My problem with the NIE Awareness Story

If you’ve been following the news in the past few days, you’ll find multiple stories about the release of the new National Intelligence Estimate. Contrary to claims in the past, this NIE states that Iran is no longer seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and hasn’t been since 2003.

While the report has many important (and debatable) implications as to the future of US policy, I’ve taken personal offense to the White House’s claim that Bush knew of changed intelligence in August, but not  the specifics of that change until last week.

To me, this claim requires a tremendous leap of faith to believe, because it necessitates the following script sometime last August:

McConnel: Mr. President?
Bush: Yes?
M: I just wanted to let you know, we have some new intelligence.
B: Well that’s good to hear.
M: It’s got some big implications though, so we’re going to fact check it before we release it to the public.
B: Ok.
<awkward pause>
M: Ok.
<M exits>

Perhaps I’m being biased, but wouldn’t one be inclined to ask “Well what’s so important about this shift in intelligence?” or perhaps to ask for the gist of the change in 10 seconds or less? And additionally, is McConnel’s job really so steeped in bureaucracy that he has to inform the president whenever he receives new information? How would he ever get anything done?

Again, debating the policy decisions to be made from the new NIE is a separate and valid issue, but expecting me to believe that the president gets updates with any degree of regularity that are limited in content to AOL’s You’ve Got Mail sound is something I’m going to have trouble believing.

Tags: Bush, McConnel, government, NIE, intelligence

Going on indefinite hiatus

While this blog has been a great experience for me, I’m afraid it’s come time for me to make official the de facto hiatus that’s been going on for a while now. With school and the job search taking up most of my time, I’m going to be simply unable to take the time to write anything for a while. There’s a chance I may make a few posts as the president of Prism on a different blog, and if that happens I’ll be sure to cross-post them, but otherwise Beyond the Code is down until further notice.

Sorry everyone, but thank you for those who kept up and sent emails. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.

Sincerely,
David

The Jack Bauer Defense for “Heavy-Handed Interrogation Techniques”

Via the talking dog:

I know I’m a little late in commenting on this one, but coming across this in a recent Vanity Fair article made my skin crawl.

Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia recently made his case for heavy-handed interrogation tactics via a surprisingly current pop-culture reference. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles,” he told a panel of judges, referring to the torturer protagonist of the Fox series 24. “Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?”

My question to Vanity Fair: Is the surprising part of this statement really that the reference is from current pop culture? Are you sure the surprising part isn’t that a supreme court justice is using a fictional character instead of hard data as a defense for the inhumane treatment of real people?

While that’s the line that most jumped out at me, I highly recommend the rest of the article if anyone is interested in the recent history of “heavy-handed interrogation tactics” and how those tactics went from discredited to pervasive in recent years.

*Photo Courtesy of Victor Bracco

Virtual Economies Beget Virtual Economists, No?

The Freakonomics blog pointed out a good follow up to my last post, noting that EVE Online has decided to hire a full-time economist to give reports, analyses, and opinions about the state of their virtual economy.

The newly hired economist will publish reports quarterly on various economic indicators, inflation and price trends among them. He’ll be doing this in addition to coordinating research with various academic institutions.

Truth be told, I like this idea. Virtual or not, the economies that emerge in these virtual worlds have surprisingly similar characteristics to the real world on a day to day basis. Granted, there are exogenous shocks that may shake the virtual markets that bear no resemblance to reality (such as changing the characteristics of certain professions and introducing new dungeons). However, I think the similarity is close enough on a micro level to merit study, even if the similarity doesn’t hold as well on a macro level.

Another interesting side note is that this economist may have influence on the future direction of the game. I wonder where his interest will lie in that regard, because in my opinion, making more money in an MMORPG does not necessarily equate to having more fun. I predict he may give suggestions that favor the stability and growth of the virtual economy at the expense of the enjoyment of the players. In any case, it will be interesting to see which direction his opinions lean as the game continues to evolve.

Technorati Tags: EVE online, MMORPG, economics,

Hedging Your Virtual Bets

Techdirt had an interesting piece a while ago, talking about the potential for online currency to replace real money in the event of a crisis.

It’s certainly an interesting thought. I mean, imagine if you could not only hedge your portfolio in real gold, but in virtual gold as well? Why even stop at currency? Why not stock up on epic items or characters as a hedge against an economic fallout? The negotiations would certainly be something to hear… “I’ll give you 50,000 platinum plus my level 80 Shaman if you let me eat from your pantry for a week.”

However, I think that brings up the point where the idea could either success or fail, because if people value virtual items in an economic downturn (and not even necessarily here, perhaps overseas), then the idea just might work. However, I doubt people in an economic downturn will spend much time recreationally (especially in a system based on a monthly fee), thus the value for such items would fall below anything worth mentioning.

It is an interesting idea though.

Tags: money, World of Warcraft, Economics, Economy

A Pluralist Thought Regarding Stereotypes

Latoya Peters is one of my favorite commenters on race and stereotypes in society, and her posts on Racialicious are usually worth reading. Recently, she wrote a post discussing racism in video games. In her post she chose to focus on a rebuttal to criticism by Chris Mottes, CEO of Deadline Games. Her post is very well thought out, and details both the good and bad things the developer brought up. However, one thing she said caught my eye in particular:

The reality is that no stereotype can be considered light-hearted and humorous. A stereotype is defined as “an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group.” Stereotypes are negative. Even “positive” stereotypes are ultimately detrimental to the groups that struggle to find a sense of self within the narrow parameters of society’s vision.

My personal opinion is in line with Latoya’s. I find strength and power in individuality, and I believe that diversity is beneficial to society on both a micro and macro level. It has the ability to create more efficient outcomes, enrich lives, and to simply keeps things fresh if things all start looking the same.

However, what if I came from a society that valued inclusiveness and sameness? Would I still consider stereotypes to be negative? Would my society have a different opinion? Would stereotyping be viewed as a compliment, or maybe some sort of ideal to aspire to? I can’t be sure.

There is a lot of work to be done in America in order to eliminate currently lingering stereotypes, and I wouldn’t want to slow any movement in that direction. However, I do think it’s important that we be conscious of the fact that some societies may not judge stereotyping in the same way Americans do. If we don’t, we may run into increasing miscommunication as cultures come into ever closer contact around the world.

If we can’t put aside our own views in order to see the world through others’ perspectives, how can we expect them to do the same for us?

*Photo courtesy of theCallowQueen

Tags: stereotypes, racism, pluralism, communication

Is it Time to Rethink the Bill of Rights?

I’ve been thinking heavily about politics and government lately. My topics of interest have ranged all over the map from campaign financing to Real ID to lobbying. However, the issue of individual rights has me a little more puzzled than most, namely because it seems that a number of people don’t talk much about them now that we’re in the midst of the war on terror. I find this troubling, because in a time where people want more security, they’re willing to trade rights away in order to get it. Not that that in itself is necessarily a bad thing, but the lack of discussion about it makes me concerned when new Presidential Directives come out, or the Patriot Act gets used indiscriminately, or when Presidents run wiretaps unauthorized by any court.

However, the lack of debate isn’t what hit me hardest a few days ago, but rather it was the thought that maybe we should start to rethink how free we should be in America. I’ll preface this right off by saying I’m personally in favor of more liberty with greater risk, but I thought I would share with you my thinking on the subject, because perhaps it’s a discussion that the US should be having.

As technology develops and becomes increasingly prominent, an interesting thing happens: the power of the individual rises.

This isn’t a new concept. A man is much more powerful with a spear than without, much more powerful with a gun than with a spear, and much more powerful with a fueled up plane than with a gun. It’s a natural progression that as technology moves forward that the capabilities of any one person will increase over time.

As this occurs, the threshold for previously coveted power falls. It doesn’t require months of training or intense skill to become a lethal threat to people now, just a few days wait for some guns. In the context of terrorism, we’ve been taught to fear this growing power. If one listens to the US media, it might sound like terrorists are on the verge of acquiring or using a nuclear weapon practically every month.

So, given the present day situation for America, have the freedoms granted to us by the US Constitution become antiquated? Has freedom simply become too risky in a time of such horrible potential violence? We need some form of power to combat this potential threat, and one potential answer could lie in government, relinquishing to them some of the powers our forefathers claimed for themselves so long ago. After all, that was a different world. In a time of tea parties and reverent rides, there were no such things as suitcase nukes.

I have a strong feeling about, but not a firm stance on, this issue. So for now I’d like to place my hope in an alternative. Instead of giving power to the government, which could very easily become corrupted, I’d argue the people simply need to embrace our own individual powers. After all, it was citizens on the plane who stopped the shoe bomber, not security. I think the people have a greater power than most realize today, and I would like to see them embrace that strength instead of so quickly shirking responsibility and liberty to the government.

Perhaps the times have changed. Perhaps not. Either way, I just hope people start talking about it more openly.

Tags: politics, terror, liberty, safety

Whose Hand is Holding the iPhone?

The photo above of Apple’s forthcoming iPhone above has been circulating the Internet for a while now, without the obvious edit. Yet, it took m until the other day to start wondering… whose hand is holding that iPhone? What kind of person has literally “gotten their hands” on an iPhone months before anyone else? Was it even the real thing? Could the phone have been merely fake, a photoshop edit, or just a palm-sized green screen? Is this model really left handed, or is it all an act?

