Merry Christmas

 

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
If only in my dreams

Whether they are your dreams, or my dreams, Merry Christmas

In World War II, soldiers who were fighting overseas for America had to endure many Christmases without their families. In 1943, those soldiers were honored with the hit song I’ll Be Home For Christmas.

The holidays are remembered as a time to be with loved ones, families. Those soldiers in WWII were not the first, nor will they be the last, who had to experience the holidays without being with their families. Those who immigrated, traveled far from their home, may not be able to return to that home. Not only for the holidays, but forever. My ancestors immigrated from Ireland and Poland without any expectation that they would ever see the home where they grew up and experienced their childhood holidays. But I know that they remembered those days. They made those sacrifices to grow and improve life.

In honor of those sacrifices, I appreciate the cost my son and his POSSLQ paid in traveling from Los Angeles to our home for the holidays, and I know that he has not been able to make this trip as often as he would like due to COVID, etc. But if he keeps us in his dreams, he should know, no matter what, we will keep him in ours.

Free Transit

 

I’m Free

I'm free-I'm free
And freedom tastes of reality
I'm free-I'm free
And I'm waiting for you to follow me

There is a big difference between free and unpriced.

The issue of “free” public transit has been in the news. The problem is TANSTAFL, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. What is "free" to the individual rider, is not "free" to the transit operator, in this case the government that subsidies transit.

The issue is that economists define goods as exclusive and nonexclusive. (If someone uses a good, no one else can use the good, which makes it exclusive to the consumer of the good); AND rival and nonrival. (the good has a price, in which case it is rival.)

• Private property is exclusive and rival. (For example, your meals).
  
• Public goods are non-exclusive and non-rival (For example, sunshine)

But

• Intellectual Property is non-exclusive but rival (For example, movies)
  
• Common Goods are exclusive but non-rival. (For example, fishing stocks).

People get confused by the vastness of a Common Good, but if it is limited then someone probably should regulate it (such as fishing quotas), or otherwise allocate it.

People are also confused by Intellectual Property. Music might be non-exclusive in that my listening to a song doesn’t prevent you from listening to that same song, but unless it is priced or regulated (e.g. copyrights, patents, etc.) then there is no incentive for someone to produce that music, so there better be a price.

Just because transit is without fares does not make it free. The riders might not pay a fare, but someone (society) is paying for those transit subsidies. Prices or regulation are used to ALLOCATE the  good, not merely to pay for that good.

The absence of price means that something is priceless, not that it is free. Transit might appear free to the riders, but they should treat it as if it were priceless, not free. Do not squander trips on transit. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Transit might be without fares, but that does not mean that it is free.

Winning IV

 

Step to the Rear 

Will everyone here kindly step to the rear
and let a winner lead the way.
Here's where we separate
the notes from the noise,
the men from the boys,
the rose from the poison ivy.

Is  winning that important? 

“The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed".

 “None of the events of Jan. 6 would have happened without him.” 

Final Report of the Special House Committee on January 6, 2021. 

Not to let Donald Trump off, but the problem was not one man.  The problem was the belief that "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing". And that "Second place is first loser."  If you believe those and similar thoughts, and can not accept defeat then anything you can do to prevent a loss might seem acceptable. 

If the President had been anyone but Donald Trump, but who also subscribed to a winning at all costs mentality, then the result might have been the same.  There is a difference between not liking to lose and never losing.  The first position is admirable.  The second position is impossible. 

The problem was not Donald Trump.  It was not believing that "It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game." Or not believing that "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Chance

 

Schrodinger's Cat

Last train to Norwich
Summer days that blind your face will soon be dead and gone
Better get it on
Tuned to a day the babe against the world
You took the best seat rather risk it when the chips were down
Better make it long.
Schrodinger's cat is dead to the world.

And that cat is 100% dead.

Poor Schrodinger’s cat in the famous Quantum Mechanics example.  It is not 50% alive and 50% dead.  It is either 100% dead or 100% alive,  but no one has checked. 

