Poor Misunderstood Billionaires

According to today’s New York Times, poor, misunderstood billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, will be portrayed by the defense as a “big picture” guy who didn’t know anything illegal was going on under him. Mere mortals do not understand how it works with billionaires, so I feel obligated to make it clear. It is quite simple. When things go RIGHT, then, the people at the top take credit for their brilliant insights, their persistence, their people skills, and their innate talents. This is why they deserve to be billionaires. But if things go WRONG, then, the results are due to people under them. Since they are “under” them, these people obviously have less brilliant insights, less persistence, worse people skills and less innate talent. The system is really quite simple. Read the autobiography of virtually any CEO and you will find a similar story. To the extent that things go RIGHT with a company it is due to the guidance of the CEO. When things go WRONG, it is due to underlings, the economy, unfair competition, the interference of the government, the weather, the stars, the quality of the coffee, the pressure of being in the limelight, cracks in the pavement, too many trees, butterflies making too much noise in the background, etc.

Now that I have clearly explained how things work, I hope folks will start buying and trading Billionaire Trading Cards! And, don’t forget the “Adopt a Billionare” program!

Language: For Truth or Lies?

May 17, 2008 (Day 571).  I hate to sound cynical but I am beginning to wonder whether language is more often used to communicate the truth — or, it’s opposite.  One example that comes to mind: “I drink just to be sociable.”  Hmmm.  Maybe.  But since people are much more likely to kill each other, accidentally or on purpose, when under the influence, just how sociable is this?  “I have faith in God.”  Okay.  But how many of us say, “I have faith in gravity.”  Or, “I have faith that I cannot walk through that wall.”  Not too many.  At least, I haven’t heard many people express those sentiments.   And, if someone were to say to me, “I have faith in gravity” and I were to reply, “Well, not me.  I don’t see any evidence” — what would happen?  Would they be likely to torture me until I recanted?  Would they even argue vigorously why it was important to have faith in gravity?  I doubt it.  Mostly likely, they would give me a kind of pitying look and walk on their way.  They might say in passing, “suit yourself” and give a little laugh. 

 

When I was studying the psychology of aging many moons ago I took a test of “values” and scored way off the scale on “theoretical” which meant I was quite interested in the “truth” compared with other possible values such as economic, religious, hedonic, and so on.  I think that’s probably right.  It would seem that academia is the place where “truth” is pursued most purely and vigorously, but lately, I have come to wonder whether this is really so, at least now.  Suppose one were in the “Department of Ologyology” and actually found “the truth?”  Would everyone immediately worship you as a hero?  I kind of doubt it.  Because, now, you see, the game would be up.  If you really proved that the fundamental truth of Ologyology were X, and no-one could dispute it or further refine it, people would basically be out of a job.  All those graduate students trained in your Ologyology Department would similarly be out of a job.  So, it seems to me that the real goal of the Ologyology Department is not to seek the truth, but continually to complexify the field of Ologyology so that there are ever more questions to ask.  It is almost, in fact, a requirement to end any published paper with these formulaic words, “More study is obviously needed to further explore this complex and difficult subject.”   No matter how compelling the results, to end a paper conversely with, “So there you have it.  We have definitively shown X and thus ends the study of Ologyology” would be a certain formula for non-acceptance and non-publication and quite possibly for burning a large wooden telescope on your front lawn.

 

Another example: “Women are so emotional.”  Compared with what?  Men?  In my experience, women are much more practical than men and men are much more emotional than women.  Isn’t this obvious?  How many women kill in a fit of rage?  Precious few compared with men.  What is the proportion of prostitutes of men for women versus women for men?  Of course, there are individual differences, but it seems quite clear, that, in general, men are more emotional than women in the sense that their actual behavior is more often guided and clouded by their emotions.  What’s more, men seem, in general, to be less aware of the impact of their emotions on their decisions.  This is all fine, but what is odd is that in our culture, we have a “truism” about it that seems so clearly counterfactual. 

