On August 6, 1945, the Americans attacked the city of Hiroshima with an atomic bomb, the first such attack ever. Interestingly, its anniversary is not well remembered. At least 140,000 people were killed in the initial attack; the lingering effects are myriad.
There are countless topics that can be derived from this event but there is a specific modern American peculiarity whose origins I have always pondered: The reluctance to fight wars seriously. Since the Second World War the United States has gone out of its way to sanitize combat. It fights wars as a community effort--as part of coalitions or the United Nations--as if there is "nothing personal". They place limits on objectives, they never participate in the time honored purposes of war--slaves and booty--and often will compensate or rebuild the enemy after the fact. Most significantly, they try to distance their own citizenry from the combat. From a volunteer military to the creepy draft lottery the average citizen is moved as far as possible from the war. Indeed this compartmentalizing of combat seems to dictate policy as the government limits action and objectives to limit domestic impact.
The attempt to isolate foreign war as a domestic policy is, of course, impossible. The American inflation chart follows the war chart point by point. Worse, the people become inured to the violence and destruction, like the gradual therapeutic desensitizing to an allergy. But the worst point is the nation's military purpose and its domestic purpose are allowed to diverge. In the Vietnam War American troops were under a greater threat because several sites of enemy troop operations could not be violated for diplomatic reasons, because the war might expand and become a risk to the citizens at home. No nation should allow its sons to be under fire without being willing to commit completely to their defense and well being. That is, no nation should allow its sons to be under fire without risk to itself.
War is too terrible to be dabbled in. The soldier is immersed in total war; his society should be too. That the soldier is a volunteer is no excuse. If every action was supported with a war tax, if gasoline was diverted or food sold for the expressed purpose of troop support, if the citizen were made to suffer, to participate in the actions of their military children in some--even symbolic--way there would only be serious efforts undertaken.
War is an active, inevitable evil. Yet it cannot be softened or cleaned up. No politician can tweak it to make it more gentle. It is vicious and lethal. Even in the strange Aztec "Flower Wars" everyone died in the end. The citizens of Hiroshima knew this. They lived and died it. It may be that their lesson is too hard for us to face.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Blind Bathoes and Elephants
A number a years ago a woman held up my neighborhood bank with a handgun. She was quickly arrested, tried and convicted. The judge--a bathoes character if there ever was one--sentenced her to nursing school.
I have never forgotten this story because it so typifies modern thinking. The judge felt that nurses were as a group upstanding, responsible, hardworking citizens. The distinguishing characteristic that separated nurses from others was their nursing degree. Therefore, he reasoned, this criminal would be improved by a nursing degree. You can catch almost anything in a hospital, why not responsibility and integrity. Indeed perhaps the entire community would be improved if everyone was conferred a nursing degree at birth.
Observations lead to generalizations. Sometimes these are brilliant, like Darwin. Sometimes they are only bigotry, like blacks are lazy or Asian girls can't drive. No observation is worth anything unless it is confirmed, critically. Science is not consensus, it is contentious. It is the battlefield of argument over inference. Information never, ever, implies; we infer. It is only after brutal analysis that information becomes meaningful.
Our current culture does not understand this and we will suffer for its ignorance. We look at home ownership and see that people who are homeowners seem to be better invested in their communities. We ask no further questions; we assume --infer--that home ownership is beneficial in itself. We ignore all the other possibilities--the buyer saved for his down payment so he was disciplined, the buyer did not buy until he had a good and stable job, the buyer had a stable family--all perfectly reasonable circumstances that might contribute to the successful homeowner demographic success. No, the house is the thing. People with college degrees earn more than their fellows without a degree, thus a degree is good for you. (Not a nursing degree this time around.) Do we have any idea if a 120 IQ woman with a degree out earns a 120 IQ woman without a degree? No, that study has never been done. So we slog on and encourage home ownership and college degrees with only the most superficial evidence.
