New Cerulean

Congress acts to stop adding oil to the national strategic petroleum reserve. This will increase the petroleum available on the world market by 70,000 barrels a day, or one tenth of one percent. An already symbolically small gesture, congress chooses to shut this spigot off as the strategic reserve is at 97% of capacity, and would have shut itself off within a year. This allows congress to take credit for something that would have happened soon, anyway, while not actually making even a small dent in the price of gasoline. But they’re seen to be DOING SOMETHING, and that’s what really matters.

In almost the same breath, the Senate voted 56-42 to reject the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and some offshore waters that are now closed to oil development. According to Walter Williams:

Oil and gas exploration in a tiny portion of the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would, according to a 2002 U.S. Geological Survey’s estimate, increase our proven domestic oil reserves by approximately 50 percent.

So, when faced with an opportunity to actually do something that could tangibly affect domestic oil supply in a big way, Congress chooses the symbolic action of preserving our wildlife refuge, despite the fact that oil development would only take place on a small portion of this preserve, and despite the fact that this preserve will never even be seen by 99.99% of the population and can only affect their lives in a symbolic way.

Or government appears to have devolved into a series of theatrical actions - gestures that convey their feelings about an issue without having substantive impact.  While it is easy to lay blame for this interpretive dance version of government at the feet of these legislators, I fear their behavior is only a mirror of our national soul.  We elect these people, by and large, on how we “feel” about them.  It’s a rare voter who does the homework to see beneath the posturing and derive the vote-worthiness of candidates based on actual impact of their actions.  Doing that takes work.  This is why we need to come up with some form of incentive for voters who invest the time and energy to understand the issues they’re voting on.  As I’ve previously advocated, I believe a national lottery that is tied to how one scores on a multiple-choice quiz covering the candidates and issues on each ballot would go a long way toward shoring up our anemic government.  It’d be more than a symbolic action.

Clay Shirky has posted an article that suggests we are now seeing a sort of phase-change in developed society from passive couch potatoes to active participants. He says that after WWII, people had to deal with something new - free time, a cognitive surplus. For the most part, he says, people spent their free time watching TV. Now, he says, the internet is catalyzing a transformation by allowing people to create and share with everyone. And this is a fundamental change in his view.

While I agree for the most part that having a participatory medium is surely attracting many brain-cycles away from TV, I don’t see it as quite the fundamental shift he does nor for the reasons he cites. There are other factors involved in this turning away from TV. In the days of broadcast network TV, it used to be a source of social cohesion. Having limited channels and limited shows meant that you had many experiences in common with people all over. It also meant that all that advertising power was more focused - more money per channel (might have) created more involved and engaging entertainment. Nowadays, the average sofa spud has hundreds of channels to watch, of which they have probably chosen their favorite half-dozen that they flick back and forth among. But it isn’t necessarily the same half-dozen channels as their neighbor. So, aside from special events and a few well-publicized series, people just don’t derive that much shared culture from TV anymore. The fracturing of entertainment bandwidth into so many channels also means there is less cash per channel to invest in creating interesting new content. So we have a lot of re-runs and inexpensive new content like talk shows, ‘reality’ shows, etc. On top of all that, video on demand makes it so that each person’s video reality is even less likely to overlap with anybody else’s. We’ve lost our video cultural identity, and we’ve diluted the effort that can be spent on each new piece of content. Given these facts, it’s no surprise that people are seeking other ways to entertain themselves and to bond socially, by creating and sharing common experiences with their friends. One of the huge advantages of the internet in fostering social cohesion is the ability of distant birds of every peculiar feather to flock together electronically, rather than chatting about last night’s TV around the water cooler.

Another factor that Mr. Shirky neglects to weigh is that many Americans, for example, are not and never have spent the majority of their free time watching TV. Americans have historically had one of the highest rates of membership in clubs, associations and societies of any culture. They also belong to churches and participate in many social undertakings there. Even in the age of broadcast networks, hobbies were an expected part of a normal, healthy life. People who didn’t have them were advised to take one up. The ‘wordless workshop’ fans of yesteryear would be the same sorts who read Make magazine nowadays. Tinkerers were everywhere and manly men, at least, were expected to have a fundamental grasp of how to make a stalled car go. The point being that it would be an inaccurate simplification to say that people simply spent their newfound free time watching TV.

So although I think Mr. Shirky has it right that the internet has added a fundamentally new and attractive way for people to gain social meaning and entertainment, it’s not clear to me that this trend is quite the tectonic shift he paints it as. Nor do I agree that people’s need to participate is the fundamental driver - I think it’s more driven by people’s need to share socially. It is, if anything, more a continuation of the fracturing of cognitive bandwidth ushered in by cable TV. Each website, each YouTube sensation, amounts to a cultural touchstone. Instead of promoting a cultural homogeneity that arose from broadcast TV, it is splintering culture into hundreds of millions of amorphous sub-tribes sharing subsets of identity and common experiences. The cultural isolation wrought by the advent of cable TV is being bridged by the selection capability of the internet.

