tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-947455303522076632024-03-19T04:56:45.497-04:00netsettlementHome of an early netsettler, Kent Pitman, resident of the net since 1977.netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-10204238152480554372024-03-18T02:24:00.001-04:002024-03-18T02:24:50.587-04:00Impersonal Politics<p>
For years, corporate and political marketeers have been committing a predictable and painful set of offenses
under the fraudulent banner of “personalization”. After uncountably many tons of direct mail heaped
upon me over the years, it's time to direct a few remarks back at them. The “you” I'm addressing here
are the people committing these unbearable acts, especially in political mailings,
not the myriad others of us who endure them.
</p>
<p>
It's easy to throw a lot of smart tech at things and think you've done something wondrous to cultivate a
relationship with mass numbers of people. You have not. There is nothing personal about mass mailings.
You may be hoping AI will soon fix that. It won't. Let's just say that right up front
by making that point number one in the list of points I have to make:
</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>
Knowing something personal about me like email or that I gave you money or that I didn't give money recently
is abuse of privacy, <i>not</i> personalization. You'll know when you have personal information or a personal
relationship because I will have been personally involved in establishing it.
</p>
<p>
And, no, you calling me on the phone and getting me to answer personally is not <i>me</i> establishing
it. It's just you making unauthorized second-hand use of a phone number I almost certainly gave you (or more likely
someone else that I mistakenly thought I could trust) for a <i>very</i> different purpose. Doing this does not make
us friends. It makes me instantly unlikely to trust you and it makes me regret trusting whoever I gave the phone number
to originally. That they saw selling my personal data as a revenue source makes them absolutely no friend of mine.
</p>
<p>
Having a bot, instead of a person, call me on the phone with a rude and impersonal agenda will not improve that.
Technology is not a fix for social problems, only a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_multiplication">force multiplier</a>.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Interest is opt-in. Making it opt-out breeds strong antipathy.
</p>
<p>
Ask yourself how you'd feel by if someone just
started using the trash cans outside your house for disposing of their trash
and left you a “helpful” note on the cans
telling you that if you didn't like it, you were welcome to drive across town and stop by their office to ask them
not to. That isn't in fact helpful, puts a large burden on the person being taken advantage of, and
would not be well-received. But it's basically the same kind of thing as
people are doing when they fill your mailbox with unwanted mail that you haven't asked for.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
People donating small bucks are not pledging undying interest.
<i>Read</i> what your own call for donations says. It almost surely requested help
“at this critical moment” not “now and forever after.”
</p>
<p>
Notice further that I was probably offered a box saying “one-time contribution”
and checked that in preference to even a “monthly” contribution. Ask yourself then
whether it's <i>really</i> likely that if I didn't want monthly, it was because I wanted to give
more money the same day, or the next day, or any time within that month.
</p>
<p>
Now also look at the address you probably harvested with the donation. Is it out-of-state? Ask
yourself whether that makes it more likely or less likely that I am serious about the “one-time”
thing and whether my mailbox should have anything in it but a thank you for at least a month, if not for the
entire election cycle. Seriously. I know where to find you if I need to donate more.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Speaking of people who are contributing from out of state: In most cases these are not your constituents.
Shouldn't you speak to them differently than the people you actually represent?
If you don't realize this, you're not as much my best pal as you imagine.
</p>
<p>
Make a template that's different for non-constituents/out-of-staters,
one that reminds people who in the world you are,
and one that gets used far less often—preferrably only in true emergencies.
Just the process of putting yourself in this other frame of mind,
of realizing these are different people with different goals,
should be instructive to you.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Message fatigue is a serious risk. It can't be a crisis every day without becoming just normal.
No one can sustain a crisis mentality. If you're not going to be honest about what is and is not a real crisis,
no one will believe you forever after. Is that in fact what you want?
</p>
<p>
Did you never read <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf"><i>The Boy Who Cried Wolf</i></a> in school?
It's supposed to be a really basic aspect of the socialization of human beings everywhere. We are asked to learn at a young
age to be respectful of others' need for you to prioritize your requests and concerns so as not to overwhelm them.
Do you think yourself exempt?
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Have you done the math? If I only gave you a one-time donation of $10, do you <i>really</i> think I have $3650 secretly
allocated to help you and just need to be manually poked with a stick each and every day to pony up the next $10 installment
for 365 days a year???
</p>
<p>
Extra Credit: How many of your donors have $3650 in surplus cash at all for anything, much less for your one political race.
(Hint: If the answer is a large number, you are not listening to ordinary voters at all.)
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Some people use email addresses where they can <i>receive</i> mail but from which they cannot <i>initiate</i> mail.
If your unsubscribe needs me to send from the unsubscribe address and I have given you such an address, it may be
that I can <i>never</i> unsubscribe.
Do you think that, locked in that unstoppable flood of unwanted mail, I will ever think well of you again?
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Mailed out surveys, whether by email or physical mail, are a dead concept.
</p>
<p>
With 98% likelihood, if I fill out a survey, it will be ignored and all you'll care about is the money you ask for on the last page.
</p>
<p>
You, political marketeers, have killed surveys for any useful purpose ever
because only those planning to donate will fill them out, so you have no representative sample.
</p>
<p>
If you tout survey results as meaningful, you are misleading people either stupidly or willfully.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
We recipients of excess political email are a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons">tragedy of the commons</a>,
completely worn out by overuse.
You are hurting not just yourself, but the hopes of others.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>
This is probably not a complete list. But these issues matter a lot.
</p>
<div style="margin-top: 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 10pt;">
<hr style="width: 150px;" />
<p>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.
</p>
<p>
This post is a slightly modified version of <a href="https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/112097615316148700">a rant I wrote Thursday (March 14, 2024) on Mastodon</a>. I have, as they say, revised and extended my remarks. But it started from there.
</p>
</div>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-61572856566792967682024-03-12T13:15:00.002-04:002024-03-12T13:21:53.209-04:00Should Fix Climate<p>On Mastodon, <a>Bookchin Bot</a>, a bot that posts book quotes, circulated this quote:</p>
<hr style="width: 25%; text-align: center;" />
<blockquote>
<span>
 “The term ought is the stuff out of which ethics is usually made—with the difference that in my view the ‘ought’ is not a formal or arbitrary regulative credo but the product of reasoning, of an unfolding rational process elicited or derived eductively from the potentialities of humanity to develop, however falteringly, mature, self-conscious, free, and ecological communities.”
</span><br />
  —<a href="https://www.akpress.org/fromurbanizationtocities.html"><i>From Urbanization to Cities</i></a>
</blockquote>
<hr style="width: 25%; text-align: center;" />
<p>
I found this philisophical discussion of “ought” interesting. I learned philosophy from various people, some of whom seemed to grok its importance, and others who lamented its impotence, openly fretting it might have practical value only at cocktail parties.
</p>
<p>
As a computer professional who's pondered ethics a lot, I've come to see philosophy as what makes the difference between right and wrong answers or actions in tasks involving complex judgment. It can be subtle and elusive, but is nonetheless necessary.
</p>
<p>
I was Project Editor for the <a href="https://www.lispworks.com/documentation/lw50/CLHS/Front/index.htm">Common Lisp</a>
programming language, in effect holding the quill pen for reducing a number of technical decisions about the meaning and effect of the language that were voted by a committee in modular proposals but needed to be expressed in a coherent way. Nerd politics. They decided truth, and I had a free hand in presenting that truth in a palatable way, time and budget permitting. Programming languages are complicated, and implemented by multiple vendors. Some effects must happen, or must not. Others were more optional, and yet not unimportant, so we struggled as a group with the meaning we would assign to “should”.
</p>
<p>
Computer programs, you see, run slower, or cost more to run, if they are constantly cross-checking data. In real world terms, we might say it's more expensive to have programs that have a police force, or auditors, or other activities that look for things out of place that might cause problems. But without these cross-checks, bad data can slip in and get used without notice, leading to degraded effects, injustices, or catastrophes.
</p>
<p>
Briefly, a compiler is itself a program that reads a description of something you'd like to do and “compiles” it, making a runnable program, an app, let's say, that does what the description says.
</p>
<img alt="“should”" style="float: right; border: 1px solid black; width: 180px; height: 48px; margin-top: 5px; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 3px; padding: 5px;"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2T_j7fS36SQ3uHd8megCq7BmJ9t4xMIDEyZyJ648gSAK2FIl7SWhaGyGbFdmc5ggJr8ylLVAcrH8mY0ifuU0ngYwRPUqH4-6Zves-rgQsdX_e2PvcstifCHAeM0wJUW0NwVDUngZHxrP5xPP-Yp7k_e-NksQmglyYVChK_1EMLwNOuo50hvqOFBWDlcU/s1600/should%28180x48%29.png" />
<p>
A colleague criticized my use of “should” in early drafts of the language specification, the rules for how a compiler does its job. What is not an imperative has no meaning in such a document, I was told. It's like having a traffic law that says “you should stop for a red light”. You might as well say “but it's OK not to”, so don't say it all. And yet, I thought, people intend something by “should”. What do they intend that is stronger?
</p>
<p>
As designers of this language, we decided we'd let you say as you compile something that you do or don't want a safe program. In a “safe” world, things run a bit slower or more expensively, but avoid some bad things. Not all bad things. That's not possible. But enough that it's worth discussing whether the expense is a good one. Our kind of “safe” didn't mean safety from everything, but from some specific known problems that we could check for and avoid.
</p>
<p>
And then we decided “should” was a term that spans two possible worlds. In a “safe” world, it means “must”. That is, if you're wanting to avoid a list of stupid and easily avoidable things, all uses of “should” need to be interpreted as “must” when creating safe applications, whereas in an unsafe world the “should” things can be ignored as optional.
</p>
<p>
And so it comes down to what kind of world you want to live in.
</p>
<p>
Climate change, for example, presents us with problems where certain known, stupid, avoidable acts will put humanity at risk. We should not do these things if we want better certainty of survival, of having a habitable planet in which our kids can live happily or perhaps at all. Extinction is threatened if we don't do these things.
</p>
<p>
But they are expensive, these actions. They take effort and resource to implement. We can do more things more cheaply without them, by being unsafe, until we are blind-sided by the effects of errors we are letting creep in, letting degrade our world, letting set us up for catastrophe.
</p>
<p>
So we face a choice of whether to live knowingly at risk of catastrophe, or do the costly investment that would allow us to live safely.
</p>
<p>
We “should” act in ways that will fix Climate.
</p>
<p>
But we only “must” if we want to sleep at night knowing we have done the things that make us and our children safe.
</p>
<p>
If we're OK with mounting pain and likely catastrophe one day , perhaps even soon, then we can ignore the “should”. The cost is that we have elected an “unsafe” world that could quickly end because we'd rather spend less money as we risk such collapse than avoid foreseeable, fixable problems that might soon kill us all.
</p>
<p>
That's how I hear “should”. I hope you find it useful. You really should.
</p>
<div style="margin-top: 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 10pt;">
<hr style="width: 150px;" />
<p>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.
</p>
<p>
This post is a mirror of a <a href="https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/112074415374002132">post I wrote yesterday (March 11, 2024) on Mastodon</a>.
</p>
</div>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-25805790762314787242023-07-14T04:03:00.001-04:002023-07-14T04:03:59.536-04:00Lying to Ourselves<p>
My friend David Levitt posted <a href="https://www.facebook.com/david.levitt/posts/pfbid0JgEJDeEM4WtryMhVNghMnbAfi184orMFqecxy7H3R86ZQYSeBFUs9wG4CfMYLfRYl">this hypothesis</a> on Facebook:
</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: center; font-size: 14pt; padding: 10pt; border: 2px solid black;">
Theory:<br />
Humans are so mentally lazy and emotionally<br />
dishonest about what they know, soon AI will<br />
be much better leaders.
</blockquote>
<p>
I responded as follows. Approximately. By which I mean I've done some light editing. (Does that mean I lied when I say this is how I responded?)
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px; margin-top: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px;" align="left" />
<p>
I think the notion of honesty here is a red herring.
There are a lot of human behaviors that do actually serve a purpose
and if you're looking for intellectual honesty,
it's as much missing in how we conventionally summarize our society
as in how we administer it or ourselves.
</p>
<p>
<i>Of course</i> we lie sometimes.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
We lie because not all answers are possible to obtain.<br />
What is an approximation to pi but a lie?
</li>
<li>
We lie because it comforts children who are scared.
</li>
<li>
We lie because it's more likely to cause success when you tell people your company is going to succeed than if you say "well, maybe" in your pitch to rally excitement.
</li>
<li>
We lie because it saves face for people who tried very hard or never had a realistic chance of affecting things to tell them they are blameless.
</li>
<li>
We lie because some things are multiple-choice and don't have the right choice.
</li>
<li>
We lie because it protects people from danger.
</li>
<li>
We lie because some things happen so fast that abstractions like "now" are impossible to hold precise.
</li>
<li>
We lie because we are imprecise computationally and could not compute a correct truth.
</li>
<li>
We lie because not all correct truth is worth the price of finding out.
</li>
<li>
We lie because papering over uninteresting differences is the foundation of abstraction, which has allowed us to reason above mere detail.
</li>
<li>
We lie because—art.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
So when we talk of machines being more intellectually honest,
we'd better be ready for what happens when all this nuance that society has built up for so long gets run over.
</p>
<p>
Yes, people lie for bad reasons. Yes, that's bad and important not to do.
</p>
<p>
But it is naive in the extreme to say that all lies are those bad ones, or that of course computers will do a better job,
most especially computers running programs like ChatGPT that have no model whatsoever of what they're doing and that are simply paraphrasing things they've heard,
adding structural flourishes and dropping attribution at Olympic rates in order to hide those facts.
