Problem #30: Finishing What You Start

Problem #30: Finishing What You Start

Note: I actually wrote this in the 29th of Elul, but neglected to post it to the blog. Given this to title and subject, I kinda needed to post it today.

OK, I’ll readily admit that this might not be so much of a global, universal problem. In fact, the argument could be made that the bigger problem is people finishing things that they should never have started in the first place- unjustified wars, bad economic policies, etc. But I feel like I haven’t always finished what I’ve started.

A goal of mine over the past few years has been to fix this aspect of my personality. And, well, I think I’ve done reasonably well at it. I started towards a Master of Science in Information Systems degree from Drexel University, and I got it. I wanted to be a better guitar player, so I practiced, and I got better. I wanted to play out in real life more, and I’m doing so. And, finally, I told myself I was going to write a series of 30 essays about fixing problems, and I did it. As I told a friend at the outset, the essays aren’t of equal length or, frankly, of equal quality. But I finished them.

I’d like to think I’ve learned a lesson here, and perhaps solved a problem: set a goal, making sure it’s manageable, and then just bloody do it. Don’t set impossible goals- then you’ll surely fail. Set a reasonable goal, but then hold yourself to it. If it helps, establish a set time to do something- like, ½ an hour a day to write, or practice guitar, etc.

I’ve heard it said that just as the Hebrew word for a person- Adam- is related to the word for Earth or land- adamah- the fact that land can potentially be anything means that a person can potentially be anything as well. On Rosh Hashanah, we have the potential to direct set goals, and start towards them. But if this month’s project has taught me anything, it’s this: bloody do it. The essence isn’t to think, or even to plan: the essence is to do.

Problem #29: Sleepless in America

Problem #29: Sleepless in America

Here’s another ironic problem for me to discuss: overscheduling. Me, the person who’s working a full-time job that often requires more than forty hours a week, has a side job fixing computers, is married with two kids, plays live guitar gigs in real life + Second Life, and is writing daily articles on how he’d fix the world. If anything, I’m a case study in overscheduling.

But it’s true: we Americans overload our lives with things, both in our working and leisure lives. This has negative consequences to our health, in both stress and lost sleep. While the Mayo Clinic recommends that adults get between 7 and 8 hours of sleep per night1, nearly 30% of American adults reported an average 6 hours or less of sleep per night between 2005 and 20072.

How do we deal with this lack of sleep? We consume copious amounts of caffeine. The average American consumes 300 mg of caffeine per day- that’s the same as 3 No-Doz pills. In the 1950s, the average cup o’ Joe was about 5 oz, containing between 70 to 100 mg of caffeine; today’s 16 oz. cup at Starbucks contains 330 mg. And, naturally, all this caffeine consumption during the day makes it more difficult to sleep at night; the “sleep market” was estimated at $23.7 billion in 2007, including $2.7 billion in sales for prescription sleep aides4.

My suggestion is a simpler one: rather than pumping ourselves up with stimulants and then slowing ourselves down using CNS depressants, we should try to practice better sleep hygiene. Not necessarily Ben Franklin’s “early to bed and early to rise,” but at least so that we can get an average of the 7 or 8 hours of sleep that the medical community says we need. Good sleep hygiene practices include:

• Avoiding caffeine too close to bedtime (personally, I usually have my last cup of regular coffee before lunch)
• Avoiding eating just before bed
• Exercising
• Establish a regular bedtime pattern. For me, this includes knowing when I want to be awake, and turning in 7 to 8 hours before then.5

Sometimes, the best solutions are the simplest ones: the solution to not enough sleep is more sleep.

Endnotes:

1. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/how-many-hours-of-sleep-are-enough/AN01487#

2. http://www.cdc.gov/features/dssleep/#

3. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/17/amp-up-america/?page=all#

4. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/06/prweb1006354.htm#

5. http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/ask-the-expert/sleep-hygiene#

Problem #28: The Golden Hammer

Problem #28: The Golden Hammer

No, I’m not talking about some mythical token of power. I’m speaking of a famous quote from Abraham Maslow: “If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” In other words, people tend to address a problem by looking at their favourite tool, and then deciding how that tool is, in reality, the perfect one for the problem at hand. Or, to look at it from the opposite direction, the way they see the problem depends on the solution that they want to use.

Sadly, that’s completely backwards. For instance, for a bad back, a chiropractic adjustment may be absolutely perfect. But for a broken leg, a chiropractic adjustment could well be worse than useless. In economics, if there’s a problem with demand, increasing supply isn’t likely to help. If the problem is that nobody’s buying your cars, tailfins aren’t likely to convince people otherwise. Each problem has a tool that is ideally fitted to it; perhaps even multiple tools. But if you begin to look at a problem by trying to figure out how your favoured tool will fix it, you could well make things worse.