Say you are faced with an ordinary deck of playing cards, and one is selected.  It is either red or black.  But if it is face down, then you don’t know which it is.  The average card is said to be 50%  a black suit and 50% a red suit.  No one is surprised when the card is turned over it is either 100% red or 100% black.  Why then is it to hard to imagine that just like the card has not been turned over, no one has checked inside the box for Schrodinger’s cat.  Saying that on average the cat is 50% dead and 50% alive describes the average GROUP behavior.  But the cat itself is an INDIVIDUAL member of that group and is either dead or alive.  It is not the measurement that determines its fate.  The act of measurement merely confirms what luck has already determined. Just as turning the card face up did not change the color of the card.

Unless we are playing with marked cards, a fair game of chance is always random.  Quantum Mechanics is also a fair random game.  We may not like that it is random, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is random.  Play hand that you are dealt.

Tump's NFT

 

There’s A Sucker Born Every Minute

Why you can bet I'll find some rube to buy my corn
'Cause there's a sure-as-shooting sucker born a minute
And I'm referrin' to the minute you was born

Want to buy some NFT trading cards of Donald Trump?

Don the Con’s Non Fungible Token, NFT, cards, with him photoshopped into various poses, have sold out.  Nuff said suckers.  Sometimes this stuff just writes itself.

Tolerance

 

(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding

And each time I feel like this inside
There's one thing I wanna know
What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding? Oh
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?

The universe is random, hyperbolic not flat, and understanding, err…tolerant.

If free will exists, then tolerance, the standard deviation from the mean of choice, also has to be almost 100%.

If, for example, before a choice you are unsaved, and after that choice you are saved, then each person is either 100% saved or 100% unsaved, and the most common choice is to be saved. Not everyone is saved at first, but eventually many more will be saved. Mathematically this describes an exponential distribution, λe^-λx, with a rate parameter, λ, choice, of 100%. The problem is that the mean of an exponential distribution is not the mode, the most common value. Also, the exponential distribution is not normal, it is highly skewed; and is undefined for any value less than 0.

It is possible to shift, translate, the exponential distribution along the x-axis to a new value, μ. For reasons that I hope will become obvious later, let's shift that exponential distribution to begin at 3. It remains skewed, and the most common value is not the mean. Also there are no values to the right of this new value μ.

So let's pretend  that the distribution is mirrored before this new value, and it effectively becomes a discontinuity at the new value. To the right of that discontinuity there is e.g. the United Star Ship Enterprise and a universe that favors System Optimality, Teamwork. To the left of that discontinuity there is a mirror, the Imperial Star Ship Enterprise, Mr. Spock has a goatee, and that universe favors a User Optimality, Every Man For Himself. This can be described mathematically as
(x<μ)*(λe^λx+1) +(x≥μ) *(λe^-λx), where again in the example μ = 3. The mode is equal to the mean which is equal to the median, and the skew is zero. However there is a discontinuity at μ. While a normal distribution also has a skew of zero, and the mean, median and mode are all equal to a value, the function is NOT a normal distribution because it does not satisfy the 68/95/99.7 rule. This would require that 99.7% of the values are within the mean plus or minus 3 standard deviations from the mean. This also causes the value at x=0 to be almost zero since the mean is equal to the median and between zero and the mean in a normal distribution will be 49.85% of the values, which is almost equal to 50%, the median. Since the mirrored exponential distribution at zero is not zero, it is NOT a normal distribution.

It also fails when it is turned into a Cumulative Distribution Function, CDF. It has a CDF of -1 until approximately μ-3*μ where it begins to increase to a CDF of 1, which it approximately reaches when x >μ+3*μ.  The ideal CDF should have a value of 0 when it is much less than the mean, and a value of 1 when it is much greater than the mean. The mirrored exponential distribution is NOT only not normal, it fails this CDF test, and it also is not consistent with observations. A distribution which is consistent with observations, and is considered to be normal, is a logistics distribution, e^-(x-μ)/s / (s*(1+ e^-(x-μ)/s)). This has a Cumulative Distribution Function of 1/ (1+ e^-(x-μ)/s). For the CDF to have a value of 0.5, the median, at μ, then s must be 0.5. Then the CDF has a value of zero when x is zero. Its mean, median, and mode are all μ. Also if the CDF has a value of 0.5, the median, when x = μ, and s must be 0.5, then σ, the standard deviation from the mean, must be s*π/√3, or 0.91. This is also identical to a form of the hyperbolic trigonometric function, ½*sech²(x-μ).

