Fixing attitudes toward science in time of COVID

What is "science"? According to Wikipedia:  "a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge about the universe by virtue of testable explanations and predictions...Science is based on research, which is commonly conducted in academic and research institutions as well as in government agencies and companies."  This simple statement includes both the history of its development,  and the current range of procedures.  

The historical summary in Wikipedia includes: "Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz succeeded in developing a new physics, now referred to as classical mechanics, which could be confirmed by experiment and explained using mathematics (Newton (1687), Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica). Leibniz also incorporated terms from Aristotelian physics, but now being used in a new non-teleological way, for example, "energy" and "potential" (modern versions of Aristotelian "energeia and potentia"). ...Where Aristotle had noted that objects have certain innate goals that can be actualized, objects were now regarded as devoid of innate goals... Leibniz assumed that different types of things all work according to the same general laws of nature," These historical observations capture two features of current practice:  the use of specific terms for objects, and mathematics as a descriptive language to describe rules.  During this time the pursuit shifted from exploration of natural events to practical applications.  Much of thermodynamics comes from observations boring cannon barrels. WIKI: "In Bacon's words, "the real and legitimate goal of sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches", and he discouraged scientists from pursuing intangible philosophical or spiritual ideas, which he believed contributed little to human happiness..."
     These are the two aspects of science: the methods of doing it, and its applications to the everyday world. The "scientific method" WIKI: "involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings."   This is vague and general because the procedures of inquiry vary from one field to another,  but do usually start with a question which leads to an "hypothesis" or proposal from observations of the world.   "Why does so and so....?"  It must lead to answering the question by specific, repeatable observations.  Scientists test hypotheses by conducting experiments or studies.  And the outcome answers the question posed.  

There is a general agreement that science method is 1)a statement about the natural or material world 2)evaluated by a procedure requiring observation of an event(s) related to the statement. Some examples may help:
In astronomy, this may be a prediction of the occurrence of an event, the location of Jupiter from a vantage point in October, related to statements about the motion of objects in the solar system of objects in view, which can only be observed at infrequent intervals.  In astronomy, the events are observed but not controlled.  By contrast, physics can usually create an experimental controlled procedure for repeating the event described in the statement to make observations to compare with the predictions.  A simple example might be observing an object rolling on a surface and discovering the effect of friction.  A complex example might be the  acceleration of particles in a cyclotron which strike a target and deflect in predicted ways, (or do not).  The complex apparatus of the cyclotron is engineered according to other physical procedures to produce defined effects (forces) on the particles. The ultra-nuclear particles can only be observed by indirect measuring techniques,  subject to their own experimental methods.  Many observations in early studies in chemistry resulted from combining substances and observing changes of color or state.  But modern chemistry depends on highly complex reaction models and the identification of complex molecules based on response to electromagnetic radiation.  In modern scientific inquiry, a complex chain of assumptions and observations underlies the outcome of the experiment, which are subject to variable influences.   Even more complex and indirect procedures are needed for studies in biology, and with each level of complexity,  the potential for error increases and measurements must include statistical techniques for separating the observations from random statistical noise introduced in the observation procedures.  The idea of testing a statement about the world by techniques of observation does not change,  but the techniques become increasingly complex, and the observations are the result of complex features of the experimental situation.  This is not a theoretical statement but a practical statement about how modern science is done.  If an effort is made to repeat the observation,  the precise system of observation is required for the replication,  and the replication may fail if the conditions are not met.  Individuals who have never actively participated in scientific research beyond the controlled "labs" of high school or college courses do not appreciated this complexity, and assume that whatever is “discovered” by science is agreed upon by all scientists immediately or soon after,  and disagreements only occur when someone is “wrong”. 
      The observations discovered in “science” are applied in the applications of  engineering:  the breakdown of crude oil into petroleum products in refineries,  the effect of air flowing over curved surfaces to lift airplanes into the air, the creation and testing of pharmaceutical chemicals, etc.   In engineering applications,  allowances are usually made for a margin of safety, i.e. lift has added capacity for the  unexpected dangers in flight.   Crashing airplanes illustrate the reality that valid scientific principles can be applied in ways that are sometimes not reliably applied to achieve the predicted engineering outcomes.  This does not disprove the scientific principles but shows that they can be incorrectly applied, or that other factors intervene.
     The repeatability of observations in astronomy depends on the recurring events of various components in the solar system.  But many events of material objects on earth are not reliably repeatable.  An example are the algae tides that sometimes “bloom” on ocean shores.  They recur often enough to observe the correlation with other variables,  but not often enough to predict their next occurrence.  The repetition of the geyser “old faithful” has repeated on schedule for centuries,  but the timing of another geologic phenomenon,  the eruption of Hawaii volcanoes cannot be predicted with accuracy.  The inability to predict does not make science “fake”, but shows it's limitations.  When the observations cannot be made in a controlled laboratory setting,  determination of variables is more difficult; when events do not recur at regular intervals,  prediction of their causes is more difficult.
    An example is the assessment of global warming.   Observations of the rising temperature of the earth are confirmed by multiple sources,  and “global warming deniers” are generally persons who wish to deny the reality for personal economic reasons.  Evidence from tree and plant growth,  and geologic formations indicates that variations in the configuration and climate of the earth have varied over eons.  The current changes in global temperature do not validate hypotheses about what variables contribute to these changes.  Theories about the role of loss of the ozone layer,  and green house gases trapping heat provide possible explanations, but because global warming is not been a recurring event, and because the vast increase in green house gases is not known to have occurred on earth in the past, these cannot be validated with assurance.  Experiments have been designed which support the possible effects of these variables, but do not quantify their role over the earth.  It is stupid to deny the evidence of global warming, but defensible to claim the evidence for green house gas effects may not be the entire basis of the events.  May countries' scientists have concluded that this is likely to be a major cause  and so there is strong advocacy for reducing the production of these substances.        But this raises two problems: 1) how to generate the necessary energy for economic purposes without generating these gases,  and 2) will the reductions slow or reverse the changes in climate or is the process too far progressed into some cycle to be reversed?   Neither of these has a current scientific answer.  Efforts to promote one or another opinion are influenced by fossil fuel companies on one hand, denying their role to prevent curtailing the use of these fuels,  and on the other by environmentally sensitive scientists who believe that the data available is essential to saving the planet.
Nothing in this debate invalidates the accuracy of science as a method,  but indicates that scientists are human beings who can be influenced to state opinions about ambiguous information biased by their source of support.  As a group,  scientists are disappointed by the loss of respect that has emerged in the general public,  but this is the result of participating in political dialog,  advocating for a position, based on limited data,  and not acknowledging the advocacy position.  When scientists behave like politicians they are perceived to be politicians,  and science as an endeavor is degraded.

