One of my favourite holidays is the Mexican La Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead). It starts on what we old-school Catholics used to call All Souls Day. Behind the celebration is the concept that you can commune with the spirits of your dearly departed. This idea appeals to me. The holiday started before the Christian era, but was co-opted by the priests who came with along with the conquistadors. They even moved the date of the holiday from mid-summer to coincide with All Souls Days in an effort to mitigate its pagan roots.

This year, however, La Dias de los Muertos has another meaning for me. I came across this picture of el Presidente Americano made from photos of many of the soldiers who have died in his vainglorious war. (more…)

Okay, let’s talk about the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In game theory, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is used try to understand, hypothetically, how people choose their options in different situations. The classic situation posits 2 prisoners and what they can achieve if they choose to either confess (cooperate) or not (defect).

As you can see, by the chart (I’ve added some colour to mine, nice effect I think), the best possible outcome for both prisoners is if they both confess (cooperate). As an example of another outcome, if prisoner B doesn’t cooperate and prisoner A does; then B wins and A loses. If neither of them confesses, however, it doesn’t go any better for either prisoner: their outcome is mediocre for both of them. (more…)

You’ll remember that sometime back we had a lesson in polling and statistics. At that time I said,

In Book 7 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates relates the allegory of the cave. In the cave, men are forced to look at what the rulers want them to see. The men can neither move their heads nor avert their eyes. What they do see are shadows projected on the walls in front of them by the unseen people in charge. They never see reality or even who is creating this illusion. However, if the men were allowed out of the cave; they might be blinded by the brightness and mightn’t see the reality in front of them.

This allegory also applies to people living in post-industrialized, technologically-advanced countries today. That would be all of the so-called 1st world nations. I say ‘so-called’ because there are many ways in which we, who do live in 1st world nations, are no better off than those who live in countries that we derogatorily refer to as 3rd world. But more on that another time.

Here’s the conundrum: do we put up with the force-fed shadows on the wall of the cave or do we risk being blinded by the light of the truth outside the cave? Do we fight the shadows in our ‘cave’ in order to find the truth? The only reality we know are the shadows we are allowed to see. It’s not as simple as a politicised press (either liberal or conservative). It’s not as simple as a culture of corruption in D.C. It’s about a system that started as corrupt and can’t seem to get out of its own way. (more…)

This is just an idle Sunday musing. There’s nothing much happening on the political scene, right? Yeah, I know, but I’m not going there. Too many people have had too much fun with that situation already.

No, I’m thinking about inconsistency. Specifically, I’m thinking about inconsistency in politics. This isn’t about politicians, it’s about the public, it’s about you and me. Inconsistency in political philosophy leads to rationalization on a grand scale.

I didn’t come up with this myself. There was a piece on NPR about trying to find a name for people who are inconsistent in their political thinking. Some examples would be: environmentalists who drive SUVs, so-called ‘pro-lifers’ who believe in the death penalty, gay Republicans, Clintonian Democrats. Well, you get the drift. Frankly, I can’t remember all the various monikers that the NPR folks came up with because I immediately came up with what I think is the perfect name: Hypocrats. (more…)

What can you say when people, who are obviously intelligent, do truly stupid things? The easy thing to say is that they’re mad, insane; but that isn’t the answer. Life is far more complicated than that.

Let’s go back in time, over 30 years ago. No one ever accused Richard Nixon of being stupid; yet he did what seemed to be an incredibly stupid thing: he did not destroy the secret audio tapes he had made of his conversations in the White House. At the time amateur psychologists of every stripe tried to understand this truly bizarre behaviour. Why would you hold on to the “bloody knife”? Without the tapes it would have been John Dean’s word against Nixon, H.R. (Bob) Haldemann and John Ehrlichman. Most people did not believe that Dean had a photographic memory. Then a Mr. Butterfield came before the committee and admitted a system of taping had been put in place and used by Nixon. Much sturm und drang followed with the Supreme Court finally ordering that the tapes be turned over. (more…)