My Third Summer Reading Review: The Old, Weird America

Our American Age

Yesterday I completed the third and final book on my summer reading list, The Old, Weird America (originally published as “Invisible Republic”, the author, Greil Marcus, intended the former title).  The subtitle tells it all: The World of Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes, referring, of course, to the musical ferment occurring in upstate New York in the basement of a rented house in 1967, involving Dylan and members of what would become The Band.

The book tells of those storied sessions, and their origins in the compilations of songs from the dawn of mass market audio recording in the 1920s.

What comes across is a lament for the rich multiplicity that was early America.  With the advent of television, a stifling conformity is all but erasing that diversity.

In our age, when being brief is essential, Marcus seems to take on more than need be; though when written, 20 years ago, his would've been considered a slim volume.

So, with brevity in mind, I'll focus on a single song from those tapes, Tears of Rage, with lyrics by Bob Dylan, song by Richard Manuel, and give my take.  And though the music is a wonderful thing, indeed, I'll focus on Dylan's words.

Most theories hold that the song describes a father-daughter relationship, which could also pass for a generational indictment of new by old.  That may well be, though Dylan usually weaves together many threads, allowing the reader/listener multiple choices, so that we're left to construct our own treehouse, out of the available bits in the shed.  

The song's three verses and chorus, as quoted below, are a bit more polished than those sung on the basement tapes, but are a bit easier to read:

1.

We carried you in our arms on Independence Day
And now you throw us all aside and put us all away
Oh, what dear daughter 'neath the sun could treat her father so
To wait upon him hand and foot, yet always tell him no

(Chorus)
Tears of rage, tears of grief
Why must I always be the thief
Come to me now, you know we're so alone
And life is brief

2. 

It was all so very painless when you ran out to receive
All that false instruction which we never could believe
And now the heart is filled with gold as if it was a purse
But, oh, what kind of love is this which goes from bad to worse

(Chorus, repeated)

3.
We pointed you the way to go and scratched your name in sand
Though you just thought it was nothing more than a place for you to stand
I want you to know that while we watched you discover no one would be true
That I myself was among the ones who thought it was just a childish thing to do

(Chorus, repeated)

With Dylan’s words before us, check out the second verse’s third and fourth lines. Most people read this as a father upset with a daughter wanting financial assistance, or as Dylan upset with commercialization in general.  But could there be an additional, fun message, tucked in there, too?  If we take the word “bad” and count letters upwards a little ways, we get “dad”, which would confirm a hunch, if we were, in fact, onto something.  The ‘worse’ would then be ‘fad’, which is fading into ‘had’, which does sound plenty worse.

Another find: Dylan’s original words for the ending of the first verse’s fourth line is not “yet always tell him no”, but instead “…answer no”, which if you think about it, reminds one of a young person who thinks he'll ‘know’ the answer.

And what if that ‘dear daughter’ is getting up there in years, but still a child—which fits these words—say, eleven?  A father’s concern for a daughter at this stage is almost always that she wait till she's older.  Thus the earlier part of that “answer know’ line: “To wait upon him hand and foot…” is how a daughter treats a boyfriend before getting serious at a later stage: tuning in, being attentive, pleasant, helpful, but always saying ‘no’ to the inevitable request for hurry.  Practice makes perfect.

If this is indeed a father thinking about an 11-year-old daughter, what’s with the “why must I always be the thief?”  The obvious interpretation is that the father is always taking away what the daughter wants.  But, it also might make sense if the father’s name were “Robert”, which has the word ‘rob’ in it.  In its best sense, robbing, or taking, is showing someone something meaningful, taken from a different time and space.  For example, The Band taking a photo of their assembled relations and placing it in their album, as if to say: “we have roots”.  In a relationship with a child, the adult can show symbols that represent a deeper message, but the child usually can’t do this, let alone understand.  Thus, a parent’s frustration, or “rage” and “grief”, when “point(ing) you the way to go…” (third verse, first line), and the child misunderstanding, thinking the name in the sand was a place to stand.  Or--and Dylan’s messages can often be seen from both sides—the daughter does understand, and these lines are all to be seen as a treasure map that's been successfully discovered and decoded.

