Author: anomalyuk

Liu Xiaobo again

It seems that the Guardian has actually investigated and discovered (by the extraordinary method of finding someone who can read Chinese) what I merely assumed — that Liu Xiaobo is a professional front-man for American imperialism.

That isn’t such a bad thing, of course. There are many worse forces in the world than American imperialism, and many places that might benefit from a bit more of it. China might even be one of them (though I am not persuaded on that point).

What would be significant about the revelations that, for instance, his organisation has been funded by the US government, or that he was outspoken in favour of George Bush and against Kerry, or that he says “to choose westernisation is to choose to be human” would be if they changed anyone’s mind about him. Because really, it is all implied by what little we knew about him before the Grauniad dredged up translations of his writing.

And of course, the fact that a paid agent of a hostile power, openly dedicated to overthrowing his country’s government and culture, was allowed to remain at liberty for as long as he was, to my mind falsifies a lot of what is said about China today.

Assange's Theory

I came across a link to a couple of articles by Julian Assange (from late 2006) detailing his motivation (via zunguzungu):

They don’t amount to much. He opens, promisingly, “Firstly we must understand what aspect of government or neocorporatist behavior we wish to change or remove. Secondly we must develop a way of thinking about this behavior that is strong enough carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity. Finally must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling, and effective action.”

He goes on to completely skip over the first two requirements. His very next words are: “Authoritarian power is maintained by conspiracy” the rest of the two powers covers nothing but how to take apart the conspiracy of government. There is zero discussion of what “Authoritarian power” is, and why we dislike it, or “what aspect of … behavior we wish to change or remove”. Which is rather a shame. It’s all means, no ends.

The means, taking apart a government or other conspiracy by breaking the links of trust between elements, should work, and seems to be working, indeed. But what the ends are still eludes me – the word “authoritarian” means less to me than most other elements of unfamiliar theology. The natural consequence of the wikileaks style of attack would seem to be to produce networks with fewer and stronger links. I suspect that would be a good thing, but I have no idea whether Assange would consider it less “authoritarian”.

He does say that “The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie”. It’s not clear whether that’s put forward as a hypothesis or as an axiom: as a hypothesis, it’s plausible but there are arguments to the contrary.

The real weakness in the analysis is the claim that “Conspiracies are cognitive devices”. They are a lot more than that. Modern governments to not include so many hundreds of thousands in their conspiracies merely to enhance their information. Conspiracies gather power, and then they bring power to bear. By cutting off the extremities of the conspiracy, Assange is depriving it of some information, but that seems secondary; mostly he is reducing the reach of the conspiracy, both to gather power (for instance from allied governments) and to bring it to bear (for instance through distantly-deployed armies). The surviving conspiracy will have less total power at its command, which might be the point, but it will at the same time be constrained to use that power in a more concentrated direction.

More crucially, if it can no longer rely on power gathered from its periphery, the conspiracy will have nothing to offer the periphery. After all, the claim of (here it comes) democracy is that we are all part of the conspiracy – we are consulted, we exert influence, we communicate through our representatives. These are the weakest links that will be severed first.

So, I’m not here to criticise Assange’s actions – only his writing. I might be on his side, if I knew what side he was on.

The Royal Engagement

I hold no brief for constitutional monarchy. It has been observed that constitutional monarchies tend to work better than republics, but to the extent that is true, I would put it down to the presence of a constitutional monarch being an indication that other undemocratic elements are also present — in effect, that the regime is an “old democracy” rather than the inferior, more-democratic “young democracy”. The actual monarchy itself has no significance.

There are nonetheless reasons for welcoming the continuation of the line of the Hanoverian usurpers. First, they serve to distract democratic idealists. The centres of real undemocratic power suffer less opposition because purists allow themselves to be drawn into endless pointless arguments about the trivial cost of the Monarchy versus the sentimental value of tradition and the tangible value of the tourism industry. (Back when I believed in democracy, I eschewed republicanism for precisely that reason).

Second, the Royal Family is a contingency plan of sorts. If we are ever to escape slow strangulation by Old Democracy, then an assumption of power by the monarch is about the least unlikely mechanism. The crisis that would lead to such a change would have to be extreme, but it is only very unlikely, not unthinkable.

