Fatal System Error

I saw this review last week, and was quite intrigued. For my book reading friends: Anyone else interested?

Fermi's (non-)Paradox

Much has been given to Fermi's Paradox – the lack of evidence (radio signals, spaceships) of intelligent life from the assuredly millions of habitable planets in our universe. Given that intelligent life (humans) evolved on planet earth in just under 4 billion years, and would have millions and millions of opportunities to evolve on other planets during the universe's 13+ billion years, Enrico Fermi wondered just why we weren't seeing loads of evidence.

Geoffrey Miller has an hypothesis that they just get addicted to computer games. (You can read his piece at seedmagazine.)

However, I suspect the answer is much more mundane. We haven't seen any extraterrestrials because we've vastly overestimated the probability of intelligent life looking and acting like us.

We have a sample population of one: Earth. Because intelligent life did evolve here, we look at the progressions that led to it, and (incorrectly) assume that life evolves along similar paths on every habitable planet. However, that's a case of what statisticians call survivorship bias. Our view is biased because we have only looked at a sample that played out in the way that we expect it to. To really bring our knowledge up to par with reality, we would need to look at a large sampling of habitable planets, and see if and to what extent life evolved. Likely, that would change our ideas considerably about the probability of life, and the paths that lead to intelligent life.

If you look out earth's history, too, you can see ready evidence that life almost got wiped out several times – the most recent 65 million years ago when it appears that a fairly large meteor crashed into the Gulf Sea, and possibly alone or in conjunction with other geologic occurrences (volcanoes) wiped out more than 30% of the known (from fossil records) species. The Permian-Triassic was even worse, with 96% of marine and 70% of vertebrates going extinct. Think of how little more it might have taken to completely wipe all life from planet earth, forcing a restart. Given enough planets, total extinction events have surely occurred. Many unlucky planets may have to restart regularly, every 100 million to 1 billion years. That'd put a crimp on life evolution!

If you look at the diversity of life on our planet, too, you see many, many more species that are just as (and sometimes more) evolved than humans that exhibit no intelligent traits. I know that you are thinking that there is no species more evolved than humans, but that's not true. Viruses are far more evolved, if you look at number of generations and quantity of genetic mutations – the true measure of evolution. Evolution is a game that counts only survivorship – and there is nothing that predicates that intelligence makes a more survivable (or more evolved) species. As another example, take crocodiles: They have been around far longer than humans (84 million years), have developed a cerebral cortex, but are a long way from building rockets or sending radio signals into space.

Our major difficulty when it comes to dealing with questions of this nature is that we find ourselves at the heady top of the life pyramid on this planet, and arrogantly assume that all paths lead to us (for we are here, aren't we?). But that's not properly factoring the role of chance in the outcome. Chance led to those genetic mutations that evolved the primates. And a chance collision with a rather large asteroid wiped out those massive dinosaurs. Chance provided earth with just this temperature and just this quantity of water. And, by chance, each of those other 'habitable' planets that exists in our universe is likely a little different in heat and composition, exhibiting different rates of genetic mutations, different landforms that change migration, dispersion and extinction patterns of any life that does evolve.

Is it a paradox that we haven't encountered any evidence for other intelligent life? We don't have enough evidence, one way or the other, to predict and then label the lack a paradox. The likely answer is that the ways in which life can evolve, and the forms of intelligence that can occur, are far beyond our feeble imaginations.

For The Record

I sent the previous to both Senator Udall and Senator McConnell. You can, too: Go to the US-Senate page, find the senator you'd most like to annoy, and send.

And, thanks. We need to keep reminding these clowns that we really want them to run the country. Not Goldman, Welfare Queen and Sachs. Not Magnetar. Not Ben Bernanke or Tim Giethner or Hank Paulson or Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon or ....

I Dare You!

Rep McConnell yesterday slammed the emerging financial regulation legislation. His big gripe: It doesn't put an end to taxpayer funded bailouts.

You mean that same taxpayer bailout that you (Mr McConnell) voted for?

