Zeno’s Paradox Revisited or: Your Vote Doesn’t Count, but It Can

Your Vote Does Not Count
Your vote does not count. You are one of hundreds of millions of people in the United States, and there is no way that your single vote actually makes a difference. Don’t vote. It’s a waste of time. There’s not that much difference between the two parties anyway.

A few months ago, as my libertarian leanings sputtered to a halt and I found myself comfortable in the more concrete world of mainstream conservatism, I read an article in The Freeman that really got on my nerves, because it advanced the idea above, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it, but I knew intuitively that it wasn’t quite right.

Think of voting as sort of like the lottery, except that the ticket price is your time spent, and if your ticket is the winner (i.e. your vote is a tiebreaker), your grand prize isn’t a brand new car or a bazillion dollars. (By entering this contest, each entrant releases and discharges the State and any other party associated with the development or administration of this contest from any and all liability whatsoever in connection with said election lottery, including without limitation legal claims, costs, injuries, losses or damages, demands or actions of any kind. Prize to be rewarded in monthly installments of increasingly lower value, unless and until State declares bankruptcy or decides to change the rules. By accepting this prize, the winner grants to State the right to use the winners name, address and/or likeness for advertising and trade purposes without further compensation to or permission from the winner.)

No. Instead you get a lousy politician who is (if you’re lucky) marginally less bad than the alternative. Congratulations. Break out the bubbly, hire a stripper, and pretend that what happens in Vegas won’t follow you home like a cheap vodka hangover, a bad tattoo, and a raging case of the clap (actually, I don’t think that a metaphor is necessarily necessary here, so take that as literally as you like).

Virgins, Psychics, Carnivores, and Conspiracies

Virgins, Psychics, Carnivores, and Conspiracies: confirmation bias and you

“It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives.” -Francis Bacon

You and I share something with one another, with President Obama, with Rush Limbaugh, with the Dalai Lama, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with Sarah Palin, with Angela Merkel, and with every musician, movie star, plumber, prostitute, stamp collector, sergeant-at-arms, and unemployed underwater basket weaver in the world.

We all able to ascertain patterns, draw conclusions, and make predictions.

This pattern-finding ability is one of the distinguishing marks of humanity. Homo sapiens is man the thinker; perhaps we are, more accurately, Homo exemplum cupitor, man the pattern-seeker. (I am assuming that my decades-unused high school Latin skills are at least slightly accurate. If not, corrections are welcome.)

Pattern-seeking is one of the behaviors that makes humans, as a species, so successful, and it leads to the victories and the quirks that we, as individuals, manifest. It leads to the soaring success of some cultures and the unfortunate decline of others.

In this piece, I will be examining something called confirmation bias, which has given us protection from predators (and the corollary ability to be good ones), virgin sacrifices, psychics and spiritualists, conspiracy theories, and much more.

A Necessary Good, or Leaving Lazy Libertarianism

”[When] men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them...there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” - Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

For years, I identified myself as a libertarian. I was even a Libertarian for a while. That is to say, I was a registered member of the Libertarian Party for about six months (Here is their platform). I’m not a Libertarian anymore, though, and I’m not really a libertarian either.

In the past, I’ve said that government should function, essentially, as a shell for society, arguing that things from medical research to local parks are a misuse of taxpayer money. I still advocate for limited, constitutional government, but there is a difference between the limits placed on the federal government by the Constitution and the limits placed on government at every level by libertarian ideology. Government, especially at a federal level, has the capacity to be destructive, but I think that there are many things that the government can provide better than anyone else and, for the sake of the civil society and healthy communities, should do so. (Parks, again, are the obvious example.)

At this point, there is a distinct possibility that you are groaning internally, because this may seem like a self-indulgent piece of philosophico-political puffery. For one thing, it is about libertarianism, a notoriously self-indulgent subject. For another, its author used a capital letter to distinguish between libertarianism and Libertarianism--in the first paragraph.

I hope that you’ll read on, however, if you’re interested in why I no longer buy into libertarianism or its ill-conceived, majuscular manifestations.

Libertarianism is an idiosyncratic and relatively new movement (between 40 and 60 years old, depending on where you start). It is based on the ideas of Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman (a hero of mine), F.A. Hayek (whom I admire), Leonard Read (author of the brilliant essay “I, Pencil”), Rose Wilder Lane (Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter and possibly the author of the Little House books), and a few others. Most of the thinkers whose ideas form the backbone of libertarianism were radicals of one stripe of another, and this may explain why it is likely to remain a fringe movement, except when its palatable, realistic ideas can be integrated into the Republican Party platform.

Earmarks and codpieces: Symbols matter

Earmarks
Yesterday, U.S. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell announced his support for a two-year moratorium on earmarks, a form of appropriating money that is deeply unpopular with the Republican base, particularly those who associate themselves with the Tea Party movement.

The amount of money that goes to earmarks is large, as far as my family’s budget is concerned (about 15 or 16 billion dollars), but as a percentage of the federal budget, it’s quite small. It’s around 0.4% of the total budget and 1% or so of the discretionary budget(1).

In many ways, banning earmarks is a symbol, and if Congress can figure out how to use different tricks during the appropriations process, tracking this money could theoretically be more difficult under a no-earmarks rule than the current system, which is why I applaud the move, but with realistic expectations and a hefty dose of skepticism.