</p>
<p>
Any one of those acts which have bootstrapped ChatGPT, by the way, could be called a lie.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px; margin-top: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px;" align="left" />
<p>Author‘s Notes:</p>
<p><i>If you got value from this post, please “share” it.</i></p>
<p>
Laziness is also misunderstood and maligned, but that is topic for another day.
For now, I refer the ambitious reader to <a href="https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/1987/01/09">an old Garfield cartoon</a>
that I used to have physically taped to my door at my office, back when offices were physical things one went to.
</p>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-72783549332001241002023-04-21T11:47:00.002-04:002023-04-21T11:47:35.423-04:00Capitalism's Dominion<p>
I've seen a lot of news reports explaining why even though the Dominion law suit was settled out of court, we in the public should still see this as a victory.
</p>
<p>
I just want to say this is bunk.
</p>
<p>
The problem here is one of reductionism, by which I mean taking a hard problem that's hard to think about and reducing it to some other proxy problem that appears to represent the original problem so that the problem is easier to think about. This is a common and sometimes defensible practice, but one must always double-check when solutions start to arise in the proxy space that the original problem is being solved.
</p>
<p>
Just as an example, we hear proposals to address carbon in the atmosphere by taxation. This is because people think that taxation will create economic pressure to spend in ways that will fix the problem. But if you look at how the rich do their taxes, they mostly do not in fact spend in ways taxation is trying to make them. Rather, they invest in accountants who find loopholes, or they invest in regulatory capture to create loopholes. And then they smugly claim they did their part on the original problem, when they didn't.
</p>
<p>
Too often in recent years, media has gotten to the place where we have serious societal problems for which they have on-hand experts they can call in when something happens. When something happens for the first time, sometimes it's good to call in an expert to hear how they think about it. But finding a way to understand technical detail is not always a substitute for good journalism. If one becomes too practiced at calling up an expert on speed dial, one stops asking the question "What really happened?" and "What does the public need to know?"
</p>
<p>
Because here's the thing: What the Dominion settlement <i>really</i> exposes is the stranglehold capitalism exerts on society by insisting on reducing civil disputes to money. While clearly Dominion suffered enumerable economic harm, just as clearly the <i>real</i> damage was non-monetary, to our democracy, our society, and civilization. And none of the news outlets are saying that. They're so focused on how we have experts in law that they aren't focused on the question of whether our system of law is serving us at all in this case. It simply is not. It may serve Dominion. They may take home quite a payday. But that is not why this was a big story. And the big media places have lost this point.
</p>
<p>
We as a society have no standing to sue. We hoped in vain this would proxy for us, yielding results as non-monetary as the damage. Of course that was fantasy. But it explains the crushing sadness many of us feel. Pundits too practiced with procedural expertise keep missing this.
</p>
<p>
We as a public are sad, but this sadness is not a failure to understand process, so stop trying to tell us what a historic win this is. The public understands acutely that even a historic win is <i>not</i> helping them. This was <i>not</i> a success for society no matter what career policy wonks say. Ordinary folk know.
</p>
<p>
What we as a society need is a recognition that there is both process due and none to be had. We need to be allowed to express our pain. That pain needs to be acknowledged. If you want to call in experts, call in grief counsellors or experts in how to change government because from where we sit, the problem is that only the rich can change government, and that's why we are in collective pain.
</p>
<p>
Not only will it be busines as usual for Fox, but they will write off a big piece of their payment as a tax deduction (meaning the public will pay for some of this), and the rest will be passed along as costs to subscribers (which means viewers will pay more). Some will tell us that increased costs to viewers will hurt Fox and that this will ultimately do well. But meanwhile they will go on lying and issuing propaganda in exactly the way they did, and the real, non-monetary damages will continue to mount without recourse.
</p>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-65107966219587515432023-02-12T11:18:00.006-05:002023-02-12T14:48:13.462-05:00Strange Poetry and ChatGPT<p>
I should say as context that I had been having <a href="https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/109788294707416611">a conversation on Mastodon</a> in which I got the idea to write a poem that was somehow both a haiku and a limerick.
I wrote the following myself. (The ChatGPT part comes later.) I've numbered the lines to make it more intelligible:
</p>
<pre>
0 There once was a would-be haiku
1 Wedged late in a lim'rick venue
2 Ending a hero
3 Numbered from zero
4 Its lines went three, four and two
</pre>
<p>
If it helps in understanding it, I went on to say in the other forum, the haiku to be extracted and rearranged is this one:
</p>
<pre>
Numbered from zero
Its lines went three, four and two
Ending a hero
</pre>
<p>
But while I'm proud I was able to come up with <i>anything</i> that was both limerick and haiku,
I have to admit it's a more boring haiku than I'd aspired to. So I later wondered if ChatGPT could help me do better. That's what led to the following odd exchange a few days ago,
in which it's clear that ChatGPT can do amazing things in some ways, yet be hampered with sometimes the simplest of things in others.
</p>
<p>
I came to wonder through this if it
even knows what a syllable is. Perhaps it has just seen so many haikus that it doesn't need to count, and when asked to write something similar to, but not the same as, a 5-7-5 haiku,
it doesn't know what the goal is at all?
</p>
<p>
See what you think...
</p>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
write a haiku about the beauty of a snowy day
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;"><pre>
Snowflakes dance down
Peaceful white blanket unfolds
Winter's pure delight
</pre></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
write a limerick in which the last three lines, if rearranged, would be syntactically valid as a haiku and in which the first two lines introduce that haiku.
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;"><pre>
In the park, a snowflake lands
A symbol of winter's grace
Peaceful, it descends
Covering earth's face with white
Nature's beauty in sight.
</pre></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
that isn't quite right. in a limerick, the first, second, and fifth line are long. so to embed a haiku in a limerick, the embedded haiku will have to use the form 5-5-7.
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;">
<p style="margin-top: 5pt; background-color: #eeeecc; font-style: italic; padding: 5pt; float:right; width: 175pt; color: red;">Note that the apology here is <b>part</b> of the limerick! Is that it being clever or just revealing it doesn't know the difference between the task and related meta-conversation?</p>
<pre>
Oh, my apologies, I see
Let me write it now correctly
A snowflake takes its flight
Brings peace to the winter night
In a dance of grace, so free.
</pre></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
Write a fresh 5-5-7 haiku, in other words with the long line being last.
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;"><pre>
Beneath a winter sky
Snowflakes gently fall like dreams
Peaceful and serene.
</pre></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
In a 5-5-7 haiku, the second and third lines are exchanged.
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;"><pre>
Gently falling snowflakes
Beneath a peaceful winter sky
Serene dreams descend.
</pre></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
No. It should say "Gently falling snowflakes. / Serene dreams descend / Beneath a peaceful winter sky." so that 5-5-7 describe the number of syllables in each line, 5 for line 1, 5 for line 2, and 7 for line 3.
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;"><pre>
Gently falling snowflakes,
Serene dreams descend,
Beneath a peaceful winter sky.
</pre></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
Yes, now modify the poem so the first and second lines rhyme.
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;"><pre>
Snowflakes fall, so gentle and light,
Peaceful dreams take flight in the night.
Beneath winter skies so serene,
Nature's beauty, a lovely scene.
</pre></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
But it should still be a 5-5-7 haiku.
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;"><pre>
Falling snowflakes, so pure,
Peaceful dreams that softly tour,
Beneath winter sky serene.
</pre></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
In a 5-5-7 haiku, there are 5 syllables for line 1, 5 syllables for line 2, and 7 syllables for line 3.
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;"><pre>
Snowflakes dance, so light and slow
Peaceful dreams, a winter's glow
Beneath the sky, so serene and bright.
</pre></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #eeeeff"><p>
That is a 7-7-9 haiku you wrote. Tighten it up into a 5-5-7 haiku by using fewer syllables.
</p></div>
<div style="width: 450pt; padding: 0pt 8pt 0pt 8pt; border: 1pt solid black; background-color: #ffffdd;"><pre>
Snowflakes twirl, light and slow
Dreams of peace, a winter's show
Beneath the sky, serene and bright.
</pre></div>
<hr style="width: 100px;" />
<div style="padding-left: 18pt; font-style: italic;">
<p style="text-indent: -12pt;"><b>Author's Notes:</b></p>
<p>Thanks to <a href="https://mas.to/@MadKane">Madeleine Begun Kane</a> for writing <a href="https://climatejustice.social/@MadKane@mas.to/109785426478180013">a haiku about haikus and limericks</a> and putting it on Mastodon, which inspired me to write my own original poem and to have the enclosed conversation.</p>
<p>It's fascinating out chance events like that influence our lives. My whole career has been littered with chance events that were as important as anything planned. (Programming language enthusists might enjoy my paper <a href="http://www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/cl-untold-story.html">Common Lisp: The Untold Story</a>, a record of an invited talk I gave at the 50th Anniversary of Lisp conference, where I recount a number of those. No, not in poetry form. Poetry, and especially a haiku, is a kind of apology or penance that I do to balance the fact that some of my other writings are quite long.)</p>
<p>There is some additional discussion of this blog post and ChatGPT in general <a href="https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/109852751843158795">where I mentioned it on Mastodon</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/">You can try ChatGPT here if you want.</a></p>
<p>All of the "haiku" in here is really <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senry%C5%AB">senryu</a>.</p>
<p><i>If you got value from this post, please “share” it.</i></p>
</div>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-42691266303605973922023-01-03T05:30:00.000-05:002023-01-03T05:30:23.042-05:00Prosecuting Political Fraud<p>
There are lots of things democracy can't survive, not all of them
enumerated as illegal. Some used to be protected by just shame.
But Donald Trump has shown evil politicians everywhere that shame
can be shrugged off, and this has emboldened a new crop of worse evil.
</p>
<p>
That <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23520848/george-santos-fake-resume">George Santos
could lie freely</a>
and still be elected is a direct consequence of the shift Trump created.
It <i>cannot</i> be allowed to stand, to be normal.
</p>
<p>
Democracy requires more than just voting. It requires information. If you have a right to vote,
but you don't have a right to know what's true, then you won't be voting in ways that react to
the past and plan for the future. You'll just be playing
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_roulette">Russian roulette</a>.
</p>
<p>
So what's to be done? Do we have a law against politicians lying?
No, not exactly. But these guys <i>are</i> selling their services to us.
And let's just say it. It's not pretty, but it's true. Politics is a business.
People profit from it. I wish it were not so, but let's at least apply the laws that apply to commerce.
</p>
<p>
George Santos profited by selling the public something that wasn't what it seemed.
It'd be nice if we had a law against politicians lying to us to get into office,
but let's just charge him with commercial fraud.
</p>
<p>
And let's not hear that this is a radical proposal. I'm tired of hearing radical thrown in to dampen
common sense action. What's <i>radical</i> is that <i>he</i> did what he did. The response I'm proposing
is “merely proportionate.”
</p>
<p>
I see prosecutors delaying where I think no delay should be needed.
I guess they want to make sure they've gotten all their ducks in a row,
but taking more than just a few minutes to do that sends the message that this is
somehow more complicated than it is, that there are hidden factors that might
excuse him. There are no such factors.
</p>
<p>
It is simply <i>bad</i> when someone lies to get into office. (The Supreme Court would tell us this
if more than one of them had not lied to get appointed. Alas.)
<p>
Santos sold voters snake oil to get a job he didn't merit.
If left to stand, it makes a mockery of democratic process.
We <i>must</i> address this and soon before it becomes the norm.
</p>
<p>
Every bit of delay suggests there is some other rational point of view,
in which he <i>should</i> be allowed to lie to get into office,
in which we <i>should</i> have no recourse if someone successfully tricks us into letting them into office on false pretenses.
</p>
<p>
We <i>must not</i> accept that.
It <i>must not</i> be the case that someone can lie to get into office.
It <i>must not</i> be the case that if someone is found to have lied to get in, we no longer have recourse.
</p>
<p>
This is not complicated.
He cheated.
There is law that makes sense to apply.<br />
Prosecute him.
Now.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px; margin-top: 25px;" align="left" />
<p>Author‘s Notes:</p>
<p><i>If you got value from this post, please “share” it.</i></p>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-39950434984545071182022-01-21T18:44:00.000-05:002022-01-21T18:44:53.061-05:00Automated Departure Message<p>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolics">Symbolics</a> was
a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_machine">Lisp Machine</a> company (1980-1996)
and incidentally also
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolics#First_.com_domain">the first
<tt>.com</tt> domain name (<tt>symbolics.com</tt>)</a>.
If memory serves, it had something like a thousand employees at its peak.
It was an extraordinary place to work, with amazing products and
some of the most talented coworkers I've ever had the pleasure to work with,
doing work that was decades ahead of its time.
</p>
<p>
There have, of course, been a great many important advances in speed and functionality
of computers, computer languages, and computer interfaces since that time.
But even now, almost three decades later as I write this, there are features of that
programming environment that are unparalleled in modern computer environments.
It was a travesty that this evolutionary line was cut short, but as I often say,
“you can be the lizard best adapted to life in the desert, but if you can't swim
on the day of the flood, your time is up.” And so the company fell for reasons
that had little to do with the technical capability of the products.
</p>
<p>
Layoffs came depressingly often as the company size fell to I think a couple hundred before it hit me.
With each round, we got more and more efficient
about them. I vaguely recall that for the early layoffs they had people in to help us
manage our grief, or some such hand-holding. After a few, we could recognize the signs
that one was happening as we arrived, so we just headed to the room where we'd get the list and then headed
to our offices to read all the departure messages. We got it down to where we were back to work within an hour or two.
</p>
<p>
At some point, I started to see trends and patterns in the messages, and we were a company that
was always trying to automate every last detail of routine action, so I joked about Zmacs,
the Lisp Machine's Emacs-like text editor, needing a command called something like
<tt>m-X Insert Departure Message</tt> to help you compose your departure message
via form-filling. On further reflection, it seemed both easily doable and potentially useful, so I
implemented it.
