Well… it’s that time of the year.  Time to look back to see what happened, as well as look forward to see what might be.  Indeed, it seems to be part of the human condition to tends towards introspection, though doing so once a year seems a little odd… but here we are

Looking back, we see movie trends from the Christian Science Monitor, auto trends from AutoBlog, more about cars from Wired, mobile trends from eWeek, technology trends from Rueters… well, the list is long.  (the most interesting one below – Stratfor’s geopolitical trends of the past decade).

As for 2010, it might have been the most dangerous year, it might have been the best year in sports, or you can decide yourself with 2010 year reviews, among other places, here, here, and here.

Looking forward with predictions in 2011 there are trends for travel, financial trends, technology trends, social media trends (which really is a trend in itself), and so on.

From an overall perspective, trends are interesting and can highlight movements towards this technology, away from that one, towards new ways of thinking, and away from old ones.  It reminds us all that the constant in life is change and helps us focus on where we were and where we can go.

So – for now – Happy New Year’s to all.  Take a look back and take a look forward.  It’s one the best parts about this time of the year – so enjoy!

Talk to you next year!

Thank you.

For Stratfor, they are publishing a list of the most important geopolitical trends of the past decade.  They are currently on number 6 (starting from 10 and working their way to number 1).

Stratfor - 10 most important geopolitical events of the past decade

After some political arguing about who stands to gain what, why ratify a treaty in a lame duck session, the START Treaty (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), was ratified in the Senate last week.  & now with praise from Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev and movement in the Russian Parliament, it’s likely only a matter of time before the treaty between Russia & the United States is in full effect.

With all the rhetoric being pushed around however, true analysis tends to get lost in the noise…. which is where Stratfor enters; not only asking pertinent questions and attempting to answer them, but in giving the treaty the full historical context it deserves.

First, what is the START Treaty (whole thing here)?

….The original START was signed July 31, 1991, and reductions were completed in 2001. The treaty put a cap on the number of nuclear warheads that could be deployed. In addition to limiting the number of land- and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and strategic bombers, it capped the number of warheads that were available to launch at 6,000…. START I lapsed in 2009, and the new treaty is essentially designed to reinstate it….

What Sratfor notes however, is the difference in geopolitical relationships from START I to New START, mainly that the original treaty began in a very different climate in the 1980′s (article con’t):

…The political relationship that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s is not the same as the relationship that exists today. Starting in the 1950s, the United States and Soviet Union were in a state of near-war….

In what was basically a balancing act by the two major global powers at the time, conventional and nuclear weapons, were built and deployed as the United States & Russia tried to gain an advantage (article con’t):

…The differences between them were geopolitically profound. The United States was afraid that the Soviets would seize Western Europe in an attack in order to change the global balance of power. Given that the balance of power ran against the Soviet Union, it was seen as possible that they would try to rectify it by war.

Since the United States had guaranteed Europe’s security with troops and the promise that it would use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union to block the conquest of Europe, it followed that the Soviet Union would initiate war by attempting to neutralize the American nuclear capability. This would require a surprise attack on the United States with Soviet missiles. It also followed that the United States, in order to protect Europe, might launch a pre-emptive strike against the Soviet military capability in order to protect the United States and the balance of power….

This process of seeking global influence, resulted in many things, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, Star-Wars (BMD), a build up in both strategic and tactical nuclear arsenals, and basically a stable, but highly tense situation of mutually assured destruction.

Then in 1991, the need for this policy was diminished for both sides with the implosion of the Soviet Union.   Even at that time one could argue the need for such a treaty was minimal, but when the process started during higher tensions in the 1980s, and given the level of fear around the world, going forward with the pact seemed reasonable.

Which brings us forward to today (article con’t): (more…)

Reported by the AP:

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A leader of Somalia’s Islamist insurgency threatened to attack America during a speech broadcast Monday.

“We tell the American President Barack Obama to embrace Islam before we come to his country,” said Fuad Mohamed “Shongole” Qalaf….

Of course by “Islam”, they mean Sharia Law, a complete affront to freedom, but it’s not worth a whole lot of time trying to worry about the logic of murderous thugs looking only to gain complete dictatorial control by any means necessary.

