Once upon a time, long, long ago, this dude named Faraday noticed that if he wrapped a coil of wire around a magnet and spun the magnet, current would flow in the wire. At the time, nobody had even a vague clue about why this emergent phenomenon occurred, but they were all sufficiently amazed and impressed that they named the phenomenon Faraday's law.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, a dude named Eben Moglen proposed Moglen's Metaphorical Corollary to Faraday's Law: "If you wrap the Internet around every person on the planet and spin the planet, software flows in the network." In this corollary, software can refer to virtually any bitstream and includes music, movies, writing, news, analysis, and algorithms in addition to what would come to mind when you usually think of software. Just as nobody knew what current flowed when Faraday performed his experiment, most people are generally clueless about why software emerges on the Internet. Why does the major and free operating system called Linux exist? Why does Apache, the world's most popular http server, exist for free? Why does the free music website, mp3.com have over 750,000 free tunes from over 250,000 artists? Why are there tens of thousands of bloggers, all producing news, opinions, and analysis?
You can't quiz the electrons that cause the current to flow in the wire. So it took physicists awhile to figure that out. On the other hand, you can ask the electrons/people who cause the software to flow in the network why they do it. Since I'm one of the electrons, you can ask me. Even if you don't ask me, I'm going to tell you anyway.
I've written a few patches and extensions for various utilities and drivers for Linux. Linux was the best choice for the applications I was working on at the time and the patches provided functionality that I needed. Since I was planning on upgrading to new versions of Linux and its supporting software, it made sense to submit the patches so I wouldn't have to fix the same bug again in future releases. It makes perfect economic sense to do so, especially since it took only minutes to submit the patches.
I'm one of the mp3.com musicians. I enjoy composing music and produced two CDs to see what they'd sound like. Once produced, since I wasn't planning on selling the music, there didn't seem like any downside to publishing it on mp3.com.
Now I'm participating in a blog. My main motivations are entertainment and learning to write. I'm feel quite lucky to be able to participate in a blog with very smart people with significantly different viewpoints. I find it more interesting to debate with those that don't generally agree with me as opposed to "preaching to the choir".
The reasons for producing the free software are as varied as the people who do it.
Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, worries about who will pay for news and other articles if people come to prefer blogs to major media sources. He asks "who will generate the underlying legwork behind the stories, and how will that commonly-shared infrastructure be paid for?" He has essentially answered his own question just by the act of publishing it for free. This looks to me to be a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees. Here he is, producing material on the web for free, but at the same time unable to imagine that other people will produce other information, and specifically other types of information, for free.
Once there are enough bloggers worldwide, they will just look out their windows and when something newsworthy occurs, they will blog it and that information will propagate rapidly to everybody else. This is already happening. Instapundit and Salam Pax in Iraq during the Iraq war are two out of many examples.
Monday, September 29, 2003
Economic Benefits of Iraqi Oil
Update: In this post that I wrote almost 4 years ago, it was recently pointed out that I mistakenly attributed a quote ("retort") to the wrong person. It is now fixed.
On the tscobb email list, there's been a discussion regarding the economic costs and benefits of the Iraq war. It seems to me (but I'm not sure) that it has degraded out of the rational realm with Tom Sullivan retorting:
Another perspective is that those "savings" may just go to enrich
Georgie boy's buddies and not really get passed on to us!
My reply follows...
I'd like to understand the mechanism by which Georgie boy's buddies (herein called "The Buddies") will redirect the economic benefits into their own pockets while totally eliminating all benefits to everybody else in America. I don't like Bush either, and could possibly believe that they would like to steal massively from their fellow citizens, but short of vast conspiracies involving millions of people, I'm at a loss to explain how they would pull something like that off.
The benefit to the US is only partially directly related to lower oil prices. Iraq will not pump even 1 billion barrels this year and at approximately $20 - $25 per barrel the total revenue generated by that oil will be less than $25 billion. So even if we got that oil for free, that'd be nice, but that's not where we'll derive most of the benefit.
The real benefit stems from the additional Iraqi oil increasing the supply and thus putting downward pressure on ALL oil prices worldwide. The lower oil prices stimulate economic growth by increasing consumer demand in non-energy sectors (since less money needs to spent on energy) which significantly increases per capita GDP. It is estimated that the increase in U.S. GDP will be an additional 1% relative to what it would have been had we not freed Iraq from Saddam Hussein. As an example, this Time Magazine article states "lower oil prices would generate 2003 growth of nearly 3%, compared with the 2% currently forecast by many economists."
Since the U.S.'s GDP is approximately $10 trillion, that addition 1% represents an additional $100 billion. Since GDP growth is
cumulative, that is an additional $100 billion every year going forward (and in fact in compounds so it would actually be even more). The Net Present Value of $100 billion using a discount rate of 3% for the next 20 years is about $1.5 trillion.
Even if The Buddies steal all of the Iraqi oil, in order for them to gain any benefit, they will still have to sell it ('cause I don't
think they can eat it). When they sell it, it will still have the GDP related benefit described above. While it would clearly be less than optimal for the Iraqis to have their oil stolen, it will still benefit us. It seems unlikely to me that France and the rest of the world would turn a blind eye to The Buddies stealing Iraqi oil. However, it's still plausible since even though France is dead set against ever deposing horrible dictators, they're much more accommodating to general corruption, especially involving oil, as shown by the recent TotalFinaElf scandal. Again, whether or not the Iraqis benefit from their own oil, we will.
