Learned Journals

Diverting the Radicalization Track

2009-10-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

"Diverting the Radicalization Track" by Jared Cohen. Policy Review, April/May, 2009.

Cohen's basic message is simple: we shouldn't teach democracy; we should simply create forums for information exchange, expression, and free choice. While this idea sounds nice, it suffers from the same problem that plagues so many modern "analysts," reporters, and politicians. Democracy != voting. There's more to it than that. The things Cohen advocates (freedom of information, expression, association) are all fundamental tenets of democracy. You don't have a democracy without them.

While Cohen is correct that it's more important to create outlets for expression and idea exchange than to re-indoctrinate Muslim youth susceptible to the pull of extremist thought, he should be even broader. While I love Howcast.com (and I know one of the guys behind it), Howcast isn't the solution to violent global extremism. A comprehensive plan needs to be put in place to address the fundamental pillars that undergird democracy: the rule of law, freedom of information, freedom of association, and the protection of minority rights. The free press, free association, and information freedom, in general, can certainly be addressed, in part, over the internet.

Globalization, American Power, and International Security

2009-07-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

"Globalization, American Power, and International Security" by Jonathan Kirshner

This article starts out by asking, "What are the consequences of globalization for international conflict in general and American power in particular?" Kirshner basically makes three arguments:
1) globalization weakens sovereignty
2) globalization changes the relative power of states because it affects them variably
3) The US is identified with the process of globalization, and people resist the US, at times, when frustrated with globalization itself.

The article is less a new argument (just about everything in it is unoriginal) than a simple survey of topics around globalization. It discusses security, global finance, and the media, for example. The most interesting point in the article is the implication for a changing realpolitik in which countries will not actually oppose the expansion of US power under globalization, but rather that they will simply try to moderate its pace and will perhaps coalesce into friendly blocs to amplify their influence on the direction and speed of globalization (or their influence on US policy).

What Has Moscow Done? Rebuilding U.S.-Russian Relations

2009-07-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

"What Has Moscow Done? Rebuilding U.S.-Russian Relations" by Stephen Sestanovich (Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2008).

This article starts out by examining the prototypical "realist" response to the war in Georgia. That prototypical response is, essentially, to re-trench, ignoring many of the soft issues on which the US traditionally drubs Moscow and instead to focus on the key strategic issues which we can actually affect in the short run, such as preventing Iranian progress toward nuclear weapons. The US should stop talking about democracy, worrying about minor trade issues, or promoting human rights causes in the Eastern bloc, for example, and should strike a grand bargain with Russia. As Sestanovich points out, this kind of thinking is a mainstay of amature foreign policy thinking, and is rarely realistic. There are few, if any, grand bargains ever struck, and fewer still that hold.

Sestanovich argues, among other things, that the US genuinely miscalculated Russia's reactions to missile defense systems. No one expected the Russians to happily accept such programs, but perhaps their reaction against the missile defense systems was more than mere rhetoric. Perhaps, we, because we genuinely didn't intend the missile defenses as a tool to use to neutralize Russian power, were too quick to assume that the Russians wouldn't interpret it that way. Perhaps they took the implications, for themselves, of such defensive systems, more seriously than we meant them to.

He also argues that democracy must be "de-Americanized" as a brand. While I don't entirely agree with this, I do think that he alludes to a deeper point. Democracy needs to be better defined. Democracy is not simply "having votes" or "being like America." A real and useful definition of democracy would have to include reference to the rule of law, freedom of expression, enforceability of private agreements, protection of the rights of minorities, and access to the press. It is too easy now for foreign leaders to synonymize "democracy" and "American influence." This plays into their hands.

Finally, it is clear that the advance of Western agendas and the enlargement of the Western sphere of influence to include places such as the Ukraine and Georgia has reached a limit. Russia, weaker than it once was, is still powerful and influential, especially in Central Asia. The success of Western-style reforms and European integration has now run headlong into the still significant influence of Soviet tanks. A new equilibrium is being tested.

