Good Morning,
One of the problems with being on a spinning spherical planet is keeping track of time. You may have a different way of thinking about time up there, so let me try to explain. It has been said that time is nature's way of preventing everything from happening at once. But it's a little more fundamental than that. Time is the dimension which is not orthogonal to entropy (our word for the degree of disorder of things). In a closed system that does no work, the derivative of entropy with respect to time is always positive. Hopefully, you've got the idea. Your time must be even more complex than ours because whereas we rotate about our own axis once every "day", and that axis itself rotates about the sun (what we call the star at the center of our "system") once every "year", Europa's axis additionally rotates about Jupiter (what we call the enormous gas object that your world rotates around).
Our axis of rotation is not, however, perpendicular to the plane of our solar orbit. This results in "seasons". We are entering "winter", the season of the year where those of us in the "Northern Hemisphere" experience rather less daylight than night. This means that it's pretty much dark whenever we're at home (mornings, evenings and night-time) but light when we're at work. C'est la vie!
During the summer, we have an excess of light. So much so that we can do things outdoors after work before it gets dark. If we were to arrange to go to work at dawn (more or less as we're forced to do during the winter), we would have an enormous period of light available after work. Perhaps five or six hours. But people are lazy and they like to stay in bed and go to work at the same time as they do in the winter.
About a hundred years ago some people thought that it would be a pretty good idea to effectively force those lazy buggers (excuse my language) to get up earlier by artificially adjusting the clocks. We call that "summer time" or "daylight saving time". Most of the industrialized nations of the Northern Hemisphere have, in their own way, enacted government-mandated time shifts. But of course we all do it differently. In these United States, each of the states gets to decide for itself which time zone to be in and whether or not to observe daylight saving time. And we like to change the dates when it goes into or out of effect every few years just to keep everyone on their toes.
If you're thinking to yourself "what an unbelievable waste of time and effort", you would be right on! It is the most ridiculous waste of effort imaginable. There are no clear-cut savings in energy or other social costs. And I've never managed to figure out who the powerful daylight saving lobby is but you can be sure that somebody's making money out of it. The so-called Leisure industry benefits of course (including and especially baseball), and there are a few other markets that benefit. But really! Is it enough to make us all go through this charade twice a year? I don't think so!
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Two strange errors
Good Morning,
The "founding fathers" of the United States, the architects of the Constitution, got so much right that it's hard to really understand two glaring errors. I'm not talking about controversial provisions such as the second amendment (the right to bear arms). That stems from a very different era when clearly one of the main concerns of the newly victorious revolutionaries was re-annexation by the British. Against all odds and expectations, the Americans had won their independence from the mother country. They were not about to let the mother take it back so it was important for the members of the militia to have the means to defend the new nation.
I'm talking about two decisions which would have added to the sense of "one in the eye" to Britain. One is the surprising resolution not to adopt the new metric system -- essentially a product of the New Republic of France, our strongest ally -- of which the American delegates had been wholeheartedly in support during preliminary discussions. Why would a newly democratic nation want to continue with weights and measures based on an anatomical feature of some long-dead King? I refer to the feet and inches, etc. which are the foundation of the so-called Imperial System. In fact, in a few months time it will be 40 years since Britain, the mother country, herself adopted the metric system. Indeed there are only two nations on earth that still use the Imperial system and a curious pair of bedmates they make: the U.S.A. and Myanmar (formerly known as Burma).
The other decision, more a lack of innovation than an actual decision I suspect, was the non-adoption of the single-transferable-vote method of electing officials. This, like the legal system, is another aspect of British rule that was lifted more or less intact from the colonists who had been driven out. It can't be because they didn't think of it. After all, the voting on such occasions as the Democratic Convention, when the delegates nominate a presidential candidate, use a transferable vote strategy (admittedly, there were no party conventions back in those days). A series of ballots takes place and if, after any particular ballot, no candidate has a majority, the candidate(s) with the smallest totals are eliminated and the delegates who had previously voted for them must now vote for one of the remaining candidates. And so it goes until there is a clear winner. This is the only sensible way of selecting one winner from a group of more than two. I'm pretty sure that the Romans used a method like this.
Of course, it is slightly easier in this case because the delegates hang around until the voting is done. You can't expect Joe Sixpack (a somewhat derogatory name used to represent the ordinary people) to wait all day at the polling station. That's where the specific STV methodology is required: Joe marks the ballot not with just one cross but with a prioritized list: 1, 2, 3, etc. When the votes are tabulated, the first round simply generates the totals for all those marked "1". If there's no clear winner, the least popular candidate is eliminated and any ballot marked 1 for him or her now is considered to have voted for its second choice. And so on. In these days of computers and voting machines, what could possibly be simpler?
So what, you might be asking? Well, suppose the system was applied retrospectively* to the 1968 election between Richard Nixon (R), Hubert Humphrey (D) and George Wallace (I). In the actual event, Nixon received 43.4% of the popular vote entitling him to 301 votes in the electoral college; Humphrey received 42.7% of the popular vote but only 191 electoral votes; Wallace received 13.5% of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes. At first glance you might conclude that since 191+46 < 301, Wallace made no difference. But many voters who might have wanted to vote for Wallace were probably put off because they'd be wasting their vote! In practice, it might well have made a significant difference although it's also possible that it wouldn't have mattered.
