Gold Standard vs. Fiat Money

Data Gathered here and here . Although it's not possible (or maybe it is, ask an economist!) to predict what gold prices would've been like if we were on the gold standard (maybe they would've been more stable), it bears to keep in mind that the U.S. is not the only country in the world, and other countries do use fiat money. Although the overall trend is for the gold to stay roughly the same price, it often moves unpredictably. The CPI (which is basically a measure of inflation, if you're in a year where CPI is 200, your money is half as valuable as in the year where it is 100), on the other hand, has a predictable movement. Something that is predictable is the next best thing to something being constant. Anyways, this chart is why, in my opinion, it is not at all useful, and probably even dangerous to go back to the gold standard.

White Collar Crime, An Alternative Explanation

Here I shall deal with the apparent injustice of the punishments metered out to white collar criminals versus violent crimes. I take as a given that such an injustice exists (though this is certainly debatable). I cannot prove that my explanation is the correct one, but I only hear one explanation for this, and lest we fall into the trap of thinking that since it's the only one it must be the correct one, I am providing an alternative. The common explanation is that the white collar criminals are rich, and thus aren't prosecuted to the full extent.

A little introduction before my alternative explanation is necessary. I think that all laws can be classified into either a general or specific category. The laws I assign to the specific category are laws that few people would break even if they didn't exist (like murder). The laws that I assign to the general category are laws that many people would break if they didn't exist (like speeding, even though everyone breaks that law anyway).

My explanation is that white collar crimes fall into the general category, whereas violent crimes fall into the specific one. Thus, ultimately we feel that we are not that different from white collar criminals, because we would act the same in their position, and that is why we don't want to punish them as much as violent offenders. We feel that violent offenders are very different from us, and have no moral standing. White collar criminals are really just like us, except they aren't afraid of the law. Violent criminals are pathological and dangerous.

Before you say "I'd never commit fraud against my customers" or something like that, let's consider a simpler example. Insider Trading. You are not allowed to spread knowledge about your company in private. That is, suppose you're the CEO of Intel, and you have this giant chip coming out that's going to be huge. You can't tell your friend that this is happening and advise him to buy stock. If you tell someone, you have to tell everyone publicly. Certainly, people would do it hand over fist if the law didn't exist. Yet it's something that damages the people that aren't in the know. How is it really different from fraud? Or how about this, you and your competitor agree to pay a certain amount to your employees. Hey, you're saving money, you're not tricking anyone, why wouldn't you do it? Well, it's illegal, and it hurts the employees.

So, my alternative explanation is that White Collar Crime is punished less because we feel more empathy towards those criminals, than we do towards the Violent ones.

Why I'm Not A Libertarian

I recently read a very interesting quote that goes something like this:

"If your neighbor came over and pointed a gun at you and demanded food for another neighbor in need, we would consider this criminal and immoral. So why is it O.K. for a million people with guns (in the form of a government) to do the same?"

This quote embodies half of the Libertarian ideal. So, why is it O.K. for a government to do this? First, the quote is misleading. It expects you to take the point of view of the person having the gun pointed at them. But let's take a different point of view. That of the person pointing the gun. Let me paint you the picture.

My friend, through no fault of his own, falls on hard times. So hard that he's going to starve to death. I'd share my food with him, but I'm not well off enough to feed 2 people. But I have a gun. And I know of a person who has enough food to feed 10 people. I would not consider it morally wrong to go to that person and demand food for my friend. Perhaps this is the difference between the Libertarian and me: The Libertarian would consider it morally wrong to do this. Now, I'd try to pay the person back eventually, but if I couldn't, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

So, I argue, it is O.K. for a person to do this. But a person might encounter many problems, the rich person might have a gun himself, and this could result in a loss of life really easily. Moreover, there is the problem that the person becomes judge, jury, and executioner (after all, how do I really know my friend is starving through no fault of his own). This is one thing that the government can do better than a private person. Now the scope to which the government is allowed to perform this transfer of wealth is a more difficult question. But the transfer of wealth is a duty of the government.

The Will of the Majority

Although here I will assert two very general statements, they are brought about by pondering about a specific issue. Many people claim that a vast majority of Americans wants to withdraw from Iraq and that therefore we should withdraw. There are many good reasons to withdraw from Iraq, but that is not one of them. First of all, strictly speaking it's a logical fallacy. What a person or group believes is the correct course of action is not a reason for the course of action because the group must have its own reasons in the first place. But, of course, the counterargument is that what this situation demonstrates is that the government is out of touch and doesn't listen to the people, not the correctness of the approach (which in any case won't be decided for decades, if ever).

