R.I.P. Norman E. Borlaug

In late 1944 a guy named George Harrar collected a bunch of agriculture nerds and led them to Mexico. The U.S. didn't consider agriculture a critical strategic resource (we were self-sufficient) and the Mexicans needed help pretty badly (they were not sufficient - self or otherwise). Despite massive amounts of sunshine, they were still importing massive quantities of cereals. One of the agri-nerds was a guy named Norman E. Borlaug.

Another agri-nerd named Cecil Salmon (really, that's his name) was stationed in occupied Japan after WW II. He collected a bunch of wheat samples and sent them to his buddy Orville Vogel (I swear, I'm not making these names up!). In Japan, everything is smaller: DVD players, cars, even wheat.

Orville crossed "Norin 10," one of Cecil's wheat plants from Japan, with "Brevor 14," a big, tough, high-yield American wheat strain. The result was short, squat, tough, and high-yield. This is good because it wouldn't fall over -- a serious problem with wheat. He sent this "Norin 10/Brevor" down to Norman Borlaug in Mexico.

For years, Norman moved around in Mexico, planting wheat in different places in the fall, harvesting it, then planting it someplace new in the spring. Doing this eliminates "photoperiodism" -- a tendency for a plant to only grow well in one particular place because of the exact conditions of day length, shade, humidity, seasons, etc. Moving from place to place produced a wheat that would grow in many different places.

In the 1960's - not that long ago - Mexico became self-sufficient in cereal production. Because of the wheat that Norman Borlaug developed. India and Pakistan were at war, and didn't notice until too late that their cereal crops were failing. Oops. So they called up the Americans, and asked us to send them a couple of million tons of wheat above and beyond what we were already sending them (at the time, the U.S. was exporting 20% of our wheat to Asia).

My buddy George is from Greece. He owns a pizza shop. But in the late 60's/early 70's, he was a young man working on a freighter. One of the trips he took was to ship grain to from the U.S. to India. At the U.S. terminal, they left the ship, went off on "shore leave," and got called back early because it only took 12 hours to fill the entire ship with grain. Railroad car after railroad car dumped grain into a hopper, which fed a system of conveyors which dumped the grain into the ship. The crew didn't even have time to get drunk before it was time to leave.

When they reached India, they opened the hatches, set up walkways to the shore, and literally hundreds of men came on board. They had to lock everything down because there were so many people on the ship. Each man would come on board, walk to the dispatch point, and would pick up a cloth sack. There was a crew of men filling the cloth sacks with grain, using shovels. The bearers would carry the sack on their backs down the walkway to the warehouse, drop off a load of grain, and head back to the ship. It took 30 days to unload.

That is how countries like India and Pakistan (and Turkey and Mexico and Uruguay and so on) were trying to feed their people. They couldn't grow enough cereals. The U.S. could. A ship fills up in Chicago, or Seattle, or L.A. in less than a day. It sails to someplace, and then an army of small, sweating men scrambles day after day for weeks to unload it.

In 1963, Norman Borlaug went to India. The Indian government didn't want him there. They wouldn't let him plant his "monster" wheat. In 1965, children were starving to death. In 1965, Norman got to grow some wheat. He had imported about 500 tons of the stuff to India and Pakistan. The 1965 crop yields (amount of crops per acre of land) were higher than any wheat crop measured in Asia. Ever.

Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production by 1968. Indian yields were up 66% from 1965 to 1970. By 1974, India was self-sufficient in production of all cereals (wheat, corn, rice, everything).

At 1965 productivity levels, India would have needed to plant an additional amount of crops roughly the same size as the entire state of California to feed their population. Or let them die of starvation.

Since the 1960's, and the "Green Revolution" led by Dr. Borlaug, countries like India, Pakistan, Mexico, Turkey, and most of Latin America have become self-sufficient, or locally sufficient, in cereal production. Countries like Georgia, Ukraine, Mexico, Turkey, and Australia have become significant exporters of wheat or other cereals. India now exports food. China isn't an exporter, but they're close to self-sufficient.

According to the Bible, Jesus Christ performed the "Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes" and fed about 4,000 people. One time. Norman Borlaug developed wheat and took it to Mexico and India, and directly saved the lives of about 245 million people. Try it this way: Jesus = 4,000. Norman = 245,000,000.

(By "directly saved," I don't mean "Here's dinner." I mean "You'll die without food? Starting today, here's enough food each year for your and your family for the rest of your life. You're saved.")

What's more, that was in the 1960's. Those people have had children. In many places, they've had a lot of children. With a 20 year generation (mom has kids at 20, has grand-kids when she's 40) we're at the grand-kid point for those 245 million people. How many lives were "made possible by" Norman Borlaug? I think a billion (that's 1,000,000,000, or 1/6th of the population of the entire world.) is a conservative estimate.

Norman Ernest Borlaug died Saturday, September 12, 2009.

I had the pleasure of attending the Iowa State Fair in 2008. (Norman was from Iowa.) Each year they make a "butter cow" - a life-sized statue of a cow made from butter and some steel reinforcing rods. They also make some other stuff. That year, they had a "butter Borlaug."

You don't see Greenpeace or the Sierra Club or PETA praising Norman Borlaug. But you'd think they would appreciate a guy who prevented India from tearing up "natural wilderness" as big as California to plant crops.

You don't see the Send-Money-for-the-Children TV folks running ads about Dr. Borlaug, despite the fact that he fed about a billion children, give or take. And you don't see the Reverend Billy-Bob quoting the gospel of ol' Norman, despite the fact that for every single person that Jesus fed dinner once at a meeting, Norman fed 60,000 people. For the rest of their lives.

Strangely, you don't see the news channels talking about Norman, even now that he's dead. There's an actor, and a musician, and a student in the "U.S" news. Norman got a paragraph in the "World" news, probably because the people with the most to say about him were from places like India and Mexico and Pakistan. Go figure.

It seems like there ought to be more said about the man.

I wonder if Time magazine has ever done a "Greatest American, Ever" issue.

I can't even count to 245,000,000.

President Obama - just "on time."

So tomorrow, the U.S. will inaugurate its first non-white-male president. Barack Obama will become the 44th president. According to every news station on the planet, this election of an African-American is a giant accomplishment. But is it?

Let's consider two things. First, his "African-ness." I don't agree with the idea that all people of color are "African Americans." For instance, I've heard this used to apply to a man from CANADA. Wouldn't he be "African-Canadian" instead? (Of course, it was explained to me that Canada is part of the American continent, but my geography book doesn't have an American continent -- it has a North America and a South America.) And of course people of color living in the UK (which makes them people of "colour," I suppose) can't be called anything-American, since there's not much question that they're not in or from America.

Barack, though, is the son of a Kenyan father who, the story goes, never saw him after his first year. To me, this makes him a Kenyan-American. He is (IMO) far more "African-American" than your average black kid on campus. Much the same way that Mary Conchetti down the street is an Italian-American. I wonder though, if he is "too African" for American politics. That is, since he is clearly not the N-generations-removed descendant of a slave, does that tarnish his credibility? I'm not any kind of color, so my opinion isn't going to get asked. But if push ever comes to shove between Barack Obama and the leadership of the Democratic party, or the leadership of the Black Caucus, I wonder if that will count against him.

Second, consider this: the really important part of Obama's election is that the U.S. has broken the chain of white men. We are told that electing Barack Obama represents the triumph of destiny, that a people's struggle is paying off, that blah-blah-blah. But again, how true is this? Let's do some math, and find out.

First, when did non-whites become able to participate in U.S. politics? Well, if you're a Republican, they got it after the Civil War thanks to good old Abe Lincoln. Amendment XV (that's 15 for you high school kids) says, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Now everybody knows that people of color weren't voting that often around the turn of the 20th century. So if you're a Democrat, you'll point out that it took the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's to empower blacks and to remove the segregation laws.

I'll point out here that both parties are wrong. First, free blacks had the right to vote according to the North Carolina Supreme Court long before the Civil War. The North Carolina Constitution was amended to REMOVE this right in 1835. Whoops. And second, after the Civil War there was the "Reconstruction" period. And after that period the rights of blacks were quickly squelched or taken away by the politicians then in office, who were uniformly Democrats. ("Southern Democrat" is a special term in American politics for this reason. In many ways they are Republicans that belong to the Democratic party -- this is why successful Democratic presidential tickets now always include a southern president or VP candidate.)

