Scott Adams' Blog

Great Budget Debate - Final

Posted February 11th, 2011 @ 9:35am in #General Nonsense

In a recent post I asked for a worthy volunteer to be interviewed on the topic of balancing the U.S. budget by expense cuts alone, without making things worse. (Full disclosure: I believe this to be impossible.) The most qualified volunteer, and the person with the most votes from readers of this blog, is Phil Maymin.

Borrowing from the bio on Phil’s website at http://philmaymin.com/about-phil…

Dr. Phil Maymin is Assistant Professor of Finance and Risk Engineering at NYU-Polytechnic Institute. He is also the founding managing editor of Algorithmic Finance.

He holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago, a Master’s in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Harvard University. He also holds a J.D. from Northwestern California University School of Law and is an attorney at law admitted to practice in California.

He has been a portfolio manager at Long-Term Capital Management, Ellington Management Group, and his own hedge fund, Maymin Capital Management.

He is also an award-winning journalist, a policy scholar for a free market think tank, a Justice of the Peace, a former Congressional candidate, a columnist for the Fairfield County Weekly and LewRockwell.com, and the author of Yankee Wake Up and Free Your Inner Yankee. He was a finalist for the 2010 Bastiat Prize for Online Journalism.

His popular writings have been published in dozens of media outlets ranging from Forbes to the New York Post to American Banker to regional newspapers, and his research has been profiled in dozens more, including USA Today, Boston Globe, NPR, BBC, Guardian (UK), CNBC, Newsweek Poland, Financial Times Deutschland, and others.

His research on behavioral and algorithmic finance has appeared in Quantitative Finance, Journal of Wealth Management, and Risk and Decision Analysis, among others, and his textbook Financial Hacking is due to be released by World Scientific in 2011.

I should disclose my own biases on this topic. I have described my philosophy as “Libertarian, but without the crazy stuff.” Libertarians are for personal freedom, small government, and a defensive-sized military. That sounds good to me. But I think a better objective is something along the lines of maximizing the public’s long term happiness. So while a libertarian might favor allowing his suburban neighbor to operate a bazooka firing range in his back yard, I’d be against that, even if it required a slightly larger government to prevent it.

Furthermore, I believe that if you identify with any political group or philosophy that has a name, you are far more susceptible to confirmation bias than someone who doesn’t. And as a general rule, I don’t trust anyone with a strong opinion on a complicated topic.

On the topic of the U.S. budget, my current suspicion is that the problem has grown so large that there is no practical way to eliminate the deficit by cuts alone, without making things worse. But I assure you that I want to be wrong because being right means my taxes will go up substantially.

Let’s begin our interview.

Adams: Phil, thanks for agreeing to an interview with a professional humorist who holds an opposing viewpoint. I don’t see how this could possibly go wrong for you. Let’s start by setting the stage. In round numbers, what is the size of the total U.S. budget, and how large is the gap?

Maymin: The federal government spent $3.5 trillion of our money last year.

That’s about the same as the total value of all the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In other words, if we liquidated thirty of the largest American companies, including Home Depot, Microsoft, Intel, Coke, McDonald’s, Kraft, and Disney, that would barely cover just one year of federal spending.

That’s some budget.

Where did the feds get all that money? They took $2 trillion from us through taxes last year and they took another $1.5 trillion from us by borrowing on our good names. The “budget gap” is the $1.5 trillion that the government borrowed, adding to its $14 trillion debt. But in terms of the effect on the average person, borrowing money is the same as taxing.

Adams: Okay, so just to be clear, you’re saying we need to find $1.5 trillion to cut from a budget of $3.5 trillion, for a 43% reduction. And that’s just this year. Would it be fair to say government expenses will double in about twenty years as the baby boomers retire and healthcare costs continue their upward march?

Maymin: Government expenditures are not ruled by a fixed formula. You’re tacitly assuming that the government is morally obligated to pay when people live too long or get too sick. But it’s actually immoral to take money by force from innocent people to pay for someone else’s retirement or someone else’s sickness. Given your tacit assumption, then yes: government expenditures will continue to climb so long as people continue to vote for such immoral redistribution. But I don’t agree with that assumption and, now that it is no longer tacit, I hope that neither do you.