    Other examples can be found in sciences involved with human life and behaviors.  Is economics a science?  Economists can measure aspects of human behavior,  including the distribution of money as a variable in society.  Traditional theories define the expected human behavior of a group of individuals “rationally”(logically) attempting to benefit themselves.  But observation of real human behavior does not consistently fit these models,  and a modifying theory of “behavioral economics” has developed and been given a Nobel prize for recognizing the perturbations that must be considered.  Some of these effects can be predicted in advance,  but others are only identified by the failure of humans to perform according to abstract models.  The entire US economy has been modeled by computers,  which give fair predictive accuracy for short term future values, unless a significant unexpected event influences the economic situation.  As they say in investing “past performance cannot predict future results”.  Does this mean that economics does not have predictive value?  Sometimes the predictions are useful.  The unknown factors cannot be added in advance,  including certain human behaviors.   Economists are called on to advise governments about changes in policy,  and not surprisingly different ones provide advice that fits the expectations of different parties.  This reveals the ambiguity in data that does not have repeatability to confirm predictive statements.  Responsible economists would be clear about the limitations of their proposals,  but here again, when scientists behave like politicians they are judged as politicians.

    If scientists want to "rehabilitate" scientific activities as non-political events,  they must be clear about the limitations of data in political situations,  and avoid taking advocacy positions clearly supported and compensated by different advocacy groups or they must clearly state that their opinions are being supported by these groups.  The requirement for this disclosure has recently been applied to medical research reports funded by commercial sources. With the current polarization of our society,  it is possible that leaders may refuse to fund research that might not support their objectives,  or unrealistically fund projects that do with little hope of success.  So long as researchers are clear about the sources of funding and the observations made in research the scientific method is protected.  

     There are many ways of distorting scientific methods to create observations that are biased or limited.  Because the conditions of modern science often require complex arrangements of observations,  manipulating this situation may result in entirely different results.  Here the scientific procedure is being carried out,  but the influencing variables are being controlled in advance.   For example,  study of the effectiveness of a treatment on humans can be biased by how the patients and controls are selected.  It is very difficult to detect and manage this kind of manipulation of scientific procedures,  and results in "noisy" collections of studies pro- and con- a given determination which can only be sorted out by detailed analysis of the different procedures.  This INTENTIONAL misuse of experimental procedures to manipulate the outcome of studies is a fraudulent use of scientific method but hard to suppress.  It can only be managed by the combined efforts of the scientific community in the area of research being reported.

     Advocacy in science will not go away.  The current COVID-19 epidemic is a good example. Applying scientific results to practical situations is important and misuse is destructive and must be minimized.  Advocating positions based on ambiguous data is sometimes necessary and acknowledging the personal advocacy will clarify the interpretation.  Political leaders must make difficult decisions that impact the country,  and they should be interested in the best scientific accuracy they can obtain to help make the decisions.    Balancing the risks of infection, disability, and death, with the impact on the economy is a difficult problem.  Other epidemics have occurred and data collected, but this infection has its own special features, so there are no recurring events.  Balancing epidemiology and economic data on a real time basis to chart a course through the problem would be the rational approach.  One that our country has been unable to accomplish through failures of leadership,  despite the availability of the resources to do so.  Attacking scientists in this situation reflects the political need to avoid blame for failures,  but scientists must be careful not to overstate the validity of their advocacy.

COVID dreams: how to save lives and the economy at the same time

 A WSJ article "New Thinking on Covid Lockdowns:They’re Overly Blunt and Costly" reviews recent experience in different countries and regions,  trying to find a balance between deaths and economic consequences.  New Thinking on Covid Lockdowns: They’re Overly Blunt and Costly - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-lockdowns-economy-pandemic-recession-busines...

They make several points:

"The equivalent of 400 million jobs have been lost world-wide, 13 million in the U.S. alone. Global output is on track to fall 5% this year, far worse than during the financial crisis, according to the International
Monetary Fund.  “We’re on the cusp of an economic catastrophe,” said James Stock, a Harvard University economist who, with Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina and others, is modeling how to avoid a surge in deaths
without a deeply damaging lockdown. “We can avoid the worst of that catastrophe by being disciplined,” Mr. Stock said."

The initial rejection of economic shutdown was reversed by the course of the disease:

"The sight of hospitals in Italy overwhelmed with dying patients shocked people in other countries. Covid-19 was much deadlier than flu, it was able to spread asymptomatically, and it had no vaccine or effective therapy. Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong set early examples of how to stop Covid-19 without lockdowns. Their reflexes trained by SARS in 2003,
MERS and avian flu, they quickly cut travel to China, introduced widespread testing to isolate the infected and traced contacts. Their populations quickly donned face masks. "

Other countries including the US,  and states within the US responded in different ways.  The goal of minimizing the spread or R value was weighed against "flattening the curve" to minimize impact on healthcare systems.

“There have been few attempts to truly define the goal, and partly it’s because policy makers and epidemiologists haven’t thought well enough about the vocabulary to define what they mean or want,” said Dr. Mina, the Harvard epidemiologist."

