The subject of this post is the "The Picture of Language" published in the New York Times.
I recall diagramming sentences with the same fondness as many that submitted comments on the original story as well as comments on a blog post about that story.
My trail leading to the NY Times story started with this Naked Capitalism web site "Links" page.
To recap so far: (Which is not far at all since there are only three paragraphs to recap) Paragraph one was the internet destination of the journey I started in paragraph three that linked me to the paragraph two intermediate site in the trail that to me to the source, the genesis of the thoughts titled "A Picture of Language"
A recap at the beginning? If this was a "recap" joke then that would be where this ends! After all, tomorrow is April Fools Day. No, no joke. Just a digression. Yesterday on NPR "Science Friday" they did scientist jokes. Being one helped to get the joke. But I digress in my digression.
Not entirely.
You have to have an appreciation for the language, its beauty, complexity, even its ambiguity as well as its clarity to continue reading this. If you like what language is and what language does and have some idea that those are two fundamental aspects of language then read on!
What language is: A noun.
What language does: A verb.
That is language: Nouns and verbs.
The picture of language is how the nouns and verbs relate graphically.
But this is a blog about Money. Money is a language. A universal one. Money as a language and like a language is all about two things in its structure. Nouns and verbs. What it is and what it does. What the structure is and what the structure does. The meaning in the relationship is whatever we choose to plug into the noun and verb place holders in the structure along with all the modifiers that are added and introduce complexity built upon the basic noun/verb relationship. A binary relationship in which both must be present, or at least the existence of one be implied if not explicitly stated.
But I digress.
But I like to digress.
But digression only functions beneficially if it brings the thread of thought back to the original course.
Paragraph three linked back to paragraph two that linked to the source; paragraph one. That journey was simple but had some interesting digressions. You could have skipped the subsequent paragraphs and simply jumped this one. I could have made the jump for you by editing out everything in between with "select and delete" in order to get to the point.
The point is that language can be viewed as a picture. That is not like creating a word picture. It is a picture of words. A picture of relationships that conveys a conceptual meaning that word picture in our heads that is related to but entirely different than the picture of words seen on the screen.
How that all happens is in our connectomes.
Connectomes are a digression from my original intention to write about the beauty of sentence diagramming. A digression with a purpose that I would ultimately bring in a winding fashion back to the continuity of this post. However, I will make that dangling digression because it is Saturday morning and I need to complete the trailer hitch wiring on my van so I can tow my trailer to Tucson to escape the cold rain of spring in Bend and get started on building strength and endurance on the bike in a warmer climate there so I can apply the results when the climate is warmer here.
That too, is a digression.
Enough for now. I shall return, as all good digressions should.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Complexity - Simplicity
When a complex thing can be viewed in terms of its smallest component part then it is no longer so complex that it cannot be understood. Once it is understood it can be managed, controlled, directed to be more effective, efficient; however that may be defined. Depending on whatever constraints may be dictated by the smallest component, an entirely new and different system structure of complexity based on the smallest unit component may be created. That new "big thing" might even appear to be something entirely different. At least it may appear to be different to those that are totally unaware that what they perceive in their user view of the "big thing" is in fact just simply something new to them but its genesis goes back to the same fundamental building block of "big things" that are familiar to them.
The devil may be in the details.
God may also be in the details. Down to the smallest part that is common to everything. At that level it is also true that God exists in everything. God is both the biggest and the smallest. The beginning and the end. All encompassing at the macro level. All exclusionary at the micro level of the smallest unique unit of identifiable existence.
God is the greatest. God is the smallest.
In the beginning and the end God is only one thing that has a relationship to no other thing. By that definition God is nothing given the truth that one thing cannot exist without a relationship to another thing. God is beyond space and time.
If my original statement is true that we can manipulate and manage a thing if we comprehend its smallest unit of structure then could God be managed by Man?
No.
Only the purpose of God could be realized in the applications created by Man using the time and space operating system created by God.
What God is as far as man is concerned and can understand in the space/time continuum in which we exist: Unchangeable, constant binary of time and space.
What God does: Anything and everything in the universe.
What Man does: Anything and everything in the universe that our intelligence makes possible.
Purpose: Maybe the most complex thought concept we can have in our heads.
I felt pure purpose once when there were no other thoughts in my head. That was a rare moment. Maybe purpose is the one thing that has no smallest component building block part for us to discover?
Love?
These are my birthday thoughts.
The devil may be in the details.
God may also be in the details. Down to the smallest part that is common to everything. At that level it is also true that God exists in everything. God is both the biggest and the smallest. The beginning and the end. All encompassing at the macro level. All exclusionary at the micro level of the smallest unique unit of identifiable existence.
God is the greatest. God is the smallest.
In the beginning and the end God is only one thing that has a relationship to no other thing. By that definition God is nothing given the truth that one thing cannot exist without a relationship to another thing. God is beyond space and time.
If my original statement is true that we can manipulate and manage a thing if we comprehend its smallest unit of structure then could God be managed by Man?
No.
Only the purpose of God could be realized in the applications created by Man using the time and space operating system created by God.
What God is as far as man is concerned and can understand in the space/time continuum in which we exist: Unchangeable, constant binary of time and space.
What God does: Anything and everything in the universe.
What Man does: Anything and everything in the universe that our intelligence makes possible.
Purpose: Maybe the most complex thought concept we can have in our heads.
I felt pure purpose once when there were no other thoughts in my head. That was a rare moment. Maybe purpose is the one thing that has no smallest component building block part for us to discover?
Love?
These are my birthday thoughts.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Basketball Money
Basketball was always a confusing game to me. To fast to follow but not only fast but always changing. The ball is in play. Somebody has it and mus do something with it. Dribble, pass, ooopps.. somebody else has it. It all depends on where they get it, one end of the court or the other. Players are hardly distinguishable. They are supposed to be in positions but that changes with the situation.
Confusing. But so is boxing. How can a sports caster be so quick to call all those punches. It is hard to follow and a punch so quick it is hard to determine effect. In aggregate they must have some effect because one guy falls down, the other wins.
Economists debating back and forth is a game of the same nature. Too fast, too confusing, I do not even know what is being said. Taking time to study it, I still do not know what is being said. Guesses, perhaps, something is being said, I only have ideas about what it all means. It is like someone debating different ideas about the path of electricity through a TV from the pug at the wall to the picture shown on the screen. Regardless of how or what they debate, call facts, or just believe because they are convinced they are correct, the picture gets to the screen and I have a suspicion the there is some real, factual, true explanation at the bottom of which are fundamental physical factors like properties of electrical resistance and the transformation of matter and energy that make it all happen.
Economics is a social science so maybe there is no "truth" upon which it is based like the truth of physics in nature. It is only built on what we think it is. Like religion. It can be and do whatever we want.
If Economics, which I view as what money does was based on some factual physical establishment of what money is then there might be some possibility for getting a grasp of understanding on the situation. Maybe it was simpler when was gold. Good, solid, physical, measurable stuff. As long as it was 24 ct. Then it could be related to any scale of relative value. Like a universal solvent. Everything could be disolved into it.
L. Randall Wray seems to be the brightest economic bulb in the bunch with his and his fellow thinker's ideas of Modern Money Theory MMT. He writes about economic things with titles that I do not begin to understand much less the content. My brother-in-law, the microbiologist writes about his subject matter in the same fashion that mystifies me beyond the first word in the title. Money, however, should not be as hard to understand as genetics. I can make coffee in the morning without detailed knowledge of the genetics that enable me to do it.
All my genetics seem to be functioning well enough and I am not much in charge of dictating their nature and operation anyhow. I receive and spend money in much the same manner. However, when money matters do go wrong, ot could go better, I should be able to knowledgeably do something about them. At least understand them at some basic conceptual level that gives me, and every other citizen in the USA the same basic idea of how it works or should not work. Like: "Thou Shall Not Steal". But that is not true. Or: My money is mine. Or: Government debt is just like household debt. We have to balance a budget. That is not true either.
L Randall Wray, being a guiding economic light, presents his view of the big economic marshmallow. Others contest, contradict or support, in whole or part, what he says. It is like a basketball game. Baseball is much slower but if economics was baseball we would have no clue as to who is on first, or anywhere else for that matter, or even what the score is. One person would say the score is this, another would say it is that.
Recently, L Randall Wray made a statement about MMT. Joyfully I latched on to it thinking that at last here is some kind of rock upon which I can build my understanding.
No way....yet, but maybe there is hope.
L Randall kicked off with this and put the ball in play in a game against the Austrians, a competing school of thought. The old established team. He made his kickoff statement on his home ground; New Economic Perspectives. It is a blog and a very poorly structured one. The extent of its organizational structure is that the most recent blog appears at the beginning. At least the blog is searchable. His kick off statement made on his home ground blog was not called part I but subsequent parts were numbered. Each part of his 4 part series (quarters of teh game?) has comments made by supporters, opponents, cheerleaders or spectators. Then L Randall Wray does a blog entry where he responds to comments on his prior blogs as well as an excellent piece written by one of his supporters, Dan Kervick.
Dan Kervick wrote an excellent series appearing in Naked Capitalism, my favorite best blog by Yves Smith. It was a cross post from where it initially appeared in New Economic Perspectives but being on Naked Capitalism it gained comments from the crown that likes to comment on things there. Some are worthwhile. This was Dan Kervick's kickoff of his series:
A new year is upon us. And even before its first hour has been rung in, 2012 is already taking shape before us as a pivotal year in global politics. We can all feel the awakening under way. A revived longing for equality, shared prosperity and democratic solidarity is inspiring a vibrant new politics around the world. This new activist spirit is quickened by the keen apprehension of young people on every continent that something is very, very wrong with the present economic and political order. The rising generation, heirs to sick and damaged societies that have been unbalanced by decades of plutocratic rule and antisocial cupidity, have now begun to rouse themselves – and in the process they have rallied the moral outrage of their fellow citizens.
Dan Kervick, like L Randall Wray did not give his kickoff the title of Part I but subsequently was titled by part numbers that totaled 6 parts. Cripes! It is hard to keep track of all the parts that Wray and Randall are writing when they are spread out over a time line entry sequence in blogs!
In L Randall Wray's comments on the comments on what he wrote to the Austrians he discusses not only the responses to what he wrote but commented on what Dan Kervick had written:
"I will respond to comments on my blog and also to comments on Dan Kervick’s excellent piece on MMT (part one—if I have any comments for part two I will post them after I get time to read the post and comments)."
This seems to be getting to the rather ridiculous of who said what to whom about what and not only that but what they meant, may have meant, think they meant but perhaps did not say but can be inferred by the school of thought they belong to, or at least what I think they should be saying or meaning.........The point is: I have to go through all this sorting out of things said just to try to figure out who is on first base or even where first base is where it was at some part of the discussions in parts I thru IV or VI depending on whose discussion and associated comments are the focus point of the current discussion.
There is a pony somewhere under all of this pile of stuff. It is certainly not being made easy to find by any reasonable structural mapping! Maybe that is what keeps the wannabe uneducated, unknowing players out of the game nd out of the club. I really would like to understand all this and I am struggling to do so.
Dan Kervick is more my kind of guy. A philosopher. Maybe that should be a prerequiset to being an economist. I wrote to L Randall Wray once but he never responded. He seems to be a guy that only talks to others from the different elite schools of thought. Sometimes he writes stuff I get something from but Dan Kervick does it more often.
Dan Kervick also believes in real money. L Randall Wray discusses Dan's view here contrasing with his own view:
Let me close with a comment on Dan’s excellent blog on the front page. I agree with almost everything. But readers of the MMP will have noticed one deviation.
I argue that government currency as well as treasuries (bonds) are indeed debts, IOUs denominated in the state money of account. Dan wants to argue they are not debts. I understand the “framing” issue. People are scared to death of debts. It sounds much more user friendly if we can deny our government is in debt. Of course, by identity, if it is in debt we nongovernment types are in credit. The clock at Times Square is a credit or wealth clock, not a debt clock. Don’t think of the elephant and all that. Agreed.
But I’m afraid it is a big misleading and confuses our understanding of what debt is all about.
Dan Kervick responds in his comment about what Randall Wray said:
I love this question of whether the money issued by the government is a liability of the government, because my background is in philosophy. Philosophers love to discuss the nature of things, and this is a question about the nature of money, debt and credit. I defend the idea that the money issued by government is not a liability of government, and Randy Wray defends the claim that it is a liability of government. And Randy has the great A. Mitchell Innes on his side.
After thousands of words about money, IOU's accounting and liabilities Dan Kervick finally concludes with his thoughts:
But I personally think, and believe the MMT economists tend to agree with this, that there is also a major role for the government spending its money into the economy which is debt-free issuance.
Cripes Again! It is like trying to follow a guy with the ball running all over the field being chased by everyone else, not being entirely sure whose side the chasers are on, they do not even know, and finally crossing the goal line. Crossing the line but not with any certitude of anything in the score really changing!
Where, or where is that rock that I seek, that fixed point upon which to stand and apply the lever that will move the earth? No place! All I can say is that I think, (and what do I know?) that Dan Kervick, like me, would say that money: What money is, is a thing that the government brings into existence, spends into the economy and until it taxes it out of the economy it exists forever in the economy. What money does in the economy may be related to debit and credit exchanges as well as a medium of exchange for goods and services. Every single piece or unit of money once it is created or "born" into the system, however we choose to give it specific as well as unique identity like my serialization scheme, every unique unit of money once born lives forever. Taxes might only put it into temporary suspense to be reintroduced to the system as required into the future as an alternative to creating "new" money to be born fresh as a baby into the system.
That is one long whole sentence from beginning to the ending period that violates the length rule that prohibits run on sentences. It is totally outside the rules and I am so proud of it that I will flagrantly say it again as big and bold as I wish to say it. screw the rules:
Every single piece or unit of money once it is created or "born" into the system, however we choose to give it specific as well as unique identity like my serialization scheme, every unique unit of money once born lives forever and taxes only put it into temporary suspense to be reintroduced to the system as required into the future as an alternative to creating "new" money to be born fresh as a baby into the system.
That is the way to establish what money is. Do that and maybe you economists can figure out what money does. All you have to do is follow each unique unit of money if you want to do micro or aggregates of uniquely serialized units of money if you want to do macro.
I say: Mark the money by numbering every money unit to identify what it is then follow it see what money naturally does. At least what it does in the "un-natural" conceptual system we call out economic system and, then seeing its dysfunctions, redesign the system to make it work better for us.
Confusing. But so is boxing. How can a sports caster be so quick to call all those punches. It is hard to follow and a punch so quick it is hard to determine effect. In aggregate they must have some effect because one guy falls down, the other wins.
Economists debating back and forth is a game of the same nature. Too fast, too confusing, I do not even know what is being said. Taking time to study it, I still do not know what is being said. Guesses, perhaps, something is being said, I only have ideas about what it all means. It is like someone debating different ideas about the path of electricity through a TV from the pug at the wall to the picture shown on the screen. Regardless of how or what they debate, call facts, or just believe because they are convinced they are correct, the picture gets to the screen and I have a suspicion the there is some real, factual, true explanation at the bottom of which are fundamental physical factors like properties of electrical resistance and the transformation of matter and energy that make it all happen.
Economics is a social science so maybe there is no "truth" upon which it is based like the truth of physics in nature. It is only built on what we think it is. Like religion. It can be and do whatever we want.
If Economics, which I view as what money does was based on some factual physical establishment of what money is then there might be some possibility for getting a grasp of understanding on the situation. Maybe it was simpler when was gold. Good, solid, physical, measurable stuff. As long as it was 24 ct. Then it could be related to any scale of relative value. Like a universal solvent. Everything could be disolved into it.
L. Randall Wray seems to be the brightest economic bulb in the bunch with his and his fellow thinker's ideas of Modern Money Theory MMT. He writes about economic things with titles that I do not begin to understand much less the content. My brother-in-law, the microbiologist writes about his subject matter in the same fashion that mystifies me beyond the first word in the title. Money, however, should not be as hard to understand as genetics. I can make coffee in the morning without detailed knowledge of the genetics that enable me to do it.
All my genetics seem to be functioning well enough and I am not much in charge of dictating their nature and operation anyhow. I receive and spend money in much the same manner. However, when money matters do go wrong, ot could go better, I should be able to knowledgeably do something about them. At least understand them at some basic conceptual level that gives me, and every other citizen in the USA the same basic idea of how it works or should not work. Like: "Thou Shall Not Steal". But that is not true. Or: My money is mine. Or: Government debt is just like household debt. We have to balance a budget. That is not true either.
L Randall Wray, being a guiding economic light, presents his view of the big economic marshmallow. Others contest, contradict or support, in whole or part, what he says. It is like a basketball game. Baseball is much slower but if economics was baseball we would have no clue as to who is on first, or anywhere else for that matter, or even what the score is. One person would say the score is this, another would say it is that.
Recently, L Randall Wray made a statement about MMT. Joyfully I latched on to it thinking that at last here is some kind of rock upon which I can build my understanding.
No way....yet, but maybe there is hope.
L Randall kicked off with this and put the ball in play in a game against the Austrians, a competing school of thought. The old established team. He made his kickoff statement on his home ground; New Economic Perspectives. It is a blog and a very poorly structured one. The extent of its organizational structure is that the most recent blog appears at the beginning. At least the blog is searchable. His kick off statement made on his home ground blog was not called part I but subsequent parts were numbered. Each part of his 4 part series (quarters of teh game?) has comments made by supporters, opponents, cheerleaders or spectators. Then L Randall Wray does a blog entry where he responds to comments on his prior blogs as well as an excellent piece written by one of his supporters, Dan Kervick.
Dan Kervick wrote an excellent series appearing in Naked Capitalism, my favorite best blog by Yves Smith. It was a cross post from where it initially appeared in New Economic Perspectives but being on Naked Capitalism it gained comments from the crown that likes to comment on things there. Some are worthwhile. This was Dan Kervick's kickoff of his series:
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Public Money for Public Purpose: Toward the End of Plutocracy and the Triumph of Democracy
By Dan Kervick. Cross posted from New Economic PerspectivesA new year is upon us. And even before its first hour has been rung in, 2012 is already taking shape before us as a pivotal year in global politics. We can all feel the awakening under way. A revived longing for equality, shared prosperity and democratic solidarity is inspiring a vibrant new politics around the world. This new activist spirit is quickened by the keen apprehension of young people on every continent that something is very, very wrong with the present economic and political order. The rising generation, heirs to sick and damaged societies that have been unbalanced by decades of plutocratic rule and antisocial cupidity, have now begun to rouse themselves – and in the process they have rallied the moral outrage of their fellow citizens.
Dan Kervick, like L Randall Wray did not give his kickoff the title of Part I but subsequently was titled by part numbers that totaled 6 parts. Cripes! It is hard to keep track of all the parts that Wray and Randall are writing when they are spread out over a time line entry sequence in blogs!
In L Randall Wray's comments on the comments on what he wrote to the Austrians he discusses not only the responses to what he wrote but commented on what Dan Kervick had written:
"I will respond to comments on my blog and also to comments on Dan Kervick’s excellent piece on MMT (part one—if I have any comments for part two I will post them after I get time to read the post and comments)."
This seems to be getting to the rather ridiculous of who said what to whom about what and not only that but what they meant, may have meant, think they meant but perhaps did not say but can be inferred by the school of thought they belong to, or at least what I think they should be saying or meaning.........The point is: I have to go through all this sorting out of things said just to try to figure out who is on first base or even where first base is where it was at some part of the discussions in parts I thru IV or VI depending on whose discussion and associated comments are the focus point of the current discussion.
There is a pony somewhere under all of this pile of stuff. It is certainly not being made easy to find by any reasonable structural mapping! Maybe that is what keeps the wannabe uneducated, unknowing players out of the game nd out of the club. I really would like to understand all this and I am struggling to do so.
Dan Kervick is more my kind of guy. A philosopher. Maybe that should be a prerequiset to being an economist. I wrote to L Randall Wray once but he never responded. He seems to be a guy that only talks to others from the different elite schools of thought. Sometimes he writes stuff I get something from but Dan Kervick does it more often.
Dan Kervick also believes in real money. L Randall Wray discusses Dan's view here contrasing with his own view:
Let me close with a comment on Dan’s excellent blog on the front page. I agree with almost everything. But readers of the MMP will have noticed one deviation.
I argue that government currency as well as treasuries (bonds) are indeed debts, IOUs denominated in the state money of account. Dan wants to argue they are not debts. I understand the “framing” issue. People are scared to death of debts. It sounds much more user friendly if we can deny our government is in debt. Of course, by identity, if it is in debt we nongovernment types are in credit. The clock at Times Square is a credit or wealth clock, not a debt clock. Don’t think of the elephant and all that. Agreed.
But I’m afraid it is a big misleading and confuses our understanding of what debt is all about.
Dan Kervick responds in his comment about what Randall Wray said:
I love this question of whether the money issued by the government is a liability of the government, because my background is in philosophy. Philosophers love to discuss the nature of things, and this is a question about the nature of money, debt and credit. I defend the idea that the money issued by government is not a liability of government, and Randy Wray defends the claim that it is a liability of government. And Randy has the great A. Mitchell Innes on his side.
After thousands of words about money, IOU's accounting and liabilities Dan Kervick finally concludes with his thoughts:
But I personally think, and believe the MMT economists tend to agree with this, that there is also a major role for the government spending its money into the economy which is debt-free issuance.
Cripes Again! It is like trying to follow a guy with the ball running all over the field being chased by everyone else, not being entirely sure whose side the chasers are on, they do not even know, and finally crossing the goal line. Crossing the line but not with any certitude of anything in the score really changing!
Where, or where is that rock that I seek, that fixed point upon which to stand and apply the lever that will move the earth? No place! All I can say is that I think, (and what do I know?) that Dan Kervick, like me, would say that money: What money is, is a thing that the government brings into existence, spends into the economy and until it taxes it out of the economy it exists forever in the economy. What money does in the economy may be related to debit and credit exchanges as well as a medium of exchange for goods and services. Every single piece or unit of money once it is created or "born" into the system, however we choose to give it specific as well as unique identity like my serialization scheme, every unique unit of money once born lives forever. Taxes might only put it into temporary suspense to be reintroduced to the system as required into the future as an alternative to creating "new" money to be born fresh as a baby into the system.
That is one long whole sentence from beginning to the ending period that violates the length rule that prohibits run on sentences. It is totally outside the rules and I am so proud of it that I will flagrantly say it again as big and bold as I wish to say it. screw the rules:
Every single piece or unit of money once it is created or "born" into the system, however we choose to give it specific as well as unique identity like my serialization scheme, every unique unit of money once born lives forever and taxes only put it into temporary suspense to be reintroduced to the system as required into the future as an alternative to creating "new" money to be born fresh as a baby into the system.
That is the way to establish what money is. Do that and maybe you economists can figure out what money does. All you have to do is follow each unique unit of money if you want to do micro or aggregates of uniquely serialized units of money if you want to do macro.
I say: Mark the money by numbering every money unit to identify what it is then follow it see what money naturally does. At least what it does in the "un-natural" conceptual system we call out economic system and, then seeing its dysfunctions, redesign the system to make it work better for us.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Yottabyte is a Lotta Bytes
IPV4 is running out of internet addresses. It is 32 bit which gives 2 to the power of 32 address spaces. IPV6 is the new standard which will give 2 to the 128 power addresses. Is power the right word, since I can't write the number in super-script but you know what I mean. Maybe it is the exponent?
I don't usually think in such big numbers so I had to write it out to see all the zeros. The big numbers I was dealing with are not all that big. In my fantasy money system all money would be uniquely serialized and denominated as one serialized digital dollar on a server at Ft. Knox. It would be a fixed recored with a relationship to an owner. The owner's name would change with transactions. The server's record mirrored and always in sync with the client's iPod, just like iTumes.
Apple has some interesting patents on iWallet that makes me wonder how they would apply the patents but it seems to be apparent intentions.
There seem to be $1.8 trillion dollars (how much it really is, now that is a good question, I don't really know the answer) that is the stock of money used at a medium of exchange in day to day money transactions. This is M0 or high powered money in circulation with which we transact our daily money business to buy and sell stuff amounting to about $15 trillion per year GNP and Gross National Consumption per year, plus and minus some adjustments.
We view it as money in our account somewhere, or pocket and mattress if we use only cash. An account is the same way the banks look it it, because that is how they looked at it in the green eye shade days of banking. Computers can look at money as uniquely serialized digital one dollar bills. Why? I will go out on a limb here and simply say that I think that in the world of science, reducing anything to its smallest unit of composition gives more information and management ability. That is an advantage when we do not seem to know much about or be a able to manage macro adequately to the benefit of society but much to the benefit of narrow, sub-optized financial self interest.
It is just a matter of user view. We like to look at our money as an aggregate of dollars in a unique account. The computer would like to efficiently structure money as a unique serialized entity that has an association to a unique financial entity with the ability to increase or decrease the number of uniquely serialized one dollar bills associated with ownership that is variable as a function of transactions in the medium of exchange. Its working cash on hand either way of looking at it. It is just a user view but the real structure of information is probably best to built on the fundamental unit of one serialized dollar.
So, trillions of dollars in circulation and their associated volume of transactions is not a big problem for computers. The fact is that computers are doing it all today. Probably with a great amount of redundancy in the current system and certainly failing to collect all the economic information that is potentially available if money itself is at a more finely granular level. The level where every dollar is serialized.
Theoretically every penny could be serialized but some kind of a "small change" system to handle the fractions of a dollar would be more efficient to reduce the overhead of storage and communication.
On the other hand…..Maybe every penny could be serialized. That is where it gets into big numbers. Big numbers are relative.
Yottabytes gives a whole new meaning to me about the relative scale of magnitude that a computer can handle. I ran across this term, yottabytes, today int he is story about what the NSA is building in Utah.
Yottabyes is a lotta bytes!!
I don't usually think in such big numbers so I had to write it out to see all the zeros. The big numbers I was dealing with are not all that big. In my fantasy money system all money would be uniquely serialized and denominated as one serialized digital dollar on a server at Ft. Knox. It would be a fixed recored with a relationship to an owner. The owner's name would change with transactions. The server's record mirrored and always in sync with the client's iPod, just like iTumes.
Apple has some interesting patents on iWallet that makes me wonder how they would apply the patents but it seems to be apparent intentions.
There seem to be $1.8 trillion dollars (how much it really is, now that is a good question, I don't really know the answer) that is the stock of money used at a medium of exchange in day to day money transactions. This is M0 or high powered money in circulation with which we transact our daily money business to buy and sell stuff amounting to about $15 trillion per year GNP and Gross National Consumption per year, plus and minus some adjustments.
We view it as money in our account somewhere, or pocket and mattress if we use only cash. An account is the same way the banks look it it, because that is how they looked at it in the green eye shade days of banking. Computers can look at money as uniquely serialized digital one dollar bills. Why? I will go out on a limb here and simply say that I think that in the world of science, reducing anything to its smallest unit of composition gives more information and management ability. That is an advantage when we do not seem to know much about or be a able to manage macro adequately to the benefit of society but much to the benefit of narrow, sub-optized financial self interest.
It is just a matter of user view. We like to look at our money as an aggregate of dollars in a unique account. The computer would like to efficiently structure money as a unique serialized entity that has an association to a unique financial entity with the ability to increase or decrease the number of uniquely serialized one dollar bills associated with ownership that is variable as a function of transactions in the medium of exchange. Its working cash on hand either way of looking at it. It is just a user view but the real structure of information is probably best to built on the fundamental unit of one serialized dollar.
So, trillions of dollars in circulation and their associated volume of transactions is not a big problem for computers. The fact is that computers are doing it all today. Probably with a great amount of redundancy in the current system and certainly failing to collect all the economic information that is potentially available if money itself is at a more finely granular level. The level where every dollar is serialized.
Theoretically every penny could be serialized but some kind of a "small change" system to handle the fractions of a dollar would be more efficient to reduce the overhead of storage and communication.
On the other hand…..Maybe every penny could be serialized. That is where it gets into big numbers. Big numbers are relative.
Yottabytes gives a whole new meaning to me about the relative scale of magnitude that a computer can handle. I ran across this term, yottabytes, today int he is story about what the NSA is building in Utah.
Yottabyes is a lotta bytes!!
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Google Semantic Search
In a prior post I examined the Google PageRank system. It is a method for providing search results. A TED talk pointed out that a test of the method provided results determined by the nature of prior searches unique to an individual. Consequently it was concluded that Google search results may to some extent present information to individuals that they "want" to see and possibly confirming ideological convictions.