Poor scientific thinking is more than erroneous, it distracts us from the truth. It misleads us as surely as an intentional, malicious lie. Years ago a seminal study was done on the mortality rates in cities versus farm communities in Great Britain. It showed a significantly higher mortality rate in urban communities. The conclusion was that pollution was very bad for you and plans were initiated to curb smog. Now it might well be that smog is terrible for one's health but the study omitted one point: It did not correct for smoking. When the statistics were later reviewed to eliminate the factor of smoking among the subjects, the difference went away; the survival rate among the two communities was identical. Smog might be bad for you but there was no evidence in this study for that; but there was real evidence that cigarettes were killing people.
We are less insightful than we think. And we are less kind. Basing plans and programs on shoddy thinking traps everyone in the shoddy results. More, it distracts us from the true answers to our questions. One can hope that with time we, as a community, will get better at this thinking but one worries. Shoddy thinking, like bigotry, is easier.
I have never forgotten this story because it so typifies modern thinking. The judge felt that nurses were as a group upstanding, responsible, hardworking citizens. The distinguishing characteristic that separated nurses from others was their nursing degree. Therefore, he reasoned, this criminal would be improved by a nursing degree. You can catch almost anything in a hospital, why not responsibility and integrity. Indeed perhaps the entire community would be improved if everyone was conferred a nursing degree at birth.
Observations lead to generalizations. Sometimes these are brilliant, like Darwin. Sometimes they are only bigotry, like blacks are lazy or Asian girls can't drive. No observation is worth anything unless it is confirmed, critically. Science is not consensus, it is contentious. It is the battlefield of argument over inference. Information never, ever, implies; we infer. It is only after brutal analysis that information becomes meaningful.
Our current culture does not understand this and we will suffer for its ignorance. We look at home ownership and see that people who are homeowners seem to be better invested in their communities. We ask no further questions; we assume --infer--that home ownership is beneficial in itself. We ignore all the other possibilities--the buyer saved for his down payment so he was disciplined, the buyer did not buy until he had a good and stable job, the buyer had a stable family--all perfectly reasonable circumstances that might contribute to the successful homeowner demographic success. No, the house is the thing. People with college degrees earn more than their fellows without a degree, thus a degree is good for you. (Not a nursing degree this time around.) Do we have any idea if a 120 IQ woman with a degree out earns a 120 IQ woman without a degree? No, that study has never been done. So we slog on and encourage home ownership and college degrees with only the most superficial evidence.
Poor scientific thinking is more than erroneous, it distracts us from the truth. It misleads us as surely as an intentional, malicious lie. Years ago a seminal study was done on the mortality rates in cities versus farm communities in Great Britain. It showed a significantly higher mortality rate in urban communities. The conclusion was that pollution was very bad for you and plans were initiated to curb smog. Now it might well be that smog is terrible for one's health but the study omitted one point: It did not correct for smoking. When the statistics were later reviewed to eliminate the factor of smoking among the subjects, the difference went away; the survival rate among the two communities was identical. Smog might be bad for you but there was no evidence in this study for that; but there was real evidence that cigarettes were killing people.
We are less insightful than we think. And we are less kind. Basing plans and programs on shoddy thinking traps everyone in the shoddy results. More, it distracts us from the true answers to our questions. One can hope that with time we, as a community, will get better at this thinking but one worries. Shoddy thinking, like bigotry, is easier.
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Slide from Fixing to Complaining
Lawrenceville, Pa. residents had a meeting chaired by a Pittsburgh city councilman last night. The topic was the Marcellus Shale Formation. A member of the Marcellus Shale Council, which is a body of oil and gas drillers, was present as well. There were a number of concerns voiced, the prominent one the potential poisoning of water by the drilling. The consensus was that the community was opposed to drilling even though the drilling representative stated there were no plans for any driller to drill in the Lawrenceville area and it was unlikely anyone would.
