Close Enough

 

The Long And Winding Road

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before
It always leads me here
Leads me to your door

How long are we taking about?

Pythagoras' Theorem is for a Euclidean, flat, surface.  The universe may be a hyperbolic surface.  This makes a difference for the solution of Pythagoras’ Theorem.  It does not really apply on spherical surfaces such as the earth, when the distances that are the sides of the triangle are large compared to the radius of the spherical surface (for example, the Earth).  On Earth, when the distances are small, the difference between the results of Pythagoras’ Theorem and the Great Circle Distance on the Earth is trivial. The same seems to be true for a hyperbolic universe.

For 1/3 of the size of the universe the difference between the hypotenuse on a hyperbolic surface of the universe and Pythagoras’ Theorem is less than 6%.  Since the size of the universe is approximately 14 billion light-years, until the sum of the squares of the distances exceeds 22 trillion billion miles the difference is less than 6%.  The distance from the Earth to the Sun is 93 million miles, 8.3 light-minutes, 1.6*10^-5 light-years.  The distance from our solar system to the Andomeda galaxy is 2.5 million light years, so we are talking about much more than intergalactic distances before there is an appreciable difference.  In fact for distances of a thousand miles on each side of a right triangle, the difference between a hypotenuse calculated with Pythagoras' Theorem and one for a hyperbolic surface is far less than 0.01%.  So don’t throw away Pythagoras' Theorem.  It is simpler and has very little error from the hyperbolic solution at most distances that you are likely to encounter.  So what is long to you, is insignificant to the universe.

Freedom of Speech

 

Everybody’s Talkin’

Everybody's talking' at me
I don't hear a word they're saying'
Only the echoes of my mind

Is it the public town square where the talking is taking place?

Does the First Amendment of the US Constitution  guarantee freedom of speech?  It does protect against government regulation.  Your right to speak in a private place, not a public place, is never an abridgement by the government.  In a private setting, your rights are subject to the owner of the space in which you are making that speech, not the government.  You are also free to exercise the right to speak, but you are not exempt from the consequences of that speech.  Libel, defamation, harassment, etc. can be judged a consequence of that speech.  The owner of the space in which that speech is made may be judged an accomplice and thus be liable for your speech.

The problem is that the space in which that speech is exercise is probably NOT a public space.  A town square is a public space, but a retail store is NOT a public space.  Most social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, X [formerly Twitter], Instagram, Tik Tok, etc.) are private companies/spaces, not public spaces. They may use public resources (e. g. air waves) in which case they may be subject to public regulation, but they are still private companies.  They can regulate your speech to protect their own interests. 

You are also only guaranteed the right to speak.  There is no guarantee that anyone will listen. Maybe you will hear only the echoes of your mind.

Privatization

 

Anything You Can Do

Anything you can do, I can do better,
I can do anything better than you

No, you can't
Yes, I can
No, you can't
Yes, I can!

Anything you can be
I can be greater, 
sooner or later
I'm greater than you

Can private companies do better than governments?

Before 1998,  for 18 years I was employed by governments.  Since 1998, I have been employed by a private firm selling its services to those governments.  Thus I am not asking whether there are services that governments can obtain from private companies or else I would be a hypocrite.  But when I offered those services, the action was ultimately taken by a federal, state, or local government.

But there are services that are offered exclusively by governments, like armies, postal delivery, prisons, law enforcement, fire fighting, education, libraries, etc.  Should those services be offered by private companies?   It certainly seems like they are cheaper than government in many cases.  When I was in government service between 1992 and 1998, I served in an administration that was convinced that anything a government did, a private company could do better. IOW, all government services should be privatized.  This included road construction and road upkeep, which was my government department.  The government functions seemed to devolve to just purchasing these services.

But the USDOT took the step of saying, not with our money you don’t.  They took action to decertify our state transportation department because they felt that the procurement officers were no longer capable of telling whether their federal standards were being followed or we were simply being lied to by those private companies.  If those private companies were cheaper because they were smarter, then the government should of course pay to become smarter.  But if those private companies were ignoring acceptable standards, or paying their employees or contractors below fair compensation, or ignoring laws, didn’t this merely make the government complicit in those actions.  And there is that little thing called profit.  Public governments do not have to make a profit, private companies do.