Let's now take a quick look at the disputed election of 2000 (which was decided, un-constitutionally, by those actually appointed to uphold the constitution: the U.S. Supreme Court, but that's another story). There were two main candidates: George "W" Bush (R) and Al Gore (D). The popular vote went Gore's way: 48.38% to 47.87% (this was the fourth Presidential election in which the result did not reflect the popular vote). But the votes in the electoral college went to Bush: 271-266 (there was one abstention). So, what happened to the other 3.75% of the vote? And could it have made a different? These votes went to "fringe" candidates, mostly to Ralph Nader. Leaving aside for the moment all the other states, Florida was ultimately the state that gave the presidency to Bush. Let's look at Florida's total results: Bush 2,912,790, Gore 2,912,253, Nader 97,488. Do you see? Bush "took" the state by a whopping 537 votes (0.009%) while Nader "wasted" 1.635% of the votes. If those Nader votes had been allowed, via the STV mechanism, to transfer their votes to their second choice, Al Gore would have been the 43rd U.S. President instead (this assumes of course that the majority of the Nader voters would have voted for Gore as seems likely).
I was reminded of all this because there is a three-horse race for Governor of Massachusetts coming up. Again there are cries of "spoiler" to the third (independent) candidate. Why can't we simply use the STV system and allow as many candidates as want to run? There would be no spoilers as ultimately all votes get counted.
Wouldn't that be the definition of democracy?
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
* I realize that this is an impossibility because the essential information of which would be the second choice of the Wallace voters was not recorded.
The "founding fathers" of the United States, the architects of the Constitution, got so much right that it's hard to really understand two glaring errors. I'm not talking about controversial provisions such as the second amendment (the right to bear arms). That stems from a very different era when clearly one of the main concerns of the newly victorious revolutionaries was re-annexation by the British. Against all odds and expectations, the Americans had won their independence from the mother country. They were not about to let the mother take it back so it was important for the members of the militia to have the means to defend the new nation.
I'm talking about two decisions which would have added to the sense of "one in the eye" to Britain. One is the surprising resolution not to adopt the new metric system -- essentially a product of the New Republic of France, our strongest ally -- of which the American delegates had been wholeheartedly in support during preliminary discussions. Why would a newly democratic nation want to continue with weights and measures based on an anatomical feature of some long-dead King? I refer to the feet and inches, etc. which are the foundation of the so-called Imperial System. In fact, in a few months time it will be 40 years since Britain, the mother country, herself adopted the metric system. Indeed there are only two nations on earth that still use the Imperial system and a curious pair of bedmates they make: the U.S.A. and Myanmar (formerly known as Burma).
The other decision, more a lack of innovation than an actual decision I suspect, was the non-adoption of the single-transferable-vote method of electing officials. This, like the legal system, is another aspect of British rule that was lifted more or less intact from the colonists who had been driven out. It can't be because they didn't think of it. After all, the voting on such occasions as the Democratic Convention, when the delegates nominate a presidential candidate, use a transferable vote strategy (admittedly, there were no party conventions back in those days). A series of ballots takes place and if, after any particular ballot, no candidate has a majority, the candidate(s) with the smallest totals are eliminated and the delegates who had previously voted for them must now vote for one of the remaining candidates. And so it goes until there is a clear winner. This is the only sensible way of selecting one winner from a group of more than two. I'm pretty sure that the Romans used a method like this.
Of course, it is slightly easier in this case because the delegates hang around until the voting is done. You can't expect Joe Sixpack (a somewhat derogatory name used to represent the ordinary people) to wait all day at the polling station. That's where the specific STV methodology is required: Joe marks the ballot not with just one cross but with a prioritized list: 1, 2, 3, etc. When the votes are tabulated, the first round simply generates the totals for all those marked "1". If there's no clear winner, the least popular candidate is eliminated and any ballot marked 1 for him or her now is considered to have voted for its second choice. And so on. In these days of computers and voting machines, what could possibly be simpler?
So what, you might be asking? Well, suppose the system was applied retrospectively* to the 1968 election between Richard Nixon (R), Hubert Humphrey (D) and George Wallace (I). In the actual event, Nixon received 43.4% of the popular vote entitling him to 301 votes in the electoral college; Humphrey received 42.7% of the popular vote but only 191 electoral votes; Wallace received 13.5% of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes. At first glance you might conclude that since 191+46 < 301, Wallace made no difference. But many voters who might have wanted to vote for Wallace were probably put off because they'd be wasting their vote! In practice, it might well have made a significant difference although it's also possible that it wouldn't have mattered.
Let's now take a quick look at the disputed election of 2000 (which was decided, un-constitutionally, by those actually appointed to uphold the constitution: the U.S. Supreme Court, but that's another story). There were two main candidates: George "W" Bush (R) and Al Gore (D). The popular vote went Gore's way: 48.38% to 47.87% (this was the fourth Presidential election in which the result did not reflect the popular vote). But the votes in the electoral college went to Bush: 271-266 (there was one abstention). So, what happened to the other 3.75% of the vote? And could it have made a different? These votes went to "fringe" candidates, mostly to Ralph Nader. Leaving aside for the moment all the other states, Florida was ultimately the state that gave the presidency to Bush. Let's look at Florida's total results: Bush 2,912,790, Gore 2,912,253, Nader 97,488. Do you see? Bush "took" the state by a whopping 537 votes (0.009%) while Nader "wasted" 1.635% of the votes. If those Nader votes had been allowed, via the STV mechanism, to transfer their votes to their second choice, Al Gore would have been the 43rd U.S. President instead (this assumes of course that the majority of the Nader voters would have voted for Gore as seems likely).
