perfidy

"I'm talkin' about friendship. I'm talkin' about character. I'm talkin' about--hell, Leo, I ain't embarrassed to use the word--I'm talkin' about... ethics."

Trivia: name that film!!

One further hint: "Take your flunky and dangle."

I bring up ethics because it occurs to me that my main objection, such as it is, to the Great Leader Board of Terrorism is an ethical one.

That is, I don't participate in dead pools, and find them distasteful. To be on, much less profit from, the date of someone's death, dances on the line between macabre and cruel. So with the DARPA Terrorism Futures Market. The good part about the aforementioned list of nutty predictions cited by Ross at Spiral Dive is that, if they come true, a thousand flowers of democracy bloom, puppies roll in daisy patches, and nobody gets blowed up.

But in the DARPA process, anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups. Winners would win based upon the deaths of people. Period. Say more air attacks happen, and such an event has been on the Big Board. Some people would collect winnings from a government-sponsored program because they were "lucky" enough to bet on the date of the next 09/11/01. Policy considerations aside, that is positively grotesque, no matter how predictive such a futures market may be.

For that reason, I'm very glad that DARPA has cancelled the program. Their brand of heady, amoral weirdness is better left out of the light of day.

Please note that I do find the general idea appealing, and the potential is fascinating. I'm rather excited to see what Ross can put together in the way of a sample system using less macabre predictions. But the government should not be in the business of sponsoring dead pools.

Following up an earlier post, the Defense Department has cancelled plans to set up the Policy Analysis Market. In a SkyNews article, US defence chiefs said they had hoped the market would have been a valuable tool in second guessing when terror strikes would occur.

But critics dismissed the move as "unbelievably stupid", "ridiculous" and "grotesque".

The good news is that things that are unbelievably stupid, ridiculous and grotesque are our stock in trade. Stay tuned as the Ministry will attempt to create its very own Terror Stock Market. Hopefully, we will have a broader coverage than the aborted PAM. Stay tuned for further updates.

If you have ideas for items that might be possible futures contracts (ie, with clearly defined, yes/no outcomes) send email to perfidy at perfidy dot biz. Likewise with suggestions on how this might be accomplished, and links to relevant articles, material and so on.

Several Haitian refugee children are now fingerless after a marathon session of hand carving new html as they moved the July archives from our old website to here, letter by letter. While the former website did not have the advanced capabilities as our enslickened perfidy webpage (for which several Uzbeki emigre webmasters were summarily executed), we have done our very best to integrate the old with the new. Old posts have been randomly assigned categories, so that your searches will be overwhelmed with meaningless and irrelevant commentary.

Since the Haitian "employees" have proved (tragically! sob...) so unsatisfactory, they will be liquidated and replaced as we prepare to move the June archives.

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I hereby notify all and sundry that I am gloating over the fact that reality forced Johno to admit that conservatism is the new hip, cool, rebellious thing for those wacky kids to be doing. As a side note, I find it ironic that whenever a limousine liberal hollywood gashead tries to parody the right, it ends up being adopted by (at least some) as a badge of honor - because they didn't really understand the right to begin with. Examples include the Tim Robbins entire movie Bob Roberts, and the "Greed is good" speech from Stone's Wall Street.

Bloomberg is reporting that DARPA is creating a online futures market for ideas.

Traders could bet on the likelihood of events ranging from the overthrow of a government to the collapse of an economy or the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

This is the Delphi boards from John Brunner's clasic book Shockwave Rider come to life. (On my top five sf novels list.) I have been trying for years to get someone who knows more about programming than I do to help me create this idea. One of my goals for finally getting webspace was to finally do it. Now the goddamn defense department has gone ahead and created it. (You can see the Policy Analysis Market here.)

[Update:] The NYT now has a story, and is claiming that "the White House also altered the Web site so that the potential events ... that were visible earlier in the day ... could no longer be seen." However, you can still see the images here, here, and here. A general article on Ideas Futures Markets can be seen here.

The purpose of the site is to leverage knowledge that many individuals each have about one area into knowledge of a whole area or sequence of events. DARPA says, "Prices and spreads signal probabilities and confidence. Since markets provide incentives for good judgment and self-selection, the market will effectively aggregate information among knowledgeable participants.'' It continued, "This approach has proven successful in predictions concerning elections, monetary policy decisions and movie box office receipts -- DARPA is investigating its success in defense- related areas."

The mechanism is to set up mutually opposing outcomes - each of which represents a futures contract that pays $1. For example, the question, "Will terrorists attack Israel with bio-weapons in the next year?" has only two possible outcomes. You can bet (purchase a contract on one side or the other.