Getting Your Quarks in a Row

2009-01-05T12:57:00.000-08:00

"Getting Your Quarks in a Row" by Brian Hayes. American Scientist, November-December, 2008.

This article deals with the challenges of using QCD (quantum chromodynamics) instead of QED (quantum electrodynamics). In a nutshell, QED is about understanding the interactions between quarks as interactions along axes of "charge" (I use the term charge here loosely, metaphorically, and not altogether correctly). QCD is a way of understanding quantum behavior in which the mechanism by which quarks interact is through the emission of various photons of different wavelengths.

QED has been more useful for making predictions in the past, due in part to the fact that it's easier to handle mathemetically. Basically, the Feynman sum-over-paths method (a way of "averaging" all the different possible states of the subatomic particles to determine where they are "likely" to be) works naturally for QED because the infinitely long series it produces converge, and so can be treated like perturbation models. QCD is more problematic, because the series it creates do not converge and are made more complex by the fact that gluons can "emit" other gluons, not just photons.

Lattice computing methods are used to calculate these things. The lattics is typically 4D (4th dimension is time). Every conceivable path via which things can "move" (even just in time) is mapped out on a big grid, and the paths are "summed." As the size of the grid squares over which the paths are described shrinks to 0, the lattice-based calculations should be useful predictions. However, the computing power for these models is still massive (and higher for QCD than for QED).

New techniques in QCD as well as new computing power are starting to make the QCD predictive models more feasible. These methods and computing systems will be more useful once the new Large Hadron Collider is available for experimentation.

The Second Sex

2009-01-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

"The Second Sex" by Sally Scholz. Philosophy Now, Issue 69.

This article was basically a review of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. The most interesting part of the article was this one...

Women fundamentally see themselves as "other" and thereby are complicit in their own oppression by society (this is all from de Beauvoir). The examples given in the book of women who play the role of "other" most clearly are three:
1) Prostitute - She is the absolute other, but also is the exploiter. She exploits men for money and recognition of her "otherness."
2) Narcissist - She is also unable to be a subject; unable to freely pursue projects and goals herself. She turns instead to her otherness, and becomes her own object. She spends her time improving the object: herself.
3) Mystic - The mystic loses herself in God. She seems to be possessed, rather than to feel oppressed in her freedom.

Essentially, for women to achieve freedom, they must break out of the "woman as other" paradigm. De Beauvoir ridiculously thinks this requires that they embrace socialism, but it does not. However, women do face the constant struggle to identify themselves as actors, instead of falling into the narcisisst, prostitute, or mystic roles in which they can view themselves only as they are viewed by others.

The Merits of the Milesians

2009-01-05T12:42:00.001-08:00

"The Merits of the Milesians" by Chad Trainer. Philosophy Now, Issue 69.

The Milesians were Mycenaean Greeks from Miletus (in SW Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey)). At Miletus they had a rich trading and manufacturing colony. Three famous pre-Socratic philosophers stationed themselves at Miletus. They were largely responsible for the "non-religious" or "non-mythical" origins of classical Greek philosophy.

The three were:
Thales - Thales described a world made from water/liquid. He believed that moisture was the essence of life.
Anixamander - Anaximander believed the essential material of the world was infinite, boundless, and intermediate. He thought it had no definite physical qualities of its own, and that it just acted as a medium for organizing matter.
Anaximenes - Anaximenes was the third in the chain of teacher/students, following Thales and Anixamander. He believed that "air" was the most fundamental substance. He was trained in geometry and applied a more rigorous, mathematical approach to his work than did his teachers.

Anaximenes had perhaps the first theory of the origin of the world without supernatural influence.

As Cyrus conquered Lydia in 547-546 BC, the capitol of Greek thought moved west to Southern Italy and the Mediterranean islands.

These guys were the first materialist philosophers, pre-dating the "4 elements" natural philosophy that persisted until the middle ages. However, it isn't necessarily right to call them materialists, because in their time, there was little notion of the mind/soul to contrast with the material interpretation of the world. Later materialists were rejecting the mind/soul primacy. These three simply hadn't thought of it, yet.

The Five-Day War: Managing Moscow After the Georgia Crisis

2008-11-30T17:20:00.000-08:00

"The Five-Day War: Managing Moscow After the Georgia Crisis" by Charles King (Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2008).

This article lays out a line of thinking and suggests some conclusions, without necessarily advocating strongly for them or supporting the conclusions very well. Basically, the article says:

This is the lowest point in US-Russia relations since the Cold War. It asks the question, "Is the recent war in Georgia a throwback to Brezhnev crushing the demonstrations of the Prague Spring?" The article also touches on the consistency of the US response to independence movements around the world.

Russia has been involved in territorial struggles over the last two decades in Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Chechnya. Russia also involved itself in the Civil War in Tajikistan. The Russian military has operated in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria since the early 90's. In that sense, the events in Georgia were not really new or unique.

However, there were certain departures from old patterns. Specifically:

1) The US and Europe engaged this issue much more directly than they did some of the other, aforementioned Russian interventions;

2) The Russian response, too, was different. "[This time was] an attempt to bypass established channels of conflict resolution and unilaterally change the boundaries of another UN member state."

Russia also broadened the conflict to "punish" Georgia.

But, Russia is likely to have a hard time sustaining the position it has carved out for itself. Only Moscow, Managua, and Minsk recognize independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Recognizing these countries' independence sets a dangerous precedent for Russia. It will drive some Asian countries toward NATO, and strengthen secession claims and cries from others.

There is a certain absurdity to micro-statehood (the areas in dispute in Georgia have only 200,000 inhabitants, combined). Kosovo, however, had a similarly small population. The intervention by NATO in Kosovo, though, while far more violent, enjoyed much wider support than the Russian participation in Georgia.

Finally, the article points out that this is not the beginning of a new cold war. There are ideological differences, as well as strategic ones, but the reason this is not a new cold war is simple - this time it's not a zero sum game. The domino theory, MAD, and Star Wars were all ideas based on the zero-sum nature of the conflict. In today's world, both Russia and the US have incentives to make their own systems attractive to third party countries and palateable to the rest of the world. However, they will both enjoy active influence in Georgian politics. The ways this influence will be achieved and the levels of influence will differ, but they will occur concurrently and sometimes even harmoniously. Overall, this is a far better paradigm, because in a zero-sum game, conflict is almost inevitable. In a non-zero sum game, conflict can cost both sides more than it gains them, even as they compete.

With Open-Source Arms

2008-11-25T13:19:00.000-08:00

"With Open-Source Arms" by Sam Boykin (Scientific American, October, 2008).

In this article, Boykin tries to tie three phenomena together: 1) prosthetic limb design; 2) open-source, collaborative development; and 3) the relatively large number of recent, Iraq veterans needing prosthetic limbs.

Although there are many amputees in the United States, most are people over 50 who have lost a foot to diabetes or other ailments. Very few need upper-appendage replacements. Despite the tens of thousands of American soldiers who have been wounded in Iraq, less than 200 have lost an upper limb. The market for these devices is very small.

Because the market is so small, innovation in the technologies is quite limited. The subject of the article, Jonathan Kuniholm, himself a veteran-amputee, attempts to address this problem by "open-sourcing" robotic arm designs. In one specific case, he and others work to improve the design of one of the traditional "hook" appendages.

In the end, though, because the market is too small, no one wants to produce or distribute this new, better design. Almost as an afterthought, Boykin mentions the idea of lead-user research, essentially the idea that early adopters become developers, field application engineers, and generally valuable contributors to a product. However, he does not show a path by which lead-user research will somehow cause products that aren't profitable to start being profitable.

The Search for Intelligence

2008-11-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

"The Search for Intelligence" by Carl Zimmer (Scientific American, October, 2008).