 

In terms of contemporary politics, of course, we find numerous examples, but this is not quite so surprising.  “Republicans believe in individual responsibility.”  Huh?  Everyone in politics has a tendency for finger pointing, but the recent crop of Republicans have elevated this to a high art form and religion.  When, in eight years, have you heard Bush or any of his coterie say, “Oh, yeah.  I was dead wrong about that.” ?  “Republicans believe that the least government is the best government.”  Huh?  What counts as government then?  They want to be able to put you in jail if you displease them with no chance of a jury trial by simply labeling you an “enemy combatant.”  No proof needed.  No sunshine test.  They want to tell you whether or not you can have an abortion, who you can sleep with, and what kinds of drugs are okay and which are not okay.  “The Republicans are the party of financial conservatism.”  So laughable it requires no comment.  “The Republicans believe in the economics of free enterprise.”  No, folks. 
“Free Enterprise” and “Crony Capitalism” are not the same thing at all.  In fact, “Crony Capitalism” is really an oxymoron.  Nothing is further from the spirit and logic of Adam Smith than the brand of favoritism practiced by The Bush White House. 

 

So what then is language?  Surely, it is not always used to deceive.  Sometimes, teams — whether hunting parties, sports teams or software development groups — actually give each other useful information that, so far as they know, is true.  But … wow….we certainly seem to have moved a long way from that. 

Giving up golf?

Well, here it is day something or other.  Even though I am totally dry it is totally wet outside.  Not a day for golf.  Speaking of which….I learned that our President has given up GOLF!  Why?  To show solidarity with the troops in Iraq.  Wow.  Isn’t that something?  Some people might have thought — I don’t know — maybe sending his daughter over there instead of marrying her off?  Or going himself?  But before we trivialize the President’s actual sacrifice, let’s consider some of the upsides of his having given up golf.  For starters, suppose the President woke up one morning with his heart set on a round and the day was like today — POURING down rain.  What would I do?  Not play.  What would you do?  Not play.  What would someone who is really addicted to golf do?  Play and get wet.  What would the President do?  Declare war on the atmosphere most likely.  Yep.  I can see it now.  All kinds of scientific evidence would show up that while Global Warming was just a theoretical possibility, Global Wetting was a faith-based reality!  And the cure would be to drop a couple of H-bombs in the upper atmosphere to kind of “dry out” the wetness and make for a nice day to play golf.  Yep. 

The Media: “Mr. President, have you thought about the impact of the radiation?

Bush: “Radiation?  I don’t know what those fancy God-hating left-wing faggot science boys might say.  I just know I don’t see no radiation.  Do you?” 

The Media: “Did you consider the possible consequences to human health? 

Bush: “I heard from a higher power.  You know, I’m a decider.  That is what I am.  I listen to all the factoids and then I hear the voice of God and then I decide.  Now, leave me alone to do my golfin’….see you made me hit a Stew here right on the first tee.” 

The Media: “A Stew?”

Bush: “Yeah.  You know.  When you kind a mess up on the tee shot, you get a do-over.  We golf people call it a Stew.”

The Media: “Kind of like the invasion of Iraq?  How come you didn’t call a do-over there?”

Bush: “Because…hey.  You know, that ain’t sech a bad idea after all.  Wait.  Did you say Iraq?  Did we invade Iraq?  Because I am sure I ordered us to invade Iran.  Not Iraq.  Boy, somebody sure screwed up.  I’m makin’ some phone calls after this round…”

See?  Things could be worse.  He could have kept playing golf.  Then again, last time he listened to God, he might just have misunderstood Him.  Maybe He said to give up the Gulf.

