Tribalism making people stupid - part 1 of infinity

Things like this make me simultaneously happy and outraged.  Outraged in that it's incredibly frustrating that so many people allow themselves to be willfully stupid in the name of loyalty to which ever "-ism" they feel loyalty toward.  However, I accept that this is a reality with far too many people in our society right now, so I'm happy when such obvious examples of it are available, as they are easy to mock and impossible to defend.

The more often we see these examples of "impossible to defend" bits of tribal stupidity, the more likely each of us is to sincerely examine our own moments of tribalistic idiocy and, perhaps, start to work toward purging that sort of thing from our own minds.

Our example for today is question Q2, and keep in mind that this is a poll of only GOP primary likely voters in Louisiana.

 http://www.scribd.com/doc/161910086/PPP-Louisiana-poll-August-2013

As I was searching for a graphic to include in this post (it just looks better and more appealing with a graphic, or at least that's the conventional wisdom), I came across this chart showing the amount by which self-identified party members shifted positions on the NSA depending on which party's president was in office.  Pretty funny/sad stuff.  So that graphic will be another pretty good example of how party loyalty supersedes facts and logic in far too many people's decisions/opinions.

I will post other examples of this sort of thing when I come across them, as they really drive the point home.  Tribal loyalty (be it political party affiliation, religion, philsophical identity, sports team favoritism, etc., etc.) allows far too many people to reach conclusions that only a person with zero knowledge or logic skills would otherwise reach.  We don't want to be "that" person, nor do we want any of the people we know to be "that" person, so the more exposure this affliction gets, the better.  Only through self-awareness (and the deliberate effort to overcome tribalistic stupidity that hopefully results) can each of us in our society get a little less stupid.

If you see any examples of this sort of thing, I'd love to post it (regardless of which end of the whichever spectrum its coming from), so please send them my way!

Facebook political memes and my upcoming experiment

You know what's annoying?  Facebook political meme graphics.  If you don't know what I am talking about, you will surely recognize them when I describe them.  They are those pictures (usually of a politician or other public figure, living or dead) with some uber-partisan wording on it that villifies a person in one party or another.  But here's the kicker -- there seems to be a rule in place that virtually none of them are allowed to make sense.  They have to contain either quotes that are made up, or "facts" that aren't true, or make assertions that no sane objective person would ever reach using the real facts and any form of logic known to mankind. 

These facebook meme pictures are frustrating for a couple reasons.  First, they take up a huge amount of space on one's timeline.  They are the facebook version of a pile of empty food wrappers on one's desk.  Second, they just make the person posting them look silly when (as is virtually always the case) the meme is factually inaccurate or is something that, absent the willful suspension of logic that comes with political tribalism, that person would NEVER accept an argument that lame.  And since I hate to see any of my friends (or even worse, ME!) looking silly, I resent facebook memes for the impact they have on otherwise sane and reasonable people.

So to make lemonade out of lemons, here's what I'm going to do at some point (maybe tomorrow, or maybe a year from now):  I'm going to make up a bunch of these meme graphics, and I'm going to make sure they contain the stupidest and most insane messaging possible.  BUT, that messaging will be highly derogatory about Obama (the main lightening rod for the Democrats right now) or whoever the most high profile Republican is at the time.  I will then make up one of those fan pages with a partisan theme (such as "Let's find a million people who like cancer more than Obama" or "I'd rather live in Iran than vote for a Republican"), and begin the process of distributing them on facebook.

From there, I will track how long it takes each meme to make it back to my own timeline (posted by one of my facebook friends) and how many of my facebook friends post each one.

Based on that, I will have a very loose, but relatively scientific, way of measuring whether I have more gullible partisan Republicans or Democrats in my friends list.

It should be a fun experiment.  Has anyone else ever tried any experiments similar to this?  Making up bullshit chain emails or things like that just to see if people would be gullible enough to believe it and pass it along?  If you have, I'd love to hear about your experiences with it!

I sure wish the meme-maker for the one I posted here had a better command of the difference between "to" and "too" and the proper usage of apostrophes, but the bar is set pretty low when it comes to these things, and it was the most appropriate one I could find.

Tiny milestone

Well, this blog now has over 1,000 views. I'm not exactly on the path to fame and wealth from this hobby, but it's nice that some people are finding some value in it. Thank you!

Top Ten San Francisco suggestions for visitors

I am often asked for suggestions for things for people to see and do during their visits to the San Francisco Bay Area, and as a transplant that has done a fair amount of exploring in the area, I'm sometimes able to provide some decent insight for people (as I can still sometimes see The City as an outsider).

However, I always seem to take forever to get back to people with suggestions because it takes so long to sit down and bang out my thoughts.  To fix that problem, I've created this blog post that can be my "go-to" list for everybody. 

Before you arrive -- I highly, highly, highly recommend you read "The Age of Gold."  It will provide you with so much fascinating history about the genesis of San Francisco and will provide an excellent context to more fully understand so much of what you will see in San Francisco today.  In addition, you will know more about who the streets of San Francisco are named after than 99% of the residents of San Francisco.

To get things started off, here's my generic Top 10 Suggestions for Tourists in San Francisco:

#10 - Coit Tower

A walk up to Coit Tower pays off in a lot of ways.  First, it puts you in North Beach, which is always a good thing as far as I'm concerned.  Second, you get a killer workout (the hills leading up to Coit Tower are intense).  And finally, you get to see Coit Tower!  Between it's history (including the Marxist murals inside, which tell an interesting story about the artist community in the Depression) and the views from the top, it's a must see.