But giving credit where it's due, participation in the political process was definitely higher after the Civil Rights movement than before. So let's wave our magic wand and say that all political power for people of color starts there. But that begs the question of when, exactly, it started. Because the movement took time. Again let's say, for the sake of having a starting point, that it all began with the signing by President Johnson of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

So what? Well, it means that in our simplified world, non-whites have been potentially, theoretically electable as president since 1964. Now there was an election in 1964, and in 68, and every four years thereafter. Obama won his election in 2008. So in 44 years, there have been 11 elections (not counting the one in 1964). And of those elections, exactly one has been won by a colored person. 1/11, or 9%.

Let's ask this question: how many colored people are there? If the NAACP is doing their job, how many people are receiving the benefits? Well, the Census Bureau (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html) says the number was 12.8 percent back in 2006.

Think about that for a minute: a sub-group of the U.S. population that makes up 12.8% of citizens has won 9% of elections. Is that unfair?

Not only "no," but "hell, no." If we were picking presidents by some kind of lottery, that kind of statistical deviation would be more than just fine - it would be extraordinary given the small number (11 elections) of samples chosen. Think about all the times you hear election results being called with "plus or minus 3 percent, with 1500 samples".

Statistically, using random draws, we would expect 12.8% of the population to be represented by 12.8% of the results. And they have: because 12.8% of 11 elections is still gonna round off to "1". (13% of 11 is going to be "1 point something", which means "1".)

If you think about it, it is FAR more impressive that a man from Hawaii has won an election. Hawaii became the 50th United State in late August, 1959. So they've been eligible for 13 elections. And Hawaiians are nowhere close to 1/50th of the total population. So according to random distribution, a colored person has a 12.8% chance to be president, while a Hawaiian has at best a 2% (1/50th) chance by state, although by population it would be far less.

Let's consider another bit of math: women got the vote in 1776, when New Jersey permitted women owning more than $250 to vote. (We changed our minds quickly, though.) Then in 1869, Wyoming (the Equality State) gave women the franchise. And finally on August 26, 1920, the XXVI amendment passed, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any States on Account of sex."

Now women were a little slow on the uptake, but they do have a presence at most political levels. However, let's go back to the math. Women make up, according to the same 2006 census data, 50.7% of the population. So of the elections since 1964, how many should they have won if they were drawn at random? 50.7%, of course. And how many have they won? Zero. Hmm. How many have they won since August 26, 1920? Zilch. None. The big goose-egg.

In closing, think about these two points: for all that some old and middle-aged people make a big production about racism in America, it doesn't seem to have affected things that much lately. We've got a colored president just about exactly when we should have one. Barack Obama's presidency isn't "about time" so much as it's just "on time." I suspect that while much is made about racism, it's made in the same way that airplane crashes are made - the rare event that makes the news. Maybe Barack Obama owes his presidency to George W. Bush. Maybe the Democrats could have run a garden slug for president and people would have voted for "anybody but Bush." But I doubt it. I think that the 80- or 70- or 60-whatever percent of this country that isn't really very racist at all, when you come down to it, showed up at the polls. And yeah, some of those guys voted for McCain, too. But would Hillary have stood a chance?

Labor Day

The U.S. Department of Labor has a good explanation of the history and significance of Labor Day. Read it if there's any doubt in your mind what we're 'supposed' to be celebrating. It may surprise you to learn that sales on furniture and the old model year's cars wasn't part of the original spec.

Be that as it may, I have had three or four very similar conversations in the last year or so, and Labor Day seemed like a good day to wrap them up in a nice little package and inflict them on the world. Put your ugly American glasses on and try to follow along.

Losing American Jobs

I just got another copy of a screed penned by some idiot loser bemoaning the fact that everything is made somewhere else:

"Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6am. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA ) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG ). He put on a dress shirt ( MADE IN SRI LANKA ), designer jeans ( MADE IN SINGAPORE ) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA )."

It goes on from there; I'm sure you get the picture. The end result of this is that poor Joe Smith, hapless American worker, can't find a job because all the manufacturing jobs in the country have been raped away and smuggled overseas by the nefarious robber barons who are in charge of all big business, or some such romantic delusion.

Let's try another point of view, shall we?

America Comes of Age
On 25 April, 1898, after years of trash-talk, the United States declared war on Spain. This kicked off the 20th century a few years early, and marked America's entrance into the global political scene. Considering the horrible shape that Spain was in, and considering that Spain had already granted independence to Cuba and limited autonomy to the Phillipines, this wasn't exactly riding to the rescue. But everybody has to start somewhere, and that was our start.

The whole Cuba thing maybe wasn't such a good idea--the Cubans have been a pain in the ass for the last 108 years, and counting. But we also got Hawaii out of the deal, so it can't be all bad, can it? This was also the setting for the "Message to Garcia" that was given out to every sailor and marine in both world wars. (Interestingly, the hero was U.S. Army Lieutenant Andrew S. Rowan. Perhaps the Army didn't feel the need to motivate its troops?)

Shortly afterward, while we are settling in to Hawaii and the Phillipines, the Europeans start getting nervous about Japan. Why? Because the Americans, the British, the Germans, the French, and everybody else that could rivet metal plates together in the shape of a battleship had gone and picked a fight with China. And had kicked butt and twisted arms to get resources and trade agreements out of the Chinese. The Japanese, figuring that looked like a fun and profitable game, wanted to play.

So the Europeans talk Tsar Nicholas into a playground fight: "Nicky, the Japs think you're a wuss! You have to kick their asses." Amazingly enough, he buys it. The Russian fleet sails from the North Atlantic, around the horn of Africa, to the Pacific. The Japanese tell the Russians, and everyone else, "No, we're going to kick your asses." Then, after a couple of warnings, they do.

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, that fourth face on Mt. Rushmore, is climbing the ranks of power. In Cuba, he rode with the Rough Riders. Suddenly, he's President of the United States. And the entire world is pretty scared, since the "Europeans" lost, and Japan is bankrupt. (But happy: they've got a gazillion acres of new real estate to exploit.) Teddy offers the services of the U.S. as a neutral ground for negotiations. The U.S. is being taken seriously (thanks to the shiny new navy, and thanks to our slap-fight with Spain) and wasn't part of the crowd of bullies egging Russia into the fight, so why not? Everybody travels to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for a little R&R. The only problem, though, is despite the huge number of marks in the "W" column for Japan, they don't get any booty. No "reparations." Nada. War's over, kids, now play nice. Boy, do they feel like suckers.

Fast forward a few years and America is bamboozled by the French. Instead of building a canal through Nicaragua, Teddy Roosevelt and company are duped into buying out the French, rescuing the French economy, sentencing an unknown number of American and Caribbean workers to painful death, and by the way, finishing the canal across Panama. Admiral Mahan is fully justified. (And his theories remain the underpinnings of U.S. foreign and military policy.)

Oh, and in case you missed it in all the excitement of digging a giant ditch, Dr. William Crawford Gorgas proved to the world that Yellow Fever is transmitted by mosquitos, and further that you can prevent Yellow Fever if you make a concerted effort to kill every single mosquito. Thanks, doc! (It wasn't his idea. That came from a Cuban physician named Carlos Juan Finlay.)

Scroll the wayback machine forward a few years and Roosevelt is out, Wilson is in, and boy are we not going to get involved in that war in Europe. Really, we're not. Seriously. Aww... okay, we're in!

Now's the part where people start hating: America grew up and saved the world. All that practicing in the Phillipines, that shiny new navy (the "Great White Fleet," at Roosevelt's orders, circumnavigated the globe in 1908), the organization, the new belief that America was a coherent country with a role to play in the world, and the belief that "those hapless chumps in Europe need rescuing" came together at the right time. Woodrow "He Kept Us Out of War" Wilson led America to war.

Gripe all you want, you know it's true: America saved the world. Civilization as we know it would not exist if Wilson hadn't sounded the charge. For those of you keeping score at home, that's one.

America Saves the World

So the Great War is over, the Bolsheviks have taken Russia and started it on its journey to becoming a voracious hell-hole that sucks in truth, beauty, joy, love, and vast quantities of natural resources, and spits out crap: substandard housing, poorly made cars and clothing, and the occasional brilliant scientist or artist. Russia is basically one half of the natural resources of the continent of Asia. Maybe more, since the Chinese have been using theirs, while basically nobody lives in Siberia. One half of one seventh of the world just went dark, and nobody realizes that it's going to stay dark for the next seventy years. It sucks to be you, Ivan Ivanovich. Sorry. It's not great for the world, either: does anybody want to take a 7% pay cut?

Flush with our success, we participate in a giant influenza pandemic. A few million die in the U.S. Surprise! Tens of millions die in places like India and China, but nobody is keeping score so we don't find out for years. On the plus side, the war's over, there are jobs galore, and things are booming. Hooray!

