Instability: Causing searches for simple answers

     The world is complex. We have a lot of people cohabiting the planet. Everyone has legitimate concerns about having enough food, potable water, shelter, clothing, and that bit extra that makes life enjoyable to keep struggling with the challenges. Everywhere there is change and change is typically scary and a lot of it is not expected to move in an easy direction. It doesn’t appear that there is anyone trying to pave the road ahead before we start moving along.

     This — and a whole lot more — makes the world a stressful place in which to be. It also seems that there are those whose primary motivations are to make things harder and worse. So, it isn’t unreasonable that most of us are frustrated and many of us are angry. How to make things better? How do we keep our families sheltered, fed, clothed, and able to live to our potential?

     Wouldn’t it be lovely if there was a button over on the wall that will cure all problems and make the world a better place? Wouldn’t it be nice if there were simple solutions to our complex problems?

     But yes! There is a magician that exists who can do just that. Problems? Why sure, but they are caused by this group or that group — just get rid of them or severely restrict them and the problems will disappear. Problems with changes to the environment, technology, or work procedure and educational needs? Broadcast (or stream) funny programs, interviews, and programs that will make the magician seem to be the person to be able to easily address such. Better yet, make them all disappear! There are no problems with climate change because the magician says they no longer exist. There is no shift in automation and technology and all existing jobs will forever exist. Existing fossil fuel use does not affect the environment and it will last forever which means we don’t have to find other supplies. A wave of the magician’s wand and you can relax. Just hand over control and she or he, will handle everything. Worries are all gone.

     Doesn’t everyone feel better? And an awful lot of people do feel better — they have handed off responsibility and all will get better and — if it doesn’t — it certainly isn’t their fault. It is certainly tempting. I often spend a few minutes just sitting back and pondering how much easier it would be to hand my conscience and my morals and my general decisions over to another person. (And it is easier — it is just almost never “better”.)

     But, don’t look “behind the curtain”. You don’t want to know what the magician is really doing. You want to believe information that is issued that indicates everything is great again — and those potholes you encountered while driving no longer exist. And mostly — you do NOT want to know what directions the magician is taking things because, unless you are among the lucky and privileged few, things are going to get a lot worse.

     I love democracy but it is a pain in the rear. It takes time to listen to everyone and sit down and decide what meets almost everyone’s needs and, for those whose needs it does not meet, minimizes the negative effects. And, being aware of potential problems, the “Founding Fathers” knew that active participation in democracy requires education and the ability, and urge, to investigate things for oneself. Change is fast. Democracy, and group leadership, is slow.

     If part of the group is working hard to prevent working together, it becomes even slower — too slow. Things will keep getting worse faster than they can be addressed. Yet, there is no way to force those who want to obstruct discussion and avoid decisions to cooperate — that is not the way democracy works. So the magician looks better and better to the general public — and the groups who are obstructing tend to pick the magician that they want you to choose. This is called “populism”. It works well for them. They prevent democracy from working in its normal stumbling fashion and it makes people want the magic solution more and more. It can’t happen here? Unfortunately, it can, and it is happening in many places throughout the world.

     Is there a solution? Keep looking behind the curtain. Keep all the mess and process visible. Keep checking on what is said — especially if it reinforces “what you suspected was true” as it is so much easier to reinforce preconceptions. And be patient with each other and the process. Yes, it is a mess. Yes, it is slow. But yes, it really does have much better long-term results than placing the power in the hands of a magician who has to stay behind the curtain to fool you as to what is happening.

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This Too Shall Pass: Helplessness and Hope

      Everyone is familiar with the old “bell curve”. It is used as an indication of distribution for many different things from school grades, to “IQ”, to the ability to afford housing, and so forth. But, there is another graph that applies to attitudes. I am sure that it has a real name but I will just call it a “fallen cake” model. Although it does not happen often nowadays (does anyone know why?), cake batter within a mold will raise uniformly across the pan and then, because of a strong vibration or other event, the middle can just fall — leaving the edges relatively high with a wide plateau in-between that looks more like a crater. Unlike the bell curve which has its peak in the “center”, a fallen cake model will have two highs — one at each end of the graph.

     The fallen cake provides the shape but not the interpretation. For attitudes on most issues (pick your favorite, or least favorite, one) — there will be a group of people actively supporting the issue and another group actively fighting against the issue. These are the two “humps” at the ends of the horizontal axis. The height of the humps is a reflection of the activity of the group.

     That big flat area in-between are people who are passive. The flat area is almost always a wide area. If the humps are about the same height then they are fairly well matched though the width does come into play as it indicates the number of people in that active group. The shape changes as various factors are involved. Those passive people still make a difference as they still control votes or taxes or other means of input. Both humps will try to make the passive folk amenable to their position. The various “controversies” about issues are indicators of the flux within attitudes.

     Homosexuality, as well as all other folk within the LGBTQIA+ area, is not new. Various accounts have been recorded as far back as there have been written records. The First Nations were well aware of the diversity within humans and celebrated them. In various studies, there have been indications that external factors can affect the numbers in diversity but they are involved with gestation factors and occur before birth. Numbers of such are not zero and never have been and have never been a choice. The width and height of the humps, indicating acceptance or xenophobia, have vacillated throughout history.

    The medical, and recreational, use of marijuana has been reflected in attitudes throughout the past 60 or 70 years. My father talked about usage of marijuana as an ordinary, non-controversial, type of recreational drug within the Navy during deployment in the Korean War. At that point, it was a “who cares” issue. But with political and idealogical involvement, the fallen cake model started mobilizing against usage and, of late (with profit models being developed), for generalized usage once again. On one side are people who don’t think it is an issue with which the government should be involved and on the other side are people who think that all vices should be rigidly controlled. People who profit from the “drug wars” are particularly opposed to legalization.

     The United States is the only “developed” country which does not provide a baseline set of health care services for all citizens. Most countries do have the opportunity to pay for private insurance but such plans are in addition to that provided within their individual universal health care plans. This is very similar to those in the US able to be covered by Medicare, with private insurer “Part B” and “Part D” able to boost your benefits above basic Medicare. Yet, after indication of the majority of the US population indicating a desire to implement Universal Health Care, it continues to face uphill struggles. I talked about this in another blog recently. It fits the fallen cake pattern. There are people actively trying to get the US to provide for Universal Health Care and others who are actively trying to maintain the existing unique for-profit healthcare business model.

     There are many attitudinal issues for which the fallen cake model can be applied — climate change, AI development and ethical issues, the death penalty, mandatory vaccinations, public education, disarmament versus weaponization, participatory democracy versus authoritarianism, and so forth. There are also issues which appear to be “settled” that are actually still part of a fallen cake model and attitudes are still in flux. Many of the social support and movement aspects are in this category. I often place a pin on a history graph, at the point where feudalism started to become less acceptable, as a starting place for improvement on general social issues. As brought out in “The Handmaid’s Tale” attitudes can backslide.

