Out of the mouth of, err, a babe

The hot thing in the blogosphere at the moment appears to be teen sex.  Such luminiaries as Glenn Reynolds are pitching in with articles about it, with lesser-known (but not lesser in any other sense) bloggers as Katie Granju having their own say.

Meanwhile, Christina D., an actual teenager, writes:

The idea of wasting my weekend while drinking my life away and fucking random guys to my heartiest extent pisses me off. It pisses me off even more to know that young teenagers are running around having sex and giving head. It's almost like disease and pregnancy is not, and never will be an issue to them.

Maybe we ought to be asking her, "Why not?", instead of standing around scratching our heads and asking ourselves, "Why?"

Pest -- and malaria - control

Via the War Liberal comes this mention of a plan whereby a gene-engineered mosquito would be used to reduce the incidence of malaria.

Mac Thomason has his doubts about the efficacy of such a plan.  Whilst I don't think that his doubts are sufficient to cause the plan to be stopped, neither he is wrong to have them or to voice them.

The Washington Post article mentions that the transmissibility of the disease by the GM skeeter is reduced by about 80%.  Thomason is correct in pointing out that 80% is not 100%; a reduction in transmissibility is not necessarily equivalent to a compariable reduction in incidence.  He also expresses some concern that the "natural" mosquito may outcompete the modified one.  There's nothing obvious that would cause that to happen, but I'll freely concede that we have a limited understanding of the mechanisms by which it might do so.  Finally, although he doesn't explicitly say so, I think that he has some concern over whether it's worth doing; perhaps the funds might be better used in developing new anti-malarials, or in more effective spraying programs, or in assassinating the local dictators so that their subjects can undertake some real economic development and fund their own anti-malaria campaigns (Thomason would probably disagree with me on that last).

We do not know enough to say whether this is the most effective way of tackling the problem, or indeed whether is would be effective enough to be worth doing.  We do know, however, that malaria is a widespread and debilitating disease.  This, I think, is where Thomason and I would line up on the same side, as opposed to Kimbrell and Spielman (mentioned in the article), who appear to be taking the standard watermelon line that any amount of human suffering and death is preferable to trying something when we're not certain of the result.

There is an unfortunate tendency in American society to decide that anything that not guaranteed to produce a pre-determined result is a wombat (waste of money, brains, and time).  Even though who proclaim that they should better say it.  Biosphere II was largely a stunt, but one of the data it produced was that the free oxygen in the habitat was disappearing into a hitherto unknown sink.  That was a highly important piece of information, but the media proclaimed it a failure, because it wasn't the outcome that they had determined would be a success.

I say:  try the GM mosquito.  In twenty years, we'll know the outcome of the experiment.  Assuming that we're both still alive, either Thomason or I will say to the other, "Yes, you were right", and that other will say, "Well, you gave it your best shot; nothing to be ashamed about".

Nuke 'em from orbit

A lot of people in and out of the blogosphere are worrying about the prospect of an Indo-Pak nuclear war -- or an Indo-Pak war that escalates to a nuclear one.  Glenn Reynolds finds his optimism wilting in the face of news, as does Stephen Green.  Suman Palit invokes the specter of the Dreadful Bride.

And me, I'm afraid that an Indo-Pak nuclear war wouldn't kill enough people.

Am I a callous, inhuman monster?  Well, certainly, a case for that can be (and has been) made.  But one of the factors -- perhaps the single most important factor -- that has prevented the use of nuclear weapons during the last half century has been the apocalyptic mystique that they possess.  Tens of millions of people (not to mention quite a few French) are convinced that the use of any nuclear weapon, any time, any place, for any reason, will mean TEOLAWKI.

(Do I think that they're right?  No.  On the other hand, I also think that Christianity is a bunch of yivshish, but that doesn't mean that I deny its very great influence on history.)

An Indo-Pak nuclear exchange could mean as many as 100 million dead, mostly on the Pakistani side.  It probably wouldn't mean the destruction of either nation qua nation (although the rest of the war could finish off Pakistan).  And, as we know, an auto accident in L.A. means more to most Americans than a flood in Bangladesh, an earthquake in China, or a genocidal civil war in Rwanda.  It's entirely possible to my mind that a lot of Third World leaders (and perhaps even some First World ones) will look at the results and say, "Well, that wasn't that bad".

To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, kill a billion people here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real carnage.

Dogs have owners, cats have staff

A correspondent provides this link to a BBC story suggesting that cats are evolving to better manipulate people.

Nezumi-chan is probably the pinnacle of feline evolution then, since, as wagimoko is fond of reminding me, she's got me wrapped around her paw.  But how could one not respond to those big green eyes, that plaintive meowing, that soft, furry body rubbing up against my legs, the nuzzling of my feet...hmm, now that I think about it, that's what the article says they're evolving to do.

On a more serious note, I think that Dr. Bradshaw has but a shaky grasp of evolution.  The article isn't discussing deliberate artificial selection -- the breeding of cats to produce one with a more pleasant meow.  It's talking about honest-to-Heaven evolutionary selection.  He thinks that

The idea that a female would go up to a male in a back alley somewhere and say, 'could I hear your miaow to see if the kittens you father will be appealing to people', couldn't happen.

But, of course, neither do peahens tell peacocks, "Spread that tail, buster, so that I can judge your condition from it".  Nonetheless, the peacocks with the best tails are also likely to be the healthiest and strongest; mating with them is more likely to produce strong, healthy chicks.  Likewise, the kittens with the most appealing meows are more likely to acquire people (or be acquired by them -- I'm not entirely sure how this works) who will provide with food, shelter, and medical care.