Adams: We can get back to your hallucinations about my tacit assumptions later. For now I’m just trying to size the budget hole. Readers can’t judge your recommended solution unless they have a sense of how big the problem is. Can we agree that balancing the budget would require cutting something like $1.5 trillion per year in the near term, while the demand for social services could double in twenty years, primarily because of an aging population, whether the government attempts to meet those needs or not?

Maymin: Your question about the “demand” for the future only makes sense if you view the federal government as a special charitable trust whose purpose is to pay a certain clearly defined group of people an amount of money based on its available funds.

But the federal government is not a charity. The main difference is that charities are funded by voluntary contributions, and the government is funded by forceful expropriation. So the self-regulating mechanism of a charity on the amount to pay out is broken. Indeed, instead of asking how much money we actually have, the government (and you) asks how much money we need to pay out. Aside from the immorality, the problem with that question is that the “demand” for free stuff is practically limitless. People could “demand” twice their benefits today. They don’t necessarily have to wait for more people to retire or get sick.

But those “demands” aren’t always met. There are forces resisting government redistribution. Will those forces be stronger or weaker in 20 years? Who knows? They will certainly need to become even stronger today if we want to not just freeze spending but actually cut it.

Adams: I’m using “demand” in the economic sense, i.e. hungry people have a demand for food. Demand doesn’t imply that the government is the supplier.

I learned in business that unless you can describe what the business-as-usual scenario looks like, you have no way to compare your new and brilliant plan. I’ve asked you twice how large the future budget hole would get if left unaddressed and twice you have drifted into speeches about morality, complete with hallucinated assumptions about the question itself. So let’s back up a step.

In general, do you think it’s important to describe the economic impact of the “do nothing” or business-as-usual scenario so that one can judge the advantage of a new plan in comparison?

Maymin: Economic demand typically depends on price and assumes voluntary exchange. And of course your question implies the government is the supplier. That’s the point of this discussion – how to cut government spending. You’re not asking about the demand for iPhones in 20 years.

For a legitimate business, sure, evaluating business-as-usual can be important, more important than some things, less important than others. But if your business is just going around breaking people’s kneecaps, then no, you don’t need to evaluate the economic impact of continuing. And what’s the right response of the victim? To say, “Why don’t you beat up this guy instead?” Or to say, “Stop.”

I don’t know how much politicians will redistribute income to retirees and sick people instead of wars and bailout in 20 years. But I know Americans would be better off if each of those four items were zero.

Adams: To borrow your analogy, if the only choices available are breaking your kneecaps or cutting off your head, it seems entirely legitimate to consider the kneecap option. Correct me if I’m misinterpreting your point, but you seem to believe the choices are something along the lines of the government breaking our kneecaps (the current approach) versus a world where the unemployable and sick eat carbon dioxide and poop hundred dollar bills.

Maybe I shouldn’t put words in your mouth.

Perhaps we can get at this from another direction. In a world in which the budget is cut to your moral satisfaction, what becomes of the people who currently receive food, shelter and healthcare from the government?

Maymin: What happened to the East Germans who relied on the government when the wall fell? What would happen to North Koreans if that country becomes free? Ultimately voluntary help is always better than forced redistribution, but if we wait too long, the transition may be more abrupt than necessary. My suggestion would be to phase it out gradually while we still can.

Adams: I’m no historian, but I’m pretty sure the impoverished people from East Germany got help from the government of West Germany. And I’m pretty sure the poor in Germany still get help from the government.

So if I understand your concept, as the U.S. Government phases out social services, the government of Germany would pick up the slack.

I’m going to end the interview here. And I’ll surprise you by showing some respect for your viewpoint. I wasn’t expecting you to be such an absolutist on eliminating government spending for social services. It’s entirely possible that private citizens would step up to take care of the needy, and perhaps do a better job of it than the government. And I can imagine a world in which I pay a little extra, voluntarily, to provide healthcare for my neighbor who is too sick to work. It might be a lot cheaper than paying taxes, while feeling less coercive and more meaningful. The Internet makes this sort of person-to-person helping possible whereas only the government could have done it fifty years ago.

