Category Archives: Politics

Man of a thousand faces continued

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Earlier I noted that test subjects respond favorably to photographs of politicians that have been morphed to look a bit like the person viewing them. (This is probably true not just of photographs of politicians, but pictures of rock stars, actors and your great aunt Edna. People like seeing a bit of themselves reflected in the image they are viewing. Hence my classic pickup line, “do you have any Wil Forbis in you? Would you like some?” But I digress…)

As mentioned, Obama might benefit from this because of his ethnically vague appearance — he is half black, but he could pass for Pakistani, Hispanic etc.

Okay, hold that thought. The other day I was trolling around on some website which listed many of the complaints of progressives have about Obama. They see him largely as a corporate shill beholden to the military-industrial complex.

Now, contrast that against tea party accusations that Obama is simultaneously a Muslim, a commie and a socialist (actually, it’s not just tea partiers on the last one, 55% of the nation view Obama as such*.)

I don’t think any president during my lifetime has been accused of such a wide range of contradictory beliefs.

So the question becomes how can presumably sane human beings arrive at such disparate conclusions about one politician? (Of course, presuming sanity when talking about the political fringes on the left or the right may be a shaky proposition.) There seems to be an interesting parallel here: just as Obama can encapsulate a wide range of racial characteristics, so too can he embody a great number of political and religious beliefs. Part of his appeal is that people from across the racial spectrum see a part of themselves in him. Part of his deficit is that people find a way see the embodiment of their political or cultural enemies within him.

Are these two facets connected? Thinking…

* Side point here, but I’m not sure even I find the socialist label inappropriate, though I think “socialistic” would be more apt. That said, if Obama is a socialist based on his policies, then so certainly was Bush.

Man of a thousand faces

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There’s an interesting experiment described in the National Geographic science book, “Brain — The Complete Mind.”

In an experiment, photographs of political candidates were digitally morphed to incorporate some features from the faces of test subjects who were asked their reactions to the candidates. The photos, which included 60% of the politicians’ faces and 40% of the respondents’ faces, received favorable reviews. When combined with detailed demographic databases that can personalize appeals for money and votes, morphed images are predicted to have an increased role in political advertising.

For instance, Democratic organizations sending out campaign donation requests to South Central Los Angeles could say, “Hmmm, that’s a heavily black neighborhood, let’s make Obama’s skin in this picture a shade darker.” Or, Republicans targeting Irish districts in Boston might try and make Sarah Palin appear more “Irish” (perhaps by using Photoshop to place discarded bottles of whiskey in her lap.)

As time goes on, things could get even more nefarious. Political operatives sending advertising to a specific person — let’s say, Bob Jones of Long Beach, California — might spider the web looking for pictures of Bob, then subtly morph some of Bob’s features into the picture of their candidate. Bob would receive the advertising and on a subconscious level think, “I like the looks of this guy.”

On one hand, there’s something decidedly undemocratic about the idea that we consider a candidate’s looks — and particularly how similar their looks are to ours — when weighing political decisions. On the other hand, I think we’ve suspected this all along. In a way, this helps explain the success of Barack Obama. His ethnicity is a bit vague; we know he’s half black, but he could pass for being half Indian, or half Arab, or even half Latino. Like Michael Jackson and Prince, his looks are generic enough to give him a wide kind of appeal. If people vote for candidates who look a bit like them, Obama casts a wide net.

I think there’s another factor at work here. Let’s use the term “vibrancy” to encompass the attributes of general health, charisma, sex appeal and intellectual vigor. Certainly Obama was more vibrant than McCain, who had a bad arm, what I believe is a cancer scar on his face, and a kind of frozen demeanor.

How does this vibrancy theory hold up in previous elections?

Bush/Kerry — I think Bush comes out ahead here. Kerry had a stilted presence (I think Mickey Kaus once referred to him as an “animatronic Abraham Lincoln.”) and he looked like Ichabod Crane.

Bush/Gore — This one’s a little tough to call, as was the election itself. Bush was more of your “buddy,” whereas Gore was more of an “idea man.”

Clinton/Dole — Not even close. Dole has been a member of the walking undead since the 80s.

Clinton/Bush Sr. — Again, I’m going to give it to Clinton. Bush was pretty vibrant for his age, but he couldn’t compete with Clinton’s Southern charm.

Reagan/Dukakis, Carter, or pretty much anybody — Reagan, with his matinee idol past and easy smile, was almost the definition of vibrant.

Carter/Ford — Well, Carter wasn’t especially vibrant, but the bar’s pretty low when you’re running up against Ford.

So, as I think you can see, my vibrancy theory holds up pretty well. If anyone from either the Republican or Democratic National Committees would like to contact me for some consulting work, you know where to find me.

(Note: I am not saying looks, and looks similar to our own, are the only things that matter. I doubt your average black person would vote for someone who looked like Barack Obama but advocated the policies of Adolf Hitler. Looks are one factor in a complex web of factors.)

Solving the housing crisis

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In the past, I’ve proffered my theory of the digital vagabond — an individual who only owns what he can maintain in digital form on an iPad type device. This fellow, travels the world freely with no need for a house or excess goods.

As the spiraling housing market continues to destroy America’s fortunes, I return to this theory. Why is the house with a white picket fence the epitome of the American ideal? Is slaving away to earn yourself a measurable amount of square feet the best use of your time? Libertarian writer Will Wilkinson is often contemplating such questions, usually in an effort to decry housing subsidies. Here’s an example:

…American culture really does relentlessly assault Americans with the American idea that owning an American house is an essential American part of the best and most authentic American way of American living.

So then, how would the digital vagabond live? Well, we’ve all heard of these Japanese hotel cubicles. If you take a look here, you see they’re not that bad. I would compare them to the berths available on your standard sailboat. Plenty of room to move around, and even equipped with a television.

I’m not saying this sort of lifestyle would be for everyone. I understand there’s a lot of sniveling wretches who demand their own poolroom and garage workshop. And, if they’re fine sacrificing 40 years of their life to get that*, more power to the idiots. But I think it is quite conceivable that someone could live a life without a house, and still be quite comfortable and happy. And I think we should look at how we live now — in apartments or houses that keep us generally routed to one area — and reconsider our reasons for doing so.

* Of course, the real reason your average guy decides that buying a house is important is because he realizes he needs to prove his ability to provide for whatever woman he’s hooked up with and the children they have sired. This offers still more evidence for my theory that women are the root of all the world’s problems.

Ron Paul is unequivocably pro-Mosque

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It is the conservative position after all.

The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.

Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”

Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace, and prosperity. There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate, raises the question of just why and driven by whom?

He doesn’t mince words throughout.

Muslim Obama?

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I feel that I’ve used this blog, over the past 10 years or so, to consistently defend the average American. I find he or she to be fairly intelligent and not especially naïve (contrary to accusations often leveled by those on the left.) Nor do I find he/she to be particularly hedonistic or degenerate (contrary to accusations often leveled by those on the right who equate American culture with a modern Gomorrah.) One area where I don’t defend Americans, is their ever increasing fatness. As I watch the innumerable obese, jiggling monstrosities wobbling down the streets, or forcing their corpulent forms through the doorway of the Sizzler, I feel only a great shame for my nation.

On the other hand, you read stuff like this, and have to wonder whether a significant portion of the American populace is retarded.

One Fifth (Wrongly) Think Obama’s Muslim
It’s the old canard that just won’t die. A Pew poll this week found that 18 percent of Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim. Then came a Time magazine poll, taken after Obama’s comments last weekend supporting the rights of developers to build a mosque near Ground Zero, prompting screaming front-page headlines such as “Allah Right With Me” in the New York Post. The newer poll’s finding? 24 percent think Obama is a Muslim. Suspicion (for want of a better word) is especially high among Republicans—in the Pew poll 31 percent of GOP voters believe Obama is a Muslim, compared with 46 percent in Time’s. The White House has responded that Obama is a Christian and “prays every day.”