And it is fair to say that starting with the President of the US, some attempted to deny that any definition of the problem was needed at all.

"In mid-April, his health advisers issued guidelines for when states with lockdowns should reopen, including 14 days of declining cases and the ability to test and trace anyone with flulike symptoms. “The predominant and completely driving element that we put into this was the safety and the health of the American public,” Dr. Fauci told reporters. But that same day Mr. Trump made it clear his priority was the economy: “A prolonged lockdown combined with a forced economic depression would inflict an immense and wide-ranging toll on public health,” he said. Within weeks he was praising states that had reopened despite not meeting the guidelines and was tweeting “LIBERATE” to supporters protesting lockdowns."

This political split interferes with any effective intervention strategy and reflects the denial and economic interests of elements of the government which disregard danger to human life. This excerpt from WSJ references a paper on staged reopening, but ignores two major points: 1) the president denied the epidemic and tried to block control measures because he imagined this would protect his economic interests, and 2) voluntary participation is not assured, for example, by churches refusing to close down. 

(This is the clearest example of how failing to isolate leadership from personal economics is dangerous for the country.  The president and his family's major holding are in the hospitality industry most likely to be impacted, which certainly influenced his decision to deny the significance of the disease.  That other Republican leaders followed suit instead of a more measured response is unfathomable.)  

Closing some businesses over others based on risk interferes with “fairness” free enterprise. The WSJ article reflects the typical confusion that the issue is a choice between economy and lives.  The economy will collapse under the fear of contracting the illness as it did in the 1918 flu or 1970 flu.  Trump’s strong denial message could not eliminate the surge of deaths in NYC and the fear it induced.  Giving the public clear boundaries to  define protection is better than an inconsistent response with emphasis on economy above all,  or the one of safety over all.  This is not a political issue but a scientific one.

A simple model for addressing a balance between deaths and economy can be built:  
1) Strong isolation of high risk individuals to lower death rates.  2) Quarantine and contacts quarantine for those who are symptomatic and test positive. Testing and reporting to government health agency is mandatory. The loss of work is compensated as “illness” or “sick leave”.    
3) All major “super spreader” events are eliminated until the rate of infection in the local region goes below R = 1 or so.  
4) Some businesses are inherently “super spreader” in nature,  including those with crowds like performances or sporting events, air travel in commercial airlines, business meetings in large groups, cruise ships,  Vegas style casinos, and most large hotel/hospitality venues. (Most of the Trump businesses are of this type, making the impact especially negative on his holdings.) These must be treated in the same fashion as “super spreader” events. 

"Research by Dr. Mina and others has shown that “super-spreader”events contribute disproportionately to infections, in particular dense indoor gatherings with talking, singing and shouting, such as at weddings, sporting events,religious services, nightclubsand bars. Bars and restaurants accounted for 16% of Covid-19 clusters (five or more cases) in
Japan; workplaces, just 11%. Bars, restaurants and casinos accounted for 32% of infections traced to multiplecase outbreaks in Louisiana." 

5) Businesses with significantly high rates of positives must close until positive testing abates.  This is compensated by (how?)  and is enforced by mandatory penalties.  
6) Casual social interaction is not eliminated but mask and distancing guidelines are encouraged,  favoring families and close friends and avoiding “super spreader” events.  A strong public awareness program encourages compliance.
7) Schools pose a special dilemma.  The rate of serious complications is lower in children and teens, but their potential to spread to other family members is high.  The social contact in most schools makes them “super spreader” locations.  Children and teens including college students have a strong tendency to ignore social distancing making the problem more difficult. This is also complicated by the difficulty in distance learning for many children,  and the financial issues in higher education.  
8) It is also necessary to prevent temporary migration to nearby low intensity regions. The NYC migration is typical of this,  and mostly available to the wealthy,  spreading infection to all.
    Freedom of action and assembly are abridged in this model, which has serious constitutional problems.  This might be mitigated by enacting laws to support the program,  which would likely have to be state by state.  The sequence of emerging disease state by state has made it difficult to get a national policy.  Without enforcement, it appears that a significant proportion of the population is unwilling to adhere to even the least restrictive “mask and distance” recommendations as intolerable loss of liberty.  (This is sometimes ascribed to Trump's attitude, but I think it is the reverse: his attitude reflects a significant component of the society.)  The model has a more serious problem: the US is not willing to commit to increasing in testing and contact tracing.  Trump feared testing would reveal the extent of infection and undermine his denial.  Poor voluntary participation and no national commitment to testing and tracing are two major factors increasing the severity of impact on the US.
    The scientific problem can be stated as: “what combination of mitigating behaviors, including isolation and limited restriction of commerce, will produce the best ratio of limiting deaths while preserving economic function”?  It is  assumed that a vaccine distributed to the entire society would solve this problem immediately.  It would certainly simplify the situation,  but the likelihood of such a “magic bullet” is at least months or years away.  And the results of the influenza vaccine indicate that it can reduce the overall risk, but not eliminate it.  The current situation does not have scientific evidence to support a clear strategy for balancing death and disability with economic preservation.  An approach this minimizes death and dissemination is definable in epidemiological methods,  but one that also minimizes economic impact at the same time is not available.  This leaves each region to find its own solution by T&E and different regions have had differential success as indicated in the article.  

ECONOMICS 101

   THIS IS THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF POSTS ABOUT THE FAILURE OF THE US ECONOMY, the failure to create an economy meeting the expectations of a rational society.  

