my wife complained about the grass getting too high
all these causes are "necessary" but not "sufficient" for the outcome to happen that I mowed the lawn last Tuesday
all of these causes could still be present (especially the wife complaining about the grass) but didn't unto themselves cause the lawn to be mowed last Tuesday
it was Tuesday
I went to the shed, got out the mower
It started it and it worked properly
I completed mowing the lawn
without these events the lawn would not have been cut last Tuesday
goal scored in a soccer game from an assist
both players in game
1st player makes an assist
without the assist, the goal shot couild not be taken
therefore, the assist is a necessary cause
the assist alone is not sufficient for the goal
2nd player receives the assist and scores the goal
the "sufficiency" here is that without the successful shot on goal no goal would be made
"packages" are useful for students to understand distinctions in historical places, eras, and outcomes
ex., the industrialization "package" of the 1870's United States included the Civil War, immigration, laissez-faire governance, plentiful resources, etc.,
whereas the industrialization "package" of 1870s India included plentiful resources, high population, British governance and colonial resource manipulation,
thereby India did not industrialize in the 1870s the same way as did the U.S.
using contingency, we see that set conditions define available choices
we also see that those choices are constrained by those conditions
i.e., an isolated agrarian society cannot simply choose to industrialize if the conditions for industrialization are not present
that society can engage in a series of choices that might create those conditions over time
however, sometimes even available choices are not present not because while those choices might seem available "path dependencies" inherently limit them
ex., early United States could have chosen to abolish slavery as that choice was articulated and available
however, the early US suffered from a "path dependency" in the constitutional relationship between the slave and free states that prevented that choice from being taken
instead, the choices taken ultimate led to civil war
path dependencies shape decisions in a form of a circular argument:
ex., "we cannot increase food production because we don't have enough food to provide for workers to increase irrigation that would lead to higher food production"
an error of historical interpretation through the lens of the present
i.e., one's understanding of the past is shaped around conditions and perspectives that accord to the present but are not valid in interpreting the past
by failing to consider the nature of a contemporaneous past (i.e., how and why things were at the time),
modern points of view fail to appreciate the conditions and choices that led to their own modern, contemporaneous conditions and the choices they face.
the "trap" occurs by negating the value of an historical moment while failing to identify that event as necessary and sufficient for the present day
"It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own."
the idea that
to attain power a dictator must have access to free speech (press, publicity, etc.)
but to maintain power, a dictator must shut down free speech (of opponents)
an ultimate effect is that by prohibiting speech and dissent, the dictator also
reduces access to information from which to guide policies and hold on power
when access to "levers" or instruments of power, the disenfranchised may seek alternative forms of engaging or participating in the larger society, including
disruptions of events and political advocacy deliberately intended to shut them down
ex. A threat is called in to an arena where a speech is to take place, and the venue is shut down, resulting in a "veto" of that speech, as it was not given as a result of the threat
"The hatred that men bear to privilege increases in proportion as privileges become fewer and less considerable, so that democratic passions would seem to burn most fiercely just when they have least fuel. I have already given the reason for this phenomenon. When all conditions are unequal, no inequality is so great as to offend the eye, whereas the slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst of general uniformity; the more complete this uniformity is, the more insupportable the sight of such a difference becomes. Hence it is natural that the love of equality should constantly increase together with equality itself, and that it should grow by what it feeds on."
- Tocqueville, Alexis de (1840). "Chapter III: That the sentiments of democratic nations accord with their opinions in leading them to concentrate political power". Democracy in America
The "Tocqueville effect" occurs when marginal portions of society gain economic and/or political power and their demands for reform increase, along with attacks on the established order upon which the greater equality arose.
>> todo: bring in Mancur Olson and Theory of Groups >> see wiki entry Mancur Olson about how interests tend to coalesce over time and focus on protection of gains, stifling innovation... organizations become "congealed" (from "How Phil Falcone Was LightSnared" WSJ, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. 2/18/2012) and resist competition and protect the status quo.
similarly to Tocqueville's observations, in 1974 Univ Penn Professor Richard Easterlin noted that the growth in (gross, or overall, national) happiness tends to diverge from growth in economic wealth. Whereas overall growth in happiness parallels economic growth in initial stages, as
an explanation for the effect is "social comparison," which states that people take a relativistic and not absolute view of their individual wealth or position in society:
i.e., people do not view their personal wealth in terms of what it actually is ("absolute")
and instead view is in comparison to others ("relative")
while a certain segment of a population may control a significant portion of assets, it may not also constitute a disproportionate amount of economic activity
government dispersals of or redistribution of income may hide underlying economic disparities in standards of living, purchasing power, etc.
