Dismal, But Scientists Nonetheless

/ Adam / 2 Comments

A continuing critique of economists throughout the global financial crisis has been of tunnel vision. Ideological, free market blinkers, meant economists missed the inflating bubble and fixated on irrelevancies while sailing us happily over a cliff. A fair sample of it can be found in this New York Times article from March 2009, quoting that old favourite, JK Galbraith:

“It’s business as usual,” he said. “I’m not conscious that there is a fundamental re-examination going on in journals.”

John has pointed out that this is more of an open academic secret than a staggering revelation, with William Buiter’s summary of the shabby state of the art serving as an example. Buiter used to be on the monetary commitee for the Bank of England; he’s pretty Establishment so far as economics goes, and you can see him merrily pointing holes in both Keynes and neoclassical models here.

These gaps, or gaping holes, do indeed make policy development horribly difficult, and the lives of politicians harder. This melds with old critiques of economists as somehow wooly or less than scientific. If you use Kuhn as a starting point, though, this pigheaded devotion to a model until its contradictions with reality become unmanageable is not a bug, but a feature, and a feature of science, what’s more.

Kuhn provided the terms paradigm and paradigm shift to the history of science (and a thousand failed dot com business plans), to describe the dominant worldview of normal science and the process by which it changes. A paradigm encompasses theory, conventional practice, instrumentation, and a domain of set problems and unsolved problems for the field. Different paradigms are not just competing theories but competing worldviews because they are in some sense incommensurable; proponents will often argue past each other.

It is the narrowing of focus provided by a successful paradigm that makes the activity of normal science so productive. With a professional consensus on worthwhile problems, tremendous attention and progress can be made on those problems very rapidly. Elements widely outside those areas become seen as philosophical, or at least part of a neighbouring academic discipline rather than the discipline defined by the paradigm.

Kuhn also points to why the neoclassical model is not yet academically dead. In his analysis, paradigms are always replaced by one or sometimes two victorious alternatives. Economics today (I would assert) is at a stage of one hundred flowers blooming; alternative paradigms are propagating but they are fairly wishy-washy for the most part. In part this is because some of them – Post Autistic Economics comes to mind – explicitly reject a quantitative or model centric worldview. It might be an interesting and successful policy or philosophical school but it is unlikely to meet with scientific success because it is not scientific. The trigger might be theoretical – some new technique to deal with the nasty math behind rational agents and complete markets, perhaps. Or the trigger might be empirical – the wealth of data coming out of computational sociology from social networking sites, perhaps. I’m too far away from the field to really pick a winner. But until there is a killer new paradigm which lets technical economists address a new range of technical issues or get a different traction on reality with them, I’d suggest the New Classical Model will continue to prevail.

Readings From The Book of Bartlet

/ Adam / Leave a comment

We finished Season Seven of The West Wing recently. Yes, at last, I guess, but one of the glories of the DVD is how easy it makes attacking a TV series serially. I first saw Virginia Postrel mention this novelistic bonus side-effect of laser technology. And like Buffy, or War and Peace, watching it this way lets the grander themes unfold in a way that the deconstructive experience of catching a dozen arbitrarily ordered M*A*S*H repeats does not.

The comparison with Tolstoy is warranted at another level, as the world Aaron Sorkin gives us is a sweeping and moralistic one. It’s one of high power and great privilege, but also of real, intertwined relationships. It’s also a religous world. The West Wing has to be seen as a text in what Normal Mailer called the American Civic Religion, the set of beliefs and rituals in self-government and the transcendent nature of democracy that keep the institution running. The West Wing has an almost fairy tale idealism about political institutions that could serve as a counterpoint to the skepticism of Tolstoy towards Napoleon and his ilk.

It is a tribute to the comprehensiveness of Sorkin’s vision, but also the embedding of that vision in strands of civic religion, that a writing team was able to continue his work for the last three seasons. They were able to continue his work – rather brilliantly too – because the work itself was an extension of a culture. There are not many examples of great (or Great) works successfully being picked up by a second writer after the first had to leave it. Dreams In Red Mansion is the only one I know offhand, and that too was trying to capture the spirit of an age amongst people of privilege, though in private, not public.

Unlike War and Peace, but like Buffy, The West Wing is also genuinely funny. This was also the only way I was able to convince my wife to watch it, as she is neither a political tragic nor particularly fond of American political kitsch. It’s funny in a highly verbal, rat-a-tat-tat way of a good play or a screwball comedy. The ever marvellous TV Tropes lists three main characters as being Deadpan Snarks. B wouldn’t have lasted one episode without that element, let alone seven seasons. I am going to stray to spoilers now.

I think this dynamic also explains why the series evolved from having Sam Seaborn as the main character (of an ensemble) to the character of Josh Lyeman. Josh was supposed to be highbrow comic relief but in the end his character arc becomes that of the show over the seven seasons. The pilot episode starts with him being a Young Turk foolishly insulting the Christian Right on TV, and the final episode has him become Chief of Staff.

