My principle argument about the self-destructive qualities of Capitalism has been many-pronged. Some of these prongs are not particularly relevant. My favorite deals with Capitalism’s requirement for unending expansion. While I think this is a perfectly valid point to consider, I can’t make a conclusive argument about its impact on today’s crisis.

The more relevant argument deals with the financial sector and the business of those who make money by dealing with money: investors, traders, speculators, etc. The core problem I have run into when talking about this with those who either aspire to become a participant in the financial sector, or with those who are simply admirers who hope to benefit from these practices now or at some point in the future is the claim that it is more complex than it could possibly look from the outside, and those who are not practicing cannot possibly understand its importance. This argument to me is akin to the religious argument that God works in mysterious ways and His truth, goodness, and existence is thereby unquestionable; an absurd justification, in my opinion.

So, speaking from the outside, the practices of the financial industry are self-destructive for the following reason.

The basic idea on Wall Street is to produce money by moving money. I’ve heard the phrase “you need money to make money” repeated without the batting of an eye by many respectable and intelligent people in my life, and this surprises me greatly. Currency is nothing more than the universal equivalent. In some economic epochs it has been an equivalent for goods more generally, and to some degree that is still the case. But more specifically in Capitalism it is the universal equivalent for productive labor hours. At its core the game in the financial industry is to create the equivalent using only more of the equivalent, without producing goods and without engaging in productive labor. This is not a complicated idea and no amount of business schooling or time spent engaging in this behavior can make it more complicated or less absurd. If there is any practice that this can be related to in a glorified fashion it is gambling. I’ve gambled a bit in my life and certainly wouldn’t mind winning the Powerball, but I could never convince myself or anyone else that going to the tracks, studying the horses and making a correct educated guess about investing money in a winning horse is in any way a productive activity. Now nobody at the tracks or on the Vegas strip is going to contribute to the collapse of major economies. However, it is the same activity that is the driving force of the industry whose success or failure correlates directly into the success or failure of world economies.

Now I don’t think this crisis is the end of Capitalism. Or even that any part of this world is ready for a major overhaul of the principle underpinnings of our economic systems. Those who know me know I am an admirer of Marx, Engles, and to some degree, Hegel. However as with any philosophy there are parts to appreciate and parts to call outdated and parts to dismiss on their own absurdity regardless of timeframe. Being a critic of Capitalism does not mean that feeling vindicated today makes me happy, or that it makes me search for that sickle I must have hidden away somewhere to head out to behead the fat-cat Capitalists and lead a revolution. Many radical socialists or communists have been revolutionaries; I am not. I hope that the crisis, whether or not it continues, allows people to open their eyes to some of the self-destructive qualities of our society, and allows them to get over fear of outdated catch phrases and misunderstood notions dealing with the big bad word: Socialism.

First of all I’d like to take a moment to welcome Russia to the modern world as they have acted as a completely typical and predictable regional state power (other Slavophils will recognize just how bizarre it is to attach those adjectives to anything Russian). There really is nothing out of the ordinary here, and in fact, in a grander sense, Russia is acting much more appropriately than the last time the United States engaged in serious regional power-flexing (I speak, of course, of the 1980s and Latin America). Russia saw instability in its region and moved in militarily, probably excessively. I think I’ve seen a similar play before with different actors… I can’t be sure though, that one might have been a comedy, it was a little far-fetched (I hope the reader picks up the reference here, but if not that is my fault and I’m not looking to get into it any further).

Secondly, I’d like to point out the hilarious irony here. Russia has taken military action claiming to defend the right of self-determinism in regions neighboring Russia. I’ll just provide some empty space to allow that to settle a bit.

So, Putin, remember Chechnya? Just another way that Russia has become more modern and typical. Ideals shifting unabashedly with circumstantial interests! Yay go modern nation-state! In previous epochs Russia has been an anomaly in that, while lead by awful men engaging in horrendous acts, Russia has typically had a sort of ideological zealotry it has stuck to, quite firmly. Not the case here, and if the rest of the world had a mirror it cleaned more often than once a century, it would probably applaud Russia for assuming more common tactics.