To put this in narrative, not mathematical terms, if there is free will, that is to say a choice can be made at any point, then tolerance must be much greater than 0, and in fact it must exactly be 0.91.  A choice is between nothing and something, (0,1), not between something and its opposite, ( -1, 1). Also it seems that the universe in which we live is hyperbolic, i.e. is not flat.

Speaker of the House

 

Freedom

Freedom, freedom
Freedom, freedom
Freedom, freedom
Freedom, freedom
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
A long way from my home

Republicans already have a “Freedom” Caucus. How about a "Democracy" Caucus?

The election of the next Speaker of the House may be along party lines. This makes it a two-player game. Game Theory explains why it is in interest of the nation that it at least be a three-player game.  If it is along party lines, the Speaker of the House may be Representative Kevin McCarthy. His post will depend on the votes of the so called “Freedom” Caucus and will lead to Committee Chairs for Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, “Gym” Jim Jordan, and Scott Perry, among others. This is because the 40 or so members of the “Freedom” Caucus have discovered that there is safety in numbers and will hold Speaker McCarthy hostage to advance their interests.

Since these members of the “Freedom” Caucus seem to be “rINOs,” “republicans In Name Only,” and are opposed to the republic that is our democracy, it seems appropriate that those Republicans that are opposed to this also band together into a “Democracy" Caucus.  And that those members nominate someone for the Speakership and that all Democrats vote for that nominee. There were 10 Republican Representatives who voted against the party line to impeach Donald Trump. Only two of those remain in the House, Rep. David Valadao and Rep. Dan Newhouse, but the new Republican representatives from New York, as well as other real Republicans, should be potential members.

The “Freedom” Caucus is already bad branding since they are not supporters of freedom. “Democracy” Caucus may also be bad branding, since it may erroneously appear that these Republicans are “Democrats.” It is the banding together as a group to preserve our republican democracy that is important. How about a “Lincoln” Caucus? Since there is NOT a requirement that the Speaker even be a Representative, how about nominating a prominent Republican such as George Conway, Rick Wilson, Adam Kinzinger, Michael Luttig, etc. Then maybe the nation won’t feel like a motherless child.

Brittney Griner III

 

Fortunate Son

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, Lord?
But when the taxman come to the door
Lord, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah

It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no millionaire's son, no, no
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no

Those who are millionaire’s sons apparently are NOT Prodigal sons either!

Lest we forget. 

Luke 15:11-32 

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. 

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. 

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. 

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ 

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ 

My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” 

Brittney is home. The anger from those about that fact seems to be shared by the older brother in this parable. I suggest that as penance those who are angry actually read that Bible that they seem so fond of quoting.

Buyers and Sellers

 

The Bug

Sometimes you're the windshield
Sometimes you're the bug
Sometimes it all comes together, babe
Sometimes you're a fool in love
Sometimes you're the Louisville slugger, babe
Sometimes you're the ball
Sometimes it all comes together, babe
Sometimes you're gonna lose it all, yeah

There is a problem when one party thinks they’re the windshield and the other is the bug,
 but the other party thinks the reverse is true.

Twitter serves as a public town square. Its Tweets are free to post and read. However the Twitter infrastructure is not free. Twitter sells the information about its users to advertisers and that pays for the infrastructure. The users of Twitter have one perspective, while Twitter itself has another perspective.

A town square is a public place. But there are laws, rules, and customs governing public spaces. Speakers are  expected to not speak over each other. Speakers are supposed to state opinions, not false facts. People are not supposed to defame or harm others. Twitter's moderators and terms of service function much the same way. If there is no moderation or rules, then there will probably be no users. If there are no users, then there is no information to sell to advertisers. If there is nothing to sell, then the infrastructure is not provided, Then there is no private version of that public town square.

