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Friday, October 30, 2015

Miscellany: 10/30/15

Quote of the Day
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, 
and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. 
I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with.
John Swinton

Tweet of the Day
Image of the Day
via FB; actually, when I use fascism, I'm referring to economic fascism
authoritarian repression is nonideological
via Catholic Libertarians
Liberty.me's photo.

 The Gowdy-Clinton Exchange



But Without the State, Who Will Regulate the Roads?

In a current post on the Lew Rockwell site, the great contemporary libertarian Walter Block quotes a libertarian apostate Randy Barnett:
Randy also said this: “Regulations are not inimical to liberty if they coordinate individual conduct as do, for example, traffic regulations mandating driving on one side of the street or the other. They may also be consistent with liberty if they prevent irreparable tortious accidents before they occur, as speed limits, reasonable driver’s exams, or building codes do. ”
Block, in fact, has written a classic text on the privitzation of roads and highways and takes exception to Barnett's apologetics on behalf of traffic regulations (among other things):
The state’s “regulation” of traffic has resulted in some 35,000 road fatalities annually, for the last umpteen years. liber
I don't own a copy of Block's book, and in this piece he really doesn't elaborate here, but there are other posts like this one on The State’s Human Road Kill Project. Only part of the discussion is really discussed here: the monopoly of the State. I'll also briefly discuss morally hazardous policy. My discussion here is not intended to be a comprehensive response but just a starting point for understanding the libertarian perspective. Obviously Block's text is far more comprehensive.

One of my favorite teaching anecdotes I think comes from cognitive psychologist Donald Norman, who wrote the (currently titled) Design of Everyday Things (or one of his other works). He noticed in one keyboard layout that the "delete document" key was near the enter/return key. He advised the vendor that he expected that users would often delete their documents by mistake; the vendor denied that this was a problem and so they went to talk to users. The administrative assistant agreed that she had done so on a number of occasions. "Why didn't you ever say anything?" "Because I had been trained on how to use the delete document key and felt that it was my mistake."

That is, "blame the user", not the vendor. In fact, the State has effectively a monopoly on roads and/or related services; do you think things like road surface and condition, number of lanes, design (e.g., merge and exit lanes, etc.), sign visibility, congestion, etc. have an impact on accidents?  Of course. But you generally can't sue the State for bad roads; the bureaucrats for the most part are shielded from responsibility. There is typically no competition, say of privately-held toll roads, which could be sued or lose customers under unsafe conditions, congested tollways, etc.

There is also the question of moral hazard. If you feel you are following the rules of the road, if you have the right of way, the light is green or yellow, you may engage in riskier driving behavior, not be as observant of the driving behavior of others. One of my favorite video clips is after a power outage took out traffic lights; the traffic was less congested and smoother without functioning lights.

Trump Spoof Using Anderson's Family At Church

No, I'm not an American art guru, but it's amazing how well Google Image search works...

Embedded image permalink
via Nowrasteh tweet
The original (Family at Church):

family at church by harold n. anderson

Political Potpourri

We're still waiting for the first burst of post-debate polls; I'll probably  review the third debate over the weekend, but my review of the pundits is that Rubio probably won the night, Fiorina did not improve her position, Trump, unlike the previous debates, was not a focal point--no matter how many Internet polls he cites, I don't think that improves his recent softening in the polls, Carson didn't make a gaffe, and the format tended to favor more of the policy wonks vs. the populists. I think clearly Rubio has the hot hand among the Insiders, with Cruz nipping at his heels.

We have a short break between debates, I think because of the holiday later in the month, next month's debate is in 2 weeks. My guess is that Trump continues to win a slim majority of new polls but his percentages and margins will continue to erode; he will do better in some states than others. I feel that Rubio will improve to the mid-teens and might actually nose out Trump or Carson in a state like Wisconsin or Florida. If and when Rubio breaks the glass ceiling, the dynamics of the race will change--my guess is a month from now, maybe earlier.

I was going to point out Trump nosed out Carson by 1 in PA--but I think 3 of 4 recent polls there are either a 1-point Trump lead or tie.  The latest IBD poll just came out, putting Trump at 28, +5 over Carson. What's bothersome is the last IBD poll had Carson up by 7. The overall trend, however, has gone from two-digit leads in August to high-single digits in September to low single-digits this month. IBD suggests that last month's result may have reflected Trump's counterproductive boycott of Fox News but also notes the current poll took place before this week's GOP debate. Still, if the trend holds, we should see Trump's lead collapse within a month.

