Storytelling

 

As Time Goes By

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

What makes a good story?

My forecasting career has been about finding the most likely outcome/maximum entropy, that is the mesostate, outcome, that has the greatest number of microstates, possibilities.  Storytelling is about finding an improbable but desirable outcome and ensuring that that is believable, possible.  My career has been about finding the stories of Dog Bites Man, Goliath Beats David, etc.  But those stories do not fascinate us.  The improbable stories with an  outcome that we believe fascinates us, e.g. Man Bites Dog, David Beats Goliath.  I.e. a mesostate that is not the most probable but is fascinating. 

A billionaire winning a billion dollar lottery, improbable, but not very fascinating.  A pauper losing a million dollar lottery, probable, but not very fascinating.  A pauper winning a billion dollar lottery, improbable AND fascinating.

Goliath beating everyone, including David, probable, but not very interesting.  David beating Goliath, improbable AND interesting.

A good story is about getting from the beginning: David versus Goliath, a pauper and a billion dollar lottery, etc. believably through a middle, to that improbable but desirable, fascinating, interesting outcome or ending.

Forecasting is using believability to get to the most probable outcome

Storytelling is using believability to get to an IMprobable, desirable, and fascinating, outcome.

A problem is that the skills for convincing us about the believability can be misused to produce an outcome that we don’t desire, but is desired by the forecaster or storyteller.  The Boy Can Cry Wolf when there is No Wolf just to get attention for the Boy. Then we don’t believe or trust him when The Boy Cries Wolf and there really is a Wolf.

Just like you can appreciate a good forecast, you can appreciate a good story, but make sure it is believable and that its outcome is one that you desire. Not every good story is true.

Loaded Dice

 

Democracy

It's coming from the sorrow in the street
The holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin'
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat
From the wells of disappointment
Where the women kneel to pray
For the grace of God in the desert here
And the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the USA

Believe in democracy , even when it can’t determine.

The belief in a deterministic universe, Determinism, as opposed to a random universe, Free Will, is IMHO at the heart of the problems that we have currently in society.  If you believe in determinism, that everything  happens for a reason, then you may look for that reason. That can make you believe in conspiracies, like “the COVID vaccine kills people”, or to scapegoating certain people, like “the Jews did it.” However, if there is no reason and the world is random and stuff just happens, then those conspiracies are silly and the scapegoating is incorrect.

The problem is that we may believe in an absolute, e.g. God, and that absolute should know what will happen, have omniscience, have absolute knowledge.  But this creates a paradox if the absolute knows the outcome of random events, then how can they be random.  To use Einstein’s complaint about the randomness of quantum mechanics, "God does not play dice with the universe".  The paradox is that we play dice, and dice IS random.  A possible answer is that God does play dice with the universe, it is random, but he plays with loaded dice,  i.e. knows the outcome of random events.  Since we are not absolute, we can appreciate this fact, even if we can’t understand it, and thus we play without knowing the outcome.  Casablanca is my favorite movie. I have no problem thinking of God as Rick Blaine.  God should be flattered. Rick did a beautiful thing.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD_bKVAZJBw

Choice

 

Uncle John’s Band

I live in a silver mine and I call it beggar's tomb
I got me a violin and I beg you call the tune
Anybody's choice, I can hear your voice
Wo, oh, what I want to know, how does the song go

What is choice?

Choice is inherently random. You can choose or not choose. That is what choice is all about. A popular example of random events in the United States is Las Vegas casinos. Those casinos feature games of chance. But there are odds dictating the payouts on its games of chance. Statisticians help the house set those odds, to ensure that the game is random, but there are still ways to make sure that the house has an advantage in the payout.

The steps in setting the payout, without ensuring that the house gets a cut, is to first find the odds of each outcome and make sure that the payout is consistent with those odds. Thus in a game of roulette, with no zero or double zero slot, the odds of the roulette ball landing in an odd slot are 50% and the odds of landing in an even slot is 50%. If there is one zero slot and that slot is defined as neither odd nor even, then the odds drop to 18/37 odd, 18/37 even and 1/37 zero. If the payout is still 18/36 for odds or evens, then the house makes money on every bet because there are 37 outcomes, not 36. That is why in Blackjack, the House wins on ties. That is why in sports betting, the bookie doesn't pay on pushes.

If the odds are not set in advance but by the bettors, parimutuel betting, then first the house cut is taken off the total amount bet, and the amount bet on each outcome dictates how the remainder is allocated for each outcome. 

Whenever you see the word choice, whether, as in my field of travel demand forecasting, it is destination choice, mode choice, route choice; the method includes a pseudo random number generator; or is based on maximum entropy or maximum likelihood; it is setting the odds of a random event. Forecasting under these circumstances is trying to set the odds. Forecasters may not always dress like racetrack touts in a Damon Runyon story, but the similarity should never be forgotten

Enabling

 

Stand by Your Man

Stand by your man
And show the world you love him
Keep giving all the love you can
Stand by your man

It is possible to love him, but not like his behavior.

People have a hard time separating the artist from his work of art, the creator from his creations. This is the basis for the popular wisdom, and why it also so hard, to love the sinner but hate the sin. Ty Cobb and Pete Rose were wonderful baseball players, but deeply flawed human beings.

And people have a hard time separating exceptional behavior in one field from poor behavior in another field. This is the basis for the “Peter Principle,” where people are promoted into situations  for which they are not suited because it mistakenly assumed, for example, that a good salesman will make a great manager of other salesmen. Ted Williams was a Hall of Fame baseball player, but a lousy manager of other baseball players.

