Survivorship Bias

Try to focus on whatever killed the dead guy, not on what didn't kill the survivor.

"A stupid decision that works out well becomes a brilliant decision in hindsight" --Daniel Kahneman

From the podcast of You Are Not So Smart:

"Despite how it may seem, success boils down to serially avoiding catastrophic failure while routinely absorbing manageable damage."

Careful Who Ya Hang With

Gawker:

A 21-year-old Italian man was crushed to death today by a giant crucifix dedicated to the late Pope John Paul II. The tragic event happened just a few days ahead of the Pope's canonization.

According to the Telegraph, a piece of the 100-foot-tall crucifix collapsed on the man, Marco Gusmini, during an event near the village of Cevo while he posed for a photo with a group of friends. The cross was designed by sculptor Enrico Job and was created for John Paul II's 1998 visit to nearby Brescia in northern Italy.

Pope John Paul II will become a saint on Sunday in an unprecedented double-canonization with Pope John XXIII. Pope John Paul's canonization is surrounded by a bit of controversy, due to the idea that it is happening too quickly after his death — only nine years — and to the thought that he did not take seriously enough the sexual abuse crises that emerged at the end of his tenure.

And if this sad happening isn't spooky enough for you already, the Telegraph reports that Gusmini is said to have been living on a street named after the other to-be-canonized Pope, Pope John XXIII.

Eek!

So, god is saying, "Don't be such a suck-up"?  That's something else that just doesn't square with what it says in the bible, or with what you hear practically every day.

'Scuse Me, Mr Issa

Darrell Issa's been making a fuss over the IRS flap for a while now, and even tho' it's always looked like the standard fishing expedition; and even tho' there's plenty of evidence that Da Gubmint wasn't just trying to beat down a buncha poor defenseless slobs like Karl Rove, there seems to be something missing in all the hubbub.

Here's a short look at the kind of outfits the IRS was looking into.  Remember, bureaucrats have a lot of shit to get thru in a day.  And so like anybody with a living thinking brain who's trying to work with even a little efficiency, they need to prioritize and organize; and the IRS had some database tools that they were using to help them sift thru all that paperwork and get to the good stuff first etc.

OK, so here's the graphic:

But wait - it seems the outfits that Issa is saying were being Jack-Booted by the army of evil CPAs weren't the ones attracting all the attention after all.  The TeaBaggers are down at #4, and so ermahgerd, Mr Issa has been fibbing this whole time!?!  How could this be?

OK OK, I'll stop because nobody but the bubble-dwellers ever believed it was about trying to rein in the outa-control tyranny of Da Gubmint anyway. 

Unfortunately, a coupla things are still pretty fucked up about it.

First, the law and the attending regulations are vague about what does and what doesn't make your little organization eligible for tax-exempt status.  Laws need to be specific. Laws that are not specific tend not to be enforceable.  Which leads us to the paranoid presumption that maybe somebody wants these laws to go unenforced in order to gain an unfair advantage.

And that gets us to the second part.  By bitching about the IRS, and claiming some kinda bullshit mistreatment, Issa's little dog-n-pony show conveniently distracts us from finding out whether or not any of those outfits might be breaking the law.

Darrell Issa is using his position of wealth and power to protect his clients (ie anyone else in a position of wealth and power) from being held accountable for anything by anybody.  He's protecting them from us; he's facilitating the sale of our Representation to the highest bidder; and he's using our money to fucking do it.

Helluva deal.

Logical Fallacy #11 - Burden Of Proof

When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on the person asserting a claim. An argument from ignorance occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proven true.[1][2] This has the effect of shifting the burden of proof to the person criticizing the assertion, but is not valid reasoning.[3]

While certain kinds of arguments, such as logical syllogisms, require mathematical or strictly logical proofs, the standard for evidence to meet the burden of proof is usually determined by context and community standards.[4][5]
In public discourse[edit]

Burden of proof is also an important concept in the public arena of ideas. Once participants in discourse establish common assumptions, the mechanism of burden of proof helps to ensure that all parties contribute productively, using relevant arguments.[6][7][8][9]
Proving a negative[edit]

When the assertion to prove is a negative claim, the burden takes the form of a negative proof, proof of impossibility, or mere evidence of absence. If this negative assertion is in response to a claim made by another party in a debate, asserting the falsehood of the positive claim shifts the burden of proof from the party making the first claim to the one asserting its falsehood, as the position "I do not believe that X is true" is different to the explicit denial "I believe that X is false".[10]
Example[edit]

Matt Dillahunty gives the example of a large jar full of gumballs to illustrate the burden of proof.[11][12] It is a fact of reality that the number of gumballs in the jar is either even or odd, but the beliefs a person could hold are more complicated. We can choose to consider two claims about the situation, given as
The number of gumballs is even.
The number of gumballs is odd.

