Who does David Friedman Want to Win

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

Who does David Friedman want to win the election?

Gary Johnson, of course. But he isn’t going to.

The more interesting question is which of the two major party candidates I want to win. What I find interesting, looking at my own feelings, is that there are two different answers.

The rational answer is that the worst outcome might be Obama in control of both houses of Congress, but that that is very unlikely to happen. The second worst is probably Romney in control of both houses, a little more likely. Beyond those two, the order is unclear. On the one hand, my guess is that Obama would want to do more things I disapprove of than Romney. On the other, Romney, if elected, will almost certainly control the House and might control the Senate, or get control of it two years from now. What matters is not what people want to do but what they can do, and Romney might well be able to do more things I disapprove of than Obama.

A further argument is that when Romney talks a free market line but fails to act it, those of us who actually believe in free markets will get blamed for the resulting failures. That, after all, is what happened with the Bush administration. I do not expect either Obama’s policies or Romney’s to succeed, and if policies are going to visibly fail, I would prefer that they be blamed on someone else. That is an argument in favor of Obama.

Posted in Economics, Policy | No Comments »

Idiocracy in Action

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

Ideally, politics is about coming up with a set of understood compromises on issues trading off redistribution and efficiency, Eric Falkenstein says — but only ideally:

As most people have instincts on the long run effects of their favored policies but no definitive proof, people tend to be get very frustrated and emotional discussing these issues because we don’t like arguing about things we believe but can’t prove. I believe a smaller scale and scope of government would increase welfare, but alas my proof does not fit in a blog post (sort of like Fermat’s last theorem).

National politics is about convincing the demographic that votes for American Idol to agree with you.  When I used to teach at Northwestern University I occasionally asked what students thought about popular topics like  ’free trade’ or ‘market efficiency’. Their opinions were so poorly articulated and founded, I stopped doing that. It did not help to have people riff on subjects they really didn’t understand, the errors were so numerous and fundamental it simply was a waste of time.  I realized then that gaining their support would either rely on authority — believe me because I have these credentials — or slick salesmanship. Both methods are not good at converging upon truth. In the end I tried to explain some fundamental ideas showing why, given certain assumptions, one could think something was optimal, so the best case scenario was not definitive anyway.

Pure democracy leads to more concentrated power:

As collectives get larger — the USA, Roman Republic, Galactic Senate — power gets more concentrated in the President or Emperor. I think this is because when a state is small, an aristocracy/oligarchy is concentrated enough to work, but it doesn’t scale. At a certain point the aristocracy is fragmented but the titular head retains his power, which is then amplified by his new relative strength, making the legislative branch a veto at best, a patronage machine at worst. The House and Senate remain more powerful than the President, but they seem to lose stature every decade.

Posted in Economics, Policy | No Comments »

Democracy’s Holy Day

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

You should not celebrate democracy’s holy day, Foseti says, citing Bruce Charlton:

Once people have become used to relying on a procedure as utterly indefensible as voting to make their most important decisions, once they have been induced to regard voting as if it was not just ethically acceptable but in fact the pinnacle of goodness, the one-and-only ethical behaviour; then these people are embarked on a path of apostasy, inversion of values, and self-destruction.

People who have given their allegiance to voting as the most valid, authoritative and moral decision-making procedure have been manipulated into a self-reinforcing psychosis in which a system of zero validity, zero authority and zero morality is treated with quasi-divine reverence.

Instead, he recommends watching The Nine Lives of Marion Barry — and these political messages from time-traveling President Camacho.

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How Democracy Can Become Tyranny

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

Alexis De Tocqueville explains how democracy can become tyranny:

Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions: they want to be led, and they wish to remain free. As they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain.

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The Post-Apocalypse Survival Machine Nerd Farm

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

Marcin Jakubowski lives an ascetic, geeky life on his Factor e Farm:

Jakubowski has named the place Factor e Farm, though the goal isn’t just the cultivation of crops. Rather, it’s to create a completely self-sufficient community that produces not only its own food, but also energy, tools, and raw materials for making those tools. Jakubowski’s ultimate purpose is both to live off the grid and to teach others—whether out of choice or necessity—how to do so too.

In 2007, Jakubowski began working on a minimum set of machines necessary to sustain a modern civilization. It comprises bread ovens, aluminum smelters, tractors, brick presses, and 46 others. Factor e Farm has already built 15 of these devices, including a computer-controlled torch table that can cut intricate patterns on metal with a jet of superheated ionized gas. Work will commence soon on a cement mixer, a sawmill, and an industrial robot.

Most of Factor e Farm’s equipment runs on an in-house invention called a Power Cube. It’s a black metal box about the size of an office copier, with a 27-horsepower engine that runs a hydraulic pump. The Power Cube’s engine can drive the bulldozers; the pumps can power the table saws and other smaller, stationary machines.

Jakubowski expects to have all 50 tools finished by 2015 and publishes progress reports on the Open Source Ecology website. He shares the designs for all the machines and produces how-to-make-it videos. He wants as many people as possible to take a crack at improving the designs.

