Caste

Well Did You Evah!

I have heard among this clan,
You are called the forgotten man
(Is that what they're saying, well did you evah!)
What a swell party this is

It isn't enough to make fun of High Society.  Something should be done about the caste system that enables High Society.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson has a new book titled Caste. While I have not yet read the book I am looking forward to doing so.  Meanwhile I have been following Ms. Wilkerson's appearances on her promotional tour.  Unlike Ms Wilkerson's comments during her appearance on Fresh Air, I do not think that caste in the United States is only bipolar; white and black. It is far more nuanced and hierarchical than that. I am: 

• the grandchild of an illegal immigrant (admittedly from Canada); 
• the child of a father who  dropped out of school to work at a low paying factory job; 
• was unable to speak to the only grandparent who was alive during my life because she only spoke Polish and I only spoke English;  
• the brother ( the best man at my wedding and the godfather of my oldest son) of an openly Gay Man; and 
• raised as a Roman Catholic. 

But I graduated from two Ivy League schools and, and earned a higher income as a professional engineer, and I know that I have often been assumed to be a member of a "higher caste". 

I may not have claimed that my ancestry was Swedish, did not attended a military high school but dodged the draft, and while my grandfather did not die of the 1918 Spanish Flu, I know that my father's bother and sister did and I get the year correct, but I too was also never accepted by the upper caste in Manhattan.  I know that the caste system has affected me, and I assume that it also has affected the mental health of those who practice and believe in it.

Survival of the Fittest

If I Were King of the Forest!

What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder?       
Courage! 
What makes the dawn come up like thunder?
Courage!
What makes the Hottentot so hot?
What puts the "ape" in apricot?
What have they got that I ain't got?
Courage!

The lion might be king of the jungle, but not every lion is king.

Survival of the fittest applies to the species, not to the individual.  Survival is an individual game, and the fittest individual doesn’t always win .  If you don’t believe this, I offer the CBS TV Show Survivor as Exhibit A.  It was originally expected that the fittest survivor would “win” this TV game show.  Instead the game is such that the strongest members of the tribes are among the first voted out.  The remaining tribe members do not want to sit across from a fitter player in the final tribal vote.  So the fittest player is almost guaranteed not to be the winner of Survivor.  ( For Survivor fans, I do understand about winning immunity challenges.  I am talking about “blindsides”  after the fittest loses an immunity challenge.)

In the game of life, the fittest individual also does not always win.  The fittest species, of which an individual is a member, does.  That should not be a surprise to anyone.  The Major League Baseball batting champ, or the Most Valuable Player,  often does not play for the World Series winning team. Ted Williams of the Red Sox was my boyhood idol and a great player, but he never won a World Series ring.

Acting like survival of the fittest is the only way to win the game of life is an alternate fact.

Valuing Risk:Part 3

Knock on Wood 

It's like thunder, lightning

The way you love me is frightening

You better knock, knock on wood 

The Risk of dying by being stuck by lighting is made of its Likelihood AND its Consequences

I didn’t expect to revisit the issue of risk again but a recent article by Dan Reed in Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielreed/2020/07/30/if-covid-19-really-isnt-a-big-threat-to-the-average-airline-passenger-but-no-airline-bothers-to-tell-the-story-does-it-make-any-noise/#66cb955427f6 made me reconsider this.  In the article, it appears that likelihood is being confused with risk.  Risk is the product of likelihood AND consequences, not only likelihood.  For example, the likelihood of being struck by lightning may be very low, but the consequences of being struck by lightning might be very dire.

For example the likelihood of being stuck by lightning is said to be 0.0002% or 1 in 500,000, and the likelihood of dying after being stuck by lighting is close to 100%.  The risk of dying by being struck by lightning thus is also 0.0002%.  The likelihood of contracting COVID-19 on an airplane has been given as  0.013% and there is a 5% chance of dying from COVID -19 after contracting it.  Thus the risk of dying from COVID after flying is 0.00065%.  The risk can be mitigated by altering the likelihood OR the consequences.  The likelihood of being struck by lightning if you seek shelter is 0%. Thus the risk of dying from lightning if you seek shelter during a thunder and lightning storm is 0%.  The likelihood of contracting COVID-19,  if you don’t fly is 0% and thus the risk of dying from COVID-19 after flying, if you don’t fly, is also 0%.  Of course you could also address the CONSEQUENCE of dying from COVID-19 by making sure that you have ICU beds and ventilators available.  Or you could also lower the LIKELIHOOD of contracting COVID-19 by social distancing and only visiting places that require the wearing of masks.

The likelihood of contracting COVID-19 after flying is 76 times less than being struck by lightning.  However the risk of dying after contracting COVID-19 after flying is only 3.8 times less than the risk of dying after being struck by lightning.  If we mitigate the risk of dying from lightning by seeking shelter, then not flying is also a reasonable response.

The likelihood of getting soaking wet if you are unprotected in a rainstorm is 100%.  The consequences of being uncomfortable until you are dry is  100%.  The consequence of dying from being soaked after being in a rainstorm is close to zero.  Thus I was personally reasonable , or so I say, to attend a college homecoming football game 50 years ago in hopes of seeing my team win, because the risk of harm was low, even if the likelihood of getting wet was high.  By the way, my college team lost that game anyway 😒

Bankruptcy

Hotel California

You can check out any time you like

But you can never leave!