I was reminded of all this because there is a three-horse race for Governor of Massachusetts coming up. Again there are cries of "spoiler" to the third (independent) candidate. Why can't we simply use the STV system and allow as many candidates as want to run? There would be no spoilers as ultimately all votes get counted.
Wouldn't that be the definition of democracy?
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
* I realize that this is an impossibility because the essential information of which would be the second choice of the Wallace voters was not recorded.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Sheep and goats
Good Morning,
As mentioned in my latest blog in Robin's Rural Rides, the Christian church has a curious prejudice against goats, while capriciously (pun intended) favoring sheep. Why would the church have such a bias in its opinions of two types of domestic animals?
Sheep and goats belong to separate genera but to the same sub-family (Caprinae). Anatomically, they're very similar. Both are quadrupeds with cloven hooves of course (for some reason associated with the devil) and generally speaking they both have horns (although domestication has affected that). Sheep have something of a hare lip, too, which you might expect to justify the kind of arbitrary discrimination that we find in organized religion.
There are perhaps three other significant differences between sheep and goats: smell, male lactation and sociability. Goats use smell in mating. Apparently, the nannie goats just love the billie goat's smell (which we find to be powerful and very unpleasant). Goats also can experience male lactation (religion would surely consider this behavior to be deviant). But I think the real difference that religion wants us to note is the difference in sociability. Goats tend to be more individual, while sheep are more comfortable in a flock. That's an ideal characteristic, according to religious leaders, whose comfort and power depend on the proletariat not questioning their authority, but just following along like sheep.
Human societies have typically evolved to have two interdependent and parallel hierarchies: one supported intrinsically, that's to say it is based on physical power and leadership (Kings); the other is based on intellectual superiority (religious leaders). Most of the time, these two hierarchies rely on each other for mutual support. When a King is new (without any reputation) or is physically weak, he relies on the church to "crown" him and generally to justify his existence. At other times, the religious leaders look to the King to protect them, both legally and militarily, from the masses. Occasionally, the system breaks down, as happened with England's King Henry II and Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Prior to the 15th century, the church was able to maintain its position of privilege largely because of ignorance. Most of the peasant class couldn't read and there wasn't much for them to read in any case. However, the church suffered a huge setback with the invention of the printing press and, as people became more enlightened over the subsequent centuries, the prestige and influence of the church waned. But the system is apparently so fundamental, that here in the United States of America, where the founding fathers explicitly sidelined the church via the constitution, we are experiencing a rebirth of the dual hierarchy. The influence of the church, in all three branches of government, was at an all-time high during the recent Bush years. Curiously, the internet has had an almost opposite effect to the printing press. The costs involved with publishing a book were sufficiently high to limit writing to all but the best-funded or determined authors. Thus, books tended to be reviewed by sufficient other people that their contents were likely (not guaranteed of course) to be accurate and authoritative, as opposed to mere gossip, speculation or plain lies.
Not so with the internet. It doesn't cost anything to write a blog. No reviewers are required. If you're a religious zealot, you can develop quite a following by writing on the internet. This, I believe, is partly what is at the root of this resurgence of the dual hierarchy in the U.S. I, and millions like me, don't have to prove any of the facts or opinions asserted in our blogs. That's both a boon and a disgrace at the same time. And, moreover, we don't have to use spell-check so we can spell as badly as we lyke. I really wonder about the education and world understanding of the new generations of humans who get so much of their "information" from the internet.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
As mentioned in my latest blog in Robin's Rural Rides, the Christian church has a curious prejudice against goats, while capriciously (pun intended) favoring sheep. Why would the church have such a bias in its opinions of two types of domestic animals?
Sheep and goats belong to separate genera but to the same sub-family (Caprinae). Anatomically, they're very similar. Both are quadrupeds with cloven hooves of course (for some reason associated with the devil) and generally speaking they both have horns (although domestication has affected that). Sheep have something of a hare lip, too, which you might expect to justify the kind of arbitrary discrimination that we find in organized religion.
There are perhaps three other significant differences between sheep and goats: smell, male lactation and sociability. Goats use smell in mating. Apparently, the nannie goats just love the billie goat's smell (which we find to be powerful and very unpleasant). Goats also can experience male lactation (religion would surely consider this behavior to be deviant). But I think the real difference that religion wants us to note is the difference in sociability. Goats tend to be more individual, while sheep are more comfortable in a flock. That's an ideal characteristic, according to religious leaders, whose comfort and power depend on the proletariat not questioning their authority, but just following along like sheep.