By living in abject poverty, Jakubowski hopes to demonstrate that people can live without the help of corporations:

Showing up established corporations is critical to Jakubowski, because, he says, they spend too much time obsessing over patents, spending millions on commercials, and generally getting in the way of progress. “We are calling our work the Open Source Economy,” he says. “We can collaborate on the machines and publish everything openly. We can reduce all of this competitive waste. You have to start somewhere.”

Ah, yes, all that competitive waste:

Factor e Farm has 400 fruit trees, although none produce fruit in any meaningful quantity yet. A dilapidated greenhouse not far from the workshop has nothing but weeds growing inside. As a result, almost all of the farm’s food and supplies come from Wal-Mart and other stores in nearby towns. “We are going through major growing pains,” Jakubowski explains.

Posted in Economics, Technology | 5 Comments »

Superheroes on Ice

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

As part of a new sponsorship deal with USA Luge, comic book publisher Valiant Entertainment has redesigned the national team’s bodysuits and helmets to resemble the orange-and-blue scheme of X-O Manowar’s suit of armor — but this is what caught my attention:

The plan started with Gordy Sheer, a former Olympic silver medalist for the U.S. luge team and now its marketing director. Last year, Mr. Sheer mentioned his vision to the owner of another luge-team sponsor, who in turn introduced him to a former head of Marvel Entertainment, Peter Cuneo. Since helping steer Marvel from bankruptcy to a $4.3 billion acquisition by Disney, Mr. Cuneo invested in Valiant and became chairman.

Disney acquired Marvel for more than LucasFilm? Wow.

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Report Supports Organic Produce

Monday, November 5th, 2012

A recent study concluded that organic food is not significantly more nutritious than conventionally grown food — but I never thought that was the point of growing food without pesticides.

I don’t particularly trust the American Academy of Pediatrics, but their recent report supports organic produce for the reasons I’d expect:

The pediatricians, who analyzed existing scientific evidence, also said there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the vitamin and mineral content between organic and conventional foods. (Though they say some organic produce does have more vitamin C and phosphorus.)

Still, children may benefit from organic produce because it isn’t grown with synthetic pesticides. The pediatricians cited several studies linking pesticide exposure to, for example, memory problems and cancer in adult farm workers and an increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.

They also noted one study that showed that switching to organic produce for just five days dramatically reduced the levels of pesticide residue in the urine of children who usually ate conventional produce.

They don’t recommend organic milk though:

Many parents buy organic milk because of concerns about growth hormone and estrogen often given to conventionally raised cows. But the pediatricians said growth hormone given to cows doesn’t affect humans. “Ingestion of milk from estrogen-treated cows appears to be safe for children,” they said, adding that there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the sex-hormone concentrations in organic and conventional milk.

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Krugman’s Introduction to Asimov’s Foundation Series

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

Krugman’s introduction to Asimov’s Foundation Series strikes me as rather smug and self-satisfied.

I enjoyed this passage though:

Each time, the Foundation triumphs. But here’s the trick: after the fact, it becomes clear that bravery and cunning had nothing to do with it, because the Foundation was fated to win thanks to the laws of psychohistory. Each time, just to drive the point home, the image of Hari Seldon, recorded centuries before, appears in the Time Vault to explain to everyone what just happened. The barbarians were never going to prevail, because the Foundation’s superior technology, packaged as religion, gave it the ability to play them off against each other. The warlord’s weapons were no match for the Foundation’s economic clout. And so on.

This unique plot structure creates an ironic resonance between the ‘Foundation’ novels and a seemingly unrelated genre, what I’d call prophetic fantasy. These are novels — Robert Jordan’s ‘Wheel of Time’ cycle comes to mind — in which the protagonists have a mystical destiny, foreshadowed in visions and ancient writings, and the unfolding of the plot tells of their march toward that destiny. Actually, I’m a sucker for that kind of fiction, which makes for great escapism precisely because real life is nothing like that. The first half of the ‘Foundation’ series manages, however, to have the structure of prophecy and destiny without the mysticism; it’s all about the laws of psychohistory, you see, and Hari Seldon’s prescience comes from his mathematics.

I suppose I need to reread the original trilogy.

Posted in Economics, Media | 4 Comments »

Paul Tibbets Interview

Saturday, November 3rd, 2012

In 2007, a 90-year-old Studs Terkel interviewed an 87-year-old Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay:

Unknown to anybody else — I knew it, but nobody else knew — there was a third one. See, the first bomb went off and they didn’t hear anything out of the Japanese for two or three days. The second bomb was dropped and again they were silent for another couple of days.

Then I got a phone call from General Curtis LeMay [chief of staff of the strategic air forces in the Pacific]. He said, “You got another one of those damn things?”

I said, “Yes sir.”

He said, “Where is it?”

I said, “Over in Utah.”

He said, “Get it out here. You and your crew are going to fly it.”

I said, “Yes sir.” I sent word back and the crew loaded it on an airplane and we headed back to bring it right on out to Tinian and when they got it to California debarkation point, the war was over.

(Hat tip to our Slovenian guest.)