Ten years later, give or take, and the party's over. In the meantime, though, everybody is back on their feet. The Europeans are feeling peckish, the Japanese are positively humming. At this point, Japan is probably the most advanced civilization in the world. They're way ahead of almost everybody technologically, they didn't just kill off a big fraction of their young adult males, their island home protected them from a lot of refugees or diseases. It's great to be a kid named Toshi.

In the States, things are booming. The zipper has finally become popular. (It started to get popular during the war, but it turns out that a zipper is a really complicated object to make. It needs weird metals like zinc and strontium to really work well, and those are "strategic metals" during wartime.) The American Telephone & Telegraph Company signs the Kingsbury Commitment in 1913, and over the next twenty five years begins providing telephone service connecting Americans to each other and to the world. (Trans-Atlantic service in 1927, Trans-Pacific in 1934.)

Then things get a little screwy. The Europeans, mainly the French, spent a great deal of time and energy inventing ways to punish Germany for the Great War. They failed to realize that the European economies were intertwined: d'oh! Ten years later, Germany is still a slum and nobody else is doing particularly well, either. Europeans, desperate to come up with a solution, start experimenting with all kinds of weird ideas: communism; fascism; socialism; nationalism. They're not going to trust the aristocrats anymore: those inbred buffoons got them into the last war.

Finally, the U.S. economy catches the same disease that has been bouncing around the rest of the world for two decades. Depression takes over, and everyone sits around moping for a while. (Except the suckers that jump out of windows.) FDR, Teddy's N-times removed M-th cousin, takes the wheel and starts printing money. Then the government starts handing out money for doing stupid stuff: building dams, irrigation canals, you name it. It is a rare example of a successful infrastructure project, and this one works in two ways. First, it puts people back to work and gets everyone to stop hiding their money in mattresses. Second, it actually produces some decent works.

One of those weird programs was the National Youth Administration. A guy named Norman Borlaug enrolled at the University of Minnesota through the auspices of the NYA in 1933. Initially, he failed the entrance exam. Remember when colleges and universities weren't money-grubbing whores? Neither do I. Maybe some of my family does, though.

In Japan, the hand can be used like a knife. But the frisky Japanese are too busy carving slices out of Manchuria to bother with their hands. The Manchurians were pretty clearly the victims, here, but they did spend a lot of time talking way too big for their britches. The result is that the Japanese wind up with a lot of territory in their pocket, and a hankering for more. A series of U.S. presidents was distracted by the economy, but not totally dumb. The Japanese could have Korea and whatever collection of chinese restaurants they wanted to grab, but we weren't about to let them take control of oil and coal resources anyplace: oil and coal were what made the shiny new fleet move. Frankie D. was born at night, but he wasn't born last night, baby!

To the Japanese, this is pretty irritating. Back in the first part of the century, that slick weasel Teddy Roosevelt took over the negotiating table after the Russo-Japanese War. (Started by Europeans, recall.) The result was the U.S. cheating Japan out of their just desserts: loot and real estate. Now those irritating Americans are at it again: Franklin Roosevelt is keeping the Empire from achieving its glorious destiny. Is it any surprise, then, that the Japanese were feeling their oats? Or that they decided to add "Pearl Harbor" and "Wake Island" and "Midway Island" and "Corregidor" to their tour of Pacific island paradises? Bad news for Toshi: it's "wake the sleeping giant" time. Ruh-roh.

Meanwhile, over in Europe, the Germans have gotten their economy a little under control, and boy are they pissed at the French. (Being pissed at the French seems to be a natural part of the human condition. But given the fact that the French had been doing a good job of keeping the Germans locked down since the 16th century (!), the Germans have got more right than most.) So they do what the unified Germans had been doing since the 1870's: they kick some French butt. And Danish, Belgian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, a little Italian, British, and any other "-ians" that I may have left out.

It comes down to the Germans versus the British at sea. And the British are losing. Seriously. By 1943, British supply lines are being strangled off by the German U-boat fleet. Surrender, or at least a negotiated peace, are looking attractive. But wait, what's that I hear? Could it be the sound of hoofbeats and bugles? Once again the cavalry comes to the rescue. America builds "Liberty Ships," the Ford Model T of the ocean: they're ugly, they're weak, they tend to break up in high seas, and everybody hates them. But they are build on an assembly line, and the U.S. can build them faster than Germany can sink them. It sucks to be you, Adolf!

And there's this guy, see: Erwin Rommel. The "Desert Fox." He can't be beaten at tank warfare. At least not by the British. Certainly not by the Russians. So when somebody tells you about how the Russians sacrificed to beat Germany, remember Erwin Rommel. Because every study of European "theater warfare" points to Eastern Europe as a giant tank battle. And Erwin was the best at tank battles. So why didn't Germany beat Russia? Because Erwin wasn't there.

Keep this in your head: Hitler pulled Erwin Rommel out of Africa and put him in charge of defending Europe from invasion. Who did he think was going to invade? Well, us. There's this other guy, see. George S. Patton. He could beat Rommel. And he did. Over and over again. A lot of it had to do with lack of resources, but them's the breaks.

Back in the Pacific, "Dugout" Doug MacArthur was fighting a desparate battle for survival. Not against the Japanese: he was kicking their asses when he could. Against the U.S. Navy. Fortunately for us, Doug won, the Navy started supplying him and stopped running away, and those American factories were churning out war materiel faster than anybody could use it up.

Everyone points to the Godzilla movies as being about Japan's fear of nuclear contamination. But think of the story line: the government, or some giant corporate enterprise (the two are hard to distinguish in Japan) does some unbelievably stupid thing and wakes a sleeping monster, then that monster proceeds to thunder ashore destroying buildings, shrugging off the best efforts of the army, and wreaking havoc on the countryside. Personally, I think the monster in all the Godzilla movies is a cross between Doug MacArthur and a B-29.

Bottom line: the Russians are still in the dark. The Europeans have beaten themselves bloody. The Germans weren't so lucky: that dogged determination at the end cost them pretty dearly. The Russians rampaged around pretty harmlessly--they were racing for territory. But the Americans and the British spent the better part of four years bombing Germany back to the Bronze Age. No phones, no lights, no motor cars. Not a single luxury. In Japan, it's worse. Island-hopping brought America to the Japanese home islands faster than anybody had counted on. And those crafty Americans had spent the last ten years developing ways to improve the range and payload of their bombers. "Bigger is better- it's the American way!" While the Germans were living in the Stone Age, the Japanese were reduced to wooden huts and primitive agriculture and fishing. I think they may have been starting fires by rubbing sticks together.

For those of you keeping track at home: that's two.

Rebuilding

In late 1944 a guy named George Harrar collected a bunch of agriculture nerds and led them to Mexico. The U.S. didn't consider agriculture a critical strategic resource (we were self-sufficient) and the Mexicans needed help pretty badly (they were definitely not sufficient). Despite all the sunshine, they were still importing massive quantities of cereals. One of the agri-nerds was a guy named Norman Borlaug.

So now what happens? Well, the Americans aren't having any of that "crippling reparations" crap this go-round. The Germans and the Japanese are so screwed that it wouldn't matter: the only thing that could have been taken away from them was topsoil. But, because we're scrappy Americans, and because there are some genuinely smart people working for Harry S. Truman, and because we're pretty sure that we're going to have to go to war with Russia, we help rebuild. Presto: ten years of hard work and free trade go by! Europe is back on its feet thanks to American foreign aid, the Marshall plan, and paranoia about the Russians.

In the meantime, the Chinese have caught the insanity plaguing Russia, and decided that totalitarianism is the way to go. Turn out the lights, the party's over. Pissed because they took it in the shorts during WWII, they decide to spread the joy to Korea. Bad news, Minh: Doug Mac-A is still in town. Now America gets to rebuild South Korea, too. What's one more?

On December 22, 1947, three guys in New Jersey named William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen got together and invented the first production triode semiconductor. These guys worked for Bell Labs, which collected what patents it could and conducted an internal poll for what the device should be called. John R. Pierce argued that since the electric current crossed multiple layers depending on the internal state, and since the device had varistor-like characteristics, it should be called the transconductance varistor. To make it a little easier to pronounce, he chopped that down to 'transistor.'

In the wings, Doug was hanging out in Japan, acting like the new emperor. And the Japanese were loving it: "This guy kicked our asses, now he's eating our food. What a champ!" (Seriously: I don't understand it, but they loved him.) Doug, along with 50,000 of his closest G.I. friends, has set up an occupation government and is digging around to make sure that the Japanese aren't thinking of nefarious things to do once the Americans leave. One of Doug's buddies is Cecil Salmon.

