7. May 2008 by emeris.

Check out the order of the most popular list. A story about a TV show is doing better than stories about last night’s election results. It’s not even clear to me why CNN is reporting on American Idol (or dancing with the stars) at all, it’s not something I would consider news compared to 1) the disaster in Burma 2) the primaries 3) the Russians swore in a new president (will have to send Bush over to look in to his soul…oh wait Putin is still in charge never mind) 4) new FBI raids on the executive branch

Posted in Pop Culture, politics, cause I feel like it | 2 Comments »

19. March 2008 by emeris.

This is pretty cool.

Nice when markets work the way they are supposed to due to some technology . The penny summery, fisherman in India got mobile phones, their waste dropped to zero, their average profit went up, and the consumer price went down. This is postulated, as I understood it, to be because they now had the ability to call multiple beach front markets and determine where their fish would sell best before having to land, thus the distribution of fish became more efficient.

Posted in Econ, politics | 1 Comment »

27. February 2008 by emeris.

In avoiding doing homework the other night I ended up in a conversation about when it is appropriate to add to the public discourse on a topic. On one hand it is important that everyone have a voice and in some sense impossible to not have a voice in a democratic system (as not saying anything is equiviolent to agreeing with the status quo). On the other hand it is not worth saying anything if you have nothing to say or are not qualified to say anything. For example are 20ish year old males who have not fathered a child qualified to talk about the emotional ramifications of abortion? It is easy to say how one would react in a given situation, however in my experience the way that one does react in tough situations does not always match how one would have liked one’s self to have reacted. All the logic in the world is useless if the underling assumptions are wrong.

This rapidly generalizes to a whole host of other issues, are only rape victims qualified to talk about rape? are only people in the military qualified to judge soldier’s actions during war time? (i say no, civilians must dictate how the military will behave)

Posted in meta, politics | 1 Comment »

9. February 2008 by emeris.

Things like this make my head hurt.  How is this man taken seriously?

But earlier today, Huckabee disputed party leader’s assertion that McCain had locked up the GOP nomination and said he won’t quit the presidential race. “I didn’t major in math,” Huckabee told a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting. “I majored in miracles.”

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/livecoverage/?hpid=topnews

a long year indeed

Posted in politics | 2 Comments »

7. February 2008 by emeris.

“If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror,” Romney told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.”

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/romney-out.htm

Posted in politics | 1 Comment »

5. February 2008 by emeris.

Thinking one is clever is one of the most dangerous things to think. While it is true that cleverness can be a great boon for such things at solving math problems, cleverness can also be a great curse because one does not always see the true consequences until it is much too late. Hence, I am exhausted.

One such example in recent history is the Gulliani campaign method. It was greatly clever, ignore the small states and save money for the big ones, unfortunately it failed utterly because this momentum business matters. A lot. But, if it had worked it would have been brilliant and changed the dynamic of how the primaries are run. This does bring up the question of how much the media really matters in elections and what their responsibilities are. Edwards wasn’t doing that badly in the early races, but received very little media attention. After losing his home state he dropped out, arguably a victim of information cascade as much as anything else.

This raises the question if it is good that information cascades play such a large role in our political system, if political systems can exist with out information cascades (functionally or theoretically), or if any attempts are being made to control such cascades.

On one hand the cascade is a rapid way to bring a lot of people to the same view point, however it doesn’t prevent them from all flipping a different direction en-mass (see the realignment with in the republican primaries and Obama’s uptick after Iowa). They also serve as a multiplier of efforts.  If you can talk some number of people to your side, then some other people who may not have received any additional information other than that more people support you, will also join your side based on the judgment of others. This is the implicit reason that endorsements are good for anything at all.

I don’t think a system can exist with out such cascades, given the highly connected nature of this country, nor would it be desirable.  It is valid to extrapolate information based on how other people behave, ie you see people flocking to or from a candidate then it is worth looking into it to see why.

The far larger concern is if there are groups/powers that be that are trying covertly to manipulate the cascades (it is clear the candidates are overtly trying to manipulate them) and if we could even tell if someone was trying/succeeding at it.

Posted in politics, random | 2 Comments »