In economics, goods are classified by two dimensions: 1) priced and unpriced, and 2) exclusive and non-exclusive (if I sell it to you, I can not sell it to another.). From the perspective of the Twitter users, the good is unpriced and nonexclusive. From the perspective of Twitter and its advertisers, it is priced and nonexclusive. And that is the confusion. Twitter is not unpriced. Just like a broadcast “free” TV show is not free, it is paid for by its advertisers. It is “free”, but it is not unpriced.

This may also be the problem with the tickets fiasco for Taylor Swift tickets. From Taylor Swift’s, and her fans', perspective, the concert is non-exclusive. One fan’s attendance does not mean another fan can not hear the same concert. From the perspective of Ticketmaster, and the venue operators, the seats are exclusive. However those same seats without Taylor’s music are just seats. When the buyer thinks the good is non-exclusive and the seller thinks it is exclusive, there are also problems.

When both parties are the windshield, or both parties are the bug, then there is no problem. When one party is the windshield and the other is the bug, then there are problems.

Brittney Griner II

 

Free At Last

On my knees when the light pass'd by
I thank God I'm free at last
Tho't my soul would rise and fly
I thank God I'm free at last

Brittney Griner is free at last

Thank you President  Biden! The price was high, but the end is so worth it.

On the Spectrum

 

Whiter Shade of Pale

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale.

That it is because it is on a spectrum, not a binary.

Autism is said to exist on a spectrum. And a form of high functioning Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, is still said to be on the spectrum.  A co-worker joked that Asperger’s must be in the job description at our firm. Those with Asperger’s have to be reminded that the old CBS show “The Big Bang Theory” is a comedy, not a documentary.

The most recent podcast of Stuff You Should Know  was on Face Blindness, prosopagnosia, which is a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize faces. The most famous sufferer of Face Blindness is Brad Pitt. The podcast also discussed coping mechanisms for those who suffer from Face Blindness The podcast ended with a request that those who suffer from Face Blindness write to them. However, Face Blindness may not be a matter of you have it, or you don’t. It may also be on a spectrum.

I think that I may have an undiagnosed form of Face Blindness. Admittedly this may be that I have developed coping mechanisms for most cases, but not this one. I do not have the ability to recognize faces in unfamiliar settings. The most prominent example was when I was on vacation in Virginia and heard a voice say, “Hello, Dan.”  I asked the person who they were. I should mention that she was distinctive in the manner that only a freckle-faced, bi-racial woman could be. Her response was that I was her supervisor at work in Massachusetts and sat next to her for the previous five years At work, no problem, 1,000 miles from work, who are you? Oh yeah, that’s why I should know you.

One of the coping mechanisms that I may have developed is trying to treat everyone with kindness. If the old adage is true that "You should treat people nice on the way up the ladder, because you might meet them again on the way down,” then treating everyone nice because they might be a long-time friend that you don’t recognize at the moment is even more true. Those with Face Blindness, even on a spectrum, may have to treat everyone the same because they can’t recognize any differences. People who you have treated well in the past, expect the same treatment, whether you recognize them or not.

303 Creative

 

I’m A Man

I stand outside creatin'
All the groovy kinds of love
I'm a man, yes I am and I can't help but love you so
I'm a man, yes I am and I can't help but love you so

And no man is God.

Justice “Not Merrick Garland” Gorsuch during oral arguments for the 303 Creative case slammed the State of Colorado for forcing a Christian baker to undergo a “reeducation program” after he refused to create a custom cake celebrating a same-sex marriage on the grounds that it violated his religious convictions.

That Christian baker is licensed by the state of Colorado.  That baker has his premises inspected by Health Departments of governments in Colorado.  That baker receives police, fire  and other protections and services from the government.  That baker accepts payment in US currency, not in barter.  Is it too much to ask that this Christian baker abide by the laws of our governments, even if those laws and regulations violate his religious belief.  The Supreme Court is being asked to be Caesar, not God.  It should be a good Christian and remember  Christ's teaching “ Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s."  The baker’s religious convictions are God’s.  The state of Colorado and the Supreme Court are not God, they are Caesar.  Is Justice Gorsuch under the impression that he is God?

