Saturday, December 31, 2022

We forget just how poor much of Europe was only a century ago.

From Laocoon of Troy,

Italian boys, drying pasta. 1928



















Click to enlarge.

It is always striking to me to see photos of western Europe 1900-1930 in the countryside or outside the upscale neighborhoods of the cities.

Undoubtedly modernity arrived in developed Europe earliest but . . . these pictures remind us that while cars and electricity and other modernities had already been introduced, much of the European population lived in straightened circumstances.  Lifestyles that were closer to the poor of the developing world today than anything in Europe.

History

 

An Insight

 

The Freedom agenda is more alive in some states than others

In 1987 Thomas Sowell wrote The Conflict of Visions in which he lays out two conflicting visions which are often characterized as Left vs. Right, Liberal vs. Conservative, Authoritarian vs. Freedom, Group vs. Individual visions.  

A Conflict of Visions is a book by Thomas Sowell. It was originally published in 1987; a revised edition appeared in 2007. Sowell's opening chapter attempts to answer the question of why the same people tend to be political adversaries in issue after issue, when the issues vary enormously in subject matter and sometimes hardly seem connected to one another. The root of these conflicts, Sowell claims, are the "visions", or the intuitive feelings that people have about human nature; different visions imply radically different consequences for how they think about everything from war to justice.

The rest of the book describes two basic visions, the "unconstrained" and "constrained" visions, which are thought to capture opposite ends of a continuum of political thought on which one can place many contemporary Westerners, in addition to their intellectual ancestors of the past few centuries.

[snip]

The unconstrained (utopian) vision

Sowell argues that the unconstrained vision relies heavily on the belief that human nature is essentially good. Those with an unconstrained vision distrust decentralized processes and are impatient with large institutions and systemic processes that constrain human action. They believe there is an ideal solution to every problem, and that compromise is never acceptable. Collateral damage is merely the price of moving forward on the road to perfection. Sowell often refers to them as "the self anointed." Ultimately they believe that man is morally perfectible. Because of this, they believe that there exist some people who are further along the path of moral development, have overcome self-interest and are immune to the influence of power and therefore can act as surrogate decision-makers for the rest of society.

The constrained (tragic) vision

Sowell argues that the constrained vision relies heavily on the belief that human nature is essentially unchanging and that man is naturally inherently self-interested, regardless of the best intentions. Those with a constrained vision prefer the systematic processes of the rule of law and experience of tradition. Compromise is essential because there are no ideal solutions, only trade-offs. Those with a constrained vision favor empirical evidence and time-tested structures and processes over intervention and personal experience. Ultimately, the constrained vision demands checks and balances and refuses to accept that all people could put aside their innate self-interest.

Obviously the utopian idealists who are prey to authoritarian practices exemplify the Unconstrained Vision whereas Classical Liberals, Libertarians and Conservatives fall under the Constrained Vision.

By Paul Caron.  It could not be a clearer manifestation of Sowell's Conflict of Visions in real life.  The Blue States exemplify the Unconstrained Vision, idealistic and authoritarian while the Red States exemplify, imperfectly, the Constrained Vision, pragmatic, empirical, and freedom based.  

9 of the 10 states with the least net domestic migration voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and 9 of the 10 states with the most net domestic migration voted for Donald Trump.

Similarly, in my November post on the Tax Foundation's 2023 State Business Tax Climate Index, I noted that 9 of the 10 states with the worst business tax climates voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and 8 of the 10 states with the best business tax climates voted for Donald Trump.

And if you want to visualize the actual attractiveness of the different visions to the average citizen, you can't do much better than this map of domestic migration.  We can have all the abstract and philosophical debates between the merits and risks associated with the Woke versus the Classical Liberal world views but it is obvious where citizens come down.  Freedom is good.  























Click to enlarge.



I see wonderful things

 

Data Talks

 

Coffee Cup by Bruce Cohen (American, b. 1953)

Coffee Cup by Bruce Cohen (American, b. 1953)
























Click to enlarge.

Friday, December 30, 2022

Privacy for me and mine but not for thee - the authoritarian's dream

Woof.  This is an astonishing argument made in The New York Times.  From The Signal App and the Danger of Privacy at All Costs by Reid Blackman.  Blackman is essentially arguing against free speech and privacy for citizens.  He argues that the government should always be able to monitor speech and that citizens using services which do not capture and sell their data are somehow unethical.  

Blackman believes "that a technology free of corporate and government control" is a truly bad thing. 

This authoritarian set of views comes from "an adviser to government and corporations on digital ethics."  You really have to look out for the ethicists.  They are the worst sinners.

There is a certain tone to the whole piece.  

The company — an L.L.C. that is governed by a nonprofit — is founded on the belief that it needs to combat what it calls “state corporate surveillance” of our online activities in defense of an uncompromisable value: individual privacy. Distrustful of government and large corporations and apparently persuaded that they are irredeemable, technologists look for workarounds.

"Apparently persuaded that they are irredeemable" - Well, why wouldn't they be given what we have discovered about the actions and deceits over the past decade?

When Blackman finally gets down to making an argument for his position, the quality of the argument is as weak as the position is bad.

This level of privacy can be beneficial on a number of fronts. For instance, Signal is used by journalists to communicate with confidential sources. But it is no coincidence that criminals have also used this government-evading technology. 

We should ignore that Blackman thinks that privacy for journalists and members of the establishment is fine.  It's just not for the plebeians.  

Criminals using technology is the age-old Association Fallacy.

An association fallacy is an informal inductive fallacy of the hasty-generalization or red-herring type and which asserts, by irrelevant association and often by appeal to emotion, that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another. Two types of association fallacies are sometimes referred to as guilt by association and honor by association.