Much work has been done on twins to learn about intelligence in attempt to answer various nature vs. nurture questions. The studies done over the last 30 years looking for genetic influences on intelligence have been mostly disappointing. Of all the genetic markers shown to have statistically significant correlations with intelligence, the strongest was able to "explain" only 0.4% of intelligence variation.

Yet, as the article points out, we know that there is a meaningul concept of intelligence, which is more than just a personality trait, that helps us evaluate people that we meet every day.

One very interesting thing from this article was the research which showed that parts of the cerebral cortex were thinner in intelligent people at age 7, and then thicker than normal, in the same people, at ages 10-16.

But, on the whole, this article highlights (correctly, I think) that intelligence is primarily an emergent property. As the article mentions, some people may think "faster" about the same things. Some may think about a wider range of things, more slowly. Some may be better at recalling related facts during any given thought, others worse. The specifics are all very different, but when put together, create a system of "thought" that is somewhat unique to each thinker. "Smart" people are those with a system that has developed far enough to prove useful (at least, useful in a way that others can recognize).

Follow the Bouncing Universe

2008-11-04T12:56:00.000-08:00

"Follow the Bouncing Universe" by Martin Bojowald (Scientific American, October, 2008).

This article is basically a review of some current research on "loop-quantum gravity" and on what might be called an "atomic theory of gravity."

There are two really good elements in this article, while most of the rest is just a survey and review.

1) The article describes the possibility, now being studied and thought upon, that gravity is not a purely attractive force. The idea is that gravity actually attempts to force quantum particles to be a specific distance apart. Further than this distance, it acts as an attractive force. When the sub-atomic particles come too close, though, gravity "flips" and acts to push things apart. In this idea, the big bang was an event which was caused by the density of matter in the universe being very, very high (100 billion suns in the space of a proton). At this density, the universe literally exploded. Gravity quickly began acting as an attractive force, and the expansion of the universe is just due to the "momentum" achieved in the initial explosion.

2) Another insightful element of this article was the metaphor of the balloon. One logical corollary to the hypothesized system of quantum gravity, described above, is that the universe could have actually "flipped" inside out. If you imagine a series of events with bang bang like explosion, followed by a contraction, following by an explosion, etc... it becomes conceivable that the universe actually turns inside out at the end of each contracting phase.

Imagine a balloon, blown up. Imagine the air all coming out of the balloon. Now, instead of simply lying limp and empty of air, imagine if, when the last bit of air came out, the balloon turned inside out and blew up again. You can also imagine this by thinking of a balloon attached to a hole between 2 walled-chambers. Imagine the pressure going up in one side and down in the other side, and the reversing, causing the balloon to inflate in one direction, deflate, and then inflate in the other direction.

Another interesting thing about these theories is that, as one can see from the balloon metaphor, it is possible that information could be preserved from one "side" or direction to the other. Not much information would be preserved, but it is possible that, say, some air particles would not be compressed to a singularity (a point at which information is lost), and how they flowed through the aperture (the balloon) would impact particles on the other side.

On the other hand, another way to interpret the metaphor is that no air could ever pass from one "side" to the other. Unless information could be "passed through" the membrane (balloon) without it actually being permeable to air, there might be no meaningful communication between the two sides. In this example, information might be preserved, not from the "last" universe before this one, but from the one before that.

The Depressing Effect of Agricultural Institutions on the Prewar Japanese Economy

2008-10-27T17:22:00.001-07:00

"The Depressing Effect of Agricultural Institutions on the Prewar Japanese Economy" by Fumio Hayashi and Edward C. Prescott (Journal of Political Economy, 2008, vol. 116, no. 4).

This paper attempts to address the question of why the "Japanese miracle" did not occur before the war. It starts out with the premise that "for much of the prewar period of 1885-1940, Japan's real GNP per worker remained a third of that of the United States."

The idea here is that, essentially, since first sons of farmers were basically required to take up farming, the number of farmers stayed the same. This constancy in the number of farmers preserved inefficient, small scale farming techniques, and locked up too much of the labor force for the country to fully industrialize and urbanize.

