Fake or Cargo Cult Ceremony?

Apparently the sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's Memorial was a fake. [Link]  The sign language community is rightly outraged.  I think I have a simple explanation.

My sister learned sign language and used to provide translations.  It was a beautiful thing.  I didn't understand it, but I enjoyed watching her graceful motions.  It seems to provide extra legitimacy to the speaker, as if to say "What the speaker is saying is so important, we even want the deaf to hear it".

It would be natural at an event as significant as the Memorial service for Nelson Mandela to want to have this same symbol: graceful hand gestures sharing the message with all people.  The problem is that learning sign language is very hard.  It takes a lot of time and practice to learn and become competent.  It's not like learning a new dance by watching someone else and picking up a couple of the moves.

There is a phenomenon referred to as "Cargo Cult", where a people imitate a more technologically advanced culture that they have been exposed to. For example, a Pacific Island people are amazed at the sophisticated supplies brought by airplanes to their island.  After the colonizers leave, they might clear a runway and build air traffic control towers out of bamboo in an effort to bring more supplies, not understanding the complexity of actual air travel.

Unfortunately, someone involved in organizing the Mandela Memorial was practicing Cargo Cult Ceremony by adding the decoration of a man making hand gestures next to the speaker.  It's kind of funny.  And sad.  
  

Obamacare, The Mythical Man-Month and The Forgotten Man

First, let me say that I'm not opposed to making health care available to those who need it.  Any opposition I have is more related to two ideas: “The Mythical Man Month” and “The Forgotten Man”.

The Mythical Man-Month

The Mythical Man-Month is a book written by Fred Brooks in 1975 about software engineering projects.  It’s actually quite relevant to the “glitches” with the HealthCare.gov website for signing up for the Affordable Care act.  This book introduces “Brook’s law”:

Adding more people to a late software project makes it later

The idea introduced yesterday that we are going to add the best and brightest people to fix HealthCare.gov shows me the naivety of the government regarding principles that have been known in the industry for 40 years.  See my post “Why Can't Nine Women have a baby in one month?” for technical details.

The Forgotten Man

This is simply stated as “Person A sees a person B who is suffering.  Person A passes a law to help person B.  The law demands that person C provides help to person B.  Person A claims credit for making things better.  Person B’s plight is lifted.  But person C, who works hard, pays their taxes, is a good neighbor, cares for their family, etc. is never thought of – he is the forgotten man. (Sumner’s Forgotten Man).

In conclusion, I see a government, in a genuine attempt to help, take something complicated, make it more complicated and inefficient, and then get innocent hard working people to pay for it.  I hope I’m wrong.    

Update:
Builders of Obama's health website saw red flags

Cowboy, Sailor, Toastmaster

In April, my father-in-law, a World War II vet passed away.  The youngest vet of WWII turns 86 this year.  As I thought about this, a family friend kept coming to mind.  I felt a nagging urgency to visit him and record his story, so I went to his home, turned on the voice recorder, and started asking questions. 

  

John is a true cowboy: raised on a ranch in Butte, Montana, he broke wild horses, herded the cattle, even castrated the steers.  He still has a little bit of the Montana twang in his voice, but his voice is also gruff with age.  John is a classy, kind-hearted man.      My youngest son refers to John as "One of my living heroes" and my oldest son refers to John as "One of the coolest, old dudes I've ever known".

John is one of the youngest WWII veterans at 86 year old.  He was born May 7, 1927.  He also has a second birthday.  March 5, 1925.  He made up that birthday so he could enlist.  About that time, some of the Montana National guard were captured and killed in the Battle of Corregidor.  As a result there was an up swell of patriotism that helped him decide to become a Marine.  They were taking too long, so he went to the Navy office.  They took him that day.  It was 1943 and John was 16.  He was soon on a ship, fighting in WWII.

About a year later, during the D-Day invasion, he was on ship delivering ammunition to Omaha Beach.   “The ship got hung up on the riff raff near the beach” so off the ship and onto the beach he went.

I asked him what was going through his mind.  John gave me a puzzled look, then said  “Everybody is terrified. Ok.  I mean, I don’t remember there ever being any combat where I wasn’t scared.  And, uh, everyone is as scared as you are.  But, you have to channel this someplace.  So you channel it by doing your job.  I was a signalman, and my job was to not to worry about what I was going to do, but to send and receive the signals to the other ship that the captain directed as to what we were doing.  That was my only concern.  To get on that search light and send and receive those messages.” 