For instance, there is evidence of some planning of a military coup against Harold Wilson, which it is claimed would have installed Lord Mountbatten as interim prime minister. Mountbatten would have been a logical choice from one point of view, as a member of the Royal Family, a World War II General, and a former ruler (of India). It came to nothing, but there could be a next time, and a King ready to take over ultimate authority would be a large asset to such a conspiracy — particularly as we are a bit short of famous generals or colonial governors. On the other hand, it would be plainly impossible in anything resembling current circumstances, because the USA would not permit it. For any future crisis to produce an escape from democracy, the US would have to be substantially weakened or would have to move first. (The story is that CIA at least were backing the Mountbatten plot).

That story (assuming for the moment it is true) does bring home the danger of any attempt to move to non-political government. Really, Mountbatten? I am reminded that I do not support the idea of a royalist coup in the same way as a democrat supports his party to win the next election. My thought is more that if it did somehow come off well, it would be a good thing. Things would have to get a great deal worse than they are for it to be worth that kind of a risk.

The difficulty is that while the benefits of abolishing politics are real, they cannot be felt for at least a generation: the first ruling Monarch will not have inherited only his crown, not his power, and will have to work as hard to hold it as any other dictator. Charles II nearly pulled it off, and if he had a son rather than his plonker of a brother his efforts might well have been enough. But it is much easier to mess up than to get right.

So, for those thin reasons, I am celebrating the prospect of the continuation of the House of Windsor into the future. Gawd Bless ’em

Speaking of which, I think I may have resolved what I felt was a problem with my political position. I am an atheist who believes in the Divine Right of Kings. There is some hint of a logical inconsistency there. But in fact the two beliefs go together. The concrete premise of my position is that competition for power is more damaging than power misused. Therefore I want no decision to be made about who has power — since any decision will cause competition. What better way to avoid a decision than to put the deciding power into hands that do not exist? God says the King shall rule. If you disagree, do not appeal to the army, the mob, the United Nations or the electorate — take it up with God. In the meantime, the King shall rule. God save the King!

There is one detail of the Royal engagement which might be significant: the princess-to-be is a commoner — one whose parents had, at one time, to work for a living (gasp!). This is contrary to tradition — is it a problem?

The biggest danger is that by choosing a bride from within the realm, the Royal Family is opening up a competition for power among rival interests. In the long run, a monarchy where the heir to the throne tended to choose his bride from his student colleagues (rather than from a predetermined small selection of princesses) might produce hugely destructive competition between political factions to get their daughters into the right courses of the right universities. Factions would seek to control university admissions departments, influence the Royal youths’ choice of courses, possibly causing huge damage to academia in the process. That perhaps sounds far-fetched, but in fact compared to the steps taken by lobbies and interest groups today to gain indirect influence over policy, it’s quite minor. Minor it may be, but it’s not what we want.

(For an analogous line of reasoning, see my speculation about celebrities entering politics. The root issue is the same — if some activity becomes, in addition to its original purpose, a route to power, then in time it will become nothing but a route to power, and whatever useful purposes it had will be lost).

The commoner issue, then, is potentially a bad precedent in the long run. In the current circumstances, I don’t think it’s worth worrying about at all. Since, for any of the above to matter at all, we first have to take the giant, improbable step from constitutional monarchy to absolute monarchy, anything that makes that step slightly less difficult is worth considerable sacrifice. Attempting to find a suitable European princess is not something we need to be spending effort on.

So, here’s to William and Kate.

Effects before causes in the lab?

This is very exciting:

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/11/dramatic-study-shows-participants-are.html

Daryl Bem has taken the unusual, yet elegantly simple, approach of testing a raft of classic psychological phenomena, backwards.

Take priming – the effect whereby a subliminal (i.e. too fast for conscious detection) presentation of a word or concept speeds subsequent reaction times for recognition of a related stimulus. Bem turned this around by having participants categorise pictures as negative or positive and then presenting them subliminally with a negative or positive word. That is, the primes came afterwards. Students were quicker, by an average of 16.5ms, to categorise negative pictures as negative when they were followed by a negative subliminal word (e.g. ‘threatening’), almost as if that word were acting as a prime working backwards in time.

Got that? The experimenters have used the same techniques usually employed to see how various events affect people’s behaviour, but reversed the order of the stimulus and the measurement of the response, and found that the stimulus has the same effect, even if it hasn’t happened yet.

If the experiment has been done correctly, then it confirms what I have long believed. No, not that the structure of space-time is fundamentally different to what we are told. Rather, that the normal scientific techniques used to measure effects and evaluate their significance are no bloody good.

Nobody seems to have picked up on that possibility just yet, but I think the idea will gradually get around.