But that is also not true. The government does not have to, nor should it, listen to the majority. In my high school days, I came across a very interesting list in my government textbook. It was a list that a majority of Americans believed should be allowed or not allowed by the government. The list included some things I would have liked to have (getting rid of the electoral college), and it had some things I wouldn't have liked (allowing prayer in public schools). Personally, I would've rather had none of those things than all of them. Now, although I can't say this with certainty, it struck me that most people would probably rather have none of those things than all of them. So, this leads to my first statement. There is no such thing as a majority. By this I don't mean that on an issue it's impossible to have more than 50% of people agreeing. By this I mean that there is no majority voting block that votes the same way all the time (that is the same 50% of people always vote together). This means that if the government actually listened to the majority, it would end up pissing the majority of people off. So, this is why the government does not have to, nor should it, listen to the majority.

Moreover, a place in which such a majority bloc does exist (The same 50% of people always voting together) a democracy cannot exist. This is simply because the minority in this case will have no reason to even vote. The majority always gets their way, and there's nothing to be done about it. The minority either becomes disenfranchised and oppressed, or secedes to form their own country. In order for a democracy to exist, the government has to sometimes ignore the will of the majority.

Allegiance, Loyalty, and Citizenship

What does it mean to be loyal?

As near as I can tell it means the willingness to do something that you generally consider "wrong," or not do something that you would normally do, for the benefit of another person. For example, if you see someone shoplifting, you might report them (assuming you care enough, most people would think this is the proper course of action). If you see your best friend shoplifting, you wouldn't report him. This is because you're loyal to your friend, but not a random stranger. Of course loyalty is usually limited (if you saw your best friend commit murder, you would probably be very conflicted, and maybe report him). Some people have good objections to this view of loyalty, but this is the way I believe it works.

Although loyalty to a person is relatively easy to define, loyalty to an ideal or a country is harder, but I believe it follows the same general vein. Loyalty to an ideal means you're willing to do some things wrong, to further the goals of this ideal.

Loyalty to a country means you're willing to put the interests of your country above the interests of other countries. That is, you want your country to win, even if it means other countries lose. Unfortunately, there's also a problem with defining what a country is. Is a country the nation-state? Is a country the people that live in it? Is a country the government? Or is it the ideals that a country claims to embody? (Sometimes the main loyalty also isn't to a country, but to a religion say).

In any case, it is not too far of a stretch (in my opinion it's not a stretch at all) to see that Citizenship is granted based on loyalties. That is, you get Citizenship to the country you value more than any other. Of course than there's the problem with dual citizenship, but usually you're only allowed to get that if your two countries are allies. I know several people that openly proclaim that their main loyalty is not to the United States, and are US Citizens. Should they be denied citizenship? (well, according to the rules of dual citizenship they shouldn't, but...) Then I know some people that say they feel no loyalty to the US, what about them? Finally, there's people like me, I feel no loyalty to any country that I can think of? Where should I get Citizenship?

Anyways, I think the whole idea of loyalty is... not good in some senses. For example, if you're in a court case with a judge, you definetly want the judge to have no loyalties to any of the people involved. So, inside your country you always have a person that fixes things when loyalty gets in the way, but in the world at large, no such arbiter exists. (As I learned in my poli sci class, this is called an anarchic system). So, whereas loyalty doesn't cause any major problems in a country, it can cause major problems between countries.

Official Languages

People often propose making English the official language of the United States. Even discounting the many different varieties of English, this is an awful proposal. Laws that are like this are either useless, or racist.

First, let's consider what this would mean. The weak version is that all official documents have to be at least in English. I must ask the question, why? What good will be gained from this? All government documents are already in English, so the only place this would apply is in contracts (and personally, I'm not sure if contracts in different languages would be enforced). But contracts are a matter of civil courts, and thus, not strictly law-enforced. Besides, if two people want a contract in Spanish, why shouldn't they get one? This is the useless version.

A stronger version is that official documents should not be in a language other than English. And same for store signs, etc. Now, suppose that for some reason or another, 90% of the population now spoke Spanish, or some language other than English, as their first language. This would seem like a pretty silly law. This also applies to the first weaker version too. So, the law is either useless, or it forces a percentage of the population to learn a language they don't want to. If the latter is true, it is racist. Think about it like this, would you force an immigrant to take an accent coach and learn the precise "proper" way to pronounce the words? Why not? It's the same idea, taken just a bit further. Possibly, you'd say they can make it with just the English language, and they can make themselves understood. In the first case, there are plenty of economic reasons to learn English. If they can make it without using English, that's just fine for them. They can decide whether they need English or not, better than you can. Why is it O.K. to force a minority to do something and not a majority? Well, traditionally it's considered not O.K. and this should not be an exception.

