How to Change Someone's Mind

How to Change Someone's Mind: People Prefer Conflicting Thoughts Much More Than an "Absence of a Paradigm" By Dan Abrams Contrary to a simplistic understanding of psychology's concept of "Cognitive Dissonance", I think most humans prefer to have multiple conflicting thoughts than to have an absence of a paradigm. That's why in order to change someone's mind you must first give them ideas they agree with, that they don't think conflict with their existing paradigm, and build upon them until the new paradigm is stronger than the old (which is thus discarded). Not that this should be an excuse for poor behavior, but remember that nearly everyone is a hypocrite on some level. No human is 100.00% consistent for his entire lifetime. That's because no one "gets it right" right from the start. Life is complicated and all rules have exceptions. Our understanding of the world evolves over time because we're always evaluating our beliefs relative to our interaction with the world. A baby learns one of its first "heuristics" is that when it is hungry to put food in its mouth. Its understanding of what "food" is may be based on the experience of putting anything within reach in its mouth. As its parents give it more freedom the baby learns that not everything that is within reach is necessarily food. His heuristic for satisfying hunger changes accordingly. Employing the useful analogy of a brain being like a computer, think of your environment constantly giving you input that your brain attempts to process. Information that supports or affirms existing software is saved and fortifies it against change. Falsifying evidence tends to shatter existing software but life is so complex that you can't throw out software without having something to replace it. Consider trying to do a modern financial analysis using only the first version of "Lotus 1-2-3". Sure, the current version of Microsoft Excel would be much more effective but unless/until you have it properly installed you shouldn't toss out your Lotus 1-2-3 because Photoshop won't help you do math. Similarly, the brain won't toss out previously used paradigms (regardless how objectively flawed or ineffective) unless/until it has something it regards as better. Consequently, when trying to change someone's mind: DO NOT START BY TELLING THEM ALL ABOUT HOW WRONG THEY ARE. Regardless of your evidence, it won't be as effective as another strategy I outline here: 1) Identify what they actually believe. (Don't jump to conclusions and don't make errors in understanding). 2) Articulate your existing areas of agreement. (This earns you credibility). 3) Introduce ideas/paradigms/input/software that support your position while simultaneously being acceptable to the person's mind you are attempting to change. Ideally, this new input will be so immaculately compatible that they will not only incorporate it but also attribute greater credibility to you (because they think you are fortifying their old paradigm). 4) Extend in small/slow, logical, "bullet-proof" steps the ramifications of these new ideas and how they necessarily lead to different proximate conclusions (but save that last "leap" conclusion for a little later). 5) Now, you may introduce your counter-arguments to his old paradigm. It is here where your criticisms will be most effective. (That's because now he has other, better, software installed. And the criticisms are telling him to get rid of the old/bad software.) 6) Finally, make your last "leap" from the newly established paradigms to your, better, conclusion. Now he can conclusively accept this "change of mind" and discard the old, worse, paradigm. I think all of this has a physiological/evolutionary biological basis. This person's synapses have been encoded in a certain way in the past and that persons very existence is some evidence (but not necessarily "proof") that those synapses in that architecture are, on some level, adaptive to the environment (if for no other reason than if they were completely counter-effectual the person would be dead). Until you help him build new synaptic architecture the brain won't voluntarily destroy its own architecture. But if you build up a bunch of new synapses that function more efficiently then the brain will nourish & fortify those areas while letting the less effective architecture atrophy or at least lie fallow. Anyway, many of you have heard me talk about versions of this theory for many years but if you now know it to be derivative (or worse yet, a complete ripoff/"simultaneous creation") please let me know ASAP. I pride myself on my creativity and originality but I'm realistic enough to attempt to be humble and request better information (if you have it - as I'm quite sure some must in this case). Thanks!

An advertising idea for films in lieu of using "555" phone numbers

We know that it takes audiences out of the moment when characters in films/tv give blatantly fake numbers like "555-1234" (for fear of inflicting something like Jenny-Jenny harassment to people with the number 867-5309).  My idea is for studios to get a batch of "real phone numbers" for their characters to mention in scripts but then have pre-recorded advertisements playing for those compulsively curious people who inevitably will call those numbers. The ads could be audio trailers just like Moviefone. I know that I've told a bunch of you this idea before (many years ago) and then mentioned how close the zeitgeist came when "Unbreakable" used a real phone number and just had a generic pre-recording that said "This is a studio-owned number that is not in use". But I like that I can use this blog to document my ideas and this one had not yet been time-stamped.

"Country Club Analogy" (Argument for "Fair Trade" over "Free Trade")

Let's start with the analogy and then explore how it's apropos to the debate on "Free Trade". Your father, who manufacturers golfballs, belongs to an elite Country Club that is owned by its members. Nearly everyone around the world wants to join but it's very exclusive. All "legacy" applicants (those born to existing members) are accepted but everyone else, even the very smart/talented, has to jump through a bunch of hoops over many years for just a small chance of getting in. Once you're in the Country Club there are all sorts of benefits. It's clean, secure, and overall really nice. People make deals there and the club takes a cut of every deal. Nevertheless, everyone seems to prosper. You and your dad are doing well because you're selling lots of golfballs to the members. The exclusivity of the Country Club thus prevented some smart/talented people from joining. Those people started making their own country clubs better. Historically, when it came time to attract major events, sponsors etc. there was really only one choice: your dad's Country Club. This near-monopoly had huge advantages that led to extraordinary profit-premiums for your dad's generation (he felt he was entitled to them and that they were well-earned). But over time the other country clubs got better and began to attract their own events, sponsors etc. Now the profit-margins are getting squeezed in the deals that are transacted in your Country Club. The costs of running the club keep going up (materials, personnel, equipment) and it still doesn't have some services that other country clubs offer. Consequently, your Country Club needs to raise its fees to cover its costs. But some of the older members of the club object to increased fees. They vote to reduce the amenities and allow the importation of cheaper golfballs from another country club. You and your dad are pissed at losing so much business but you're still OK because you still sell golfballs to other country clubs. This continues and your reduced profit requires you scale back. You decide to stop manufacturing near the course and instead open a cheaper plant near another country club and import them into your Country Club. Your employees, who were members of your Country Club, are now out of work and can't afford to pay yearly membership fees anymore. This further reduces the revenue of your Country Club necessitating, according to some members, further cost-cutting. Now the club wants cheaper fertilizer, seeds and sand. Your three buddies at the club who respectively sell fertilizer, seeds and sand do exactly what you did. They close their plants nearby and open plants near other country clubs. The closed plants put out of work more members of the your club which further reduces revenues. This is a vicious cycle leading to more business going to the members of other country clubs. Meanwhile, the booming businesses of the members of other other country clubs leads to their own "virtuous cycle" increasing the revenue of the members of other clubs and increasing the membership revenues. Those increased revenues enhance those country clubs to be closer and closer to the level of your elite Country Club. It's all pretty simply economics. It's even "free market" dogma that buyers will buy the cheapest products from anywhere they can. The analogy is pretty obvious and "one-for-one" about global trade. But what other options do we have? 1) "Take all the smart/talented people who apply" - This argument attempts to exploit the system by greedily taking all the best people for your Country(Club) so that the other countries are crippled by a lack of good people. Not only is this selfish and unsustainable it also DOESN'T WORK FOR THE MEMBERS OF YOUR COUNTRY. Consider this: if a better golfball manufacturer is admitted to your Country Club then you & your dad are still out of work. Yes, the club apparently doesn't suffer but the members (you & your dad) do suffer.  Thus, using Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative (which is just a fancy way of describing "The Golden Rule") the membership shouldn't agree to burning you and your dad because they wouldn't want the same thing done to themselves. Measuring the good of the Country Club by it's size, beauty & membership's gross revenue alone ignores the good/prosperity of its members. Why would the members want any policy that ostensibly helps the club but actually hurts themselves? Let's measure how good the members lives are over time and institute policy that makes their lives better. THE ALTERNATIVE... 2) For all intents and purposes - "Protectionism" to some degree. Your Country Club should encourage deals that keep its members employed. It should tax & discourage money earned in the club from funding ventures in other country clubs. It should not let in new members so as to encourage those applicants to go an make their own country clubs better. (Of course there are exceptions for moral/political reasons and protectionism need not be impractically extreme.) I'm skipping a few points here in the interest of some brevity. For those who reflexively decry protectionism in any form - What good is an "American Corporation" to America if it pays no taxes and employs no Americans? What good is a big GDP if none goes to enhancing the citizens' lives? Note - I'm deliberately trying to be provocative here. I'm not really claiming we shut down our borders entirely and attempt "Isolationist Fortress America". But I am suggesting we seriously decide what the purpose of government is.  I hope we can generally agree it's to make the lives of its citizens better (which I think is a pretty modest & benign idea though one that GOP&Libertarians generally can't stand).  Once that is settled we can define the measurements of what makes citizens' lives better. Then, necessarily, all government policies must be calibrated against those measurements. I contend that progressive, liberal and generally "Democratic" policies are better at enhancing citizens' lives. Whereas conservative, Republican policies (over time) don't even help the majority in the country club.