The Age of the Greedmeister

January 17, 2008; day 455, I think.  Overuse of alcohol kills.  Overuse of greed destroys the whole planet.  I wonder…is there a “Greedy People’s Anonymous”?  When people destroy whole legions of people just to get a bigger yacht or whatever, do they really feel good or do they just get a momentary high and then, the next morning, they are more dissatisfied with their life than ever?  Like alcoholism, “Greedism” seems as though it may be a perversion of a natural system.  It is quite natural not to want to die and if you live off the land in a glacier period, you had better store up lots of food for the winter.  Up to a point, the more acorns, bearmeat or whatever that you store, the more likely you are to survive.  But then…today’s Greedmeisters are like way beyond that.  They have brought so much bounty into their cave that the floor is collapsing and they and their progeny are about to die much sooner than if they had been more modest.  Alcohol is kind of self-limiting in the sense that if you drink too much, you will pass out.  As I understand it, passing out is about one drink short of killing yourself.  And, people who have drunk too much too quickly have actually accomplished this dubious feat.  But, generally speaking, people pass out or upchuck (just) before they manage to take a lethal dose.  However, when it comes to greed for material possessions, the limit will come after it is too late to do anything about it.  For any of us.

 

There are many mysteries here.  Why do we tolerate anyone being that greedy?  Why doesn’t the greedy person themselves see that they are destroying everything?  Why do we tolerate a system that puts Greedmeisters on a pedestal and publish their puff-piece autobiographies and then treat them as fact.  Case in point.  A financial company loses BILLIONS of dollars and, even if the CEO is fired, said Greedmeister receive many millions in payments.  Huh?  Yes, let’s go over that again.  Because, let’s say that YOU gave me $1000 of your money to invest and then I went and did such a bad job of investing it that I lost the whole $1000 and you owed another $1000 besides.  Would you then “give me” a bonus of $500 for the trouble of trying?  I kinda don’t think so.  Even if I blamed everything on things beyond my control.  But meanwhile, of course, if your investments HAD paid off, it would be because of my courage, intelligence, hard work, creativity, etc. etc.  NEVER due to “good luck.”  The positive gains are always due to the Greedmeister, but the losses are always due to “bad luck”, government interference, pesky lawsuits, etc. Interesting, eh?   

Where are we headed?