Known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns[edit | edit source]
During the Iraq War, US Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld famously explained to the press that it's not the "known knowns" or even the "known unknowns" that worry him, it's the "unknown unknowns" that he's worried about
humans hate uncertainty, and so plan for "contingencies" (possibilities) and structure their societies and lives around "mitigating" uncertainty
ex. building dikes in case of flooding, or aqueducts in case of drought
however, they cannot plan for what they do not expect
black swan events are unforeseen events that come without warning and without general observation of their approach
black swan events may include economic collapse (2007 mortgage crisis) or sudden war
as well as non-man controlled events such as meteors, volcanoes, and major weather events
Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" for analysis of human fear of uncertainty[edit | edit source]
Click EXPAND for excerpts from Leviathan on uncertainty:
Only the present has an existence in nature; things past exist in the memory only; and future things don’t exist at all, because the future is just a fiction of the mind, arrived at by noting the consequences that have ensued from past actions and assuming that similar present actions will have similar consequences (an assumption that pushes us forward into the supposed future). This kind of extrapolation is done the most securely by the person who has the most experience, but even then not with complete security. And though it is called ‘prudence’ when the outcome is as we expected, it is in its own nature a mere presumption.
from Leviathan, Chapter 3, "Train of Imaginations"
and
Anxiety regarding the future inclines men to investigate the causes of things; because knowledge of causes enables men to make a better job of managing the present to their best advantage. Curiosity, or love of the knowledge of causes, draws a man from consideration of the effect to seek the cause, and then for the cause of that cause, and so on backwards until finally he is forced to have the thought that there is some cause that had no previous cause, but is eternal; this being what men call ‘God’.
from Leviathan, Chapter 11, "The Difference of Manners"
tracking time, seasons, and years brought stability and predictability
especially for seasonally dependent activities such as trade, farming, and warfare
Astrology, or the study of the position of the stars
= method of tracking time and seasons
led to advances in navigation and mathematics
see below for importance of the Winter Soltice
Divine intervention & explanations for events[edit | edit source]
the Winter Solstice (Dec 21/22) marks the sun's lowest trajectory in the northern hemisphere
why is this important?
that the sun has descended and that it will commence its rise again to higher points in the sky
= rebirth, a new start = celebration and deep life-cycle significance
At the Battle of Marathon (Greeks v. Persians), the Athenian commander (War Archon) Callimachus promised to sacrifice a kid (baby goat) to the goddess of the hunt, Artemis. Having killed 6,400 Persians, the Athenians had to kill 500 goats a year in her honor for more than a decade. (source: "The Greco-Persian Wars" by Peter Green; p. 32)
after losing ships to a storm prior to the battle of Thermopylae, Persian king Xerxes ordered his Magi to placate the weather with offerings and spells; the storm subsided
Herodotus, the first Greek historian, noted, "or, of course, it may just be that the wind dropped naturally" ("The Greco-Persian Wars" by Peter Green; p. 124)
Babylonian king Hammurabi wrote on Hammurabi's Code that the laws were given to him by his gods in order to protect the people he ruled (divine justification)
in ancient world outcomes were explained by divine intervention
victors in war or power struggles were thought to have been selected by gods (divine choice)
social = culture, religion, education, entertainment
political = governance
For educational purposes only ** do not distribute **
In "Guns, Germs & Steel," Jared Diamond analyzed social organization by type and characteristics
his chart serves a very useful comparative tool
especially for measuring social organization over time and place
Dunbar's number:
"Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person"
from [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Dunbar's Number (wiki)]]
Social, Political and Economic Structures[edit | edit source]
Machiavelli on the political efficacy from "Discourses on Livy":
NOTE: Machiavelli did not use this term
"Whoever undertakes to govern a people under the form of either republic or monarchy, without making sure of those who are opposed to this new order of things, establishes a government of very brief duration. It is true that I regard as unfortunate those princes who, to assure their government to which the mass of the people is hostile, are obliged to resort to extraordinary measures; for he who has but a few enemies can easily make sure of them without great scandal, but he who has the masses hostile to him can never make sure of them, and the more cruelty he employs the feebler will his authority become; so that his best remedy is to try and secure the good will of the people."
Source: Machiavelli, Niccolo; Burnham, James; Detmold, Christian E. (2010-11-25). Discourses on Livy (with a study by James Burnham) by Niccolo Machiavelli, Christian E. Detmold, James Burnham.
an element of contingency, choice, represents "human agency"
"agent" = a causal element, i.e., that makes things happen
thus "human agency" = the choice and actions of people in historical events and outcomes
while organizations, conditions, structures, geography, etc. largely shape historical conditions and outcomes
human agency, or choice and actions, is how history happens
thus "leadership" is as important as structures
however, human agency is limited by available choice
i.e., leaders of an inland country, say Mongolia, will not likely choose or be able to create a maritime empire
instead, effective leadership did organize Mongolia into a land-based empire using existing structural elements of Mongolian geography, economy, and culture
then, using that land-based power, the Mongols conquered China, established the Yuan Dynasty, and used Chinese structures and culture to build a maritime power.