Why Hedge Funds Are (and want to be) “Risky”

Why Hedge Funds Are (and want to be) "Risky" --- Primer & Gambler Analogy By Daniel Lawrence Abrams   Primer:   Hedge funds have been around since 1949 and have generally functioned as high-risk/high-reward mutual funds for advanced investors.   Not bound by the laws and conventions of generic mutual funds, hedge funds are empowered to assume extreme leverage and place bets on complex financial instruments (e.g. derivatives) in order to achieve extraordinary returns on investment.   Only the best investors even attempted to start hedge funds. Those that lost money quickly disappeared. Those that made profits in excess of the market were highly prized.   If the S&P 500 earns 8% and a given hedge fund (after all fees) returns 9% then why not invest in that hedge fund? Savvy investors may be more concerned with ROI for a given level of risk but since the concept of risk is so difficult to reliably quantify for predictive power it all boils down to the bottom line: If investment option "A" earns 8% while "B" earns 9%, ceteris paribus, people would rather get 9%. Hedge funds often yield substantially greater returns than the market which is why they exist in the first place.   Why do investment professionals start hedge funds? They have more freedom to make "riskier" bets that can yield those superior returns. Making this even more attractive is their particular compensation structure.   Most hedge fund managers use a traditional 2+20 compensation structure. Every year, 2% of the money invested is taken for the hedge fund managers as a management fee (maintenance fee). Additionally, 20% of the profits are also taken for the hedge fund managers as bonus compensation "performance fee".   For example: –$100mil invested, HF yields 30% ROI = $130mil before fees –HF managers take 2% of the initial amount = $2mil –HF managers take 20% of the $30mil profit = $6mil –Total returned to investors = $122mil (i.e. 22% ROI)   So there's an obvious incentive for the hedge fund managers to make their investors a lot of money (consequently resulting in an even better bonus for the hedge fund managers).   Now consider the following… Gambler Analogy:   A wealthy gambler sees you winning at a casino. He offers to give you the traditional 2+20 HF manager compensation formula to gamble his $100k for him. He gives you one night in a particular casino that only has these 4 kinds of games:   1) There is a big game of no-limit hold'em poker where you only play with the other players (not the house) against whom you estimate you may have a 10% edge for the night. The blinds are 25-50 and betting is capped at $50,000 per hand.   2) There is single-deck blackjack where you can actually count cards and gain a legal, fair, small edge (maybe 5%) over the casino but the maximum bet is $100 per hand.   3) There is also "Betting on Fair Coin Flips" against the house, which is obviously entirely luck-based, that pays winning predictions 99 cents on a one dollar bet. This means the casino has an edge over you of 1%. Note that the maximum bet for this game is $1,000 per player per flip.   4) Finally there is "The Big Wheel" which is like a simplified roulette wheel where there are 20 spaces (19 losers and 1 winner) and pays off a winner 17 to 1.  True odds would dictate you should get 19 to 1 so you're actually giving up a 10% edge to the casino. Note that there is no limit on the amount you can bet on this game only.   So in this casino gambler analogy, where you are the equivalent of a hedge fund manager, on what games should you bet the $100k you were given to gamble?   A) If you're a great poker player against weak opponents then you should play NLHE poker because that's where you can get the greatest edge/positive EV (over 10% ideally). Consequently your 2% will get you $2k plus 20% of the $10k profit (which is $2k) totals a net profit of $4k for you and $6k for the gambler. Getting the gambler 6% ROI in one day is pretty great (it'd make a merciless mafia loan shark jealous).   B) If you're not as good as the other poker players but still smart then you can pretty safely count cards playing blackjack and hope/expect a 5% ROI on the $100k. Consequently your 2% will get you $2k plus 20% of the $5k profit (which is $1k) totals a net profit of $3k for you and $2k for the gambler.   C) If you can't play poker or count cards in blackjack then you could bet on the coin flips but you're giving up a 1% edge and so should expect to actually lose money for the gambler. Consequently your personal profit theoretically should only be the $2,000.   D) "The Big Wheel" may seem counter-intuitive for many so let's explore it in detail… You know "The Big Wheel" has a negative expectation with the worst odds for the gambler's money. But let's still explore your personal "Expected Value" (as the HF manager) if you simply bet the whole $98k on one spin of "The Big Wheel". –19 times out of 20 you would lose it all and only make $2,000 personal profit. –1 time in 20 you hit then you'd win $1,666,000 on the $100,000 investment. Consequently, your 20% would equal $333k plus your $2k equals $335k. –So in 19 spins you'd get $2k each (total = $38k) and on the 20th theoretical spin you get $335k. That's $373k over 20 spins for an "Expected Value" of $18,650. WOW! But it's terrible for the investor who's EV on the game (before the 2/20) is 90% of his $100k resulting in a $10,000 theoretical loss. After the 2/20 compensation, his expected value is less than 70% of his $100k for an over $30,000 theoretical loss.   Recap: •NLHE POKER: 10% POSITIVE / Your expected personal profit = $4,000 •BLACKJACK: 5% POSITIVE  / Your expected personal profit = $3,000 •COIN FLIPS: 1% NEGATIVE / Your expected personal profit = $2,000 •THE BIG WHEEL: 10% NEGATIVE / Your expected personal profit = $18,650   THEREFORE: Even though "The Big Wheel" has the biggest mathematically "Negative Expectation" because of the 2+20 compensation formula it is immensely attractive to the hedge fund managers who don't have an edge.   CONCLUSION: It is therefore even more important to go with a hedge fund manager who has a real edge on the competition. Don't simply pick a financial "brand name" with only a recently good ROI (especially if the management has changed during its run). Such "chasing last year's winners" is a short & hind-sighted technique that historically underperforms. Instead, select an investor with at least a decade of extraordinary returns.  BTW - if you're an "accredited investor" then you can contact me for my personal recommendations.

Fear = Hating the future you predict

Fear = Hating the future you predict ... Therefore, there are 3 ways to alleviate fear: 1) change the path you're on so as to create a different future 2) change your prediction 3) change your opinion of the future This is all especially important if you're particularly bad at predicting the future or if your hatred runs contrary to human interests (yours, your country, your world etc.).