I can also imagine numerous ways that The Buddies will otherwise try to rip America off. However, none of these are particularly related to the Iraq war and could be done even if there had been no Iraq war. Thus, I contend that the Iraq war is still a substantial benefit economically to America.
Bush has just over one year left in his presidency. I am having a hard time thinking of a way that The Buddies will derive the $1.5 trillion dollar benefit in this short period of time. Except, possibly with a really vast conspiracy involving all of Congress (Democrats and Republicans alike), including congressmen and Presidents to be elected in the future. But even if such a conspiracy exists, I can't see why they'd focus exclusively on the spoils of Iraq. There would far easier ways to rip us off.
So please enlighten me to the basis of your perspective.
On the tscobb email list, there's been a discussion regarding the economic costs and benefits of the Iraq war. It seems to me (but I'm not sure) that it has degraded out of the rational realm with Tom Sullivan retorting:
Another perspective is that those "savings" may just go to enrich
Georgie boy's buddies and not really get passed on to us!
My reply follows...
I'd like to understand the mechanism by which Georgie boy's buddies (herein called "The Buddies") will redirect the economic benefits into their own pockets while totally eliminating all benefits to everybody else in America. I don't like Bush either, and could possibly believe that they would like to steal massively from their fellow citizens, but short of vast conspiracies involving millions of people, I'm at a loss to explain how they would pull something like that off.
The benefit to the US is only partially directly related to lower oil prices. Iraq will not pump even 1 billion barrels this year and at approximately $20 - $25 per barrel the total revenue generated by that oil will be less than $25 billion. So even if we got that oil for free, that'd be nice, but that's not where we'll derive most of the benefit.
The real benefit stems from the additional Iraqi oil increasing the supply and thus putting downward pressure on ALL oil prices worldwide. The lower oil prices stimulate economic growth by increasing consumer demand in non-energy sectors (since less money needs to spent on energy) which significantly increases per capita GDP. It is estimated that the increase in U.S. GDP will be an additional 1% relative to what it would have been had we not freed Iraq from Saddam Hussein. As an example, this Time Magazine article states "lower oil prices would generate 2003 growth of nearly 3%, compared with the 2% currently forecast by many economists."
Since the U.S.'s GDP is approximately $10 trillion, that addition 1% represents an additional $100 billion. Since GDP growth is
cumulative, that is an additional $100 billion every year going forward (and in fact in compounds so it would actually be even more). The Net Present Value of $100 billion using a discount rate of 3% for the next 20 years is about $1.5 trillion.
Even if The Buddies steal all of the Iraqi oil, in order for them to gain any benefit, they will still have to sell it ('cause I don't
think they can eat it). When they sell it, it will still have the GDP related benefit described above. While it would clearly be less than optimal for the Iraqis to have their oil stolen, it will still benefit us. It seems unlikely to me that France and the rest of the world would turn a blind eye to The Buddies stealing Iraqi oil. However, it's still plausible since even though France is dead set against ever deposing horrible dictators, they're much more accommodating to general corruption, especially involving oil, as shown by the recent TotalFinaElf scandal. Again, whether or not the Iraqis benefit from their own oil, we will.
I can also imagine numerous ways that The Buddies will otherwise try to rip America off. However, none of these are particularly related to the Iraq war and could be done even if there had been no Iraq war. Thus, I contend that the Iraq war is still a substantial benefit economically to America.
Bush has just over one year left in his presidency. I am having a hard time thinking of a way that The Buddies will derive the $1.5 trillion dollar benefit in this short period of time. Except, possibly with a really vast conspiracy involving all of Congress (Democrats and Republicans alike), including congressmen and Presidents to be elected in the future. But even if such a conspiracy exists, I can't see why they'd focus exclusively on the spoils of Iraq. There would far easier ways to rip us off.
So please enlighten me to the basis of your perspective.
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Sitting in the Dark
First a comment on the Howard's statement "Most human progress does not occur directly from intentional design." I probably wouldn't have written it exactly that way and I don't want to speak for Howard, but I think the point is that there has been a heck of a lot more "intentional design" than human progress and much of the human progress that has resulted from "intentional design" ended up being progress that was completely different than that which was intended. In other words, people have tried lots of stuff, most of it wasn't beneficial, and some that was beneficial had nothing to do with what the people had set out to accomplish.
Ironically, I almost used a Thomas Edison metaphor to help illuminate (no pun intended - alright, so maybe the pun is intended) my incrementalism post. Since Jim has mentioned Edison, I might as well unveil it. Edison tried thousands and thousands of filaments before coming up with a viable light bulb. This experimentation occured after solving numerous other problems (such as getting a sufficient vacuum in the bulb).
All this effort required by a super genius trying to make something as simple as a light bulb.
A human brain is numerous orders of magnitude more complicated than a light bulb and the US has 300 million of these human brains interacting. I estimate that the entity consisting of these 300 million human brains interacting has a complexity at least 20 orders of magnitude greater than that of a light bulb.
Now imagine someone with the IQ of oh, I don't know, say George Bush, or even Bill Clinton, designing and implementing a major policy change, and we have to count on the first design working.
If mankind had been forced to give up candles and gas lamps for Edison's first (or 2nd or 3rd...) attempt, we'd all be sitting in the dark. And that is almost literally what North Korea is experiencing because they attempted to implement Marx's first design without sufficient experimentation. Check out this night time map and scroll over to Asia. You can see the lights in Japan, South Korea, and even Russia, but there are very few in North Korea. North Koreans are sitting in the dark.
