A Short History of Group Think

I started looking at the phenomenon of group think today. One of the sparks was a post by my good buddy Ultra Guy on his blog new wineskins. It seemed to me that a salient point in his argument was the decimation of the German Theoretical physics community during the 1920's and early 1930's as the tide of antisemitism drove some of the leading physicists out of Germany.
The term groupthink was coined in the early by William H. Whyte:

Groupthink being a coinage—and, admittedly, a loaded one—a working definition is in order. We are not talking about mere instinctive conformity—it is, after all, a perennial failing of mankind. What we are talking about is a rationalized conformity—an open, articulate philosophy which holds that group values are not only expedient but right and good as well.

Ultimately group think is about defending unexamined assumptions about things. As Galileo discovered with his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Challenging the reigning world view can be hazardous to your life. In 2008 the Church completed the rehabilitation of Galileo Galilei a process begun some 300 years after declaring him a heretic.

In our own era state sponsored and organized group think rose to new levels in Germany and the USSR. The German version, Gleichschaltung was particularly invidious and the name in German calls forth images of a system like a Gyro compass with, repeaters dutifully following the master compass. The Soviet flavor, Lysenkoism, had devastating effects throughout Soviet Society and Science. The essential core of Lysenkoism was the doctrine that acquired traits were inheritable. While the concept was not new to Lysenko, having been epressed by such worthies as Buffon, Lamarck, and giving it a patina of respectability Aristotle.

The current manifestation of group think trumping the scientific method are the conjoined triplets of liberal elitism - The Population Bomb, The Coming Ice Age, and Anthropogenic Global Warming. In each case the operating principle is the same. All research that supports the group position is loudly proclaimed, contrary research is suppressed. In the next phase research funding is filtered through a combination of peer reviewed publications ensuring that reports match the desired outcome. Funding from all sources is then based on previous publication and probability of the research being publishable in a peer reviewed publication. In the last phase, to show even handedness, contrarian research is requested and then heavily redacted to ensure that even the dissenters support the core thesis.

The final nail in the coffin and the result that proves "Mark Twain, was right when he said; "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." The recently released Index of Environmental Indicators, you owe it to yourself to see just how much we know about our environment that isn't so. The 70 page report also shows the progression towards impotence of most attempts to actually do something about a problem degenerate into. That one fact alone should give hope to all the AGW deniers around the globe.

ARRA and the Law of Holes

The first law of holes, famously states - that when one is in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.

In theory our governments should be operating on the same basis as the average household, or company. That would mean that when income drops, expenses should be trimmed as well. As we have seen since the beginning of the National government, first under the Articles of Confederation and then under the Constitution, matching income with expenditures has always been a thorny problem.

Failure to understand and consider the effects of legislation has made Congress watching an unending circus parade of unintended consequences. ARRA or HR 1 is merely the latest in a long line of quick cheap fixes that have been for the most part neither quick, cheap or fixes. There is a large database that shows across history, and culture the effects of various types of economic policy. Still in Washington DC our representatives find new ways to explain to us why this time is different, why this time a policy that has failed every time it has been tried simply has to work.

That sort of blindness always reminds me of an episode of 3rd Rock From the Sun, where Harry, the communications officer is watching reruns of the Buggs Bunny Roadrunner hour. He decides to bet that Wiley will catch the bird on the basis that he had seen this episode before and the plan was too brilliant to fail twice.

On the other hand, maybe we the voters are Harrys - we've been voting the same people in apparently believing that they are too brilliant to screw up twice.

Epiphany: The High Cost of Convienience

The last time I visited my doctor, she wasn't very happy with me, not only was I way over weight, but a lot of the other numbers that are indicators of health were out of whack HDL/LDL Cholesterol -- Sorry Mr. V.... that is unacceptable; A1C -- Sorry Mr. V... that is unacceptable; ..... She wanted me to get at least 30 minutes of exercise every day, and to watch what I was eating.

Being somewhat obsessive compulsive and in WWII British Slang a King Boffin (roughly translated into leet as an Uber Geek) I started a spreadsheet to track what I was putting into my body.

I'm about a month into the project now and I have made some interesting observations; none are of themselves earth shattering or new, but the aggregate is at least for me, very insightful.