Further, Blackman is being nonsensical.  Every technology which improves the ability to communicate can and is used by both good and bad people doing good and bad things.  He makes no claim that this technology is only or uniquely being used by criminals.  

Next we have the old Appeal to Emotions fallacy.

The ethical universe, according to Signal, is simple: The privacy of individuals must be respected above all else, come what may. If terrorists or child abusers or other criminals use the app, or one like it, to coordinate activities or share child sexual abuse imagery behind impenetrable closed doors, that’s a shame — but privacy is all that matters.

I don't know if his characterization of Signal's ethical worldview is accurate but it doesn't matter.  That's not relevant.  Blackman is trying to force a sotto voce argument that only bad people want privacy.  He is setting up the argument that anything that shields you from commercial exploitation by private companies or from surveillance by government is ipso facto evil.  He doesn't want to be explicit that that is his argument but that is what it comes down to.  Nonsense.

Then there is this eye-popping assertion.

What’s more, the company’s proposition that if anyone has access to data, then many unauthorized people probably will have access to that data is false. 

Not misguided, not unlikely.  False!

Blackman is way out over his skis here.  Our world is filled with safeguards and securities around privacy and data which are routinely abused.  Currently in the headlines is the most recent outrage that the current models of Roombas have cameras.  Supposedly the captured images are secure and private.  Till the images started showing up on the internet.

And let's not get started with the government.  I am not sure I am aware of a single intrusive surveillance technology which hasn't been abused by our government or its agents.  Blackman is either tellign a falsehood or putting heavy reliance on weasel words, distinguishing few from "many people".

Blackman offers:

There are some people who have access to the nuclear launch codes, but “Mission Impossible” movies aside, we’re not particularly worried about a slippery slope leading to lots of unauthorized people having access to those codes.

Again, he is being a weasel.  It doesn't matter whether people are particularly worried.  The issue is whether the launch codes are secure.  Given that he is making this argument, it would seem like he might have at least Googled, have nuclear launch codes ever been breached.  If he had, he would be aware of numerous incidents and concerns that have occurred in recent years.

Blackman then takes an interesting turn.

I am drawing attention to Signal, but there’s a bigger issue here: Small groups of technologists are developing and deploying applications of their technologies for explicitly ideological reasons, with those ideologies baked into the technologies. To use those technologies is to use a tool that comes with an ethical or political bent.

Hmm.  Everything has an impact on something else, not just ethics or politics.  What I think he is saying is that using tools which provide privacy has consequences.  And what is the first consequence about which he is concerned?  It might hurt the big technology behemoths which harvest personal data.

Signal is pushing against businesses like Meta that turn users of their social media platforms into the product by selling user data.

Hmmm.  Blackman is holding Meta out as an ethical organization that will be undermined by the privacy afforded by Signal.  Well. . . that's a novel argument.

And back to the Association Fallacy.

But Signal embeds within itself a rather extreme conception of privacy, and scaling its technology is scaling its ideology. Signal’s users may not be the product, but they ‌‌are the witting or unwitting advocates of the moral views of the 40 or so people who operate Signal.

Blackman is arguing that you should not avail yourself of the privacy of the Signal product because then you will be advocates for the 40 people who designed it.  Again, plain nonsense.  No-one argues that by buying a GM you carry the burden of all the executives and employees involved in the production of that car.  No one is making the case that because Apple uses prison labor in China, no one should buy Apple products.  There are moral decision involved and to be made by individuals based on a balance of objectives and ills but nothing like the argument Blackman is making.

Blackman is so far down the rabbit hole, it hard to see where he is headed.

There’s something somewhat sneaky in all this (though I don’t think the owners of Signal intend to be sneaky). 

A company that wants to provide private communication to its customers is sneaky?  This is just getting weird.  

All of sudden Blackman is making the old Marxist false consciousness argument.

Usually advocates know that they’re advocates. They engage in some level of deliberation and reach the conclusion that a set of beliefs is for them.

There is more blather, culminating with.

So I am not convinced we are really getting more freedom and “for the people by the people” by way of our technology overlords. Instead, we have a technologically driven shift of power to ideological individuals and organizations whose lack of appreciation for moral nuance and good governance puts us all at risk.

Reading this, it is hard not to feel like Blackman is simply upset because Signal is producing a product desired by citizens that allow them privacy and secure communication and which makes it harder for his government clients to abuse their citizens and which undermines the commercial viability of his corporate clients.

How on earth did this case study in failed Rhetoric 101 even get past the NYT editors?

History

 

An Insight

 

I see wonderful things

 

Data Talks

 

Oeuvre by Mats Åkerman (Swedish, b. 1956)

Oeuvre by Mats Åkerman (Swedish, b. 1956)
























Click to enlarge.

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Between Christmas and New Years, the opportunity for a little humor

Oh, the return of humor.  First up is Steve Inman offering color commentary to a dispute at a fast food restaurant.  
A viewer points out an important omission.
Finally, CatGirl Kulak adds the cherry topping.

When the Swiftsure became the Speedwell

In 1620, the Mayflower set out twice to journey to the New World, accompanied by the Speedwell.  Twice they put back because the Speedwell was leaking so badly.  On the third effort, the Mayflower took on eleven of the passengers from the Speedwell while the rest returned to Leiden, Netherlands.  

Before serving as an attempted passenger ship for the Pilgrims, the Speedwell had an earlier life.

From Wikipedia.

Speedwell was a 60-ton pinnace that, along with Mayflower, transported the Pilgrims from England to the New World in the early 1600s, and was the smaller of the two ships. A vessel of the same name and size travelled to the New World seventeen years prior as the flagship of the first expedition of Martin Pring.