When a person is actively involved with one of these issues, it can feel like

• There is no chance of change in attitudes (completely stable and accepted)

• People will never agree on a new attitude (discouragement)

• Change is “just around the corner” (enthusiasm and exultation)

     The reality is that attitudes change. Attitudes about measurable facts can change. Attitudes about emotional issues can change. What is an accepted situation can become a forbidden situation (and vice versa). Hope for change is always reasonable and apathy about the inability (though not necessarily the difficulty) to change is to be overcome.

     Hope and helplessness can, and do, co-exist.

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A Thought and a Word: Language to its core

     I have always been fascinated by languages (including programming languages). There are a lot of people that have the general feeling that it is “just” a matter of different words, different spellings, perhaps even a different alphabet. Or — for speech — different sounds and combinations that make a different language go together. Certainly the ways that we interact with languages — through the eyes, the ears, through the fingers and touch — are all a part of the distinctiveness of language. And, please, don’t let us forget the languages of art — of music, of sculpture, painting and drawing, photography, weaving, folk art, and all.

     But that is still on the surface. I have delved into more than a half-dozen languages in my life (more than a couple of dozen if you count programming languages), but I cannot claim fluency in any except English. For a single language, English is certainly sufficiently challenging — primarily because English is an absorbing language. If you don’t have a word in English to describe something and another language does have such a word — take it into English and make it part of the language (no promises that pronunciation or spelling will remain intact).

     This is a different approach from that of many languages. German puts two, or more, word building blocks together to expand their language. French monitors general use constantly to maintain an illusion of control over what will be considered to be part of French. Every colonial, or fought-over, region has had the invading language forced upon the people of the region, either blending languages or creating an effectively new “trade” or local dialect.

     I have talked about “if you don’t have a word for something, take it from another language”. Okay. That is what is DONE — but what does that mean?

     Languages are used for communication within a community. Everyday actions and ideas must be able to be expressed. People that live in a desert region will have a different environment affecting their language from those who live in a rainforest. It is also a reflection of the internal community. The peoples who have lived in the Russian region have been long dominated by centralized, authoritarian (and often stratified — layers of “nobility” or privilege) government and bureaucratic structures. The general people have no feeling of control so they don’t DO anything — everything is DONE TO them. In language, this is called a “passive” voice and the Russian language is built upon passivity. It also works both directions — passive in response to the environment and passive in actions because of less of a foundation of thought for active structures.

     People who have vocations, or jobs, as translators are required to pass beyond the point of word-for-word translation. Dictionary word substitutions only get oneself a small way toward expressing oneself in a different language. Professional translators have to absorb the reality that GROUPS of words, in specific CONTEXTS, have particular meanings.

     In all these cases (and more to think about and explore), we have communication between our inner selves and the outside world. Words, lyrics, paintings, are all approximations to expressing ourselves to the outside world and hoping that others will understand what is being expressed. There is a central core concept that is sometimes best expressed in writing and sometimes expressed in song. And, if done in both, they complement one another — both offering more perspectives on an inner reality.

     In the case of translation, the listening to a language brings one close to the central core concepts that are desired to be expressed. The translator then expresses that in a different language. In many ways, artists are translators attempting to bring those core concepts to life and to others’ interpretations as much as possible. The process of translation is the process of “grokking” (deep understanding — read “Stranger In a Strange Land”) the core concepts and expressing them into the same or a different language.

     Can English be translated into English? Absolutely. There are the easy cases of translating a period dialect (“Old English” to modern English) and the more pervasive, and less blatant, act of the creator getting in touch (in whatever manner) with a core concept and then expressing it in their mother tongue. Some languages are best suited for concrete actions, situations, and activities. Such languages (for example, English, Quechua, or Swahili) express doing and existing and interactions (“I read a book today”). Other languages are better suited for emotions — such as the various artistic languages. These are not isolated from one another — prose can express emotion and painting can demonstrate actions, events, and interactions. “A drawing is worth a thousand words.” Is this a saying about the acts of translation?

     Although greatly interested, I have had very little professional experience with natural language processing as done via computational power. However, I would guess that the levels operate in much the same way. Words can translate via online dictionaries. Sentences require a gestalt of the complete thought. And essays require knowledge of history and context. Doing such, we are progressing to the central core concepts. Once obtained to the best of one’s current ability, it is possible to then express those concepts in other languages.

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False Savings: When a Bargain costs you more

     U.S. people love to get “bargains”. Even relatively rich people like to think that they are getting more from their money. But, often, those bargains are just not what people think they are. One example that always comes to mind for me is that of our daughter when she was purchasing perishable vegetables. But three tomatoes for $2 instead of getting a single tomato for a $1. Obviously a bargain — right? But what about if you only eat one tomato out of the three before the other two go bad? You now have paid $2 for one tomato. No longer a bargain is it? Quantities of perishable food is one category of potential false bargains.

     People like to watch movies about wars (that they aren’t part of and don’t have any risks from). Tanks are always a favorite to watch. They’re so big. They obviously show a strong defence don’t they? Well, no — not within the current wars around the world. (I’m sure there are still specialized needs for them.)

     However, the money used to construct them (and store them) are important to local economies (but NOT important to any war/defence budget) — so these end up part of the many “porkbarrel” contracts which inflate the defence department’s budget. (So strange — huge amounts of known waste but “sacred” because they are (inappropriately) associated with “defence”.) This is a category of obsolescent needs.

     People in the US seem to often celebrate their lack of arithmetic skills. Who needs them? We have calculators and Yahoo and all, don’t we? We expect, when we go into a supermarket, that we will get lower prices (per unit) for large quantities in comparison to small quantities. And, most of the time, that will be true. But you have to watch it. A 32 oz. jar at $3 is NOT a bargain in comparison to a 16 oz jar at $1.25. (Another trick, whole numbers seem to be smaller.) How about 16 oz. for $1.25 and a quart at $3? Changing the units (from ounce to quart) is an acceptable ploy to mislead.

     Similar to the tanks above, maybe we just don’t need it? We have walked along in a shopping mall and often encountered a nice briefcase, in a display, for $50. But we don’t really need a briefcase and $50 seems like a lot of money. But, we are used to seeing it and thinking about it. What happens if we come back from work and see the window with a clearance sign saying “$22.50 for briefcase”. We’ve been looking at it for what seems like “forever” and it might not be there soon. So, we buy it. Nice looking briefcase gathering dust in the closet. Did we save $27.50 or spend $22.50? Both, of course — but how many such items of “bargains” do you have hidden away within your house?

