totalitarianism today

Understanding hindsight bias.

Nassim Taleb discusses hindsight bias, which is the term employed to describe the stories that we tell ourselves after the fact to explain an anomaly or unexpected event. Talib believes it is precisely such biases that prevent us from adequately learning from the past. Fascinating material with mutiple applications. It is also a warning to those who prefer to ignore history in the formulation of policy, or explain historical events from the perspective of present ideological proclivities (i.e. annoying American boy with the Soviet kitsch flag).

You'll never guess what I did this Saturday.

Lurking beneath this calm image, one would discover the rumblings of protest. Keri, Sanda, and I met up with a few fellow counterprotesters at Starbucks. Bureaucrashers did a great job of garnering free media in favor of globalization.

Meanwhile, Brooke Oberwetter does a great job describing the protests at their finest (which is, of course, also their funniest). All in all, it was a calm and beautiful protest, except for the lack of free food and that spoiled 15 year-old American kid waving a Soviet Russian flag. I was compelled to maim him. What he doesn't know will hurt him.

Milan Kundera on political kitsch.

"To talk about kitsch became impolite at the very moment when the world itself was turning kitsch. Notice that Kafka writes about the bureaucracy at times when the bureaucracy is still almost an innocent creature. Later on, when it swallowed our lives, it became self-evident and thus invisible....The point I want to make is this: the only time when one can recognize a phenomenon in all its horror is when it is still new."

Dubravka Ugresic refers to this particular quote in her witty, twisted Thank You For Not Reading, a collection of essays about the media industry and life as a writer when pretending to be a writer is the most popular pose in Prague. Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex before it became "the national economy" (though one might argue effectively, as does Robert Higgs, that the economy was "nationalized" by World Wars I and II). Now we are blind to it, and "national interest" is par de course. There are so many exciting trends that it becomes easy to ignore the tremendous breadth of the business-government web. It isn't hot or sexy or likely to make you feel ingenue-- it's just reality. Change the channel.

Terry Waite on torture.

Former Beirut hostage Terry Waite believes approved use of torture by a government is the beginning of the end of true liberalism.

"Torture is wrong because once it becomes an instrument of the state then the state begins to descend down the road to lawlessness. Due process goes out of the window; presumption of innocence falls over; the opportunity to present opposing views and present a proper defence is denied. In short, torture eventually makes the state the enemy of the people and threatens all our lives and liberty."

Waite's wise words should be heeded by the establishment politicians in Washington DC before the democracy we are supposedly establishing in Iraq replaces the democracy we lost home. There is no freedom or fairness when a democracy does not protect its members from sadism justified by good or pragmatic intentions.

How to improve your poetry.

Die young.

The hush-hush party. For those into image-making.

As if coming-of-teen-age parties and orkut and random mitzvahs weren't enough, there is a new trend on the social scene-- the "quiet party". This caters to those who are so exhausted by the noise and chaos of their daily lives that they prefer a party where people write to each other rather than speak. My solution? If you don't want to tinker with the quotidien, then reserve a night at home curled up with your journal. Why even mount the pretense of a party? Can't people be alone anymore? Are we all so afraid of ourselves that we even have to attend "quiet parties"?!

The populace wavers.

Feeding the science fiction addiction.

After a Science Fiction Saturday of watching Soylent Green, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Rollerball, Westworld and other classics, it seemed appropriate to 1) kvecth about the mistreatment of the female "furniture" in these films and 2) warn all you kind Midwestern folks about capitalist aliens from outer space that might be headed your way. There is nothing finer than discussing the aesthetics of early sci-fi films with people who care. Nothing finer except maybe punk rock aerobics. Don't dare snicker-- I am serious as a crack pipe.

NYT in brief today.

Looks like anarchists were exonerated this time. Also, file-sharing may not hurt the pitiable music industry after all.

Closure for Dean fans?

Dean campaign insider Paul Maslin provides the inside perspective on what happened to Howard Dean. Personally, the "aargh" explanation never did it for me. Interestingly enough, my personal theory--"Atlantic Monthly" conspiracy plot-- holds that the monthly purposefully published the heroic portrayal of Vietnam veteran John Kerry to influence the key liberals that supported Dean before the primaries. As it turns out, the vast amount of campaign contributions for Dean came from Ivy League intellectuals, academics, and students.

While Maslin does not directly disprove my Atlantic Monthly theory, he provides interesting, localized reasons for Dean's terrible performance at the primaries. Maslin's description of "Black Sunday" is riveting:

On Thursday, January 8, the Dean campaign was rocked by the news that NBC was airing a videotape of its candidate, as a guest commentator on a Canadian public-affairs program several years earlier, criticizing the Iowa caucuses. The tape dominated Iowa news coverage through the following weekend, even overshadowing Dean's endorsement by the popular Tom Harkin. Then, that Sunday, January 11, came three negative developments: the state's dominant newspaper, The Des Moines Register, endorsed John Edwards; Dean shouted down a Republican heckler at a campaign event; and, exhausted and unbriefed, Dean was forced to admit, under fire from Al Sharpton, that he had never hired an African-American to a cabinet post during his time as the governor of Vermont.

Our poll that Sunday night, a week before the caucuses, showed the expected results: Dean had now fallen into a virtual three-way tie with Kerry and Gephardt, and Edwards was riding close on our heels. Our favorability rating had plummeted to a new low, just as those of Kerry and Edwards had started to rise, in part because they were liberally borrowing our message of populism and empowerment. I had seen this movie before: after weeks of declining support, Paul Simon had received the Register's endorsement and surged in the final week before the 1988 Iowa caucuses, and had nearly caught Gephardt. I began to think that Edwards might win and Dean might finish third.