Corporate Politics and Physicists Modeling Political Instability

Wild turkeys in the hay

Shawn Griffiths at IVN writes on modeling studies that are beginning to dissect and shed light on growing instability in US elections. Relevant to this is the fact that two private political corporations, the Republican and Democratic Parties, are largely in control of the deeper systemic problems in our elections process. Griffiths writes:

“A research group out of MIT, for instance, has shown how the same mathematical formulas that help scientists understand certain phenomena in the physical world can be used to analyze the growing instability in US elections -- an instability these researchers acknowledge is partly due to growing polarization between the two parties and the structure of party primaries. 

‘Our country seems more divided than ever, with election outcomes resembling a pendulum swinging with ever increasing force,’ MIT doctoral student in Physics, Alexander Siegenfeld, told MIT News. He adds that in these ‘unstable’ elections, “a small change in electorate opinion can dramatically swing the election outcome, just as the direction of a small push to a boulder perched on top of a hill can dramatically change its final location.’ 

The study’s analysis identifies a transition in elections beginning in 1970, from a period where elections captured the greater preference of voters to increasing instability that has resulted in an undemocratic phenomenon the study calls ‘negative representation’. In other words, election outcomes increasingly swing further in the opposite direction of the greater preference of voters.”

MIT News writes this about the research:

The findings appear in the journal Nature Physics, in a paper by Alexander Siegenfeld, a doctoral student in physics at MIT, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, the president of the New England Complex Systems Institute. 

“Our country seems more divided than ever, with election outcomes resembling a pendulum swinging with ever increasing force,” Siegenfeld says. In this regime of “unstable” elections, he says, “a small change in electorate opinion can dramatically swing the election outcome, just as the direction of a small push to a boulder perched on top of a hill can dramatically change its final location.” 

That’s partly a result of an increasingly polarized electorate, he explains. The researchers drew from a previous analysis that went through the Republican and Democratic party platforms in every presidential election year since 1944 and counted the number of polarizing words using a combination of machine learning and human analysis. The numbers show a relatively stable situation before 1970 but a dramatic increase in polarization since then. 

The team then found that the Ising model, which was developed to explain the behavior of ferromagnets and other physical systems, is mathematically equivalent to certain models of elections and accurately describes the onset of instability in electoral systems. 

“What happened in 1970 is a phase transition[1] like the boiling of water. Elections went from stable to unstable,” explained Bar-Yam. 

The increasing instability also results in part from the structure of party primary systems, which have greatly increased their role in candidate selection since the ’70s. Because the voters in primaries tend to have more extreme partisan views than those of the general electorate, politicians are more inclined to take positions to appeal to those voters — positions that may be more extreme than those favored by more mainstream voters, and thus less likely to win in the general election. 

This long-term shift from a stable to unstable electoral situation closely resembles what happens to a ferromagnetic metal exposed to a magnetic field, Siegenfeld says, and can be described by the same mathematical formulas. But why should formulas derived for such unrelated subject matter be relevant to this field? 

Siegenfeld says that’s because in physics, it’s not always necessary to know the details of the underlying objects or mechanisms to be able to produce useful and meaningful results. He compares that to the way physicists were able to describe the behavior of sound waves — which are essentially the aggregate motions of atoms — with great precision, long before they knew about the existence of atoms. 

“When we apply physics to understanding the fundamental particles of our universe, we don’t actually know the underlying details of the theories,” he says. “Yet we can still make incredibly accurate predictions.”

This looks like an at least partial explanation for why so many Americans are unhappy with the two party system. It could help explain why the outcomes of elections seems to lead to government that is not responsive to majority public opinion.[2] The concept of negative representation is something that never occurred to me. But, as the physicists describe the concept, it seems spot on in describing what is going on in America’s increasingly minority-driven politics. Maybe the physicists are starting to get a handle on what’s going on and where we can possibly look for solutions, e.g., democratic and republican corporate ownership of the electoral process.


Footnotes: 
1. Reference to phase transition is compatible with seeing politics as a complex adaptive system and the transition period we are in as a bifurcation point that such systems undergo from time to time. It may be the case that over time this line of research can lead to deeper insights about both politics and human history in general. As long as there is sufficient data to input to the model, the predictions and/or explanations could be very helpful to inform strategies to foster long-term human survival and well being. Time will tell.