Josh, despite being a nutcase of sorts, is an also an easier protagonist to follow, because he has a job of more obviously doing things. Sam’s main job as Deputy Communications Director was a speechwriter, a relator of events. Furthermore every episode that features Sam writing an excellent speech is also a letter of congratulations from the writers of the show to themselves (and these were mostly in the Sorkin-dominated early seasons).

Of course I still love the character of Sam, who for a while was the last scientific positivist on American TV. I love all of the original characters for that matter, except maybe Mandy, who just left one day at the end of the first season, in the manner of Sorkin characters, and of a certain kind of office. But I didn’t like the ending. There are various suggestions that the writers plans were thrown by the sad death of John Spence. It’s understandable, given that, that they got distracted by the character arc of the team. But they discounted that the power of the show comes from its feeding off of, and contributing to, a myth of democratic process. Seen from that perspective, the show’s ending is weak.

At the end of this tale of the American civic religion, we get the saintly genius Jed Bartlett, who as well as being the nerdiest president since Jefferson nearly became a priest, handing over to the saintly Matt Santos, the everyday dad and fighter pilot, like Thomas Aquinas handing over to the Archangel Michael. It’s a changing of the guard at left-wing fantasy central, not a meaningful, orderly changeover of power. And that’s the great victory of civic politics: handing over power to people, to an organisation, you might hate, who you fought for months and years, but ultimately recognise as patriots, and retreating into loyal opposition yourself. That sourness of loss, that heartbreak, that recognition of the worth of the system, even though balance has tipped for a moment – that is democracy’s catharsis. I know Hollywood doesn’t like tragedies, but Americans of all people should know that a peaceful change of power is really a triumph. Enoch Powell said that all political lives end in failure, but on the West Wing they all have a fairy tale ending. Even Arnie Vinick (R, California) gets to become Secretary of State.

The Supremes is probably my favourite episode. It’s an episode which was setup by the story arc, without being heavily reliant on it. The Chief Justice is fictional – conservatives have held that position for some time – but the situation is recognizable, so it is not a trite allegory. Details like the fading Chief Justice writing judgements in Alexandrine hexameter and the insufferable intern have set it up earlier in the season. Yet it unfolds like a good science fiction short story, exploring an idea. A series of justices second as avatars of judicial philosophies, but it’s also funny, with a drunken hurrah. It’s an episode that puts forward an argument, that promotes debate as being at the heart of good government. The West Wing ever combined a wonkish political hyper-literacy with a fairy tale idealism. These irreconcilable opposites pulled at and fought with each other in every episode, and it was exciting, intelligent, funny television. And then sometimes the wonk and the fairy princess stopped fighting and danced a waltz.

WP:Vote

/ Adam / 3 Comments

John B points out (off-blog) a post on The New Republic that with its blend of political and technical metaphors sounds more like a post from early 21st century South Sea Republic: Wiki-constitutionalism.

It describes the tremendous affection South American nations have for rewriting their constitution from scratch, at a rate of once every ten years or so.

Though it’s a catchy name, Wiki-constitutionalism isn’t a great analogy. The defining aspect of C2 or wikipedia was always progressive collaborative refinement of its documents. A rewrite from scratch is more akin to what Jefferson advocated, in Cam’s words:

Jefferson believed constitution’s should be sunsetted every 25 years, so each succeeding generation can rewrite government to be a reflection of themselves. I agree. The reason republicanism has such traction is that our constitution is a 16thC document with an elected upper house thrown in. Many of the errors, skewings and inefficiencies in our system can be traced to their constitutional origins.

To continue the analogy, and reuse one that came up on SSR more than once, it is like throwing out a creaking legacy system written in VB by a million monkeys, and having a new crack team come in and rewrite it in Python (or the tech du jour).

The example of South America is, however, not reassuring. Going back to TNR:

Latin American leaders have discovered that, by packaging ever-longer lists of promises and rights alongside greater executive functions, they can make a new constitution appealing enough to the masses that they will vote for it in a referendum. The result is constitutions that are not only the shortest-lived, but also among the longest in the world. Bolivia’s and Ecuador’s recently approved constitutions have 411 and 444 articles, respectively, and read like laundry lists of guaranteed rights, such as access to mail and telephones; guarantees for culture, identity, and dignity; and shorter work-weeks. By contrast, the U.S. Constitution, the longest-serving in the world, has only seven articles and 27 amendments.

Making most of these efforts, to complete the last lap around this allegorical track, about as successful as your typical Big Redesign In The Sky.

Subtropical Lawn Care For Green Incompetents

/ Adam / 2 Comments

In late 2009 we moved back to Brisbane, and in keeping with the low density suburban vibe that predominates in this city, acquired responsibility for a lawn. It takes up the remainder of a 400 m^2 block after a small worker’s cottage, a largish shed, and a few small gardens and trees are taken out.