Posted in War, Weapons | 2 Comments »

First Women Fail Marine Infantry Officer Course

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

The first two female lieutenants to volunteer for the Marine Corps’ Infantry Officer Course failed to complete the program, the Marine Corps said Tuesday:

The first woman did not finish the combat endurance test at the beginning for the course in late September. Twenty-six of the 107 male Marines also did not finish the endurance test.

The second woman could not complete two required training events “due to medical reasons,” said Capt. Eric Flanagan, a Marine spokesman.

Posted in War | 6 Comments »

Presidential Directive 59

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

The National Archive recently published Presidential Directive 59, Jimmy Carter’s controversial nuclear targeting directive, which placed less emphasis on all-out retaliation:

PD-59 sought a nuclear force posture that ensured a “high high degree of flexibility, enduring survivability, and adequate performance in the face of enemy actions.” If deterrence failed, the United States “must be capable of fighting successfully so that the adversary would not achieve his war aims and would suffer costs that are unacceptable.” To make that feasible, PD-59 called for pre-planned nuclear strike options and capabilities for rapid development of target plans against such key target categories as “military and control targets,” including nuclear forces, command-and-control, stationary and mobile military forces, and industrial facilities that supported the military. Moreover, the directive stipulated strengthened command-control-communications and intelligence (C3I) systems.

President Carter’s first instructions on the U.S. nuclear force posture, in PD-18, “U.S. National Strategy,” supported “essential equivalence”, which rejected a “strategic force posture inferior to the Soviet Union” or a “disarming first strike” capability, and also sought a capability to execute “limited strategic employment options.”

A key element of PD-59 was to use high-tech intelligence to find nuclear weapons targets in battlefield situations, strike the targets, and then assess the damage-a “look-shoot-look” capability. A memorandum from NSC military aide William Odom depicted Secretary of Defense Harold Brown doing exactly that in a recent military exercise where he was “chasing [enemy] general purpose forces in East Europe and Korea with strategic weapons.”

The architects of PD-59 envisioned the possibility of protracted nuclear war that avoided escalation to all-out conflict. According to Odom’s memorandum, “rapid escalation” was not likely because national leaders would realize how “vulnerable we are and how scarce our nuclear weapons are.” They would not want to “waste” them on non-military targets and “days and weeks will pass as we try to locate worthy targets.”

An element of PD-59 that never leaked to the press was a pre-planned option for launch-on-warning. It was included in spite of objections from NSC staffers, who saw it as “operationally a very dangerous thing.”

Secretary of State Edmund Muskie was uninformed about PD-59 until he read it about in the newspapers, according to a White House chronology. The State Department had been involved in early discussions of nuclear targeting policy, but National Security Adviser Brzezinski eventually cut out the Department on the grounds that targeting is “so closely related to military contingency planning, an activity that justly remains a close-hold prerogative and responsibility” of the Pentagon.

The drafters of PD 59 accepted controversial ideas that the Soviets had a concept of victory in nuclear war and already had limited nuclear options. Marshall Shulman, the Secretary of State’s top adviser on Soviet affairs, had not seen PD-59 but questioned these ideas in a memorandum to Secretary Muskie: “We may be placing more weight on the Soviet [military] literature than is warranted.” If the Soviets perused U.S. military writing, it could “easily convince them that we have such options and such beliefs.” Post-Cold War studies suggest that Shulman was correct because the Soviet leadership realized that neither side could win a nuclear war and had little confidence in the Soviet Union’s ability to survive a nuclear conflict.

(Hat tip to our Slovenian guest, who was presumably on the other side of things during the Cold War.)

Posted in Policy, War | 1 Comment »

Seduced by the Romance of Penicillin

Thursday, November 1st, 2012

Where are all the new drugs?, Steve Sailer wonders. One of his commenters remarks that we’ve been seduced by the romance of penicillin — the largely fictitious romance of penicillin:

The story goes that Alexander Fleming working alone and without any formal financial backing just came across a petri dish in which a bread mold had inhibited a bacterium. He yelled “Eureka” and saved millions — while whistling “Rule Britannia”.

Not quite.

Howard Florey an Australian scientist set out to find some means of controlling infection. He was an establishment scientist and he headed a large research team. One of his researchers in his exhaustive document review came across Fleming’s forgotten paper.

Fleming to his credit had made an observation and had written it up. He did no more until Florey’s team, looking for odd observations thought that observation might be worth pursuing. There were many others that went nowhere.

All the refining and development of penicillin was done by Florey and his team. Fleming wasn’t involved. Fleming was like a lottery winner who was just going about his business when fame and fortune came to call.

Wikipedia lists at least a dozen medical researchers who had stumbled onto penicillin previous to Fleming. The anti-bacterial properties of mold had been known since the ancients.

Florey and his big state of the art medical research establishment created penicillin as a practical drug. Fleming should have been no more than a footnote.

The Australians claim Churchill needed an authentic British hero and so they invented a bigger role for Fleming, the lonely isolated British genius.

In any case it was big medicine and big science that actually succeeded. That was true then and it’s still true today.

(Hat tip to our Slovenian guest.)

Posted in Science | No Comments »

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