The President Pelosi Scenario originally speculated on how the impeachment of Bush and Cheney would then devolve the presidency to Nancy Pelosi. But now, with Sen. McCain scratching and squinting about his possible running mates, a new avenue of a Pelosi presidency is taking shape. McCain would be 72 by the time he reaches office. According to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (table 5, page 17), a white male in the US has a 15.2% chance of dying between the ages of 72 and 76, which would cover McCain’s first term. Now, supposing the wet dreams of the rabid internet Ron Paul advocates comes true, and McCain chooses Paul as his running mate. He’d be 74 by the time he takes office, making his probability of dying in the first term 18.3%. The combined odds of both candidates kicking the bucket before the end of term would be about 2.8%. Small odds, but not impossible. Around 1 in 35. Nothing to seriously consider, but enough to give staunch conservatives something else to mull over as they try to sleep. Sweet dreams…

Turns out human noses can be trained by shocking. I wonder what effect this observation will have on training olfactory-reliant professions like cooks, perfumers and sommeliers? Of course, one can easily imagine commercial interests influencing which product is the one that is discriminated by shock, giving a sort of Ludovico Treatment against the competition’s products.  Perhaps doctors can be trained to smell cancers, the way some dogs are able to. If it works for smell, it ought to work for other perceptions as well. Imagine art students learning to discriminate colors by shock treatment. Or music students learning perfect pitch and different instrument temperaments. It seems those knuckle-whacking nuns were probably onto something.

Paul Krugman misses the point of the ‘economic stimulus package’ agreed on by congress and the president. Krugman argues that giving $300 to folks who are already financially comfortable will probably just result in them plunking the dough in their savings, rather than increase spending. He goes on to say that sending checks to folks who are not as well off would guarantee that the money would be spent, thus stimulating the economy.

What he fails to grasp is that this is just a psychological sop. Adding $15 billion in spending to the US economy is a drop in the bucket - according to some, $15 billion amounts to less than two months of current spending on the Iraq war, most of which is spent within the US economy, buying men and material from US sources. This war stimulus has been going on for years, and has racked up about 33 times the ’stimulus’ to the economy that the new stimulus package will.

No, what this stimulus package is about is persuading the folks who are financially comfortable that they do not need to cut back on their spending. The economy stays afloat on the expectations and desires of its participants. If everyone gets a case of economic gloom, we’re going to postpone buying that new mega-HDTV, so as to have a little more cushion in the bank in case of a layoff. But if tossing us a bone in the form of a $300 check is enough to convince us that everything is going to be okay, then we’ll keep spending. The intent isn’t to have people rush out to Wal-Mart and buy $300 of Chinese goods. The intent is to get financially comfortable people, who form the backbone of the economy, to refrain from cutting back and to go on living and spending as if everything is okay. Whether it’ll work is an entirely different matter. Is an unexpected $300 windfall enough to make us feel prosperous? Will it convince us that everything is going to be okay? We’ll find out soon.

And the cynical side of me observes that this is, after all, an election year. Does it strike anyone as surprising that incumbents would approve a bill to send each of their constituents a check for $300? I suspect they’d all love to do it themselves, if only it were legal. This way, it is.

Lasting impression: Does the face of a CEO determine a successful company?

Turns out college students asked to rank faces on competence, dominance, likeability, facial maturity and trustworthiness were able to sort the profitable from the not-so-profitable among Fortune 1000 CEOs. From this result, I can predict the rise of two boutique businesses:

1. Plastic surgery specializing in maximizing ’successful’ features.
2. Facial-identification software that predicts which candidate CEO will make the most money. This will be useful to both investors and to boards of directors who need to select a new CEO.

Stimulating the appetite can lead to unrelated impulse purchases

Perhaps it comes as no surprise that people exposed to, say, the smell of fresh chocolate-chip cookies, are suddenly more likely to make impulse purchases. By activating the lizard-brain, people are more instinctive and less rational. I suspect it works for the same reason that sex sells. Anything that activates the lizard-brain and/or suppresses the forebrain is likely to cause impulsive behavior. This is probably one of the reasons we see so many ‘free sample’ tables set up in markets nowadays. Though I suspect free eats may somewhat backfire as fussy dieters will choose to avoid the temptation of such stores in the first place.

So what comprises ‘the ideal storm’ of lizard-brain sales tactics? For guys, probably having a sexy model offer free samples of an alcoholic beverage alongside samples of something aromatic, with some heavy-beat music going in the background. Maybe offer hot chocolate with schnapps and fresh-baked cookies? Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. That should be enough to put the forebrain to bed and let the lizard loose. Of course, they wouldn’t want the lizard to forget that he really needs a new car, so perhaps there’s a limit to how distracting a come-on can be.