     Go down to the local car lot. See that gorgeous truck there in the lot. It has the capacity to carry an entire living room’s worth of furniture just in that truck bed. You lean back and have fantasies of the neighbors all wanting to use it and thinking you are great because you have such a piece of machinery. But, what is reality? How often do you need to haul around a living room’s worth of furniture? For all purposes, how often do you need to haul around something larger, or heavier, than fits into the trunk of your compact car? Our economy loves you for it but buying something that you may use one or two days out of the year is certainly a luxury.

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Silence: A living interval

     As a long time Quaker (or member of the Religious Society of Friends), I have always had an extra awareness of silence, its meaning, and its uses. (Not to say that other, non-Quakers, cannot have similar awareness.) Generally, most people seem to divide silence into “comfortable” silence and “uncomfortable” silence. This is defined by periods when you think someone (perhaps yourself) “should” be speaking but aren’t — and periods when it is mutually felt that there is nothing that needs to be said. But silence can also be used as an active part of communication especially when elements exist which do not have the capacity for traditional speech — nature, God, the ill, and so forth.

     Although Quakers have experienced the same types of divisions of perspective and practice as most religions of the world have, there is usually some period, within the time set aside for worship, where there is a general silence. Some people within the Quaker community call the silent periods within worship — “expectant worship”. I prefer to call it a “living silence”.

     Believing that there is an ongoing connection to something beyond us (the exact word is not that important — God, Holy Spirit, Allah, Mother Earth, …) we sit in silence to try to listen to that which is unsaid. Some people do the same thing within an informal situation where they stroll through the woods and listen for something within themselves or, perhaps, outside of themselves. It is likely a part of a person’s spirituality but it does not necessarily have to be part of any organized religion.

     It does not always work. It requires “centering” by most of the people within the group. This centering closes the door to everyday concerns — did I lock the car, will I get the project done in time, I must remember to get milk on the way home, … The centering can also be blocked by feelings of urgency prompted by world, local, or personal events. Connection to that something else must be allowed to happen within its own time scale; it cannot be rushed. Perhaps not “real” but I have felt a sort of “electricity” in the air within the group on those occasions when the centering does work. It is a feeling that the connection is real, and active, and can lead you to wherever you need to go.

     Sometimes, it really doesn’t work. We call those “popcorn meetings” where people pop up to say something that they feel they just MUST say at the moment and then, after sitting back down, someone else “pops up” either to contribute something new and different or to comment upon previous spoken worship. Without the time to renew centering, it is doubtful (though not impossible) whether such continued messages come from anything other than our own everyday ponderings (though those ponderings may be acute and profound).

     In modern society, many (probably most) are uncomfortable with silence. Conversations are filled with”small talk” or — worse — absent minds pecking at their smartphones. I think that it is likely that the difficulty with silence is closely related to the shift in attention span to shorter and shorter intervals between “actions”.

     Drink eight glasses of water. Learn to breathe properly. Keep your back straight in the chair. And — to be added — learn to love, cherish, and appreciate the silence around you.

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Perspective: Minimized or Exaggerated?

     Over in a small city in Spain, the children of the house head out to walk to a local playground to be with their friends. Their parents do not spend their time fantasizing disaster and worrying about their safety. All is as it should be — children are being children and the adults are doing what they need to do for themselves and family. Now jump across the ocean to a small town in the United States. A child decides that they want to go to the playground to play. They ask their parents but the parents are distracted and do not reply so the child leaves a note. Soon, the parent notices they are gone and reads the note. Immediately, they panic. They call the police telling them of their plight. On the way to the playground, a neighbor sees the child walking along the sidewalk without accompaniment, and they call the police to report neglect and endangerment. The child must remain under the “umbrella” of their parents’ control and fear or the parents may have problems.

     Is there a danger? Certainly. Life is uncertain. They may trip on the sidewalk and hit their head. A stranger may drive along and decide that this child should not be permitted sweet dreams and should live through nightmares. A meteorite may fall from the sky, striking the child. They might make it to the playground and, in spite of great efforts to remove all equipment on which they might get hurt, fall off and break an arm.

     Is the potential danger different between that city in Spain and that small town in the US? Maybe a bit but not much. Children do the same types of things all over the world. There are good people and bad people in every country and of every background. People talk about the “good old days” of the 1950s or 1960s when everything was safer and they could just walk to school or go to the playground without any cares. Is the potential danger very different between the 1950s and the 2020s?

     It is probably a bit more dangerous now than it was — but it’s because of population growth, traffic, climate change, pollution, and such. Children are more likely to develop breathing problems because of increased pollution or have greater health problems because of factory food production or pollutants and contaminants. They have a higher chance of being hit by a car because there are more cars on the road. There are more people with mental problems on the streets because the US decided to save money by getting rid of the public hospitals and sanitariums and release them to roam rather than working with them to improve their situation.

     But, at the core, it isn’t much different now from that which it was back “then”. So, why do we have all of these “helicopter” parents — and an attitude from others that demands that they BE “helicopter” parents (or else …).

Perspective..

     One of the big changes over the years, especially in the US but somewhat contagious to the rest of the world is that journalism has declined while infotainment has risen greatly. Journalism is concerned with facts (possibly commented upon or even extrapolated from). Infotainment is concerned with presenting information to people such that they are interested and will continue to pay attention in order to sell advertising. The information may be factual or it may be invented. It is possible for infotainment to include factual research that meets journalistic standards — but that is not a requirement.

     There have always been media stories (newspapers, television, …) that have been more for public interest than because people really need to know. Sometimes coverage of a remote disaster or a family in trouble can bring people together to be their best selves and provide assistance as they can. But when a terrible thing happens to a child 1500 miles away it is a tragedy — a local, isolated tragedy. One child out of 335 million people. Is your child likely to encounter a similar situation? No. But it is always possible to win a lottery and it is always possible that it could be your child hitting that one out of a 335 million people situation. No one wants their child to be that child.

     But in Spain dangers are considered a part of life. In the 1950s USA, dangers were considered to be a part of life. Today, we are often presented with tragedies and problems around the country and world — but, to make it more urgent locally and of greater importance for watchability, it gets lost that this is happening to one out of 335 million (or, globally, 8.05 billion). Danger SEEMS much more likely and, thus, we must hover, we must distrust, we must keep our illusion of control. We have lost perspective. And politicians love fear as they can so easily manipulate people who are angry or fearful.

Perspective can also be minimized.