Swiftsure

Speedwell was built in 1577, under the name Swiftsure, as part of English preparations for war against Spain. She participated in the fight against the Spanish Armada. During the Earl of Essex's 1596 Azores expedition she served as the ship of his second in command, Sir Gelli Meyrick. After hostilities with Spain ended, she was decommissioned in 1605, and renamed Speedwell, after the UK wildflower but also a play on words for its desired ability.

She fought against the Spanish Armada and was part of the effort to bring Protestants to the New World.  I never had the complete picture.

History

 

An Insight

 

Censorship by any other name is still censorship

From Elon Musk slams CISA censorship network as 'propaganda platform' by Kanekoa The Great.  The subheading is This DHS-backed censorship network used 120 analysts to censor millions of social media posts on elections and covid-19.

This is by far the most comprehensive reporting I have seen on the US government program for censoring speech.  Some parts I already knew and others I surmised, but this seems a reasonably complete indictment.  

What’s been missing from much of this analysis is the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) role in this censorship through a consortium called the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), made up of four organizations: the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika, a social media analytics company.

The EIP published a report on its censorship of the 2020 election, The Long Fuse: Misinformation and the 2020 Election, which describes how the private-public censorship consortium was formed in the summer of 2020 to “monitor and correct election mis- and disinformation.”

This censorship network partnered with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), and the DHS-backed Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) during the 2020 election cycle and operated as technocratic thought police forwarding tickets of "mis- and disinformation" to social media companies.

The EIP built communication portals with Big Tech platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Google, TikTok, Reddit, and Discord; and liberal groups NAACP, Common Cause, the Democratic National Committee, and Harvard's Defending Digital Democracy Project, cofounded by former Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, throughout the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, to censor domestic “mis- and disinformation.”

They had about 120 analysts monitoring social media for 20 hours a day, forwarding tickets of misinformation to be censored, and this censorship pivoted to covid vaccines when they started the Virality Project in Feb. 2021.

That is just an appetizer.  There is much, much more, links and all.

Is sending children to public school a form of abuse?

It is not uncommon to find on right-leaning news sites only half-joking references to sending one's child to public school being a form of child-abuse or parental neglect.  And given the antics of the education establishment, teacher unions and a surprising number of school boards, there are an astonishing number of incidents and stories which support the accusations.  

Given that there are nearly 100,000 public schools in the nation, there are obviously going to be some with some strange outlier practices and policies, whether it is drag queen reading sessions or after school teacher parties to falsify exams in order to reflect better scores than actually earned.  

So while there is a residual concern that there is indeed something rotten in the state of public education, it is easy to set it aside and assume that it most likely isn't as bad as it might seem.  

But then you see something like this: New Study Shows the Striking Correlation Between School Attendance and Youth Suicides by Kerry McDonald.  The subheading is What if schools are the major source of the youth mental crisis? 

A new study, published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), finds a striking correlation between attendance in school and incidences of youth suicides. Analyzing several pre- and post-pandemic data sets, the researchers conclude “that youth suicides are closely tied with in-person school attendance.” According to the paper’s authors, youth suicides fall during the summer months and rise again when school begins. Notably, they found that in areas of the US where school begins in August, youth suicide rates also increase in August, while in areas that begin school in September, the youth suicide rate doesn’t increase until then. 

This new study echoes earlier findings from Vanderbilt University researchers who discovered a similar link between school attendance and youth suicidal ideation and attempts. That research, published in the journal Pediatrics in 2018, looked at hospital emergency room and inpatient data between 2008 and 2015. “The lowest frequency of encounters occurred during summer months,” the Vanderbilt authors concluded. “Peaks were highest in fall and spring. October accounted for nearly twice as many encounters as reported in July,” they found.

Interestingly, both the 2018 Vanderbilt researchers and the NBER study authors explain that the seasonal youth suicide pattern is different from that of adults. The NBER researchers did not find the same school-suicide link for young adults ages 19 to 25, while the lead author on the Vanderbilt study told The New York Times that summertime is the peak period for adult suicidal tendencies, but is the lowest period for youth suicidal tendencies.

The research she is referencing is In-Person Schooling and Youth Suicide:  Evidence from School Calendars and Pandemic School Closures by Benjamin Hansen, Joseph J. Sabia, and Jessamyn Schaller.  The Abstract is:

This study explores the effect of in-person schooling on youth suicide. We document three key findings. First, using data from the National Vital Statistics System from 1990-2019, we document the historical association between teen suicides and the school calendar. We show that suicides among 12-to-18-year-olds are highest during months of the school year and lowest during summer months (June through August) and also establish that areas with schools starting in early August experience increases in teen suicides in August, while areas with schools starting in September don’t see youth suicides rise until September. Second, we show that this seasonal pattern dramatically changed in 2020. Teen suicides plummeted in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S. and remained low throughout the summer before rising in Fall 2020 when many K-12 schools returned to in-person instruction. Third, using county-level variation in school reopenings in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021—proxied by anonymized SafeGraph smartphone data on elementary and secondary school foot traffic—we find that returning from online to in-person schooling was associated with a 12-to-18 percent increase teen suicides. This result is robust to controls for seasonal effects and general lockdown effects (proxied by restaurant and bar foot traffic), and survives falsification tests using suicides among young adults ages 19-to-25. Auxiliary analyses using Google Trends queries and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey suggests that bullying victimization may be an important mechanism.

As always, correlation is not causation.  But . . . 

I could make an argument that perhaps this is unavoidable.  Yes, school can be stressful and therefore you would expect that the suicide rate would correlate with the degree to which one is in school.  Yes, we want all schools to be better, but is there a real version of school which is not stressful?  Indeed, isn't learning to deal with stress (and its many sources ranging from bullying, social ostracism, unfair workloads, bad teachers, etc.) one of the elemental lessons of school?