So, the law is useless unless it's racist. And thus it shouldn't exist.

Superstitions

"Always start off with a quote because somebody's already said it better" - American History X

Well, I'm saying this, because although it may be true that somebody has said it better, it is not often that I can point to the specific person and passage that did. However, in this case I can. Richard Feynman said it better. I got angry about this because I saw two people, who were very successful and seemed intelligent enough, discuss faith healing as a serious topic. Anyways..., superstitions obviously still permeate our society, and without further ado, the words of Feynman himself:

And now finally, as I'd like to show Galileo our world, I must show him something with a great deal of shame. If we look away from the science and look at the world around us, we find out something rather pitiful: that the environment that we live in is so actively, intensely unscientific. Galileo could say: "I noticed that Jupiter was a ball with moons and not a god in the sky. Tell me, what happened to the astrologers?" Well, they print their results in the newspapers in the United States at least, in every daily paper every day. Why do we still have astrologers? Why can someone write a book like Worlds in Collision by somebody with a "V," it's a Russian name? Huh? Vininkowski? And how did it become popular? What is all this nonsense about Mary Brody, or something? I don't know, that was crazy stuff. There is always some crazy stuff. There is an infinite amount of crazy stuff, which, put another way, is that the environment is actively, intensely unscientific. There is talk of telepathy still, although it's dying out. There is faith-healing galore, all over. There is a whole religion of faith-healing. There's a miracle at Lourdes where healing goes on. Now, it might be true that astrology is right. It might be true that if you go to the dentist on the day that Mars is at right angles to Venus, that it is better than if you go on a different day. It might be true that you can be cured by the miracle of Lourdes. But if it is true, it ought to be investigated. Why? To improve it. If it is true, then maybe we can find out if the stars do influence life; that we could make the system more powerful by investigating statistically, scientifically judging the evidence objectively, more carefully. If the healing process works at Lourdes, the question is how far from the site of the miracle can the person, who is ill, stand? Have they in fact made a mistake and the back row is really not working? Or is it working so well that there is plenty of room for more people to be arranged near the place of the miracle? Or is it possible, as it is with the saints which have recently been created in the United States - there is a saint who cured leukemia apparently indirectly - that ribbons that are touched to the sheet of the sick person (the ribbon having previously touched some relic of the saint) increase the cure of leukemia - the question is, is it gradually being diluted? You may laugh, but if you believe in the truth of the healing, then you are responsible to investigate it, to improve its efficiency and to make it satisfactory instead of cheating. For example, it may turn out that after a hundred touches it doesn't work anymore. Now it's also possible that the results of this investigation have other consequences, namely, that nothing is there.

And another thing that bothers me, I might as well mention, are the things that the theologians in modern times can discuss, without feeling ashamed of themselves. There are many things that they can discuss that they need not feel ashamed of themselves, but some of the things that go on in the conferences on religion, and the decisions that have to be made, are ridiculous in modern times. I would like to explain that one of the difficulties, and one of the reasons why this can keep going, is that it is not realized what a profound modification of our worldview would result, if just one example of one of these things would really work. The whole idea, if you could establish the truth, not of the whole idea of astrology but just one little item, could have a fantastic influence on our understanding of the world. And so the reasons we laugh a little bit is that we are so confident of our view of the world that we are sure they aren't going to contribute anything. On the other hand, why don't we get rid of it? I will come to why we don't get rid of it in a minute, because science is irrelevant, as I said before.

People are Smart

It is common knowledge that the majority of people are idiots. It is likewise common knowledge that common knowledge is often wrong (which is ironically based on the idea that most people are idiots). Anyways, a surprising amount (at least to me) of people believe that everyone in the world, except for them, is an idiot.

The first time I noticed this was when I was discussing the education problem (the fact that not everyone gets an equal education, or even gets the opportunity for an equal education), with a friend. And he asked me, "Well, how would you solve it?" and I thought about it for a few minutes, and the conclusion I came to was "I can't solve it. It's actually ridiculous of you to assume that I would even have something approaching a good idea within such a short time span. As a matter of fact, unless I do some hardcore research, no amount of time of thinking about it will help. And for that matter, there are plenty of people that have actually done this hardcore research, and not solved it. Now, it is possible that I'll be able to strike on a solution that those people missed, but nonetheless, they're not idiots, and such a solution isn't obvious." I gave him the short version of that. After which he proceeded to tell me how he thought the "problem" should be solved.

