Move two million Palestinians?

An interesting article in the WSJ today bky Dhume.

It retells the story of forced migrations in the recent history.

1947 India, muslims moving to Pakistan and Hindus moving to India, 18 million people moved, two million killed in conflict. 1920 Greece and Turkey agreed to a population swap. 1947 Ethnic Germans moved from Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union back  to Germany.  1970 Uganda expelled Indians.

1947-9 in Israel 700,000 Palestinians left, either voluntarily or by force, during the war started by the surrounding Arab states, a smaller number stayed.

Yet, the hysteria is only about Israel. Could it be that the UN,many European nations and progressives in this country have a double standard? Could it be?

Capital punishment

I was thinking about the arguments against capital punishment and have always come down on the side of yes, but with great sadness. The taking of another’s life after a couple of decades of legal processes just seems so wrong. According to Perplexity 1500 people have been executed since 1976. Some of those were innocent as numerous folks on death row have been acquitted with DNA studies, etc. Taking an innocent life, as we can assume some of the 1500 were, is terrible. (https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-many-released-convicted-mu-ksN.wtqFTKG5Mxkm.dKHgw)

On the other side, according to perplexity again (same reference from above), since 1976 between 300,000 and 450,000 convicted murderers have been released from prison, and between 1 and 2% of those have committed murder again. That results in between 3,000 and 9,000 innocent people killed compared with a few of the 1500 executed, let’s estimate 200.

As with everything in life, trade-offs must be made. Is it more important to not execute people for fear of killing an estimated 200 innocent people or allow 15 to 45 times as many innocent people to be killed by letting convicted murderers out of jail?

As usual our political conversations are binary, yes or no, versus a more nuanced one that recognizes the moral black holes of both sides. Our laws   allow us to kill another in self-defense, whether as a civilian or a member of law enforcement. Most religious sects agree with that law. Our law and religions also make provisions for a “Just War” doctrine, allowing the killing of a declared enemy.

I see the killing of thousands of innocents by released murderers in the same light. Keep them in jail for life, or execute, you pick.

 

Book Review, “The Parasitic Mind, How Infectious Ideas are KIlling Common Sense” Gad Saad

Gad Saad is a Lebanese Jewish (he states he is an atheist of “Jewish heritage”) person whose family was one of the last to leave Lebanon because of the civil war. They left because the multi-cultural, religiously tolerant society collapsed, their safety was no longer possible.

Gad remembers in elementary school hearing a classmate say they wanted to grow up to be a Jew killer.

His family moved to Canada where others of his family had established themselves. He went to college at McGill University for his first two degrees and then Cornell for his PhD in marketing. He is known for his work in evolutionary psychology in the marketing and consumer behavior fields. He has taught in Canada and the US but has come under pressure in Canada for his views on the conflict in Israel.

His book was fascinating, published in 2020. I heard of it from a podcast on “Honestly”,the podcast series from Bari Weiss.

From the summary on Amazon. “There’s a war against truth… and if we don’t win it, intellectual freedom will be a casualty.
The West’s commitment to freedom, reason, and true liberalism has never been more seriously threatened than it is today by the stifling forces of political correctness.
Dr. Gad Saad, the host of the enormously popular YouTube show THE SAAD TRUTH, exposes the bad ideas—what he calls “idea pathogens”—that are killing common sense and rational debate. Incubated in our universities and spread through the tyranny of political correctness, these ideas are endangering our most basic freedoms—including freedom of thought and speech.
The danger is grave, but as Dr. Saad shows, politically correct dogma is riddled with logical fallacies. We have powerful
weapons to fight back with—if we have the courage to use them.
A provocative guide to defending reason and intellectual freedom and a battle cry for the preservation of our fundamental rights, The Parasitic Mind will be the most controversial and talked-about book of the year.”

The book helped me think about the factual basis of my opinions so to avoid glamming on to the rhetoric of my information sources. Every issue we face today has two sides. The overwhelming majority of people in the Lavant want a safe place to make a living and raise their families. Both sides are pulled towards opinion by “their” side of the issue versus finding common ground underlying a solution. Sound familiar to our current political milieu?

This was not a heavy read but highlighted common tendencies in all of us and offers a way out to solutions.

THe Constitution of Knowledge

Jonathon Rauch wrote a readable thesis concerning our society’s foundation of establishing knowledge. He likens this to the constitution of our government, the rules and procedures to establish our governing system are the same as  those to establish knowledge that engenders trust in the resultant body of work.

Today our foundation is being eroded by those who don’t mind lying, manipulating facts, creating their own facts, punish anyone who decides to disagree with you, etc. Both the right and left use methods unique to each to control the messaging.

He wrote this during the first Trump administration and gets off track by only giving examples of misdeeds by him and his folks, openly admitting he does that, page 180. My opinion is that takes away from the argument as both sides of the aisle are equally guilty.