October 11, 2007; Day 357.  I dreamed last night of drinking vodka at a “party” though, like most dream parties, it was a weird one.  The party seemed to have been set sometime well back into the last century and there were African-Americans who seemed to have a distinctly lower “status” than white people although the white people at the party were having a considerable, though verbally unexpressed, conflict about how to treat them.  Most people were treating them as equals, but a few people — it was clear they were plain mean folks — were treating them as unequals.  It seemed quite clear that the reason was that somehow this made them temporarily feel okay about themselves.  Down deep, it seemed they hated themselves.  I guess I was thinking about all this unconsciously because I had been reading about some of the unbelievable atrocities going on in Africa, wondering about the history of it and how colonization played a part, but also wondering how people could do these things.  It seems clear that these “men” must be extremely hateful of themselves to treat women this way.  As though killing and torturing others is a way of killing themselves.  I don’t know how to stop it.  It all seems unconscionable to “let it” go on and yet, when we try to intervene in faraway places, it generally seems not to work out too well.  Meanwhile, it also reminds me of drinking alcohol in that, alcohol actually kills cells in your body.  So….???  If you are drinking something that kills your own cells, what does that mean?  Do people really have a death wish?  Our cells apparently do have “programmed death”; that is, after say, precisely 60 replications, they now fail to replicate.  If this were the only cause of aging, however, people would live to about age 160 and then fall apart.  But maybe we are “programmed to die” as well as “programmed to kill.”  Perhaps humanity itself is expressing a huge death wish.  It did cross my mind when I read about some of the things going on in Africa right now — reminding me, of course, of American torture, not to mention economic exploitation that may be a slower form of the same thing; the Inquisition; the Salem witch hunts; the Holocaust, and so on and so on….maybe we humans collectively look at all this and unconsciously say, “You know what?  The earth would be a better place without us.”  Maybe that is why we seem hell-bent on destroying ourselves.  When I was a kid, I recall being amazed at reading about lemmings.  You know lemmings, right?  Those are “idiotic” little rodents that sometimes collectively throw themselves off a cliff into the sea.  But…aren’t we doing the same thing?  Do we unconsciously strive to return the world to its pre-humanoid condition?  Perhaps so.  Despite all the “inhuman” things we have done to each other, I’m kind of fond of the species.  But maybe we are just an experiment in evolution that has gone badly wrong.  Maybe in order to survive, what we need are genes that puts us rather “at the edge” of cruelty and violence and some folks are over that edge due to some combination of genes and environment.  Recently, in a small town, an off-duty policeman shot a bunch of people (and then himself) at a party.  People seemed “shocked” because after all, a policeman is supposed to protect.  Okay.  The blackwater guards in Iraq (why choose such a name?).  Okay.  But who chooses this kind of job?  They must be in that direction from the norm or they probably couldn’t do their job.  What puts people over this edge?  Why do they always seem to fail to see any one of fifteen other ways to cope with their problem or situation?  Or, to put it another way, why and how do the majority of our police and soldiers, given the horrendous and nerve-wracking situations that they are in, nonetheless, behave ethically?  We’d like to think that there is a way to predict this.  Indeed, when someone “goes nuts” and ends up going on a killing spree, we are always trying to find out why and how we could have know and what were the signs that should have given this away.  (sigh).  Is it just a random bit flip in some molecular maze in the synapses of a few neurons?  A slow sort of creep into a positive feedback loop from which there appears to be no escape?  “I’ll show them!”  Show them what?  That you are pathetic?  Do people actually think that they will gain some weird sort of respect from killing people with a gun?  Maybe if you walked into a party of people and killed a bunch with your bare hands, someone might read that and think, “How did he pull that off?”  But with a gun?  And, what is the thought process that people go through when they kill themselves?  Is this always part of the plan from the git-go?  Is it that once they kill all these innocent people, they come to the realization that they feel every bit as crappy as they did before and so they kill themselves because they realize their whole line of thinking was futile?  Are they remorseful?  Or, is their real goal, as I suspect, to kill themselves all along, and killing others is just part of the act?  I don’t know, but this problem of violence has been with us for millennia and we do not seem to have solved the problem.  In fact, overall, it isn’t at all clear that we are much better off as a species in this regard than we were thousands of years ago.  And, now we have atomic weapons.  We are still not out of the woods on that one, and meanwhile, even if we stay away from that fuse, we’ve got the pollution problems.  Geez.  I hope the weather turns sunny again.  Meanwhile, on a happier note….it’s time for breakfast. 

Golf in the twilight zone

June 1, 2007; Day 225.  Like 15 x 15.  We played golf in the twilight league yesterday and did well.  I hit my tee shot to the uphill par 3 off to the left into a deep grass bunker making for a difficult up and down but generally the round went well.  As I was walking up to the green with my clubs on my back, I was thinking how I used to look forward to having a drink after golf.  It was a kind of reward.  But what kind of a reward?  I was thinking that it is a strange sort of reward drug.  It reduces anxiety and inhibitions but it reduces everything else as well!  It reduces sensitivity to touch, to sight, to hearing, to smell, to taste, the sense of balance, memory.  Some reward. 

 

Anyway, it was a beautiful warm afternoon for golf.  It is tempting to recount every shot on every hole.  But for non-golfers, this probably doesn’t seem that exciting.  Some readers might not even think it is that important relative, say, to the governments attempts to destroy our democracy in order to save it from terrorists, or, say the destruction of the middle class or the destruction of the ecological niche that humans need for life.  Indeed, these are important, but if you dwell on those things 100% of the time, then you just go insane. 