But now he was on Omaha beach without a channel for his fear.  An Army officer asked him if he could shoot a rifle.  “Yes”.  John was handed a rifle and told “you’re in the Army now”.  His only way off the beach was through France.  What was it like to march through France?, I asked.  “There was no marching through France, there was crawling through France…They gave up that territory very slowly.  It was like a cattle drive back on the ranch, making sure that no one came back around”.   Only this time the cattle were armed and trying to kill him.  He always reminds you that he "toured" France without a passport.

He had another "cowboy" experience when he was on a ship in the North Atlantic.  The ocean was rough and washing over the lower deck.  A warhead from a torpedo broke loose and was banging against the K-guns (used to fire depth charges).  There was 500 lbs of HBX explosives bouncing around.  “Your scared, so you channel your fear into creative activity”  He grabbed a rope and lassoed the warhead and he and his buddy pulled it in.

After France, he was on the USS Hunt off to the Philippines (August 1944).  There was a terrible Typhoon.  Their ship limped along and luckily had enough fuel to keep the bilge pumps running.  Three other ships weren't so lucky and sunk in the storm.  After a year in the Pacific the war ended.

He went back to Montana and joined the rodeo riding bucking broncos.  While coming out of the chute, the horse bucked into a post, breaking his arm.  He rode another horse a short time later, breaking his arm again when he landed.  With his rodeo career on hold, he ended up bartending.  A couple of navy recruiters were regulars in the bar.  They saw his tattoos “Hey your a navy man”.  After some coaxing, they talked him into reinlisting (1946).

He moved to San Diego and went to sonar school during the day and San Diego High at night.  He had to finish High School since he was just a sophomore when he joined the Navy.

1947-8, After finishing his schooling, he was assigned to Operation Sandstone, a series of nuclear weapons testing at Enewetak Atoll.  Three tests took place and he was at 5, 7 and 9 miles from ground zero.  They got on the lee-side of the ship when the blast went off.  What was it like observing the nuclear blast?  “Probably a toss up of whether it was the most beautiful bunch of colors you ever saw or the most obscene bunch of colors you ever saw.   However you want to toss it.  It just scared the hell out of me.  I mean it scared me.  The whole horizon is nothing but purples, greens, yellows, reds, boiling, roiling water spouts.  Ugly and beautiful at the same time.  I was thankful I had a God when I looked at it.” 

He then went back to sonar school, learning a new system for mine detection.  One day, the office called him in and asked “Can you take these gentlemen and teach them to talk like submariners?”  He spent the next few months working with Burt Lancaster and Clark Gabel, preparing them for the movie “Run Silent, Run Deep”.

He later had a tour of “choice” duty in Key West Florida.  He ended up teaching future sonarmen and during this time he joined Toastmasters to improve his public speaking abilities.

1959 he went back to San Diego.  He was back on ship and for the next 10 years, he was only in 3 operations... 3 operations that is, that weren't black ops.  His comments: “The Cold War was exciting.  If you want to know what we were doing, read the book “Blind Man’s Bluff” and “Red November””.

Unfortunately, I've had to cut the stories and details of what John could talk about.  John had about 3 decades of amazing experiences.  I talked with John for about an hour and a half.  I fit that into this brief recap.  There are many intimate details that don’t get fully captured by history books or other historical records.  You can’t ask a history book “So, what was it like?”.  It sent chills up my spine hearing him tell about it.  John certainly is a living hero, a cowboy, sailor, Toastmaster and one of the coolest old dudes I've ever met.

Update 7/16/2023. John passed away on July 12, 2023. His last Facebook post on June 29, 2023 read:

As I close in my final time I realize I need to confess a mortal sin I am a liar. I have been a liar all my life since I was 7. If I have talked to you I most likely lied to you. I ask forgiveness I love you all and God Bless you.

Why are people poor and what can we do about it?

I recently read an article about the income distribution in the United States.  I'm always curious about why rich people are rich and poor people are poor.  This isn't so much of a personal interest: I've given up on "get rich" schemes and I'm content with my position in the income distribution.  The real interest for me is to distill truth from the political and media hype about how to fix these problems.  Regarding wealth: one side blames poor people for their condition and the other side says that the playing field isn't fair.  I think both sides are right, which makes this a hard problem to solve.

For example, there's the person who got wiped out by some natural catastrophe, illness, or other problem out of their control.  It would be nice if society reached out and helped that person.

