Exclusively Inclusive and the Fear Factor
18/February/2009 09:34 Filed in: Weekly Column
Volume 11, Issue 7
PDF copy
Print version
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10
We began last week with the above quotation from Proverbs, which is the ultimate causative agent in the affairs of man. If the road to passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 doesn’t verify that reality, you truly are not inclined to face the real world.
Blame it on television, especially the Friday night show Numb3rs, where the bad guy almost got away with murder by tampering with the jury. Then math, especially probability theory, figured out how he did it. He succeeded, but only to the closing scene. Add to that a link in Saturday’s WSJ Online email on the Committee on Doubt and Uncertainty, concerning the House Financial Services Committee and we have a program for this week’s column.
Fear is the prime motivator in all-human decisions, or more precisely, the desire for security in the face of the unknown is what makes us do certain things pretty much all the time. To shine some light into that darkness we created the following equation. (For Windows users rather than use a specific math character set, we have attempted to express the variables in standard keyboard text.)
What we want to find out is what is the true Success Probability of any action we take to solve some perceived problem using a Process Factor or factors, which is basically defined as the way we have always done it. This is coupled directly with the Perceived Success over the years we have followed that path. We multiply that average by our Hoped Results and an undefined Fear Factor, which is divided over the Actual Results achieved over time. To use this equation for future predictions we must estimate the Actual Results to calculate the estimated Fear Factor.
(AVG[PFPS]*HR*FF)/(AR*T)= SP
PF = Process Factor
PS = Perceived Success in Years
HR = Hoped Results
FF = Fear Factor
AR = Actual Results
T= Time
SP = Success Probability = 1
Solving for Fear Factor in a potential success
FF = 1(AR*T)/(AVG[PFPS]*HR)
This means the Fear Factor for any defined Success is inversely proportional to the Perceived Success time average.
Now since we do not know the Actual Results until some future defined time, what really constricts our decisions is that inverse proportionality compared to another independent Process Factor. Hence more of the time our decisions are based upon what we perceived worked in the past, rather than what might work in the present, or in the future. Our government’s lack of imagination has been considered the causative agent in the 9-11 attack. The same is true of the current economic mess.
Before I get totally confused with the mumbo-jumbo, let us put this in the context of the recently passed economic stimulus package in the United States.
First of all, President Obama forecast doing nothing equal to the certainty of catastrophe. That greatly increases the fear in the general public, which in turn will eschew any alternative program away from consideration. The Fear Factor of doing nothing, or trying anything else, as he said is, “unacceptable.” So what this does is eliminate any true alternative from being considered, for any reason, “because time is of the essence.” In the old days we called this fear mongering, today we call it politics as usual.
So into that universe, in which Democrats have a substantial political majority, we can calculate the numerical certainty of the recently passed bill, because of the general perceptions of the public relating to the average Process Factor Perceived Success variable. Then just for perspective we will propose a positive alternative, which might have provided a less fearful alternative to the current bill. Finally, we will give a shot to a very negative reality perspective that probably now may become a real possibility wherever you may live. In each of these cases we will use the average of three Process Factors:
Democrat:
PFPS The Fed 1913 to present = 96 years
PFPS The New Deal 1933 to present = 76 years
PFPS Wall Street Post Korean conflict prosperity 1953 to present = 56 years
Average of Democrat PFPS = 76
Republican:
PFPS The Fed 1913 to present = 96 years
PFPS Wall Street Post Korean conflict prosperity 1953 to present = 56 years
PFPS Reagan Revolution tax cuts 1980 to present = 29 years
Average of Republican PFPS = 60
Positive Alternative:
PFPS Supremacy of Deist Natural Law 1776-2000 = 224 years
PFPS Greenback dollar 1862-1971 = 109 years
PFPS Wall Street Post Korean conflict prosperity 1953 to present = 56 years
Average of Positive Alternative = 130
This leaves the door opens to reality the current Negative Alternative:
PFPS Active Secular Progressive/Traditional American Culture War 2000 to present = 9 years
PFPS Expansion of massive government spending 2002 to present = 7 years
PFPS Sustained decline of leading economic indicators 2007 to present = 2 years
Average of Negative Alternative PFPS = 6
Now if that Negative Alternative doesn’t raise your Fear Factor nothing will. This Negative Alternative is more complex than what the President used to secure passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The problem is that the first two PFPS in this Negative Alternative can be expected to continue unabated for at least another four years. The Sustained Economic Decline PFPS is really on what this whole debate centers and it really has nothing to do with the New Deal tensioned against Reaganomics. So far we just lack the imagination to think about civility.