Problem #27: Rail in the US

Problem #27: Rail in the US

Rail travel- passenger and freight- has taken a big hit in the US over the past 60 or so years. For passengers, private cars- typically carrying only one occupant, the driver- have become far more popular than any form of mass transit, including commuter rail. Over longer distances- that is, outside of the northeast corridor- air travel is far faster than rail. For freight, while long haul freight continues to move by rail, much of it is via truck and air.

The latter fact, though, gave me an idea this afternoon. Historically, the main- if not only- reason that railroads like the Pennsylvania and New York Central carried passengers at all was that the Federal Railroad Administration required them to do as part of the condition for issuing them a license to carry freight. Freight was where the profits were, but passengers were the loss leader.

My thought is this: rather than breaking up Conrail and selling it to CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern, it should have been merged with Amtrak. Then, as part of its requirements to run freight, it could have been required to maintain and upgrade the nation’s rail network.

Consider this: the main reason that Amtrak is able to run Acela- which is, incidentally, purely mid-speed rail by any world standard, hardly high-speed- on its Northeast Corridor tracks is that the Pennsylvania Railroad did a complete systems upgrade… in the 1930s. That tells us two things: first, that the PRR was really good; second, that we really need to upgrade our rail network.

Problem #26: Obesity

Problem #26: Obesity

Obesity is, pardon the pun, an enormous and growing problem in the US. The US Centres for Disease Control reports that 35.7% of adults in the US are obese, defined by them as a Body Mass Index (defined as mass in kilograms divided by height in metres) of above 301. The US also has the highest percentage of overweight adults in the English speaking world, with 74.1% of American adults defined as overweight (BMI of greater than 25), as compared to 63.8% in the UK, and 46.6% in Ireland2. Obesity in the US has also increased over time, going from less than 50% in 1962 to over 75% in 20103.

Causes of obesity can be- and have been- much discussed. But, it strikes me that what people want is a magic pill that allows them to eat as much as they want, not exercise, and yet remain skinny. Sadly, that’s not how the human body works. Humans evolved in times of scarcity- food was not readily available, and life was hard (hunting, gathering, later farming). As a result, we evolved to use food efficiently- to get as much mileage as we could out of each precious piece of food. And the ability to store scarce food in the form of fat could well be the difference between life and death in times of famine.

Sadly, adaptations such as the above become maladaptive in times of plenty. As such, obesity is a classic first world problem. Fortunately, it doesn’t call for a fancy solution. If you take in more calories than you expend, you will put on weight; if you take in fewer calories than you expend, you will lose weight. As I say, it’s not science, it’s accounting. Anyone who tells you anything else is either lying to you or trying to sell you something.

My suggestion, though, is a fairly simple one: it’s easier to maintain 2 moderate changes than 1 extreme one. This means that, while you may not be able to maintain a crash diet, or keep going to the gym for 2 hours a day every day, you will be more able to cut out some between-meal snacks and add a little walking. Moderate changes are the kind that you can maintain, and that’s the key to a healthy diet.

Endnotes:

1. http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/index.html

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States

3. http://www.win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/

Problem #25: Certainty

Problem #25: Certainty

Here’s a somewhat ironic problem for me to solve: certainty. That is, the certainty that you, and specifically you, are right. The certainty that you, uniquely, have access to the sole truth, and that everyone else needs to listen to it. This is ironic, of course, in that I’m in the midst- coming to end end, actually- of a project in which I aim to solve a large chunk of the world’s problems. But here’s the thing: while I think I’m reasonably bright and widely-read- and there are independent measures to back up this assessment- I’m not always right. I can’t be- that’s impossible. The only One who is always is right is G-d, and I’m certainly infinitely far from that.

We see this in politics all the time: one side or another will insist that, not only are they right, and not only is the other side wrong, but the other side is so wrong that they must be being wrong for some deviant, evil purpose. They’re not just wrong, they’re less-than-Ameican, they’re evil; they’re The Other. And, as I’ve noted elsewhere, you don’t negotiate or compromise with evil, you destroy it.