#9 - Golden Gate Park

We happen to live a fairly short walk from Golden Gate Park, so we spend a lot of time there.  Because of that, I may be biased either in favor of it or against it -- I'm not sure which. 

Golden Gate Park is a huge park that was created in the same spirit as Central Park in NYC -- it really is an oasis in the city, and it's easy to forget you are in a city in many places within the park. 

The primary attractions in the park (outside of the trees and grass and limited wildlife) are the DeYoung Museum (a world class art museum with an excellent free observation deck), the California Academy of Science (essentially a natural history museum plus aquarium), and the Conservatory of Flowers.

The museum portion of the park is right next to 9th and Irving, which is a great area in the Inner Sunset for restaurants and (to a lesser extent) bars.  The N Judah line has a stop there, which makes it very convenient as well.

Further east, the park thins out into the Panhandle, which should be a familiar image for fans of the Summer of Love.  Haight-Ashbury is just a block off of the Pandhandle.

#8 - Explore a neighborhood

Before we had kids, my wife and I would often enjoy a whole day by just picking a neighborhood and wandering around.  We'd seek out the unqiue sights, check out the unique stores, hit a restaurant or two we'd never been to before, maybe grab some ice cream or some other speciality treat, and ultimately find a cool dive bar in which to rest and drink when we wore ourselves out.

I'd recommend this approach for almost any neighbhorhood, but my favorites are:  North Beach, South Beach, The Mission, Chinatown, The Marina and The Haight.

#7 - Ferry Building

The Ferry Building is one of the many iconic structures of San Francisco, and one of the most historical buildings in the city.  It's still an active Ferry landing for commuters heading across the bay, but the inside of the building is essentially a big niche market, high end crunchy sort of collection of stores.  So if you are looking for expensive grassfed beef or expensive mushrooms (non-hallucinatory types) or expensive kitchen wares or many other kinds of expensive and interesting products, there may well be a store in here that interests you. 

Shopping aside, there's food everywhere, and the architecture of the building itself is definitely worth seeing.  Once you step outside, you can't beat the views in all directions. It's a great park of town to walk and explore.  It's essentially on the edge of South Beach and the Financial District.

#6 - Fisherman's Wharf

When people think of "Fisherman's Wharf" in San Francisco, they tend to think of Pier 39, which is essentially just a crappy outdoor mall on a pier.  It's fun for what it is, but it's not on my Top 10 list.  Swing by and see the Sea Lions on the back side of Pier 39, and then move on to the "real" Fisherman's Wharf, which takes you on a walk toward west.

This area has a lot to offer.  There are lots of boat/ferry tours of the Bay you can take from this area, which I highly recommend (especially if you haven't already done one to Alcatraz).  The Musee Mechanique is a very cool arcade filled with old arcade games dating back to the early 1900s.  Next to that are WWII submarine and liberty ship that can be toured.

Further down, you'll find the Maritime Museum, which features several old ships that can be toured.

And, of course, this area is filled with working fishing boats and seafood restaurants (some better than others).  Just avoid the Times Square-eque crap camera shops further from the water, and you're set! 

You can finish off the day by getting a drink at the historic Buena Vista bar or getting ice cream at Ghiradelli Square.

#5 - Land's End/Sutro Baths

This area is an incredibly scenic Pacific Ocean coastline that also offers a huge amount of history and hiking.  The foundations of the immense Sutro Baths are still in place, and look like Roman ruins to the uninitiated.  It's hard to describe the beauty that one will find there, so I just have to leave it at that.

We had our family pictures done there by Nicole Wickens a few years ago ... a perfect location, we now realize.

One can hike all the way from the Land's End trailhead to the Golden Gate Bridge, or stop at the Palace of Legion of Honor as well.

#4 - Game at AT&T Park

This one requires little explanation.  It's an awesome ballpark.  The area around the ballpark is becoming the center of the sports scene in San Francisco (and is only going to get better).  Views, food, beer, and baseball.  Need I say more?

#3 - Twin Peaks

It's always cold and windy, but the view from Twin Peaks is amazing.  If you have access to a car (as there is no public transit to get there that I'm aware of), I highly recommend you include this on your trip.  It gives you a bird's eye view of a huge portion of the Bay Area, and an amazing view right down the length of Market Street.

#2 - Golden Gate Bridge/Presidio/Marin Headlands

The Golden Gate Bridge is perhaps one of the most iconic images in the world, and seeing it in person is never a let-down.  Driving or biking or walking across the bridge will put your mind into motion and will make you amazed at the idea that people built this bridge in the days of little technology and even less safety standards.  The structure itself is not only amazing, but the views from the bridge are breath taking. 

One can spend a whole day exploring the bridge, along with the Marin Headlands on the north side of the span and the Presidio on the south side (San Francisco side) of the span.

#1 - Alcatraz

I've heard a lot of locals mock Alcatraz and even brag that they've never been there.  I consider those people to be kinda silly.  No matter where you are from, Alcatraz is awesome, and is something that everybody should do at least once if they can.  The views are amazing, the history is fascinating, and the place is just so iconic that you have to experience it yourself.  The self-guided tours are excellent, and give you a pretty good idea of how miserable it would have been to be an inmate there.

On top of it all, you get to ride a Ferry out and back to the island, which is a thrill in itself for most people.

This list will surely change through time, and I change my mind or realize that I've missed some incredibly cool stuff (like the Anchor Steam Brewery tour -- damn, I may need to change it already!), but this will work for now.

How bullshit becomes mainstreamed

This piece outlines an event that would be really funny, were it not so common in the world of the partisan right and left-wing blogger/pundit worlds.