If you’re a no-earmarks person and this is your big issue, go ahead and break out the party hats, hang some streamers, and maybe have a few slices of layer cake. But don’t swallow too much champagne, and for the love of God, keep away from the mixed drinks at the bar (It may look like an open bar, but you’ll get the bill later). Considering the history that we (and by “we”, I mean the human race) have with politicians, we’ll need to stay sober and clear-headed to deal with whatever accounting/appropriations tricks they may invent the days ahead.

Codpieces
Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Transportation Security Administration(TSA), if you’ve ever wanted to be on a reality show, all you have to do is travel, and you can be the star of Who Wants To Be the Next Unpaid Nude Model?!

Moving Our Schools: A fresh perspective on a local controversy

An Open Letter to the Board of Education, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools:

My name is Greg Garrison, and I’m the father of four students at Smith Academy of International Languages: two in French (fourth grade and second grade) and two in Chinese (second grade and Kindergarten). On top of this, my wife and I have four other children and a multitude of creatures that run, scamp, swim, crawl, slither, hop, and eat (continuously).

There will be no quiz, so you need not remember these details, but suffice it to say that life in the Garrison household is complicated and rarely quiet, to put it mildly. While I'm making introductions, I should mention that this is an open letter from a single individual, and the direct language and opinions expressed in this note are mine alone. I am not a representative for other parents, the school leadership team, the PTSA, etc.

My four Smith children will be impacted by your upcoming decision regarding facilities for next year, and I know that you’re putting your time and best effort into making it judiciously, which I appreciate. The quality of their lives will be affected significantly, whether our program moves to Waddell and thrives, moves to Harding and withers, or stays where it is while we hope for a future facility that is bigger and better.

The students at Waddell and Harding also, obviously, face a good deal of uncertainty, and whether we like the outcome or not, I think that it’s fair to say that families at all three schools will find breathing an easier task once your decision has been announced.

The late economist Milton Friedman once said, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” I have no doubt that everyone’s intentions are pure. I have no doubt that the people who built the programs at Harding, Smith, and Waddell had great intentions, good ideas, and genuine love for children. I have no doubt that you have the best possible intentions and want the best for every student. I imagine that your belief in the importance of guiding principles is well-meant, and objective standards and guiding principles are important. If, however, we allow an intention to follow through with our best laid schemes (neighborhood schools) to outweigh the known, tested results of successful schools (Smith and Harding), don’t be surprised if those plans go awry and we find ourselves wondering what happened.

Of Headphones and Healthcare: Musings on scarcity

Headphones When I was a child, I wanted to be a concert pianist when I grew up. Or a writer. Or, truth be told, Luke Skywalker. This goes to show that I wasn’t nearly as bright as my mother claimed, since no one in his right mind would rather be Luke than Han. Since then, my ability to play the piano has declined with each year, but my love for music has not, and a few years ago, I got a pair of high fidelity, professional Shure earbuds for my MP3 player (The MP3 player wasn’t a very good investment, and it broke pretty quickly; it was not an iPod). I got the Shure earphones because they were sounded great and blocked out external noise. Sound isolation provides a significant, palpable benefit once one has joined the ranks of the parenting class. Basically they were earplugs with wires that delivered music, and I had read wonderful things about them. In time, they broke, and I got another pair. In time, those broke too, and I went through a few pairs of off-brand earbuds before, finally, getting the deluxe Apple in-ear headphones. They are very nice and sound even better than the Shures, which were considerably more expensive. Now, one of the frustrating things about the Apple earphones is that finding replacement tips is pretty difficult (They’re these little silicone doohickies that fit perfectly into one’s ear, and I have not seen them at the Apple store). Getting replacement tips for the Shures was simple; I could order a whole box of them pretty cheaply from amazon.com and always had some on hand. As a consequence, I didn’t pay too much attention to my old earphones. If I lost a tip, that was fine. I’d just get another. When I lose one to the Apples these days, however, I fret and search around to find it. This is pretty irritating, as they pop off with relative ease. One fell off at Caribou Coffee this morning, and I had to retrace my steps to find the missing piece. I found it before going on my merry way, because I needed it, or the earphone would be pretty useless. Quick aside: This old Sesame Street cartoon about getting lost and retracing one's steps warped me pretty badly as a child. Gratuitous 70s flashback:

Of Fish, Fire, Flakes, Foibles, Fatuity, and Failure

The fact that this is so shocking speaks to how well America works: Most local governments do a good job of delivering essential governmental services, and we stare, slack-jawed and angry, when a component of the system fails so obviously.

This is a pair of smoked herrings (source).


This is what the flesh of a smoked herring looks like (source).



I'm not a much of a fish person (other than fish tacos, which are delicious), but even I can admire the texture and flavor of this slab. The red, smoky meat looks a bit like salmon.

This is what a different sort of red herring looks like.


Finally, this is the sort of person who loves (or, at the very least, makes a living by his willingness) to latch onto red herrings and other fallacies and talk. And talk. And talk. Directly. At the. Camera. With Gravitas. And interject things like, "How dare you, sir?" Angrily. Directly. At the. Camera. With Gravitas. And a straight face. Unironically.


This week, Keith Olbermann and many other pundits stumbled as they exploited a tragic fire in Tennessee to score political points. A foible common among ideologues is to see their ideology in every story, whether it actually fits or not. Here is what happened, how a number of people reacted, and why they've gotten it wrong: