Thoughts from Independence Day Weekend

"Learn from the mistakes of others -- you can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself." (ascribed to Eleanor Roosevelt)

One of the fundamental characteristics of intelligence is the ability to learn from experience. And a characteristic of higher intelligence is learning from the experience of others. We can learn a lot from recent major events in other countries. Strength is important in extracting one's self from difficult situations. But intelligence can help keep us from getting into such situations in the first place.

Object lesson 1: Iran:
Apparently the election was stolen. Outraged citizens took to the streets. How did the government respond? They expelled all foreign journalists; limited and controlled domestic news coverage; and worked to disrupt personal communications (cell phones, texting, internet connections) between people sharing information about what was going on. The government recognized that if no record exists of a massive demonstration, then it's almost as if the demonstration didn't take place.
What we can learn from Iran: freedom of the press, freedom of information, freedom of speech, and freedom of communication in general are not just arbitrary rights or privileges; they are critical conduits for channeling forces that maintain freedom in general. Moreover, we should recognize a robust infrastructure for exercising these rights is important, too. The more diverse and distributed information channels are, the harder they are to control.

Object lesson 2: Honduras:
Apparently President Zelaya was working to change the country's constitution in a way that would have allowed him to stay in office longer than currently allowed. He seemed to be following this example of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who first loosened presidential term limits in and then managed to get them eliminated entirely, setting himself up to be president forever. Apparently Zelaya had also established close ties with Chavez and Venezuela.
According to news reports, on the morning that the referendum on whether to amend the constitution was to take place, soldiers paid an early-morning visit to President Zelaya's residence and took him, unwilling, to a plane that flew him out of the country. That same afternoon the man who led the legislature was voted in as the interim president by that same legislature. I have not read of any widespread public protests.
What we can learn from Honduras: Constitutions need to be defended, even when (or especially when) the fate of the country is at risk. In fact, the U.S. President (and all military personnel) swear an oath the defend the Constitution of the United States, rather than the country itself. Of course, defending the country is an important part of defending the constitution, but too many people seem to reverse the priorities. A useful analogy: the country is an ocean liner, the constitution represents the passengers, and the president is the captain. The captain has a responsibility for the safety of the passengers, and also a responsibility for the safety of the ship. Normally the best way to take care of the passengers is to take care of the ship. But in an extreme cases this may not be true. Sacrificing the ship to ensure the survival of the passengers would be a defendable decision. But sacrificing the passengers to ensure the survival of the ship is not.
Citizens have a similar, though unstated, obligation to the Constitution. When a constitutional process produces a result, citizens are obligated to abide by it, even if they don't agree. But when government bodies take actions that violate the constitution, citizens are obligated to take restorative action, even if the agree with the motivation of the violators. I'm not seeing this in Honduras. If Zelaya was subverting, or attempting to subvert, the Honduran constitution (it sounds like he was doing this) he should be impeached. But allowing the military to storm his home and immediately send him out of the country is clearly not a constitutional process. No Honduran should tolerate that. Of course, Honduras is one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere. We in the United States don't have that excuse.

Object lesson 3: China: China recently postponed (but did not abandon) implementation of a law that required all personal computers sold in their country to have special 'Green Dam' software to filter out pornographic material available on the internet. Of course, filters for pornography might easily be used to filter any content deemed inappropriate. I'm confident that the deadline for implementation was set long ago, but it caught my attention due to recent events in Iran (see object lesson 1, above.) and the recent 20th anniversary of events in Tianamen Square. It appears that China is setting up an infrastructure to suppress communication between its citizens in case people feel a need to organize an opposition to government policy.
What we can learn from China: As noted in object lesson 1, above, citizens shouldn't take for granted the infrastructure that facilitates our current free exchange of information. It is often noted that the internet system arose from a Defence Department need for a decentralized communications network that would operate even in the extreme case of a nuclear attack on our country. Yes, the network is 'self-healing' in the sense that people in Los Angeles would still be able to communicate with Seattle even if San Francisco were completely destroyed in an earthquake. But, especially since the 'tech-bubble collapse' of the late 1990s, fewer and fewer companies control more and more of the communications channels. And in the aftermath of 9/11 most of these companies bowed to government pressure to allow apparently unfettered government access to communications traffic. I would hope that these companies would resist if the government tried to interfere with communications among people. The smaller the number of companies controlling communication infrastructure, the more likely that all will succumb to such pressure.
　
So ends my Independence Day weekend musing on freedom.
　
　
　

USDA Grades of Beef: Time to retire them

Here's an message I just sent to the Secretary of Agriculture ( SecAg@usda.gov ）：

President Obama is trying to reduce healthcare costs, but the USDA actively encourages people to eat higher-calorie, higher-fat cuts of meat by continuing to support use of categories such as 'Prime' and 'Choice', which Americans have been conditioned to equate with high-quality. Stop it!

Please shift to terms that reflect the NEGATIVE consequences of high-fat meat. Feedlots are bad for health, bad for the environment, and bad for the nation's well-being. It's time to put discontinue use of these outdated categories.

C-units: a proposal to reduce healthcare costs

Here's an idea I submitted to www.healthreform.gov a few minutes ago...

Reduce healthcare costs significantly by attacking a major cause of illness: over-eating! Make it patriotic to lose weight and get fit. Make it UN-patriotic for businesses to push big portions and unhealthy foods.

Here's an idea: create a new unit equal to 100 calories. Call it a 'C-number', or something. Require restaurant menus and fast-food receipts to show the 'C-number' for each individual item. An order of french-fries might be 2.5 C-units. Pasta with cream sauce might be 11 C-units. Then have a big campaign to constantly ask people "what was your C-count today?" and push the fact that generally C-counts shouldn't be more than 20 per day. This would raise awareness that too many of us eat far too many calories, and (hopefully) raise the demand for more reasonable portions and healthier foods.

Of course, you don't need 'C-units' to count calories; but the advantage to 'C-units' have is that they would allow people to deal with smaller numbers. It's much easier to count to 20 than to 2000.

Reducing the need for healthcare

I'm sending the following letter to the President:

Dear President Obama -
Want to reduce healthcare costs? Make healthcare less necessary! A vast part of our health problems are avoidable. But the healthcare industry focuses on fixing problems because that's where the money is. To reduce costs, avoid problems before they must be fixed.

To do this, connect improving one's health and fitness with patriotism, just as you did with education. I loved your line regarding dropping out: "you're not just giving up on yourself, you're giving up on your country." How about "A stronger America requires stronger Americans!"

Not everyone can be a superb athlete, but everyone can improve their level of fitness. Overweight? Lose ten pounds. Sedentary? Start walking or running. Even elderly people can benefit from simple weight training or other exercises done in their own homes. And the typical American meal could be vastly improved in terms of promoting health. Best of all, if people are properly motivated, this doesn't have to cost the government much, if anything.

During World War II, people sacrificed 'for the war effort' and felt good about doing it. Almost every facet of society had to make significant adjustments. Reducing our huge, non-sustainable healthcare costs requires a similar effort, and it can't be limited to just the healthcare and insurance industries.

Citizens want to know how they can help. They want to be active participants in solving our nation's problems, rather than just victims of forces beyond their control. Tell them "Here's what you can do for your country: Eat properly, lose weight, be physically active." If you hammer this message home, you'll see the demand for healthcare significantly decline.

Keep up the good work,
- Ned

What we need: Commitment to Truth; Faith; Trust

We (our nation and our world) need three things, which are intertwined:

Commitment to the Truth:
Truth has a very high value; we should recognize this fact. Truth multiplies the power of groups, because individuals can rely on the information they receive from others without the inefficiency of questioning the motives of others. With truthful communications, groups can operate as a single organism, collecting and processing information no single individual could collect and process alone.

Truth is more than facts, and more than a collection of facts. Our presidential campaigns bombard us with huge numbers of facts in attempts to convince us to vote for their candidates. They purport to tell us the Truth, but they carefully lead us away from facts that might weaken their candidates' positions. We should not stand for this. The time before elections should be a nationwide discussion about what is True, with every side willing to concede points (where warranted) to others in a quest to determine where we are and where we should go.

This discussion necessarily requires that we accept that people can honestly disagree about important issues. In fact, Truth is subjective. What I feel is True may not be what you feel is True. What I feel is True today may not be what I felt was True yesterday, or tomorrow. But what is important is that when we interact with other people, we communicate Truthfully about what we know and what we feel. And the fact that our own knowledge and feelings change over time should help us understand that someone else's differing perception of Truth doesn't make them evil, or even a bad person; they're just different. If we can convince them that our perception of Truth is superior to their perception, great. But if they manage to convince us, we need to admit it. In few cases will either perception be either fully correct or fully incorrect; the full Truth lies outside either perception, waiting to be more fully uncovered.

The object is not to define a static, objective Truth that all can agree on; the important thing is that all parties be committed to the search, and honest in communicating what they find.


The second thing we need is Faith. We need Faith that Truth is our friend. Too often we are afraid to tell the Truth, or know the Truth, or seek the Truth, for fear of the consequences. Faith is the confidence that we'll be OK without depending on the status quo. My wife, a statistician, is fond of saying the most important factor in predicting whether you'll be alive tomorrow is whether you're alive today. The reason you're alive today is that, overall, the things that led you to where you are now have kept you alive. You have a lifelong record of survival. There are any number of things in your past that could have led to your demise, but you have avoided them all. That's a high recommendation for keeping on doing what you're doing.

This thing about committing yourself to Truth is pretty threatening. You got to where you are based on a set of assumptions (which may have change quite a bit through the years) about what is important, what is True, what's, what's wrong, what's OK, and what's not OK. And when these assumptions are challenged, you have a choice: you can either be open to change, or you can defend them. It's often safer to defend them. Change is a threat to your survival, because what you perceive before you change has been successful in keeping you alive. That's why Faith is important. You have to have Faith in the Truth in order to seek Truth. And you can't be committed to Truth without seeking it.

Trust is the third component to this triad. We need to trust others. If we're confident others are committed to Truth, trusting them is simple. And that's another reason for being committed to Truth ourselves; others need to be able to trust US.

Trusting doesn't require us to accept as fact everything anyone else tells us. If someone tells me that Vitamin C can prevent cancer, I, frankly, wouldn't believe it. But I should be able to trust that the other person believes that it does. And I don't necessarily need to get into a discussion with that person about whether it's true; that discussion may not be worth my time. But I, and we as a society, shouldn't condone people saying that Vitamin C prevents cancer if they don't actually believe it themselves. But I think we tolerate this time type of misrepresentation all the time, in others, and in ourselves. And we shouldn't.

When I criticize toleration of behavior, I want to be clear about the danger of branding people as 'bad'. I believe we're all a mixture of admirable ("good") and inadmirable ("bad") qualities, and the distribution of these qualities in us change with time. The fact that I lied once, or perhaps lied a lot, doesn't make me an incorrigible liar from that point on. A person who is untrustworthy at one time, or about one thing, isn't necessarily untrustworthy about everything, or even that one thing all the time. Who among us hasn't learned from a mistake?

We shouldn't tolerate dishonesty, but we need to be willing to risk loss by sometimes erring on the side of trusting too much, rather than playing it safe and never trusting anyone who has let us (or others) down in the past. This is another example of how Faith is important in our lives.

So there you have it: We need a commitment to Truth, because that allows groups to function efficiently and cooperatively. We need Faith that this commitment to Truth will benefit us all in the end. And we need Trust to take advantage of the benefits Truth provides.

So ends my first post on my Philosophy.

So far, good news on the value of the dollar...

A brief followup on the 9/29/08 post:
The dollar has risen in value in the past 2 weeks. Only 9/29/08 it was worth 0.695362 euros; by 10/10/08 it had climbed to 0.742335 euros, which is as high as it has been since the first part of 2007.

But we should still pay close attention to the value of the dollar. When it drops, expect interest rates to climb. And, with a 10 Trillion dollar debt, high interest rates will be devestating to our federal budget.

One other note: the current economic crisis has caused people to seek the security of Treasury notes and bonds, which has the effect of reducing the interest rate the government pays to borrow money. So it creates a short-term advantage to the federal budget. But it also means that money is less available to commercial operations (can you say 'credit crunch'?) so it's not a long-term solution.

Kitchen table conversations

The presidential candidates and pundits refer to families getting together for conversations 'around the kitchen table' to figure out how they can cut back on expenditures. But the solution to our current economic crisis really involves raising a different subject in these family conversations: "How can we help be part of the solution to the problem?"

Recent generations have been taught to think of individuals and families as 'consumers'. When you go to work, either as an employee or a businessperson, you're considered a producer, but as soon as you get home, you're merely considered 'a consumer'. This unhelpful dichotomy needs to change. People at home do more than consume, and they have an important role to play when they're not consuming. (The idea that they are literally 'nothing if not consumers' is extremely dangerous, since overconsumption is a key cause of most of the problems the world faces.)

Back to the kitchen table conversation: This should not be presented as a negative thing: "What do we have to give up?", but rather as a more general, and possibly positive "What do we do in this situation?" This can include cutting back consumption, but can also include "What can we do to help?" Patriotism is love of country, and when someone or something you love is in trouble, you look for ways to help, even if these actions require sacrifice. Knowing you are part of the solution can be far more rewarding than hedonistic consuming. People and families can endure much more hardship when they consider themselves helping to build (or rebuild) something important. Our leaders need to enlist the power of American families and citizens to contribute something other than taxes to our society. And leaders should not consider tax breaks the only way to solicit this response.

I'm really thinking about one particular way American families can assist in the economic recovery: 'buy American' or, better yet, 'buy local'. Money spend on domestic products is more likely to stay in the domestic economy than money spent on foreign goods. Money that stays in the domestic economy helps business after business (and thus employee after employee) keep going, and that's what we need.

I realize that American goods are generally significantly more expensive than foreign goods, and therefore 'buying American' necessarily means people can't buy as much as they could if they bought cheaper foreign goods. But there is a significant psychological advantage to viewing the issue as making a positive decision to make things better, rather than a negative decision just to reduce expenditures in order to survive.

We really lost an opportunity last Spring to make this point at the time the 'economic stimulus' checks went out. People should have been encouraged to consider how long their money would stay in the domestic economy when using this windfall income.

One last point: there are somethings national leaders really can't say. I suspect the President can't say 'buy American' because other countries would react negatively. "Protectionism" is a dirty word. Other countries rely on the American market consuming what is produced overseas, and they wouldn't like to hear American leaders interfering with this process.

But at some point citizens need to take care of their own countries. We are not sheep that are led entirely by government tax policies. Democracies are based upon citizen participation, and participation is not just a matter of voting whenever elections occur. Yes, we are "consumers", and we are "voters", but we are not just these things. Our nation's future depends on people adopting a broader view of themselves and each other.