Bot Puppets

In the 2016 election, bots were busily posting and reposting weird memes to people who confused cynicism with sophistication, people who found credible claims like, "the Pope endorses Trump!" and "Clinton has used the Clinton Foundation to make Millions!" Millions of bots on Facebook and Twitter were busily forwarding fake news to gullible users who still didn't understand that a brand new site labeled "TrumpWillMakeAGreatPresident.com" or "MelaniaWillBeAMoreBeautifulFirstLadyThanBill.com"  is less likely to be offering objective news than the New York Times. Given they had already believed that the New York Times and other "mainstream media" sites were not to be believed, they actually found this put up overnight sites more credible than the mainstream media that still practiced journalism according to standards that predated the internet.

These bots were particularly busy swaying what the social media algorithms had identified as "soft Clinton" supporters. While they couldn't hope to win many black voters in Philadelphia over to Trump, they could feed rumors to voters likely to vote Clinton and thus convince them there wasn't enough difference between Clinton and Trump to justify voting. Just getting Clinton voters to stay home was enough to tip the election in the three states that gave Trump the national victory while only giving him the edge of 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It was as if someone had concluded that a car salesman and a car thief were no different but it worked.

My elderly mother was having trouble with her computer during the election. After a lot of finagling I got her back online and signed into her Facebook account. This was either late October or early November.  I was aghast at the sheer volume of "news" articles posted to her Facebook feed. Obviously bogus news sites that looked credible to her were decrying Michelle Obama's lack of fashion sense and lauding Melania, showing Trump's promise to restore America or Hillary in an angry face. I honestly scrolled through about 50 of these posts while seeing only a couple of personal posts from her friends or family. And each post seemed to be from yet another fabricated site. It was absurd.

I don't know how many people will ever admit they were swayed by bots. It's not flattering to be duped by computer code. (Although I imagine that by 2017 we all have been at least once.)

My term for the folks who were swayed by bots? Either to believe that Trump somehow cared for them or that Hillary was just as bad? Bot puppets.

If you are a regular reader of this blog I expect you to incorporate the term into your daily vocabulary. Here is how you use it.

"Oh don't be just a bot puppet Justin. You've got to be smarter than three lines of code. Your argument doesn't even make sense."

"Did you just forward that argument from a bot? What are you, a bot puppet now? Just doing whatever the computers tell you? Think for yourself Justin."

"Well, Shelley is such a bot puppet that she doesn't know the difference between nytimes.com and notyourtime.com. Seriously, that woman will forward anything from anywhere as long as it blames Bill Clinton for whatever she's upset about today."

The goal is to make it shameful to rely on memes to do your thinking, to make bot puppet have all the stigma of racist.

Wait. That might not be enough to sway some of Trump's base that it's a bad thing to be a bot puppet.

Science - and Policy - Proceeds Upon Death

Louis Pasteur championed germ theory. He was able to collect data that rather conclusively proved that if only doctors washed their hands between working with patients that infections dropped significantly. This saved lives.

Sadly, his fellow doctors dismissed the data and his theory. They kept doing the same thing and patients continued to die at the same rate.

Pasteur then gave up on his peers and took his message to med students who had no habits or preconceptions. These students readily adopted his suggestions and death rates rapidly dropped.

Observing the big difference in the willingness of his peers and the students to adopt the new approach, Pasteur supposedly quipped, "Science proceeds on the death of scientists."

It seems to me that voter ideology proceeds in the same way. There is a window between about 13 and 30 when - for probably 2 to 4 years - a person forms a worldview. After that, the software loaded up in the form of biases, processes, habits and preconceptions, the work of learning is largely done. The software in the form of memes (customs, mores, philosophy, norms, etc.) becomes hardware, something that is unlikely to ever again change.

Once your worldview is set, the world changes but you don't. You become increasingly dated in your worldview. You think the world should be based on kin and clan, not tribe or city. Or you think that women belong at home and not in the office. Or you think that wealth is zero sum and we need to seize and conquer rather than collaborate and create.

Memes are the set of norms and policies that define us as a people. Wearing Levis. Holding doors for women. K-12 education. Like genes, memes carry information that shape us. Genes shape biology. Memes shape society.

Memes proceed on the passing of generations.

If we still had people with us from 1600, we would still have kings and not presidents. If we still had people from 1850 instead of 1950, we'd still have child labor rather than public education. If we still had people from 1950 instead of 2005, we'd still have blacks in separate schools and unable to vote.

