iScience

Science is not what it used to be. Long gone are the days when discoveries were of interest to a significant portion of  society. Today's scientists are a fairly small group of over-achievers who flood  society with fear, anxiety and confusion, speak in tongues, and drown in their own products. The wax and wane of scientific influence was replaced by the dismissal of scientific methodology, which marked the end of the Age of Enlightenment.  Basic science is not sexy anymore and our leaders do not know how to sell it.  Nobody expected that it  will come so soon, but on December 21, 2012, a date coinciding with the end of the world in the Mayan calendar, our organization announced a new umbrella program. It is called  iSnore (which stands for Seriously Non Operational Research and Education) and it  specifically addresses scientific over productivity.   For the first time in history, we try to put a cap on the gusher of scientific output by paying scientists to take a break. iSnore incorporates older programs aiming at reducing productivity (one that entices scientists to open businesses and another that provides opportunities for endless internet chatter), and comes with several new components. iWillRest provides three months of summer support to a top scientist that pledges to  lower productivity by 50%. iGetLife provides funding for developing serious non-scientific hobbies, and iWastedSoMuchTime funds participation in life enhancing seminars aiming to put things in perspective. In spite of great interest, program iGetLaid was terminated after it was determined that it does not lower scientific productivity but instead, as discovered by the Office of Inspector General,  it  leads to the questionable use of the taxpayers' money. Of course these groundbreaking developments are only temporary fixes. Paying scientists to do nothing is not going to work on a long run when so many of them are  enjoying decent life. Furthermore, many people believe that there is nothing wrong with quality and quantity of the scientific work, but rather with the way that is its packaged and presented to  society.

Consequently, we have organized a secret workshop on the future of science and we have invited leading salesman  to advise us how to get out of this predicament. Some chose to appear incognito, which led to (false) rumors about participation by Columbian drug lords and Bernie Madoff. To get the participants focused they were asked  to write a one-page   paper describing an idea how to promote basic scientific research in a way that advances along the following five target factors:

a) triple the available funding,
b) appeal to politicians and general population alike,
c) not harm existing scientific research, and  possibly lead to new initiatives,
d) not result in obvious waste, duplication or fraud,
e) increase gender and racial diversity of science-aware population.

Lots of   papers were written, most of somewhat  questionable quality. Many participants proposed things that were either ridiculous or  impossible to implement. The winning paper was penned by the fellow who came up with the idea of selling tap water in plastic bottles. Other participants were roasting him about the source of his riches but he laughed it off by saying that he sells bottles not water. Anyway, here is his winning entry: we are still pondering whether it represents a possible path forward.

iScience - a new set of maps for those who got lost.

Language has magical powers, and some of them are  embodied in simple words. Words like interdisciplinary, international, intercontinental and interracial evoke warm feelings, give a sense of vast and peaceful space and generally amplify positive aspects.  Remove "inter" and a linguistic disaster happens immediately. Now your free associations run along the lines:

disciplinary - your colleagues in the bondage of never changing research agenda,
national - Hitler and his cronies running amok,
continental - stale croissant and undrinkable coffee in a mediocre hotel
racial - Ku Klux Klan and blood libel.

Out of over a quarter million english words listed in the Webster's dictionary there are 1181 words starting with "inter" and they  all sound good.
A close cousin of "inter" is "multi". Only 303 English words start with this prefix and the addition is  welcome. To wit, consider words such as axial, colored, polar, or verse.  Adding "multi" clearly adds some dimensionality and spice.

Unfortunately, the key scientific disciplines are lacking "inter" and "multi" prefixes, and  the dreadful associations described above abound. On the other hand, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary sciences are leading modes of cooperation fueled by lavish infusion of funding.  This is happening even though a lot of  work sold under this label is shallow, redundant or simply  pure rubbish.

So what can we do?

Inter and multi are relative concepts and a shot of multi and a slap if inter has the power of bringing back the real science to life if only these names would stick. So I propose to redraw the map of scientific endeavors to make sagging and isolated areas come across as worthy of  these prefixes. To do this we need to create  new sciences endowed with fashionable names and in great need of input from mathematics, chemistry, biology, geology and the rest of their latin-handicapped cousins.
To start the discussion I propose to begin with the Science of Growth, Science of Prosperity, Science of Happiness, and perhaps  Big Data Science if one wants to sound sophisticated.
These are solid names infused with social relevance, promise of a better future and laid on the foundation of rational thought. In fact, these sciences already exist in a shadow form, and an official endorsement will  in a flash give us journals, academic departments and armies  of students devoted to these topics. It is anticipated that existing interdisciplinary faculty will quickly migrate to these new sciences, and without a steep learning curve, they will be soon joined by newcomers.  At the same time, for example, mathematics or geology, safely wedged between Science of Growth and Science of Prosperity would become truly inter- and multi-disicpliplinary, and nourish these budding sciences with   long lasting legitimacy and steel core of discovery-based knowledge.

I anticipate that this new scheme will deliver with regards to all five targets factors described above and that the implementation is not going to be costly.
I propose to call this new scientific layout iScience.
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(The presentation ended with a cartoon depicting a nuclear attack submarine pulling a gigantic cruise ship filled with jolly vacationers across the Caribbean.)

Time for a second bite

My religious studies initiated in my former post led me to the discovery (via a hint from the Almighty herself) of a God-talkie, a device that allows two way communication with the Creator. The device is widely available, although currently the demand exceeds supply. It is an iPhone 5, and  its precursor iPhone 4S - and the communication with Almighty is channeled by Siri. I received my own long awaited copy of the iPhone 5 yesterday and immediately started on several simple tests.

The un-earthly provenience  of some  components of the iPhone is quite clear. In spite of having four cores, twice as many as its predecessor, the device does not seem any faster. The simplest explanation for this fact is that only two of the cores are available to the user, while the remaining two have a special purpose. One is controlled by the National Security Agency under the provisions of Patriot Act, and the other is the long awaited God-communicator.

I will report on the early results of my testing momentarily, but let me start with a brief history of the God-talkie, an odyssey that is not widely known.

Legacy of Steve Jobs

A lot has been written about Steve Jobs, but the big picture is still largely hidden from the public. It is time to reveal some of these details as they will eventually become a part of his sainthood application.

In the mid 70's Steve Jobs on a trip to the Mountain States encountered religious people who claimed constant, two-way communication with God. Skeptical of the messengers, but curious about the message, Steve took this  as a sign that required proper interpretation and a corresponding action. Indeed, a simple letter permutation led him to what he described himself as  "a positive life-changing experience" - an ingestion of a large quantity of LSD. It was not an ordinary acid trip, but rather a destiny seeking exploit. The details are sketchy, but at some point there was a moment when  enveloped  in a purple haze and surrounded by ordinarily inanimate objects talking to one another, he was charged with the development of a God-talkie, a task that took over a quarter of century and was completed with the announcement of iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011.  What most of us would have chalked up as a bad trip, Steve has taken with utmost seriousness. For the next 35 years, he built one of the most profitable companies on the planet, created exotic needs that he subsequently fulfilled, and experimented with the designs of a God-talkie. He had to wait for the technology to develop that would allow his device  to be small, portable and endowed with  a jewel-like body. In fact, the only hint of a higher purpose of his devices is that he would not compromise on the aesthetics and refuse fugly designs that dominate modern electronics industry. The history is well known, early version of Mac computers, NeXT machine known as "God's Macintosh", long forgotten Newton - this  is just a long list of baby-steps toward a single most important technological discovery in the history of humanity, and a fulfillment of a dream of every prophet. And when the mission was finally accomplished, Steve  was recalled  from Earth on the next  day, leaving the final steps  in hands of millions of underpaid Chinese workers and the UPS.