We didn’t discuss military spending, but I would respect any argument that ranges from a purely defensive military budget to something more aggressive “just in case.” No one is smart enough to make that call.

Overall, I don’t think Dr. Maymin’s philosophy for government spending can be called a plan until someone can describe how the transition away from government social services is accomplished without clogging our streets with the corpses of the starved. But if I am fair about this, our government currently has a spending plan that guarantees doom. Advantage: Maymin.

Thanks for being a good sport, Dr. Maymin. And thanks for some ideas that add a lot to the discussion.

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Educating B Students

Posted February 7th, 2011 @ 8:44am in #General Nonsense

I understand why top students - the A+ types - learn physics and calculus. I get why they study classic literature and the details of history. The kids in this brainy group are the future professors, scientists, and engineers who will propel civilization forward.

But why do we make the B students sit through these same classes? That’s like trying to teach a walrus to tap dance. It’s a complete waste of time and money. And most students fall into that middle category. I assume this ridiculous educational system is a legacy from a day when generic mental training was good enough for just about any job.

In our modern world, would it make more sense to teach B students something useful, such as entrepreneurship?

Consider my own story. I majored in entrepreneurship at Hartwick College, and that experience was the most useful training I’ve ever had. Okay, technically, my major was economics. But the unsung advantage of attending a small college is that you can mold your experience any way you want.

There was a small business called The Coffee House on campus. It served beer and snacks, and featured live entertainment. This was back in the days when the drinking age was 18. The operation was student run, with faculty advisors. It was a money-losing mess, heavily subsidized by the college. I interviewed for a place on the student group that ran the business, and became the so-called Minister of Finance. The first thing I noticed is that there was literally no accounting system for the profits, the inventory, or the expenses. So I proposed to my accounting professor that for three course credits I would build and operate the accounting system for the business. And so I did. The experience was amazing.

I also got to manage our vendors, redesign the menu, deal with internal politics, and be involved in marketing and employee hiring. I got a legitimate taste of a full range of small business experience. Our efforts paid off, and the business bloomed.

At about the same time, two friends and I hatched a plan to become the student managers of our dormitory and get paid to do it. The idea involved replacing all of the professional staff, including the Resident Assistant, security, and even the cleaning crew with students who would be paid for those functions. We imagined forming a student government of sorts to manage elections for various jobs, set out penalties for misbehaviors, and generally take care of things. And we imagined that the three of us, being the visionaries for this scheme, would be running the show.

We pitched our entrepreneurial idea to the dean and his staff. To my surprise, the dean said that if we could get a majority of next year’s dorm residents to agree to our scheme, the college would back it. And so we did. For the next two years my two friends and I each had private rooms, at no cost, a base salary, and the experience of managing the dorm. On some nights I also got paid to do overnight security, while also getting paid to clean the laundry room. At the end of my security shift I would go to The Coffee House and balance the books.

My college days were full of entrepreneurial stories of that sort. By the time I graduated, I had mastered the confidence of pitching an idea and turning it into reality. Every good thing that has happened to me is born of that training.

I think it’s a bad idea to evaluate our school system based on international test score comparisons. While it’s important that our top students are as good as top students everywhere, our biggest untapped resource is our B students. Maybe we should start teaching them useful skills.

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Two Heads

Posted February 4th, 2011 @ 8:20am in #General Nonsense

Are conjoined twins one person or two? That’s easy. They have two minds, so they are two people. A person is defined by his or her brain. Your limbs, hair, lungs, heart, and all the rest of your parts can be transplanted, conjoined, or in some cases deleted, yet you remain the same person. You are your brain.

Now consider regular identical twins. Their brains have the same DNA, yet they are considered two people because their brains operate independently. I think we’d all agree that having the same DNA doesn’t make twins one person.

Now what about the individual whose two halves of the brain are separated either by an accident or by surgery? Do you end up with one person or two? The two halves can operate independently, as shown by so-called Alien Hand Syndrome, where half of your brain is telling your hand to do one thing while your other half is wishing it didn’t. In my opinion, that’s two people occupying one skull. If you went into a voting booth, I expect that the alien hand could vote for one candidate while the other side could make a different choice.