Cecil is a nerd. With a name like Cecil, are you surprised? But he's an outgoing nerd, so he signed up for the U.S. Agricultural Research Service. He had been Principal Agronomist for the USDA Office of Cereal Crops and Diseases in 1931, and was disqualified for service in '42 because he had an important job. Anyway, he was hanging with Doug Mac-A when the balloon went up again. He didn't get to go to Korea, but he did wander around collecting examples of Japanese agriculture. He collected a bunch of different flavors of wheat. Funny thing about Japan: everything is smaller there. Cars, houses, and wheat, too. Being a responsible representative of the U.S. government, he sent some wheat seeds to his buddy Orville Vogel. (Seriously, I can't make these names up.)

It seems that having a big population automatically makes you dumb. Britain gave up two colonies to insurrection after the war: the first was Israel, and we know how popular that was. The other was India. Not India the country, but India the colony. That colony became India, but also Pakistan: it's a little confusing. Regardless, India (the country) is famous for its large population. And since having a large population automatically makes you dumb, the Indians (Nehru) naturally went in for communism. But since the Russians had demonstrated for thirty-plus years that communism doesn't work, Nehru decided to go for modified communism, with a little capitalism mixed in at the bottom. Most Indians I have met regard their political leaders as a criminal sub-caste made up of the evil and the idiotic. History tends to confirm their opinion.

Back in the U.S.A., things are going great. Korea is over, Europe is rebuilding, Japan is rebuilding, jet airliners are appearing, bringing the world closer together. Telephones are everywhere. Refrigerators, ovens, stoves, houses, garages, CARS! Prosperity on an undreamt-of scale. The late '50s and early '60s are the poster-child era for the "American Dream." We're still nervous about the Russians, but we've got the Bomb, so we're not too nervous.

Orville crossed Norin 10, one of Cecil's wheat finds in Japan, with Brevor 14, a high-yield American wheat strain. He sent samples of this Norin 10/Brevor to our boy Norman Borlaug down in Mexico. Norman's been busy the last few years, and developed some wheat that is really, really resistant to diseases. And he has been "shuttle breeding" the wheat, taking them from one place in the spring to another place in the fall. The result is wheat that is hardy enough to survive tropical and sub-tropical climates, does not suffer from "photoperiodism" (sensitivity to latitude and/or season), is short and squat (thanks to the Norin 10), and has a tremendously high yield (the Brevor 14). Short and squat is important, because it means that the wheat won't fall over in a breeze. Since all the weight is at the top, you want more "wrestler" and less "basketball player" in your wheat stalks.

In 1951 the Egyptians repudiated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, and by 1954 the British had agreed to pull out of the Suez Canal zone. Egypt wasn't giving much love to Israel, which didn't sit well with American politicians. So when Egypt was buying weapons, America wasn't selling. Egypt also recognized Communist China, which pissed off the Americans. And Egypt went shopping for weapons from communist Czechoslovakia, which pissed off the Americans. So the Americans, who were pretty pissed off, canceled an agreement they had made with England and Egypt to lend the money to pay for the Aswan High Dam on the Nile river. As a result, in 1956 Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, says "Screw you guys, we're taking the canal."

A little company in Japan released the TR-55. Based on technology demonstrated by RCA and Texas Instruments, the TR-55 was Japan's first transistor radio, and Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K.'s first entry into the market.

Egypt went to the Russians for some money, and nationalized the Suez Canal Company for some income. (Plus, let's face it, it's their country and their canal.) The English, who had controlled the territory and about half the company, and the French, who had controlled the other half of the company, were pissed. So they got together with the Israelis and came up with the brilliant idea to have Israel invade Egypt in response to some obvious provocation. Then the English and the French would be asked to help, and they could take the canal back.

The first part of the plan went off without a hitch. But the ruse was totally transparent, and the Americans weren't having any--it was an election year, and we just finished one war thank you very much. So the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis ended with a whimper instead of a global war. Keep in mind that the British already knew how to indefinitely occupy Egypt: they had only stopped maintaining Egypt as a colony in 1936, and had remained in 'occupation' of the canal zone until '51. Egypt had no hope of being a "Viet-Nam experience" for any occupier. The only effective resistance would have come from the Soviet bloc, which had just begun a client relationship with Egypt and would have been obligated to support them.

That's three.

In 1957, the Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, K.K., released the TR-63 to the world. It was the world's smallest transistor radio in commercial production, and it was a world-wide commercial success. It was also time for a new name: Sony.

Going Forward

The French are a lot like cats. They have this habit of getting into trouble, crying for help, and then sniffing and marching off, their noses and tails raised in disdain, after being rescued. They also tend to find some disgusting mess, like a dead rat, and drop it on your pillow. When you discover it, they look at you and ask, "Is zis not magnifique? Why do you not thank me for ze wonderful gift?"

If you turn over an old lamp or toy, you might find a little sign or plate written in French reading "Fabrique au Indochine." Indochine is French for "Viet Nam, or thereabouts." The French couldn't read the writing on the wall, and figured that they had nothing to learn from the British. While the British were giving up their colonies left and right, France figured they could smack the Indochinese back into line--after all, if the Japanese could do it, how hard could it be?

Meanwhile, India was at war: with China ('62), Pakistan ('65), with internal insurrectionists (forever). Focusing on revolutionary slogans and the struggle against the Muslim threat, the Indians forgot to notice that the crops weren't doing so well. Focused on struggle against the Hindu masses, plus some revolutionary slogans, the Pakistanis forgot to notice that the crops weren't doing so well.

The United States undertook to ship 20% of its total wheat production to India. The Indians undertook to fight Pakistan over possession of Kashmir. Kashmir is a mountainous region that separates India from Pakistan. It is filled with Muslim and Hindu residents. Maybe a dozen, total. The only thing that grows there is sheep and rocks. Fighting to control Kashmir is like fighting to control the Falkland Islands. Only an idiot would care.

By the summer of 1965 everyone started to get hungry. Naturally, the first reaction was to ask the U.S. to ship a couple of million more tons of cereals. Unbeknownst to them, Norman Borlaug had been in India since 1963. Cleverly, the Indian and Pakistani bureaucracies had conspired to prevent him from planting any of his wheat: we're good communists, and so we tend to favor the starvation and extermination of our own people over accepting any kind of change.

Hunger apparently overcame communist sensibilities, however, and in 1965 Borlaug imported 250 tons of Lerma Rojo and Sonora 64 wheat to Pakistan, and 200 to India. ("Lerma Rojo" sounds like a special blend of mairjuana, doesn't it?) Bizarrely, export of the wheat was held up by Mexican customs. Remember that Borlaug had been working in Mexico. By this time, Mexico had become a net exporter of wheat. Their national production of wheat was six times higher than it was when Borlaug arrived in the '40s. So the wheat was driven north for shipment out of the port of Los Angeles, California. But the Watts race riots closed the highway. It ain't easy shipping wheat. Twelve hours after the wheat finally left port, India and Pakistan went to war.

After some fairly mundane tribulations, like discovering that half the wheat was dead due to over-fumigation in Mexico, some of ol' Norman's wheat finally grew in '65. The yields were higher than any wheat crop measured anywhere in Asia. Ever. Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production by 1968. By 1970, their production was double the 1965 level. Indian yields were up 66% from 1965 to 1970. By 1974, India was self-sufficient in production of all cereals. Norman Borlaug is credited with saving the lives of just about one billion people. Thanks, Norm.

And with preventing the conversion of an area of virgin wilderness roughly the size of the state of California in an unsuccessful attempt to increase wheat production in India. Thanks Norm.

And while we're at it, how about the ability of India, Pakistan, Turkey, Mexico, and most of Latin America to sustain their populations forevermore. Thanks, Norm.

Turns out there's no prize for "saving the lives and enabling the continued existence of one fourth the population of the world." Sorry. Have a Nobel Peace Prize instead, there, Norm.

In case you got confused in all the excitement with the wheat and the riots and the wars, that's four.

Vietnam demonstrated a couple of things. First, that Doug MacArthur was right: getting involved in a land war in Asia stinks. Second, American technology was way better than Soviet technology. Third, that communism is the most painful path from any system of government to democracy. It didn't do much for the U.S., and the U.S. didn't do much for the world while we were preoccupied. Zank you for ze magnificent gift, you French bastards.

In 1968, Spencer Silver invented a high quality but "low tack" adhesive composed of tiny, indestructible acrylic spheres that would stick when they were tangent to a surface, but not when they were right up against it. Nobody found a way to market it.

