The System

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Warning: politics

February 12, 2010 in Expanded ideas, The System | 4 comments

Embedded within the migraine that is American politics are some very interesting ideas. Economics, markets, ethics, freedom, equality, education, transportation, and security are all intriguing topics. Recently, I figured out that the headache comes not from people or trying to make the ideas work, but in politics. Getting a majority of the people to agree on anything is a giant pain of coordination. When you throw in fearmongering, power struggles, critically wounded media, and the fact most people would rather not think deeply about any of this you end up with the major downer that we face today.

All that said, here are some pithy one-liners about politics:

  • If I were part of the Democratic leadership, I’d be wondering how you take the high road in a race to the bottom. And win.
  • If I were a Republican, I’d be wondering how to dig myself out of this giant hole I made by winning a race to the bottom.
  • If I were a libertarian, I’d be wondering how to convince people that the Tea Party is different from what I believe in.
  • If I were a leader of the Tea Party, I’d be wondering what I’m going to do when someone who claims to be a part of the Tea Party blows up a building or goes nuts with an assault rifle.
  • If I were a politician, I’d wonder how much I have to compromise my values and what I really wanted to accomplish but still get enough votes to keep my job.
  • If I were skeptical of climate change due to human activity, I’d be wondering how I’m going to find a spaceship, because this line of reasoning leads to the conclusion that the Earth is about to become very inhospitable.
  • If I were a nihilist, I’d wonder…nothing.

There, have I offended everyone?

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Ain’t talkin’ ’bout the man

September 22, 2009 in Curated, The System | No comments

Here’s a fun game. “The Government”:

Try something. Every time somebody complains about the evils or failings of “the government,” strike out “the government” and see what results.

Often, simply striking out “government” reveals a completely different, and far more useful, commentary.

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On American political insanity

September 1, 2009 in Curated, The System | No comments

Still crazy after all these years:

Politicians should tone down the rhetoric. Protesters should read some history before making Hitler comparisons. Talk-show hosts should stop pretending that paranoid nitwits are asking reasonable questions.

The Economist does well to explain the insanity that is propagated by American political media. Reading articles like this help me stay sane. Also: ignoring media with deadlines shorter than a week, and consuming as much constructive satire as possible.

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Free Parking Is Not Free

August 11, 2009 in Curated, The System | No comments

Free Parking Isn’t Free. Turns out those parking lots, while sometimes handy, are actually pretty gnarly, if your goal is to build a nice place to live:

Throughout the 1940s and 50s, as automobile use became prolific in the United States, parking became a problem, congesting streets and overflowing into neighbors' lots. In response, most municipalities instituted off-street parking minimums requiring developers to provide all the parking that the residences or shops would need on-site. This seemingly sensible notion has created a cascade of problems. It encourages sprawl by spreading buildings apart to make room for more parking (requirements usually demand more area for parking than the building it supports). It also weakens urban design, as urban buildings are torn down to make room for desolate surface lots, and hulking parking garages sprouted in downtown areas. It discourages revitalization of existing historic buildings, since developers have trouble meeting modern parking requirements in neighborhoods that were built before auto dominance. And the requirements drive up the cost of development: parking spaces can cost between $10,000 and $50,000 – typically more than the cost of the car that occupies it. High parking requirements can raise the price of homes and apartments by $50,000 to $100,000, a serious challenge to affordability.

When I have more money that I know what to do with, I’m going to start buying up parking lots and turning them into parks. It’ll be my little way of sticking it to people who drive over-large cars.

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The joy of enigmas

June 9, 2009 in Curated, The System | No comments

…thinking about an enigma. There it is before you — smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, ‘Come and find out.’

 — Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

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The economic dashboard

March 29, 2009 in Curated, The System | No comments

What’s the state of the economy? - a stunningly brilliant visualization of where the economy has been (lagging indicators) and where it’s going (leading indicators). The explanations are excellent too. (Via Flowing Data).

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Decoupling newspapers

March 23, 2009 in Curated, The System | No comments

My wife works for the local newspaper (thankfully, in their less layoff-prone online division). So I’ve been wondering about this whole newspaper business collapse would work out. Clay Shirky’s got an important point:
Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable.
It’s not about the end of newspapers, it’s about decoupling the core of journalism from newspapers. We’ll see how that pans out. Let’s just hope cable news doesn’t take its place.

Get excited and make things

March 19, 2009 in Curated, The System | 1 comment

Don't keep calm and carry on.

Yes.

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Congruous capitalism

March 8, 2009 in The System | 2 comments

Here’s some idealism for you: I would like to think that the future of human endeavors is congruity. There is a lot of emotional writing about rational topics. That emotion often colors the writing to the point of irrationality. It seems to me that this is because many of the prominent systems of our lives are incongrous. These inconsistent and seemingly irrational systems drive us to emotion and our logic suffers for it.

I’ve been reading Failed States by Noam Chomsky. I think you could summarize it as “the U.S. government says it is doing something for reason A, but is in fact doing it for reason B”. People really dislike Ticketmaster, who would defend themselves by saying “we’re trying to make access to live music easier” but everyone knows “we’re trying to maintain a monopoly and squeeze the margin as tightly as possible”. You can play this game at home for any institution that is widely reviled.

Some other incongruous systems:

  • Politics: ostensibly about the will of the people, but really about the short-term interests of those with the clever lobbyists
  • Telecommunications: ostensibly about helping people communicate, but really about maintaining monopolies and minimizing the maintenance cost of those monopolies
  • Insurance: ostensibly about helping people put money away for a bad day, but really about minimizing pay-outs to maximize profit

It is my hope that the businesses that emerge from this economic conflagaration are those that connect more directly with their customers. In doing so, they are more transparent. It is harder for their internal and external goals to conflict. In this way, they can profit from aligning their objectives with those of their customers. Sure, they may not make obscene profits, but that’s fine.

Here’s a tag-line for this congrous capitalism: “May greedy capitalism die by a thousand cuts of moderately-profitable honesty.”

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On news: The Economist

February 17, 2009 in The System | No comments

At the height of the DeLay/Rove movement, I became very disenchanted with news and politics. The propaganda, the lack of reason and the generally grim outlook were causing me too much stress. So, I stopped following news. This was good for my well-being, but I felt a little guilty about not understanding what was going on.

Fast forward a few years; the economy is booming and the paint is starting to peel on the Rove master plan. I’m taking light rail to work every day, so I have some quality time for reading on my hands. I don’t remember where I got the hunch, but I went ahead and subscribed to The Economist to read on the train.

I originally let my subscription lapse, as I found it difficult to keep up with the magazine on a weekly basis. However, as the mortgage crisis peaked, I resubscribed. I’ve found it extremely useful in trying to understand what exactly is going on, how it compares to previous downturns and as the basis for a bozo filter.

Regarding my earlier discoveries that everyone has an axe to grind and that the news cycle is often too short, The Economist is well aligned. Their axe to grind is the superiority of free markets and democratic societies. They publish weekly and cover a gamut of topics that forces them to only put ink to topics that are actually meaningful.

In summary: The Economist is a great source of news if you are wary of news sources and I heart it. It’s a fantastic place to start understanding the non-sciences that describe our world.

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