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Pascal's Wager

12/31/2021

Blaise Pascal, the 17C French thinker, suggested that everyone should choose to believe in God because...after all, what’s the downside? He challenged people to wager—i.e., to live their lives; to make a choice—that God exists. This was not an argument from faith or unknowable revelation, nor a “scientific” analysis of the existence of God based on evidence, it was an appeal to rationality. Being of a more secular bent, here in the 21C, my version isn’t tied to a deity (certainly not some old white guy in a beard), but rather to another facet perhaps of what God meant to Pascal and his fellow believers: I choose to be optimistic.

I have a friend who is considerably less so. They remind me that there is weakness/evil/darkness in everyone and don’t think it can be overcome. I agree with the first part and am unsure about the second part. At which point, my version of Pascal’s wager comes into play. I can’t know how the future will play out (being a historian is no help here); but I choose to believe that there’s some bright surprises ahead. After all, what’s the downside?

In taking this stance, I don’t pretend that utopia or redemption is around the corner. As I have written elsewhere, there is plenty of reason to be concerned about the country and the world. There are many ways in which things could become pretty dire. The parade of horribles—techno-enhanced versions of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—is ready to march. Optimism can’t be based on analysis.

Nor do I claim an epiphany or some noble mantle of purity, heroism, or martyrdom. I have my own roster of deficiencies and weaknesses. I don’t live up to my own aspirations (on a pretty regular basis). The way I see the world isn’t driven by faith or passion. Pascal called for placing a bet on the side of God; making a rational choice even though there is no way to have any evidence one way or the other.

I’m reminded of a discussion I had with a colleague not too long ago. We were bemoaning the lack of attention/energy in our students and implicitly wondering whether it was worthwhile to be a teacher. I said that I couldn’t go into the teaching business with any expectation of having an effect on my students. Not only would I never hear from or about most of them, but that most wouldn’t consciously connect their approach to the rest of their lives to what they (might have) learned from my teaching. Indeed, they likely wouldn’t even know themselves that they were changed by something I might have said a year or thirty earlier. In any event, I would never know what effect I might have had, but I choose to believe that it would be beneficial.

In addition to this investment of time, and beyond being able to live in extremely comfortable style, I am able to support some good projects and organizations here in the Bay Area and globally. I suppose I could implement my optimism in more material ways and ratchet up our lifestyle. There are myriad examples of more luxurious living within a few blocks of where we live. But we are already so much closer to the “one percent” that it’s hard for me to justify. Besides, if I am optimistic about our species, it seems like there are better places to put the money. In the real world, the pragmatic foundations of that optimism still can use some help. Neither a faith in or choice for optimism will plant the trees, get out the votes, help those in need, or spread the wisdom. A choice for pessimism can easily lead to nihilism or nescience.

As many of you know, I have read a lot of science fiction; including a fair amount set in dystopian futures. Some are variants of horror stories; generating enough brain chemistry in the reader to be engrossing and to sell well. Some are salvation stories in which the dystopia is defeated (or, at least, the corner is turned (e.g., the Jedi, Terminator); generating their own mix of brain chemistry in the reader/viewer. Many are precatory, trying to get readers to be aware of current trends and dangers (nuclear, climatological, biological). There are a few that are optimistic and substantive (e.g., Robinson’s Ministry; Stephenson’s SevenEves). All of these appeal to hopes and dreams; they are romances of the future. Many are thought-provoking; but few, if any, have anything to say to Pascal.

I have another friend who is not so much pessimistic as fearful. They burn enormous amounts of energy imagining the risks and catastrophes of life and the world. (I have my own bouts of such despair, too.) Cassandra; not Pangloss. It can be a downer hanging around with them. But, more importantly, it doesn’t seem very helpful as a way to live. I’m all for prudence and planning; beyond that, however, pessimism as a state of mind doesn’t seem like much use (nor much fun).

In the end, I suppose, whatever God/the Cosmos/the “Force” might do, they will do. If faith in God (or the “Force) works for you, go for it! (I think it will get you to much the same place as me). For myself, I believe that to whatever extent I can construct the world in which I live, I might as well make choices—based on a hard look at myself.

I choose to be optimistic, not from analysis of the state of the world or of “human nature,” nor from faith, but because I get to choose how to live and this choice makes living easier and happier; after all, what’s the downside?

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Lysistrata

12/24/2021

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2400 years ago, a guy named Aristophanes wrote a comedy (fable?) about Spartan and Athenian women getting together to withhold sex in a successful effort to stop the pending war between the two Greek city-states. Lysistrata has subsequently been seen in countless productions and adaptations, usually with a feminist or pacifist bent.

War was, of course, the greatest man-made scourge of the era and has remained at the top of the list until now. The relative treatment and status of men and women has moved significantly towards equality, especially in the last two centuries (however large the remaining gap); still, the play stands as a constant reminder of the complexity of power structures.

To me the most striking idea in Lysistrata is the demonstration of the power of the so-called powerless. When cast in gender terms, Aristophanes showed that the hunger/dependency of men on the availability of women for sex made women powerful… if they chose to exercise that power.

The Modern era has been marked (indeed, was arguably created by) the willingness of a broad swath of people to recognize that they, in fact, did hold power, despite the centuries of epistemology about the embedded power of the “better” classes (nobility and clergy). The revolutionary spasm in Paris in 1789 has echoed far and wide. It has led to disruption of a variety of static and sclerotic societies (and, occasionally, real change).

At an international level, nothing of this sort has yet occurred. The evaporation of formal Western Empires in the mid-20C, led to the nominal independence of many peoples; although their subservient status from economic and cultural perspectives (aka “neo-colonialism”) made clear that power remained in the hands of the wealthy and technologically-powerful states of the West (and the Soviet Union). The rise of China beginning in the late 20C might be taken as a sign of change in this regard; although it is quite arguable that its regional hegemony and broader global stature owes little to notions of a different type of political order and is, instead, traditional power politics in a new configuration.

One of the more interesting ideas in the latest sci-fi novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (which I strongly recommend), is that “developing” countries, particularly India, begin to swing their weight (i.e., exercise their power) in order to defend their own (especially vulnerable) people from the environmental havoc wreaked primarily by the rich West over the past several hundred years. In Robinson’s telling, this initially takes the form of climactic geoengineering with widespread (and generally beneficial) effects. It extends to a more assertive diplomatic stance made more effective by the combined efforts of many countries. Robinson includes other, more violent actions taken by people leveraging the power wrought by new technologies in order to change the vector of human development and its climactic impact.

So, here’s a variant of that story: “poor” countries band together and refuse to trade with the rich until the latter step up to carbon markets and other fundamental changes necessary to preserve the general level of “civilization” of which the people in those well-off countries are the principal beneficiaries. Or, even easier to imagine: they enter into global trade negotiations en bloc to apply pressure to the rich. It’s a sort of Lysistrata in a global commercial frame. Even the process of organizing such a group of countries and harnessing them with like-minded people in the “rich” countries could itself prove potent, or at least disruptive.

As recent hiccups in the global supply chain have made clear, we (i.e. the well-off Western consumers) are at least as vulnerable to such disruption as the suppliers of cheap labor and commodities around the world, especially if the disruption is intentional, managed, and sustained. The effects would be far more alarming than our current concerns about a few empty shelves at Safeway or shortages of Christmas toys.

Even from the perspective of the less well-off countries, the considerable losses from reducing global commerce would have to be weighed against the on-coming global disaster from which their people would suffer earlier and more extensively than those in the “rich” countries.

What is not clear is the type and extent of disruption/chaos necessary to prompt the embedded global power structure to take sufficient action on the environment. In Ministry for the Future it is an extended heat wave that kills 20+ million people in South Asia. Given the cultural inertia and fear of change currently being demonstrated as both democratic principles and public health are under widespread attack, I suspect that even this would not be enough. (I fear that if the species comes out the other side of the coming cataclysm with fewer than a few hundred million people dead, we would have to account ourselves (relatively) fortunate.) Moreover, most people have the remarkable ability to psychologically separate themselves from others’ plight, so that massive and deadly climactic effects in Asia/Africa would not rouse us in the West. Until it happens here—in a big way—it’s hard to see the US and EU mustering the political will for the kinds of fundamental economic and cultural change necessary to abate the crisis.

We live in a world with deep interdependencies at the level of trade, finance, and culture. We live in a world with deep political dysfunctionality at both the national and global levels. Things are out of whack. Hardly anyone in Paris in 1787 or St. Petersburg in 1916 contemplated the revolutions that were soon upon them. It’s not clear why we should assume that we are any more perceptive.

Radical threats require radical action. It is not far-fetched to compare the ravages of modern capitalism with those from ancient inter-Hellenic war. Is the modern lust for consumer goods—the latest iPhone, athletic shoes, or palm-oil-enriched foods—comparable to Spartan warriors’ desire for hot sex? Can those most at risk from the diversions of the “powerful” find their own leverage points? Will the necessary changes happen any other way?

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Elections without geography

12/17/2021

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[This is part of an intermittent series on potential changes to the US Constitution, including discussions of the a Fourth Branch, the Electoral College, the Senate, House Districts, Federalism, and the general need for another Constitutional Convention.]

Last year, I pushed the constitutional envelope by suggesting lots of really small congressional districts as a remedy to the disconnection between citizens and their representatives. Today, I want to keep pushing, but in a slightly different direction.

For the past twenty years or so, techno-philosophers have been announcing/critiquing the “destruction of distance” or the “demise of geography;” the idea that in a world with ubiquitous telecommunications connectivity and internet capabilities, physical location is a lot less important than it used to be. Our recent pandemic experience has accelerated our shift in this direction with tele-learning (or at least tele-teaching), tele-medicine, tele-boring business meeting, zoom cocktail parties, etc.

However, there is another way in which physical location is still the touch-stone: the definition of groups of people who elect their representatives. Municipal wards, state legislative and congressional districts are all drawn on a geographic map and everyone inside the boundaries is lumped together to choose their leader/public servant. The adage: “All politics is local,” (often attributed to the great politician Tip O’Neil) is certainly true, at least in the sense of being derived from small groups and personal relationships. Yet, the phrase itself is redolent of geography: “locality” implies physical proximity. As the basis of political organization, does this still make sense?

True, we are territorial creatures, even if not as odiferous about it as leopards, lemurs, or lynx.. Early political organization naturally emerged out of extended family groups who lived in close proximity. In Europe, social groupings centered on parishes and feudal structures. In a pre-motorized age, few connections more than 20 miles away had much significance from a political perspective. Still, there is a tradition of political representation on a non-geographic basis: guilds of artisans or groups of traders would name a representative to some larger political body. But, for the most part, democracy has been built on locality.

Some interests remain acutely local (i.e. geographically bounded); local schools, roads, economic alignments (e.g. ranching in Wyoming, coastal environments in California), but the larger the overall political entity, the more likely that individual voter’s interests will align with others outside their own neighborhood. For some, geographically-rooted affinities may take priority, but for others, issues ranging from gender basis, or environment, or ethnic communities, are more important regardless of physical location. Why should the State force citizens to exercise their franchise based solely on where they live rather than what they care about?

Indeed, our political structures make little room for this variation in interests and self-identification. Occasionally, special districts are created with a transit or tax focus, that are larger or smaller than the usual municipal/county structures. But these special purpose entities are clearly side-lights in terms of voter attention/participation and their effect on peoples’ lives.

Another framework for approaching this issue is the use of proportional representation in legislative bodies. This method, in contrast to my earlier argument in favor of small geographic districts (although plausibly as a complimentary system) has the benefit of extensive real-world experience, most notably in Germany and a few dozen other parliamentary systems around the world. The concept is to treat the electorate (at either a national or regional level) as a single body, sometimes as the exclusive mode of election or sometimes mixed with election of some members by local district. Typically, political parties compile a list of potential candidates and if the “Truth and Freedom” party gets 40% of the vote, then the top 40% of their list is elected, along with 28% of the “Justice and Progress” party, 16% of the Greens, and a smattering of smaller groups, totaling 100%.

Political parties are another name for a collection of voters who agree to a more-or-less coalition of representation driven by a more-or-less coherent political philosophy. Some voters, whose views on, e.g., gun rights, school taxes, social justice, or foreign policy are sufficiently important, might choose to align in a narrowly-targeted party, but most seem to have a broader range of interests and choose larger groupings. (Ours are highly sclerotic and corrupted, as I have noted elsewhere; but there’s nothing like changing the electoral system to re-shuffle that deck!)

As a result, such parties become the vehicles for participation in pollical systems and, while, at the local level a particular individual candidate might swing votes by comparison with their direct competitors, at the “party-list, proportional representation level, it’s all about the ideological coalition.

Some countries use just national lists and full proportional representation, but some use mixed systems, combining the local focus and the relative ideological “coherence” of political parties. For example, in New Zealand, 71 seats are chosen in local districts and 49 are chose from party lists. As you might imagine, each country (or state/province) has its own variations. There are no such large-scale systems in place in the US has, as far as I know. This half-step balances traditional geographic mind-sets with the more flexible affinity-choice model. I can imagine systems in which this approach is combined with multi-member districts, so as to allow voters to prioritize multiple issue preferences.

Whether half-steps or full, there are downsides, to be sure, including 1) increasing the effective power of political parties as an intermediate institution of politics, 2) the potential for proliferation of single-issue parties, and 3) having to endure seemingly endless debates by political “scientists” and the general commentariat about the specifics. Against these risks are the benefits of 1) letting electors define and choose their own affiliations, 2) providing a much-needed shock to our body-politic (e.g., deflating some of the “big-tent” political parties in which individual elected officials make back-room trade-offs between issue preferences), and 3) freeing ourselves from an outmoded form of politics which demarcates voters by where they happen to live.

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Brexit II

12/10/2021

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A bit over a year ago in one of my first postings, I was highly critical of the British experiment in independence called Brexit. It was an episode in juvenile politics which marked, far more than the British (& French) humiliation at the Suez crisis (1956), the end of the British Empire. I described it as a Hegelian “world historical” mistake. As I pointed out to my British friends, while we in the US had much to be distraught over due to the Trump presidency, our grave political error had the relative benefit of being time limited. Brexit is forever.

To refresh your recollection, in a referendum in June, 2016, 52% of the British electorate decided that the UK should leave the European Union. The vote wasn’t any more specific than that. It would be up to the (Conservative-dominated) Parliament to determine exactly how to implement this decision. Theresa May, the replacement for the embarrassed David Cameron, clarified the path forward. “Brexit means Brexit,” she said. (Hmmm….that's helpful.) There were many options and interpretations. She chose a pretty radical approach. Her government tried to square the circle and got stuck. Boris Johnson took over, promising to work miracles. He got Brexit “done” with smoke, mirrors, and no small amount of chutzpah.

So, finally, after kicking the can down the road a “final” trade agreement was reached in December 2020 to be implemented by mid-2021. The central formal/legal problem was the status of Northern Ireland. The central practical problem was, well…there were too many to count.

In classic bureaucratic/political style, the can has been kicked down the road again and again. Tensions have risen and fallen; long lines of trucks have waited for the additional formalities required when shipping goods to another country (issues which inclusion in the EU had effectively eliminated) Fish rotted; sales were cancelled; workers (on both sides) were laid off. The Brits wouldn’t recognize French fishing rights, the French threatened to cut off electricity to a few small islands off the coast of France that the British kept a hold of after they abandoned their Norman claims on the continent over 460 years ago. Quel farce!

In the 1962, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson said “Britain has lost an empire, but has yet to find a role.” A few years later, they found that role, more-or-less, by joining the EU and taking their place among other former imperial masters now reduced to 2d or 3d tier status. But, more than most (and compared to the French, that’s really saying something), the Brits got stuck in their historo-mythology of grandeur. Yes, the Royal Family gives them the finest piece of long-running performance art around; but more often they have played lap dog to the US and were brushed aside by the Chinese 25 years ago in giving up Hong Kong (not to mention giving up India and most of the rest of the Empire in the mid-20C). The Yanks (the Yanks!, for God’s sake) had to ‘save their bacon’—twice—from the Germans. Their global status is a mere shadow of what it was a hundred years ago—and it hurts.

To the extent that Brexit can be characterized as a coherent political decision (fairly dubious), it has to be seen as an attempt to salvage the illusion of political independence and power in a highly interdependent world. Nigel Farage’s claims that “our ‘sovereignty’ is being trampled on” by Eurobureaucrats may have worked to persuade 52% of the voters in 2016 to express their frustration and vote “Leave,” but replacing them with bureaucrats in London was no clear improvement.

The issue of “sovereignty” has found its clearest expression in the Northern Ireland problem. In 1998, in order to end the “Troubles” (the on-going civil unrest which ran from the 1960s on), the British agreed to the economic integration of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, while retaining a formal political border between them. This wasn’t so difficult to do since both Britain and Ireland were inside the EU. Brexit’s insistence on formal sovereignty (i.e. complete legal independence) now meant that this fudging of borders couldn’t persist. Lines had to be drawn. Much of the current impasse is due to this problem: either 1) allow Northern Ireland to stay in the Irish (&EU) economic zone and but the economic border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, or 2) reinforce the Irish/Northern Irish border with customs checks etc. and maintain the sovereign integrity of the United Kingdom. The former sticks in the craw of the governing Conservative Party (actually, formally the “Conservative and Unionist” party) and its demands for the illusion of control. The latter disrupts the economy of both Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as the social stability in the North. The reality of sovereignty (in general) is that it always only been a model, never a reality. The Good Friday Agreement ensured that Northern Ireland was always going to be a British-Irish condominium; a clean demarcation was never going to be possible.

There is no good solution to this issue; a fact which has been known by all sides since the Brexit debate began. The Tories couldn’t be seen to be throwing Northern Ireland under the bus, so they lied about the feasibility of Brexit and they have been struggling ever since to find a solution. Their best offer for Northern Ireland is to seriously dent their economy and society to such a degree that many think that Northern Ireland would leave the UK and reunite with the rest of the Irish.

There were many alternative roads that the Brits could have taken, even if they wanted “out” of the EU at some level. Poor leadership by the Conservatives and internecine fighting within the Labour Party kept those solutions from being seriously advanced.

But underneath the drive to “Leave” remained an anger, nominally with the EU, but actually at a modern world which just didn’t care that much about Britain. The lure of sovereignty—however illusory in a world with global supply chains, highly mobile capital and somewhat mobile labor, mobile armies and missiles, guns, and germs, and computer viruses and biological viruses trumped (so to speak) everything. The Brits were used to being a big fish—the biggest fish—in the global pond; now they insisted on staying the biggest fish, and would shrink the pond to a size necessary to ensure the illusion of power and self-importance.

Given the delusional behavior so far, I can’t be optimistic about how this will turn out; even if Boris Johnson fudges and shuffles. Shakespeare and history may be all they can turn to for comfort.

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Welfare State

12/3/2021

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“Everything,” as they say, “has a history;” and it’s true for concepts as much as things. As part of a larger research project I’ve been working on for a while, I’ve been thinking about the evolving shape of the “State” in modern society. The project is focused more on governmental practices and policies than ideas, but in re-reading some of the essays of the sage economist Albert Hirschman, I was struck by how we got to the point where we expect government to fix things in general and, in particular, how we got to that aspect of governmental activity that we call the “welfare state.”

By “welfare state,” I mean considerably more than specific programs for low-income citizens (including housing, education, health, and subsistence) for which we often use the term “safety net;” there’s also Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits, various child support programs and a bunch of activities at the state and local level. Underpinning those programs is the idea that the State should be responsible for the welfare of its citizens; including things like public health and safety and the active management of the economy to produce jobs and stability. Examples in our current world include not only the Federal Reserve responsibilities for inflation and unemployment, but COVID and other public health management, OSHA, and building codes. This wasn’t always the case.

There are three concepts emerging from the Enlightenment of the 18C and the French Revolution of 1789 that led elites to move the State in this direction. The first is the idea of human-driven progress, the second is the idea of State as embodying and crystallizing all components of society (i.e., the “nation”), and the third is the idea that (these days) goes under the rubric of “social justice.”

Traditional European societies were marked by a belief that everyone was in their God-given rank and station in life. What we call social mobility was very rare; nor could there be much expectation of broad improvement in standards of living or of life in general (prior to the 2d Coming). Later, emerging modernity saw changes in science and technology fostered an increased confidence that life could improve and this expectation exploded across Europe in the French Revolution and the rapid industrialization of the early 19C.