Introductory economics courses emphasize how economies decide to allocate the society's resources:  do we produce guns or butter?  Supply and demand curves illustrate how the interaction,  and factors that modify them.  The supply of goods and services is decided by the society, which may reflect the demand curve,  but some are independent, as in military spending in peacetime.  The demand for goods and services differs throughout the society,  and a hierarchy of needs alters what different economic classes demand,  and the supply.  Theses and research papers are written to address special cases.  Economists avoid value discussions, claiming the principles are “value neutral” so true whatever the values of the society in they apply.  Yet economic studies may favor one value system over another, and are adopted as “correct” by the political group that is most likely to benefit from the plan.  The idea of optimizing decisions for the entire society is a political, not economic, issue, but the data to measure this requires an different approach to economics. The economic questions for a society (country): 
    1) Is there an “equitable” dispersal of goods and services?
    2) Are the available resources used efficiently?
    3) Is the production of goods and services “stable”, in the sense that disruptions of production or consumption do not result in major failures in 1) and 2)?    (To this might be added another goal based on the extensive development of globalization:)
    4) Is the production of goods and services efficiently integrated into broader global markets?

These metrics for evaluating the operation of an economy,  are not consistently achieved by the American economy, for most of its history.  The American economy, a “regulated” capitalist economy, is unable to fulfill those simple objectives.  Why?

    1) Capitalism is based on return on investment, ROI.  The rewards of the  society are dispersed based on how capital is invested.  It might seem that investing would favor those activities most likely to provide a significant return,  and that these would benefit the overall society.  But this is generally not the case. Predicting the likely return of investment requires knowledge of future demand an inherently risky problem.  So efforts are made to limit this risk by reducing competition, and choosing modes of investment like financial manipulations in which risk can be managed directly.  None of these adjustments are responsive to an "equitable distribution".
    2) Efficient use of resources does not occur because of the competition for consumer access.  A new neighborhood will have several supermarkets, gas stations, and other providers.  The excess building results occurs when companies seek entry into the region.  The ones that fail waste investment and create “dead” stores that must be repurposed.  This is often taken as proof that capitalism is efficient,  emphasizing the re-purposing and ignoring the losses of inefficiency of initial investment.  This has been accelerated by the recent transition to online marketing and sales.

This problem of waste in fair competition is managed by oligarchy. In development of American business from the “golden age” of the early 1900s to now,  achieving competitive advantage by monopoly has always motivated business.  Strong anti-trust laws emerging after the crash in the 1920s prevent some of this, but were weakened in the 1980-90s.  Once monopoly is achieved the society pays far more than what would be needed for the good or service and competitors are undermined and eliminated,  but this does not lead to reduced waste but instead to elevated prices when there is no optional alternative supply.   Capitalism attempts to lower the costs of business in every way possible and this means limiting labor costs where possible in the current competitive labor market.  At times  it creates labor “sweat shops” with poor return on labor for the worker and eventually demand for unionization and government regulation.  While efficient in using labor resources,  this interferes with achieving goal #1) equitable distribution of resources.    

    3) Every introductory economic textbook explains “business cycles” as an inevitable feature of capitalism.  The uncertainty in investment and inherent risk predicts failures in businesses, but it does not predict that these must be correlated and occur in cycles.   The “Chicago School” explains these cycles as variations in the “cost of money” or interest rate.  When the rate is low,  starting new ventures or expanding is less costly and more businesses attempt it.  The demand on money raises the “cost” (interest rate) and eventually the multiple businesses don’t all succeed resulting in defaults and losses,  and the rate falls.  This explanation does not take into account several external factors that have impacted over the last 100 years.  Technology innovation drives business expansion and exaggerated valuations, seen in the railroad boom of the 1870s,  the radio boom of the 1920s,  the computer hardware boom of the 1990s,  and the “internet” boom of the 2012s.  Each is a real advance in technology overvalued by a public seeking to “strike it rich” creating transient exaggerated values, "tulipmania"  (along with some fake businesses that exploit this).   The 2008 crash was the result of an intentional effort on the part of a government-financial industry partnership to create a false stimulus in the economy by driving the housing market beyond the capacity of buyers to afford houses,  with falsely valued mortgages,  and secondary insured collateral to cover this fake stimulus.  The collapse brought down Lehman Brothers,  and triggered a major contraction.  In 2020, another sort of contraction is occurring due to the collapse of consumption in certain industries related to the covid pandemic.  This is another test of whether an economic system can manage the external destabilizing challenge of an event.  And the crypto-currency collapse is another result.

    4) Understanding the economy from the perspective of one country is no longer adequate.  The free transfer of goods,  services, and information across national boundaries makes the idea of a closed economy incorrect.  What does an effective role in the global economy look like and how should it be measured?  The current US idea that it is the “dominant” economy and can manipulate others is incorrect, in the process of failing, and weakening the US role in the broader economy.  The competition between countries try to draw investment from outside bringing capital for development into the country.  They try to draw capital by exporting more in $$ than they import.  This gives a favorable balance of payments and increases the relative strength of the currency compared to other currencies,  but that makes export goods more expensive and tends to equalize the effect.  Many corporations in the modern world are “multinational” and how they report their income  affects their tax and other liabilities to the countries in which they are located.  This confuses the economic national boundaries.  Is Apple an American company?  Much of its sales are in China,  and much of its manufacturing is done outside of US.  It reports income for much of the world in EU countries with lower income taxes.  Where is the “real” Apple located?  Natural resources including foods grown, and material commodities like oil and mined substances are local to the country in which they reside.  But their trade may be managed by companies that grow or extract them,  which are not located in the country of extraction.  Whose oil is it?  Few everyday Americans recognize the extent of the globalization of the economy.
What values should guide the economic regulation of a country? 
A The economy should produce sufficient goods and services to sustain all the population.  Everyone should have enough food to avoid starvation,  adequate clothing, and housing to avoid injury of exposure to elements, and facilitate protecting a family (if desired).  It might include basic healthcare and some non working time for recreation.  How the material goods are distributed, and what productive work is required to access them must be specified.  The term “economic inequality” indicates that in the US this goal is asymmetric:  significant numbers of the population who do not have adequate food,  clothing, or housing.  Many others live in  marginal security which any change in life circumstances will disrupt.
B The Country must decide if other values beyond economic ones are important.  These might include preservation of environmental features, opportunities for recreation and other social activities,  distribution of education across the population, etc.  Most of these other values have an “opportunity cost” that reduces the available capital to the society as a whole.  The US system of valuations is suggested as:
*Recreation activities including sports, gambling, hospitality travel, and alcohol consumption are major economic industries with high valuation. 
*The consumption of disposable consumer goods like stylized clothing, shoes, and music etc. are an important driver of the economy.  They are marketed as essential to defining personal identity of the user,  although they are mass produced and therefore actually not personal at all.  Their rapid loss of value after purchase creates an enormous burden of trash waste for the society. 