In 1969, the Advanced Research Projects Agency sponsored a lot of advanced research projects. One of those projects was studying how to connect multiple computers together across large distances (anything farther apart than "the same room"). The ARPAnet was the first wide area network, connecting universities together. And no, Al Gore didn't invent it. (But he did help fund it.) The concepts and technologies pioneered over ARPAnet included things like file sharing and electronic mail. They didn't have electronic porn yet.

The post-Vietnam era saw the spread of Nasserism in the middle east, leading to the Yom Kippur war with Israel, followed by the Arab oil embargo. I think the U.N. ought to pass a law requiring any Islamic state to provide free opium and harem girls to all its leaders. Those guys just get themselves all worked up, then run out and get their butts kicked, then take it out on everyone else. Talk about needing to chill out? Dudes, go smoke a hookah, then get a 'happy ending' from the girls, and then decide on how you plan to deal with Israel.

In 1971, a former United States Marine named Fred Smith (really) founded a company in Little Rock, Arkansas. He applied to the Little Rock airport for access to on-site facilities, such as hangar space. The officials at Little Rock denied his petition, and so in 1973 he packed up his company and moved to Memphis, Tennessee. From that day forward, Memphis became the central transshipment point for all packages being flown by Federal Express. I bet those guys in Little Rock, Arkansas, kick each other in the ass every single day. God knows they should. If I lived in Little Rock, I'd organize a lynching.

In 1973, Art Fry found a use for Spencer Silver's adhesive. Art sung in his church choir, and every time he opened his hymnal to sing, his bookmarks would slip out. Silver's adhesive would make a great bookmark that could stick and unstick over and over again and wouldn't fall out of hymnals. Fry took his idea to his bosses at the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing company, and they made some prototypes.

The American electronics business had been starting to lose out to the Japanese. That trickle became a flood as Japanese products became known for quality, precision, reliability, and low cost. The oil crisis encouraged the Japanese to try exporting something else to the U.S.: cars. The Honda Civic, larger than any car Honda had ever produced before (!), was in the right place at the right time. Gasoline prices climbed to astronomical levels: from 38.5 cents in May '73 to 55.1 cents in June '74, on average. (Read 'em and weep, folks: the United States in 1974 seriously considered invading and permanently occupying the Middle East because a gallon of gasoline cost 55 cents. Put that in your SUV and smoke it.)

While we didn't go to war in the mid-East, primarily because we were still getting over Vietnam, we did start buying lots of Japanese cars. And the very first copy of the "Losing American Jobs" pamphlet was probably passed around, started by some loser in Detroit who couldn't make the connection between big expensive cars with bad fuel economy, high gasoline prices, and reduced sales. Dolt!

The Japanese scurried to help their new legion of American customers improve their driving experience. Once Honda, and later Datsun (now called "Nissan"), then Toyota figured out what would sell, they started building them like crazy. Woo-hoo! Another hundred thousand cars, please, Toshi-san!

The popularity of Japanese autos and electronics has continued to this day. Except that Japanese workers were making lots of money in the new industries. So they started wanting things for themselves, and for their families. For the last twenty-five years or so, the Japanese have led the way in adopting consumer electronics. The "Japanese girls" market--girls from 12-18 with free time and disposable income--is the standard popularity test for things like video games and cellular phones.

One result of this was the inevitable creation of a memo photocopied and circulated in Japanese factories. It talks about "Tojo Smith, average Japanese worker," who keeps buying things that are made in Korea, or Vietnam, or Thailand, or (gasp) China. And he wonders why he can't find a good Japanese job. Another result was that Japan started outsourcing car building to factories in Korea. Wait a few years more, and in the '90s they start outsourcing to places like Tennessee and Ohio.

In 1980, Art Fry's reusable bookmarks were made available for public consumption. It was pretty obvious to the boys and girls in the office that nobody really needed bookmarks, but it was great that you could write on them. Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, or 3M as they prefer to be called today, now sells more Post-It Notes than anything else.

It's a Small World, After All

Much of what we buy every day, from bread to books, is shipped from somewhere else. The days of local farmers, local publishers, and so on are long past. Fedex, and its competitors, have made it truly cost effective to move manufacturing operations to someplace where labor is cheap and the regulations on pollution, or working conditions, or health care, or whatever are lax. Today as I am writing this, that place is China.

It's also Indonesia. And Bangladesh. But it's not Germany anymore. Nor is it Japan, or England, or Italy, Spain, or France. It's still Mexico, but not as much as it used to be: Mexican workers get dollars per day, while Asian workers are getting dollars per month. It's not just electronics, or cars, or even fresh fruit (imported from Chile during American winters when no fruit grows here). It's things like software, too (Czech Republic, India, Russia).

And in all those countries, the same thing that happened in Japan and Germany and Italy and Spain and France is starting to happen: people are getting some money, and they're buying stuff. And once they've done that a few times, they decide they like having beer, or an inflatable mattress, or a bicycle, or a cellular telephone, or whatever it was that they bought. So they're going back for some more money, and they're sending their kids off to school so that little Johnny, Juanito, Jean, Toshi, Johann, Ivan, or Jogesh can grow up to be a manager instead of a line worker. People, no matter where they are, are smarter than you think: they know what's good for their kids, and they'll generally do what it takes to improve their kids' lot in life, if they can.

The effect of that is pretty simple: wages rise, workers become more productive, wages rise some more, and suddenly the Japanese are outsourcing manufacturing operations to Korea because Japanese workers aren't that much cheaper than American workers any more. And when the Koreans catch on, and Americans are buying Hyundais and Kias as well as Hondas and Toyotas, well, suddenly American labor is cost-competitive again. Because we've broken out of the mold imposed by the UAW ("All our workers are illiterate Polish or Hungarian immigrants from 1894 that can't learn any job but the one you taught them on day one, so no crossing over to perform a different function!") and started treating Americans as the smart, flexible, terrifically well-educated workers that they are. Also, of course, because the benefits of being an industrial worker, instead of a rice- or potato- or bean- growing subsistence farmer include making better money. The Japanese and Koreans know how to spend money quite well, thanks. They don't need many lessons in that.

Doin' the Math

And speaking of education, let's do some math. According to the BLS, the average school teacher makes over $46,000 yearly. If we assume that class sizes average 30 students per teacher, then each student is receiving $1500 worth of teaching, plus infrastructure costs. We'll round it to $2000 per year. In the United States, kids are required to take 13 years of school, but they can quit early if their parents agree or if they reach eighteen years old before finishing. Let's call it an even 12 years on average. That's $24,000 worth of schooling. How much schooling does Juan, or Jean, or Jogesh receive?

One of the reasons that so many manufacturing jobs have gone overseas is that they're too simple. It just isn't cost effective to take someone with $24,000 worth of education and have him cutting grass. Or sewing clothes. Or assembling cellular phones, for that matter. It certainly isn't cost effective to have Johnny flipping hamburgers, and yet sometimes we do.

Here's some more math: put $24,000 on a credit card that is really cheap and only charges 8% interest. Now let's get a job making $6.50 per hour. Working full-time, that's $52 per day, or $260 per week, or $1131 per month (1 month = 21.75 work days). Taking 6% of that amount as our school tax gets us $67.86 per month. Do you know how long it will take to pay off your education working at $6.50/hour?

Here's a hint: what's the interest on $24,000 at 8% per year? Well, compounding monthly gives us a monthly interest rate of 8% per year / 12 months per year = 2/3 % per month. Two-thirds of one percent of 24,000 is $160. If your best monthly payment is sixty-seven dollars and change, then you will NEVER, EVER pay off the cost of high school. Every time an adult takes a job at McDonalds, the McDonalds corporation and that adult are stealing from the American people. Every single time.

If you want to break even, then you have to raise the "school tax" (personal income tax, sales tax, whatever) or you have to earn more money. Take that $68 per month and bring it up to $161. That means that instead of taking a McJob, you have to make $15.40 per hour. And at that hourly wage it will still take you two thousand years. One thing that should tell you is that America can't afford McDonalds and Wal-Mart.

Those kinds of jobs are the only jobs that certain groups can get: the very young, the very old, the socially inept, the retarded. There are good excuses for those groups to be working those jobs: the very young lack experience, so McJobs are basically a continuation of school teaching them how to work; the very old frequently cannot get "real" jobs because of discrimination or because they want more flexible schedules; the socially inept cannot hold most jobs; the retarded can't hold most jobs, but this is well within their scope.

If you're not in one of those categories, though; if you're an adult that can hold a job, don't drool on yourself or pick your nose or stare at your boss' boobs, and you're not retarded; then you're a thief. You aren't making your payments, chum, and the interest is piling up.

