There is No Such Thing as Safety

There is no such thing as safety; only degrees of risk.

This can be a very hard thing to wrap your head around. People want to engage in dichotomous, black-and-white thinking, and while this is easy and useful and isn't always wrong, it often is.

Save vs. unsafe is one of those false dichotomies. Because the truth is that right now, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you are doing other than reading this, and whenever you are reading this, you are not safe. A previously undetected asteroid could be hurtling towards earth at this very moment, about to kill all life on earth, an undetected brain hemorrhage could kill you in the next minute, a gamma ray burst could be hurtling toward us the speed of light, about to microwave the Earth on "high" before we even have time to panic.

The thing about all of those things is that they are incredibly, vanishingly, unlikely. So we feel "safe" from those things even though they could, technically, in theory, happen. Thinking probabilistically is basically an unnatural contortion of normal human thought patterns, and people almost never really do it, because frankly they don't usually have to. So they round up to 100% or down to 0%, and maybe if they are feeling particularly uncertain they settle on 50%. Then they live their lives as if those numbers where, y'know, correct.

The heuristic reasoning part - cognitive corner-cutting often enable human flourishing and is unavoidable anyway. I know people make trade-offs against risk and reward in all sorts of ways, and have heterogeneous preferences, but this "feeling of safety" thing is just weird to me. The most dangerous thing most Americans do is drive. They drive to work and worship, to pick the kids up from school and to get groceries and visit Grandma, and when people do all of these things most of them are confident they're good drivers and feel pretty safe behind the wheel.  The most dangerous jobs in America involve working with heavy machinery and being far from medical attention,  heavy machinery like a car.

And people shrug their shoulders and just get on with their lives! Meanwhile they panic about crime, which has been basically falling my entire life, or fight tooth-and-nail against nuclear energy, which kills fewer people than any kind of fossil-fuel power. People's intuitive senses of danger and risk seem to be finely honed for avoiding tigers and poorly suited for managing the "invisible" risks of modernity.

All of this bothers me immensely. Not the heuristics or the rounding but the sheer inconsistency of it all. Because what I want to be able to to is say "okay, so your said this is what you have to get in time, money, or something in order to be willing run these risks" but it changes completely depending on the threat, as if it matters even though dead is dead. We'll ban shuriken but let any jackass with pulse buy a fucking gun. We'll ban weed but build whole social lives around alcohol. People are willing to make the trade-offs inherent with using cars, but lose their damned shit over scooters.

Instead its all "feeling safe" and "feeling unsafe" - and they expect politicians to fix this! How? When people's feelings are so inconsistent? Building invisible bridges over invisible rivers, I suppose. But what do I do, no, what do we do when the politicians are fear-mongering and quaking in their boots at that invisible river? You can't magic people better.

Look, my dream job is social planner, but how am supposed to fucking do that if y'all can't even give my a straight answer on the risks you're okay with running.

What Is Even the Point of This?

I haven't been able to get this case out of my head lately, so I'm putting my thoughts into writing in the hopes that that solves my problem.

The facts are these - guy accidentally leaves two of his kids in a hot car, goes to work, and eight hours later they're dead. A fucking tragedy. I feel for the guy, for his wife and for his three surviving kids - their family's fucking torn apart and this guys gonna have to live with the guilt of that for the rest of his life.

Then the DA's office for the Bronx gets involved and decides their gonna make it all better the only way they can - by charging him with manslaughter and negligent homicide. What is even the point of this? What good will this serve? How will this advance justice?

The point(s) of the criminal justice system are (per Wikipedia):

1. Deterrence  - "we don't want people to do this, we need to make an example of him"
2. Retribution / Moral Support for Victim - "guys got to pay for what he did"
3. Rehabilitation / Reform - "he learned his lesson and won't do it again"

The guy fucked up and killed two of his kids. What could the criminal justice system do on any of these fronts that's more potent than what's already happened?

Who is reading this story and going "Well, I was planning on being a negligent parent and a risking the lives of my kids, but now that I see I could face criminal penalties for killing my babies, I'll shape up and fly right?"

What provides more moral support for the family of the victim by tearing that family apart even more than its already been torn apart.

And reform, do these guys really think that he negligently killed some of his kids but they if don't send him to prison he might negligently kill the rest of them?

The best, most generous possible fucking argument for the decision to go after this is that its just an awareness raising measure; but all of this - all of this! - the press coverage, the trial, and any potential punishment, is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You're seriously telling me that this is better way to raise awareness than dropping that cash on ad campaign? That you're willing to throw a guy in prison for years as fucking publicity stunt?