Now I make the leap from something mildly interesting to something totally ridiculous. You should leave now if that sort of thing bothers you.

It seems to me, based on observation, that what we think of as one person is always two, even if the two halves of the brain are communicating. You wouldn’t label twins as one person just because they communicate before they make decisions. It’s the independent thought that defines a person, not the degree of their communication. If twins made a deal with each other to always make the same decisions, effectively acting as one, we would still know them as two individuals because they can think independently.

Sometimes when I’m alone in the house at night, I am certain the place is haunted while simultaneously certain that ghosts do not exist. Perhaps the right side of my brain is generating the thoughts of imaginary ghosts while the left is being rational. I realize that the human brain is a bit more fluid and complicated than the left-brain-right-brain model suggests, but I’m guessing that any time we hold two contradictory views at the same time, the two hemispheres of the brain are thinking independently.

Sometimes you might have three or more choices and you can’t decide which one you prefer. But I’ll bet your brain needs to consider them one at a time, in a serial fashion, if they are all rational choices. That’s different from the ghost example, in which the sensation is that you believe the ghosts exist while simultaneously knowing they do not. It takes two brains to simultaneously have two contradictory beliefs.

I also think the two brain theory explains why people who are smart in general can hold irrational world views. In my experience, people who hold irrational views are almost always aware of their own irrationality. They simply have two brains, and the rational one doesn’t always get to make the final decision.

Now suppose you could do a brain scan and determine which side of a person’s brain is most active while pondering a particular political question. If the scan shows that the rational hemisphere is clearly in charge, you allow that individual to vote on the issue. If the irrational side is overly active, you politely explain to that person that he or she has to sit out this vote.

No, it’s not a practical idea. But the cool thing is that I know it’s a bad idea while simultaneously imagining it could work.

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Mockability Test

Posted February 3rd, 2011 @ 8:17am in #General Nonsense

It’s nearly impossible to humorously mock something that is reasonable. Take, for example, the idea that hard work is often necessary for success. There’s nothing funny about that topic because it’s unambiguously true. Humor only comes easily when the topic itself has a bit of dishonesty baked into it. That’s why humor about politics, business, and relationships is so easy. There’s a whole lot of lying in those environments.

I have a theory that some sort of mockability test would work like a lie detector in situations where confirmation bias is obscuring an underlying truth. In other words, if you believed that hard work often leads to success, and yet I could easily make jokes about it, that would be a contradiction, or a failure of the mockability test. And it would tell you that confirmation bias was clouding your perceptions. To put it in simpler terms, if a humorist can easily mock a given proposition, then the proposition is probably false, even if your own confirmation bias tells you otherwise.

I’d like to test this theory. I’m wrestling with my own confirmation bias on the topic of whether we could, in some practical sense, balance the U.S. budget without raising my taxes. I certainly want that to be a solution. But everything I see confirms my belief that it’s literally impossible to do without causing more problems than it solves. And by that I mean more problems to everyone, not just the poor.

Obviously the math of budget cutting works. If you cut federal spending by 50%, just as an example, and keep collecting taxes, you balance the budget. And the philosophy of small government is legitimate. No one wants a government that grows larger without end. But I wonder if there is any way to cut government spending enough so that, along with economic growth, we can balance the budget without raising my taxes. I sure hope so.

So I issue a challenge to anyone who holds the view that the budget can be balanced without raising taxes. Allow me to interview you, by email, with the transcript published in this blog in a week or so.

I will pick one person to interview on this topic. If you’d like that person to be you, describe in the comment section your qualifications, political leanings, and a brief bio of yourself. The rest of you can vote on which champion of the cause you would like to see me interview. I’ll ask the chosen one to email me.

Just so you know what you’re getting into, I plan to mercilessly mock anything you say that lends itself to humor. If I fail to find humor in your reasoning, you win. It’s that simple. And remember, I want you to win because it means there’s hope I won’t have to pay more taxes.

Who wants to take a run at this?

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Live Chat - Taxing the Rich

Posted February 1st, 2011 @ 10:18am in #General Nonsense

I’m taking questions now for my live chat for the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday 3 pm EST. (That’s noon for you Californians.) Post your questions now at this link.