Now Jim certainly has a good point when he writes "Nonetheless, for those changes that do get through, the consequences -- both expected and not -- are usually managed within bounds, and if they cannot be managed, the causal activity is discontinued". For sure, Russia has begun to undo the effects of communism after a mere 75 years of misery. Germany recovered from Facism much more quickly, only a couple of decades or so, though the price of recovery included 20M dead Germans (including most of their jewish population). Even the advancement of western civilization was only delayed a thousand years after the barbarians burned Rome. So yes, humanity will no doubt recover from virtually any set of policies our leaders foist upon us. But I'd rather not be foisted upon until sufficient experiments are done.
Ironically, I almost used a Thomas Edison metaphor to help illuminate (no pun intended - alright, so maybe the pun is intended) my incrementalism post. Since Jim has mentioned Edison, I might as well unveil it. Edison tried thousands and thousands of filaments before coming up with a viable light bulb. This experimentation occured after solving numerous other problems (such as getting a sufficient vacuum in the bulb).
All this effort required by a super genius trying to make something as simple as a light bulb.
A human brain is numerous orders of magnitude more complicated than a light bulb and the US has 300 million of these human brains interacting. I estimate that the entity consisting of these 300 million human brains interacting has a complexity at least 20 orders of magnitude greater than that of a light bulb.
Now imagine someone with the IQ of oh, I don't know, say George Bush, or even Bill Clinton, designing and implementing a major policy change, and we have to count on the first design working.
If mankind had been forced to give up candles and gas lamps for Edison's first (or 2nd or 3rd...) attempt, we'd all be sitting in the dark. And that is almost literally what North Korea is experiencing because they attempted to implement Marx's first design without sufficient experimentation. Check out this night time map and scroll over to Asia. You can see the lights in Japan, South Korea, and even Russia, but there are very few in North Korea. North Koreans are sitting in the dark.
Now Jim certainly has a good point when he writes "Nonetheless, for those changes that do get through, the consequences -- both expected and not -- are usually managed within bounds, and if they cannot be managed, the causal activity is discontinued". For sure, Russia has begun to undo the effects of communism after a mere 75 years of misery. Germany recovered from Facism much more quickly, only a couple of decades or so, though the price of recovery included 20M dead Germans (including most of their jewish population). Even the advancement of western civilization was only delayed a thousand years after the barbarians burned Rome. So yes, humanity will no doubt recover from virtually any set of policies our leaders foist upon us. But I'd rather not be foisted upon until sufficient experiments are done.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Five Out of Eight
Five out of eight of the great guys have now signed up ( Boots, Pode, Hunersen, Seidler, Wallach). Drake's invitation email bounced and he is currently traveling, but plans on signing up when he gets back. That leaves the Eigner boyz. I'll assume their email didn't get to them either and try their MIT email addresses shortly.
Welcome to all!!!
Welcome to all!!!
Andrew Sullivan* is on a Roll Today
First he points us to this hysterical "Separated at Birth" blurb.
He then follows bu excerpting the following "philosophical" conversation.
Borridori: September 11 [Le 11 Septembre] gave us the impression of being a major event, one of the most important historical events we will witness in our lifetime, especially for those of us who never lived through a world war. Do you agree?
Derrida: Le 11 Septembre, as you say, or, since we have agreed to speak two languages, "September 11." We will have to return later to this question of language. As well as to this act of naming: a date and nothing more. When you say "September 11" you are already citing, are you not? Something fait date, I would say in French idiom, something marks a date, a date in history. "To mark a date in history" presupposes, in any case, an ineffaceable event in the shared archive of a universal calendar, that is, a supposedly universal calendar, for these are - and I want to insist on this at the outset - only suppositions and presuppositions. For the index pointing toward this date, the bare act, the minimal deictic, the minimalist aim of this dating, also marks something else. The telegram of this metonymy - a name, a number - points out the unqualifiable by recognizing that we do not recognize or even cognize that we do not yet know how to qualify, that we do not know what we are talking about.
Apparently from "Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida"
Do philosophers really talk like this? Remind me never to try and read anything by these two incomprehensible luminaries.
*Andrew Sullivan's website is here
He then follows bu excerpting the following "philosophical" conversation.
Borridori: September 11 [Le 11 Septembre] gave us the impression of being a major event, one of the most important historical events we will witness in our lifetime, especially for those of us who never lived through a world war. Do you agree?
Derrida: Le 11 Septembre, as you say, or, since we have agreed to speak two languages, "September 11." We will have to return later to this question of language. As well as to this act of naming: a date and nothing more. When you say "September 11" you are already citing, are you not? Something fait date, I would say in French idiom, something marks a date, a date in history. "To mark a date in history" presupposes, in any case, an ineffaceable event in the shared archive of a universal calendar, that is, a supposedly universal calendar, for these are - and I want to insist on this at the outset - only suppositions and presuppositions. For the index pointing toward this date, the bare act, the minimal deictic, the minimalist aim of this dating, also marks something else. The telegram of this metonymy - a name, a number - points out the unqualifiable by recognizing that we do not recognize or even cognize that we do not yet know how to qualify, that we do not know what we are talking about.
Apparently from "Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida"
Do philosophers really talk like this? Remind me never to try and read anything by these two incomprehensible luminaries.
*Andrew Sullivan's website is here
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Should the Government Have a Vision?
I ask this question because at first glance I find the idea of my government having a vision quite appealing. In fact, I may well have an unconscious assumption that it should or does.