     The opposite can also occur. An unjustifiable shooting of a minority person occurs and it gets reported. However, there are many more that are NOT reported. If the infotainment media decides that people do not want to see this, or their owners do not want people to see this, then it can be de-emphasized. They may declare it to be a solitary event when it is really something that happens much more often. A journalistic approach would make it clear that this is a single reported occurrence from a pool of many actual occurrences. An infotainment approach is concerned with presenting what their viewers want to see — whether it is appropriately shown or not.

     Why does the infotainment approach maintain and grow? Money. Many people want to be scared, they want to watch hours-long police chases of people in cars, they want to have scapegoats or feel more fortunate than others. Not all, perhaps not even a majority — but enough to keep the owners of infotainment media away from the factual journalistic approach.

     My grandmother used to hand out homemade donuts to trick-or-treaters. My aunt made huge popcorn balls to hand out. In 1968, it was reported — the media inundated with — a story about razor blades found in apples. Was it true? Maybe — but there was never reported health damage from such. But, in 1969 trick-or-treaters would no longer take my grandmother’s donuts. She cried about it. Record profits boomed for candy manufacturers. There are periodically other isolated events forced into people’s awareness about Halloween treats. But it is more of an illusion that the old magician’s tricks at a birthday party. Certainly horribly out of perspective.

     People can demand journalistic integrity by not giving money towards those media without it. But will they? It does not look good.

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Feedback: Needed for Everything and Everybody

     There are non-technical synonyms for the word, or expression, “feedback” but it provides a good term to use in many different situations. More precise terms may need to be used in physics but in social situations it works quite well. I do, or say, something and you respond (or the environment responds) in accordance with what I have done or said. Sometimes the connection between action and response is unclear and sometimes the response, or feedback, is prolonged or delayed but — when it does occur then that it is feedback that occurs.

     It can be said that it is the feedback that is the principal desire. If I get something back that I do not like, or is not what I expected, then that tells me that I said, or did, something poorly. I need to change my actions to obtain the desired feedback. The actions, in themselves, don’t actually do anything. I can smile broadly in the middle of a forest and, without others around to react, I am basically just exercising the facial muscles needed to perform the smile. I can sing at the seaside with no one near and it will bother nobody (I used to be a good singer but, without practice and over time, I am not sure I can make that claim anymore). Or within the realm of mechanics (which is not a focus of this newsletter), pressing on an accelerator does nothing unless it is connected to something that will increase, or lessen, the amount of fuel entering the motor system. Pushing down on the accelerator has no use in itself — it is what it triggers that is of importance.

     Feedback is an intrinsic part of learning. During Machine Learning or Generative AI training, feedback is a constant, vital, aspect of the process. The system has no inherent knowledge of good/bad, true/false, beneficial/destructive. But, as it receives feedback about the results created from input, it can learn. It can also learn incorrectly. If it is told that something is true when it is actually false then, once trained, it will not be reliable to give correct responses. This is the primary reason why any AI system has to be trained by people — and why it is mandatory that any input is validated for accuracy and facts.

     Inaccurate feedback can create alternate worlds — and not just for Machine Learning or Generative AI. The novel “1984” by George Orwell shows what can happen when history becomes malleable — changeable at will. Once again, this indicates the need for feedback based on accuracy and facts. (“Truth” is more a part of philosophy as it depends on history, point-of-view, and access to information. “Facts” are observable and recordable — though such documentation must be precise and detailed.)

     Feedback is a vital aspect of education in general. During the recent pandemic, many colleges and universities who were not already experienced in remote learning panicked and tried this or that peculiar approach to remote learning. Many failed. The mathematics department of a local community college back in Maryland decided that their biggest concern during remote education was cheating. Their answer? Don’t give tests back, don’t review tests for right and wrong answers — eliminate feedback. One of my sons had to take a course three times before passing — because, without feedback, it is impossible to learn. He was the one who had to repeat the class but the community college was the entity that FAILED in its duty to teach. This failure on the part of the college carried over when presented to a university that had the illogical premise that it is the student’s fault if they have to take a course over. It would have been better to have given our children a sabbatical from school until post-pandemic times.

     Feedback can take many forms. It may be a physical reaction or a verbal one. It may take place in the absence of approval — implying disapproval. Note that explicit feedback is always to be favored as there will be times when most people will not be able to interpret implied feedback correctly — and some (especially those with poor social skills and abilities) cannot interpret implied feedback at all. Some justify implied negative feedback by saying it is “nicer” and “more polite” but, if interpreted correctly, there is no difference to the recipient. And, if not interpreted correctly by the recipient, it causes more confusion and problems. The only advantages about the implied negative feedback is that it allows the giver an attempt to deflect any discomfort for giving the feedback.

     At base, feedback enables potential directed change. Without feedback, change can only be random. Feedback is needed for education — with education being defined as adding new verifiable knowledge and the ability to add new verifiable knowledge. Feedback is needed for healthy social relationships. Feedback is also needed for physical/mechanical actions.

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Inclusion: Are there any downsides to including everyone?

     A business (AA) sells products. Because of the views of the owner of the company, they decide that they will only sell to 40% of the possible clientele. Another business (BB) is willing to sell to everyone without restriction. Which business do you think will do better?

     A development company (CC) decides they will only hire people who meet a specific set of criteria. Only about 40% of the possible new hires meet this set of criteria. Another development company (DD) interviews everyone to see if they will add value to the company. Which company is most likely to bring new, well designed, products to the marketplace?

     The above scenarios are simple ones. Yet they are the scenarios that most often apply when people try to push for exclusion policies. Inclusive policies for hiring and selling make better products and better profits. I cannot think of any situation where a company benefits from not selling to people who can afford, and properly use, their product.

     Ah, but some of those being excluded for employment are not as “good’ as those who are being included in company AA or BB. Really? Is there a way to prove this if they are not included? Actually, there is. Have companies of the nature of AA or CC in the marketplace. Have companies of the nature of BB or DD competing in the marketplace. Which ones do better overall? If AA/CC companies do better then exclusion works best. If BB/DD companies do better then inclusion works best.

     So, what is the answer? I have no facts at my fingertips to back up an answer so I cannot say “See! This answer is obvious” (though I do have my strong opinion based on profit patterns that changed during the 1960s and 1970s as segregation was reduced). But, I don’t need to prove one answer over another. The market will do it.

     Why would there ever be a desire to force the issue? To say “yes, you shall include”. Well, humanity has a long history of not doing what benefits them if it conflicts with the status quo. That is, people and companies really dislike change, in general. Policies that mandate inclusion (or exclusion) put all companies “on a level playing field”. If the policy proves beneficial, it continues. If the policy proves non-beneficial it may change (with the strong attraction of the status quo still in effect).