Moving on. Another point I’d like to make is that this conflict has really made clear for me the awful state of macro journalism in the US and Europe. I have not read one single article by a major news source that was not painfully un-inhibited by standards I would call essential to journalism. Some have chosen to be pro-Georgia, some pro-Russia, some even pro-US (what the hell?), but no one has relayed the facts and only the facts. This has caused me to have very little to say about the specific events that took place to cause this conflict. I simply don’t know! And I’m starting to think nobody else does either.

But what is really noteworthy here is just how un-noteworthy this conflict is turning out to be. Russia seems to have become a fairly typical international player and a regional power. Georgia may or may not have acted inappropriately but before we start name calling on Russia we should probably think about the fact that the man who almost certainly orchestrated some seriously illegal and awful regional power-flexing in Latin America during the Reagan years went on to serve as President and to produce in his offspring one of the worst Presidents in our nation’s history. Food for thought anyways…

A couple interesting trends in congressional Twittering is that I expected Democrats to be more on top of new web technology but Republicans outnumber them on Twitter (at least from the list above) pretty significantly. From a quick look Republicans also seem to be the most prolific twitterers (discounting feeds that appear to be done by staffers). It also seems that Twitter has brought Democrats and Republicans together on some issues. Basically Culberson and a Democrat ally, Rep. Tim Ryan, want to overhaul rules regulating correspondence from representatives. The current rules are somewhat archaic and are based on the findings of the Franking Commission which was set up to regulate how postal fee allotments could be used by congressmen. The rules forbid posting to any website that contains politicking or advertising (i.e. pretty much every website) in their “official capacity” and posts must include a disclaimer identifying the poster as a representative. The 140 character cap on Twitter prevents that. The rules also apply to blogs, youtube, and other social networking sites.

It is extremely interesting to see how congress keeps up with technology in their personal lives. It is extremelty interesting to see folks like Rep. Culberson interacting quite directly with constituents (and other citizens whether they agree or not).

For example (excerpts put together from twitter feeds):

@johnculberson 1st back up your tax assertion 2nd actually? IMO market can drive it IF we do it right & we’re not.

@jpippert I strongly support alternatives-but without taxing anyone else to pay for it. Let free market & tax credits drive it-but drill 1st

@johnculberson & drill here drill now: listen to T Boone Pickens & his mtg with Obama re dev. alternative energy. http://tinyurl.com/6lvayh

How is that for direct democracy?

I was reminded of a quote from way back in the day when I was first learning BSD (as introduced to me by the first Mac OS X … yes, I was a late bloomer in the grand scheme of things). From Ray & Ray’s Mac OS X Unleashed, reproduced without permission,

Caution [...] Just as some of us are safer not owning super-fast sports cars, some are less a threat to ourselves and others if we don’t have a big box of firecrackers, and some would be better off if we couldn’t buy donuts by the dozen, Unix is just too much for some people. It might be too much power, or too much flexibility, or too much information to remember, but Unix seems specifically designed to create a user who epitomizes the phrase knows just enough to be dangerous.

Each of these examples deals with “excess” in some way shape or form. While I disagree with its application to Unix for obvious reasons, it’s perfect for some of these people. Some of those to which this commentary is directed (not listed) I believe are extremely intelligent and linear in their thinking when writing through other mediums, but good lord, they all just become trivial little assholes who’d rather post off-the-cuff remarks then actually think through anything logically anymore.

Vdov.net has often published prolifically, through just as often we lag in our content production. I will no longer care if in a given month we lag … microblogging belongs at twitter.com.

Cheers.