Google is introducing a new search methodology based on semantic examination of what an individual means they are looking for and connecting the meaning to search results information about an entity. The new method will apparently not replace PageRank but be an user oriented search enhancement to improve the utility of the results.
Semantic searching will search an entity database. A data base containing information about persons, places and things. The story did not use the word "nouns" but that is what the entities are. Information about the nouns in the database are called its attributes (elements, characteristics).
Semantic searching is simply an interface with an object oriented data base. In that data base the objects all have known attributes. Among those attributes is to be found the information that the search seeks. The search finds the object entity thing of interest and its attributes.
Bingo! The search finds what the thing being searched for a "is". Every object entity In the object oriented paradigm not only has its own attributes but also its own methods by which it knows how to do something. It is all just like a simple sentence structure of two nouns and a verb that are structured to convey meaning.
This is the same method I use to discover what money is and what money does. Hours are spent searching for the entity attributes of money. When they are known then what money does becomes more apparent. It becomes more apparent by reading search results connected to what money does. By virtue of having learned something about what money is I can make connections in my head regarding what money does. That is the more complex meaning of money since the most persistent information about a thing is what it is. What a thing does introduces a magnitude of possibilities.
It appears to me that Google is becoming more like the human brain. Doing the basic leg work to identify what the thing of interest is. Maybe presenting some primary branching selections to follow about what a thing does. A thing always does whatever it does in connection to another thing. While Google might present possibilities the human mind still has so much greater ability to apply its own direction to the search path selection by connecting the thing to the association it has in our minds with doing something.
Semantic search presents results that are a best fit to the meaning of what we are looking for. It takes us one more step down the machine knowledge information structure path that is an aid to human thinking.
If Google Semantic Search was available today it would get me to where I want to go much quicker!
Google is introducing a new search methodology based on semantic examination of what an individual means they are looking for and connecting the meaning to search results information about an entity. The new method will apparently not replace PageRank but be an user oriented search enhancement to improve the utility of the results.
Semantic searching will search an entity database. A data base containing information about persons, places and things. The story did not use the word "nouns" but that is what the entities are. Information about the nouns in the database are called its attributes (elements, characteristics).
Semantic searching is simply an interface with an object oriented data base. In that data base the objects all have known attributes. Among those attributes is to be found the information that the search seeks. The search finds the object entity thing of interest and its attributes.
Bingo! The search finds what the thing being searched for a "is". Every object entity In the object oriented paradigm not only has its own attributes but also its own methods by which it knows how to do something. It is all just like a simple sentence structure of two nouns and a verb that are structured to convey meaning.
This is the same method I use to discover what money is and what money does. Hours are spent searching for the entity attributes of money. When they are known then what money does becomes more apparent. It becomes more apparent by reading search results connected to what money does. By virtue of having learned something about what money is I can make connections in my head regarding what money does. That is the more complex meaning of money since the most persistent information about a thing is what it is. What a thing does introduces a magnitude of possibilities.
It appears to me that Google is becoming more like the human brain. Doing the basic leg work to identify what the thing of interest is. Maybe presenting some primary branching selections to follow about what a thing does. A thing always does whatever it does in connection to another thing. While Google might present possibilities the human mind still has so much greater ability to apply its own direction to the search path selection by connecting the thing to the association it has in our minds with doing something.
Semantic search presents results that are a best fit to the meaning of what we are looking for. It takes us one more step down the machine knowledge information structure path that is an aid to human thinking.
If Google Semantic Search was available today it would get me to where I want to go much quicker!
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Economic Models
This post by Philip Pilkington concludes with this statement:
This is because models like the ISLM are classical or neoclassical constructions. (Remember the title of Hicks’ original paper introducing the model…). In truth these models are built on the back of a seriously flawed theoretical edifice. And that, I think, is the problem with pretty much every mainstream model: they are not intellectual constructions that promote thought; they are more akin to cages built out of the remnants of long dead assumptions that are used to entrap the minds of those they are handed to. It is only those of highly independent mind that can wrench themselves from such conceptions once taught them.
It is worth quoting Keynes in this regard, who knew well the dangers of leaving rotten buildings standing:
Yes, of course! Confine the argument to the parameters of a given box and how much of a chance is there of resolving anything if the premise is faulty? There is no breakout of the boundries of discussion. The model does not allow it.
I have a problem with the whole thing that economists call a model. ISLM is a model. You have to talk econo-speak to understand it!
At least Philip explains it as follows at the beginning of his his discussion implying that non-economists are welcome to understanding the problem and what is being discussed.
The starting point, as it so often is, is the old ISLM model. IS = “Investment-Savings”, LM = Liquidity – Money Supply”. MMTers hold that the whole model is faulty. It doesn’t take account of a labour market and there are serious problems with having a downward sloping IS-curve. Dean and I only discussed the LM-curve in any detail, however, so we will stick to that for now.
The crux of the problem involving the model is that MMT Modern Money Theory looks at at the ISLM problem domain as a challenge to show how the real world works. While the old model of ISLM problem domain explanation was based on some apparently ideological idea of how things should work based on given, defined, model factors, parameters and contraints all of which are contained within the box. Therefore: a neatly defined sub universe based on an neatly defined bigger universe that is likewise protected from the variables of reality.
Economic models are equations. They are algorithms where numbers are plugged in to get computed results. These are math models. They relate well to the real world when that real word is the big box of the physical world with time space boundries as well as all the derivative boundries of our physical world based on the fundamental relationship of time and space.
Our conceptual universe, the one we create in our head, is not bound by time or space. What is consciousness? There you have it. It is anything we choose to create without limits, the only limit being what we can conceive of.
A math model does not work to express our conceptual world, we are always conceiving things outside the box of the model. The model can only be a snapshot of a point in time. To the extent that we continue to think and do in the same way it has predictive value. So does the definition of insanity.
A real model, not just a math one applicable to the hard sciences, must give full freedom, or at least freedom bounded only by the latitude of human behavior. to people to freely and independently choose how they wish to implement their own methods, their own acts, in response to the external messages they receive. When we know how each person chooses to act in response to messages relating to money then we will be able to model the macro economic system.
Money is a social media decision making tool. When we know how every individual uses that tool to make a decision, or no decision, then we will have not just a model but a real time view of what money does. In order to see what money does we must define what money is.
When all money is defined as the sum total of all uniquely serialized digital record dollars in the denomination of one recorded on a central server where only the identity of the owning entity changes with transactions and we know the nature of the transaction then we will know what money does. Based on what money is and does, presumptions of why decisions were made by entities to do what it does can more accurately be determeined.
This is because models like the ISLM are classical or neoclassical constructions. (Remember the title of Hicks’ original paper introducing the model…). In truth these models are built on the back of a seriously flawed theoretical edifice. And that, I think, is the problem with pretty much every mainstream model: they are not intellectual constructions that promote thought; they are more akin to cages built out of the remnants of long dead assumptions that are used to entrap the minds of those they are handed to. It is only those of highly independent mind that can wrench themselves from such conceptions once taught them.
It is worth quoting Keynes in this regard, who knew well the dangers of leaving rotten buildings standing:
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.Since Keynes, most economists have stopped trying to escape the old ideas. The MMTers, on the other hand, together with their post-Keynesian colleagues, have done nothing less than construct a theoretical edifice that quite literally shakes off the old ideas completely. And that is what makes them seem so strange to their colleagues.
Yes, of course! Confine the argument to the parameters of a given box and how much of a chance is there of resolving anything if the premise is faulty? There is no breakout of the boundries of discussion. The model does not allow it.
I have a problem with the whole thing that economists call a model. ISLM is a model. You have to talk econo-speak to understand it!
At least Philip explains it as follows at the beginning of his his discussion implying that non-economists are welcome to understanding the problem and what is being discussed.
The starting point, as it so often is, is the old ISLM model. IS = “Investment-Savings”, LM = Liquidity – Money Supply”. MMTers hold that the whole model is faulty. It doesn’t take account of a labour market and there are serious problems with having a downward sloping IS-curve. Dean and I only discussed the LM-curve in any detail, however, so we will stick to that for now.
The crux of the problem involving the model is that MMT Modern Money Theory looks at at the ISLM problem domain as a challenge to show how the real world works. While the old model of ISLM problem domain explanation was based on some apparently ideological idea of how things should work based on given, defined, model factors, parameters and contraints all of which are contained within the box. Therefore: a neatly defined sub universe based on an neatly defined bigger universe that is likewise protected from the variables of reality.
Economic models are equations. They are algorithms where numbers are plugged in to get computed results. These are math models. They relate well to the real world when that real word is the big box of the physical world with time space boundries as well as all the derivative boundries of our physical world based on the fundamental relationship of time and space.
Our conceptual universe, the one we create in our head, is not bound by time or space. What is consciousness? There you have it. It is anything we choose to create without limits, the only limit being what we can conceive of.
A math model does not work to express our conceptual world, we are always conceiving things outside the box of the model. The model can only be a snapshot of a point in time. To the extent that we continue to think and do in the same way it has predictive value. So does the definition of insanity.
A real model, not just a math one applicable to the hard sciences, must give full freedom, or at least freedom bounded only by the latitude of human behavior. to people to freely and independently choose how they wish to implement their own methods, their own acts, in response to the external messages they receive. When we know how each person chooses to act in response to messages relating to money then we will be able to model the macro economic system.
Money is a social media decision making tool. When we know how every individual uses that tool to make a decision, or no decision, then we will have not just a model but a real time view of what money does. In order to see what money does we must define what money is.