Here’s a little math to humble anyone. If the universe is infinite, it logically follows that the sum total of knowledge in the universe is infinite. We are finite creatures, from which it logically follows that our minds are finite containers of knowledge. And any finite number, no matter how large, divided by infinity is zero. Therefore, even the wisest of us literally knows nothing. It would be genuinely helpful if more of us stopped to consider that on a regular basis. Yes, I’m clever; yes, I have good ideas; yes, my ideas could well help; but I could be wrong. Those may be the four most helpful words in the English language: I could be wrong.

Problem #24: Syria

Problem #24: Syria

If you read my earlier posts on war + foreign entanglements, then you probably can guess my position on what should be done in Syria: nothing. That’s right, nothing. At least: nothing that’s being serious discussed.

Simply put, the idea that the US has to be the world’s policeman is, in and of itself, a big problem. This is- or at least should be- an Arab problem. Let the Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians, etc. handle it. Were the US to attack in any way, the best-case scenario could very well be to empower Al Queda-aligned militia groups in Syria. Yes, Bashar Al Assad is a right bastard- no question about that. But he’s killed 100,000+ of his own people already; what about chemical weapons means that the US needs to get involved? Barring a clear threat to the US from Syria- that does not exist- or a UN resolution- which won’t happen, given Syria’s patron Russia’s veto on the Security Council- any US attack on Syria would, by definition, be a violation of international law.

The US needs to do less, not more, on the internation stage; let Syria non-intervention be a good start. If the US wants to “do something,” then it should fund humanitarian aide to all sides: doctors, food, etc. Not weapons, and not air strikes.

Problem #23: Gay Marriage

Problem #23: Gay Marriage

Just to clarify: I don’t think that gay marriage is, in and of itself, a problem. The problem is what the legal status of gay marriage is in the US.

First things first: I take a fairly libertarian view towards this, as I do with most social issues. But, more to the point, I take a clear constitutional approach to it, as well. I’ll express it as a syllogism:

• Marriage is a combination of a civil contract and a religious ceremony;
• Under unambiguous US law, the government can have no role in a religious ceremony, and civil contracts between any people are legal;
• Therefore, gay marriage is legal.

QED. To explain further, I’ve never heard any claims that churches that oppose gay marriage (or gay rights in general) should be forced to perform gay marriage ceremonies. From a legal sense, the fight over gay marriage must, by definition, be over civil, not religious, marriage. And, as per Jefferson’s wall, the government of the US (and states) can have no role in religion (or vice versa). Therefore, civil marriage must be a right for same sex couples as well as heterosexual ones.

Now, in the Federal system, states can have differing laws on various issues. But, under the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution, marriages performed in one state must be recognised in all others. Therefore, even if a gay marriage cannot be performed in, say, Mississippi, this means that Mississippi must recognise gay marriages performed elsewhere. Frankly, I’m fine with that arrangement; let the states come to their own points of view on gay marriage, without imposing them from above. But guarantee that, even if a given state won’t license gay marriages within its own borders, it must give appropriate civil rights to those gay marriages performed elsewhere.

Problem #22: Literacy

Problem #22: Literacy

My Mum’s a reading teacher, so here’s a problem near and dear to her heart. SImply put, the US has achieved a dubious distinction: a near-universal level of negligible literacy. My solution: turn off the blasted TV. In the 1930s and 1940s, before the near-universal presence of TVs, the US was arguably the most literate nation in the developed world. If people read more, and watched less TV, the US could achieve this again.

Ah, but who am I kidding. I’m sure there’s a great episode of “America’s Next Top Survivor” on in 20 minutes that you’ve just got to watch. Good idea. Maybe it can distract you from the fact that kids in other countries are studying calculus while you’re voting for who won a karaoke contest.

Problem #21: Hunger in the US

Problem #21: Hunger in the US

The entire concept of hunger in the United States- one of the world's most fertile areas- is, on its face, absurd. But, yet, hunger persists. It's accompanied, ironically, by obesity. Simply put, many people find themselves in food deserts: areas where they can't find affordable, healthy food. So, rather than going to the corner convenience store and overpaying for wilted produce, people go to a fast food restaurant and but cheap, but unhealthy, food.

This is, pardon the pun, a weighty problem, and not one that I have the capacity to answer in a brief post. I will, however, make one suggestion: change food stamp regulations so that food stamps only pay for healthy food. This could be as simple (relatively speaking) as forbidding the purchase of soft drinks with food stamps. Or, it could be as involved as subsidizing farmers' markets in poor neighbourhoods. In any case, if you want people to eat healthy diets, the best way to do it is to make eating healthy the least-expensive way to eat. If people find it more expensive to buy crap then healthy food, then simple economics will steer them towards the healthy food.