So the correlation between youth suicide and school is perhaps not an inherent indictment of the badness of public schools.

Unless the suicide rate among youth is rising.  McDonald does not make a big deal about it but does allude to and link to research about suicide rates.  And actually that is far more damning from my perspective.  


After a period of stability from 2000 to 2007 as shown previously (1), the suicide rate among adolescents and young adults aged 10–24 in the United States increased 57.4% from 6.8 per 100,000 in 2007 to 10.7 in 2018 (Table). When examining the change in rates between 3-year averages of the periods 2007–2009 (7.0) and 2016–2018 (10.3), the national percentage increase was 47.1%. From 2007–2009 to 2016–2018, suicide rates increased significantly in 42 states. Nonsignificant increases occurred in 8 states. Due to small numbers, trends were not possible to assess in the District of Columbia. Significant increases ranged from 21.7% in Maryland (from 6.0 in 2007–2009 to 7.3 in 2016–2018) to a more than doubling of the rate in New Hampshire (from 7.0 to 14.7) (Figure 1). The majority of states, 32 in total, had significant increases of between 30%–60%. 

A sixty percent increase in youth suicide rate in the past decade?  Now there's a crisis worth focusing on.  The absolute numbers might be low but that increase is a marked signal that there is either a crisis among youth and/or that there is a crisis in schooling.  That public schools are not mitigating the crisis and may indeed be exacerbating it.  

Maybe public schools are indeed either creating or exacerbating a mental health crisis among youth.  Seems like something we should be investigating.  

I see wonderful things

 

I hope we can rediscover wrongness. Mere wrongness.

From In 2023, Let’s Rediscover Wrongness by Jesse Singal.  The subheading is Not every difference of opinion is an urgent threat.

I occasionally mention the dangers of catastrophizing every disagreement, every event.  Words are not dangerous.  Beliefs are not dangerous.  Actions can be but not words and beliefs.  We criminalize specific actions, not beliefs or speech.

My concern is based in the observable correlation between authoritarianism and people trying to amplify danger.  In a functioning healthy constitutional republic, all decisions are checked and balanced and constrained.  We progress in increments.  

There are costs to such an approach but it is strategically robust as it ensures consent of the governed.

The only way to get around the measured approach to things is to claim existential danger.  If authoritarian advocates can make the case for extreme danger, then they can, at least temporarily, escape the bonds of checks and balances.  

All the misallocation of capital associated with Zero Carbon, all the mandates and forced compliance with Zero Covid, all the defunding, deplatforming, and cancellation associated with Zero Hate Speech - all are examples of illegal actions undertaken without consent of the public under the guise of a dangerous emergency.

Here we are, three years into the Covid-19 pandemic with the current variant having very low lethality and yet the government every six months reauthorizes "An Emergency" owing to the powers that they are able to use under an emergency which circumvent all our institutional checks and balances.

And we have seen just how catastrophic has been that unconstrained exercise in authoritarianism has been.  Deaths, illnesses and economic damage from the "emergency" policies out of all proportion to the actual purporter emergency.

From Singal's article.  A plea which I endorse.  

In 2023, I hope we can rediscover wrongness. Mere wrongness. Wrongness untethered from other accusations. Not everything that is wrong is dangerous or evil or bigoted. Sometimes people are just wrong. A big part of human life is arguing over who is wrong and attempting to nudge this whole ungainly human enterprise toward rightness, a few painstaking microns at a time. It’s harder to do that when the pitch of everything is so shrill.

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people who believe crazy things don’t hurt anyone. No one is going to bomb an airport over Ancient Apocalypse. Even the truly deranged QAnon conspiracy theory, which does posit an international conspiracy of pedophiles, has produced only a blip’s worth of real-world violence. In the vast majority of cases, wrongness is just wrongness. People can usually believe wrong things without being dangerous, and in fact billions of people do hold religious beliefs that make no logical sense without becoming violent zealots.

Some ideas can be credibly described as dangerous, or as likely to lead to bad outcomes. But it becomes harder to make this argument when everything is called dangerous, from, well, Ancient Aliens to non-condescending journalism about bigoted figures. Harm inflation has really taken hold of a lot of public intellectual life, and it has led to a certain boy-crying-wolf dynamic that makes the world seem fuzzy and exhausting. If everything is dangerous or violent, then nothing is. 

I do think a lot of this has to do with the attention economy. The aforementioned Guardian article probably gained a wider audience from couching Heritage’s concerns about Ancient Apocalypse in the language of danger and threat and deplatforming than it would have if he and his editors had gone in a more sober direction — both from readers who agreed with the silly premise and those who rage-shared it because of the provocative headline and subheadline. 

Brave New World, the Panopticon, and the Minority Report all rolled into one.

From AI meets MSG by Robert F. Graboyes.  The subheading is Corporate Panopticon Punishes Girl Scouts.  

I have seen aspects of this story bandied about over the past few weeks but never in a fashion to cohere into a clear picture of what happened and why.  Which is understandable since it is improbable, remarkable, and concerning in multiple ways.  Some of the claimed elements of the story were so improbable that it didn't warrant reading.  Graboyes' is the first account which I have seen which tells a coherent and reasonably clear story.

According to NBC New York and other news outlets worldwide:

Kelly Conlon and her daughter came to New York City the weekend after Thanksgiving as part of a Girl Scout field trip to Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular show. But while her daughter, other members of the Girl Scout troop and their mothers got to go enjoy the show, Conlon wasn't allowed to do so.