Discontinuities

 

Go to the Mirror, Boy (See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me)

I often wonder what he is feeling
Has he ever heard a word I’ve said?
Look at him in the mirror dreaming
What is happening in his head?

Maybe our universe IS inside the mirror.

The original Star Trek ( yes, I am that nerdy), had an episode Mirror, Mirror where Captain Kirk entered an evil mirror universe ( the one with Spock with a Goatee!).  Our universe appears to be hyperbolic https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2022/07/forever.html. It may also be that evil mirror universe.

Random events appear to follow an exponential distribution.  Those random events, and that statistical distribution, are constrained to real positive values.   This may be a limitation of our universe.  If negative numbers are allowed AND the negative distribution is a mirror of the positive distribution instead of being confined to positive numbers, there is a discontinuity at the origin.  In other words, the Probability density function, PDF of the exponential distribution for all values of x, not just x>0, may be

(x≥0)*(λ*e^-λx) + (x<0)*( λ*e^λx)

Alito and Leaks

 

Up on Cripple Creek

Up on Cripple Creek, she sends me
If I spring a leak, she mends me
I don't have to speak, she defends me
A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one

The Supreme Court has a leak. Who will mend it?

I previously thought that Justice “Long Dong Silver” Thomas was the most dangerous man in America. I based that on his opinions and those of his wife. But with his leaks, Justice “Strip Search Sammy” Alito has pulled into the lead.

The draft opinion for Dobbs, which was written by Justice Alito and included the overturning of Roe v. Wade, was leaked in May. Now it has come to light that Justice Alito also leaked the draft opinion in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case, which he also wrote. I have watched enough episodes of the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Perry Mason, Scooby Doo, etc., to know that the criminal is usually the one who most benefits from the crime. Before the 2020 leak, Chief Justice Roberts was lobbying the other Justices to possibly not overturn Roe v. Wade. After the leak he ceased those efforts and Justice Alito’s draft opinion became the Court’s majority opinion. Given his history and the fact that Justice Alito benefitted the most from the leak, if you do NOT think that Justice Alito was the source of the leak, I have some nice ocean front property in Kansas I would like to sell you. 😏If Chief Justice Roberts wants to maintain control of his Court, not only should he adopt the position that supermajorities, which on the present Supreme Court means 6-3 opinions, are required, I believe that prior to the Hughes Court in the 1940s, the Chief Justice always required that its opinions be by consensus, Chief Justice Roberts should also never, ever, let Justice Alito write an opinion. If he doesn’t write the opinion, then maybe he won’t leak it.

Respect for Marriage Act

 

Why Don’t We Do It in the Road

Why don't we do it in the road?
Why don't we do it in the road?
Why don't we do it in the road?
Why don't we do it in the road?
No one will be watching us
Why don't we do it in the road?

We don't because the road is a public space, and “it” is a private action.

In the song, we all know what “it” is, and  “it” is a private action. The rules for public spaces are there, regardless of whether someone is watching you or not. And just as private actions are allowed in private spaces, and public actions are allowed in public spaces, public control should not exist in private spaces, and private control should not exist in public spaces. When a public group tries to control private actions in private spaces, or a private group tries to control public actions in public spaces, there is a problem.

The government is the public. It grants certain rights for example, to those who are married. Marriage means that health care of spouses, inheritance, etc. are protected by the government. A marriage, like all government actions in one US State, has to be acknowledged in every other US State. Just as a Driver’s license in Massachusetts is valid in Texas, Texas does not have the right to say how Massachusetts issues that driver’s license, ....or marriage license. And if a transaction happens in the public marketplace, then no one should have the right to object based on private beliefs. The public can’t change what is in a private heart. But the public can control what are acceptable public actions, subject to the rights of individuals guaranteed in the constitution. You should have to show actual harm to ban a public action. Being offended is NOT justification to ban a public action. But the public also does not get to change what is in a private individual’s, or a group of private individuals', heart. If you want the public’s protection in economic transactions, then you also do NOT get to also decide in which economic transactions you will participate. 

It is also why Justice Thomas is showing his hypocrisy in saying Obergefell, Lawrence, and Griswold were improperly decided but Loving which would affect him, was omitted from his list. Render onto Caesar, the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s. There seems to be some confusion  among the Justices of the Supreme Court as to which things are which.