Making Halloween Great Again: The Great Trumpkin


Rand Paul On America's Greatest Threat

The disrespectful treatment of Dr. Paul during the speech (loud talking in the background) reminds me of perhaps my most infuriating moment during my graduate school studies. As an MIS doctoral student I was registered in a systems analysis course; the course required a group project. A couple of non-major Indians or Pakistanis recruited me for their group; I am an excellent writer and given a course in my discipline, I didn't want to risk my course grade and negotiated that I would write the final paper. Long story short, the group founders had located and were pushing marketing promotional material directly from IBM on certain dated methodologies that we were reviewing; I refused to plagiarize the hype in the final paper--I knew that the professor would see the hype for what it was. The group leaders in a Machiavellian move breached my contract and stripped the group paper from me; I lost the majority vote in an appeal. (For the others, I don't think it was so much directed at me as the conflict between the group leaders and me, and the rest didn't want to get involved or choose sides. It was probably a case that since the two had founded the group, the other members thought that the founders should have final say--I think maybe one of the others supported me.)

I went to see the professor; she told me to try to work things out with the group, and if not, she would let me to submit the project separately. What I didn't know was that she met with the rest of the group separately and told them that she was going to allow me the option of submitting separately. (This has to be one of the most botched handlings of this type problem I've ever seen; the group had no incentive to work things out. On my part, she was one of my major professors, and I didn't want to alienate her.) I went to the next group meeting, and it took all of 20 seconds for them to tell me to go away;  I was ticked off, because I had tried to act in good faith with the professor's wishes.

In any event, I had devised a creative approach to the project linking a very well-known Harvard Business Review article not obvious to the discussion, a key part of my presentation. In another baffling decision, she had told me that I would deliver my presentation after the group. It's not hard to predict what would happen, given the group leaders wanted to plagiarize other sources. To my shock and dismay, they ripped off my own presentation. The professor did nothing. It's not like I could redo my own prepared presentation at the last minute, with transparencies et al. The net effect was to make it look like I had ripped off the group presentation. But that wasn't the end of the nightmare. After they finished, they occupied the front row of the classroom, and as I started to talk, they openly started talking loudly to each other (I don't mean whispering; I mean I could barely hear myself speak over the noise) and kept it going for the remainder of my presentation; this went beyond the obvious disrespect and huge distraction--it was a totally unexpected surprise attack. I had remained totally professional and quiet during their presentation. Once again, the professor did nothing. My segment ended the class; I think I was even angrier with the likable professor than my former group members for not handling the situation. Her terse defensive response was when I confronted her after class that she could see what was going on, and she had given me an excellent grade on my presentation. [We remained on good terms. In fact, she asked me to proofread her CACM article page proofs--but she had already returned the proofs by the time I came back to report her enumerated references were screwed up. But when it came to choosing my dissertation committee, I did not approach her, although most IT academics knew her more than my other professors; I probably would have attracted better job offers with her on my committee.]

I had to deal with a number of group squabbles during my last 6 years as a teaching fellow and professor, but I was determined that I would handle things differently and never saw anything like this. I remember there was a very attractive UH coed who had me for a couple of classes (no, I've never dated one of my current/former students or classmates). Her group members came to complain that she wasn't pulling her weight in the group, so I called her in for a discussion; on my part, I wanted to hear her side of the conflict. Until then she had always been friendly towards me. She was highly offended by the discussion, which she seemed to think I had just made it up, and seemed to personally scapegoat me. Her attitude towards me remained hostile for the remainder of the semester. But other than an Asian group at UWM which fully plagiarized their pesentation (I mean, literally the only thing original was the title--I could link each copy-and-paste paragraph word for word back to unacknowledged original sources), group presentations were not a big issue.

I've written over 2580 posts in this blog, and it's possible that I've written bits and pieces of the above incident before. On a personal note, there was an MBA student who shared my office with 2 other PhD students. Out of the blue, one day he started talking to me about EC, a coed on the Project From Hell. He didn't go into the details of how he came to meet EC or how my name came up; maybe she had dropped by the office in my absence. Mr. Matchmaker made it clear that EC would be very receptive if I tried to ask her out. Not a chance. To this day I remember her turning on me in the group meeting. I've never understood this love/hate thing; when someone does something that angers me, it doesn't turn me on: it turns me off.



Facebook Corner

(Catholic Libertarians). See Image of the Day.
"He had no respect for the law: He violated the Sabbath, He attacked without provocation the moneychangers in the Temple, and His disciples carry swords."

Political Humor



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of the original artist via IPI

Reason Magazine's photo.
Courtesy of Chip Bok via Reason
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Aretha Franklin, "Think"

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