The will of the people

So the a stopgap budget resolution was passed on Wednesday (10/16/2113), just in time to avert a potentially worldwide economic crisis. This was just the latest example of how elected legislators ignore the will of voters.

The question becomes how to get a more responsive government? Government is powerful because, in aggregate, the monies it collects (primarily through taxes) is so large that it overshadows the resources of any other institution or organization. And because elected politicians control where these monies are spent, they are in positions of great power. One way to diminish their power is to decrease their control over the big pots of tax revenue.

The best place to start is with Social Security taxes. Currently, surplus social security payments are diverted into a two Social Security Trust Funds; funds which the U.S. Treasury uses to buy treasury bonds, thereby tacitly bulking up the monies collected by the federal government. Two points about this borrowing from the Social Security Trust… (1) it is used to argue that there is no trust (which is true in so far as the trust has no ‘money in the bank’) and (2) money (quietly) borrowed from the trust fund is used to minimize the apparent government debt.

But Social Security taxes are not intended to be a source of revenue for the government, they are supposed to be set aside to supplement the retirement of older Americans. As such, those who pay into the trust should decide who may borrow their monies and how it can be spent. There should be a way for tax payers to purchase government bonds directed to specific public projects (both local and national). Information about proposed public projects (including potential contracts, bids, budgets and goals) should be available for public perusal and critique for purposes of transparency. Taxpayers could ‘vote’ their support by committing their Social Security tax payments to government bond(s) to fund Program X and build Public Works Y. Elected politicians would be responsible for budgeting normal tax revenues to repay these bonds into the Social Security Trust as needed and cover programs they deem essential.

Ideally, this would expand over time so that taxpayers control the spending of a majority of tax revenues (60-80%) and politicians would be elected based on their bureaucratic skills and not photogenic spinmeistering.

Two questions about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster…

Apparently radioactive water is leaking from the holding tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant which was damaged by the March 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

-The operators of the plant have proposed building an ‘ice wall’ to contain the contaminated water leaking from the plant… What are the energy needs to establish and maintain/operate this for the necessary length of time? Will it ultimately consume more energy than Fukushima Daiichi ever produced? There are already so many excellent reasons to reject nuclear energy, is this another mark in the no column?

-Would it be possible to clear some of the radioactive isotopes from the contaminated water with activated charcoal? If so, why not dump some in the holding tanks… at least the water that leaks out will be just the slightest bit less radioactive.

Pro-Humanities

There was a piece in the Washington Post in July which argued for fewer humanities majors and more technology majors… what a crock!

This country has never suffered a shortage of innovation; we have always been a magnet for the aggregation of innovators, internally and abroad. What we suffer from is a poor social, political and economic support for innovation and growth.

If anything, there is a lack of understanding of the liberal arts and how they are applied to manipulate our political and economic activities. Americans are subject to emotional appeal, straw men, incomplete or carefully selected ‘facts’ and outright subterfuge by journalists and pundits (better described as message amplifiers) and marketers and advertisers (more accurately, consumer manipulators) to two major effects: (1) Consumer marketing which tells us to buy houses we can’t afford with loan conditions which are unsustainable in unstable economic conditions; processed foods and cable television which contribute to a litany of chronic conditions including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and tooth decay; cheap fashion which has a higher cost than evident on the surface and other consumer goods which come a high hidden social and environmental price. (2) Misleading and highly polished political messaging to sell poorly reasoned political arguments to the detriment of a majority of Americans. We’ve been sold that the inheritance tax is a ‘death tax’ and the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare) calls for the establishment of ‘death panels’. And all evidence to the contrary, we are told “We don't have a domestic spying program…”

As consumers of American culture and media, we are bombarded by a constant barrage of doublespeak and embedded advertising. These are designed to persuade us to behave in a way beneficial to those who buy such placement. As Americans, we need the analytical and reasoning skills to see beyond the immediate story so we can make informed and not persuaded decisions. If anything, this country needs to foster and promote humanities and liberal arts education, not diminish.

And should the author of the initiating post has forgotten, let me remind him that one of the highest value class of American exports is American culture… That’s right, movies, television, music, online content, etc… all based on narratives dependent on the humanities.

What is the effect of a higher minimum wage on…

I overheard a complaint by a medical technician over the fast food workers’ strike for a higher minimum wage… This person objected to a $15/hr minimum wage because they, with a college degree and advanced training, made $16/hr. While my first response was… maybe they should be earning more, it occurred to me that I don’t know what effect a minimum wage increase would have on workers making various amounts higher than minimum wage. There have been a number of studies and news reports (see here, here, here, here, and here) on how such a change would effect the economy overall, the question I have is what happens to low wage workers who make just above minimum wage? What about two times minimum wage? Three times minimum wage? Union wages?… etc.

Carbon free renewable energy…

Float and tether energy collectors (any combination of solar/ wind/ wave collectors) onto offshore (and potentially out of sight) platforms: use the energy to generate hydrogen by electrolysis from sea water. The hydrogen gets stored in tanks on the platforms and harvesting would entail swapping empty tanks with charged tanks.

If the trend holds…

Yesterday’s religions are today’s myths. Does that mean today’s religion are building the myths of tomorrow?