4 days left, 10 posts to go

Yhere are only 29 days in Elul this year, so I could get away with saying only 29 posts. But, dammit, I said 30 problems, so 30 problems there will be! They may not be long posts, but I'll make 'em!!!

Problem #20: Foreign Entanglements

Problem #20: Foreign Entanglements

This essay relates to the last one, in that I’m discussing “foreign entanglements” in the context of military adventures. President George Washington was quite clear about his position on such, as he stated in his farewell address:

"Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." - George Washington”

"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible.”1

While I would not endorse a complete withdrawal from the world, such as could be implied by Washington’s quotes, a sort of modified isolationism might be in order. In short: let’s fix our own problems, before we decide to fix those of the rest of the world.

The US spent $682 billion dollars on defence in 2010. That amounts fo nearly 40% of the total world’s defense spending, and is greater than that of the next 13 countries combined2. If the US were to reduce its defence spending literally in half, it would still spend more than twice that China (the country that spends the second most on defence). This would necessarily force the US to reduce its foreign military entanglements- President Washington would definitely approve- and allow for much of that national wealth to be spent on building up our country again. We could rebuild our failing infrastructure, invest in education, provide health care for every American, at the same time as we’d come closer to balancing the budget.

At the same time, reducing our military posture would likely result in less resentment of the US anointing itself as the world’s policeman. We shouldn’t be the world’s policeman- again, President Washington would approve.

Endnotes:

1. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washington%27s_Farewell_Address#1

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

Problem #18: War! Huh! What Is It Good For?

Problem #18: War! Huh! What Is It Good For?

The answer to that question is famous enough: absolutely nothing. But it’s a sad commentary on life in the US these days that Americans seem incapable of going 20 years without at least one major armed conflict. \

• There were less than 5 years from the end of WWII and the Korean War
• Less than 10 between the end of Korea and the start of Vietnam
• No wars per se in the 1980s, but several military engagements, including Grenada and Panama, as well as troop deployment to Lebanon
• The first Iraq War began in 1991, and was followed barely more than 10 years later by our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq again.
• Finally, some are beating the war drums today for an invasion of Syria or Iran.

While some of these conflicts, such as Korea and Vietnam, were a direct outgrowth of the Cold War- you could call each of them proxy wars, in effect- the later ones smacked more of imperial ambitions. And I’d mention one very major change in US policy that happened in 1973: the end of the military draft, and the beginning of an all volunteer force (AVF)1.

While the AVF has arguably improved the quality of the armed forces2, an argument has been made that the result is to desensitise civilians from the real costs of war3. During WWII, Americans were asked for shared sacrifice, as people from all over society were drafted. After the Afghanistan + Iraq wars began, President George W. Bush told people to go shopping.

Oddly, despite fears that the poor would be overrepresented in the AVF as compared to a conscript force, findings have been “members of the military tended to come from backgrounds that were somewhat lower in socioeconomic status than the U.S. average, but that the differences between the military and the comparison groups were relatively modest4.” In addition, today’s AVF has a higher level of education and skill than its civilian counterparts.

But there’s a big difference between wars like WWII- where there is a clear goal- and wars with vague, difficult-do-define goals such as “promote democracy” or “domino theory.” With the notable exception of the small-scale skirmishes in Grenada and Panama, and the quick allied victory in the first Iraq War, all of the US’ post-WWII military engagements have been, shall we say, less clear in their results. The main product of the Vietnam War was a generation of scarred veterans in the US and southeast Asia. The Afghanistan War seems likely to result in a failed state similar to that which was eventually governed by the Taliban and that sheltered Osama bin Laden after the Soviet Union withdrew in 1989. And the 2nd Iraq War has had the primary effect of enhancing Iran’s importance and power in the middle east.

The post-WWII wars have another thing in common: none of them were “wars” in the sense of US constitutional law, as at no time did Congress issue a declaration of war. All of them represent a dramatic expansion of Presidential power at the expense of Congressional authority- authority which Congress has, for the most part, gladly abandoned.

Perhaps the lesson from this should be that the US should try to win hearts and minds with its ideals- as expressed in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence- rather than at the point of a gun. Or, as Barack Obama once said (ironically, given his Presidency), we should try to influence countries with the power of our ideas, rather than the idea of our power.

