Vigilantes

 

Boss Man

Big boss man!
Won't you hear me when I call?
Yeah, you ain't so big bossman
You just tall that's all!

Just because you are big doesn’t make you right.

Batman is a vigilante.  He believes that his code of Justice is correct.  Criminals who do not believe in his code of Justice must be insane, which is why they are confined to Arkham Asylum and not the Gotham Jail. Batman administers Justice not the Law.  But it is his Justice.  There is a  scene in the Untold Tales of the Batman miniseries where the phrase “It’s not Justice, it’s the Law” is uttered to explain why Bruce Wayne did not become a lawyer or a policeman.

Batman’s popularity grew at the same time that other vigilantes became popular:  The Punisher, Wolverine, etc.  Vigilantes were also embraced in general popular culture: e.g. Death Wish.  Wolverine and the Punisher were first introduced as villains: Wolverine as a villain for the Hulk, the Punisher as a villain for Spiderman. 

Comic book heroes up to that point had a System Optimal perspective.  “Fair Play”; “Live by the Golden Rule”; “Might for Right”; “With great power comes great responsibility”. They captured  criminals and turned them over to the police, society, for the administration of Justice.  Batman in the 1980s, as well as Wolverine and the Punisher, had a User Optimal perspective.  They administered Justice as they saw it. “ My way or the highway”; “ He who has the Gold makes the rules”; “Might makes Right”. Yes, their Justice was also what society promoted as its ideal, but it was still their Justice. There is a difference between administering Justice, and delivering criminals to society for Justice.

The danger of embracing vigilantes is that their belief in what is right may not be the belief shared by the system.  Vigilantes by definition live outside of the system, society. 

We may have reached the logical conclusion to vigilantism.  If you can decide if your wife’s honor has been violated, then you, not the system, can apply a slap.  If you can decide that Weapons of Mass Destruction should be eliminated or DeNazification should be undertaken then you, not the system, can impose your might.  

The objection to Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel was that Superman would not administer Justice on his own.  Superman would deliver wrong-doers TO the System, but he would not determine that he was empowered to administer Justice FOR the System.  Superman v. Batman should not be just “Might versus Might”, but  “Might FOR Right” versus “Might IS Right”, System Optimization versus User Optimization.

What Is In A Name

My Name Is

Hi! My name is (what?)
My name is (who?)
My name is
Slim Shady

It sounds like Donald Trump needs some help with names.

"A guy who spells his name M-E-I-J-E-R but they pronounce it Meyer," Trump said. "What the hell kind of a spelling is that?

He continued: "I said, how the hell do you pronounce this guy's name? Nobody knows if he's done nothing in Washington... I said, how do you pronounce his name, is it MA-GER, MY-GER? They said it's MY-ER. How the hell do you get MY-ER out of it?" Donald Trump 4/2/2022

Donald, Donald, Donald. Meijer is a Dutch name. It refers to a profession similar to a bailiff or steward. It originates from the Latin word major and is often rendered Meyer abroad. One would have thought that Donald Trump would be used to Dutch names since New York City was once called New Amsterdam. A large number of the Manhattan elite, who snubbed Donald Trump as an upstart from Queens,  had Dutch surnames.

I can understand how Donald Trump would be confused by European surnames. His father claimed that Trump was a Swedish name after WWII. Actually it is German, but Fred Trump did not want to be associated with Nazi Germany. That is cowardly but what do you expected out of a Ku Klux Klan sympathizer and an admitted racial discriminator. ( Donald should remember that from 1973. He was  fined by  HUD at the same time his father was!)

Cowards run in Cadet Bone Spur’s family. Donald’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, was deported from Bavaria for draft dodging. Friedrich died of the Spanish Fu in 1918. You would think that that his Grandfather’s death would have made an impression on Donald, but he always got it wrong, falsely saying the Spanish Flu began in 1917.

And before the stable genius starts attacking me, yes, I know that he has a Bachelor’s degree from UPenn. But I actually went to class when I got my Master’s degree at UPenn. 

Distributions

 

Patterns

And the light from a street lamp
Paints a pattern on my wall,
Like the pieces of a puzzle
Or a child's uneven scrawl

Finding the pattern,  (theory) can help you solve a puzzle.

Ruh-Roh.  Be warned.  This blog posting is especially nerdy.

Statistics is a descriptive science. It is NOT a predictive science. While statistics can help develop probabilistic models, Probability and Statistics alone can not develop models that predict with a  certainty. (see Pynchon’s  Gravity’s Rainbow or Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.)  It is possible to observe relationships that can assist in developing a theory, which is then used in predictive models, but first there has to be a theory. Observations can support a theory. But observations alone do not make a theory.