Libertarian Politics

It’s funny: (h/t Isegoria)

The Country Club Republicans put up most of the money and provided meeting places. Important.

The religeous right provided a lot of work. It was they that walked precincts and they that worked phone banks. Very important.

The libertarians talked. The libertarians also complained. They were always too busy talking and complaining to do any work.

… but I don’t think it represents a personal failing on the part of the libertarians this politician attempted to work with. Rather, it exposes the fundamental flaw with libertarian politics. The other groups were important because they had bought into the idea of politics — they had picked their side and were prepared to work to make it win, effectively obtaining what power they could, and trading it with their allies to get help on the few issues they particularly cared about.

For a libertarian, this is fundamentally illegitimate. Libertarians are not comfortable seeking power outside of the specific policy changes they want to make. That makes them, in political terms, useless.

There isn’t a way around this. For a libertarian to accept that he needs to fully engage in the political process, he has to accept that there is more to politics than policy — that who has power is an important thing in its own right. Once you believe that, you are no longer a libertarian.

Non-violent revolution

In my critcism of the Nobel Peace Prize, I didn’t address the point that Liu Xiaobo is an advocate for non-violent democratic change in China.

That was because it is irrelevant. It is the violence after the government falls that bothers me, not before.

The Tsar of Russia was removed non-violently, by strikes and demonstrations – the more democratic regime that replaced him lasted a few months, a different gang replaced it, their enemies started a civil war… Long story.

The exemplar of the non-violent revolutionary is Gandhi. He succeeds, the British hand over power, there are rival factions and interests sharing it out, a partition results, social unrest – 5 to 10 million dead.

Both those revolutions might nevertheless have been good things; that’s not the point. The point is that either way, the non-violence of the first stage is pretty much insignificant. A non-violent revolutionary is only harmless if he fails.

The Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize has long been beyond the grasp of rational criticism, but I don’t think this year’s award can be let by with just the usual cynical chuckle.

Timothy Garton-Ash says in the Grauniad CiF that the prize “hits China’s most sensitive nerve”. In fact, the offence that the Chinese government has taken is all the result of a misunderstanding. They really do have difficulty understanding the level of the West’s hypocrisy and stupidity.

To the extent the award means anything at all, it is a declaration of intent, by the Nobel Committee and all those that speak in support of it, to overthrow the government of China and replace it with a Western-style government. Garton-Ash explains that Liu Xiaobo “has consistently advocated nonviolent change in China, always in the direction of more respect for human rights, the rule of law and democracy”. It is possible to advocate respect for human rights and the rule of law within Chinese politics, but to advocate democracy is to advocate the destruction of the Chinese government and its replacement with a Western-style one.

To make such a warlike declaration in the name of peace is, of course, just the usual annual joke.

Therefore, it is reasonable for the Chinese authorities to react to the award as a declaration of outright enmity. Their reaction is, nevertheless, wrong. There are two things they do not understand.

The first is that this declaration is purely ritual. In calling for the overthrow of the PRC, the Western intelligentsia have not the slightest idea of any actual program of action; they are merely showing each other how virtuous they are. It is the equivalent of the prayers for the conversion of England that used to be said by Catholic congregations – a creed that had to be regularly affirmed, without the slightest reflection on its actual meaning.

The second is that, because of the lack of such reflection, the self-declared enemies of China actually have no inkling of what they are actually saying. “Democracy”, in the mouth of someone like Garton-Ash, is just something that goes with human rights and rule of law – it is a minor adornment of a political system, that can be increased here and there without killing millions of people.

In Britain, that is indeed what it is – as democracy crept gradually into the British system over a couple of hundred years, the system absorbed and to a great extent neutralised it, producing a comfortable and moderately stable synthesis. That is not what happens when it is introduced in one go. Then it destroys one regime and produces another, usually very short-lived, replacement. Then there is generally a settling down into some kind of civil war. France is the model, not Britain.

The Garton-Ashes and Nobel Committees do not understand that. The thought never even enters their heads. They probably assume that even the CPC leadership itself really wants democracy, but is just a little too cautious and conservative in bringing it in, and needs to be gently chivied by the likes of Liu Xiaobo.

If the Chinese really understood Western politics, they would ignore it and watch the X-factor like sensible westerners do. But it is out of place for the politicians themselves to criticise the Chinese for taking them at their word.