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Cloud Government

Posted January 31st, 2011 @ 9:40am in #General Nonsense

I decided to start a new government for the United States. The current version had a good run. It was well suited for an age when the issues were simple, the masses were uneducated, and communication involved horses. Now the government is broken. It can’t even balance the budget.

Perhaps you think I’m overstating the case. After all, the budget is just one of many things a government is supposed to do. That’s true, in the same sense that making sure there is enough fuel in the airplane is just one of the things a pilot is supposed to do. If the pilot can’t keep the plane in the air, you don’t care how well the flight attendants serve beverages. The United States hasn’t crashed yet, but the fuel tank is empty and our economists are calculating a glide path to the nearest river.

Common sense tells us that any system designed in the 1770s will be suboptimal for modern times. But our common sense is thwarted when it comes to our own government because we’ve all been brainwashed as children, literally, to revere the genius of our Founding Fathers. Don’t worry. We’ll keep all of the philosophical bits that inspired Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and the gang. We’ll even strengthen the freedom part. The change will only involve the delivery system, or the gears of the machine, if you will. I think Jefferson would approve, and Franklin would have a total nerdgasm if he heard it.

The new government will be Internet based and require no actual politicians per se, except for the President. Citizens will vote for the laws they want, as often as they want, by Internet. Actually, voting is too strong a term. Think of it as a rolling opinion poll. There’s no need for elections when the preferences of the people are continuously monitored in real time.

Call it a cloud government if you must, and it will have the following functions.

1.       Provide “jury nullification” for unconstitutional laws that the majority favors.

2.       Manage the outsourcing of most government functions to private industry.

3.       Manage the transparency of the system.

4.       Educate the public about the issues, using the tools of the Internet.

5.       Propose new laws and policies developed by independent experts.

6.       Manage the military.

Most of the actual decision-making would be directly in the hands of the public. Social policy would be determined by simple majorities, with perhaps a two-thirds majority needed to overturn any existing laws.

We can design and operate the new government in test mode, with full transparency, without disrupting the current one. It will take a few years to work out the wrinkles in the new system. During that time, none of its laws and policies will be implemented. It will be like an emergency backup government. When the day comes that two-thirds of the country wants to move to the new system, it will be up and running over night. No revolution needed.

So what’s so great about this new system of government?

Keep in mind that we’re still in brainstorming mode here. The system I describe today might be closer to awful than awesome. It’s a collaborative process and you haven’t weighed in yet. This is just the start.

The core principle of the Founding Fathers was freedom. In simple times, that meant little more than “Don’t tell me what to do.” Suppose we convene a panel of economists, psychologists, philosophers and other experts to update our notion of freedom, and to make it more quantifiable, so it can be measured and managed by this new government.

For example, a person who is unhealthy has less freedom, in a practical sense, than a person who is not. And a person who is poor has less freedom than someone who is rich. A person with no education has less freedom of choice, again in a practical sense, than someone who is educated. I think you could quantify freedom so you can measure the impact of any new law. The calculated result wouldn’t be binding on the public, but it’s helpful to know how your decisions impact everyone’s freedom.

If you’re worried that quantifying freedom leads to socialism, assume that the algorithm understands capitalism. No one can be free if the economy chokes out with high taxes or burdensome regulations. The advantage of an algorithm is that it automatically considers all sides of every issue. In our current system, pundits and politicians are free to debate the advantages of their ideas without mentioning the costs. The freedom algorithm considers all plans in their entirety.

Almost any issue can be cast in terms of freedom. If you increase taxes to pay for more police, the taxpayers lose some freedom because they have less money to spend. But they gain freedom to walk the streets without fear. And so on.

By now you are grinding your teeth and shouting to yourself that freedom is too squishy and subjective to be quantified. Special interests would game the system. Complicated models never work. And who decides on the assumptions that feed into it? It would just be a mess! You could be right about that. Remember that we’re in the brainstorming phase.