After the passage of the economic stimulus, a recapitalization of large financial institutions will follow. What this means in Main Street terms is that we, the American public, are going to in someway yet to be created, exchange overvalued toxic financial debt assets, with limited value, non-energetic debt money. No wonder Treasury Secretary Geithner is still working on the details.
For the foreseeable future we will have to deal with the certainty of the uncertainty. That constant needs to be our enterprise prescription to reestablish or to bring about an economic renaissance. Let’s use the quotation from Rahm Emanuel, “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste.” No we definitely should not, especially when traditional American values are at stake. This is a time for kairos on the path forward.
The systematic failure of world enterprise stems from the overriding emphasis on the use of Black Box Models, that simulate that tomorrow will look much like yesterday. All the certainty of the uncertainty lies in human factors essentially related to people acting like people rather than agglomerated rational, moral, statistical constants. All computer-generated models, in someway rely upon human factors that never really can be predicted. So summarizing briefly, we seldom if ever act or react rationally and similarly lack the imagination to appreciate or solve the problem.
That is just as true for environmental models as it is for economic predictions. For example global catastrophic models rely upon an assumption that economic growth will continue, with out understanding that economic growth may not continue in accordance with model predictions, but the models also assume that technology and money will be available to provide the fixes the model says are required. This without ever looking seriously at the perhaps erroneous or simplistic assumptions that serve as the basis of the Black Box we created.
What that means is my great simple statistics above, may or may not be as predictive as something generated in a super computer somewhere. In this we see that humans seek security when confronted with potentially fearful situations. We naturally seek others to ease our fears, others that agree with us.
I mentioned for the last few weeks, that from the beginning of the Obama administration he is using Chicago style radical community organizing techniques based upon the work of Saul Alinsky. Where did Alinsky learn those techniques? It is simply not so much a natural law, but a human common law, when change makes us feel more comfortable, we define this as good, change we fear that makes us uneasy, we define it as bad.
So conservatives define the “socialist” tendencies of the Obama administration as bad, because they say it denies the reality of self-determination, especially financial self-determination. However if you really are isolated in a tough cruel world where no one gives a hoot what happens to you financially or in any sense, the American concept of the rugged individualist going it alone against the wilderness, fate, God, and a whole host of other real and potential demons seems worse than frightening. Apparently if the frontier was closed a hundred years ago, a little socialism might be a sign of an advancing civilization. That is pretty much the basis of liberal arguments.
What is present in both arguments is the radical struggle against (them) bad guys and gals, against (us) good guys and gals. Good and bad in these instances being entirely subjective values. This is really tribal warfare without acknowledging the existence of tribes, but tribes they are none-the-less. I would say that this, in a Biblical worldview goes back to the Tower of Babel, but if you define the concept as Social Darwinism and the need to survive in a world of limited resources, that concept of natural selection is not opposed to creation science either. What is really at stake in absolute terms is survival tensioned against the luxury of civility.
Do we have the luxury of civility in this world? Isn’t being civil a responsibility of citizenship? This follows logically if you truly consider yourself a citizen. If you are isolated unto only yourself, then by definition you really don’t have any external responsibilities period, hence civility isn’t a moral requirement, because moral requirements are subject only to internalized understanding.
What we have here is a failure to communicate human values, in human terms, to other humans. That cannot be done through Black Box Modeling, nor can it be done alone, by yourself. It takes a community, but a community, which by definition is defined by more than just a getting together, it takes the understanding that we all share a lot more than what separates us.
Those Natural Laws prescribed by the Founders of the United States, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are universal hopes and aspirations of all humans, throughout all human history. Benjamin Franklin’s political cartoon from May 1754 shows a snake cut into pieces, symbolizing the American colonies, saying “Join or Die.” Glenn Beck uses a rendition of this image in his program of “We Surround Them Project” of 9 Principles and 12 Values, that Brute’ illustrated in his cartoon last week. The phrase from Beck’s project however is “Unite or Die.”