National Mottos

This is a quibbling bit of cultural criticism, but in my opinion, the official US national motto is terrible and should be changed.

I think a good motto is some concise combination of boast, threat, and statement of purpose. Like Quebec's: "Je me souviens" - literally, "I remember". It promises a commitment to maintaining national identity against assimilation pressure, stubborn resistance and a desire/ability to reward friendship and avenge wrongdoing.

Or consider the motto of the Starks from Game of Thrones: "Winter is Coming". This a statement of purpose (we need to try and survive), but also a boast and a threat (b/c the Starks used to be the Kings of Winter).

So what does "In God We Trust" convey in that frame? And how well does it fit?

The boast and threat aspects are fine. A claim of divine favor sorta works for that ("We're so awesome that God's on our side, so we can't lose!"). But as a statement of purpose? Is the US just supposed to go around trusting God all the time? This isn't a monastery!

"In God We Trust" would be a good motto for, say, a crusading order, which risks life and limb to expand trust in some deity at swordpoint. But that's not what America is or should be about!

And the thing is we have a really good national motto just lying around that we aren't using to its full potential:

"E Pluribus Unum"  (from many, one) has been on our national seal since 1794. And as boast ("look at us, we've got our shit together") and a threat ("We're united and therefore powerful") it might be a little squishy. 

But as statement of purpose - hell! as a description of the country - its perfect. The US is federation of states, and I think the highest conception of America is as a country peopled by a diverse array of hyphenated-Americans who despite their different backgrounds are all Americans together, with a shared commitment to liberty, democracy, and prosperity.

TL;DR: "In God We Trust" is exclusionary, "E Pluribus Unum" is inclusionary. America should be an inclusive place!

Constitutional Totalitarianism (draft, comments welcome)

It should really not be possible to set up a totalitarian dictatorship without violating the letter of the Constitution at some point. But I’m pretty sure you can – given control of the White House and Congress.

Note that it is entirely possible under current law to control the Congress and Presidency with mere pluralities of the vote. Assuming no faithless electors, for instance, its possible to become President with only of ~25% of the electorate.

So, the Party has managed to win control of Congress and the Presidency by the narrowest margins – and immediately sets about engineering permanent 1-party rule.

• The opposition might try to stop you using filibusters, etc. Just eliminate any procedures that may create problems for you and protect the minority – you’re not going to need them.

• Pack the Supreme Court – nothing unconstitutional about that, and this prevents anyone from making inconvenient “violating the spirit of the constitution” appeals.
• Remember the point of this exercise is to do this without actually breaking any laws. Or at least without violating the Constitution – after all, Congress can change the laws.
• Use the “Kansas Plan” to pack the House and Senate.
• Hell, you could stop here, since an aggressive Kansification could allow me to simply amend the constitution however I’d like.

• Use the income tax to seize all income and then use tax code to manage the whole economy
• This is a kludgy workaround compared to GosPlan but it’ll have to do.

• Create some universal, unavoidable felony, and selectively enforce the laws to purge whoever you like
• Like the federal judiciary, legislators, etc.
• E.g. make breathing a felony
• Note that while you can’t directly suppress speech here, you can, by an amazing coincidence, just happen to arrest anyone who criticizes the government too loudly.
• Prosecutorial discretion is actually a tremendous tool of tyranny in the wrong hands. In the Party’s hands, of course, it will only be used for good.

• Since the Constitution doesn’t explicitly guarantee a right to vote, simply make it so that only members of the Party are permitted to vote.

On Being Unafraid.

Fear is not a useless emotion. Fear can keep you alive. It is often rational to be afraid. But fear is not itself rational. It is a wild, unreasoning emotion, the enemy of reason. Fear wants to move your feet for you, wants to speak for you and act for you and deprive you of your will – in the moment fear can keep you alive, move you faster and further than wolves behind you, give you the strength to go on, to overcome, to survive the crisis. This a healthy fear.

But Americans (especially older Americans) seem to me a fearful people, though whether they are more or less fearful than any other I cannot say, and their fears seem much more the unhealthy sort. They are more afraid of terrorists than dogs, of strangers than intimates, of crime than of crossing the street. I my head understands this, that to most it is somehow much worse for a bad thing to be done to you than for a bad thing to simply happen, that malice terrifies while incompetence frustrates. My heart does not understand this though. When I think of the things that could ruin my life, that could harm me, that menagerie of misfortune is populated principally with the spawn of incompetence. Those creatures of malevolence are a sideshow compared to them.

