Thursday, September 23, 2004
Bit off more than I can chew
Well, after devoting a few chunks of time to writing the Introduction section to my little treatise, I realized a few things:
#1 - I may have been too ambitious in hoping to explain my entire philosophy on everything.
#2 - It's not good practice to write an Introduction section before you write the material. Writing is quite different from reading, and it has become apparent that it's difficult to summarize the body of a work when said body has yet to be written. I always, always write the introduction to papers after I've written the rest of the paper. But, the serial nature of the blog diary publication has flip-flopped it on me. Either I will need to wait to publish the thing until I've completed the work, or I must resign myself to the notion that the introduction will have to be heavily edited, amended, and altered during the course of fleshing out the rest of the treatise.
Anyway, I'm still working. But, to make this blog at least partially interesting while I fiddle with an explanation of how I think, I thought I'd add a list of my comments on current political issues:
(1) The Dan Rather thing
Who cares? Journalists are going to make mistakes. There's only so much one can do to verify the accuracy of a document. Rather made a mistake. Those with incentives to correct that mistake (namely, Bush supporters) did their job. The lesson people should learn from this is that one should not believe everything he hears on the television (or reads in the newspaper). Honestly, people should have known that before this occurred.
The biggest problem with this scandal is that it has distracted the public from the real issues facing us in this election. It is not important (now) to determine whether George W. Bush was a good National Guardsman. Rather, it is important to determine whether George W. Bush is a good president. And, I believe, the answer to that question is a resounding "Hell NO!" See (2) for why...
(2) Why Dubya is a bad leader
A good leader ought to make decisions in a methodical, rational manner. When a leader is faced with a decision, his first step ought to be to collect ALL relevant information. The second step should be to perform an honest, objective analysis of the information. Next, the effects of the various alternative courses of action - given the background information and the nature of the dynamic system at issue - should be predicted. Finally, the course of action that yields the optimum results - as determined by objective criteria - should be taken.
Our current president fails to apply such a methodical process to decision making. One example is his record on the environment. It has been well-documented, in respected scientific publications such as Scientific American and Nature, that W has made a practice of "filtering" his scientific advisers to exclude any scientist who dares to present objective research data that contradicts the president's preconceived notions. Basically, the president's decision-making process fails from the very outset. By stacking his scientific advisory board with conservative policy whores, the president (1) reduces his access to critical information and (2) impairs his ability to obtain an objective analysis of the relevant data. Any decision he makes will thus be based on partial, possibly incorrect or misconstrued data, and therefore has little chance of achieving an objectively optimal result. Of course, all of this ignores the fact that any president (and especially this one) may taint the fourth stage of the methodical decision-making process by acting with ulterior motives.
In any case, it is easy to see how the same problem that plagues W's environmental policy making applies to his decision to invade Iraq. From the outset, Bush focused on the thin shreds of biased and highly ambiguous data that implicated an Iraqi threat. Bush disregarded any data to the contrary. He failed to objectively analyze the evidence. Had he done so, he would have noticed that the evidence was tainted by the bias of those who reported it, lacking in breadth and based on wildly improbable inferences (is a trailer more likely to be a "mobile bioweapons lab" or a regular old trailer?). My contention is that Bush was able to talk himself into war because he failed to analyze the information. If this is true, he is not a capable leader. If it is false, then the answer is that Bush made the decision that he wanted to make because his objective goals were different than those he claims. In other words, this war was NOT designed to eliminate a threat, but rather to achieve some other objective (oil reserves is the typical answer given to this dilemma). But, the question then is whether a war, against the will of the world, was the optimal solution to achieve this hidden, ulterior motive. I find it hard to believe that pissing off the entire world is an optimal solution to any problem.
I should mention one thing really quickly. The above analysis is NOT "hindsight." Hindsight evaluation of a decision involves using the data obtained AFTER the decision and asking the question "given what we know now (i.e. after the fall-out), would it have been reasonable to make the same decision?" I have not asked that question. Rather, my line of inquiry represents a more realistic manner in which to evaluate a decision. I only ask: "given what we knew then (i.e. before the decision), was the decision objectively reasonable?" If the answer is "no," then the inevitable result is that the decision maker was irrational. That is the sad fact we have to admit about George W.: our current president is irrational. He's a loose cannon. Vote him out.