There is a major difference between uniting and joining, uniting is a good thing, joining requires a commitment. This is quite similar to the pig and the chicken in the ham and egg breakfast. The chicken is involved. The pig however is committed. More specifically, joining really demands distinctive results, but unity maintains a sense of separateness conditioned upon the defined terms of the process. So in other words you can attend meetings of an organization or worship in a church for years, but you have to join to be a member.
So what do you need to join to keep from dying? In purely secular terms you need to join the broader human community. You need to understand that being a radical confronting the establishment means you are limiting your survival options. That should increase your fear quotient considerably. We use the term exclusively inclusive, which is contemplative but really does not contain any substance, or application. Joining the establishment for the sake of survival really doesn’t promote change however. If it did, there would be no reason to have become a radical individual in the first place. By design, current establishment mentality means you forfeit your individuality.
Searching for a term to describe a properly functioning community I first considered “centered civility” but that really does not encompass the breadth of human diversity. I think a better term would be “diversely unified civility.” That sort of fits the concept of Biblical unity in diversity, but enforces a constraint of conduct, without being totally moralistic. In other words the reality is that humans really are not capable of saving themselves from themselves, but through choice they can and must live in civil union with the broader civil culture, civilization.
So why can’t we save ourselves from ourselves? First of all there is no empirical evidence from any place in recorded or even mythological history where we have ever succeeded in that accomplishment. The simple reason for that, contrary to what you hear everywhere today, is we are not that smart.
Not that long ago a million sounded like a big number. Six months ago a billion sounded pretty big. Now we discuss a trillion like it is virtually nothing in monetary terms. They have now calculated that the unfunded debt of the United States is 70 some trillion dollars, in round terms equal to the gross domestic product of the whole world’s economy for one year.
That trillion number is a good example of the difference between the best of human understanding, knowledge, and wisdom compared to similar the diversely unified civility, programmed or designed into the creation that sustains life on earth. That is not religion or philosophy, that is objective descriptive science.
Depending on the statistics you use, the vast majority of humans on earth believe in some sort of intelligent force or God responsible for life, as we know it. Those who don’t believe, really have no logical basis for that worldview, other than through radical behavior they find some sense of personal identity. Diversity is the basis for civility and civilization, however when we seek only radical change, fear increases and hence we move toward chaos rather than civilization.
So in the universal application of diversely unified civility we find community sustaining wisdom from:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10
PDF copy
Print version
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10
We began last week with the above quotation from Proverbs, which is the ultimate causative agent in the affairs of man. If the road to passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 doesn’t verify that reality, you truly are not inclined to face the real world.
Blame it on television, especially the Friday night show Numb3rs, where the bad guy almost got away with murder by tampering with the jury. Then math, especially probability theory, figured out how he did it. He succeeded, but only to the closing scene. Add to that a link in Saturday’s WSJ Online email on the Committee on Doubt and Uncertainty, concerning the House Financial Services Committee and we have a program for this week’s column.
Fear is the prime motivator in all-human decisions, or more precisely, the desire for security in the face of the unknown is what makes us do certain things pretty much all the time. To shine some light into that darkness we created the following equation. (For Windows users rather than use a specific math character set, we have attempted to express the variables in standard keyboard text.)
What we want to find out is what is the true Success Probability of any action we take to solve some perceived problem using a Process Factor or factors, which is basically defined as the way we have always done it. This is coupled directly with the Perceived Success over the years we have followed that path. We multiply that average by our Hoped Results and an undefined Fear Factor, which is divided over the Actual Results achieved over time. To use this equation for future predictions we must estimate the Actual Results to calculate the estimated Fear Factor.
(AVG[PFPS]*HR*FF)/(AR*T)= SP
PF = Process Factor
PS = Perceived Success in Years
HR = Hoped Results
FF = Fear Factor
AR = Actual Results
T= Time
SP = Success Probability = 1
Solving for Fear Factor in a potential success
FF = 1(AR*T)/(AVG[PFPS]*HR)
This means the Fear Factor for any defined Success is inversely proportional to the Perceived Success time average.
Now since we do not know the Actual Results until some future defined time, what really constricts our decisions is that inverse proportionality compared to another independent Process Factor. Hence more of the time our decisions are based upon what we perceived worked in the past, rather than what might work in the present, or in the future. Our government’s lack of imagination has been considered the causative agent in the 9-11 attack. The same is true of the current economic mess.
Before I get totally confused with the mumbo-jumbo, let us put this in the context of the recently passed economic stimulus package in the United States.