Evolution is a matter of time and numbers.  There always the chance that that peacock with the glorious tail carries a recessive gene that will result in dead-in-shell embryos; there's always the chance that that cat with the seductive cry will be run over by a car.  The average organism, by definition, produces exactly two offspring that themselves live to breed; a trait that raises that average even to 2.01 offspring will, over a few hundred generations, make a big difference.

We interrupt your regular scheduled reading

I finally feel well enough to write something, as long as it doesn't take any actual thought.

I've come down with some sort of vile bug.  In addition to the usual physical effects (chills followed by fever, headache, nausea, etc.), it's had something, ahhh, interesting mental effects (I woke up several times last night not knowing who, where, or when I was.  Not an experience to be envied, I may say).

So, whether this blog is updated in the near future or not is going to be determined by chance.  See you all on the bitstream.

Book Review Time

A Review of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Diplomatic Immunity

© 2002 by John W. Braue, III and Lynn J. Harris

Prior to this book, Bujold’s latest offering was the fantasy The Curse of Chalion, which is generally conceded to be one of her weaker novels. We regret to say that she does not quite seem to have recovered her stride with Diplomatic Immunity.

First of all, we comment on the physical quality of the book. Whilst this is an area in which the author seldom if ever has any input, it’s still a matter of concern to the reader; the best novel in the world cannot be enjoyed or even read if the physical substrate on which the words are printed (or recorded) is not up to its appointed task of being handled. The quality of our hardcover copy is quite good, although the stiffness of the binding does not suggest durability to us.

Diplomatic Immunity is, of course, part of the Vorkosigan Saga. The reader needs to read the Saga at least as far back as Memory, together with the novel Falling Free and the short story "Labyrinth", to make sense of this book (on general principles, of course, you should read the whole thing). Briefly, the recently rediscovered planet Barrayar has been wrenched out of its quasi-medievalism by various unpleasant events to take its place in the galactic whirl of politics, will it or no. Miles Vorkosigan, the deformed young scion of a Barrayaran noble clan, has been trying for decades to find a suitable way to serve Barrayar’s interests, and has now apparently succeeded in his role as an Imperial Auditor, essentially an extension of the Barrayaran Emperor Gregor’s eyes and ears (and mouth; Miles’ words, by virtue of his office, are considered to be law). These few lines of summary, of course, cannot do justice to the background that Bujold has assembled for her universe.

In Diplomatic Immunity, the recently-married Miles and his bride, Ekaterin, are on a galactic honeymoon tour when Miles is redirected by Imperial orders to the Union of Free Habitats, or "Quaddiespace", an area of the galaxy inhabited by Quaddies, a failed genetic engineering experiment of two hundred years earlier. There, he is to use his absolute (over Barrayarans) powers to resolve an dispute, rapidly approaching war, between the Union and an Imperial trade fleet. In the course of trying to resolve the dispute, Miles meets his old friend Bel Thorne, a genetically-engineered hermaphrodite, and the enigmatic haut, genetic engineers par excellence, of the Cetagandan Empire, Barrayar’s ancient enemy.

One of the things that we found jarring in this novel is the suppression of Miles’ personality. He is an adrenaline addict, albeit one who has come to realize that his addiction can be fatal (he has in fact been killed once and revived, through the miracles of advanced medical technology and authorial fiat). Granting that he’s getting older, and that some of his goals have been achieved (he’s not only the youngest Auditor in post-Rediscovery history, he’s now married to a sexy, intelligent, and determined woman), his slowdown is disturbing, particularly given his frantic plotting in his last appearance in A Civil Campaign (he devises a Cunning Plan to get married, which he tells to everyone except his intended fiancée). At this rate, he’ll never surpass the achievements of his adored and respected father, Count Aral Vorkosigan.

We also do not get a sense of Miles’ actual presence. In previous novels, we saw not only his physical deformities and, more importantly, his own reactions to them, but his emotional state; whether he was anxious, elated, or depressed by the circumstances that he found himself in. We get the feeling that this not really Miles Vorkosigan, that perhaps he and Ekaterin continued on their honeymoon and sent bots or droids in their places to fool everyone into thinking that he’s really taking care of the Emperor’s business. Perhaps Miles is now so self-satisfied by his position that he no longer projects, that he’s capable of not wearing his heart on his sleeve. If so, then Bujold may wish to fall back on her self-proclaimed formula for writing, putting her characters in the worst situation for them that she can imagine. If bad for Miles, it would be good for the reader.

The book is also too crowded in incident. It’s a relatively slim work (307 pages in our hardcover edition). Another 50 or even 100 pages, with the additional space devoted largely to the exposition of the elements that make up the novel, would have been welcome. Again granting that apparently unrelated incidents pile on Miles thick and fast, to the point where he is almost overwhelmed by their sheer number as well as by their intractability, still we think that this should be conveyed to the reader by skilled writing, not by dumping him in the same confusing position.

This confusion, combined with the lack of a sense that we (and the characters in the novel) are dealing with the real Miles Vorkosigan, may contribute to our lack of a sense of the gripping excitement that we felt characterized previous novels in the Vorkosigan Saga. This seems less like an episode in Miles’ life that we could actually share with him, and more like one of his after-action reports to Imperial Security. The emotional depth has been largely squeezed out of it, leaving something that one reads because it is part of one’s job, not because one cannot put it down.

Diplomatic Immunity followed on the heels of The Curse of Chalion and A Civil Campaign far more quickly than we expected. This seeming rapidity may account for some of the flaws that we perceived. If this is in fact the case, then we hope that the next Vorkosigan Saga novel will be a couple of years in the writing and editing, despite the lack of current reading material that that entails.