     Ah, but how can a company be proven to be inclusive? A typical method is via quotas. If 20% of the population has characteristics G, then the company should have 20% of its employees with characteristics G. And that has problems — for the person hired and for the people not hired. How can it be proven that the person hired is truly qualified (even “best” qualified) for the job? As it is, it really cannot and that is the semi-rational excuse (it is still often really based on historical beliefs about qualifications rather than true qualifications) for bitterness from the not-hired.

     So, do “blind hiring”. Real names are hidden from the interviewer (because they often give hints about ethnicity/”race”/gender). Live interviews happen via web interviews with no video and disguised speech. Eliminate identifying aspects as much as possible. There still may be aspects such as speech patterns, familiarity with the interview language, and so forth that cannot be obscured — but the interviewer would have to work hard to get past the blinds. Elimination of passive bias can be greatly reduced.

     What about after-hiring? Promotions? People in powerful groups, etc.? If you can get rid of the bias at the hiring point then it is reasonable that the same percentages should maintain as one goes through the corporate structure. If they do not, there is likely to be active biases and prejudices involved.

     What about there still being fewer people in certain groups being hired? Isn’t a quota still necessary? Otherwise, won’t the composition of levels in society stay stagnant and less-represented groups stay that way? It is possible to do it without quotas but it may take decades or generations for underlying social inequities to change. Doing it with quotas, blind hiring can still enforce the concept of qualified hires but it can still create bad feelings within those who were previously preferred.

     Is there a complete answer? On selling to — yes. On employment, not with society the way it presently is. The status quo always means that some do better and some do worse — and those who do better will struggle to remain in that situation.

     And there probably is not an answer to that. We do not have a perfect world or perfect people in it.

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Income Inequality: The Nitty Gritty, bad for the economy, bad for society

     At this point, almost everyone has heard about income inequality. It seems that income inequality defines itself in the very name. A few have a lot and a lot have very little.

     In the United States, income inequality increased through the “roaring 20s” and culminated in the Great Depression — which affected people throughout the world. In the US, the “Dustbowl” was a secondary factor which made the effects of the Great Depression even worse. One targeted the overlying economic system and the second targeted the underlying ability to produce food and other necessities.

     Once the Great Depression hit, it was a matter of figuring out how to allow the greatest number of people to survive. Horrible as it was, it did force the population and the government to stand back and look at what had been happening to have the country come to this position and to put so many people into such desperate situations. “Sacred cows” — things that “had always been such” came under questioning. Perhaps “just because they had “always” been done that way” was no longer a sufficient reason to do that.

Root Causes of the Great Depression

     Folks who know a lot more about history, and economics, than I do have split the root causes of the Great Depression into five areas.

1. Vulnerabilities due to Massive Events. For the 1920s, this was the effects of World War I; it involved changing global trade agreements, war debt, and job displacement due to casualties in the war. In the present period, the global pandemic initiated situations very similar to that of the WW I.
   

2. Financial Speculation by those that had large “footprints” in the global stock markets. There were very few regulations on the banks or investors and the actions of a very few people caused a ripple effect, and panic, through the economy. After reversing many of the safeguards instigated in the recovery from the Great Depression, we are once again vulnerable to financial speculation. In addition, the US government concept of “too big to fail” (TBTF) encourages large businesses to do unsafe, even foolish, things.
   

3. Shortly before the Great Depression, the “Fed” decreased the money supply and greatly increased interest rates. This occurred because of panic moves by the controllers of the Fed. Hopefully, this is one factor that will not come into play at this time — but with oligarchic influence it cannot be certain.
   

4. The Wall Street collapse influenced people to purchase gold with their currency. The Fed then increased interest rates to “protect” the value of US currency which led to a further economic slowdown.
   

5. The Smoot-Hawley Act. This Act, initiated before the crash, but signed after the crash, increased US tariffs an average of 16 percent. This was responded to by other countries increasing tariffs and inflation roared, the value of the dollar decreased, and global market chaos ensued.

     In summary, the Fed has a good deal of influence. As long as they maintain independence from large businesses and wealthy people (and have competent people in charge) then that should act as a safety cushion. But the increasing oligarchy puts this into jeopardy. Also, the concentration of wealth into the hands of the few, with fewer and fewer restrictions on businesses and wealthy individuals, easily transform small errors into large problems. Once again, the increasing income inequality brings this into question. Finally, it is normal that there is a reaction to every action (Newton’s laws apply to many areas) — and tariffs for control are likely to result with tariffs in reciprocal.

Putting All the Eggs into One Basket

     There are still some safeguards in place from the post Wall Street collapse/Great Depression days. Hopefully, they are still sufficient to avoid the “domino effect” that was a strong factor in the Wall Street crash of 1929. People who watch the stock market have probably noticed that the stock market has been “frozen” a few times over the past few years once certain criteria have been met — those instances are the safeguards at work. But, with the current oligarchic Executive Branch (including Cabinet) there is no guarantee that features protecting the general populace will stay in place.

     Still, even if safeguards prevent the domino effect, income inequality is still like putting all of your eggs in one basket. Let’s say that the eggs in your local coop number 100 per day. If the number goes to 75, or below, then it causes problems in being able to meet commitments to people buying your eggs. If one person owns 25 eggs, three own 10 each, five own 2 each, twenty-five own 1 each, and sixty-six own the remaining 20 then you have to keep your fingers crossed that the mega egg-carrier doesn’t trip and fall.

     Perhaps that may be a silly example — but our economy is such that large shifts can have extra large effects and if only a few people are needed to make those large shifts all by themselves, then we have a dangerous situation.

A Dam in the Flow of Money

     A very small minority of economists still think that “trickle-down” economics has positive value; this is an argument for keeping, or increasing, income inequality. But the great majority acknowledges that this does not work. Perhaps “splash-over” will occur as the ultra wealthy hire masses of people at minimum wage to build their personal equivalent of a pyramid. But that helps very few — and mostly gets distributed to those at the lowest economic ladder.

     IF that huge pool of money retained by the ultra-rich gets dispersed throughout the economy then the economy still flows — though there is still no “trickle-down” effect. But that isn’t what happens. It is retained and, based on current rules (or lack of rules) on capitalism is able to “earn” more money by being available to other businesses and earning interest and capital gain. But it is not available for general people to exchange for goods and services. One person making larger purchases that do not always flow back into the general economy or ninety-nine people making purchases that do flow back into the general economy. Which is better?

Regulated Capitalism Works for All

     The economic system of capitalism works because it works with people as they are — not with how we wish they were. Many people are greedy. Most people want a direct correlation between their work and what they get back from the work. The book “Animal Farm” by George Orwell does a great job, in my opinion, of describing the problems that exist when an economic, and societal, utopia is attempted with people as they are. While most people would wish that people would be “better”, wishing doesn’t help a lot.