But as I think about it a little more, I find the concept troubling. For example, when I think of well known political visionaries, I don't like what I come up with. Caesar had a vision (he came, he saw, he conquered), Mohammed had a vision (as Osama will tell you), Hitler had a vision (nothing much - other than world domination and ethnic cleansing), Mussolini had a vision (well, the trains did run on time), Marx had a vision (and I don't mean Groucho), Stalin had a vision (but at least he helped us beat Hitler), Saddam Hussein has a vision (though things aren't going well for him at the moment), etc.
There seem to be very few leaders who: (a) had a positive vision (b) were able to effect significant change toward that vision; and (c) the vision actually turned out to be significantly positive in retrospect. And most of those leaders appeared in time of crisis. There are some notable exceptions, of course. There really was no serious crisis when the founding fathers of the US got together, they did effect positive change, and I'll bet the outcome will be a political case study for millenia. But even their vision involved war.
Secondly, I think I prefer the perspective of the government working for the populace. I don't think the leaders of the country, state, or community necessarily need to be in the government. Many people complained when Clinton frequently used polls as a significant input to his policy decisions, but I actually rather liked that. I think our president and other elected officials should ask us what we think. That's not to say they can't lead at all. The president can use the bully pulpit to try to convince us that some policy is best. But if we still don't like it, he should listen and not do it.
Lastly, I would like it if the President had a vision that matched mine. But I would hate it if it didn't match mine. And I'll bet that more often than not, the vision won't be something I can buy into. As a result, I think I'd rather that the government stay out of the vision game.
But as I think about it a little more, I find the concept troubling. For example, when I think of well known political visionaries, I don't like what I come up with. Caesar had a vision (he came, he saw, he conquered), Mohammed had a vision (as Osama will tell you), Hitler had a vision (nothing much - other than world domination and ethnic cleansing), Mussolini had a vision (well, the trains did run on time), Marx had a vision (and I don't mean Groucho), Stalin had a vision (but at least he helped us beat Hitler), Saddam Hussein has a vision (though things aren't going well for him at the moment), etc.
There seem to be very few leaders who: (a) had a positive vision (b) were able to effect significant change toward that vision; and (c) the vision actually turned out to be significantly positive in retrospect. And most of those leaders appeared in time of crisis. There are some notable exceptions, of course. There really was no serious crisis when the founding fathers of the US got together, they did effect positive change, and I'll bet the outcome will be a political case study for millenia. But even their vision involved war.
Secondly, I think I prefer the perspective of the government working for the populace. I don't think the leaders of the country, state, or community necessarily need to be in the government. Many people complained when Clinton frequently used polls as a significant input to his policy decisions, but I actually rather liked that. I think our president and other elected officials should ask us what we think. That's not to say they can't lead at all. The president can use the bully pulpit to try to convince us that some policy is best. But if we still don't like it, he should listen and not do it.
Lastly, I would like it if the President had a vision that matched mine. But I would hate it if it didn't match mine. And I'll bet that more often than not, the vision won't be something I can buy into. As a result, I think I'd rather that the government stay out of the vision game.
Iraq and Middle East
If you have not read any books or articles by Bernard Lewis then get on the stick! This is a link to an article in opinionjournal.com. Approaching 90 years of age(87), he is as lucid as anyone you'll ever meet, simply brilliant.
A Complex World
The world is so complex and we start out knowing so little. How do we cut the Gordian Knot of our ignorance? Do nothing, just live to be happy and remain blissfully ignorant. This is a very popular option. Another popular approach is to adopt the views of people around us when we are young. In addition, as we encounter other views of things simply adopt the ones that are appealing (they feel good). A third approach is to be ceaslessly curious. This could lead one to observe, think, question. You could study data, conduct thought experiments and read,read,read. (Quality of what you read counts even more than quantity, but that can take time to sort out). One lifetime is barely enough to scratch the surface of a complex world through direct observation alone. Most people reject this approach as being too much work.
Even after intensive study we are still limited to making simplifications. The simplifications may illuminate or obscure further understanding. Starting assumptions are just as important as the line of reasoning that lead to any conclusion. You know the problem, garbage in - garbage out. Actually, different starting assumptions are at the core of many disagreements. Also, once you study an issue intensively enough to draw some firm conclusions, it is good to remember the many accepted truths (scientific and otherwise) replaced what were previously accepted as truths.
Another point worth remembering is that in making simplifications we often reduce ideas into single subjects. That is fine for a first step but in realworld application everything is intertwined. Politics(power), economics, social conditions... all effect and feedback upon each other.
Now on to some specifics. Most human progress does not occur directly from intentional design. As Bret already mentioned, an evolutionary trial and error process is at the heart of progress. Our ancestors were the unwitting guinea pigs who had adopted customs, habits and traditions which enabled them to thrive in favor of groups following other practices. They're practices selected them. This is a notion largely overlooked if not actively rejected by the hyper-rationalistic thinkers of the 18th and 19th Centuries. This misconception is understandable since they were absorbed with rebelling against the traditions and constraints of religion. (They had not yet contemplated Bootism). Think of the strength and robustness of our civilization which has emerged from this process. Everyone in this society benefits from the knowledge of how to live which is embedded in habits, practices and institutions. This is a knowledge gained from the sifting and winnowing of practices over many millenium.
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle - they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. A.N. Whitehead
An incremental, limited experimental approach to change is an attempt to avoid a major mistake. I'll agree with Bret that the choices of millions of people both in their individual decisions and collectively in the political arena, are less likely to persist in disasterous error than an anoited elite. As for a vision of the anointed, no thanks. Democracy limited by constitutional constraints (assuming a half-way decent construction) is even better at avoiding persistent error. Another way of avoiding the destructive tranny of absolute power is having systems of checks and balances within governmental institutions. Yet another check is to have constraints that cause governmental, commercial, religious and civil entities compete for influence without the ability to totally dominate. My view is that if you do not have a basic understanding of the many facets of power, it's hard to understand the real world. Man is a social animal, but also a political animal.