I think you need slips

Just recently we had the local excuse for Jacques Pepin  ("Here's how to turn Cheez Whiz and a hot dog into something superficially resembling food!") on TV.  He was extolling the virtues of cooking with fresh herbs.  All that you have to do, he said, is go to your local garden shop, get seeds of your favorite herbs, perform some magic that I didn't bother watching (I think that it involved sacrificing a goat), and, viola, you're cooking with gas (or fresh herbs, anyway).

Bat puckey.  We've been buying birdseed at the pet store for decades, and never once have we succeeded in growing a bird from seed.

(No, I haven't had my coffee yet.  How could you tell?)

The Formation Wars

I was inspired to look at the prehistory, so to speak, of Star Wars, by this article by Ginger Stampley. I also took the very insightful comment by Rikibeth as to the origins of the Jedi as the basis for my own speculations. Neither of them, of course, is responsible for the mess I make of their ideas.

(FTR: This is not going to become the unofficial Star Wars Expanded Universe blog. I’ve written some other material in the past few days; it’s of such limited general interest, however, that I don’t feel like posting it here and enduring the "Dude, what the hell are you talking about?" remarks that would inevitably follow.)

The final consolidation of the Republic I’ve chosen to call the Formation Wars. I haven’t seen it used elsewhere, although it’s such an obvious name that someone must have chosen it. Possibly it’s so obvious that everyone has assumed the same, and not used it for that reason.

Anyway, the Republican era must have been preceded by a multiplicity of republics, kingdoms, dictatorships, and what have you. We see in the Star Wars trilogies such a gaggle of obviously alien races, besides the humanoids of the Skywalker strain, that it passes belief that they could have evolved on a single world. If nothing else, each species must have had at least one independent polity before first contact.

At some point, there must have been an impulse towards consolidation. That impulse may have essentially altruistic, to allow free intercourse of sophonts, goods, and ideas across political and species boundaries, or it may have been essentially exploitative, looking for new subjects to dominate. In all probability, both motives were there, and which one was dominant depended on which faction was in control of the nucleating Republic at any given time.

One notion that must have grown, however, that was that there should be no center of influence that could compete with the Republic. In human history, this is the source of both classical liberalism, and ideological totalitarianism. The "two swords" theory of medieval Christianity, that there should be an effective external check on the power of the State, is anathema to both. (In effect, of course, the medieval Church, from Hildebrand (a/k/a Pope Gregory VII) to Boniface VIII’s Unum Sanctum, was to promote the notion that the spiritual power was to take precedence over the temporal power, trying to revive a universal monarchy with the Pope as Emperor.)

Now, of course, the motivations of the classical liberals, and of the ideological totalitarians, aren’t the same in destroying competing centers of influence. The classic liberal (or "libertarian") sees individual freedom as the highest possible good; the State exists only insofar as it is necessary to protect that freedom from aggressors. No internal competition as allowed because that competition can only impose limits on the freedom of the individual, and can therefore only be an aggressor; the State must have a monopoly on coercive force to protect the individual. The ideological totalitarian, on the other hand, views the individual as totally at the disposal of the State (or the Party, or the Führer, identified with the State or vice versa), and internal competition can only shelter him, however partially and ineffectively, from the State’s demands.

So, we can postulate a univeralist party or faction in the nucleating Republic, itself composed (although probably not openly) of two factions, one flying the banner of global…err. galactic free trade and universal freedom from war; the other seeing the Republic as the Temporal Paradise, where all shall work for the good of all (as defined by the Party’s theoreticians).

Needless to say, the universalists of the Republic will be opposed by the particularists of the individual polities. To overcome them, to force them to allow the free flow of ideas from everywhere, or of diktats from Coruscant, only armed force can serve. The liberal wing of the universalist party appears to have ideas that smack of Legalism; the State must be imperialist and virtually totalitarian, using every resource available to it to conquer, until that day comes that the known world is united under a single sovereign, and the weapons of war can be sealed away.

Episode -2 (we’re making another trilogy of this, of course) is the story of the dedicated partisans of the Republic striving to overcome the particularist states on its (political) fringe, to the end that no individual, even if he is green and slimy, should be prevented from traveling from one end of known space to the one, and that everyone should have the benefit of truth, justice, and the Galactic Way of life.

(Do I sound a bit cynical about this? Probably; not only is the liberal univeralist faction getting ready to make a Republic that the totalitarian universalist faction can take over, but the centralization of sovereign political power on Coruscant will mean the centralization of all other things there. The other planets will become "the provinces", aping Coruscant or attempting to revive a distorted past).

Don't bother using the Force, Luke

In this article, I postulated (not only because of historical considerations, but because IMO it can make for a boffo plot with the attention that Lucas wouldn't give it), that the Rebel Alliance of the Star Wars universe can't restore the Republic.  Leia Skywalker-Solo ends up as the new Palpatine, a lonely, embittered old woman, pulling the political strings in a regime that is a Republic in name only.

Her brother, Luke, hasn’t found the New Republic (which is really just the Empire dressed up in lace panties) kind to his vision, either. The last Jedi Master (in fact, the last Jedi Anything) had planned on reviving the Jedi Order, creating another stabilizing force in what at the time, like Leia, he truly hoped would be a genuine revival of the Republic.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. That Luke and Leia are brother and sister is an acknowledged fact (with the icky stuff about her kissing him safely buried in their memories). That Luke’s father was the infamous Darth Vader is not publicly acknowledged – but widely known nonetheless. Potential recruits stay away in droves, fearing that Luke has been tainted by the Dark Side of the Force. Those recruits that do apply are mostly tainted by the Dark Side themselves. They don’t want to become Jedi; they want to learn a few mind tricks and a few flashy lightsaber moves, and then go back to the ‘hood, seducing women, terrorizing civs, and becoming petty gang lords or crime bosses. They have all the potential that Jabba the Hutt did, but without Jabba’s ambition.

