Post Iraq

Muhammad with camel

Monday, February 6th, 2006

The first thing to note about the is their timidity.

The timidity of the selection turns out to have been pure genius (mine would have aimed for maximum depravity) as it highlights just how bizarre the reaction has been.

Many have expressed disappointment in the tepid support for free speech from many western governments. I am completely unsurprised. The U.S. government and its allies have taken on around as constituents. The government of Denmark has more freedom to do the Wright thing.

As I am on a very minor photo remix kick, here is my contribution to the universe of images of Mohammed:

muhammad licking camel asshole
licking a camel’s asshole under orders from .
Original photo by Saffanna licensed under cc-by-2.0.

I believe this image complies with putative , though some may claim they see him in the camel’s face. (Yes, this is a remix with zero diff.)

How do I know Muhammad and not Jesus is with the lucky camel? Because a camel couldn’t feel an imaginary person‘s licks.

Posted in Blogs, Free Speech, Intellectual Protectionism, Iraq, Peeves, Politics | 75 Comments »

Fraud of War in Iraq

Friday, January 13th, 2006

Cost of War in Iraq, a new paper from Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, has already been discussed, at least superficially, on a large number of blogs. Comments at Marginal Revolution helpfully cite a number of related papers.

Bilmes and Stiglitz conservatively project that the total economic costs for the U.S. jurisdiction at $1 to $2 trillion. Direct budgetary costs are projected to be $750 billion to $1.2 billion. I have only skimmed the paper, which looks interesting enough, but nothing really new.

I’ve mentioned increasing cost projects several times last year and before, directly in Trillion dollar fraud (August), $700 billion fraud (July) and A lie halfway fulfilled (January 2005).

I won’t bother to explain the fraud this time, read the past posts. Hint: it involves repeatability.

One thing I’m struck by, skimming comments contesting Bilmes and Stiglitz (the political ones, not the technical ones concerning borrowing costs should be included, though they overlap) is that after the fact, I think many people would claim that the invasion was justified, economically and otherwise, regardless of the final cost. $5 trillion? (NB, that is a hypothetical, not a prediction!) It was worth getting rid of Hussein and deterring would-be Husseins. $10 trillion? Just goes to show how nasty “our” opponents are. $100 trillion? Civilization must be destroyed to save civilization!

All the more reason to be cognizant of probable costs before going to war. There’s not really a need for prediction markets here. Just multiply proponents’ estimates by ten. However, people stupidly believe words that come out of politicians’ mouths. Prediction market estimates could, ironically, provide a countervailing authority.

A better way? See Wright, Scheer, Zakaria, Hardar, Tierney, and Pape.

Posted in Economics, Iraq, Peeves, Politics, Prediction Markets | 1 Comment »

The Anti-Authoritarian Age

Saturday, December 24th, 2005

In a compelling post Chris Anderson claims that people are unconfortable with distributed systems “[b]ecause these systems operate on the alien logic of probabilistic statistics, which sacrifices perfection at the microscale for optimization at the macroscale.”

I suspect one could make an even stronger claim closer to people’s actual thoughts, which aren’t about probability: people crave authority, and any system that doesn’t claim authority is suspect.

The most extreme example does not involve the web, blogs, wikipedia, markets, or democracy, all of which Anderson mentions. Science is the extreme example, and its dual, religion.

Science disclaims authority and certain knowledge. Even scientific “laws” are subject to continued investigation, criticism, and revision. Religions claim certain knowledge with no evidence, only assertions of authority, and count billions as believers.

Distributed systems sacrifice claims of perfection for optimization at the macroscale.

What wikipedia really needs is the pope to declare certain articles .

…

On the subject of response to the ongoing rounds of wikipedia criticism, this otherwise excellent post from Rob Kaye is pretty typical:

The Wikipedians will carry on their work and in another 5 years time it will be better than encyclopedia britannica — its only a matter of time.

For me this time is measured in negative years. I loved paper encyclopedias as a kid (but was always skeptical of their content–very incomplete at best). I haven’t looked at one in years. I use wikipedia every day.

Not having access to a paper encyclopedia means I have more shelf space to work with. Not having access to wikipedia would be a severe annoyance. In another 5 years time it would be a severe disability.

…

Addendum 20051225: I forgot to mention another example of ready acceptance of bogus authority versus rejection of uncertain discovery: the WMD excuse for invading Iraq versus the horror at an .

Posted in Blogs, Economics, Iraq, Peeves, Prediction Markets, Wikipedia | 3 Comments »

Trillion dollar fraud

Wednesday, August 24th, 2005

Linda Bilmes in a recent New York Times column estimates the total outlay for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan will come to $1.3 trillion. Christopher Westley cites a 2002 study by William Nordhaus estimating the ten year cost of an Iraq invasion at $1.2 billion:

The figure was outlandish, I was told. This was back at the time when Larry Lindsay was fired for making public his estimate that the war would cost $200 billion when the Bush Administration was estimating a cost of about half that amount.