I am not a huge lawn fan. We might convert some of it to garden, in the medium term, but even after that some sort of lawn seems inevitable. B floated the idea of letting it return to meadow, and sowing wildflowers. It’s a wonderfully romantic notion, but there are a few drawbacks. In Out of Control, Kevin Kelly describes a person who restores meadow environments in the US, and it is actually pretty hard work. In the same book, he quotes Freeman Dyson’s critique of Biosphere 2: that the great successes of a closed system like that will be weeds. (It was not exactly the original experiment parameters, but that’s just what happened). Rather more prosaically, typical scrub grass in South East Queensland grows to about a metre high. That’s taller than my son.

So rather than invest in tracking technology and snake wrestling lessons for the youngster, I resigned myself to participation in the ritual cleansing of the yard using a lawnmower.

I don’t really like lawnmowers either. Never have, they are coughing, loud, awkward things awash with fumes that always need filling up with petrol. Plus we have, with varying degrees of seriousness, been trying to go through what Alex Steffen describes somewhat derisorily as The Swap:

Many of these ideas are still being presented as support for the idea that we can conveniently retrofit North American 20th Century suburban life for the 21st Century. We still see hundreds of stories a day promoting the Swap — the idea that we can change the components of suburban, high-consumption, auto-dependent lives without have to change the nature of those lives — but that idea itself is non-reality-based.

To me the Swap is not sufficient but it’s a good start. And anyway, where does The Swap end and The Solution begin? So instead of another petrol lawnmower I bought a push mower off Ebay with $25 and an armful of enthusiasm. That’s push mower as in with your arms, not electric. It’s an old Flymo 5/40. Electric mowers have their place but require more financial commitment. And a really really long extension cord, or you take another big leap in expense.

We had a push mower when I was a kid so I was not entirely ignorant of its pros and cons. But here are some lessons learnt.

  • Consistency. These push mowers work best on short grass, so a philosophy of little and often works best. Once the grass grows a bit it will wrap around the internal axle, and also just stop the rotation of the blades. To make progress you then need to do many short sharp pushes on the same segment, rather than a relatively smooth walking pass. The effort increases in a brutally non-linear fashion relative to the length of the grass. When the grass got long, I ended up spending nearly a third of the mowing time on the most lush 5 metres square patch
  • Summer will beat you. We had record rainfall this summer as a long drought ended. Together with a few weeks away on business, bone idleness on my part, the wet ground and summer sun-fuelled grass vaulting ever skywards, I had to resort to borrowing a petrol mower a few times just to reset the playing field. Ok, what actually happened, even more humiliatingly, was my retired father just came and mowed it when I wasn’t home. Now we are on the edge of winter I am keeping up pretty easily. It’s still a net carbon win, but a bit frustrating to have to cheat in this manner. I suspect that without forking out for a lawnmower bike a few passes with the petrol mower will still be needed each Christmas though.
  • Grass types make a difference. For a lazy lawnmower like myself, broad short kikuyu grass is great. Shorter thinner grass like cooch or other even snobbier varieties used down south are dense pains in the neck (and back and shoulders).
  • Whipper snipper. It is harder to fudge edges with a push mower, as you can’t lift one wheel and push with that dangerous but widely used tilted petrol mower technique without losing almost all cutting power. Once I had established to myself that this push business wasn’t just a fad, by mowing for a month or two, I bought an electric whipper snipper. We recently switched to 100% green power at home so the carbon footprint is restricted to the manufacture and transport. Since I never did the edges properly before anyway, the place actually looks better now.
  • Profile. Our lawn is pretty flat and rectangular. Even so, there are a few dips and holes in it from trees removed long ago. They are a pain as well. We are trying to fill in the holes, but so far everything put into them has trickled down out of sight in a few weeks. They must have been big trees, possibly with roots in another plane.

I figure some people pay for the gym to get their exercise. I hate the gym, and this way we can still traverse our yard without a compass.

Two Letters and Twenty-Five Kinds of Awesome

/ Adam / Leave a comment

AE, the Canadian Science Fiction Review, is a larval stage SF magazine being launched through Kickstarter. I have the lucky, internet-mediated acquaintance of two-thirds of the staff. They are by turns witty, elliptically brilliant, and elegant vivisectionists of consensus reality. They also do words. Big words, small words, words jammed together into sentences, all varieties. Don’t believe me, go check their site out. Words all over the place, but none out of place.

The editorial team have embraced the web and Creative Commons, which is both appealling and the only approach that makes a damn bit of twenty first century sense, and they ultimately leave the final copyright choices up the the submitting authors. They are also planning to pay a decent rate – the SFWA rate, specifically. Their inspiration is, to paraphrase them slightly, more the many headed hydra of the Canadian cosmopolity than “Mounties In Space”.

Given the track record of these people’s superbity-ness, the very least I could do would be to point the rusty, lone search engine robot that reads this blog their way via the link above. So I’ve gone a tiny step further than that and pledged some money as well. Given the way Kickstarter works, this will come back to me in the form of delicious, perfect bound science fiction. Or if they don’t find enough backers this time, it will just come back to me, and the world will be a less speculative place. Which would be a shame. Because if there’s one policy this blog can follow, through thick and thin, it is being pro-awesome.

I really want to read a Mounties In Space story now. But stylish. Like Mountiepunk.