***Non-material values in the society are minimal:  Religion is an important value for a minority of the population,  but is closely linked to financial success.  Tradition, old styles and standards, exists in limited parts of New England.  Cultural interests are increasingly too expensive for most to afford,  and the educational experience that would prepare readers, viewers, and listeners is not provided.  

*The emphasis is on the experience of audio-visual media as primary recreation,  along with electronic competitive gaming is supported for its economic value, while creative audio-visual production is not distributed to the creative artists as the digital distributors take most for themselves.

*Preserving the natural environment is a conflicted value with a small group committed to this,  pitted against the majority who wish to exploit the environment for economic gain.

The political process must manage the economic decisions of A) and B).  Regulation of economic activity occurs at the private and government level.  Private companies have significant freedom to specify the work parameters of employees,  compensation, and other factors in the delivery of services.  These are generally regulated by competition between local entities,  or national competition in the case of airlines, etc.  The role of the state and federal governments in requiring private entities to abide by specific restrictions (think, non-pollution) is variable and strong influence is exerted by large corporations to limit this role of governments.  The orderly function of a society demands some structure of rules/laws which specifies individual relationships.   Although great emphasis is placed on the police in preventing theft, robbery and burglary,  the total amounts of these crimes is trivial compared to the massive fraudulent “white collar” crimes of the last several decades.  This represents a fundamental failure to manage the distribution of goods and services.

Future posts will suggest alternatives to our current dilemma.

THE FRAGMENTATION OF AMERICAN SOCIETY

   In November there will be an important national election.  A two party democracy has the challenge of coordinating important issues differently than a parliamentary one.  Parliamentary democracies have specific issue parties which must align after the vote to create a parliamentary majority and support a prime minister.  The coalitions are decided by politicians after the voters have selected party weighting.  In the US two party format, the issues must be distributed across the parties before the voting and the voters choose candidates by the overlap of issues in each party.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both.  Examining the current differences in values across the society shows some important guides to the coming election:

Feminism vs Patriarchy:  The #metoo movement has not sustained a strong political influence,  and although female candidates are being identified as "important",  the idea that women are exploited by men is not accepted across the society.  Most recently deVos made the identification of sexual harassment more difficult in educational settings.  The Right is strongly patriarchal, with a significant female component that supports patriarchy.

Racism vs racial equality: The US has never resolved its origins in exploiting minorities or killing them off for access to their lands.  The recent riots over policing echo issues in the Obama administration,  and this issue for African-americans is now center stage, but for Hispanics it is less clear,  and also for various Asian-American groups.  The reality that whites will be a population minority by 2035 makes it urgent to suppress the voting capacity of these groups ASAP, or be outvoted soon.  This is a defining issue of the Right, and it has roots that go back to the authors of the constitution, to the secession of the slave states in the civil war,  and numerous anti-asian laws in the history of the Western states.  Cloaked in the language of "racism" it is more about the loss of white political control.

Values of Christian religion vs a-religious views: The Christian values of preserving life, anti-abortion, the primacy of heterosexual marriage,  and a reinterpreted 10 commandments are challenged by accusations of hypocrisy, personal reinterpretation,  and the corruption of values within the churches,  and by political compromises.  This is complicated by the reactivation of old Christian-Moslem and Christian-Jew antipathies.

Unregulated capitalism vs economic equality: There is every evidence that unregulated capitalism leads to economic exploitation, economic inequality, monopolies, and cartel oligarchies.  This was demonstrated in the 1900-1920s era of "mogul" capitalism in the US,  which led to the dramatic market collapse of 1929.  Similar problems were observed in other developed capitalist economies.  WW2 led to European expansion of social welfare elements and the increased role of labor,  while in the US this was eventually undermined,  and by the 1980s less regulation of capitalism led to the 1999 and 2008 recessions,  and controls put in at that time have been removed by political influence,  and economic inequality in the US has dramatically increased.

Environmental preservation vs economic exploitation of the environment: Although much of the environmental position seems to be about "extinction" or other hot button focus,  the core issue is how much the environment should be utilized for economic activities and how much it should be preserved in a relatively "wild" unexploited state.  Industrial interests advocate having no limits on their impact on the environment,  and the deterioration of the world's environments is a clear result.  It is not clear how much this can be reversed,  and what the impact would be on human economic function as a result.

Heterosexual identity vs gender diversity: There is evidence that gender diversity in multiple forms in multiple cultures has always existed.  The Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions strongly prohibit non heterosexual unions and persecuted those who practice these acts.  This has been challenged since the 1950s and world wide an increased tolerance of gender diversity has accompanied the weakening of control of the society by traditional religions.

Libertarian freedom vs Rule of Law:  The essential basis of any society is the "social contract",  the agreement to relinquish certain individual autonomy for the direction of the social group.  This boundary is fluid,  and the "bill of rights" of the constitution of US represented the explicit expansion of individual rights not specified in the constitution.  The recent evolution of these issues in US is ironic:  while Libertarians decry the power of the Federal government and seek to weaken the DC influence,  the current POTUS attempts to expand HIS authority in disregard of any constitutional checks.  And congress has not been able to challenge this.