When all money is defined as the sum total of all uniquely serialized digital record dollars in the denomination of one recorded on a central server where only the identity of the owning entity changes with transactions and we know the nature of the transaction then we will know what money does. Based on what money is and does, presumptions of why decisions were made by entities to do what it does can more accurately be determeined.
Monday, March 5, 2012
U.S. Code Revision Codification
Somebody is doing something to drag the U.S. Code into the modern era and bring some degree of order to a bowl of spaghetti.
That somebody is: The Office of Law Revision Counsel. This link will describe the office and what they do. One of they do is Codification Legislation. Link to this and it will describe what it is all about. Link to this .pdf and it will tell you how it and its objectives.
The codification project is required by this law:
1Under section 205(c)(1) of House Resolution No. 988, 93d Congress, as enacted into law by Public Law 93-554 (2 U.S.C. 285b(1)), the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives is required "[t]o prepare, and submit to the Committee on the Judiciary one title at a time, a complete compilation, restatement, and revision of the general and permanent laws of the United States which conforms to the understood policy, intent, and purpose of the Congress in the original enactments, with such amendments and corrections as will remove ambiguities, contradictions, and other imperfections both of substance and of form, separately stated, with a view to the enactment of each title as positive law."
This link tells more about U.S. Code Codification: The Term "Positive Law"
This U.S. Code Codification is a very small step. It organizes the words of the USC in a better manner which is conducive to establishing the under laying conceptual structure in a formal conceptual structural relationship.
This small step moves the USC toward being more amenable to Concept Mining
That somebody is: The Office of Law Revision Counsel. This link will describe the office and what they do. One of they do is Codification Legislation. Link to this and it will describe what it is all about. Link to this .pdf and it will tell you how it and its objectives.
The codification project is required by this law:
1Under section 205(c)(1) of House Resolution No. 988, 93d Congress, as enacted into law by Public Law 93-554 (2 U.S.C. 285b(1)), the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives is required "[t]o prepare, and submit to the Committee on the Judiciary one title at a time, a complete compilation, restatement, and revision of the general and permanent laws of the United States which conforms to the understood policy, intent, and purpose of the Congress in the original enactments, with such amendments and corrections as will remove ambiguities, contradictions, and other imperfections both of substance and of form, separately stated, with a view to the enactment of each title as positive law."
This link tells more about U.S. Code Codification: The Term "Positive Law"
This U.S. Code Codification is a very small step. It organizes the words of the USC in a better manner which is conducive to establishing the under laying conceptual structure in a formal conceptual structural relationship.
This small step moves the USC toward being more amenable to Concept Mining
Machine Law
Machine Law Application is cut and dried. Simple and easy. There is a rule stating the law. The rule is violated. Action to be taken when violation is identified. There must always be be opportunity to dispute. The right to dispute is based on existence of possible grounds for dispute . It is up to the violator of the rule to determine the viability of disputing applicability. Risk/Reward analysis.
Machine Law: Speeding cameras apply the rules regarding vehicle speed. Violators are identified. By picture, license plate. A machine sends a notice of violation. The recipients pays with a credit card. It is all a machine process. Otherwise it can go to offline settlement if the recipient chooses. Good luck.
Here is another example of machine law:
A new plan from the British government will use closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras at gas stations that will automatically prevent uninsured drivers from filling up their gas tanks—that is, until their vehicle information has been logged in the system.
The Mirror reports that the plan is meant to address the 1.4 million uninsured motorists in Britain and act as a deterrent. That may not sound like a huge number compared with the estimated 13.8 percent of uninsured American motorists, but the 1.4 million figure represents four percent of all U.K. drivers.
The British government decided to make use of the CCTV cameras after hearing a presentation from accounting firm Ernst & Young, which will help implement the new system. And while the proposal comes from the private sector but will be used by the government, it's hard to not immediately think of British author George Orwell's seminal novel "1984."
"The key to this is simplicity. Connecting the existing technology ... is relatively inexpensive and wouldn't be a big information technology program" Ernst & Young partner Graeme Swan told the Telegraph. "There shouldn't be concerns about 'big brother' because there is no new database, no vehicles are tracked and no record is kept. It's simply a new rule of no insurance equals no fuel."
When laws regarding the legal use of money and punishable violations of illegal use are equally cut and dried then machines can apply the rule of law to violations and extract the related fine. Robo-signing is illegal. Banks Robo-signed. Guilty!
The more we structure law and that part of law that relates to money, in a engineered conceptual information system that watches the functions of money and controls its functions to the extent that rights and protections of citizens in the money system are not violated the more efficient will be the system of rule of law. Application of money system law by machines is a function of the the efficiency of the structure of the information system on a machine. A computer, its operating system and application programs and their interface with information gathering entities enables machine law. Perhaps with a human touch like "Have a nice day" at the end of the notification of violation and statement of penalty.
Banksters offering worthless junk, worthless by design, and selling it based on deception, by design, should be readily identified by a well designed system of law and an information system to monitor its application.
No Wiggle Room.
Machine Law: Speeding cameras apply the rules regarding vehicle speed. Violators are identified. By picture, license plate. A machine sends a notice of violation. The recipients pays with a credit card. It is all a machine process. Otherwise it can go to offline settlement if the recipient chooses. Good luck.
Here is another example of machine law:
A new plan from the British government will use closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras at gas stations that will automatically prevent uninsured drivers from filling up their gas tanks—that is, until their vehicle information has been logged in the system.
The Mirror reports that the plan is meant to address the 1.4 million uninsured motorists in Britain and act as a deterrent. That may not sound like a huge number compared with the estimated 13.8 percent of uninsured American motorists, but the 1.4 million figure represents four percent of all U.K. drivers.
The British government decided to make use of the CCTV cameras after hearing a presentation from accounting firm Ernst & Young, which will help implement the new system. And while the proposal comes from the private sector but will be used by the government, it's hard to not immediately think of British author George Orwell's seminal novel "1984."
"The key to this is simplicity. Connecting the existing technology ... is relatively inexpensive and wouldn't be a big information technology program" Ernst & Young partner Graeme Swan told the Telegraph. "There shouldn't be concerns about 'big brother' because there is no new database, no vehicles are tracked and no record is kept. It's simply a new rule of no insurance equals no fuel."
When laws regarding the legal use of money and punishable violations of illegal use are equally cut and dried then machines can apply the rule of law to violations and extract the related fine. Robo-signing is illegal. Banks Robo-signed. Guilty!
The more we structure law and that part of law that relates to money, in a engineered conceptual information system that watches the functions of money and controls its functions to the extent that rights and protections of citizens in the money system are not violated the more efficient will be the system of rule of law. Application of money system law by machines is a function of the the efficiency of the structure of the information system on a machine. A computer, its operating system and application programs and their interface with information gathering entities enables machine law. Perhaps with a human touch like "Have a nice day" at the end of the notification of violation and statement of penalty.
Banksters offering worthless junk, worthless by design, and selling it based on deception, by design, should be readily identified by a well designed system of law and an information system to monitor its application.
No Wiggle Room.
Wiggle Room
Wiggle Room in a law, law in the US Code for example, is a degree of ambiguity that can be interpreted in many ways. Interpreted to mitigate to some degree or even abrogate the applicability of the law altogether. All systems probably have some degree of ambiguity. Within the function of a system there is a mechanism to deal with some degree of ambiguity.
Ambiguity is described by Wikipedia here. Ambiguity in the Lexical Form is described by Wikipedia here. It is describes the term Polysemy. A word that is so unusual that my spell checker questions its existence. Well, it does not think Wikipedia is a real word either. It is not just ambiguous about it, it is a fact to the spell checker.
Moving along the continuum of ambiguity expression in different languages is a trip from linguistics, spoken, written language to math. Math defines ambiguity in math functions.
In the English language there might be a refining iteration applied to ambiguity to derive clarity. Discussion.
In computer languages there are routines that iterate ambiguity to reduce it to some lesser state suitable for further processing in accordance with applicable algorithms. Ultimately it might present a decision to be made by the user of the application when the program fails to find an answer.
The US Code is a huge volume of written words. Their is a hierarchical chapter structure to it as old fashion as the early 20th century. And now this is on an Apple App.
In our modern information age one of our greatest challenges is to structure our body of law as contained in the US Code in the rigorous relationship manner that information engineering technology has made possible.
The magnitude of the task is like trying to straighten out a bowl of spaghetti!
It can be done. It is a problem domain to be solved like sending a man to the moon or creating an Internet. Who is going to do it and what is in it for them. It would appear that there is more interest in maintaining the legacy system of defining the law of the land, the US Code in the legacy system. A legacy system in which ambiguity and the difficulty and inadequacy of that system of expression works to the benefit of those that would preserve and perpetuate it and to the maximum extent defend it. Not to defend the essence and clarity of the law but the ambiguity of its language of expression. The English language. Not the English language as an expression of the under laying computer technology expression of the logical structure relationship of the concepts expressed by the written language of the law.
The law says what it says. The meaning of the law is in the words and their relationships to other words creating a conceptual structure.
The conceptual structure of our written laws, the US Code, must be expressed in a more precise manner, the under laying conceptual structure of an information engineered system implemented on a computer system.
Wow! There is a big challenge for the 21st Century!
The problem domain of the law is essentially the same as the problem domain of money. The difference is that those that control the money system have used information technology to organize their control of money and the society that uses their money. Bankster money.
Those that control the system of laws in our country have not used used information technology to organize their control of the laws of the land. The laws that dictate the operating systems and application programs of what money is and what money does as well as all the other things that are meant to be the application of the laws of our land.
Plausible Deniability as described here by Wikipedia is a function of Ambiguity.