     I look at it as over a long period. Are people, in general, better off now than they were 500 years ago? Certainly they live longer, are healthier, and have access to facilities that would not have been dreamed of 500 years ago. There are some negative effects also; the direct connection to the land for most people has been lost and that may be lamented. All in all, in general (and that is always needed to be kept in mind as there are almost always exceptions) we treat each other better and live better now than back then.

     But, people are people. Capitalism may work because it works with people as they are — but that doesn’t mean that letting them move along freely works the best. Greed can be good as it motivates — unrestrained greed creates social problems, breaks “free market” restraints on how competition works, and creates income inequality. Unrestrained business practices can abuse the general workers, destroy the environment, and warp priorities around the specific businesses.

     People need money (or the equivalent of money) for basic needs. Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” lists the layers of physiological (food and clothing), safety (job security), love and belonging needs (friendship), esteem, and self-actualization. These are listed in the order of first needed. Everyone needs food and clothing (and shelter and other physical requirements). Those are necessary before the next step — security in being able to keep those items. And that is necessary before beneficial social interaction.

     But, a strange thing exists — well, not really strange but rarely pointed out. Money is needed for physical needs. Stability of income to provide for those physical needs comes next but as we ascend the “pyramid” of Maslow’s needs, there is less and less need for money. Assuming that Maslow’s pyramid of needs is correct and reflects reality, then money is superfluous beyond a certain point — it may even be counter-productive. So, restraint on greed within capitalism both allows a larger number of people to meet their needs (and preserve a healthier society) and may be of general benefit to the people whose greed is restrained. A progressive income tax, in conjunction with strong unions (which strive to balance the needs of those within companies), works to achieve that result.

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Unwrapped: Scaling of actions and things

     I used to love watching a program called “Unwrapped” (the fact that it was hosted by a Marc Summers (no relation that I know of) didn’t hurt). The program (available via some streaming services) took the viewer into the factory to see how some everyday household, or food, item was produced to be able to sell it, and distribute it, nationwide or even globally. (There was also an Unwrapped 2.0 which I never saw.)

     I have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe — it comes from a Mennonite cookbook “More-With-Less Cookbook”. It requires a number of ingredients (surprise!). A cup of this, a teaspoon of that, 2 eggs, and so forth all get blended into the dough before it gets put into the oven. It takes a while to put together and doing it well takes practice. But, anyone can do it in their kitchen with the right tools and ingredients.

     Let’s ramp up “one level”. Now I would be cooking for 200 people at a food kitchen for the homeless. My recipe makes about four dozen. Saying two cookies a person, I would want to make about 400 cookies or about 8 times the recipe. Every cup becomes a half gallon. Two eggs increases to 16, and a teaspoon becomes about 2 2/3 tablespoons. This is a lot of material to work with but the biggest adjustment is with the tools. larger bowls are necessary and it is no longer possible to do all the mixing by hand (my sons still can’t understand why I mix by hand — but I like the tactile feedback of doing it by hand). Larger pans are also needed and a second oven would be very useful.

     The program “Unwrapped” takes this scaling a huge number of an increase. A cookie factory may make 40,000 cookies a day. If they used my recipe (unlikely, but not impossible) each cup would increase to 50 gallons. They would be using 1600 eggs (around 17 gallons), and the teaspoon would increase to 800 teaspoons (about 17 cups or a bit more than 2 gallons). European recipes use weights for much of a recipe and, perhaps, that might make more sense to many of you — but I am used to the US measurement system (though it does make scaling numbers harder).

     At any rate, for 40,000 cookies a day the standard mixing and baking processes are no longer adequate. Huge industrial mixers are needed along with pipelines filled with powders and liquids. Ovens turn into line ovens where a continuous stream of unbaked cookies are deposited on a conveyer belt and pop out of the other end of the very long (perhaps 50 feet or more) oven baked. Decorations require special mass tools. Of course, for this scale, one is also dealing with packaging and distribution — but I’m not going to tackle that here. (I think logistics — making everything occur as it needs to happen — is fascinating, and we all make use of it every day — but that is still not today’s topic).

     So far, we have only worked with the process of expansion. We have not looked at all the ramifications — or consequences — of this ramping up. We have to have herds of dairy cows and daily deliveries. Trucks of sugar are needed to put into the storage bins and pipelines. Acres of fields are needed to grow the spices, wheat, cocoa, and the various other ingredients.

     Say that we shift from cookies to loaves of bread. Recipes vary but 4 cups of flour in a loaf of bread is not unreasonable. The population of the US is presently about 335 million. Let’s just say (for estimates sake) that each person eats the equivalent of 1/4 loaf of bread per day (it may be in the form of pita, or tortillas, or whatever). That becomes 84 million loaves of bread per day. 84 million loaves boosts the number of cups of flour back to that 335 million cup level. That ends up at about 92 million pounds of flour. Each bushel of wheat produces around 50 pounds of flour. There are about 37 bushels of wheat produced per acre (on average). 92 million pounds of flour becomes 1,840,000 bushels which are produced from 49,730 acres of wheat. Almost 50,000 acres of wheat are needed per day to meet US needs for that 1/4 loaf per person.

     In the US, 55.9 million acres (approximately) of land are devoted to wheat farming. In a year, about 18 million (50,000 times 365.25) of those acres translates to 1/4 loaf of bread for each person for each day of the year. We use wheat for other than just bread and we also feed grain (more likely corn but wheat is not impossible) to animals. Some of the statistics I have read indicate that we use about 4/5 of the wheat grown internally and export the remaining 1/5.

     Is your mind overwhelmed by the effects of scaling? Mine certainly is.

     I have used an innocuous, everyday, item to illustrate the effects of scaling. However, scaling applies to everything. With 335 million people in the US and about 8 billion on the planet. Everything we do becomes part of something much, much, larger. 25 pounds of trash per week per household becomes around 2,500,000,000 pounds of trash per week for the US. One vote expands into part of a block of millions of people. One new pair of shoes per person per year gives us 335 million new pairs of shoes per year in the US.

     There is a saying that is attributed to a First Nation that one should always “tread lightly upon the earth”. This is maintaining an awareness of what we do and how it scales if everyone does it. (There is another saying that says we should “look at the effects to the seventh generation” — saying that our decisions affect the future and we should keep that in mind.) We may say, “oh my part of this is so small it doesn’t make a difference”. But, with scaling, it does.