Endnotes:

1. http://usmilitary.about.com/od/deploymentsconflicts/l/bldrafthistory.htm#

2. http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9195/index1.html#

3. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/31/178702/all-volunteer-military-may-desensitize.html#

4. http://prhome.defense.gov/rfm/MPP/ACCESSION%20POLICY/poprep97/html/chapter_7.html#

Problem #18: A General Observation about the Economy

Problem #18: A General Observation about the Economy

First off, as I’ve tried to make clear, I’m an engineer, meaning that I don’t go for ideologies that don’t have some facts to support them. Economics is perhaps the least engineer-friendly field in the world, given that the chief achivement of most economics is to predict the past, and usually not at all well.

But I’m also interested in history, and history has much to say about how a good economy should work. A few general principles can be derived by looking at US history over the 20th century:

• The most broadly-prosperous period of US history during the 20th century- indeed, the most broadly-prosperous period of human history, all told- was in the first few decades following World War II. It should be noted that, of course, much of the US’ dominant position was due to most of the rest of the established world economies rebuilding themselves after the war, while the US was, largely, sheltered by 2 enormous moats called the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. However, at the same time as the US economy was enormously productive, it was investing significant sums of US funds into rebuilding Europe and Japan.
• The US tax structure of the 1950s was sharply progressive, with the top marginal rate never dropping below 90%. To be clear, marginal taxation means that only income above a specified rate is taxed at the higher level; income below the specfied rate in the 1950s would not have been taxed at 90%.
• The 1950s were marked by high rates of union membership in the public and private sectors.
• The 1950s and 1960s were times of significant investment in infrastructure, including the Interstate system.
• The two greatest economic downturns since the beginning of the 20th century- the Great Depression and Great Recession- followed periods much flatter taxation than during the 1950s, of low union membership, and of less investment in public infrastructure.

The conclusion should be clear: following the policies of the 1950s and 1960s results in a much stronger economy than following those of the 1920s and 2000s. But, again, that’s just an engineer using pesky facts.

Problem #17: Guns

Problem #17: Guns

First things first: I describe myself as a pro-2nd Amendment liberal. I'm also an NRA-medalled Sharpshooter, 2nd Bar. All of this is to say, the right to bear arms is right there in the US Constitution, and any “fixes” for a gun problem have to accept that. You can’t say “ban guns,” because that would be prima facie unconstitutional.

But, at the same time, look at the text of the 2nd Amendment from a grammatical perspective. It reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Note, there are two parts to the 2nd Amendment: the right to bear arms, and the reason for said right. Had the 2nd Amendment simply said “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” then there would be no question whatsoever: the right to bear arms would be clearly and unambiguously defined as an individual right.

However, that’s not how the 2nd Amendment is written. Its structure wraps the right to bear arms within the reason for the right. The right to bear arms shall not be infringed because a well-regulated militia is defined as necessary for the security of a free state. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Heller v. District of Columbia (2008), in its finding of an individual right to bear arms1, actually goes against nearly 200 years of US jurisprudence, as it literally ignores the reason explicitly given by the Founding Fathers for the right to bear arms. While “Constitutional Conservatives” are fond of saying that they read the Constitution as it was written, and read nothing else into it, in this case they clearly do not follow their own advice.

I’m not saying ban all guns: as I said, that would be as indefensible as the ruling in Heller. But, some minor form of regulation is clearly both appropriate and explicitly called for by the literal text of the 2nd Amendment.

Endnotes:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

Problem #16: The Best of US Culture

Problem #16: The Best of US Culture

It’s tough so speak of a single “US culture.” As Colin Woodward suggests in his book American Nations, there are more like 11 different nations in the US (read the summary at http://www.colinwoodard.com/americannations.html for more details). But, for the sake of this brief essay, let’s consider “American culture” as that which has been distributed throughout the US, and the world, by media.

I’ve said for a long time that the two greatest contributions of the US to world culture are jazz and baseball. Jazz can be seen as the ultimate musical development of the blues, which have their origin in African rhythmic storytelling traditions brought here by slaves. Baseball is a collective memory of the rural, agricultural- even Jeffersonian- ideal that is a prominent part of US history. As George Carlin put it, “Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle”1. Or, as I put it, baseball is poetry; football is more like instant messaging. Baseball is a perfect radio sport, not so much focused on the visual as the drama and overall plot. Football is a perfect television sport: everything fits neatly into a single frame, and at least a single horizontal plane. Baseball features long-developing plotlines. Football is ultraviolence alternating with boredom. Or, as George Will described it, ““Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings”2.

I’m not sure that there’s a musical contrast to jazz to compare to football as a contrast to baseball. But, the more that the US can be jazz and baseball, the better we’ll be as a nation.

Endnotes

1. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor7.shtml

2. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/147745-football-combines-two-of-the-worst-things-in-american-life