Even after intensive study we are still limited to making simplifications. The simplifications may illuminate or obscure further understanding. Starting assumptions are just as important as the line of reasoning that lead to any conclusion. You know the problem, garbage in - garbage out. Actually, different starting assumptions are at the core of many disagreements. Also, once you study an issue intensively enough to draw some firm conclusions, it is good to remember the many accepted truths (scientific and otherwise) replaced what were previously accepted as truths.
Another point worth remembering is that in making simplifications we often reduce ideas into single subjects. That is fine for a first step but in realworld application everything is intertwined. Politics(power), economics, social conditions... all effect and feedback upon each other.
Now on to some specifics. Most human progress does not occur directly from intentional design. As Bret already mentioned, an evolutionary trial and error process is at the heart of progress. Our ancestors were the unwitting guinea pigs who had adopted customs, habits and traditions which enabled them to thrive in favor of groups following other practices. They're practices selected them. This is a notion largely overlooked if not actively rejected by the hyper-rationalistic thinkers of the 18th and 19th Centuries. This misconception is understandable since they were absorbed with rebelling against the traditions and constraints of religion. (They had not yet contemplated Bootism). Think of the strength and robustness of our civilization which has emerged from this process. Everyone in this society benefits from the knowledge of how to live which is embedded in habits, practices and institutions. This is a knowledge gained from the sifting and winnowing of practices over many millenium.
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle - they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. A.N. Whitehead
An incremental, limited experimental approach to change is an attempt to avoid a major mistake. I'll agree with Bret that the choices of millions of people both in their individual decisions and collectively in the political arena, are less likely to persist in disasterous error than an anoited elite. As for a vision of the anointed, no thanks. Democracy limited by constitutional constraints (assuming a half-way decent construction) is even better at avoiding persistent error. Another way of avoiding the destructive tranny of absolute power is having systems of checks and balances within governmental institutions. Yet another check is to have constraints that cause governmental, commercial, religious and civil entities compete for influence without the ability to totally dominate. My view is that if you do not have a basic understanding of the many facets of power, it's hard to understand the real world. Man is a social animal, but also a political animal.
Monday, September 22, 2003
Democratic Incrementalism to Benefit Society (DIBS)
I have a basic framework with which I view the world. I call my fundamental principals on both how to address the world's problems and even push successes further “Democratic Incrementalism to Benefit Society”.
I'll start with the “Benefit Society” part first. I believe that the primary goal of all policies, laws, morals, and ethics should be to benefit society as a whole going forward. While it often also greatly benefits society to give individuals rights such as free speech and it may possibly benefit society to give certain groups advantages, those concerns should be secondary.
Until recently, I thought that virtually all rational people subscribed to this concept. However, I was mistaken. For example, a friend of mine feels that the copyright of a book should be granted in perpetuity, even if it could be shown that society as whole would be worse off. His logic is that if you create Intellectual Property, it should be subject to the exact same rules as tangible property, because otherwise people were stealing something from you if they copied it. My view is that tangible property rights benefit society as a whole, whereas it's far less clear that long term copyrights have any benefit for society (and in fact impose a significant cost).
I'd like to comment on what I mean by the “going forward” part of benefiting society. There seems to be a growing, but not yet mainstream movement that believes there should be reparations for slavery. The basic idea would be that each black person would be paid something like $200,000 from a pool created by taking the required amount from each white person. While in some sense this could be said to benefit society by helping to right the wrongs of the past, this is not a forward looking approach to benefiting society. The distant past is gone, we need to live with it, and move forward from here.
So who gets to decide what benefits society? Well, that's where the “Democratic” part comes in. The masses get to decide what it means to benefit society. I consider our representational government adequately democratic for this purpose. A question that has been constantly asked through the ages is whether or not the masses are smart enough to know what's beneficial to society. Being one of the masses I'm pretty convinced that we are. Nearly 80% of Americans now attend college. There is information everywhere and I think the masses are very good at forming adequately sophisticated opinions. I'm thoroughly convinced that 300 million Americans are far better at deciding what's beneficial to them, their families, their communities, and this country than any possible alternative such as a group of elite telling us all what to do.
In a democracy, the majority opinion rules. Period! Well, except for little details like Bush being president when clearly he did not have the majority vote. So let me rephrase that by saying that in a democracy, the goal is that if there is a substantial majority opinion on some issue, then that opinion should rule.
One thing the rule of the majority means is that even if the world's experts form an opinion that they would like the majority of us to adopt, but that doesn't happen, then that's not the policy we should follow. For example, if the majority of Americans think that the Kyoto environmental treaty is bunk, then so be it, don't ratify it. Those who disagree can of course attempt to convince the majority, but until they do, things like Kyoto will slowly slide into obscurity.
The last part of DIBS is incrementalism. And the best example of why I think incrementalism is important is communism. Communism is, in my opinion, the single most elegant, powerful, non-religious idea ever. When I first learned about it in high-school I was totally taken in by the concept. Heck, I still am, except for one minor detail: it doesn't work. It has at best worked poorly and in many instantiations has been utterly catastrophic. Tens of millions of people were slaughtered in its name, and billions were oppressed and impoverished.