Man did they have issues. As soon as polls opened, each one of their check-in machines crashed at least 10 times. They thought it was due to high activity around the state on whatever servers run the system, but find that sort of hard to believe — it’s not as though everyone was really powering through at 6 am. Though they had tons of issues actually getting people to the polling machines themselves, once I was there, it was surprisingly smooth. Dare I say the voting experience itself was perfectly acceptable. I have no idea what types of machines they were using and my thoughts on electronic voting machines are well known, but absent these more theoretical complaints it couldn’t have gone much better.

This is probably the first election I’ve voted in where there’s some major ambiguity as to who will win (the democratic nomination). Cross your fingers everyone. Cheers.

“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.” -Samuel Adams

Vdov.net is not normally prone to politicking and this post is mostly about principles rather than politics. The authors here, from what I know of them personally, tend toward unfettered freedom rather than more tempered and restrained freedom. I am personally enamoured of the cause of liberty wherever it arises. I have a soft spot in my heart for all democratic reformers and movements that sincerely want to replace repressive regimes with open societies governed by democratic principles, whether that be anti-theocratic student movements in Iran or the Free Tibet movement.

There are a couple problems that I have with the a Free Tibet movement in general. One is that Free Tibet people (and I have known several) tend to focus solely on freedom for Tibet while turning a blind eye or even sympathy to many other brutal regimes. The other, is that that it is largely symbolic and despite years of protests and political statements Tibet remains no freer today than it has ever been. This is not the fault of the movement so much as the unwavering determination of the Chinese to maintain unity above all other values, including human life and freedom. This is the same country that still views Taiwan as a rogue and unsubdued province, which sadly is echoed in US foreign policy. It is this caving into political sensibilities at the expense of what American’s truly believe that has always shamed me about our country. I have never supported the “hate is illegal in Canada” approach to free speech and I know I have support on that from this site’s authors and many readers. (For a startling reminder of the dangers of that kind of restriction on free speech takea look at the Canadian “Human Rights Councils” and their chilling effect on free speech, specifically speech that offends someone. The case of Ezra Levant and the abuses of Richard Warman. The Wikipedia paints a rosy picture of Warman as fighting neo-nazis but he is currently suing most major conservative Canadian bloggers in an effort to shut down speech he does not agree with.)

The long and short of this is looking at the protests against the Olympics that are currently taking place seemingly everywhere that the Olympic Torch is going. I am sympathetic with the protests as long as they are not violent. I have no problem with police arresting people who disrupt the torch procession, it is their choice to break the law. I believe the protests are doing good by keeping the disgusting abuses of individual liberty by the Chinese government in the spotlight. Will they change much? I doubt it. However, one article did catch my eye and dismayed me to a certain extent. My only problem is why the police immediately hustled this runner off the route and seized the torch? The woman was an official torch bearer. She is a US citizen entitled to freedom of speech. Presenting a flag is a Constitutionally protected act. She was not causing anyone danger. The issue is relatively small but I wish that the officers in charge of the event had acted differently, perhaps in a more “American” way.

I had to show up and wait nearly 2 hours in line yesterday to get tickets for this town hall, and I showed up more than 2 hours early to get an even slightly reasonable seat. Now, it was a relatively small venue (a high school gym), and pretty much everyone had a decent seat, but I didn’t know that ahead of time. Getting into the venue was more or less going through an airport security checkpoint, only a bit worse. Not only was I “metal-detectored”, but I had a *very* complete wand scan as well. At about 5 o’clock, someone came out to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. This was interesting: I probably hadn’t said the Pledge of Allegiance since middle school. Then a pastor came out and gave a prayer. Another 20 minutes passed by before a major political figure in Lafayette/West Lafayette came out and gave a sort of pre-rally pump-up speech on issues important to her and those that would conceivably be addressed by an Obama administration. It was all pretty mundane up until the final speaker introducing Obama to the crowd. He was a regular guy from Lafayette who owned a small business, and who had obviously never given a major speech to that many people (over 3000) in his life. Most striking was his choice of attire. He was dressed in a ratty sweater and kakhis. I imagine this wasn’t intentional, though I have since decided that it was probably a play to the audience: before the big-wigs come out, get someone truly “of-the-people” to speak. Then he introduced Obama.