My response to friends' response to my "Why Dennis Miller is a Republican" post

My posts to corpania.blogspot.com are automatically re-posted to my facebook page. Some of my GOP friends respond with facetious and occasionally thoughtful comments. Instead of replying to them on FB (where such debates are virtually always fleeting and are rarely substantive) I will quote from their comments and respond here. PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM EARNESTLY ATTEMPTING TO ANSWER ALL OF MY "OPPONENT'S QUESTIONS". I hope they will return the courtesy especially when I explicitly call for them to answer a specific question of mine. HERE ARE THEIR RESPONSES TO MY PREVIOUS POST ABOUT "WHY DENNIS MILLER IS A REPUBLICAN"... GOP FRIEND#1: "Regarding your view that killing doesn't lead to peace, what about the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, World War II, etc?" MY RESPONSE: I'm genuinely surprised the concept that "war begets war" isn't as universally accepted. I strongly urge those to revisit my previous post In not-so-short: There are 1,300,000,000+ Muslims on earth. Psychiatric studies show that as much as 1% the human population is schizophrenic. http://www.schizophrenia.com/szfacts.htm And more than 1/10,000 commit suicide. So it stands to reason there should be at the very least 1,300 schizo Muslims with a deathwish to be worried about. What if only 50 of them simultaneously shot up churches or malls around America? That would surely incite full-on WorldWar3. Clearly, if the threat was so great our enemies could coordinate some of them entering the US to wreak havoc (on our infinite vulnerabilities: like our non-hardened chemical plants, thousands of miles of Alaskan oil pipeline, water supplies, etc.). But they haven't. You know why? Because while the number of people who may superficially hate us may be in the millions or billions (substantially fewer since Obama's election) the reality is that over 99.99% ain't gonna do a thing about it because they're busy with their own lives (feeding their kids etc.). The number of people in the world who hate us so much that they're willing to leave their family and journey to our shores to kill us IS REALLY MINUSCULE! But every time we bomb someplace and there is any "collateral damage" (and there always is) then that victim's relatives become exponentially more likely to want to make that havoc-wreaking journey to our shores. War begets war. Revenge is a vicious cycle. Chilling our government into not waring is exactly what we need now. Until the geo-politics substantially changes we should be actively discouraging war (even more so than usual). GOP FRIEND#1: "As to Miller's psychology, isn't yours an argument from bad faith? Why diagnose his motives? " MY RESPONSE: No, not in my opinion. My analysis of his motives appears, to me, to be original, interesting and somewhat falsifiable. My theory may inform what may be the cause of the disconnect between left & right modes of thinking. But beyond the pedantic self-aggrandizing I'm doing, it's just plain fun for me. If you don't want to engage in my though experiments & philosophical debates then that's ok. I won't be offended. GOP FRIEND#1: Why do celebrities sound off on economic and global issues with junior-high level analyses every day of the week? Is it because they are shallow and seek to appear sophisticated? It is because they are personally monstrous people who compensate with simplistic moral preening? Is it because they don't understand business and are jealous of the power of those who do? Just following the pack?" MY RESPONSE: Your rhetorical questions have some validity, in my opinion. The nice thing about celebrities, or amateur philosophers like myself for that matter, pontificating about important issues is that, at least on the most basic level, they are citizens engaging in important debate. It's better than whatever superficial drama Spears, Lohan or Paris Hilton are up to. I'd rather have an engaged electorate as opposed to the right-wing policies that can only exist when voter turnout is low and skewed to the wealthy & elderly. Of course, that's primarily because I'm a progressive populist. GOP FRIEND#1: "Who cares? The only issue that matters is the content of their ideas. If you want to engage a serious discussion, I suggest leaving motive out of it." MY RESPONSE: While I think we can agree that the "content of their ideas" is paramount, I do think motive makes a difference (especially while diagnosing strategies). GOP FRIEND#1: "You did not qualify the statement "GWB also proved that military occupation doesn't work." So, the U.S. in Japan following WWII? MY RESPONSE: I don't want to get mired in a semantic debate but I duly stipulate that defining terms is crucial in a productive debate. So let me clarify by restating with a hedge - "Military occupation rarely works". I could have argued that an occupation after a surrender is substantially different from an occupation without a surrender. I could have also argued that the dynamics of occupation have evolved over the past 6 decades enabling fewer and fewer people to do greater and greater damage thus fundamentally changing the equation. GOP FRIEND#1: "BTW, although you frame your arguments as fundamentally discrediting Republican foreign policy doctrine, many war supporters today make similar points to argue the war implementation was tragically flawed but the strategy was sound. I don't make that argument, but some do. There's certainly a serious debate to be had on that, motives aside." MY RESPONSE: While I agree that a better implementation would necessarily have led to a better outcome it is practically ludicrous, as your disavowal implies, to claim that an outcome virtually 180 degrees different from their prediction is proof that the execution was the problem as opposed to the strategy (especially when none of those hawks were decrying the execution while it was happening. To the contrary - those very same hawks were crowing about how "flawless the execution was (in their opinion)" when Saddam didn't put up the defense they expected). GOP FRIEND#1: "Honestly, I think if we hadn't floated the dollar forty years ago we wouldn't have half the global problems we do, but that's another discussion." MY RESPONSE: That may be so but I am too uninformed about that topic to respond here now. I would need to know more about your specific arguments about that. GOP FRIEND#2: "Or... Dennis is aware of the fact that because of the blase attitude towards radical Islam by the Left -- which has led to North Korea and Iran both going nuclear -- it is now more likely than ever that militant Islam will get their hands on a nuclear device of some kind and detonate it within one of our major cities." MY RESPONSE:  Mentioning North Korea proves my argument and discredits yours. Focusing so much of our resources on "radical Islam" prevented engagement with North Korea (diplomatically and/or with military force). Nuclear proliferation is a very serious issue that I think deserves exponentially more resources. It was GOP's GWB & friends that diverted resources away from the prevention of nuclear proliferation. GOP FRIEND#2: "The fact that Obama and his AG have decided to try the 9/11 terrorists in open civilian court it just another example of how liberals just don't seem to get what's happening. Perhaps if Islamic terrorists openly supported Proposition 8 and campaigned to repeal Roe v. Wade, the Left would finally sit up and take notice...?" MY RESPONSE: What don't we "get"? Please explain the details of why upholding the rule of law is wrong and/or dangerous. "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither" - Ben Franklin. Does the average GOP supporter truly understand what "liberty" is? If laws that protect the accused go out the window at the whim of the executive branch then what would happen if/when a less gracious and more militant progressive assumes office? What if Obama's more liberal successor chose to handle his critics the way Bush/Cheney handled theirs? I dare any of my GOP-supporting friends to explore this path of the debate. I will wager $100 that an impartial judge would rule that Bush/Cheney policies of oppression were way more fascist and civil liberty-crushing than those that Obama has implemented. I can't wait to ensnare my GOP-supporting friends in a GWBush vs. Obama debate. But I suspect they're too smart for that and will instead choose to move on and argue from their ideals. WHEN I PREVIOUSLY WROTE: What would be some sound policy decisions about nuclear weapons? - secure the unstable nations with nukes (like spending more on Pakistan than Iraq or Afghanistan whereas today we spend less than 5% of our Middle East War resources on the one radical islamic nation with currently viable nukes). - secure/payoff the scientists (especially from Russia etc.) so they have no economic incentive to arm our enemies. - secure the world by having fewer nuclear powerplants (which