Of course, Steve was sworn to secrecy and his plans were not to be revealed to anybody. Yet, as a mere mortal he was allowed to create a symbol, a road sign, a powerful message to himself that would keep his energy in total focus for what he knew will be the rest of his life. The symbol is of course the logo of the Apple Company, perhaps the most recognizable industry logo on the planet,  yet also the one whose meaning is the least understood. Apple's logo is of course an apple, duh,  and this triviality hides the truth in plain sight. What Steve Jobs had in mind is of course Adam's apple, the  fruit from the  Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and what is crucially important, the one with its missing bite. This bite was the first step that humanity took on a path to self-awareness. It made us see our nakedness, which led toward wearing climate appropriate clothing, building fashion industry, and rubbing off a lot of unnecessary body hair, all of great importance for individuals valuing personal hygiene and aesthetic appearance. But I am straying…
Popular mythology portrays Adam's Apple as originating from Satan and  facilitated by reptiles and women.  It is a painful stereotype that needs to be addressed by emphasizing that the effect of consuming fruits from  the  Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could be two-fold. So Steve, not a biblical scholar, understood the duality and the first commercial God-talkie was available in black and  white versions. The technological issues in manufacturing a white version, endless delays and odd sounding problems,  are all well publicized and indicate greater forces at work.

Building a God-talkie is an engineering tour-de-force, but genius of Steve Jobs saw several steps ahead, and an apple is a great metaphor. Because apple is a  food of a childhood, symbol of nourishment and good oral hygiene, and when fermented, a great source of enjoyment. Steve's message as we are approaching the end of the  sixth millennium is that we desperately need a second bite from that apple. There is just so much stuff that we need to be aware of, and God-talkie is a device that may help us to sort it all out. This is what sustained his endless hours spent on peddling overpriced hardware to unsuspecting audience, his relentless drive to perfection, and fearlessness when confronted with customers who were forced to pay way  more for gadgets with fewer features, clearly a requirement of God-specs that at that point nobody knew about.

Last but not least, pairing a God-talkie with an ordinary phone is another stroke of genius. While having long conversations with the Creator may not really be meant  for everybody, the device combined with Skype allows a conversation, with minimal expense,  between just about any two human beings on the planet. So even if the chatting with the Creator will not amount to much, we can and should use the device to talk to one another! It is  the last hope for a planet that is quickly rolling off the cliff.

God-talkie - first impressions

With the device in hand and fully configured I started with the essentials - downloading my music and movies, all 30 gigabytes of it.  I respect my music, and my choices should give the Creator  a good sense of my human attributes and set the tone for the future exchanges. Talking to God is not easy, and frankly the selection of questions is not obvious. At first I wanted to know the important stuff - is the planet safe for the next fifty years? no major earthquakes, comets, gamma-ray bursts in the vicinity? is somebody going to drop a nuke on us? does Higgs boson exist?  But seriously, what would I do with the answers?  It is someone else's work to ask these questions.  So I started like a mathematician, let's be more basic and easily verifiable. Nervously, and with somewhat shaky voice I asked:" Siri, where am I?" In few seconds Apple maps interface showed up and a blinking blue dot indicated my location. I was stunned, the map showed the location of my soul instead of my body! My street and my house were completely gone and a large green area surrounding the blue dot resembled the Garden of Eden.  I was elated by this confirmation of the devices' ability, and made a quick mental note to never use it for earthly navigation.


For the next question I decided to be more probing and to venture a bit into unknown. With a bit more confidence I asked "Siri, who am I?" This time the result was also surprising, but I was not sure whether Siri was channeling for the Creator or the National Security Agency. After a minute or so, the device started showing my Social Security number, credit card history and a list of recently visited web sites that I distinctly remembered as looking at in the "Private browsing" mode.  Obviously, it is the details that define us, but I was taken aback but somewhat one-dimensional picture that was revealed. Yet, among the flurry of my financial records and job related correspondence (which most definitely is confidential), I glimpsed an image of a small yellow plastic  bear. I purloined it from the doctor's office when I was six years old and I still am a bit uneasy about it. Apparently the Creator thinks that  it is an issue as well.

In the end I was getting a bit depressed with the paucity of really good questions, for which the answers could have a significant behavior altering effect. Can the Creator tell me something that will really  make a difference even for a moment?

In desperation I asked "Siri, will I wake up tomorrow?" In a flash, words "probably" blinked  on the screen, the alarm clock interface popped and  Siri gently inquired  about the wake-up call. Finally, a morsel that I was hoping for! I decided to leave dirty dishes in the sink, had a sip of nice bourbon, and went to bed without brushing my teeth.

Ministry of Everything - more troubles ahead

During a recent trip my wife found more pieces of my uncle's diary, which I dutifully translated. This is a continuation of this, this and that.

Deregulation

Capitalist pigs like to talk about market forces and such nonsense, as if having a plan is not necessary. For the benefit of our new colleagues, we made an experiment to debunk these silly ideas. The Botany Unit has a small purchasing collective of five well-seasoned comrades. To illustrate the futility of capitalist thinking, we deregulated our purchasing group. Every task was divided into five smaller subtasks and members of the purchasing unit were asked to communicate between themselves by leaving notes in a glass jar placed in the storage room. They were also allowed to free-roam and look for bargains and opportunities. For a week or two things were as usual, but soon after, capitalist ideas started taking hold. Just last week, every member of the Botany Unit received a half metric ton of paper clips. They were a bargain, because 10% of them were guaranteed to be rust-free. The purchasing unit simply could not pass on such a deal and it took paperclips off their mind for next three hundred years. Soon afterwards we received many gallons of green camouflage paint. The experiment was terminated when we got the news that the purchasing unit was bidding for a mid-size steam locomotive. Other than being stuck with paperclips and paint, it was a good lesson. All new comrades saw that central planning guided by the invisible hand of the Party is the right way to go! 

In the end, winter purchases of coal and potatoes for the Botany Unit were not made but we are enjoying warm autumn days and do not worry just yet.

Stargazers

Ministry of Everything has a Stargazing Unit which is in fact  closely associated with the Botany Unit. Comerades stargazers are good companions and we like to work with them. They have the best toys in our ministry: telescopes, binoculars, sextants and so on. For the long time they were forging ahead without much supervision. This is because their work is not really connected to the revolutionary struggle and many of our senior Party officials are, what can I say, senior - they have poor eyesight and they go to bed early. Consequently, nocturnal life of stargazers was not subjected to much scrutiny. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and lately stargazers have fallen on bad times. Party committee reviewed their activities, past and planned, and issued stern recommendations. Their equipment was taken away, privileges cancelled, and several members of the unit were accused of being cosmopolitan. They claim that this is all because they requested even bigger and fancier toys that the Party found just too extravagant. But as always the truth is more complicated.

One reason for their downfall are their discoveries. Over the years, stargazers made a number of them - they found galaxies, nebulae, blinking stars,  bright stars and dark stars, big and small, exploding and contracting, planets and much more, and they made no secret of these findings. In summary, they have shown that the Universe is a busy place.  Now, the Party line is that we are the best nation on earth leading the humanity to a glorious future. The discovery of a Busy Universe is not helpful because somehow it makes us look less busy. In  particular, our economy, the best in the world,  seems to be a tad less lively lately. Finally, the stargazers' work was connected to the realities of daily life, and this is all tangential to even more basic question of who is making this commotion in the Universe!

The other problem is even worse. Out nation is the most advanced, yet some old customs are difficult to eradicate. In particular, astrology has a strong foothold in our society. So when the stargazers proposed adjustments to the Zodiac signs (related to the axial precession) by changing the dates associated with the Zodiac signs and introducing a new one (Ophiuchus), the Party just lost patience with them. Lenin and Marx were  born under  Taurus and now they are moved to Aries, and our  victorious great marshal Zhukov shows up as being  born under the dreaded Ophiuchus. These things are too important to fiddle with - obviously stargazers spent too much time in the dark!

 Austerity measures

The Party congress is fast approaching and we are in a fair amount of turmoil. The central committee seems to be considering two ideas. One is that we all get a bit more to eat, and the other that half of us get a great deal more to eat in order to motivate the other half who will have to become more entrepreneurial. Since the Ministry of Everything is a government unit, we are considered well-off. Consequently, our food rations were cut by 30% immediately. Most comrades are worried, we would have weathered 15%, it is just one day a week of fasting, but 30% requires serious thinking. Some comrades want to cut horizontally, no breakfast and smaller lunch, others vertically - two food-free days per week. Yet others think of eliminating some major food groups like meat or alcohol. In fact, discussions of whether alcohol is food occupy a lot of our time these days.