Obama looks exactly like you’d expect him to. The only other even pseudo-celebrity I have ever met/seen in person was Matt Fox (of Lost and other fame), and he looked completely different in person than he does on TV. Not Obama. I could have sworn I was just watching a youtube video or reading a Drudge Report headline when he took the stage. The only thing I’ll mention about the speech itself was that it was refreshingly original in structure. Yes, he talked about exactly what I thought he would talk about, tailoring it slightly to the Indiana audience, but the flow of the speech was new (at least as far as the videos I’ve seen of him previously … they are numerous). Standing ovations were abundant, as expected. However, it was only after the speech that things got really interesting.

He took questions. And the questions from the audience were interesting. The first question came from a middle-aged to slightly-over middle-aged woman who had obviously experienced some significant hardship in her life. There’s no question that she had real, serious problems that she was concerned about. But her 15 minutes of fame was ill-conceived. Instead of asking a well thought out question, she instead droned on about everything that was wrong with her life in great detail, to the point where it just sounded like she was whining. Then she says “what can you do for me *before* you get elected to fix all my problems?” Absurd. Here she actually has the opportunity to ask a real question and instead decides to kill her opportunity. I realized afterward that her question effectively boiled down to and would have been equivalent to her asking Obama to come over to her house and fix her broken down TV, an obviously ridiculous way to spend your time with a direct voice to the candidate. Obama did what he could: in this case all he could do is address some of the issues she brought up and those he had specific plans for, and try to come out of it looking good and with a cheer from the audience. He certainly succeeded.

The rest of the questions were fine. A cute little elementary school girl came out and asked a question her parents had obviously written down on a card for her about national and sub-national testing in elementary and secondary education, for which she received a standing ovation. It was a good question, and the audience responded in kind. Other questions were directed at specific issues, such as his thoughts on the election of supreme court justices (the most interesting of the questions and a policy of Obama’s I had not heard before), environmental policy, free trade agreements, etc. etc. etc. At the end Obama thanked everyone for their time and gave his farewell. After which he shook a lot of hands and exited the gym.

All in all it was a very interesting experience. Obama is a charismatic speaker, I think we can all agree on that. And regardless of your politics, I recommend trying to attend a “Town Hall”-like event in the future. It was really a lot of fun.

UPDATE: There has been a briefing by the Pentagon which has video of the missile launch, the “kill,” and a brief analysis. The launch occurred on time with no delays due to weather (only 2-3 foot seas). It looks like the shoot down was successful and the hydrazine tank was, in fact, destroyed along with the satellite. The collision occurred at 153 nautical miles above the Earth (~283km).
UPDATEII: Also, what do you know… it looks like there is already amateur photography of the debris field and the hydrazine trail, courtesty of Rob in Maui, Hawaii.

As many of you may know the US military is planning on shooting down a rogue spy satellite in a decaying orbit. It is designated USA-193. The satellite failed immediately after launch and was reported by amateur satellite watchers to have a decaying orbit. The official reason for shooting down the satellite rather than allowing it to deorbit on its own is that the ~5000 pound satellite contains about 1000 pounds of frozen hydrazine propellant that could potentially deorbit into parts of North America. It has been confirmed that the USS Lake Erie, a Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser, will fire a modified SM-3 missile to intercept the satellite. This may occur sometime within a couple hours of this post, but it looks like weather might delay the shot. Despite assurances from the US, there has been wide speculation that the reason for shooting down the satellite is to test US anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities, specifically as a reaction to the unannounced test by the Chinese which destroyed a weather satellite dubbed FY-1C in early 2007.

