What just happened? The paradox

The twentieth century saw large countries devote themselves to a collective effort to advance in learning, to create and spread prosperity to all, and to organize themselves according to rational principles. All they have to show for it is mass graves, blighted lands, salty soil, and a dry sea. How could they have possibly failed?

Americans are no smarter than any other group of people in the world. We know and believe this. Americans also place a higher value on the individual than most of the world. We have no tribes or clans; our families are just our siblings, descendants, and ancestors. We have no holy mountains or rivers, no roots. We would just as soon live one place as another, depending on what we could grow and what it costs. How could an unorganized mob achieve a passable civilization, let alone a large and successful one?

We don’t really know. We just know what happened, not why, and we are not sure we care why. If an action had a good result, we’ll try that again. If it stops working, we’ll try something else. If you keep it up long enough, you get to an answer, just as a blind pig finds an acorn.

Think of the two ways to create a supercomputer. The first is a single, massive, and powerful processor. The second is a huge number of processors, operating in parallel. One attempts to solve the problem directly, the other eliminates all the wrong answers to find the right one, or works on only a part of the problem.

We are left with a paradox: leaving the important questions to a Great Leader, or central processor, limits the computing power to that of the one thinking unit. Leaving them to the millions of insignificant people, such as you and me, solves great problems as weather erodes great mountains — little by little. Thus the collective organization becomes the operation of a single individual, and the riot of idividuals resolves itself into a collective machine. Or, as was said two centuries ago:

He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

Adam Smith

I Don’t Want to be Sick in Canada

We’ve got an election in full swing down here in the US. Lots of noise and fury, plenty of sound bites and photo ops. It’s quit the show.

But other countries have elections. They’re going to have one in Canada pretty soon.

So Collin May over at Innocents Abroad is covering the Canadian election. He’s already put up three posts about it, and they really summarize the issues pretty well. Worth a read if you want to know what’s going on without much effort.

In this post, Collin defines the campaign strategy of the Liberal Party, which is currently the ruling party up in the frozen North.

“The Liberal tactics, at least as far as the Conservatives are concerned, is to paint the party and especially the leader as a redneck right-winger who will push Canada toward a more American style of government.”

What exactly do they mean by that, “…a more American style of government”?

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Band Rehearsal

We had our last BALD COW rehearsal prior to our FIRST TIME in 14 years show. (Earlier rehearsal described here.) I think it’s pretty darn good. And I think there may actually be more people at the show than are in the band. Pictures and hopefully video will be available on this blog at some point.

Drive safely, y’all.

“Beating the Point Spread” and Other Press Biases

Steven Den Beste posts a thoughtful memo about the press and its public role. He makes a lot of sense but there are a couple of areas in which his comments might usefully be expanded.

His discussion of the “mission” of the press lists informing citizens “so they can vote wisely” as a goal. It is indeed a valid goal but it’s incomplete. A fuller definition might be based on the press’s traditional function as a check on government. The idea is, or used to be, that government is concentrated power and needs to be watched closely to keep it accountable. This is a more extensive charter than that of merely helping citizens to vote wisely.

Modern professional journalists often see their main role, quite differently and incompatibly from the traditional one, as being about encouraging that which they see as social reform with government as its principal agent. They tend to under emphasize the risks and costs of concentrations of governmental power, and to over emphasize threats posed by what they see as private concentrations of power (principally, corporate America, organized Christianity and grass-roots political conservatism).

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