would result in less nuclear waste and fewer locations for resource-intensive enrichment facilities that could be "upgraded" to weapons) Yeah, I'm for all that. But those are Democratic policies whereas the GOP holds nearly 100% opposing views on those policies. MY GOP FRIEND#2 WROTE: Suggestions one and two are blackmail/bribes to terrorists. Not viable." MY RESPONSE: What is so inherently wrong with blackmail/bribes to terrorists? Let's look at it from a cost/benefit analysis. If bribes work then the only downside would be the possibility that the bribes themselves would encourage more terrorists. But that runs contrary to GOP assumptions that it's "Radical Islam" that is the threat. What would be the delta is enemies caused by bribing? Is that delta greater than the number of enemies created by "collateral damage"? We need to take a much more practical, holistic look and weigh all potential costs (including opportunity costs) of available options against the probability of the outcomes and their various risks & upsides. MY GOP FRIEND#2 WROTE: "Three is strange since Democrats want to get us off of oil, but no clean nuke plants like in France? Windmills won't power the world." MY RESPONSE: That implies there is such a thing as a "clean nuke plant" which is such blatant BS I'm shocked that I need to respond to it. Also, to date every single pro-nuke person I've ever encountered has been unaware of "The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act". In short, we tax-payers ensure the nuclear industry over a set amount. It is universally accepted that if we were to stop assuming that risk that there would be no nuclear energy industry. The insurance premiums to cover the unlimited liability would be so high that they would erase any hope of economic viability for nuclear energy. FINALLY - Windmills alone might not power the world but other renewable energy very easily can. I just took an intensive course on Solar PV and I'd be more than happy to explain the science and economics of how. MY GOP FRIEND#3 WROTE: Wasn't your time traveler experiment essentially carried out in the 90s after the first WTC bombing? The US responded by prosecuting terrorists in a US court of law rather than "taking it to them." Would you argue that because we gave those terrorists the benefits of our justice system it deterred future terrorists? Seems the answer is very obviously no. MY RESPONSE: This is a very trenchant point which I humbly take very seriously. Unlike so many GOP-supporters who can't ever concede a single point (I suspect they view all debates like a trial where they don't want to appear weak so they avoid productive debates and primarily seek to "rhetorically score" against their opponents) - I will concede that because I would have concluded a lack-of-attacks to be evidence on my side I must take the existence of an attack as evidence, not necessarily proof, that the other side is correct. But let's drill down deeper. The motivation for the first attack was not eliminated (that is not to claim that one must always eliminate one's enemies' motivations because that might be even worse). So it is reasonable to assume that there would continue to be attacks until the motivation was eliminated. The fact that there was a legal trial merely prevented an exacerbation of motivations. Whereas GWB's torture policies (Abu Ghraib) clearly exacerbated our enemies' motivations. The most important point is weighing our options of risk & reward. GWB's "taking it to them" had predicted costs and expected outcomes. The war was supposed to "pay for itself" and instead cost us $3trillion and counting not to mention thousands of American soldiers' lives and limbs. The outcomes were nearly entirely different from the predictions. Can't we fairly conclude that the strategy was a stunning failure when the costs were so off and the outcomes were so wrong? If that isn't a failure just how bad would things have to be for that GOP-Hawk strategy to be defined as a failure? How wrong does a GOP prediction have to be for the GOP-supporters to concede that it was wrong? Are the GOP-Hawks equally undeterred by the lessons of Vietnam (even though those errors were initially made by Democrats)? Let's make some predictions about Iraq & Afghanistan going forward. If my predictions come true and yours don't will you then concede that I know better? Is there any evidence or outcome that would disprove your theories? Or is your political paradigm unfalsifiable and impervious to facts? I routinely mention that I could be wrong. Would you at least give lip service to the possibility that you could be wrong? What would have to happen to prove that? I'm all to happy to set forth my predictions and criteria for falsifiability of my philosophical/political paradigms. I want to get to the truth and abandon my ineffectual ideas. I can't wait to shed my erroneous assumptions. What about you? MY GOP FRIEND#3 WROTE:  "It's not likely anyone will ever be able to quantify the number of lives saved because of US military action - or that you would call it anything other than propaganda if the previous Administration had tried. But it seems to me we can reliably say treating terrorists like common criminals is not an effective security policy." MY RESPONSE: I agree that we can't definitively quantify the parallel universes of "what if". But I entirely disagree with your claim that "treating terrorists like common criminals is not an effective security policy." That claim is not substantiated by the evidence. I will graciously reiterate that your trenchant point about prosecuting the first WTC bombers has some validity. But your simply not at all fully calculating the options. On this branch of the "permutation tree" we spent trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives. How much good will could we have bought with 1/10th of that? Here's a non-hypothetical point: your entire argument necessarily hinges upon the assumption that our very presence in the Iraq & Afghanistan does more good than harm and that we're killing more enemies than we're creating. That assumption is falsifiable and has already been disproved by the evidence. Read all the recent reports by the generals and intelligence agencies. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is resurgent and we're not gaining ground. The people don't trust the kleptocracy we installed and no one expects any lasting good resolution to come from our presence in less than 10 to 20 years. Now we can estimate what 10 to 20 more years of occupation will cost (by extrapolating what has happened in previous years). To make a wise decision we have to weigh those costs against what would happen if we pulled out immediately (like George Will described somewhat recently). Even if we concede that "our enemies would have a safe haven" who cares? Don't forget that the 9/11 attacks were conceived and executed by Al-Qaeda (from supposedly "Western-friendly" countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt & Lebanon) while they were hiding in Germany & the United States of America. Terrorist attacks can be planned from anywhere in the world. There's no way around the fact that we need human intelligence and detective work to find them. Establishing good will by magnanimous foreign policy and yes, even bribes, can elicit such valuable information. In fact, it might be militarily beneficial if our enemies indeed had a "safe haven" in a hostile country because then we can just bomb the crap out of their base from the sky instead of hunting door-to-door with our soldiers. Is that blood-lusty enough for you? Think about all of our options and their costs, benefits & risks. I'm hoping but not expecting Obama just pulls us out entirely of the occupation and lets their countries bad guys war among themselves for a while. Final point - the industry of WAR is inherently counter-productive and necessarily "shrinks the pie". But now that so many military contractors are legally based outside the US for tax reasons there is much less incidental economic benefit to Americans (compared to previous wars where we made everything in the US and had to pay Americans to do it and therefore got increased tax revenue from it). For those of you GOP-supporters who still somehow disagree that FDR's progressive policies got us out of the Great Depression you must therefore conclude that WWII alone got us out. Ramping up industry to create our tools of war was a de facto stimulus/jobs-creation plan. It put money in people's pockets by paying with our collective credit card (national deficit/debt). Ok, that's a lot of process. Think about it and respond to my specific points. If you skim and reflexively respond in such a way that proves you didn't actually consider my points then you owe me $1. Seriously, I will insist on collecting. ;-) If you want to have a productive debate then you have to actually read and consider your opponent's arguments BEFORE you respond. Thanks and good karma to you.

