Change my mind

Hi All

First, thanks for coming this far.

So, what I want to do is try to disprove something I've believed all my life.  I'm doing this because people whose opinions I respect think that I might be wrong.  Because not everything you learn as a child is true - and even those things that are sometimes might as well be wrong.

The belief is simple - that it is almost always better to increase the size of the overall economy than change the way it's distributed.  Or, as I met the idea as a 10 year old, "Why argue about who gets the biggest bit of pie.  Make a bigger pie!".  In very modern terms (which is the definition I'll be using here) the belief is "Economic growth is more important than reducing inequality, under standard western conditions".

The process which I would like your help with is two(ish) steps long.  First, I want to identify the things that would prove that this belief is wrong *to me* - and then gather evidence. An example of the process:

"We have reached the limit of growth".  If more growth isn't possible, then more growth can't be more important.  Strong evidence against: UK average growth over xx years is 2%.  Therefore this statement is provably false.

I've come up with a number of these already, some completely trivial, others not.  Even a couple which I'm really not sure about, left in for completeness and potential debate.

The help I'm looking for at this stage is both "More ways that would falsify the theory" and "Evidence that supports previously accepted ways to falsify the theory".

An important point though - while I might not agree with what people say, every contribution will be read and considered.  Nothing will be just dismissed, except as outlined below.  While I might not agree with you your comments will be respected.  Evidence however will be carefully considered, but if this bogs down into a significant literature review this process will be reconsidered - I don't have time to do an undergrad in Sociology to help me reconsider my political views.  The election is this year, not next.

Further, I would ask everyone to comment (and read) in the spirit of reasonableness.  We may disagree about things but this is no reason to be angry or annoyed.  If a comment persuades you of something, say that.  Thank them for it.  This entire exercise is to try to change my mind - but I'd ask that you accept that it might change yours as well.

Also note that everything will be looked at with sane eyes and rebutted as needed.  For example, "Economic growth has killed our children's childhoods" will be rebutted by "Yes, but infant mortality has dropped significantly; less childhood is lost by death in childhood".  This could of course be rebutted by some argument on the sexualisation of children and the degraded quality of childhood.  At this point I would mark the point as "Insufficiently clear cut without a degree in Childhood studies; this debate is not on the relative quality of childhood.   On hold pending further evidence." The point here is not to argue one point into the ground, but to establish clear cut statements.  If it boils down to "You can argue it either way in the end, and we don't actually know", this is a perfectly acceptable. 

There are some quibbles further below, for the interested.  Short version: no misleading stats, no spirit level.

Now there are some of you out there (Alan, I'm looking at you) who will be muttering that you don't have to choose between economic growth and reducing inequlity.  I have a couple of answers; 3 really.  First, "If you chase two rabbits you will lose both".  Second, this is a matter of priority, not an absolute zero sum game.  Third, the people who are usually able to make decisions of Growth vs Inequality are politicians - and I don't trust them to get one thing right at a time; let alone two.

So, the Falsifiable statements I already have:

Trivial to dismiss, but included for completeness

1) We have reached the end of growth
2) External costs of growth have significant externality costs that exceed the value of growth
3) Rate of growth so slow that other options are significantly more important/significant
4) Universal acceptance of the need to resolve inequality
5) Economic growth can't be significantly influenced.

Less trivial

1) The cost of redistribution to further reduce inequality is less than zero
2) That current inequality is provably Unfair.*
3) Inequality has significant, clear external costs.

Iffy - might apply, maybe.

1) There is no way to escape poverty, at the level of an individual lifetime for a functional,  non-handicapped individual.
2) The rate of growth of inequality is greater than the growth of the economy, including the effects of technological development - and that this matters.

So, people.  How else could you prove this theory wrong?  What strong evidence can you think of?


Quibbles

When it comes to trying to prove/disprove the statements there are going to be a number of quibbles.  While I'm not going to spell out all the quibbles (because that would take forever!) they could all (bar one) be described as "Be reasonable".  If something is true, but has only been true for one year, that isn't enough.  Obvious misuse of statistics is Bad.  Showing that a thing is un/true during an unusual economic period isn't proof, be it WW2, the 2008 recession or the Napoleonic wars.  You get the idea.

