Oh That Free Market

Why bother to write about the "free market" you may ask?  I do this for your own good, so that my peers and other colleagues can have the benefit of my experience and knowledge whether they appreciate it or not, and perhaps rise above their circumstances to which an unkind fate has condemned them.

The nominal reason that I have written these recent posts about the "free market" is that they are a part of a discussion with a friend about how society should set social policies, particularly involving unemployment caused by foreign Government subsidies.  He believes that the "free market" sets the best policies in all cases.  A central point of discussion in this discussion is what is a "free market".  He contends that a "free market" includes obvious laws and morality involving such things as racism, sexism, child labor, the environment, minimum wage and so forth.

But it doesn't, either historically or currently.  Being compelled to follow standards of morality or laws against certain kinds of behavior is, by definition, constraining the "free market".  It is therefore no longer "free".  It is actually much worse than that because those who advocate some rather heinous social policies routinely invoke the holy free market to justify those policies.

The very term "free market" means to let market forces set policy on issues that involve society, commerce and employment. It means that any education you have is bought on the free market by individuals or groups from companies that provide that service.  Those who can not afford that service do not get education.  It means you do not have a legal minimum wage, because the market will set a minimum wage.  It means you do not need laws against sexism because market forces will eliminate sexism because it is inefficient.   It means you do not need child labor laws because market forces will prevent the abuse of children in the workplace.  It means that health care is provided by industry and those who can afford it get it, and those who can not afford it suffer because they can not afford to buy those services on the "free market:".   That is what the "free market" means.

In other words, the "free market" has an implied morality and that morality is nothing more or less than those with the money get what they want and those without do not.

A modified free market, a market that is informed by and controlled with a variety of laws to restrict the abuse of children or outlaw sexism or racism or protect the environment is not, technically speaking, a "free market".  It is a form of market, yes, but not one that is run by pure market forces.   Furthermore, since the "free market", left to itself, has been shown to lead to many disagreeable results, or at least disagreeable to some of us, those who advocate an untrammeled free market do so as a way of achieving their policy goals in these areas.   They use the "free market" as the theoretical justification for rolling back policies or laws claiming it is more efficient and leads to a more productive and fair society.

The result is that the term "free market" has become associated with policies that will mean the degradation of the poor, the disenfranchisement of labor, the willful destruction of the environment, and the restriction of access to the political and justice systems to the wealthy.   Whether that is what the "free market" meant at the time the term was invented or not, these are the implications of the term as used by political groups today.

Recall also that when the term "free market" was invented as an economic philosophy, there was not a body of experience that could readily say "this is what we tried and this is what happened".  But we do have that experience today to make these judgments.

The pure "free market" has no innate sense of morality beyond the morality of cash. But society's own perception of what is moral and what is allowable in a free society is a moving target and changes, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly.  Market forces will not, a priori, lead to a result that matches society's current understanding of morality and fair play.  Therefore to advocate that it will is disingenuous or simply wrong.

No one argues against a market system to set prices in many circumstances, or to determine, in many of those circumstances where society should put its resources.  Up to a point, that is, as there are many, many exceptions. And therein lies the dilemma, where do you set that point?  Relying on the "free market" to do so is not going to be satisfactory for many Americans, although it may very well be just the ticket for some of them.

And it is ironic, or perhaps just weird, that so many advocates of the "free market" are in the technology industries and seem to be unaware that they are the beneficiaries of very non market forces.  The technology industry as we know it today was financed in large part by our government as part of fighting the cold war.  It was not market forces that invented and nurtured those technologies, not at all, it was the US Government through its Department of Defense, its Department of Energy, its National Science Foundation and a few other agencies.   As those industries matured and became self-supporting the government moved on to other industries and technologies that needed or deserved advanced research money.   In almost no cases is advanced research sponsored by private industry or the "free market".  Not that I am aware of.

 I think that what my friend *may* mean is not the free market, but something like "a market system that is controlled through a system of laws to enforce moral norms as determined through the political system as regards to the environment, the treatment of labor, education and other forms of social welfare, in a system that has gone to great lengths to see that access to justice and the political process is not unfairly weighted to the rich, but that it is equally available to people of all economic and social classes, not just through law, but through practical means."

Its not enough to say equal justice for the legal system if the rich always get off but the poor do not because of being unable to afford equally competent legal support.   Its not enough to say the "market as modified by the rule of law" unless that law is proactive in making violations of morality a crime (e.g. abusing children in the workplace) and is industrious in enforcing the law.

Market forces alone is not a system that will result in a fair or just society and the idea that it would has been discredited long ago.  The refusal to accept the evidence of your eyes does not make the evidence wrong.

One more thing.   There is nothing funny about the political situation in this country, and the gross abuses of the right wing of the political process and their disingenuous and often hypocritical arguments.   It is time for everyone to grow up and figure out when some right wing thug invokes the "free market", what it is they really mean.

Lethal Autonomous Vehicles, Morality and Closing an Important Loophole that Allows Opportunity for the Poor

I was very impressed that Dr. Stuart Russell of the Univ of California called for scientists to boycott work on lethal autonomous weapons systems, e.g. autonomous vehicles that kill people.  But it also seems to me that it is mighty late in the day to raise this concern.  Why?

Because the Artificial Intelligence community was substantially, if not entirely, financed by the Department of Defense for the first 50 or so years of its life.  Yes, there has been some private financing, and NSF financing, probably more today than there has ever been.  But if you look at the history of the field, it is the DOD through DARPA and similar agencies that found the money to support the idea and stick by it through decades of early work, long before it had practical applications.