Education and advancement vs "street smarts":  The educated elite were a tiny minority of the country before WW2,  but after the war the corporate economy encouraged education,  and education became highly correlated with economic advancement.   This value has been exploited economically by for-profit colleges,  student loan creditors, and other methods and has resulted in deterioration of education quality, impoverishment of ambitious students,  and a future burden on the economy which it cannot sustain.  There is a need for education reform that links it use to the ongoing intellectual needs of an advanced technical society.

There is a very clear linkage across these values for the Right:  Patriarchy, Christian religious values, control of minority voting, and unlimited capitalism have become linked in this political system.  This is true despite the reality that the POTUS does not embody almost any of these features!


For the Left the linkage is not so clear: Feminism,  racial equality, economic equality, environmentalism, gender diversity, and the use of national laws are not obviously linked,  though the Obama administration managed to coordinate they to some degree.  

The recent division of the country over Covid-19 reveals another split:  The  younger generation of Right and Left were less impacted by the health consequences than the economic consequences,  revealing a cultural split between youth and elder generation, which was typical of the 1960s social unrest.

The current demonstrations about police violence against African-americans demonstrates the developing coalition of especially younger groups against racial discrimination and the use of the police authority to maintain society conformity.  The large number of non African-american protestors and the recognition in some places that the police process must be reformed are indications of change.

In Jan 2020,  my  blog identified the following issues for the country:
Human resource issues:  Immigration, healthcare, housing, financial opportunity, education, minority rights(diversity).  
Social consensus: Cultural values and gender identity, regional diversity
Material economic: stable economy not based on disposable consumer goods, environmental concerns
International relations and globalism
Political integrity and the exposure of graft in politics in Washington esp

Most of these are identified in the current blog as issues splitting the country. 
The availability of social media should provide a broad channel for communication and discussion of these issues but instead has silo-ed the country into self-affirming information portals that distort information to support personal views.  This must be resisted if a meaningful change process can occur.  Otherwise the country will swing back and forth to unstable extremes and collapse.

JOAN DIDION AND CA DREAMING

I picked up a book of Joan Didion's writings. She is arguably  the  great contemporary CA writer though she no longer lives in CA. Her short piece "notes from a native daughter", "letter from Los Angeles", and her "goodbye to all that" about being young and hopeful in New York in the 60s, are very powerful personal statements. She is able to bring herself to writing so a reader feels her presence more believably than almost any one else. "Notes from a native daughter" about being from Sacramento lifts a veil from the OZ of the golden state. Ken Starr is right to express his history as the history of a "dream".  For outsiders looking in, California is a projected fantasy.  But growing up there was a different matter.

The other night I watched two "road" movies: the last bit of Ford's "Grapes of Wrath", which seems horribly dated and talky, but in which Fonda is totally believable, and the harsh black and white seems exactly right to capture the harsh times in which the people lived. "Bound for Glory" about Woody Guthrie is another view of the migration of the30s. The two captured that hopeful second migration of the Okies who struggled to get to the "California where every man has a job, and gets everything he wants", a second migration after the first covered wagons of Didion's ancestors.  The Okies came swarming to Southern California in the 1930's imagining it was the Eden of their dreams, only to find themselves blocked at the borders by the previous generations of immigrants, who were aware of  the limited opportunities, and did not welcome competition. Didion's description of Sacramento includes impatience with the economic invasion of post war immigrants, who were not "settlers" and did not understand what they had been through. The 3rd migration, after the WWII, in the 1950s, overran Sacramento, along with the rest of CA, usurping the homesteads of Didion's family and neighbors, and replacing it with a less personal mall/chain store/subdivision world that would eventually invade the rest of America.   

I am a new "migrant" to CA.  I came with dreams to be close to family which was realized, and be part of the film industry which was not.  It is not an easy place to retire. The housing costs are high, and the scattered development makes you very dependent on cars in a place where this can be very frustrating. (Driving in LA is a whole other story.) The weather is often pleasant, though not quite as lovely as the promotions. Some very wealthy people retire to LA and enjoy its charms buoyed up by their affluence, and it has been that way since its origins. But most come with less, and struggle to find their place in a city which embodies the exaggeration of rich and poor for longer than the rest of the US.  There is a mental transformation that each immigrant to California must go through after arriving. The "dreams of California" must be replaced by the realities of sustaining oneself in a difficult environment. At one time, the challenges were a lack of water, and limited opportunities. Agriculture, oil, movie, aviation, military and real estate booms brought prosperity, over development, and the challenges of modern California: an overpopulated, economically declining state the size of most countries trying to find its economic balance. As always, the poor suffer most, and the middle class have less coherence as they try desperately to ascend to the 1% to have more influence. And even the 1% have little influence in a place where the 0.1% are in great supply.  There is great natural beauty here, and significant cultural experiences. But surviving economically has always been difficult, and is no easier today, though the challenges are different. The "old timers" who managed to survive understand: if you have not struggled to survive here, you are not really a Californian, just a "California dreamer".

America's Kristallnacht

Recent events have motivated me to present my opinion on three things are going on in this country at the same time.  If the public is not careful,  the result can be terrible:

 
1) The covid-19 pandemic has crippled much of the economy especially of the lower middle class of all races,  and killed a disproportionate number of African Americans, while many young white Americans are not experiencing a major illness and are frustrated by the barriers put up in the society. 

2) a Minneapolis police officer,  with a long record of disciplinary problems,  killed a black man in the line of duty whom he worked with,  and probably had a beef with in another setting.  This triggered a particularly negative image of police/black relations and activated protests that were also aimed at the president’s racist taunts over months.

3) Exploiting this, unknown groups have systematically arranged looting of various locations in major cities,  and set up staged fires and “civil disobedience” carefully orchestrated for the media,  who are only too happy to run this footage with angry headlines.  