2. The very first consideration in the core ‘service to the public interest’ moral of pragmatic rationalism is, and always has been, reasonable consideration for majority public opinion, e.g., “being reasonably responsive to public opinion.” It seems that as more data accumulates, pragmatic rationalism increasingly looks to be directly relevant to try to at least partly fix what what is broken in US politics.

Promoting the Strong in Spirit While Suppressing the Weak

A topic the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy discusses is the concept of evil. Evil is an essentially contested concept. People will not and cannot universally agree on when the term applies to specific acts. One section of the discussion of evil focuses on an attack on use of the concept in thinking and talking about it. Nietzsche’s attack on the concept of evil argues that the concept of evil is dangerous and should be abandoned. The Encyclopedia writes:

“The Dangers of ‘Evil’: An evil-skeptic might reply that we should abandon only the concept of evil, and not other normative concepts, because the concept of evil is particularly dangerous or susceptible to abuse. We can discern several reasons why ascriptions of evil might be thought to be more harmful or dangerous than ascriptions of other normative concepts such as badness or wrongdoing. First, since ascriptions of evil are the greatest form of moral condemnation, when the term ‘evil’ is misapplied we subject someone to a particularly harsh judgement undeservedly. Furthermore, it is reasonable to assume that evildoers not only deserve the greatest form of moral condemnation but also the greatest form of punishment. Thus, not only are wrongfully accused evildoers subjected to harsh judgments undeservedly, they may be subjected to harsh punishments undeservedly as well. 

Other ambiguities concerning the meaning of the term ‘evil’ may be even more harmful. For instance, on some conceptions of evil, evildoers are possessed, inhuman, incorrigible, or have fixed character traits. These metaphysical and psychological theses about evildoers are controversial. Many who use the term ‘evil’ do not mean to imply that evildoers are possessed, inhuman, incorrigible, or that they have fixed character traits. But others do. 

Nietzsche’s Attack on Evil: The most celebrated evil-skeptic, nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, also argues that the concept of evil should be abandoned because it is dangerous. But his reasons for thinking that the concept of evil is dangerous are different from those discussed above. Nietzsche believes that the concept of evil is dangerous because it has a negative effect on human potential and vitality by promoting the weak in spirit and suppressing the strong. .... Nietzsche argues that the concept of evil arose from the negative emotions of envy, hatred, and resentment. He contends that the powerless and weak created the concept of evil to take revenge against their oppressors. Nietzsche believes that the concepts of good and evil contribute to an unhealthy view of life which judges relief from suffering as more valuable than creative self-expression and accomplishment. For this reason Nietzsche believes that we should seek to move beyond judgements of good and evil. 

Nietzsche’s skeptical attack on the concept of evil has encouraged philosophers to ignore the nature and moral significance of evil and instead focus on the motives people might have for using the term evil.”

Pragmatic rationalism and human biology

The pragmatic rationalism political ideology is built on four core morals or moral values (simplified explanation here). The morals are respect for facts, respect for true truths, service to the public interest and reasonable compromise. The morals were derived primarily from cognitive and social science insights about the how the human mind works and how humans as social creatures behave in complex modern societies that are awash in a tidal wave of information, including an endless stream of dark free speech (DFS).[1]

If one believes that DFS is fundamentally immoral as at least one moral philosopher argues, then it directly or indirectly violates all four core morals. For example, reliance on DFS to persuade people damages service to the public interest and reasonable compromise because the basis for service or compromise are corrupted in some way(s). Can that immorality ever rise to the level of evil?
If one defines evil as (i) a manifestation of profound human immorality and wickedness, especially in people's actions, or (ii) intent to harm or malevolence, it is clear that DFS can be evil if one believes in pragmatic rationalism. If one believes in an different ideology that holds it is morally acceptable to use DFS in political discourse because the ends justify the means, then DFS arguably rarely or never rises to the level of evil or even mere immorality.

So if one has a pragmatic rationalist mindset, is it wrong to call certain DFS evil if it meets the definition of evil? Does that wrongfully accuse people who rely heavily on DFS or subject them to unreasonably harsh judgments undeservedly? By definition, political DFS is legal and thus calling it immoral or evil leads to no undeserved or punishments of any kind. The only sanction is social disapproval and at present, a significant slice of American society seems to more or less accept and even defend DFS.