The line between journalism and gossip has blurred to such a degree, particularly among some brazenly partisan media outlets, that many people no longer even seem to care about fact-checking.  If the rumor sounds good (in other words, if it makes the "other side" look bad), they just run with it, no questions asked.

Generally, this wouldn't be such a big deal ... reasonable people reading it would probably get their bullshit detectors going and have suspicions about the story, then seek out the truth, discover that the story was, in fact, complete bullshit, and then never trust that media outlet again.

But that's not what happens for the extreme partisans who are locked in the partisan feedback loops (their "tribe") we see today.  What happens instead is that extreme partisans of the same persuasion as the author of the bullshit story will link to that story and pass it on to all of their friends.  People will create picture memes referencing the bullshit story and forward it all over facebook, and all of their like-minded partisan friends will "like" it, oblivious to the fact that they are liking something that has been proven to be complete bullshit.  Before long, the bullshit story is an ingrained part of the "knowledge" of many partisan people, and they will continue to repeat it as validation of their own faith-based beliefs that their side can do no wrong and the other side can do no right. 

The bullshit story will go from rumor, to "fact," to a part of the fabric of the legend of that partisan hackery ideology.

Anyone who steps in and points out to any of those people that what they are saying isn't true, and provides the evidence that it isn't true, will be dismissed and derided and mocked as being a mere naive pawn of the "other side," and the bona fide evidence presented will be disregarded because it was provided by a news source that wasn't part of their partisan feedback loop (in other words, it came from a news source that was too objective to be trusted, because they have been trained by the partisan puppetmasters to only trust their own partisan sources of information).

This is how the partisans on the left and the right are fed bullshit, and this is how they often end up swallowing that bullshit and even defending that bullshit, leaving them looking foolish to people outside of their partisan feedback loop, but (sadly) making them heroes within their partisan feedback loop.

And since they often place far more value in the what people inside their own partisan feedback loops think about them, and often almost take pride in being seen as foolish by those outside of their partisan feedback loops, the incentives are firmly in place to continue to create, distribute, and defend convenient bullshit.

The health care cost curve bending favorably?

It seems like good news relating to the cost of healthcare has been about as rare as a legit Bigfoot sighting over the last decade or so, which makes the data discussed in this piece very interesting.

As they note, it will be quite telling if these data points turn out to be bona fide trends in the coming years, or if, instead, the increase in healthcare costs reverts back to its steep growth pattern as the effects of the recession fade away.

Some of the potential drivers of reduced costs they discussed are exciting, but they are merely speculation until we have the benefit of hindset and all of the data that comes with it.

Freakonomics on guns

As everyone can probably tell, I just caught up on my Freakonomics podcasts.  With the beautiful weather we are having here in SF today, the walk and listen during lunch was sublime.

This podcast they did on guns is, in my opinion, very well thought out and very informative.  I am sure there are vast areas where more discussion and more studies could lead to different conclusions, but the throught process that these guys apply (the economist "hat") really works well in presenting arguments that I find compelling.  It's sure a helluva lot better than all of the emotion-based arguments we hear constantly on issues like this.

So with very few exceptions, I think I probably am in the same camp as Levitt in concluding that most of the gun control proposals really won't do much good, as the genie is already out of the bottle (hundreds of millions of guns already in circulation).

The one point of disagreement I apparently do have with him is in regards to background checks.  I do see value in those, even though they would only apply to new sales.  The reality is, not everyone has a gun right now, and, absent buying one legally, it's not necessarily easy to obtain a gun.  Yes, people can steal guns or get them on the black market, but that's still a significant hurdle to overcome.  For example, if I wanted to murder somebody with a gun tomorrow (don't worry, I don't), I would have no idea where to buy a gun on the black market.  I also wouldn't even know where to start in terms of stealing a gun.  So for me, my only option would be to buy the gun through legal channels.  If I happened to be a felon or have some other black mark on my record that would preclude me from buying a gun legally after a mandatory background check, I'd have to come up with some less efficient way of commiting my murder (which would reduce the chances that I'd murder somebody, as they note in the podcast).

So I do think that universal background checks are a good idea and would be effective in limiting some of the crimes gun crimes committed by those people who would make "the list" (mentally troubled people, felons, etc.).

That said, as Levitt concludes, no new laws are really going to make a huge impact on the levels of gun violence in our country.  And, in an interesting discussion that doesn't get enough play, it's arguable that it's not as big of a problem as we may think, in the grander scheme of things.  Yes, any innocent life lost is a horrible thing, but looking at the number of innocent people murdered with guns each year, reducing it by the number of people who would have been murdered even without a gun involved, and then divide that by the total number of people in our country, and we reach the conclusion that the odds of any of us being harmed by a person with a gun is incredibly small.  So from an economists mindset (looking at the marginal costs vs. the marginal benefits), it would be really hard for most any form of gun control, put in place right now, to be seen as effective in a material way.

All that said, when we step away from that non-emotional, objective way of looking at the issue, it's damn hard to hear stories of gun deaths around the country and then conclude that we simply have to live with that (low) level of risk and accept the senseless deaths that result.  And that's why it's so understandable why this issue is so emotionally charged for so many people.  Unfortunately, there simply are no easy answers.  And in lieu of effective easy answers, we often try to legislate with approaches that give us comfort, but may not necessarily be effective when put up to empirical analysis.

Empirical evidence of political party tribalism

This is a really entertaining podcast from the Freakonomics guys talking about an experiment that was done that proves the not-so-much-contested theory that loyalty to political parties makes us believe things that aren't true.

A full discussion of the study in written form is available here.