The now-aged Leia is entering in on her final days. Her daughter Hana has long since become an alcoholic wastrel. Her children, among them Leia’s hopes, have mostly died prematurely; the only ones remaining are her son Bobo Agrip (Boba Fett without the charm) and her daughter Malrissa (Amidala without the sex appeal). Hana and Bobo have long since been exiled to the desert planet Fangali; Leia has made it a capital offense to land on the planet without her permission, or to bring any alcohol there.

(It will be obvious now where I’m going with this. I’ve always found that the best thing to do is to take a historical situation and drape it with enough blasters and spaceships to hide its origin. You can’t make this stuff up…nor would you want to be able to.)

Her younger son, Druso, died years before in a meaningless speedster accident. Her only remaining available child is her elder son Tibo, an embittered, middle-aged man. He adored his younger brother, and was struck by Leia’s apparent coldness towards his death (Han had died shortly before, and Leia was in fact still mourning the death of her beloved consort). Moreover, Tibo knows that Leia has turned to him to become her heir only out of lack of a suitable alternative; all the other members of the Solo family are dead, worthless, or too young to hold power. Tibo, however, has a Cunning Plan…or thinks that it’s his.

The midi-chlorians are in fact influencing the Solos. They are symbionts…which means that they have their own agenda. To them, humans are like a pack of unruly, deaf dogs; most of us can’t hear them, and those who mostly can’t manage very well. In Anakin Skywalker, they were so numerous that they could influence him; he brought balance to the Force…at an incredible cost in human death and suffering, but the midi-chlorians don’t care about that. Tibo actually has a higher concentration of midi-chlorians in him than his grandfather Anakin had; they can influence him more, with a greater degree of detail. Tibo thinks that it’s his idea to admit that the New Republic is an empty joke, to openly declare the New Empire, and to make the Solo dynasty a breeding experiment to produce the Kwisatz Haderach…oops, sorry, wrong series. I mean to produce the perfect balance of man and midi-chlorian. Actually, it’s the midi-chlorians’ idea to do this, and their goal is to produce a human-shaped shell moved solely by the will of the midi-chlorians.

(No, the midi-chlorians aren’t really sapient, or even sentient the way humans are. It’s an unconscious will to produce a perfect host.)

 

World Government

AW made the comment:

Sir, since you have a limited aquaintance with John Reilly‘s writings, I‘m curious to know your opinions of these articles of his (which were immediately brought to mind by this commentary):

The nature of the "coming world government"
http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/oncwg.htm

Review of Patrick Kennon‘s latest book
http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/tae.htm

A model of a proposed "world constitution"
http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/wcon.htm

Since I haven’t read Kennon’s book, I’ll postpone (possibly indefinitely) my review of Reilly’s review. The first and last items, however, I’ll comment on in this article.

Reilly’s vision of the future world government is an extremely Spenglerian one (not too surprisingly). There are a couple of non-Spenglerian aspects to the future that we now perceive, that I’ll mention in due course. It should be noted here that Reilly’s articles are several years old ("On the Nature of the Coming World Government" is copyrighted 1998, and "World Constitution" in 1996; the drafting of these articles may be older yet). It is entirely possible that Reilly is well aware of the non-Spenglerian elements in the future, and not updated his articles for any of a variety of reasons.

Reilly sees the establishment of a world government sometime in this century. I think that he would agree that the establishment of the formal government will be preceded by a period of informal government – hegemony, if you will, -- possibly by the seed elements of the new world government, possibly by some other short-lived element (as the first universal government in China was established by the short-lived Legalist Ch’in dynasty, which was then rapidly succeeded by a nominally Confucianist Han dynasty).

The world government that he envisions is essentially the Roman Empire writ large (or larger). It is a policing and taxing machine, brought into being for the (implicit) purpose of providing peace, and extracting from subordinate governments and from individuals the resources necessary. It is "populist", in the ordinary political senses; as Reilly has written elsewhere, the economic Left wins (with the result that the Empire varies between fascism and state socialism), but the cultural Left loses (with the whole cargo of "alternative" art and life-styles, in the broadest senses of these terms, being suppressed if not destroyed outright). It is at best nominally democratic, but is in theory at least meritocratic; all classes and nationalities are welcomed in the Imperial bureaucracy and armed forces, the more so as its explicit identification with the "Western" world evaporates. Corruption and nepotism exist, of course; indeed, the nepotic element grows with time as Imperial society and politics become frankly dynastic. They never become so pervasive as to threaten the Imperial government, however, until it has taken openly fatal wounds from other sources. Few will like the Empire; many will love and worship its products (peace, order, stability), and in time men will be unable to imagine that they come from any other source, or that there could be other ways of doing things. As Reilly himself says, the Empire will not be the Earthly Paradise, but neither will it be the reign of Antichrist.

As the envisioned world government is the Roman Empire writ large, so the suggested world constitution is a formalization of the way in which the Empire was run, with a few clauses (abolition of slavery, lack of coercion in religious matters) thrown in to make it more palatable to current tastes. One revelation of intent is the clause that "This Constitution is unchangeable". This is a constitution for a young, self-confident Empire, not an aging one that views its task as circling the wagons and holding off the Long Night as long as possible. I can see this Constitution (both the ideas in it and the actual writing) become objects of worship; I cannot see its operation for more than a few generations after being proclaimed.

The most frankly non-Spenglerian element that I see in the future is that of population compression. Reilly thought that "The world in [the late 21^st century] should have from 10 to 12 billion people in it". At this writing, there are about 6.1 billion people on Earth. We know from demographic data that it is unlikely for this population to ever double again; the U.N. (perhaps innocently) and population-controlling NGOs (probably less innocently) have long overestimated population growth and crude birth rates. The world empire is likely to have far fewer subjects than Reilly anticipated, possibly fewer than now live on this planet.