Human societies have typically evolved to have two interdependent and parallel hierarchies: one supported intrinsically, that's to say it is based on physical power and leadership (Kings); the other is based on intellectual superiority (religious leaders). Most of the time, these two hierarchies rely on each other for mutual support. When a King is new (without any reputation) or is physically weak, he relies on the church to "crown" him and generally to justify his existence. At other times, the religious leaders look to the King to protect them, both legally and militarily, from the masses. Occasionally, the system breaks down, as happened with England's King Henry II and Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Prior to the 15th century, the church was able to maintain its position of privilege largely because of ignorance. Most of the peasant class couldn't read and there wasn't much for them to read in any case. However, the church suffered a huge setback with the invention of the printing press and, as people became more enlightened over the subsequent centuries, the prestige and influence of the church waned. But the system is apparently so fundamental, that here in the United States of America, where the founding fathers explicitly sidelined the church via the constitution, we are experiencing a rebirth of the dual hierarchy. The influence of the church, in all three branches of government, was at an all-time high during the recent Bush years. Curiously, the internet has had an almost opposite effect to the printing press. The costs involved with publishing a book were sufficiently high to limit writing to all but the best-funded or determined authors. Thus, books tended to be reviewed by sufficient other people that their contents were likely (not guaranteed of course) to be accurate and authoritative, as opposed to mere gossip, speculation or plain lies.
Not so with the internet. It doesn't cost anything to write a blog. No reviewers are required. If you're a religious zealot, you can develop quite a following by writing on the internet. This, I believe, is partly what is at the root of this resurgence of the dual hierarchy in the U.S. I, and millions like me, don't have to prove any of the facts or opinions asserted in our blogs. That's both a boon and a disgrace at the same time. And, moreover, we don't have to use spell-check so we can spell as badly as we lyke. I really wonder about the education and world understanding of the new generations of humans who get so much of their "information" from the internet.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
Monday, July 26, 2010
Truth, justice and the law
Good Morning,
My apologies for there being no letter last week. I really don't know how Alistair Cooke always came up with one. I tried to write something ("liquid gold") but it just wasn't good enough so it has been shelved for now.
My topic this week the problems we have here on earth with something which we call "the law". It's essentially a code of behavior that we are supposed to adhere to. In most countries on earth, knowing the law is perhaps a little more straightforward. But here in America we have three, sometimes four relevant "jurisdictions" that can enact separate laws: first, there's International law, although most of us aren't directly affected by that; then there's the Federal law which applies to the nation as a whole; State law; and sometimes more local jurisdictions such as the city we live in. The whole thing is incredibly complex.
But there's one big problem in applying the law: humans are inveterate liars. We never tell the truth if it isn't in our interest. The legal system therefore spends an inordinate amount of time trying to decide who's lying in any particular situation.
One of the laws which applies in most jurisdictions is that of libel, which is essentially saying or writing something untrue about someone (we won't get into the difference between libel and slander). It's amazing how sometimes it takes only one person to say something bad about another person in order for that second person to lose their job, the political race they were entered in, or whatever. Often it's entirely unnecessary to prove that fact -- everyone who matters simply takes it at face value. And, perversely, if a libel victim takes legal action against the libeler, it's often seen as an admission of guilt.
There have been many instances in our history of this sort of thing, sometimes causing the death of the victim (for example the Salem witch trials). Another recent situation was the period of "McCarthyism" which ended more or less 50 years ago. All it took to have one's career ruined was for an anonymous person to whisper that you were a communist sympathizer. One of the journalists who covered the hearings, Daniel Schorr, died this week, breaking a link with that period. In fact, it's rather surprising that he wasn't on the list, especially as later he made it onto the "enemies" list of Richard Nixon (U.S. President 1969-74).
I was also reminded of the period today while attending a performance of Gypsy, a musical about Gypsy Rose Lee, perhaps the world's most famous stripper [for reasons far too complex to go into here, we humans generally wear clothes: stripping is taking them off as an entertainment]. Gypsy Rose Lee was one of the personalities accused of being a "commie", although she successfully fought back.
We have something here called a "polygraph" which purports to be able to tell when someone is lying. But it's not 100% reliable so generally isn't used much in the law courts. If someone could invent a perfect polygraph machine, it would save a lot of time in law trials and maybe protect people from malicious libelling.
These days, the situation is actually far worse than ever before. We have something called the "internet" which basically allows anyone to say anything about anyone at any time. There isn't even any provable attribution of who said what. Amazing! And if someone calls someone a cheat, liar, whatever, this piece of information can now be "picked up" by the newspapers (even books) and given a sheen of authority. We had a story just this week of someone losing their job because of this sort of scurrilous activity. I notice today on Facebook (part of this internet culture), one particular person (no idea who this person really is of course) claiming that Alberto Contador, the winner (again) of the Tour de France (the world's most grueling race on two-wheeled transportation machines that we call bicycles) is a cheat. He doesn't offer any evidence. In my opinion, this is just plain wrong! He should have to quote sources to back up his claim, which in turn would quote sources, ...
For now, we're stuck with a very imperfect system.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
My apologies for there being no letter last week. I really don't know how Alistair Cooke always came up with one. I tried to write something ("liquid gold") but it just wasn't good enough so it has been shelved for now.
My topic this week the problems we have here on earth with something which we call "the law". It's essentially a code of behavior that we are supposed to adhere to. In most countries on earth, knowing the law is perhaps a little more straightforward. But here in America we have three, sometimes four relevant "jurisdictions" that can enact separate laws: first, there's International law, although most of us aren't directly affected by that; then there's the Federal law which applies to the nation as a whole; State law; and sometimes more local jurisdictions such as the city we live in. The whole thing is incredibly complex.