These beliefs fly so directly in the face of every public statement made on the matter, and appear to be so unaware of the Reverend Wright controversy which so plagued Obama, that you have to conclude that the kind of person who thinks this is a complete and utter moron.

That said, I think these polls need to be taken with a grain of salt. I suspect that many of these people are fully aware that Obama attends a Christian church and has repeatedly professed Christian beliefs, but they dislike him enough that when questioned in a poll they reach for the obvious slander. I suspect that if you put a gun to their head and insisted they state what they really believe to be true, you would get a different answer. I suspect the same is true of many people who believe George Bush planned 9/11 — it feels good to say it, but deep down they realize it’s absurd.

Do I think Obama is a Christian? Not entirely. I suspect he thinks he is, and he’s certainly put his time in the pews, but there does seem to be an element of doubt to his beliefs. And he must be aware that being Christian is mandatory to achieving political office in this country. Of course, any question about religious beliefs is tricky — it’s not necessarily a binary equation. Some people might strongly believe in God, but be open to the possibility of his nonexistence, and the opposite is also true. Everyone knows I’m an atheist, but every so often I think of the fact that butterflies make these incredible round the world journeys, or that salmon manage to catch him find their way, against all odds, to their spawning ground, and I have to wonder whether it’s truly possible through undesigned evolution. (For the record, I do believe it’s possible, but something still nags at me.)

By the way, my thoughts on this mosque controversy? I completely support the Muslims right to build it — or, more specifically, I support limiting the government’s ability to tell people who can build what where — and think the whole thing is such a nonissue that I’m embarrassed to waste even seconds thinking about it.

Gaze into the face of evil

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Who are the terrorists? We all are, according to this delightfully unhinged post on a tea party website.

…there is no such thing of a ‘mild’ muslim, even the ‘quiet’ ones who live on the street corner, drive the BMW and work in the dr’s office…they go to mosque, satisfy the pillars, pray, etc…and the money they are giving, that is funding terror.

it is funding terror – and by your silence, YOU are funding terror. YOU are funding terror.

STOP THE SILENCE. STOP THE NONSENCE. STOP THE MUSLIM DAY – THEY ARE NOT AMERICANS. THEY DO NOT ABIDE BY OUR CONSTITUTION – THEY ARE NOT ONE OF US – YOU ARE EITHER WITH US OR AGAINST US – MAKE YOUR DECISION.

Happy happy, joy joy

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I trained down from LA to San Diego yesterday, and took the opportunity to listen to a podcast of this Ted Talk about what makes people happy. Dan Gilbert, the speaker, starts out with an interesting statistic: a year after the event that changed their lives, lotto winners and paraplegics report equal levels of happiness. He argues that this is about context. Paraplegics come to accept their condition, and take joys in the pleasures still available despite their condition. Lotto winners adjust to a new, expanded framework of what is possible, and thus buying a Maserati doesn’t deliver the same pleasure as it would have when they were earning $50,000 a year.

This ties in with some similar thoughts I’ve read in regards to happiness related to income levels. In a book (quoted at the link), Dan Gilbert addresses the topic.

Economists and psychologists have spent decades studying the relation between wealth and happiness, and they have generally concluded that wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty and into the middle class but that it does little to increase happiness thereafter. Americans who earn $50,000 per year are much happier than those who earn $10,000 per year, but Americans who earn $5 million per year are not much happier than those who earn $100,000 per year.

This would seem to be something of a political double edged sword. On one hand, it seems that income disparity — a big target of the left — is not really the cause of unhappiness, it’s poverty. If you get people’s basic needs met, they don’t need much else. On the other hand, the entrepreneurial spirit, so touted by conservatives, doesn’t seem to pay off. Working that extra 40 hours a week won’t make you much happier.

Of course, this is a topic full of uncertainty. There are many other economists quoted at the link who disagree with these assertions. On top of that, you have to wonder how many people answer the question “how happy are you?” honestly. And, do people even really know how happy they are? If you’re happy because you’re swallowing Prozac or shooting heroin once a day, does that really count?