The point is not that experimenting with communism was a bad idea. On the contrary, the potential benefit in social harmony was enormous, so it had to have been tried. The bad idea was trying it on such a large scale, involving dozens of countries and billions of people. If the US and western Europe had also gone over to communism, the world may have plunged into a 2nd dark age, possibly for centuries.
If, on the other hand, only one or two countries had given it a try, the rest of the world could have watched, seen that it wasn't working particularly well, and moved on. Sure, the people of those two countries would still have been miserable, but they would've given up on the experiment after a while, with the rest of the world willing and able to help.
Looking at other potential grand projects, National Health Care comes to mind. The Clintons' program might have been (might still be) a good idea. I don't know. But what I do know is that to try that experiment nationwide would be mistake. If it doesn't work, we could all end up with really crappy health care (far worse than what we have now). I think that we should experiment with the concept in one or two states to start. In order to incent the states to take a risk, we could use federal funds to subsidize the experiment or otherwise benefit the state. Then measure, measure, measure. If the state, say Wisconsin, has a mass exodus of doctors, we might guess that the program needs some tweaking. If people and businesses flock to Wisconsin, and the costs aren't more than offsetting, it might be a deemed a success and more, larger experiments would be in order. Most likely, the indicators would be far more subtle, but they still might be measurable and quantifiable.
My enthusiasm for incrementalism begins with the question: how did the world end up where it's at? I don't mean relative to 9/11, or this specific government. I'm asking the question on a much greater scale. Did some great guru, tens of thousands of years ago have a vision that somehow planned our trajectory along the space/time continuum to the current state of affairs? I don't think so. We got here by trial and error. People over the millenia trying different things, by sheer chance, some of it worked, some of it didn't. That which worked was kept, that which didn't was forgotten.
If you loathe the current state of the world, it would make sense to assert that chance and evolution are bad, vision and planning are good (or at least it might be good if given the chance). On the other hand, I look at the world and I am awed. From my perspective the world, especially this country, especially San Diego, is complicated, fascinating, mind-boggling, stimulating, and just plain amazing. So as far as I'm concerned the trials and errors of the millenia, from which the mores, customs, legal framework, ethics, and productivity evolved all around me is simply miraculous. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
I'll start with the “Benefit Society” part first. I believe that the primary goal of all policies, laws, morals, and ethics should be to benefit society as a whole going forward. While it often also greatly benefits society to give individuals rights such as free speech and it may possibly benefit society to give certain groups advantages, those concerns should be secondary.
Until recently, I thought that virtually all rational people subscribed to this concept. However, I was mistaken. For example, a friend of mine feels that the copyright of a book should be granted in perpetuity, even if it could be shown that society as whole would be worse off. His logic is that if you create Intellectual Property, it should be subject to the exact same rules as tangible property, because otherwise people were stealing something from you if they copied it. My view is that tangible property rights benefit society as a whole, whereas it's far less clear that long term copyrights have any benefit for society (and in fact impose a significant cost).
I'd like to comment on what I mean by the “going forward” part of benefiting society. There seems to be a growing, but not yet mainstream movement that believes there should be reparations for slavery. The basic idea would be that each black person would be paid something like $200,000 from a pool created by taking the required amount from each white person. While in some sense this could be said to benefit society by helping to right the wrongs of the past, this is not a forward looking approach to benefiting society. The distant past is gone, we need to live with it, and move forward from here.
So who gets to decide what benefits society? Well, that's where the “Democratic” part comes in. The masses get to decide what it means to benefit society. I consider our representational government adequately democratic for this purpose. A question that has been constantly asked through the ages is whether or not the masses are smart enough to know what's beneficial to society. Being one of the masses I'm pretty convinced that we are. Nearly 80% of Americans now attend college. There is information everywhere and I think the masses are very good at forming adequately sophisticated opinions. I'm thoroughly convinced that 300 million Americans are far better at deciding what's beneficial to them, their families, their communities, and this country than any possible alternative such as a group of elite telling us all what to do.
In a democracy, the majority opinion rules. Period! Well, except for little details like Bush being president when clearly he did not have the majority vote. So let me rephrase that by saying that in a democracy, the goal is that if there is a substantial majority opinion on some issue, then that opinion should rule.
One thing the rule of the majority means is that even if the world's experts form an opinion that they would like the majority of us to adopt, but that doesn't happen, then that's not the policy we should follow. For example, if the majority of Americans think that the Kyoto environmental treaty is bunk, then so be it, don't ratify it. Those who disagree can of course attempt to convince the majority, but until they do, things like Kyoto will slowly slide into obscurity.
The last part of DIBS is incrementalism. And the best example of why I think incrementalism is important is communism. Communism is, in my opinion, the single most elegant, powerful, non-religious idea ever. When I first learned about it in high-school I was totally taken in by the concept. Heck, I still am, except for one minor detail: it doesn't work. It has at best worked poorly and in many instantiations has been utterly catastrophic. Tens of millions of people were slaughtered in its name, and billions were oppressed and impoverished.
The point is not that experimenting with communism was a bad idea. On the contrary, the potential benefit in social harmony was enormous, so it had to have been tried. The bad idea was trying it on such a large scale, involving dozens of countries and billions of people. If the US and western Europe had also gone over to communism, the world may have plunged into a 2nd dark age, possibly for centuries.
If, on the other hand, only one or two countries had given it a try, the rest of the world could have watched, seen that it wasn't working particularly well, and moved on. Sure, the people of those two countries would still have been miserable, but they would've given up on the experiment after a while, with the rest of the world willing and able to help.