But there's one big problem in applying the law: humans are inveterate liars. We never tell the truth if it isn't in our interest. The legal system therefore spends an inordinate amount of time trying to decide who's lying in any particular situation.
One of the laws which applies in most jurisdictions is that of libel, which is essentially saying or writing something untrue about someone (we won't get into the difference between libel and slander). It's amazing how sometimes it takes only one person to say something bad about another person in order for that second person to lose their job, the political race they were entered in, or whatever. Often it's entirely unnecessary to prove that fact -- everyone who matters simply takes it at face value. And, perversely, if a libel victim takes legal action against the libeler, it's often seen as an admission of guilt.
There have been many instances in our history of this sort of thing, sometimes causing the death of the victim (for example the Salem witch trials). Another recent situation was the period of "McCarthyism" which ended more or less 50 years ago. All it took to have one's career ruined was for an anonymous person to whisper that you were a communist sympathizer. One of the journalists who covered the hearings, Daniel Schorr, died this week, breaking a link with that period. In fact, it's rather surprising that he wasn't on the list, especially as later he made it onto the "enemies" list of Richard Nixon (U.S. President 1969-74).
I was also reminded of the period today while attending a performance of Gypsy, a musical about Gypsy Rose Lee, perhaps the world's most famous stripper [for reasons far too complex to go into here, we humans generally wear clothes: stripping is taking them off as an entertainment]. Gypsy Rose Lee was one of the personalities accused of being a "commie", although she successfully fought back.
We have something here called a "polygraph" which purports to be able to tell when someone is lying. But it's not 100% reliable so generally isn't used much in the law courts. If someone could invent a perfect polygraph machine, it would save a lot of time in law trials and maybe protect people from malicious libelling.
These days, the situation is actually far worse than ever before. We have something called the "internet" which basically allows anyone to say anything about anyone at any time. There isn't even any provable attribution of who said what. Amazing! And if someone calls someone a cheat, liar, whatever, this piece of information can now be "picked up" by the newspapers (even books) and given a sheen of authority. We had a story just this week of someone losing their job because of this sort of scurrilous activity. I notice today on Facebook (part of this internet culture), one particular person (no idea who this person really is of course) claiming that Alberto Contador, the winner (again) of the Tour de France (the world's most grueling race on two-wheeled transportation machines that we call bicycles) is a cheat. He doesn't offer any evidence. In my opinion, this is just plain wrong! He should have to quote sources to back up his claim, which in turn would quote sources, ...
For now, we're stuck with a very imperfect system.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
Monday, July 12, 2010
The Information Society
Good Morning,
We are in the hottest part of our year now: what we call "summer". Well, the great majority are in summer, including those of us in this country. So, while we enjoy and/or suffer the heat, I'm reminded of the rather alarming trend whereby the average temperature on the surface of the earth is creeping up, year by year. We call this global warming. Along with nuclear weapons, the dwindling supply of oil, and the competition for natural resources by emergent nations (e.g. China), it's one of the most pressing threats to our way of life. Yet, we don't worry much about it. Come to think about it, we don't worry much about any of these four threats, although the government still tries to keep us all afraid of nuclear war (all governments know that fear is one of their most potent tactics to justify their existence).
It's possible that this period of global warming is simply part of a purely natural cycle. We know from ice cores, tree rings and many other sources of evidence that surface temperatures on earth have fluctuated significantly during the 4.6 billion years since our planet first was formed. However, most if not all of the scientific evidence points to the current warming trend as being caused by the things we're doing such as burning fossil fuels (which I started to talk about last week).
Incidentally, there's a strange phenomenon that operates here in the reporting of news. Let's say just for an example that at a conference on global warming, 1000 scientists are asked the question: is global warming caused principally by man's activities? And let's further postulate that 999 of these scientists answer Yes [this is actually a very realistic scenario]. The newspapers, here in the United States at least, will report on this with a headline such as the following: World Scientific Opinion Divided on Global Warming Cause. In other words, they will tend to give equal weight to the one dissenter as to the 999 who give their assent! That's because the perceived news value of a 500-500 split would be close to zero and barely worth a mention in a back page. The news value of unanimity would be considerably higher but, perversely, not as high as the news value of the 999-1 split.
Aside from this strange application of information theory, there is also a more prosaic and indirect reason for the newspapers thus reporting. By and large, the media outlets are owned by people who enjoy the status quo. That means big profits from selling (and burning) oil. It is very much in their short-term interests (and what other interests could possibly be as interesting?) to persuade the population that it's OK (even good for them) to keep burning lots of oil.
In the same vein, there is another parallel oddity of information flow here in this country. Let's line up another 1000 scientists, this time, experts in the field of biology and ask them the following question: did the existing complexity of life here on planet earth evolve over billions of years as a result of natural selection, as opposed to being created less than 10,000 years ago by an omnipotent agent, for example a god? This time all 1000 scientists will say yes. But the newspapers will report it as something like Scientists think that maybe life has evolved here on earth but cannot prove that it was not created by God.
Partly as a result of the news media treatment of this subject, if you stopped 1000 people in the street you would get something like 450 yes answers and astonishingly 550 nos. Actually, if you were conducting this poll, you'd realistically expect that the vast majority would respond "don't know" since most ordinary people are not experts in the biological sciences. If you don't believe me on this (and I wouldn't blame you), check out Poll: Creationism Trumps Evolution (2004).
