I don't care much for this article titled "I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People". It's just another example of the kind division being pressed on us from every corner of the media. It's this division that keeps us descending into economic and environmental devastation while the psychopaths who run this world march on and on like the mechanical pink rabbit - soulless, mindless, unconscious of the devastation they're bringing, concerned only with the acquisition of more and more power.
Division is destroying the world and our ability to live in it, and nobody wants that. Unfortunately, the psychology behind this division - the division of left and right - is so powerful that it's taken on a life of its own. It's based in the psychological roots of humanity: The power of social cooperation and the basic individual will to survive and reproduce.
These roots may seem contradictory, and sometimes they are, but there are many ways in which they support each other. Without large-scale social cooperation, we'd still be living in clan groups, wandering the world in search of our next meal. In holistic terms this may be healthier way of living, but it would also be static. In nature everything changes - it must be so. Change is the eternal constant. Without it, time stops and nothing really exists.
Power mongers have always harnessed whatever tools were available to maintain and increase their control over the world. This is their nature - it's why they are powerful - but these tools have advanced such a degree that progress has been brought to a stop. We are regressing, and disaster threatens on many fronts. The dichotomy that has brought us so far has been turned against us. The two basic aspects of human evolution - individual self-interest and social cooperation - are now used to turn us against each other.
We must find a way to communicate, negotiate, and coexist harmoniously, so to the article in question I reply:
Stop trying to debate conservatives into "caring about what happens to their fellow human beings" and focus instead on their self-interest. There's great power in human collective, right? It's the reason humanity is so powerful in comparison to other life forms. Alone, we're relatively defenseless against nature; Guided by power-hungry leaders, we've nearly destroyed nature.
The root of our political problems isn't so much about a lack of "caring for others"; the problem is in this cult of ideology that infects both side of the proverbial aisle. In my experience, most conservative people (humans, not politicians) actually do care about others, in order of family, friends/neighbors, community, nation, then world. For example, it seems to me the conservative mindset is generally based on starting at the center - the "me" - and working outward; kind of a "fix it for me and it will be fixed for others, too". In contrast, the liberal mindset is on starting with everyone - the whole - and working inward: "Fix it for everyone (and it will be fixed for me, too.)
We (humans, not politicians) basically want the same things but can't wrap our heads around negotiating the way to do it - and this is mostly because we can't get past the distraction of our own ideologies. We can't seem to learn to "speak each other's language" - to compromise and negotiate, or even to give due consideration to each others positions. We have to see through the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) influence of media that promotes this petulance both sides exhibit toward each other (not to mention promotion of ignorance of critical issues - and that's on both sides).
It's quickly coming to a question of [division, to promote power for predatory capitalists and their politicians] vs. [the ability of 'we the people' to learn negotiate and compromise despite our differences in ideology and reclaim our right to collectively guide our own destiny].
Despite appearances, American politicians rarely if ever support
the interests of their constituents. According to a Princeton study,
public opinion has little or no influence on American politicians.
The preferences of the average American appear to have only a
minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon
public policy.
It is, however, perfectly legal to buy political influence in America,
and the richer you are, the more you can afford. The study described
in this video makes it clear that only by lobbying can political
control be exercised.
In recent decades the trend of purchasing political power has
increased astronomically. Where once there may have been a small
measure of balance, the US government is now controlled exclusively
by those who can afford to control the pool from which politicians
are selected.
By funding a select group of candidates well enough, they're placed
high above the less desirable competition. Their visibility is
pervasive across their regions, their campaign management is far
above the rest, their speech writers are the most convincing. More
TV, more social media, more intelligent persuasion consultants...
more of everything that's shown itself to win elections.
Therefore, by financing only the candidates that prove willing to
support their contributors' causes, it's virtually guaranteed that
the result of any election that's important to you will be satisfying.
There's no need to select the actual individual who wins. You pay for
the campaign of all the competators and you can't lose. No matter who
wins each race, the slots you need are yours before the first vote
is cast.