Which Brings Me Back to the Point

America can't afford to have Americans wasting their time doing low-wage work. A job making shirts, or jeans, or curtain rods isn't worth the time and effort: they can be done just as effectively by a worker in Bangladesh or Indonesia. When it comes to manufacturing, most jobs can be done by unskilled or barely skilled workers. The fact it, there just aren't that many unskilled or barely skilled Americans: how many Malaysians can read English?

On the other hand, people in Malaysia and Japan and Korea and Bangladesh and Bulgaria and Russia and whatever other third-world country is bothering you this week need that work, because they need the money. $6 an hour isn't enough to live on in the United States, but $6 a day is a viable wage in parts of Mexico, and is a great wage in Indonesia.

That wage is coming from our friends at Fedex. Fedex, and the Internet, and the computers we all take for granted make it possible to track inventory and orders in real time, produce the goods, and deliver them 'just in time'. If that weren't possible, then all those manufacturing jobs would have to be closer to the consumer. If they were closer to the consumer, then Americans would still be involved in the manufacturing business. Our $24,000 educations would be worth less (meaning teachers would make less money), and our merchandise would cost more (Sears, not Wal-Mart) because we'd be paying the salaries of American garment workers instead of Malaysian ones.

What we are doing instead is clearing the deck for some real work. Important work, that pays more than the $16 an hour that it takes to pay off that basic education. I don't know what that work is, and you probably don't either. But nobody in 1920 predicted the Internet. (They knew all about day-trading, though.)

America Built the World

Here's the key thing to remember this Labor Day. And every day afterwards, for that matter. America saved the world four times in the last century. And after saving it, over and over and over again, we've started to build it up. We worked and paid to rebuild Europe, and Japan, and we gave them jobs. And then we worked and we paid to build up the rest of Asia. And we sent them some jobs. And now we're working and we're paying to build up India, and we're working and paying to build up China, and we're working and paying to build up Mexico. And we're sending them jobs, too. And even Russia is starting to turn the lights on once in a while.

So a hundred years from now, when it's the "Asian Century," and the Chinese and the Indians are looking at America and pointing out what a bunch of old fuddy-duddys we are? Well, they'll be trading with us, just like we trade with the Europeans now. And they'll be trading with each other. They'll probably be whining about all those jobs that are being "stolen" by Africans. But the entire world will be a giant, interconnected web of relationships, with Chilean bananas and Israeli oranges and Malaysian blue jeans and Tennessee automobiles and European jet airplanes and Russian ships all bouncing around.

And you will know, just like I know, that it's all because of us. To borrow a few lines from another author,

"But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was:
and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine,
and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn,
and took care of him.

"And on the morrow when he departed,
he took out two pence, and gave them to the host,
and said unto him, Take care of him;
and whatsoever thou spendest more,
when I come again, I will repay thee.

"Which now of these [...] was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?"

The Good Uncle Samaritan

So the next time some yahoo emails or mimeographs or faxes or photocopies some screed about how Americans ought to go back to being underpaid sweatshop workers, or some such idiotic nonsense, you just remember what I've told you. And if you want to, you can remind them that America has saved the world, over and over and over again.

And then you can remind them that American decency is rebuilding the world even now into a decent place for just about everyone to live in, a little bit at a time. And then remind them, if they haven't read it recently, of the parable of the good Samaritan. And then you tell them to get a job.

How big a nerd are you?

I'm a SUPREME NERD.




I'm not necessarily proud of this, but I am surprised by it. Apparently, 93% of the population is lower on the nerd spectrum than I. Considering my answers, I expected to come in down around 70%. Perhaps the true nerds are too busy nerding to pull the curve up?

Badger sandwich, anyone?

Any friend of badgers is a friend of mine, but, well...

This speaks for itself, really.

Dogma

dog·ma n. pl. dog·mas or dog·ma·ta

1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.
2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. See Synonyms at doctrine.
3. A principle or belief or a group of them: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present” (Abraham Lincoln).

Short-Circuit Decision Making

Ellen Langer's, et al, 1978 experiment [LANGER] in "mindless" social influence is tremendously popular with sales and marketing professionals the world over: the experimenters arranged to shut down all but one photocopier in a library. Predictably, a line formed. Experimenters then asked the person at the head of the line one of three questions:

1. May I go ahead of you?
2. May I go ahead of you, because I'm in a rush?
3. May I go ahead of you, because I need to make some copies?

The interesting-but-expected result of the study is that 60% of people asked "May I go ahead of you?" acceded, but 94% of those asked "...because I'm in a rush?" did. The inference, of course, is that when given a legitimate reason—being in a rush—people are willing to go along.

The even more interesting, albeit not nearly as expected, result of the study was that when people were given a bad reason—"because I need to make some copies"—they still gave in. 93% of the time, adding "because I need to make some copies" got a place in line.

The reason sales and marketing types love this is obvious: give someone the appearance of a reason, "because the earth is round," and they are more likely to agree. Give someone the appearance of a reason to buy, and they are more likely to buy.

The sociological implication is straightforward: our brains shut down when we aren't actively involved in what we're doing. Standing in line doesn't take a lot of thought, so our brains disconnect from what we're doing—waiting—and start daydreaming about winning the lottery, or that cute coworker. In this state, when we aren't actively thinking about what's going on around us, "placebic information" suffices to manipulate us. This is called "short-circuit" decision making, because the form of the request, complete with the key word "because" and a placebo justification, satisfies our social requirement for politeness and explanation and encourages assent without real consideration of what was requested.

Short-Circuit Evaluation

More recently, a study announced by Emory University has shown that political partisans tend to "short circuit" their thinking when dealing with conflicting information about political figures they were sympathetic toward.

During the study, the partisans were given 18 sets of stimuli, six each regarding President George W. Bush, his challenger, Senator John Kerry, and politically neutral male control figures such as actor Tom Hanks. For each set of stimuli, partisans first read a statement from the target (Bush or Kerry). The first statement was followed by a second statement that documented a clear contradiction between the target's words and deeds, generally suggesting that the candidate was dishonest or pandering.

The result of this was that partisans denied the obvious contradictions of "their" candidate, but were perfectly willing to see contradictions in the opposing candidate. Republicans could find fault with Kerry, Democrats could find fault with Bush. And both sets of partisans could find fault with Tom Hanks and other "neutral" figures.

What this suggests about politics is obvious: the party partisans really can't change their minds. But it suggests something more, too: that once we've made up our minds, we don't really want to change them. So much so that we're unwilling to "see" evidence that clearly contradicts what we already believe.

What's it mean?

The first thing that occurred to me, a day or so after reading this, was to cite this in almost every discussion I saw or took part in that appeared to be stagnated. Slashdot flamewars, on-line chat boards, everywhere: they aren't going to change their minds, so stop arguing. But then it hit me: it's worse than that.

What's 'Independent' mean?

I like to think of myself as an "independent". I cross party lines. I agree with some people on some things, and other people on other things. But can I change my mind? Do I suffer from the same ossification of thought, or am I receptive to new evidence, new interpretations, new opinions when it comes to issues where I have already decided?

Sadly, I think the answer is no. It's just that simple. I think I'm inflexible. And that saddens me. Although now I have a justification for being inflexible. How sweet is that? Wait 'til I have kids: the little bastards won't know what hit 'em.

What happens when you're wrong?

Let's say there's a bunch of guys trapped in a mine somewhere in Appalachia. And while watching the Orange Bowl, the news ticker scrolls across the bottom of the screen informing us that the mine has been entered, the trapped miners found, and all of them are still alive. How cool is that?

This was the front page story of virtually every daily paper in the U.S. All of us who were up late at night (the Orange Bowl went into triple overtime) saw the announcement. And of course the late night talk shows made a production of it. And the west coast, three hours behind, was still in prime-time when the discovery took place.

A big percentage of the population, then, believed the miners were alive if not well, rescued through hard work, some planning, and divine providence. I was among them. We were wrong.

Come the dawn, the reports were corrected. Of thirteen bodies recovered, only one was alive—barely. Furor. Outrage. Why?

Why should people who didn't know the miners, didn't know their families, and, let's be honest, only a week before would have made 'Deliverance' jokes if the subject of Appalachian miners was raised, why would these people be so outraged over the fact that the news networks reported some false information, although they corrected it in only a few hours?

Short-circuiting is important, but perilous

Let's look at what 'short-circuiting' actually is, for a minute. I work as a software developer. To me, this ability to develop an unthinking reaction is like what was once called 'microcode' in the days when electronic dinosaurs roamed the earth. It's an ability that we humans have to program our own behavior. There are other names for this, of course: Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Visualization, Faith. But this one is demonstrably real. There is, according to the study cited above and a bunch more, a visible difference in behavior that is 'self-programmed' versus behavior that requires thought.