Scales

May 20, 2007; Day 213.  One over the boiling point. Of water. At standard pressure.  In degrees Fahrenheit.  Did you ever wish you had a scale named after you?  If so, of what?  There is the “Stanford-Binet Intelligence Quotient.”  That is actually not even an interval scale though it is treated as such.  In other words, there is no sense in which the difference between an IQ of 90 and 110 is “the same” as the difference between 120 and 140, say.  How about Moh’s scale of hardness?  What would you like named after you?  There are lots of scales yet to be regularized, advertised and nominalized.  And, then, there is this mystery as well: many important scales do not have anyone’s name associated with them.  Or, they have names but the names are descriptive without mention of a specific individual.  So, there is “specific gravity” but it isn’t called, “Griswold’s Specific Gravity.”  Or, there are the diatonic and chromatic scales but they are not “Jones’s Diatonic Scale.”  There are many things not scaled, but I’m thinking one for “corporate malfeasance” has to be near the top of the list of ones that need to be defined.  What about a huge banking corporation that pays candidates and then gets a loophole that allows them to pay ZERO US income taxes on a trillion dollars in profits? That has to rank pretty high.  But is it a “perfect” -10?  How about a huge banking company that plays a part in a scheme to defraud older people of their life savings?  And, if it is the same company, do they score lower than if they only do one or the other?  I’m thinking the scale should be something like -1 to -10.  How does that compare with companies that try to hook kids on drugs like alcohol or tobacco?  Or, with companies that are nothing more than schemes for the top executives to make lots of money and steal it from the employees?  I’m not sure.  There are many imponderables.  And should it be called, for instance, the “Rockefeller” or some such scale after a 19th century “robber barons” or named after more contemporary personnel?   Should the assignment of numbers depend on the evil important and intent of the deed alone or also on the impact?  For example, I saw a guy in a
Massachusetts state park take a garbage can full of garbage and dump it right beside a trash can.  And, for that matter, I’ve seen many people toss garbage out the window of their car. How does this compare with Exxon Valdize?    

Things I may be allergic to

May 12, 2007; Day 205.  I can’t believe another week has whizzed by.  It is beautiful here in

Westchester
County.  The trees are in bloom; the flowers are in bloom; and alas, my allergies seem to be in full bloom.  I haven’t really had a problem with allergies this bad for many years.  It makes me suspicious about you-know-what.  Then again, I could be fighting off a cold.  I’m just not sure.  I did break down and take some allergy pills so we’ll see.  I hate taking these kinds of pills.  The drug companies don’t really know what the long term effects are, and they certainly don’t care.  I think they have made that abundantly clear.  Unfortunately, if there were a CEO who did care, the board would have him out of office, because, after all, profits should go up every single quarter. 

 

And speaking of long-term effects, there does seem to be a little more concern — finally — in this country for whether or not the earth will be habitable for human beings in the next century.  Hopefully this is not a “flash in the pan” kind of concern.  In case you yourself are on the edge on this one, let me just reduce your uncertainty.  It IS really important that we change our habits so that we have a cleaner, healthier environment.  It will cost you less money, too.  There.  That ought to do it.  Not only will a cleaner environment let you and your descendants LIVE better and longer; it will be cheaper as well. 

 

It was apparently ten years ago yesterday that Deep Blue beat the reigning world chess champion, Kasparov.  Now, apparently, he has made another dubious move and criticized Putin; may run against him in some kind of election.  This could be a carcinogenic move. There is a Russian saying: “Disputin’ Putin? Nyet!” But, hey.  How can I really critique
Russia when our own P-resident would make himself Czar, Premier and God’s Emissary on Earth if it were possible.  