First of all, President Obama forecast doing nothing equal to the certainty of catastrophe. That greatly increases the fear in the general public, which in turn will eschew any alternative program away from consideration. The Fear Factor of doing nothing, or trying anything else, as he said is, “unacceptable.” So what this does is eliminate any true alternative from being considered, for any reason, “because time is of the essence.” In the old days we called this fear mongering, today we call it politics as usual.
So into that universe, in which Democrats have a substantial political majority, we can calculate the numerical certainty of the recently passed bill, because of the general perceptions of the public relating to the average Process Factor Perceived Success variable. Then just for perspective we will propose a positive alternative, which might have provided a less fearful alternative to the current bill. Finally, we will give a shot to a very negative reality perspective that probably now may become a real possibility wherever you may live. In each of these cases we will use the average of three Process Factors:
Democrat:
PFPS The Fed 1913 to present = 96 years
PFPS The New Deal 1933 to present = 76 years
PFPS Wall Street Post Korean conflict prosperity 1953 to present = 56 years
Average of Democrat PFPS = 76
Republican:
PFPS The Fed 1913 to present = 96 years
PFPS Wall Street Post Korean conflict prosperity 1953 to present = 56 years
PFPS Reagan Revolution tax cuts 1980 to present = 29 years
Average of Republican PFPS = 60
Positive Alternative:
PFPS Supremacy of Deist Natural Law 1776-2000 = 224 years
PFPS Greenback dollar 1862-1971 = 109 years
PFPS Wall Street Post Korean conflict prosperity 1953 to present = 56 years
Average of Positive Alternative = 130
This leaves the door opens to reality the current Negative Alternative:
PFPS Active Secular Progressive/Traditional American Culture War 2000 to present = 9 years
PFPS Expansion of massive government spending 2002 to present = 7 years
PFPS Sustained decline of leading economic indicators 2007 to present = 2 years
Average of Negative Alternative PFPS = 6
Now if that Negative Alternative doesn’t raise your Fear Factor nothing will. This Negative Alternative is more complex than what the President used to secure passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The problem is that the first two PFPS in this Negative Alternative can be expected to continue unabated for at least another four years. The Sustained Economic Decline PFPS is really on what this whole debate centers and it really has nothing to do with the New Deal tensioned against Reaganomics. So far we just lack the imagination to think about civility.
After the passage of the economic stimulus, a recapitalization of large financial institutions will follow. What this means in Main Street terms is that we, the American public, are going to in someway yet to be created, exchange overvalued toxic financial debt assets, with limited value, non-energetic debt money. No wonder Treasury Secretary Geithner is still working on the details.
For the foreseeable future we will have to deal with the certainty of the uncertainty. That constant needs to be our enterprise prescription to reestablish or to bring about an economic renaissance. Let’s use the quotation from Rahm Emanuel, “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste.” No we definitely should not, especially when traditional American values are at stake. This is a time for kairos on the path forward.
The systematic failure of world enterprise stems from the overriding emphasis on the use of Black Box Models, that simulate that tomorrow will look much like yesterday. All the certainty of the uncertainty lies in human factors essentially related to people acting like people rather than agglomerated rational, moral, statistical constants. All computer-generated models, in someway rely upon human factors that never really can be predicted. So summarizing briefly, we seldom if ever act or react rationally and similarly lack the imagination to appreciate or solve the problem.
That is just as true for environmental models as it is for economic predictions. For example global catastrophic models rely upon an assumption that economic growth will continue, with out understanding that economic growth may not continue in accordance with model predictions, but the models also assume that technology and money will be available to provide the fixes the model says are required. This without ever looking seriously at the perhaps erroneous or simplistic assumptions that serve as the basis of the Black Box we created.
What that means is my great simple statistics above, may or may not be as predictive as something generated in a super computer somewhere. In this we see that humans seek security when confronted with potentially fearful situations. We naturally seek others to ease our fears, others that agree with us.
I mentioned for the last few weeks, that from the beginning of the Obama administration he is using Chicago style radical community organizing techniques based upon the work of Saul Alinsky. Where did Alinsky learn those techniques? It is simply not so much a natural law, but a human common law, when change makes us feel more comfortable, we define this as good, change we fear that makes us uneasy, we define it as bad.