“I understand the history of money. When I get some, it's soon history.”
money must be:
scarce
too much money reduces its value
inflation results from oversupply of money
or corruption or devaluation of money
see Latin expression: void ab initio
= fraud from the beginning taints everything the follows
transportable
ex. Micronesians used a currency of large limestone coins...9-12ft diameter, several tons... put them outside the houses.. great prestige... but they weren’t transportable, so tokens were created to represent them, or parts of them... Tokens = promises
authentic
not easily counterfeited (fraudulently copied)
trusted
government sanction
permanent
problem with barter of plants and animals is perishability
i.e., fruit and goats can be traded, but fruit goes bad and goats die
early non-coinage forms of money:
sea shells
which are scarce (rare), authentic, visually attractive (pretty)
cattle
crops/ herbs/ spices
especially specialty crops, such as spices
such as pepper, which is dried and therefore transportable and non-perishable
gems, gold, rare minerals
measured by weight
modern period money forms:
during Age of Discovery (15th-17th centuries) rum became currency
18th century Virginia, tobacco became money
in prisons or prisoner of war camps, cigarettes have become currency,
Another chain of causation led from food production to writing, possibly the most important single invention of the last few thousand years (Chapter 12). Writing has evolved de novo only a few times in human history, in areas that had been the earliest sites of the rise of food production in their respective regions. All other societies that have become literate did so by the diffusion of writing systems or of the idea of writing from one of those few primary centers. Hence, for the student of world history, the phenomenon of writing is particularly useful for exploring another important constellation of causes: geography's effect on the ease with which ideas and inventions spread.
and, regarding his analysis of the Spanish conquest of the Inca, p. 81:
Why weren't the Incas the ones to invent guns and steel swords, to be mounted on animals as fearsome as horses, to bear diseases to which European lacked resistance, to develop oceangoing ships and advanced political organization, and to be able to draw on the experience of thousands of years of written history?
from "An Inca Account of the Conquest of Peru" by the Incan prince, Titu Cusi (who learned and wrote the book in Spanish), on some of the first Incan encounters with the Spanish:
we have witnessed with our own eyes that they talk to white cloths by themselves and that they call some of us by our names without having been informed by anyone and only by looking into the sheets, which they hold in front of them.
Culture and Cultural & Technological Achievements[edit | edit source]
Definition: A particular economic advantage, resource or ability a country possesses over either its own other economic situations or those of another country.
the term "comparative advantage" was
origin of the idea:
late 1700s Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790)
click EXPAND for Adam Smith quotation on "absolute advantage":
''If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it off them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby be diminished ... but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest advantage.'' (Book IV, Section ii, 12)
Comparative advantage means concentrating on what your country is good at making/doing in order to get what other countries are better at making/doing."
early 19th century British economist David Ricardo (1772-1823):
argued for specialization as basis for national wealth and increased trade
= laissez-faire, free-trade
related comparative advantage to the concept of "opportunity cost"
i.e. what is lost by not engaging in an activity
Ricardo argued that it would be more costly to for country A to attempt to produce something that country B can more efficiently create than to focus on what that country A itself does better (its comparative advantage) and simply purchase the other goods from country B
and by doing so, both country A and B will benefit from the trade
click EXPAND for David Ricardo's quotation on comparative advantage:
it would undoubtedly be advantageous to the capitalists [and consumers] of England… [that] the wine and cloth should both be made in Portugal [and that] the capital and labour of England employed in making cloth should be removed to Portugal for that purpose.
British colonizer of Australia and economist Robert Torrens independently developed the idea of comparative advantage
click EXPAND for Robert Torrens' quotation on comparative advantage from 1808:
''if I wish to know the extent of the advantage, which arises to England, from her giving France a hundred pounds of broadcloth, in exchange for a hundred pounds of lace, I take the quantity of lace which she has acquired by this transaction, and compare it with the quantity which she might, at the same expense of labour and capital, have acquired by manufacturing it at home. The lace that remains, beyond what the labour and capital employed on the cloth, might have fabricated at home, is the amount of the advantage which England derives from the exchange.''
Examples:
Is it advantageous for the U.S. to import oil from Saudi Arabia or to rely only on its own oil production?
Univ. of Chicago professor Robert Lucas "critiqued" (criticized) macroeconomic theories or models that describe large-scale systems, especially as drawn from "aggregated data" (accumulated) won't impact individual choices or behaviors, or those individual choices and behaviors won't change
in other words, macroeconomic models fail to account for micro-economic or individual behaviors
the utility of the Lucas critique is to point out that policy makes often fail to recognize that individuals make rational decisions that macroeconomic forecasting cannot account for.
Milton Friedman's "Four ways to spend money"[edit | edit source]
late 20th century Economist Milton famously defined the "Four ways to spend money" (paraphrased, not original quotation):
You spend your money on yourself
You spend someone else's money on yourself
Someone else spends their money on on you
Someone else spends someone else's money on someone else
click EXPAND to see the implications of the Four ways to spend money
definition: The value of the next best choice one had when making a decision.
i.e., the trade-off of a decision.
Opportunity cost is a way of measuring your decisions: if I do this, would having done something else been more or less expensive? What did I give up in my decision?