At a glance it looks like Bilmes and Nordhaus each are including things like debt financing costs, increased veteran’s benefits and oil prices in their estimates, accouting for the half trillion increase over other recent estimates that the direct financial cost of the war could come to $700 trillion.

Regardless, it is clear and bears repeating ad nauseum that the war advocates underestimated financial costs by an order of magnitude and this radical underestimation is recurrent.

Separately, Patri Friedman just posted an article excerpt that provides one summary of how idiotic U.S. government economic (and other) policy in Iraq has been. Read it.

More broadly (sorry, can’t dig up the links right now) I’ve seen pro-war or ambivalent putatively pro-market people lament that the U.S. regime implements a centrally planned economy rather than a hoped for Hong Kong on the Euphrates, or anything close. Sorry, that hope was stupid and ignorant. Why trust the government to do the right thing in Iraq when you agree it almost never does the right thing at home? What about postwar Japan and Germany? Well, in the case of Germany anyway, the allied forces imposed price controls, one of the stupidest economic policies possible, and were aghast when Ludwig Erhard abolished the controls in 1948, paving the way for the economic miracle the U.S. wrongly takes credit for.

The average person has some excuse for believing whatever lies were told about the presence of “weapons of mass destruction”–how could one know? (Personally I find the entire topic incredibly boring. The only reason I didn’t believe is that I assume nearly every phrase uttered by a successful politician is fraudulent.) When the lies concern financial cost or economic policy, there is no excuse for belief, as the lies are basically the same every time.

Posted in Economics, Iraq, Peeves, Politics | 3 Comments »

1,844 Darwin Award Winners!

Wednesday, August 10th, 2005

A few brief notes on Thomas Knapp’s reply to my carping. Knapp writes:

I pay more attention to American deaths, because my goal is to influence the opinions of Americans. Americans are the ones who can bring this debacle to an end.

Understood. I have a different goal: to destroy nationalism. Here’s to our mutual success.

I know of no one who volunteers to be a “slave” when joining the US military. Doing so entails a time-delimited contractual obligation, not involuntary servitude (the contract even includes the specific provisions under which one’s enlistment may be “involuntarily” extended).

Throughout history slavery has not been a singular institution. It has sometimes been time limited. Wikipedia (emphasis added):

The 1926 Slavery Convention described slavery as “…the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised…” Therefore a slave is someone who cannot leave an owner or employer without explicit permission, and who will be returned if they escape. Control may be accomplished through official or tacit arrangements with local authorities by masters who have some influence because of their status.

Perhaps calling soldiers slaves is a bit of a stretch, perhaps not. Soldiers are not free humans in any case.

Knapp again:

Furthermore, not only do enlistees not volunteer to be murderers, but their oath of enlistment is very specific in that it binds them to “defend and protect the Constitution of the United States,” not to randomly or non-randomly kill individuals without legitimate cause to do so.

Where defending and protecting is a tremendous stretch and includes engaging in mass murder.

And, if they realize they are being misused, it takes some big-time guts to stand up and say “no, this isn’t in my contract, no that order is not lawful, and no, I’m not going to obey it.”

I have two sets of heroes. The smart or lucky ones: draft dodgers. The stupid or unlucky ones: deserters.

But don’t fuck the kids who are dribbling their blood into the sand because they were naive enough to believe that their country would not ask them to do evil things. They’re victims in this thing as much anyone else. You can’t put someone in an insane situation and then expect sane conduct. It doesn’t work that way.

They weren’t put in an insane situation, they volunteered. Granted, many of them don’t have significant ability to think ahead. Given that lame excuse, in lieu of saying “fuck the U.S. troops” I hereby nominate the 1844 killed so far (17 additional winners since your Sunday post) for a collective darwin award.

Posted in Iraq, Peeves, Politics | 4 Comments »

Enough dead

Sunday, August 7th, 2005

Thomas Knapp writes:

1,827 … and counting. Enough said.

I shouldn’t pick on Knapp, whose heart is mostly in the right place (and he’s a linkmonger, so he probably won’t mind), but…

The sentiment above, that the number of U.S. government troops killed is all-important, sums up the Iraq war, or similar, pisses me off.

Those who joined the military volunteered to be slaves and volunteered to be murderers. Sure, many of them just wanted to pay for college, but most gangsters are primarily in it for the money too. Fuck the U.S. troops.

Around 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in this war. (Yes, I’m aware of claims that the number is several times higher, but that estimate includes indirect deaths and is tenuous as far as I can tell, and I’m also aware of claims that an Iraqi civil war was an eventuality anyway, but that also seems highly speculative and doesn’t justify any deaths now.) They didn’t volunteer. Enough said.

But I’m all for gratuitous speech. Fuck the U.S. troops. And don’t forget to count small change or to understand real change.