He follows this with a condemnation of cancel culture, a  creation of the left, and does a good job doing so. The left totally owns this disease of our society.

He uses quotes from folks that have been exiled to the trash bin of history in a positive fashion. FBI director Comey. Peter Strzok, FBI agent, who wrote to Lisa Page a FBI attorney in a FBI email that they needed to find a way to stop Trump. Anthony Fauci. Erwin Chemerinsky, law dean at Berkeley who wants to trash the constitution and start all over. All credited with standing up to the Trump administration when they were all actually suppressing the truth.

He mentions with praise many things I respect. Braver Angels. Jonathon Haidt. FIRE. And many more. He spends too much time on gay rights and the struggles he and others faced, he should have given other references.

He credited many supporters, including the Koch’s and other conservative groups amongst the overwhelming progressive supporters. At least they were mentioned.

Both sides of the aisle  should be concerned about how our society sifts through information to create truth. Both sides of the aisle should have the courage to admit fallibility, accept empirical proof, work to persuade versus impose ideas–all these strengthen our republic by creating common ground.

Social media has done a great thing bringing everything to everybody, and a terrible thing at the same time. The old aristocratic stranglehold of media has been broken and it appears we must all now find our own trusted sources of truth. Many options are not truth.

This could be a good thing, but we as citizens must step up to this new responsibility. There is a great deal of junk being pushed at us, it could destroy trust in the institutions that hold the republic together.

Let us pray.

 

Project 2025, some truth vs. the talk

AEI posted this recently to bring some truth to Project 2025 published by the Heritage Foundation.

Interesting facts about the warnings from progressives about various Republican candidates that did not come true, “Threat to Democracy?”.

Interesting comments after actually reading the document that many headlines are just not true.

I haven’t read it. Neither has Trump, as if he ever would.

https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-the-great-project-2025-freakout/2024/07?mkt_tok=NDc1LVBCUS05NzEAAAGUfhiFxrhOSQbuaMufPg6OgdUAoizZ9hmpBqbQxQTCCBSNGFB2i4n7gCDBuESNjpBItwLglxpPGE9e0HVss3I7GbTljYAK9rjGMJwyfwSlzXJvoA

 

 

Why Teachers aren’t paid more!

Our K-12 teachers deserve more compensation. Their unions are shrill in their condemnation of society’s failure to honor teachers with higher wages. I agree they should be paid more, IF—-that compensation was based on the pay structure of accountability for results.

Teachers resist any competition in the form of sectarian, charter schools,  home schooling, etc. Yet, our results as measured by PISA scores have been falling for decades. Having been a businessperson for 35 years and on the board of a dual-enrollment trade school I see the result of kids in high school not having the necessary skills to perform in today’s job market. Yet, the establishment continues to promote to the next grade.

Teachers resist measurement of the progress children make in their classes; they resist testing to an acceptable standard, SAT scores have fallen where K-12 is not up to par. The educations aristocracy decided to not require SAT/ACT for college entry and many colleges jumped on board. This short term decision has already proven to be an issue.

Lastly we are finally emerging from a 50 year bias against trade/technical schools in favor of four year colleges. I know the CEO of one of the top ten General Contractors and he laments regularly that finding workers in the trades is a critical path issue.

OK, is this just a rant? Somewhat, but New York Governor Hochel just signed a bill repealing student performance requirements in teacher performance reviews; thus poorly performing teachers with seniority will keep their jobs and kids will be deprived of a decent education. The unions triumph again for their members at the expense of students.

No wonder almost half the country has now expanded charter and other alternatives to the government run K-12 system. I contribute to that effort and hope to see current power structure cave in on itself and a Phoenix rise from the ashers to provide our kids with the education they deserve.

Teachers would be paid more if they joined the movement to measure results, and teach those who are struggling. Most do, for sure. Leadership is the problem.

A More Equally Balanced Governmental Process

The Supreme Court Thinks That by Arguing More, We Can Be Less Divided

I commend this short article as a learned analysis of rebalancing our three branches of government. Congress writing better, more specific laws; The executive issuing less executive orders and the court weighing in only when necessary.

It also says by doing so we will take some of the pressure out of our partisanship issue, something I had not thought about. Now our attention is focused on legislators versus the court. Abortion, fight it out in the state house. Bump Stocks, lobby your congressional representative to amend the machine gun law to include them.

The Undoing Project

“The Undoing Project” M Lewis

Copyright 2017, read May 2024

Not exactly sure where I heard of this book.

“Doubt if not a pleasant condition, bur certainty is an absurd one.” – Voltaire. This quote opens the book.  Another favorite quote along those same lines is “Right or wrong, but never in doubt.” Attributed to Mark Twain. Amos was a bit like that, 151.