And yet, we believe that we live in an enlightened democracy where information rules!
More detail on these curious aspects of life on Earth to come.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
We are in the hottest part of our year now: what we call "summer". Well, the great majority are in summer, including those of us in this country. So, while we enjoy and/or suffer the heat, I'm reminded of the rather alarming trend whereby the average temperature on the surface of the earth is creeping up, year by year. We call this global warming. Along with nuclear weapons, the dwindling supply of oil, and the competition for natural resources by emergent nations (e.g. China), it's one of the most pressing threats to our way of life. Yet, we don't worry much about it. Come to think about it, we don't worry much about any of these four threats, although the government still tries to keep us all afraid of nuclear war (all governments know that fear is one of their most potent tactics to justify their existence).
It's possible that this period of global warming is simply part of a purely natural cycle. We know from ice cores, tree rings and many other sources of evidence that surface temperatures on earth have fluctuated significantly during the 4.6 billion years since our planet first was formed. However, most if not all of the scientific evidence points to the current warming trend as being caused by the things we're doing such as burning fossil fuels (which I started to talk about last week).
Incidentally, there's a strange phenomenon that operates here in the reporting of news. Let's say just for an example that at a conference on global warming, 1000 scientists are asked the question: is global warming caused principally by man's activities? And let's further postulate that 999 of these scientists answer Yes [this is actually a very realistic scenario]. The newspapers, here in the United States at least, will report on this with a headline such as the following: World Scientific Opinion Divided on Global Warming Cause. In other words, they will tend to give equal weight to the one dissenter as to the 999 who give their assent! That's because the perceived news value of a 500-500 split would be close to zero and barely worth a mention in a back page. The news value of unanimity would be considerably higher but, perversely, not as high as the news value of the 999-1 split.
Aside from this strange application of information theory, there is also a more prosaic and indirect reason for the newspapers thus reporting. By and large, the media outlets are owned by people who enjoy the status quo. That means big profits from selling (and burning) oil. It is very much in their short-term interests (and what other interests could possibly be as interesting?) to persuade the population that it's OK (even good for them) to keep burning lots of oil.
In the same vein, there is another parallel oddity of information flow here in this country. Let's line up another 1000 scientists, this time, experts in the field of biology and ask them the following question: did the existing complexity of life here on planet earth evolve over billions of years as a result of natural selection, as opposed to being created less than 10,000 years ago by an omnipotent agent, for example a god? This time all 1000 scientists will say yes. But the newspapers will report it as something like Scientists think that maybe life has evolved here on earth but cannot prove that it was not created by God.
Partly as a result of the news media treatment of this subject, if you stopped 1000 people in the street you would get something like 450 yes answers and astonishingly 550 nos. Actually, if you were conducting this poll, you'd realistically expect that the vast majority would respond "don't know" since most ordinary people are not experts in the biological sciences. If you don't believe me on this (and I wouldn't blame you), check out Poll: Creationism Trumps Evolution (2004).
And yet, we believe that we live in an enlightened democracy where information rules!
More detail on these curious aspects of life on Earth to come.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
Monday, July 5, 2010
Oil and the piping plover
Good morning,
if you have very powerful telescopes on Europa, you might have noticed that there's been a change here on Earth. There's a big oil slick down in the Gulf of Mexico caused a couple of months ago by trying to drill a well on the sea floor on the cheap, so to speak. Saving about a million dollars in drilling operations, the perpetrators have now caused an environmental catastrophe that is going to cost themselves at least $20 billion (20,000 times as much as they planned to save) and the country and rest of the world ecological damage whose monetary value is simply immeasurable.
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, oil (also called petroleum) is a liquid formed from fossilized organisms laid down many millions of years ago. We use the stuff to power and/or produce just about everything here on Earth. The problem is that, although there's a lot of oil under the ground, we consume it quicker than we can find it. And, it's not being made any more – at least not at a rate that could ever be useful to us.
I'm interested to know what you use for energy up there so far from the sun. We haven't figured out an alternative yet, but we are definitely looking for ideas, as the stuff's going to be all used up shockingly soon. One plan is to use the wind to generate electricity (you have that, right?). But the oil lobby is determined to stop that by using "pseudo-green" arguments like dangers to piping plovers and whales. As it happens, the piping plovers and whales aren't of course threatened in any way by wind farms. But they are two species that are massively threatened by the oil spill. Indeed, the plovers which winter on the Gulf shore could even be wiped out entirely by the oil.
But this kind of thing is normal for our world. The dollar (the pound, yen, yuan, etc.) rules. Truth exists on a sliding scale. There is no truth so absolute or profound that someone can't be found to deny it, given sufficient cash incentive. Examples abound, depending on which historical period you'd like to examine. Probably the most ludicrous, and long-lived, example of all is the subject of evolution by natural selection. We'll look into that in a future letter.