Now, it does not take a lot of imagination or even a PhD to realize that the DOD's interest in AI would include completely autonomous and lethal weapon systems.  There would be many obstacles on the way to that of course, but ultimately that would be one of the goals of financing this very early stage technology.   There were and will continue to be issues of what sorts of controls need to be on such systems, e.g. when they can be used to assist humans in these weapon systems and when they can be allowed to act "on their own" through rules and systems that are programmed into them.   The issue of validation of such systems and what it means on the battlefield when some of the players are not so conscientious about validation is a major concern.  And now is a good time to be concerned because while full autonomy may or may not be imminent, it is certainly much more imminent than it was 20 years ago.

Of course it needs discussion.

I find it intriguing that even unmanned drones are so controversial, they are far from autonomous but seem to raise strong opinions among the public.   I would not have particularly guessed that, given that each of these drones has a human or two at all times managing their progress.  But it is a concern and no doubt truly autonomous drones and vehicles will be as well.

Remember also that pretty much anything that moves can be lethal whether or not that is its primary purpose. Even the most docile and friendly autonomous vehicle could hurt someone by running into them at full speed, or dropping on them, even if they are only being affectionate and happy to see you.

But getting back to AI and its funding, is it really fair to rely for decades on a source of  funding, knowing full well why they were funding you, and then balking when you start to see results?   

Of course there is nothing unique in this situation to the field of AI.  Many technologies started out as DOD financed in their early stages only to move beyond that into other areas of financing and application.  Some scientists find the knowledge that they are being funded by the DOD morally objectionable and choose to avoid such financing, and that is certainly their right, even though some of us can be a little cynical about whether the NSF is really all that different from the DOD.  They are both financed after all by the same Congress, the same government, the same national will.  Nevertheless, if they prefer their filthy lucre laundered through the NSF that is OK with me. AI is only exceptional in that it is one area that has required more years of development to enter the practical zone of mere applications than many other advanced technologies.  It has required more nurturing and more faith on the part of the organizations that finance research.  And for decades that pretty much was only the DOD, at least to a large degree.

At this point, I would need to review the history of funding of AI and related technologies in order to make sure I am on firm ground.  What I am describing here is an impression from the late last century.  These impressions are almost certain to be out of date, at least partially.  AI has moved from blue sky research to practical applications in many areas.

But there is a good reason to oppose this work, this inhuman autonomy, although I am not sure that there are any AI researchers who are aware of it.

The reason is that throughout history, one of the very few avenues for advancement allowed to poor people in most countries is through the military. Certain civilizations were famous for this, including the Romans and our fair country.  Although officers were generally drawn almost exclusively from the upper classes, a capable young man without pedigree could often join the military and at the risk of his life and hardship, daring and luck,  find a way to advance himself and his family out of the grinding poverty they were condemned to by circumstances of their birth.   In the case of the Romans, there are various cities around the Mediterranean that are the direct descendants of some of these soldiers when they were given land at the end of their years of service.

I am not advocating anything about the military in this essay, for or against, but merely pointing out that historically the military has been a way for the poor and disenfranchised to advance themselves and have a better life in their otherwise corrupt and wealth-privileged society.  As part of that I think it is also fair to ask whether the use of autonomous vehicles, and autonomous robots of other kinds, will reduce this "demand for labor", one of the few channels of advancement available to the poor.  Of course it will.  In fact, that is probably one of the reasons for doing this development, people being so expensive to maintain.

As for the morality of computer scientists who choose to work on autonomous lethal weapons, I have mixed feelings.   Just because so much of the technology and computer industry was financed by the Dept of Defense does not mean that everyone should choose to stay on that path.  Of course not.  Perhaps it is sufficient to just acknowledge the past, thank those that had faith and move on.  There will presumably be enough people to develop the technologies that the DOD and Congress, who funds all these things, desires while the University spits on their benefactors and the academics within hold themselves so preciously aloof.

You may read an article about this call here:

http://phys.org/news/2015-05-ai-expert-colleagues-autonomous-killer.html

A Case Study Where the Free Market is Proven to Help the Poor

The following post is only for adults and those who are not free market libertarians.

I have received some criticism from a few readers who believe that I have been harsh, too harsh, on the holy free market in this blog. They say that I know very well that the free market can, in many circumstances, set prices in a way that correctly assesses value in a distributed fashion. And furthermore, that it is the free market that has the best chance and a track record of helping the poor.  They request that I correct this imbalance by giving an example that shows this and I have decided to comply.

Let us take the example of a family in Great Britain, the land of Adam Smith, during the enclosure period. The rich have used their control of the political process to seize the common lands and the small farmer can no longer use the commons as their traditional rights provided. They are of course impoverished and thrown off their farm. The husband and father is killed in a foreign war defending the privileges of the rich and the mother has to support the family by working in a mill for 16 hours a day 7 days a week.

But her child gets sick and will die without an operation she can not afford.

That is only fair of course, as only the rich should be able to get competent health care. The poor, who can not afford it, do not deserve to have decent health care because they do not have the money.  That is the way the pure free market works.

The owner of the mill comes to the rescue by offering to pay for the operation and save the life of her child if she will allow him to sodomize her many times and allow his friends to do so as well.

Now I wish to reprimand those readers of this blog who are jumping to conclusions that I mean that the wealthy here wish to literally sodomize our young working woman.  They may only wish to figuratively sodomize her.   You must rise above your base understanding of the world and think metaphorically, I implore you.

Getting back to our heartwarming parable about how the free market elevates the downtrodden, how will this working woman whose services are so sought after set the price for being sodomized by the rich? This is where the free market comes to the rescue. We can examine what impoverished women sell their bodies for based of course on supply and demand and the “special requests” such as our factory owner has. Then a fair price can be set by the free market, which is not distorted by inefficient government regulation, and society as a whole is made better by this efficient solution.

