Deconstructing voices in Media

 

The twin swords of Cognitive Bias and Hyper-objectivity dominate discourse and media.

Nice to have all the world’s ills packaged into tidy bundles.  No more wondering if aging politicians and their followers are crazy – everyone , according to current wisdom, has gravitated to extreme cognitive bias in their opinions. [ see Wikipedia reference below]. Their views slot nicely into twenty clusters of, by my count, 191 documentable observed biases. Beyond an amusing tavern exercise, these categorizations seem to make sense and fit [ also a bias called, I believe observational dependency].

Is everyone obsessed?  Of course not, nor are they what we arrogantly wrote off as ‘true believers’.  By gravitating to their extreme posture, they display a concentration on clear objectives [again see references] that are much larger than we, apparently, can appreciate. Fortified by clear hyper-objectivity, these self-anointed ‘spokespeople’ offer us views which:

o   Speculate

o   Exaggerate

o   Reference selective information

o   Oversimplify

o   Alarm

Someone like myself clearly cannot fathom the energy that their moral clarity offers.  We continue to drift along in our attempt at neutral objectivity.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Cognitive_bias_codex_en.svg?utm_campaign=mb&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=morning_brew

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/timothy-mortons-hyper-pandemic

A new year and forcing a new perspective.

Today's NYT had a piece in its Modern Love column :
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/style/modern-love-trying-to-keep-up-with-grandmas-love-life.htmlaction=click&module=MoreIn&pgtype=Article&region=Footer&action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article&region=Footer&contentCollection=Pop%20Culture)

that said it all.

Grandma had found somebody to spend all her time with...they were totally devoted to each other, they were incredibly happy, and the family just plain could not handle it.

Well....on July 23 we received the word "I have news for you that is totally life changing" from a primary physician.

It was...now six month later what were plans for construction, plans for gardening, plans for travel, plans to visit mutual friends, sharings of readings and music and most of all film seem like a distant foggy memory.

Now we have the ritual raindance that is family circling around grandma, and like they say in the article: "

Grandma had found somebody to spend all her time with...they were totally devoted to each other, they were incredibly happy, and the family just plain could not handle it."

Sometimes you can just smell economic development

Been in Greece for two weeks, not just an escape from the realities of climate change (cannot function in the frozen Northeast Us) but getting a chance to know Greece as much as a foreigner can.

What do I know?  All the leading soft indicators are as positive as possible -- there are investment projects everywhere .  In the island more than ever.  There are no available laborers -- not Greek, not Albanian, not even refugees. If the missing link is investment -- then investment is in front of our very noses.  If the missing ingredient is a boost in tourism--duck!  My friends in the tourism industry are beaming at full bookings.  My friend in Naxos , himself a bit of an entrepreneur, has raised his rates and is still fully booked. The planes are full.  The ferries have no space.  This is only March.

So what about the complainers; the have a point.  Officially 2.2% is anemic at best.  The surplus is a drain and a pain, but it takes time for the effect of the two tranche upgrade to trickle.There is still a segment of the population (older, have lost their pensions, have health issues) who are vocal and are not participating, just grousing. The banks are straightjacketed, but we know not about the effect of alternative finance.  There is still a segment of young people who get their college degrees and go to London.  But the troubles in London are also moving companies to Greece -- slowly -- but noteworthy.(and most noteworthy are headquarters of shipping companies). These movements do not appear in the statistics...yet.

And the neighbors; difficulties indirectly benefit Greece.  Turkey and Italy are now officially in recession. Tourists do not care (they care about Egypt) but investors do.  The Chinese bull rush into Greece is slowed but not stopped -- the these are infrastructure investments and many many jobs.

Is Greece at a tipping point?  I don't know, and I will be here two more weeks and learn what I can.