The interesting fact about these austerity measures is the preoccupation of the Party with food. There are no restrictions on trading food for other items like clothing or office equipment, and occasionally one can see a splash of color on some of my (now) skinnier colleagues. As if this reduction was not enough, the Botany Unit will be operating for the foreseeable future under 80% seed allocation. Again, everybody expected it to be 90%, but the management tucked in an extra 10%. It is quite a big difference, although I would not expect the comrades who make these decisions to have a full grasp of the implications.  Our reliance on virtual farming will greatly increase, but actual farming will be put on hold. I wish for the return of the revolutionary zeal that we so recently had in abundance. Otherwise we may eventually became as useless as our enemies claim we already are!   

Fearless leaders

I have to admit that our leaders share the struggle through this difficult period with us. Leadership is harder to quantify and so it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly they are doing when we are working. We are the Ministry of Everything, but our leaders managed to stretch the concept of Everything to include Something. The distinction is subtle, but Something is already taken by other government entities, so in the end we keep searching for Something Else.  In particular, to follow the new trends our Botany Unit has added a new program -  Machine farming and Seed counting. It reaches beyond classical Botany into the domains covered by other government units, but it gives some of our farmers additional sources of support (and they like it a lot). We also  partnered with others and created several opportunities for agriculture challenged individuals, a majority of population. The program is called Excursions in Agriculture and it has several components such as Meet Your Vegetable, Celebrate a Meatless Day, and our favorite - One Potato, Two Potato. None of this is expected to have much impact on botany or farming, but rather the goal is to make plant eating cool and fashionable, and to call attention to the fact that someone has to grow the damn things!

In addition to the creation of many new programs throughout the Ministry of Everything, we have proceeded with more traditional initiatives. Portraits of our Minister have appeared all over the building, and his pictures adorn many official documents, thus boosting morale tremendously.  

I mentioned the Command Center in my previous postings, and I am happy to report big changes there. Some members of the Command Center retired, some disappeared and some moved out. In the end I have only good news - the Command Center has acquired good chemistry, and this will allow it to pull in one direction.  There is some concern that  chemistry alone may not be enough to make this  direction a good one, and so we keep our fingers crossed that the Botany Unit will not fall by the wayside.

Continued here.

Homework

My school days are ancient history, but recently I was given a lengthy homework assignment. My (agnostic) daughter, irritated by the solid foundation of ignorance upon which my atheism is built, loaded my kindle with books on matters of religion. She threw in a few paper copies for a good measure. Little did I know what a wild trip it would be...

As a large portion my day job is to digest the creative efforts of others and evaluate them in half-page blurbs of a somewhat formulaic nature, I took this assignment in stride. In line with my workplace procedures, I ranked three of several assigned books using the standard criteria. However, uncomfortable to do this evaluation alone, which would definitely be inappropriate, I have asked the Almighty to provide some input as well. I did not expect a response and so I was quite surprised when I found a tiny gold tablet in the small container where I put my false tooth for the night. It turned out to be a SIM card with four messages. Three of them were comments on my book assignment and the fourth one recorded The Creator's annoyance with the fact that I still do not have an iPhone 5. Apparently Siri is her preferred mode of communication with humans and I am behind the schedule in the technology department. All the messages were translated from Aramaic by Googlefish, and unfortunately this software has its limitations.

Christopher Hitchens, God is not great, Kindle edition

Intellectual merit:
Hitchens is a good writer and this is religion bashing at its best. There is no item of faith that is left untouched, and even pretty innocent religions get harsh treatment. Hitchens focuses on religious texts (Old and New Testament, Koran, etc) and shows their human origins and tantalizing lack of originality. He presents religions as layers upon layers of nonsense that leads to evil deeds and mayhem. After about 50 pages it becomes a bit tiring, and soon afterwards I started developing doubts concerning the claims of the superiority of an atheist mind over the religious one.
I suspect that the human mindspace is fragmented into separate logical domains. In principle, science and religion are two such domains, where within each one a person can behave completely rationally in a manner easily communicated to others, but when taken together they lead to inconsistencies. While these are good examples, I feel that there are many more cases like this, and the mind of any  person has many pairs of points that cannot be connected by rational thought (more on this later...). 

In summary, Hitchens reviews religions as if they were movies, and gives all of them poor marks. Somehow his stance is no different than that of a five year old kid who does not like vegetables. As a parent you put up with it because you know the kid will grow out of it eventually. The fact that Hitchens never did is an exeption that only confirms the rule.

Broader Impact:
I am somewhat dubious whether any religious person would develop doubts about their faith upon reading this book, and for the non-religious this is a path well travelled. Consequently, the book is not particularly useful for any audience. However, "Hitch," as he used to be known, was a colorful character and very passionate about his views. He reveled in pissing people off and many of his youtube videos are quite funny.

The Almighty's comments: The Creator appears to be fond of Hitchens and she indicated that on numerous occasions she provided excerpts of his books to various prophets as a warning about how their message might be interpreted later in the future. Unfortunately, the heavy intoxication accompanying the creation of the sacred texts has shortened their attention span and Hitchens' complaints had little traction.

Recommendation: Somewhere in the lower part of the middle but clearly in the top 40% of writings on the subject that are not yet not in the top 10%. Got it?

 

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, paper copy (not on my daughter's list)

Intellectual merit:
Dawkins introduces seven levels of religiousness with one as being certain of god's existence, seven being certain of god's non-existence and the rest being shades of gray in between. Anybody writing such book should be a solid seven, but I am not certain that Dawkins really is. He states that the "existence of God is extremely unlikely", which is just lame. Furthermore, his writing is confused and defensive even if it is quite funny. He seems to be unable to detach his thinking from his emotions. All of this lowers the Intellectual Merit factor significantly.

I find one major omission, which Almighty commented on indirectly as well. If one devotes a chapter to discuss flaws in the proofs of god's existence, why not have a chapter on proofs that there is no god? These are much more compelling and easier to come by. Just to illustrate, let me give an example of what he is missing out on.
Most of the characteristics commonly attributed to god invariably lead to contradictions. Things involving infinity are the most suspicious, and quite frankly, investing science dollars in the study of infinity would clarify a number of issues. It is pathetic that the government thinks that Big Data or Trustworthy Computing is more important when one looks deep into the future! Anyway, this is obviously my personal pet peeve, so let's stay focused.
Consider the human life span, which according to many religions is determined by god and presumably related to one's deeds, potential for redemption and what not. In other words, there is a hidden parameter that determines how long we live. However, this seems to be inconsistent with the statistical data provided by mortality tables. In particular, among 1000 newborn babies in Afghanistan, about 121 will die in the first year, while in the Japan it will be less than three. This seems inconsistent with the invisible hand guiding the matters of human life and death; after all, what is so special about being born in Japan, huh?

Historically, the most important proof of god's existence comes from Newton's theory of motion, which posits that the universe is completely deterministic. Personally I was somewhat worried when I first heard about it. Luckily, the discovery of quantum mechanics brought back randomness, and attempts to remove it by introducing hidden variables is known to lead to inconsistencies (e.g. Bell's theorem, Kochen-Specker theorem and most recently the Free Will Theorem of Conway and Kochen). All these indicate that the universe is endowed with true randomness. This is at odds with god's ability to see the future, isn't it? 

I find these arguments quite convincing, and frankly it is startling that none of it seem to create much worry for the Creator, or at least merit a hint of concern on her part. Perhaps Aramaic has too limited a vocabulary as she seems to cling to this ridiculous language. I can't wait for my iPhone 5 to open a regular line of communication and settle these pesky questions once and for all!

Anyway, a chapter along these lines would have been a better use of readers'
time than finding questionable passages in the scripture or poking fun at clergy.