With the population compression comes, as an inevitable consequence, the rapidly graying of that population, particularly in the industrialized world. In the U.S., these effects are partially masked by high levels of immigration, particularly illegal immigration; in western Europe and Japan, they are manifest. Associated with this are anticipated problems with the sheaf of government programs that may be summarized, tellingly, as "the safety net". In the U.S., the consensus has long been that these should be a supplement to, but not a replacement for, individual economic endeavor; in Europe, they have been used to mollify a potentially destructive segment of the population, unemployed or underemployed. A graying population can support these only with difficulty. The world Empire may well come into being economically crippled, the task demanded of it being not to create, but to restore, social and economic stability.

This population compression is (ideologues aside) not unprecedented in human history. A period of dynamic, competing states allows the population to expand, without economic ruin, to the limits of the supporting technology; the Empire (whether Chinese, Roman, or Ottoman) then preserves both the population and technology in its early stages. Only later, because of a variety of socio-economic forces, some understood and some not, does the population contract as the Empire slides off its plateau of prosperity into the dark ages. The difference now is the population compression is happening even before the formal establishment of Empire, not after it is long established and apparently eternal.

The essential non-Spenglerian element is, of course, industrial and post-industrial technology. It is this technology which is responsible both for the dizzying population growth of the last century and the likely population collapse of this one. It is an unfortunate truism that women throughout history have typically borne many children and buried many. Medical technology eased that last burden; the death of a child in the modern West is considered an almost unendurable tragedy, not an unfortunate but routine occurrence. Communications and (broadly speaking) entertainment technologies have eased that first burden; crudely put, people now have other amusements than unprotected sex available to them. Moreover, the "reference group" by which women judge the number and spacing of births has been enlarged from the local village to the gliterati seen on TV (spend an afternoon watching daytime "soap operas" and estimate what the crude birth rate indicated is).

The result of these technologies cannot now be estimated. When population and, even more importantly, age cohorts, stabilize in the future (and at present we can say no more than it will not be in the first half of this century), it could be the case that the widespread availability of industrial and post-industrial technology will make that population richer and better educated than before in human history.

A long time after, in a galaxy far, far away

(First in a potentially infinite series)

A correspondent and I exchanged remarked on the future of Star Wars. I said:

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, is made of Episodes VII-IX.

to which he replied:

Lucas keeps saying there won't be a 7-9....that 1-6 was the 'life story of Darth Vader' and he had no idea of what happened next....

Wagimoko tells me that she heard the same thing, so I reckon that there’s something to it, even if it’s not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing the truth.

In some ways, that’s too bad. In other ways, it’s not; Lucas has evidently decided for Star Wars to settle in its decrepitude into being a franchise for action figures and a reason for 13-year-old fanbois to steal money from Mommy and Daddy. Actual plotting and writing have been thrown over in favor of really k00l CGI effects and general eye candy.

Let us assume, however, that Lucas is suddenly struck by guilt (yes, yes, I know, but it’s just an assumption for argument’s sake) and decides to make the third trilogy as an apology for the mindlessness of the second (and the second half of The Return of the Jedi). Or, absit omen, he suddenly drops dead and his copyrights are inherited by someone with a clue. What then?

Well, there are legions of better SF writers than I (I proved this conclusively in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s; at least the number of rejection slips that I collected should prove something). On the other hand, I have one telling advantage over them; I’m writing this blog, and they’re not. So, adding to the outrageous assumption that the actual or logical Lucas decides to make a third Star Wars trilogy with some actual ideas in it, we also assume that I’m asked to write an outline for it.

Episode VII (The Final Fall) opens about fifty years after the close of Episode VI. Luke and Leia are old; everything else from the second trilogy (except possibly Chewbacca – who knows how long Wookies live?) in dead of old age. In particular, Han Solo is dead, a decade or two before the start of the film.

At the end of Episode VI, the Rebel Alliance and the Ewoks are celebrating the destruction of the Empire in the persons of the Emperor and Darth Vader. After the celebrations are over and everyone has recovered from the hangovers, the Rebels spread out, bringing the joyous news with them. Surprisingly, the Republic doesn’t just spring back to life. After all, there are all those governors and admirals with cloned Imperial Stormtroopers to call on – it passes belief that all of them are basically good (if falliable) men intimidated by Vader’s mastery of the Dark Side of Force. More likely, we’ll see some, at least, of the Emperor’s minions declaring themselves King of this sector and President-for-Life of that one. The Rebel Alliance (now presumably the "temporary" Republican government) has some hard fighting ahead of it, possibly as much as a decade’s worth (in my outline, anyway).

It’s questionable if the Republic can be revived in any meaningful sense at all. The corrupt, sclerotic polity run by hide-bound bureaucrats that we saw in Episode I is unlikely to be due entirely to the machinations of Senator Palpatine – much more likely that the Republic is dying of old age, and Palpatine is simply the most successful of a host of plotters (and, of course, the one that we see in the first two trilogies). The intervening decade or two under Imperial rule (the exact interval will likely be defined in Episode III) will not give new life to galactic electoral politics. More likely, it will cause a bigger host of plotters to arise, all thinking, "If Palpatine could make himself emperor, why can’t I?"