The process of drilling in shale formations includes "fracing" where a liquid, usually water, is fired into the shale area after the area has been approached with conventional drilling. The theoretical problem is contamination of water sources by the fracing liquid. The depth of the drilling is usually away from groundwater sources; drilling usually is at several thousand feet at least. While this possible contamination is a real concern, the examples of contamination are usually not active drilling or fracing but rather abandoned and collapsed wells. Indeed a recent report from the EPA paraphrased in a journal stated: "Although thousands of wells are fractured annually, the EPA did not find a single incident of the contamination of drinking water wells by hydraulic fracturing fluid injection. Effective state regulation has made hydraulic fracturing a safe and environmentally-sound way to maximize and conserve our nation's natural resources." (See http://www.iogcc.state.ok.us/hydraulic-fracturing).
Southwestern Pennsylvania has been a hotbed of shale drilling recently. The Marcellus Shale has promise of being a huge, productive natural gas source for many years. In a nation with acute energy concerns one would think such a find would be applauded, its aspects analyzed and plans for maximum benefit for all made. In an area with a devastated economic base one would think that dancing in the streets might be the order of the day. (It has been said the natural gas industry in western Pennsylvania has potential to be larger than steel at its zenith.) Yet what do we see? We see a community organizing to stop an economic venture that has no intention of going there. It reminds one of the old vaudeville joke of the man who is found in Central Park cutting newspaper into small pieces and scattering them around. When asked the reason for this behavior he says: "To keep away the elephants." When he is told incredulously that there are no elephants in New York he replies, "See, it's really working."
There is a need for us to intervene in our history, to be an active participant in what is happening to us. Action, like responsibility, can be taught. It can be made part of the community ethos. Necessity might hurry it. The first step might be to attempt not to look ridiculous.
The process of drilling in shale formations includes "fracing" where a liquid, usually water, is fired into the shale area after the area has been approached with conventional drilling. The theoretical problem is contamination of water sources by the fracing liquid. The depth of the drilling is usually away from groundwater sources; drilling usually is at several thousand feet at least. While this possible contamination is a real concern, the examples of contamination are usually not active drilling or fracing but rather abandoned and collapsed wells. Indeed a recent report from the EPA paraphrased in a journal stated: "Although thousands of wells are fractured annually, the EPA did not find a single incident of the contamination of drinking water wells by hydraulic fracturing fluid injection. Effective state regulation has made hydraulic fracturing a safe and environmentally-sound way to maximize and conserve our nation's natural resources." (See http://www.iogcc.state.ok.us/hydraulic-fracturing).
Southwestern Pennsylvania has been a hotbed of shale drilling recently. The Marcellus Shale has promise of being a huge, productive natural gas source for many years. In a nation with acute energy concerns one would think such a find would be applauded, its aspects analyzed and plans for maximum benefit for all made. In an area with a devastated economic base one would think that dancing in the streets might be the order of the day. (It has been said the natural gas industry in western Pennsylvania has potential to be larger than steel at its zenith.) Yet what do we see? We see a community organizing to stop an economic venture that has no intention of going there. It reminds one of the old vaudeville joke of the man who is found in Central Park cutting newspaper into small pieces and scattering them around. When asked the reason for this behavior he says: "To keep away the elephants." When he is told incredulously that there are no elephants in New York he replies, "See, it's really working."
There is a need for us to intervene in our history, to be an active participant in what is happening to us. Action, like responsibility, can be taught. It can be made part of the community ethos. Necessity might hurry it. The first step might be to attempt not to look ridiculous.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Athletes and their Crowd
When Steinbrenner was buried, not a Yankee player was in attendance. When LeBron James weighed his choices he thought not once of the Cleveland fan or his community. Yet somehow the fan feels the athlete has an investment in him and his world, has some concern about him, responds to his cheers and exhortations. He feels they are joined by their common interest in his team, that the fan is the famous "twelfth man."
This identification is a true public relations miracle. How the coddled, babied, egocentric, self-absorbed and money addled athlete could possibly be seen by the public as representative, heroic, outgoing and responsible in his community staggers the imagination. How many local citizens have to be shot, throttled, beaten, thrown up on, wrecked, groped, raped and terrorized before the community figures it out? The athlete is not one of them. He is not a community member, not a local citizen. He is an obnoxious visitor at best, an alien mercenary at worst. And he cynically exploits the community's best unifying hope: To create a common bond and direction among its people.