Thus this poor woman has received all the benefit that the free market has to offer the poor.

Clearly, we should set all our policies for society and make decisions on health care, employment, education, access to the political process, access to opportunity and so forth based on what the free market for services and products determines. I can not imagine that we would consider anything else given the obvious advantages this system naturally provides.

The Free Market in Political Economy

Unfortunately this is one of those dreary, serious posts that has very little humor.  In fact, I see very little to cheer about in our economy in spite of what I read in the managed press.   Very little humor and almost no sarcasm.   We will return to our more traditional and shallow programming shortly.

A good friend of mine, who is far smarter than I am and infinitely more successful, has, with all sincerity, pointed out that the distress in the employment market in this country, or rather the unemployment market, is just the free market at work and the free market is the best system that we, the larger “we”, have for organizing our economic system. There may be some distress while people are repurposing themselves to other industries, but that is the way things go in our modern globalized society. 

I would describe this discussion as being similar to one between undergraduate freshmen late at night over beer discussing political economy. No one really cares what we think about the free market, but we care. So in the spirit of a good debating society, this post is here to support the following thesis:

Resolved: The free market has a track record of failure and disaster throughout history. Time and again, society has been forced to intervene and regulate the market in order to survive. Rather than create the best solution for society, it has produced arguably the very worst that could be imagined.

My argument goes as follows:

In America, the free market is holy. It is dogma that the free market produces the most efficient markets, the most fair results, the greatest prosperity for all. Many, many people in America believe that the free market, the so called laizzez faire, will both regulate itself and create a society that is acceptably fair for all without the need for government regulation of any sort.

But the reality is completely different. There is ample evidence that the free market left to itself not only routinely comes up with suboptimal solutions, but that it is notorious for it. And that furthermore, the assumption that the free market will result in a solution that society will find acceptable in any given area without some sort of regulation or control is patently and obviously wrong and has been proven wrong time and again.

One definition of insanity is to repeat the same behavior but expect a different result. Here are five cases where an international free market either resulted in a disaster for our economy and the economy of the world, or at the very least, would result in a situation that we would not desire.

1. Human slavery is a market solution.

Throughout history, human slavery and specifically the slave trade in human beings, has been a profitable global activity.   Human slave labor was a solution provided by the free market to provide a source of labor less expensive than hiring workers. Although the specific price performance of a human slave was different depending on the society involved, and the value of a human slave changed through the centuries, the trade in human slaves was always profitable and it has existed in every ancient and modern society that I am aware of, to a lesser or greater degree, until up to about 200 years ago. Which is not to say that there were not individuals who protested the trade and treatment of slaves and there were societies that organized to protect their citizens from becoming slaves, but the trade itself continued. (See note 3) Pretty much everyone's hands were dirty in the slave trade, although the extent of use of slavery and participation in the slave trade was uneven. Some ethnic groups, kingdoms, and/or nation states did seem to specialize in this morally objectionable practice more than others, in other words, the benefits of Globalization were revealed far in advance of its modern instantiation. To this day, human slavery is a major business in the underground economy and, if left to the market, would still exist in this country.

Abolishing slavery was not a market solution, not at all. In fact, the struggle to abolish human slavery has resulted in grave dislocations of various economies and in at least one major case, a war that killed about 10% of the adult male population and impoverished about half of that country, which is of course, this country.   Many believe that this particular war could have been avoided if both sides had been willing to figure out how to solve the economic dislocation the freeing of the slaves, who certainly deserved to be freed, could be addressed. Failing to address this issue, caused entirely by the amoral behavior of the free market whose major beneficiaries absolved themselves of all responsibility for the situation they had created, resulted in death and destruction on a vast scale.

Furthermore, the free market, left to itself,  has never abolished human slavery anywhere to the best of my knowledge and has not to this day. Society has had to come in at great expensive of lives and treasure to destroy this abomination and we are not done yet.

2. The exploitation of children is a market solution.

Great Britain was the first to industrialize their factories and the free market immediately abused labor, vastly expanding the use of women and children in inhuman conditions for impossible hours and slave wages which resulted from day one in misery, damaged lives, mutilation and death in the pursuit of profits. The free market never solved this problem. It was solved by society passing laws that punished corporations for their morally reprehensible behavior which took advantage of vast poverty in society to increase the profits of the factory owners. Not only was minimum standards of morality forced on them at the time, but they have been complaining about it ever since.

3. The complete collapse of a major segment of the energy industry about a century ago and the near extermination of mammalian sea life was a result of the free market..

Over 100 years ago, before our economy based itself on petroleum and we developed the technologies necessary for its extraction and use, the primary sources of energy in Western civilization were wood, coal and various oils for lighting. Nearly all lighting in this country was produced from whale and seal oil as it produced a better flame and less smoke than the alternatives which had been used throughout history. The globalized energy industry, particularly Great Britain and the United States, would send ships to islands in the southern hemisphere where they would find 100,000 seals on a single island and slaughter them, melt down their bodies for the fat in factory ships, and stop when it was no longer worth the money to kill them. From 100,000 seals on an island, they might leave a few hundred. It was just too expensive to chase them down and kill the last ones or they would have. The energy industry's vast wisdom in managing this scarce resource, whales and seals, was to kill them until they became essentially extinct and then stop. When they had killed so many that it was no longer profitable to kill the rest, and the whales and seals were all but extinct, that industry simply collapsed.  If natural gas and electric power (generated from coal) had not replaced it, we would have been burning olive oil in lamps the way the Romans had.