The second omission really points to a serious knowledge gap. After 200 pages Dawkins finally arrives where he should have started - the Darwinian theory of religion. It is clear that religiousness is a stable feature of humanity, and there must be an evolutionary explanation for it. Dawkins brings in concepts from his other book (Extended phenotype) and also his theory of memes but in the end I do not think that he has a compelling
theory.

In fact I am dubious that he has got it right at all. It seems to me that the emergence of religion is linked to the fragmentation of our thinking into the domains of rationality that I mentioned earlier, and religion just happens to be the most visible of those. These domains of rationality, or the fact that we can hold conflicting ideas in our mind, is a result of the complexity of our thinking, namely the ability to do recursion, i.e. being able to think about our thinking and generally to model the thought process. This is perhaps the level on which one can see the emergence of religion from the evolutionary perspective, even if only as a side-effect. 

Broader Impact: I like Dawkins' books, but unfortunately this one is not that  great. Dawkins despises all religions and he is willing to take a stand against them. The book is full of sarcastic remarks on various aspects of religion. In fact, he planned to do a citizen's arrest of the Pope on his recent visit to England (I was looking forward to it). Much like Hitchens, he goes over the religious texts, proofs of the existence of god, and proceeds with intellectual mayhem. Dawkins is a popular writer, visible in the community. The Selfish Gene and Extended Phenotype are really great books, where solid science is interspersed with a great ability to explain and visualize things. In their own time many people, including myself, found them very influential. However, in this case the author labors under the delusion that he is slaying the dragon.

The Creator's comments: This is one of these cases when the reviewer does not seem to notice what the question was and comments on everything else...
She goes misty over evolution theory and sexual reproduction and mentions that she came up with the idea for DNA by playing with strands of her long white beard. What? White beard? A curious comment perhaps due to Google translation, but she seems to be genuinely pleased with her work on Earth. No wonder, the rest of the universe seems screwy and miserable place littered the with IEDs which when they go, they obliterate every life-form in a 10 light-year radius (perhaps to erase some of her less successful work.)
In reference to my own comments, which, like everything else, she is well familiar with, she points out that in the last decade government spending on the study of infinity, a subject that has great potential to bring humanity closer to her, has not gone up one bit. Suddenly I feel  that I have a powerful ally on my side, at least in the fight for the government dollars.

As I said, there is not one reference to Dawkins in the whole message. Given  the prominence of the reviewer, it is a mark down, isn't it?

Recommendation: A notch below Hitchens.

Alain de Botton, Religion for atheists: A nonbeliever guide to the uses of
religion, Kindle edition

Intellectual Merit:
First of all, de Botton is perhaps the best non-fiction writer I know. The writing is unbelievably smooth. There are no awkward sentences or convoluted reasoning, and the flow of arguments is so fluid that your mind offers no resistance to them at all. The premise of the book is very simple - you are an atheist and religious beliefs do not make much sense to you. Yet religious people, the majority of any population, under the umbrella of this or that religion, have accumulated a great deal of knowledge about human nature. One does not have to share their beliefs to tap into this resource, and frankly, how smart is it not to? The book provides hundreds of examples of how religion strives to make us better human beings while understanding all of our shortcomings. Nearly all that really matters to us has to do with other people, and religions step up to provide a framework for human interactions and ways to recover from mistakes. de Botton goes over a long list of religious rituals aiming at asking forgiveness, meeting other people, dealing with family issues, grieving, raising children, etc., and points out how religion offers guidance and comfort instead of the endless choices and indifference of the secular world. In the end, it reads as a powerful condemnation of secular society, which is unable to deal with our emotional side. I just loved this book, and it influenced me a great deal. It is a step forward in the discussion about religion and it possibly provides a way forward for a secular society to absorb some of the best practices of a religious one.

Broader Impact: The book is great and it could be an eye opener for many people. Whether various ideas coming from religion can be hijacked for secular society I am not so sure. de Botton's examples are very concrete, but the path from appreciation to implementation is not easy.

The Almighty's comments: She is very fond of the guy and blabbers that
his future books are even better. A solid plus for the Broader Impact!  

Is the price right?

Buoyed by the success of my economic theories, I continue my analysis of the consumer-side aspects of shopping. Unlike my other entries, this one is firmly rooted in  my own knowledge and experience. I am a professional shopper, and in my day job I shop for 40+ hours a week. To hone my professional skills I also shop a lot in my spare time, and for the benefit of my employer I often venture in new directions trying to broaden my horizons and stimulate overlooked parts of the economy.

So let me start with a complaint - shopping is not what it used to be! K-Mart, Walmart, Expedia (the list is long) have made the experience one-dimensional and not exciting. Excessive focus on price and endless bargain hunting is taking away the fun, and the economy takes a beating in the process as well. Needless to say, this is not the way to shop.

To start from the basics - an act of purchase is a complicated interaction. It is  commonly presented as an acquisition, but in reality it is so much more.
It represents a choice on part of a buyer, it rewards someone else's time and effort, it signals one's political leanings, and it can be propagated through social networks. It is the most important way of realizing one's freedom of choice and expressing one's individuality. One can exert a great deal more power through shopping than political participation. Rather then theorize let us consider two specific examples: buying eggs and buying a graduate education. I encounter both on a daily basis and over time I let the synergistic relationship develop.

Eggs

When they ask you "How do you want your eggs?"  you might say "Scrambled" or "Poached" but I want to say  "free-roaming",  "happy", "cage free" and so on.  For close to ten years I have been buying eggs that have been "certifiably humane", "antibiotic free", "from free roaming hens" which are "running on outdoor pastures", and which are  "chicken shit covered". Initially these eggs were hard to find, but after a few years a decent selection emerged and like a russian mogul I was consistently choosing the most expensive kind that met the above conditions. In hindsight, I am glad to report that I did not belong to a measure zero set. Whether it was compassion for comrade hens, longing for the organic and  natural, or simply a search for a better egg - happy eggs took over entire supermarket chains and they are here to stay. They cost as much as three times more than unhappy ones, but so what - how much cholesterol can you take anyway. Is this price right? You bet it is! Are happy eggs better than unhappy ones? Perhaps. Do you feel better eating happy eggs?  A whole lot!
So here is my "Right price" formula

               One third for the egg and two thirds to the hen.

Wow, I know, this suddenly sounds like a lot, even though now the fate of humanity might be hanging on your everyday purchases.  You need a paradigm shift and a great deal of empowerment. You can no longer think of shopping as acquiring  stuff. It is more like planting a tree; a big part of a reward is in being outlasted by the results of your actions.

Pay more to get less - it is exactly the opposite of what they tell you, but exactly what is needed. We want to pay more to get less food, pay more to get cleaner energy, pay more to get veggies grown 50 miles from where we live, and so on.  It may be a hard sell and it might take a while before these ideas take roots.
But if shopping is going to be a guide to a better world then it is bound to be costly.   To implement this plan one desperately needs good role models.


Graduate students

Big Government may be in its death throes, but there is no better shopper than government. There are many things that the government cannot afford, but bargain hunting is never a way to stretch the tax dollar. To the contrary, lavish government spending is a way to offset multitudes of Walmart shoppers who ruin the economy and shop themselves into poverty and unemployment.
More to the point, investing in the education of a graduate student is no different than buying an egg. With eggs we know that some will contribute to a delicious souffle, some will wither in the refrigerator, and some may break on the way to the kitchen. Like it or not, an analogous fate awaits the best minds of our generation. For that reason, when government sponsors a graduate student, the same "Right price" formula applies - one third for the egg and two thirds to the hen. The hen in this case is the university that is in charge of infusing our egg with knowledge.  To be exact, government funding of graduate students comes in three more or less equal pieces: stipend for a student, tuition for the university, and a generous dollop of money for the university called an overhead. The first piece represents the price of an egg, while the remaining two are contribution to the hen. A closer look will reveal that this scheme is based on the XII century crop-rotation system that was developed in Europe and abstractly it has the same nurturing ingredients.
The main point is that government will pay the price no matter what it is in spite of the fact that unlike eggs, the price of education varies a great deal more. Cost of training an ivy-leaguer who is  "free-roaming" and "cage-free" may be an order of magnitude higher than that of a poor sod coming from a cannibal hen who never saw the sun light and spent entire life on seven square inches of the cage bottom inhaling penicillin vapor.