Ambiguity = Wiggle Room
Ambiguity = Wiggle Room as a sub-optimized system design objective intent undermines the stated purpose and goal of the system.
The Law of the Land is the Law of the Land. The sub-optimized objective is to introduce ambiguity into the law by intent. This ambiguity mitigates the law or abrogates it or throws it to the courts to decide in the favor of law or the favor of those that seek to sub-optimize the law.
Citizen United?
If we created a object oriented information engineering design describing the relationship attributes of:
A Citizen
Corporations
The Constitution
US Code
Court Decisions
The whole sorry mess of expressing these complex conceptual things would be much more precise. Apply a precise methodology to a system structured to reduce ambiguity and then let the chips fall where they may.
We the people need that system and method of operation made possible by information technology. It is not the language that we as citizens generally use to organized and apply the rules of law.
Corporations, specifically financial entities, use information engineering technology as a language of choice.
We, the people, are out gunned in this battle. Among us there are those that are not. They have the skills and the tools. What is in it for them?
Those that come forward to give their time and efforts to applying information technology to things like the US code to make a bowl of spaghetti an organized conceptual structure that works better for us are true patriots in the tradition of our Founding Fathers that gave us the initial conceptual structural information engineered design for the building of out country. Not much has been done since then.
In the 1920's there was an effort as described by Wikipedia:
The official version of the Code is published by the LRC as a series of paper volumes. The first edition of the Code was contained in a single bound volume; today, it spans several large volumes. Normally, a new edition of the Code is issued every six years, with annual cumulative supplements identifying the changes made by Congress since the last "main edition" was published.[18]
In practice, however, the Code is kept up-to-date on a near-current basis as laws are enacted, and notes are printed in the margins of the slip laws indicating where each section will be codified, if at all. Both the LRC and the GPO offer electronic versions of the Code to the public. The electronic version may be as much as 18 months behind current legislation, but it is the most up to date official version.
We can now do better than that!!!
There are 50 titles in the US Code. It is self evident that it is bloated, dis-organized and in need of restructuring.
A rule of thumb of information engineering says that big things in a top down break down, or if you want to look at it from the bottom up assembly view point. Break down (or build up) to a number of major component things (concepts) that range between 8 and 12 components. They each break down to things or concepts that range between 8 and 12 components.
The Bill of Rights are the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. Furthermore they are exclusive one to one relationships. The discrete conceptual relationship type on which conceptual structures are founded. Like the concept of one person, one vote.
The start of a solid conceptual structure is easy. However, if it is a major conceptual structure the start is most likely revolutionary as well as simple. There is no need for a new revolutionary start. Just a revolutionary change in how we apply our tools to the problem of implementing the vision.
Wiggle Room? That is the application of the best information technology tools available and used in the hands of the few to take the results of applying information technology to gain knowledge advantage and then codify rules identified by that knowledge in a cumbersome system of expression (US Code) that lacks the structural conceptual support of an equally engineered information system.
This sums up what was said in the first paragraph with some refinement based on all the paragraphs in between:
All the US Code has is the words and their conceptual related structures to support it. Words, only words, fail in a complex system. The implementation of the law is only in words vs the introduction of legislation based on information engineered structural analysis of sub-optimized objectives intended to repeal laws or introduce laws that do not apply and therefore contribute to attaining sub-optimized special interest objectives.
Ambiguity is described by Wikipedia here. Ambiguity in the Lexical Form is described by Wikipedia here. It is describes the term Polysemy. A word that is so unusual that my spell checker questions its existence. Well, it does not think Wikipedia is a real word either. It is not just ambiguous about it, it is a fact to the spell checker.
Moving along the continuum of ambiguity expression in different languages is a trip from linguistics, spoken, written language to math. Math defines ambiguity in math functions.
In the English language there might be a refining iteration applied to ambiguity to derive clarity. Discussion.
In computer languages there are routines that iterate ambiguity to reduce it to some lesser state suitable for further processing in accordance with applicable algorithms. Ultimately it might present a decision to be made by the user of the application when the program fails to find an answer.
The US Code is a huge volume of written words. Their is a hierarchical chapter structure to it as old fashion as the early 20th century. And now this is on an Apple App.
In our modern information age one of our greatest challenges is to structure our body of law as contained in the US Code in the rigorous relationship manner that information engineering technology has made possible.
The magnitude of the task is like trying to straighten out a bowl of spaghetti!
It can be done. It is a problem domain to be solved like sending a man to the moon or creating an Internet. Who is going to do it and what is in it for them. It would appear that there is more interest in maintaining the legacy system of defining the law of the land, the US Code in the legacy system. A legacy system in which ambiguity and the difficulty and inadequacy of that system of expression works to the benefit of those that would preserve and perpetuate it and to the maximum extent defend it. Not to defend the essence and clarity of the law but the ambiguity of its language of expression. The English language. Not the English language as an expression of the under laying computer technology expression of the logical structure relationship of the concepts expressed by the written language of the law.
The law says what it says. The meaning of the law is in the words and their relationships to other words creating a conceptual structure.
The conceptual structure of our written laws, the US Code, must be expressed in a more precise manner, the under laying conceptual structure of an information engineered system implemented on a computer system.
Wow! There is a big challenge for the 21st Century!
The problem domain of the law is essentially the same as the problem domain of money. The difference is that those that control the money system have used information technology to organize their control of money and the society that uses their money. Bankster money.
Those that control the system of laws in our country have not used used information technology to organize their control of the laws of the land. The laws that dictate the operating systems and application programs of what money is and what money does as well as all the other things that are meant to be the application of the laws of our land.
Plausible Deniability as described here by Wikipedia is a function of Ambiguity.
Ambiguity = Wiggle Room
Ambiguity = Wiggle Room as a sub-optimized system design objective intent undermines the stated purpose and goal of the system.
The Law of the Land is the Law of the Land. The sub-optimized objective is to introduce ambiguity into the law by intent. This ambiguity mitigates the law or abrogates it or throws it to the courts to decide in the favor of law or the favor of those that seek to sub-optimize the law.
Citizen United?
If we created a object oriented information engineering design describing the relationship attributes of:
A Citizen
Corporations
The Constitution
US Code
Court Decisions
The whole sorry mess of expressing these complex conceptual things would be much more precise. Apply a precise methodology to a system structured to reduce ambiguity and then let the chips fall where they may.
We the people need that system and method of operation made possible by information technology. It is not the language that we as citizens generally use to organized and apply the rules of law.
Corporations, specifically financial entities, use information engineering technology as a language of choice.
We, the people, are out gunned in this battle. Among us there are those that are not. They have the skills and the tools. What is in it for them?
Those that come forward to give their time and efforts to applying information technology to things like the US code to make a bowl of spaghetti an organized conceptual structure that works better for us are true patriots in the tradition of our Founding Fathers that gave us the initial conceptual structural information engineered design for the building of out country. Not much has been done since then.
In the 1920's there was an effort as described by Wikipedia:
Official code
During the 1920s, some members of Congress revived the codification project, resulting in the approval of the United States Code by Congress in 1926.[17]The official version of the Code is published by the LRC as a series of paper volumes. The first edition of the Code was contained in a single bound volume; today, it spans several large volumes. Normally, a new edition of the Code is issued every six years, with annual cumulative supplements identifying the changes made by Congress since the last "main edition" was published.[18]
In practice, however, the Code is kept up-to-date on a near-current basis as laws are enacted, and notes are printed in the margins of the slip laws indicating where each section will be codified, if at all. Both the LRC and the GPO offer electronic versions of the Code to the public. The electronic version may be as much as 18 months behind current legislation, but it is the most up to date official version.
We can now do better than that!!!
There are 50 titles in the US Code. It is self evident that it is bloated, dis-organized and in need of restructuring.
A rule of thumb of information engineering says that big things in a top down break down, or if you want to look at it from the bottom up assembly view point. Break down (or build up) to a number of major component things (concepts) that range between 8 and 12 components. They each break down to things or concepts that range between 8 and 12 components.
The Bill of Rights are the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. Furthermore they are exclusive one to one relationships. The discrete conceptual relationship type on which conceptual structures are founded. Like the concept of one person, one vote.
The start of a solid conceptual structure is easy. However, if it is a major conceptual structure the start is most likely revolutionary as well as simple. There is no need for a new revolutionary start. Just a revolutionary change in how we apply our tools to the problem of implementing the vision.
Wiggle Room? That is the application of the best information technology tools available and used in the hands of the few to take the results of applying information technology to gain knowledge advantage and then codify rules identified by that knowledge in a cumbersome system of expression (US Code) that lacks the structural conceptual support of an equally engineered information system.
This sums up what was said in the first paragraph with some refinement based on all the paragraphs in between:
All the US Code has is the words and their conceptual related structures to support it. Words, only words, fail in a complex system. The implementation of the law is only in words vs the introduction of legislation based on information engineered structural analysis of sub-optimized objectives intended to repeal laws or introduce laws that do not apply and therefore contribute to attaining sub-optimized special interest objectives.
The US Code is an App!
The US Code is an iTunes App. The entire US Code! On your own iPhone.
The US Code Is described here by Wikipedia.
The Code of Laws of the United States of America[1] (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, or U.S.C.) is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States. It contains 51 titles[2] (along with a further 4 proposed titles[3]).
Imagine it: All the laws of the land, and we are a nation of laws, on your iPhone. In your pocket. Senator Byrd always carried a copy of the constitution in his breast pocket. Now Senators can carry a copy of all the federal laws.
What is it worth to carry the most valuable document in your pocket? Close to your heart? It is as beneficial as wearing a crucifix or sacred medal. It has good PR value that says this is what the carrier believes in. What exactly does it say? Hard to say unless it actually says something with a picture or words on it or the symbol itself is an expression of belief.
