Perception or Reference

CSGnet Archive CSG2006
41

[From Rick Marken (2006.08.10.2135)]

Warning: some self-indulgent political opinions are expressed below.

Richard Kennaway (2006.08.10.1729 BST)--

Come to think of it, there's a video I came across recently which is actually a presentation about some new data visualisation technology, but the subject matter of the data is levels of health and wealth in all countries over the last century. Worth a look (70-minute video -- broadband essential):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7996617766640098677&q=gapminder

This was very cool. The most interesting data (to me) were the changes in health/income/reproduction rate over time. It's amazing how quickly things can improve with just a change in the attitude (and hence the policies) of leadership. The sudden reduction in reproduction rate in Iran and the equally abrupt increase in GDP in China after Mao were particularly impressive. I think it shows what can be done when a country is lucky enough to get good leadership. Look how quickly (and painlessly) Clinton turned things around after years of Reagan/Bush deficits. If we're lucky enough to get a good leader again here in the US I think he (or she) might be able to fix up the Bush II mess fairly quickly.

Best

Rick

···

----
Richard S. Marken Consulting
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

42

[From Richard Kennaway (2006.08.11.0940 BST)]

[From Bill Powers (2006.08.10.1440 MDT)]

Wherever any such point may lie, the above criteria give a very clear answer to the question of which countries have more conflict. Freedom wins hands down.

Wow, you've done the studies already? That was fast! How about sharing the data with me?

My devious way of saying, "I don't think you know that yet."

Ok, you've got me there. That was just an unscientific guess informed by unscientific reading of the news, tertiary historical sources (i.e. other people's rants) and what I would like to be true. I think it's very telling, though, in an unscientific sort of way, that the totalitarian countries have to keep their people from escaping, and the free countries don't.

"Naans?" Hold on there, you sneaky libertarian. How do I know that's even a kind of bread? I'll bet your 80 kinds of bread included shoes and wristwatches and all sorts of other stuff.

Poppy knots, ciabatta, focaccia, pane toscano, rossicky, borodinsky, sunflower seed and honey, French sticks,... I don't think they do a plain white sliced.

The best study of these questions that I can think of would be organized so that after going through the report, the reader would be unable to tell whether the author approved or disapproved of the result. So far we're not exactly living up to that ideal.

Quite.

-- Richard

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--
Richard Kennaway, jrk@cmp.uea.ac.uk, Richard Kennaway
School of Computing Sciences,
University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.

43

[From Rick Marken (2006.08.11.1230)]

Bill Powers (2006.08.11.0646 MDT)--

I say that's clear, but I guess it's not that clear, because quite a few people act as if the other side is merely evil or insane. Bush keeps saying that the terrorists "hate freedom." But that's just silly -- they want lots of freedom for themselves to do all the violence they want to do wherever in the world they want to do it...I'm pretty sure, in fact, that they agree with Bush's version of freedom, which is quite similar.

Of course. Bush's talk about freedom is sheer demagoguery. He certainly doesn't want homosexuals to be free to marry, for example, or women to be free to chose to terminate their pregnancy or scientists to be free to do stem cell research.

This reminds me that one of the main causes of social conflict seems to be people controlling perceptions of physically harmless aspects of other people's behavior. Controlling for gays or people of different races not marrying seems like a good example of controlling for something that can only create conflict. I can see controlling for people not killing or stealing; in this case you are for _preventing_ behavior that is intrinsically conflictual.

So what do you think? Does controlling for things like "no gay marriage" or "no option to abort a fetus" increase conflict and, if so, how does this fit into the idea that conflict results from a reduction in the degrees of freedom available to control perceptions?

Best

Rick

···

---
Richard S. Marken Consulting
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400