Maybe, you say, but what about the chorus’ “Come to me now, you know we’re so alone, and life is brief.”  Well, one could say the father is what an 11-year-old daughter needs in order to spread her wings and fly away in just a few years.  Ok,  but what about “so alone”?  They're uniquely suited to be teacher and student, for one another—but just for a few short years.  

What about the song’s second line: “And now you throw us all aside and put us all away?”  The obvious answer is that of course the child looks beyond her parents and prefers friends and independence.  But doesn’t the wording sound awkward?  It would be, except that Dylan is making a joke.  Remember, this was written in the age of records that had ‘A’ sides and “B’ sides.  So, he's chuckling while accusing us of putting away the record before discovering the ‘B’ side.

This is making sense, you say, but what about the “false instruction” part?  In the second verse the first clue is “all so very painless”, which of course can be thought of as ‘also', ‘vary', and 'paying less'.  And what does “when you ran out” make one think of?   Sure, running somewhere, but we'll soon come to ‘gold’ in a ‘purse’, so ‘running out’ is instead not having money, which is why as a child it’s “all so painless” “to receive” money when it’s needed.  This “false instruction” sets the child up for the shock of not having enough money once independent, which makes it hard to leave one’s parents.  There's the added fun of “ ..which we never could believe”.  That’s because the sentence could also read “which whenever, could be, leave—three stages, perhaps, in the eventual flight out of the nest.

Which only leaves the final two lines in the third verse.  What's all that mean?  Did Dylan get tired and just throw something together to finish up?  Maybe.  But if you look at the third verse, it has the same three word phrase, “thought it was”, twice, in the second and fourth lines.  And if you pair up this twin phrase and count off the remaining words in both lines, you find that there are an extra three words the first time around: “..you to stand.” [note: legs look like an ’11’].  In this context, the father is, in effect, saying that the sea's waves will eventually erase your name, meaning you’ll find someone, and change your name, once you leave the nest.  Farfetched?  Now compare those twin lines again.  The first is three words, before hitting the twin phrase, the second, eight.  Looking at the third line in between, you'll find the mid-point between three and eight, 5-6, correspond to the words “know” and “that”.  Plus, the third and eighth words are “you” and “we”; so, you-we-know-that, or know-that-you-we.  A girl born in 1956 would be eleven years old in 1967.

Huh?  But Dylan didn’t have children that old, you say.  Well, perhaps he’d recently met parents with a charming, precocious daughter, or had dreamed of one.

And that, folks, is a wrap: The Old, Weird America reviewed.

My Dad's Passing, One Year Later

On this one year anniversary of his fall (he died three days later), a brief look back:

The final unpublished photo (appropriately, at the cemetery, with his gaze on the place where he would come to rest):

Picking up sticks at cemetery (8/20/16).  

Dad planted the red oak in this photo.

Another view (8/20/16), with mother's  

grave decorated by my cousin, who

was visiting.

Final photo I have (9/10/16).  

Inside church with organ he 

loved.

At village green bandstand 

(9/10/16).

It is amazing how good Dad looked in his final days.  Despite having turned 90, he took no medications, and was still mentally invested (we visited all the village's churches—some weren’t open—on 9.10.16); what a life well lived!

There was one final puzzle to Dad’s last days, and that was his insistence that nothing be made of his 90th birthday.  For someone who enjoyed well-done pageantry and ceremony, his aversion to the spotlight was remarkable.  A possible explanation is that he often cited the example of his great-grandfather, J.K., who settled here in the late 1830s.  Apparently, at J.K.’s 90th birthday party in 1914, the guests had all gathered at the old house to honor a man of some stature.  But where was that man?  At some point someone espied a figure making his way, on foot, through the fields, and not looking back.  

Jared 

P.S.: And, finally, in a tribute to his master, Pip, our family’s beloved presence, held out through the heat of summer, living exclusively outside (refusing to cross the threshold into the kitchen), in order to pass away in time for Dad’s one year anniversary.  Pip was a full 13 and a half years old when he died (in human terms, 94, going on 95).

Final unpublished photo, 7/15/17. 

Summer Book Review II: Drawdown

Whittling Climate Change Down To A Nothing-burger

I'll make this short and sweet:

As humans, science is what makes us smart and successful:

Example: let's say that long ago, a farmer had a hunch that if water from a river were applied to crops, the harvest would be bigger.  So, one field was watered and another not, and the two harvests compared.

That's science: testing whether ideas work.

Fast-forward to present-day science, which indicates that our world's climate is changing with disastrous results.  Obviously, we're opting to be smart and successful, right?

Editor Paul Hawken and his team have crunched the numbers and shown what steps would be the most effective in getting to that 'smart and successful' goal.  Their book, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed To Reverse Global Warming, is facts and figures presented using that always-fun method: ranking.

An example: Farmland restoration, a strategy I would have thought would be one of the most important ways forward (because it returns carbon to the ground and prevents native forest from being cleared for agriculture) only ranks #23.  They estimate that about half the 1 billion acres of our world's abandoned farmland could be returned to productive use by 2050, costing a net $72.2 billion, and generating about 18 times that amount in net savings.

The #1 way forward?  You'll have to check out the book for the surprise answer.  #2 is onshore wind turbines, which, BTW, nearly everybody in the US can support by purchasing their power from Arcadia.  Check it out:

https://www.arcadiapower.com

It just switches your power supply from your current provider to wind power that wouldn't otherwise be produced.  And your current provider still services you; the only thing that changes is your power source.  We figure we pay about 5-10% more, though that represents the difference between the wind we buy and the coal/natural gas in our region that we used to buy.  Well worth it.

I Cut My Sugar Intake --> I'm Sleeping Much More Soundly

I Woke Up To All That Sugar

Does added sugar keep one up at night?  You wouldn't think so, but I recently starting cutting back on my sugar intake and I'm sleeping much more soundly.

Granted, it's only been a week, but I haven't done much else differently, recently.

It used to be that I had a radical diet of absolutely no added sugar.  I'd check ingredient labels and refuse to eat anything with added sugar.  Then, gradually, I let down my guard, and recently realized I was consuming staggering amounts of the sweet stuff, yet still thinking I wasn't doing that badly, since I rarely ate candy, cakes, pies, etc.   Here's a typical day for me a week ago:

Breakfast: along with banana and tea (unsweetened):

 * protein drink (26 grams of protein): 26 grams of sugar
 * mixed no sugar and sugary granola: 6 grams
 * dark chocolate square or two: 4 grams

Lunch: along with English Muffin sandwich (0 grams):

  * bottled tea (20 grams of sugar)

Dinner: no added sugar

56 grams in one day!  Or, 14 teaspoons of the crystal powder.

So, I'm bottling my own unsweetened tea to take to work (so far so good), and am cutting out the energy drink (substituting eggs, or leftovers for the protein).  That's a big cut in added sugar, from 56 to 10 grams.

Has that accounted for my sounder sleep?  If so, I'll keep it up.

Book Review: Beating The Odds; Jump-Starting Developing Countries

A Way Forward

This is the first of three 'summer reading' books to be reviewed.

This Spring, my brother noticed a book being advertised in the NY Review of Books: "Beating The Odds; Jump-Starting Developing Countries", by Justin Yifu Lin and Célestin Monga.  My brother, my cousin and I had been talking about an essay I was writing on the subject of under-developed economies, and my brother, thinking I might be interested, tipped me off.

"Beating The Odds” did just that, as I am rarely enthused enough to write about my reading.  But, the book had just enough skepticism of developmental economics, yet seemed solidly fact-based, with rigorous back-up for its take on why, for example, China is now an economic superpower, while there are countries in Africa, and elsewhere, that not only haven’t developed like China has, but in the 1960s had larger GDPs than did China.