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Normal: Each person has their own definition

     It isn’t unusual for someone to say “that’s normal” or “that’s not normal”. But what do they really mean by that? What is this standard of normal to which they are comparing to whatever it is that they are noticing? “Normal” is what is normal to the person doing the perception. If I see something that would be something that is normal to me, then I might say “that looks normal”. It is possible that, if I know the other person well enough to know their regular habits, I might still say “that looks normal” even though it might not be normal for me. In whatever manner, the word “normal” will not have a single definition.

     Each person has their own “rituals”. This doesn’t necessarily mean religious behaviors (though it might). For example, I get up in the morning, use the restroom, inspect (and usually have to clean) the kitchen, get caught up with mail and social media, get hot tea and breakfast for my wife, and then do my morning language lessons (currently Spanish). And on it goes. But that schedule may seem extraordinary, strange, or peculiar to someone else.

     Our personal definition is based from our own histories. If I grew up as an orphan, I would have a different baseline from someone growing up in a “nuclear” family. Each would consider their own life to be normal — and the other person’s life something about which one might read in a book. If I was home-schooled, I would avoid certain experiences that someone attending a public, or “private”, school would expect to be as a part of their day. The other people of the household would have their own routines which interact with everyone else’s. And this combination will become unique for each person.

     Much of the time, these activities done by all the people interacting together are innocuous. But not necessarily. Alas, a child who grows up in a household in which they, or other members of the household, are abused in some manner will also consider that behavior to be “normal”. Unless corrected in their perceptions, they will grow up to consider the behavior as “something that everyone does and may have happen to them”. So, it is completely natural if they perpetuate the behavior with the people in their later-formed household. They would not consider it to be “abuse” — they would consider it to be “normal”.

     People are also influenced by their environment. On an island of Hawai’i, a school child may find it normal to go swimming, or surfing, on their way to, or from, school. That would certainly not occur to an Inuit who might be walking home across the snow and packed ice. Of course, since I grew up in a different environment from either of these children, I don’t really know what they would do or what they would each consider to be normal.

     Within the US, income class will make a huge difference between what is considered normal for a person. It will make a difference elsewhere in the world also but it may be cross-referenced with another social system such as caste or level of nobility. The behaviors, and expectations, within that group will seem “normal” to those who live within it — and the behaviors of those outside of that group will either be elevated or denigrated depending on perspective about those outside of the group.

     Although “rags to riches” stories do exist, it causes internal strain, and strains within relationships, when a person moves from one segment of society to another — even if they have “risen” in level. And it is very difficult for a person in one societal segment to truly represent, or understand, other segments because they live within different normalities and have very little insight into that of other segments.

     While it somewhat depends upon physical and cultural environment, people will do different activities. These activities will be different based on their histories, what resources are available, and their interests. Surfing, ice fishing, going to a mall — normal to the person doing it and, perhaps, quite exotic to someone else. A normal activity to one person may seem exotic to another.

     A child growing up in a war zone is in constant flux. There is little they can rely upon. Their house may be gone the next day — or a parent or sibling. There is no security possible. A child goes to school one day and is a refugee the next. This high aspect of instability must affect the perspective, and behavior, of the child. But it would still be normal to them. In older days of medicine — and still in too many segments of the world society — a large percentage of children died before they were a couple of years old. It was sad for all, but expected and “normal”.

     In my household a number of years ago, we adopted (or she adopted us) a cat from an animal shelter. We did not see her much for the first three weeks after we brought her to our house as she immediately ran for the back of our refrigerator as soon as we released her from the carrier. She did eat, and drink, as such resources would disappear overnight — but she had a huge readjustment to her own personal “normal”. I am sad to say that, after ten years with us, some of her baseline characteristics were still present.

     “All the world is a stage and we are only players”. A rich, well-nourished, male child in a stable city with easily accessible parents will absorb a very different normal from that of a poor, malnourished, female child surviving in a war zone.

     It is a cliché to say “walk a mile in another’s moccasins — yet it is still true that everyone has their own individual “normal”. We may have judgements on the other normals but they may have arguments, of equal weight from their points of view. of “incorrectness” of your own behavior.

     As long as the thoughts, behaviors, and actions do not impinge upon another’s ability to follow their own normal, it is best to just recognize that each person is unique and what is normal for them is what they expect to do.

     “Normality” only exists as a unique attribute that applies to each of us.

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Universal HealthCare: A Capitalist viewpoint

     People in the United States, in general, don’t know much about economics. Upon graduation from high school, they often don’t know anything about credit ratings (and how they affect people), how to create and follow a budget, the difference between simple and compound interest, and so forth. Some people occasionally launch memes or threads talking about how schools should have a mandatory course called “Life” that teaches basic economics, basic cooking, basic laundry, basic childcare, and so forth. I think that is a great idea — but that’s not the way it currently is.

     In spite of the active use, in conversations, of the words “socialism”, or “communism”, or other political/economic system — people in the United States, in general, know even less about them than they do capitalism. They just make good scare words to toss about.

Some Basic Aspects of Capitalism

     People in the United States come to know something about capitalism because they are surrounded by it every day. They learn some the first time they get a job — or pay taxes. They learn some the first time they try to rent an apartment. They learn some the first time they run out of money before the end of the month. All of these situations are the “hard way to learn” — and why the potential “Life” course makes so much sense. But, at the end of it all, people in the United States do learn about the aspects of capitalism which affect them in their day-to-day lives.

     That does NOT mean that people in the United States all know all of the aspects of capitalism. People running businesses have knowledge of additional areas than those known by ordinary consumers. CPAs and tax lawyers know more about accounting-related aspects of capitalism. But there are aspects of capitalism (which is currently tightly coupled with consumerism) that most people just don’t think about, or understand, because they only affect them “behind the scenes”. Some of those “behind the scenes” activities affect people in external ways such as “inflation” — and the lack of understanding is taken advantage of by politicians.

     But this is not an economics course — and I am not an economist. I am just someone who is curious about, and questions, just about everything I encounter in life (which can be extremely annoying to those close to me <smile>).

     One of the basics of capitalism is the concept of “profit”. A profit is created when something is sold for more than it costs to create/excavate/manipulate it. It costs me $5 to make a widget. I sell the widget for $7 and I make $2 profit. Capitalism strives to make greater and greater profits — either by selling more or by making the difference between creation cost and selling price larger. Those profits go to various entities — employees, management, benefits, pension plans, stockholders, executives (separated from management because their situation is manipulated differently by governing boards and competition at the executive level), and so forth.

     A “non-profit” company differs from a “for-profit” company in that there is, officially, no difference between incoming money and costs for all that is needed to provide the product/service. It is not actually as different from “for-profit” as one might think — in order to be non-profit, all incoming monies must be spent and that extra money may go to larger employee/management/executive salaries, perks, and bonuses or it can be spent for more services (more wells for potable water to more people?). The money which would be called profits, and potentially distributed to stockholders, is absorbed into the daily workings/expenses of the company. A non-profit company is inherently a private company with no stockholders. That is the primary difference to people who interact with such companies.