Why Dennis Miller is a Republican (Maslow already basically explains why)

Alternate title for this post: "Why Republicans care so much about Terrorism" I've been meaning to write this blog entry for years (and I've discussed it with some of you before) but I kept postponing the blog post because I feared I wouldn't do it justice. I still think I won't do it justice but I want to have this rough draft up online and timestamped because "I can feel the zeitgeist reaching out towards another one of 'my' ideas". First: Read about "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs My summary of it: There is generally a priority system humans have where the basic/lower level needs must be met before the higher level needs can be addressed. From Highest Need to Lowest Need: - Self-Actualization (creativity, morality, lack of prejudice/open-mindedness, acceptance of facts that run contrary to your beliefs) - Esteem (confidence, respect by others) - Love/Belonging (friendship, sexual intimacy) - Safety (security of body, employment, property) - Physiological (breathing, food, water, sleep) FACETIOUS PROOF: Few people make creativity their highest priority if they're in the middle of drowning. Ok, now how does that relate to Dennis Miller being a Republican? Before I get to that here is a... SIDE NOTE ABOUT DENNIS MILLER: See my facebook posts about seeking new words (portmanteau) for someone who erroneously claims to be smart in an area probably due to his success in another area (e.g. fraudant & assinestein). Dennis Miller didn't seem so conservative when he was up-and-coming... As people go through life they develop (or ossify) their own belief system. It's rational and intuitive to assume if they are successful they are less likely to "change a winning system". If they are less successful they are more likely to attempt to change their ways. This is not to say that unsuccessful people necessarily change their way because, obviously, it may be their insistence to stick to a losing formula that results in their continuing failure. Additionally, I'm not claiming that successful people never change or adapt (just the opposite - clearly there are successful people who are successful primarily because they change and adapt). Rather, it's the overarching belief system that solidifies more for the winners than the losers. Example: someone who credits his belief system ("it's all about hard work" or "it's all about devotion to god" or "it's all about education" or "it's all about relationships" or "it's all about looking out for number one") for his success, however he defines success, will seek to perpetuate that belief system. SEE MY RELATED POST ABOUT "RIGGING THE SYSTEM FOR WHAT YOU VALUE". Consequently, when Dennis Miller became successful his lower-level needs were clearly met and he began to progress to the higher level needs. Unfortunately, the higher-level needs themselves ran contrary to his fundamental belief system (he ignores facts such as trickledown economics' objectively worse results than progressive policies and Bush/Cheney's militarism doing more harm than good). This cognitive dissonance had to be resolved. So Dennis Miller chose to change his perception & definition of security in order to necessitate his preoccupation with that level so as to prevent him from addressing the higher level needs that ran contrary to his belief system. In short: By obsessing over extremely less-likely fears he doesn't have to challenge his belief system. (Compare the death rates of Americans and you'll see the massive disproportionality between actual causes of death and where we spend or make compromises with our money/research/resources/lives/freedom). Ok, I kinda skimmed right past some of the specifics of the argument to get to the cool conclusion (IMHO). Here are more specifics: Dennis Miller's belief system is a simplistic "eye for an eye" code of justice. Fundamentally he doesn't agree with notions of doing something good for an enemy because he only thinks that encourages them. This willfully blind "revenge begets revenge" strategy also ignores the phenomenon that I describe as "you can't punish a masochist with spankings". If terrorists want to pick a fight with you because your violent response would elicit sympathy/support and their lack of picking a fight would result in an even worse outcome for them then rationally, they should want to pick a fight and you shouldn't give it to them. QED. This line of higher-level thinking informs my opinions about Israel (they should trade land for peace in a massively, overly generous deal for the Palestinians because when fewer family members are killed fewer martyrs are created/motivated - see my post THERE IS NO EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO AMERICA - though I do concede that my premise could be flawed - specifically, I assume a deal could exist that was so generous to the Palestinians that there would, in fact, be peace). As George W. Bush's disastrous war in Iraq & Afghanistan has utterly proved - "you can't always kill your way to peace". Terrorism does exist but it's not remotely as dangerous as it would have to be to merit the resources we have already spent (let alone the incompetence with which we spent it or the amounts we have yet to spend). There will always be some small population of chemically-messed-up psychos and therefore goal of society is to prevent rational people from being led by those psychos. Kill someone's family member, even in "collateral damage", and he's more likely to be led by a psycho. GWB also proved that military occupation doesn't work. Virtually all of GWB & Cheney's premises and predictions have been definitively proven to be false (Iraq involved in 9/11, Iraq has WMD, war will "pay for itself & not cost the American taxpayer", "Last throes of the insurgency" etc.). Such incontrovertible evidence should challenge their followers' belief systems. To prevent consequential cognitive dissonance Republicans drop-down and revert to shrill scare tactics to make people afraid. By constantly scaring people they can focus on lower-level needs and thus never have to confront the flaws in their belief systems. To be a rational, practical person there has to be a price (not necessarily in money) at which you would buy or sell anything. "Life is all about trade-offs". Devoting resources to one issue means, at a minimum, opportunity costs of not being able to use those resources for something else. If, before the Iraq & Afghanistan war, a time-traveler whom you trusted told you it would eventually cost 10 trillion dollars and 1 million American lives would the most ardent Republican still have agreed to proceed? What about 500 trillion dollars and 300 million American lives? At what price would it not be worth it? To be fair, for liberals - what if a trusted time traveler told you that not going to war would result in costs of 500 trillion dollars and 300 million American lives? I can humbly say unequivocally that in such a hypothetical world I would endorse the Republican strategy. But the wonderful thing about our real world situation is that we can use the scientific method to determine who is a better predictor of the future (since, regrettably we have no time-travelers). We can all make predictions and those whose predictions consistently come true can be given more credence and THOSE WHOSE PREDICTIONS DON'T COME TRUE (beyond chance) CAN BE (SHOULD BE) IGNORED! Though those who are consistently off by 180 degrees could still be useful as a negative compass. SIDE NOTE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT (albeit unfalsifiable, unfortunately): I think the time traveler would have said that not going to war in the Middle East would have resulted in costs of much less money and fewer lives than has already been spent to date. Back to Dennis Miller: He has plenty of money and he has no credible fears in his average daily life. So he obsesses about the remote possibility that a terrorist attack would harm him or his family because then he can be scared enough to prevent a confrontation with the higher levels of needs. I'm not claiming that all Republicans are Republicans for those same reasons Dennis Miller is. Like any belief system (including Liberalism) people can become indoctrinated by many methods. It's the confrontation of one's belief system with facts that are incongruous with one's expectations that is interesting to me here. Ok, this is already too long & messy for a rough draft that is posted online. But I really enjoy having things "on the record" before the zeitgeist catches up. IF YOU'RE READING THIS ON FACEBOOK (or anywhere other than my blog) - Please post comments on my blog http://corpania.blogspot.com AND NOT ON FACEBOOK. Thank you and good karma to you.

Study the Efficacy of Consultants' Predictive Power

I've been saying for years that "if you can't predict the future then you don't understand the present". It's basically a layman's version of The Scientific Method (with big props to Karl Popper). If you don't understand the present then your only participation in the public debate should be to listen/read/gather information until you can improve your understanding to a level where you become productive to the debate. In any public policy debate there are invariably myriad researchers weighing in with not only analysis of what was or is but also with what they think will be (predictions). Predictions have the benefit of being "falsifiable". Take the 2009 Healthcare Reform Debate for example - there are numerous predictions on which the public is basing their decisions. Let me quickly mention here my personal pet peeve of debaters giving equal (or greater) weight to predictions that support their side as they do to the objectively demonstrable facts which refute their side. This blog post is meant to start a "meme" that encourages professors/researchers/PhD candidates to do a thorough study that measures the track record of consultants' predictions. This group of consultants to be studied can and should include: 1) Think Tanks (e,g, RAND, CATO, Heritage, Center for American Progress etc.) 2) Universities (e.g. Michigan, Berkeley, the Ivy League etc.)  and definitely don't forget the for-hire consultancies... 3) Management Consultants (e.g. McKinsey, Booz Allen Hamilton, Pricewaterhouse etc.). If one group, entity or person is particularly ineffective at predicting (no better than chance) or even worse if one's predictions are inversely correlated to reality then that would be useful to know for the public debate. CONCLUSION: Someone / some group should start tracking the predictive power of the players in policy debates. That way we can put more faith in those with accurate predictions and less in those who make bad calls. NOTE - Brill's Content, a great magazine around the turn of the millennium, used to have a cool feature where they tracked pundits' predictions and, as I recall, the right wing pundits had substantially worse scores than the liberals (I'd appreciate it if someone found proof that I am wrong or right about that). I'd like to see that tracking revitalized going forward somewhere online (maybe mediamatters.org politfact.com or factcheck.com?). Let me know if you find such a resource.

My "Locked Door Argument for Self-Described Agnostics" Who Don't Want to Call Themselves Atheists...

Since so many debates have well-worn terrain with established/cliche' arguments, like opening moves in a chess game, it's worthwhile to establish the basic permutations of debate in order to quickly speed through them. In so doing you can more efficiently get to the "more productive" aspects of the debate (in the virgin terrain). So I reiterate my recommendation that every debate have a "Debate Map" like a visually engaging, more-complex version of a FAQs. (as of October 9th, 2009 - the folks at http://debatemaps.com have a less-than-ideal implementation of what I have in mind). I seek to respond to RationalResponders' claim ( http://www.rationalresponders.com/am_i_agnostic_or_atheist ) that those of us self-proclaimed agnostics are actually, by their semantic technical parsing, atheists because, according to their reasoning, one can only believe in god or not believe in god (it is thus necessarily a binary proposition). And they claim that such a line of reasoning requires most self-identified agnostics to properly define themselves as atheists. I think their reasoning may indeed be correct but because it is incomplete their conclusions don't necessarily follow. Here's my first attempt to add to their productive debate... "Have you ever heard of my "Locked Door Argument for Self-Described Agnostics" (or something functionally similar)? Accept that someone can be sure he locked his door when he left his home only to return and realize he was wrong. Consequently, knowing his own human fallibility, on subsequent occasions such a person can still be quite sure he locked his door but still allow for the possibility that he is wrong. Thus, a comparable situation exists with some self-described agnostics. While they are right that someone can only either believe or disbelieve they must recognize that someone can both be on one side of belief and yet acknowledge that he could be wrong. That humility and overt recognition of fallibility is what prevents most self-described agnostics from embracing the atheist designation." So have you read some version of that argument before? If so, where?

"Giving to charity is for suckers!"