Just important to note their goals and deal with them appropriately.

Whole thing here.

Janet Napolitano - Logically Impaired Secretary of Homeland Security

On CCN’s State of the Union show, US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano fielded questions about security in the nation’s airports and in particular the more controversial measures put into place in 2010. 

In what must be an attempt to alleviate concerns from passengers and Americans to potential security threats, she let the country know (here via RealClearPolitics):

The new technology and the pat-downs are “objectively safer for our traveling public,” said Napolitano, adding she’s always looking to improve the security systems in place….

Forgetting for a second that there is evidence to the contrary (article con’t):

…Napolitano also dismissed a recent news report about major airports failing secrets tests designed to get contraband such as guns and knives past security screeners. The report said some airports had a 70 percent failure rate…

& ignoring the fact that her only argument against this evidence is that they’re doing things differently, the last excuse for those attempting to shrug off real failures, (article con’t):

…”Many of them are very old and out of date and there were all kinds of methodology issues with them. Let’s set those aside,” she said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “We pick up more contraband with the new procedures and the new machinery.”…

We can look at the pure logic of the phrase “objectively safer” and ask whether there’s any reason to be able to use it and the answer is clearly no.  (more…)

Yesterday, DA posted an article on the Economist’s debate over language (here) with the following [emphasis added]:

Irregardless, she goes forward to talk about more interesting research, including ethnic bias, gender specific nouns, and even points to a study which attempts to show Hebrew-Arabic bilinguals speakers seem to show more favorable attitudes towards Jews when tested in Hebrew than Arabic.  (I find that claim dubious, but without more access to the research, I’ll leave that point for now.)

My initial concerns with this research were how it was conducted and what assumptions were made.  After some searching, I’m unable to retrieve the actual study, but did find some underlying issues worth nothing.

The study Ms. Boroditsky cites above, used a test known as Implicit Association Test (IAT) (here via Association for Psychological Science – APS):

The study used a computer test known as the Implicit Association Test, which is often used to study bias….

The question at hand then, is whether IAT can actually show true bias.  The way it works (APS continued):

…Words flash on the computer screen, and subjects have to categorize them by pressing two keys on the keyboard as quickly as possible. It’s a nearly automatic task, with no time to think about the answers. The trick is, the subjects are classifying two different kinds of words: words describing positive and negative traits and, in this case, names – Arab names like Ahmed and Samir and Jewish names like Avi and Ronen. For example, they might be told to press “M” when they saw an Arab name or a word with a good meaning, or “X” when they saw a Jewish name and a word with a bad meaning. In this example, if people automatically associate “good” words with Arabs and “bad” with Jews, they’ll be able to do the classifications faster than if their automatic association between the words is the other way around. In different sections of the test, different sets of words are paired….

 The idea being that a quick test might help to show hidden biases, even for those who are actively attempting to prevent such displays.

Intuitively however, this test seems unlikely to prove bias for a few reasons. 

The first of which is our knowledge that human’s subconscious isn’t conscious.  By its very definition, we don’t know what it is and we still have little idea of how, or even whether, these hidden thoughts interact with our conscious mind or thinking.

The second is our knowledge of overall human development.   Take a child raised and consistently indoctrinated with racist ideals.  While not simple, some of these children do grow up and by themselves learn the truth:  hating others based upon their race, religion, or other superficial factors, is not just stupid, but also marks one of the lowest or immoral thoughts.

But take this person… Any guesses on how this person might do on this test, even if they now live a life of a non-biased person?  Speculation  for sure; but I think ultimately logical.

Which dovetails to the third basic critique, brought to us by basic ideas in critical thinking. 

Nominally, one of the things a critical thinker must do in order to minimize bad decisions, is to understand their own biases.

& in this case, I don’t mean to limit this to racial biases brought about through family or societal pressures, but consider the word bias as more encompassing to include any consistent mode of thinking which negatively affects decisions.