I have solved the economic crisis. Next!

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Lately, I’ve been thinking of ways we could restructure society to better meet our needs, or least to better meet my needs, which is fundamentally what’s important. I’ve been thinking about property and housing. A lot of the issues which caused the current economic crisis were housing related. People bought houses only to find them worth less than they paid for. People lost their jobs and couldn’t pay their rent.

Now, a comfortable house is nice, but what do we really need, from a housing perspective, to sustain ourselves? In the old days, we got by with a teepee or a cave. In the modern era I think most of us could make it with some kind of bedding, a shared bathroom and a shared kitchen. A desk would be nice, but you can always go to Starbucks.

In order to obtain such accommodations in your average American city, you’re looking at rent in the $700-$1000 range (at least.) Does that really make sense? Why couldn’t someone take an entire floor in an industrial building, fill it with a hundred or so cots, throw in a couple bathrooms and kitchenettes and rent each space out for $10 a night (around $300 a month)? It’s not fantastic living, but if you just lost your job or walked away from your mortgage, it would be a way to stay above water and even save some money.

I presume we can’t do this because of housing laws and zoning regulations. These laws are partly motivated by well-intentioned rules mandating safety and a certain standard of living for people, but I suspect that local governments are conspiring (perhaps unwittingly) with property owners and landlords to keep rent prices higher. It’s a lot easier to rent a crummy apartment for $800 a month if it’s still cheapest game in town.

I tend to find libertarian arguments that we can create a utopia by deregulating markets somewhat naïve, but this strikes me as a clear case where they’re basically correct. This solution wouldn’t be problem free (you’d need a couple security guards on hand to keep people from getting on each other’s nerves) but I think it could allow people to weather economic storms, and maybe even get a decent chunk of the homeless off the streets. (It’s almost as effective as my “feed the homeless to sharks” proposal!)

Why don’t teachers teach something useful?

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I rarely miss an opportunity to deride the American education system; one of my main complaints is that it often focuses on teaching obscure if not downright esoteric skill sets as opposed to the basic skills most people need to function in society. I, for instance, graduated from high school never having been taught to use a checkbook (I picked it up pretty quickly, but still.) There’s an article in the new New Yorker arguing that if the recent recession and housing market implosion has taught us anything, it’s that we need meaningful financial education.

We really need something more like a financial equivalent of drivers’ ed. There’s evidence that just improving basic calculation skills and inculcating a few key concepts could make a significant difference. One study of the few states that have mandated financial education in schools found that it had a surprisingly large impact on savings rates. And the Center for American Progress has found that, across the country, education and counselling by nonprofit organizations, like the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, have helped low-income families buy and hold onto homes, even during the housing bubble. The point isn’t to turn the average American into Warren Buffett but to help people avoid disasters and day-to-day choices that eat away at their bank accounts.

I couldn’t agree more. We teach algebra and calculus — which 90% of students won’t use — but we don’t teach them how to avoid getting screwed on a home loan or to recognize a credit card offer with insane terms. The reason of course is that the teachers unions are in bed with the American finance industry. And they all take their orders directly from the Mexican Elvis who lives in a UFO parked in the North Pole.

“Maybe we’re not the one driving the boat”

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So, I was just thinking over the past couple days about how many of the discoveries of modern neuroscience seem to attack the precepts of autonomy and free will. Then I wandered over to reason.com and discovered an interview with a neuroscientist who specializes in the law, sharing his views on this very topic. A couple interesting points…

* He argues that neuroscience can actually help people gain autonomy by engaging in therapies that can fix impulse control, something criminals are famously short on. The exact nature of these “therapies” is not discussed.

* He comments on something that’s already happening, the idea of basing sentences on a person’s brain state. If they have a diseased brain that will likely reoffend, give them longer sentences etc.

* When asked whether modern neuroscience challenges libertarian ideas of autonomy, the answer is an unqualified yes. “You are your biology.”

Of course, at some point he argues that all this doesn’t excuse criminal behavior. Er, sorry, yes it does.

The comments section has some interesting discussion of the nature free will.