MSG used facial recognition software to identify Conlon so that security guards could eject her from the venue as Girl Scouts and chaperones entered the facility. While her daughter’s troop and other parents watched the Rockettes, Conlon waited outside in the rain. Why? Because she is an attorney with a New Jersey law firm (Davis, Saperstein & Salomon) where other attorneys are representing clients involved in a personal injury lawsuit against a restaurant property now owned by MSG. MSG owns an empire of entertainment venues, including Madison Square Garden.

Read the whole account for the many implications.

MSG issued a statement confirming the veracity of these events:

MSG instituted a straightforward policy that precludes attorneys pursuing active litigation against the Company from attending events at our venues until that litigation has been resolved … While we understand this policy is disappointing to some, we cannot ignore the fact that litigation creates an inherently adverse environment.

To put it another way, “Nice Christmas plans you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to them.” Ponder the steps required to make this drama possible. MSG had to place Davis, Saperstein & Salomon on their Grinch list. They had to compile lists of attorneys (and others?) at the firm. They had to secure facial scans of all of those people—presumably via companies that scan Facebook pages and the like. They had to put in place the technology necessary to spot Conlon instantaneously as she entered the facility. They had to divert their security team toward planning and executing the ejection of Girl Scout mothers rather than, say, focusing on potentially dangerous intruders.

This is an example of story that calls for a first principles approach but then, when you go back to first principles, it becomes even murkier.

Do private entities have a legal right to create such a capability?  It certainly seems so.  

Should corporations practice collective punishment?  I would argue not because collective punishment seems awfully close to category discrimination.  Even from a brand or commercial perspective, it seems like a strategy with a lot of potential to backfire.

Is there a potential conflict between security and contract?  In other words, what happens when the company sells a ticket to a person, they incur costs to travel to the venue, but the company then reneges on the contract (the purchased ticket) based on the visual identification match when the customer shows up?  It would seem like there might be some legal exposure there.

Does it make sense to have and to use this capability?  Well . . . Maybe, but I would think it ought to be very, very targeted.  I agree that you might not want a legal opponent to have open access to some aspects of your operations in a fashion that might increase your legal exposure.  But that seems a very narrow remit compared to what is actually implemented.

To what extent do we want corporations to be able to segment their market and discriminate against customers based on factors beyond the control of the law?  We have been rehearsing this over the past five years with advocacy groups trying to force private companies to sell to others in circumstances that violate other Constitutional rights.  Forcing bakers (and other professions) to sell to products or services that violate their religious beliefs has become a favorite punishing pastime for various advocacy groups.  This has seemed to be wrong but we also don't want to allow individuals and corporations to arbitrarily blacklist categories of customers. 
 
In a world of such social control, would it be possible to avoid the creation of castes with different rights and obligations?  Such control seems a necessary predicate capability in Huxley's Brave New World.  

Does this social monitoring and control potentially reflect the issues covered in Minority Report?  Certainly Philip K. Dick was addressing the conflict between authoritarianism and individualism.  In this instance, the victim is being punished by the corporation not for anything she has done, but for what the corporation is concerned she might do.  
 
Would we be comfortable with the government having the same capacity?  This is already a long standing question but there has been ambiguity as to just how capable government might be in executing such a capability.  We don't know what we don't know.  We have a lot of experience seeing the government not being able to do what we know it should be doing well; why would we expect it to do something greatly more complex, that much better?

The issues are legion and the answers not obvious to me on many of them.

What is most striking to me is that this is done with great effectiveness by a large corporation, and not even a technology company.  This capability would be a peripheral issue for them in their business with a very narrowly defined benefit.  And yet they seem to have built an effective social monitoring and control mechanism that works.

If they can do it, then surely the government already has this ability.  And if so, why don't we know about it?  And if so, why is it not being directed at the legion of legal issues confronting the nation?  Human trafficking?  Child sex porn?  Illegal immigrants?  Criminals with outstanding warrants?  Drug consumption?  Corruption among government personnel?  Public security (no longer need TSA)?

This kind of social monitoring would seem be an effective tool in substantially reducing these ailments of the nation.  The fact that the problems are not reduced suggests that the government does not have this capability.

Or, much worse, the government has the capability but is not using it for these purposes.  

Woof!  I hope there is more and deeper coverage on this going into the New Year.  Especially with regard to what the government actually has as a capability.  

Data Talks

 

The Corner Shop Broughton by Stephen Scholes (British, b. 1952)

The Corner Shop Broughton by Stephen Scholes (British, b. 1952)























Click to enlarge.

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

I'm a mog—half man, half dog. I'm my own best friend. (Solomon's Paradox edition)

From The Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Solomon’s Paradox: Impact of Mood and Self-Transcendence by Wentao Xu, Kaili Zhang, and Fengyan Wang.  From the Abstract.

Solomon’s paradox of wise reasoning, in which performance of wisdom differs when reasoning on an issue in one’s own life vs. another’s life, has been supported by robust evidence. However, the underlying psychological mechanism remains unclear. This asymmetry of wise reasoning may be explained by the different mindsets of self-transcendence when people reason about various conflicts (personal vs. others’), and mood should play a fundamental role. To explore this issue, three hundred ninety-nine participants were recruited to test a hypothesized model. The results supported the effect of Solomon’s paradox—that is, participants endorsed wise-reasoning strategies more strongly when resolving others’ social conflicts than their own. Further mediation analysis showed that the sequential mediation model was supported. Solomon’s paradox can be explained by the difference in positive affect and self-transcendence when reasoning about the two conflicts. This study directly verifies the mediating role of self-transcendence in Solomon’s paradox. At the same time, reasoning about personal affairs reduces individuals’ self-transcendence mindset, and positive affect can explain the differences. These results are helpful for understanding and effectively avoiding Solomon’s wisdom dilemma.