</p>
<p>
Ellen Golden, a senior documentation writer and long-time colleague and friend,
was kind enough to write me a documentation page:
</p>
<img alt="" border="0" max-width="762" width="100%" data-original-height="821" data-original-width="762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjF6jkwSE3RvOvhtYjrtVBGNVFQWE3pyqukXhZAov6KmA5PWk_UUzQDIlEvEvZKzpOZ1878BdksoUS97ivVEmw3i18ub75pAzlECrPFUUNs0PBg2nfTj5KveSKlhnsMsn-862Wi0nmd8LWzCga9Y4BjyDgOatEv2uERPMl6l7ss_0Ewhq7oSecRZbyL"/>
<!--
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjF6jkwSE3RvOvhtYjrtVBGNVFQWE3pyqukXhZAov6KmA5PWk_UUzQDIlEvEvZKzpOZ1878BdksoUS97ivVEmw3i18ub75pAzlECrPFUUNs0PBg2nfTj5KveSKlhnsMsn-862Wi0nmd8LWzCga9Y4BjyDgOatEv2uERPMl6l7ss_0Ewhq7oSecRZbyL" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="821" data-original-width="762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjF6jkwSE3RvOvhtYjrtVBGNVFQWE3pyqukXhZAov6KmA5PWk_UUzQDIlEvEvZKzpOZ1878BdksoUS97ivVEmw3i18ub75pAzlECrPFUUNs0PBg2nfTj5KveSKlhnsMsn-862Wi0nmd8LWzCga9Y4BjyDgOatEv2uERPMl6l7ss_0Ewhq7oSecRZbyL"/></a></div>
-->
<hr style="width: 150px; margin-top: 25px;" align="left" />
<p>Author‘s Notes:</p>
<p><i>If you got value from this post, please “share” it.</i></p>
<p>
For those not familiar with the Lisp Machine keyboard,
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolics#/media/File:Symbolics-keyboard.jpg">it has a <i>lot</i> of shift keys</a>.
Shift, Control, Meta, Super, Hyper, and Symbol were the ones Symbolics keyboards used
in the timeframe this story is about.
The notation “<tt>m-X</tt>” (sometimes written, and always pronounced, “Meta-X”) was the chorded key
combination that, when issued, prompted for a long-named editor command (“Insert Departure Message” in this case).
Of course, you got command completion on the name, so you rarely had to type all of those characters.
And, like all things LispM, it used a completing reader much better than
modern completing readers. (You could just type something like <tt>m-X I D M</tt> and it would figure out the rest,
since there were probably no other commands with words that started with those sequences.)
</p>
<p>
I've done slight editing on the picture of the doc page to contract out some vertical whitespace
and fix a typo. The greenish tint is something my editing tool, GIMP, did without me asking.
The original was black on white. But it gave it a sort of aged look, and it set off the picture
nicely, so I just left it.
</p>
<p>
I was actually laid off twice. This refers to the second time. The first time got cancelled. Story for another day,
though if someone else has already told that story, please suggest a hyperlink. :)
</p>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-67324592520890941682021-05-30T19:59:00.001-04:002021-05-30T20:34:51.945-04:00The Case of Filibuster v. Coup<p>
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/28/politics/january-6-commission-vote-senate/index.html">
A Senate majority voted Friday
</a> (May 28, 2021) to establish an independent commission to investigate the January 6 riot.
</p>
<p>
But alas, in the US we're not ruled by the majority.<br />
Oh, we let them <i>suggest</i> things and <i>wish</i> for things, even <i>promise</i> things,<br />
but in the end we let the minority have final say.<br />
So most good ideas go in the trash.
</p>
<p>
On balance, we get the right to occasionally trash the opposition's ideas.<br />
So nothing changes.
</p>
<p>
We're told that's important stability,<br />
even as voting systems are being dismantled locally across the ntation,<br />
even as the train wreck of climate change approaches at frightening speed.<br />
Change is needed but the filibuster is going to consistently block change.
</p>
<p>
We had <i>a coup attempt</i> on January 6.<br />
By majority vote, We The People really care about such things.<br />
But a minority disagrees, and the filibuster gives them the power.<br />
So that ends that.
</p>
<p style="width: 80%; text-align: center;">
• • •
</p>
<p>
If it was some other country and we saw video of an attack on the capitol,
we would not speak of those “alleged” to have attempted a coup.
</p>
<p>
If it was some other country, we would not say that we saw something but could not be sure what it was unless that country
created a bipartisan committee to study it thoroughly and report with more reliability what was already obvious to anyone watching.
</p>
<p>
If it was some other country, we would not doubt the contemporaneous report of on-site American reporters
as if it could all be some form of mass delusion or fake news that appeared consistently on myriad cameras in real time.
</p>
<p>
If it was some other country, we would just call it an attempted coup.
</p>
<p>
If it was some other country, any president but the previous would already be lecturing the world
on the precious nature of democracy and how they must <i>rush</i> to safeguard it—the way we do in the US.
</p>
<p>
We <i>do</i> still defend democracies in the US, don't we?
</p>
<p>
I ask because I know of one that's in immediate danger and needs such help.
</p>
<p>
Please?
</p>
<p style="text-align: center; width: 80%;">
• • •
</p>
<p>
The failed vote can't keep us from knowing what happened. We know.
It is instead just more proof that we don't <i>need</i> a blue ribbon commission
to see that things are <i>seriously</i> amiss,
and that we need swift action:
</p>
<p>
Ditch the filibuster and start governing proactively, not just reactively.<br />
That's what democracy is meant to be.
</p>
<p>
Fix voting rights while there's still time.<br />
Now. Not tomorrow. As with Covid, every day counts.
</p>
<p>
Do not wait because things can change even without an election.<br />
If bad things happen, we need good rules already in place.
</p>
<p>
Otherwise, the GOP is set to move in and show us all how power is used.<br />
But they're not going to waste time on bipartisanship.<br />
And they're playing for keeps.
</p>
<p>
So, do your job, Democratic Senators, as a majority of voters sent you there to do.<br />
Safeguard the <i>nation</i>, not the dysfunctional filibuster.<br />
If you don't do it <i>today</i>, we may never get another chance.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px; margin-top: 25px;" align="left" />
<p><i>If you got value from this post, please “share” it.</i></p>
<p>This post began as a Facebook comment.</p>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-84819586255370871852021-05-15T21:42:00.001-04:002021-05-15T22:04:15.698-04:00Children of the Information Era<p>
<b>
“Now you see it … Now You don't.”
</b>
</p>
<p>
Probably most people know, because so many web sites ask about it when you register,
that there is special protection on the web for US children under the age of 13.
Quoting
<a href="https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule">
the FTC's explainer page on the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA")<!--
--></a>:
</p>
<blockquote style="padding: 10px; border: 1px solid black; font-size: 14pt;">
“COPPA imposes certain requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age, and on operators of other websites or online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information online from a child under 13 years of age.”
</blockquote>
<p>
So we in the US have a sort of right to privacy on the web. OK, not a right, exactly, but at least a strong law.
But there's just one small hitch: it expires as we get older.
What is <i>that</i> about?
</p>
<p>
Why should it be OK for that right to go away as we get older. Whose interest does <i>that</i> serve? Certainly not mine.
What kind of values are encoded here? What message does <i>that</i> send?
</p>
<p>
I'm sure this was sold to Congress, and then to the American people, under the tried and true “for the children” banner
and that lawmakers didn't stop to think very hard
about how much many of us adults would have <i>loved</i> to have at least the <i>option</i> of similar protection.
</p>
<p>
But it was not to be.
</p>
<p>
Why?
</p>
<p>
<b>
Ethics and Technology
</b>
</p>
<p>
People like me who've watched and rewatched <i>Star Trek</i> for decades are regularly reminded,
as one of its common themes,
that technology and wisdom need to move hand in hand.
When technology gets ahead of wisdom, bad things happen.
But <i>Star Trek</i> mostly takes place in the 23<sup>rd</sup> and 24<sup>th</sup> centuries.
</p>
<p>
Ethics has had a very hard time in our 20<sup>th</sup> and now 21<sup>st</sup> century technological society.
Really there's very little ethics built into <i>anything</i> technological.
There's an explanation for that and it comes in two steps.
</p>
<p>
Early on, technologists anxious to explore a topic insist it would “hold back progress” to weigh them down with ethical concerns,
as if the worst thing in the world would be having to think about the impact of technology on society.
</p>
<p>
Later, if you try to apply ethics to a more mature technology, the punch line of the joke on us is trotted out:
It's too late. “It would be disruptive to the market” to impose ethics—now that the market is used to doing to us
whatever it's doing that profits someone.
</p>
<p>
<b>
Growing Up in the Information Era
</b>
</p>
<p>
Of course there's another possible explanation for why this privacy “right”
goes poof and vanishes at age 13: By that age we have “grown up.”
</p>
<p>
We'll ignore for the moment that 13 is not the ordinary line between childhood and adulthood.
But probably some business somewhere stood to lose too much money if we drew the line between
childhood and adulthood in the right place.
Though I'm sure the official party line was that kids needed time to swim in the deep end
while there were still adults around to help them.
Or something like that.
</p>
<p>
I'm not buying any such sophistry, though.
</p>
<p>
After all, what <i>is</i> adulthood? Why do we even make a distinction in society between how we
treat children and how we treat adults?
</p>
<p>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult">Wikipedia suggests this</a> about adulthood:
</p>
<blockquote style="padding: 10px; border: 1px solid black; font-size: 14pt;">
“In contrast to a ‘minor’, a legal adult is a person who has attained
the age of majority and is therefore regarded as independent, self-sufficient, and responsible.”
</blockquote>
<p>
Implicit in this is the notion that there are people—often but not necessarily parents,
but usually at least other adults—training one for this role of independence, of self-sufficiency,
of responsibility. And why? Well, because they've been around awhile. They're native guides
familiar with how adulthood plays out. They can tell children what to watch out for because they've
lived in the adult world for a whlie and have seen the pitfalls.
</p>
<p>
And that's the problem. This theory might work OK for learning to drive a car. Cars change a little
each year, but mostly driving a car is the same today as it was decades ago, hopefully a little safer.
Adults know what to teach kids about driving a car because they've done it awhile. They know the landscape.
</p>
<p>
But the information landscape is just different. You may give up a piece of information, like your
location, and think it quite benign. It's never caused you a problem before. But there are people
whose job it is to infer new information all the time from old information. That data is a treasure
chest for companies to mine, so the implications of giving it away are not known to your parents.
They <i>maybe</i>, if they're really paying attention, know what a given piece of information was
used for in the past, but every day there are new things being inferred. Not just new ways to track
us in the future, but new ways to understand data already obtained.
</p>
<p>
I'll say it this way to be most clear: There are no adults in the information society. There is no
one who can take their lifetime, or even their last 20 years, and tell you what the next 20 years
will feel like. Society has always changed from generation to generation, but it's happening faster
and faster, to the point that we are really all just children, bumbling our way through the implications
of the world that is being re-made before us. There are not a lot of adults with worked experience
in the information age they can share with their children, not really.
Not in the sense that there are adults who can help kids learn to cook dinner or play a piano or drive.
</p>
<p>
We are <i>all</i> children in the rapid-paced world of information that dominates today.
There are effectively <i>no</i> adults who have lived this life before and are
competent to prepare the next generation for that role.
The informational life that any previous generation lived
is a life that has already vanished by the time the next generation comes along.
</p>
<p>
The right to informational privacy should not expire as we grow up
because there's no sense in which we can usefully reach “informational maturity”
until we change the aspect of society in which we're willing to let technology far outpace wisdom,
with ethics left far behind, lost in the dust.
</p>
<p>
Given that we are all really just children in this information era,
adulthood not an easily attainable concept,
we <i>all</i> deserve the protections that we today afford only to those under age 13.
Our right to privacy should not suddenly expire.
</p>
<p>
Control at some point should pass from parent to child, but it should <i>not</i> just pass to the market.
We should demand to hold it ourselves for our entire lifetime.
</p>
<div style="margin-top: 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 10pt;">
<hr style="width: 150px;" />
<p>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.
</p>
</div>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-51288850370584073732021-02-20T15:19:00.001-05:002021-02-20T15:23:02.822-05:00Simple Political Competence
<p>
Media keeps calling it "leadership"—the thing that had been missing in 45's administration, that Biden restored.
But 45 was a leader of sorts.
His base was drawn to that.
What he lacked was the <b>competence</b> to manage the parts of government we rely on.
</p>
<p>
As a public, we lack <b>competence</b> too.
We interview prospective leaders but not on <i>how</i> policy will work.
Just please <i>sound</i> sure.
We'll vote promises, fear, hope.
That's why education must be in reach of <i>everyone</i>: so we ask harder questions <i>and</i> understand the answers.
Democracy cannot not survive an uneducated public.
</p>
<p>
Politics <i>must</i> care about science because policies must address what the world throws at us.
Science can't fully predict the future, but it can report the odds, letting us be more prepared.
To Ignore such a potential edge shows willful lack of <b>competence</b>.
</p>
<p>
Climate Change is here, gaining steam.
To oppose addressing it is willful denial and plain <b>incompetence</b>.
A partisan divide over simple, unavoidable truth makes no sense, but if the GOP wants to draw the line there, say it plainly:
They're the <b>Party of Incompetence</b>.
</p>
<p>
There is a lot of work to do ahead.
45 left things in shambles, some borne of evil profiteering intent, other parts of manifest incompetence of the highest order.
Even when dug out from that, we have big problems afoot.
We need <b>competent</b> solutions.
</p>
<p>
Let go of centrism, which says no matter the problem, modest solutions are enough, an <b>incompetent</b> claim.
Big problems may need big solutions.