Now, discussing such things is good, and since I'm not a mind reader, I can't actually tell if he did anything wrong in this. But if he actually thought that the solution that he proposed was a good solution, and should be used, that is a case of assuming that everyone in the world, except for himself is an idiot. Now, it is true that I have done that myself sometimes, but I will say that you should start every thought off with the idea that nobody is an idiot (even though some people are) rather than that everyone is an idiot.

A good example of the difference: The person thinking that everyone's an idiot hears "All people are created equal," and says, "That's ridiculous, some people are born lame, some people have deficiencies, some people are born stronger and smarter than others." So, this person is then told that Thomas Jefferson wrote this in the Declaration of Independence. Now, they might back down, or they might say "Thomas Jefferson is an idiot, and the Declaration of Independence is stupid." Which they actually already did, in effect say.

Now, a person that assumes that no one is an idiot would realize that in saying "All people are created equal," something is lost. Because it clearly can't mean that all people are equal, so they would say "What do you mean, what about the lame, and the dumb? Please clarify your statement." Upon being informed that it was in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, you could say "O, that makes sense, it's a political document, what Thomas Jefferson means is that all people are politically equal." And then you might get to thinking well, what does that mean? and say, "O, it means that every person's interests are equivalent to every other person. My interest in staying alive is equivalent to all other's interest in staying alive. I guess that makes sense, yeah, we are all created equal." And then you'd think about it some more, and maybe you'd decide you disagree, maybe sometimes one person's interest wins over another's.

But in either case, you'll understand what you're actually disagreeing with and realize that Thomas Jefferson isn't an idiot. So, it is a really good idea to assume that no one is an idiot.

Racism and the Reverse

In the 1950s, a decision by the Supreme Court declared segregation in schools illegal. The case Brown v. Board of Education is probably the most famous court case in the United States. But, the Supreme Court based its unanimous decision on the fact that separate was inherently unequal. Thus it did not simply declare de jure (by law) segregation illegal, it declared de facto (in fact) segregation illegal as well.

This is the reason busing was used. Communities were typically divided by race. Thus, the school districts were also divided by race, and would now be illegal.

Here, it is necessary to know a little about the difference between criminal and civil cases. That link is useful though somewhat biased. Basically, to have a criminal case one needs to break a law that was passed by a legislature and can go to prison, whereas in a civil case, one only needs to hurt another, but cannot go to prison. So, when I say illegal, I do not mean that this is criminal, but doing so would make them lose civil cases.

Since then, the idea of forced desegregation has spread from the schools, to the universities, and even the workplace. Many people reject this notion of forced desegregation. Some call it reverse racism. Some go so far as to say that it is unnecessary because racism no longer exist. But that is simply not true as numerous studies show.

I will defend the current approach to dealing with racism. First, there is the fact that people are racist. Some even unconsciously so. Second, the system may be racist in itself (such as a biased test). Thus giving a boost to minorities does not necessarily let in people of a lower caliber.

Third, there is a simple situation to show why even someone that's not racist would make a bias against minorities. Suppose you have two resumes in front of you. They are functionally equivalent, except one person is white, the other is black. Which one do you pick? There are two reasons to pick the white person over the black one, even if you're not racist. First, you'd realize that some people are racist, which means that by having to make them deal with a black person, you could be losing customers. The second reason, though a misuse of statistics, is that a black person is more likely to be a criminal. Thus, you would hire the white person as good business practice.

So, there are at least the three ways above that minorities get discriminated against on a regular basis. What's wrong with giving the minorities a boost to counter these ways?

One counterargument goes like this: Racism exists and it is bad. But it is even worse when the government starts being racist to correct it. The way to end racism is not more racism. This seems like a valid point, but I believe history has shown it to be untrue, though this is hardly undisputed. This brings me back to Brown v. Board of Education. During the late fifties and early sixties the government forced different races to interact and mix together, and although it is impossible to trace the cause of the improved race relations today, I would say that the government actions had a hand in it.