If you're thinking the price of this is too high to make it a valid
option, then consider the millions being provided by successful
corporations and individuals. What are the odds those dollars are
being contributed to candidates who won't support their wishes? How
likely is it that these dollars represent a loss to the bottom line?
A year-long analysis by the Sunlight Foundation suggests
that the $5.8 billion in federal lobbying and campaign contributions
from America's most politically active corporations yeilded a return
of $4.4 trillion in federal business and support.
There are, of course, more conservative estimates.
A harvard study suggests that great bennefits
rarely come of campaign finance and usually result in little more than
a "breaking even" effect. However, this too is significant considering
the twenty richest people control more wealth than half the nation's
citizens.
It seems rational to believe that a breaking-even effect, particularly
in combination with the possibility of potentially staggering profits,
would encourage anyone above the mid-Texas line to contribute as much
as seemed necessary - even if it were only to preserve the status quo!
Political Evolution
None of this is meant to imply the amount of campaign-finance money
is the deciding factor in any given election. There are clearly many
circumstantial factors that can match to individual candidate fitness
- it's these that determine any political race. The issue here is that a
certain cash threshold is necessary to make a candidate known to the
public, and large-scale campaign-finance provides it to those of the
candidates who will "play ball".
For elected officials, survival strategy starts with one simple rule:
Get and maintain the support of those who provide the help you need to
get into (and stay in) office. Those who won't promise to comply with
the wishes of their benefactors are not provided the money and support
required to get elected. Those who don't make good on those promises
will, for lack of money and support, not be reelected. That's "survival
of the fittest" in American politics.
When asked his opinion of the 2010 Citizens United decision and the
2014 McCutcheon decsion, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter replied:
It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its
political system. Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political
bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or
being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and
U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we've just seen a
subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors,
who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after
the election is over. ... At the present time the incumbents,
Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great
benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a
great deal more to sell.
A contributing factor in Carter's win was the state of awareness
during his campaign of the effects of money in politics. Since his
time, the American people have been lulled into believing that a
conflict of interest is OK; that correlation not only doesn't prove
causation, but maybe even has nothing to do with it! There is no
excuse for this except the old truism: If a lie is repeated enough
times, people will begin to believe it.
Properly regulated capitalism can be a great boon to humanity, but
campaign finance has led to its deregulation, which has turned it
into a tool for oppression only.
Who do Politicians Represent?
As previously established,
controlling which political candidates appear to the public
(and how well they appear) does not mean actual selection of the
individual who wins, but does provide a high degree of control over
what laws will be made. Therefore, laws are ultimately in the hands
of those who can, in effect, purchase their creation.
James Glattfelder's TED Talk describes a study based on the science of Complexity
that shows a core of 737 shareholders - mostly financial institutions
in the United States and UK - control 80% of the world's capital.
Further, a subset of 146 has the potential to control 40% of it.
[More on that.]
The basics of Universal Darwinism dictate that those at the top in an
envoronment as competitive as ours are the most "fit" individuals.
They and their organizations represent the apex of drive and ability.
Beyond any doubt, they're very good at what they do: at using money
to make more money.
It may be reasoned that their expertise in one field does not imply
expertise in other important fields. To the contrary, it would seem
an exceptional focus is likely required to maintained these vast
capitalistic empires. It might be more than reasonable to guess that
other important fields are neglected, resulting in a full range of
real world costs - of which they may be ignorant - that come as a
result of their activities.
One thing is certain: they're not willing to pay those costs. The
state of capitalism is such that, absent a court order, they may not
even consider it. Such is the value placed on "a good quarterly
statement". They remain focused on their task, not only ignoring
other problems - problems that range from painful to potentially
apocolyptic - but even preventing the solution to such problems in
the interest of gaining more profit.
Charles Darwin
gave us insight into the nature of change in species that is arguably
a powerful tool for gaining understanding into other other areas of
study, as well.
Universal Darwinism aims to formulate a
generalized version of the mechanisms of variation, selection and
heredity proposed by Darwin, so that they can apply to explain
evolution in a wide variety of other domains.
This document explores the use of Universal Darwinism to search for
new ways of understanding politics.
The goal is not to make use of genetic/biological discoveries
of Darwinian evolution, but to develop a complement to the field of
Psephology, a branch of political science which deals with
the study and scientific analysis of elections.
Darwin's algorithm adorns a very basic truth of the universe with
regard to competition for "slots" of survival. The world is a
perpetually changing, finite environment in which a more general
version of [the mechanisms described by Darwin] are enforced at many
levels. If nothing else, a study of politics through this lens may
shed light on traits that support the fitness of candidates to win
elections.
In her TED Talk, "Memes and Temes",
Susan Blackmore makes good use of a variation of Darwin's insight
to describe how ideas evolve in human society.
Note: This video is presented here for reference. It's not
necessary for an understanding of the following content, so long as
you accept that the concepts behind Darwin's basic algorithm are
useful in understanding much more than the evolution of species.
Darwin's Algorithm
Here's how Blackmore breaks down the basics of Darwinism:
If, said Darwin, you have creatures that vary, and most of them die,
and the survivors pass on whatever it was that helped them survive to
their offspring, then you must get evolution.
~Susan Blackmore
Here are the key ideas:
[Creatures that vary]
+ [Most of them die].
+ [Survivors pass on traits]
= [increase in fitness], or "evolution".
We accept as self-evident that creatures have various traits which
help and hinder their survival to various degrees. Darwin recognized
that those whose traits tend to promote their survival will live to
pass those traits to their offspring, while those that don't will
tend to fail to procreate and eventually they (and their less useful
traits) will recede or disappear.
Generalization of Darwin's Algorithm
Darwin's algorithm, as presented, has proven helpful in understanding
the evolution of species. If reduced to the most general terms,
the algorithm may also be useful in describing other systems in which
fitness determines success.
These variables represent generic substitute terms:
ENV
Environment. Any finite environment, real or theoretical.
Environment provides positions for which entities (OBJ) compete,
and enforces the conditions that determine the fitness value of
any given entity's aptitude (APT) in such a way that the most
fit entities tend to gain and keep positions (POS).
POS
Position. The position is a place in the environment. In natural
(Darwinian) terms it's simply "the world", "nature", or some
"niche". In more algorithmic terms, position can be seen as an
array of zero or more slots to be filled by the most fit
objects, entities, ideas, or whatever is represented by OBJ.
OBJ
Object. Any real or theoretical object (animal, man, algorithm,
idea, etc...) that competes to find and/or keep a position (POS)
in a specific environment (ENV). Any object will have a certain
aptitude (APT) that determines its fitness to occupy a given
position in a particular environment.
APT
Aptitude. Aptitude is a set of attributes and/or qualities of that
affect the ability of an object (OBJ) to maintain a position (POS)
in the relevant environment (ENV). Note that aptitude is one set
of multiple qualities/attributes assigned to any given object for
the purpose of determining how each affects fitness, alone or in
combination with other qualities/attributes.
SRC
Source. The source of new instances of OBJ. In nature, SRC is
supplied by the reproductive systems of creatures. In purely
theoretical terms, this is not necessarily (and probably not
usually) the case. The source of objects must be defined as
dictated by the realities of the envrionment being studied.
In these terms, SRC provides individual instances of objects (OBJ),
each of which possess unique sets/values of attributes/qualities
(APT) that determine fitness for filling positions (POS) in the
envrionment being studied (ENV).