Looking at other potential grand projects, National Health Care comes to mind. The Clintons' program might have been (might still be) a good idea. I don't know. But what I do know is that to try that experiment nationwide would be mistake. If it doesn't work, we could all end up with really crappy health care (far worse than what we have now). I think that we should experiment with the concept in one or two states to start. In order to incent the states to take a risk, we could use federal funds to subsidize the experiment or otherwise benefit the state. Then measure, measure, measure. If the state, say Wisconsin, has a mass exodus of doctors, we might guess that the program needs some tweaking. If people and businesses flock to Wisconsin, and the costs aren't more than offsetting, it might be a deemed a success and more, larger experiments would be in order. Most likely, the indicators would be far more subtle, but they still might be measurable and quantifiable.
My enthusiasm for incrementalism begins with the question: how did the world end up where it's at? I don't mean relative to 9/11, or this specific government. I'm asking the question on a much greater scale. Did some great guru, tens of thousands of years ago have a vision that somehow planned our trajectory along the space/time continuum to the current state of affairs? I don't think so. We got here by trial and error. People over the millenia trying different things, by sheer chance, some of it worked, some of it didn't. That which worked was kept, that which didn't was forgotten.
If you loathe the current state of the world, it would make sense to assert that chance and evolution are bad, vision and planning are good (or at least it might be good if given the chance). On the other hand, I look at the world and I am awed. From my perspective the world, especially this country, especially San Diego, is complicated, fascinating, mind-boggling, stimulating, and just plain amazing. So as far as I'm concerned the trials and errors of the millenia, from which the mores, customs, legal framework, ethics, and productivity evolved all around me is simply miraculous. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Friday, September 19, 2003
Skepticism Regarding Universal Skepticism
I have to say that I'm skeptical about the comment that I'm universally skeptical. Nonetheless, that reminds me of a right-wing alternate verse to Imagine by John Lennon (some friends and I played the original version at a musical get together recently).
Imaging no possessions. No food or water too.
No children's toys or comforts. And there's not much to do.
Imagine all the people living in the dirt.
You may say I'm a cynic, yeah I'll admit I'm one,
I've seen great ideas ruin millions of lives, and this is just another one!
I agree with most of Jim's points, but want to add some comments (Jim's stuff in quotes):
"I may have to write a book".
Yeah, this stuff is all so complicated that to really comment in depth requires an amazing amount of effort. I'm hoping to write some mini-essays describing my basic approach which will hopefully reduce the length of my comments because I can then just refer to the background stuff. In addition, by writing, I hope to clarify my own thoughts for myself.
"people are skeptical of changes because they have a natural tendency (recently well-documented) to irrationally overvalue the loss of what they now have and undervalue those things they might gain"
I might add that in addition to irrationally assigning too much value to the current system and not enough to the new, there might also be a rational component. For example, many of the "isms" of European origin (communism, fascism, etc.) promised huge social benefit but ending up being total catastrophes due to unintended consequences. Applying that difference between expectation and result to virtually any large program could cause somebody to rationally oppose it.
I'm a strong believer in incrementalism (I know, yet another "ism" but at least I wasn't born in Europe). In other words, I think we should encourage lots of small experiments to try policies out on a small scale first, and then scale them up slowly before they are tried at the national level.
"I agree with Krugman's analysis of the economic direction the country is heading."
Too much gloom and doom for me to get behind it. I feel I've been inundated with gloom and doom predictions my whole life. World War III in the 1960s (remember air-raid drills in elementary school to get ready for nuclear attack?), heading into an ice age (late 60s remember that?), American competitiveness (70s), running out of oil and other natural resources (70s), deficits (80s), river of American blood (Gulf War I 1991), quagmires (Afghanistan and Iraq), to name a few. None of them ever happened. Instead, different catastrophes happened (e.g. 9/11/2001). It's almost as if once someone (like Krugman) predicts it, it's guaranteed not to happen. Only things that aren't predicted seem to happen.
"we cannot immediately redirect most of the half trillion dollars a year we spend on defensive and offensive capabilities, but it must be our stated goal to do so over time."
I think we're just going to disagree on this one. I believe in the old (roman?) adage: "If you want peace, prepare for war." Obviously, we didn't quite succeed at the peace part of the adage. But 9/11 was possibly partly because bin Laden didn't think we were prepared for war.
Now, I'm not claiming we should keep the defense budget at $.5T. I have no idea really what it should be.
"Last but not least... Vote for Boot in 2016! (I wonder if the world can wait that long.)"
I didn't see you on the California recall ballot. How come? I would've voted for you there for sure.
Imaging no possessions. No food or water too.
No children's toys or comforts. And there's not much to do.
Imagine all the people living in the dirt.
You may say I'm a cynic, yeah I'll admit I'm one,
I've seen great ideas ruin millions of lives, and this is just another one!
I agree with most of Jim's points, but want to add some comments (Jim's stuff in quotes):
"I may have to write a book".
Yeah, this stuff is all so complicated that to really comment in depth requires an amazing amount of effort. I'm hoping to write some mini-essays describing my basic approach which will hopefully reduce the length of my comments because I can then just refer to the background stuff. In addition, by writing, I hope to clarify my own thoughts for myself.
"people are skeptical of changes because they have a natural tendency (recently well-documented) to irrationally overvalue the loss of what they now have and undervalue those things they might gain"
I might add that in addition to irrationally assigning too much value to the current system and not enough to the new, there might also be a rational component. For example, many of the "isms" of European origin (communism, fascism, etc.) promised huge social benefit but ending up being total catastrophes due to unintended consequences. Applying that difference between expectation and result to virtually any large program could cause somebody to rationally oppose it.
