Category: Politics

All posts on what Bismarck called “the art of the possible”

Possible doctoral topic: can renewables power the world?

It may seem like an unusual topic for a PhD thesis in International Relations / Politics, but it seems to me like it could actually be a useful and interesting one.

The questions would be:

  1. What kind of standard of living could be supported for the world population using only renewable forms of energy?
  2. How quickly could that be deployed, given all the technical and political hurdles?

Ultimately, it is a very political question. The geopolitics of energy have already been front-and-centre for decades, since at least the 1973 oil price shocks. There is also the large and growing dependence of the European Union on Russia for gas, as well as increasing American dependence on exceptionally dirty oil from Canada.

The research could include investigation of places that have already deployed various renewables widely (hydro in Quebec, geothermal in Iceland, wind in Denmark, etc), as well as consideration of what is happening in rapidly developing states like China.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Planet Money on drug legalization and ‘Freeway Rick’

In a recent episode of NPR’s Planet Money podcast, they interviewed a former L.A. drug dealer about the economics of his profession. He was apparently a high-ranking member of the illegal drug industry, operating with 30-40 employees and sometimes handling daily revenues of $3 million per day.

He largely confirms the new conventional wisdom: that prohibition massively increases the price of drugs (1000 fold, he says) and substantially increases how much crime and violence is associated. As the episode concludes in saying, the question is whether the supposed benefit of fewer people using drugs justifies all the costs and harms associated with prohibition.

Imagine anybody could buy one shot of heroin at the LCBO (Ontario’s liquor store) for $5. Suddenly, there would be no illegal market. Nobody would buy heroin of unknown purity from an illegal dealer if it was available for a low price from a government-sponsored source. People would not have to commit major crimes to buy drugs, and they would get drugs of assured priority and consistent potency. More people might use heroin, but it would be less dangerous and harmful for society as a whole.

The episode also argues that it is the hopelessness within their communities that drives people to become drug addicts and to join the illegal drug industry. The lack of better employment options makes the special costs in terms of jail or violence less of a deterrent than they would be for people with better options.

The episode is called: “#266: A Former Crack Dealer On the Economics of Dealing”. It is available for free through the iTunes Store.

Open thread: explicitly ethnic states

It can be argued that it is fundamentally inappropriate for any state to try to have a single ethnic or religious character. It can be argued that all states should be secular and pluralist when it comes to race (however you choose to define it) or religion.

At the same time, it seems possible that a state could try to have an ethnic character without being unjust as a result. If two groups live in a region – the As and Bs – is it always better for them to both live in the secular state of Plural-Land – or might it be better to have an A-land and a B-land? Can this question be answered from first principles, or only with reference to particular historical examples?

What really matters may be the effect of the system of government on people both inside and outside the state. Thoughts?

More meaningful date systems

Expressing dates in the ‘Common Era‘ system is familiar, but perhaps not overly rational or useful. To be sure, there were things of historical significance happening around 1 CE. Tiberius quelled revolts in Germania; the Kingdom of Aksum was founded; and Ovid wrote ‘Metamorphoses’.

At the same time, it can hardly be considered a watershed point in human history. While it would be less precise to do so, I think a case can be made that we could be better off measuring the date using the start of human civilization as the zero point, with years before expressed in terms of how far they are ‘pre-civilization’ or ‘pre-civ’ and those after expressed in years ‘post-civilization’ or ‘post-civ’.

One risk is that we may discover that our present understanding of when civilization emerged is wrong. The general sense at the moment is that we are around the year 10,000 post-civ. It’s possible that archaeological evidence will reveal older civilizations, which would raise the question of either moving the zero point or accepting one that is no longer seen as accurate.

An alternative, which would be more precise, would be to choose a date to represent the start of the Industrial Revolution – say, 1750 CE. We could then measure dates both forward and backward from that point. This would be year 261 of the industrial era. The former year 0 would be 1750 years before the industrial era.

Either the civilization or the industrial approach could be helpful in making us think accurately about human history. We have been living in civilizations for about 10,000 years now – a fact that has importance for what we know about human beings, and how we can try to achieve our aims in the world. The same is true of the fact that we have lived in an industrialized world for about 250 years (though it obviously didn’t arrive all at once).

Politics and seeming genuine

In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker argues that “the best liar is the one who believes his own lies”.

I wonder if this has anything to do with who succeeds in politics. Often, people think favorably of those who promise things they want. At the same time, they want people who seem genuine. The ideal candidate, then, is someone who genuinely believes that they will keep their promises. That is easier to do when your plans are vague or when you assume the sheer force of your personality will produce your desired outcome.

Will my vote matter?

Previously, I created a flowchart for use in voting in Canadian elections. It occurred to me today that it could be interesting to elaborate the concept into a website.