OK. I agree. I'd like to see the large financial institutions take a major downsizing, and next time, they need to fail. Along with Hedge funds.

So, Rep McConnell: I challenge you to propose an amendment that:

1) Brings back the major provisions of Glass-Steagall and separates banks from investment houses (and forces the newly consolidated megabanks: BofA, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs to split up into their disparate entities)
2) Regulates the issuance (or maybe just prohibits) CDO's
3) Makes criminal the behavior that took place here (Magnetar)
4) Prohibits the payout of 'Golden Parachutes' during failures / bankruptcies. These execs are paid the big bucks for the big risks - Risks that could at any time destroy their house of cards and leave them unemployed. Make 'em eat it when they fail.

You got the goods, Representative? Or are you just bluster hoping to stifle the legislation so your cronies can continue to live large? (Fourth place in Private Equity Firms contributions, Fifth Place in Hedge Fund Contributions, Fourth place in Securities Brokers contributions.)

(And I'm okay if Rahm Emmanual feels some discomfort, too!)

Vacuous Shorthand

Justice John Paul Stevens is retiring.

Yesterday, the Denver Post ran a two page article about Stevens, and the candidates most likely to be nominated to succeed him. For each potential candidate, the Post attempted to summarize some information.

Yet just a quick glance over the little snippets about each showed them to be filled with vacuous shorthand, and little real information. Repeatedly, the Denver Post tells us that they are liberals, or moderates, or left. But, what exactly, in the instance of each of these individuals, does that mean? More to the point: What can we see from their work that would lead us to that conclusion, or is the Post just prejudicing us with an opinion?

Each would likely face the accusation of judicial activism (because that's the shorthand we use for attacking law specialists with whom we disagree). Real judicial activism is arguing against (as a lawyer) or breaking with (as a judge) precedent. Our body of laws is sufficiently ambiguous and occasionally contradictory that sometimes precedent should be stood on its head. So, the question of our likely candidates: In the past, have they argued for breaking with precedent? On what grounds? A contradictory law or ruling? A recent change to law that can be taken that we are no longer interested in previous interpretations? (And what if the precedent is not really a precedent?)

What about their interpretation of the US Constitution? Do they see it as a living, breathing, evolving document, or is it dead (to use Justice Antonin Scalia's words)? How important is context to interpreting the meanings of the authors? Should contemporary laws, actions, and writings be taken into account when attempting to decipher its intent (as Amar does in “America's Constitution: A Biography”)? Or can we glean all we need to know from the document itself? Does the candidate have any history in this area?

What else can we learn from their history, their writings? Do they see individual rights as paramount, or do they view that society comes first? How do they determine if the issue in question is clearly contradictory? Will they protect the individual from the mob (whether the mob be society, business, religion, a corporation, or the government), or do they interpret our laws as protecting society from the individual? Or, much more likely, when do they see our current laws as forcing a choice – and when are they clear about in which situations one is to be chosen over the other?

There is much that would be interesting to learn to make an partial evaluation of the candidates, to give us a real feeling for how they interpret law and view the job of a court justice. Views that, if well articulated, might give us more insight into the knowledge and resources they have for making law determinations, and help us understand that they could do an immeasurably better job than you or me. Much better than filling a page with vacuous shorthand about liberal, moderate, left, conservative, etc. Those terms have lost any real meaning in this context, because they are both too broad (and hence ambiguous), and have too varied interpretations by us.

Given the opportunity to fill us in on the possibilities, the Post gives us – Nothing.

(And they wonder why their readership is dropping. I'd like to propose...)

Who Coulda Known?

That's been the most often repeated defense of those closest to the financial meltdown of 2008 - Who coulda known?
Ira Glass and 'This American Life' takes a closer look, and finds out about Magnetar - a giant Hedge fund that appears to have built risky CDO's and then bet (sorry, Hedged) against them. It's a fascinating story, and the goods come from the propublica website. So, for those of you who missed the story, here's a link.

US Government Cuts Wasteful Program

Oh, if only this article were real! Read the whole thing: The last two paragraphs are priceless (in only the way The Onion can deliver).