These two claims can be considered independently. For each claim, because of the law of excluded middle, we are forced to either believe or not believe. Before we have any information about the number of gumballs, we have no means of distinguishing either of the two claims. All of the information we have applies to claim 1 in exactly the same way it applies to claim 2. Due to the law of noncontradiction we cannot accept both of the two mutually exclusive claims, so we must reject (or not believe) both. This is the default position, which represents the null hypothesis. The justification for this position is only ever the lack of evidence supporting a claim. Instead, the burden of proof, or the responsibility to provide evidence and reasoning, lies with those seeking to persuade someone holding the default position.

Fair's Fair

Rain Song --Jimmy Page and Robert Plant

This is the springtime of my loving-
the second season I am to know
You are the sunlight in my growing-
so little warmth I've felt before.
It isn't hard to feel me glowing-
I watched the fire that grew so low.

It is the summer of my smiles-
flee from me Keepers of the Gloom.
Speak to me only with your eyes
it is to you I give this tune.
Ain't so hard to recognize-
These things are clear to all from
time to time. Ooooh...
Talk Talk-

I've felt the coldness of my winter
I never thought it would ever go
I cursed the gloom that set upon us...
But I know that I love you so
but I know that I love you so.

These are the seasons of emotion
And like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion-
I see the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient-
Upon us all a little rain
must fall, Just a little rain?

Feels Like Rain --John Hiatt

Because --Dave Clark Five

Because --Beatles

Oops

Once upon a time, you could count on your marketing department to be able to "prove" any conclusion management had already reached.

When the board at BP needed to feel reassured that the company could avoid being tagged as a major contributor to the death of an entire geographical region and the resultant slow implosion of several local economies, they went to their marketing geniuses and we got all those great commercials on TV about "Disaster? What disaster? Everything's great here."  It doesn't matter what's really going on because you're "controlling" the message, so nobody's going to see the real problems because Big Oil owns a majority stake in the politicians in the Gulf States and the money they're able to spend on media makes it easier for people (who desperately need to believe it's all OK) to believe it's all OK, in spite of some small voices to the contrary.

Variations on that little scenario have played out quite often over the years.

Things have been changing a bit though.  Social Media is the way to go now.  You can save many millions of dollars (paying me a few hundred K instead) by putting up a Facebook page and letting Twitter carry your message virally to millions more consumers than TV or even that old-fashioned Inter Tubes thing could ever imagine.

But "control" is an illusion, and what frequently happens on Social Media proves it.  What you get might be very much the opposite of what you were probably expecting and/or hoping for, and it can come as a very rude surprise when you start to understand that you can't cherry pick the feedback.

Mitch McConnell found that out not too long ago (eg).  And now the New York Police Dept is finding out too.  NYPD decided they were in need of a little PR boost, and believing (as all authoritarian organizations do) that the undeserving masses must surely be grateful to us  - or at least respect us for our abilities to crush their puny skulls at the slightest provocation - they went along with the Social Media suggestion by asking their fans to tweet their favorites pictures of the noble NYPD in action.

Here's a quick sampling of what came in by the thousands before they could shut the account down - prob'ly not quite what they had in mind:

Today's Pix

Cuz It Works

Mostly, there's a buncha smart people running the businesses that run the world.  And mostly, these smart people make smart decisions, and (again, mostly) they decide to spend something like half a trillion dollars every year on advertising.  We think that's about right, but nobody's real sure anymore because the outfits doing the spending stopped talking about it openly several years ago, and the outfits that try to keep track of it have come to understand that the information is pretty valuable, so if you wanna know about such things, you get to pay for it (it's all about "The Analytics", dontcha know).  So the rest of us - well, we're just kinda shooting in the dark.

Anyway, smart people spend a fuckload of money on advertising - because it works.