To me, that represents a valuable tool provided by evolution. Other animals may or may not have it. But any critter that doesn't have it will take hundreds or thousands of generations to adapt to some circumstance. Those of us that have it can self-program in a matter of years, maybe even in a matter of days. Yell out "Grenade!" and watch every soldier in the room hits the floor. That's not an evolved behavior. And it's not a cognitive process, either. It's an instant reaction that has been learned from the environment, and reinforced by adrenaline and fear. (One day I'm going to stage this experiment with my unknowing buddy, Wigwam Jones. I'll have to take one of those home defibrillator kits, or maybe I can just make my own with a pocket knife, a lamp cord, and some Vaseline.)

Anyway, the point of this is that short-circuit behaviors can be tremendously valuable. But when they go wrong—when we program ourselves with behavior or attitude that is shown to be unavoidably incorrect—there's no ignoring it. The miners are not alive. They are not resting, or pining for the fjords. These are, incontrovertibly, ex-miners. What's an organism to do? Our clever scheme has failed. Horribly.

I think one thing we do is get mad. Really mad. The benefit of short-circuiting is that our brains can be doing other stuff while we appear to be responding to things we've pre-programmed. But the downside is that when we have to undo some of that programming, we're not so good at it. Getting used to the idea that we're wrong isn't just "aww, we're wrong." It's "God damn it! We'll have to recode that entire section."

That, to me, is why so many people got really, amazingly upset over the misreporting of the deaths of the Sago miners. Not that they died. Not that the news reported something incorrect. But because we started to make assumptions based on the survival of those miners—we began incorporating their continuing lives into our world-view—and then we had to reverse ourselves, immediately, with no appeal. They aren't "mostly dead." They really are irretrievably, uncontestably "all dead." The only thing left to do is go through their pockets and look for change. Deal with it.

That's one of the risks of short-circuit thinking. If you "encode" your brain with something, changing your mind is expensive. So one strategy is to ignore contrary evidence. Just ignore it, and maybe it'll go away. That has to be cheaper than re-evaluating days or months or years or decades of experience in the light of new information. "Round, you say? The world is round? Don't be idiotic. Everyone knows it's flat. Round—how absurd!"

Uses and abuses of short-circuit thinking

This explains the quest for, and duel over, sound bites. "George Bush kills babies. John Kerry is soft on crime. Tom Hanks is soft on babies." For a news agency, the right sound bite or headline ("Dewey Wins!") can express a whole passel of thinking. That has value for politicians, ad-men, reporters, educators, anyone who for good or ill is trying to affect the way we think: say the word "adjective" and I will immediately sing

We hiked along without care.
Then we ran into a bear.
He was a hairy bear,
He was a scary bear,
We beat a hasty retreat from his lair.
And described him with adjectives.
(Man, that was one big, mean, ugly bear!)

All things considered, I'm pretty happy with that particular piece of programming. I still know what an adjective is, all these years later. But I don't necessarily want to smoke your brand of cigarettes, or buy what you're selling: short-circuiting can be bad or good.

My particular fear with this is that CNN, and Reuters, and all the other news organizations are trying as hard as ever they can to deliver the news as quickly as they can. Bloggers are doing it even more. And 'little mistakes', like the fact that they're totally wrong, can slip through.

While that's incredibly annoying when they report that people are still alive who obviously are not, it gets worse when the errors are subtle. Because there will always be that temptation to "spin" the error. Instead of announcing "We made an error. Here's what we should have said:" the media (all forms) will be tempted to say "Continuing with our story of the ..., here's something slightly different."

That means that people like me, and like you, will get that first juicy bit of wrong information, and build our worldviews on that. We'll short-circuit the later "clarification." And newspapers count on that. Readers see the "retractions" page, but they don't really account for that. They remember what they heard the first time, because that's what made an impression.

Crackpots?

The problem with letting people sit for a week, instead of a few hours, with bad information, is that they internalize it. Then it's a lot harder to try and correct whatever bogus or poorly presented information is out there. The people who have followed the story are "partisans". They know the facts, and don't want to hear anyone tell them different. They know that people who are saying anything different are 'kooks' and 'cranks' and 'crackpots'. Because they know the story, see.

Just like you and I know that there was only one gunman. And that Americans really did land on the moon. And there aren't any alien spaceships at Area 51. We know that. And we know that all the Sago miners but one are still alive, see. That other story's just crazy talk.


[LANGER] Langer, E., Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action: The role of "placebic" information in interpersonal interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 635-642.

Show me your ...

Like a lot of people a few years back, I subscribed to a great number of internet-based services that were attempting to commoditize some aspect of communications. Online dating/personals, auctions, 'social networking' and other sites promised to speed things up through the miracle of the Internet. In retrospect there are some good reasons why these attempts were destined to be in vain. The free rider problem is one of them, of course, but the human element is the other. There's a couple of aspects to humanity that doom almost all of this stuff.

The first problem, of course, is chemistry. Why hasn't "social networking" taken off? The premise is simple: put your rolodex online in the same format as everyone else's, and it will be trivial to find "friend-of-a-friend" connections, a la the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game, that nobody knew about. Looking for a plumber? Your coworker's cousin Diane is dating one. Who knew! But this basically makes a game out of building and traversing a graph. Woo-hoo!

I'm sorry folks, but if someone walked up to me and said, "According to the Internet, you know my cousin Steve, and so I'd like to meet a friend of yours, David, in order that he may introduce me to his brother the architect," I don't know whether I'd laugh or just smack him. Social networking is a fantasy. It's a fantasy that can work over the Internet, of course. But usually it takes the same form it takes off-line: people actually communicating with each other. The Lions, Elks, Rotarians, and so forth were based on the same premise: get to know these guys and then benefit from the social network. But they're not real popular right now for a couple of good reasons, both of which are spelled "value."

First of all, as Francis Fukuyama has pointed out, (review) Americans don't share values any more. This is something that profoundly bothers me, and it's on my list of things to think about. It bothers me so much, in fact, that I tend to see this as an explanation for a lot of things. Maybe I'm fixated, or maybe I'm right. But fraternal groups like these require membership that shares a set of core values, and gains satisfaction from working toward the stated values of the organization. This means charitable works, usually, but it could mean the pursuit of politics or preservation of animals or any of a number of things.

Anyway, the second reason is that fraternal organizations just don't provide much value any longer. Most Americans are no longer independent entrepreneurs, nor laborers. The value of local networking is to local businesses and local workers. Americans now commute miles to work, and work mostly in white-collar or service positions. The home-town fraternal lodge can't offer them much in the way of support because the wrong people show up.

This would suggest that social networking sites should be going like gangbusters: after all, the Internet lets groups self-select, so the left-handed, red-haired, albino Republicans for responsible abortion laws should be able to find each other on-line. But there's a difference between social networking and networking. It's one thing to mention to your red-headed buddies that you're needing a job. That's networking and we all became adults the moment we truly understood that jobs come from people you know, not the classified ads.

Social networking, as in "social networking website," claims to do the same job only universally. But there's no shared values there. And with no shared values, there's no trust, and Fukuyama scores again. No trust, and no relationship, means we're back to your girlfriend's sister's boyfriend's roommate, the plumber. Yes, you're better connected to him than to Kevin Bacon, but why should you trust him?

Likewise online dating. What every guy wants, of course, is DominHoes: we'll have a stripper at your house in thirty minutes or less. Just pull up our website, pick the hot babe you want, and type in your credit card number! Of course online dating sites are swamped with guy registrations, but have to pull teeth to get girls. In fact, until the advent of cross-country stalking with supersites like Yahoo! Personals and AdultFriendFinder, most dating sites charged money for guys but admitted girls for free. If this sounds like "Ladies Night" at your local bar, there's a reason for it.

The dating thing actually sounds better than the social networking idea, and in fact I know of at least two couples who met via computer and are married: success stories, surely. But let's look at the human elements of online dating:

• There is a strong element of distrust.

Online dating is basically an automation of one particular form of networking: meeting new people. The reason it's successful is that meeting new people is itself filled with distrust. Neither men nor women trust recommendations from their friends, because they know their friends, and so know what a bunch of disfunctional whackos their friends are likely to recommend (including themselves, to the other person). Likewise, social activities like music and dancing have been subverted by commercial interests: towns no longer have fairs and dances because bars and theaters have commercialized and commoditized the experience. But the bars and theaters impose their own levies: you have to buy drinks, or pay for admission, or both. This means that when the average person tries to meet new people, they're usually in a situation where they can't trust anyone: the venue owners just want money; their friends just want them (and their cousin's girlfriend) to stop whining about not having a date. In short, meeting someone via the internet can't really be any worse than doing it the 'normal' way.