#1 - I may have been too ambitious in hoping to explain my entire philosophy on everything.
#2 - It's not good practice to write an Introduction section before you write the material. Writing is quite different from reading, and it has become apparent that it's difficult to summarize the body of a work when said body has yet to be written. I always, always write the introduction to papers after I've written the rest of the paper. But, the serial nature of the blog diary publication has flip-flopped it on me. Either I will need to wait to publish the thing until I've completed the work, or I must resign myself to the notion that the introduction will have to be heavily edited, amended, and altered during the course of fleshing out the rest of the treatise.
Anyway, I'm still working. But, to make this blog at least partially interesting while I fiddle with an explanation of how I think, I thought I'd add a list of my comments on current political issues:
(1) The Dan Rather thing
Who cares? Journalists are going to make mistakes. There's only so much one can do to verify the accuracy of a document. Rather made a mistake. Those with incentives to correct that mistake (namely, Bush supporters) did their job. The lesson people should learn from this is that one should not believe everything he hears on the television (or reads in the newspaper). Honestly, people should have known that before this occurred.
The biggest problem with this scandal is that it has distracted the public from the real issues facing us in this election. It is not important (now) to determine whether George W. Bush was a good National Guardsman. Rather, it is important to determine whether George W. Bush is a good president. And, I believe, the answer to that question is a resounding "Hell NO!" See (2) for why...
(2) Why Dubya is a bad leader
A good leader ought to make decisions in a methodical, rational manner. When a leader is faced with a decision, his first step ought to be to collect ALL relevant information. The second step should be to perform an honest, objective analysis of the information. Next, the effects of the various alternative courses of action - given the background information and the nature of the dynamic system at issue - should be predicted. Finally, the course of action that yields the optimum results - as determined by objective criteria - should be taken.
Our current president fails to apply such a methodical process to decision making. One example is his record on the environment. It has been well-documented, in respected scientific publications such as Scientific American and Nature, that W has made a practice of "filtering" his scientific advisers to exclude any scientist who dares to present objective research data that contradicts the president's preconceived notions. Basically, the president's decision-making process fails from the very outset. By stacking his scientific advisory board with conservative policy whores, the president (1) reduces his access to critical information and (2) impairs his ability to obtain an objective analysis of the relevant data. Any decision he makes will thus be based on partial, possibly incorrect or misconstrued data, and therefore has little chance of achieving an objectively optimal result. Of course, all of this ignores the fact that any president (and especially this one) may taint the fourth stage of the methodical decision-making process by acting with ulterior motives.
In any case, it is easy to see how the same problem that plagues W's environmental policy making applies to his decision to invade Iraq. From the outset, Bush focused on the thin shreds of biased and highly ambiguous data that implicated an Iraqi threat. Bush disregarded any data to the contrary. He failed to objectively analyze the evidence. Had he done so, he would have noticed that the evidence was tainted by the bias of those who reported it, lacking in breadth and based on wildly improbable inferences (is a trailer more likely to be a "mobile bioweapons lab" or a regular old trailer?). My contention is that Bush was able to talk himself into war because he failed to analyze the information. If this is true, he is not a capable leader. If it is false, then the answer is that Bush made the decision that he wanted to make because his objective goals were different than those he claims. In other words, this war was NOT designed to eliminate a threat, but rather to achieve some other objective (oil reserves is the typical answer given to this dilemma). But, the question then is whether a war, against the will of the world, was the optimal solution to achieve this hidden, ulterior motive. I find it hard to believe that pissing off the entire world is an optimal solution to any problem.
I should mention one thing really quickly. The above analysis is NOT "hindsight." Hindsight evaluation of a decision involves using the data obtained AFTER the decision and asking the question "given what we know now (i.e. after the fall-out), would it have been reasonable to make the same decision?" I have not asked that question. Rather, my line of inquiry represents a more realistic manner in which to evaluate a decision. I only ask: "given what we knew then (i.e. before the decision), was the decision objectively reasonable?" If the answer is "no," then the inevitable result is that the decision maker was irrational. That is the sad fact we have to admit about George W.: our current president is irrational. He's a loose cannon. Vote him out.