Debt II

 

Pretty Polly

A debt to the devil, Willie must pay
A debt to the devil, Willie must pay
For killing Pretty Polly, and running, and running, and running, and running away. 

Is our national debt to the devil?

To answer my own question, the national debt is an investment in the future, NOT a debt to the devil.  Since we have a fiat currency that is based on the national economy, our national debt should be a percentage of the national economy.  That way if the economy grows, the debt ceiling will also grow.  Also the debt ceiling should NEVER be set in unadjusted dollars.  The US currency has been subject to inflation, especially beginning with the Nixon Shock of 1971.   The debt ceiling should recognize this inflation.  If the economy is stated in current dollars, not in the dollars of a previous year, then the debt ceiling should also be based on the economy stated in the current years dollars, and not the dollars of a previous year.

It is arguable that there should not even be a national debt ceiling set by Congress.  Congress has the power of appropriation in spending bills.  And the ability to raise taxes to pay for that spending. Then why is there also a need to also impose a  national debt ceiling on that spending. The debt ceiling should not be used as a hostage to hold spending, or taxes, hostage.  Yes, if there is no debt there is no need for spending, or taxes, to repay that debt.  But then there is also no investment in the future.  If you believe in the future, and you believe in growth, then you have to also allow for debt. 

Equality

 

My Back Pages

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

I am older now but I wish I was younger.  What is equality?

The Microsoft Word Thesaurus lists the synonyms for equality as: parity, fairness, equivalence, likeness, impartiality, etc. And this highlights the problem with equality. Equality IS ALWAYS fairness and impartiality. Equality IS NOT ALWAYS likeness and equivalence. It is easy to treat those that are identical to me with fairness. It is much harder to treat those who are unlike me with fairness.

Which begs the questions, what is fairness? That same thesaurus lists the symptoms for fairness, not including equality, as: justice, impartiality, objectivity, etc. Which means that equality is not having your thumb on the scale of justice, letting things truly be random. Being fair is being objective and impartial and NOT favoring one outcome over another. Justice is not the Law. The Law should reflect Justice, but that Law is not perfect, and we can change the Law. We can not change Justice. It is an absolute. We can aspire to absolutes, but we can not be absolutes. A normal distribution of a group, i.e. a fair distribution, has a mean and a standard deviation from that mean. An absolute has a standard deviation of zero by definition. But humans are members of a group. As such, we are individuals, not absolutes. A standard uniform normal distribution of a group has a standard deviation of 1, not 0. Equality is accepting that fact and not insisting that everyone be like you, have a standard deviation of 0 from you

Equality is everyone sharing the same starting line, and letting true randomness govern the outcome. That is why jockeys in a horse race, or boxers in a match, have weigh-ins. It is why in golf there are handicaps, and why in chess there are rankings. If you beat an unequal opponent that is NOT a reason to celebrate. If you have to take actions to ensure that your opponent is equal, then that will be a victory to celebrate. Sometimes that may involve tying your hand behind your back, sometimes that may involve untying your opponents’ hands.

Bank Runs

 

I Gotsta Get Paid

I got 25 lighters on my 25 folks
Gonna break the bank run 25 more
Bout to reap the suits with 25 flows
I got 25 lighters well don't ya know
You know I gotsta get paid

It has been along time since we have had a bank run.

In the 19^th Century bank runs were common. (For those of you who are too young to remember bank runs, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPkJH6BT7dM.)  This is because banks do NOT keep enough liquidity on hand to pay out all deposits, nor would we want then to do so. There has to be a lender of last resort who can provide the liquidity to repay depositors when a single bank can not. Otherwise depositor demands at one bank can trigger a panic among depositors in other banks. In the 19h century that lender of last resort was banker J. P. Morgan. Since the Federal Reserve was formed, it has been that lender of last resort.