It really can't be stressed enough -- the more loyal we are to a political party, or a football team, or a religion, or virtually anything else, the less likely we are to be able to objectively sort fact from fiction and less likely we are to reach the best conclusions on matters of fact and logic relating to that subject of our loyalty.  The human brain, as I tried my best to explain from my own layman's understanding, creates avenues of self-delusion that we often aren't even aware of.  Only by becoming aware of our own biases can we then work to overcome them in order to truly reach objective conclusions on issues that we have any degree of emotional attachment to.

This explains why so many talking heads and bloggers and less-than-objective media outlets spend so much time, money and effort distributing false (or misleading) information -- they know that putting out that kind of propoganda can be very effective in creating an alternative reality in the minds of their viewers/readers/listeners, and that fictional reality happens to be one in which their party/ideology/etc. is always right.

This book looks like a disturbing/entertaining collection of examples of "confirmation bias" in play.  When people want to believe something, they always seem to find ways to filter the world around them so that all that enters their own personal world is material that supports that they want to believe.

There are many more like it, but this survey adds more fuel to the fire.

On a related note, this Q&A is pretty interesting, and makes me want to add this book to my long list of "books I want to read but never seem to have the time."

Pie's never free ... Planet Money talks breast pumps and the ACA

I could honestly recommend virtually every Planet Money podcast ever produced as "must listen" material -- their crew does a great job of looking at both very complex and regular everyday issues and making them approachable and informative.  If you have an interest in economics or business at all, I highly recommend adding their podcasts to your brain consumption.

Their most recent episode talks about the impact of federal legislation (specifically the ACA, aka "Obamacare") on the breast pump market, and poses some good questions in the mind of the listener in terms of when it is really appropriate to legislate private market activity and when it isn't.

If I was King (or a noble dictator), I'd reform our healthcare system in a way that de-links health insurance from employment, which would allow for more career mobility in our country and, frankly, make it a lot easier for businesses to do business (instead of devoting so many resources to being healthcare insurance providers).  The tradition of health insurance being a part of an employment package is a somewhat artificial construct dating back to the days of wage controls in WWII.  In other words, it arose as a workaround to existing government regulation that were distorting the job market.  Similarly, today, one could assume that if employers got out of the business of providing healthcare insurance, salaries may well rise by roughly the amount that employers were previously spending on health insurance (as many/most people today are making their job decisions factoring in the value of the health insurance perks).

I'm also definitely in favor of some basic level of universal healthcare insurance.  We already have universal access to healthcare -- it just happens to be incredibly inefficient and creates terrible incentives both on a cost and care basis.  Federal law requires that anyone showing up to a healthcare facility with urgent healthcare needs must be given treatment.  Without that law, a possiblity exists that people would be left to die simply because they couldn't pay for the healthcare services they needed.  As a society, we've deemed that scenario to be one we can't morally or ethically stomach, so we've put a mandate in place to prevent that from happening.

So why do we need univeral healthcare insurance?  Absent a person having healthcare insurance (or such large sums of money available to them that they are essentially self-insured), we run into two problems: 

1. The very real situations where people simply can't afford healthcare insurance (and don't have the ability to pay for needed treatments out-of-pocket), and they end up utilizing more expensive versions of healthcare (waiting until it's really bad and then hitting the ER, etc.) rather than being proactive and utilizing cheaper forms of healthcare; and
2. The same general scenario, except from people who can afford health insurance, but simply gamble that they won't need it, knowing that they can just freeload in the event that they ever do need it. 

As in the case of breast pumps above, nothing is ever "free," so those higher costs in both scenarios are borne indirectly by the rest of society, driving up healthcare costs for everybody who does pay their own healthcare costs.

My "back of the envelope" solution to our healthcare reform needs would be to have a base level of health care insurance that would be either [Plan A] mandated to be purchased by the individual, with support for those who can't afford it; or [Plan B] a system where everyone gets vouchers that would pay for a minimal amount of private healthcare insurance (essentially a voucher that would purchase enough insurance to cover basic needs to keep people healthy and to prevent them from losing everything in the event that they get sick/injured, but nothing extravagent).  I'd leave it up to a vote of the people (I would be a King/Dictator of the people, of course) to collectively decide which option they preferred, depending on how much they were willing to pay in taxes. 

For Plan B, people could pay for more generous insurance coverage over the voucher amount out of pocket.   

I wouldn't have any mandates in terms of what specifically was covered.  If people didn't want, say, breast pumps covered by their insurance, they could buy a policy that didn't cover that sort of thing.  Same with contraception, etc.  One can make the argument that subsidizing breast pumps is good for society, and it may be on some level, but at the end of the day, I'm not generally in favor of subsidizing people's life decisions (including their decisions to have kids) unless the benefit to society is very clear and so compelling that the benefit to society far outweighs the cost to society.  In this particular instance, I don't think the math favors the mandatory breast pump coverage.  As the economist in the podcast argues, if a strong benefit to society argument can be made for the use of breast pumps/breast feeding, it seems like a better approach would be to provide subsidies only for those women/families who can't otherwise afford their own breast pumps as opposed to making it a benefit available to everyone. 

I'd also borrow a lot of ideas from the ACA, such as creating the Health Insurance Exchanges, so people could competitively shop for insurance plans in an easy-to-understand online marketplace.  I'd also implement a lot of electronic records and other tech-laden ideas to increase the efficiency of our entire healthcare system.  The HMO we currently use seems to do a really good job of both providing quality healthcare service and keeping costs down, so to the degree that my crown could encourage the geographic expansion of their HMO model, especially into rural areas, I'd have my minions strongly consider such a plan.