Where I will be unfair is the book "The Spirit Level".  I have great problems with this book.  The short version is - where I have specific knowledge of the subject matter it seems to fall apart.  For example, take Japan, one of the countries with very long lifespans and an apparently "equal" society.  The book doesn't address the severe inequalities in the country.  The huge social gulf between Men and Women.  The xenophobia foreigners experience.  If Inequality influences longevity, surely being treated as a non-person would??  What of Japanese pension fraud?  Anyway, every time I look at it the numbers seem to get worse.  So this particular book is not going to be considered evidence here.

*Note that the "Unfair" statement has significant additional restrictions.  Including but not limited to "Universally accepted as unfair" and "Unfair to all - living, dead and yet to be born".  Fair is a concept I have significant problems with, once it's passed out the realm of fair cake distribution.  Is it fair to Bob if Alice earns more than him?  Would the inequality be fair if Alice's father funded her time at university?  Would it be more or less fair if it was a scholarship?  How does talent/ability/disability effect matters?  As I said, fair is *hard* for me - it's a rabbit hole that is easy to fall down endlessly.

Free stuff from Microsoft

Hi all.  It's been a while, but I'm feeling in a strange and writing feels right.  Since I got some free stuff from Microsoft this week, I thought I'd talk about that.  Because it needs commenting on...

What was it?  Well, it was one of these, courtesy of Microsoft.  The short description is that it's a new development board called a "Galileo", for electronics and computing.  Combines both direct electrical access to components with about as much computing power as a PC from 1998.  Arduino compatible, as much computing power as a raspberry pi and a

So, full disclosure, they gave me free stuff.   Doesn't mean I'm going to be nice.

First, it's not flat.

Wait, this is a problem?  Yes, yes it is.  If I'm working on an electronics project I'm going to manhandle my microelectronics.  I'm going to - get this - plug things in.  Apply pressure.  Poke, prod, fiddle around.  And my faithful arduino sits on my desk without complaint - and it has the right to complain.  But this Galileo has interfaces all over it.  It sits ~1cm above the desk, supported on 2 small bits of plastic used for some cables or other.  Touch any bit of the board and it lifts off the desk.  How can you work on a board that won't just sit flat??

Second, power.

It uses 30 times more power then the arduino it's compatible with.  That's 10+ times the power of a raspberry pi - without any move processing capability.  So if you ever build anything running on batteries...Galileo is not your friend.

Third, wifi.

My projects always seem to have 2 problem.  Either I'm on battery (yes, I have a battery problem.  I know.  But doesn't everyone have 50 AA's laying around, just in case.  Right?) or I want it on the network.  Wifi built into whatever board I'm using would be amazing.  Not having to faff with adding wifi, just connecting with a couple of simple lines of code.  Galileo doesn't have it.  It has a PCI Express slot.  It's got a *serial* port.  But WiFi?   Nah, who uses that?

Anyway, that's enough of me moaning.  When...if I come up with something to do with it, I'll let you know...

Music...

A common way people classify themselves and others (officially "getting to know you" - but really, classifying) is asking what kind of music you like.

This is a question that I find impossible.  A track here; a tune there.  And yet this weekend I heard a new song, "Little boxes", something I hadn't heard before.

I look it up on youtube and there is this 1960's (or perhaps 70's)  era video of a man with a banjo.  This video is more gripping then a hundred modern pop songs.  There's no cookie-cutter image, just a man, in a jumper, singing about boxes.

There is tune, meaning, feeling - the things I want in my music. 

So what music do I like? 

Music like this, played by Queen, written by Bach or sung by a friend.  Easy really...

Hotmail

Hotmail. Claims to be an email service... But it deletes my email if I don't log in for a while. What a piece of junk! How are you supposed to rely on that? I've used related services...MSN and the like. Bloody junk.

Leveson inquiry

So, the Leveson enquiry.

It's been something I've been trying to ignore for a while, but it's failed. I've got to the point that I've got to make a comment on the stupidity.

Of late, we've had all these terribly damning links between media people and politicians. It's so terrible. Oh noes!

Let's be absolutely, one hundred percent clear. Before one media company was allowed to buy another recently (no names, you know who, but no names) it had to be put through a political process before it was approved. A process where the person running it had to be replaced because he admitted to a bias.

The media are completely in the hands of the politicians.

Given this, why are we so surprised and shocked that a company tries to stay on the right side of the people who can close them down?