The deployment of military weapons into space has been a matter of concern since the Cold War and the aptly named “Outer Space Treaty” has been ratified by 98 nations. The treaty specifically bans the deployment of weapons of mass destruction into space but does not make prohibitions against ASAT weapons. Both the US and China have tested ASAT technology using the “purposeful miss” method where a missile is fired with the intention of coming within a close distance of a satellite and recording the accuracy. But the last successful satellite “kill” was by the US in 1985 and the Chinese “kill” was after three probable prior attempts. Now the costs and benefits of having ASAT technology and testing it can be debated but the immediate concern is the debris created by such tests. The most significant difference between the planned US shoot down and the previous Chinese one is in the altitude of the satellites destroyed, which has a significant effect on the fate of the debris.

The company that has been tasked with doing simulations of the debris and their paths is Analytical Graphics, Inc. (AGI). They provide an enormous amount of analysis, modeling, and visualization software to the US military and NASA. They also have a lot of great visualizations that are available to the public. Specifically, they have made a bunch of press release and general interest material available about the US intercept of US 193 and the Chinese ASAT test. The biggest difference between the US and Chinese “kills” is going to be the fate of the debris. As this AGI simulation shows (sorry for the .wmv) the debris from the US “kill” will mostly degrade after only a few more orbits and are expected to only last a matter of days. This is because US 193 will be destroyed at ~250km in altitude. FY-1C was destroyed at ~650km which means its debris will not completely deorbit for literally hundreds of years. AGI has also done modeling of the Chinese “kill” and the resulting debris (see the above picture).

There is a cache of publicly available visualizations of the Chinese “kill” made by AGI here. The Chinese ASAT test is the largest orbital debris generating event in history and increased the amount of “trackable items” (larger than golf ball sized) in orbit by 22%. These debris are also going to be very long lasting considering the high altitude of the destroyed satellite. There is a simulation of the debris from this event here. (once again sorry for the .wmv) The difference in the two simulations is immediately obvious.

I would love to know more about the actual ability of people to model these type of events. Apparently we have the ability to detect objects the size of golf balls in orbit. The military is apparently planning on using sea based X-band radar to target and track the satellite and resulting debris. This radar can apparently detect the spin of a baseball from thousands of miles away (impressive eh?). The other really impressive part of this story is the ability of amateur satellite trackers to not only track but give pretty detailed information about classified US government (and I assume other nations as well) assets.

Kevin Kelley

is a Wired editor and runs the website Cool Tools (which is awesome… and seriously if the NYT mentions a contributor runs a website don’t you think they could link the name of the website to the actual website?)

He wants candidates to do something similar to Justin Kan and wire candidates for sound and video 24/7 to really get a look at what they are like.

Pros: Its interesting to see candidates behind the scenes and right now that usually does not happen unless a candidate is accidentally on camera when they think they are not.

Cons: No candidate would ever submit to this and if they did I would question their sanity. Its kind of creepy. With news coverage being what it is their lives are already most of the way to this.

Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry

are the founders of Tech President.

They want video questions from “the people” chosen by “the people” with untimed video responses by candidates and the ability to comment and debate associated with each video. With the ability for the people to grade each response.

Pros: It hits at the two-way nature of the internet. I would love to see what video questions would get voted up rather than picked by new editors. I like the idea of candidates being able to be called out for evading questions because that is the most annoying part of normal presidential debates.

Cons There is an enormous potential for this kind of system to be spammed and/or gamed. There is a thin line between the “wisdom of the crowd” and “mob rule.” If this turns into a digg.com of politics I would have to shoot someone. Also, “grading answers” is a little strange considering there is not necessarily an objective correct answer a candidate could give. It seems that it would end up just being arbitrary and based on too many conflicting factors.

David All

is the president of a Republican consulting firm that helps candidates develop new-media strategies.

He wants to have “community” involvement not just before and after a debate but during the debate. There would be a mechanism for viewers at home and on line to call in, text, click internet buttons, or whatever to indicate whether they thought a candidate evaded an answer. Then if a majority said there was evasion then the candidate would be re-asked.

Pros: I think this is my second favorite because it is the simplest and takes care of my number one annoyance. It doesn’t easily let mob rule happen and it would be fairly unobtrusive.