Some interesting implications are: 1) If this is the case, then perhaps it was nothing more than the breaking of this agricultural tradition which allowed Japan's economy to flourish in the decades after the war; 2) Perhaps, had Japan "solved" this "problem" sooner, it would have had a greater industrial output before and during the war, possibly prolonging or even changing the outcome of the war.

My personal assessment is that, were Japan's industrial output to have been 25-50% higher from about 1935-1945, there would have been more American casualties, the war would have cost far more for the US in terms of money, and would have left Japan in possession of some of the easternmost of its Pacific acquisitions. It is not unrealistic to speculate that the West Coast of the US might have been attacked more heavily under such a scenario.

Specifically, using a two-factor neoclassical growth model and assuming that labor constraints were a major factor in constraining Japan's growth, the paper's model predicts that prewar output would have been 32% higher in Japan without the labor constraint.

A major problem with this article is that it presupposes the postwar output was somehow the "real" or equilibrium output and that prewar Japan was simply failing to achieve it. It is also very possible that Japan was overachieving during that post-war period, however, which would invalidate this entire analysis. They do address this issue, but somewhat inconclusively, in my opinion. Other ways of stating this problem are: "maybe the average productivity of labor in Japan was unusually high during the miracle" or "maybe the traditional one-third to capital, two-thirds to labor split" was strongly and exceptionally violated during the miracle.

Another major problem with this article is it is difficult to separate the confounding factor of technological change from the anthropological issue of first sons staying on farms. For example, the tractor was not introduced into japan until 1955. Perhaps the impact of the tractor in Japan was particularly large, and this accounts for some or all of the pre-to-post-War disparity.

Inefficient Unemployment Dynamics under Asymmetric Information

2008-10-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

"Inefficient Unemployment Dynamics under Asymmetric Information" by Veronica Guerrieri (Journal of Political Economy, 2008, vol. 116, no. 4.).

This article sets out to discuss what it considers to be a novel externality generated by information asymmetry between job seekers and employers: companies fail to understand the impacts their previous contract offerings have on current negotiations.

Guerrieri accepts the notion that competitive searching for jobs is good. For example, if job seekers can see posted salaries, they will direct their searches more efficiently, and this, ultimately causes the surplus created by the negotiated job contract to be more efficiently distributed. However, she still believes that the asymmetry of information might cause problems.

Basically, the problems work like this: When workers have private information about their own options, they can capture part of this in negotiating a contract. Firms who post contracts at time t+1 affect the options that a worker faces at time t. However, this information is not captured by other firms, causing them to act on incomplete information.

If there is a certain level of unemployment today which is above the steady-state level, then the number of workers who could meet and negotiate with an employer today is higher than it is likely to be tomorrow. Therefore, the average information distortion is also higher today. If job creation tomorrow could be reduced, then there would be less value to continuing one's search, which would reduce the wages a worker would accept, increase employment, and ultimately increase job creation.

On a fundamental level, Guerrieri is going down this path in an attempt to argue that some kind of central planner responsible for intervening in the labor market could improve it. The connections and arguments above seem to me to be tenuous at best.

This is a problem that plagues this type of literature more than just this specific essay, but the raw quantity of unrealistic assumptions required to make these arguments renders them difficult, at best, to apply. For example, in this case, both employers and employees are risk neutral, and employees face no cost of job searching, whereas employers face a cost of posting jobs.

More than anything else, though, this article rests upon one assumption that I don't know to be right. It rests on the assumption that after a shock to the economy, the desire must be to return to the "equilibrium" level of job creation as soon as possible. While this is a nice idea, a shock such as the bursting of a bubble may leave the economy in a situation where the equilibrium rate of job creation and destruction is precisely what is not known (to planners or mere forecasters).

Learned Journals

2008-10-23T14:49:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, I read articles in various scholarly journals, including, but not limited to: Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Journal of International Security Affairs, Political Economy, and Policy Review. In order to record what I read for myself, and to share it with others, I intend to start blogging my responses to these articles, here.