I've known and discussed politics with a lot of people. Not once have I witnessed a conversion experience of anyone over 30. (Probably even 25.) Software becomes hardware past the age of 30.

The Epic of Gilgamesh dates from about 2000 BC and is considered the earliest surviving work of literature. Gilgamesh learns at one point that while man is mortal, mankind is immortal. Each generation regenerates itself. And given the story includes a character - Enkidu, who emerges from the wild, raised by wild animals and ignorant of civilization - who has to be civilized, it suggests that the city of Babylon could turn you into a human and then make you immortal. One big difference after the Enlightenment is the notion that this process that transcends any one person also transcends any one way of living; progress replaced tradition. But progress is tough.

It's lovely to think that people learn or update their memes. And some do, bless their heart. But most of us do not and for that reason, social progress depends on people dying and the next generation coming along, willing to adopt new ways in part because all ways are new to them at the start.

Which brings us to millennials.

Of the 250 counties with the most old men, 241 voted for Trump. (Of the 250 counties with the most white people, 249 voted for Trump. Race is an even better predictor of voting than age.) Millennials, by contrast, voted overwhelming for the first woman president, as you can see in this map:

You almost wonder if the rapid pace of social change that defined earlier times has slowed because people live longer or if it has sped up because we have more education. In either case, it's obvious that the things millennials are comfortable with - minorities, same-sex marriage, public funding for universities, public healthcare - freak out the elderly who voted overwhelmingly to make America great again.

Stunning Election Results from San Diego

Today I went into my wife's class and held an election for 23 second graders. 7 year olds, most of them. Everyone at this San Diego city school qualifies for free lunch. The class isn't all Hispanic. There are two African-Americans.

They were intrigued with the process. I let them choose between four candidates: Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. We discussed each candidate. I made the argument for each one. (Jill Stein wants to protect the environment, air and water, etc.) We talked about voting and hard choices (broccoli vs. candy), etc. They had some good questions (What's the difference between government and the president?) And opinions. (Trump just wants to make the rich richer.) They certainly know who Trump and Clinton are.

They voted in private at their desk, checking a box next to the candidate and his / her picture and name before folding up their ballot and handing it in.

Johnson, Stein, and Trump had a three-way tie.
Clinton got every single vote.

Nate Silver might dismiss this as both irrelevant and statistically insignificant. I think it's an indication of the trouble Trump faces with Hispanics.

You Can't Praise Democracy Without Praising Those Other Idiots

We all are subject to the conceit that our own intelligence and morality is superior. And it's one of the reasons that so many people are afraid of what democracy will bring. It's stylish to decry the stupidity of "them," a group that ultimately means people who don't vote like us.

One of the many miracles of economics is that it coordinates the efforts of strangers. People I don't even know helped to make my shirt and my computer. They got money from me, a person they don't even know.

Democracies are similar to markets in that they enable strangers to agree to policies.

Democracies flourish for the same reason that markets do: it let's the common person choose. Ultimately our government - like our malls and farmer's markets - is shaped by individual choice. No system has done more to sustain innovation and progress. As it turns out, those [liberals / conservatives] who horrify you are smarter than you think and they care as much about the country as you do. You're not unique in your intelligence or altruism. Nobody is. Inevitably there are unintended consequences of policies and laws and inevitably there is someone who irritates you who points that out. That's why you are not the only one we let vote and why we let so many other people vote. They may be idiots but they make you smarter.

There are problems with democracy. For one, I believe that systems do so much to define our world that we need to make systems thinking as common and as required as reading. Thomas Jefferson thought education was essential to a functioning democracy. Today, a good education should emphasize system dynamics as much as it does grammar or multiplication. Democracy is impossible with an illiterate population; it's problematic with a population that doesn't appreciate or understand systems. (What do  I mean by systems? Ecosystems. Economies. Financial systems. Education systems.) This and other problems with democracy can be addressed though.

Also, elections are also terribly contentious. And for good reason. We are one nation but on election days we settle the current argument about how we'll define that nation. That's not a trivial conversation or one we're happy to lose.

That said, there is no substitute for the voice and values of the people. And that is why we have democracies.

Today is a happy day.

Why Republicans Who Care About the Party Should Vote Against Trump

Trump will lose.