Meanwhile, you'd expect that on Earth we would be guarding every precious drop of oil for the future. A relatively easy way to do that would be to impose a large tax on the sale of gasoline (the derivative of petroleum that we put in our cars). Not only would it cause us to be less wasteful, but the proceeds from the tax could, among other things, be used to research new forms of energy. However, we have a democracy here which explicitly excludes voters from among the generation most affected by the future oil shortage and any presidential candidate who proposed such a tax wouldn't last five minutes in the race.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
if you have very powerful telescopes on Europa, you might have noticed that there's been a change here on Earth. There's a big oil slick down in the Gulf of Mexico caused a couple of months ago by trying to drill a well on the sea floor on the cheap, so to speak. Saving about a million dollars in drilling operations, the perpetrators have now caused an environmental catastrophe that is going to cost themselves at least $20 billion (20,000 times as much as they planned to save) and the country and rest of the world ecological damage whose monetary value is simply immeasurable.
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, oil (also called petroleum) is a liquid formed from fossilized organisms laid down many millions of years ago. We use the stuff to power and/or produce just about everything here on Earth. The problem is that, although there's a lot of oil under the ground, we consume it quicker than we can find it. And, it's not being made any more – at least not at a rate that could ever be useful to us.
I'm interested to know what you use for energy up there so far from the sun. We haven't figured out an alternative yet, but we are definitely looking for ideas, as the stuff's going to be all used up shockingly soon. One plan is to use the wind to generate electricity (you have that, right?). But the oil lobby is determined to stop that by using "pseudo-green" arguments like dangers to piping plovers and whales. As it happens, the piping plovers and whales aren't of course threatened in any way by wind farms. But they are two species that are massively threatened by the oil spill. Indeed, the plovers which winter on the Gulf shore could even be wiped out entirely by the oil.
But this kind of thing is normal for our world. The dollar (the pound, yen, yuan, etc.) rules. Truth exists on a sliding scale. There is no truth so absolute or profound that someone can't be found to deny it, given sufficient cash incentive. Examples abound, depending on which historical period you'd like to examine. Probably the most ludicrous, and long-lived, example of all is the subject of evolution by natural selection. We'll look into that in a future letter.
Meanwhile, you'd expect that on Earth we would be guarding every precious drop of oil for the future. A relatively easy way to do that would be to impose a large tax on the sale of gasoline (the derivative of petroleum that we put in our cars). Not only would it cause us to be less wasteful, but the proceeds from the tax could, among other things, be used to research new forms of energy. However, we have a democracy here which explicitly excludes voters from among the generation most affected by the future oil shortage and any presidential candidate who proposed such a tax wouldn't last five minutes in the race.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
Monday, June 28, 2010
The first letter
Good morning,
This is the first letter to you the inhabitants, if any, of Europa, the moon orbiting Jupiter at 671,000 kilometers. My aim is to introduce you to the quirky ways of planet Earth, especially the country known as the United States of America, in case we ever meet face to face. I'm sure you have your own eccentricities and maybe eventually, you'll write back. For the time being, however, this is a one-way correspondence.
I should add that although I live in these United States, I didn't grow up here so my comments can't be guaranteed to be representative of things you might hear or read from a true American. Indeed, I live in a place called Boston, which in its own way likes to do things a little differently from the rest of America too. Try not to be confused.
Earth is quite large compared with your little world and quite a bit closer to the Sun. There are more than six billion (6,000,000,000) humans on this planet. We walk upright on two legs and consider all the other animals we share our planet with as inferiors. So, when I talk about "we", I will not be referring to any other types of ape, primate, mammal, etc. As far as you're concerned, you won't go far wrong if you just assume these other creatures simply don't exist. That's what most of us try to do. Occasionally, a suicidal raccoon or something like that will jump out in front of our car and try to make off with our front license plate, but that's a story for another time.
Once every four years (a year is the time it takes our planet to orbit the sun), most of the inhabitants (remember, just the humans) on our planet are obsessed by a sporting event known as the World Cup. The game they play is called Football, because you kick the ball with your foot, and definitely not to be confused with American Football played in this country where it is extremely rare for anyone on the team, with two exceptions, to kick the ball. Football has just 11 people on each side (two teams playing each other is called a match). As well as kicking the ball, it's permissible to head the ball or let it touch one's torso. With one exception, it is not permissible to touch the ball with a hand. The exception is if you're on the team from Argentina. No, sorry, that was a joke. You may touch the ball if you are the designated "goal keeper" and you are in your area and the ball was last played by one of the other side.
The idea of the game is to put the ball in the opponents' goal. This is harder than it sounds. First, because the opposing team tries its best to stop you and second, because the officials feel that disallowing obvious goals adds to the charm and intrigue of the game. Why, you ask, don't they just look at the TV replay? Well, that would be a little too simple and also, I'm afraid, seem like they're trying to copy the Americans who have to run just about every decision through the replay booth.
There are several other curious unwritten rules about the World Cup. The most important being that England, the country I come from and which invented the darn game, is never allowed to win. A huge error occurred back in 1966 when an Azerbaijani referee heard "The Germans must win" as "The Germans shan't win", but since then the rule has been followed quite assiduously. These days, the USA seems to have joined the list of proscribed teams. As the competition continues, I'll keep you posted about how it's going.
Now, here's another aspect of earthly life that you might find interesting. Back in the day (let's say before about 1400), in order to have your way over an adversary, you needed either to be bigger and stronger or to be able to shoot an arrow through them. Arrows weren't always 100% accurate and required prodigious strength to bend the bow. They also took a little time to operate and at close range you could actually be overcome before letting loose.
