Defining dysfunction

This paragraph from a recent Paul Krugman post reminded me of something I've been meaning to dig into for a while.

A brief aside: I don’t think it’s right to call this a case of Washington “dysfunction”. Dysfunction is when we get outcomes nobody wants, or fail to do things everyone wants done, because there doesn’t seem to be any way to package the politics. In this case, however, people who oppose TPP voted down key enabling measures — that is, they got what they wanted. Calling this “dysfunction” presumes that this deal is a good idea — and that kind of presumption is precisely what got successfully challenged yesterday.

We hear “dysfunction” thrown around a lot (often by me), so it might be a good idea to pin down some definitions. Krugman is definitely on the right track, but statements about “nobody” and “everybody” are obviously unrealistic. Every scenario makes somebody happy, up to and including the rise of Cthulhu and his dark, chthonic host. A workable definition will have to take that into account, as well as considering differing intensities of opinion.

A system is dysfunctional if there is no consistent weighting of preferences that corresponds to its actions. (I'm going to be careful not to let this drift into a discussion of voting paradoxes because a good portion of this audience knows a great deal about the subject and I would have to do serious research to make sure I didn't make a fool of myself.)

For example, a group could do what the plurality wants, or it could use some sort of weight by rank (first choice is worth five points, second is worth four...), or it could take into account strongly held positive or negative opinions.

Let's use restaurants. A group might go to an Armenian place because three out of seven listed it as their first choice, or they could go to Chipotle because six people listed that as their second choice, or they could take Chipotle off the list because one person refused to go (I'm with that guy. Living in LA and going to Chipotle is like living in Rome and going to Pizza Hut). All of these decisions are consistent with a functional organization.

If, on the other hand, the group ends up going for Thai when everyone would have preferred burgers, that's dysfunctional. I can’t think of a reasonable and consistent weighting scheme that can produce that result.

A political party is more complex than a group of friends, but in some ways it may not be that much more complex. I’ll try to flesh this out later, but for now, while you have to be careful talking about what a large group “wants,” I suspect that there are a lot choices that the GOP would “like” to make (infrastructure spending, for instance) in the same sense that those friends would “like” to be having burgers now.

Based on these definitions, for large chunks of the Twentieth Century, I'd say that the Democratic Party was the more dysfunctional. The Republicans, however, do seem to be making up for lost time.

Reading over this, it's pretty clear that I have a ways to go before I have a proposal for something coherent and measurable and usable, but I do believe there is something out there, What's more, I suspect that, in 2015, it's probably more important to worry about dysfunction than about ideological extremism.

A genuinely funny conspiracy theory

Maybe I'm just getting around to noticing, but it seems that Cracked has been pushing their videos more into the sketch category. The results have been a bit mixed, but some of the clips have been very good and the site has built up a great of good will over the years.

I may be biased -- I have a fondness for satiric conspiracy theories and a bad feeling about the practice of making big budget films out of TV shows (particularly the recently departed) -- but, with that caveat, I think you'll enjoy this one.

Captain Outrageous

My big complaint with business journalism in the Ithuvanian Age is not just that journalists mistake luck and hype for genius, but that they miss genius when they see it. Reed Hastings can get on the cover of anything; Neal Sabin, who essentially invented a large and highly profitable media industry, doesn't even get a Wikipedia page.

There is an aesthetic to business just as there is to sports. The great players do look good on paper, but there is a pleasure in watching their style and their brilliance that the stats simply can't capture.

And nobody ever had more style than Ted Turner.

Uber and rules

From the comments at Cathy O'Neil's page:

Uber is a worldwide company; NYC type medallions are found in just six US cities. There’s absolutely no evidence that inflated medallion values in these six cities had anything to do with medallion owners pocketing obscene taxi profits at the expense of riders and drivers (there are no obscene taxi profits in any city; medallions are a financial instrument, and inflated in line with comparable instruments). The “heroic innovators versus corrupt protectors of the status quo” framing is designed to prevent anyone from actually examining whether Uber can produce taxi service much more efficiently than a reasonably run Yellow Cab, or where these massive efficiency gains might come from, or whether they are sustainable over time, or why no one else had ever thought of them.

This was generated by a question that Cathy posed:

On the one hand, it does seem to be a different act to raise your hands on Broadway versus using an app on your phone. But by the time we have chips implanted into our heads, just thinking the words “hail a taxi” might do the trick, and that’s where the grey area lives. Or, put it another way, yellow taxis might also want to have hailing apps, and in fact they really should. 

I can attest that yellow cabs have hailing apps in some cities already, Seattle for example.  Should that allow those companies to evade transportation regulation?  This is very much like the sales tax issue with Amazon -- slight differences in business model lead to a discussion as to whether the generally accepted rules apply at all.  In general, I think there are a lot of pernicious regulations and there is a lot of things that can be done to make things more efficient. 