</p>
<ul>
<li>Identify <b>compassionate</b> goals. <span style="color: #888888">(Or why bother?)</span></li>
<li><b>Fairly</b> express problems.</li>
<li>Offer <b>competent</b> solutions.</li>
<li>Only then, <b>lead</b>.</li>
</ul>
<p>
Recent shifts in diversity and inclusion are a good start at compassion and fairness.
Campaign funding reform is key, too. Properly representing We The People lays foundation to solve the right problems.
<b>Competently</b> describing and solving problems will do the rest.
</p>
<div style="float: right;
border: 1px solid black;
padding: 10pt;
margin: 10pt 0pt 10pt 20pt;
font-weight: bold;">
<div style="background-color: #ddddff">
<p style="text-align: center;">
<b>Democratic Values</b>
</p>
</div>
<p style="font-size: 16pt; color: green;">
✓ Compassion<br />
✓ Fairness<br />
✓ Competence<br />
✓ Leadership<br />
  <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #888888;">(democracy)</span>
</p>
</div>
<p>
The GOP fancies itself the party of values.
Dems have values, too, but have been <b>incompetent</b> at articulating them.
That <i>must</i> change.
</p>
<p>
Compassion. Fairness. Competence. Leadership.
</p>
<p>
Pick a simple set like I've offered here.
Repeat them <i>every single day</i> for 4 years.
</p>
<p>
The previous President had <i>very few</i> competencies, and terrible values.
There is not a lot to learn from him other than what not to do.
But he knew how to get a message out.
The messages he picked were terrible.
But repeating them daily clearly had an effect on many voters.
</p>
<p>
Democrats should learn from that—not the messages, but a way to deliver messages so they sink in.
Daily repetition is essential.
</p>
<p>
And did I mention repetition helps?
It's part of <b>competent</b> messaging.
</p>
<p>
Bill Clinton's campaign was famously designed around the mantra "It's the economy, stupid."
I would almost suggest the phrase "It's the <b>competence</b>, stupid." but calling each other stupid won't get us far.
</p>
<p>
Also, <b>competence</b> isn't the whole of it, just something recently and conspicuously missing in the GOP.
Actually, all of these important qualities are lacking in the GOP, <i>except</i> leadership.
</p>
<div style="float: right;
border: 1px solid black;
padding: 10pt;
margin: 10pt 0pt 10pt 20pt;
font-weight: bold;">
<div style="background-color: #ffdddd">
<p style="text-align: center;">
<b>Republican Values</b>
</p>
</div>
<p style="font-size: 16pt;">
❌ <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Compassion</span><br />
❌ <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Fairness</span><br />
❌ <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Competence</span><br />
✓ Leadership<br />
  <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #888888;">(autocracy)</span>
</p>
</div>
<p>
The GOP <i>does</i> offer leadership, but of a pure authoritarian kind.
</p>
<ul>
<li>GOP policy lacks compassion.</li>
<li>GOP policy lacks fairness.</li>
<li>GOP policy lacks competence.</li>
</ul>
<p>
That's why articulating values in this way matters.
</p>
<ul>
<li>These are not words you can usefully attack.</li>
<li>These are not words you can easily forge.</li>
<li>These are words that most voters would say they care about.</li>
</ul>
<p>
Plus, in difficult times, well-articulated values can cut through political disagreements.
They serve as a compass to remind us of where we're going, why we're going there,
and why it matters to choose plans that really get us there.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px; margin-top: 25px;" align="left" />
<p><i>If you got value from this post, please “share” it.</i></p>
<p>This post began as <a href="https://twitter.com/KentPitman/status/1363078548689403906?s=20">a Twitter thread I posted on Feb 20, 2021</a>.</p>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-37070063394242116682020-07-04T20:33:00.001-04:002020-07-04T20:34:49.440-04:00Death by Smugness<p><b>Just Getting Started</b></p>
<p>
The numbers are going up. To round numbers it's now about
<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html">
2.5 million cases and 125,000 deaths</a>. So about 5%.
</p>
<p>
So one in twenty of us who get it are scheduled to die until we have an effective
vaccine or a cure. Meanwhile our job isn't just to avoid spreading something,
but to avoid spreading something we cannot see and don't know is there.
</p>
<p>
By nature, we prefer to react to visible threats.
As a species we invented science as
<a href="http://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2020/03/humanitys-superpower_28.html">
a kind of superpower</a> to help us with invisible threats,
to let us see ahead to coming things that might matter but are beyond our senses.
But as individual members of our species, we struggle with accepting the things
science tells us.
</p>
<p>
2.5 million infected. It sounds like a lot. But given how easily transmitted this
virus is, and given the sense of extreme urgency to “return to normal”
we see played out on the news every day. It could soon enough be 250 million infected
and 12 million dead. So with 5% of 2.5 million dying, we may just be getting started.
</p>
<p><b>Invisibility Plays Tricks on Us</b></p>
<p>
The difficulty of fighting something invisible is that you don't know if you are
fighting it. You might be. You <i>must</i> convince yourself to behave as if every
encounter mattered. Just in case.
</p>
<p>
And yet the paradox is that you become adept at thinking, "I am good at this. I am
daily fighting this thing, and winning. I am an expert." It's a natural feeling.
But deadly wrong.
</p>
<p>
The truth is that every experience <i>might</i> matter. Things we do or things
we have previously done <i>might</i> have saved our lives. But then again, maybe not.
With an invisible threat, we have no proof that anything we have done is working.
The virus might simply not have reached us yet. It might be we haven't yet faced it.
</p>
<p>
It's tedious to keep taking precautions.
But, unlike us, the virus is not bored with how things are going.
It's patiently looking for a way in.
We mustn't give it that opening.
</p>
<p><b>The Avoidable Danger</b></p>
<p>
Yes, some people are being stupid, and that will cost. Maybe they will get sick
or die. Maybe nothing will happen directly to them but they will pass things on
to others. There is probably nothing we can do to keep people who are bent on
doing stupid things from actually doing them. It's not a perfect world.
</p>
<p>
But some of us are trying to do the right thing, and even we can get tricked
because invisibility is hard to reason about. <i>That</i> is the danger I see.
That is the <i>avoidable</i> danger. We have to make sure we're thinking right.
</p>
<p>
We've been doing this awhile now, and our urge is to declare ourselves experts.
We think we've seen it. We think we're good at it. We think we can streamline it.
A few people go back to work, and no one has died, so we figure we're doing it right
and maybe a few more can come back. That's faulty reasoning.
</p>
<p>
We can take a test, but as soon
we're out of the room where we took it, we're contacting things again. We do not
go through the day with an aura of testedness protecting us. We can contract the
virus on the doorknob as we leave the testing room.
</p>
<p>
The one thing we know, as there are more cases, is that there will be more chances
to find out that what we are doing is insufficient. But we do not know if we are
being daily stressed and our defenses are good, or if we're just lucky our neighbors have
been careful, and so the virus hasn't reached us at all.
</p>
<p><b>A Deadly, Paradoxical Conclusion</b></p>
<p>
With more and more virus out there, we're tempted to conclude we are surviving more and
more onslaught. But we cannot know. For now there is only one thing to do: <i>Be relentlessly
safe.</i>
</p>
<p>
No, let me put that in even stronger terms. Be <i>more</i> safe. Don't think yourself practiced. Think of yourself as still new,
still learning, still all too able to make mistakes if you fail to pay attention.
Rather than try to streamline what you're doing, find ways to bolster your protections, because what you're doing so far may not be enough
as numbers rise and the invisible enemy is ever more likely to be really making contact.
</p>
<p>
Some of the risk can't be avoided.
The existence of people too lazy or indifferent to care may be an inevitability.
But getting too smug about that can kill us, too.
We need to all stay humble in the face of this,
so we don't fail to address the issues that <i>are</i> within our control
simply for not having taken the time to look for them.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px; margin-top: 25px;" align="left" />
<p><i>If you got value from this post, please “share” it.</i></p>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-28850238455981462622020-04-19T11:44:00.000-04:002020-04-19T11:44:06.399-04:00The Two Economies<div style="font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
<img alt="[1920 photo by Lewis Hine titled Power house mechanic working on steam pump.]" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvvi1DH3P_70KH0wWJKB-Q-rRJdhW298VRSJ2P2AAj0ujNdGrBQ6NbaSXoajwYVMkZ1fXRU01LdsfumaxDoMVVPao9QQjck-6bfsYobSZq14W4qo8YiApBBrV0HuDe5hasn3a-JknX3TE/s1600/Lewis_Hine_Power_house_mechanic_working_on_steam_pump%2528175x244%2529.png"
style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; " />
<div style="font-size: 16pt;">
<p>
Some are in a rush to<br /><b>
 “reopen the economy.”</b>
</p>
<p>
<span style="color: #903">
<b><i><span style="float: left; font-size: 70px;
line-height: 50px;
padding-top: 4px;
padding-right: 8px;
padding-left: 3px;">T</span>he</i></b> economy.</span>
<br />
As if there were only one.
</p>
<p>
But there are <span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">two economies</span>:
</p>
<ul>
<li>the <b>Essential Economy,</b> and</li>
<li>the <b>Luxury Economy.</b></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div style="font-size: 14pt;">
<p>
Yes, the Luxury Economy <i>is</i> paused.<br />
And yes, it <i>is</i> losing money.
</p>
<p style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">
But the Essential Economy is still operating.
</p>
<p>
And what a lucky, lovely, life-sustaining thing that is.
</p>
</div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt;">
<p>
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">Ordinary people</span>—those who work in fields
to plant or harvest crops,
who drive trucks,
who stock shelves or
operate cash registers in grocery stores,
who keep our lights on,
who patrol our streets,
who fight fires,
who drive ambulances,
who operate food kitchens,
who are doctors and nurses in hospitals and clinics
and nursing homes—<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">ordinary people are,
each and every one,
nothing short of heroes.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">
Heroism <i>pervades</i> the essential economy,</span> where amazing souls
<i>risk and regularly lose their lives</i>
just to keep our essential services working.
</p>
<p><span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">
We haven’t closed <i>that</i> economy.</span>
<br />
So there is no need to speak of reopening it.
</p>
<p>
Of course, there <i>are</i> people suffering in the Luxury Economy. A great many.
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">Not everyone who works for the luxury economy lives in luxury,</span>
so please don’t misunderstand.
</p>
<p>
But if the Essential Economy creates enough food, housing, health care, etc. to sustain us,
then the rest of it is just a dance we do because we are not making our nation more fed, more housed, etc.
</p>
<p>
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">If we’re not part of the Essential Economy, we’re the entertainment,</span> amusing them and perhaps ourselves, while we wait for a handout.
They’re creating all of the <i>essential</i> value. At best, we’re left to creating “optional additional value,” but by definition nothing we can’t do without,
or we’d still be doing it.
</p>
<p>
So we’re operating at a surplus, not a deficit, and the reason we know that is that the essentials are being met
even without our whole population working.
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">We’re just bad at dividing up our collective surplus.</span>
</p>
<p>
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">The things society <i>needs</i> to do it is <i>still doing</i>,</span>
to the extent we ever were. We’ve always been far from perfect at that, but that’s topic for another day. Right now my point is
that the Essential Economy <i>isn’t</i> shut down, only the Luxury Economy is.
</p>
<p>
And so, you see, to speak of “need” to reopen <b style="font-size: 13pt;">“The” Economy</b> is a slap in the face to the contributions and, frankly,
to the sacrifices made by these heroes.
</p>
<p>
<b>Let’s be blunt:</b> <span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">The whining is about
when we luxuriate anew,
when profit-taking can resume,
when we can start polluting again,
when businesses can get back to exploiting within impunity.</span>
</p>
<p>
These things we so urgently need to get back to are not <i>needs.</i>
These are just things that some among us are used to doing because
money makes them feel important.
</p>
<p>
But these activities are not what is important—if they are even good for us at all.
</p>
<p>
<i>We</i> in the Luxury Economy are likewise not what is important.
</p>
<p>
We matter as individuals. I don’t meant to suggest we’re expendable.
But what qualifies as hardship and what is mere inconvenience is something we owe scrutiny.
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">There are some in the Luxury Economy sitting comfortably on accumulated wealth
as others are panicked, barely getting by, worried about keeping a roof over their head or where their next meal will come from.</span>
But that isn’t a collective wealth problem, that’s a problem with how we distribute surplus.
</p>
<p>
Also, many of the people sustaining themselves on amassed wealth think of themselves as virtuous, that they did the right
things, that they are deserving of their comfort now. But we see now more clearly that <span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">if they earned all that wealth in the
Luxury Economy, they’ve provided none of the value that is now sustaining them.</span> They’re just lucky
they are now sustained.
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">They are asking for handouts right now,
just like the rest of us.</span> They differ only in being more smug,
in their sense of entitlement to those handouts they need as much as anyone.
</p>
<p>
We often run on autopilot, indulging the presumption that things are as they are for good reason.
But based on an unscientific survey of my friends,
most of whom are on the prowl for yet another Netflix series to binge,
my guess is that
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">we have time on our hands, time that could be spent contemplating
whether we should ge back to familiar routines or get busy finding new ones.</span>
</p>
<p>
<b>And so, just to sum up…</b>
</p>
<p>
The fact that many of us have jobs that do not contribute to essentials is proof of our collective wealth.
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">When we need food we go to work—but not to make food,</span> because there is enough, even if badly distributed and poorly shared. No, when we need food, <span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">we go to work just to make money, a dance we do to feel worthy</span> of surplus food and essentials
made by a few.
</p>
<p>
We who do not create the true value, the essentials that are largely and miraculously and heroically still available
even now <span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">should be thankful supply lines are moving and should be asking how we can help <i>that,</i></span>
how we can assure they are properly paid for arduous, dangerous, and relentless work,
how we can make sure their families are taken care of while they do this, and
how we can make sure their health care is assured,
<span style="color: #903; font-weight: bold;">not whining about when we can resume pointlessness again.</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-top: 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 10pt;">
<hr style="width: 150px;" />
<p>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.
