals a good deal about a person’s character.  The key aspect in framing was that you were “pretty sure” of what the person did, but not entirely certain.  In the presence of uncertainty, where do you tend to assign blame?  With yourself, or with the other person?

I think many people have such a strong distaste for wrongfully blaming others that in the presence of uncertainty, they would much rather blame themselves.  In the above situation, say you figure there’s a 90% chance that the other person deliberately bumped you.  So there’s a 90% chance that you’re not responsible for the bump.  On the other hand, there’s a 10% chance that you are at least partially at fault.  So if your response blames the other person in some way, there’s a 1 in 10 chance that you’re assigning the entire blame for an accident to someone who at worst bears only part of it.  I think that most people are so bothered by the notion of incorrectly blaming another innocent as opposed to incorrectly blaming themselves that they tend to absorb blame in the presence of uncertainty.  Hence the highly common event of a mutual bump, after which both parties say “Excuse me.”

An important and deliberate aspect of how I framed that example is that you have two models of the other person’s behavior, and you are uncertain which is correct.  I think that some people have a cognitive bias where they settle on one model and then act as though they are certain of the model behind the other person’s behavior when they are not.  This “decisive” bias produces different behavior from the same set of values.  However the choice of model is made, so long as a person sometimes sees the counterparty at fault, then they will sometimes be “certain” of their misconduct and blame them accordingly.  They still perceive themselves as acting properly, but if the person still has a distaste for blaming others, then settling on a single model has produced behavior that the individual might well define as unethical if the situation were perceived in its entirety.

This may seem trivial, but consider what happens if we extend this line of thought beyond bumping in airports to making lawsuits over wrongdoing, or doing violence to others upon provocation.  Individuals who are “decisive” in my description, who settle on one model and then reject others, will tend to do much more unjust harm to others.  This problem is actually worst when a decisive person chooses models rationally — when uncertainty over blame comes entirely from model ambiguity, settling on the most likely model is the same as placing equal value on wrongly blaming others or ourselves.

However, decisiveness also has some positive effects in business or leadership situations.  The practice of settling on the most likely model and acting as though it were certainly the case may create uniformity in planning and efficiencies in action that would elude a more deliberate person.  But considered in a moral context, decisiveness as I’ve described it here is a willingness to consider the world amorally, but act morally once a view is determined.  If we assume that most people have a distaste for blaming other innocents as opposed to themselves, then the desirability of decisiveness really depends on two things — how much efficiency is gained in settling on a single view of things, and how much uncertainty over who is at fault in a situation varies across different realistic views of the world.

As for myself, I think human judgment (or at least mine) is in most cases too frail to properly determine what a “realistic” view of the world is, and that competing views find fault with different parties.  I consider decisiveness desirable in managers who make decisions with minimal moral content.  However, when a leader has to navigate the moral complexity of the world we live in, and has violence or resource redistribution among his remedies, I prefer a less efficient but more considerate leader to a decisive and resolute one.  I’ll tolerate waffling and contemplation if it reduces action that is harmful to others who are innocent of wrongdoing.  That’s just my personal preference, though.

From yesterday:

“I attempted to replace my light fixture.  Or, alternatively worded, I have destroyed my light fixture.”

One of the fun little doodads of knowledge that I’ve maintained from my undergraduate days is an understanding of language as a set of agreed symbols.  As symbols, words have varying degrees of accuracy.  For example, if I say “chair”, it’s straightforward to get some notion of a chair in mind.  But because the concept is pretty general, your precise chair probably differs from mine.  And even if we specify things as much as possible, our notions will probably still diverge here and there.

But the fact that language is approximate does not render it degenerate.  If the two of us were to encounter a master chairmaker, he could probably listen to our descriptions of our respective chairs and distinguish which one of us had a better understanding of what a chair really is.