Or, as Gurwinder summarizes it,

We're better at solving other people's problems than our own, because detachment yields objectivity. But Kross et al (2014) found that viewing oneself in the 3rd person yields the same detachment, so when trying to help yourself, imagine you're helping a friend.

The latter point, that we can help ourselves by viewing ourselves in the third person, unavoidably reminds me of Barf in Spaceballs:

I'm a mog—half man, half dog. I'm my own best friend.
 

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ʺmake no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,ʺ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

The Danbury Baptists Association in the state of Connecticut, assembled October 7, 1801, wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson asking for clarification about the possible role of government in the free practice of religion.  

The address of the Danbury Baptists Association in the state of Connecticut, assembled October 7, 1801. 
 
To Thomas Jefferson, Esq., President of the United States of America.
Sir,

Among the many million in America and Europe who rejoice in your election to office; we embrace the first opportunity which we have enjoyed in our collective capacity, since your inauguration, to express our great satisfaction, in your appointment to the chief magistracy in the United States: And though our mode of expression may be less courtly and pompous than what many others clothe their addresses with, we beg you, sir, to believe that none are more sincere.

Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty -- that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals -- that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions -- that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But, sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter together with the law made coincident therewith, were adopted as the basis of our government, at the time of our revolution; and such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those who seek after power and gain under the pretense of government and religion should reproach their fellow men -- should reproach their order magistrate, as a enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dare not, assume the prerogatives of Jehovah and make laws to govern the kingdom of Christ.

Sir, we are sensible that the president of the United States is not the national legislator, and also sensible that the national government cannot destroy the laws of each state; but our hopes are strong that the sentiments of our beloved president, which have had such genial effect already, like the radiant beams of the sun, will shine and prevail through all these states and all the world, till hierarchy and tyranny be destroyed from the earth. Sir, when we reflect on your past services, and see a glow of philanthropy and good will shining forth in a course of more than thirty years we have reason to believe that Americaʹs God has raised you up to fill the chair of state out of that goodwill which he bears to the millions which you preside over. May God strengthen you for your arduous task which providence and the voice of the people have called you to sustain and support you enjoy administration against all the predetermined opposition of those who wish to raise to wealth and importance on the poverty and subjection of the people.

And may the Lord preserve you safe from every evil and bring you at last to his heavenly kingdom through Jesus Christ our Glorious Mediator.

Signed in behalf of the association, Nehemiah Dodge
Ephraim Robbins
Stephen S. Nelson

Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association
To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ʺmake no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,ʺ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802

History

 

We can never forget that almost all totalitarian orders begin as youth movements disgusted by nearly everything in the established order

From The All-American Skin Game, or Decoy of Race by Stanley Crouch

All of these muddling democratic phenomena in the United States make it very clear why we in the Americas cannot be intimidated by resentment from the bottom to the top, the top to the bottom. The corruptions of protest shouldn’t make it impossible for us to assert the sophistication necessary to utilize the double-edged sword of accurate assessment. Nor should we be bullied by those who claim that we can only protect our civilization by excluding those at the bottom. History teaches us—over and over and over—that no community, young or old, is immune to the hopped-up irrationalities of scapegoating. We can never forget that almost all totalitarian orders begin as youth movements disgusted by nearly everything in the established order and impatient with the slow, difficult processes of actual human development within the context of individual liberty under the rule of law. It can never be said too often that the “temples of light,” the pageantry, and the mindless incantation of Adolf Hitler made him the first rock star and perhaps the first gangster rapper as well. Appeals to resentment, alienation, separatist “authenticity,” and tribal paranoia always seek to manipulate the anti-intellectual adolescent within all of us, regardless of our ages. We must also remember that the expedient reassertion of tradition—the return to former glory that has been betrayed by the decadent and perverse among us—is also one of the promises made by those who may have little interest in the exhausting processes of democracy. Such appeals and promises, one and all, produce old and rusty or new and polished lines of iron suits, whether they come from the top or the bottom, the bottom or the top.

We can most effectively move in the direction of melting down the iron suits of history by celebrating the fundamental vitality and policy implications of one charismatic fact: our multiple miscegenations don’t imprison us in any of the many varieties of resentment and paranoia if we truly understand them. They supply our democratic liberation through the enrichments of identity. We can no longer afford to traffic in simple-minded and culturally inaccurate terms like “black” and “white” if they are meant to tell us anything more than loose descriptions of skin tone. We are the results of every human possibility that has touched us, no matter its point of origin. As people of the Americas, we rise up from a gumbo in which, after a certain time, it is sometimes very difficult to tell one ingredient from another. All of those ingredients, however, give a more delectable taste to the brew.

I see wonderful things

 

Which governments are doing how well over the past four years

I started reading Phillips OBrien for his coverage of the Ukrainian Russian war at the beginning of this year and his was useful commentary.  Over time he has begun to cover that war less and has reverted to complaining about the economic mismanagement of Britain, how stupid was Brexit, how cognitively challenged are the Conservative Party in Britain, and, paradoxically what a catastrophe was Trump in the US.  In other words, the bog standard mainstream media complaints of a left-leaning putative intellectual or academic.

Today there was this snarky tweet.
He is responding to an article in The Spectator, All is not well in Macron’s France by John Keiger.  

Keiger is arguing that the French elite are more patriotic than the British elite but have less to be patriotic about based on a range of socioeconomic metrics.  It is not a comprehensive empirical critique either in terms of time frame or in terms of completeness of the range of socioeconomic measures.  But Keiger does adduce a range of facts that would support his argument.  