So, Leia and her Rebel Secret Police Alliance have spent a decade re-assembling the Republic territorially, then an additional forty years or so keeping the plotters as far away from the centers of power as possible. The result is that Leia is now Empress of the Galaxy in all but name. Elections give the results that she wants; the Senate rubber-stamps her policies in the end, no matter how spirited the debate seems to be; the Republic’s officials are all nominated, if not by her, then by the second tier of her apparatus. And she’s now given up to the Dark Side. When her consort Han Solo was alive, he kept her on the straight and narrow (unlikely, but hey, the guy’s dead; let’s throw the bones another bone); after his death, first weariness at having to run as fast as she can to stay in the same place, and then the seduction of wielding power, has corrupted her. She’s no longer manipulating things behind the curtain for the sake of democracy, or of peace, even in her own mind; she’s doing it because she enjoys seeing the marionettes dance when and only when she pulls the strings.

(UPDATE:  If you're George Lucas looking to turn this scenario into a set of scripts, let's talk real money.  Otherwise, have a free, permament, universal, non-exclusive and non-transferable license to use this as the basis for an RPG or such.  I only ask that you credit and, if you write anything for publication, that you provide the URL of, or a link to, this blog.)

Why I have not blogged today

1. wagimoko deserves some of my time, as little benefit as it is to her
2. Some other people also need and deserve some of my time, as little benefit as I can offer them
3. Yet other people deserve not only my time, but responses from me.

Free trade and foul trade

The self-styled Cogent Provocateur is once again being deliberately disingenuous.

In his article for 14 May 2002 (permalinks not now working), he offers the Stolper-Samuelson theorem as showing the reason why free (international) trade must be disadvantageous to the vast majority of people, and offers as a corrective "a liberal dose of socialism" (actually of fascism, since the nominal ownership of property -- and thereby the legal and moral responsibility for its misuse -- is left private, whilst he proposes to skim off the wealth that it creates).

Now, I'm not Megan McArdle (I'm not as tall, I'm not as young, and I'm not as cute -- oh, yes, nor do I have her background in economics), but still, I'll take first crack at exposing the Provocateur's half-truths and distortions.

The Stolper-Samuelson theorem assumes the existence of zero profit in the industries analyzed and full employment in the economies.  Both of these conditions have economics meaning not readily apparent to the layman, so first I'll explain them.

"Profit" is, of course, the excess of revenues over costs.  However, in the macroeconomic sphere, it is assumed that such thing as return on capital at the market rate (which "should" be equal to the secular growth of the economy plus the inflation rate), taxes, and amortization of equipment ("real" amortization, not the accounting construct which is driven more by the tax code and accounting standards), are included in costs.  Thus, a "zero profit" industry is one in which dividends, taxes, and sinking fund payments are covered by prices.  Economic "zero profit" is not the same as accounting "zero profits".  This is a serious flaw in the Provocateur's argument.

"Full employment" is not the same as everyone having a job; it is everyone having a job who wants one.  At a full employment equilibrium, there will be unemployment -- but it conceived of as being "frictional unemployment" (essentially, those who have quit, been fired, or been laid off and who have not yet found another job) and "voluntary unemployment" -- comprised of those who have chosen not work at the prevailing wage rate in jobs for which they are qualified.

Now, of course, "full employment" does not exist throughout most of the world.  There are people outside the market economy (e.g., people engaged in subsistence agriculture in the Third World, or on the dole in Europe).  Even in the U.S. (particularly in light of recent economic conditions), we have seldom reached a full employment equilibrium.  So, one of the conditions needed for the Stolper-Samuelson theorem to hold is immediately violated in terms of any real-world discussion.

(I note, incidentally, that zero profit and full employment are the conditions created by perfect competition in both the labor and capital markets.  Although the Provocateur attempts to disparage laissez faire capitalism in favor of a big government/fascist economic regime, assuming its existence is necessary for his argument.)

The Stolper-Samuelson theorem tells us that, from a pre-existing equilibrium, if the price of a given good rises with respect to other goods, the wage rate of the more abundant factor (as between labor and capital) will rise, and the wage rate of the less abundant factor will fall.  The Provocateur calls this "counterintuitive", but of course it is not.  A rise in price implies a greater demand for that good relative to others; both capital and labor will be attracted preferentially to production of that good.  The factor used more abundantly in its production will of course itself be in relatively greater demand, and thus command a higher price (wage rate, return) than the other.

The Provocateur's argument assumes that, international trade being initiated, the prices of goods which are capital-intensive will rise relative to those that are labor-intensive (he does not specify why this should be so; perhaps it is an implicit acknowledgement, in view of the gross unemployment and underemployment existing throughout in the unindustrialized world, of the violation of one of the Stolper-Samuelson theorem's conditions for validity).  The wage rate of (or return on) capital will increase; the wage rate of labor will decrease.  (Note that this is an absolute, not a relative, decrease).  Of course, such usual economic weapons as tariffs will also cause the price of the capital-intensive good to increase, etc.  The only condition that can be supposed to work is autarky, where markets are removed for that good, and its price then falls.

Now, of course, it's readily seen that the Provocateur's preferred solution of fascism is no solution at all.  Zero profit industries are the other condition for the Stolper-Samuelson theorem to be valid, and "zero profit", in economic terms, means that prices must cover taxes on accounting profits.  If taxes on the capital-intensive industries are raised, then either those industries must be driven to negative profits (with disastrous results in future years), or else prices must be raised, resulting in a "death spiral" as wages are continually driven downwards, and prices of capital-intensive goods continue to rise.

It is to be noted here that the rise of prices consequent to the opening of international trade will not be universally true.  A rise in the price of a good will only come about if there is a new (to the producers) market that is served inefficiently.  If capital-intensive goods are exported to that market, their price relative to labor-intensive goods (and often absolutely) will fall, the wage rate of labor in that market will rise, and living standards will increase.  If there is free movement of people (labor), as well as capital and goods, between the two markets, it will naturally flow in the direction of that one with the higher real wage rates (non-market economic theorists like to assume that people's feet are nailed to the ground, since that's the preferred position, in their view, for people to be in).