4. Whenever the financial markets have been allowed a free market, they have self destructed and taken the economy with it.

The self regulation of finance by the market has a very clear history. Left to itself, the finance markets will always engage in obviously risky behavior in pursuit of profits that will result in an unstable situation that at some point collapses at vast cost to society and the world. The market would then slowly rebuild, the economy rebuild, and they would do it again. Repeat. Left to itself, the financial markets are guaranteed to self-destruct out of greed and a complete lack of responsibility to the society that it serves.

It is as if engineers built bridges that collapse at tremendous loss of life because it was less expensive and more profitable to do so and they knew that this would kill people but they did not care. The latest example of this was the economic collapse of 2008 which was caused by gross malfeasance on the part of the finance industry in conjunction with congress and the regulatory agencies that abandoned their responsibilities to society.

Furthermore, we can say that whatever financial market we have today only exists because of government intervention, in other words, because of government interference with the free market. Left to the free market, there would be no finance market or industry. They had self destructed. It was gone, baby. All gone. The world economy was destroyed in 2008, repeat: destroyed, and the world entered the worst depression since the great Depression of 1929.  It was only because of government intervention in spite of the finance markets that the depression was not worse and they were careful to do so in ways that avoided the bad word "depression" as well as financially reward their guilty friends in the finance industries that had caused the problems.

5. Left to the free market, there would be no education for the poor.

It is true that by having mass public education, the rich get better workers, better soldiers, and more entertaining whores, but they have never wanted to pay for it. Public education has never been, now or ever, a solution that the market came up with.

So when I hear someone say, lets have the free market find the solution, I think to myself, are these people out of their fucking minds?

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1. By the way, for what it is worth, one of my degrees is in Economics from a famously free-market school, UCLA, and I worked with a billion economists at the RAND Corporation when I was very young. Maybe this background is part of the explanation for why the issue of the use or abuse of the free market in lieu of policy seems so important to me.

2.  The practice of slaving was not restricted to black Africans, by the way.  That was a development in the slave trade in the 15th century.  Before that, there were slaves of any color or race, so far as I know.  The specific racial theory to justify slavery of sub-Saharan Africans seems to come into existence to help justify the practice.  Before then, however, human slavery involved pretty much anyone who could be victimized. Slavers would often raid by sea, attack a town, enslave the citizens and escape by sea.  Its a long, diverse, and complicated story. 

3. You may read about laissez faire at the link below.  The Wikipedia version is somewhat different from how it was explained to me years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

The Mystery of "Now You See Me" (2013)

Two years ago I saw a trailer for a movie about magicians who rob banks to give to the poor.   I never heard much about it and thought maybe it had gone straight to video.  But no, it was released, but with very little marketing and then a number of odd things happened.

I may as well tell you up front that I believe that this film is actually an important and intellectual French film masquerading as a trivial popcorn movie. There are a number of things about this film that reveal that it is not mere cinematic fluff but is of interest to the readers of this blog, compelled as we are by the appropriate and innovative use of visual effects and our study of the esoteric knowledge that is hidden from the average, uninitiated member of the filmgoing audience.

On the surface the movie is an action / caper film about 4 street magicians who are brought together by an unknown person to create a new act, called the Four Horsemen. They nearly instantly become very famous and successful and their shows sell out and become media events not just because they have great style but also because they rob banks as part of their show and then give the money to their audience. Since in fact there are laws against robbing banks, unless of course you are already wealthy in which case you can do what you want, the FBI and Interpol get involved to solve the case and put our heroes into prison. The Four Horsemen have to somehow continue to evade the FBI, continue to rob banks, and somehow do all this in their final show in New York with the whole world watching and the FBI closing in.

But from the very beginning, the film confounds expectations.

A young man stands in front of a mirror practicing various sleight of hand flourishes with a deck of cards (see below). As he does so, there is a voice over, the voice of a young magician and he says to his invisible audience:

Magician: Come in close. Closer. Because the more you think you see, the easier it will be to fool you. Because, what is seeing? You're looking, but what you are really doing is filtering... interpreting... searching for meaning. My job? To take that most precious of gifts you give me, your attention, and use it against you.

So you see, the movie begins with an idea, an idea from the philosophy of magic. It is very unusual for an American movie to begin with an idea, or to even have an idea anywhere in the movie for that matter. That was the first clue that something unusual was going on.

Lots of style and glitz in our magic shows these days.

Superficially, the plot holes of the film, perhaps more appropriately called plot chasms, might signify the film as not serious. But this unusual opening monologue also suggested that there was something else going on, something behind the scenes, something mysterious.  These clues suggested to me that perhaps it was made in the cinematic tradition of another country.

Let us review some of the other unusual things about this film.

First, Hollywood (in this case, an American & Canadian studio) rarely makes movies about magic, that is, the profession of magic in this country. Whether the magicians are stage magicians, close-up magicians, famous escapists, mentalists, whatever, they rarely make films about these people, no matter how fictional. Such films are said to not make money, according to the standard received wisdom. But this movie was made nevertheless.

Step into my bubble, he said.

Second, the film, when released got lukewarm and mixed reviews, and received almost no marketing from the studio and it was expected to die a quick death. But, strangely enough, it didn't. Instead it proceeded to slowly build business by word of mouth and made over $100 million in this country for a total of at least $230 million in first release. That is very good for a film that cost $75 million to make and was expected to flop. In fact, it made more money than several other very expensive summer movies of that year and they are even making a sequel.

Third, this film was made by a relatively unknown French director and it is very rare for this country to finance a film by a foreign director because such films rarely do well in this country. Unless of course the foreign director makes films that are like American films in which case he really isn't all that foreign, now is he? Hollywood from time to time will co-finance a film by a famous foreign director, but that is not what happened here.

She is beautiful.

He needs a shave.

Fourth, the film is very, very French. It is not just an American caper film done by a foreign director. No. From beginning to end, this film feels like a French film in spite of the fact that Canal Plus did not finance it. How could I tell? Well of course there was the opening already alluded to, but beyond that French filmmakers have a very firm grasp of the essence of a film and have no problem sacrificing plot credibility at any time if it contributes to the style of the film or to the film's higher purpose. Plot, character, plausibility? Poof, that is irrelevant. Second, the French seem to have an affection for sophisticated and intelligent women who are not 22 years old as all the women in Hollywood seem to be and who, generally speaking, have an affair with the male lead. Third, they are very partial to male leads who do not shave. Fourth, the French as a culture have a strange appreciation for the big budget nightclub Vegas-type of show, in this case, of Magic. So lots of spotlights and lots of showmanship. Kindof Siegried and Roy without Siegfried and Roy. But most of all it is the cavalier dismissal of reality at any time that just felt so very French to me.

A typical French film might be a romantic action film about a beautiful and well (un) dressed young woman who is secretly a mysterious alien and who knows the secret of the rebirth of the universe and will save the galaxy if only these men in the story would stop screwing around and get out of her way before it is too late. This film is not about that, but it is about 4 street magicians who do the most amazing and implausible things with a good sense of style and outwit the FBI at every turn.

Fifth, the visual effects generally have a lot of panache and are not held back by any old-fashioned concerns about believability. As the French are very much into the meaning and semiotics of modern architecture, the final scenes are a very busy effects sequence with projection on buildings that is actually quite interesting if a little unbelievable.   The problem is that while we can project stereo on a building, I don't think we have the technology to project something such that each member of the audience will have their own point of view and perceive a holographic or stereo image that appears natural and in place.  I think that most of these techniques restrict you to one point of view or at most a very few.   This is a rare example of someone in the film business actually thinking ahead.

Since the police are after them, the Four Horsemen, now reduced to three, make a virtual appearance.

Sixth, the film seems to attribute much of its implausibility to the invisible hand of a secret philanthropic organization from ancient Egypt that may be behind the mystery.

And finally, I normally hate films with plot holes like this. But in this case I did not mind it one bit. In fact in spite of everything, or perhaps because of all the things I have mentioned, I actually found the film charming.

Although nominally the film may be about magicians who rob banks, we also have here a nice Cinderella meta-story about a French summer popcorn film that did well.

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Now You See Me (2013) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1670345/

Hollywood Reporter article on Now You See Me Boxoffice

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-shocker-you-see-601936

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Notes

1. A flourish is the display of a deck of cards in a way that is designed to impress. It may or may not be part of an illusion. A good card player will often use flourishes when shuffling a deck as a way of intimidating his opponents or perhaps just to show off. In magic, it is part of the entertainment value of a show and is often used to distract the audience's attention. It may also be used by the magician as an exercise to develop skill and coordination.

Michael Morell on Ed Snowden's Motives

I am not trying to convince anybody.  Everyone I know has already made up their mind about Ed Snowden and related matters.  This post is only for those who are probably cynical or worse about Mr. Snowden's motives.  If you are not, if you believe he is a saint, then move on, this is not for you.

The first comments I have found on the probable damage of the Snowden disclosures, what it will cost now and in the future, how he did it and why he did it are in an excerpt from a book by Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA and a member of the President's commission to analyze what happened and make recommendations.

I highly recommend that anyone interested in this topic should read the entire excerpt as it will go over some background concerning the recommendations made.

http://cryptome.org/2015/05/snowden-morell.pdf

I further think we should all read the entire report which was made public, and whose link can be found here. I have not read it yet.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf

Michael Morell's book on Amazon.com is at

http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-War-Time-Terrorism-From/dp/1455585661

I also found interesting the discussion on the responsibility of the media in interpreting the releases, and their cavalier, irresponsible and simply wrong presentation of the facts. None of this is too surprising, the media is famously stupid about intelligence matters. I thought it was entertaining that he would include Glenn Greenwald in the list of journalists, because Mr. Greenwald is anything but a disinterested journalist.

I also appreciated his discussion of the theory that Ed Snowden thinks very highly of himself and felt that his genius had not been acknowledged by the CIA and NSA. I sympathize with that as I also feel very highly of myself and feel that my genius has not been acknowledged by the CIA and NSA as well. I hope that they come to their senses and acknowledge my genius before it is too late. Anything might happen and this time it will be all their fault.

This is the discussion about Ed Snowden's motives. If you are a Snowden lover, so convinced of your righteous indignation and of Saint Snowden's innocence, it will make hard reading and I recommend not reading it.  What would the point be of just annoying people?

Ok so I will hopefully avoid this topic as much as possible in the future.  Its no fun having strong opinions that cut you off from your friends, but that is what we have here.

Update on Secret Aerospace Projects May 2015

Perhaps now is the time.  Perhaps now they are ready to have the esoteric knowledge revealed.  The truth behind the rumors of the various secret aerospace projects discussed on the internet.

But are they worthy of this knowledge?

Probably not, so we will only discuss a few of the more obvious ones.  The really interesting ones about the CIA reverse engineering the alien anti-gravity drive will be held for another day.

Now students, prepare to be enlightened but first a little philosophy.

These are no mere secret aerospace projects produced at hideous cost and hidden out of a desire to thwart the enemies of freedom and justice!  No!  These projects demonstrate our national will and character. They are more than mere airplanes, they are nothing less than flying metaphors.

But first let us build a little anticipation by reviewing basic principles:

1. A black project is generally not outed unless it is no longer necessary to keep it secret or, on occasion, when there is an explicit decision to make something public as part of an elaborate and foolish hope that doing so will put our enemies off their stride for some imaginary reason, in other words, when there is real (perceived) value in making it public. 2. Most black projects are technology demonstrators that do not become production vehicles, or if they do, not as secret programs.   3. Usually it is the case that if they do not want you to see something, then you won't.  But sometimes operational necessity or safety issues throw a wrench into that and it is possible for a knowledgeable observer to see things that they really should not see.  This is particularly true for large, loud things that fly in the air.   4. The fact that a black project is announced does not mean it is totally obsolete and will no longer be used. The U2, SR 71 and B2 are examples of formerly secret projects made public yet still in use.

That said, I think that there are three black programs that we can be certain exist and are likely to become public eventually.  Two of which are technology demonstrators and one that is probably in limited production, and they are (a) two different prototypes of the new bomber, (b) something that involves a repurposed Valkyrie XB70 as some sort of mothership for a project probably cancelled, and (c) a limited production flying wing similar to the B2 in shape, but probably for tactical reconnaissance although we don't really know.

First, we know that there are demonstrators / prototypes of the next generation bomber, whatever they are calling it these days. We believe there are two competing vehicles, possibly one of each or possibly several of each. These prototypes will probably only become visible when the details of this new plane become known as its prototypes will no longer need to be kept secret, so that suggests within 5 years or so, possibly less. 

Second, there had been sightings of a modified XB 70 Valkyrie bomber on several occasions. You can not miss a Valkyrie in flight, it is unmistakable. When the first reports started coming in by puzzled observers, the more aerospace-knowledgeable who heard these reports knew exactly what airplane they were talking about.   There has only been one airplane built that looks anything like this.  Since the last Valkyrie is in a museum this is some other vehicle repurposed for another reason. The word on the street is that it was used as mothership for a prototype earth orbital vehicle that was not living up to expectations and was canceled. This seems plausible to me.   So I feel confident that something about these sightings exists and is, or was, a technology demonstrator of some sort, but less confident about when or if they will ever talk about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie

 When people described what they saw it was clear that it was related to a Valkyrie.  Nothing else looks like this.

Third, there have been sightings of a flying wing that (a) is not the B2, (b) is big enough such that it is manned and talking to various control towers, (c) been seen flying in groups of three which suggests that it is not a technology demonstrator and is in limited production. That means it pretty much has to be a black aerospace project of some sort. 

For the best writeup of the sightings, see

http://deepbluehorizon.blogspot.com/2014/03/mystery-aircraft-photographed-over.html
and
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/so-what-were-those-secret-flying-wing-aircraft-spotted-1555124270

There are many theories out there for what this is but I am just going to jump to the one that makes the most sense to me.

In the 1980s, when “stealth” was being pioneered, there was a perceived need for a variety of airplanes based on that technology. One mission was for strategic bombing, and that became the B2. One mission was for a stealth fighter and that became the F-22 and F-35. One mission was for a variety of stealth UAVs some of which have been announced and others are in development. There was also a need for a tactical ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) vehicle that could linger unseen above a battlefield for many hours and deliver real time information on the battle taking place below. This vehicle would be very valuable for any military operation on the ground whether regular US Army, Marines, or special forces. It would have a multitude of uses if it was stealthy enough that the enemy would not realize it was there. We know that there are several UAVs in development to serve this role. But there were also some rather well known, quirky 1980s technology projects along this line that were canceled and nothing seemed to come of them. 

One particular project, a technology demonstration, was called Tacit Blue and it was made public a decade after it took place in the mid 1990s.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Tacit_Blue

So many people suspect that in the 1980s they canceled the technology demonstrator and went black to develop a stealth tactical ISR airplane.   This airplane would have started flying in the 1990s. Because of when it was developed it would be manned. Because of what it was to be used for there would have been a significant advantage to keep it as secret as possible. The best situation is that the opponent does not even realize the airplane exists so they are not looking for it.

If I am correct, it would have become operational in the mid 1990s and therefore have been in service for 20 years. It is being supplanted by other vehicles now in development which we know are in development. Furthermore, it has been used on many occasions and is therefore likely to be known about by our various opponents such that there is less need to keep it secret. Even if they know it exists, that does not make it trivial to detect and shoot down.

So that is my guess for what is flying out there as a production black aerospace project and which is likely to be announced in the next few years.   Beyond this, we can be fairly sure there were other secret technology demonstrators such as, for example, tests of exotic propulsion technology.  But there is no particular evidence that suggests any of these are about to be made public, or even that they were particularly successful although of course it is the nature of these things that we do not know.

We will see what happens.

Of course what is important about these things beyond a purely techno-archaeological viewpoint is how these devices are used to implement policy and what those policies are.   But that is a whole other kettle of fish.

There.  I hope you are happy now.

Introducing Siberian Times and News of Massive Musk Oxen Baby Boom

When I despair of reading news of interest in our provincial and boring news media, I remember that often the most important news is local, and through the events in the lives of people in these fascinating and foreign venues the real humanity of the world is revealed.

Furthermore, when our major news outlets are so humorless except for especially selected “humor providers”, some of the people of the world recognize the odd situation they are in and play on it, usually with a straight face.

Such is the case with the very interesting and somewhat remote Siberian Times (www.siberiantimes.com).

Whenever I have visited the Siberian Times over the last few years, perhaps every six months or so, I have been rewarded with a series of articles and topics that are interesting and often well photographed.