This is really just an incredibly rough draft that popped into my head while listening to that podcast, so I'm sure much of it is complete garbage when examined by people who know a lot more about these topics than I do, so I welcome that input to tell me where I'm wrong, or where more thought/info is needed, or even if I got something right.

After I fixed all of our nation's healthcare woes, I would immediately resign as King/Dictator, as I truly can't stand either monarchies or dictatorships, and I'd hate to be that emotionally conflicted for too long.   

Assault Weapons

I'm still trying to come to firm ground on this whole gun debate. One area that I'm really struggling with is the "assault weapons" part of the discussion.

Even some "conservatives" like Ronald Reagan actively supported "assault weapons" bans, but I haven't been able to be completely sold either way from what I've seen and read to date.

Here's how I think it frames up (and I am totally open to anyone providing arguments/evidence that any of these legs isn't accurate):

• Assault weapons make it easier for a shooter to kill large numbers of people in the shortest amount of time possible as compared to their slower and lower capacity gun cousins.

• Lots of people derive a lot of joy out of owning and recreationally shooting these "assault weapons."

• The Second Amendment doesn't preclude bans on "assault weapons," as per the holding of the SCOTUS Heller case (and passively reinforced by the fact that the previous federal assault weapons ban was never shot down by the SCOTUS).

It seems it would be completely Constitutional for "assault weapons" (and I will continue using scare quotes here, as I realize there is no formal category of weapons known as "assault" weapons) to be banned, so that issue appears to be off the table.

So for me, like I outlined in my original blog post, the whole argument comes down to determining whether the benefit of these weapons in our society (the pleasure people derive from owning/shooting them, which is something that I think does deserve consideration in these kinds of issues) outweighs the cost to society (the infrequent mass shooting that results in more dead than otherwise would have resulted).

Does this sound like a good framework to work from? And if so, how would you argue/weigh the relative cost/benefits of these weapons for our society?

Infotainers ... ripe ground for cynics

Glenn Beck seems less able to hide his insincerity than most, but it's still nice to see this Avlon article exposing the "chase the money" mindset of these kinds of public figures.

It really does beg a question that I've often asked myself -- how much of the mindless partisan crap that the radio and TV show hosts and print political hacks write is stuff they truly believe, and how much of it is performance art manufactured to entertain the audience they are targeting (in order to enrich themselves, of course)?

I suspect the fans of many of these hyper-partisan entertainers would be deeply disappointed if they were to discover the truth about what most of these people actually think about the issues of the day, and how little they truly value the intellect of their own audiences.

One moves to the "pro-genetically modified" camp

I'm not an expert in the field of genetically modified organisms, but I've also never seen any evidence that would convince me that there was any danger to be found from those technology-enhanced food sources.  I also come from an ag background (so I tend to lean in favor of advances that could make farmers/ranchers more efficient/profitable) and worked in college for a short time in a lab that was doing genetic research on ways to make crops more resistant to pests and drought.

So I do have a bias coming in ... although, again, I would change my mind quickly if evidence was presented that showed a causal relationship between GMOs and adverse impacts on the environment/human health.

The subject of this article is impressive to me not so much because the guy moved toward my view on the topic (although that does play a small role in its allure to me, as we all like to feel like we're "right" as a way to feed our egos), but more because he was willing to publicly admit that, after reviewing all of the available evidence, he completely changed his mind.

We humans are too often so enamored with our own opinions and conclusions that we never let additional information into our skull, for fear that we may not be able to reconcile that information with the opinion we already hold ... and we'll be damned if we'll ever even consider totally abandoning our original opinion.

So ... kudos to Mr. Lynas.  I'm not sure if you are now right or wrong (although I have my own knee-jerk opinions), but either way, you have the guts to question your own views and admit when you reach a point of deciding that your previous view was flawed.

May more activists and others with strongly held opinions follow your same path of critical introspection.

Parking Panda

I love all of the innovations that people are creating to make our lives better via technology.  This is just yet another clever way that technology can make us that more efficient ... and maybe could even allow my wife and I to make a little cash from the empty space in our garage during the workday!

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/small_business/2012/12/parking_panda_rent_your_unused_parking_space.html

By connecting people sick of wasting time and gas circling blocks searching for parking spots with people who have parking spaces to rent, everybody wins.  And that's a perfect example of how our modern technology is raising our quality of life.

Moving forward from Newtown

As conversations about Newtown, and how to reduce the chances of this happening again, take place in our own minds and with our friends and families over the coming weeks, I submit a request of everyone. 

Purge your mind of all ideological loyalties; forget every talking point you've ever heard and any bumper sticker "wisdom" you've ever read; ignore the political party of anyone offering ideas and disregard all partisanship of any kind.  This certainly isn't an issue that should be seen as a "political" issue -- it's far too important to fall into the realm of deceipt that generally comes when things are seen as "political."  Set aside your own ego and your own "beliefs" and your own paranoias in favor of really, truly hearing and understanding all of the facts, insights, and perspectives that are out there, in order to reach the best objective conclusions possible. 

We need a fresh, intellectually honest, and sincere conversation about this topic nationally, conducted in good faith.  No longer can these topics be fodder for political campaigns or fundraising tools for special interest groups.  We all need to come together and sincerely work to try to find the best answers we can.  There will be no perfect answers, but there certainly is a whole lot of room for progress.  I am positive that is what virtually everyone wants above all else.

I still haven't even begun to wrap my brain around all of the issues, and frankly, it's hard to even really try when I still find myself tearing up each time I think about what happened.  I need some emotional distance from that reality before I can start developing my own opinions in the abstract.