If he loses by a small margin, little will change within the Party. Trump himself - an obvious addict of attention - might even run and win again in 2020. And lose again.

If you want to hasten the reform of the Republican Party into something that offers sane and viable candidates, you should do all you can to make sure that Trump's loss is decisive. If you want to continue to lose presidential elections until at least 2024, possibly later, then make the 2016 election close.

Gradually Turning up the Heat on Frogs in Water: GOP Voters in 2016

In his book on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert points to a really fascinating thing about predicting our happiness: we're really bad at it.

Put simply, if you have a mouthful of liver you are incapable of imagining chocolate. Our current reality so colors our perception of future possibilities that we simply can't predict how we'll feel in those futures.

Ask someone, "How would you feel if you lost the use of your legs in an accident?" They'll answer that they'd be devastated, depressed, inconsolable. Ask them how they'd feel if the spouse they loved left them suddenly. Same sorts of answers. Well, a funny thing happens if you ask people who actually have gone through these experiences. As it turns out, after feeling initially about how they had imagined, they find a way to construct a new life that doesn't depend on their legs or spouse. Most people move on and many will even say things like, "It seemed like the worst thing to ever happen but now I realize it really was for the good." Or, "I have so much more compassion now and it forced me to become more spiritual, It really made me a better person," or "I feel so lucky because I never would have met Greg if my husband hadn't left me."

Predicting your emotions after something bad happens is tough. We find a way to justify, to adapt, to make the best of things.

Which brings me to this election and Donald's surprising performance. If you had asked evangelicals how they would feel about voting for Trump earlier in the primaries when they thought that Cruz could win, they'll tell you that they'd never do it. Ask a Bush supporter who thinks Trump not only treated Jeb crassly but even the Republican agenda (things like the invasion of Iraq) that they'd defended at family dinners. The Bush supporter will say, "Not going to happen. I won't vote for him." But as mentioned, we poorly predict our own futures.

Given enough time, people adapt. Republicans are more likely to be religious people and for them the GOP s as much a religion as a political party. Sure they're upset that the local priest molested those boys but that doesn't change the fact that they're Catholic. They're not becoming Baptists because one person acted so poorly. They're not happy with Trump but they've only been unhappy with the GOP candidate for months whereas they've vilified the Democratic Party for decades. And it's not like they haven't already publicly committed to hating Clintons already. The family at the Thanksgiving dinner will remind them of the times they've ranted about the Clintons. It would be terribly embarrassing to admit to anyone that they voted for one.

Ask a Republican this series of questions a year ago:
1. Would you vote for a candidate who praised a Russian dictator and suggested disbanding NATO?
2. Would you vote for a candidate who said he wouldn't accept the results of a democratic election?
3. Would you vote for a candidate who won the endorsement of only one major newspaper, no former presidents from either party, no former secretary of states of either party, and only one of six former presidential candidates from his / her own party?
4. Would you vote for a candidate who mandated a religious test for people entering this country?
5. Would you vote for a candidate who attacked the leaders in the Republican Party, lowering Republican's odds of winning the House and Senate?

An overwhelming majority would have said no to each of these questions. But instead of asking them all at once, what if you just incrementally revealed that this was a feature of the candidate - the GOP nominee - they'd already committed to? That would give voters a chance to rationalize his flaws, to make the best of them. Earlier in the year they'd be devastated by such a candidate; later in the year they think it might actually be the best thing to happen to their party. "I would have thought it a tragedy to lose legs but these new wheel chairs are so amazing! I actually get through malls faster than I used to!"

Trump is the tragedy that Republicans have had enough time to re-frame as actually being a good thing. Sure he's a dubious character and he might make the deficit huge again and who knows what all but he's a Republican. Isn't he?

Two More Events that Could Give Donald the Presidency

Trigger warning: if you don't want to contemplate a series of events that could put Trump in the White House, stop reading now.

Trigger promise: if you have friends who say that haunted houses and horror movies don't scare them, read them this. 

Major institutions of the federal government might just tip this election in Donald Trump's direction.

FBI Director Comey just announced that he was re-opening the the investigation into Clinton's emails. Nothing more may be revealed before 8 November but nothing more needs to be said for the right to have enough material to feed conspiracy theories and worst-case scenarios. The evening before Comey's announcement, Sean Hannity had a man on testifying about Hillary Clinton's wild sex parties. Who has this man? Former editor of the Weekly World News that had also reported on Hillary Clinton being shacked up with an alien. Illegal alien you ask? No, Actual space alien, complete with a photo. Seriously. Contrast that with an announcement by the head of the FBI and you can only imagine how far the media can run.