When you have, in any theoretical environment (ENV)...
a finite set of [vacancies/slots/positions] (POS)
being filled by [objects/entities/ideas] (OJB)
with varying [traits/attributes] (APT)
provided by [a prolific suplier] (SRC)
...then those OBJ with the APT most fit for gaining/keeping POS in
ENV will gain/keep POS. Further, when SRC creates OBJ with APT sets
more fit for POS in ENV, such OBJ will will replace a less fit OBJ
currently existing in POS within ENV.
Competition and Selection
Clearly, competition is a key feature of Darwin's algorithm and it's
obvious that any generalization would be useless without some form
of competition driving the selection process. The most obvious factor
would be competition for POS in ENV based on the APT of OBJ, so any
ENV must have a finite, positive range of POS instances.
Less clear is the mechanism of the passage of traits. While it's
true that dynasties seem to occur frequently even in modern politics,
the similarity to Darwin's passage of traits ends there. However,
a huge variation of traits exists in the general gene pool, and
perhaps much more significantly, within the "meme" pool as (for
example) prevalent politically relevant ideologies and philosophies.
By this logic, traits for selection are provided largely by the
gene and meme pools, rather than by direct ancestral inheritence of
politicans. The appearance of dynastic political lines even in
representative government only serves to support this reasoning.
A Simple Scenerio for Darwinian Politics
Imagine a hypothetical political example: a small democratic
city-state.
The government consists of a single leader elected from among the
5000 citizens. A survey has indicated that 1% of the citizens are
apparently qualified and interested in running for office.
Here's a breakdown of the variables for this scenerio:
ENV is the city-state, its rules regarding political
representation, and any other (potentially external) factors that
might affect the internal environment.
SRC is a set of 50 citizens apparently qualified and
interested in running for office.
POS represents the single representative position available.
OBJ is a single candidate; there are 50 OBJ instances, one
for each candidate.
APT is a set of traits, one set per OBJ, that determines the
fitness of each OBJ to win office (POS).
Discounting any unknown or "apparently random" variables, the member
of SRC that possesses the top configuration of APT will end up being
selected. It's important to note that the set of APT consists of
traits not related to successfully fulfilling the requirements
of POS, but for successfully winning the position. Potentially,
the best candidate for the job might actually be the worst-suited to
win the office, while the worst-suited to rule may be the best-suited
to win.
Now selection can be understood by two factors:
The traits that are most appropriate for winning. Broken down,
this set of traits may include charisma, public perception of
"honesty", proclaimed policy ideology, etc... but probably are more
likely a result of some social mechanism based on voter perception
of the candidates.
The rules of the election as they are enforced. As the 50
candidates were defined (for the purpose of this hypothetical
situation) as apparently qualified, it may be that some or
all of them are disqualified before the actual election. The
mechanism by which qualification is investigated, assessed, and
enforced plays a potentially huge role in who actually gets to run
for office.
Selection may also be affected by pseudo-random unknowns.
Note that the traits encompassed by aptitude (APT) are not limited
to working within the rules. It's conceivable (and potentially
likely) that the most aggressive of technically unqualified
candidates may successfully hide any self-disqualifying factors
while arranging for fully-qualified candidates to be perceived as
unqualified or at least unfit.
In addition to willful subterfuge by candidates and/or their agents,
there may also exist pseudo-randomness hidden in unknown attributes
of any given candidate or the environmtent in general.
Election Prediction
There's a strong potential for pitfalls presented by hidden,
incorrect, and undiscovered values in the environment and in aptitudes.
Development of a prediction algorithm may require much time and
effort, and will likely require constant refinement so as to be kept
current with changing trends.
To use the Darwin Algorithm as a predictive tool, Environment (ENV)
and Position (POS) might be thought of as algorithms to a function
intended to represent "reality" (the rules of environment as we
understand them) so as to return the best possible guess as to
which OBJ (based on their individual APT) are most fit to fill the
available POS within ENV.
Arguments to such a function might be given as an array of candidates
(OBJ) in which each candidate object contains another array of value
pairs [trait names = a value assignment]. If all relevant traits were
specified correctly for each candidate (OBJ) and all algorithms for
environment and position were correctly framed, the results would
be perfect.