In conclusion, I must admit that my egg buying habits were greatly inspired by  government ways of funding graduate students, and in turn, my unblinking support for the government support of higher education is a result of the transformative power of my egg buying program.

So if the government's shopping ability is greatly compromised it is up to you to pick up the slack and shop smart.  As painful as it may initially feel, let the "Right price" formula be your guide.  Whatever you buy, ask yourself  - how much did  I give to the hen?

Dentistry and Mathematics

In the last couple of weeks I have paid a number of visits to dentists' offices. Extractions, moldings, cleaning and a number of other procedures  led me to the discovery of a curious connection between dentistry and mathematics.

In the late 1800s Austrian dentist Adolph Zsigmondy came up with a simple system that replaced prior schemes involving latin names. This scheme involved three parameters: upper or lower, left or right, and the numbers one though eight. For example UL3 would be the third tooth from the middle in the upper left jaw. In reality, Zsigmondy used graphical symbols instead of the letters, but this is inconsequential. This beautiful coordinate system was simultaneously discovered by the Ohio dentist Corydon Palmer, and an ugly priority fight ensued. The result was the  Zsigmondy-Palmer system.  The symmetry of the human jaw is clearly reflected in the choice of parametrization, and similar teeth have the same numbers - canines are threes, molars are sixes, sevens and eights, incisors are ones and twos, and so on. The mathematical elegance of this system had a devastating effect on European dentistry. Dentists mesmerized by the intrinsic beauty of Zsigmody-Palmer encoding went on to study mathematics and left the population in the hands of blacksmiths and street vendors performing the crudest forms of dental procedures. Simultaneously, mathematical sciences blossomed with group theory, representation theory and  combinatorics, all of which had roots in these simple observations. Former dentists-turned-mathematicians include Arthur Cayley and Felix Klein. Evariste Galois was never a dentist but he was shot by one.

The British Isles have been particularly devastated by what I would not hesitate to call a Copernican revolution, and to this day Brits suffer dearly for their mathematical contributions. This is partly due to Alan Turing who modified Zsigmondy-Palmer into modern FDR (Federation Dentaire Internationale) system. FDR designates each tooth by two digits - the first digit with value one through four denotes the jaw's quadrant and the second digit (one through eight) is the tooth number (counted from the center). Four quadrants with a bite of 8 teeth in each. However, Turing's  slurred speech after a painful extraction led to "bite" becoming "byte", a unit of digital information used today. One can clearly see that modern coding theory, cryptography and digital signal processing are descendants of this basic ideas. And while FDR was officially adopted in 1970, this was only because Turing's work was declassified long after his untimely death and it took some time to make it into the mainstream.  Meanwhile these ideas led to the victory in WWII, while at the same time lack of dental care condemned the Brits to soft and overcooked food.  

On the other side of the Atlantic, the US was watching these developments with trepidation and decided that to become the dental superpower - the explicit goal of several consecutive presidents - it had to dial down the mathematical intricacies of the dental encoding. The resulting Universal system - used only in the US - is mathematically very simple. It was proposed by J. Perreidt in 1882, but the basic idea was pioneered by  Carl Friedrich Gauss a century earlier. Sometime in 1783, a 6-year old Carl was being examined by the school nurse, who was methodically counting his teeth while looking for cavities. She started at the left, counting 16 teeth, and then went down going in the opposite direction all the way to 32. Just before the nurse found a cavity and his brain shut down in terror of what followed, the idle mind of Carl Friedrich quickly noted that the numbers of the opposite teeth add up to 33. When he returned to the classroom, his bored teacher, who was aching to read personals in the Sudetische Beobachter, told the class to add up all the numbers from one to hundred. At this point Gauss, who was still shaken by his dental experience, was thankful that he did not have 100 teeth. However, he did not miss the fact  that if he did have 100 teeth then the numbers of the opposite teeth would add to 101. In seconds he multiplied 50 by 101, handed the answer to the teacher and instantaneously became the most famous mathematician in the history of mankind. 

So this is the Universal system - a simple count from left to right in the upper jaw, which continues from right to left in the lower jaw. This simplicity keeps American dentists glued to their profession. Indeed, over time the US became a dental superpower, while mathematics was often left for foreign talent. However, American teeth are so white and shiny that if their owners could smile a little more, the reflected light would stave of the global warming. To further keep their dental primacy, the US adopted a special scheme to encoding baby teeth. Instead of numbers, only the letters A through T are used. Even the brightest kid would get lost in such an intellectual desert and not be lured into sciences while poking around in their mouth.

And what about Gauss? In spite of simplicity, there was enough math in the Universal system for Gauss to remain interested. His observation that if teeth were counted at the top and bottom in the same direction led to the discovery of modular arithmetic and further solidified his reputation.  Throughout his life he took good care of his teeth, and during visits to dental offices he was always on the lookout for mathematical talent. Sophie Germain and Bernhard Riemann were dental assistants that he took under his wings and trained as mathematicians. Sadly, this alone set back European dentistry by half a century and prolonged the use of pliers and low-speed drills.

Power of One

Washington Enquirer, April 20, 2020

 

When almost a decade ago an obscure government funding agency added the word "One" to its name the concept quickly turned viral.  Soon enough unification became the word of the day. In hindsight, the leading cause for the movement was the collapse of the economy and the paralysis of the political system - one that persists until today.    Additionally, in times of austerity measures and budget cuts being "One" offers a minimum of protection by creating an illusion of indivisibility.  Whatever the reasons,  the forces of unification affected every aspect of life. Here, we will concentrate on science and education, topics that are dear to our readers and areas where our vigilance paid off  on numerous occasions.  

Unification is a uniquely human ability to counter evolutionary trends. Nature tends to mindlessly duplicate and diversify but we can move forward in a more organized fashion. For that reason the first initiative was OneTooMany. It was a gigantic program devoted to tracking unnecessary duplication. In science, it is responsible for the pruning of many branches of the Tree of Knowledge. At first we stopped investing in scientific facilities when it became obvious that others will build them anyway, and that they will report the findings. In early 2013 a french pastry chef from Detroit completed a long standing program of the classification of algebraic varieties, and similar examples of this kind followed. While these discoveries still wait for validation from mathematicians, it became obvious that relying on a single community for making discoveries in any specific area is a fatal mistake.  With scientific disciplines being  like thin fibers in a giant quilt,  research became massively interdisciplinary. The synergy and comraderie of interactions between experts none of which has a full grasp of what are they talking about had a transformative effect on scientific communities.   Under the program "Ask an Engineer" it became mandatory to include engineers and computer scientists in every scientific venture. These turned out to be nice and friendly chaps who could answer every conceivable question using simple simulations, modeling, or, in the case of older folks, a slide rule. In the end, all these initiatives started to converge to the present OneScience program. However, it  soon became obvious that the OneScience  program requires a new type of training. This is how the OneEducation program was born. Both OneScience and One Education are based on the ideas of multidisciplinary work. The premise is very simple: instead of focusing on specifics - a depth-first search that century after century turned out to be frustrating and inefficient, they focus on width-first search - looking for nothing in particular, or trying to learn a little bit of everything. Both programs turned out immensely popular, attracting a wide segment of the population to higher education and scientific research and virtually eliminating unemployment. Indeed, rather than struggling with Calculus, one can be more successful with Icelandic Mythology or Salmon Farming 101, without ruining  the chances of joining the scientific workforce. Depth-first and width-first searches are equivalent, and  there is the additional  bonus of finding more important things first when one uses width-first search. To wit, rather than the commercially useless Higgs boson, we need a faster router or a more competitive passenger car, and OneScience will certainly get there first. 