Public governments also must offer services to all of its citizens, and not arbitrarily turn away anyone. Private companies can decide to not ever offer services to anyone, or only offer services under certain conditions. Like not delivering on weekends, or cutting hours.  Private armies can hire criminals.  Are those actions that governments should emulate?  They should be better, not just cheaper!

Winning?

 

Marianne

All day, all night, Marianne
Down by the seaside siftin' sand
Even little children love Marianne
Down by the seaside siftin' sand

My maternal Grandmother’s name was  Marjanna.  My sister is named Marianne.  This post is of course dedicated to them.

The icon of the French Republic is Marianne.  The comparable in the United States would be Lady Liberty.  The Motto of the French Republic is Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité!

Those who believe primarily in Liberté, Liberty, are perhaps User Optimalists.  They believe that their own Optimal is paramount.  They believe in Winning.  They think that Winning is not the thing, it is the only thing.  They believe that a Tie is like kissing your sister and that second place is first loser.  At its worst this means winning at all costs including lying, cheating, and stealing.  Because of their beliefs it is difficult to find anyone to play with them.

Those who believe primarily in Égalité, Equality, are perhaps System Optimalists.  They believe that the Optimal of the system is paramount to their own Optimal.  They think everyone should get the benefits of winning, that everyone should get a participation ribbon, that everyone should take one for the team, and that no score should be kept.  They believe that a tie should have the same value as winning.  At its worst this places no value on winning.  Because of their beliefs, System Optimalists have no incentive to produce anything if it only can be taken from them and besides, they don’t like playing anyway.

Those who believe primarily in Fraternité, Fraternity, believe in the strength of brotherhood, safety in numbers, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  At its worst, they will give trust to other members of their fraternity which is not warranted, and fear anyone not in their fraternity. Because of their beliefs they are likely to want to produce value and oppose zero-sum games for at least for their own members.

Society needs all of those people. Society wants everyone to play; to produce, not only for themselves but for others.  It does so by instituting rules, which in game theory would be payout matrices.

User Optimalists would be happy with a payoff matrix, which in a classic game of two choices where you are rewarded for being different and penalized for being the same, of

		Player One
		Odd	Even
Player Two	Odd	-1	1
	Even	1	-1

System Optimalists would be happy with a payoff matrix where you were rewarded for being the same and penalized for being different, e. g.:

		Player One
		Odd	Even
Player Two	Odd	1	-1
	Even	-1	1

The problem is that while these matrices are fine for zero-sum Games, believers in Fraternity want something more than a zero-sum game, where only members of their own group can be a player, such as

		Player One
		Odd	Even
Player Two	Odd	1	1
	Even	1	1

None of these payout matrices is acceptable to all three groups.  A compromise is proposed where one choice is the preferred choice (in the example below, Odd).  It has the advantage of awarding the most points for a Win, less for a Tie, but still valuing a Tie more than a Loss, and is not a zero-sum matrix. It is  

		Player One
		Odd	Even
Player Two	Odd	0	1
	Even	2	1

But there is an interesting and simple winning strategy with this payout matrix.  A player always plays the non-preferred option in the first game.  If his opponent also chooses the non-preferred option, then that player gains a point. But if his opponent plays the preferred option, he gains no points and his opponent gains two points.  On every subsequent game with the same opponent, that player opts for whatever that opponent played in the prior game.  In this manner, if his opponent plays the preferred option again, then both players are blocked and get no points.  Let’s call this the “Tit for Tat” strategy. 

But if his opponent plays the preferred option in another game with another player, and that other player also plays the preferred option, then neither player gets any points.  Let’s call always playing the preferred option, the “Always Go For The Win” strategy. 

If person following the “Tit for Tat” strategy continues this strategy with another player who also plays the non-preferred option on his first move, they both get a point. But the “Tit for Tat” strategy gets no points in every game against players following the “Always Go For The Win” strategy.