For now, the debate is moving forward without me, and that's fine.  I just ask that when you are ready to take part in it, please do so in the most open minded and intellectually honest manner possible, while purging all of your "beliefs" on the topic.  Beliefs have a role in society, but they can't be an excuse to justify positions that don't stand up to facts and logic.

Now is time to work together, concede our own biases, purge our own prejudices, and try to find some imperfect, but necessary, answers that may make it less likely that what we saw in Newtown happens again.

The Fiscal Cliff - why is reaching a deal so hard?

As we know, the GOP and the Democrats are having a hard time agreeing upon the specifics of a budget deal that would allow us to avoid the (perhaps silly-named) "fiscal cliff."  Why is this?  Is it because both are valiently fighting for specific policies that are true to their constituencies' wants and desires? 

Not exactly.  In fact, the reality is, neither of their constituencies really, truly wants a deal of the kind that needs to be made.  That creates a lot of problems.

Everybody likes lower taxes for themselves.  Everybody also likes government spending that benefits them.  Therefore, the only tax hikes that people tend to like are ones that don't impact themselves (which is why the narrow "tax on the wealthy" is so popular among the unwealthy).  At the same time, people love theoretical cuts in spending on things that they believe (albeit often naively) only benefit other people, but when it involves spending near to their own hearts, suddenly that spending is vital!

This piece from Reason Magazine frames things up very nicely, and I highly recommend that anyone interested in this topic give it a quick read.

In essence, the GOP wants spending cuts in theory, but doesn't want to take the blame for proposing specific spending cuts (as even the majority of Republican voters oppose those cuts, and the public at large really hates those cuts).  So they are trying to get the Democrats to be the ones to list specific cuts.  Of course, the Democrats are refusing to do that and are demanding that the GOP provide the list of specific cuts, and then be accountable for them.  Neither party wants to be the "bad guy" that cuts stuff that most of the voters like.

At the same time, the Democrats certainly aren't willing to fall on the sword with any bold proposals on tax increases, either.  They stick to the idea that only wealthy people should see any tax hikes, even though a broader tax hike would generate a lot more revenue.  Politically, they are also being wusses, as they know that a majority of the voters support taxes on the rich (and a huge portion of those voters are presumably not rich themselves), so they just cherry pick the policy that they know polls well and refuse to consider anything else.

So we have two parties that are both afraid to propose any specific policies that don't poll well.  Of course, to reach a deal of any significance, they MUST include policies that don't poll well.

So this whole debate is partially about two sides sticking to their ideological guns (even though the GOP is in a horrible bargaining position, and everyone knows it, and doesn't really have much leverage to stick to any negotiating tactic too long), the larger and more immediate problem that is keeping us from seeing a real deal moving forward is the fact that neither party has had the policial courage to embrace policies that are good policies and good for the country, but are bad politics for their own political self-interests.

Overcoming tribalism - your own stories

Let's get interactive!  How many of you can name an example from your own lives where you had previously held a belief inspired by tribalism of one sort or another, but then came to a realization that you had been completely wrong and changed your view on that topic?

In other words, let's share examples of where we had previously held an opinion based on willful ignorance (based on strict adherence to a religion, political party, ideology, favorite football team, etc.), but later gave up that willful ignorance and embraced a far more enlightened and informed position?

We've all done it, no doubt, at various times in our lives.  I will share some examples of mine in a long-ish post in the next few days, but I'd love to hear examples from others as well, as hearing these kinds of stories is really quite inspiring to me.  It speaks to people's abilities to grow emotionally and intellectually over time and to set aside our egos (which want to believe that we are always right, no matter how wrong we may be) in favor of embracing objectivity, and thereby become far better able to reach sound conclusions based on facts and logic.

Of Guns and Drugs

The idea for this topic, pairing two topics into one, came to me the other day from one of those chain facebook pictures with political words on them.  So for whoever came up with that bumper sticker wisdom, thank you!

Guns and drugs, and the level of regulation of each by the government, are some of the most divisive topics in the land.  And by divisive, I mostly mean that people on both sides seem to just talk past one another without actually listenting to each year and finding areas of agreement.

Why I'm including these two topics together is that I see a lot of similarity in terms of how these topics became so divisive, and the fact that I think that both topics are ones that most people probably actually agree on most of the issues' major points, if they'd just allow themselves to go down that road.  But thanks in large part to gun control activists, the NRA, and anti-drug crusaders, it seems that these topics are usually discussed in an flurry of dumbed down and paranoid talking points instead of in substantive reality.

These topics are also a nice match because they expose more of the bizarre contradictions within both the stereotypical "conservative" and "liberal" political gangs.

In essence, both issues really come down to a debate about how much the government should try to prevent people from having/using objects/substances that can cause harm to a relatively small group of people.  In one of the issues (guns), it is the stereotypical conservative that supports people having access to the objects that can cause harm.  In the other (drugs), it is the stereotypical liberal that is in favor to people having access to the substance that can cause harm.

I'm guessing I've already caused some kneejerk outrage based on what I've said already... but bear with me and I think most will agree with my logic.

