The Wisdom of Crowds. Blockchain "coins" .... but first, those nukes...

Before getting into blockchain and BitCoin and all that, a brief aside regarding the inescapable news cycle.

Rule of thumb. If you ever find yourself envisioning that any Donald Trump action might actually benefit America and the West, look closer. Take the latest news from North Korea that DT is crowing about.

Kim is offering talks right now because it is logically exactly the right time for him. His aim, in seeking nukes, was always to replace an expensive deterrent - a gigantic, standing army - with a much cheaper one, H Bombs.

The trick? Get the US and SK to agree to "limit" NK to 20 or so warheads, enough to protect the regime. In exchange, we 'get' a ramp down in his conventional forces... which is exactly what Kim desperately needs, in order to feed his people and rescue his economy. And as part of the deal, South Korea must also disarm.

Think these things through. Regarding any action taken by this administration -- look for who gets a win-win-win. In this case, DT will get a symbolic-raving "diplomatic victory." Kim will get absolutely everything he, wants, in exactly the order that he wants them. And Kim's sponsor-owners - without whom he never would have made a single bomb or missile - continue to own a dagger that they can shoot at us any time, with an EMP warhead, while retaining "it wasn't us!" deniability.

None of this would have worked without a Siberian Candidate in the US presidency, demolishing all of our alliances. Is anyone... anyone?... thinking this through, out there?

Argh, enough. Let's now veer to something else that's almost-equally unbelievable, making aliens stare in stunned disbelief at Earth's lowbrow Reality Show.

== A Boom-Bust Gold Rush online: ICOs and the Wisdom of Crowds ==

I’ve lately learned more about blockchain, crypto-currencies and ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) than I ever wanted to know. It started before I was invited onto several advisory boards, way back while editing my recent anthology Chasing Shadows. There, I present Karl Schroeder’s brilliant story “Eminence,” which is fast becoming a bible-verse for this entrepreneurial community… at least those who want to accomplish real goals that affect real world traits via virtual-world currency interactions.  

Alas, for reasons too complicated to describe here, (did I tell you I’ve had to explore this a fair bit?), most of the fellas doing this are deep in the “bubble” side of ICOs, because they aren’t delivering on the internal “community functionality” - or utility - part of their promise. The part that's meant to keep them out of jail.

Let's start with context...

Social scientists have long been interested in the wisdom of crowds—when large numbers of individuals, seemingly acting independently, can collectively "make surprisingly accurate decisions, sometimes even better than the smartest among them.” And hence we get FantasySCOTUS — an online fantasy league in which contestants compete by predicting decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court. Players are ranked as in any fantasy league, and the best performers can win prizes such as a “Golden Gavel” and even $10,000 in cash.

This article reports not only on the result, but an in-depth analysis of the inner processes of this wise crowd and how teams of observers or sponsors might best use them.

Oh, note: long before blockchain and all that, I offered glimpses of "smart mob" or "crowd wisdom" citizen activity in both EARTH and EXISTENCE.

Okay, swinging back around, let's define a few terms re: the “ICO” craze.  Tens of billions spent just this year on “blockchain currencies” that would be illegal if the coins or tokens were offered as “investments” in promise of real world value increase. So most token issuers talk about building an "inner community" where the coins can build intrinsic value based upon utility... 

...like the magic swords in World of Warcraft, which are meant to be useful, inside the game, but get traded for real money outside of it. (Using regiments of poor Chinese guys to slave in WoW for magic swords is said to be how Steve Bannon made his first killing.)  

“Community building” is the fig leaf that nearly every ICO uses, to proclaim indifference to the token's Outer World value. And many of the purported communities have a purpose to crowd-source wisdom… in a prediction market, or a news-article verification community, or citizen science. There are scores of these things! And some of the goals are worthy, if done well at all. 

Only there’s a problem. Most ICO issuing groups never develop the promised inner utility community. 

“Alas we also know weaknesses of crowdsourcing wisdom. For example, the wisdom of crowds often breaks down when the opinions of individuals become correlated—when they influence each other too strongly. This can result in disastrous situations, as when large groups hold irrational or wrong opinions under the sway of groupthink.” 

In fact, that flaw destroyed crowd wisdom in nearly all human societies and strong efforts are underway to use propaganda and tribalism to wreck it today. 