Which brings me to my point.  I’ve noticed that the ability to deploy language often outstrips a person’s understanding of the concepts underlying language.  This lack of understanding only becomes apparent over time, however, as it can hide for a while behind the generality of language.  But poor word choice and inapposite argumentation show themselves clearly as discussion evolves.  You can pick up from context that a person doesn’t really know the proper usage of a word.  You can follow patterns of conversation to distinguish whether a person has a properly developed thought or is just repeating logical structure that they heard elsewhere and are redeploying without understanding.  This characteristic of having more words than understanding allows a person to portray a greater intelligence than they possess, thus enjoying a surplus of attractiveness for the amount of time it takes the other conversant to sound their hollow depths.  Specific errors can hide for a time behind the general imprecision of words, long enough to develop a social connection with someone who might otherwise not have been interested.

I myself would admit to veering towards the needlessly verbose, but there are others far worse than I am.  When I encounter such folk, the conversation is all dissonance.  Words and concepts are tossed around in imprecise ways which contort or violate their meaning, and the conversation evolves in a haphazard and illogical way, meandering through meaninglessness rather than converging towards substantial points of communication.  I come away irritated, wanting to spend some time in monologue simply to have access to clean and properly structured thought.  While I can’t really judge others who share in my faults, there are some people who I really do prefer to avoid for this reason.  Listening to them think is like hearing nails on a chalkboard to me.

Of course, the fact that I just took 4 paragraphs to say “I don’t like bullshitters” likely means my blog is capable of similar screeching.  Oh well.  At least I can hope for a robust readership of S&M types

Tom Peters, a University of Rochester graduate student in psychology, was recently failed on his thesis proposal entitled: “My Committee are Sadistic Bastards”.

“The sample size is too small,” noted Dr. Gregorious Kruel.  “While Mr. Peters did a fine job of amassing several hundred instances of sadistic behavior, his results only apply to the present three committee members.  Hence they cannot be generalized to have social relevance.”

Peters’ methods came under attack as well.  “The student did not adequately distinguish between sadistic and psycopathic behaviors,” noted Dr. Patricia Glass.  “Take for example his consideration of the time I made him regrade 5,000 pages of essays over the weekend he had planned to get married.  Was I satisfied by or merely indifferent to the resulting harm?”  While critical, Dr. Glass also showed signs of support for Mr. Peters.  “I would be happy to instruct him in the true meaning of the word ’sadism’,” she offered.

The originality of Peters’ work was also called into question.  “It is too similar to the paper, ‘Why Are Our Professors Trying to Kill Us?’ by Frampton and Thomas,” noted Dr. Kruel.  “While Mr. Peters question is slightly different, I think his research adds nothing original to our understanding of the topic.”

Finally, Peters’ conclusion was challenged by Dr. Lucifer Lecter.  ”Mr. Peters writes that, ‘My only option is to kill these rotten bastards and then run off into the wilderness.’  But he has not yet finished his dissertation.  He cannot take a leave of this sort until his dissertation is completed.  It’s against school policy.”

The committee offered to give Peters an additional 6 months to revise his work.  “His qualifying paper entitled, ‘All Grad Students Should Kill Themselves,” was original and showed great promise,” noted Dr. Lecter.  “Perhaps if he develops that thought a bit more, we could pass him.”

You know those moments in conversation where you’re discussing a rather far-flung topic, the discussion ends as though it fell off a cliff, and it’s impossible to use any remotely apt segue to bring the conversation back to a normal topic?

One of the characters in Deadwood has a lovely way of dealing with this.  Saul Starr, a banker and merchant, will sort of avert his eyes from the other discussant, say “Anyways…” with a brief pause after, and then move on to other discussion.  He’ll say “Anyways” with a tone of acknowledging exasperation.  This may sound insulting, but it comes off as quite disarming.  He clearly intends to continue conversation, so it is apparent that he is not exasperated with the other person but with the difficulty of conversation in general.  Thus what seems an insult becomes disarming because it acknowledges the struggle of communication, a common enemy that all parties to a conversation struggle against.