Musk Oxen in a circle

In the current instantiation, we have articles about a baby boom among Musk Oxen, the secret mating rituals of rare Siberian leopards, an analysis about whether a recent meteor was shot down by a helpful UFO (with excellent comments), an excellent pictorial about a Siberian coal mine and an alarming article about out-of-control pond scum on Lake Baikal.

Comment about the Space Brothers

I have added the Siberian Times to the list of selected news media.

Musk Oxen

http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/news/n0225-baby-boom-within-worlds-biggest-collection-of-captive-musk-oxen/

Secret Mating Rituals of Siberian Leopards

http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/news/n0149-wonderful-footage-of-rare-big-cats-in-mating-ritual-captured-in-siberia/

UFO / Meteor Discussion (see comments at end)

http://siberiantimes.com/weird-and-wonderful/news-and-features/news/so-did-a-ufo-shoot-down-the-famous-chelyabinsk-meteorite-last-month/

Secrets of the Universe to be Sought from Lake Baikal

http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0228-secrets-of-the-universe-to-be-sought-from-deep-under-lake-baikal/

Down in the Siberian coal mine

Should We Abandon the "Rational Actor Model of Filmmaking"?

Is there too much bad computer animation in today's movies?  Is that even possible?

I continue to see people out in the world, on Internet forums and blogs, complaining piteously about the alleged overuse of bad computer animation in film. Here is a recent example pointed out to me by the people at www.io9.com.

Six Reasons Modern Movie CGI Looks Surprisingly Crappy

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-expensive-films-end-up-with-crappy-special-effects/

Is it possible that there is too much CGI, particularly bad CGI, in modern filmmaking?

No, of course not. Everything done with computer graphics in visual effects is exactly as it should be and the audience should agree if they know what is good for them. But sadly, some among the audience, a pathetic few, have not gotten the message. Two messages in fact.

The first message that these whiners have missed is that the modern art of filmmaking is all about the bad use of computer graphics: that is its very raison d'etre. That is its highest goal, second only to maximizing shareholder value, of course. When the audience sees computer generated garbage, that so-called garbage is nothing less than the manifestation of the new art which demands new artists and perhaps new audiences as well. Some of these filmmakers, like Michael Bey, may be far ahead of their time. But it is the duty of the real artist to lead and society will follow along eventually.

The second thing to realize about the tsunami of shit that we see in computer-generated visual effects is that it is not merely a lack of skill on the part of the effects providers, although that is often true as well.

Those who kvetch must look further into the heart of the madness itself and realize that it is almost certainly the filmmaker's vision that is up on the screen. If it is ugly, it is the ugliness that the client wanted. Bad computer animation has been incorporated into the filmmakers body of work and sensibility: it is an element of their style made manifest.  Admittedly, sometimes unconvincing or sub-par work is the result of a lack of skill on the part of the VFX supervisor or facility, but even then it may be that this apparent lack of skill is why these specialists in the computer arts were chosen. Their aesthetic matched that of the filmmaker's and a perfect harmony was found in stupid visual effects. It is not accident that things look the way they do.

To paraphrase a gem of wisdom from our friends in Communist China, “The fish stinks from the head”. In other words, when something smells bad to understand why it smells bad, you must look at who is running things because what you are seeing (or smelling) is probably what they asked for or represents who they are in some manner.

Yes, there are details in this vision that we can be critical of. It does seem that many do not realize that a camera must act like a real camera or it will cause the failure of the suspension of disbelief. The failure to embody the characters with appropriate gravity or weight is often cited, although that is but one example of the bad animation which we are regularly exposed to. The failure to realize that visual effects is about sleight-of-hand, it is about making the audience see what you want them to see and not about number of pixels or “photorealism”. The failure to realize that too much of anything is counterproductive.

But in our new Globalized and virtual Hollywood, nothing succeeds like excess. There is something about visual effects done with computers that can cause a producer and/or director to lose all sense of proportion and just throw 3D computer generated shots at their movie in lieu of thinking.  Perhaps this is a way to compensate for their own sexual inadequacy?  Perhaps the filmmakers have developed an anxiety disorder associated with working with a writer?  In the future, will 3D animation be classified as some sort of dangerous drug that causes the victims to peck without restraint at the lever that releases a 3D CGI pellet to the drug-crazed pigeon-filmmakers?

Should we now abandon the "rational actor" model of filmmaking, which says that those who are making this expensive entertainment product are reasonable and talented human beings doing what they think is best for the kind of entertainment they are trying to make?  Have our artists been driven mad by the opportunities which 3D animation have revealed?

Or is it something else.  Could it be that our overly-critical audience swine, who the Germans refer to as negativenpublikumschweine,  must look within themselves to find the real problem?   Perhaps it is not "bad" computer animation per se that they are reacting to, but their own provincial point of view that is not sophisticated enough to understand the director's vision?

Three.Js Documentation Errata

This post will be updated regularly as new anomalies or corrections in the Three.js documentation are found.

6/4/2015   It is asserted that different browsers allow webgl antialiasing to be enabled. That Firefox does, but Chrome does not.  However, it is not clear to me that this is true.  There is also confusion about the default of the camera attribute "antialias", and whether it defaults to true and false.  Probably one should should not assume anything but set it to the appropriate value depending on need.  ]

[Further exploration of this topic has discovered that (a) three.js is under active development, and (b) no effort is being made to keep the documentation even slightly current and (c) it would be crazy to volunteer to update the documentation for them because one would always fail (because the developers would not care to let you know about changes or omissions).   Therefore if you want to use three.js better get ready to read the code as well as blogs like this to figure out how].