Frederic Bastiat developed the "Parable of the broken window" to express the concept
known as the "Broken Window Fallacy*" or the "Glazier's Fallacy"
(* not to be confused with "Broken Windows Theory")
from his essay, "Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas" ("What is seen and what is not seen")
the parable discusses the "unseen" costs of fixing a broken window
even though the broken window provides benefit to a "glazier" makes money fixing it
the shopkeeper suffers the "unseen" costs of not being to do something else with that money
additionally, the opportunities to fix broken windows may create an "unintended consequence" of a "perverse incentive" for glaziers to go about breaking windows in order to make money fixing them
click EXPAND for a review of Bastiat's theory of "opportunity cost" and associated concepts of "unintended consequences" and "perverse incentives"
Parable of the broken window
a shopkeeper has a careless son breaks a window
his neighbors argue that broken windows keep "glaziers" (window-makers) in business
if it costs 6 francs to fix, they argue, the money spent on the window is productive, as it goes to the glaziers
Bastiat replies that, yes, money has thus circulated, but "it takes no account of what is not seen" (ce qu'on ne voit pas)
the shopkeeper can't spend those 6 francs on something else of his choosing
or, perhaps, he has another need for 6 francs that he can not now fix
therefore the accident of the broken window prevents the shopkeeper from using his money more efficiently
Bastiat writes, "Society loses the value of things which are uselessly destroyed"
the parable also develops "the law of unintended consequences"
ex.: if the glaziers figure out they can pay a boy 1 franc to break windows, and they can still make a profit at 5 francs per window,
there will thereby exist a "perverse" incentive to break windows
"perverse incentive" = an incentive that produces a negative outcome
economists have argued over the "opportunity costs" of damaging events:
disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes which require repair and thus create jobs & economic activity)
wars (spur economic activity and mobilization)
however, whatever the benefit it does not account for Bastiat's "unseen" costs and cannot in any way outweigh the suffering, death and loss of choice created by the disaster or war
If you own land on an urban road, and you decide to build condos on it, what else might you have done, and what would that have cost -- or earned -- for you?
Questions:
If the U.S. imports oil from Saudi Arabia, is the U.S. giving up the potential of its own oil industry?
If Saudi Arabia relies on oil, what is the cost of that reliance?
a form of rent seeking whereby a regulated public utility seeks replacement infrastructure solely for the purpose of generating interest income on the investment, and not for a genuine need for that infrastructure, or, worse, intentionally investing in assets or infrastructure that will require future replacement (see "planned obsolescence")
brokerage churning
externalities
Inflation/ deflation
Labor supply / flexibility of labor supply
planned obsolescence
obsolescence = out of date, no longer useful or appealing
deliberate design for a product or asset to require replacement
practices may include, automobile or cell phone design to entire consumers to purchase based upon a new "look", fad, or feature that does not make the previous version obsolete
public goods
regulatory capture
rent seeking
using government rules or law in order to reduce competition
see Frederic Bastiat's "Economic Sophisms" for a satire on candlestick makers who petitioned the government to ban the sun as an unfair competitor'
when a third-party pays for goods or services, quality goes down and prices go up
see Milton Friedman's "Four ways to spend money"
top-down v. bottom-up
trickle-down theory
the idea that economic benefits conferred or made available to the top of society will "trickle down" to the rest of society
has been attributed to "Reaganomics"
but only by its critics, not its proponents
in other words, "trickle down" theory is an economic criticism and not a proposition
"trickle down" theory originated in William Jennings Bryan's 1896 "Cross of God Speech"
click EXPAND for quotation from Bryan's Cross of Gold speech that expressed "trickle down theory"
There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.
benchmark fallacies using this data might include:
a politician wanting to exaggerate a decline in housing starts might select 2005 as the benchmark date for 2021 rates (thus 2021 would have a lower rate of housing starts than 2005); conversely,
a politician wanting to exaggerate a rise in housing starts might select 2009 as the benchmark date for 2021 rates (thus 2021 would have a higher rate of housing starts than 2009)
Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon / Frequency Illusion/ New Car Syndrome[edit | edit source]
the phenomenon in which upon buying a new car, one all of a sudden sees other cars of the same model or color that one didn't notice before
first identified as the "Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon" following an internet message board user who mentioned the name of the German terrorist organization, Baader-Meinhof, realized that he started seeing numerous references to the group, even though he had never noticed it before
the phenomenon was later labeled "frequency illusion," in reference to the tendency to notice things only after noticing it for the first time, which leads to the assumption that the frequency of that thing is greater than it really is
i.e., it was always there
but the person didn't notice until first experiencing or observing it
fallacy of superficially mimicking someone, something, or some activity will result in the same benefits accrued to those who are being copied
i.e., by taking sticks and marching in military-lines, that one would have the same power as the real army being mimicked
in science, called "cargo cult science", whereby one researcher copies the results of another without testing it independently
the term "cargo cult" originated in belief by indigenous Pacific islanders that ritualistic mimicking of Western symbols, constructions or actions would yield the same benefits observed of those westerners
especially construction of mini-airstrips and models of airplanes that the U.S. military brought to Pacific Islands during WWII would also yield the benefits those things brought to the westerners, such as material goods, health care, etc.
the term "cargo cult" was coined by Australian planters in Papua New Guinea
anthropologists adopted the coin regarding certain indigenous beliefs across Melanesia (eastern Pacific islands)
historical examples of confirmation bias[edit | edit source]
in 1938, British Prime Minister Chamberlain returned from Germany after signing the Munich Agreement, under which Hitler agreed not to many further claims on Czechsolvakian territory (after siezing the Sudetenland), and announced that the agreement would bring "peace for our time."
within six months Germany had annexed more of Czechoslavia and would soon after invade Poland.