And then there are the natural disasters that people fear, but to fear them is useless. After taking the precautions you think best, terror will not help you survive a tornado. If you let it though. it will gnaw at your guts before the storm and torment you – useless suffering which offends my sensibilities. The fear of incompetence may drive us to scrutinize the work of others, the fear of indifference may cause us to speak for ourselves, the fear of malice may push us to look to our protection, and live cautiously.

But the fear of the storm? We build our shelters, and weather what we must. All further concern is masochistic.

Now I am not a fearful sort, as a rule. I see the harm fear does, the madness and misrule it inspires, and whenever and know that courage is the first virtue – without it all the rest fall silent. So, I strive to overcome fear to master it, lest it master me.

But all of this is preamble, aside from my main point. Consider the phenomena of a gamma-ray burst. When a star dies and goes nova, a burst of high energy gamma rays shoots out from the star as a ray traveling at the speed of light. Such events are uncommon, even on an astronomical scale, and if it were to happen in our galaxy there is only a minute chance it would hit us.

But if did hit us, we would not see it coming, since the radiation travels at the speed of light, and it would be as if we microwaved the whole earth on high for half an hour. The atmosphere would burn off, the seas would boil, and on the whole surface of the earth and in the deepest depths there would not remain a single living thing or trace of our civilization. The entirety of the human race, all our works, the whole humanity’s history and our homeworld could vanish in instant, without and forewarning or chance of survival. What do you when there is no shelter from the storm? Take a moment to think on this.

When I first learned this , I was afraid. But I overcame that fear – it was the most useless of fears. I got on with my life, in doing so I learned a subtle truth: That safety is an illusion - there are only different levels of risk. The risk of a gamma-ray burst is small, and not my efforts or the efforts of the whole human race could reduce that risk one way or the other. It is simply there. Something to be endured.

And this comes back to the madness and misrule of fear – fear drives us to seek safety, but there is no safety. The politics of fear is that of promising safety (impossible!) or more accurately of promising to make people feel safe. And I don’t know what to do about that. I would like for voters to wise up, to overcome their fear, to accept that to live is to be at risk, to understand that safety is an illusion, and that the reduction of risk is never done without cost. But it is easier and more profitable to terrify than to reassure, so I expect nothing will change in this regard. We will frighten each other, and cook in our own fear until its softened our brains to the point where we’ll support anyone who promises to make us feel safe.

Engineering Permanent Single Party Rule Through Constitutional Loophole Abuse

Or: Why We Should Rewrite the Thing

A thought occurred to me this morning:

Suppose I was a party of utterly amoral and ambitious politicians with no commitment to democracy beyond what was necessary to obtain control of the Presidency, and a majority (but not a supermajority) in both Houses of Congress. How could I use this position to permanently cement complete control over the federal government, without violating the letter of the Constitution? While utterly disregarding its spirit of course...

Here is one plan:
Find a sizable state where your party is overwhelming dominant and the legislature is compliant. Second, divide the state into extremely small jurisdictions which your party is sure to win. Using Kansas, (a fairly small state) as an example, (Pop:2.9 Million) one could divide the state into 29 100,000 member districts each with two Senators and one Representative, giving "formerly Kansas" a fifth of all Senators and a House delegation as big as New York's.

But why stop at 100,000? Why not divide Kansas into 290 10,000 member districts, giving it an absolute majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Then "ex-Kansas" can pack the Supreme Court with loyal "ex-Kansans", and amend the Constitution (by calling a convention) without a single vote from anybody else.

This works because the Constitution itself doesn't set a minimum population for statehood. There are some statutory requirements for new states being admitted but those can be changed by Congress, and I'm not sure if those even apply for new states being created in the jurisdictions of existing states.

The point of this exercise is not to recommend a course of action (if you read the introduction and thought that sounded like you...), to lay out any plausible series of events, or to warn you of some secret plot. If such a scheme were attempted it would probably result in civil war, the collapse of the United States, or (least plausibly) rapid coordinated action by existing states to amend the Constitution to specify a minimum population.   Rather it is to show the weakness of the Constitution as written and the vulnerability of our system to "Constitutional Hardball" driven by partisanship uber alles.

If  the commitment to political victory trumps a commitment to majority rule -that basic principle of democracy- then the protections the Founding Fathers put in the Constitution in an attempt to prevent the "tyranny of the majority" can be used instead to create a "tyranny of the minority", i.e. tyranny.