From that point of view, the biases one should look for in critical thinking outside personal life, (more…)

This week @ the Economist’s debate series, they are discussing another interesting topic.  Starring Lera Boroditsky, Assistant Professor of Psychology @ Stanford University arguing pro and Mark Liberman, Distinguished Professor in Linguistics @ University of Pennsylvania, arguing against  (whole thing here):

This house believes that the language we speak shapes how we think.

Still in the first round of of the debate, the pros have a large majority with a full 75% of people agreeing.  This seems self evident and may lead some to question why debate this particular topic with so much agreement.

The answer:  the nuances of the argument itself.   Indeed, while Mr. Lieberman’s job is to argue against the proposition, he starts his opening arguments by agreeing with the basic premise:

Properly interpreted, the proposition is true: the language we speak shapes how we think….

& of course goes directly into his disagreement:

…But the way we think also shapes the language we speak, and the way we live shapes both language and thought. When we encounter or create new ideas, we can usually describe them with new combinations of old words. And if not, we easily adapt or borrow or create the new words or phrases we need. As Edward Sapir once put it, “We may say that a language is so constructed that no matter what any speaker of it may desire to communicate … the language is prepared to do his work.”….

He goes on to define this key difference in interpretation.  While he nominally agrees with the idea, society has been inundated with ideas which simply aren’t true.  With discussions, articles, and not very well done research telling us all about the number of words Eskimos have for snow, whether the Apache had a word for “lie”, and even popular culture through the likes of Ayn Rand.

The crux of the issue however, is that most of these stories are either exaggerations of the truth or just completely false.  Like the Hopi Eskimos, having apparently somewhere between 5 & hundreds of words for snow depending upon the source, might have specific words to identify different types of snow that other cultures don’t have.

But whether they have specific words for such things as hard iced snow, or falling snow, or wet snow, it’s not as if other languages can’t use two word phrases with adjectives and nouns to get to the same point.

Taken this way, it seems as though having more words for snow than other societies doesn’t say those other societies are somehow less equipped to speak about snow, but instead gives us some insight into what is important to the Hopi.

& then there’s the other side as well, presented by Ms. Boroditsky, which starts:

Exciting empirical advances over the past decade have at last provided us with scientific answers about how languages shape thinking. Importantly, while some of the influences of language on thought are remarkable, there is nothing strange about them, they are just a normal function of how human brains work. Let’s start with the basics of perception, mathematics and navigation, and end with the sex of toasters, social judgments and prejudice….

She moves from there to highlight interesting research in terms of various societies, such as those with more words for colors of those who do not have words for left & right.  In the later example, they use more cardinal-type language to define position (such as north-east).   This seems to have given them a better sense of direction than cultures where left & right are used.

Going forward, she also talks about math and number language:

For example, some languages do not have exact number words (there may be words for “few” or “many” but none for “seven” or “sixteen”). Speakers of such languages generally are not able to keep track of exact quantities—they cannot count. Without being able to count, you are unlikely to be doing algebra, solving differential equations…

Which is true in a large sense, but isn’t true in the technical one.  We actually know quite a bit with respects to the evolution in math language and its use and necessity in understanding math functions above simple counting. 

So humans had a need to start counting things.  This need brought us new language to describe various amounts.  Over time, with the advent of more and more commerce, this math language became written, and for the west, this was in Roman Numerals.

Of course anyone with experience with Roman Numerals can attest pretty easily to how difficult it would be to multiply or divide, but even that is just the starting point.

The true power of math and math thinking didn’t really happen until we stumbled upon two mythical number concepts, zero and infinity.

Take that beginning and look forward a few thousand years, and we routinely run math calculations on numbers which have no real language associated with them and numbers which can’t even be understood by humans (IE it’s hard to understand what a billion, billion stars really means, when you have no concept of what a billion of anything looks like, regardless of having a “word” for it ).

Irregardless, she goes forward to talk about more interesting research, including ethnic bias, gender specific nouns, and even points to a study which attempts to show Hebrew-Arabic bilinguals speakers seem to show more favorable attitudes towards Jews when tested in Hebrew than Arabic.  (I find that claim dubious, but without more access to the research, I’ll leave that point for now.)