I mean, really? Something was discussed for 2 minutes? Someone rode on a horse?

Get a grip.


Edit to add spacing

A few answers to questions

Evening all

I'm going to be responding to a post on another blog, which can be found here.

Little Miss Giggles pointed me at this, knowing my views - so I've bitten, and I'm going to try and rationally debate the answers. Yes, on the internet. No, the other one does not have bells on.

It's a serious of questions, which Raggady Man put to the No to AV campaign and he wasn't happy with the answers. I can't blame him, I'm not either. But there are answers, which I'm going to attempt to give.

Now, question one - I don't see a need to respond to. The motivation to put "None of your taxes have been used to print this leaflet" could be almost anything - and it's not really a contentious point, really. A little dirty... but not one word that wasn't true. So let's leave that...

Question 2:...on the front page you claim that the current First Past The Post system gives one person one vote. However according to http://www.voterpower.org.uk/ with the First Past The Post system and the dominance of one party in my area I actually have around 0.25% of a vote. Can your further explain how, when my vote will be discounted if/when I don't vote for the local dominant party, I actually even have a vote worth casting in the next election.

Answer

Well, the official answer sucked - yes, the people who made the website are partisan. This does not allow you to ignore the point.

The point is in the current system, some votes aren't worth the same. Ignoring the strict, 1=1 point, this is to a degree, true. I've lived in areas that I couldn't change the outcome so much as a bean. However, does AV make this any better? Let us examine some cases in a hypothetical election...

Out right winner

1) If the majority party has more then 51% of the vote, under AV your vote matters exactly as much under FPTP as AV.

Your party won...

2) If you voted for the A party, and they win (and were the largest party) the value of your vote was the same.

3) If you voted for Party A and they won, and didn't have the most 1st priority votes cast, your vote is worth the MORE.

4) If you voted for Party B and they lost, but did have the most votes at stage 1, your vote is now worth LESS.

5) If you voted for party B and they lost and didn't have the most votes at stage 1, your vote is still the same.

Your n+1 choice won (not out right)

6) ...and your first choice was eliminated, your vote is worth more!

7) ...and your first choice is still in the running your vote is worth..less.

Someone you didn't vote for wins (not out right)

8) ...and they had the most in the first round, your vote is worth the same.

9) ...and they didn't win the first round, this just gets madly complicated. But probably balanced.

Now, my point here by listing all these possible outcomes is that the answer to the question of "Is my vote worth more with AV" the answer may be yes or no. It's complicated. But for every situation where your vote is "worth more", there is another where it is "worth less".

And for added fun, one of the most marginal seats in existence is Crawley. In 2005 there was a majority of 37. And in that seat, your vote is worth...according to http://www.voterpower.org.uk/crawley - 0.932, increasing to 0.952.

In a constituency where some voters have more pets then the winning candidate had majority voters your vote isn't worth 1.

The very metric that this site is using is flawed, because the only "perfect" situation is where there is only a majority of 1 - and that's you, alone, on an island.

According to the numbers on the page itself, swapping to AV increase the number of "marginal" seats by 6.4%.

So, really, 6.4% of people's votes are worth more.

And the people whose votes are worth the most are the minority parties - because they are the parties who will always get re-assigned.

The smaller the party, the more extreme, weird and odd the issues they consider important.

Are they the people we want to have the deciding vote?

The prank vote, the protest vote, the single issue parties?



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Depending on response, may/may not continue with the rest of the questions - I'm out of time!

Windows Server 2008, oh the pain

Morning all

How's this for infuriating. You're running windows server 2008 and you want to download linux. Not for the server, but because you're going to stick it on the netbook. Sounds reasonable, right?

Well, there's a slight catch. You see, Server has an "enhanced security configuration" for its built in internet explorer.

This means that every time you try and download something that's even vaguely risky - like, say, linux - it asks you to add the site to a list of exceptions. Fine, yes, you can add thee site.

But places like ubuntu have mirrors - that is, multiple sites that take it in turns to download the file to you - because they're fairly hefty files. But every time you click it gives you another, different mirror.

So I think fine, sod this - I'm downloading firefox. A browser that I can use. But.... no. Instead I get exactly the same problem. So I end up running my main machine overnight, when one of the explicit reasons I have it is to manage large downloads like this because it uses next to no power.

But no.

Server.

FAIL!