The Provocateur's argument is the typical social-fascist argument that assumes that the State should absorb as much capital as possible, simultaneously absolutely and relatively enriching the nomenklatura with respect to the population as large, whilst setting up the conditions to steal more in the future.  It may -- it should -- be mocked in political and ideological terms, whilst safely ignored in economic ones.

 

Netcomments or Notcomments?

Jonty supposedly has Netcomments back up and running now.

We'll see if it works.

What is to be done?

Steven Den Beste gives as his opinion that there shouldn't be a world government.

I'd agree.  The question is:  what are we going to do about it?

As my readers will know, I'm basically a Machiavellian, with some acquaintance with other historical and political pundits and philosophers.  Machiavelli himself was a pundit, not a philosopher; he didn't appeal to any overarching ideology in identifying himself as a republican, and The Prince and The Discourses were not informed by such; rather, they were meant to be (Machiavelli is guilty of idealization and fantasizing in each) historical surveys ("historical" in the sense that everything that has already happened, if even it was only yesterday, is "history") saying, "This and that was done in the past; this worked and that didn't; I don't know why and don't much care".  There are some traces of an ideology in his cyclical theory of politics and history (adapted from Aristotle) and in his insistence that republican and individual virtù were a potent driving force in history (although not the only such), but Machiavelli never put these together into an explicit philosophy.

I'll now bring up Spengler and contrast him, as best I can, with Machiavelli (as I've indicated before, I have a limited acquaintance with Spengler).  Spengler also believed in a cyclical theory of history, although much grander in scope and with different emphases and conclusions than Machiavelli did.  Spengler believed that every culture and civilization (to him, these were specialized, and largely antithetical, technical terms; I shall use them synonymously, however) grew, blossomed, and died; the specific deeds and accomplishments might differ, especially as they might be influenced by previous civilizations (Spengler identified Islam as a religio-cultural phase in a "Magian" civilization going back to Constantine the Great), but the pattern, and even the time spans involved in each phase, were similar in every civilization allowed it full growth.  Once a civilization was dead, it was dead; there was no resurrection, although that might be obscured by the overlap of civilizations in space and time (the "Magian" civilization's early centuries were obscured by its apparent continuity with late Classical civilization, and Western civilization -- albeit after a lapse of several centuries -- also grew up in space that had partially been occupied by Classical civilization).

This viewpoint, incidentally, may explain much about the current conflict between Islam and the West.  To Spengler (and we should remember that he was writing nearly a century ago), "Magian" civilization -- the final achievement of which was the Ottoman Empire -- was in its final death throes, about to collapse back into formless barbarism.  Western civilization, by contrast, although its creativity was nearly exhausted, was still capable of  -- and would achieve, in his view -- impressive accomplishments in scientific and artistic criticism and in political consolidation.  It was, in fact, transiting from his "Autumn" phase of culture to his "Winter" (or "civilization") phase, in which the great creative accomplishments of its past, although not to be truly extended, were to be given their final forms.  One of those forms, the consolidation of Western political forms, would be the Universal Empire.

We should note that the Universal Empire will not, in its early phases, necessarily resemble superficially the empires of the past.  There need not be an Emperor; the Universal Empire may not nominally be politically united.  Nonetheless, the Empire will dance to the tune of a ever more centralized and isolated bureaucracy.  It will not necessarily be a strictly American bureaucracy in its early stages (in its later stages, of course, it will be a Universal Imperial bureaucracy), although the smart money is that Americans will provide the seeds of that bureaucracy.

So, I'm predicting (well, based on my knowledge of what Spengler predicted) the Universal Empire in -- say about half a century, plus or minus thirty years.  Many, perhaps a majority, of my readers are going to see it.  I don't say they will like it; I don't say that I will like it.  I'm saying that it's going to happen, whether we like it or not.

Except...turning away from Spengler to Machiavelli again.  Machiavelli believed in a cyclical theory of history; he might even have bought into Spengler's (once he had admitted that it took his beloved Italy and his idolized Roman Republic out of the running for good).  But whilst Machiavelli believed in nameless, perhaps Divine, historical forces -- fortuna -- , he also believed that a man of sufficient virtù (not the same thing as republican virtù, of course) could bend fortuna to his will, and short-circuit the historical cycle.  In a metaphor, he notes that although we cannot prevent a river from flooding, we can still control its course with dams and dikes (a metaphor made more poignant, although perhaps less convincing, by the fact that he really didn't believe that men could control nature; Machiavelli is a frank imperialist, because he believes that imperialism represents the only realistically tough but overcomable challenge).

Where is the man -- or the movement -- of sufficient virtù to short-circuit the Spenglerian cycles, and prevent the future that den Beste and I -- and, I expect you, Gentle Reader -- so dislike.

Maybe they meant "papyrus"?

According to this link from Ginger Stampley, a number of vegetarian students at Rice chose to receive their diplomas on parchment rather than sheepskin.

Except that parchment is sheepskin prepared for writing.

Somewhere in here is a serious "D'oh!".  At the moment, however, I can't figure out who should be saying it.

With Every Bemusement

I found With Every Regret a few weeks ago via BlogSnob.  I read at it every day or so, and think to myself, "Is this level of angst normal among teen-aged girls?  Does she need Valium?  Anti-depressants? A muzzle? A better living and learning environment?  What?"  There's evidently a lot of pain there, but I can't tell if it's normal or abnormal, self-inflicted ot other-inflicted.  It's been quite a while seen since I've been a teen-ager myself, and I've never been a girl, so I have no standard to compare by.

Does someone want to clue me in here?  Have I found a tale of hurt and struggle, or a literate Jennblogger with a cute name?