The interesting thing is that it doesn't stop there. There are derivatives and hedge contracts as well, that serve to combine information. The example given on the PAM website is historical - two contracts, one on the likelihood of the collapse of the Jordanian monarchy, and the other on the likelihood of Saddam's regime lasting a month once the US began hostilities. In a matrix, there are four possible combinations of outcomes, and each of these represents a derivative. The price on each is in effect an aggregate prediction. Further there are hedge bets - for example, you could bet that if Saddam lasts longer than one month, then the Jordanian monarchy will collapse. If the first part of the prediction doesn't come true, you don't lose money, but you would gain significantly if the whole thing did.

In all, this is very similar in concept to the idea of the Delphi boards in Brunner's novel. The boards were organized more on the model of racetrack betting, but they did involve speculation of future events. And the underlying assumption was identical: if you ask enough people, even if they are unaware of the complete body of information regarding the question, the average of their answers will approximate the actual result. If anything, the DARPA concept is potentially more powerful than the Delphi boards, because it seems to allow combinations of predictions in infinite variety. In this manner, new questions conveniently packaged with answers can be discovered, rather than merely answers to questions explicitly asked. Further, the price mechanism could allow more responsive and informative predictions than artificially moving the odds in response to betting on the part of participants.

Needlessly to say, I think this is very cool. I am very upset that they got their first. However, currently the site is only aimed at the middle east. This could be expanded. I am now on a crusade to convince those with the knowledge I need that they must help me. Ross, you're first on my list.

As a side note, some Democrats were upset in completely predictable ways. Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota called it, "the most Byzantine thing I have ever seen proposed by a federal agency.'' But more to the point, he was worried about people's feelings:

How would you feel if you were the king of Jordan and learned that the U.S. Department of Defense was creating a futures market in whether you're going to be overthrown?

Well, seeing as I am always going on about the power of markets, I kind of have to be behind this idea. I am going to try to sign on when the site begins registration on Aug 1. Should be interesting.

My father suggests that I change my nom de net to "Buickhead." I guess it wasn't enough for me to wear a buick tshirt to his party last weekend.

Small Times is reporting that advances in rapid prototyping are bringing the idea of desktop manufacturing to reality.

Imagine your kitchen blender conks out the day you’re hosting a large cocktail party. You search an online catalog, decide on a model, and click the “buy” button. But instead of waiting three days for the appliance to be shipped to your door, a new kind of printer on your desk springs into action. Layer by layer, the miraculous machine squirts out various materials to form the chassis, the electronics, the motors – literally building the blender for you from the bottom up in a matter of hours.

This will revolutionize the most profitable sector of the internet economy: online pornography

For the Ministry's inaugural assault, I choose as our target this bunch of blinkered racist nozzleheads:

Parents: White Teacher Should Not Teach Black History Group Of Parents Protest District's Decision OBERLIN, Ohio -- A group of parents said they will fight a possible decision to allow a white teacher to lead classes in black history at Oberlin High School.

In this brief article from News Channel 5 in my hometown of Cleveland, we learn that civilization is dead.

"the parents said using a white teacher would send the wrong message to black students"

What good is civilization if we cannot all learn from the knowledge that our civilization has accumulated? Am I not permitted to study and ponder the life of Martin Luther King, because he was black and I am white? Will I be consigned to the outer darkness if I ever mention anything I learned to someone who is black?

This is complete and unremediated bullshit. One of my strongest memories from a black period of my life - the year that I dated Margaret, the psycho hosebeast - is the two day long argument I had with her over how much people of different backgrounds can actually communicate and understand each other. Margaret took the position that it is in fact impossible for a white male of privilege (subtext: me) could understand the inner life of a oppressed minority. (subtext: her.) This of course ignored the fact that she grew up in a house five times the size of mine, and her father was one of the five richest accountants in California. It also ignored the fact that she did not look in the least bit hispanic, and in fact got upset that summer because someone whose ancestors came from Finland could get a better tan than she could. But why bother writing books, explaining your life in print, studying the past if the end result is that no one except those who share your upbringing can understand what you say? This is parochialism of the most severe kind.

Of course, my mind was an open book. She could understand and benefit from my culture. She could criticize my history, beliefs and culture with impunity. And the great thing was, she was immune from any kind fo response I might make. If I offered some comment on her culture, well I just wasn't qualified to say anything. I could not judge her, or anyone like her, or anyone in fact who shared her political beliefs.

I hate being reminded of Margaret. Which is one more reason to hate these idiots in Oberlin. These parents have abandoned civilization. They are saying that black history is meaningful only when taught by black teachers. Is it meaningless otherwise? Does it hurt the self esteem of fragile black minds to hear the stories of Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington and all the rest from white lips? It would send the wrong message, they say.