Anyways…

Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham write today, in a WSJ opinion piece, that:

Thanks to the surge, Iraq today is looking increasingly like Osama bin Laden’s worst nightmare: an Arab country, in the heart of the Middle East, in which hundreds of thousands of Muslims – both Sunni and Shiite – are rising up and fighting, shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers, against al Qaeda and its hateful ideology.

I’m all for strenuously making one’s case.  But there are three deliberately deceitful assertions in this description that are dangerous:

1.  That our project in Iraq is a unified struggle against al-Qaeda.

2.  That “hundreds of thousands” of Iraqis are now fighting side-by-side with Americans in a spirit of comraderie.

3.  That the US and various Iraqi factions are somhow harmoniously unified in the fight against al-Qaeda.

It would be unforgiveably stupid to think that Senators Graham and Lieberman could honestly believe these assertions.  They have too much exposure to reported facts.  When al-Qaeda accounts for a minute fraction of attacks on Americans, we are not fighting them so much as the hundreds of thousands of people who Graham and Lieberman say we are fighting “shoulder to shoulder” with.  To the extent that our soldiers fight alongside effective Iraqi forces, these are mostly insurgents who pair with us in temporary alliances of convenience.  There are no indications of emerging Shiite-Sunni unity in Iraq due to a struggle against al-Qaeda.  The only thing that seems to unify Sunnis and Shiites is a desire to kill American soldiers.

Rather than making an honest case for the continuation of the war, Graham and Lieberman are deliberately lying to persuade a doubtful public to accept more death.  They can both go to hell.

Hold on to your seats.  This will be the most politically significant Olympics ever.  Forget Berlin 1936.  This is Beijing 2008.

This is supposed to be about a great civilization reclaiming its rightful status, putting on a display of pomp and artistry that communicates to the world that China has gone from backwater to the center of the world in the last three decades.  Much like Germany in 1936, China is seeking to recreate an image of greatness out of a tarnished history.

For all the brutality of Nazi rule, the Berlin Olympics were marked by feigned civility.  Hitler had all the Gypsies thrown in prison prior to the Olympics, but that happened away from the eyes of the international community.  Hitler also toned down the visible enforcement of anti-Jewish laws for the duration of the games.  Laws against homosexuality were waived for foreign visitors during the Olympics.  There were instances of home favor, but these were no worse than in most other Olympics.  Germany restricted its own participation to Germans of “Aryan” descent, whose performances were adequate but certainly not consistent with what would be expected from a “master race”.

There was controversy then as now.  Several atheletes refused to participate out of objection to Nazi ideology.  But there was no violence, carnage, or mayhem.  Likely because the most oppressed minority (Jews) had no expectations of sympathy from a non-German world which was still highly anti-Semitic.

Fast forward 62 years.  Once again an oppressive regime is putting itself on display to the world.  But this is a very different world, and this Olympics will not pass quietly.  Tibetans understand that they can draw attention to their cause by provoking the Chinese.  By the time this Olympics is over, it may be the Tibetan Olympics every bit as much as the Chinese Olympics.

In the event of troubles in Tibet, the big winner of this Olympics would likely be the Dalai Lama.  The Dalai Lama is about the most peaceful person who has ever lived.  If he could control Tibetans fully, there would be no violence of any sort during the Olympics.  But he can’t.  In all likelihood, there will be provocative demonstrations.  Internal Chinese propaganda will blame the Dalai Lama for it.  But the rest of the world won’t buy it.  When they see China’s leadership blaming a nonviolent pacifist for provoking their own brutality, the international community will react with disgust and disbelief.

This Olympics is supposed to be about Chinese civilization reclaiming its world stature.  But civilization is about more than just economic development, and China’s politics are still brutal and primitive.  Like in Berlin 1936, the real goal of the Beijing Olympics is not to display the character of the ruling regime, but to hide it.  Hopefully China’s tendency towards oppression can be put on hold at least for the duration of the Olympics.  Otherwise China won’t be seen as the center of civilization, but as a threat to it.