Who are the protestors and who are the looters?  Most of the protests in cities other than Minneapolis where police charged them,  have been peaceful and easily dispersed.  This was true of the first few days in LA as well.     If we look at the coordination and planning of the looting,  it is clear that, at least in LA,  it is targeted: carried out rapidly away from police focused on demonstrations,  and evaporating when police arrive.  These are thefts,  and they are targeted to locations with movable goods.  We see images of young black and white males carrying out boxes of t-shirts, etc.  What will they do with them?  Who would benefit from this?  Are poor young men doing this to get  money?   Do they care that they are disrupting the the protest?  Who is paying them?  Black groups do not benefit from the image of blacks as criminals. Are right wing groups creating the diversion to discredit the protests and make it seem that blacks are out of control and the police must do whatever they can?  If you want to know who is organizing the looting,  look at who benefits.  

 
    At the white house,  and again in Minneapolis police cars or other objects were set on fire, but never associated with the actual message of the protest.  The media are mesmerized by videos of the fires and keep attention on them instead of the message.  This is the failure of the media to present the full understanding of the situation,  preferring the dramatic images that capture more eyeballs.  This plays into the right wing agenda, even media that oppose it!  America, is this your “kristallnacht”,  the moment when the right creates disorder to prove that the country must be taken over and democracy suspended?  If we are not careful,  the US will drift from “banana republic” to fascist state.  The president is not favored to be re-elected, and this police killing has mobilized the black community against him.  Can the right manipulate the media to reverse the message? 
   Black Lives Matter organizers affirm that they have directed the protests to areas of high economic value white businesses,  like Macys in NYC,  and Santa Monica in LA.  It is a clear statement that rich whites will care more about economic attack in their favored world than about black businesses burning,  or about black deaths.  It is a sad truth that attacking Luis Vuitton is a major crisis while the deaths of black teens and children are not. 
   We are seeing more white youths demonstrating with blacks this time.  What has changed?  The economic future of young white men and women is starting to deteriorate in the way that African Americans have suffered for generations.  Suddenly economic suppression is a reality for much of the society.  And opiate addiction not far behind.  Which side will capture the narrative and direct the future of the society?  Only time will tell.

20 THINGS I LEARNED FROM COVID 19

1. The comfort of physical touch cannot be replaced by audio visual stimuli.

2. Food is more important than trinkets and consumable junk.  Food workers are least appreciated until they are not there. And not supported when they are needed the most.

3. Asking younger adults to sacrifice for the elderly is not respecting their needs.  It reverses the cycle of life.

4. End of life care (nursing homes) is not reliable or safe.  If you can’t care for yourself,  no one else will do it for you reliably.   But lots of companies will try to make money pretending to do it.

5. Our healthcare system is broken.  Health is an attitude toward life,  not a way to stimulate the GDP.

6. A country that fractures politically in a crisis is very vulnerable, and shows a breakdown in leadership.

7. We no longer have a functioning central government, just a beltway for lobbyists. 

8. The weakness of the federal government is allowing states to reassert themselves.  Given the very different values of some states from others,  this is probably necessary. 

9. The central bank’s ability to stabilize the economy depends on its ability to exert appropriate influence in various markets.  When this is interfered with by special interests it cannot be effective.  The assurances about supporting small business are lies because the funding earmarked for small business is not accessible in a reliable fashion.  The US federal government is motivated to protect large businesses as the easiest solution to producing a rebound economy.

10. It is possible to do a lot of business on the internet digitally,  but not all business.

11. Not driving saves the environment.  Not buying stuff saves the environment.  Not wanting so much stuff does not make us poorer.  Wanting stuff we cannot afford makes us poorer.

12. Not using so much energy reduces the importance of oil in the economy.  The country has not figured out an alternative commodity to stimulate business.

13.Spending more time with people we love builds the relationship (or ends a false one).

14. The need to travel somewhere means we are not happy where we are.  The vulnerability of the hospitality industry reflects its role in distracting us from our lives.

15. How are we surviving without filling up life with sporting events and mass gatherings?  Why are they so important?  Emotionally and economically?

16. What would a “simpler” society look like? Would it be economically stable?

17. International supply chains for products save money but complicate access.  What does a country need to produce for its own security?

18. Anyone we honor as a “hero” we treat as expendable.  Policemen, first responders, EMTs, nurses, doctors have all become part of the “saving lives at the expense of themselves and their families”, and called “heroes”, but get furloughed when the cities or hospitals run out of money.

19. Many people aged 18-45 were already struggling in the economy, and are faced with greater economic hardships with this downturn.  Where is the economic focus on their needs?  A one time payment of $1200 covers one months rent in many places.  What happens to them after that?

20. The flowers are blooming this Spring.  There are lots of birds around.  Slowing down to appreciate the natural world does not cost money or make money for someone else.  Is it still worthwhile?

SOME TASKS FOR AMERICA IN THE 2020s

There is an election in 2020,  but I am not running for anything,  and one year (or 4 years) is too short a time frame to address many complex problems.  A curse of electronic media is encouraging an immediate response to situations with difficult complicated solutions. The following list of challenges requires solutions if the US is to move forward as a functioning country:

PEOPLE:  Several problems face us as the community of persons.  (In a corporation they would be called "human resources",  but that does not cover the range of issues in a geographic boundary.)
IMMIGRATION Who should be allowed to enter the US and have access to citizenship?  What qualifications must they have?  For more than three administrations the country has been unable to formulate policies for persons wishing to emigrate into the US.   The current administration's efforts to make this a divisive issue continues a failure to resolve this over the last 20 years.  Reference to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty is not a policy,  and the split between parties interferes with a cooperative rational solution.


HEALTHCARE Is healthcare a “right” for all persons? Does the society have an obligation to provide healthcare to all?  Should the quality vary according to ability to pay?   There are three questions  for healthcare: Who should receive it?  Who should pay for it (how should it be paid for)?  And why is it so much more expensive in the US?  Obamacare partially addresses only one of the three,  and no candidate addressed all three (in either party).

HOUSING Who is entitled to housing in the US?  Where is it available and must people move to what is available?  What produces homeless populations and how to reverse this process?