So conservatives define the “socialist” tendencies of the Obama administration as bad, because they say it denies the reality of self-determination, especially financial self-determination. However if you really are isolated in a tough cruel world where no one gives a hoot what happens to you financially or in any sense, the American concept of the rugged individualist going it alone against the wilderness, fate, God, and a whole host of other real and potential demons seems worse than frightening. Apparently if the frontier was closed a hundred years ago, a little socialism might be a sign of an advancing civilization. That is pretty much the basis of liberal arguments.
What is present in both arguments is the radical struggle against (them) bad guys and gals, against (us) good guys and gals. Good and bad in these instances being entirely subjective values. This is really tribal warfare without acknowledging the existence of tribes, but tribes they are none-the-less. I would say that this, in a Biblical worldview goes back to the Tower of Babel, but if you define the concept as Social Darwinism and the need to survive in a world of limited resources, that concept of natural selection is not opposed to creation science either. What is really at stake in absolute terms is survival tensioned against the luxury of civility.
Do we have the luxury of civility in this world? Isn’t being civil a responsibility of citizenship? This follows logically if you truly consider yourself a citizen. If you are isolated unto only yourself, then by definition you really don’t have any external responsibilities period, hence civility isn’t a moral requirement, because moral requirements are subject only to internalized understanding.
What we have here is a failure to communicate human values, in human terms, to other humans. That cannot be done through Black Box Modeling, nor can it be done alone, by yourself. It takes a community, but a community, which by definition is defined by more than just a getting together, it takes the understanding that we all share a lot more than what separates us.
Those Natural Laws prescribed by the Founders of the United States, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are universal hopes and aspirations of all humans, throughout all human history. Benjamin Franklin’s political cartoon from May 1754 shows a snake cut into pieces, symbolizing the American colonies, saying “Join or Die.” Glenn Beck uses a rendition of this image in his program of “We Surround Them Project” of 9 Principles and 12 Values, that Brute’ illustrated in his cartoon last week. The phrase from Beck’s project however is “Unite or Die.”
There is a major difference between uniting and joining, uniting is a good thing, joining requires a commitment. This is quite similar to the pig and the chicken in the ham and egg breakfast. The chicken is involved. The pig however is committed. More specifically, joining really demands distinctive results, but unity maintains a sense of separateness conditioned upon the defined terms of the process. So in other words you can attend meetings of an organization or worship in a church for years, but you have to join to be a member.
So what do you need to join to keep from dying? In purely secular terms you need to join the broader human community. You need to understand that being a radical confronting the establishment means you are limiting your survival options. That should increase your fear quotient considerably. We use the term exclusively inclusive, which is contemplative but really does not contain any substance, or application. Joining the establishment for the sake of survival really doesn’t promote change however. If it did, there would be no reason to have become a radical individual in the first place. By design, current establishment mentality means you forfeit your individuality.
Searching for a term to describe a properly functioning community I first considered “centered civility” but that really does not encompass the breadth of human diversity. I think a better term would be “diversely unified civility.” That sort of fits the concept of Biblical unity in diversity, but enforces a constraint of conduct, without being totally moralistic. In other words the reality is that humans really are not capable of saving themselves from themselves, but through choice they can and must live in civil union with the broader civil culture, civilization.
So why can’t we save ourselves from ourselves? First of all there is no empirical evidence from any place in recorded or even mythological history where we have ever succeeded in that accomplishment. The simple reason for that, contrary to what you hear everywhere today, is we are not that smart.
Not that long ago a million sounded like a big number. Six months ago a billion sounded pretty big. Now we discuss a trillion like it is virtually nothing in monetary terms. They have now calculated that the unfunded debt of the United States is 70 some trillion dollars, in round terms equal to the gross domestic product of the whole world’s economy for one year.
That trillion number is a good example of the difference between the best of human understanding, knowledge, and wisdom compared to similar the diversely unified civility, programmed or designed into the creation that sustains life on earth. That is not religion or philosophy, that is objective descriptive science.
Depending on the statistics you use, the vast majority of humans on earth believe in some sort of intelligent force or God responsible for life, as we know it. Those who don’t believe, really have no logical basis for that worldview, other than through radical behavior they find some sense of personal identity. Diversity is the basis for civility and civilization, however when we seek only radical change, fear increases and hence we move toward chaos rather than civilization.
So in the universal application of diversely unified civility we find community sustaining wisdom from:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10