Let me be provocative... "Giving to charity is for suckers!" As succinctly as I can, it is generally true that... 1- A worthwhile charity is one that does good in society. 2- Charities are nearly entirely subsidized by good & generous people. 3- Bad people generally don't substantially subsidize charities. But bad people still reap the benefits of the "charity-enhanced" society. (e.g. More vaccines and disease-prevention means fewer communicably-sick people on the streets from which you could catch a disease.) This is the concept of the "free rider problem". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem CONSEQUENTLY - Charities are a tax on good & generous people so that bad people can reap benefits. This kind of tax makes it true that - "Giving to charity is for suckers!" QED. THEREFORE - Any "universal good" you want done in society should be done so that all who benefit should fairly contribute to its cost. This is routinely done by: progressive income taxes to pay for police who most benefit the wealthy, excise taxes to pay for the dangers of substances that you don't want to outlaw entirely, and tolls to pay for roads used by and for the benefit of a select population. SIDE NOTE: Organizations that don't provide a "universal good" should not be tax-exempt (or I might compromise and agree that maybe there could be a sliding scale depending on their societal benefit). IMHO.

Two ways I would improve Twitter/Facebook Updates

Here's a couple more of "my"(not sure if I'm first) brilliant (upon initial self-evaluation) ideas : How I would improve Twitter/Facebook Updates: THE PROBLEM: The deluge of status-updates/tweets from "too many" friends in one's feed prevents one from getting the "good ones" and bores too often with the rest. The only current option of "excluding"/"unfollowing" is too extreme. My solutions involve customization. MY FIRST SOLUTION IS "TIERS": Enable users to optionally subscribe to either: (A) Instantaneous feeds/tweets (B) Daily feeds/tweets (C) Weekly feeds/tweets ...by allowing users to have 3-tiers of "status update". Users can triage their updates/tweets and put their "good ones" in their 'Weekly' updates knowing that a friend who subscribes less often gets their "best" (not the boring). Example: Dan... (A) is caught in traffic. (B) wants to know the name of the heavy-set comedian who says "I'm bulimic. I'm just forgetful". (C)  seeks help with his documentary "Time to Impact" http://timetoimpact.com MY SECOND SOLUTION IS "USER-SET LAYOUT": Enable a user to "layout" a separate page for updates/tweets. A user can designate specific sections for different people, groups etc. Imagine it sort of like a newspaper reliably having sports on the back page, gossip on page 6 etc. You know exactly where to look to get all the updates you're interested in (in one place/on one page). Example (formatted in a 9-square Brady Bunch-esque grid): ______________________________________________________________ Mary Girlfriend...(A)       |     Dave Bestfriend.... (A)     |   John FormerBoss...(B) ------------------------------- |  ----------------------------------- | -------------------------------- AlumniGroup...(C)         |  HighSchool Buddies... (C)  |  Coworkers... (C) ------------------------------- |  ----------------------------------- | -------------------------------- FormerCoworkers...(C) |  COMMENTS ON NOTES   |  Everyone/thing else...(A) ______________________________________________________________ NOTE - Within each square previous updates can be "scrolled-through" for review and of course settings can be modified to change the placement & tier. ALSO - any friend's update with a specified "secret urgent code" could get highest placement/priority/prominence. So a group of friends could agree that any post/tweet that ends with the code "#%898" gets priority because it's urgent. A more advanced system could let users set their own code ratings and share with those they deem fit and then a complex sorting system could "re-rank" according to a given poster's priority balanced by the user's priority assessment of that poster. This all ties back to my paradigm of trust/accountability to deal with info-overload as evident in my search engine: http://www.Optevi.com So what do you think of my ideas for Twitter/Facebook? "Waste of my/your time", "Kind of interesting", or "Why hasn't the world recognized your genius, Dan?" ;-)

Defining "Good" via Descendants' Prosperity / Evolutionary Psychology Explains Racism

I'm not seriously claiming that the following "Evolutionary Psychology Theory of Racism" is original (or necessarily true). But it has been rattling around my brain lately so I thought I'd finally share it. Here is "my" idea: 1) Nearly entirely independent of a "pure meritocracy", I think most people fundamentally define "good" as that which enables their descendants to survive & prosper. 2) Consequently, people are constantly try to "rig the game" to favor their descendants. If you're smart you want to create/reinforce a society that rewards intelligence. If you're beautiful, you place value on that and de facto "punish" those you deem unattractive. Same dynamic with athletic ability, humor/charm, religion, legacy status advantage at an alma mater (or "blue blood"/genetic appreciation in general), and nearly all other tribal Balkanizations.  It's also why bellacose people want to resolve disputes with war/fighting and fear/avoid any tactic or path where they don't have an advantage. 3) Racists, at least subconsciously, know they themselves are actually inferior to the general population and thus don't want a meritocracy because it would hurt them and their descendants. Here's why:          a. - Racism is the negative prejudice/discrimination that is invalided by science/truth/facts. Only for the sake of this semantic  argument, "a prejudiced comment validated by science/truth/facts would not be racist - e.g. expecting the Bambenga Pygmie you're about to meet will be short is not racist". Consequently racism must be inherently contrary to a pure meritocracy.         b. - If you rationally assume racism exists at least somewhat then that proves that we don't have a "pure meritocracy". Even if you irrationally believe races have significant differences in potential (like those who still accept the dubious conclusions in Hernstein & Murray's "The Bell Curve") surely you still recognize that a higher percentage of affluent children reach a higher proportion of their potential, due to their advantages, than do disadvantaged children (exceptions notwithstanding).         c. - In a meritocracy advantages are only granted to those who achieve in order to maximize their achievements (you can't truly know if someone can hit a 90 mph fastball if you only let him experience 70 mph pitches).        d. - Consequently, rich racists have the most to lose in switching to a meritocracy. They would lose their advantages and thus necessarily diminish their levels of potential achievement. This is compounded by the likelihood that a previously disadvantaged person could now achieve more which, while potentially net increasing the country's wealth macroeconomically, would result in a relative decrease in those rich racists' success. 4) Consequently, seeing someone spout racist comments should signify to you his/her ignorance and frustration with losing the "rigged rules" that unduly benefited him/her which were contrary to a pure meritocracy. p.s. What would be a "pure meritocracy" and whether such a system would be desirable to humanity as a whole are very separate and worthy questions.

"Debate Trees" settling debates "Once and For All"