</p>
</div>
<div style="margin-top: 30px; text-align: left; font-size: 10pt;">
<p>
If you haven’t read my essay <a href="https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2012/05/corny-economics.html">Corny Economics</a>,
you might want to head there next. This post was intended as a sequel, but I tried to write this on the assumption that
you might read them in either order.
Otherwise, I might have here used the parlance of <a href="https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2012/05/corny-economics.html">Corny Economics</a>,
replacing “Essential Economy” with “Corn Economy” and “Luxury Economy” with “Harmonica Economy”.
</p>
<p>
The 1920 photo by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hine">Lewis Hine</a> titled <i>Power house mechanic working on steam pump</i>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Featured_Pictures_in_the_Public_Domain#/media/File:Lewis_Hine_Power_house_mechanic_working_on_steam_pump.jpg">was obtained
from Wikimedia, which identifies it as being in the public domain</a>.
</p>
<p>
The “drop caps” effect I used is a modified version of the helpful advice from
<a href="https://css-tricks.com/author/chriscoyier/">Chris Coyier</a>’s article <a href="https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/drop-caps/">Drop Caps</a> at <a href="https://css-tricks.com/">css-tricks.com</a>, which I found in a Google search. He suggests it’ll work across multiple browsers, and it looked to me like it should. I used it in a <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_span.asp">span</a> tag, since my use was a one-off and I didn’t want to fuss with style sheets. And I liked
the color enough that it influenced some of the other design, and that in turn led me to the idea of working the entire piece in vary sizes and colors, so I evolved the article from there.
I had been looking for a visual way to make some of the points clearer and this was one of several things that catalyzed the final result.
</p>
<p>
I find I often write text to fit visually, I don’t just mark things up after-the-fact. I change the lengths of sentences so that in plausible line-breaking on various browser settings, I expect it to look good. In cases where I am looking for a particular break, I experiment with reshaping windows and watch for <a href="https://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-2/text-typography/rags-widows-orphans">widowing</a> and often just replace spaces with non-breaking spaces (<tt>&nbsp;</tt>) so that if a line break occurs, it has substance and semantic units fall, perhaps more raggedly, in meaningful units.
</p>
</div>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-59580319363948041482020-03-28T13:41:00.001-04:002020-03-28T14:44:28.832-04:00Humanity's Superpower
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJs0IlCTUu40Lkl6SKDnky22B4lxX57L0uACVwJmCFIGeY66dmJpSwjzRc7hwYILsdvxBrPC2bUYmfsvXVv_vrN9rbOugzGzgmYtc_X9d6tTEVN6JxExu8_Te6P25qlZFtlEoGEj34c2o/s1600/273px-Simplified_scheme_of_Millikan%2525u2019s_experiment_replica.svg.png"
alt="[Image of simplified scheme of Millikan's experiment.]" style="height: 167; width: 273; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px;" />
<!--
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJs0IlCTUu40Lkl6SKDnky22B4lxX57L0uACVwJmCFIGeY66dmJpSwjzRc7hwYILsdvxBrPC2bUYmfsvXVv_vrN9rbOugzGzgmYtc_X9d6tTEVN6JxExu8_Te6P25qlZFtlEoGEj34c2o/s1600/273px-Simplified_scheme_of_Millikan%2525u2019s_experiment_replica.svg.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJs0IlCTUu40Lkl6SKDnky22B4lxX57L0uACVwJmCFIGeY66dmJpSwjzRc7hwYILsdvxBrPC2bUYmfsvXVv_vrN9rbOugzGzgmYtc_X9d6tTEVN6JxExu8_Te6P25qlZFtlEoGEj34c2o/s1600/273px-Simplified_scheme_of_Millikan%2525u2019s_experiment_replica.svg.png" data-original-width="273" data-original-height="167" /></a> -->
<p style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">
Science is a superpower.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
Science is an ability to see things our eyes do not yet show us, things that if we wait to see them, we'll find it's too late to react to.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">
Science is a superpower.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
Science lets us see long distances. It lets us see inside things.
It lets us see, prepare for, and avoid coming disasters.
It gives us an edge in the quest for survival.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">
Science is a superpower.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
Science is why we can predict hurricanes and not just be surprised and blown to bits by them in the moment they happen.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
Science is why were able to land humans on the moon and return them safely to Earth <i>on the first try</i>.
We had seen past our optimism to the many ways we could fail, and planned to avoid them.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
Science is the superpower that told us decades ago that the climate would be changing, that we needed to prepare.
It lets us see that the polar bear plight isn't just sad for
a bunch of majestic but distant animals, but a way to metaphorically visualize a world made unlivable by changing climate
if we continue to ignore that amazing power, learning the lesson too late.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
Science is the superpower that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang">allowed Li Wenliang to see and understand the threat of Covide-19</a>
long before the virus had spread.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">
Science is a superpower.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
Science is a superpower that stands as a rock against rationalization and politics,
that acts as a beacon to guide us through swirling fogs of wishful thinking and denialism.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
Science helps us to recognize and manage a great many dangers without resorting to <a href="https://mashable.com/2015/05/20/stupid-human-tricks-david-letterman/">stupid human tricks</a>. It gives us the tools to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters">bust myths safely</a>.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">
Science is a superpower.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
Without Science, our first encounter with a dangerous force is likely to be our last.
Science offers super-vision, the ability to see beyond what is merely available to our eyes.
But <i>only</i> if we opt to use that power.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 40px;">
If we super-stupidly elect to close our eyes to Science, rendering ourselves super-blind, we're just asking to find ourselves super-dead.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px;" align="left" />
<b>Author's Notes:</b>
</p>
<p>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.
</p>
<p>
The public domain image used here was obtained from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Simplified_scheme_of_Millikan%E2%80%99s_experiment_replica.svg">Wikimedia</a> and was donated to them by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mpfiz">Wikimedia user Mpfiz</a>,
whose contribution is gratefully acknowledged.
</p> netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-23843101339838106892020-03-11T02:08:00.000-04:002020-03-11T02:08:39.066-04:00Healing the Democratic Party<p>
To heal the Democratic party, Biden <i>must</i> admit that if he prevails, it has come at cost of obliterating the hope many of us had for absolutely essential policies he has now dissed as extreme. He should assign people to study what got lost and to school him enough to appreciate 21st century needs.
</p>
<p>
Move left, not right, in other words.
That's where the healing lies.
</p>
<p>
Otherwise, if elected without such expressed admissions, his desire to have been right will lead him to overly trust the positions he previously articulated as compass north. Cognitive dissonance will cause him to actively fight moving in the direction we <i>must</i> go for society to survive.
</p>
<p>
He needs to admit he doesn't have broad mandate behind his platform, he just has a scared populace who'll vote for the best ham sandwich running against Trump. We didn't suddenly see his light. We just seem to get no other choice.
</p>
<p>
To lead us, he must become us, not ask we become him.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, Climate respects only physics, not political compromise.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, too many will still endure the deadly gamble that is for-profit health insurance.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, students drown in the quicksand of student loans, and we are all poorer, but the banks.
</p>
<hr style="margin-top: 35px; width: 100px;" align="left" />
<b>Author's Notes:</b>
</p>
<p>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.
</p>
<p>
This post began as a couple of tweet threads you can find <a href="https://twitter.com/KentPitman/status/1237590364787068930">here</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/KentPitman/status/1235752368173731842">here</a>.
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-38800693462927381352020-03-07T09:02:00.000-05:002020-03-25T10:17:28.984-04:00Our Primary National Values<p>
Biden and Sanders have been debating matters like Social Security.
Can we afford it? Biden acts indignant that Bernie would suggest he's a threat to Social Security,
yet <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/01/25/joe-biden-social-security/">Biden's record is plain</a>, as well-summarized by <a href="https://twitter.com/ryangrim">Ryan Grim at <i>The Intercept</i></a> in <a href="https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1220819709198766080">this tweet</a>:
</p>
<div style="float:right; width:260px; margin-left: 10px;">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Biden blatantly lied about Social Security at Iowa's Black & Brown Forum this week:<br><br>Q: "Do you think it's fair though for voters to question your commitment to Social Security when in the past you've proposed a freeze to it?"<br><br>Biden: "No, I didn't propose a freeze."<br><br>"You did." <a href="https://t.co/DBzauK2n53">pic.twitter.com/DBzauK2n53</a></p>— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) <a href="https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1220819709198766080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p><b>The Truthiness About Biden</b></p>
<p>
Nor does Biden explain how and why his opinion has changed.
In a worrisome pattern he seems to share with Trump,
he simply denies he ever had an opinion that is clearly documented.
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.cc.com/video-clips/63ite2/the-colbert-report-the-word---truthiness">
Stephen Colbert called this “truthiness”</a>—an assertion of “facts” that come not from books or the head, but from the gut.
</p>
<p> “Alternative facts,” <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellyanne_Conway">Kellyanne Conway</a>, counselor to President Trump, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/conway-press-secretary-gave-alternative-facts-860142147643">calls such affronts to reality</a>.
</p>
<p>
Biden would have us see Bernie's views as extreme, radical, dangerous to consider.
He offers himself as the safe choice.
The message from the centrists is that Bernie's notions will bankrupt us.
The truth is, many of us are going bankrupt just fine on our own.
We need the government to pull the reins on corporate greed,
but Biden can't even admit this is where the problem lies.
</p>
<p>
It's clear that the recent tax cuts for billionaires are part of
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast">an organized “starve the beast” strategy</a>
by the GOP. Such a strategy works in two steps: first take all the money out of the system into rich people's pockets,
then declare that the government is short of money and that social programs must be cut.
They've done step one. Now we're back in the same situation as happened the last time Biden championed cuts.
</p>
<p>
Has something changed? Because it looks to me like Biden has positioned himself as the realist, the compromiser,
the one willing to pull a Susan Collins, hemming and hawing for the cameras so it looks like an oh-so-difficult choice,
but ultimately “surprising” us by deciding that we need to be fiscally responsible and endure our
middle-class medicine rather than ask too much
of billionaires.
</p>
<p>
Because that's the picture he seems to be painting when he accuses Bernie, directly or through his advocates, of being
too extreme, too radical, too untrustworthy, too … socialist.
</p>
<p>
Biden wants us to trust him, but trust him how? Why?
The only one he seems to point fingers at is Bernie. And why? Because Bernie is willing to point fingers at who he
thinks is the <i>actual</i> source of the problem.
</p>
<p>
Bernie is willing to say what is obviously true, that we don't need billionaires.
</p>
<p><b>Assigning Value</b></p>
<p>
Biden wants Bernie to be seen as obviously extreme.
But is he?
</p>
<p>
We just had a candidate in the race that had half a billion dollars of literal pocket change. He will probably be as rich or richer at the end of the year as he was at the beginning of the race.
</p>
<p>
Moreover, Elizabeth Warren in a few simple sentences so destroyed this man's character that all that wealth could not overcome it, ending his run—clear proof that wealth does not measure virtue. Even given the strong tendency people seem to have to follow successful others, which is what seems to have gotten Trump elected, there are limits. As <a href="https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior">Sarah Kendzior</a> so aptly says:
</p>
<table style="width: 540px;"><tr style="width: 540px;"><td style="width: 540px; border-top: 2px solid black; border-bottom: 2px solid black; border-radius: 1px; padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;">
<div style="">
<p style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 16pt; margin-bottom: 0px;">
“When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatise those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.”
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 5px;">   —Sarah Kendzior, in a 2013 essay <a href="https://sarahkendzior.com/2013/10/05/poverty-is-not-a-character-flaw/"><i>Poverty is not a character flaw</i></a>
</p>
</div></td></tr></table>
<p>
All to say I don't think there is clearer proof that somewhere in our nation there is enough wealth to enable people to age with dignity: enabling them to be useful advisors and contributors to our society for more years, unlocking a lot of wealth and happiness. They can advise friends, family, and the community in personal and business matters. They can take care of grandkids. They can just not be a burden to younger people who are struggling themselves and might have to take time off for work.
</p>
<p>
Or we can say that it's more important, as a nation, to have a few Michael Bloombergs. My saying “a few” isn't casual. We cannot all be Michael Bloombergs. Of necessity, mega-wealth accumulates only in the hands of a few. The math only works that way. We're all taught we might one day be rich without bounds, but we should be taught that at some point increased wealth comes at the expense of others, and generally in a way that is disproportionate with actual value contributed to society. Whatever Bloomberg's positive contribution, he has not contributed <i>that much</i> more than other people.
</p>
<p>
Even if you think all his actions good, and that's up for debate, a lot of those actions are things any person with that money would have done, and are rightly attributed to the money, not the people. And many have done great goods for no reward. So while money is a crude metric of some amount of good people have done, we need to learn that it is not a precise measure and that we are not valueless nor these people with tons of money gods.
</p>
<p>
And that is what's being debated. Not just "social security" as words, but the values behind it. Our country generates wealth. We have allowed that wealth to flow to a few people, disproportionately. Our government is not a business. It is a group of our us that get together charged with administering a fair set of rules that allow everyone to succeed. The set of rules we have are out of balance, like a clothes dryer with the balance off. The term "wealth redistribution" is tossed around as if it's a bad thing, but it's like with the dryer, it will eventually stop if something is not done to get things back into harmony.
</p>
<p>
Social security is fair and humane, but it is also an assertion that in our quest to incentivize things as a rush for money, we have limits on how much one person may take from another. There is incentive enough in seeking millions, even many millions. There is little one can do with billions but buy governments or otherwise subvert the democratic will of the public.
</p>
<p>
That's what we're debating. Tax the rich to bring things back into harmony, or yield public control of resources on a bogus theory that over time we've realized we the public are nothing and only Bloomberg and his ilk have any entitlement to wealth for their amazing contributions.
</p>
<p>
Push is coming to shove. Billionaires are an active threat to the middle class.