But then there's the person who got wiped out by bad decisions, drugs, gambling, or whatever risky, fruitless path they chose.  Helping this person becomes very difficult.  Without reform, they become a life draining leech on society.

Then there are the rich.  Certainly the rich can afford to pay their fair share.  There are those for whom wealth came easy: inheritance, lucky timing or other opportunities, etc.

But then there's the wealthy person who got that way by saving every penny, that lived by the motto "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without".  They shiver under a blanket to save money on heat, collect water in a bucket while the shower water is getting warm to use for a toilet flush later.  They've never had pizza delivered to their house since homemade costs less.  Most likely they are already helping through their favorite charity.  They know the value of a dime and are careful how they help others.  It's possible that this person made wealth accumulation such a priority that they sacrificed personal fulfillment, family or health.

Not all poor are created equal and not all rich are created equal.

So back to the numbers.  The income distribution is surprisingly "predictable".  To me, predictable means there is a mathematical description which lends itself to greater understanding.  It turns out a good fit is a "Log-Normal Distribution", something I'm not familiar with.  After reading up on it, it turns it's just a skewed "Normal Distribution" or the familiar "Bell Curve" and found often in science.  I found the simplest way to understand it is by comparing experimental devices for generating the two distributions [source].  These are like a pinball machine or Pachinko where balls are dropped from the top, bounce left or right at each row of triangles and continue until they end up in the bins at the bottom.  The number of balls in each bin shows the distribution.

Figure a is the Normal Distribution and Figure b is the "Log-Normal" Distribution.

Since Figure b results in the same as the U.S. income distribution, it can be instructive to helping understand wealth and poverty.  Think of each row as an event in someones life.  The ball (their wealth) can go either left (they get poorer) or right (they get richer).  It may look like it favors the rich, but the unique design is to favor winning over losing.    Figure a has equal numbers on each side of the drop, while Figure b has more one the "rich" side of the drop point.  Each triangle is shaped such that there is always more "upside" than "downside".  For example, you'll either make $100 or lose $80.  If you win, then the amount is greater but still you'll win more than you did last time but you can't lose any more than your last win.  If you keep losing, each time you lose less than you did last time so that you aren't wiped out.  Sounds like a pretty fair system to me.

So what are these events?

Some events you have control over:
WINS: hard work, save money, sacrifice today for more tomorrow.
LOSES: Wasting time, gambling, blowing your money, taking unnecessary risks (like building your house in a flood plane)
    

Some events you don't have control over:
WINS: Lucky break, knowing the right people, being in the right place at the right time
LOSES: Illness, disability, catastrophe

Of course, not everyone has the same "entry point" at the top.  Mitt Romney's "ball was dropped" far to the right.  However, if you go back enough generations, there was someone in everyone's line who started out on the left (poor).  For Mitt, it was his father George Romney.

I think that this "log-normal" distribution is the nature of the system; meaning it can't be changed with laws, taxes or other policies.  There will always be poverty and wealth in a similar distribution.  The goal should be to increase the overall wealth, so that everyone benefits.

Gandhi said:

I cannot picture to myself a time when no man shall be richer than another. But I do picture to myself a time when the rich will spurn to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and the poor will cease to envy the rich. Even in a most perfect world, we shall fail to avoid inequalities, but we can and must avoid strife and bitterness.

Some examples of helping:
Promote healthy families - a stable, nurturing home promotes "rightward" thinking, opportunities and actions.
Promote healthy lifestyles - many diseases and illnesses are preventable.
Teach personal finance and emotional education in our schools.

Get rid of state run lotteries - gambling creates a mentality that moves people left and by it's nature destroys wealth.

For those who truly suffer, we need to figure out how to follow this counsel:
"For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:  Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me."
 

What it will be like when things get bad

There's a tipping point when your credit runs out and all of your rainy day reserves dry up where things get really bad.  It seems that's happening in Greece as many can't afford the price of heating oil and are burning anything they can get their hands on to keep warm.  The unfortunate consequences: depleting forests that finally have recovered from the Nazis, cutting down parts of a 3,000 year old olive tree where Plato taught, and terrible air pollution (not to mention contributing to global warming).

http://capeandislands.org/post/under-cloud-austerity-real-smoke-clouds-greece-well
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/01/22/high-oil-prices-drive-greeks-to-burn-wood/
The part about the forests I heard on the radio.