This book is about two Israeli psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who collaborated to create a new understanding of how we humans make decisions, both correct and incorrect. They were present at the creation of Israel, were in the military through a couple of wars, taught in Israel, then both emigrated to the US/Canada to teach here. They are characterized as two people of one mind with very different personalities, both quirky in many ways yet perceiving some truths that are now recognized as foundational. Tversky died early of cancer (melanoma) and Kahneman was awarded the Nobel prize later for the work they created.

Lewis, as normal, writes with an engaging, novel-like style pulling you through the story. I have read other books of his and found them to create a narrative he seemed to want to make. An example, “The Big Short” about the financial crisis was very critical of the financial industry, rating agencies, greedy mortgage brokers, etc. but left out the fact that the Clinton administration supercharged the CRA to push home loans so to raise the home ownership percentages in the U.S.

Anyway. Collaboration with folks who have knowledge you don’t; Focusing on “undoing” which really means root cause failure analysis before making a decision; and reading Kahneman’s book, “Thinking Fast and Slowly” are keys to the decision-making process.

37 balance data with human intuition

44 Sunk cost prejudices our thoughts towards retention versus letting something go away.

62 The 35, a story about 35 Israel Army folks who were killed on an operation when they were discovered by a shepherd who they let go. Lone Survivor same story. The decision to not kill the boy was in error.

72 The halo effect, the root foundation for a decision is known to us and we overlook better data.

82 The Kahneman Score is a data point to grade pilots, kind of like the GRIT score, a piece of data to bounce human thought against. An evaluation score, like a personality test.

98 If you wait long enough a problem may not be urgent anymore, like Truman.

113 Similarity with what we know tends to lead us down a path to a decision that may be faulty

126 praise and correction works better than negative criticism

141 Take a break trying to solve a problem, constant work clouds the mind.

148 Confirmation bias is a killer.

173 Doctor decisions tested based on data, results were scary, disagreements, 5 days later a different diagnosis from same doctor.

195 A summary, our perceptions, biases, retained models of the past, confirmation bias, etc., no matter how much our training, lead to inaccurate decisions. We should use data and collaborate with others before making big decisions.

221 Acknowledging uncertainty is a key to good decisions, be vulnerable, ask around, read, get data all within the time frame for the decision.237

231 the need for certainty drives many poor decisions.  Wrigley. Making War.

248 we should evaluate a decision not on its’ outcome solely but the decision process that let to it.

261 Various tests show we make decisions to minimize regret, not maximize gain.

264 When one fails to take action and something not so good happens we tend to not accept responsibility for inaction. Confession of sin!

317 Delta pilot training on crew coordination reduced incidents by training in collaboration with others, data, etc. JAL accident in SFO-“I can’t tell the captain he is wrong”

327 The conjunction fallacy;

342 The Prospect Theory, the second most cited paper in economics. We make economic decisions the same way we make others and in order to make better decisions we must recognize our foibles. 60% of all acquisitions do not meet their financial projections.

 

A worthwhile read, a bit heavy on the relationship between the two men and somewhat theoretical on the philosophy side but I came away with a base knowledge of our decision processes need to be right in front of us and we need to collaborate.

“The Big Fail”

I put this in healthcare versus politics. Many want government provided healthcare. This book, and the article below about DA Henderson, show the dangers of doing so.

Government is too slow, too bureaucratic, too polarized to effectively manage healthcare. Our government, both sides, squelched dissent from scientists who have mostly been proven correct. If DA Henderson had been listened to millions would be alive today.

I recommend the book, a bit long but written for lay people and scrupulously researched with references noted.

Our republic depends upon and educated public, we are failing in that requirement to be around in a 100 years.

The weblink is from the Free Press and has pay wall, if you can’t access the book talks a lot about Dr. Henderson’s thoughts and policy recommendations.

 

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-prophets-da-henderson?utm_campaign=email-post&r=q5aav&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

 

Habits, two book reviews

Habits

I recently read a couple of books about habits, “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and “The Power of Habits” by Charles Duhigg.

One of my clients recommended the first to me and the second was referenced by the first so I read that also.

I knew habits were both positive and negative, in our personal and public lives, but learned how powerful they are in determining our ability to achieve our goals. They also operate semi-consciously in most everything we do. Our brains want to use little energy, so a habit enables us to act in the most efficient manner possible.

Atomic breaks down how a habit is established, how they are maintained and how to change a habit we may find objectionable. It is easy to read, summarizes each chapter, provides examples of each point that are relevant to us all.

The Power does a similar analysis but in much more depth.

Both books are worth the read to assist us in establishing positive habits and ameliorating negative ones. I would read Atomic first, then if more detail is desired The Power second.

Again, I learned how much of our actions are habits, meaning we don’t think about what we are doing thoroughly enough sometimes.