What else could happen?

Well, Tuesday and Wednesday - the 1st and 2nd of November - Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve Board governors will meet to decide on interest rates. She's clarified that she does not consider politics when making this decision and there is plenty of evidence that the governors are ready to vote for an interest rate hike. If they do raise rates, the market will very likely to go into a short term, but dramatic, fall. This just 6 days before the election.

That Friday - the 4th - the job numbers come out for October. It's perfectly reasonable to expect yet another positive but we're at a special point in the recovery. The unemployment rate is now at 5% and it's getting harder to find unemployed people to hire. If two years ago a healthy rate of job growth was about 200,000 jobs a month, it is now probably closer to 100,000. But jobs numbers fluctuate by at least 100,000 jobs a month so a smaller healthy number means a higher probability of hitting - or dropping below - zero. For the first time since 2010, we could have a negative jobs report. Just days before the election.

The FBI, the Fed, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics may all - in the course of just doing their job - provide just what Donald needs to prove that its God's will that he lead this great (again) country.

On its own, it's doubtful that Comey's investigation will make a big difference in her numbers; she'll perhaps lose 5 points of her current 60 point lead on Donald. (5 points in the probability of a win.)

The odds are bad that Janet Yellen will leave rates the same. I think she'll raise them and make the market fall. Given a Democrat is in the White House and Donald has been warning that the the Fed is artificially propping up the economy, this could drop Hillary's lead by another 5 points.

The odds are good - but not great - that October's job numbers will stay above zero but few people realize how absurd it is that it's stayed above zero two years longer than any previous period. You might say that a bad report is due.

Put it all together and you have decent odds that all of this will fall in place to seriously hurt Clinton.

Imagine a stock market fall and a negative numbers job reports added in to this media's penchant for drama and Donald's conviction that we're sitting atop an economic Armageddon. It could be enough to drive up levels of fear to the point that his support surges and Hillary Clinton's supporters freeze. It's been such an utterly unbelievable campaign that it's believable that it would end in yet another unbelievable turn. If all of this happens, Donald's odds of victory raise from the 20% (fivethirtyeight is now forecasting) to 35%, from 1 in 5 to 1 in 3. What might have been a landslide for Clinton could turn out to be a win for Trump by margins as small as W. Bush's 2000 victory over Gore.

Additionally, we don't know what Julian Assange and Vladimir Putin have in store for Clinton for the final days of the election. They've both made it clear that they want Trump and hate Clinton and that they have more emails to unveil. They might yet have an email that would do to Clinton's support what the 2005 Access Hollywood tape did to Trump's. In that case, it might just be a toss-up, an election that will be decided on the 15th of November with a recount rather than at 5 PM on election day.

To clarify, I don't think this particular sequence of events is high probability or that even if they do play out this way that it will give Trump the election. I do, however, think it's a route to victory that isn't given enough - or indeed, based on what I've seen - any consideration.

The smart money is still on Clinton but the dominoes are lined up for the most bizarre finish to this most bizarre election.

A Conspiracy of Conspiracies, Small Mind in a Big World, and Don John's Dying Wish

A Conspiracy of Conspiracies

Trump isn't losing. He's the victim of a media conspiracy.

To be more specific, he's not actually losing to Clinton because she isn't a legitimate candidate. She's guilty of a great crime and would be in jail except that there is an FBI conspiracy. Even the Department of Justice is conspiring against Don John.

And when the votes come in on November 8, he won't actually lose because there is a vast, nationwide conspiracy at the polls.

It is so much worse than Trump thinks. It's not just the media, the legal system and election system that is against him. It's the American people. They're in a conspiracy to keep him out of office.

The system - most every system - is rigged.

Small Mind in a Big World

Trump doesn't actually have any big ideas, it's just that his mind is so small that it makes his ideas look big.

For instance, he spoke so many times about how stupid the Obama administration is. "What happened to the element of surprise," Trump asks in discussing the attack to take back Mosul from ISIS in Iraq. "I started hearing about this, what, three months ago?" I would not tell anyone what I was doing, he says.