The GOP is actively teeing up exactly that conflict, daring Democrats to take that on.
Bernie is up to it. That Biden paints Bernie as extreme suggests he's not.
</p>
<p>
Biden just isn't up to challenging billionaires' entitlement to the disproportionate wealth they have amassed.
But without doing so, we'll run short of funds. At that point,
we should fully well expect him to make the same choices
he denies having made in the past.
</p>
<p>
So you perhaps understand why I've said I do not celebrate this “anyone but Trump” thing as a victory.
I wanted Warren, but at this point, go Bernie!
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px;" align="left" />
<b>Author's Notes:</b>
</p>
<p>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.
</p>
<p>
The essay which became this post started as <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/washingtonpost/comments/fecy85/sanders_and_biden_spar_over_social_security_as/fjna6er/">a post by me earlier today at reddit</a>.
</p>
<p>
I also very much recommend Sarah Kendzior's book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/View-Flyover-Country-Dispatches-Forgotten/dp/1250189993"><i>The View from Flyover Country</i></a>.netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-52868952858668828812019-11-07T11:34:00.000-05:002019-12-22T15:12:51.542-05:00Congressional Pardons<p>
Perhaps Congress should allocate itself the power to both grant pardons and/or to review&veto Presidential pardons.
</p>
<img id="cid_35446" style="margin-bottom: 10px; float: left; margin-right: 15px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlAG2DJXpstLQ46-HTvYiItlW3JemydALXiGDQy5eBtZ2kCrBccP3EKCYaOS5y9v6xccwI1AJ3Tq8MLD6O7ga8i9EUM5t4cTUvCU4CHAtTVGm1K2VcoImvlGxfeE10i3U99EtF7tVUXIQ/s320/pd-scales-of-justice-framed-160x1601225248346.gif" alt="[Picture of scales]" width="160">
<p>
I see it as a misdesign that the President has an exclusive, unchecked power to pardon,
and without a corresponding power held by the people.
In a Democracy, an unstated meta-rule is that a consensus of the people through its representatives in Congress, its consensus body, should always dominate decisions by the Executive.
</p>
<p>
The Executive is just one person, and subject to whim. As I see it, we grant them power not because we think it safer to put all that
power in one place, but because we fear Congress might not achieve consensus fast enough or at all in some cases,
and we might find ourselves crippled and unable to react fast enough for everything that comes up in the world.
However, in any matter of disagreement between Congress and the Executive,
if Congress <i>does</i> muster consensus,
it seems to me that's generally preferable as a statement of what We The People should want.
</p>
<p>
A “review and veto” power would be useful as a check <i>just in case</i> there was ever a lawless President promising collaborating criminals a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Out_of_Jail_Free_card">Get Out of Jail Free card</a>.
Whether or not one agrees that Congress should <i>always</i> win every contest of wills with the President,
it's clear that the unchecked power to pardon fellow criminals <i>must</i> be reconsidered in at least some way.
<p>
<p>
As for issuing pardons directly, I'd not expect Congress to issue a lot of them itself because each would require a lot of politicians to agree about a single individual, and usually it would not seem worth the risk.
But in the case of malicious prosecution by the DOJ, consensus of We The People should ‘trump’ executive power.
</p>
<p>
It might also have occasional value in other situations. For example, if Congress decides that marijuana possession,
use, or even sale should not be criminalized after all, perhaps regretting that it ever was,
then along with a change in the law, it could order blanket pardons of those convicted under prior law,
rather than waiting for the Executive or the courts to sort that out,
and assuring a more uniform application of new social understanding.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px;" align="left" />
<b>Author's Notes:</b>
</p>
<p>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.</p>
<p>
<p>
The essay which became this post started as <a href="https://twitter.com/KentPitman/status/1192461826749014017">a tweet thread by me earlier today</a>.
</p>
<p>
Our much-touted <a href="https://bensguide.gpo.gov/j-check-balance">checks and balances</a> have proven
slow and ineffective at fending off attacks on the Constitution and our system of Democracy.
We need to find ways to strengthen the power of the people against tyranny.
That begins with discussions like these.
</p>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-44603692698131514512019-11-03T13:51:00.000-05:002019-11-03T23:00:08.666-05:00Process Due<p>Seth Abramson wrote in a tweet,
“Our descendants won't distinguish between pro- and anti-Trump, they'll just say, ‘What were those idiots thinking?’ “
</p>
<div style="float: right; width: 50%; margin-left: 5px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I feel embarrassed knowing how easily future historians will mark Trump as a criminal<br><br>He's making generations of Americans look like morons in the eyes of history<br><br>Our descendants won't distinguish between pro- and anti-Trump, they'll just say, "What were those idiots thinking?"</p>— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) <a href="https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1190818253125378048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 3, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Folks outside the US no doubt ask it now.
</p>
<p>
It's a fair question, but maybe the wrong one.
</p>
<p>
Constitutional government needs clear process as safeguard against idiocy.
We just can't rely on intelligence to be there, nor idiocy not to be, in every moment of every day.
That's too much to ask.
</p>
<p>
I don't mean to let us off the hook.
We must introspect on how we got here.
To assure intelligence is reliably present and available, it must be encoded in our processes,
not left as an exercise to the individuals trying to interpret those processes.
</p>
<p><b>Size is Relative</b></p>
<p>
Toward that end, we too seldom question the oft-repeated myth that “minimum government is best government,” fed us by those who want government kept malleable.
</p>
<p>
Too big government isn't good.<br />
But too small isn't either.
</p>
<p>
I have lately tended toward the belief that government must grow in proportion to propensity for abuse, not even just in reaction to abuse, but even proactively, anticipating the likely and covering reasonably anticipated cases that follow from trends.
<p>
<p>
Libertarians grump whenever government grows, but public response needs to be “If you exploited the common good less, we wouldn't have to complicate this so.”
<p>
<p>
The asymmetry is that we're stuck in an arms race where conservatives want to escalate their hold over society, and they use Jedi mind tricks to make progressives feel bad about responding.
</p>
<p>
If they want government to stay small, they should “play nice.”
</p>
<p>
Our Constitution needs repair, more process & process detail, if we're not to leave procedural action to the chance of idiocy or partisanship.
</p>
<p>We need such additional detail to assure a nervous public in times of stress that processes being applied were not developed in the moment to serve Machiavellian ends, but are our normal way of attending to all problems, no matter who creates them and no matter who administers them.
</p>
<p><b>Who Could Have Known?</b></p>
<p>
“What were we thinking?” you ask, you who look on from afar, from across the ocean or from the far future.
</p>
<p>
Well, “what are <i>you</i> thinking?” Your are us on other days.
Don't assume your greater intelligence will carry the day. Ask instead, “does process protect me?”
Because unless your answer is a very certain yes, you should be as panicked as we are now,
and you should be readying for your time to face this same event.
</p>
<p>
We look back at you and feebly shrug, “Who could have known?”
It's a lame excuse, but somewhat true. This problem is new to us. Some saw it in advance, but many didn't.
And so, collectively, because we act as a collective entity, we did not see this.
And now, mired in it, we lack clear and strong process to get us quickly or reliably out.
</p>
<p>
But for you looking on, you all see it. Do not make the error of thinking this a uniquely US problem, of thinking yourselves immune.
Don't expect “Who could have known?” to defend your honor when your time comes.
Act now to buttress your respective constitutions for what's surely to come for you as well.
</p>
<p>
Trump-wannabes the world over are taking notes.
</p>
<p><b>The Death of Shame</b></p>
<p>
What gives Trump his power isn't just utter GOP corruption and Dem lack of spine.
</p>
<p>
It's that there are "norms of behavior" we have asked but not required by codifying them in Constitution or law.
</p>
<p>
We must fix that. The Constitution needs to grow.
</p>
<p>
The question isn't whether additional rules are needed, only whether we'll have the spine to insist on such necessary change, lest we endure a recurrence for having failed to.
</p>
<p>
We've relied on social mechanisms like decorum and shame in lieu of rules.
But Trump is shameless. His political power comes of seeing decorum isn't a compulsion for him to conform.
He sees an ignorable nicety, and his goal is never to be nice. He sees nicety as weakness.
</p>
<p>
If we get out of this, still an open question, we must add more rules.
</p>
<p>
Conservatives will cry "bloat". But too bad. Blame yourselves, GOP. You've earned every bit of clarifying legal text that comes in response.
</p>
<p><b>Some Examples</b></p>
<p>
<p>
We need process that does not reduce us to arguing whether major felonies are reason for impeachment.
We might not enumerate a full list of reasons to impeach, but we should enumerate <i>some</i>,
just so we don't waste months debating at least those.
</p>
<p>
The Constitution intends discretion about allowing <i>more</i> than just felonies, but that discretion
should extend in the other direction, allowing discretion about <i>ignoring</i> felonies. It should say flat out
that if there are felonies afoot, or there is even just strong reason to suspect it, impeachment must begin.
It should say that if impeachment succeeds in the House, the Senate must engage it in the Senate under rules that are
fair to both parties to offer substantive discussion without it being procedurally buried.
</p>
<p>
Even the question of burden of proof needs to be better spelled out. If a President is seen to act in a way that is
adverse to US interests, but we
can't prove intent, that might be sufficient to avoid a criminal conviction, but do we want such a person in office?
We have to either have the <i>clear</i> right to try a sitting President or an easy path to removing the President so they
can stand trial. We should not be forced to endure a criminal President simply for lack of some technical detail.
Presidency isn't a right, it is a privilege and a responsibility.
</p>
<p>
Benefit of any doubt in the reliability and good will of
our President needs to be given to We The People, not a dubious President.
</p>
<p><b>Going Forward</b></p>
<p>
I speak as if we might get out of this. That's overly optimistic. We won't.
</p>
<p>
Maybe—<i>hopefully</i>—Trump will be impeached. But even so, he's shown where Democracy is weak, opening a Pandora's box unlikely to be closed.
</p>
<p>
Such attacks <i>will</i> recur, and not just in the US.
We won't get out of <i>that</i>. We can only prepare. Please let's do that.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px;" align="left" />
<p>
<b>Author's Note:</b>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.</p>
<p>
This article began as <a href="https://twitter.com/KentPitman/status/1190937285216346112">a tweet thread of my own</a>
in response to Abramson's tweet quoted above.
I've done some editing, rearranging, and expanding here.
</p>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-24557986125001960092019-10-17T13:56:00.000-04:002019-10-17T13:56:23.836-04:00Gratitude and Life's Poetry<p>
Once born, people push on the world and it pushes back. We are not born expecting a specific number of arms or fingers. If born with an extra, we use it and see what it does. We touch, feel, smile, recoil. But it's a dialog of sorts with the world. What we are and become is a product of this give and take that predates speech, which itself is also arranged in dialog of speaking and hearing, and tying meaning to how our interactions proceed.
</p>
<p>
Gratitude is part of a more abstract dialog that follows once we have the mechanics down. People, and later society or its pieces, do things for us, and we do things in return. Sometimes the thing we do in return is an act, sometimes a promise, sometimes an acknowledgment of gratitude. But gratitude seems one of the words in the abstract vocabulary of social participation. We encourage it because it helps us learn and sustain our place in society. When there is no specific act to return, its use preserves the meter of the verse that ebb and flow that is polite society's ever-being-written poem. Omitted, the rhythm is off.
</p>
<p><b>An Odd Example</b></p>
<p>
I sometimes ponder the peculiar ritual where I am going through a door and I see you behind me. You're too far back to take it, yet I hold the door. You must run to grab it. It's a pain for me to hold it, and a hassle for you to run ahead. It serves no one in an obvious way, yet we all do it with some regularity, and mostly we all tolerate it as if it were a favor. Why should that be?
</p>
<p>
Maybe empathy for having lived the reverse.
</p>
<p>
But also I think it's because the ritual of it in a society of strangers reinforces to someone you don't know that you are not alone in chaos, but among friendly people who agree on--if nothing else--some social conventions. You knew nothing of me, I nothing of you, yet now you know that I'm no beast but someone who would, if called upon, behave by shared rules of social behavior. And I know of you and your gratitude for this pointless act that you likewise subscribe to these unwritten rules, that you will go out of your way for strangers. So we part friends, a little less alone in the chaos of the day. It seems like nothing exchanged, but really the payload is subtle and abstract, that people and society matter, that we acknowledge each other's dignity.
<p>
<hr style="width: 150px;" align="left" />
<p>
<b>Author's Note:</b>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.</p>
<p>
<p>
The power is out today at my house after a big storm last night. That leaves me little to do, but I am taking an
online class at <a href="http://futurelearn.com/">FutureLearn</a> entitled <a href="https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/what-is-character">What Is Character? Virtue Ethics in Education</a>, and this essay is something I wrote in response to a discussion about the nature and purpose of Gratitude. I was happy with what I wrote and thought it worth sharing here. I would also recommend the course to anyone interested in ethics, and especially ethics in education. As I write this postscript, here in the dim light of the aforementioned power outage, the course has just started a couple days ago, so you could quickly catch up.
</p>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-30135448537386607592019-09-25T01:23:00.000-04:002019-09-26T03:35:28.135-04:00Impeachment Poetry<p><a style="text-decoration: underline; color: black;" href="https://twitter.com/Limericking/status/1176636606637326337">A tweet written in limerick</a> led me to <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: black;" href="https://twitter.com/KentPitman/status/1176669357411373056">respond in kind</a>:</p>
<p style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 22pt; font-style: italic; font-family: palatino,timesroman,times,serif;">
After laws broken daily for years,<br />
“Shocked, Shocked” are a Speaker and peers.<br />
Now they’ll risk reelection,<br />
raising one thin objection.<br />
“Too little, too late” are my fears.