But I also believe in treating groups fairly.  I don't think that technical exceptions to rules should be the goal -- rather we should overturn bad rules.   I'd have more sympathy if the new entrants were selling their app to all comers (pure software company) or if they were pushing for the rules to be revised wholesale into a new regulatory regime that all of the relevant players could participate in.  It isn't always the case that the status quo is good, but exception-based regulation seems to be a dangerous way to proceed as that can create a less competitive market.  Even Ayn Rand thought that was bad (see the first part of Atlas Shrugged and Taggart Transcontinental). 

The New Yorker's culture desk could use a fact checker

I recently came across an uncredited piece that drove my inner film geek crazy. About halfway into the review of Ace Records’s new compilation, “Come Spy With Us: The Secret Agent Songbook,” I came across this.

[emphasis added]

The world of spy themes doesn’t stop at Bond (or at Bond offshoots or Bond antidotes), and neither does Ace’s set. Lalo Schifrin’s immortal “Mission: Impossible” theme is here, along with the Challengers’ version of Hugo Montenegro’s “Theme from the Man From U.N.C.L.E.” Both of those illustrate the relationship not only between spy music and surf music—similar in instrumentation, similar in insistence—but also between spy music and the music of spaghetti Westerns.

...

There are far too many good selections here to list them all: Billy Strange’s “Our Man Flint,” Nancy Sinatra’s “The Last of the Secret Agent” (Flint and Sinatra would collaborate on the theme song for the Bond film “You Only Live Twice,” which isn’t on the set) [That should be "Strange and Sinatra," Derek Flint being fictional and all. It should also be noted that the version of “You Only Live Twice” that most of us are familiar with is by Barry and Sinatra. Billy Strange had nothing to do with it -- MP], and Matt Monro’s “Wednesday’s Child.”   

Billy Strange was an arranger and session musician now best remembered as a member of the legendary Wrecking Crew. Hugo Montenegro was a minor film and TV composer (other than I Dream of Jeannie, I doubt any of his compositions would register if you heard them) who was best known for cheesy but popular cover arrangements.



Both released albums of covers of soundtracks of popular movies and TV shows. As far as I can tell, neither had anything to do with the original scores. Those came from composers such as Ennio Morricone, John Barry and, in this case, the man who wrote the theme for the Man from UNCLE and composed most of the music for the show's first season and who scored both Flint films, Jerry Goldsmith.

For movie people, Goldsmith is kind of a big deal:

Jerry Goldsmith has often been considered one of film music history's most innovative and influential composers.[8] While presenting Goldsmith with a Career Achievement Award from the Society for the Preservation of Film Music in 1993, fellow composer Henry Mancini (Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Pink Panther) said of Goldsmith, "... he has instilled two things in his colleagues in this town. One thing he does, he keeps us honest. And the second one is he scares the hell out of us."[65]  ...  In a 2001 interview, film composer Marco Beltrami (3:10 to Yuma, The Hurt Locker) stated, "Without Jerry, film music would probably be in a different place than it is now. I think he, more than any other composer bridged the gap between the old Hollywood scoring style and the the [sic] modern film composer."[67]

For someone writing about film music, crediting Montenegro or Strange with a Goldsmith composition is the kind of mistake that makes you wonder how much of the writer's expertise came from the liner notes. Perhaps worse, it is such an easily avoidable error. Thanks to Wikipedia, it takes so little time to get the facts right.

In fairness to the author, some of the critical points are valid (such as the relationship between spy films and surf music. For example, check out the arrangement from this sequence from Our Man Flint,



But even good arguments are difficult to take seriously when they come with careless mistakes.

p.s. I didn't want to go full nerd in the middle of a post, but if you feel like releasing your inner spy geek, I recommend checking out these discussions of the various arrangements of Man from UNCLE themes (including the revelation that Goldsmith hated Lalo Schifrin's new arrangement).

p.p.s. I ran this past an actual authority, Brian Phillips. He pointed out another one I should have caught: "Though Bill Cosby starred in “I Spy” as early as 1965 (the brassy Roland Shaw theme is included)..."  The I Spy theme was, of course, by Earl Hagen who was, in Sixties television, also kind of a big deal [Andy Griffith Show, Dick Van Dyke Show, etc.].

Brian also questions whether the bassline to "Come Spy With Me"  is really James Jamerson.

I don't have time to comment on this one

But I really want to.

The David Brooks files: How many uncorrected mistakes does it take to be discredited?

Eugen Weber explains the origin of window shopping

I've got a big MOOC thread (actually a MOO? thread) involving Dr. Weber and his seminal video course, the Western Tradition (previously discussed here).

Whenever I research one of these megathreads, I end up learning all sorts of interesting things that don't quite fit in with the thread. For example, I'd never associated the Industrial Age with peering through a shop window.

Over at the teaching blog

I review Gary Rubinstein's deep dive into Common Core-aligned assignments. What he finds is not pretty.

FYC -- AMC really, really likes Emmy Awards

More notes from LA.

As I believe we've mentioned before, certain parts of town (particularly Hollywood, North Hollywood and Studio City) are carpet bombed on an  annual basis by ads bearing the phrase "For your consideration."

Though a great deal of money goes into chasing these little statues, it is by no means spread out evenly across the industry. For the major networks, Emmys are almost entirely a social currency; they have almost no effect on ratings or syndication packages (it may not be a coincidence that I haven't seen any ads for CBS). For the pay services (HBO, Netflix, etc.) and for certain cable channels, however, the awards can do a lot to raise profiles.

Probably no channel has gotten more of a reputational bump than AMC starting with their critical breakout Mad Men. Perhaps it's not surprising that the company is willing to make an expensive push to get a few more statues from the show, despite there not being an even theoretical chance of a ratings boost. .

What could possibly go wrong?

Cory Doctorow writes:

Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures has received a patent for a DRM [Digital rights management -- MP] system for 3D printers, to stop people from printing out trademarked and patent objects. Like other DRM systems, this won't work (it will either have to be so broad in its parameters for recognizing prohibited items that it will balk at printing innumerable harmless objects, or it will be trivial to defeat by disguising the objects beyond the system's ability to recognize them).
...
From Tech Review's Antonio Regalado:

“You load a file into your printer, then your printer checks to make sure it has the rights to make the object, to make it out of what material, how many times, and so on,” says Michael Weinberg, a staff lawyer at the non-profit Public Knowledge, who reviewed the patent at the request of Technology Review. “It’s a very broad patent.”

The patent isn’t limited to 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing. It also covers using digital files in extrusion, ejection, stamping, die casting, printing, painting, and tattooing and with materials that include “skin, textiles, edible substances, paper, and silicon printing.”

Because if you're going to approve a really sweeping patent, who better to give it to than Nathan freakin' Myhrvold?

Another convoluted IP tale

Mark Evanier spells out the strange sequence that led from the creation of Mickey Mouse to this:

I was in the hospital when it was announced that Universal and Disney had concluded a deal that would send sportscaster Al Michaels to NBC while Disney would reacquire title to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

UPDATE: Right on cue, Mark Evanier provides another excellent IP post, this time on residuals.

Josh Marshall on Scott Walker's anti-tenure push

I've got to get out the door, so I don't have time to dig into this question, but many reform advocates such as Jonathan Chait have argued in very broad terms that educational systems which grant increased job security based on seniority only attract deadwood; good, productive academicians have no interest  in tenure since they would always be the last to be fired.

If this is true, why haven't elite private schools replaced tenure with a bonus system?

From TPM:

So I want to take a look at a different part of this. The crown jewel of the Wisconsin university system is the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It is one of the top research universities in the country and the world. And with this, you will basically kiss that jewel goodbye. To me this is the more salient reality than whether you think academic tenure is a good thing or not in itself.

If this happens, over time, the professors who can will leave. And as the top flight scholars and researchers depart, so will the reputation of the institution. So will graduate students who want to study with them, the best undergrads, money that flows to prestigious scholarship. Don't get me wrong. Not in a day or a year or even several years. But it will. If you don't get this, you don't understand the economy and incentive structure of university life.

Over the last couple decades, especially in the humanities, we've seen develop what increasingly looks like an aristocracy of tenure. The lucky PhDs land tenure and they've got a pretty good gig. In some cases they have a great gig. But the system is sustained by an army of TAs, adjuncts, other non-tenure track positions and assistant professors fighting for tenure. In some cases realistically, in some cases not at all realistically, all those folks are fighting for the hope of landing tenure at some point. Take that away and the whole system of sweated academic labor comes crashing down.

But again, that's bigger picture. Let's look at the medium picture. Take tenure out of the University of Wisconsin and the people who can will - over time - leave. If we had a single national system, that would be one thing, as it would effect all equally. And the departees wouldn't have any place to go. But it won't. Private universities, with the most outrageously high tuitions, will not do this. And the top academics will go there. The net effect of all this will be to kill off or bleed dry great state universities which are yes, still pricey, but not as crazy expensive and hard to get into as the prestige private universities.

Cracked has some fun with ad campaigns

The 7 Most Blatant Lies Famous Brands Based Entire Ads On

Slightly NSFW

Land of the Pyramids

I can't quite give this TPM/Slice article on multilevel marketing of dietary supplements an unqualified recommendation (for this and other reasons), but it's worth reading.

You can find a better treatment of multilevel marketing from the good people at This American Life (specifically Bianca Giaever and Brian Reed). And, if you really want to get deep into the weeds, check out this video from the Internet Archive...

Then follow the link to see what became of that Nutrilite.

Damn you, Jessica Williams!

God as my witness, I was working on a post about how open carry laws like this have have huge de facto exceptions.

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