What we call government or the “State” also emerged in Europe in the 15-18C as rational techniques were applied to the principal monarchical functions (war-making and fund-raising), the size of political units expanded and greater thought was given to foster national wealth. In the 19C, increasing numbers increasingly identified themselves as part of a “nation,” and came to believe that this ethnic/cultural grouping should be aligned with the political structure, thus leading to the idea of the “nation-state.”

While charity at the community level and from a religious perspective has pre-historical roots, the increasing coherence of societies, combined with increased democratization and geographical mobility associated with industrialization, led to beliefs that this type of responsibility was better addressed by larger political groupings and that some degree and scope of benefits for all were the mark of an advanced society.

Additional factors included the

bureaucratization of functions,
the desire of elites to avoid revolution by easing the harshest aspects of life among the masses combined with a recognition that “modern” total warfare required the “buy-in” from the masses who would supply the bulk of the military manpower, and
the increased knowledge of what we call economics and sociology which made the sufferings of those in need more visible.

National social programs were first adopted by Germany under Bismarck and rapidly spread across Europe, although the scope and pace varied noticeably across the different countries. Further advances were made up to WWII (including the creation of Social Security in the US in the 1930s), but the strands noted above crystallized in the aftermath of WWII.

Government involvement in society had considerably expanded during WWI. The Great Depression heightened sensitivities to the perils facing large swaths of society and the totalization of WWII required the commitment of all citizens and the promise (sometimes explicit) that the “State” would protect them not only through support programs, but (via Keynesian economics) through the overall management of the economy.

The role of the “State” in Europe, always more robust than in the US, became larger. Scandinavian socialism was one example; Soviet communism was (more problematically) another. The intertwined incentives of bureaucratic politics, democratic payoffs, human/civil rights ideologies, and substantially greater wealth in the post-WWII years led to dramatic increases in the range of programs (usually accompanied by increased taxation levels). While there have been retrenchments (Reagan and Thatcher being the most notable), the result has been a wide-spread expectation that the government will take care of things. Indeed, despite concerns from traditional conservatives (now reduced to protecting high-end wealth) and a few others, it is hard to imagine how our “modern” societies would get things done without central government.

At this point the “welfare state” is tightly bound up with the “national security state” and the “regulatory/taxation/information state.” Governments today have achieved a level of centralization of power that Louis XIV, Catherine the Great, and other “absolutists” of the 17-18C could only envy. The hollowing out of intermediate institutions gives us a limited menu of alternatives. I will have some further thoughts along these lines in future postings.

In the meantime, at the level of specific policies, debates go on. Biden’s “social infrastructure” and “mask mandates” may mark a new expansion in the US, but issues of revenue/taxation, conservative oppositionism (i.e. without coherent alternative policies), the changing mix of living standards (diminishment of the “middle class”), and the imminent primacy of climate issues all complicate the picture.

As many advocates point out, providing comprehensive care/support for all citizens fulfills various dreams of justice/mercy and the type of society to which many aspire. Getting there is less an issue of economics than of political economics (i.e., it’s affordable, but we are unwilling to redistribute wealth sufficiently to accomplish the goal). However, few such believers have thought through the issues of individual freedom remaining with a “State” that delivers this degree of support for/intrusion into everyone’s lives.

The Welfare State relies on the existence of a strong “State” and considerable wealth to support its programs; so it doesn’t exist in many parts of the world; even if legal/constitutional provisions nominally enshrine some version of it in their stated goals. It also implies a degree of centralization of social power and a delegation of that power to a central authority that doesn’t often exist in regions with warlords, cronyism, clans, and corporations.

As with every aspect of politics, the implementation of this vision requires trade-offs—both practical and philosophical. The history of the “State” on which I am working can’t predict the future of this issue, but I hope it will clarify some important aspects of how we got here.

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Condemned to Repeat It --
Musings on history, society, and the world.

I don't actually agree with Santayana's famous quote, but this is my contribution to my version of it: "Anyone who hears Santayana's quote is condemned to repeat it."

Pascal's Wager

Lysistrata

Elections without geography

Brexit II

Welfare State

Condemned to Repeat It --Musings on history, society, and the world.

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Condemned to Repeat It --
Musings on history, society, and the world.