A normal statistical distribution has to allow the possibility of negative values. If the mean is significantly greater than zero, negative values are improbable BUT they are not impossible. For example, a normal distribution might have a mean of 100, a variance of 10, (the phrase “flatten the curve” that become popular during the COVID-19 pandemic would be translated to “increase the variance” by a statistician), a skew of 0, and a kurtosis of 0. If the kurtosis is 0, then the observed data has no outliers. If the skew is 0, then the function is uniform, and the mean is equal to the median which is equal to the mode. At a value of negative 100, this uniform normal probability function still says that -100 could be observed 2.2529*10^-262  % of the time. This is NOT zero. but it is a vanishingly small number and is often treated as if it WERE zero. 

There is a difference between a negative which is reported and a real negative. When you say it is  ‑10 degrees Fahrenheit outside, it does not mean that there is negative energy. Just that a value of zero on the Fahrenheit scale,  0 °F, was established as the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride. The other limit established was a best estimate of the average human body temperature, which at the time the Fahrenheit scale was established was 96 °F. The Centigrade, or Celsius,  scale of temperatures defines values of 0 °C as the freezing point of water and of 100 °C  as the boiling point of water. At -40 degrees, the Fahrenheit and Celsius system are the same. However both systems are merely a translation of temperature from a temperature of absolute zero.

If negative numbers are not allowed, statistics suggests the use of an exponential distribution. While an exponential  distribution does not allow negative numbers, it is a smooth continuous function. That is a probability function of 1.5 will have a value, even if only integer values should be observed. It may be convenient to state the mean family size of as 3.14, and the median family size as 3.12, but families don’t come that way. Each family member will only be an integer value. The mode is most probably 3, and thus family size is  skewed, even if it is a very small skew.

A uniform normal distribution requires that the mean, median and mode are equal. In an exponential distribution the mode  is zero; the demand is equal to 1/λ, where λ is the coefficient of the exponential in the probability function of the distribution, λe^-λx; and the median is ln 2/λ , the mode is 0, and the skew is 2. A distribution that combines the features of a normal distribution with the features of an exponential distribution is an exponentially modified Gaussian (normal) distribution. Then the mode does not have to be equal to zero, and the median can be adjusted to be close to the mean without being the equal to the mean.

 

 

 

Gravity

 

Defying Gravity

It's time to try defying gravity
I think I'll try defying gravity
And you can't pull me down

Gravity follows spacetime. Is spacetime Euclidean ? Or is spacetime Non- Euclidean and  hyperbolic?

“According to Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, gravity is no longer a force that acts on massive bodies, as viewed by Isaac Newton's universal gravitation. Instead, general relativity links gravity to the geometry of spacetime itself, and particularly to its curvature.

In classical physics, time proceeds constantly and independently for all objects. In relativity, spacetime is a four-dimensional continuum combining the familiar three dimensions of space with the dimension of time.

To account for gravity in relativity, the structure of this four-dimensional spacetime must be extended beyond the rules of classical geometry, where parallel lines never meet and the sum of a triangle’s angles is 180°. In general relativity, spacetime is not 'flat' but is curved by the presence of massive bodies."
  https://sci.esa.int/web/lisa-pathfinder/-/56434-spacetime-curvature

This is a bit of an exaggeration. Gravity IS a force, but it is an apparent, fictitious, or pseudo force. These fictitious forces  are familiar forces. Water in a bucket spinning overhead on a rope, appears to defy Gravity because of Centrifugal force. If a Centrifugal force were not acting on the water, it would slosh out of that spinning bucket. A motorcyclist in a Globe of Death seems to defy Gravity and rise on the walls because of Centrifugal force. Water in a drain spins in a clockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere, but in a counterclockwise direction in the Southern Hemisphere, because of the Coriolis force.

Saying that Gravity is not a force, but is a fictitious force means that there is, with apologies to Paul Harvey, a Rest of The Story. Gravity is like a trick in stage magic. Understanding how it works can better understand how you were tricked. Like Humpty Dumpty told in Alice in Through the Looking Glass, understanding  Gravity means “which is to be master — that’s all.”  If you wish to master and  defy Gravity you have to understand Gravity.

Gravity is the observation that particles will follow the shortest geodesic in spacetime.  When spacetime is curved, as it is required to be by General Relativity, then what appears to the path of a particle may be because spacetime is curved.  In Euclidean , what is called classical geometry in the quote above,  this apparent deviation from a straight line is attributed to Gravity.  If spacetime is curved, Non-Euclidean, and hyperbolic where the angles in triangles sum to less than 180 degrees, then Gravity can be a fictitious force.

If Gravity is a fictitious force, then efforts to include Gravity in a Unified Field Theory may be misplaced.  If Gravity is a fictitious force then efforts to develop a theory of Quantum Gravity may be as silly as trying to develop a theory of Quantum Centrifugal Force.

Republicans IV

 

Satisfaction

When I'm watchin' my TV
And a man comes on and tells me
How white my shirts can be
But, he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
The same cigarettes as me

What kind of a man is a Republican?

·       “McConnell during a recent GOP lunch implored his caucus to reject Ketanji Brown Jackson's SCOTUS nomination.

·       He reportedly praised Judiciary Republicans for scrutinizing the judge's sentencing history, per The Hill.