I'm a strong believer in incrementalism (I know, yet another "ism" but at least I wasn't born in Europe). In other words, I think we should encourage lots of small experiments to try policies out on a small scale first, and then scale them up slowly before they are tried at the national level.
"I agree with Krugman's analysis of the economic direction the country is heading."
Too much gloom and doom for me to get behind it. I feel I've been inundated with gloom and doom predictions my whole life. World War III in the 1960s (remember air-raid drills in elementary school to get ready for nuclear attack?), heading into an ice age (late 60s remember that?), American competitiveness (70s), running out of oil and other natural resources (70s), deficits (80s), river of American blood (Gulf War I 1991), quagmires (Afghanistan and Iraq), to name a few. None of them ever happened. Instead, different catastrophes happened (e.g. 9/11/2001). It's almost as if once someone (like Krugman) predicts it, it's guaranteed not to happen. Only things that aren't predicted seem to happen.
"we cannot immediately redirect most of the half trillion dollars a year we spend on defensive and offensive capabilities, but it must be our stated goal to do so over time."
I think we're just going to disagree on this one. I believe in the old (roman?) adage: "If you want peace, prepare for war." Obviously, we didn't quite succeed at the peace part of the adage. But 9/11 was possibly partly because bin Laden didn't think we were prepared for war.
Now, I'm not claiming we should keep the defense budget at $.5T. I have no idea really what it should be.
"Last but not least... Vote for Boot in 2016! (I wonder if the world can wait that long.)"
I didn't see you on the California recall ballot. How come? I would've voted for you there for sure.
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Paul Krugman's New Book
Since Great Guy Jim Boots calls Paul Krugman the "smartest economist around", I'm looking forward to buying Krugman's new book, The Great Unraveling. It'll be a while before I get to it, but in the meantime, here is an interview with Krugman describing parts of his new book. Also, to provide some balance, here is an article criticizing the book.
Monday, September 15, 2003
Music Copyright
One of my pet peeves is that I think intellectual property laws have simply got out of hand, especially copyright and especially for music. In a recent article the economist tyler cohen writes:
"But without copyright income the artists would be deeply, deeply in debt, or more realistically would never have the chance to record in the first place."
Not strictly true for the following reasons:
1. It can cost less than $2,000 to record, mix, and master a CD, and then about $.20/copy to create the actual CDs. (I know this because I'm an "artist" who has recorded/produced 2 CDs). Thus the cost is not in the recording/producing.
2. Virtually every aspiring group records prior to having a recording contract. Do you think it's like the old days where you go in and play live for a recording industry executive and then he gives you a contract? Not how it's usually done, you get a CD to him, then they decide to see you play live. So every group records, only very few groups get the contract and get promoted.
3. Most artists are musicians and make their money playing music (that's why they're called musicians). Recording income is non-existent or a tiny fraction for all but a few groups.
Tyler also wrote:
"But if there were no copyright, it would be hard to fund a music industry at anything close to current levels."
Sure, of course, pretty much by definition. But the question is whether or not the current levels of music industry funding is providing maximum benefit to society or whether or not by modifying existing copyright law there could be greater benefit at less cost. The current costs have to include arrests of college students who illegally download music (this is very, very expensive to society any time a new class of otherwise productive citizens are labeled criminals), the impact on the development and discussion of encryption/decryption algorithms because of the DMCA, and the profits and inefficiencies of the current recording industry.
I don't think we can go to having no copyrights, but I also think that the current system is quite detrimental to society. I would like to see economists such as Tyler figure out how to measure the costs and the benefits of current Copyright law and propose experiments that could incrementally and measurably provide more benefits to society.
"But without copyright income the artists would be deeply, deeply in debt, or more realistically would never have the chance to record in the first place."
Not strictly true for the following reasons:
1. It can cost less than $2,000 to record, mix, and master a CD, and then about $.20/copy to create the actual CDs. (I know this because I'm an "artist" who has recorded/produced 2 CDs). Thus the cost is not in the recording/producing.
2. Virtually every aspiring group records prior to having a recording contract. Do you think it's like the old days where you go in and play live for a recording industry executive and then he gives you a contract? Not how it's usually done, you get a CD to him, then they decide to see you play live. So every group records, only very few groups get the contract and get promoted.
3. Most artists are musicians and make their money playing music (that's why they're called musicians). Recording income is non-existent or a tiny fraction for all but a few groups.
Tyler also wrote:
"But if there were no copyright, it would be hard to fund a music industry at anything close to current levels."
Sure, of course, pretty much by definition. But the question is whether or not the current levels of music industry funding is providing maximum benefit to society or whether or not by modifying existing copyright law there could be greater benefit at less cost. The current costs have to include arrests of college students who illegally download music (this is very, very expensive to society any time a new class of otherwise productive citizens are labeled criminals), the impact on the development and discussion of encryption/decryption algorithms because of the DMCA, and the profits and inefficiencies of the current recording industry.
I don't think we can go to having no copyrights, but I also think that the current system is quite detrimental to society. I would like to see economists such as Tyler figure out how to measure the costs and the benefits of current Copyright law and propose experiments that could incrementally and measurably provide more benefits to society.
Friday, September 12, 2003
Welcome to Great Guys
This is a new blog that I've created hoping to entice the Great Guys to join and add comments to. The Great Guys subscribe to "Bootism", which is an advanced yet grounded but never before revealed philosophy not at all related to autism.
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