(It's telling that so many relationships get started in school or at work. The difference, obviously, is continued exposure in a setting that isn't overtly designed to coerce taking the least-bad-choice as quickly as possible. With the exception of summer breaks in high school, there isn't really a "closing time," with all the implied pressure.)

Anyway, once you're at a bar or club, the level of distrust continues to rise. Girls and women cannot go out "solo" -- a herd is necessary for mutual defense. Worse, even with herd behavior there is the new risk of drug-based attack. Once a drink has been out of eyesight it can no longer be trusted: it might be laced with chemicals. At some level it's surprising that men and women manage to get together at all.

This means online dating is essentially a change in ordering, nothing more. The distaff side of the equation are now able to do the sort of "take home to mother" calculation about their prospective dates in advance. "Oh, he's cute and a lawyer -- mom would love him!" And if it ever comes time to meet in real life, to discover how much of the electronic version is horse (and how much is manure), well the distrust rears its head once again but in a much lower intensity. We're not going out hoping to meet anyone, we're going out to meet a specific someone. The level of control, and therefore safety, is actually higher.

• There is a stigma of desperation.

If you're using an online service, it must be because you can't hack it in the competitive world of high-stakes bar-hopping. From craigslist to Yahoo!, a huge percentage of personal ads start out with "I'm tired of the dating scene" or "I can't believe I'm doing this, but ..." More than anything else, they remind me of all those "Letters to Penthouse" from yesteryear: "I never thought I'd be writing to you, but ..."

The stigma isn't just one-sided, though: a huge percentage of ads disclaim "I'm not interested in one-night stands." If all the disclaimers are based on experience, the women who use personal ads must be surprisingly easy to get into bed. But I suspect that sixty to eighty percent of women, because of distrust if nothing else, aren't having sex in the parking lot with a guy they just met online. (If they are, then Yahoo! stock is lower than it should be.) Instead, I think they are projecting the same stigma onto the guys who might eventually respond to their ads: "I feel a little soiled just posting this ad, but I know that you guys are a bunch of desperate losers for reading them."

• There is a desperate search for objectivity.

This one is driven by the online personals creators themselves. "How can we make our service more attractive?" they ask. "Make customers more successful!" But how can they make their customers successful? Well, they could return more results, but that requires more customers, which requires a more attractive service.

Or they could do a better job matching the customers they already have! More algorithmic assistance. "We need to sort the customer's future spouse right to the top. And put a little icon: "You're going to marry this one!" Of course, we can only do that if we have more "facts" about the customers. So we'll have to ask more questions!" How much do you weight? How much do you earn? Do you prefer dogs or cats? Paper or plastic? Democrat or Republican? Mushrooms or pepperoni? Jedi or Sith?

• There is grim acceptance of futility.

Given the opportunity to break themselves down into smaller and smaller quanta, few do. Income: 30-32k, 32-34k, 34-36k, what difference can it really make? Anyone who fills in the data subjects themselves to the risk of being rejected on the basis of that data. James Surowiecki talks a little about this mutuality of expectation in his "The Wisdom of Crowds" in addressing the behavior of the stock market. Specifically, he mentions that unlike a television, that you buy to use and own until it's time for a new one, investments are purchased with an eye to the expectation of other people's appreciation of its value.

Consider his example, the "beauty contest problem." A newspaper publishes 100 photos of girls. Each contestant is to choose and rank the 6 prettiest girls. The winner of the contest is not a girl, but the respondent whose answers most closely model the aggregate opinion of all the respondents. In this contest, entries aren't based on "which one I think is prettiest," but rather on "which one I think all the other entrants will think all the other entrants will think is prettiest." (You may want to parse that sentence again. Take your time. There should be four "think"s.)

Similarly, in on-line dating ads the "objective" answers so obviously differ from reality in many cases that it takes a moment to understand that no, this person is probably not a pathological liar with delusions of grandeur, but rather is unwilling to write down an answer that is likely to be filtered out. That isn't lying, folks, it's competing: the same hormones that prompt men to risk rejection over and over again, and make women risk date-rape drugs and back seat mauling are at work again. If there is any hope of success from an online dating site, there's just exactly that much pressure not to tell the truth. Where honesty will penalize you, lie! Five foot six and 250? That's "a few extra pounds". Drug and disease free? Isn't everyone?

• There's no willingness to commit.

So what do on-line personal ads have to offer, really? Unquestionable objectivity, private information, and subjective evaluation. The unquestionable objectivity comes with the inevitability of truth. Nobody will expect to be rewarded for a glaring lie, so the 5' 6" 250# respondent answers "a few extra pounds" and not "thin" because the bluff will be called if a date results. Height and number of kids are probably going to be honest. Similarly, "unsignificant" questions will likely get truthful answers, especially if the risk is higher than the reward: who would answer "Liberal" if they weren't willing to date another liberal? Finally, of course, the photos provide some objective data: how many chins does it take to get out of "a few extra pounds" and into "thick"?

Another option, which dating sites surprisingly haven't pursued to my knowledge, is keeping the answers to some questions private. "Tell us the truth," the argument would go, "because we're not going to reveal the answers." This may have been tried already: I haven't encountered it but then I don't spend that much time searching the web for dating sites (when I'm ready to marry, I'll send off to some second- or third- world country and eliminate all the uncertainty). I suspect that the one remaining risk to the "private information" approach is the fear of fear itself. "I'm a loser for using an online site. I must have low self-esteem. My answers will tend to be low." Regardless, I think the notion of "public criteria but private data" would put the value back into on-line services. Instead of an entity that was holding your future amor hostage, they would be a valuable service that respects your privacy by suggesting connections without explaining quite why.

Everyone, of course, wants to be judged on their own merits. "I want a partner that values me for myself!" Preferably, of course, one with big hooters. This is the "subjective evaluation" part. Every user is looking for something for them. Not the general consensus prettiest girl, but the one that they like best. The only subjective areas are photos and the dreaded "essay" parts of the ad. The photos, of course, are hit or miss. 250 pounds looks better on Ben Miller, tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles, than it does on Anna Nicole Smith, former porn star. Some people have lots of digital pictures of themselves and can post the best of the bunch. Others have none, or only a few, and have to suck it up.

But the thing that motivated me to write this entire post was the "essay" responses I saw in a few ads. There seems to be two different ways to approach the essay. The first way, increasingly common, is "ask me when we get together." These tends to have a short list of either descriptive snippets ("My friends think I'm funny and cute") or requirements ("No drama. No baby's mama. No pet llama!"). Short, regardless of viewpoint, but essentially useless.

Alternatively, there's a long response. It's hard to write a long response. It's hard to write anything, according to me and everyone else in my ENG-xxx classes, and writing a persuasive essay about why some stranger should want to "love me and squeeze me and call me 'darling'" is even harder. You've got to drag out all those uncomfortable personal self-critiques, find something you like about yourself, and expose it to other people. Worse, of course, would be talking about the things you don't like.

It feels like you're putting your soul on display. And of course there's that fear of rejection. We avoid the honest "objective" answers because we know they'll be used against us in some unseen stranger's query. Putting down a long, meaningful description of yourself is worse, in a way, because you'll be judged. Everyone wants to be judged on their own merits, but what if being a good writer isn't one of those merits? Worse yet, of course, what if you mention the wrong merit. Should you mention being a stamp collector? That embarrassing mole?

What it comes down to, though, is a question of value. On-line personals aren't valuable as a list of people looking to meet other people. Anyone who wants a list of people's names can just go to a bar. Sure, it's a little hard to break the ice, but once you get a rhythm going you can probably get one name (with email or phone #) every minute. Just act extroverted, like any show host from MTV. Where's the value, though, in that? The next day, it's "Hi, I'm the weird extrovert you thought was a host for a TV show. Wanna go out?" Suddenly we're back where we started from. How not cool is that?

What then is the real, tangible value to me (or anyone else) from a personals website? What can I trust? What useful information will I get?

Well, the quantized "objective" data will be so biased as to be useless, at least to me: I like girls with "a few extra pounds", especially (ahem) well-distributed ones. A few, though, doesn't mean "more than eighty," which means all those answers are pretty much out. So the extent to which I use an on-line service will depend on the subjective stuff: the photos, and the essay responses.

Show me your tits, ladies. Or show me your soul.