In crypto currency there is no lender of last resort. Crypto is also a commodity currency. There is a fixed amount of crypto that can be “mined.” Gold and other precious metals once served as the basis of a commodity currency. Sovereigns minted coins to guarantee that the currency was real gold, etc., and could be faithfully used in an economic exchange. But gold and other metals are bulky to carry which is why there is paper money. We had a gold currency because Isaac Newton, of Gravity and Calculus fane, when he was Master of the British Royal Mint, made a mistake on the price of silver. Before this mistake, silver was also commonly the basis for a nation’s currency. A remnant of that is the Pound Sterling which was a weight of sterling silver, and the dollar which was a Spanish coin in silver. When paper currency, which was easier to carry,  could be converted into gold, then it was still a commodity currency. Since the 1930s, Americans were virtually not allowed to own gold. The domestic dollar effectively became a fiat currency. It was worth what those printing the money said it was worth. Beginning in 1971, the dollar was also no longer internationally convertible into gold.

A commodity currency can NOT grow. It is constrained by the amount of that commodity. To allow growth, an economy should NOT have a commodity currency. But that begs the issue of what is the constraint on a fiat currency. The answer appears to be an amount that is consistent with the goods and services in the economy that it supports. If the economy grows, then the fiat currency should also grow by this amount.

As was noted, in crypto currency there was no lender of last resort and crypto was a commodity currency. Thus it should not be surprising that crypto currency markets such as FTX have collapsed. That most people did not own or invest in crypto currency is why a run on crypto did not also cause a run on the banks.

John Aniston, R.I.P.

 

Oh My Papa

Oh, my Pa-pa, to me he was so wonderful
Oh, my Pa-pa, to me he was so good
No one could be so gentle and so lovable
Oh, my Pa-pa, he always understood

There is a fitting way to honor Jennifer Aniston’s late father, Yannis Anastassakis.

In ancient Athens, they took jury duty and voting selection very, very seriously. But their answer was NOT to exclude those that might be corrupted. They instead ensured that the process was absolutely random so that corruptible humans were not involved. The representatives and jurors were chosen from among volunteers. There was a concern that the votes, or other decisions, of those representatives and jurors could be influenced by others, if their votes were public. Their solution was to make such votes secret. It did NOT require a high-tech solution. They deposited stones indicating their decision in a jar, where the color of the stone indicated whether they were in favor of, or opposed to, the issue. The number of stones in the jar indicated the will of the panel but no one could see, or influence, the decision of any one member of the panel.

There was also a concern that each of the ten tribes in Athens were fairly represented on any panel of representatives, jurors, etc. They often used a kleroterion to select panels.

From Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleroterion

“The kleroterion was a slab of stone incised with rows of slots and with an attached tube. Citizens' tokens—pinakia—were placed randomly in the slots so that every member of each of the tribes of Athens had their tokens placed in the same column. There was a pipe attached to the stone which could then be fed dice that were colored differently (assumed to be black and white) and could be released individually by a mechanism that has not survived to posterity (but is speculated to be by two nails; one used to block the open end and another to separate the next die to fall from the rest of the dice above it.) When a die was released, a complete row of tokens (so, one citizen from each of the tribes of Athens) was either selected if the die was colored one color, or discarded if it was the alternate color. This process continued until the requisite number of citizens was selected.”

Selecting candidates from the tribes of ancient Athens is not terribly different from Harvard selecting candidates representing different races, incomes, ethnicities, etc. The chances of being selected were greater for those in a tribe with fewer volunteers/candidates. But the process was completely random.  Your odds were equal within your tribe. That they were not equal with every member of every other tribe was a big so what. That was NOT the goal. 

Choosing anything as a selection criteria, which is strongly correlated with race, income, ethnicity, etc., means that you are effectively selecting on race, income, ethnicity, religion etc. For example, if you are selecting based on extra-curricular activities and white, rich, WASPs have a higher correlation with extra curricular activities this means that effectively you ARE selecting on race, income, ethnicity, religion, etc.  Selecting as the ancient Greeks did, eliminates the possibility of using any highly correlated criteria.

I just learned that Jennifer Aniston is of Greek heritage.  It would be fitting to honor her late father by realizing that Affirmative Action is nothing more than the modern equivalent of the kleroterion, even if the ancient Greeks did it better,  and that votes to end debate in the US Senate be by colored stones instead of filibusters.