But consider the way doctors quantify pain, on a scale of 1 to 10, as a way of determining what level of painkiller to give to patients. Some patients lie about their level of pain to get more meds. The patient’s pain level can vary by the hour, as do the effectiveness of the meds. For cultural or gender reasons, one person’s pain level of eight might be another person’s four. And yet, despite being totally subjective and generally inaccurate, the 1 to 10 pain ranking is entirely useful. I could give you a hundred examples where measurements are flawed and yet the process of measuring yields something useful. I think the same could be true of freedom. Attempting to measure the net gain or loss in society’s freedom will help to clarify any debate. Accuracy might be less important than the fact that we try to measure it at all.

After our system is up and running, we can license our cloud government’s software to other countries looking for a change. Half of the countries in the world are looking for an upgrade. Think how much easier a revolution would be if rebels could set up their new government in the cloud before they even begin to protest. Ironically, democracy is probably an obstacle to freedom in countries run by dictators. Everyone understands that when the dictator is overthrown, you have years of messy and ineffective government ahead of you to get a democratic system up and running. And then you have decades of corruption to look forward to. The government in a cloud could hasten the end to dictators because the alternative would be so clear and easy. The downside is that only the citizens who have access to the Internet can participate in the cloud government. But that’s probably an improvement over the current system because he people who use the Internet tend to be the most informed. And in time, the Internet will extend to all. That’s what the freedom algorithm will call for.

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WSJ - How to Tax the Rich

Posted January 29th, 2011 @ 7:42am in #General Nonsense

You might be interested in my article this weekend in the Wall Street Journal about how to tax the rich.

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Comparing

Posted January 27th, 2011 @ 8:59am in #General Nonsense

If I could add one required course to every student’s education, it would involve learning the skill of comparing. You might think that comparing alternatives is the domain of common sense, but it isn’t. It takes actual training. People who study law, engineering, economics, psychology, and business get different subsets of that training. But many people get none. And it’s one of the most important skills that we humans need. Every decision involves some sort of comparison.

In our current system, the skills you need to compare alternatives are broken into little pieces and spread across several disciplines. A business student might learn about the time value of money while the psychology student is learning about confirmation bias. The math major is studying statistics while the religion student is learning that people will believe just about anything if the context is right.

My hypothetical curriculum for a course in Comparing might include the following topics:

Sunk costs

Time value of money

The illusion of fairness

Evaluating risk

Considering the source of the information

Considering the wider context

Limits of human perception

Statistics (basic)

Cognitive dissonance

Confirmation bias

Famous Lies and Hoaxes

If I may overgeneralize for a moment, most disagreements have at their core one or more of these four basic causes:

1.       People have different information

2.       People have different selfish interests

3.       People have different superstitions

4.       People have different skills for comparing

Of the four causes for disagreement, one is king over the other three. People with strong skills in comparing alternatives can quickly identify in each other where they have differences in information and in selfish interests, and that can be enough to suggest ways to reach agreement, or at least accommodation. (People with skills in comparing generally don’t engage in debates about superstition.)

Lacking the basic skills needed to compare alternatives, two people with different information and a couple of drinks can argue all night long and produce nothing but bad feelings. The same goes for people with different selfish interests and different ethical/moral standards. But people with good comparison skills can quickly find common ground. In our increasingly complex world, where different cultures are colliding, we’ll all need a lot more talent for making the right comparisons.

Consider the budget debate in the United States. Every knowledgeable observer recognizes that the solution involves both deep cuts in expenses and higher taxes on those who can afford it. And yet our elected officials have framed the issue as one of higher taxes or not, and budget cuts or not. Politicians get away with false comparisons because the majority of voters are not trained in the skill of comparing. Borrowing a strategy from Gandhi, we need to become the change we seek in the government. Leaders will only make rational comparisons, and therefore rational decisions, when they know that the voters can tell the difference.

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Strange Reality

Posted January 26th, 2011 @ 10:19am in #General Nonsense

This morning I was formulating a comic in my mind that involved Asok using the two sides of his brain like dual core processors. I imagined it was a skill he learned back at the Indian Institute of Technology. I took a break from creating the comic and checked my public email. The first message I read included a link to an article on Alien Hand Syndrome, which is what you can get when the two halves of your brain are surgically separated. Each half of your brain can start acting as an independent mind.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12225163

To make this even stranger, the two sides of my mind then got into a debate about whether this is a coincidence or something deeper. The rational part of my brain knows that coincidences of this sort happen every day, and it would be far stranger if I didn’t notice them on a regular basis.

