Summary: America remains locked in a battle between Left and Right. Each fights to protect the Constitution — or the pieces of it they value. Neither cares for the it as other than a tool to advance their interests. The Constitution, torn between them, slowly withers. The American people mildly, intermittently cheer both sides — wanting what they want, ignorant and uncaring of the political processes that constitute the Republic. Today we see this tragedy play out over same sex marriage.
Oracles ruling about a document in which many (most?) Americans no longer believe.
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Americans have voted for laws not allowing same sex marriage. Now opinions have changed (for the better IMO), and we can change those laws. Acts of collective action like this, working through our elected representatives, strengthen the Republic. We shape America, making our history, showing our power to govern ourselves. This is the natural course of evolution in a democracy.
But many prefer quicker extra-legal measures, wanting results NOW — not caring about the means. Or the consequences. The Courts, often ready to act as priest-kings — deciders — provide a fast track for social change. As with Roe vs Wade in 1973, the likely result of Supreme Court voiding the Defense of Marriage Act (1996) will be to extend and embitter the debate and further weaken the legitimacy of the courts.
The Republic — and hence us, the people — grow weaker with each exercise of extra-constitutional power by the Courts and the Executive, no matter how well-intentioned. Eventually our leaders will take bold action, promising to give us what we want — security, prosperity, whatever — without bothering to pretend to follow the Constitution. At that point the Constitution will have died.
My guess most of us will live to see that day.
Some people on the Right look at the Courts. Today they cherish the Constitution
I agree with the following views. But the core fact of American politics today is that neither Left nor Right value the Constitution as anything other an instrument to advance their policies. Tomorrow — when looking at government oppression of Muslims, extra-legal assassination of Americans, or illegal surveillance — they might show less concern about old documents.
“Gay marriage and the Supreme Court’s empire“, Paul Mirengoff, Powerline, 4 March 2013:
{N}ine glorified lawyers are about to tell us whether the traditional definition of marriage as requiring members of the opposite sex is rational and/or useful (whether the standard is “rationality” or “utility” is up for grabs in the case). By “traditional definition of marriage” in this context, I really mean the universal definition — one that, as far as I know, prevailed until very recently in all societies since the beginning of recorded time. Isn’t it odd that as few as five judges could determine that the traditional definition of this fundamental institution is irrational (or not useful), and make this judgment stick?
“Supremacist Courts“, Mark Steyn, National Review, 4 March 2013:
Summary: An organization’s destiny rides on its leaders’ decisions on those rare occasions when the future call. Their response puts the organization on the path to success, or decay. Sometimes that happens on the field in battle. Sometimes it’s a call to action, to serve by growing. After 9/11 the future called the US Marine Corps, and they refused. They might not get another opportunity.
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“Can the Marines Survive?“, Lloyd Freeman (Lt Col, USMC), Foreign Policy, 26 March 2013 — The author is a Marine infantry officer and has served three combat tours, two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He currently serves as the Deputy Executive Assistant in the Expeditionary Warfare Division of the U.S. Navy.
Excerpt:
Following the 9/11 attacks, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approached the Marine commandant and asked if the Marines could take on a special operations role within the Department of Defense. For the secretary, it seemed logical. The Marine Corps is designed to operate independently when necessary; it can sustain itself with a well-oiled logistics organization, and it even has its own air wings. At the time, most special operations forces resided in the Army and in Navy Special Warfare and there was an emerging shortage of operators. The Corps could have filled the gap in special forces that existed right after 9/11.
Instead the USMC attempted to become a second Army, putting their investment capital in the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (see Wikipedia) and the VTOL version of the F-35. The first has been canceled; the F-35 limps forward with costs skyrocketing and inferior performance (See “Marine F-35 Jump-Jet PR: Caveataxpayer Emptor“, Time, 27 March 2013).
These failed programs, burning much of their R&D funding, are less important for the USMC’s future than their loss of the “elite ground forces” niche in the minds of the American public — now owned by the Special Operations Forces. This bumps the USMC decisively into the “second Army” market niche. When budgets get cut, the second source gets cut first.
(update) Result: the Marines have a small slice of the exiting future for US ground forces — Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) — when they could have had almost the whole pie.
Can the USMC recover from this?
A description of the choices offered by destiny
Social unrest coming to Europe? If not, why not?
Summary: Five years of crisis in Europe, yet its streets remain mostly calm. What accounts for this? How long will it continue?
“At the heart of the crisis, there is the challenge of redefining the social contract to safeguard the sustainability of Europe’s social model.”
— Speech by Benoit Coeure (Executive Board of the ECB), 2 March 2013
“Spot on, Benoit. The trouble is European leaders and institutions seem to want to redefine the contract in ways that at least half of European citizens don’t approve, or trust them to carry out. So underneath the three-headed crisis of austerity, banking and sovereign debt, we have one of legitimacy and trust, which is feeding social unrest.”
— George Magnus, Economic Advisor, UBS, 20 March 2013
Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix (1830)
The painting “Liberty Leading the Way” commemorates the July Revolution of 1830, midpoint to a century of social unrest in France. It shows the result of mismanaging the forces of change.
Contents
- Why is Europe still stable?
- What comes next?
- Compare with China
- Leave a comment
- For More Information
(1) Why is Europe still stable?
The stability in Europe since the second downturn began in March 2010 has surprised many observers (eg, me). Three years of depressionary conditions in the periphery have produced no large, severe outbreaks of social unrest. Elections have produced majorities in favor of the European Union and the austerity it mandates (we’ll soon see if February’s election in Italy broke this record).