OBrien gets some pushback, to which he replies:

Because it’s not trying to find out what’s happening in France. It’s cherry picking some disparate, pieces of evidence to try and make British readers feel better about the mess this country is in. Why GDP in 2021 and not GDP per capita in 2022 (France richer that way)?

Which isn't a particularly reasoned or evidentiary response.  It is a mere allegation.  By  my count, Keiger references eight socioeconometric measures.  While that is not comprehensive, they are fairly wide ranging (GDP, growth, inflation, unemployment, crime, etc.).  Wide-ranging enough to call into question the accusation of cherry-picking.  It is also notable that Keiger includes one metric that is inconsistent with his argument and he acknowledges that inconsistency - a further tell against cherry-picking.

I think Keiger's piece is not well thought out, particularly for the conclusion he draws.  But that has nothing to do with OBrien's critique.  

I have been reading OBrien's complaints about Brexit all year.  For whatever reason, this was the tweet that made me think, Brexit occurred January 1, 2020.  Just how bad has the UK done since January 2020, compared to any of the other big OECD or international countries.  Brexit occurred, but so did the global Covid-19 pandemic panic with innumerable economic consequences.  Was Brexit a notable issue?  Was it more about general economic competence?  Or was it mostly about the government response to the pandemic?  Alot has been going on since January 2020.  If Brexit was a terrible decision and the Tories mismanaged the response to Covid, then you would expect to see that in the GDP growth figures.  Britain ought to be doing materially worse, given OBrien's critique than other OECD countries.  

Keeping it very simple and not knowing in advance what the lineup would look like, I went to Statista for consistent numbers and got the annual economic growth rates for the UK, German, Sweden, Italy, Sweden, China and Japan.  A single but standard metric for one of the most important socioeconometric measures of all.  The average four year growth rates (2019-2022) for ten OECD countries are:

Europe 
Britain - 0.6% growth
France - 0.8%
Germany - 0.4%
Italy - 0.3%
Netherlands - 1.9%
Sweden - 1.9%
 
Asia
China - 3.0%
Japan - (-)0.2% 
South Korea - 1.8% 

North America 
USA - 2.0%

Rank ordering them from best to worst:

China - 3.0% growth
USA - 2.0% 
Netherlands - 1.9%
Sweden - 1.9% 
South Korea - 1.8% 
France - 0.8% 
Britain - 0.6%
Germany - 0.4%
Italy - 0.3%
Japan - (-)0.2% shrinkage
 
Obviously GDP growth isn't the only pertinent sociometric measure of success.  I would be inclined to discard China's number because there is so little confidence in their reporting.  You might be inclined to discard the US results owing to it having the advantage of being the global reserve currency.  
 
But regardless if you discard either, if you are looking for a strong signal that either Brexit was a mistake or that the Conservatives are  uniquely bad at creating good economic conditions, it simply isn't there based on annual GDP growth.  

Britain's results are respectable within the context of the big OECD economies as well as in comparison to the biggest global economies (China, US, Japan, Germany).

This analysis casts light as well on the relative strength of the US economy where there is some mystery lurking.  There are many reasons to regard the current administration as being distinctly economically incompetent.  It has significantly worsened immigration, significantly worsened inflation, significantly worsened the stock markets, had a distinctly damaging response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and constantly flirts with major logistics catastrophes.

One would expect, under normal circumstances to see the consequent high inflation, labor force shortages, wealth erosion on a generational scale, and comparatively high interest rates to all lead to very low economic growth.  Those are a lot of negative economic winds.  But across the four years since 2019 just before the pandemic, the US economy has produced the best global result other than the suspect number from China.  Nearly an average of 4.5% growth between 2021 and 2022.  

Our increase of the national debt by nearly fifteen percent and $3.2 trillion is obviously part of the answer.  But all of the answer?  I am not so sure.

I suspect that the global four year average of 2.0%, better than all the other OECD countries, is a testament to the underlying strength and diversity of the American system.  As Adam Smith said, "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation."   

Obviously we don't want to just survive any given bad administration, we want to return to competent governance.  But compared to everywhere else in the past couple of years, we aren't doing as badly as it seems nor as badly as the Administration's policies would lead us to expect.

Data Talks

 

Unknown title by Lennart Helje

Unknown title by Lennart Helje























Click to enlarge.

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Major Platt Bayles

Major Platt Bayles (1733 to 1777) is a first cousin six times removed.  He was born in Jamaica, New York on Long Island and his extended family removed to New Jersey in 1744 when he was eleven years old.  At the time of the Revolution he enlisted in the New Jersey Militia, first as a Captain and later as a Major.  

His regiment was made up of men from Somerset and Hunterdon counties (where he and his family lived) under the brigade command of General Nathaniel Heard and the regimental command of Philip Johnston.  

New York, among the colonies, had perhaps the highest proportion of Loyalists who were dangerous to the Patriots both as manpower for the British Army and as spies on American movements and conditions.  Long Island in particular was rife with Loyalists.  As a consequence, the Continental Congress requested that New Jersey send troops to suppress the Loyalist activities.  They sent General Heard's Brigade, including Major Platt Bayles.  From New Jersey Militia

New York State, probably the most Loyalist state in the colonies, furnished 15,000 men to the British army and another 8,000 to local militias, according to one historian, and Long Island contributed undocumented thousands to these numbers. Seven of the military units that operated on Long Island, and especially harassed the heavily Patriot Suffolk County residents, were composed of Loyalists, rather than British soldiers.

Alarmed at Hempstead's refusal to support the Patriot cause, the Continental Congress in early 1776 ordered Col. Nathaniel Heard to take 500 or so of his New Jersey militia and disarm every dissenting Loyalist. Heard and his men cut a wide swath through Jamaica, Hempstead, Jericho and Oyster Bay, forcing 500 Tories to sign a loyalty oath and collecting a wide assortment of muskets, blunderbusses, swords and cutlasses.