This world needs achievers and we need to note them. Heroes would be great, too, but we need achievers. We need them to prove the value of distinction, to show the rewards of effort and sacrifice. We need them to emulate. And we need communities; we need the feeling of some occasional unifying point where we can gather, like around a campfire, and share in our commonality and recognize our filial bond.
We ask too much of these athletes. Let them play. It's the game and the audience we are there for.
This identification is a true public relations miracle. How the coddled, babied, egocentric, self-absorbed and money addled athlete could possibly be seen by the public as representative, heroic, outgoing and responsible in his community staggers the imagination. How many local citizens have to be shot, throttled, beaten, thrown up on, wrecked, groped, raped and terrorized before the community figures it out? The athlete is not one of them. He is not a community member, not a local citizen. He is an obnoxious visitor at best, an alien mercenary at worst. And he cynically exploits the community's best unifying hope: To create a common bond and direction among its people.
This world needs achievers and we need to note them. Heroes would be great, too, but we need achievers. We need them to prove the value of distinction, to show the rewards of effort and sacrifice. We need them to emulate. And we need communities; we need the feeling of some occasional unifying point where we can gather, like around a campfire, and share in our commonality and recognize our filial bond.
We ask too much of these athletes. Let them play. It's the game and the audience we are there for.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
American Gigolo
There is a recent article in Slate by Anne Applebaum whose title tells all: American Hypocrites. http://www.slate.com/id/2260968/ The thrust is that Americans demand much more from their government than they admit and that the talk of downsizing it is little more. Her focus is on the absurd preoccupation we have with safety. We seem to hold the government responsible for everything from the actions of madmen to natural disasters. Following every such event the actions and reactions of the government are carefully analyzed as programs, people and policies are reviewed, removed, replaced and repositioned.
What is not included in this insight is the government as a willing participant, more, a volunteer. The prevailing thought seems to see the government as quite capable of meeting such goofy demands. We watch as they pursue down narrowing alleys of diminishing returns. We applaud as they start to wonder aloud about the health habits of its citizens. There is a national crisis of shower heads!
We are less hypocrites than gigolos. We have given up whatever talents we possess and, having reviewed the nasty combat in life, have cynically surrendered to premature fatigue, sidled up to the gaudy aging woman at the party and sold ourselves to her.
The problem is the old gal is living beyond her means.
What is not included in this insight is the government as a willing participant, more, a volunteer. The prevailing thought seems to see the government as quite capable of meeting such goofy demands. We watch as they pursue down narrowing alleys of diminishing returns. We applaud as they start to wonder aloud about the health habits of its citizens. There is a national crisis of shower heads!
We are less hypocrites than gigolos. We have given up whatever talents we possess and, having reviewed the nasty combat in life, have cynically surrendered to premature fatigue, sidled up to the gaudy aging woman at the party and sold ourselves to her.
The problem is the old gal is living beyond her means.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Entropy and the Order of Things
We are homo sapiens, from the Latin "wise man" or "knowing man". This term is neither accurate nor defining. In our early agricultural days we must have been splendid, planning and creating and changing our environment for all the world to see. Now our knowledge has fallen on hard times. Information trumps wisdom; things seem beyond our reach--even those things we have created. We have gone from the sorcerer to his apprentice, lost in a complex world of a master's making. Both art and science now declare that accuracy and understanding are impossible as a maxim. Despite our massive influence, something has been lost.
Nor is the phrase defining. Our brain is startling and vastly different from our competitors but we are not thinking beings with emotional baggage, we are emotional beings with thinking added. We are an elaboration of those very competitors we have outrun. We are a palimpsest with the look of thinking but emotions-- deep, ancient and mysterious-- bleeding through.
This incredible mixture of emotional hardware and thinking software do not exist on a border of antagonism and conflict, they complement each other. They are intertwined. They allow for texture, scent and hue--the complexity of life. But this wondrous gift comes with a price: There must be order. There must be structure. We each must impose ourselves upon the potential chaos of these independent elements. Just as God has devised his innumerable macrocosms, so we must our microcosm.
