The Awesome Science of Chinonomics

One of the most ironic things about the political revolution that manifested itself with battle cry " Make America Great Again " is its inherent ideological contradiction. Although  Trump supporters   never explicitly explain what " America " they want to bring back, implicit is the notion that they want to see again the dominant, stable U.S. of the post war II period. A country characterized by economic stability, a rising  middle class;  a country where people could pay for their own college education with a waiter's wage, and where corporate employees could rely on the certainty that their corporation looked at them as life partners who deserved to retire with juicy defined benefit pensions.  Where's the contradiction, you ask? Well, the political leaning of the era --the one that allowed stability and prosperity for its middle class--was markedly left-leaning: the New Deal  of FDR, the Great Society of LBJ. Even Republican Eisenhower knew better than go...

Out of all the forms of societal organization (the tribe, bands, the  Kingdom, The City-State, The Empire, etc), the Nation-State seems to have been the most stable and successful way of human association. The competition was somewhat settled after WWI with the collapse of the last of the great empires, like the Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian one. But " most stable and successful " does not mean absolutely stable nor absolutely successful. Everything that's built by a human is bound to be flawed. From the concept of the family, to the effectiveness of vaccines, to the engineering of the Boeing 737 MAX . One of the most important functions of leadership in Nation-State is to keep stability. Without it, no society can sustain itself. Social stability depends on trust and legitimacy of its institutions. Economic activity rests on the bedrock of rule of law and contract enforcement. No one would venture to embark on a business if marauders will destroy your property on a whim...

Once upon a time there was this Republic called Quirkistan. It was ruled by a hyper intelligent elite, possessors of the most shiny and reputed tokens. These tokens vested in them utmost respect and reverence, as only the most brilliant, capable, responsible, and deserving Quirkistanis were issued them. The tokens were granted with great pomp and circumstance by velour-robed Sages in solemn ceremonies, after listening to liturgy imparted by an elevated Sage in an annual ritual of initiation so full of symbolism and self-congratulation that for many, of the recipients the initiation represented the single most important day of their lives.  How could they think otherwise? That token granted them access to the upper echelons of Quirkistan. Attaining one was akin to the assurance of a life full of opulence, comfort, and the absence of suffering. The institutions that issued them prided themselves in hand-picking their future tokenholders from the most brilliant, meritoc...

Societies are an agreed-upon set of collective norms. A bet on everyone else's behavior to cooperate for the benefit of all. Although that set is not really... set . Like any human construct, they evolve. Interact with their environment. They change course when faced with influencing factors. Also, not every member of society fulfills their agreement. Some people invariably defect (misbehave), and the collective agrees that some level of defection is just not worth getting that much worked-up about. Just ask San Franciscans  about car break ins. Or  John Oliver  about robocalls .  Behind all this lies an iterative process. After society determines it can't tolerate certain defection level, it pressures governmental institutions to tighten its grip via the codification of punishments directed at them damn defectors. New laws criminalizing the deleterious behavior arrive. Defection (hopefully) diminishes.  The iterative process is not only about fig...

Technology has finally broken the Media's choke-hold of Society's Collective Conscience  and I don't know if that is a good thing or not. Truth and fact have been disrupted, making way for the rule of emotion and intuition over rationality and knowledge. I don't think The Zuck ever stopped to think about the true consequences of making people more connected all over the world. But the reality is now in the open, and we can all attest to it now:  Interconnectedness drives instability . What started with the seemingly innocuous (and commendable) goal allowing people to share baby pictures among family members morphed into allowing activists to organize political demonstrations. And then  giving Alt-Right trolls a megaphone . Goading is so much fun! Until the reaction is border militias with elite-training itching to kill imaginary ISIS invaders at the SW border with very non-imaginary AR15s. Actual bloody revolutions still rage, efficiently kindled by the smartpho...

Elections are over. SuperPAC's bidding wars for the oval office have ended, marking the beginning of the new electoral cycle. The sheer cost of this year's election and its result prompts many questions. Will the Republicans have to rethink their stance and diversify their reliance on a shrinking white male voter population? Is the personalization of corporations ' influence on elections a pernicious one? Some people might be tempted to rationalize the astronomical figure by downplaying it. "America spends more on Halloween candy  than on political campaigns." That may be true, but what about the fact that campaign spending has grown 12.4 times faster than overall US population in the last 12 years? People still decided whom to vote for in 2000 with $6/per person spent by political campaigning. This time around they spent $13.34/per person. It is clear that the current election model, coupled with the  mediatization  of  politics, pro...