The foray into Queens resulted in a famous piece of Loyalist doggerel making fun of Heard, sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle'':

Colonel Heard has come to town
In all his pride and glory.
And when he dies he'll go to hell
For robbing of the Tory.

Later, Heard's Brigade was in the thick of the Battle of Long Island.

The American plan was for Putnam to direct the defenses from Brooklyn Heights, while Sullivan and Stirling and their troops would be stationed forward on the Guan Heights. The Guan (hills) were up to 150 feet high and blocked the most direct route to Brooklyn Heights. Washington believed that, by stationing men on the heights, heavy casualties could be inflicted on the British before the troops fell back to the main defenses at Brooklyn Heights. There were three main passes through the heights; the Gowanus Road farthest to the west, the Flatbush Road slightly farther to the east, in the center of the American line where it was expected that the British would attack, and the Bedford Pass even further to the east. Stirling was responsible for defending the Gowanus Road with 500 men, and Sullivan was to defend the Flatbush and Bedford roads where there were 1,000 and 800 men respectively. Six-thousand troops were to remain behind at Brooklyn Heights. There was one lesser-known path through the heights called the Jamaica Pass, farthest to the east, which was patrolled by just five militia officers on horseback.

[snip]

Five minutes after leaving the tavern, the five American militia officers stationed at the pass were captured without a shot fired, as they thought that the British were Americans. Clinton interrogated the men and they informed him that they were the only troops guarding the pass. By dawn, the British were through the pass and stopped so that the troops could rest. At 09:00, they fired two heavy cannons to signal the Hessian troops below Battle Pass to begin their frontal assault against Sullivan's men deployed on the two hills flanking the pass, while Clinton's troops simultaneously flanked the American positions from the east.

[snip]

The Hessians, in the center under the command of General von Heister, began to bombard the American lines stationed at Battle Pass under the command of General John Sullivan.[64] The Hessian brigades did not attack, as they were waiting for the pre-arranged signal from the British, who were in the process of outflanking the American lines at that time. The Americans were still under the assumption that Grant's attack up the Gowanus Road was the main thrust, and Sullivan sent four hundred of his men to reinforce Stirling.

Howe fired his signal guns at 09:00 and the Hessians began to attack up Battle Pass, while the main army came at Sullivan from the rear. Sullivan left his advance guard to hold off the Hessians while he turned the rest of his force around to fight the British. Heavy casualties mounted between the Americans and the British, and men on both sides fled out of fear. Sullivan attempted to calm his men and tried to lead a retreat. By this point, the Hessians had overrun the advance guard on the heights and the American left had completely collapsed. Hand-to-hand fighting followed, with the Americans swinging their muskets and rifles like clubs to save their own lives. It was later claimed, Americans who surrendered were bayoneted by the Hessians. Sullivan, despite the chaos, managed to evacuate most of his men to Brooklyn Heights though he himself was captured.

Major Bayles would have been in the immediate proximity of one of the Thermopylae moments of the American Revolution, when the Maryland 400 or Washington's Immortals engaged with the British to stem the tide while the rest of Washington's army made its escape.

Stirling ordered all of his troops to cross the creek, except a contingent of Maryland troops under the command of Gist. This group became known to history as the "Maryland 400", although they numbered about 260–270 men. Stirling and Gist led the troops in a rear-guard action against the overwhelming numbers of British troops, which surpassed 2,000 supported by two cannons. Stirling and Gist led the Marylanders in two attacks against the British, who were in fixed positions inside and in front of the Vechte–Cortelyou House (known today as the "Old Stone House"). After the last assault, the remaining troops retreated across the Gowanus Creek. Some of the men who tried to cross the marsh were bogged down in the mud and under musket fire, and others who could not swim were captured. Stirling was surrounded and, unwilling to surrender to the British, broke through their lines to von Heister's Hessians and surrendered to them. Two hundred fifty six Maryland troops were killed in the assaults in front of the Old Stone House, and fewer than a dozen made it back to the American lines. Washington watched from a redoubt on nearby Cobble Hill (intersection of today's Court Street and Atlantic Avenue) and reportedly said, "Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose."

Major Bayles survived the Battle of Long Island.  While he had enlisted in the New Jersey Militia it appears that about this time they had been absorbed into the Continental Army.  

After the Battle of Long Island, we know that Major Platt Bayles was likely one of the defenders of Fort Washington.  He was documented as being in the Fort on October 22nd, 1776, just before the Battle of Fort Washington which occurred on November 16th, 1776.  

From there, the paper trail grows cold.  

The late 1776 campaign, a fighting retreat from Manhattan and then south through New Jersey ultimately to Valley Forge outside Philadelphia is recounted in 1776 by David McCullough.  As fall turned to winter the conditions became harsh in the extreme.  The retreat took them through the middle of New Jersey which had a goodly scattering of Baylesses, especially in the vicinity of Maidenhead and Princeton in the center of the state.  In particular, he would have passed close to his grandfather, father and several aunts and uncles as he moved through Kingston and Princeton.  

What role, if any, was played by Major Bayles in the Battles of Princeton and Trenton is not yet known.  I will continue to research.  

What is known is that he died of smallpox on December 1, 1777 in Valley Forge, leaving a wife and eight children, the youngest of whom was four years old.  


UPDATE:  In a fitting tribute to his service and sacrifice, it appears that at least two lines of the family, Dickerson and Walker, maintained the tradition of naming a son with the given names of Platt Bayles(s) at least through the 1900s and it appears that the name is still extant in at least one branch in the 2000s.