Cons: It could easily fall in to a state where everyone just votes yes and candidates get re-asked every question. You would have to play with the threshold required for a re-ask.

Tom Brokaw

is a special correspondent for NBC News and the former anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News.”

Mr. Brokaw comes up with a great idea that has nothing to do with “new media.” He basically wants to get the candidates drunk and have them answer questions over their cell phone or BlackBerry (what no iPhone?).

Pros: Drunk candidates.

Cons: While the idea of a drunk Hilary Clinton berating me over the phone seems intriguing I have no idea why this is new media related… this could have happened 10 years ago. Drunk candidates. Also Tom Brokaw came up with it.

Matt Bai

is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the author of “The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics.” (I have read some good things about this book, even people that don’t agree with its overall message seem to think it has some good insight into intra-party politics. It has definitely been interpreted quite differently by different reviewers.)

Basically Bai wants to have a little IM window open that shows text that every candidate writes as each candidate speaks. This allows candidates to comment on whomever is speaking as they speak without interrupting. This is probably my other second favorite suggestion.

Pros: This could very easily be implemented and could add a certain amount of hilarity to the event. It would also give the candidates a real chance to use their claws. This would be best for the actual presidential debates after the primary I think. Also it might be the only time in history that presidential touch typing skills and mastery of l33t would be an important issue.

Cons: This has the potential to be pretty disruptive especially if one candidate was particularly hilarious. It could also be a little unserious for presidential debates.

Zephyr Teachout

is a law professor at Duke University who was the director of online organizing for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign

This is by far my favorite idea and shows a real understanding of how to wield “web 2.0″ principles usefully. He wants to have a day long debate marathon where each candidate pairs off against the others one-on-one. Then the videos are licensed in a way that allows remixing etc (I would prefer straight public domain, no restrictions). That way the discussion can continue at any number of levels uninhibited by the shortage of network TV time.

Pros: Having a single marathon day for debates would get people excited. The ability to watch each candidate square off against other individually seems much better than 1 minute canned speeches one after the other. The length of the day might wear down candidates a little and get them to open up a little. Also this is the most “web 2.0″ of the ideas. This way the data would be out there and then the machinery and people of the internet could just have at it.

Cons It seems that it would appeal to people who follow politics but might be a little too much for the casual observer (although the ability to cut and remix the video would mean highlight reels could be easily made). Also with that much verbiage in one day I would be afraid it would devolve into highlight reels of “gotcha moments” (although with their proliferation on the web you would end up with some good analysis and it would just be a matter of finding it). This would also be the most difficult to organize.

So those are the ideas.

I like Teachout’s idea the best and it could very easily be combined with the “live” ideas of Bai and All. Basically the real problem with the debates is that they have become staged, one time shots with canned answers and evasion of any kind of meaningful controversy. I really like the idea of one-on-one debates and making the footage available to the public without restriction. I would extend Teachout’s idea to include a central debate webpage with all the footage and pages for candidates to clarify, respond, and spin after the debate as well as a general forum for analysis with a Slashdot style moderation system for comments. The idea of a one day marathon is also intriguing in that it has the possibility of really engaging the general public and generating some excitement. This format also has room for expansion if it is successful. Imagine whittling down the candidates a little and having the top contenders from each party square off. It might be too much but it would give people an idea of how each candidate handles people that don’t generally agree with them on the big issues.

The “new media” or “web 2.0″ approach definitely has the ability to draw the candidates into meaningful debate and get them to say a few things that they actually mean. Teachout recognizes this in his idea,

The Internet doesn’t just enable cool avatars and the shorter form. It also allows the deeper form: cross-linked blog posts, extensive research, simultaneous screens and raw debate footage that anyone can scan online, at any time. New media are not constrained by the scarcity of TV network time.

Yet also recognizes the weakness in the “new media” approach. Which is the devolving of debate into digg-like “shouting matches” with nothing more substantive than rounded corners and AJAX. If done right you could get a Wikipedia if done wrong you get digg.

Any more ideas from the vdov community?