So how do you know if you are loving, not resisting, the bad behavior and not rewarding, enabling, the bad behavior? Are you making excuses for the bad behavior? Are you ignoring your needs to deal with that bad behavior? Are you taking on more responsibilities to deal with that bad behavior?Are you lending financial support to further that bad behavior? Are you resenting that bad behavior? Are you afraid that if you don’t accept the bad behavior, you will not receive love in return? Are you perpetuating this enabling because this is what you learned from others?

To deal with this bad behavior you first have to admit this is bad behavior. You have to set and stick to strict boundaries that you will not accept this bad behavior. You have to learn how to say no.

Because just as people are not their good behavior, people are not their bad behavior. Stand by and love your man, but this does not mean liking his bad behavior.

Second Amendment

 

America

Always the population growing,
And the money owing,
And the babies crying,
And the bullets flying.

Are bullets, not guns, the problem?

The Second Amendment does not give you the right to fire guns.  The Second amendment reads:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The amendment does not mention Guns.  The second amendment does say that the purpose of bearing arms is to have a well regulated Militia.  Well regulated Militias go by the names of the various state National Guards, and the US Armed Forces.  The last I heard, the National Guards and the Armed Forces could decide that certain individuals can not be in their militias.

It is only based on the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s far-fetched reading that an unstated right to self defense exists.  (Thank God he was an “originalist” and not one of those activist judges who invent rights, NOT!).  He invented this right, apart from the militia clause, in his decision in 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller. That right did not exist before then. I guess that means to protect myself from China, I can own a nuclear missile.  Oh, I can’t. Ok how about owning a Blackhawk helicopter to protect me against the Deep State?😉

I would propose that it is not guns that kill, it is bullets/ammunition fired by guns. ( bet you thought I was going to pull that tired chestnut that it is people firing guns, right).  So do not infringe on the right to bear arms (guns)  However, it appears that the State has an interest in regulating its militia.  Unless the State says you can have ammunition for that gun, no ammunition.  Then unless you use that gun as a blunt object, you can not injure anyone.

Therefore, it would seem to be constitutional to prohibit the interstate transport of ammunition except by licensed dealers under controlled situations.  It would seem to be constitutional for any state within the United States to decide to whom it should give ammunition, in what amounts, and under what circumstances.  It would seem that possession of ammunition without a license could be prohibited

I would refer to this as the “Barney Fife Rule”. On The Andy Griffin Show, Sheriff Andy Taylor was faced with the dilemma that his Deputy, Barney Fife, might hurt himself and/or others if he fired a gun.  Sheriff Taylor's solution was to let him carry a gun, but Sheriff Taylor controlled the bullets that Deputy Fife could put in that gun.  What is good enough for Sheriff Taylor is good enough for me!

Freedom II

 

Proud To Be An American

And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land! God bless the U.S.A

And I’m proud too, but I might be the object of your freedom.

Freedom of speech describes an act, speaking. But any action requires not only a subject but also an object, in the case of speaking, a listener.  That listener is also free NOT to listen to your speech.  So you can speak all you want, but I am also free not to listen to your speech.

You can talk to yourself if you want.  People who are self sufficient, i.e. raise their own food, are the object of their own action . It requires work to raise food. You are free to raise food that you alone will consume.  Similarity you can always talk to yourself, but I also have the freedom not to listen.

You only have freedom to speak in private settings, if those private settings grant you that freedom.  Those private entities can also impose restrictions on you.  I can ask you not to speak in my house.  Similarly any private entity, such as a corporation, can ask you not to speak using their property. Those private entities, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, etc., are actually intermediaries who are selling your information, whether you are a poster or a reader, to advertisers.  If they are imposing restrictions on your speech, it probably is because they do not want you to drive away listeners whose information they wish to sell to advertisers.

This issue exists for any freedom.  Freedom to worship requires that there be an object of that worship.  Whether that object is Yahweh, Jehovah, Jesus, Allah or Buddha, does not mean that your Freedom to Worship Jesus means that others are not also Free to Worship another object, such as Allah.

Freedom of the press means that you can print material It does not mean that I have to read your material, or that Tech companies have to print your material, any more than a newspaper has to print your material.

Before you start claiming a freedom, of which you are the subject, think about who is the object of your action. It isn’t a freedom unless you have an object.  It takes two to tango. 

Random

 

Turn, Turn, Turn

To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven

Heaven may know the purpose, but on Earth sometimes stuff just happens.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And the fact that some behavior is cyclical and not random, does not negate the fact that other behavior is random and not cyclical.

Random behavior may look cyclical when viewed at a small scale, but that does not mean that it is cyclical at every scale. Randomly flipping a coin follows a random normal logistic distribution. That distribution has a behavior that can be defined mathematically with a precise mean and variance. I have suggested than the universe is hyperbolic and the variance is due to this effect. The range, s, is such that its Cumulative Distribution Function at the median should be equal to 50%, i.e. 50% heads/50% tails.  This requires that the range of this function, s, be 0.5. The random normal distribution function can thus be defined as  ½ *sech²(x-µ), where μ is the mean. This looks like ½*cos²(x-μ) for one cycle, but the logistic distribution with a hyperbolic secant has a period of 2πi, where i is the imaginary number, which means in the real domain it does not repeat, while the non-hyperbolic Euclidean cosine has a period of 2π which means in the real domain it does repeat.

Both equations above have a mean, µ, of 0.  They appear very similar between -.75 and .75.  However the traditional Euclidean cosine squared function cyclically repeats, while the random, hyperbolic secant squared function does not repeat. 

Things that are cyclical, like the seasons, can follow a deterministic function.  Things that are random, like the weather, do NOT have to follow a deterministic function.  Some things can be solved.  Some things cannot be solved.  Going all Serenity Prayer on this, Wisdom is knowing the difference.