Chamberlain and his allied nations so wanted Hitler not to be a problem that they accepted anything he proposed thinking that appeasing him would stop his agression.
the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were driven by confirmation bias that considered evidence gave proof of witchcraft, and even otherwise harmless things, like a broken fence, served as proof of it.
Worse, authorities accepted without question ridiculous claims such as that a witch supposedly made cows jump
The New Testament tells of various miracles performed by Jesus, some of which occur on the sabbath, which is the Hebrew "day of rest" (no work is allowed)
when some of the Jewish leaders, "Pharisees," witness a miracle, instead of responding in awe of it (such as healing a cripple or giving sight to a blind man), they become upset that Jesus performed the miracle on the sabbath
basically, saying, "Yeah, whatever, you healed a dude, but you can't do that on a Saturday!"
the bias of the Pharisees was so strong that they ignored the miracle and instead accused Jesus of breaking the law by "working" on the sabbath
similar to Occam's Razor, which posits that the most direct explanation is likely the most accurate
in that many human endeavors are the result of "incompetence" as much as good or bad intention
makes for a good test for "conspiracy theories"
from wikipedia:
A similar quotation appears in Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 short story "Logic of Empire" ("You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity"); this was noticed in 1996 (five years before Bigler identified the Robert J. Hanlon citation) and first referenced in version 4.0.0 of the Jargon File,[3] with speculation that Hanlon's Razor might be a corruption of "Heinlein's Razor". "Heinlein's Razor" has since been defined as variations on Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.[4] Yet another similar epigram ("Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence") has been widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.[5] Another similar quote appears in Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774): "...misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent."
false memories created by the spread of one or more sources of innacurate or false information that is then shared by others
named the "Mandela effect" for a "paranormal researcher" who claimed that she was sure Mandela died in prison in the 1980s, and upon publishing this on a website she found that many other people shared in or adopted her false memory
these false memories are then propogated and believed by others who were not part of the original false memory
note: Occam's Razor has been used by philosophers to deny any explanations that include God or religion (see "Blame it on Calvin & Luther," by Barton Swaim, Wall Street Journal, Jan 14, 2012
errors in observation or prediction that fail to account for regression to the mean
= observations or predictions that include extremes or outliers (beyond the normal range) and ignore the law of regression to the mean that would otherwise indicate that those extremes and outliers are just that and not indicative of the mean (average)
an interesting application of this idea is seen in positive and negative reinforcement
positive reinforcement may incorrectly praise an extreme or outlier, thus subsequent behaviors may fail to replicate what was being praised
this dynamic can explain why people may feel great about some outcome yet fail to repeat it subsequently
they expect that same extreme/outlier without realizing that outcomes will likely "regress to the mean"
"sunk cost" is an economics term for a transaction or financial cost that can no longer be recovered
i.e., it is "sunk"
the "sunk cost fallacy" is that because a cost has been incurrent but not recovered, more investment is required to make it back
also known as "throwing good money after bad"
the sunk cost fallacy results from an emotional response to a bad situation
in which it would be irrational to continue to incur additional costs
the opposite response to the sunk cost fallacy is "cutting one's losses" and moving on
in non-financial analysis, especially historical, the sunk cost fallacy occurs when actors "double down" on a bad decision or situation
doubling down has frequently occurred in politics and warfare
an example of the Sunk cost fallacy was the "Concorde fallacy"
the British and French governments decided to keep spending money on the supersonic Concorde airliner despite having already lost huge amounts of money on it
occurs when negative evidence is ignored while positive evidence is over-emphasized
i.e., conclusions are drawn from convenient data, while ignoring data that is not convenient to the argument
"Texas sharpshooter" comes from an old joke about a Texan shoots at a barn first, then draws a shooting target over the closest cluster of bullet holes
thus proving himself to be a "sharpshooter" after the fact, whereas his shooting was hardly accurate
a fallacy of exaggeration in which an argument is presented with absurd exaggerations ("the Motte") and if objected to is replaced by an undoubtedly true but hardly controversial statement ("the Bailey", which is then used to advance the original exaggerated claim
click EXPAND for more on Motte and Bailey Doctrine:
the term refers to a protected medieval castle and nearby indefensible village
the Motte is the defensible, protected tower but is not appealing to live in (built on a mound or "motte")
the Bailey is an appealing place to live but cannot be defended
if attacked, the occupants of the retreat to the Motte for safety
thus the exaggerated and fallacious (untrue) argument appears more reasonable
the Motte and Bailey Doctrine frequently employs
"strawman fallacy"
Humpty Dumptying
"either-or" fallacy
"red herring" fallacy
click EXPAND for an example of a Motte and Bailey fallacy regarding a gun control debate:
Person A. "Guns don't kill people, people do" (the Bailey)
Person B. "But that won't stop people from using guns to kill people."