1. It hasn't been hard for me to keep the total calories under control.
2. It is somewhat harder to keep the balance of total calories / calories from fat in the correct range, 20 - 40%
   
3. It has been nearly impossible to keep the Sodium intake at or below 2500mg
4. Convenience foods aren't.
5. Oatmeal is your friend.

Some of these observations - particullarly number 4 seem to have application in other areas of life.

Information -- It is tempting to just get everything from CNN, FOX, MSNBC .... unfortunately that means giving control over what you see to someone you don't know and who doesn't know you. Worse yet many of the decisions that they make are based not on news value but on whether or not the sponsors make money during the breaks. The good news for us is that thanks to the internet there are lots of links to real time information that is either unfiltered or filtered by folks who tell you what their major filtering system is.

Health Care -- The convenience of health insurance is nice, but again you are giving control over what is done to some faceless bureau, doesn't matter whether it is a private insurance provider or your state / federal medicare bureau. Seems like their primary goal is the reduction of expense. As an example a friend of mine has been waiting for a month to get a bone growth stimulator to help heal a broken bone. The stimulator is covered by the insurance company, but has been held up for a month, by internal red tape. That shouldn't happen.

Government Benefits -- With few, perhaps no, exceptions the cost of any beneficial program sponsored, controled, or other wise manipulated by the government is not worth the cost. On my exception list:

1. Health Care for Veterans -- Falls under the category of providing for the common defense. Our veterans, since the end of the Draft, have voluntarily given their time, lives and in some cases blood for the national defense. Paying for the treatment of their health problems is a bill that we assumed when they began to serve. Military service has been shown to have some unique long term health risks, one of which is a higher risk of developing diabetes.
2. Education for Veterans -- See above. For amplification look at the post WWII boom in industry and science. Extra credit - search the education background of the movers and shakers in America from the mid 50's to the early 80's.

Or in a non-governmental area:
Economy of Scale -- The idea that bigger is always better.

1. Peanuts are just the latest example of how ecconomy of scale is a two edged sword. While it made it possible for a large number of people to get their peanut products cheaply, it also expedited the movement of salmonela bacteria. Peanuts are just the latest in a continuing chaing of supply chain problems. Past examples include spinach contaminated withE-coli, beef and poultry products contaminated with E-coli.
2. It's cheaper to send the operation overseas -- Yes, but we have seen some production line go overseas to be run by people who do not share our values, laws or sense of honor. Experience has shown that it it possible to get good work done overseas, but it is not a simple task. If anything the requirement for good oversight of foreign operations is higher. Failure to inspect carefully leads to lead based paint, phenol contaminated food products, and other ills.
   

Power, Vacuum, Piracy

Jdg 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

1Pe 2:13-14 Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; (14) Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

A major function of government is the punishment of crime. One of the things that emerges from a careful study of history is the discovery that evildoers naturally gravitate to places where governments have difficulty employing their power. In the early 1700's one of the places where governments had trouble exercising power was the Caribbean. In that time the major European powers were not only involved in a series of wars including the War of the Spanish Succession. Fought to preserve the European status quo, by preventing the unification of France and Spain. One of the consequences was the increase in Piracy in the Caribbean.
Spain could only with difficulty provide any protection for its shipping, principally by convoy. The English authorized Privateers with Letters of Marque and Reprisal. The number of Privateers acted to provide cover for the outright pirates.

In our era, we have seen the dangers of regions with week or nonexistent governments. A short and incomplete list would include Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Post Sadam Iraq. That doesn't include governments which for strategic and tactical reasons have supported, trained or encouraged terrorism as a means of furthering their goals. The history of Al Qaeda provides one example of how vacuums of power were exploited.

As we have seen in the news recently, there has been an increase in Piracy in East Africa. One of the nodes is Somalia which since the mid-1970's Somalia has been divided by civil wars and currently has a weak government with a very limited ability to suppress piracy. Meanwhile in the best tradition of piracy men who are seeking power influence and money are engaging in piracy. Peter Leeson of George Mason University has examined some of the economic elements of Piracy.(1)

The same vacuum of power that permits Piracy to flourish at the margins of governmental power, also provides a favorable climate for Terrorism.

(1) http://www.peterleeson.com/Pirational_Choice.pdf