About 30 months go, from my Febuary 7th, 2007 email (some of my friends can, please, check their in box from my Optevi.com email address)... Google Debate Trees" or "Once and For All"- Using flow-charts/permutation trees, users can have wiki/blog style debates that are visually navigable. Each branch can be infinitely extended and relinked to other branches with appropriate foot-noting. For each split there can be infinite responses appropriately ranked with page-rank or, better yet, with ULCs/bundles. Enable a chance at "settling" the well-worn parts of debates by crushing, "once and for all", demonstrably false arguments and letting the debate continue where there isn't consensus. These "debate trees" could be infinitely personalized to exclude/include according to preferences. --- On Wed, 2/7/07, Daniel Abrams <(XXXXXXXXXX)@optevi.com> wrote: From: Daniel Abrams <(XXXXXXXXXX)@optevi.com> Subject: More of my "brilliant" ideas for Google (or Yahoo etc.) Date: Wednesday, February 7, 2007, 3:33 AM Ok, I've been brainstorming for hours and hours and finally written down a bunch of ideas that have been rattling around my head for many, many months. To the best of my knowledge none have yet been implemented in any form by anyone.   I'm sending you this just to document (time-stamp) my ideas. So please just save this email somewhere. Please keep it confidential / don't let anyone read it / don't mention it.   You don't even need to read it. I just want you as a witness in case yet more  of the ideas I think I came up with ultimately end up in the world without crediting me. And forgive the manic, paranoid, egocentric ranting. ;-) But if you're interested, see below...   Thanks and good karma to you. Regards,   Dan ____________________________________________________   More of my Brilliant Ideas for Google (or Yahoo etc.) to Implement (rough notes for myself only, not yet ready for outside evaluation) 1) "Google Lessons" aka " Google University ": It's a wiki-like, user-submitted database of lessons, seminars & textbook chapters. It would allow YouTube video of lectures & lab experiments. ***Basically, it's the ultimate online university.*** It's a wiki with credibility. Modified "Page Rank" could be employed to ensure credibility and "Google Scholar" could be linked for advanced lessons. The added twist is that users could create "profiles" to help them select appropriate lessons on desired topics. Designated "experts" could have "profile ID numbers" to assist in page-rank/searches. (NOTE - I already sent this to multiple people at Google in the hopes of piquing their interest in potentially hiring me.)   2) "MyPrefs" aka "GPP: Google Personal Preferences" - This is an online drive space for not only your documents/files, but also your preferences. Including: GUI prefs, Application Serial Numbers, maybe ultimately even passwords/key chain. It's the true incarnation of the "network appliance". This sets the stage for the next generation of computing where a user need only remember one ID/password and he can work remotely anywhere. Computers could be preloaded with virtually every application and when a user logs-on she may have access to all of the applications she already owns. This also enables a new business model the software creators would appreciate: day-passes to sample and even use the application. It falls seamlessly into the much-desired subscription business model.   3) "Marketing Evaluator" - A software application that tracks your marketing budget ROI for not just search advertising but across all marketing tactics. Vendor tags website with different sub-domains or web-pages for different advertising tactics. Formula weights and evaluates the ROI for different bids of search words and, more importantly, vs. TV, Radio etc. Then users are presented with list of what drove them (including placebo control) then those that are selected are placed on a flash animation for the user to distribute which was most influential (bars rise and fall dynamically).   4) "UniversalLogoCode" - A bit like a Library of Congress ISBN number / UPC symbol for websites. Google will maintain a website/database where anyone can create a ULC code (maybe first 6 digits are date created, next 6 digits are time GMT, next 18 digits are the GoogleID number and then the next 10 digits are user-determined). This ULC code can be branded on a website like a "good housekeeping seal of approval" that links back to the Google ULC website for corroboration. The user can update his account on Google's ULC website with descriptions of the website and screencaps to ensure against "phishing". Then this ULC code can be used to further establish credibility in search page-rank etc. Users could then actually, deliberately vote for the ULCs they trust for greater accuracy.   5) "Google Editor/Advisor" - Create a flow-chart, order of questions to be a guided evaluator for virtually everything. e.g. Website Design - "What is the subject? See these templates? Check these competitors? Do you have pictures or logos? Of these sub-dividers which do you have content for? Is it legible (consider color schemes)? Are all the options clear and navigable?" etc. Or Writing a Script - "What is the logline? Who are the main characters? What does the protagonist do and how does he/she change?" etc. This could be an extension/upgrade of "Google Lessons/University". Eventually, users could create their own "advisors" for their own interests.   6) "Google Debate Trees" or "Once and For All"- Using flow-charts/permutation trees, users can have wiki/blog style debates that are visually navigable. Each branch can be infinitely extended and relinked to other branches with appropriate foot-noting. For each split there can be infinite responses appropriately ranked with page-rank or, better yet, with ULCs/bundles. Enable a chance at "settling" the well-worn parts of debates by crushing, "once and for all", demonstrably false arguments and letting the debate continue where there isn't consensus. These "debate trees" could be infinitely personalized to exclude/include according to preferences.   Conceived by Dan Abrams. Hurray for me! (I realize some of these elements could conceivably been concurrently created independent of me. But I  hope I did come up with them before they were out.)

My Defense of Sotomayor's "Wise Latina" Quote

You know that Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, is being criticized as "racist" by the right wing pundits, in particular for this quote of hers: SOTOMAYOR: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Here's my defense, one that I haven't yet heard on TV nor yet read in the blogosphere: 1) Admittedly, if Sotomayor had said something like "Even a foolish Latina woman would reach a better conclusion than any wise white man." then that, on some level, would indeed be racist. But she didn't say that. 2) And if Sotomayor had said something like "Every wise Latina woman reaches better conclusions than every wise white man." then that too, on some level, would indeed be racist. But she didn't say that either. 3) Surely it is not racist to say that a wise Latina woman would reach better conclusions than an average white man. On the contrary, to say the opposite would be racist. Only a racist fool would think an average white man would reach better conclusions than a wise Latina woman. 4) Conclusion: Upon reviewing what she actually said one must realize she is saying a fairly obvious statement - wise people make better conclusions than people who aren't defined as wise. It is the racist right wing pundits who missed the important semantic distinction she drew between a WISE Latina woman and a white man.  Missing that distinction says more about the critical pundits' own racism. BTW - Don't forget that she even diplomatically hedged her statement (TWICE). 1) She "would hope" - She did not categorically insist it was indeed true and... 2) She hoped "more often than not" - acknowledging that in some instances the opposite was true (i.e. sometimes a white man reaches better conclusions than a wise Latina woman). Consequently - This quote is very tame when you really understand it. You may now remember that I not only went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor but I also was in the RC/East Quad. Consequently, I do have my liberal indoctrination to live with. Forgive me, my dear conservative friends.

"Graduation Authentication Links" Proposal for Linkedin/Facebook/MySpace

Here is my proposal for Linkedin/Facebook/Myspace to gain market share with a new business/product..."INFRASTRUCTURE for GRADUATION AUTHENTICATION LINKS" THE NEED: With social networks (Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace) accelerating in popularity and utility in the business world, legitimate alumni of prestigious universities need authentication and bogus alumni need to be exposed. We only want legitimate alumni to be able to claim credit for graduating our alma mater. Liars hurt our reputation. THE SOLUTION FOR THE COLLEGE: There is a crucial role college alumni associations can inexpensively play to address this growing problem. Add an "Graduation Authentication Link" page to the their alumni websites. It could work like Linkedin.com's "View My Profile" buttons. <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/optevi" ><img src="http://www.linkedin.com/img/webpromo/btn_viewmy_160x33.gif" width="160" height="33" border="0" alt="View Dan Abrams's profile on LinkedIn"></a> (once you're signed in you can see all the graphic "badges" they make available) http://www.linkedin.com/profile?promoteProfile=&trk=mypro_badges THE SOCIAL NETWORK'S ROLE: 1) Provide the technical infrastructure to enable this feature. 2) Sell this service/software as a turnkey solution for colleges to customize/tailor with their own logos & graphics. Pricing as low as $2k plus a $1 per user/per year would be extremely attractive to colleges. There could be discounts/economies of scale for mega-large universities (like the University of Michigan) and still bring in thousands of dollars per college multiplied by over a thousand colleges and you get millions in revenue for negligible cost. 3) This also provides a seamless transition/influx of new customers to their own service. It's like Microsoft's Windows encouraging MSOFFICE. THE SYSTEM'S ACTION PLAN: 1) One the system is in place, Active/"Dues-Paying" members of the a given college's alumni association are sent an email inviting them to participate in the "Graduation Authentication" system. Interested members "opt in". 2) That list of opt-ins is put into a simple database (provided by social network vendor) and random passwords are generated for those people. Emails with password-links are sent to those opt-in members inviting them to update their "Graduation Authentication Page" with very limited & optional information (upload a photo, city of residence and maybe even links to that member's pages on other social networks, liked Linkedin/Facebook/Myspace) and of course they can change their password. I strongly urge that these pages NOT include contact information (for fear of nefarious marketers scraping data for undesirable purposes). 3) Those members who have now signed up get to include personalized "Graduation Authentication Links" on their own social network pages and job application emails. 4) People hiring (maybe especially those who are not alumni) can click on those links to see the limited, public pages of members and thus authenticate the graduation of the applicant (who is a legitimate, dues-paying member of the their alumni association). THE BENEFITS FOR COLLEGES: A) Encourages alumni to join (and pay dues to) their alumni association in order to get this benefit. B) Continuously drives traffic to alumni association websites (from people clicking on the G.A.L.s to check on the validity of degree claims). C) Most importantly, you are now providing a valuable service to give credit only where credit is due. Valid graduates get proof and liars are discouraged from claiming those college using this service as the institution from where they got their degree. D) Since some version of this kind of service is inevitable, why not be the first to implement it and get credit for being a pioneer? (to the best of my knowledge I came up with this idea but it's entirely possible there is/was/will be "simultaneous creation" or maybe you've already been thinking about this for years). NOTE - I pitched this to the president of the University of Michigan Alumni Association over a year ago (early 2008). ALSO NOTE (OTHER POSSIBLE MARKETS) - This service could similarly be sold to professional certification organizations, unions, trade associations or any group with selective membership where authentication would be appreciated.