I yet live

I took my first injection of copaxone (a peptide that will, hopefully, arrest the progress of my MS) last night.

Since I haven't had an injection since last August (when I stopped taking Betaseron because of my reaction to it), I'd forgotten how much that damned needle stings (but others, I know have to tolerate that several times per day).  I didn't have any of the possible short-term reactions (tachycardia, shortness of breath, etc.) to it.  Now, save for a couple of days of flu-like symptoms, I didn't have any of the short-term reactions to Betaseron, either; but I did have the (known) long-term reaction of severe clinical depression to it (which is why I stopped taking it).  Copaxone ought not to produce any long-term reactions; I'll probably know for sure in a few years.

Chile, Nicaragua, Iran

In a follow-up to this article, Scott Palter writes to me the following:

1. Chile: the entire left rant is founded on a deliberate lie.  Presume that Allende was a saint.  He was the 2nd coming and we are damned because we killed him again.  The fact remains that CIA / US influence on the happening of the coup or its timing were marginal at best and irrelevant in all probability.  Kissinger and Nixon did lie about US involvement.  So does the left to this day.  The Chilean military did not kill the saint as soon as he took office.  They killed him after he had mismanaged the country into virtual civil war.  They did so in direct response to a request by a majority of the Chilean parliament.  Allende had been ruling by decree, ignoring both parliament and the Chilean Supreme Court.  This led the Chilean military, which had previously brushed off both American requests to remove him and American bribes to speed the process, to dump him before they lost the power to do so.  Chile had 3 political groupings, each with roughly 1/3rd of the vote.  The Christian Democrats initially supported Allende, which is how he took office.  They then turned against him, after which the military coup took place.

Yes; that's essentially my own assessment.

 

2. Nicaragua: let us be clear on which era we are talking about.  The initial interventions up till FDR withdrew our garrison was pure Yankee Carib imperialism.  We intervened in Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, the DR, Haiti and Guatemala directly and repeatedly.  Partly it was bill collecting for Wall Street.  Partly it was the flip side of the Monroe Doctrine - if Europeans could not intervene to secure payment of debt we would send the Marines to seize the customs house and collect everyone's money.  The issue then becomes why did we stick with Samoza as long as we did.  The answer is mostly a mixture of ignoring the Carib (except during immediate crisis) and lack of a viable alternative.  Most Carib countries in that era offered a choice of oligarchs or what to us were dangerous radicals.  Carter finally brought down the last Samoza - the entire political class had turned against him but he had still fought the Sandanista Front to a draw before Jimmy the great slayer of attack rabbits pulled the plug.  He sent the deputy director of the CIA down to tell Samoza and his top officers that either they left in the morning or their green cards would be invalidated, their Miami bank accounts seized and the relatives they had parked in Florida for safekeeping expelled.  The idea was that the 'moderates' would keep the reds on the Junta from turning the country into a satellite.  Next joke.  They immediately did the full tilt militarized red state, froze out the moderates (big shock), and became the rear area for the Salvador reds whose final offensive almost swept to victory before Reagan took office.  All this happened BEFORE the 'Contras' were anything more than some renegade cattle rustlers on the Honduran border.

My criticism here (of U.S. policy, not of Scott's statement) is that we weren't interested in whether there was a viable alternative or not.  Indeed, as Scott says in his criticism of Carter's policy, we could have gotten rid of the Somoza dynasty (and without violence even!) at any time.  Turning some nebbish into a viable and (relatively) moderate candidate for power would have been harder, but eminently doable.  Neglect of Nicaragua and political swings here in the U.S. from FDR to Jimmuh resulted in us sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

3. Iran:  This one is complicated.  The royals were opposed by a mixture of nationalists, democratic reformers, radicals, Reds, national minorities, Islamicists and local notables with a beef about patronage.  It would have been possible to have split the very poorly unified opposition and backed a moderate democracy.  We lacked the local knowledge.  Those who had the local knowledge in the US and UK were mostly concerned with protecting the oil investment from nationalization.  There was also hysterical anti-Communism in the early 1950's such that it was hard to work with local reformers.

Jury nullification

The jury nullification rodents appear to be coming out of the woodwork again.

Jury nullification is one of the worst political ideas ever devised.

"Yes, the death penalty for disorderly conduct does sound a little extreme at first.  But, you and I know that this law would never be used against the good people of this community.  No, it will only be used against those goddamned perverted freaks -- you know the ones I mean.  And why?  Why, my friends, it's because we have jury nullification -- and who ends up on juries?  Why, it's good, ordinary people like you and me."

Now, I doubt that I could get elected with this speech -- but, then, I doubt if I could get a sailor to follow me into a whorehouse.  Think of your favorite political nightmare -- yes, that guy -- making this speech during his campaign.  Feel differently?

A lot of jury nullifiers will proclaim, "Oh, but that's a strawman -- the higher courts will overturn any ridiculous verdicts".  Aside from the fact that the overturning of acquitals on appeal is as uncommon as finding a two-headed snake, we might ask, "Overturning a verdict on what grounds?"  Notice that we've just tossed both stare decisis and the 14th Amendment out of the window here; a jury must be reckoned to be bound neither, as far as acquiting a defendant goes ("Yep, the victim had it coming").

Most signiificantly of all, this destroys the rule of law as a concept.  An oft-used argument against federalism is that the average person can't be expected to follow n+1 codes of law (where the federation has n members, and the federation has its own law).  Here, however, the average person cannot even know what the law truly is ("Nope, haven't convicted anyone on this law in forty years -- course, we don't like the way that you wear your hair, so you'll probably be the first").  It's entirely dependent on what jury you draw for your case -- maybe they'll convict, and maybe they'll decided that the law shouldn't be followed -- but you won't know until the trial.