The US Code on an App in the breast pocket says it all. In detail. Fantastic! At any given time it can be consulted to find out what the law is and if an individual is or is not breaking the law and if so, what the penalties might be.
H.R. 347 might someday become law. Become part of the US Code. An amendment to US Code – Section 3056. If so, creating a future update to the App.
Johnathan Turly discusses H.R. 347 here.
"Coincidentally and often, abuses of civil or human rights in the United States derive from the same source as law made via precedent. That source is vague or overly broad legislation and imprecise use of language. As a matter of good drafting practice, this is why precision language is encouraged – to provide clarity and minimize ambiguity in the letter of the law. When vague laws create issues in court, the court either makes a ruling creating precedent and consequently a plan of action for how to address the issue moving forward although occasionally a law is overturned in toto for vagueness and the legislature can take a fresh swing writing the law."
However, it seems to be a trend that vague or overly broad language could be fairly described as being purposefully adopted allowing “wiggle room” for Federal authorities to potentially abuse civil and human rights under the color of authority."
Wiggle Room? Isn't that what Wall Street wants to buy in financial legislation? That wiggle room in the law that makes the law not applicable to whatever the law states? If that wiggle room is in doubt then it becomes a matter for the courts, the Supreme Court if necessary, to resolve. Sounds like legislation by the courts by default (or intention?) of the law making institution of our country?
Dangerous stuff. That is exactly how laws are bought. Not necessarily laws blatantly favoring the buyer but laws that are not well written precisely stated laws in themselves but once on the "books", part of the US Code, interpretation is thrown to the courts. Overwork and under staff and buy the courts as well as those prosecutors that bring cases to the courts and what is the result.
Result? How many banksters have been prosecuted. They crashed the economic system but no laws were broken? There were laws but they were repealed. The remaining laws have wiggle room, by design.
The US Code Is described here by Wikipedia.
The Code of Laws of the United States of America[1] (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, or U.S.C.) is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States. It contains 51 titles[2] (along with a further 4 proposed titles[3]).
Imagine it: All the laws of the land, and we are a nation of laws, on your iPhone. In your pocket. Senator Byrd always carried a copy of the constitution in his breast pocket. Now Senators can carry a copy of all the federal laws.
What is it worth to carry the most valuable document in your pocket? Close to your heart? It is as beneficial as wearing a crucifix or sacred medal. It has good PR value that says this is what the carrier believes in. What exactly does it say? Hard to say unless it actually says something with a picture or words on it or the symbol itself is an expression of belief.
The US Code on an App in the breast pocket says it all. In detail. Fantastic! At any given time it can be consulted to find out what the law is and if an individual is or is not breaking the law and if so, what the penalties might be.
H.R. 347 might someday become law. Become part of the US Code. An amendment to US Code – Section 3056. If so, creating a future update to the App.
Johnathan Turly discusses H.R. 347 here.
"Coincidentally and often, abuses of civil or human rights in the United States derive from the same source as law made via precedent. That source is vague or overly broad legislation and imprecise use of language. As a matter of good drafting practice, this is why precision language is encouraged – to provide clarity and minimize ambiguity in the letter of the law. When vague laws create issues in court, the court either makes a ruling creating precedent and consequently a plan of action for how to address the issue moving forward although occasionally a law is overturned in toto for vagueness and the legislature can take a fresh swing writing the law."
However, it seems to be a trend that vague or overly broad language could be fairly described as being purposefully adopted allowing “wiggle room” for Federal authorities to potentially abuse civil and human rights under the color of authority."
Wiggle Room? Isn't that what Wall Street wants to buy in financial legislation? That wiggle room in the law that makes the law not applicable to whatever the law states? If that wiggle room is in doubt then it becomes a matter for the courts, the Supreme Court if necessary, to resolve. Sounds like legislation by the courts by default (or intention?) of the law making institution of our country?
Dangerous stuff. That is exactly how laws are bought. Not necessarily laws blatantly favoring the buyer but laws that are not well written precisely stated laws in themselves but once on the "books", part of the US Code, interpretation is thrown to the courts. Overwork and under staff and buy the courts as well as those prosecutors that bring cases to the courts and what is the result.
Result? How many banksters have been prosecuted. They crashed the economic system but no laws were broken? There were laws but they were repealed. The remaining laws have wiggle room, by design.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Money Packets Applied in a Social Media
In the fantasy monetary system every single uniquely serialized digital dollar resides on a central server with an association to a uniquely identified monetary system user. As the user makes makes transactions with their money the identity of the holder of that money changes.
That means a great magnitude of money changing hands in any given time period!
No, not really, if you consider relative orders of magnitude. All that money changing hands, trillions of dollars, is not that much. Compared to what? Trillion of dollars sounds big considering the value we place on just one dollar but it is only big in terms of relative value. As far as a number goes, the absolute total of all units of value called dollars is small as are the number of transactions involving the change in possession of these dollars
Compared to what? The speed of light. Brain cells in our heads. The firing of their synapses per unit of time. The number of unique packets of information sent over the internet between sending and receiving computers?
A trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there. When you get to amounts that are better expressed in numbers with exponent values then you are talking about real big numbers!
Consider the internet. Information flowing all over the world. Actually flowing in little pieces. Pieces called packets. It is amazing how these packets encapsulate information and pass them from a sender to a receiver over the internet. Exactly how I communicate from myself to some one else over the internet is amazing.
Each packet is simple. In simplest form it has a header, a payload and a footer. The payload is an specified amount of information in bits and bytes. The total amount of information to be passed over the internet is broken into these little packets for transmission.
How Things Work explains internet packets in simple terms. There are increasingly complex explanations all the way to the level that only a genius could understand. The simple one will do.
You may think that a monetary system that manages the storage and transactions of units of money as uniquely serialized digital dollars with a denomination of one is an unmaageable way to structure a money system. Unmanageable compared to storage and transactions based on unique numerical totals of the money stored in an individual bank account or the total amount of money involved in any transaction like buying groceries with a credit card.
This is the age of computer information. The old way of managing totals of money in an account or totals in a money transactions was an accounting function handled by book keepers. Book keepers have gone the way of switchboard operators! We had to aggregate information into high level packets in the past. Packets of a size dictated by the ability of a person to manage them. The information age has dis-aggregated information to levels processed by a computer machine and networks of computer communications.
Because we have always looked at money in one way we continue to look at it in the same way. It is our user view of the money system. We can continue to view our money as being a lump sum in our account at a bank. Receiving it in the total amount of a paycheck deposited in an account and adding to the total balance or spending it with a credit card in given total amount subtracting it from the total in the bank account.
The way we look at anything is called a user view. My user view of looking at what I am typing on this blog is letters on a computer screen. So much easier than writing them on a piece of paper with a pen. The computer's user view of what I am writing is totally different. It is ones and zeros that it organizes in a fashion that can be transformed back into what I am typing so I can see it in terms of my input user view. Much easier than me reading the machine code that the computer looks at. I could look at it and translate it from bits and bytes if I had to but that is not the most efficient view for me. It is for the computer.
The money system used to have to look at money as totals of units because it was constrained by employee resources to look at money totals in an aggregate manner. Now it is done by machines, communicated by machines. It is not constrained to look at money or process money in the same we we, in our human user view, like to look at and process money.
Computers and computer communication systems are the model on which to structure our money system. Money is virtual, fiat money. Brought into virtual reality when a unit chunk of it is encapsulated and uniquely identified. Defined as money when a uniquely identified owner is assigned to it. A money transaction change in ownership is accomplished by internet communication packets. Each packet encapsulates a message of what to do with each serialized digital dollar specified in the packet payload.
How to build a new money system? Look at the way we created what computers do and how they communicate. They dis-aggregate to the lowest level. Then they build up that level of dis-aggregate to the level of whoever or whatever is the view of choice chosen by user of the system.
Money is information in a computer system packet network. That system is already built. All we have to do is apply this thing we call money to it.
Money is just numbers.
What money does is the application of the numbers to whatever we choose using it in a decision making process.
The application of money is a decision in a social media.
That means a great magnitude of money changing hands in any given time period!
No, not really, if you consider relative orders of magnitude. All that money changing hands, trillions of dollars, is not that much. Compared to what? Trillion of dollars sounds big considering the value we place on just one dollar but it is only big in terms of relative value. As far as a number goes, the absolute total of all units of value called dollars is small as are the number of transactions involving the change in possession of these dollars
Compared to what? The speed of light. Brain cells in our heads. The firing of their synapses per unit of time. The number of unique packets of information sent over the internet between sending and receiving computers?
A trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there. When you get to amounts that are better expressed in numbers with exponent values then you are talking about real big numbers!
Consider the internet. Information flowing all over the world. Actually flowing in little pieces. Pieces called packets. It is amazing how these packets encapsulate information and pass them from a sender to a receiver over the internet. Exactly how I communicate from myself to some one else over the internet is amazing.
Each packet is simple. In simplest form it has a header, a payload and a footer. The payload is an specified amount of information in bits and bytes. The total amount of information to be passed over the internet is broken into these little packets for transmission.
How Things Work explains internet packets in simple terms. There are increasingly complex explanations all the way to the level that only a genius could understand. The simple one will do.
You may think that a monetary system that manages the storage and transactions of units of money as uniquely serialized digital dollars with a denomination of one is an unmaageable way to structure a money system. Unmanageable compared to storage and transactions based on unique numerical totals of the money stored in an individual bank account or the total amount of money involved in any transaction like buying groceries with a credit card.