This is telling. In Trump's small mind, there is no one to coordinate with. There are no Iraqis or Kurds who live in this area and govern it. There are no American generals who might have better ideas about how and where to attack. In Trump's simple mind, it is a simple attack. He has the idea and then "poof!" his forces attack. But of course you don't attack ISIS within a city of two million within a foreign democracy quite that way. You have to coordinate and prepare. You have to communicate. What seems stupid in Don John's small and simple mind is actually necessary in the large and complex real world.

Trump's Dying Grasp on What Matters Most

In last night's debate, Trump seemed to prove at least one of three things:
1. He's stupid.
2. He thinks that enough American people are stupid to get him elected.
3. He has no desire to win this election.

1. and 2. might be exclusive. It is possible that he's really intelligent but just spouts complete nonsense because he knows that it sells with a certain group of Americans. [see below] It is possible but it is not likely. He has repeatedly shown in each debate that he can remain focused, concise, and coherent for only about 20 to 40 minutes. (Had these been 30 minute debates, he might have won each one, in the same way that he can write a tweet but not an op-ed, or in the same way he won his 6 to 12 minutes of debate time in each Republican debate with so many opponents.)

3. above seems likely. His desire to win the presidency has never been as clear as his desire for attention. Donald is 70. He vividly remembers the 80s when he came into the spotlight of media attention. That was about 35 years ago. Why does that matter? In 35 years, Donald will be dead. His death is closer in time than his rise to fame. It's not just that he's got an insatiable appetite for attention. He's running for the presidency as a fight against his own mortality and he's never more alive than when every media outlet in America is focused on his next word.

His "I"ll keep you in suspense," comment about whether he'll accept the election outcome should be heard in that light. He knows that he's going to lose. That doesn't bother him nearly as much as losing the attention he craves like a junkie craves heroin. He needs bigger doses every week and every week he says or does something even more outrageous to make sure he that he gets it. "I'll keep you in suspense" is his way of ensuring that even when he loses he can't be dismissed. The world will remain more riveted on his concession speech than they will on Hillary Clinton's historic win as the first female president in history. And in Don John's small mind, that makes perfect sense.

And finally, I leave you with this video recapping Don John's - and the Republican's - 2016 campaign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVJiwuk75Ig


see below:
Evidence that he's either stupid or hopes that Americans are? He decries a debt of $19 trillion and yet his plan would add trillions more than current projections. How does he address this? His plan to cut taxes will drive GDP growth rate up to 4% or higher. Facts from this Stanford report show per capita GDP growth is remarkably stable and has been for about 150 years.

Trump very casually says that his plan will drive growth of 4% or higher as if this were trivial or common. It's neither. The fact that he would predict it as a way to dismiss arguments that his budget plan would seriously drive up deficits is proof that he's either stupid or thinks the voters are.

Now That We've Convinced You That All Politicians Are Liars, We'd Like to Offer You the Best Liar - a Really Terrific Liar

Republicans: I'd like to borrow the country.
Democrats: Again? It didn't turn out so well last time when you borrowed it.
R: As if you're any better.
D: Well you did total the country, the global economy, and leave the Middle East in turmoil.
R: None of that was my fault.

Today - 26 September - Donald Trump leads in the polls.

I do think that one thing Republicans have succeeded in doing is in making cynicism about government seem like sophistication. "All politicians are liars" is a wonderful way to excuse the worst candidates from any responsibility. There is now an argument about whether it matters that a politician repeatedly lies. 

It is an odd place that we've come to. Trump lays out incoherent policy that thumbs its nose at the constitution, expert opinion, and common decency and gets a break because everyone says, "Well, he will never do that." Clinton lays out a coherent policy and gets criticized because, "She will never do that."

Good policy that comes from the same ideological (and literal) family tree as the policy that helped to make the 90s so prosperous is discounted because we can't trust what Clinton is saying. 

Why can't we trust Clinton? Because all politicians are liars.

Bad policy that is inspired by reaction to talk radio and Fox news is discounted because we can't trust what Trump is saying.

Why can't we trust Trump? Because all politicians are liars.

Given all politicians are liars, we don't have to do the hard work of actually thinking about the policy or so-called facts. Instead of using our brains we can just use our guts. 

---------------

Politifact tracks statements made by the candidates, rating them from "pants on fire" to "true." 13% of Clinton's statements earn either a "pants on fire" rating or a simple "false." 13%. Trump? It's 53%. Over half the statements he makes can't be trusted.