Lord of the Rings

 

Into the West

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping!

But you can dream while you are sleeping.

I will admit to being a Lord of the Rings, LOTR, nerd.  One of the consequences of the COVID pandemic is that I have not able to get to the local public library and checkout out the LOTR trilogy for a read.  Before I went all Marie Kondo, and threw them out, I had a had a well-worn box set of the three books that I would reread often.

My three favorite characters in the LOTR are Samwise Gamgee, Treebeard, and the shield maiden Eowyn.  Upon reflection, I realize that these characters embody the three attributes that I have proposed as being important for understanding Human Behavior.        
 https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2021/05/framework-for-human-behavior-ii.html

Eowyn is, doh, a shieldmaiden, and is thus NOT supposed to go into battle.  However she disguises herself, rides into battle with the men of Rohan, and it is she (and the likewise insignificant Hobbit Merry), who kills the Witch-King of Angmar and avenges King Théoden of Rohan, because she is a woman and NOT a Man.  Talk about never Excluding anyone!

Treebeard, Fangorn, is much to the Hobbits’ dismay, the opposite of hasty. He wants to discover the Truth after careful deliberation and debate.  But once he knows the Truth, watch out!

Samwise Gamgee, the loyal companion of Frodo, takes on the burden of carrying the Ring when he thinks Frodo has been killed, but surrenders the Ring when he discovers, much to his relief, that Frodo is alive.  Sam is the ultimate System Optimalist, who thinks of the group and NOT himself.  “It must be often so, when things are in danger, someone has to give them up,  lose them, so that others may keep them”.

Those who believed in excluding others; who did NOT believe in the Truth; and were User Optimalists who thought of themselves and NOT the group; were primarily defeated in the US general election on November 8^th.  I would like to think that the majority of voters, even those who are not LOTR fans, agreed with Tolkien.  I wish them good dreams.

Automatic

 

If I Only Had A Brain

I would not be just a nothin'
My head all full of stuffin'
My heart all full of pain.
I would dance and be merry,
Life would be a ding-a-derry,
If I only had a brain.

USING a brain beats HAVING a brain.

With all of the brouhaha about Artificial Intelligence, too often it is forgotten that this is just using a computer to execute a program. Unless the computer, the input data, and the formula in the program is correct, being able to execute it quickly or effortlessly, is NOT necessarily intelligent. It is NOT using the brain that you already have.

Grace Hopper, of the “It's Easier To Ask Forgiveness Than It Is To Get Permission” fame, recorded the first computer bug in 1947. The error was a hardware failure caused by a moth in the computer.

On Black Monday, October 19, 1987, the stock market plunged (the S&P 500 dropped nearly 10% in a single trading day) as computerized trading programs caused a market crash that could NOT be tracked to any other fundamental problems.

In 1998, the Mars Climate Orbiter was destroyed upon entering Mars' orbit at the wrong angle because the navigation team had entered calculations in the Imperial system (feet and pounds) and the program expected data in the metric system (meters and grams).

In 1999, global panic resulted when it was realized that the storage of only the last two numbers of a year,  e.g. 99 instead of 1999, might result in numerous computer errors.

In 2012, the Gangnam Style video broke YouTube because the maximum views allowed was stored as a 32-bit integer, which has a maximum of 2,147,483,647, and the number of views exceeded this.

In computer science, there is a phrase, GIGO, which means Garbage In, Garbage Out. This is true if the garbage is a hardware failure, an error in the input data, or a flaw in the program code. The important thing is to get the correct answer. Getting an answer quickly and cheaply, but getting the wrong answer is NOT using your brain.

Making something automatic when you are using the wrong formula in the code, is only getting to the wrong answer faster and more easily. The US Congress made the reapportionment of House seats after the decennial census automatic and an imbalance, e.g. between California and Wyoming seats per voter, is the consequence. John Taylor wanted to make the Federal Reserve Bank’s prime interest rate automatic but thankfully Congress did not make this mandatory. To err is human. But if you make an error, you are supposed to learn from that error, not replicate your mistake automatically.