As I have mentioned before, I think that one of the biggest issues in keeping current and using various technologies on the Internet is the problem of incomplete or out-of-date documentation. Now, documentation in technology, it turns out, has only rarely been very good. But there have been exceptions, or exceptionally good counter-examples, and they all usually happened because it was important for the people developing that technology to put serious and sustained effort into it even though they had other things they wanted to do.

But today, when everybody is getting paid (but me) and yet no one is getting paid, we end up using technologies that are unsponsored or are labors of love and one is lucky to get the documentation that is there, let alone really good and professional documentation.

What that means is that the potential user of that technology, who often has no choice what framework or middleware to use, is stuck learning the technology by trial and error. Is it a waste of time, sure it is. But two things, first, it is the way it is, and second, it is symptomatic of the times we live in.

Some classic examples of this is WebGL and Three.js. WebGL, wherever it really came from, is a version of OpenGL designed to work in your internet browser. It is as far away in philosphy as what motivated OpenGL that you could conceive of. WebGL is insanely difficult to use.

Built on top of it is something called Three.js. Three.js is pretty good in a lot of ways and I am using it on three different projects right now. But every time I try to use it after a hiatus, I keep slamming back into the documentation which is better than some documentation out there, but still very irritating in what it leaves out and what it gets wrong.

These may seem minor to you but I think it is very important.  People are busy, we want to use these technologies and "not reinvent the wheel" but it is a pain in the ass, literally not less than twice as time consuming as it has to be.

So in the spirit of positive action, I am going to start documenting the issues and mistakes that I find in the documentation. I am not sure where this will end up, but in the short run the changes will be added to the bottom of this post in no particular order. Then one day, perhaps, they can be incorporated into the main documentation.

As a separate matter, I also include a brief sections on requests/suggestions, e.g. those things that would be nice to have.  This is more in the area of functionality, not so much in the area of documentation.

Errata

In all the cases below, I am referring to the documentation that should be modified, not the code itself, although it is possible that the code itself should be changed to make a parameter more consistent with other parts of three.js.

Finally, all the suggestions below are the result of the following process.  First I try to do something in three.js and read the relevant documentation but whatever I am trying to do either fails or in some way does not solve the problem.  Then I search the internet and find examples that show me how to do what I need to do that was not mentioned in the documentation.  Or I just try things that I think might be there based on how I would do things if I were writing this code.  Eventually something works, I verify that it is not in the documentation and I add it to the list below.

1. The Three.js tutorial features a rotating cube which one rotates with "cube.rotation.x += .1;".   The cube is a mesh, and the mesh documentation does not list rotation.x, position.x and they .y and .z variants as attributes which can be set.

2. In Object3D, the parameter “position” should be documented as “read only”. An attempt to set it will result in an error. This attribute is not marked read only, even though other attributes are.

3. In PointLight, the method "position.set(x, y, z)" should be added.

4. In BoxGeometry, each of the attributes that are read only, such as width, height, etc, should be listed to be consistent with other parts of the documentation.

5. In Scene, the "add(obj)" method should be added and it should be made clear what kind of objects can be added: cameras, lights, meshes, object3D, whatever.

6. It is not clear when the documentation says it is "todo", whether that means the functionality is there but not documented or whether it means that the functionality, e.g. "gyroscope" is missing entirely.  In any case, it would be very helpful if all the items in the documentation that are marked "todo" could be moved to their own section so one does not waste time on a feature which is apparently not there.

7. The object "Group" is not defined anywhere in the documentation, even though there are examples that use it.  It is apparently like Object3D but simpler, and is a preferred way to group various objects together before adding them to a scene.  In the example I found, one creates meshes, assign each mesh its own position with mesh.position.x = whatever, add the mesh to the group, then at the end add the group to the scene.  The documentation should be updated to have a page on "group" and be sure to add the method "add()" as well as all the relevant attributes and what can be updated.

8. The documentation for mesh does not list such attributes as "position", "rotation" and how to set them (e.g. by setting each parameter individually such as postion.x) or whether they should be (or could be) set with a vector.   There should also be a discussion in this page of what is inherited by higher level objects associated with the mesh (e.g. if the mesh is a part of an object3D or a group, what happens when that object3D or group is rotated, etc).  Although it may seem obvious that the lower level meshes will just inherit the higher level attributes, that is not always the case.  First, it may never be the case with group, in that group may be just a bundle of meshes that do not inherit anything.  Second, in the case of Object3D, some attributes are indeed inherited as you would expect but at least one parameter, "visibility", only sometimes is.  The developers forum goes over in great detail why this exception exists (it has to do with performance issues and the use of WebGL).  But had I been trying to make this work without reading the forum I would have wasted a lot of time.   Had it been in the documentation, it would merely be an annoying exception which one can easily get around.

The following is information that seems plausible but has not been tested by me as of yet.

9. Also from reading the forum, one learns that the various "traverse objects" in Object3D have been renamed.  Again, one would not know that from reading the documentation.  Not tested by me.

10. There is supposedly a scene.remove( object ) function which is the opposite of scene.add (object ).  It is not clear to me whether one can also remove other entities such as lights, groups etc.  It is not clear to me if you can use the undocumented "name" property to find and remove objects.

11. It is said in one of the forums that each Object3D has a "is_ob" flag which when true indicates that this really is an Object3D and that this is necessary when traversing a list of children intending to remove things.  Not tested.

12. In quite a few forum posts, it is implied that Three.js is well integrated into the DOM such that one can do such things as "getElementById" on three.js entities.  Well, if true, it should be documented.

Requests / Suggestions

1. Of course the big issue when something doesn't work is "what happened?".  It would be great if Three.js had a flag that could be enabled that would cause error messages to be output somewhere, presumably the console.

Three.js

http://threejs.org/