Update 20050809: Thomas Knapp wrote a thorough and pleasant rejoinder, much of which I agree with. I’ll respond to the parts I don’t in a future post.

Posted in Iraq, Peeves, Politics | 23 Comments »

$700 billion fraud

Thursday, July 21st, 2005

Now: U.S. government spending $5.6 billion each month in Iraq and Afghanistan, not including some costs for maintenance and replacement of equipment and some training and reconstruction costs. Financial cost of Iraq war could exceed $700 billion.

Six months ago: U.S. government spending $5.4 billion each month on the two wars. I guess that financial cost of Iraq war will come to $500 billion.

Before 2003 invasion: Cost of Iraq war estimated at $50 billion, with assurances that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for much of the effort. Note missing zero.

Throughout U.S. history (and probably time immemorial): Financial cost of war consistently underestimated by a factor of ten.

Has even a single person been held accountable? Where is the clamor for a Military Planning Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act?

Posted in Economics, Iraq, Peeves, Politics | 4 Comments »

Withdrawing not an alternative to invading

Saturday, July 9th, 2005

I endorse Don Boudreaux’s recommedation of columns by John Tierney and Robert Pape and Boudreux’s conclusion:

I content myself here merely to point out that if a government has any legitimate functions, surely the most central of these is to protect its people from violence inflicted by foreign invaders. If Uncle Sam’s current foreign policies promote such invasions of terrorists (as Pape’s evidence suggests), then Uncle Sam’s first duty – if it truly puts the welfare of Americans first – is to have its garrisons and guns scram from the middle east ASAP.

However, just getting out, and just for the purpose of lowering Americans’ profile as targets of terrorists, is wholly inadequate. Uncle Sam needs a new vision, one that drives toward eliminating bad regimes and spreading freedom and prosperity, not merely undoing previous mistakes.

Robert Wright, Robert Scheer, Frank Zakaria, Leon Hardar and probably many others (tell me, I’ll link to them) have offered such a vision.

Addendum 20050720: My not very clever post title may have confused at least one of the three present commenters, perhaps all three. Withdrawing is not an alternative to invading–not invading is an alternative to invading. My more serious point is that merely advocating not invading, or now withdrawing, is inadequate, however right these positions are. People like Thomas Barnett (probably a really is a “great strategist” relative to the average Pentagon briefer–that’s damning with faint praise–I had the misfortune to read his book and will trash it in a future post) paint a glowing portrait of a world “connected” through U.S. government military force. An adequate response does not merely point out that the means proposed will not accomplish the ends envisioned, but describes how the world can reach a similarly good outcome by other means.

Posted in Iraq, Politics | 5 Comments »

Constructive Engagement

Tuesday, July 5th, 2005

Fareed Zakaria in How To Change Ugly Regimes and Leon Hardar in Trading, Not Invading: US Hums Different Tune on Vietnam understand what Robert Scheer and Robert Wright understand, that which apologists for the invasion of Iraq and some of its anti-market opponents do not understand. Zakaria:

I realize that it feels morally righteous and satisfying to “do something” about cruel regimes. But in doing what we so often do, we cut these countries off from the most powerful agents of change in the modern world—commerce, contact, information. To change a regime, short of waging war, you have to shift the balance of power between the state and society. Society needs to be empowered. It is civil society—private business, media, civic associations, nongovernmental organizations—that can create an atmosphere which forces change in a country. But by piling on sanctions and ensuring that a country is isolated, Washington only ensures that the state becomes ever more powerful and society remains weak and dysfunctional. In addition, the government benefits from nationalist sentiment as it stands up to the global superpower. Think of Iraq before the war, which is a rare case where multilateral sanctions were enforced. As we are discovering now, the sanctions destroyed Iraq’s middle class, its private sector and its independent institutions, but they allowed Saddam to keep control.

Bush and some of his most virulent opponents have a different understanding: markets must be spread by force, because markets are good and because markets are evil respectively.

Posted in Economics, Iraq, Politics | 4 Comments »

Use [the] force

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005

Saw this in a Robert Scheer column printed in today’s San Francisco Chronicle: The force Bush won’t use on Iran.

So, tangled history aside, what should the U.S. do now about a repressive and potentially threatening government in Iran? The one thing Bush strangely has refused to do throughout the world: practice the principles of capitalism.

The model for such a policy, which emphasizes normal trade relations even with regimes that have religious and political obsessions different from our own, was most successfully employed by Richard Nixon in his famous opening to “Red” China, as well as in the detente period that should properly be credited with the ultimate fall of the Soviet empire.

The most powerful liberalizing forces the U.S. wields are not military, but economic and cultural. Though not as macho as trying to spread democracy through the barrel of a gun, normalization offers a better prospect of accomplishing that end, while saving billions of dollars and priceless lives.

I’m pleased to read Scheer get it Wright.

Posted in Economics, Iraq, Politics | 2 Comments »

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