First, let's lay out the facts about guns:

1. Guns do, in fact, cause a great deal of injuries and death in our society.  If we could wave a magic wand and get rid of all guns in the world (except for hunting rifles), we'd be stupid to pass up on that chance, as the benefits would far, far, far outweigh the costs.
2. That magic wand doesn't exist.  And Pandora's box is open.  We will never be able to get rid of all guns.  Therefore, no matter what laws we pass, some people will still have guns.
3. Rifles serve a very real and utilitarian role in our society -- they are designed for hunting, which is vital part of wildlife management and also allows many people an effective way to put food on the table.
4. Rifles can, indeed, be used to kill people.  But they aren't really the best tool for the job.  Most people on people shootings are at close range and are of an ambush nature.  Rifles are not good for that purpose, and sniper-type murders just aren't that common.  Therefore, I don't see rifles as being particularly dangerous in our society.
5. The handgun was designed to kill people.  It can be used for other purposes (target shooting, defense against bears in the forest, etc.), but it's primary reason for existing is to kill people.  That makes it a very dangerous weapon in our society.  Of course, as noted, Pandora's box is open on handguns, and we will never purge our society completely of handguns.

So people who make the argument that "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns," while not really a nuanced view of the issue, do have a point.  At the same, taken to the other extreme, if everyone has a handgun, that's a whole lot of crazy people out there with the ability to kill any of us really easily.  Handguns seem to be really shitty defensive weapons ... whoever lands the first bullet tends to win.

That said, no matter what laws we have, extraordinarily motivated bad guys will still have handguns.  Therefore, it seems reasonable to let people have handguns to protect their own homes and persons ... assuming there's nothing about them that would suggest that they are a danger to others by having one.

So setting aside the Second Amendment (an Amendment that Madison really should have spent a bit more time upon -- what a horribly confusing bit of writing that was), it seems to me that the best public policy would be to allow everyone to have handguns, as long as they are able to get over some rather short hurdles:

• Pass a gun safety class.  There are safety skills testing for using a car, and I think we're all happy about that.  Using a gun is equally dangerous, so passing a class or an exam to have a handgun seems reasonable.  We took "Hunter's Safety" classes growing up, and I think that was well worth it -- those lessons stuck. 
• Some kind of rudimentary psych test.  I walk by crazy people every day in San Francisco, and the idea of one of them having a gun is terrifying.  I've been threatened and yelled at many, many times by people whose grasp on reality is tenuous.  I usuallly just remain a bit cautious around them, and make sure I'm not close enough to get stabbed without having an eye on them.  But if they had a gun and decided that I was Satan that day (as some have in the past) ... well, I'm dead.  So I do think it makes sense to take steps to try to keep guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people.
• We already don't allow people who are felons to have guns in many places, and that seems reasonable as well.  If they've proven in the past that they are going to abuse guns (I like that phrase), then they should lose those rights for the future.
• If somebody is drunk or high or otherwise willfully impaired, and they are carrying a gun ... definitely needs to be illegal.

Long story short, I think everyone needs to acknowledge that handguns are, in fact, dangerous and do cause harm in our society.  At the same time, though, we do need to be practical about the fact that criminals should not have a competitive advantage over law-abiding folks when it comes to gun ownership.  We need laws that attempt only to remove guns from those most dangerous elements of society, while preserving the rights of the vast majority of people who can own guns responsibly.

As for the argument that we can't trust our government to enact reasonable laws to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, and how government people might instead discriminate against people ... yeah, that's always a possibility.  If we looked at our criminal justice system, one could certainly find historic examples of discrimination.  But I also don't see the risk of not being allowed to own a gun as being quite a dire as the risk of being executed for a crime one didn't commit.

My view on drugs is similar -- we need to balance freedom against the risk to society, and we need to do so based on some reasonable understanding of the issues instead of hyperbole of the activists.

For starters, we all need to agree that drugs and alcohol DO cause a lot of harm in our society.  So the anti-drug crusaders, and even the prohibition people in the 1920s did have a valid point.

However, we need to balance that against the reality that, for a vast, vast majority of users, alcohol and drugs are not inherently dangerous, and they do drive a lot of satisfaction from it.  Contrary to the rather bizarre arguments of some, people doing things that makes them happy DOES have value and should be given respect. 

So in my opinion, we just need to find that magic line in the sand to draw to determine where a drug is so dangerous that the harm it causes is greater than the joy people derive from using it.  People have tried to draw that line at alcohol, which is kind of a strange place to draw it, as most illegal drugs tend to be considered less dangerous than alcohol.  So I'd just argue that the line should perhaps be drawn at someplace like heroin instead of at pot, where it is now.

That would provide more freedom to Americans, less money spent needlessly prosecuting victimless crimes, and more tax revenue to put into drug dependency programs to treat the small minority that have problems with drugs and alcohol.  It would also have the huge advantage of bring that piece of our capitalistic society into the regulated sphere of the visible economy and out of the shadows of the violence-enforced world of the black market.

To state the obvious, anyone commiting a crime against another person because of their drug/alcohol use should be prosecuted ... including DUIs.  Allowing freedom while keeping people accountable for their actions should be the ideal goal of our nation's laws, in my opinion.

I'm dreaming of a post-tribal world

Each one of us suffers from an affliction that is terribly difficult to overcome, yet is sometimes strangely helpful.  It's something we inhereted from our ancestors, and our children will inheret it from our genes, no matter how much we hope they don't. 

What is it?  Tribalism.  And it's the primary reason why so many people around the world are able to hate and curse and kill each other every day.  It also is probably one of the primary reasons why humans still exist today.

I'm not an expert in this field, so my explanation will sound quite simplistic to someone well read on the topic, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

In the beginning, people who tended to work together tended to survive, and those that didn't tended to die.  Therefore, our spieces evolved the instinct to group together into communities/tribes for mutual protection and to collectively work for the public good of the community/tribe.

Of course, to do this effectively, the brain had to develop a few tricks to make it all work.  For instance, you had to be able to view the killing of a person from another tribe as a far less "bad" thing than the killing of a person from your own tribe.  Being completely objective would have been a character flaw.  After all, you had to have a moral compass that essentially held that whatever benefitted your tribe was good and whatever hurt your tribe was bad.