OneScience and OneEducation programs excel in inclusiveness. With a small slowdown in scientific advances, OneScience projects provide a number of secondary goals that guarantee that the project will be successful under most circumstances. Let us illustrate this with an example. Suppose that we would like to develop methods to predict where the next big earthquake is going to be, an important and timely task if one remembers the events of 2015. However, this is probably quite tricky. OneEarthquake Team  ought to involve a geologist, a mathematician, a chemist, a mandatory engineer, and for a good measure, a social scientist and a psychologist.  Still, as everybody knows,  OneEarthquake Team is unlikely to fully succeed because the task is too concrete and quite difficult. Furthermore, the fact that they all matriculated from OneEducation program may have further eroded the chances for success, since their attention span is greatly diminished. So rather than frustrate the OneEarthquake Team with the unreasonable expectation that they will accomplish their primary objective, OneScience imposes a  set of intermediate and more realistic goals. Membership in OneScience stipulates  that  all members  publish the same number of papers in appropriate journals,  participate equally in community outreach and recruitment of minorities, and that they all plant trees in a local park.  

In spite of unquestionable success in the decade long unification program, there are still lingering questions that remain unresolved. Historically, scientific research was for many centuries in the front line to improve the life of entire societies by  bringing unexpected goods by a way of discovery and furthering understanding. However, sometime in the early XX century we started running an intellectual deficit. This is when we began slipping behind the curve and dealing with questions that should have been solved ahead of time. Similarly to the budget deficit, the intellectual deficit was initially growing slowly but after nearly a century we developed huge blind spots when dealing with climate, internet security, environment, nuclear energy and scads of other issues.

In the end, the very same obscure government agency that gave us the idea of unification a decade ago was asked to maintain the balance of intellectual deficit and periodically request that the ceiling on intellectual deficit be raised accordingly. Luckily, unlike in the case of budget deficits, politicians are willing to go the extra mile to accommodate the growing intellectual deficit. 

Within the maintaining organization, this new assignment is nicknamed OneBigMess program, although it really is not a program in the same sense as OneScience or OneEducation. This is a long and sad laundry list of intellectual challenges that we failed to meet and that are left to future generations to deal with. Unlike the budget deficit, the intellectual deficit is difficult to price but there is a clear indication that non-knowledge can be very costly.  Furthermore, the intellectual deficit accrues interest and is immune to ordinary inflation. On the bright side, Wall Street lately introduced synthetic financial instruments that allow one to buy insurance  from the results of scientific ignorance (CSO - a Collateralized Stupidity Obligation), and this budding financial market seems to be on track to grow in volume.

Harley and Triumph

Several years ago I became a motorcycle enthusiast. On weekends I pull my bike from the garage and cruise around. Zipping on the freeway at eighty miles per hour is very satisfying. There is a touch of danger, a lot of excitement and a temporary illusion of being somebody else. Is it the best one can do? Can such a make believe world blend seamlessly with the reality? Until recently I thought I had it all figured out…

Fast forward to the present day. I am reporting live from Warsaw, Poland where I am attending my mother-in-law's eightieth birthday. It is a grand celebration which coincides with her retiring from teaching at Warsaw University. It is a big deal, a gala attended by her colleagues, friends, family and her fiancee. There is lot to report but I'd rather stay 

with the motorcycle theme. Why? Because if my mother-in-law was a motorcycle she would be a Harley. Let me  explain - Harley is an iconic bike with  stunningly good looks, lots of torque, resulting in an impressive takeoff, and an acoustic footprint recognizable from afar. It may not have the best turning ability but there is no better bike for going straight ahead, and my mother-in-law would not be wasting time on turning figure eights in a parking lot!  If we follow this line of thought then her fiancee would be a Triumph. Now, Trumph is a somewhat different animal. It has solid British roots, is a bit lighter  and more powerful, and on the downside, it is endowed with a carburetor that frequently produces vast quantities of smoke though his pipe. While each bike prides itself on its individuality, what sets them apart is that they leave competition in the dust and they go together so well.

Harley's motto is "Live to ride" and I always thought it is a bit odd. Somehow the phrase implies anticipation, waiting, putting it off - in short, it  resembles my own weekend riding experiences. With these  two it is the other way around. They reversed this slogan and "Ride to Live" is what it is. And what a ride it is! I am talking about going eighty at eighty and doing it 24/7.  I am full of amazement and admiration, but I also yearn to use these metaphors and analogies to better my own understanding. And in the end, I come up with this - when distilled to simple elements we are at most one or two things, and knowing this obliges one to make the best of it. So when you find yourself being a Harley or Triumph  you just run forever into the sunset because that is what you are! 

Perhaps not the deepest thoughts, but it is good enough for me. I do not want to sit in the garage and shine my bits any longer!  I want to go outside, get blasted by the elements and perhaps get a ding or two. I am inspired and supercharged, and the road is endless.

2012: Annus mirabilis

The Hubble telescope is widely considered a pinnacle  of scientific ingenuity in the exploration of cosmos, and political battles to prolong its life and install its successors are long, brutal and not entirely successful.  So it came as a surprise when in the middle of the year an obscure spying agency offered to NASA two of their spare Hubbles. One man's floor is another man's ceiling but it still comes as a shock when one of the most treasured tools of the astronomical community is found in the army's broom closet. Apparently  Hubbles were just a surplus after the already deployed flock of Hubbles was found sufficient to make  an hourly  one-to-one digital copy of  the politically sensitive areas around the globe.
Suddenly, the scientific community was galvanized. Indeed, the military is a black hole swallowing two orders of magnitude more money than the budget of the entire NASA and a possibility that some of the money is spent  for advancing science captivated everybody. The idea that scientific discovery could be something akin to an egg hunt become very real. Show_me_the_money.org was created by underemployed postdocs and graduate students and faculty are joining in en masse. The organization went on a frantic search of  hidden scientific treasures.
It did not take long to wait for the first results, and they were spectacular. In the early summer graduate students from University of West Virginia found a quantum computer in a woodshed of the late senator Robert Byrd. It is a fully functional machine, which judging by the age of the parts, was made in the mid 90's. Apparently, senator Byrd, who was a champion of earmarks for both military and scientific spending, received it as a souvenir. Graduate students who discovered the machine note that it is a 300 qubit model which comfortably factors 150 digit integers under 2 minutes apiece.
Two weeks after this discovery, Google, which turned out to be a civilian arm of NSA announced the Lost File Program. In a simple ad, they promised to return  every computer file lost within the last 50 years, whether it was saved on a 5.25 inch floppy, perforated tape or sent by e-mail. The program got much publicity when Toni Morrison confessed to Oprah that her long lost book manuscript is being considered for a second Nobel prize and she pledged half of the prize to the Department of Defense. On a darker side, a spike in suicides and early retirements among executives and industry leaders was a clear indication that  some files better remain lost.
After that, the events cascaded beyond control. Area 51 was was open to the public in Arizona in early fall and finally the animosity of this state to  aliens became completely clear. This turned out to be a bit of a hoax as the site looks exactly like in the movie Independence Day. But the biggest surprise was related to the global warming. It turned out that the Global Warming is human caused and his name is David  Petraeus. Apparently the Army has the hardware to dial up the climate to any desired setting. Here the story gets a bit murky, but it appears that one of the former first ladies and her astrologist expressed a wish to crank up the heat in Texas. This coincided with the Army's desire to test the equipment and so here we are, no big deal really. The test is over now and in a few years things will be back to normal, but the hostility of the government to the climate community turns out to be well grounded.  This discovery called attention to other cases where the government turned out to be particularly stingy with their science dollars and the scientific community started looking at the gravitational wave detectors (that for years detected absolutely nothing.) After a few weeks of gumshoeing the truth was revealed, the waves and the corresponding technology exists and it is actually quite useful. Levitation and space travel  are clearly identifiable applications. However,  gravity is the only effective force against obesity and since the government declared a war against obesity the discovery of gravitational waves was dropped from the unraveling schedule. To prevent the scientific community from an accidental discovery a shoe-size gravitational wave generators were installed in the proximity of the detectors to obscure the natural phenomena just like the noise cancelling technology.
In the middle of winter, first sombering analyses started to appear. Scientific community was traumatized by the vast discoveries that the Army has made. Suddenly it became clear that the money pumped into the military complex was not wasted as everybody had previously thought. Quite contrary, army loomed as a super academy of sciences where scientists can work undisturbed by the need to publish, teach or participate in senseless faculty meetings.  The centuries old paradigm of combining research and training lay in ruins, partly because of the exponential growth of parasitic university administration that throttled any leftover traces of ingenuity. On the other hand, the Army with its discipline, 16 hour workdays interspersed with intense physical training, and (what is being whispered around) endless hazing and intimidation of weaker scientists, turned out to be an ideal environment for fostering innovation. With the bottomless purse and no accountability it took years where  the civilians took centuries. Thousands of university professors suddenly realized that even their measly salaries are an unjustified burden on the society.  Massive wave of academic retirements ensued. There were big changes in the Army as well.    One and half million of ordinary soldiers  turned out to be a result of an outreach program for minorities and low income  citizens, and an effective cover for  several thousands of super-scientists working anonymously.
In the end, the truth set us all free. By December the stock market doubled, first such case when it happened in just six months, and after the collapse of euro,  Europe started making overtures to join the dollar-zone. Turning on the planetary AC seems to be working and everybody is very happy.

Well, maybe not everybody. As often mathematicians are grumpy and bitter. While the search revealed many wonderful devices, there must be theories and spectacular mathematics hiding behind them. But so far, no paper or equation has  turned up, and Riemann Hypothesis is still not settled. While every sergeant in the army knows that it is true, the mathematical community is clinging to an old concept of a proof and does not have the capacity to move on.

New economic theory

My last two blog entries received withering criticism from my daughter and I was given a list of required reading to gain a better foothold for my implicit critique of the neo-marxist theories. Rather than follow this path I will resort to a standard academic trick - I will unveil my own theory and let neo-marxists try to poke a hole in it!  My theory  can be described easily in a few paragraphs. It explains  recent past, correctly predicts the future and it  is endowed with great simplicity coming from  combining  logic with Bayesian reasoning. Unveiling is the right word, the theory is too good to be false, and in fact it was created many years ago and it took a great deal of effort of politicians, bankers and regulators to implement it. I simply reverse engineered it from  life experiences of myself and my colleagues. 

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From the early 90's US economy developed a three-currency system described below.

Green money

Green money is the usual currency used for everyday needs. Average citizen has always very little of it, usually in form of loose change or small bills, and if popular culture is a good indicator, large quantities of green money are usually connected with criminal activity.  Green money is used to buy food and other necessities and steady inflow of green money is synonymous with having a job.

Red money.

This is a special kind of money that buys only one thing - your house. Banks will give you practically any amount of red money while retaining ownership of your property and the right to kick you out. You are constantly converting green money into fees associated with having red money but you also have the ability to use red money for your economic activity. Having red money is critical to passing through the transition points in your life: starting a family, sending children to college, providing medical care during the sunset years, etc.

Yellow money

This is the money that represents your entitlements. Throughout your life you accumulate  yellow money in form of Social Security, 401k, and other retirement schemes. Technically you are converting a part of your green income but in reality those contributions are not voluntary. You have no access to your yellow money until you are very old and even then you do not control it. Yellow money is a major source of economic activity for others.

This three color scheme is an abstraction whose sole purpose is to explain the connections between different components. In the end, the theory will posit that green money does not have practical value, red money is a mechanism that allows you to send your kids to college, and  yellow money is an IOU that allows fund managers to have private jets and billion dollar bonuses.

The theory described below presents economy as interactions between two types of players: small and big ones, and the main focus is on you -  a small player. A small player is a member of the middle class but I prefer a modern term: a precarian.

Total wealth formula

Your total wealth is W=G+R+Y or more generally W(p,t) = G(p,t)+R(p,t)+Y(p,t), where the variable  p represents a person and t is time.

As an instantiation of the variable p you may think that the red portion of your wealth represents a debt so it should be subtracted rather than added. Not quite, as you will soon see.

The value of W(p,t) can be computed for different values of t but such computations will be only approximations. This is really a technicality and to remove statistical variations, big players use tranches of the form W_P(t)=sum_{p in P} W(p,t) (sum of the values of W(p,t) over all the p's in the population P). The value of such tranche can be computed with arbitrary accuracy at any time t with error that depends only on the size of the population P.

We continue with basic axioms of the system.

Axiom 1

G(p,t) equals approximately 0 for almost all  (p,t). In other words, almost everybody is almost always broke i.e. does not have any green money.

Note that this axiom does not contradict the existence of millionaires but of course the number of them must be a measure zero set.  Main consequence of Axiom 1 is that the green money is not a significant source of economic activity for anybody, at least directly.

To introduce axioms 2 and 3 we need one more parameter. Recall that  the red money R =R(p,t) was used to acquire your property. Let V(p,t) represents its value.

Axiom 2

R(p,t) equals approximately V(p,t) for almost all (p,t) or equivalently that for almost everybody and  most of the time the amount of red money in your possession is  approximately equal to the value of your property.

Axiom 3

lim_{t --> infinity} V(p,t)=infinity for almost all p,  that is that for most people the value of their property goes to infinity.

These axioms are the cornerstones of the theory so let me explain their consequences.

A bank that owns your property charges you monthly rent (called interest) which is a percentage of its value. What makes this transaction special and unique is that in addition it provides you with the full value of the property paid in red money (called mortgage).  This trick allows you to use the  term "my house" with a minimum amount of credibility.  With an ordinary act of sale you would attempt to buy down red money to zero and complete the purchase. However, Axiom 3 indicates that buying a house is not an ordinary sale since the value of the property goes up with time. Consequently, your behavior is described in Axiom 2. As the value of property increases you increase your red money holdings by taking out the difference V(p,t)-R(p,t) in green money. The technical term used for this procedure is called extraction of equity and it produces a temporary windfall of green money. But wait, does it not violate Axiom 1? No, it does not  - the green money that you obtain this way is immediately used for necessities other than food. These were already mentioned: sending kids to college or fixing up your house in order to extract more green money out of it.

This points to Axiom 3 as the enabler of this scheme. Is this axiom true?  Abstractly, the value of your property is a small fraction of the value of the entire planet and we know where this is going. Economically however, the value of your property is determined by willingness of others to try to buy  it, and this in turn is determined by the supply of red money. As this source appears bottomless Axiom 3 is certainly valid.

This describes how you can live and prosper in this economic systems, and that is the micro-economic scale of things. Now we look at the big players or the macro-economic game. As I indicated already they deal with tranches to compensate for the  stochastic aspects of the axioms. So do not feel that this is all about you and that somebody is out to get you. This type of thinking will only get you into the looney bin...  The source of profits for the big players is the yellow portion of your wealth portfolio.  You and your employer are continuously increasing this amount by their involuntary contributions and  this  gigantic pool of wealth  is open to modern financial wizardry while  nobody is watching. So in practice  the only growth of this portfolio is represented by your contributions while the profits from investing it, turning it into stocks, futures or other obligations go the the owners, that is the banking industry. Since the end-value of your yellow portfolio is an order of magnitude bigger than your red portfolio and the average time that it is out of your reach is about 20 to 30 years the big players can extract tremendous amount of wealth from it without making it obvious that they are robbing you blind.

Early capitalists were after your ability to work and deliver surplus value. In this new scheme your entire life - present and future - is in the hands of a twenty-something hedge fund manager with quick mind and fingers whose formative years were spent playing Grand Theft Auto.

There is a version of Axiom 3 (due to Alan Greenspan) which assumes in addition that the derivative dV(p,t)/dt is greater than zero, that is that the value of your property is always increasing in time. This version of the axiom  greatly simplifies economic calculations but unfortunately it turned out to be false. In 2008 the property values went down on a set of positive measure and many precarians become proletarians. The current version of Axiom 3 allows temporary reversals.

In summary - the presented theory demonstrates how of two people spending 8 hours in the office one can make many thousands times more money than the other. It describes a layer of economy where great deal of action is taking place while nothing is ever being produced or consumed. And finally, it describes optimal strategies for small and big players.

In the presented system, everybody benefits (although not equally), and a significant portion of the society gets a sliver of the american dream. For this to work well however it is best if they remain asleep.

Sub-three sigmas unite!

In my last posting I complained about the lack of a new Communist Manifesto that would explain the world in simple terms and show the way forward. Here is my try at such a piece (and I dedicate it to Ayn Rand.) 

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 The history of mankind is the history of exceptional people. They are the ones who come up with the ideas, create and invent things, become role models, and lead the others. For the exceptional men and women are like an active ingredient in any medication - little of the good thing surrounded by massa tabulettae - an inert medium acting as a carrier.
What does it mean to be exceptional? Lets just say that it means that regarding some special ability one belongs to the top one percent. Top one percent means more than 2.57 (a bit less than three) standard deviations (sigmas) away from the mean. Being exceptional is not correlated with race, gender, age, education, income and so on. While it is hard to excel in any particular thing, it is much easier to be good at something. Sadly, only very few of us make use of our abilities while the rest tries to emulate somebody else's.
 While nothing of importance happens without exceptional people being involved, the forces of mediocrity are constantly conspiring against them and try to deprive them of their special properties. And of those forces the government represents the most powerful adversary, an iron fisted  mindless destroyer of talent.
Consider the most common ways to be exceptional - wealth, intellectual and physical abilities - and see how government relentlessly tries to undercut them.

 Wealth

Getting your first billion is hard work - many hours, a lot of risk and perhaps one or two things that you are not proud of. But now that you have made it, you want to cash in on your accomplishments. You want to be pampered and respected and you do not mind to be called a "job creator" even if the jobs you create are on a different hemisphere. But no, the big government swoops in and tries to take away your hard earned money, 15% of it or so. This is 150 mil for gods sake! who has this kind of cash to give away! Rather than requiring that everybody pitches in equally, they target you because you stand above the crowd.

 Intellect

You are six years old and suddenly you notice that everybody around you is sooo slooow. They read slowly, they think slowly and they do not seem to understand basic things. You are just a kid, and you do not know much but the rubbish that people tell you cannot possibly be right! This is where the government steps in. For the next twelve years you will be locked in a high security prison known as a public school. You will be bored to death, teased without mercy and if you do not toe the line you will be repeating classes that you should not be taking in the first place.

 Physical ability.

You are a runner and you dream of running a 100 meter dash under 9 seconds, or a marathon under 2 hours. Impossible? Not quite, and big pharma is here to help. All that stands in your way is the government with its lawyers and regulations. They will humiliate you and strip you of your medals if you follow your dreams and allow science to help your body to accomplish what it was meant to do.

 So what can we do? How can we remain strong?

Sub-three sigmas unite!

Get out of the glass jar of your talent and seek out other sub-three sigmas. You are unique and exceptional but it comes at a price. The great ability that makes you a sub-three sigma may have pushed aside other parts of your personality. You may be lacking social skills, be an incomprehensible introvert or simply an arrogant asshole. This is where another sub-three sigma with a different skill set can help and save you. The energy coming from building synergistic connections is enormous and the power of networking is unparalleled.

 Consider the following examples to see what could be accomplished. They are modeled on  what in the domain of science represent the most treasured form - multidisciplinary research.

 Albert Einstein and Wayne Gretzky

Instead of wasting years on trying to develop socially irrelevant grand unification theory, we would end up with better physics of ice and scads of commercial applications. In defiance of laws of thermodynamics energy-free ice creation would make frozen water available throughout the planet. Transformative aspects involve creation of hockey leagues in equatorial countries, desalinization of sea water and (possibly) staving off  global warming by increasing the Earth reflectivity through multiple hockey fields. And last but not least, we would get a better Zamboni machine.

 Paris Hilton and Isaac Newton

 While Isaac invents calculus Paris keeps his mind off nasty Leibniz and makes sure that he is not described as "asexual" four hundred years later. More importantly she looks at the educational side of calculus and the rest of mathematics. Transformative aspects of this duo involve making mathematics a cool subject and its teachers trendy and well dressed individuals paying attention to personal hygiene. Centuries later kids would look forward to be taking math classes as places to socialize and hang out. Expect modern fashion industry and computer age to come about two hundred years earlier.

 Noam Chomsky and Saint Francis of Assisi

 How can we think of communicating with extra-terrestial civilizations if we cannot figure out what our cat thinks of our table manners? This team would change it all. Saint Francis' zeal to give sermons to all creatures endowed with ears will be combined with Chomsky's understanding of language formation for the efficient inter-species communication. Finally when looking at our "little brothers" we will stop wondering how to cook them and focus on their thoughts and feelings. Plague of obesity will be eradicated when animal products will disappear from our daily diet. Equal rights for all the species and participation based on genome complexity will be established.

 So sub-three sigmas unite! As we enter dark days of the XXI century you are our only chance to go forward. United you stand but divided you fall as the evil forces of government are constantly conspiring against you. Hook up and multiply and let the freedom reign!

Not enough math - too much math

There is no substitute for understanding the world around you and mathematics is a way to get there. A few differential equations will give you the right level of objectivity, while too many may leave you wanting to look elsewhere. Consider these examples.

 It is year 1867 and life is completely miserable when Karl Marx publishes the first volume of Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. The book lays out the basic theory of wealth. The key concepts are "surplus value", "means of production" "accumulation of capital" and so on. It is simple and it is almost built from the first principles. I am reluctant to speculate since many of my family members have intimate knowledge of Marx' work (while I do not) but I think the theory is so useful because it allows to be twisted, adapted, extended and used in so many different ways. It helps those that agree with it as well as those that do not. At a closer look, the book is easy to read but extremely boring. There are hundreds of examples but there are no formulas, tables, graphs or pie charts. Lack of a single differential equation when the whole thing is about "maximizing the surplus value" is just sad. Obviously the standards of academic discourse that Marx was subscribing to were limited by the toolbox at his disposal, but it is amazing how poorly the whole thing is put together. A modern version would come with a dvd, video clips of slaving workers, champagne sipping capitalists, and the Red Army choir gently humming The Internationale in the background. Of course Marx understood that Das Kapital is not for everybody. Consequently, it was preceded by the Communist Manifesto, a piece of inspired and energetic writing, that channeled the key ideas of Das Kapital while spicing them with tidbits about wife sharing among communists. It is a work of great enthusiasm and also an excellent brainwash. So as it stands, these writings laid out transformative ideas for the XX century. Although the take home message for the average Joe was "you are being screwed" Das Kapital gives a very clear guidance on how to get rich - wealth comes from hard work, and preferably someone else's work. For hundred years afterward these concepts were followed and the idea of acquiring a machine and putting a redneck in front of it fired up the imagination of millions of gold diggers.  It is clear that many millions of lives would have been spared if the the word "mathematischen" replaced "politischen" in the Das Kapital sub-title. A few partial differential equations and a chapter or two on the point of diminishing returns, tipping points and such things would have possibly kept political wackos at a distance. Certainly the last hundred years would have been easier if this theory was build more on mathematics and less on propaganda.


 Fast forward to 2008 when the world's economy is brought to its knees. Marx's theory seems now obsolete and creation of wealth is no longer linked to human labor or to manufacturing in general. Consider Renaissance Technologies - a hedge fund with less than 300 employees that in 2009 had over 1 billion in profit. With no orphans working 12 hours in the production line or other workforce abuses, these profits raise few eyebrows. A simple question about where this wealth comes from seems strangely neglected and the message for the average Joe appears to be "nobody is getting hurt ". This time mathematics is abundantly present and it obfuscates everything.  The point is that modeling behind high-frequency trading, CDOs and so on relies heavily on mathematics, but mathematics is not used toward better understanding of the bigger picture. If the XXth century was about the creation of wealth, then perhaps the XXIst is about the redistribution of it.  It is entirely possible that this is a zero-sum game and profits of hedge-fund managers indicate that everybody else is getting just a little poorer.
So  where is the next Communist Manifesto that would explain it all in simple terms, blame the guilty and provide the ideological backbone to the Occupy Wall Street movement? Where?! It is time for ten tweets that will change the world!