As another early morning waking grabs hold, forcing me to choose between more useless and tedious flopping around in bed or getting up and blearily surfing the net, I’m given to wonder how this whole sleeping/insomnia thing came to be. It has been observed that deep sleep is more prevalent in hunters than in the hunted. Prey tends to sleep only lightly - just deep enough to remain still to avoid detection by predators, but be able to respond if a predator is detected. So why, then, do humans tend to lose some of our ability for deep sleep as we age? I suspect it is part of our evolved role as supportive grandparents. I envision a troop of proto-humans having old members that regularly get up and wander around in the wee hours. These old, midnight shamblers would serve a dual role - providing early warning of danger from predators, (most likely other proto-humans), and as disposable fodder for such dangers. Since the old members are not contributing as much to the creation of wealth in their society, having them get eaten costs the troop some added caregiving, but saves overall food and support cost. Losing an old one avoids the much higher cost if a younger, more productive member were to be killed instead, especially an older child in which the troop has invested years of support but who hasn’t begun to provide return on this investment. This may also explain why our appetite dwindles as we age. Any troop having to support the same level of appetite in its non-productive members as its productive ones would be at a competitive disadvantage. So, as we age, out appetite decreases.

I hate to think of the countless tragedies endured by our ancestors that carved these regrettable features into our genes. Hmmm… Maybe a midnight snack would let me get back to sleep. After all, a troop with enough spare food to allow midnight snacking isn’t as sensitive to losing one member over another. So maybe that’s built into our genes too? Only one way to find out.

Sally C. Pipes - Brave New Diet

Sally Pipes notes how variable the definition for fat has recently been, and how inaccurate BMI is as a measure of obesity. She also states that Americans gain, on average, one pound of weight between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. What a bunch of lightweights. The cheerful scale in my bathroom informed me this morning that between the Wednesday before T-day and today I’ve managed to pack on 12 pounds. Since I more-or-less abandoned the low-carb lifestyle over the holidays, I expect most of these festive pounds are water. Still, it hasn’t done good things for me. Lessened mental focus, lower motivation, higher blood pressure. So I’m looking forward to resuming my ascetic low-carbian ways, sniffing disdainfully at the bag of bagels some well-meaning poisoner has brought into the office.

Ms. Pipes goes on to wonder whether control over diet and exercise is appropriate for our government, weighing in with the Libertarian view that government should be protecting our freedom to pig out, rather than enforcing more and stricter controls on what sorts of caloric abuse we are allowed. I think this resonates with a deeper chord in the definition of American culture. America has always been a great experiment. It is our freedom to do whatever the hell we please that has given rise to a shared culture that thrives on continuous re-invention. Such freedom is not without cost, of course, as we end up with people who are free to ride a barrel over Niagra Falls, freeclimb the faces of skyscrapers, hoist themselves with balloons tied to a lawnchair or slam down a dozen Krispy-Kremes at a whack, often to their own detriment. It could be argued that we voluptuarians are addicts, differing from heroin junkies only in style and degree, and that government intervention is for our own good. While there may be some truth to that, and while it may be true (though less so, I suspect) that government intervention might lead to better health among food addicts, we have to look at what such intervention costs us as a culture. Every step we take away from being a grand experiment and toward more centralized control is one more step toward becoming another ossified institution, like so many of the older cultures on this planet have become.

If our government really wants to help, we should be spending tax money on research into metabolism, to enable greater freedom from the downsides of our food addiction. Similarly, if we’d spent the $500+ billion that we’ve squandered on the ‘war on (some) drugs’ on research into new recreational drugs that aren’t harmful, we’d be light-years ahead, by protecting the health of drug users, eliminating the criminal incentive for drug trafficking and by protecting and enhancing our freedom to enjoy life. We might have discovered a drug that makes doing math a rush, creating a new subculture of teens hooked on calculus, who hang out in their friend’s basements having wild physics parties. Instead we have an erosion of freedom and of personal responsibility and a growing acceptance of centralized control over our lives. While the intent may have been good, the unanticipated erosion of our culture has been extremely costly. America is rapidly heading toward the retirement home of cultural has-beens, traveling a road paved with good intentions. I hope we are somehow able to stir a resurgence in desire for personal freedom and greater individual responsibility.

Lab comes one step closer to building artificial human brain

These guys claim to have simulated a behaviorally-perfect neocortical column of the frontal cortex of a rat brain. They say that if they can simulate a few thousand of these, they’ll be able to exactly simulate the thinking part of a rat’s brain. They ultimately hope to simulate a few million of these neocortical columns to replicate the thinking part of a human brain. (The futurists say we might have big enough computers for this sometime around 2020).

At what point does such a simulation attain identity? And at what point does such an identity merit protection under the law and obtain the rights to property ownership, voting and the obligation to pay taxes?

If it completely simulated a particular human brain, would that simulation share the rights of the original, or would it obtain new rights as a separate being?

To my way of thinking, we’re going to have to come up with some sort of testable threshold of sentience, beyond which we must accord rights. If an intelligence is self-aware enough and fond enough of existence to form the thought “don’t kill me”, is that enough? By that measure, would we withdraw existing protections from the brain-dead, the terminally senile or the comatose?

All interesting questions. Perhaps questions that we should think about right now, before we are forced to by circumstance.