All systems deteriorate, wind down. Even a solar system, or a galaxy of solar systems, built and fired from some primal furnace will eventually cool and lose its integration. Entropy is the order of things. And each of us must create his world--and maintain his fragile order against the decay--with his "knowing" will.
Nor is the phrase defining. Our brain is startling and vastly different from our competitors but we are not thinking beings with emotional baggage, we are emotional beings with thinking added. We are an elaboration of those very competitors we have outrun. We are a palimpsest with the look of thinking but emotions-- deep, ancient and mysterious-- bleeding through.
This incredible mixture of emotional hardware and thinking software do not exist on a border of antagonism and conflict, they complement each other. They are intertwined. They allow for texture, scent and hue--the complexity of life. But this wondrous gift comes with a price: There must be order. There must be structure. We each must impose ourselves upon the potential chaos of these independent elements. Just as God has devised his innumerable macrocosms, so we must our microcosm.
All systems deteriorate, wind down. Even a solar system, or a galaxy of solar systems, built and fired from some primal furnace will eventually cool and lose its integration. Entropy is the order of things. And each of us must create his world--and maintain his fragile order against the decay--with his "knowing" will.
Monday, July 19, 2010
We Are All Atomic Soldiers Now
A summary of the recent Romer study on the relationship between taxes and gross domestic product: "They find that an announced tax change equivalent to one percent of GDP causes a three percent reduction in GDP over the next two and half years, which would indicate that we are approximately at the Laffer maximum - that increases and decreases in taxes do not have a long term effect on revenue, that increasing taxes merely increases the relative status of people in the state sector by reducing the absolute wealth of people outside the state sector, without increasing the absolute wealth of people in the state sector."
What does any of this mean? This study implies that taxation has a direct effect on the productivity of a nation, that taxation reduces national wealth. It doesn't just shift wealth; it reduces wealth across the board! This implies there is no ability of the state to redistribute wealth, the state can only redistribute poverty. The recipients of the tax largess are net losers as are the taxed.
The nation is at the mercy of the good intentions of the Bathos, regardless of the risks involved. Surely one would look at a study like this and be cautious. One would think of ways to create these circumstances in a smaller area with less potential fallout, to test these ideas further. But no, this plan marches on. And Christina Romer is in the Obama administration!
Years ago the government, eager to see how fighting men responded emotionally to atomic explosions, put a number of soldiers close to an atomic ground zero site. (http://nsdl.org/resource/2200/20061003172814974T) Those men were exposed to tremendous radiation. There are debates over the cause and effect of the illnesses those men subsequently suffered but there should be no debate over the nature of the experiment itself. It was stupid, shortsighted, ill conceived, careless and cruel. It was a bunch of sorcerer's apprentices playing at science. A bunch of curious, well meaning men behind desks making suggestions and plans, everyone with a "good idea", none of them realizing they were over their collective heads.
We are all atomic soldiers now.
What does any of this mean? This study implies that taxation has a direct effect on the productivity of a nation, that taxation reduces national wealth. It doesn't just shift wealth; it reduces wealth across the board! This implies there is no ability of the state to redistribute wealth, the state can only redistribute poverty. The recipients of the tax largess are net losers as are the taxed.
The nation is at the mercy of the good intentions of the Bathos, regardless of the risks involved. Surely one would look at a study like this and be cautious. One would think of ways to create these circumstances in a smaller area with less potential fallout, to test these ideas further. But no, this plan marches on. And Christina Romer is in the Obama administration!
Years ago the government, eager to see how fighting men responded emotionally to atomic explosions, put a number of soldiers close to an atomic ground zero site. (http://nsdl.org/resource/2200/20061003172814974T) Those men were exposed to tremendous radiation. There are debates over the cause and effect of the illnesses those men subsequently suffered but there should be no debate over the nature of the experiment itself. It was stupid, shortsighted, ill conceived, careless and cruel. It was a bunch of sorcerer's apprentices playing at science. A bunch of curious, well meaning men behind desks making suggestions and plans, everyone with a "good idea", none of them realizing they were over their collective heads.
We are all atomic soldiers now.
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