The site would allow people to enter their riding and rank their preferences for either local candidates or parties. It could then estimate the odds that their vote will make a difference they care about. For instance, if someone strongly prefers Party X to Party Y, and both candidates have a shot at winning in that person’s riding, then their vote is relatively likely to matter. By contrast, if someone hates both Party A and Party B equally, and one of their candidates is basically certain to win, then that person’s vote is relatively unlikely to matter.

There are different possible methodologies for the site. For instance, it could be based entirely on past election results, entirely on polling data, or on some combination of the two.

In circumstances where a person is told that their vote is unlikely to matter – for instance, if they prefer a party with minority support in every riding – the website could direct the person to more information on electoral reform and alternative electoral systems like the various kinds of proportional representation.

Unsurprisingly, this is one of those ideas that falls into the “things that may be interesting to discuss, but which I do not have the time to actually do” category.

Don’t emulate the US on health

On CBC’s The Current the other day, there was a panel discussion about health care costs and Canada’s system. Partly, it was a response to a recent article by David Dodge and Richard Dion. They basically say that health care in Canada is going to get too expensive, and lists some possible actions to respond to that.

One action that is mentioned by them and others is to more closely emulate the United States by having more of a private health care system. It seems to me that the point that should be stressed in response to that is that the United States has a poor health care system, particularly when it comes to value for money. Private insurers paying private health care providers does little to reduce the serious economic externalities that exist in relation to health care. The US system also does poorly on objective measures like life expectancy and infant mortality, especially when considered in terms of outcomes per dollars spent. The weird hybrid character of the US system – with insurance tied to jobs and adults with pre-existing conditions barred from new coverage – also produces significant economic inefficiencies, as people risk losing the health care along with their jobs and never being able to secure coverage again.

Ultimately, the mechanism for controlling health care costs is rationing. We cannot afford to give every drug and treatment to everybody, since we could theoretically spend an infinite amount of money on each citizen. What we can do is fund those interventions that are justified by the degree to which they extend and improve a person’s life. The super rich will always be able to afford to buy a superior quality of care out of pocket – and they can do so perfectly easily outside Canada. For our society as a whole, however, our health system should be focused on producing the best outcome possible for the greatest number of people at a reasonable cost.

Should the Green Party have a full platform?

Apparently, the Green Party has a position on income splitting. If this seems a bit random and disconnected from the environment, it is also reflective of a controversial question about what the party ought to be.

Given our first-past-the-post electoral system, the Green Party is never likely to elect many MPs. At the same time, the party has a reasonably large number of supporters – quite possibly more supporters across Canada than the Bloc Quebecois. I would argue that the main message these voters are sending is that Canada needs to take better care of the environment, and prioritize the development of a sustainable society more than we do now. I don’t think they are really endorsing their personal Green candidates, for the most part, or even that they are endorsing the overall Green platform.

Since they will never form a government (barring major constitutional reform, or a huge realignment of voter preferences), it seems there is a strong case to be made for the Greens sticking to their core message and not campaigning on unrelated issues (except as individual candidates, if they wish). It seems like taking a stance on environmentally unrelated things could lead to voters who disagree on those peripheral issues rejecting the party. If the Green Party took a strong stance on an issue like whether Canada should (or should not) have intervened in Libya, the risk is that they would be broadening their message somewhat pointlessly and alienating potential supporters. The Green Party isn’t about income splitting, or intellectual property rights, or criminal justice policy. There may be areas in which policies in this area have environmental effects – and it makes sense for the Greens to comment on them in those senses – but I don’t see the sense in them unnecessarily adopting political positions outside their area of core competency.

What do others think? Would the Greens be a more effective force for driving improved environmental policies if they focus on that area exclusively, or does seeking to be a party with a comprehensive platform actually make more sense for them given the nature of our electoral system and what they want to achieve?

F-35s and UAVs

A recent letter in The Ottawa Citizen makes an interesting point:

Our CF-18s don’t need to be replaced. Lockheed-Martin needs to sell F-35s right now. The window is closing because UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) technology is advancing by leaps and bounds. The F-35 is like the last word in cavalry horses in 1914. By the time we actually need CF-18 replacements, that fleet won’t have cockpits.

Is there a role for which piloted combat aircraft will always be best? Perhaps air show demonstrations. Apart from that, the wide range of UAV sensors will always trump eyeballs in the cockpit. The executive decisions of a team of controllers on the ground will always trump the snap judgments of the over-tasked pilot in the air. And finally, the performance of an aircraft that isn’t bound by human limits will always be able to trump the Top Gun solution. The only ingredient missing from UAVs is testosterone.

Perhaps this is the wrong time to be buying manned fighter aircraft, even from a purely military perspective (ignoring the question of whether the money could be better spent on non-military purposes).