 

Oh, I see a little pop-up tells me that “Smart Update” has failed.  If it is so “smart”, why does it keep failing.  Developers really ought to think twice or thrice before they label something they do as “smart.”  You know, you are just setting yourself up for ridicule when you do that.  And, speaking of “smart” software, why does NONE of my software seem to realize that I am not connected when I start up my computer.  There must be about five applications that ask me, on start up, if I want to get the latest updates.  No, I don’t want your latest updates till I am CONNECTED.  This is not unusual.  I have a laptop, a portable, a PC — whatever you want to call it, it is NOT permanently in one place and connected.  FIRST, I boot up my computer; then I have to start the operating system and THEN I get connected.  At THAT point, it might make sense to ask me whether I want your latest updates.  And speaking of annoying software, why is it that just about every piece of software, and for that matter, every remote control unit believes that it should be the ruler of the universe?  Is this like some kind of malevolent virus that has spread from the W-house to our electronic lives as well?  I heard the B-word guy talking the other day about his meeting with other Republicans about the war in
Iraq and he really seemed completely clueless about even making it SEEM like a two-way conversation or dialogue.  He was happy to meet with them so that he could help the poor dummies better understand HIS position and rationale.  Whatever happened to … ?? did he skip third grade by any chance?    Oh, wait.  That’s right.  He did but made up for it during the 9-11 attacks.    

What happened to April Fool’s Day?

April 3, 2007.  Day   Day 164.  What happened to April Fool’s Day?  No, I don’t mean, why didn’t I write anything for April 1^st in this blog.  I mean, what happened to the holiday?  Is it just a sign of aging?  I recall that when I was a kid, everyone was pulling April Fool’s jokes on everyone.  And now?  I went the whole day and saw zero evidence of April Fool’s jokes.  My working hypothesis is that when I was a kid, most people expected most other people to be honest most of the time.  So, having one day a year wherein people tried to scam you was kind of funny.  But now…we have so many crooks in high places in government and industry, not to mention writers, artists, priests and even scientists that the idea of “fooling” someone is no longer the least bit funny.  Thousands of folks have died in
Iraq in a war we supposedly joined into to save us from “weapons of mass destruction” that did not exist.  It’s really hard to see the humor in it.  Meanwhile, I’m still off chocolate for Lent as well as alcohol.  I dreamed last night about explaining this to someone at a party. I wonder if I will ever stop dreaming about drinking.  It’s a weird thing to dream about.  After all, I don’t recall ever dreaming about eating.  Maybe I should try not eating for a few days and see whether this creeps into my dream content. 

Paying for Paid Programming?

April 1, 2007.  February 23^rd?  What was I thinking.  Obviously, that must have been MARCH 23^rd.  Anyway, now it is the first of April.  So, it is day 162, I think.  It has been a grey day here and now it is cold and rainy.  I’m downstairs in front of our high def TV and discovering (once more) that the vast majority of what is aired is commercials.  One channel was listed in the channel guide as being the NBA.  But what it really consisted of was a series of commercials and testimonials urging you to buy some sort of additional TV coverage.  (Which I suppose would lead to more commercials).  The so-called “Golf Channel” which we PAY for has had “paid programming” on for the last half hour.  Do you know what “paid programming” means?  It means it is a long, boring, repetitive infomercial about various home gyms you can buy.  Of course, when they show folks using these home gyms, they all live in apparently empty 35,000 foot glass houses that overlook Big
Sur.  Oh, and while they claim that you only need five seconds a day for a week to get in shape on these things, the models who demonstrate these home gyms obviously work out at least 3 hours a day, six days a week.  Personally, I’d rather go to the real gym where they have about 200 different machines for a whole variety of reasons.  But the main point is, why should we have to PAY for a “golf channel” if the programming that they provide is frigging commercials? That makes no sense whatsoever, except of course in the “sense” that big corporations will apparently do whatever they can get away with to steal your money. 

 

We saw a movie last night called “
Island” which had as a premise that very rich people had “clones” grown in case they needed spare body parts.  These rich clients supposedly thought the organs were merely a kind of biological soup but as it turned out, the organs were actually part of living breathing human beings who — you guessed it — turned out to have emergent properties.  A lot of the movie was an endless chase scene choreographed to provide a backdrop for a video game, no doubt, but the premise was interesting.  There is more and more noise about people living forever if they have enough money.  It does not seem at all far-fetched to believe that people would pay to have clones around in case they were “needed.”  After all, people already exploit folks nearly to the point of death as it is.