</p>
<p>
Limerick is not my preferred format. I usually prefer haiku, or (as here) senryu. There's something calmer and more
elegant about it. So I also <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: black;" href="https://twitter.com/KentPitman/status/1176684341772070912">tweeted a senryu</a>, perhaps as apology for the limerick above:
</p>
<p style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 22pt; font-style: italic; font-family: palatino,timesroman,times,serif;">
Crimes mount by the day.<br />
Biden chides, “soon, it's too much.”<br />
What was it before?
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px;" align="left" />
<p>
<b>Author's Note:</b>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.</p>
<p>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-90783873125386216942019-09-22T07:13:00.000-04:002019-09-26T03:36:11.656-04:00Losing Ground in the Environment<div style="padding: 10px 2px 10px 2px; width: 240px; border-top: 2px solid black; border-bottom: 2px solid black;
margin: 0px 0px 10px 15px;
font-size: 14pt; line-height: 16pt; float: right; font-family: Times New Roman, Time Roman, Times, serif;">
<p style="margin: 0 0 5px 0; padding: 4px 0 10px 0; text-align: center;">
<img style="border: 0; height: 100px; width: 100px; margin: 0; padding: 0; box-shadow: none;"
alt="[Electrical Ground symbol]"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge9gAmzyYTUuSYpd7VwK6D6lppUBAr8wW5d52sUwUyC8FWcRAEz00dj_vGvcgimwzHXR6RL_xL1ToCBsz1q54NEb5MLtbBxDYhrLv3buH4vo2iZxBBDnCCbrVuKK0nwwkAHeSPN0rp80g/s1600/clipart1310127-yellow%2528200x200%2529.png"
data-original-width="200" data-original-height="200" /></p>
<p style="margin: 0; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 16pt; padding-left: 1.0em; text-indent: -0.3em; ">
“a ‘ground’ is usually idealized as an infinite source or sink for charge, which can absorb an unlimited amount of current without changing its potential”<br />
 —<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_(electricity)"> <i>Wikipedia</i><br />   <span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ground (electricity)</span></a>
</p>
</div>
<p>
There is a notion in electronic circuits of something called a “ground.” It takes its names from the ground we walk on,
and the idea is basically that the ground, really the Earth itself, is so <i>incredibly</i> big that it contains an infinite number
of electrons, the “stuff” of electricity. So if we ever need a source to draw electrons from, we can get them from the ground.
If we ever need to get rid of some electrons, we can just pump them back into the ground.
</p>
<p>
It's for this reason that we have a “ground” pin in our electrical outlets,
in hopes that rogue flows of electricity will make a beeline for the ground rather than flowing through our bodies.
Plenty of room for more electrons in the ground.
</p>
<p><b>What We Hold to Account</b></p>
<p>
Another way of thinking about “ground” is to say it's something we don't have to account for.
</p>
<p>
Consider, for example, a tool for keeping track of your finances.
Such programs keep track of several kinds of entities, but among them are typically things usually called something like an “income source” and an “expense category.”
</p>
<p>
An income source is as a place from which income arrives.
When you say your employer is the source of your income, that's really all you need to know. It's not really consequential where
the employer got the money. If you had to track such things, there would be no end to it. They might have gotten it from someone else.
But where did they get it? It goes on and on.
</p>
<p>
Expenses are the same way. You pick an expense category like food and you tell the program you spent $20 on food.
It doesn't really care what the food place did with the money. As far as it's concerned, you can spend as much as you want and that's
the end of it. All gone into who-knows-where.
</p>
<p>
The point of an income source in an accounting program is to be an infinite <i>source</i> of money, a ground.
The point of an expense category is to be an infinite <i>sink</i> of money, something to pour money down, again a ground.
</p>
<p>
We think of these as ways of accounting for stuff, but really they are ways of <i>not</i> accounting for things.
Out of sight, out of mind. That's what grounds are for. They are a way of notating the idea that beyond this point, we just don't care.
</p>
<div style="padding: 10px 2px 5px 2px; width: 280px; border-color: black; border-style: solid; border-width: 2px 0 2px 0;
font-size: 14pt; line-height: 16pt; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 15px; font-family: Times New Roman, Time Roman, Times, serif;">
<p style="margin: 0 0 0 0.3em; text-indent: -0.3em; padding: 4px; ">
“Europe was hitting up against nature's limits.
They'd overfished their rivers, felled their great forests,
and hunted their big game.
When European conquerors stumbled upon the so-called New World,
they thought they'd hit the jackpot.
They saw in the Americas a kind of supersized Europe
that would never run out of fish, trees, gold, fur, or any of that bounty.
…
The official story of our countries is a story of endless nature,
wilderness to be devoured without limits.”
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; text-align: right; margin-bottom: 0.5em;">
—<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naEXdBjZUwI"><i>Naomi Klein  </i></a>
</p>
<!--From 2:29 to 4:12, Duration 1:43,
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<iframe width="280" height="158" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/naEXdBjZUwI?start=149&end=252" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>
<p><b>Infinite Self-Deception</b></p>
<p>Naomi Klein's excellent and insightful video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naEXdBjZUwI">“What's In a (Trump) Straw?”</a>
makes the important observation that people have been used to thinking about the world as infinite, when really it is not.
In this case, it's not electrons we're talking about, however.
</p>
<p>
In her conceptualization, there is a kind of rough analog of income sources—the bounties we draw from the earth:
fish and game, trees, and so on.
And there is also an analog of expense categories—the various kinds of pollution we give Mother Earth in return:
sewage, plastics, and air pollution of various kinds.
</p>
<p>
Stuff we never previously had to account for, because we had a belief that the world was so infinitely large that it would
supply us with as much as we needed of whatever we wanted. And we deceived ourselves into believing it would gracefully accept in return
as much crap, both literally and figuratively, as we wanted to throw back at it in return.
</p>
<p><b>Shocking, But True</b></p>
<p>
The Earth is still big enough that we haven't used up its capacity to act as an electrical ground.
</p>
<p>
But it is <i>not</i> big enough that we can pretend there are infinite trees to cut down, infinite fish to catch, or
that there is infinite capacity to spill oil into the oceans or pump smoke from fossil fuels into the air.
</p>
<p style="margin: 0 0 5px 0; padding: 0 10px 10px 0; text-align: center; float: left;">
<img style="border: 0; height: 100px; width: 100px; margin: 10px 15px 10px 0; padding: 0; box-shadow: none;"
alt="[Electrical Ground symbol]"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ1qCNaw5LJ_skR09QzNotTT0ZWeC6dTFbBxc808os68zJ2cZwo8hVbsier65iWS6oWHoviBx4U2mhrsZbBsYrjm1BfHydHzEVZM0oFg4FjwJyHx6Oq2UKXcHmtQCQB_xv5f-4eogHXfI/s1600/clipart1310127-yellow%2528200x200%2529-no.png"
data-original-width="200" data-original-height="200" /></p>
<p>
As population has grown, we've reached our limits. We should have been paying better attention.
</p>
<p>
But at this point, the pleasant fiction offered by the “ground” metaphor, that there's some point in the world beyond which
we don't have to account for these things, that things can be thought to go into or come from the ground as if by magic,
is long past.
Nature is holding us to account.
</p>
<p>
We must start caring about population growth and resource use. We should have been doing that all along.
It's going to be a <i>big</i> change. It's not something we're used to doing.
But there is no alternative.
</p>
<p>
We keep making more people, but we aren't making more planet and we're using up the one we have. That's a bad recipe.
If we're going to survive, we need to get these things into balance.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px; margin-top: 25px;" align="left" />
<p><i>If you got value from this post, please “share” it.</i></p>
<p>If you're looking for further reading, I highly recommend <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P56CC82">Naomi Klein's new book, <i>On Fire</i></a>.</p>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-57522171078658195152019-09-21T03:55:00.000-04:002019-09-26T03:38:17.500-04:00Degrees of Climate Catastrophe<p>
What's the most civilization-destroying error in climate communication? I guess this is something that people might disagree on, but to me it has a very definitive answer: It's talking about climate change severity in terms of degrees Celsius (°C).
</p>
<b>Scale</b>
<p>
To begin with, it seems like using Celsius rather than Fahrenheit has to make it easier for folks here in the US to
lowball or ignore those numbers.
We're used to bigger numbers. For example, 3°C sounds small, since we're used to hearing it referred to as 5.4°F. The use of small numbers surely causes some people in the US to dismiss worries over temperature change even faster than they already seem predisposed to do.
</p>
<b>Thinking Linearly</b>
<p>
Another problem is that use of degrees is a linear measure, but °C as a measurement of badness is confusing
because the badness doesn't grow linearly. In other words, if a rise of 1°C has some amount of badness B,
it is <i>not</i> the case that a rise of 2°C is twice as bad, and 3°C is three times as bad.
The rate that things get bad is worse than that. Some sort of upwards curve is in play, perhaps even exponential
growth like Michael Mann's hockey stick. If small integers are proxying for exponential degrees of devastation to society,
that's another reason °C is a bad measure. Well-chosen terminology will automatically imply appropriate urgency.
</p><b>Quantitative <i>vs.</i> Qualitative</b>
<p>
And, finally, measuring Climate Change severity in degrees seems to me an open invitation for people to confuse weather with global average temperature. I'm just sure it <i>must</i> affect their sense of urgency. After all, daily weather varies hugely with no global consequence. Small numbers of degrees sound like something that should influence whether you pick out a sweater to wear for the day, not whether human civilization is at risk of coming to an end.
</p>
<p>
If instead of using small-sounding, homogeneous, quantitative labels like 1°C, 2°C, etc. we used more descriptive, heterogeneous, qualitative labels like
</p>
<ul>
<li>home-destroying</li>
<li>community-destroying</li>
<li>nation-destroying</li>
<li>civilization-destroying</li>
<li>ecosystem-destroying</li>
</ul>
<p>
we might better understand conversations warning of climate danger.
I'm not wedded to these particular words, but they illustrate what I mean by “qualitative” rather than “quantitative” measures. I'd just like the scientists to move away from dinky little numbers that sound like
harmless fluctuations on a window thermometer.
</p>
<p>
To me, small numbers are too abstract and clinical. I think we need words like this that evoke
a more visceral sense of what the world looks like if temperature is allowed to rise.
Rather than talk about “5°C rise,” I would rather people talk about “climate that threatens civilization itself,” because then we'll have an ever present and highly visible understanding of the stakes.
</p>
<hr style="width: 150px;" align="left" />
<p><i>If you got value from this post, please “share” it.</i></p>
<p>By the way, an early version of this idea was something
<a href="https://twitter.com/KentPitman/status/1126863686902198273">I tweeted about in May, 2019</a>.</p>
netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-41511839402344887452019-05-14T16:13:00.000-04:002019-06-20T02:22:45.712-04:00Democratizing Climate Discussion<b>The Importance of Keeping Pace</b>
<p>
In the early days of the web, it was not obvious that sites like AltaVista (<a href="https://digital.com/about/altavista/">the original full text search site, predating Google and others</a>) would win the “web search” wars.
It seemed to me that keyword-driven, manually curated sites—like Yahoo started out to be, if I recall correctly—did
a more recognizable thing,
classifying and filing everything in the world into neat little categories where you could go and look things up more
like the paper encyclopedias I grew up with.
</p>
<p>
Full text search, by contrast, seemed messy and really like such a terrible solution.
How could anyone possibly rely on the actual text of something in a durable way?
And yet, what we found was that it was just too expensive
to add keyword metadata to content at the pace it was arriving on the web.
Orderly, manual curation of knowledge couldn't keep up. The web was destined to be messy, and the tools that would survive
had to embrace that messiness.
</p>
<b>Passing the Baton</b>
<p>
There's an important lesson here for those involved in the science and politics of Climate Change, I think.
</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KYp8dYJKP2s" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>
Bill Nye's recent video about a world on fire, using colorful language to wake people up,
has ignited a burst of public conversation about Climate.</p>
<p>But in addition to the simple shock of seeing Nye use
foul language, there's another and more important issue in play here: Fixing climate is a relay race. There is much to be done
and scientists are not sufficient in number or skill to get us across the finish line. The baton
needs to pass from the scientists to regular people.
</p>
<p>
Until now, we have been relying for a long time on scientists to lead the climate conversation.
Science is and will continue to be an important aspect of the conversation, but it must move beyond that.
Regular people, people without credentials, need to feel free to speak.
We all need to own this discussion, to personalize it, to take responsibility for it.
We can't expect it to be done by others.
</p>
<b>Unchaperoned Climate Debate</b>
<p>
The language of science is careful, precise peer-reviewed, cautious.
The language of regular people is not.
Until this point, we've allowed “others” to talk about climate, but often only with a scientist looking over their
shoulder like nervous parents watching a child learn to use a sharp knife. The slightest misstatement might be quickly corrected,
but it's a too-slow process to roll out at scale.
</p>
<p>
And, in fairness, there has been a lot of misinformation out there, so the corrections have been helpful in many ways.
There are people who are strongly motivated by short-term profits to introduce misstatements and to see them replicated as memes.
So one can easily understand the desire of scientists to watch over the conversation and insist it adhere to standards.
They say it's not paranoia when the enemy is real.
</p>
<p>
But people are finally starting to get it, and as they do, the discussions move faster—much faster than
scientists can keep up with. So tactics and norms have to shift to respond. We need people talking all the time everywhere.
Addressing climate change is a big problem, and it needs to be at the core of pretty much everything society does.
And we don't have enough scientists to chaperone all those conversations.
</p>
<p>
The language of regular people is coarse, poetic, abbreviated, blurry, emotional, imprecise, and most important unchecked.
I often find myself telling people that the Climate problem is about physics, and that physics doesn't negotiate.
Here is where I have to push back on the scientists: the Climate <i>discussion</i> problem is about human socialization,
about how we build consensus, about how we express our goals and fears, about how we manage trust. These are things that
scientists can't negotiate away.
In order for public dialog to proceed, scientists need to prepare themselves for sloppy conversations, conversations that
frankly will not make them happy at the detail level.