The KrugMan Speaks

A Song For Adam --Jackson Browne

If You Could Read My Mind --Gordon Lightfoot

Today's Quote

Logical Fallacy #10 - Loaded Question

A loaded question or complex question fallacy is a question which contains a controversial or unjustified assumption (e.g., a presumption of guilt).[1]

Aside from being an informal fallacy depending on usage, such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda.[2] The traditional example is the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Whether the respondent answers yes or no, he will admit to having a wife and having beaten her at some time in the past. Thus, these facts are presupposed by the question, and in this case an entrapment, because it narrows the respondent to a single answer, and the fallacy of many questions has been committed.[2] The fallacy relies upon context for its effect: the fact that a question presupposes something does not in itself make the question fallacious. Only when some of these presuppositions are not necessarily agreed to by the person who is asked the question does the argument containing them become fallacious.[2] Hence the same question may be loaded in one context, but not in the other. For example the previous question would not be loaded if it was asked during a trial in which the defendant has already admitted to beating his wife.[2]

This fallacy should be distinguished from that of begging the question,[3] which offers a premise whose plausibility depends on the truth of the proposition asked about, and which is often an implicit restatement of the proposition.[4]

The term "loaded question" is sometimes used to refer to loaded language that is phrased as a question. This type of question does not necessarily contain a fallacious presupposition, but rather this usage refers to the question having an unspoken and often emotive implication. For example, "Are you a murderer?" would be such a loaded question, as "murder" has a very negative connotation. Such a question may be asked merely to harass or upset the respondent with no intention of listening to their reply, or asked with the full expectation that the respondent will predictably deny it.

Cartoon Hero --Lydian Collective

The trick is playing it the same way twice in a row, but I'll take this one all day long.

That Sinking Feeling

Sometimes the metaphors walk up and smack ya right in the face.

Here's a picture of Lee Jun-seok, captain of the ferry that sank off the coast of South Korea recently:

Captain Lee has been arrested because he left the ship before doing everything he was supposed to do to ensure the safety of his passengers.  Weirdly (to me anyway) the conduct of a ship's captain is generally prescribed in terms of "should" instead of "must",  but according to S Korea's laws, this guy split early and now he's in deep shit.

What if I look at this from a different perspective though?  Am I not supposed to try to see things from the point of view of people with whom I disagree?  Shouldn't I be willing to consider others' opinions and philosophies?  What if I never stop asking rhetorical questions?

Maybe I should wait until I have a chance to ask somebody directly, but I don't see it as a big stretch to imagine the reaction of Paul Ryan (eg) to Lee's behavior.  I should hope Mr Ryan would react with the same disgust and horror as the rest of us, but in one way (one that feels pretty important to me) Lee did exactly what I think Ryan and his fellows are always saying we should all do.  Lee found himself in dire circumstances, and simply turned his back on the people who were looking to him for help and guidance.

The Straw Man risk notwithstanding, it can't be all that hard for any of us to believe there's a tiny inkling of thought on the part of our current batch of "conservatives" that sounds like this: "those dead passengers should've had the gumption to save themselves - but they didn't - they had grown complacently dependent on the superior capabilities and sheer awesomeness of Capt Lee and his crew, and they were obviously just waiting around expecting a handout.  See what happens to stupid moochers!?!"

Wanna go full Romney with it?  "...do whatever it takes - borrow some money from your parents if you have to - so you can buy your own rescue boat..."

In the end - look at that picture again - having tended to his own interests to the exclusion of everything else, Capt Lee loses everything worth saving in the first place.

Just sayin' - the Slippery Slope can be a real thing.

Ludlow Day

Today's the 100th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre (April 20, 1914).

The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Some two dozen people, including women and children, were killed. The chief owner of the mine, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was widely criticized for the incident.
The massacre, the culmination of a bloody widespread strike against Colorado coal mines, resulted in the violent deaths of between 19 and 26 people; reported death tolls vary but include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent.[1] The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between militia and camp guards against striking workers. Ludlow was the deadliest single incident in the southern Colorado Coal Strike, lasting from September 1913 through December 1914. The strike was organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against coal mining companies in Colorado. The three largest companies involved were the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I), the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company (RMF), and the Victor-American Fuel Company (VAF).
In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40-mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg.[2] The entire strike would cost between 69 and 199 lives. Thomas G. Andrews described it as the "deadliest strike in the history of the United States".[3]
The Ludlow Massacre was a watershed moment in American labor relations. Historian Howard Zinn described the Ludlow Massacre as "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history".[4]Congress responded to public outcry by directing the House Committee on Mines and Mining to investigate the incident.[5] Its report, published in 1915, was influential in promoting child labor laws and an eight-hour work day.
The Ludlow site, 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Trinidad, Colorado, is now a ghost town. The massacre site is owned by the UMWA, which erected a granite monument in memory of the miners and their families who died that day.[6] The Ludlow Tent Colony Site was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 16, 2009, and dedicated on June 28, 2009.[6] Modern archeological investigation largely supports the strikers' reports of the event.[7]