So, we invented the gun. Guns are marvels of engineering which can fire a lethal projectile into your enemy at close range or, using a different type of gun called a rifle, at longer range (more than a kilometer). They take no time to fire, and are small enough that you can actually put one in your pocket. Ownership, in this country, is optional, but it is the law that our rights to own and use guns is absolute. The second amendment (of the U.S. constitution) reads thus:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The latest brouhaha in my state, Massachusetts, is over whether it's OK to buy a new gun every month. The gun lobby (I'll have to explain this concept later) is adamant that it would be a serious infringement of our rights if we couldn't legally buy a new piece every four weeks or so. A month, by the way, is the time it takes for our moon (about the size of your world) to rotate around the earth. And lest you conclude that we humans must have hundreds of hands to hold these guns, I can assure you that we have only two. Most of us can't fire a gun with our feet, so despite living on average through about 800 new moons, we can only handle two guns at once. Draw your own conclusions whether it's essential for us to be able to buy a new one each month. If you conclude that the surplus guns acquired after the first two months are destined to be sold illegally to people who, perhaps due to their youth or criminal record, aren't allowed to buy a gun, then you're getting the hang of life down here quite well.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
This is the first letter to you the inhabitants, if any, of Europa, the moon orbiting Jupiter at 671,000 kilometers. My aim is to introduce you to the quirky ways of planet Earth, especially the country known as the United States of America, in case we ever meet face to face. I'm sure you have your own eccentricities and maybe eventually, you'll write back. For the time being, however, this is a one-way correspondence.
I should add that although I live in these United States, I didn't grow up here so my comments can't be guaranteed to be representative of things you might hear or read from a true American. Indeed, I live in a place called Boston, which in its own way likes to do things a little differently from the rest of America too. Try not to be confused.
Earth is quite large compared with your little world and quite a bit closer to the Sun. There are more than six billion (6,000,000,000) humans on this planet. We walk upright on two legs and consider all the other animals we share our planet with as inferiors. So, when I talk about "we", I will not be referring to any other types of ape, primate, mammal, etc. As far as you're concerned, you won't go far wrong if you just assume these other creatures simply don't exist. That's what most of us try to do. Occasionally, a suicidal raccoon or something like that will jump out in front of our car and try to make off with our front license plate, but that's a story for another time.
Once every four years (a year is the time it takes our planet to orbit the sun), most of the inhabitants (remember, just the humans) on our planet are obsessed by a sporting event known as the World Cup. The game they play is called Football, because you kick the ball with your foot, and definitely not to be confused with American Football played in this country where it is extremely rare for anyone on the team, with two exceptions, to kick the ball. Football has just 11 people on each side (two teams playing each other is called a match). As well as kicking the ball, it's permissible to head the ball or let it touch one's torso. With one exception, it is not permissible to touch the ball with a hand. The exception is if you're on the team from Argentina. No, sorry, that was a joke. You may touch the ball if you are the designated "goal keeper" and you are in your area and the ball was last played by one of the other side.
The idea of the game is to put the ball in the opponents' goal. This is harder than it sounds. First, because the opposing team tries its best to stop you and second, because the officials feel that disallowing obvious goals adds to the charm and intrigue of the game. Why, you ask, don't they just look at the TV replay? Well, that would be a little too simple and also, I'm afraid, seem like they're trying to copy the Americans who have to run just about every decision through the replay booth.
There are several other curious unwritten rules about the World Cup. The most important being that England, the country I come from and which invented the darn game, is never allowed to win. A huge error occurred back in 1966 when an Azerbaijani referee heard "The Germans must win" as "The Germans shan't win", but since then the rule has been followed quite assiduously. These days, the USA seems to have joined the list of proscribed teams. As the competition continues, I'll keep you posted about how it's going.
Now, here's another aspect of earthly life that you might find interesting. Back in the day (let's say before about 1400), in order to have your way over an adversary, you needed either to be bigger and stronger or to be able to shoot an arrow through them. Arrows weren't always 100% accurate and required prodigious strength to bend the bow. They also took a little time to operate and at close range you could actually be overcome before letting loose.
So, we invented the gun. Guns are marvels of engineering which can fire a lethal projectile into your enemy at close range or, using a different type of gun called a rifle, at longer range (more than a kilometer). They take no time to fire, and are small enough that you can actually put one in your pocket. Ownership, in this country, is optional, but it is the law that our rights to own and use guns is absolute. The second amendment (of the U.S. constitution) reads thus:
The latest brouhaha in my state, Massachusetts, is over whether it's OK to buy a new gun every month. The gun lobby (I'll have to explain this concept later) is adamant that it would be a serious infringement of our rights if we couldn't legally buy a new piece every four weeks or so. A month, by the way, is the time it takes for our moon (about the size of your world) to rotate around the earth. And lest you conclude that we humans must have hundreds of hands to hold these guns, I can assure you that we have only two. Most of us can't fire a gun with our feet, so despite living on average through about 800 new moons, we can only handle two guns at once. Draw your own conclusions whether it's essential for us to be able to buy a new one each month. If you conclude that the surplus guns acquired after the first two months are destined to be sold illegally to people who, perhaps due to their youth or criminal record, aren't allowed to buy a gun, then you're getting the hang of life down here quite well.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
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