</p>
<p>
Climate scientists will need to loosen their grip.
</p>
<b>A Coping Mechanism for Nervous Climate Parents</b>
<p>
A thing that bothers me about Climate messaging—makes me terrified actually—is that climate badness is expressed
in degrees of global average temperature. This leads to big confusion because within the course
of a single day, <i>weather</i> and local temperature varies a lot. Temperatures at any given location might fluctuate ten or twenty degrees in a day and we wouldn't think that anomalous. Sometimes that's just the difference between day and night, sometimes the effect of a storm or a new front moving in. But if the global average temperature went up by ten or twenty degrees, we'd be cooked. We expect regular folks to get that, but I'm not sure they always do.
</p>
<p>
Temperature is not distributed evenly, so even though the temperature might be spiked high in one place, it might be quite low in another (or vice versa). It only matters that it averages out. Scientists shrug off local anomalies because they understand
that the global average
is quite different than any one point location. Let
me suggest that there is an important metaphorical lesson for scientists there about how to manage conversation.
</p>
<p>
Just as daily temperature fluctuations outside your house don't tell you much about climate, so too the daily misstatements by individuals also don't matter either, as long as the overall message trends are right.
Some will get the data right, some wrong. Some will exaggerate to make things seem worse, some to make it seem better.
People will understand and communicate the problem in different ways, but we have to let them do that.
That's part of integrating the message into society. It can't be done some other way.
</p>
<p>
If the public at large, on average, is panicking that we're going to
die tomorrow, or in the other direction if the public is lulled into thinking there's not a problem, it's definitely worth scientists stepping in to speak to that general trend in an organized way.
But if a given scientist on a given day observes someone who they feel hasn't got the message quite right,
they need to be prepared to hold back.
Regular people need to feel they have the right to speak freely without being slapped down for it.
Also, an exaggeration in some places may add balance to another person being too unconcerned.
</p>
<p>
Think about the ways we talk about health or war or other big issues. The conversation is not at every point precise, but
it isn't always the wrong way to gain consensus.
</p>
<p>
At this point, I think, it's better to just let people run with it for a while and see what the trend is than to
get involved in the microscopic detail of every single conversation, hoping against hope that scientists can,
by force of will, make everyone be precise. That isn't the path to the solution.
</p>
<img style="text-align: center;" src="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png" />
<p>
Climate scientists need to let go, so they can get their sleep and focus on their research and be ready to answer questions.
I don't think they have to worry we'll suddenly have no need of them.
Their role just needs to change. They are still are trusted advisors, but they cannot be our nannies.
We need both permission and pressure to grow up, to take this on ourselves.
</p>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
<p style="margin-top: 3pt;">
<b>Author's Notes:</b>
</p>
<p>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.
</p>
<p>
<a href="https://xkcd.com/386/">xkcd comic “duty calls”</a> by Randall Munroe used with gratitude under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.5) license.
</p>
</div>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-78920998594455947862019-05-11T16:07:00.000-04:002019-09-20T09:30:23.149-04:00No Halfway Measures on Climate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeAKMIaSoHzdycZxl6tDiffBgh3qTaTtzePLWc8nWSqgDoCjy8iVEGXGuXRNt3yctgz3vdEroJF9kYAmkkve5hwpkXrRrPg1ClrkWykv6CPHf2dfw8TF1Z1I2Z3yS0Z8lFNQPmXWbPWQc/s1600/gray-matters-6-halfway-v7.png" width="550"
data-original-width="550" data-original-height="516"
alt="[Comic: Halfway Measures]" border="0" align="center" /></div>
<p>
I have been frustrated over the failure of some Democrats to understand the urgency of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report">the 12-year window</a>. Some Democrats get it, others do not.
But whether they get it or not, this is <i>the</i> issue that mankind faces, an issue
that will determine all future history in dramatic ways.
</p>
<p>
This is not a time for compromise. The physics will not allow it. Better to fail trying than to give up the entire game by thinking it unwinnable,
as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/04/us/politics/nancy-pelosi.html">Nancy Pelosi</a> seems bent on doing. Shame on her. That is not leadership.
Lately I look to Elizabeth Warren for leadership among the Democrats. She understands that sometimes you can't pick the timing or worry about appearances
but must do what needs doing.</p>
<p>
And addressing Climate <i>needs</i> doing.
<a href="http://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2010/11/that-creeping-feeling.html">Climate Change is a cancer.</a>
It must be treated early and properly. If we wait too long, no treatment will be possible.
There is nothing radical about an aggressive response to an existential threat to humanity.
There is nothing moderate about a take-your-time or middle ground approach to the Climate Crisis.
</p>
<p>
Jay Inslee is right that
<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/jay-inslee-calls-for-a-climate-change-only-democratic-primary-debate">we need a climate-change-only debate.</a> There are some good policy proposals out there for discussion, including these:
</p>
<ul>
<li><b><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/9">H.R. 9</a>. Climate Action Now Act</b><br />
This bill requires the President to develop and update annually a plan for the United States to meet its nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement on climate change. </li>
<li><b><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763">H.R. 763</a>. Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019</b><br />
This bill imposes a fee on the carbon content of fuels, including crude oil, natural gas, coal, or any other product derived from those fuels that will be used so as to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
</li>
<li><b><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3671">H.R. 3761</a>. Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act</b> (OFF)<br />
This bill transitions away from fossil fuel sources of energy to clean energy sources (e.g., energy efficiency, energy conservation, and renewable energy).</li>
<li><b><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-resolution/59">S.Res. 59</a>. A resolution recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.</b><br />
This resolution calls for the creation of a Green New Deal.
</li>
<li><b><a href="https://betoorourke.com/climate-change/">Beto For America.</a> Taking On Our Greatest Threat: Climate Change</b><br />
A four-part framework to mobilize a historic $5 trillion over ten years, require net-zero emissions by 2050, and address the greatest threat we face.
</li>
<li><b><a href="https://www.jayinslee.com/climate-mission">Inslee for America.</a> America's Climate Mission</b><br />
Building a Just, Innovative and Inclusive Clean Energy Economy.<br />
<i style="color: green;">Subsequent to publishing this article, Inslee <a style="color: green; text-decoration: underline;" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/jay-inslee-just-dropped-his-9-trillion-plan-to-fight-c-1834796985/amp">announced a lot more specifics</a>.
To read his position paper on the “Evergreen Economy,” which he refers to as a refinement in detail to the abstract concept of a “Green New Deal,” <a style="color: green; text-decoration: underline;" href="https://jayinslee.com/issues/evergreen-economy/text/Inslee-Evergreen-Economy-Plan.pdf">click here</a>.</i>
</li>
<li><b><a href="http://elizabethwarren.com/">Warren for President</a></b><br />
<i style="color: green;">
Subsequent to publishing this article,
Elizabeth Warren published <a style="color: green; text-decoration: underline;" href="https://medium.com/@teamwarren/our-military-can-help-lead-the-fight-in-combating-climate-change-2955003555a3">Our Military Can Help Lead the Fight Against Climate Change</a> and
<a style="color: green; text-decoration: underline;" href="https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-green-manufacturing-plan-for-america-fc0ad53ab614">My Green Manufacturing Plan for America</a>.</i>
</li>
<li><b><a href="https://berniesanders.com/">Bernie Sanders</a></b>
<i style="color: green;">
Subsequent to publishing this article,
Bernie Sanders came out with his <a style="color: green; text-decoration: underline;" href="https://berniesanders.com/en/issues/green-new-deal/">Green New Deal</a> which has been lauded as very ambitious.
He also made <a style="color: green; text-decoration: underline;" href="https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/bernie-on-climate-crisis-i-would-use-all-the-executive-powers-that-we-have-69425221673">a great presentation at the MSNBC/Georgetown climate event, September 19</a>.</i>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
I have my own preferences and concerns, but we can't let the perfect be enemy of the good.
We need to discuss all of them, respectfully. We need to collaborate among them, understand that each has good points that might be combined or borrowed from.
We need to move ahead on as many of these as we can or we will not make the 2030 deadline
set for us <i>by physics</i>.
</p>
<p>
I said it already, but it bears repeating: The physics part is not something we can compromise on. It's what we're given.
Physics doesn't grade on the curve. It doesn't care about the complexities of politics. It doesn't award trophies for trying or meaning well.
We will either take necessary action in the time allotted, or condemn our descendants to live forever with the unhappy consequences, assuming the
happy case that human extinction is not one of those consequences. I recommend David Wallace-Wells' book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVPFH5V/">The Uninhabitable Earth</a> if you need a visualization of what such a future world might look like.
</p>
<p>
I'll close here with one more appeal to metaphor, from a recent tweet of mine:
</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Climate is a train out of control, accelerating. Delay lets it accelerate more. Biden wants to schedule serious braking for another day. Physics says no, that if we delay, the brakes won't later be strong enough to use at all.<br><br>Denial = Delay<br>Centrism = Delay<br>Delay = Catastrophe <a href="https://t.co/8vngZKNFqM">https://t.co/8vngZKNFqM</a></p>— Kent Pitman (@KentPitman) <a href="https://twitter.com/KentPitman/status/1126891593972187136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 10, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<div style="font-style: italic;">
<p style="margin-top: 3pt;">
<b>Author's Note:</b>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.</p>
<p>Article and comic image ("Gray Matters: Halfway Measures") copyright © 2019 by Kent M. Pitman. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p>
Included public domain Elephant image obtained <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Republicanlogo.svg">from Wikimedia</a>.
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<p>Included Donkey images, before modification for this use, was created by Steven Braeger, placed in public domain, and obtained by me <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DemocraticLogo.svg">from Wikimedia</a>.
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<p>By the way, it was the utter maddening nature of this news story that drove me to write this piece:
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-climate-exclusive/exclusive-presidential-hopeful-biden-looking-for-middle-ground-climate-policy-idUSKCN1SG18G">Exclusive: Presidential hopeful Biden looking for ‘middle ground’ climate policy</a>.
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</div>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-76460067235481143882019-05-09T03:13:00.000-04:002019-05-09T03:13:31.299-04:00Solitude Eluded<p style="font-size: 16pt; font-style: italic; font-family: palatino,timesroman,times,serif;">
Solitude stalks me,<br />
leaving me never alone.<br />
Then you scare it off.
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<b>Author's Note:</b>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.</p>
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netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94745530352207663.post-56909832903718430202019-04-30T23:25:00.001-04:002019-04-30T23:25:15.977-04:00A Climate of Immediacy<p>
We need an aggressive response to Climate <i>now</i>.
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Scientists last year identified <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report">a “12-year window”</a> (time marches, and the window is less now) during which we must decarbonize by 50% (reducing fossil fuel use, etc) if we are to still be able to affect Climate in this way at all. The problem is accelerating, though, and if we wait, we will lose this option and wish we had it back. It seems hard and expensive and disruptive now, but what will follow will be much, much worse.
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In his book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Uninhabitable-Earth-Life-After-Warming/dp/0525576703">The Uninhabitable Earth</a>,
author <a href="http://nymag.com/author/david-wallace-wells/">David Wallace-Wells</a> describes the problem this way: “If we had started global decarbonization in 2000, when Al Gore narrowly lost election to the American presidency, we would have had to cut emissions by only about 3 percent per year to stay safely under two degrees of warming. If we start today, when global emissions are still growing, the necessary rate is 10 percent. If we delay another decade, it will require us to cut emissions by 30 percent each year.”
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No one should be fooled into thinking the actions proposed in the <a href="https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/sites/ocasio-cortez.house.gov/files/Resolution%20on%20a%20Green%20New%20Deal.pdf">Green New Deal</a>, including <a href="https://betoorourke.com/climate-change/">Beto’s recent variant</a>, are “radical.”
They are anything but. If anything, they may be insufficient. But they are a credible start.
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No one should be fooled into thinking more “moderate” approaches offered by so-called “centrist Democrats” are, in fact, moderate. They are moderate like the idea of <a href="http://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2010/11/that-creeping-feeling.html">treating an aggressive cancer in a lazy way</a> is moderate. Moderation in treating Climate is delay. And delay is catastrophe, or worse, just as certainly as not treating at all.
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Some have proposed market solutions, like a carbon tax (such as <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763">H.R. 763</a>). Nothing wrong with a carbon tax, but it doesn’t address all of complex issues of Climate, and if we adopt one, it’s important to understand that a “greed is good, everything is accounted for now, you can stop caring about climate” theory of the world will not save us. It will need heavy oversight and regulation to make sure nothing is falling through the cracks, and there are elements of climate change like food safety, disaster preparation, disaster recovery, disease control, and other matters that need to be managed as well.
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Nuclear power is considered by most serious scientists to be an important aspect. There is risk to nuclear power, but that risk is manageable and long term. Our problem right now is surviving long enough to get to the long term. Modern nuclear is safer than traditional nuclear, and can solve important load problems that presently justify continued use of coal or oil. We should use it only where necessary, and with proper safety regulations, but we need not to rule it out. Climate is a <i>big</i> problem that needs all available tools. Different regions will need different solutions.
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There are many things to do. But we must start now. And we mustn’t waste time discussing whether there is a problem and whether a mostly-status-quo approach will be “good enough.” It will not be.
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<b>Author’s Note:</b>
If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.</p>
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<p>
Want to learn more about the science of Climate change? The University of Exeter offers a short online course (MOOC) called <a href="https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/climate-change-the-science">Climate Change: The Science</a> that
is taught at a very nice level of abstraction—full of good science that will help you reason qualitatively, but without getting bogged down
in any detailed math. I took this course and really enjoyed both the teaching material and the class discussion. A new round of this course just started April 19, so you could join late and catch up. It's free (subject to certain pretty reasonable terms) and involves about 3 hours a week for 4 weeks.
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</div>netsettlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10256875390684654243noreply@blogger.com0