Person A. "Yeah, but guns are legal" (the Motte)
Person A has conflated (confused or joined illogically) the legality of guns with their use.
or on the opposite side:
Person A. "Gun control keeps criminals from committing crimes with guns" (the Bailey)
Person B. "But criminals commit crimes and won't obey gun control laws."
Person A. "Either way, it's bad when guns are used to murder people." (the Motte)
Methodology]
click EXPAND for excerpt from Shackel explaining the Motte and Bailey Doctrine:
A Troll’s Truism is a mildly ambiguous statement by which an exciting falsehood
may trade on a trivial truth ....
Troll’s Truisms are used to insinuate an exciting falsehood, which is a desired doctrine,
yet permit retreat to the trivial truth when pressed by an opponent. In so doing they
exhibit a property which makes them the simplest possible case of what I shall call a
Motte and Bailey Doctrine (since a doctrine can single belief or an entire body of beliefs.)
A Motte and Bailey castle is a medieval system of defence in which a stone tower on a
mound (the Motte) is surrounded by an area of land (the Bailey) which in turn is
encompassed by some sort of a barrier such as a ditch. Being dark and dank, the Motte is
not a habitation of choice. The only reason for its existence is the desirability of the
Bailey, which the combination of the Motte and ditch makes relatively easy to retain
despite attack by marauders. When only lightly pressed, the ditch makes small numbers of
attackers easy to defeat as they struggle across it: when heavily pressed the ditch is not
defensible and so neither is the Bailey. Rather one retreats to the insalubrious but
defensible, perhaps impregnable, Motte. Eventually the marauders give up, when one is
well placed to reoccupy desirable land.
For my purposes the desirable but only lightly defensible territory of the Motte and
Bailey castle, that is to say, the Bailey, represents a philosophical doctrine or position
with similar properties: desirable to its proponent but only lightly defensible. The Motte is
the defensible but undesired position to which one retreats when hard pressed.
a dilemma created by the need to sacrifice one innocent person to save (usually given as) five others
scenario:
a runaway (out of control) trolley is heading towards a track with five workers on it (or sometimes presented as five people tied up and who are unable to move)
there is a secondary track that was not in the original pathway of the trolley and that has one person on it
an engineer who sees the situation can divert the trolley to the secondary track, thus killing the one person on it but saving the five on the original track
the problem is that that one person was otherwise not in danger and not wrongfully on the track
is that sacrifice ethical?
the "utilitarian" view holds that it would be ethical and morally responsible to divert the trolley as it would save more lives
by "utilitarian" we mean a choice or action that benefits the most people, even at the expense of some others
i.e. "maximize utility"
objections to the utilitarian response include:
the engineer had no intention to harm the five but by diverting the trolley would have made a willful decision to kill the one; therefore the act would be morally objectionable
= deliberately harming anyone for any reason is morally wrong
= violating the "doctrine of double effect," which states that deliberately causing harm, even for a good cause, is wrong
the Trolley problem shows up in other situations:
artificial intelligence, such as driverless vehicles
Isaac Asimov explored moral and ethical dilemmas regarding artificial intelligence in his collection of essays, "I Robot."
Asimov envisioned the Three Laws of Robotics
click EXPAND to read the Three Laws of Robotics
First Law
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Anton coined the term to criticize the disingenuity of 2010s politics and political statements that frequently denied unpopular policies but "celebrated" their imposition regardless of their popularity
more plainly stated as the phenomenon of when an observer or public speaker denies the existence of something, then goes on to state that, "while it is not happening (or true), it's a good thing that it is"
observer bias limits observations to expected or desired outcomes
confirmation bias powerfully limits one's ability to see something from a different perspective and, therefore, to evaluate it effectively and accurately
confirmation bias has significant effects in science, as many, even empirical, studies yield results that the investigators are looking for
note that confirmation bias may also yield great insight, especially if that bias leads to a new or different perspective that others would not see
the cognitive bias of overestimation of one's own competency and lack of awareness of one's own limited competence
an error in self-awareness whereby a person cannot evaluate his or her own competency
called "illusory superiority"
the effect also shows that people of high ability tend to underestimate their own competence
original study was entitled, "Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence"
"the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."