I’m going to do some digging into this. Hopefully I’ll come up with some clear answers soon.

Tags: iphone, apple, mac, hand, technology

Slow Day: Some Thoughts on Ron Paul

I don’t have any extremely thoughtful analysis today, but I would like to spread some hope for those that like to see a little integrity now and again.
 
Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart had on a Republican presidential nominee named Ron Paul. Paul had an excellent interview, but his views aside, it was his character I admired the most. Paul appears to be a guy who sticks to what he believes. He holds a strong non-interventionist view on foreign policy (which got him some heat in the last debate), and has a rock solid belief in letting the market decide most all economic outcomes, including things like social security and Medicare. Seeing someone stick to their beliefs calmly and rationally makes me smile, and it also gives me hope on the days when I try to write off the whole political system as superficial and corrupt.
 
That said, there is also a danger in holding on to one’s beliefs too tightly, especially if they turn out to be wrong. I personally disagree with several of Paul’s positions. For one, I think the most efficient outcome for social security probably lies within government instead of the private market, and for another, we should probably regulate a few industries in favor of a few key externalities… like clean air and water. However, his strength to hold his beliefs above outside pressure and act accordingly is very impressive, the best example of which is probably when he voted against the Iraq war just after the 9/11 attacks, during a time when the pressure to vote for it must have been absolutely massive.
 
There is a balance I suppose between being principled on the one hand and being flexible enough to adapt to many varied situations on the other. Paul has proven himself well fit for the former, but he may not have enough of the latter quality in order to be what I would call an effective as president. However, it’s too rare for us to see any of the former in politics, and for that, seeing Ron Paul run for president is a welcome change.

Tags: ronpaul, politics, republican, libertarian

The Explanatory Power of Neoclassical Economics

Techdirt’s Mike Masnick recently posted an article about a group of economists who claim to be going up against the dominant economic school of thought. The post notes that when one looks closely, these economists, like many before them, aren’t really critiquing the theory of the heart of modern economics, the rational agent, but rather they’re noting that people make judgments in context. In Mike’s words, “the rational person… is based on data, not dollars.”

What Mike’s post misses, however, is that neoclassical economics doesn’t very well account for the very “data” that they’re talking about. While there are some tricks to negate unquantifiable effects like peer pressure or social etiquette, those techniques are limited to particular data sets in particular circumstances. As a whole, neoclassical economics primarily deals with easily quantifiable variables like prices and pounds.

The entirety of the unmeasurable factors like pressure or etiquette is supposed to be captured by the utility function, the single line that denotes the sum of an agent’s preferences and tastes. This isn’t a problem in terms of internal consistency, but it is a problem in terms of practicality. As we grow to better understand how the numeric components of economics fit together, the fact that this component is made up exogenously (not explained within the economic model) will continue to eat into the explanatory power of the neoclassical models, leading to overconfidence bias in results with questionable accuracy.

The discipline is evolving in an attempt to take care of these holes via the invention of bounded rationality, the creation of behavioral economics, and exploratory works into new neurological studies. However, these new explorations mean great change is on the horizon for the dismal science. From what I understand, one of the great shifts that will be occuring is that instead of arriving at a clean answer where two lines cross, or correctly interpreting a statistically calulated coefficient, economics will have to shift towards settling for fuzzy answers and ranges of reasonable probability. I don’t think this is necessarily good or bad… probably more the former than the latter though. I agree with a textbook I have, which stated “I would rather know something imperfectly than not know it with great precision.”

However, even as the discipline grows, I doubt I’ll personally ever be convinced of it’s explanatory power for two reasons. First, the rational agent was invented as an interpretation of the math economists created instead of the other way around. This wouldn’t be a problem if economists rigorously checked the models they create, but I suspect that escalation of commitment bias comes into play, leading economists to choose data sets that fit the models they’ve already worked hard on instead of altering them again and again. Second, economics is the only science I know of where the study of it changes the discipline itself. If people study economics and use it to achieve they’re economic goals, then that has become another variable to be added to the economic equation, which leads to more study, and the cycle starts over again.

Now nothing I’ve said covers some of my other issues with the discipline, like its oversimplification of price relationships, nor does it cover why I’ve stuck with economics as a major. Perhaps I’ll expand on those later, but for now, I’ll simply set up the premise that though there is theoretically room for infinite explanatory power in economics, I’m skeptical of it in that regard.

Tags: economics, Techdirt, behavioral economics, neoclassical, explain