This is the age of computer information. The old way of managing totals of money in an account or totals in a money transactions was an accounting function handled by book keepers. Book keepers have gone the way of switchboard operators! We had to aggregate information into high level packets in the past. Packets of a size dictated by the ability of a person to manage them. The information age has dis-aggregated information to levels processed by a computer machine and networks of computer communications.
Because we have always looked at money in one way we continue to look at it in the same way. It is our user view of the money system. We can continue to view our money as being a lump sum in our account at a bank. Receiving it in the total amount of a paycheck deposited in an account and adding to the total balance or spending it with a credit card in given total amount subtracting it from the total in the bank account.
The way we look at anything is called a user view. My user view of looking at what I am typing on this blog is letters on a computer screen. So much easier than writing them on a piece of paper with a pen. The computer's user view of what I am writing is totally different. It is ones and zeros that it organizes in a fashion that can be transformed back into what I am typing so I can see it in terms of my input user view. Much easier than me reading the machine code that the computer looks at. I could look at it and translate it from bits and bytes if I had to but that is not the most efficient view for me. It is for the computer.
The money system used to have to look at money as totals of units because it was constrained by employee resources to look at money totals in an aggregate manner. Now it is done by machines, communicated by machines. It is not constrained to look at money or process money in the same we we, in our human user view, like to look at and process money.
Computers and computer communication systems are the model on which to structure our money system. Money is virtual, fiat money. Brought into virtual reality when a unit chunk of it is encapsulated and uniquely identified. Defined as money when a uniquely identified owner is assigned to it. A money transaction change in ownership is accomplished by internet communication packets. Each packet encapsulates a message of what to do with each serialized digital dollar specified in the packet payload.
How to build a new money system? Look at the way we created what computers do and how they communicate. They dis-aggregate to the lowest level. Then they build up that level of dis-aggregate to the level of whoever or whatever is the view of choice chosen by user of the system.
Money is information in a computer system packet network. That system is already built. All we have to do is apply this thing we call money to it.
Money is just numbers.
What money does is the application of the numbers to whatever we choose using it in a decision making process.
The application of money is a decision in a social media.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Tracing Things As They Flow, Where They Go
I am reading mathbabe's blog. She has some interesting links in the list of blogs and sites she follows. When I find one great site, it usually connects with others. This is one of them:
http://flowingdata.com/
The visual display of cell phone (a couple of entries down) movement is intriguing. Since most people have one it is like tagging every person in the city and following their movement over time. While the exact nature of what is being recorded is not clear, it seems to be calls and motion during calls, looking at the result opens many possibilities for info extraction.
There appears to be a body of water and flows go across it. Too many to be water transportation? Maybe not. At one point a large number of calls seem to originate half way across. The time it takes a passenger to find a seat? While the information displayed is generally evident, not knowing the details I am not sure how to make any specific observations.
Maybe this is what the analysts look at when all the iPhone location reporting data is displayed?
Personal location tracking is an invasion of privacy. Gross analysis of personal movement via anonymized cell phone tracking for data mining/extraction for monetizing or academic research purposes has fascinating value.
The newest Boeing model did a test flight around the USA. It spelled something on the map, maybe the model number, using location tracking. The tracks of all flights around the USA per day shows gross information and node relations.
Scientists tag things with some type of traceable property in experiments to see where they go, how they interact. This is the same thing applied to people. It could be viewed in real time. Or even projected back to see where convergence came from such as where did all the people in a stadium come from to get there. Providing individual privacy is safeguarded, of course. Single entities cannot be tracked or their tracks deduced.
In my imaginary money system what if the aggregate movement of money where every single dollar is serialized could be displayed in real time or over any selected time period as is flows in transactions. National movement. International movement. The nodes would be interesting. Washington, Wall St. USA/China or Offshore Islands? Playing the video history flow presentation in reverse as well as forward from any given point in time. Applying test variables like exchange rates, labor rates, skill levels, investment, debt, etc. in an algorithm to see where it would flow in the future?
Actual serialized dollar bills have been tracked in a similar manner to see where they go. Tracking them in Bend would show that (I think) 80% simply cycle around in Bend. CDC tracking serialized dollar bills was used as a model for how infectious disease spreads.
http://flowingdata.com/
The visual display of cell phone (a couple of entries down) movement is intriguing. Since most people have one it is like tagging every person in the city and following their movement over time. While the exact nature of what is being recorded is not clear, it seems to be calls and motion during calls, looking at the result opens many possibilities for info extraction.
There appears to be a body of water and flows go across it. Too many to be water transportation? Maybe not. At one point a large number of calls seem to originate half way across. The time it takes a passenger to find a seat? While the information displayed is generally evident, not knowing the details I am not sure how to make any specific observations.
Maybe this is what the analysts look at when all the iPhone location reporting data is displayed?
Personal location tracking is an invasion of privacy. Gross analysis of personal movement via anonymized cell phone tracking for data mining/extraction for monetizing or academic research purposes has fascinating value.
The newest Boeing model did a test flight around the USA. It spelled something on the map, maybe the model number, using location tracking. The tracks of all flights around the USA per day shows gross information and node relations.
Scientists tag things with some type of traceable property in experiments to see where they go, how they interact. This is the same thing applied to people. It could be viewed in real time. Or even projected back to see where convergence came from such as where did all the people in a stadium come from to get there. Providing individual privacy is safeguarded, of course. Single entities cannot be tracked or their tracks deduced.
In my imaginary money system what if the aggregate movement of money where every single dollar is serialized could be displayed in real time or over any selected time period as is flows in transactions. National movement. International movement. The nodes would be interesting. Washington, Wall St. USA/China or Offshore Islands? Playing the video history flow presentation in reverse as well as forward from any given point in time. Applying test variables like exchange rates, labor rates, skill levels, investment, debt, etc. in an algorithm to see where it would flow in the future?
Actual serialized dollar bills have been tracked in a similar manner to see where they go. Tracking them in Bend would show that (I think) 80% simply cycle around in Bend. CDC tracking serialized dollar bills was used as a model for how infectious disease spreads.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Economic Shamans
It is about time to start throwing rocks at the Economist Shamans and their incantations of hocus pocus expressed in terms of a respectable language called math and the those that use that language called (real) scientists.
Economists Fiddle with the position of some bones, stones or tea leaves and thinking that it has some actual relationship to an outcome that they say it will have because the numbers in the model say it will. The incentive is to fiddle with the things that produce a sub optimized self interest benefit for themselves, proving their own ideological theories or beneficial to the ones they work for like banksters and politicians. Then hide it all in a lack of transparency. Some, few, Economists might be at the end of their professional spectrum closer to science than the rest but they are heterodox heretics shunned by the brotherhood of priests.
Cathy, evidently a math geek, called baloney here on economists. Today I found more about Cathy O'Neil here. Her blog site is mathbabe.
If Economists are defenders of the Faith, using scientific method for unscientific purposes and twisted to their sub-optimized (evil or just plain ignorant sheep) objectives, Cathy is a defender of the Science in the finest traditions of scientific truth and transparency.
A new Super Hero??
Yes!
I have only started to read what she has written. She is active in OWS.
I say: Go Cathy!!!
Economists Fiddle with the position of some bones, stones or tea leaves and thinking that it has some actual relationship to an outcome that they say it will have because the numbers in the model say it will. The incentive is to fiddle with the things that produce a sub optimized self interest benefit for themselves, proving their own ideological theories or beneficial to the ones they work for like banksters and politicians. Then hide it all in a lack of transparency. Some, few, Economists might be at the end of their professional spectrum closer to science than the rest but they are heterodox heretics shunned by the brotherhood of priests.
Cathy, evidently a math geek, called baloney here on economists. Today I found more about Cathy O'Neil here. Her blog site is mathbabe.
If Economists are defenders of the Faith, using scientific method for unscientific purposes and twisted to their sub-optimized (evil or just plain ignorant sheep) objectives, Cathy is a defender of the Science in the finest traditions of scientific truth and transparency.
A new Super Hero??
Yes!
I have only started to read what she has written. She is active in OWS.
I say: Go Cathy!!!
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Economics Is Not A Science
This is the best statement on the fallacy of Economics as a science in relation to hard science, your kind of science. Even masquerading as a Social Science it is nothing more than a priesthood invoking the tools of science for pseudo science black magic.
It is long but I liked this:
Economics is a priesthood that truly believes it is not a priesthood but, rather, a community of scientists. How do they manage to maintain this delusion? The simple answer is because their incantations involve rather advanced mathematics and their rituals are steeped in statistical tests and projections.
Indeed, in aesthetic terms, the economists’ papers, models, presentations seem indistinguishable from those of physicists, bio-statisticians etc. The only difference is that, unlike the latter, economists generate nothing more than analytical propositions about economic variables which are, as Popper would have pointed out, profoundly non-falsifiable. And here is the rub. Once their non-falsifiable (and thus non-verifiable) propositions are expressed, the statistical tests that follow (usually referred to as econometrics) give economists a great excuse to imagine that their models have been tested. But tested they never are!
It is long but I liked this:
Economics is a priesthood that truly believes it is not a priesthood but, rather, a community of scientists. How do they manage to maintain this delusion? The simple answer is because their incantations involve rather advanced mathematics and their rituals are steeped in statistical tests and projections.
Indeed, in aesthetic terms, the economists’ papers, models, presentations seem indistinguishable from those of physicists, bio-statisticians etc. The only difference is that, unlike the latter, economists generate nothing more than analytical propositions about economic variables which are, as Popper would have pointed out, profoundly non-falsifiable. And here is the rub. Once their non-falsifiable (and thus non-verifiable) propositions are expressed, the statistical tests that follow (usually referred to as econometrics) give economists a great excuse to imagine that their models have been tested. But tested they never are!
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