Frozen at Last...Lordy Lordy, frozen at last

Never thought I would complain about winter not being cold enough, but thus far there has been little opportunity to get out into lower fields.  We have had anything between 58 and 69 inches of rain in 2018 and the water table is so high that places are flooded than never flooded before.
The local rumors have mice coming into homes, and roads deteriorating, but we see it as supremely inconvenient.There was also the risk that the bugs would not freeze out -- the stink bugs and the dreaded latern fly.  Now we got 'em...and we still got to see the eclipse.  Good start to 2019

New Year’s Ritual No More

Without belaboring the details 2012,2013,2014, and especially 2015 were not the best of years. To attempt to exorcize the years in entirety, I had a brilliant ritual accompanied by my trusted hound (Zeke) and a bottle of cognac, probably a good one.

Each 1 January I would take down the Great Dane calendar from the bulletin board to replace it with the same for the New Year.  Simple enough.  It dawned on me that a little pagan ritual was perhaps in order; so, beginning in January of 2012 Zeke and I would build a large fire in the hearth and park in front with cognac and calendar in hand. Tearing off a page, folding it a bit differently each time, I would launch the month into the fire …” January, you really sucked!”  Followed by a pause until the entire page was consumed.  Sip of brandy;” February, you were really shitty!”  and by March I was making a bit of a chant out of it. “March, don’t happen again!” One page at a time.  Like the soldiers in Wizard of Oz. Baskets of miserable memories all rolled up and ready to burn.

I did not need to burn 2016 and 2017.  Must have worked.

Bashed by New Books

Volumes emerging to explain the current state of the US executive branch – how it happened and where we may find the origins. Two of the best come from the CEO of the New York Times, who argues that the evolution of contemporary rhetoric is the villain, and from a popular radio/print personality who traces 500 years of American passion for less than the truth. (Reference below).  Believe them both, I do, and they have expanded my vocabulary but not necessarily my perspective. After all, mad is mad.

And then I finally got around to Friedman’s latest book (reference below) which is clearly more forward looking but grabs the history of how slow we are to adapt to new innovative thinking and technology.  Believe him too.  Expanded my vocabulary again.  Skies are gray today.  Temperatures painful. Gloomy.

Went to a brew pub last night and continued my dalliance with voter registration.  Got a couple of the beer mongers (mongerette) to help me buttonhole a couple of thirtysomethings. They spout the bent rhetoric and cite the false narratives on a moment notice.  Groan…..

Mark Thompson Enough Said  St Martin’s Griffin 2017; Kurt Anderson Fantasyland Random House 2017 Tom Friedman Thank you for Being Late

Reminder of the scourge of 16 years of war…on Veteran’s Day

please Note:  (URL's embedded)

• “2.7 million service members have been to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, and over half of them have deployed more than once “ 
• “Many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans face a life of disability due to the physical and psychological injuries they sustain in the war zones. At least 970,000 veterans have some degree of officially recognized disability as a result of the wars”
• “The VA only began tracking war veteran suicides in 2008 even though rates now appear significantly higher than among comparable civilians.” “the current analysis indicates that an average of 20 veterans a day die from suicide”
• “More veterans succumbed to suicide than were killed in Iraq: 177 active-duty soldiers died by suicide compared to 176 soldiers killed in combat”
• Based on current patterns of benefit claims and medical usage,it is estimated that the total present value of such costs for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans over the next 40 years is in the range of $600 billion to $1 trillion.

 

 

How easy to be snarky when talking about the US military, that allegedly only 1% of Americans know personally.  Easy to let it go when politicians throw out ‘I favor a strong military’ and then move on to another topic to dog whistle.

 

If you like to look at data (we do) the intersection of the military aftermath with the opioid problem in the US defies credulity – the scientific measurement is not yet available since the VA is late to the party with information, but the urban legend is that 60% of returned veterans have a ‘problem’. This ‘problem’ festers, while politicians gasbag.

 

Worse.  I had a pleasant dinner at a neighbor’s the other night.  One fellow was a vet, and proud to say that he has focused some of his business efforts on assisting young veterans start businesses.  No mention of the festering problem.  Simply no on the agenda.

 

Even worse.  We continue to feed the wars (the urban legend is that although there are six recognized ‘hot’ wars globally, there are 90 countries where the US has ‘resources’ deployed and active.  But that is just a legend….right?

 

Comon’  KenBurns!  Can’t the core anti war sentiments in this country be rekindled?

Bah Humbug.