But another part of my brain is operating at exactly the same time as my rational thoughts and it’s telling me that reality is nothing but a work of fiction that my mind creates for me on the fly, and in that context it makes sense that themes would sometimes repeat. In other words, thinking about Asok’s split mind nudged my imagination to conjure up a link to similar story while fooling me into believing I actually exist as a human body in this world at all. Perhaps coincidences are nothing but errors in the part of our minds that normally do a better job of convincing us that an objective world exists.

Meanwhile, the rational side of my mind is laughing at me because it knows that reality is exactly what it seems to be, and we are just a bunch of particles bumping around until something interesting happens.

And this made me think about the way we humans process new data. When I read the Alien Hand story, I saw it as strong evidence that neither the human soul nor free will exist anywhere but in our imaginations. But I suppose it’s no coincidence that I already held those views before looking at the evidence. We humans see what we want to see.

So I’m curious what you see in the story of the Alien Hand. Does your mind interpret the evidence to support whatever beliefs you already have?

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Freedom of Data

Posted January 24th, 2011 @ 9:29am in #General Nonsense

You and I learned in school that freedom of speech is a fundamental right that all people should enjoy. There’s a practical reason for that. Without freedom of speech, governments and other moneyed interests would be in a position to abuse their power even more than they already do. And obviously voters need uncensored information in order to shape their government. Democracy only works when citizens and the media enjoy freedom of speech.

But what if freedom of speech is only a benefit in a democratic system?

China’s system, as I have written before, reminds me more of a corporate structure, or a meritocracy. In a corporation, you’re generally free to disagree with higher ups if you do it with data, and in a professional manner. Usually you need to go through proper channels, but dissent is generally allowed, and sometimes actively encouraged. If you’re a jerk about your disagreement with your superiors, or you don’t have persuasive data to back up position, you could get fired. But that’s a stupidity issue, not a freedom issue.

China’s leadership is packed with engineers and lawyers by training. I imagine that like any corporation, they appreciate the value of information when presented in a professional manner, and through proper channels. Unlike elected politicians, managers in a meritocracy are free to change position as new or better data emerges. The advantage of having only one political party is that everyone is on the same team. And if effectiveness is the goal, which apparently it is in China, I assume that new data is generally welcome.

An American politician is likely to lose his next election if he “flip flops” on an issue, even if the reason for the change is that new information has emerged. In that environment, practical politicians simply take the position that their party has established, confident that the free media will present both sides of every argument regardless of where the data leads. A free press has the perverse effect of increasing the volume of information while simultaneously reducing its usefulness.

A free press is also a huge distraction. I would imagine that at least half of all the time and effort our elected officials put into their jobs has something to do with managing the media. Compare that to a corporate system in which managers are also concerned with image, but they focus most of their energy on getting the job done. I imagine that Chinese leaders have a similar freedom to act in accordance with data. And I imagine they spend little or no time worrying about how the media will treat them, since they control it.

What about the jailing of dissidents in China? On a human level, it certainly feels wrong to imprison someone simply for speaking out. It feels even more wrong when the dissident’s only goal is to improve the lives of his or her fellow citizens. And it seems pure evil if the dissident has valid criticisms.

But what if the dissidents themselves are the ones who have it wrong? Suppose a dissident is stirring up public emotions in a direction that could be detrimental to the interests of a billion fellow citizens? Suppose, for example, the dissident is agitating for freedom of speech, a right that would be fitting for a democracy, but would be nothing but trouble - perhaps serious trouble - in the Chinese system. In that case, should the Chinese leadership value the freedom of this one individual over the wellbeing of a billion others? What would Spock say?

I’d like to be perfectly clear that I know almost nothing about the Chinese system, and absolutely nothing about any particular dissidents. My emotional reaction is that no one should be in jail for voicing an opinion. But the rational side of me doesn’t have any data to support the notion that the Chinese people would be better off with complete freedom of speech, especially since we know that free speech encourages leaders to ignore data.

America has freedom of speech. China has freedom of data. Where do you place your bet?

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