Bankruptcy is the ultimate checking out of a game.  But some games don’t let you leave

Wealthy individuals and corporations hate paying for insurance,  and may self insure because  they assume that they can pay any costs that insurance might have paid out.  However they object only to the costs.  Rewards such as stock markets gains (stock markets formed as a way to insure the liquidity of investments) are popular, as are corporate bailouts.   So clearly the objection is financial not one of  principle.  As a last resort, if the consequences become too dire, some think that they can always declare bankruptcy.  Bankruptcy is the ultimate walking away from a game.  But you can't walk away from some games.  The third law of thermodynamics is sometimes facetious stated as "you can't get out of the game".   A more formal statement is "It is impossible by any procedure, no matter how idealized, to reduce the temperature of any closed system to zero temperature in a finite number of finite operations."

This may explain why the wealthy are against social security insurance, have gutted health insurance, and gutted the stockpiles need to insure against a rare occurrence like COVID-19. They assumed that they could always declare bankruptcy, that is take the ball and go home. But bankruptcy requires that there are creditors and they pay your costs. If there is no one to pay those costs, then you can’t declare bankruptcy, get out of the game. Societies can not get out of the game, can not declare bankruptcy, and still remain as viable societies.

In Defense of Science

The Emperor’s New Clothes

"A vain emperor hires two swindlers who promise to make him the finest suit of clothes made from fabric invisible to anyone who is "hopelessly stupid”. 

He marches in procession in those new clothes. The townsfolk play along with the pretense. 

Then a child in the crowd cries out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all.
The cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes but holds his head high and continues the procession."

 

Right now we need that child to defend science.

Science is under attack. From the science of climate change, to evolution, to vaccination, to COVID‑19, etc., the attacks have become more vicious and more frequent.  The White House recently said "Science should not get in the way schools reopening” even though science is only offering an opinion as to what is safe.

Some of the more common lines of attack ( and their refutations) are:

It’s only a theory

This confuses the term theory in common language with theory as used in science.  A validated theory makes predictions.  The Theory of Relativity is credited to Einstein.  It makes predictions and those predictions continue to be tested.  The atomic bomb and the energy from the sum are both consequences of the theory of relativity.  A theory is more than just an opinion.  Science considers every theory, model, wrong, but some theories are useful.

It’s a fact.

Just because people say something doesn’t make it a fact. A fact is something that can be observed. If it can't be observed, as far as science is concerned there is no fact.  And to paraphrase the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, while people are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts. You have to acknowledge all of the facts, not just the ones that you like. Science does not deal with alternate facts.

I have a right to my own opinion.

You certainly have a right to your own opinions.  But when you exercise that opinion, as when swinging your arm, your rights end where my nose begins, e.g those rights infringe on someone else’s rights. For example you have every right to contract the corona virus. However when you wear a mask you are preventing me from contracting your corona virus.

The Enemy of My Enemy Is NOT My Friend

You've Got A Friend In Me

When the road looks rough ahead 
And you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed
You just remember what your old pal said
Yeah you've got a friend in me

Having friends is nice.  But the enemy of my enemy is NOT  necessarily my friend.

The old saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is demonstrably  wrong.  This matters, because in the current election campaign, we are being asked to view a candidate’s opponent as an enemy.  That does not mean that the first candidate is therefore my friend.  This sounds good but can be completely disproven by mathematics. 

If a is me, b is one candidate, and c is the opponent of the first candidate, then  if <> is being an enemy and = is being a friend, then

a<>c and b<> c does not mean that a=b. 

As a non mathematical example, Stalin and Churchill shared a common enemy in Adolf Hitler during WWII.  But Churchill never thought that this made Stalin his friend.  You can make common cause with an enemy, but that does not make that enemy into your friend.  It is better to convince me that you are my friend, than to try to convince me that your opponent is my enemy.

Valuing Risk: Part 2

Let's Face the Music and Dance

Before they ask us to pay the bill     
And while we still have the chance 
Let's face the music and dance

The size of the bill, the consequences, will depend on how we view risk.

It is convenient to think of risk as the combination of likelihood  and consequences.  The recent reopening of Disney Springs and Disney World have provided a perfect example of how consequences affect the perception of risk, and how that risk affects our behavior.

During the COVID-19 crisis face masks are being required at both Disney Springs, the Disney World shopping district in Florida, and the Disney World Theme Parks.  Masks are required for entry to both the theme parks and the shopping district.  There is a difference between how long masks are worn after entry though.  Masks are being removed by some visitors to Disney Springs, but masks are not being removed by visitors to the Disney Theme parks.  The likelihood of contracting the corona virus is equal in both places.  If behavior is different, then visitors to both places must be calculating risk differently. 

The consequences of not continuing to wear a mask on the Disney Springs property is removal from the shopping district, but there was no cost for entry to this shopping district.  The consequence of not continuing to wear a mask at a Disney theme park is removal from the theme park, but there was an entrance fee of almost a hundred dollars to the theme parks.  Since the consequences are different, $0 and almost  $100, even though they have the same likelihood, they have a different risk.  The risk of not wearing a mask at a Disney Theme park is greater than the risk of not wearing a mask at the Disney shopping district.  Thus is it not surprising that continued mask wearing is greater at the theme parks than at the shopping district.