Is Nietzsche correct to say that evil in the context of DFS and politics arises from negative emotions of envy, hatred, and/or resentment? Or can it simply arise from the moral authority inherent in pragmatic rationalism? Is it possible for one to call malevolent DFS, e.g., public incitement to a race riot or a lynching, immoral or evil merely because that's just what it is?

What about law breakers in society or politics? Can law breaking ever rise to the level of evil? Were Hitler or Stalin evil, and if not, then what were they from the pragmatic rationalist point of view? From an authoritarian point of view, some people might believe that Hitler and/or Stalin were good and moral.

In its intent, pragmatic rationalism tries to promote the strong in spirit (rationality, tolerance, moral courage, etc.), while suppressing the weak (hate, anger, bigotry, etc.). Is use of the concept of evil so emotionally powerful that the intent is swept away in all the hate, bigotry, intolerance, distrust that DFS foments in many or most people? Does it matter if one is an atheist or otherwise non-religious and applies evil as a concept in a secular context based on a secular mindset?

Is Nietzsche right or wrong about this? Should we get rid of the concept of evil because the human mind is, e.g., biologically, morally or otherwise too weak to handle ‘evil’ in a reasonably rational or socially useful way?

Footnote:
1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism, and (4) ideologically-driven motivated reasoning and other ideologically-driven biases that unreasonably distort reality and reason. (my label, my definition)

The Spirit of Liberty

The following is a speech by federal judge Learned Hand, an influential American jurist. He gave this speech, The Spirit of Liberty, in 1944 in celebration of I Am an American Day.

We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion. Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land. What was the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice? We sought liberty; freedoms from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This we then sought; this we now believe that we are by way of winning. What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow. 

What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest. And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be; nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country.

A couple of sentiments here resonate strongly. In particular these stand out as important but maybe too often left unconsidered or underweighted:

The spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; and the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias. 

It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow. 

EASTER BUNNY: FACT OR FICTION

I was going to attempt a relatively serious discussion today about a very relevant topic – The Easter Bunny.  However, things slid downhill faster than my car without brakes when I Googled legend of the Easter Bunny.

You’ll never guess what I learned.  Brace yourselves.

The Easter Bunny is an anthropomorphic rabbit.  Shocking, isn’t it!

Anthorpomorphic?  I didn’t realize the Easter bunny suffered from an incapacitating fear.  He probably drops a fortune in his shrink’s office.  I wonder if he pays in chocolate?  I was convinced anthropomorphia had to be a disease of mind or body.  Sometimes I’m so ignorant, I wonder how I function in life. 

I’m happy to report the Easter Bunny is not contagious.  In fact, he’s disease free (for this year anyway).

Back to our discussion. 

Have you introduced your children to the Easter Bunny or are you anti-bunny?

I realize many parents do not like to lie to their children or foster false notions in their impressionable minds.  I applaud and respect these parents; however, I’m apparently not so honest.

Each year the Easter bunny drops off a basket for each child filled with all the candy I love.  How considerate of him.  We also have an Easter Egg hunt each year.  I’d like to skip this tradition, but FringeBoy likes tradition.  He thrives on tradition.  As a toddler he’d cry for the same cup every morning.  In order to avoid a holiday meltdown, we hunt for eggs.

For our family this does not detract from the true meaning of Easter.  The celebration of the resurrection takes center stage in our home.  Bunnies, eggs, and yes, even chocolate take a back seat to the One who conquered death and the grave.

What Easter traditions do you celebrate?  Please tell us if you hate the Easter Bunny, you wish he would choke on a carrot, or you think peeps are of the devil.

I want to know.

https://thedomesticfringe.com/easter-bunny-fact-or-fiction/

What the Fed is up to

I know. Financial stuff bores most people to tears or sleep. Unfortunately, is it in financial stuff that taxpayers get ripped off of trillions of dollars that flow in opaque, secret, behind closed doors sorts of ways. Darned financial stuff. Darned opacity. Darned corruption.