What message do they want sent? Clearly, not a message that Martin Luther King would have endorsed. If the message is racial amity and togetherness, this action certainly isn't sending it. If we wanted to send a message of racial harmony and set a positive example, a white (or asian or hispanic or jewish or martian) teacher teaching black history would be ideal. And throw in a black teacher teaching Shakespeare for good measure.

The message that these parents want sent is a message of racial apartheid, only we're not allowed to call it that. It's only bad when white people do it. It is supreme irony that race conscious blacks and liberals are doing everything in their power to recreate the segregation and hatred that the civil rights movement labored and sacrificed to end.

Reagan Conservatism: The New Youth Protest Flavor Of The Year.

I've been an idiot. For years I have been insisting that apathy is the new form of youth protest. With the Boomer Generation firmly in charge of the media, entertainment, and politics, not to mention the families that produced the Youth Of Today, it's a logical conclusion. The Boomers still claim that all youth activism is inspired by their efforts in the 60s, rather cruelly robbing the younger generation of any credit for initiative, drive, or effort. And indeed, so much college protest seems to be warmed-over Aquarian sentimentalism. Consequently, I naturally concluded that, since the neo-hippies aren't so much protesting as rehashing a mis-remembered past, the Apathetic Majority must be the ones taking a stand, in their apathy, against their parents' generation and their monopoly on activism.

But I've been an idiot. No matter what the era, teenagers have responded to politics with apathy - a silent majority of people with better things to do with their time. We (I) tend to forget that fact, given that the Big Boomer Lie has rewritten the 60s so extensively that it seems that every single person who came of age back then was a hippie, nobody voted for Nixon, and the fields of Woodstock NY held countless millions.

But that's bullcrap. Most kids back then were living their lives quite content to ignore the heated political debates of the age. Hell, my own Boomer father spent the late 60s working construction, building hot rods, and drinking Gennesee Cream Ale. My kid sister had to turn him on to Bob Dylan, in 1998! His collection of Johnny Cash records, on the other hand, is quite extensive.

What I have mistaken for a new wave of intelligent apathy among The Youth Of Today is just new wine in old bottles - the same old not giving a damn, dressed up with an inborn ability to see through the sales pitches, spinning, and artifice that politics shares with entertainment and ads.

I've been an idiot not to have seen it sooner: the Big Protest Movement Of Today is Reagan Conservatism. It makes perfect sense. Alex P. Keaton is the perfect icon for a generation of activist youths whose elders harp incessantly on the virtues of the 1960s and the evils of Ronald Reagan. What is more natural than for politically inclined kids to take a look at what pushes their parents’ buttons and gravitate toward that? The hippies are their parents, for god's sake! How embarrassing! Mommm stop waving that sign! People'll see!!

And then they get to college, where far-left liberals outnumber moderate conservatives fifty to one on faculties (I'm making that number up), and the case is sealed. These kids, brought up being told "Liberal=DoublePlusGood" and "Reagan=Eats Babies" are now fed the worst kinds of Liberal Social Theory (whiteness studies, political correctness). Since kids these days have very fine bullshit sensors what with the constant advertising barrage they've grown up with, some see right through the Theory and rhetoric and reject it in favor of a vaguely populist, ostensibly pragmatic, conservatism. If they can find something genuinely appealing in the legacy of Reagan, good for them! I only worry that kids being kids they will idolize Ronnie, warts and all, and elevate him to the political godhead without actually considering the nuances of his legacy. (Well, of course they will... kids....)

I'm such an idiot. For further reading, the Economist has a good article this week on the topic (subscription only), and New York Magazine ran something about three weeks ago which I apparently cannot link to. The NY Times ran a story some months ago on the same topic. Frankly, punditry about the new turn in campus conservatism has been everywhere for the last year or so, and I've been an idiot for not putting two and two together. 

Previously, I had accepted the rise of conservatism on campuses as a sideshow in the larger funhouse of youth activism. Now I begin to see it's becoming the main attraction.

God help us all.

In a hours long graphic nightmare, the powers that be were whipping the third world children that toil in the perfidious dungeons for a dollar a month in wages, encouraging them to provide new category images for the glory of the ministry.

The previous images for Entertainment and Perfidy were replaced with newer, stronger, better images in a brutal Darwinian contest. Fighting their way to the top of the pile of nascent categories are: Perfidy Attacks, Perfidy Responds, Filthy Lucre and Holy Shit!

Some old posts may be recategorized, so pay attention.

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