Unfortunately, this is an impractical expectation in the real world.
To predict the winner of a political race would require a thorough
understanding of the environment and of the traits that affect
fitness for winning the election. These two factors, if perfectly and
completely understood, would lead to a 100% success rate in prediction.
As a 100% perfect understanding of reality is impossible, it must be
accepted that only a partial success is possible. The level of success
in such a prediction would depend on the honesty and thoroughness by
which aptitude (APT) traits are selected and values assigned, as well
as on the accuracy of the algorithms used to assess the fitness such
traits suggest.
It may, however, be possible to run specify certain ranges for tests
within the algorithms, along with certain ranges of value assessments,
in such a way that intersections of correct matches to historical data
may be encountered. Such an analysis might reveal changing trends
over multiple elections, and such trends might reveal a connection to
socioeconomic, capitalistic, moral, or other ideological trends. This
may appear more to be more art than science, but this too can be useful
and may even lead to a sort of political calculus that encompases real
world conditions as variables that affect the liklihood that certain
apparent traits (APT) are more or less fit than others.
Notes and Document Status
This seventh draft brings what I feel to be a complete outline.
Please give any feedback, kind or cruel. I'm looking for holes in both
the ideas and their presentation. Even spelling/grammar corrections
are greatly appreciated!
A couple of things I'm wrestling with at the moment are:
How readable is this document? Is it easy to understand? Where
are my points unclear? Where does the reasoning seem illogical?
Who can give me some insight and ideas into the validity of my
descriptions of algorithms in the last section?
I'm wondering whether "Darwin's Algorithm" is the best description
for this generalization of his idea. I'm not too sure whether this
idea meets the criteria for being considered under Universal
Darwinism.
James B. Glattfelder begins his
TED Talk
with a couple of quotes (related to the 2008 crash) from powerful representatives of capitalist ideology that seem to imply "we still don't understand the conditions for stable society, a functioning economy, or peace."
Glattfelder suggests (and uses) the Science of
Complexity
as a means to better understand economics. He uses it in his TED Talk to look for potential hazards and points of failure.
Glattfelder describes complex systems as being made up of many connected, interacting parts, such as bird swarms, ant colonies, and - more to the point - financial markets. Complex systems are hard to map into physics equations, but can be understood easily by studying interactions and by determining the rules of interactions. They are emergent, and show behavior that can't be understood by looking at the components - the whole is greater than sum of its parts.
What [equations] are for physics, [complex networks] are for the study of complex systems. This approach has been successfully applied to many complex systems in physics, biology, computer science, and social sciences. Nodes are system components, while links are the interactions.
Glattfelder applied the principles of Complexity to economic networks - specifically, in a first of it's kind study of the network of global corporate control. The study looked specifically at ownership networks in which companies, people, governments, and foundations represented nodes while the links represented shareholder relations (shareholder A's percent of shares in company B) factoring in value assigned to companies based on operating revenue.
who are the key players?
how are they organized? (isolated? interconnected?)
what is the overall distribution of control.
Concerned that a high degree of inter-connectivity can be bad for stability, the study was narrowed to the most relevant nodes. Of 13 million ownership relations, the focus was reduced to trans-national corporations (or TNCs) consisting of 600,000 nodes and more than a million links. The structure revealed consisted of a periphery, a center, and a dominant core (36% of the TNCs, making up 1300 nodes but a whopping 95% of the value).
Based on the idea that ownership gives voting rights dependent on relative distribution of shares and that control over TNC value leads to a degree of influence assigned to each shareholder, the study indicates that 737 top shareholders (0.123%, mostly financial institutions in the US and UK) have the collective potential to control 80% of the TNCs value. Further, within those, a 146-node minority holds the potential to control over 40% of Trans-national Corporation value.
In other words, this study gives a remarkable into the question of "who controls the world?"