     In the case of a charitable non-profit, it is important to know where that money goes. Sites like Charity Navigator can help donors know how much is really going to help people versus how much is being kept within the company.

A for-profit company will increase profits by:

• Increasing the number of sales

• Increasing the difference between cost to provide and price to acquire. They do this by:

  • Increasing the price to be charged for sales AND / OR

  • Decreasing the cost of the item/service to be provided

Capitalism as Applied to the Current US Healthcare System

     Now that we have a basic idea of how capitalism works, lets examine the current workings of the United States’ unique form of healthcare. As one of many for-profit companies, it will want to increase profits in the manner described above. In the US, there are multiple companies that compete to provide healthcare which reduces the number of potential customers/patients for each company. Unlike customers for other products, each customer comes with a certain amount of statistically-likely amount of services to be needed. Each company will want to attract the customers for which they will make the largest profit — charge the most and give back, in service, the least. In the near past, that could lead to the reality that NO company would want to provide service to a likely low-profit individual. The “Affordable Care Act” (ACA) addressed this in part, mandating that some form of medical care would be provided for each person who applied — if not within existing private for-profit companies then within existing government administered healthcare.

     The other aspects of for-profit healthcare still largely exist independent of the existence of the ACA. Each company will try to provide the least amount, or least expensive, form(s) of service. Each company will try to charge the most for the least service. The formulas become so complicated, and difficult for the general consumer to understand, that it is not surprising that many “throw up their hands” and just pick the healthcare option that, on the surface, seems to be most appropriate, and valuable, based on their individual circumstances.

     The advantage of this situation, within the US capitalistic society, is that stockholders can invest and expect large returns — basically a transfer of money from the pockets of the served to those who have invested in the companies.

     It has another advantage to the executives of stockholder-owned companies in the way that executives obtain their salary/perk/bonus/severance packages. For public stock-providing companies (not just healthcare), in spite of stockholders having some control (usually unused), the governing boards decide these financial aspects and they have incentives to keep it as high as possible. The primary one is “bragging rights”. Very expensive executives must be worth it, or they wouldn’t be paid such, right? That is the assumption, and governing boards use that assumption to justify increasing amounts.

     It is extremely strange if one steps back from the situation. They are “worth more” because they are paid more — and they are paid more because it gives external companies/stockholders/people the feeling that they must be worth more. Whether they truly are worth these extremely large financial packages is a matter of opinion. Their financial packages certainly raise the prices of services/products produced by the company.

Capitalism as Applied to Universal Healthcare

     We have seen that aspects of private multiple for-profit healthcare are strongly against the benefit of the customers (patients). Why is a centrally administered universal healthcare better for the customers (patients)? Note that this could still be a non-governmental non-profit company. However, the administration of the medical system by existing sections of the government is also possible — and might be easier than setting up a new non-profit. It is essentially still following the capitalist formula.

     A Universal HealthCare system doesn’t have to keep track/authorize use of healthcare. Some ID is still needed to make sure all providers get the money they deserve for providing their share of the services needed by the patient but many aspects of authorization and benefit calculation/matching becomes moot — no need of that extra overhead (which amounts to a very large amount of time, money, and frustration within the US system). Imagine a doctor saying you need something and not having a need to check through your insurance policy to see if it is covered!

     A Universal Healthcare does not have to be concerned about short-term, or long-term, profits. All decisions can be made based upon the needs of the patients. If the cost of services rise (averaged from the needs of a very large number of people) then the price to the consumers goes up — whether it is provided directly by the customers (patients) or whether it is provided through their tax money funneled through the government.

     A Universal Healthcare still has employees/service-providers/management & executives. But there is no platform for justifying huge packages for executives.

     All-in-all, staying within the capitalist political/economic system, a Universal Healthcare lowers the cost to the customer (patient). It lowers overhead, it provides a direct connection between services provided and cost, and it eliminates very large executive packages. This is true no matter what entity provides the services — a non-profit company outside of the government or a non-profit company run within the government structure.

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What's Happened to our Educational System (cont'd)?: Quantitative vs Qualitative

      All parents want their children to attend “good” schools. “Good” or “bad” is an answer to a set of questions that we would like to have quantifiable. And that isn’t easy to do. In the first place, all schools do not teach the same things. Secondly, they may not all evaluate the students’ progress in the same manner or use the same scales. Lastly, there are many types of educational achievements and many of them do not have “scores” associated with them.

     So, it was “decided” (in a rather arbitrary manner), in the US, to make schools comparable. Require schools to teach the same materials, in the same ways, and evaluated in the same way. And just eliminate (from the scoring at least — possibly completely from the curriculum) all of those “messy” areas that are difficult to assign numerical evaluations to. “Messy” areas like art, music, physical education, creative writing, and such. In addition, there are many “messy” areas that CAN be evaluated to a score but, in order to do such, much time and effort is needed. Such areas include non-fiction essays, book reports, topical research papers, and such.

     The “No Child Left Behind” Act had admirable goals but, in order to achieve much of it, all schools needed to be comparable. Doing such required the above methods. Teachers had to start “teaching to the test”. Things that would be on the standardized national tests were important to know — everything else was not.

     “No Child Left Behind” still might have worked — but not in conjunction with reduced resources and exploding class sizes. (I think around 12 to 15 students per teacher would be optimum — but those numbers are certainly up for debate.) The quantifiable “teaching to the test” stuff could be a part of the day’s curriculum. But most of the time should be devoted to material that fosters the creative, analytical, and investigative sides of their education.

     The “whats” and “whens” have become even less important in these days of information access. It is those “hows” and “whys” (and whether it is true or not) that humans most need to be able to do.

     Back to reality, however. Class sizes are NOT reasonable. Teachers are not well rewarded or recognized. When classes overflow, “teaching to the test” is what survives. The teacher is considered “good” if their students get good test scores. The school is considered “good” based on their test scores. These numbers affect school funding and teacher retention. Great teachers can lose their jobs in a manner that is parallel to the situation of dedicated school cafeteria cooks being replaced by less healthy pre-processed foods.

     Great teachers teach for the benefit of the students and not for the benefit of a numerical score.

     Being able to check the correct box on tests becomes more important than being able to write — or to read beyond recognizing the questions and answers. The numbers become more important than being able to create the next important “widget” for a future business. The numbers become more important than being able to research, and verify, what is correct and what is a falsehood. The numbers win. Education loses. Society loses.

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