the authors later explained that the Dunning–Kruger effect "suggests that poor performers are not in a position to recognize the shortcomings in their performance"
the Dunning-Kruger effect is observable but not provable
i.e., it can happen but just because someone does not have competence does not mean that person will draw hasty, broad and wrong conclusions
Elaboration Likelihood Model Information Graphic of Bias and Objective Thinking. Peripheral Route is to the left ("biased") and Central Route to the right ("ojbective")
identifies the association between persuasion and bias
"elaboration" means the extent to which a person engages in objective mental processing before making a decision or adopting a point of view
ELM shows that much persuasion is driven by perceptions of status
i.e. high or low status perceptions drive people's attitudes towards persuasion
ELM identifies two paths to persuasion or "attitude change":
high-elaboration likelihood, called "Central Route" = motivated to engage the argument with critical thought open to evidence
low-elaboration likelihood, called "Peripheral Route" = external cues or influences are present that shape reception to the argument without critical thought
the "Central Route" requires intellectual honesty and engagement
the "Peripheral Route" engages biases and emotional states and yields little critical thought
the "Route" taken at any given time is related to a person's self-perceived social status or that of the source of the argument or information (or persuation)
that is, people process arguments or new information according to their perception of the source of that argument or information
also called "prestige bias"
"Motivation" strongly impacts the "Route" taken by the recipient of the information/ persuasion (i.e., decision-maker)
motivation = conditions, desires, perspectives, or states of mind that influence a decision
thus motivation may engage biases and thus the "Peripheral Route"
when the observer changes the actual event / object being observed
example : typically checking the air pressure of an automobile tire requires letting some air out of it in order to place the pressure gauge on it to measure the air pressure
the "Hawthorne effect" is named for a study at "Hawthorne Western Electric"
conducted at the company electrical plant in Illinois, 1924-1927
researchers studied the impact of lighting (illumination) on worker productivity
however, the increases in worker productivity was not a result of the changes in lighting
but due to the fact that the workers knew they were being observed
which motivated them to work harder
Hawthorne effects may change observational data
called "clinical trial effect", in drug or medical testing, some patients may respond to the attention they receive from providers and not necessarily the drug or procedure being measured
"placebo effects" are positive results in control patients (those who do not receive the drug or procedure)
placebo effects are a "reactivity" phenomenon by which the patient changes attitude, behavior or undergo a subconscious reaction to a situation that changes the patient's outcomes
related to:
"Turing paradox" by which the act of measurement changes the physical properties of what is being measured (applies to subatomic quantum systems)
Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".
in economics, consumers believe they have myriad choices, when in actuality their consumer choices have little distinction from one another and, worse, are owned by only a few conglomerates (large businesses with many branches)
the lost keys paradox is that when looking for where you put the keys, you will only find them when you go looking for something else, such as your glasses, or your phone
a possible explanation for the Lost Keys Paradox is that our focus of attention can be limited to a particular goal or activity, which, blinds us to alternative solutions
thus it is a form of confirmation bias
when freed of the bias of seeking one particular thing, we are more likely to discover the unexpected solution that we could not see while focused solely on that one thing
named for the fictional character Baron Munchausen, an absurd adventurer who recounted ridiculous stories, such as riding on a cannonball, with objectivity and detachment
= a "factititious disorder" in which a person tells exaggerated or dramatic stories with the intent to impress or deceive
the Munchausen syndrome is also used to express "circular logic," as in the story of Munchausen saving himself from drowning by pulling himself out of the water by his own hair
in psychology, the "Munchausen Syndrome" is a serious mental health condition in which the patient imagines or feigns illness, injury or other trauma in order to draw attention or garner sympathy
= similar but not the same as
hypochondria, the condition of thinking that one has or hyper-concern about having a disease or medical condition that does not exist
thus the joke that, "even hypochondriacs get sick sometimes"
psychosomatic illness, an actual illness that has no percievable physical cause or underlying condition
following the rule that when you see in the news an event or topic to which you have expertise or experience, the reporting on it will be incorrect, sometimes completely wrong
however, we don't often apply that same level of inquiry or tests to news we see about things we do not know well or have experienced
thus the paradox that we accept as true something reported that we know little about, all the while knowing that an expert on or direct witness to that news would know it is inaccurate.
the idea that people within an organization tend to rise to their "level of competency"
started as a satirical observation of how companies promote people
the observation is largely accurate that people will be promoted to higher levels until they are no longer able to demonstrate competency at some level, and will therefore not be promoted again
the Peter Principle may help explain why historical actors rise and then become mediocre at their pinnacle
a form of "psychological reactance" by which people become interested in something only after they are told they are not allowed to know about it
= an unintended consequence of censorship
called the "Streisand" effect because, when the singer/actor Barbara Streisand threatened to sue a photographer for publishing an aerial photo of her house in California.
the lawsuit generated publicity, and people became interested in seeing Streisand's house because of it
when they before the lawsuit had no interest in it at all
similar to the "Howard Stern effect" , which is the phenomenon of celebrities who attracts an audience from people who hate them more than of those who like them
named for "shock jock" Howard Stern, a radio personality, who specializes in offensive, rude, or shocking content
the rule that given an accumulation of even erroneous observations, the mean or average of all observations will generally yield a correct observation
in statistics, it is called "Propagation of uncertainty", and it is used to
used famously to identify the correct location of a moon of Saturn by taking the average of a series of incorrect observations, which yielded the precise location of the moon
theory of errors is similar to "wisdom of the crowd", a phenomenon that affirms that the average opinion or action of a crowd is likely the correct one
a test of the wisdom of the crowd would be to ask random people the number bubble gum balls in a jar.