‘You Decide’… pure claptrap

One sure sign of dishonest or lazy journalism is the tag of ‘you decide.’

In most research professions, the job of the researcher is to find or discover facts and construct a story or narrative around those facts. A journalist functions in reverse. They are given a story and their job is to collect connected stories, identify the facts and then verify those facts. The credibility of their final report (written or otherwise) depends on proper validation or refutation of the facts of the original story. It is human nature to collate facts (any string of facts) into a narrative… this is how humans make sense of the world. When a journalist presents a list of ‘facts’ and instructs their audience to ‘decide for themselves’, they  nudging their audience to reach a certain conclusion by the facts given. This is not journalism and anyone who takes this road should be barred from the practice of journalism.

Let me set this up as a set of contrasts...

A lawyer…

… is given a set of facts: (1) house has been burgled; (2) no forced entry; (3) some stolen items found in local pawn shop; (4) nephew of homeowner who has been unemployed for some months, is spotted with a new motorcycle

In court, the prosecutor’s job would be to take these facts and stitch together to tell a compelling story that a jury would believe (nephew burgled house and pawned items to buy motorcycle). The job of the defense attorney would to cast doubt (ideally, disprove) on some of the facts so the story doesn’t work or persuade the jury with a better story to fit the facts (nephew can’t get in house; nephew has never been to pawnshop; nephew’s motorcycle is gift from wealthy parents/girlfriend…).

***

A biographer (similar for historians, anthropologists, social scientists…)...

…starts with some readily available facts: (1) person born __year, __day, __county; (2) grew up in affluent part of town; (3) died a highly regarded statesman…

…and searches available resources (diaries, school records, newspaper articles, interviews…) for additional information ...

… (1) always unkempt as a child; (2) no father of record and mother never married; (3) mother employed by owner of house they lived in…

These biographical facts along with additional historical context (a) limited public education available at that period; (b) unwed mothers were looked down on...

… would be used construct a narrative of the life and times of this person. They would use the facts and historical context to make a compelling story about this person (An illegitimate child of wealthy man who had him privately educated…).

Should additional facts emerge or current events call for reflection, the prevailing narrative about individual and events can change. An example would be Socrates, a founder of western philosophy, who was seen, in his time, as a criminal and executed by the state. And in modern times, contrast the approval ratings of Jimmy Carter just after losing the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan to that of today.

***

Charles Darwin (a natural scientist)…

…collected a series of facts (by observation): (1) small birds collected on a particular Galápagos Island were all the related; (2) they had highly variable beak morphology; (3) beak morphology correlated with foraging behavior (see here and links within)…

… and developed his Theory of Evolution by natural selection.

And facts discovered by scientists in many fields (biology, geology, paleontology, etc.): (1) age of earth; (2) transitional fossils; (3) genetic inheritance…

…have all served to confirm evolution by natural selection.


***

All people...

…when given a set of facts...

-baby gets vaccinated; baby diagnosed with autism

-many people hospitalized with acute flu-like symptoms had direct contact with domestic chickens

…readily draw a narrative…

-vaccines cause autism (false; there is no evidence of this)

-chickens are infecting humans with something (true; multiple outbreaks of bird flu in Asia)

Such narratives (or stories) is how humans understand our world and direct the way we relate to those around us.

***

To bring this back to the role of a journalist…

The information gleaned by journalists is more often than not, already in the form of a story. Their job is to identify and verify the facts and report on the accuracy of the narrative(s) provided by their sources (see here). It is human nature to construct a narrative when given a series of facts, a narrative which can easily distort the truth by careful pre-selection or distortion of the facts. When a journalist writes a piece, supposedly presenting all the facts as provided by their sources and tells their readers ‘you decide,’ they completely abrogate their role as responsible journalist. Audiences do not have the tools (sources, references, time) at their disposal to critically evaluate the validity of news reports they consume. When reporters do not, they do no more than hold a megaphone up to the mouths of ’newsmakers’.

A random thought

There is a severe shortage of human organs available for transplantation as highlighted by the recent stories of young Sarah Murnaghan. Scientists have taken two different approaches in an attempt to generate more organs suitable for transplantation. Briefly, one involves modifying pigs so their organs can be directly transplanted and the other involves growing organs from scratch by seeding a scaffold with human stem cells.

I wonder if anyone has considered using the in situ pig organ(s) themselves as a scaffold to first generate a chimerical human/pig organ and selective kill the pig cells of the target organ over time to make a completely human organ? Obviously, the pig would need major modifications to its immune system but the advantages of an in situ bioreactor over an artificial one are enormous.

What is money?

The dictionary definition of money is ‘a medium of exchange’ with the occasional qualifier ‘in the form of coins and banknotes’ but that doesn’t mean much beyond ‘it's what you take to the store and exchange for stuff you want.’ The definition doesn’t make money a fundamentally more understandable concept.

Opposite of spending, money is earned through work (also known as labor). From this vantage, money is a form of stored labor. There are other ways to store labor: the widgets produced by labor such as automobiles, toys, clothing, food… any product which involves the input of labor. But these items can be difficult to transport and store and depreciates (or degrades) at variable rates. So the advantages of being paid in money over widgets are obvious. To restate: labor = widgets = money.

A better definition of money: medium of exchange of labor.