& while the 75% vote tally on the pro side is unlikely to change drastically, with rebuttals, expert comments, & closing statements still to come; it should be very informative in the end.

Leonardo Da Vinci : The Mona Lisa – c.1503 – 1506

The Mona Lisa, arguably one of the world’s most famous paintings, has been studied time and again in an attempt to see insights into the brilliance which was Leonardo Da Vinci.

Began in 1509 and finished in 1519, 6 years prior to Da Vinci’s death in 1525, the Mona Lisa is considered a painting of an ideal woman,  posed and framed in such a way as to demonstrate her attractiveness, show her as a normal person, though reserved with almost a kind of quiet divinity.

 Due to the almost perfection of this piece, and the attention it has garnerd through the years, speculation has surrounded nearly every detail of the work.

• Who is the model (answered in 2005 here - though thought to be Leonardo himself at one time)?  From where does the landscape originate? 

Scientists have even used modern technology to see what secrets the painting might hold (here):

 …In recent years, X-Ray scans have revealed three different version of the painting in the same frame as it was revised over time, both in revision by the artist and in restorations by museum curators and artists after Da Vinci’s time…

Though like Stradivarius violins, some of Mona Lisa’s secrets might simply be lost forever (here):

….They found that some layers were as thin as one or two micrometers and that these layers increased in thickness to 30 to 40 micrometers in darker parts of the painting. A micrometer is one thousandth of one millimeter….  

Walter [Philippe Walter, a senior scientist at the Paris-based Laboratoire du Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France] said it is almost impossible to see any brushstrokes on the Mona Lisa….  

Which brings us to today, where researchers announced they have found another secret Mona Lisa has been hiding for almost 500 years (here):

..new revelations from an Italian team of researchers who said they found letters and numbers in the world famous painting.

Head of the team, Silvano Vinceti, said, “To the naked (eye) the symbols are not visible but with a magnifying glass they can clearly be seen.”

They found it while studying the painting at Louvre museum in Paris. “We know Da Vinci used symbols so we are confident that they are a message from him,” he told Daily Mail.

In the right eye the letter LV were found which could mean Da Vinci’s name and in the left eye some symbols were seen but “it is difficult to make them out but they appear to be the letters C and E or B” he said….

Like so many other mysteries from the ancient world, we may never know what any of this means nor exactly how Da Vinci or Stradivarius perfected their crafts, but their genius will ensure further study for generations to come and ultimately makes us all richer, even if all we learn is a deeper appreciation for their accomplishments.

It wasn’t too many years ago when the play on Ayn Rand’s words “Who is John Galt?” was used by libertarian leaning individuals to spark interest in Representative Ron Paul’s (R-TX) presidential run.  It was used so effectively by individuals at a local level; it eventually became used by the campaign itself.

But truthfully, very few people knew or even now know Mr. Paul very well.  With the media firmly committed to taking only the most fringe ideas and discussing them with all the confusion which naturally goes along with not fully contemplating someone’s ideas, as well as Mr. Paul’s seemingly attraction to be on the outside (like most libertarians I know), what most know is little more than sound bites without context.

Even his voting record, which is well known and easily poured over in detail thanks to Project Vote Smart (Paul’s record here), his normal mode of leadership as only one vote in the House, hasn’t really demonstrated who Mr. Paul is.  Almost like an NGO, he’s had safety as one lone voice and one lone vote, because his ideas have never been placed into practice. 

Fortunately, this is all about to change, as the newly elected Republicans with close ties to the Tea Party, have given Mr. Paul a chance.  And what a chance it is (here):

…After years of blocking him from a leadership position, Mr.Paul’s fellow Republicans have named him chairman of the House subcommittee on domestic monetary policy, which oversees the Federal Reserve as well as the currency and the valuation of the dollar….

As an outspoken critic of the fed for years, a self-described believer in the Austrian School of Economics, and the author of a book titled End the Fed, Mr. Paul’s leadership should be interesting.

Combine his ideas with a Federal Reserve that has actively tried to prevent audits (here), and not only will it be interesting, but it will also give Mr. Paul a chance to demonstrate what real policies might come from his beliefs.