Another counterargument is that the government should not be involved in such things in the first place. This is a harder belief to refute and perhaps has some validity. But I would like to point out that the government is not as involved as is commonly believed. The days of affirmative action are largely in the past. The government does not actively seek out racists and racist companies. Instead people who feel wronged sue the company or university that acted racists towards them in a civil case. And often, they lose. No one goes to prison for being racist. Moreover, many of the "reverse racism" policies are issued by the government only when it acts as an employer. Things that private employers would be able to do, if you believe the government shouldn't interfere. And many private employers, and universities, use these policies even though no one is forcing them to.

I think that our current system of dealing with racism works fairly well, and that the "reverse racism" policies are fair because, well, quite simply, if we don't have reverse racism, we will have only plain racism.

Insoluble Situations

The simple fact of the matter is that some situations have no good solutions. Young people, tend to be arrogant and believe that the world can be improved in every aspect, but, young people, and especially academics, tend to be arrogant in general. Unfortunately, any problem has many people, of good intelligence, working on it, and being unable to, for one reason or another, come up with a workable solution. Now, I am not saying that we should not discuss such things, but a little humility when thinking about them is appropriate. There is a reason that these problems are still problems, and that is that they are difficult, and some impossible, to solve.

I call these the insoluble situations. What I mean by this is that any course of action is going to take sacrifice, and will end up unfairly hurting a portion of the population. I have a historical example of such a situation. The Soviet Union. And let's face it with a regime death toll ranging anywhere from 10 to 50 million (possibly more if you count the international deaths caused by it), the resolution was hardly any good. But there was no good solution. Going to war would've been even more catastrophic.

There are a few modern situations like this. The situation in the Middle East, in Iraq and Israel are likewise insoluble. Someone is going to get hurt unfairly no matter what. But don't despair Fortunately there are situations that do have good solutions (not necessarily painless, but at least good). Global warming is one that does.

So, what I want to tackle in this post are some suggestions for dealing with problems that could be insoluble. For this, I have two suggestions, and I welcome more. First, don't make assumptions. Approach the problem humbly, look at what others have suggested, and always look at the flaw in your own plan (it will have one). Stating it to someone else will probably help you, because they're more likely to find the flaw.

Second, don't be afraid to compromise. Compromise is not a bad word. Although "uncompromising" is often used as a compliment, it really shouldn't be. Not everyone is going to get a fair deal, but a compromise is better than nothing. I mean, when in high school, one of my teachers had a poster on their door saying "Stand up for what you believe is right, even if you're standing alone." That sounds all good and inspirational and stuff, but the real situation is much more complicated. It's better to fix most of everything than all of nothing.

So, with this advice I leave you to your own pondering, if you have more suggestions leave them as comments

Morality and Rules

It appears some people have a belief in the existence of something called personal morality. I don't think something like that can exist. By personal morality, I mean people believe that it's possible to have a set of morals for oneself that is not to be applied to the rest of the world. To me, this issues from a misunderstanding of what morals are. I suppose this is technically a semantics argument, but I'm going to make it anyway. Morals require you to apply them to the world at large, otherwise they're just rules you make for yourself. I mean, I could say I never drink tomato juice. This is not a moral decision, and I don't see how it's any different from saying I won't have sex until I'm married, or I won't get an abortion.

Morals are standards of behavior that you judge people by, including yourself, but certainly not exclusively yourself. It's somewhat ridiculous to apply a separate standard to yourself and to other people, whether your standard for yourself is higher or lower than for others. Thus, personal morality is a set of rules that you choose to apply to yourself. But morality still doesn't fit completely in with this.

This is because the conditions for rules are very different from the conditions of morals. First, rules should be kept to a minimum, following the belief of Occam's Razor. Second rules are never ends in themselves. Here, my argument diverges from a purely semantics argument. I am saying that rules people set for themselves should not be an end in themselves. If they are, you're now applying a different standard of judgment to yourself than others. It is perhaps possible to argue that it's ok to have different standards of judgment for different people, and if anyone wishes to, feel free to make a comment. But it is counterintuitive to me to do so. Thus, rules must have a certain goal in mind when created.

Moreover, rules should be remade with relatively little difficulty. This is because the general expectation is that you will get smarter and wiser as you grow up. Thus if you feel you should change a rule you should. Thus, it doesn't make any sense to say "I won't have sex until I'm married" unless you're willing to say "People shouldn't have sex until they're married." In the future you'll be smarter and be able to rethink such a decision, so why would you restrict yourself unnecessarily. It is true that you won't always be smarter, thus it should take you maybe a few days of thought to reevaluate your rule to make sure you're not under duress or something similar. But then still, the rule that would make sense would be "I won't have sex without a prior decision to do so." That is, you won't just have it come to you unexpectedly.