Bailing out households backed by junk bonds

Wall Street on Parade (WSOP) reports that the Fed is planning to put lipstick on a very large pig. The Fed announced today that it will start buying junk bonds. Junk bonds, as we all know, had been, according to WSOP, “cratering for most of the month of March. That was the pig. The lipstick it applied was worded like this: ‘The Federal Reserve on Thursday took additional actions to provide up to $2.3 trillion in loans to support the economy. This funding will assist households and employers of all sizes and bolster the ability of state and local governments to deliver critical services during the coronavirus pandemic.’”

In the colorfully titled WSOP article, Fed Chair Powell Tells Whoppers This Morning on the Brookings Institution Webcast, commented that households, small businesses and most state and local governments do not issue junk bonds. So, that $2.3 trillion in funding will not assist households and employers of all sizes, or bolster the ability of most state or local governments to do squat. It will help big businesses in financial distress. WSOP argues that instead of the Fed bailing out failing companies with junk bond credit ratings, those companies should use the option that our president has used on many occasions. It is called filing for bankruptcy.

And other whoppers and deceit

WSOP also pointed out that Fed chair Powell fibbed about the loans being paid back. Much or maybe most of the money is unlikely to ever be repaid. Powell said this morning that “the Fed can only make secured loans to solvent entities with the expectation that the loans will be fully repaid.” But on March 26, Powell said this about loan repayment expectations: “We’re required to get full security for our loans so that we don’t lose money. So the Treasury puts up money as we estimate what the losses might be…Effectively $1 of loss absorption of backstop from Treasury is enough to support $10 of loans.”

Sounds like us taxpayers are going to get trillions more in debt stemming from the president’s failure to deal with coronavirus seriously or competently.

Finally, Powell commented this morning that “We entered this turbulent period on a strong economic footing, and that should help support the recovery. In the meantime, we are using our tools to help build a bridge from the solid economic foundation on which we entered this crisis to a position of regained economic strength on the other side.” 

WSOP rejected Powell's comments as lies intended to deceive the public: “The U.S. financial markets did not enter the coronavirus pandemic on solid footing or anything vaguely resembling solid footing. See our reports: Wall Street’s Crisis Began Four Months Before the First Reported Death from Coronavirus in China; Here’s the Proof and Fed Repos Have Plowed $6.6 Trillion to Wall Street in Four Months; That’s 34% of Its Feeding Tube During Epic Financial Crash. These articles clearly demonstrate that the liquidity crisis on Wall Street began four months before the first death from coronavirus in the U.S.”

If that is true, and it probably is, this coronavirus thing and federal incompetence in dealing with it could end up costing maybe as much as $10 trillion or even more.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be spending some time trying to figure out just how many trillion dollars is going to bail out businesses without much or any oversight. It is starting to look to me like we're in way more trouble than just coronavirus and a mounting death toll. We may be on the verge of trashing our entire economy and entering into a depression on the scale of 1929 or something even worse.

Captain Kirk - Common People, originally by Pulp

Book Review: The Righteous Mind

Context

This book helps explain the fundamentally moral, intuitive, emotional, biased and unconscious nature of humans dealing with politics. Existing evidence indicates that our minds are basically “narrowly moralistic and intolerant” when dealing with political matters. Political issues are now routinely weaponized by moralizing them. This tends to reduce conscious reasoning and gives more control to our far more powerful unconscious minds. That tends to make politics more irrational than if issues had not been weaponized. The matter of morality in politics, how to think about it and how to deal with it is arguably urgent and rapidly becoming more important.

Book review

Johnathan Haidt’s 2012 book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, argues that politics is largely a matter of moral thinking and judgment, most of which (~99%) is unconscious for most people most of the time. 2012 Haidt is a social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He wrote The Righteous Mind to “at least do what we can to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, each one certain of its righteousness.” He explains: “My goal in this book is to drain some of the heat, anger, and divisiveness out of these topics and replace them with awe, wonder, and curiosity.”

Given the increasing rancor in American politics since Haidt wrote in 2012, it appears that his goal is not being met. In view of America’s increasing political polarization, Haidt clearly has his work cut out for him.