So when the other tribe invaded your territory and stole from you and killed your people, that was obviously bad.  But when your tribe invaded their territory and stole from them and killed their people (thus making it less likely they could harm you in the future), that was seen as a good thing.  We became programmed, through evolution, to be willing and enthusiastic hypocrites.  Because we placed a huge value on our own tribe, and very little value in the other tribe, we developed the instinct to apply motivated reasoning to simply delude ourselves into thinking that whatever "they" do is bad, while whatever "we" do is good.

Of course, it's not hard to see how this human instinct manifested itself over time.  Our tribes of early days morphed into all sorts of different things -- including religions, races, nationalities, sports fans, and political parties.

In each of those modern "tribes," we see evidence of the same kind of motivated reasoning taking place that existed back then.  To a completely objective outsider, most of the disagreements between these kinds of groups sound completely absurd.  Both sides hold on to beliefs about their own religion/race/nationality/sports team/political party that ignore any negatives or flaws, while they view the "other" with nothing but comtempt and spite.  But to the outsider, both sides are completely full of shit (which is generally always the reality).

Each of us suffers from biases resulting from our own tribalism, and it's incumbent upon each of us to overcome that in order to even begin to start to reach sound conclusions on any issue. 

When we are faced with an issue, we need to be mindful to clear our mind of our desires to believe what we want to believe (colored by our own tribalism) and truly view the issue on the merits of the facts and logic available.

Instead, far too often, we see people giving in to their tribalism. 

Instead of seeking out the best objective information available, they only listen to people of their own tribe that tell them what they already want to believe (which not coincidentally always tells them that their tribe is right and the other tribe is wrong).

Instead of respecting and thoughfully considering the ideas and perspectives of those from the "other" tribe, they assume the worst about the character, intellect, and motives of those people in order to justify dismissing everything "they" say.

Instead of being intellectually honest and consistent when comparing "us" to "them," the tribespeople will have a completely different set of standards to judge actions of members of the tribes, always showering praise on their own and scorn on "them."

All of this may sound like the approach of a deranged person ... but it's not.  It's how each of us already acts, in varying degrees.  We need to stop.  We need to cease allowing ourselves to be ignorant in the name of tribalism.  We need to stop pledging allegiance to any tribe if it ultimately forces us to give up our objectivity.  We need to be post-tribal.

On that note, however, a few caveats need to be noted.  There actually are benefits to tribalism, particulary when it doesn't result in the behavior I noted above.  For example, I think one could claim that pride in one's community is an offshoot of this tribalism, and that's certainly a good thing.  It's just when the pride in one's community is amped up to include scorn for everyone else's community that it becomes a problem.

Then there's also the matter of sports fans, as I mentioned earlier.  In most cases, sports fans are arguing and fighting over things that are so pointless and shallow that it really doesn't do much harm to anyone.  It could almost be seen as a masturbatory version of these ancient instincts.  So maybe one could even argue that sports fans acting that way is a positive thing -- it channels those ancient instincts into something harmless and gets it out of our systems (I'm saying this as a life-long sports fan myself).

But again, even that can always go way too far, as tragic stories such as that of Brian Stow sadly prove.

So on this blog, I will attempt to write what I write fully aware of my own tribal loyalties, and do my best to avoid the motivated reasoning that comes with them.  I will try to be as objective and fair as possible.  I'm not interested in advancing anyone's existing agenda -- I just want to find the best answers, no matter where they come from or who else holds them.

I ask each of you to do the same.

Just for a Kumbaya sign off ... just imagine how great our world could be if every person did this.  For a bit more tangible visual, just imagine how much more intelligent and constructive the political debates in our country would be if everyone did this!

As always, I welcome all comments, whether you agree with me or not.

Why am I doing a blog?

Writing for me is often a form of both therapy and introspection.  It allows me to get ideas out of my head, where things are often cluttered, and into a form that sometimes makes a little more sense.  If nothing else, that gives me a small sense of accomplishment, which seems to be a rarity in my very chaotic life right now.

More importantly, writing this blog will give me an outlet to try to figure out all of the many complex issues that face us all both in the political world as well as in the personal philosophy realm.  I've long relied upon social media as a venue for floating ideas and utilizing the interaction with others to either validate those ideas or to allow others to expose me to new ideas or facts (often leading to my adjusting or even changing my own positions, as we all should).  Through this, I've been able to learn so much from so many people.

But most forms of social media have their limits.  First, it's hard to control the conversations and keep them from spiraling into a pointless exercise.  Second, it's often kind of awkward trying to have conversations of that kind in a place where many/most others aren't interested.  The world of online social etiquette is still evolving, but it does seem a bit clunky when people try to start a conversation on places like Facebook that annoy or are off-putting to most people who have to see it.

So I'm creating this -- my refuge.  It will be a place where I can set the rules to keep the conversations relevant and constructive, and only those who want to see it will see it.

My ideal scenario would be for this blog to receive a lot of comments from a lot of different people who are all sincerely interested in exploring the topics I bring up (or bring up their own topics).  Intellectually honest arguments of any kind, done in good faith, will be welcomed and greatly appreciated, no matter how much you agree or disagree with anything I say.  After all, nobody ever learns anything if they only hear feedback from people who agree with everything they say. 

Subsequent posts will give more color about how this blog will work and how I will try to make it as constructive and insightful for everyone who reads or posts to it.  Thanks for reading, and I hope you find some value in this, and that you decide to post your own ideas and thoughts in the comments of many of these posts!