And what is that secret sauce that seems to have done the trick for China, Korea, Singapore, and more recently, India, Indonesia and Brazil?  The authors first address the mistaken paths that have hobbled unsuccessful efforts.  For example, focusing on what are perceived to be ‘prerequisites’ to growth like education, infrastructure, the rule of law, and the other achievements found in our more modern economies.  In country after country, scarce money was mistakenly poured into roads, new capitals, state-of-the-art factories, and other ‘white elephants’ that quickly crumbled with little to show.

What described successful efforts, instead, were careful deliberations to find a few industries that naturally fit the abilities and advantages of a given country.  These were then encouraged by the central government using Special Economic Zones that essentially made doing business easier, by cutting red tape.  These assisted businesses consciously targeted their counterparts in countries with GDPs that were roughly 100-300% higher.  In essence, they laid out a relocation welcome mat that featured cheaper labor and other ‘hard to say no to’ factors.   

In just a few sentences, that’s the secret: follow in the footsteps of economies with roughly 100-300% larger GDPs (economies that were at a roughly equivalent level of development 20 or so years ago), and keep moving up the global supply chain.  In just two words, the secret is: global trade.

So, do I have objections to anything in the book?    I’m obviously not an economist, and though I’ve read The Economist magazine off and on since my college years, and have read Paul Krugman’s blog and tweets for ten years (effectively, an Econ. 101 course), it’s hard to get very excited about industrial plants churning out mass-produced products with cheap labor, no matter one's credentials.  But, the authors are probably right, for the most part; and hard work is rarely glamorous.  I can remember, when a child, seeing ‘Made in Japan’ on most cheap toys, just as now tags read ‘China’ instead.  Soon, perhaps, tags will read “Pakistan” or “Ethiopia”.  If this is how wealth spreads, so be it.  It’s hard to find fault with success, unless your job is threatened, obviously.

A seed of doubt: the authors make a categorical claim that agriculture in developing countries must be made more productive through mechanization, consolidation of small holdings, and the implementation of conventional agriculture (the use of artificial fertilizers, for example).  But the fact that this is the way it's always been done shouldn’t be proof that it's the best way.  A skilled farmer, on just a few acres, can grow enough to feed a small village.  This, of course, assumes access to markets, and most importantly, the necessary skills to enrich and cultivate the soil, while spreading the wealth.  Given several skilled farmers, each producing enough for several dozen, you have a surplus, and income to grow on, with the village gradually enriching itself.  So, it would seem almost certainly possible for development to occur more organically; and, in parts of the world leap-frogging landlines, electric grids and classroom education, one wonders if there might be an unexplored path here that maintains the sense of place that can be lost when populations move to the nearest big city to find work.  

As a practical matter, however, Beating The Odds lays out how a people can focus on their inherent advantages (climate, skills, cheap labor, land, etc.), and fashion a likely way forward, building on their initial successes by taking steps up the global trade ladder.  More power to them.

(A review from an actual economist)

Covfefe Taken Apart

In Error Is Revelation

Making a mistake, especially when sleepy, can be revealing.

The Covfefe tweet sent by President Trump on May 31st could be just such a revelation:

So, a reference that most people recognize as "press coverage" became "press covfefe".

Many theories as to how this happened are out there.  What's important for our purposes is that the mistake, when taken apart, may reveal a hidden message.

Consider: the letters "...erage" are replaced with "fefe".  This may be where the message is, remembering that he is referring to the Press.

  * Inside the letters "...erage" is the word "rag", a derogatory term for a newspaper.
  * The letters "fefe" have been pronounced 'fey, fey'.  But if it's instead "fee, fee", this suggests
money and also, a small lapdog (Fifi).  Perhaps one could even say the dog's owner is an elderly woman who lives in urban opulence; perhaps referred to as a 'grey lady' (nickname for the New York Times).

Take all this together, and you have someone who wants a lapdog relationship with a 'rag'--the Press, in general--but is frustrated, and tired, and gives up.

Unlike the party line adherence on 'Fox and Friends', for example, where a transactional 'fee' is exchanged (positive press coverage in exchange for occasional petting and unquestioned loyalty), most reporters have no such interest--sad, and frustrating.

The Hive Mind

Reason To Be Together --> Reason Together

Question: “Are digital technologies making politics impossible”

Answer: No

Despite all the bullying, polarization, and intentional disinformation found on social media, our era will eventually find fixes that rebalance the shared media experience.  This newfound equilibrium will effectively minimize the politics of vitriol, blinkered tribalism, and cynical fear-mongering.

Already, the low-hanging fruit is being picked: proprietary networks are banning the worst offenders, journalists are waking up to the dangers of false equivalence, voters are learning the lessons of complacency, and citizens are finding the occasional need for outrage.

Yet another rebalancing will involve network algorithms that, with increasing effectiveness, screen out ‘fake news’ from highlighted, ‘trending’ topics. 

And a third tier of fixes, engaged in by vulnerable democratic governments, will counter state-sponsored attacks on social media with active debunking. 

What will prove most effective, however, in rebalancing shared media, are adaptations for digital technology that organically spread general knowledge, political fluency, and the secret sauce of social media: participation.  This is because once voters are informed and plugged in politically, they are better able to both reject propaganda and understand contextual nuance.  Nuance, in turn, means experiencing less friction, fear, and frustration--the byproducts of ignorance--reactions that can so easily boil over into the unsavory encounter.  In its wake, an enhanced public reasonableness will make demagogue and fake news, alike, unlikely.  

 

I describe, below, one key adaptation involving the US House of Representatives; what might humorously be described as ‘almost e-Democracy'.  But first, a few early bird ideas with that same adaptive mission, as outlined in Gavin Newsom’s book, "Citizenville: How To Take The Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government”. Newsom was San Francisco’s mayor, is presently California’s Lt. Governor, and is considered a likely candidate for governor of that state in 2018.

  * YouCut.  In 2010 U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor introduced a way for constituents to cast votes on line item budget cuts.  The winning cut each week was introduced on the House floor for an up-or-down vote.

 

  * Project Madison: in 2012 Congressman Darrell Issa, using online feedback, allowed voters to make re-wording suggestions on pending legislation, then identified the most popular changes.  Transparency extended to ID'ing each successful suggestion, along with its champion.

  * Citizen Co-Sponsors.  Beginning in 2013, a Facebook app allowed users to co-sponsor U.S. House legislation.  Legislative campaigns using Facebook are now commonplace. Participants receive notifications regarding the legislation in question, and are then asked to reach out to ‘friends’, businesses, and other stakeholders to help ensure success.

If, in light of these early experiments with participatory democracy, we were to seek a truly ambitious and comprehensive way forward, we might aim for a more broad-based change: voting with digital devices.  Of course online voting, while in some ways superior to the physical polling place, is nowhere near secure enough.  And while the future may involve an opt-in auxiliary internet in which all communication is secure (Walter Isaacson identifies such a possibility at The Atlantic: "The Internet is broken; Starting From Scratch, Here’s How I’d Fix It"), this is, obviously, a long way off.

 

The Hive Mind

There is, however, a workaround.  I call it The Hive Mind, because when and if fully implemented, representative government, whether the House of Representatives in the US, the House of Commons in the UK, or any other representative body, would constitute one enormous feedback loop that plugs voter opinion directly into the decision-making process.  While technically not direct democracy, our workaround might be thought of as squaring that circle.  In other words, it would be a close approximation of direct democracy, compared to the present half-hearted version, representative democracy, where all too often money talks, and lobbyists have been known to write the very rules governing their industry.

 

How it would work: 

1) Each representative would have a webpage featuring videos (each perhaps five minutes in length) covering both single issues and more general topics.

2) After viewing a randomly assigned video, constituents would register their opinions by choosing from among multiple-choice options on a series of questions.  

3) Polling firms would sample constituent opinion, then present representatives with published results.  Representatives could choose to abide by these opinions when voting, could decline to offer the service in the first place, or could select from published results as they saw fit.  That is, they wouldn’t be legally bound to concur, but could advertise their willingness to do so. 

4) This system, once implemented, would tend to focus election campaigns on video presentation, and adherence to constituent opinion, rather than on a candidate’s personal life and other ancillary issues.  Plus, lobbying by special interests would be curtailed to the extent that a representative’s votes were pre-determined by constituent input.

5) Importantly, a representative’s webpage would enable dissent, amendment, and other feedback.  In this way, The House of Representatives would take on the character of a thinking mind, grappling with alternatives, and defusing otherwise explosive issues with contextual background.

 FAQ

Q: A District’s Polling Results Would Be Reflective of Constituent Age, Sex, Income, etc., Wouldn’t They?  

A: Yes.  First time visitors to their representative's webpage would be asked to provide basic demographic information.  Then, when a 30-something female with a high school education, an income around $40,000, and no children, is needed to complete a sample, all opinions generated by that demographic are in effect shuffled and drawn from, as one would pick a single, unseen playing card from among many.   

Since a district’s demographic profile would rarely change, multiple polling firms could be hired for relatively little to essentially plug in data, once a firm’s proprietary profile were set.  A polling average would then refine results.

 

Q: What About Poll Reliability?  The US Recently Had An Election In Which The Unexpected Happened.

A: Yes, but the polling average (Real Clear Politics) was only off by 1.1 percentage points compared to the final popular vote.  And because there were an unusually large number of undecided voters late in the process, the dramatic revelations involving both the FBI investigation and of Russian hacking--not to mention fake news--account for much misdirection, with rural, low-information voters, not surprisingly, breaking the furthest from pre-election projections.  

Besides, most of our proposed system's results won't be close.  The minority, those within a point of 50/50, could allow a judgement call by the representative in question.

 

Q: Why Not Rate Polling Firms and Weight Their Results Accordingly?

A: This might best be implemented once firms have a chance to acclimate.  Ratings could be based on legislative elections.  Polling firms would publish predictions the day before an election, and would be rewarded depending on how close they modeled the real-life result.  Success would mean both greater influence (additional weight in polling averages) and financial compensation (contracts with performance bonuses).

 

Q: What About Security?  Is Any Internet Portal Safe?

A: Because ‘contacting your representative’ involves a politician knowing how you feel about a given issue, our information exchange is two-way, much like a credit card company and its customers, rather than a one-way secret ballot.  An email or text receipt could be sent to each constituent to confirm their expressed opinions.  On a particularly significant question, say whether to switch over to ’single-payer’ healthcare, a second, paper receipt could be printed out, to enable a recount.

Plus, because videos are assigned to constituents randomly—and eventually there would be hundreds of videos--there is little chance of intentionally influencing a particular issue.  

 

Q: Are constituents voting on as many videos as they want?

A: No, a limit would be advisable to preserve sampling viability.  A constituent who successfully opined on the content of, say five videos, could be allowed to pick a sixth of their choice.  In the case of all such ‘free choice' picks, however, opinions would be part of a separate tally that gauged ‘feedback ferocity’, only.   Following their sixth video, constituents would be told they had reached their limit, and would be politely asked to return the following day.

 

Q: Those Sharing The Same Device In The Same Household Would, I Assume, Be Able To Register Individually.

A: Right.  A pin number, plus a Social Security number (in the US) or other form of ID (eventually, fingerprints), would likely be used to distinguish constituents.

 

Q: How Would This Idea Be Implemented?

A: It would probably begin with several representatives and a handful of prominent issues.  Then, in subsequent elections, challengers could offer the service if the incumbent hadn't yet done so.  Videos, meanwhile, would likely be produced by political parties or factions and used by multiple representatives. 

 

Q: Isn’t It More Likely That Interest Groups Would Make The Videos?

A: Perhaps so, especially on more specific issues.  The level of SNAP benefits (food stamps for the poor), for example, might be handled by a political party.  Making organic milk and cheese eligible for the WIC program (aid to mothers with young children) might be something for a farm organization.

 

Q: Is It Likely, Given a Total Population of About 711,000 Per House District, That Large Enough Samples Are Possible?  

A: Initially, results would lack adequate sampling.  This would then change as the word got out and more constituents showed up.  To begin with, representatives would only take opinion tallies under consideration, but could then switch over to actually abiding by poll results once samples were large enough.  And, this triggering level could be identified ahead of time, removing an ‘excuse’ for not abiding by poll results, once having promised to do so.  

To encourage participation, there may be a place for minor prizes, or if necessary, those of some modest value.  Most likely, though, because outside groups would organize members to take part in the separate, ‘feedback ferocity’ tallies (a viewer’s sixth, free choice video), and because constituents would have to make their way through five other videos first, this would likely create the necessary participatory volume for sampling to be successful.

 

Q: Pretty Hard To Imagine Low-Income Constituents Using This System, Especially The Computer-less, no?

A: There are currently programs that provide free phones for low-income Americans.  These could be used to accommodate The Hive Mind.  Plus, there are community centers and the local library.  

As for low-income constituents in general, there is a gut-level truth here, obviously; if you don’t have leisure time, you won’t be able to sit through a 5-minute video, let alone six such presentations.  

There are, however, fairly credible comebacks to this point.  The first involves statistics.  If there are 500 low-income viewers of a video, and 5,000 each for those with middle and high incomes, and there is only a need for 400 from each group, the website interface would simply select all it needs, no problem.   

A second comeback involves the question of prizes.  If there are prizes, and if they are of some value, constituents with lower incomes will experience a greater relative benefit.  For example, the chance to win a $50 Savings Bond might be worth 5-10 minutes for those with modest incomes, but perhaps not for the wealthy.

 

Q: But Shouldn’t Participation Be Based On Interest?

A: Certainly.  While in the end prizes may be necessary, they have the disadvantage of clouding the message. 

And yet the logic for replacing our current, marginally corrupt political framework with The Hive Mind argues for speed in implementation.  The sooner that a legislator has a constituent feedback loop up and running, the sooner that legislator can tell a lobbyist “sorry, but my constituents have spoken”.  And the sooner this happens, the sooner the legislator’s unscrupulous challengers in the next election will be disarmed.  For example, a TV ad with the punchline, "Congressman Smith voted to end Medicare”, becomes “…Smith misled voters into supporting cost-cutting in Medicare”, a considerably weaker point.  And when feedback on the Congressman’s webpage points out that the TV ad was paid for by a self-interested lobbying group, there is relative transparency and accountability—so, the sooner the better for implementation.  Meaning that prizes may be necessary.

A more vigorous way to goose website visitor counts would involve large prizes, beyond the scope of a typical representative’s $1-2 million Members Representational Account.  For example, imagine if, in the year 2023, all participants who visited their representative's relevant webpage at least once during a given month were eligible for one of a hundred $1,000 drawings.  One hundred drawings for each Congressional District (Washington D.C. adds one, for 436), involves an annual cost of only $523.2 million in savings bonds: 1,000 x 100 x 12 x 436.

 

Q: How Can We Be Sure About Constituent Data?

A: At first glance this would seem to be a problem. Wouldn’t some more cynical constituents pose as under-represented demographic groups in order to increase their chances of being heard?   First, the number of cheaters is likely to be very small, and unlikely to affect outcomes if the sample size is large enough.  Second, some kind of verification is possible.  Public records, for example, identify home owners with specific addresses. And third, polling firms use census data as the foundation for their demographic profiles.  When census / polling data are mismatched in an anticipated direction, a slight adjustment to a demographic profile can be made.  

 

Q: Perhaps You Could Describe The Hive Mind From A Representative’s Perspective.  

A: The future is always a challenge, but let’s press ahead, nevertheless:

   * The big news of the day in our representative’s district, the year being 2023, is of rising unemployment.

   * In response, our representative receives a brief ‘jobs action’ video from party headquarters. 

   * Our representative posts the video, links to her webpage using social media, and phones local allies (unions, Chamber of Commerce, etc.), asking for web traffic.

   * Next, our representative has her staff record a local version of the nationally focused presentation.  

In her own video she asks her constituents which of several employment strategies is the most likely in their community, giving specific examples of employment increases that have recently occurred (federal government spending, state level tax policy changes, local incubation projects, etc.).  She then asks for opinions on current, imminent, and long-stalled approaches she imagines she could conceivably vote on. 

 

Q: How Would A Video Allow For Dissent and Amendment?

A: The likeliest system would probably involve the usual comments section as found on websites today.  A poster could tag a comment as a ‘challenge’, which, if it gathered enough support, would produce a ‘rebuttal’ that would be added to the original video.  These challenges and amendments would have to be prominently featured on a representative’s website.  They would then be linked to by that representative’s challengers in future elections.

To keep representatives honest, the House of Representatives itself should set specific standards for successful challenges.  Furthermore, the House itself should keep track of challenges and amendments.  These could be sorted by:

 - the amount of support they generate (separated into several categories of popularity)

 - the relative percentage of up-votes to down-votes

 - the subject matter in question

 - the date on which they occur

This alone should make the House a more fact-based, consensus driven institution.  What sane politician likes having attention drawn to his worst biases, snubs, and factual errors?  

Most likely, dissent and amendment wouldn’t be allowed for those choosing to view their sixth, free choice video, as this would encourage a flood of astroturf reaction.

 

Q: Why Haven’t We Seen The Hive Mind Before?

A: In a nutshell: Timeliness.  Only very recently has the digital revolution--specifically, internet access--approached 100%.  This was always the biggest hurdle, since democracies require that everyone be at the table.

There are other reasons, too:

·     Refinement: In 2010 an independent 

candidate for the House from South 

Dakota garnered 6% of the vote; he 

advocated a much simpler system than 

ours that lacked safeguards like polling,

random video access, etc.

·     Flexibility: While direct democracy may

be an ideal for some, it can be critiqued as

allowing the rabble to rule.  The Hive Mind, 

however, allows representatives a choice

of whether to pick and choose from among

poll results, or, whether to solicit opinions

in the first place.

·     Interest: Even if polling had previously 

been considered as a way to render 

constituent opinion, there was always

the seeming problem of interest.

Sampling requires not dozens, but 

hundreds of responses.  This is where 

‘feedback ferocity’ and savings bond

drawings come into play.

 

But by far the most discouraging factor keeping The Hive Mind system under wraps has been:

·    Two-Way Security. The internet is not secure.

To be taken seriously, E-democracy must be an

exchange accountable at both ends, rather than

an attempt at a ‘secret ballot’ on one end.

 Conclusion   

Often, political reformers attempt too big a bite.  A change to the Constitution.  A filibuster-proof Congress.  A hoped-for rising up of the downtrodden.  Instead, The Hive Mind is easy.  Just one representative is all it would take. Simply put up a webpage with the idea in brief, several dozen videos to get things started, and a ‘challenges’ page for critiques and mistakes.  Send out notifications on social media.  Compose a press release and send it to local and national news outlets.  Contact key political journalists, inviting long-form articles.  Most importantly, contact organizations with legislative outreach staff.  All this should generate traffic to the website and may induce some organizations to produce additional, suitable videos.  Finally, contact fellow representatives and invite them to join the digital revolution. 

Note: Originally a $100,000 book deal / essay competition entry (the Nine Dots Prize, run by Cambridge University), this idea was projected to be the tenth of ten chapters, each discussing an existing or imagined social media platform.