What produces this stability? The usual supports for incumbent systems are human inertia and people’s dislike of radical change. Hence the failure of the frequently made forecasts of regime change in developed nations. But those explanations seem in adequate, as does embrace of the EU from fear of war.
History provides a possible answer: the lack of an alternative. Thomas Kuhn in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) says that scientific paradigms die not when they are disproven, but when they are replaced by a superior alternative. In much the same way revolutions (peaceful or otherwise) require a new political or economic ideology that can substitute for the old.
Without an alternative, accumulated stress breaks out in futile forms, such as protests and riots. These are a commonplace of history, such as the peasants’ protests (Wikipedia) and race riots (Wikipedia). These can produce incremental reforms (although they usually didn’t), but participants seldom had a vision of a realistic better system. Although recognized as defective, other systems were considered less attractive or unworkable (eg, plutocracy in Holland, city-states in Switzerland). For centuries this provided a buttress for European monarchies.
(2) What comes next in Europe?
The next step of computer evolution: becoming bloggers
Summary: Yesterday we examined the job prospects for journalists when computers do much of their job as well as people. But it might not end there. Computers will become bloggers, either in collaboration with people, or software run by people as a hobby. Here we speculate about what kinds of blogs will be automated first. It’s a window into the coming new world shaped by the next wave of automation.
Evolution of bloggers
Contents
- Four Kinds of Blogs
- A different perspective on blogging
- A deeper significance of robot bloggers
- Leave a comment
- More Info about the Robot Revolution
- Soon a computer will scan all this information and write a post better than I can
(1) Four Kinds of Blogs
Many blogs provide information. This includes reporting on people and events, delivery of facts (broadly defined), and how-to advice. Much of the value of these posts comes from framing the issue and selecting what key data to include. Soon computers will be able to do this for many subjects, and can do so today for simple stories in clearly defined subjects (eg, baseball games, financial reports).
A second kind of post provides affirmations of group identity. The other group is bad-ugly-wrong. We are good-pretty-correct. For example, much blogging about climate science consists of this with a thin technical gloss. A computer probably could easily churn out such content. Including the insults and snark. Perhaps eventually even with some humor.
A third kind of post provides insights. I wonder when a computer will be able to do this.
A fourth kind evokes or shares emotions and feelings. I wonder how soon a computer will be able to fake this enough to fool readers (a limited sort of Turing Test).
(2) A different perspective on blogging
Let’s look at the ability of computers to automate blogging in terms of the different types of authors: “7 Different Blogger Types Explained“, Eva Percic, Zemanta, 26 December 2012
- Preachers are about studying content, presenting key viewpoints and opening a platform for further discussion.
- Techies enjoy spreading their word, sharing knowledge and educating.
- Professionals present facts, ideas, and accomplishments, and seek feedback from their followers.
- Beauty hunters create or promote beautiful things, educate others and exchange opinions.
- Life improvers share know-how, give support and instruct people how to improve their life.
- Life stagers search for help, or share their experience and make someone else’s life easier.
- Hedonists promote different lifestyles to enrich people’s daily routines.
The below graph sorts these types in two dimensions. Which of these will computers replace early and well? As a guess, they’ll do those on the bottom half more easily. Or, perhaps they’ll quickly learn to fake the 3 types on the upper half.
Summary: Journalists often have been unsympathetic when reporting past waves of unemployment from automation. Now they have the opportunity to do first person reporting, as computers replace professionals. Like journalists. This is another chapter in a series about the the robot revolution, soon to reshape our world.
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“The new reporter on the US media scene takes no coffee breaks, churns out articles at lightning speed, and has no pension plan.”
— Wired, 24 April 2012
Just the beginning. From Pew’s 2012 State of the Media report
Coming to Fox News
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Contents
- A new technology makes the news
- Realism about jobs
- Assessing the potential of robot journalists
- What should we do about it?
- For More Information about Robot Journalists
- For More Information about the Robot Revolution
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(1) A new technology makes the news
“Can the Computers at Narrative Science Replace Paid Writers?“, Joe Fassler, The Atlantic, 12 April 2012:
Now computers have proven competence — no, fluency — in yet another aspect of human life: writing. Narrative Science, a Chicago-based startup, has developed an innovative platform that writes reported articles in eerily humanlike cadence. Their early work focused on niche markets, clients with repetitive storylines and loads of numeric data—sports stories, say, or financial reports. But the underlying logic that drives the process — scan a data set, detect significance, and tell a story based on facts — is powerful and vastly applicable. Wherever there is data, Narrative Science founders say, their software can generate a prose analysis that’s robust, reliable, and readable.
For example: One high-profile client, Forbes magazine, uses the platform to create what Forbes writer Lewis Dvorkin calls “computer-generated company earnings previews.” Each day, the platform sorts through recent stock data to profile a notably performing company. Another client is The Big Ten Network, which uses Narrative Science to create automatic sports recaps based on box scores and player data. … Similarly, the iPhone app Gamechanger, which coaches and parents use to score Little League games, has a “recap” service enabled by Narrative Science. Mark the final out and, kapow, you’ve got a print-ready article about the game.
Narrative Science now has 40 clients.
(2) Realism about jobs (they’re going away)
One constant theme in articles about robot journalism: it will not replace journalists. As in this close to the Atlantic article quoted above, by Stuart Frankel (CEO of Narrative Science):