I don’t say all this to attack the idea of reform in China. While I am no great fan of democracy, and while the Chinese regime does have a fairly decent record over the last couple of decades, I recognise that it is bound to run into serious problems as wealth and economic freedom increase the power of rivals to the present establishment. There are already serious power struggles between central and regional governments. It may well be that political collapse is inevitable, and if so, then a somewhat Western-ish democracy would not be the worst possible outcome. Liu Xiaobo might be the nucleus of a future non-terrible government of China, and the alternative to something worse. It’s hard to say. But these aren’t the terms in which the debate is being carried on.

A Strong Criticism of Monarchy

From the comments to the World Cup piece:

Monarchy is rule by a single individual. It works on this wise. Immediately after his succession, the new monarch enthusiastically attempts to rule the country. For a certain period, shall we call it a year. As there is only so much time between breakfast and supper, this is largely impossible. The next year, he carries on out of a sense of duty. The third year, he announces that he does not want to be bothered with this ruling crap, but if there are any fit women around would you please send them up. Monarchy then gives way to pornocracy: porne is Greek for prostitute.

Previous objections to Monarchic rule which I have rejected rest on the possibility that the monarch might be an idiot or a psychopath. In my estimation, mere idiocy or psychopathy are less damaging to good government than politics is.

The commenter brings up the more fearsome possibility that the monarch could be a normal sane bloke, more concerned about what his girlfriend thinks of him than about whether GDP next year will be 2.5 trillion or 3 trillion.

If decisions simply end up being made by some random attractive woman (or boy) instead of the hereditary ruler, that’s not a problem in itself. But the reason this situation is so much more dangerous than mere insanity is that it produces politics, (meaning a struggle for power), based this time not around arming supporters or controlling journalists, but around forming close personal relationships with the monarch. This was often the main form of “politics” in historical monarchies.

I’m not sure that it is a worse form of politics than exists in a democracy or a military Junta, but my aim in proposing monarchy is to remove politics altogether, which is obviously more difficult than I thought.

Devaluation of Significance

I referred in my last post to a lost writing of mine on the subject of abuse of statistics in economics. I’ve sort of found it – I sent it as an email in response to this blog post by Noel Campbell at Division of Labour. (Read it – it’s short).

He quoted from my response, but I can’t find the actual email I sent him. I do have a draft of it, so it would have been very much like this:

That’s a superb question, and I think the answer will surprise (and disturb) many.

Your paper will include a calculation of significance. This is essentially an estimate of the probability that a correlation as strong as the one you found would exist purely as a result of randomness in the data, even if your theory is false.

This calculation assumes the “proper” sequence of events. You have a theory, and you test the data for a correlation. Since you in fact poked around for correlations, then came up with a theory, the significance calculation is not valid. The true significance depends on the probability that, having found a randomly-caused correlation somewhere, you can then invent a theory to explain it. That probability is very difficult to estimate, but is probably much greater – meaning that the significance of the correlation is much smaller.

It is very counterintuitive that the order of your actions affects the validity of your findings, and indeed it is a close relative of the famous Monty Hall problem – the poster child for counterintuitive probability. When you reveal the correlation that you already knew of, you are revealing no information about the chance of your theory being correct, much as when the quizmaster opens the door that he already knows doesn’t have the car, he reveals no information about the chance that the door you first picked has the car. Conversely if you pick a door and find that it doesn’t have the car, that does change the probability that the first door had it, and if you had no prior knowledge of the data, the correlation does change the probability of your theory being true.

Back to science. As you say, theories aren’t formed in a vacuum, and so there is not such an clear division between the “right” way of doing it and the “wrong” way of doing it. Nobody is completely ignorant of the data when they start to theorize. That is a real problem with nearly all statistics-based results that are published today. They are all presented with significance calculations based on the assumption that the forming of the theory was independent of the data – an assumption that is very unlikely to be completely true. Therefore nearly every significance published is an overestimate.

This was much less of a problem when collecting data and analysing it was difficult and laborious. Now that large data sets fly around the internet, and every researcher has the capability of running analyses at the click of a mouse, it is a problem that has already got out of hand.

I didn’t want to be rude at the time, but I found Campbell’s response shocking. He seemed to fully accept my argument, but wasn’t bothered by the implication that pretty much all published research relying on analysing pre-existing statistics was wrong. Rather, his conclusion was that since everybody else was doing what he was doing, nobody should complain and demand “purity” (his scare quotes). That came to mind particularly reading Bruce Charlton’s discussion of the state of honesty in science.