Tiered-Length Hinges for Easy Assembly

I had a little brainstorm while assembling a folding bookshelf that was to be connected by hinges (like a multi-paned free-standing wall screen/divider with 3 hinges along each intersection). My idea is so utterly obvious that I can't imagine I'm the first person to come up with it. So if it already exists it should really be everywhere (especially because it's so simple I can't imagine it could get good patent-protection). NOTE: The pins were already welded to one side of the hinge which were L-shaped (one side to interface on top of the other side). It was very unlike how you might imagine a regular door hinge with 4 or so intermeshing sections that you would put together and subsequently put the pin in after (which also would solve the problem). PROBLEM: If all of the hinges & pins are exactly the same length (as they were in my bookshelf) then lining them all up to insert simultaneously is surprisingly difficult. When you line up the first hinge you can't quite put it in until you line-up the second and the third exactly at precisely the same moment. It's easy to miss one where the first two hinges set up fine but the third misses entirely necessitating another try. Very frustrating. HERE'S "MY" SOLUTION: Tiered-Length Hinges. If the first hinge's pin was substantially longer than the the second (which in turn would be longer than the third) then you could slightly slide the first hinge's pin in and then guide in the second hinge's pin and then guide in the third. Though maybe there's some minor incidental cost for non-standardization. Sketch it out if my non-visual description is too confusing. You'll see my solution works. Of course, the old and utterly basic way of having the pin inserted separately works too. But that wasn't how they designed my bookshelf. "My" idea for tiered-length hinges is just another meme I hope will enter the zeitgeist and make the world a little bit better.

Important follow-up on oil prices (oil ETFs are bad)

When last I commented about the price of oil (December 31, 2008) I reiterated that I had predicted (on December 2, 2008 when oil was at $47 per barrel and DIG was at $27.91) that oil prices would go up. http://corpania.blogspot.com/2008/12/dans-end-of-year-2008-report-on-oil.html http://corpania.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html And if you look at the closing price of oil today (May 12, 2009) I was, yet again, indeed correct in my prediction. http://bloomberg.com/energy/ NYMEX CRUDE: $58.69 Your ROI, had you followed my advice, would have been nearly a 25% profit (versus the S&P500 going from 848.81 on 12/2/08 to 908.35 on 05/12/09 for a 7% profit). HOWEVER...I regret advocating investing in ETFs like DIG (the price of which today is only $29.24 for only a a 4.7% profit) but I'm glad I didn't recommend USO (whose price has actually fallen in the same time period). Apparently these ETFs (DIG,USL & especially USO), that explicitly attempt to highly correlate with the price of oil, are at varying levels inherently flawed. Do yourself a favor an read one of these commentaries: http://peakstocks.com/is-the-uso-a-piece-of-junk http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/why-this-oil-fund-usl-is-the-pick-of-the-bunch/12437 CONSEQUENTLY, my recommendation is to get out of any oil ETFs now. I also predict that oil prices per barrel don't have much higher to jump and could potentially fall. (Though I still stand by my previous prediction that oil prices "should" be $70 - $90 per barrel until the next major breakthroughs in solar/alternative energy or the coming evolution/revolution in our government's energy policy). So I also recommend you get out of oil altogether. I think there are better investments out there. As always, I could be wrong. We shall see. Still, my track record of predicting oil prices is kinda amazing.

Killer Solar-Related Business Idea

I've got a killer idea for a solar-related business. As far as I know, it's not being done yet and is definitely needed (i.e. inevitable). Marginal costs are very limited and once its infrastructure is set-up it should scale-up massively. Bad news is that it's super easy to steal (no "barriers to entry"). I was even thinking of simultaneously starting two similar companies that appear to be competitors to give the perception to actual prospective competitors that's it's not an open field (a bit like Black&Decker with their DeWalt brand). BTW - Any opinion about the following possible names? (available as of 04/20/09) ENERGECTIA.COM ENERGISIA.COM ENERGIDIA.COM NERGIDIA.COM ENESTI.COM ERNEDI.COM EARNGY.COM EARNIDY.COM EARNIS.COM ENERDI.COM ENERKY.COM NERJY.COM NERJISTA.COM NERGISTI.COM PRONERGI.COM PROGRESTI.COM PROGRESTIA.COM PROGRESSTIA.COM PRONTIA.COM PRONERJI.COM PRONTELI.COM CORNERGI.COM GENTIGI.COM JENTIGI.COM EUNERTEX.COM

Why I "fear" the impending giant bull market run...

I was inspired to write this after reading Alan Schram's column on Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-schram/digging-out_b_186202.html He wrote: "Cash levels on the sidelines: Now at 84% of stock market value, up from 43% a year ago and much above the 66% average of the last 50 years." It got me thinking. Here are my assumptions/predictions: 1)  Eventually (I optimistically expect in 6 months to 1 year) the US Economy will begin to show real signs of recovery (the bad numbers will "bottom out" and overall confidence/sentiment will increase because Americans, who are culturally inherently optimistic, will be exhausted/bored with being gloomy for too long). 2) The first wave of investment will pour into the financial markets. This is because cash will look decreasingly attractive due to inflation and low ROIs on risk-free-rate investments. This will come primarily from wealthy & institutional investors whose investment advisers need to justify their fees and commissions. You don't need a hedge fund to keep your money in cash. So a lot of that money currently "on the sidelines" will come in to the markets (i.e. increased demand) "artificially" inflating stock prices. 3) After a quarter or two of this first increase the financial news organizations (networks & magazines) will again start enthusiastically touting the increased returns on investment and the "new geniuses" who are luckily in charge now (because that is the easy news story they're most comfortable/equipped to tell). This increased hype will lead to a second and bigger wave of investment (even more increased demand). 4) This second major wave of investment will come from the late-to-the-party institutions and the slower-moving general public. This will create what some economists might like to call a "Virtuous Cycle" (which is the opposite of a "Vicious Cycle" as in the case of the self-fulfilling prophecy of a "run on a bank").  5) In April of 2009, we have not yet reached the "baby boomer tipping point". Most of the baby boomers are still in prime earning years and thus ripe to be making maximum investments in their retirement (especially because their children are likely adult-aged and thus should be less of a financial burden). At this point, virtually the entire investment community will be back-on-board the stock market bandwagon and eager to recoup their losses. More demand increases stock prices in a self-fulfilling prophecy. At this time (which I hope will be around 2011-12) the markets will be like the go-go 1990s with the public, forever cursed with a short-memory & fickle interest, ignoring cautious economists' warnings about what will happen if we don't learn from the current mess (of 2008-09). "Hey, Dan. Overall, that doesn't sound too bad!" - You think. Why I "fear" the eventual giant bull market run... a) Systemic improvements can't happen when everyone thinks they're getting rich. No one wants to kill the golden goose. This is/was the giant cultural problem on Wall Street that caused the meltdown. You can't argue with a winner. Even if that winner is a bad poker player with a fundamentally flawed strategy of always going all-in pre-flop with 7-2offsuit. So long as he keeps winning he will not change his strategy. Only losers change their strategy. The challenge for society is redefining the barometers of losing. b) Systemic improvements have to fight inertia and entrenched interests. Consequently it is necessarily a slow fight to win. If we don't win before the economy rallies then we won't win this time (maybe have to wait until after the next market bust). c) When the boomers hit that tipping point and start making more withdrawals than they are making deposits into their retirement accounts there will be a corresponding artificial drop in stock market prices. This could start it's own vicious cycle that could last 5+ years until the boomers are sufficiently overshadowed by the rest of the market. Yet if we were more cautious and less-susceptible to hype we might be better able to limit those busts. I will write a new post to describe my proposed systemic improvements. Here's the teaser: "Accountability, Transparency, Compulsory Long Term Thinking and more deliberate decision-making (an ever higher stock price should, ceteris paribus, dissuade investors from buying but historically just the opposite happens)." However, as anyone could be with any prediction, I could be wrong here. This is especially possible because these predictions are so specific and definitively set over such a long time. We'll see...