individuals guesses will be incorrect
but the average of all guesses will yield a close or proximate answer
when analyzing conflict, diplomacy, events, etc. students may employ the conceptual framework of "conflict escalation" by Friedrich Glasl (here from wikipedia)
Glasl's model divides disagreement or conflict scenarios into "stages" based upon three core outcomes:
win-win
both sides benefit
win-lose
one side benefits, the other loses
lose-lose
conflict w/ bad outcomes for one or both parties
conflicts escalate through and into:
tension and dispute
debate
communication loss
coalition building (seeking sympathy or help from others)
denunciation
loss of face (pride)
threats and feelings of threat
depersonalization (treating the other as not human)
attack, annihilation, defeat
deescalation includes:
mediation from third-party (intercession, intermediation)
process guidance
arbitration, legal actions
forcible intervention, especially from higher power
Glasl's model works at the individual (a family fight) or global level (international affairs)
An illustration of the Overton window, along with Treviño's degrees of acceptanceJoseph Overton observed that along the spectrum of social or political thought, policy, or opinion
there exists a mainstream "middle" of consensus
that middle may have variances, but most people generally agree with it
with extremes on both sides that are not generally accepted
however, as one extreme or the other becomes acceptable, they enter into the "Overton Window"
example:
in the 1950s, rock music was considered anti-social, thus lay outside of the Overton Window
as its popularity grew, especially following Elvis Presley, rock music became popular music
and thus, entered the Overton Window
in the Overton Window, "Policy" should reflect a consensus of points of view within the window, and will move according to changes within that window
so, while "Policy" may not always reflect the middle of the Window, it acts to reflect changes in the window.
Weber's "Protestant Work Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism"[edit | edit source]
Social Scientist Max Weber attributed the economic success of U.S. and northwestern European nations to their dominant "Protestant work ethic"
based on
individualism and notions of self-sufficiency
ethics of hard work, timeliness, frugality, etc.
that cumulatively yielded productive economies and a dominant middle class
note that Weber's seen today by "critical race" theorists as elements of "white privilege"
>synthesis: Hegelian dialectic:
# The thesis is an intellectual proposition.
# The antithesis is simply the negation of the thesis.
# The synthesis solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition.
wiki:
In classical philosophy, dialectic is an exchange of proposition (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue. It is one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are rhetoric and grammar) in Western culture.
They sit down and order a beer. As he serves, them the bartender asks the first one his name and what he does for a living. "I'm Victor. I'm an historian. I study proto-Natufian semi-nomadic culture." Impressed, the bartender looks at another one. "You a historian, too? What's your name?" The second replies, "My name is Victor. I'm an historian of colonial North America." "Cool," says the bartender, and, looking at the other two, says, "And you two?" "Me, I'm Victor." replies the third. "I'm an expert on the Cold War. And this guy next to me is Victor. He's an historian of medieval feudal agrarian economics."
"Amazing!" exclaims the bartender. "History really is written by you guys!"
How many historians does it take to change a lightbulb?
click EXPAND for the punchline:
There is a great deal of debate on this issue. Up until the mid-20th century, the accepted answer was ‘one’: and this Whiggish narrative underpinned a number of works that celebrated electrification and the march of progress in light-bulb changing. Beginning in the 1960s, however, social historians increasingly rejected the ‘Great Man’ school and produced revisionist narratives that stressed the contributions of research assistants and custodial staff. This new consensus was challenged, in turn, by women’s historians, who criticized the social interpretation for marginalizing women, and who argued that light bulbs are actually changed by department secretaries. Since the 1980s, however, postmodernist scholars have deconstructed what they characterize as a repressive hegemonic discourse of light-bulb changing, with its implicit binary opposition between ‘light’ and ‘darkness,’ and its phallogocentric privileging of the bulb over the socket, which they see as colonialist, sexist, and racist. Finally, a new generation of neo-conservative historians have concluded that the light never needed changing in the first place, and have praised political leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher for bringing back the old bulb. Clearly, much additional research remains to be done.
- from the web
* A man in the Soviet Union saved up his money to buy a car. He went to the dealer and ordered the only car available.
** "Great," he said to the salesman, "When do I pick it up."
** "Oh," the salesman replied, "March 21st next year."
** "Okay," replied the man. "What time?"
** "What time?" asked the salesman. "It's not for a year and a half from now! Why do you care what time?"
** click EXPAND for the punchline:
* "You see," the man explained, "I have an appointment that morning w/ the plumber."
* A Russian man escaped the Soviet Union and came to America. His neighbor asked him what life was like back in Russia.
** Russian: “Oh, my old apartment was perfect. I could not complain.”
** American: "What about your job?"
** Russian: “Oh, my old job was perfect. I could not complain.”
** American: "Wow. What about the food?"
** Russian: “Oh, the food was perfect. I could not complain.”
** American: "Well, if everything was so great in the USSR, why'd you come here?"
** click EXPAND for the punchline:
