Here is an accurate prediction!

Obama is going to fail to lead the nation out of the economic disaster and the Democrats will blame the Republicans because everyone didn't do what the Democrats thought was right.

The country will probably do about 80% of whatever Obama and the Democrats suggest.  80-20 rule.  So whatever is in the 20% that doesn't happen, brand of toilet paper authorized for government purchase, whatever, will be blamed for the coming economic disaster and the Republicans will be blamed for that 20% not happening.

80% of people will fall for that propaganda and that will make it take 4 times longer to recover.

Politics

First things first, no one understands politics in the United States.

That doesn't mean people don't understand how to manipulate others so they or the candidate of their choice can be elected.  There are plenty of people who know how to manipulate other people.  Manipulating people can pass for politics in a democracy, but, it really isn't.

In the end who cares if a candidate is manipulated into office if they can't address the political issues.

Imagine a giant word search without a list of words to find.  When people first look at this giant jumble of words they can't see any patterns.  After a while people begin finding patterns.  Some of these patterns, "abortion", "gay rights", "national security" are focused on to the exclusion of others.  People feel over whelmed searching for these patterns so when they find one or two they concentrate on them and ignore other patterns and how they interrelate.

This is a lot like taking care of one side of the front lawn of a house and feeling really pleased about it.  Yeah, that one little area might look good while the rest of the house falls apart so no one cares about that one little section of lawn.

Politics is like looking at this entire, huge word search and seeing how all the patterns relate to each other.  Only with politics we don't have the nice limitations of a word search.  There are an infinite number of symbols making up these patterns.  These symbols are piled on top of each other using inconsistent layers.  One layer might have several million, another layer only a few hundred thousand.  The "symbols" are not stacked on top of each other, they are not offset with any regularity.

Politics deals with what people need and want.  People are fairly random so the distribution of patterns in the giant mess we call politics is random.

I didn't think John Cain had a chance at winning and I didn't think Mitt Romney had a chance of winning.  I told people that Obama would be re-elected 4 years ago.  I could see the patterns that defined this eventuality.

But patterns change.  I could have been wrong.  I wasn't and the race wasn't any where near as close as the networks made it seem.  They have their ratings to think about and an early winfall for Obama turns televisions off at 8pm which destroys profitability.  The race had to look close right up to the end.  Besides, the loser always feels better if the race was "close".

Once people can admit that politics has nothing to do with manipulating people the way network news and many politicians do we can start focusing on real politics.  The holistic view of all of the issues.  We can put together groups to study specific issues and how those issues interact with other issues until we have a much more complete understanding of how everything inter-relates.

The first thing people have to grasp to do this is that while it is possible to grasp that the big picture exists and to step back far enough to see the entire picture it is impossible for any one person to see how all the different patterns or issues relate to each other.

Suppose I had a word search with 10 million words and it took 30 seconds to solve each word that makes 5 million minutes or  83,333 hours or 3,472 days or about ten years.  If we put that word search solver on a standard 5 day, 40 hour work week the time increases to around fifty years.

In those fifty years the dynamic issues that are the politics in the United States would have changed so the solution acceptable fifty years ago is no longer acceptable today.

Supposedly we have congress with a bunch of people working with special interest groups to address these issues, BUT, these are not holistic solutions.  They are solutions that always present the special interests issues first and foremost.

People starving?  Who cares we are the "World Wild Life Fund" and we have our priorities.  People starving isn't one of them.  Okay, so I am picking on this group, but, every special interest thinks the same way.  We can't ignore animals because people are starving.  We can't outlaw something because some people misuse it.  the War on Drugs is killing millions in second and third world countries.  The War on Drugs is a total failure and we refuse to accept that.  Holistically does it make any sense to continue fighting a failed war that is causing more problems than it solves?

People are incapable of seeing the interrelation between all of these problems and most want to pretend that they can and that their problem is the important issue.

Essentially as long as politicians and new media spend most of their time manipulating people to increase their power and wealth we are screwed.  As long as people want to pretend they understand everything we are screwed.

Somethings are easy to see, Obama's recent victory 4 years ago for example.  Outlawing a product will create a black market.  If there is a huge demand for that product there will be a huge supply regardless of the legality.  Easy prediction.  Other things are not as easy to predict.  Some people pretend they are and often those predictions are in conflict. 

We need to work together while focusing on as much of the interrelation between issues as possible to achieve an actual working solution.  Otherwise we continue to fail.

Food Soverignity and reality

I have been taking a class in anthropology and the professor is an advocate of "Food Sovereignty".  Essentially this is a fancy way of saying people have control over their food supply.  One of the basic tenants of this idea is localized and sustainable small scale agriculture.

I like the idea but it runs into huge problems.

The first problem is that there is only so much land and population is constantly increasing.

The second is a little trickier.  It takes about 0.22 hectares of land or 0.6 acres of land to supply enough food for 1 person for 1 year.  The World Food Organization or World Food Programme is a subsidiary of the United Nations.   These guys create all kinds of statistics about food.  That sounds okay right, 0.6 acres.  Cool.

Not really.  There is a problem.  Japan has about 0.03 hectares of farm land per person.  India has about 0.13 hectares per person.

That creates some huge problems because there isn't enough farm land to supply every person in the country with food.

Wait, it is even better, livestock like cows eat food.  It takes about 2 acres of grazing land or about an acre of grain to feed a cow for a year. Other livestock can take less or more, depending.  Fortunately a lot of ranch land is not very good for farming.  Unfortunately leaving a field fallow and using it for grazing is good for the land and sustainable agriculture.

0.22 hectares is the minimum.  For real security we need to allow for a reduction in production which typically accompanies organic or sustainable farming techniques and we need to account for problems so real food security takes about  1.5 to 2 times the minimum amount of arable land per person or individual animal.

Okay, we can't do local food production everywhere.  Some places we have to transport food to.  It can't be helped.

If we have more smaller farms creating a consistent product becomes more difficult and the production costs actually increase so food prices go up.  Organic food prices compared to agribusiness food prices.

So now we have to pay people more money so they can buy food and that causes food prices to go up.

Somewhere along the line things will level out, but, I doubt if small scale agribusiness is economically feasible any more than local production is feasible.

It is a good idea, but, it would take a return to lower population levels or redistribution of populations and a primarily agricultural economy to work. Population density would have to based on arable land available.

Guys like me that have a black thumb and can't grow grass would have a problem in an agricultural economy.  We would be busy inventing things that increased production.

Big picture, the idea of food sovereignty can't work.   It is possible it could work in some smaller regions with acceptable population density and farm land ratios.

Cultural change cannot be avoided

If we simplify people for the sake of argument we can create two groups of people.  Those willing to change.  Those unwilling to change.

In reality everyone is willing to change some things and unwilling to change other things.  Exactly what can be changed varies with the person and the culture that the person is involved in.

Does muching at Mickey D's make people "American"?  Of course not.  If a French person buys a burger that person is still French.  However, food is something the French have identified their culture with so many people in France think the food at Mickey D's disgraces their culture.  Sure, it really sucks and we all know that, but, the United States does not identify their culture with Mickey D's.  We identify our culture with patriotism, freedom, democracy, achievement, high standards of living.  Mickey D's represents achievement in business rather than a high quality of food.  Mickey D's represents the speed at which "Americans" progress.

But people in France don't associate Mickey D's with speed of progress or achievement in business.  Many people associate Mickey D's with crappy food.  Why would anyone want to embrace this garbage?

But cultural change is unavoidable.  Sure, we can make Mickey D's illegal and the next thing you know we have the "War on Burgers" which would be a lot like the "War on Drugs" with hidden butcher shops like we have hidden drug labs.

When cultures come into contact we exchange values, customs, traditions and resources.  Eventually the cultures coming into contact change to the point where they are no longer what they were.  Typically the predominate culture will absorb the sub culture.

So what happens when two predominate cultures clash?  They either destroy each other, absorb each other or one ends up dominating the other.

Take the current clash between Islamic cultures and Western cultures.  I can guarantee that one of these two cultures will predominate the other.  The two cultures have too many mutually exclusive customs and traditions.  Both cultures are dependent on each other in the exchange of resources and as long as the contact exists the conflict will exist.

Which one will predominate the other?  If I have to guess I would say that the Islamic nations were going to eventually dominate Western cultures and eventually Eastern cultures.  That is just an opinion based on my assessment of perseverance and democracy.  The Islamic nations are willing to kill off all opposition culture and the Western nations are not.  The last culture left standing is predominate so ....

Even if each culture closed itself off from the other the economic pressures of co-existence would eventually force them into conflict.

We can't stop cultural change.  We can attempt to manage it.  The founding fathers of the United States attempted to build a constitution which incorporated the ability to plan for cultural change while ensuring specific rights.  Today people are trying to eliminate some of those civil rights, like the right to keep and bare arms :-).

Democracies can change their protected rights, the right to freedom of speech is not the same in the United States and the United Kingdom.  In both places it can be changed to prevent "hate speech" like speaking out against the religion of Islam.

However Islamic Law cannot change to allow speaking out against the religion of Islam.

One culture can change and exist.  The other cannot change and exist.

But cultural change can't be avoided?  Right and the incorporation of the West and East into Islam will result in some changes.  Islam has changed some in the last 1500 years and will change some more, however, there are some things that cannot and will not change because they are fundamental to the culture.

The Catholic church might allow priests to marry again, but, they will not eliminate the Pope.  The Christian church may dress in black or white or red or rainbows but they won't eliminate the Cross.  People may interpret the Bible differently but they won't eliminate the Bible.

Western cultures won't eliminate democracy or constitutions but those constitutions can change because democracies can vote to change them.

When two cultures clash they will change and eventually stabilize into some new form.  What can be changed will change and what cannot change will not change.  If the predominate culture is unwilling to accept the existence of those things that will not change the things that cannot change will be eliminated or be hidden from the predominate culture.

Religion in the U.S.S.R.  Drugs in the United States.  Prostitution almost everywhere.  These things go into hiding because some people want them and other people are unwilling to accept their existence.

There are two prerequisites for elimination or being forced into the "underground".  The first is the unwillingness of the predominate culture to accept the existence of whatever custom, value or tradition is unacceptable.  The second is the unwillingness of those who participate in the unacceptable value, custom or tradition to cease participation.

Openness and cultural change

In my last blog post we looked at a summary of my "world according to Jack" theory ending with the opinion that the most important resource for cultural change is people and the interpersonal trust relationships that they build.

The "problem/desire>solution>acceptance>stability/satisfaction" pathway is the heart of "the world according to Jack" theory.

The second most important resource for cultural change is acceptance of the possibility for change.  The more open and accepting a culture is the more likely it is to undergo changes.  The less open and accepting a culture is the less likely it is to undergo changes.

Change and the openness of a group to the possibility of change is directly linked with the ability or charisma of a presenter of an idea to the group.

Essentially the better someone is at encouraging others to change the less open the group has to be to change.  The more open the group is the less skilled the presenter of change must be to encourage change.

If a group is open to change and there are multiple skillful presenters encouraging mutually exclusive forms of change the group becomes conflicted and stagnates, unable to change.

For cultural change to occur we need a group problem or desire.  We need a presenter of a solution.  We need a group open enough to embrace or accept the presenters solution.  We need the solution to satisfy the desire/problem or improve the group stability.

If the group fails to stabilize or is unsatisfied with the solution the process repeats.

Again people are the most important component in cultural change.

Because change is so dependent on both the openness of the group and the ability of an individual to encourage through either coercion or convincing culture change cannot be predicted in any specific way.

We can predict that sub cultures will change in order to either cooperate with or oppose dominate cultures.

Typically the result of opposition with a dominate culture is the destruction of the sub culture.  An example is the sub culture of the 1960's and early 1970's called the "Hippies" eventually dwindled away feeding into other oppositional sub cultures.

There are times when oppositional sub cultures such as the communists in Viet Nam or the revolutionaries in the United States were able to successfully oppose the predominate cultures they were in opposition to.

The specific outcome of either becoming the predominate culture or being eliminated is so dependent on human variability and the available resources that the longterm outcome is often impossible to predict.

For example some people will claim that the "Hippie" sub culture was not eliminated even though it is not the dominate culture in the United States.  The distinctive forms of dress, hair styles, language and the cultural focus on "peace" that predominated in the "Hippie" sub culture are not currently predominate in the United States.  Many younger people don't even know the word "Hippie". 

People who believe strongly in the cultural values of that sub culture will insist that they have been incorporated into the predominate culture.  When President Bush sent troops into both Afghanistan and Iraq his public approval ratings were in the 90% range.

Today those decisions are regarded differently, however, for a culture focused on the value of "peace" which was central to the "Hippie" sub culture a 90% public approval rating at the time for a President involved in a controversial war tells us quite a lot.

Regardless of the example used to demonstrate the idea or the ability of the individual to objectify their response to an example I stand firmly behind the premise that human variability prevents the possibility of creating a model that will predict cultural change.