OPPORTUNITY Does the US still promise economic and social opportunity to all who will work hard enough for it?  How hard is that? Does it depend on race or other factors?  Will the US perpetuate a tiered society of economic inequality or re-balance the financial population curve?

DIVERSITY Does the country accept that a diverse population is expanding the place of non-whites and will soon alter the political balance?  What if some or all of the white population doesn’t accept this? Since its inception the US has been a diverse country.  The original inhabitants, the introduction of slaves,  the migration of French, Spanish, and English settlers,  and the annexation of indo-hispanic territories have  been ignored by the political dominance of  white "Anglo-Europeans".  This is currently challenged by the many stakeholders of the country,  along with new immigrants.  Women, which includes both females of discriminated groups,  and some females of the Anglo-European group, also protest being discriminated in work and other settings, and seek equalization of opportunities.  The Constitution did not originally enable diversity,  and amendments which support it have been undermined by the dominant political group.  This is reaching a critical point.

EDUCATION Does the society have a responsibility to educate its children? How much should they receive and what jobs be prepared to perform? The most fundamental task of any society is preparing its youth for the continuation of the future society.  The US has been failing to provide extensive educational and social training for all youth for most of its history,  and the post WW II period showed some promise of improving but these gains have been lost since the 90s.

SOCIAL CONSENSUS: Does the country have a common set of values?
 Is the US committed to maintaining a patriarchal Judeo-Christian values system,  or are women entitled to equal social and political authority? What about other gender variations which violate Judeo-Christian norms?  Are they supported in the US society?  The dominance of patriarchal male culture was unchallenged until the amendment giving women the vote.  Since the 1980s, new challenges to patriarchy  include gender diversity,  female s in authority roles,  and rejection of organized religions.  The US was never "one nation under god" (and never specified which god) and is certainly not now.  And the cultural diversity is exaggerated by the way in which cultural groups have migrated to specific regions of the country and established "cultural outposts" in these regions. The US has a crisis of cultural identity which is being attacked on all sides by political extremists.  The culture of a country cannot remain static,  it must grow and change for future needs.
REGIONAL DIVERSITY Is the US one country or a collection of different regions with different values and orientation?  Can one central government manage these differences? How much autonomy do separate regions need?

MATERIAL CHALLENGES The US economy is facing major changes with little guidance from political leadership or labor groups to guide the population through the changes.
ECONOMY Can the US create a growing economy which does not depend on consuming trash or fake financial manipulations?  The US is transitioning from a broad manufacturing economy to an "information economy" of unknown design,  and using financial manipulation to facilitate the changes.  No one knows where the changes are headed.  The changes are creating an inequality of economic opportunity which will lead to political instability (as it historically has in other places).  The impact is likely to be much more profound than the railroads which totally transformed the country.  The current dependence of the economy on financial manipulation is untenable long term,  a result already observed in England.
CLIMATE The country must make some response to the climate changes in process.  Should the US attempt to reduce factors presumed to contribute like green house gases?  How important is renewable energy?  What (expensive) steps should be taken to deal with changes in coastal sea levels?  Who should pay?  No matter how stupid you are,  or how you attempt to ignore the weather,  the data are clear that there is a change underway.  How much humans contributed to this is not clear,  and what humans can do to moderate it is also unclear.  But something must be done.  Figuring out what to do requires overcoming the denial in some,  the false assumptions of others,  and a meaningful engineering strategy for each problem that is recognized.   The increasing world population creates more trash,  other pollution,  and needs some place to avoid the worst aspects of climate change.   This is not a "homeless" problem,  or a "pollution" problem.  It impacts everyone by degrading the available, finite land.  Economic compromises that address the needs of a controlled population is essential.  The consumption of fossil fuels, and other commodities is part of the problem,  not only because of the related pollution and climate effects,  but because they are being depleted!

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SECURITY The US is a separate region of the world,  and has never mentally adjusted to  its separation or to the post cold war era.  There are not two "super powers" but multiple players in a complex military-economic world stage requiring sophisticated consideration from both State Department, military, and the public.  A leader that feeds the public babble prevents effective policy development and weakens security.  The US role in international relations is neither the “sole nuclear power bully”, the “champion of world democracy”, or the “enforcer for global corporations”.  US policy must articulate and advocate for US interests on the global stage.  In historical terms,  the US is a childhood or, at most, adolescent country.  Its prominence during and at the end of WW II is entirely unrelated to the sophistication of the population or its leaders in managing the complex relationships with other countries.  In most of its short history,  the US has used minor (or major, sometimes unsuccessful) military incursions in lieu of diplomacy to establish a foreign policy.  This is no longer possible.

POLITICAL INTEGRITY Behind all this is a collapse of political integrity in the country.  The days when we could challenge developing countries about their leaderships' exploitation of the population is over.  US candidates and leaders  depend so totally on campaign financing that their autonomy is a joke. Until this is modified,  the values of the country will reflect a small wealthy interest group. 
 Is it possible to remove enough financial influence from the political process to allow it to represent the broad goals of the country? This is not about "socialism" or preventing people from making profits.  It is about revising the political system so that financial factors do not have a significant role.  At this time, every other "democracy" accomplishes this to a better extent than the US.

 INFORMATION BOUNDARIES The internet has created a new opportunity and challenge for all the nations in the world.  It makes countries vulnerable in unanticipated ways and provides social and economic opportunities.  Currently there is no national or international process for determining how to manage this resource for mankind.  Instead ignorant people and leaders either try to "sell" its income value,  or rail about its danger, and the need to cut it off.   The most desperate and greedy people are exploiting its potential before more responsible people pay attention to the issues. 

The TRUMP presidency raised several of these issues without ever resolving any.   

 Stay tuned for coming posts regarding proposals for how to develop solutions (the actual solutions will require many participants!).  If you have other topics to include in the list please comment and I will consider them.