·       Sen. Susan Collins is currently the only Republican who plans to vote for Jackson's confirmation.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is pressing his GOP caucus to vote against confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, according to The Hill.” https://news.yahoo.com/mcconnell-pressing-gop-senators-oppose-161708443.html

Let me get this straight. 

·       You can’t be a Republican if you vote to approve the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson. 

But

·       You can be a Republican if you say Republicans have sex orgies and consume bumps of cocaine. 

·       You can be a Republican if you say that the Capitol Riot of January 6, 2010 was “legitimate political discourse”. 

·       You can be a Republican if you say that “there were fine people on both sides” in the Charlottesville March of August of 2017.

·       You can be a Republican if you say that Jewish Space Lasers started California wildfires

·       You can be a Republican if you  post an animated video that depicts the killing of a Democratic congresswoman and attacking Joe Biden.

I guess being a Republican doesn’t mean the same thing to Senator McConnell, that it does to me.  He probably doesn’t “smoke the same cigarettes as me” either.

Voting Restrictions

 

Snoopy For President

All the politicians, they swore he couldn't win
But Snoopy only shook his head and flashed his famous grin
He jumped into his faithful friend, the Sopwith Camel plane
And bounced around the countryside from Washington to Maine

You can try as hard as you can, but you are NEVER going to demonize Snoopy.

The United States has a first across the line, single representative per district, voting system. This means that there will generally be two parties according to Duverger’s Law. If one of the candidates receives a plurality of those voting, they will be elected. Thus in campaigning a viable winning strategy is to keep those who would vote for your opponent from voting. This means that the winner of the elections may not be a majority of all eligible voters (including those who were eligible but did not vote).

Whether the voters for one’s opponent are kept from voting by restrictions ( e.g. poll taxes, literacy tests, voter IDs, voting during working hours, restrictions on mail in voting, etc.) or by demonizing /throwing mud at, an opponent, does not matter. The important thing for a candidate is that they do not vote.

One way that has been proposed to deal with this is ranked choice voting. This is not an exotic system. A form of ranked choice voting is how national polls for the top college basketball or football team works. As proposed, a majority is required for elections. If a majority is not achieved, any votes for the last place candidate are eliminated and those votes are shifted to the next highest ranked candidate. ( I.e. if a candidate is eliminated, their second-place vote become first place votes for the remaining candidates.) Ranked choice voting requires that there be more than two candidates. An alternative is collegiate sporting polls where every vote is retained, but first place votes are scored more than second place votes, second place votes are scored more than third place votes, etc. The total score is tallied to determine the winner. But according to Duverger’s Law, if only two parties will nominate candidates, regardless of whether the traditional, or the sports poll method is chosen, ranked choice will not change the result.

If a ranked choice voting system exists, there is still the temptation to demonize other candidates so that they become a lower ranked choice of any voter.

Australia has a mandatory voting law, but it also has ranked choice voting and has a multiple representative per district voting system. While every voter in Australia will cast a ballot, candidates still have an incentive to demonize their opponents so that they appear lower as ranked choices on ballots.

Rather than promote ranked choice voting in the United States when there will typically only be two candidates and ranked choice voting will not change the result, or opposing voter restrictions, given only two candidates in most elections,  mandatory voting, and not opposing voter restrictions, could eliminate the incentives to demonize an opponent in an election.

Idleness or Opportunity to Think

The Fool On The Hill

Day after day, alone on a hill
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him
They can see that he's just a fool
And he never gives an answer

But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning 'round

What happens when you have the time to see the world spinning round?

Soon after Isaac Newton had obtained his BA degree in August 1665, Cambridge University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, Newton's private studies at his home over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics, and the law of gravitation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

More than 400 years ago, as epidemics raged in London, forcing theaters and other public places to shutter, William Shakespeare was busy crafting stories of kings going mad and thanes coveting power. He was, scholars believe, in the midst of an astonishingly potent creative period, one that produced some of the most extraordinary tragedies ever written — “King Lear” and “Macbeth” among them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/great-artistic-works-during-plagues/2020/11/05/6575cac2-1d29-11eb-90dd-abd0f7086a91_story.html

After finishing his studies in 1900, Einstein could not get accepted anywhere for a teaching post. Eventually he was offered a job by his friend’s father at a Swiss patent office in 1902, where Einstein’s task was to look through inventions, check their originality, and write clear patents to protect the inventors’ new ideas. His job lasted from 1902 to 1909, during which time Einstein published his four Annus Mirabilis (miracle year) 1905 papers. Einstein described the patent office as his ‘worldly cloister’, where he ‘hatched [his] most beautiful ideas’. https://oxsci.org/einstein-at-the-patent-office/

The COVID-19 lockdown is NOT the first lockdown in recorded history.  Periods of boredom in meaningless jobs provide lots of opportunity to do other things, such as seeing the world spinning round.  If history is an example, we can look forward to what may result.