To find answers, Haidt focuses on the inherent moralistic, self-righteous nature of human cognition and thinking about politics and religion. Through the ages, there were three basic conceptions of the roles of reason (conscious reasoning) and passion (unconscious intuition, emotion, morality, bias, self identity, tribe identity, etc.) in human thinking and behavior. Plato (~428-348 BC) argued that reason dominated in intellectual elites called “philosophers”, but that average people were mostly controlled by their passions. David Hume (1711-1776) argued that reason or conscious thinking was nothing more than a slave to human passions. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) argued that reason and passions were about equal in their influence.

According to Haidt, the debate is over: “Hume was right. The mind is divided into parts, like a rider (controlled processes) on an elephant (automatic processes). The rider evolved to serve the elephant. . . . . intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. Therefore, if you want to change someone’s mind about a moral or political issue, talk to the elephant first.”

Our intuitive (unconscious) morals and judgments tend to be more subjective, personal and emotional than objective and rational (conscious). Haidt points out that we are designed by evolution to be “narrowly moralistic and intolerant.” That leads to self-righteousness and the associated hostility and distrust of other points of views that the trait generates. Regarding the divisiveness of politics, Haidt asserts that “our righteous minds guarantee that our cooperative groups will always be cursed by moralistic strife.”

Our unconscious “moral intuitions (i.e., judgments) arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning.” Initial intuitions driving later reasoning exemplifies some of our many unconscious cognitive biases, e.g., ideologically-based motivated reasoning, which distorts both facts we become aware of and the common sense we apply to the reality we think we see.

The book’s central metaphor “is that the mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The rider is our conscious reasoning—the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes—the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.”

Haidt observes that there are two different sets of morals and rhetorical styles that tend to characterize liberals and conservatives: “Republicans understand moral psychology. Democrats don’t. Republicans have long understood that the elephant is in charge of political behavior, not the rider, and they know how elephants work. Their slogans, political commercials and speeches go straight for the gut . . . . Republicans don’t just aim to cause fear, as some Democrats charge. They trigger the full range of intuitions described by Moral Foundations Theory.”

The problem: On reading The Righteous Mind, the depth and breadth of problem for politics becomes uncomfortably clear for anyone hoping to ever find a way to at least partially rationalize politics. Haidt sums it up nicely: “Western philosophy has been worshiping reason and distrusting the passions for thousands of years. . . . I’ll refer to this worshipful attitude throughout this book as the rationalist delusion. I call it a delusion because when a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds. The true believers produce pious fantasies that don’t match reality, and at some point somebody comes along to knock the idol off its pedestal. . . . . We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct why we ourselves came to a judgment; we reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment. . . . . The rider is skilled at fabricating post hoc explanations for whatever the elephant has just done, and it is good at finding reasons to justify whatever the elephant wants to do next. . . . . We make our first judgments rapidly, and we are dreadful at seeking out evidence that might disconfirm those initial judgments.”

In other words, conscious reason (the rider) serves unconscious intuition and that’s the powerful but intolerant and moralistic beast that Haidt calls the elephant.

Two additional observations merit mention. First, Haidt points out that “traits can be innate without being hardwired or universal. The brain is like a book, the first draft of which is written by the genes during fetal development. No chapters are complete at birth . . . . But not a single chapter . . . . consists of blank pages on which a society can inscribe any conceivable set of words. . . . Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises. . . . . ‘Built-in’ does not mean unmalleable; it means organized in advance of experience.”

Second, Haidt asserts that Hume “went too far” by arguing that reason is merely a “slave” of the passions. He argues that although intuition dominates, it is “neither dumb nor despotic” and it “can be shaped by reasoning.” He likens the situation as one of a lawyer (the rider) and a client (the elephant). Sometimes the lawyer can talk the client out of doing something dumb, sometimes not. The elephant may be a big, powerful beast, but it’s not stupid and it can learn. Haidt’s assertion that we “will always be cursed by moralistic strife” is his personal moral judgment that our intuitive, righteous nature is a curse, not a blessing or a source of wisdom. In this regard, his instinct is closer to Plato’s moral judgment about how things ought to be than Hume or Jefferson. Or, at least that’s how I read it.

Questions: Does Haidt’s portrayal of the interplay between unconscious intuition and morals and conscious reason seem reasonable? Is it possible that a society can partly tame the elephant and shift some mental power to the rider in hopes of at least partially rationalizing politics compared to what it is now?

Original Biopolitics and Bionews post: August 29, 2016; DP posts: 3/16/19, 4/9/20