After a large number of games have been played, players following the “Tit for Tat” strategy have the most points.  Those players may have won no games.  The “Always Go For The Win” strategy, wins more games, wins no games against those also follwing an "Always Go For The Win" stagegy, but it does not have more points. This has been tested repeatedly. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2021/05/tough-but-fair-beats-always-being-nasty.html

This payout matrix not only satisfies Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, but society as a whole wins!

Journalists

 

A Day In The Life

I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph

Good or bad, we count on journalists to tell us the news.

“who disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. “  BTW Superman, whose Kryptonian name was Kal-El, was created by two Jews and is a thinly veiled retelling of the Moses story with a spaceship subbing for a basket in the bulrushes.

Journalists are supposed to be interested in the Truth, certainty, not merely in who wins, dominance.  Journalists are supposed to speak truth to power, not present both sides.

It is hardly surprising that 1/3 of the people support Trump.  The minimum number of players according to Game Theory is three.  ( yes, it may look like there are only two teams on the field, but have you forgotten about the refs?)  So 1/3 choosing Trump, and 1/3 choosing Biden, means that the battle for dominance is for the middle third.  

As a traffic engineer, I ask you to think about what happens when you encounter a “Lane Drop Ahead” sign.  The System Optimal solution would be to use the lane drop as long as possible and then seek a safe gap to merge into the continuing lane, a "rolling merge".  The User Optimal solution is to drive until the end of that lane being dropped and then force yourself into the continuing lane, regardless of others in that lane.

What happens is that neither the System Optimal or the worse case User Optimal solution is chosen by most cars.  Instead cars get into the moving lane as soon as possible and someone if necessary, usually a semi-tractor trailer truck,  blocks the lane which is being dropped.  This is called a Nash Equilibrium after John Nash, the subject of the movie A Beautiful Mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6eK0yiw9t0&t=11s .  Only in this case, semis are blocking the lane, not the Blonde.

The 1/3^rd who want their User Optimal try to convince the middle to let everyone choose their own User Optimal.  That can include lying if necessary, in order to win a majority of that middle 1/3^rd.  But if the middle 1/3^rd knows that those are lies, then expect a Nash Equilibrium instead. But we are counting on journalists to tell them that they are lies.  “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but they are not entitled to their own facts”.  Please journalists, fight for the Truth, Justice and the American Way. Be our Supermen.

Art

 

ARTPOP

A hybrid can withstand these things
My heart can beat with bricks and strings
My ARTPOP could mean anything

Is Art a hybrid, that is a combination?

What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of truth—and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but then he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment the audience falls in love. -  Lady Gaga

Far be it from me to disagree with Mother Monster, because I don’t, but Art is Truth.  And Lies are the absence of Truth.  Truth is a combination of Reality and Imagination.  Lady Gaga has Imagination.  She does not tell Lies.  I think what Lady Gaga meant to say is:

What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of reality—and then there's imagination. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this combination a truth, by sliding his imagination in amongst all the reality. The imagination is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment the audience falls in love.

Election Slogan

 

Save The Country

We could build the dream with love
And I got fury in my soul
Fury's gonna take me to the glory goal
In my mind I can't study war no more
Save the people! Save the children! Save the country!
Save the country! Save the country! Save the country!

Save the Country!

The Biden Campaign has seems to have decided on “Save Democracy” as its slogan.  That sounds like it is favoring the Democratic Party.  Should it be “Save the Republic”?

Republic, form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the citizen body. Modern republics are founded on the idea that sovereignty rests with the people, though who is included and excluded from the category of the people has varied across history. Because citizens do not govern the state themselves but through representatives, republics may be distinguished from direct democracy, though modern representative democracies are by and large republics.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/republic-government

The Biden election is being opposed by "republicans In Name Only", rINOs, who are afraid that the people will not choose as those rINOs have chosen. They do not want representatives of the people but representatives of only themselves.  When Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention had given, he is supposed to have said “A republic, if you can keep it”.  This appears to be an election that will decide whether we can keep it.