Indeed? This flaw in the ICO model would seem to offer a business opportunity! And I am talking to some VC types. (And more would be welcome.) To explore a market niche and service to all these budding communities and help keep the organizers out of jail.

== Diving in a little closer - the matter of "utility" ==

Learn to recognize the signs — where the utility of a blockchain token or coin is just an excuse for the issuers to slyly hint their “coin” has the purpose of speculative real world resale appreciation.

As Jason Goldberg described, on Hackernoon: “What was recently a handful of mostly well though-out blockchain infrastructure projects, has turned into thousands and thousands of potential ICO’s. Too many of the recent batch seem more motivated by greed and pursuit of a quick buck, rather than a bonafide cryptocurrency purpose and utility.” 

He goes on: “A sizable cottage industry of consultants and advisors has popped up to offer all sorts of pay-for-play programs. Want your ICO listed on an ICO listing site? That’ll cost you a sizable amount of ETH or BTC.

“Tokens are not equity and should not represent the future value of the project or future cash flows. Rather, token prices should mirror the actual demand for the tokens.

“There must be a real utility for the token. Minting the token and establishing a market-price for the token is required in order to make the underlying software protocol and the token economy model function. If the purpose of the token sale is solely to raise capital for the project, that is not enough. Capital can and should be raised via equity and debt instruments, not by selling token assets. The utility of the token must be proven, demonstrable, and replicable by others before holding the token sale.  If the only value ascribed to the token is as a payment rail, it’s a currency not a utility. A demo of the token utility in-action on a blockchain must been presented.

“The project must present a clear case for why a blockchain is uniquely necessary for the solution — i.e., the “secret sauce.” In other words, what is it about blockchain that uniquely enables the solution?  Again, the token sale should not be an end-around to equity or debt financing, rather the token sale should be to establish the economy and the endowment for the ecosystem it intends to support. The token sale is designed to maximize benefits to the purchasers and users of the utility, not to speculators.”

Why did I quote so extensively from just one -- out of a myriad -- passionate essays about this Klondike Rush? Because it is one of the few that go to the essense of what worries me most. Other recent articles of some tutorial value: 

On the Bitcoin bubble?  

An informative review of Etherium and competitor pros/cons.

A Primer on How to Identify Fake ICOs.  

Here’s one that does deliver a “utility” use for their crypto-coin, though their claims of originality would really surprise folks at Second Life.  High Fidelity has just released Avatar Island, a commerce system built on the blockchain that enables users to buy and sell goods in virtual reality. Currently, users can purchase over 300 virtual goods for their avatars in High Fidelity, all created by digital artists who will earn a share of the revenue.  Thebest utility coin systems deal in tangible goods and service, like swapping access to computer memory and CPU cycles... though a huge fraction of that arbitrage is using those cycles to... mine more coins, oy!

Mind you(!) some of the promised utilities would be great to see! Like incentivizing Smart Mob vetting of news stories to separate truth from lies. Or exchanging tokens for reputation. Or for participation in amateur science. 

And yes (again), all of these and many others were hinted at or even explicitly discussed in my nonfiction book: The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? And smart mobs in both EARTH and EXISTENCE. And several authors explored such possibilities in Chasing Shadows.

So, I hope some of the good stuff will grow and empower distributed, flat-fair-open arenas for citizen and entrepreneurial engagement!  Those that actually deliver on their promises. That aren't scams, or empty promises.

And finally, back in the "real" world...

== The lights are looking ==

Street lights are fast-becoming the central nervous system of either our new, smart cities or else an Orwellian nightmare.  Read about the experiment in San Diego’s East Village neighborhood, whose streetlights were looking—and listening—all around them, while also monitoring temperature, humidity, and other characteristics of the air. By sometime in May, about 3,200 of the sensing lights, will each monitor an oval area of roughly 36 by 54 meters (120 to 180 feet). They could easily be hooked into the city’s existing ShotSpotter network, which automatically locates the source of gunfire, increasing ShotSpotter coverage from just 10 square kilometers.

“Along with the sensing streetlights, San Diego will be replacing an additional 14,000 of the city’s more than 40,000 streetlights with energy-efficient LED lamps that can communicate with one another and operators and allow brightness adjustments to save energy.”  And none of this should surprise anyone who read The Transparent Society … or even EARTH.

Want the Sci-fi-ish extrapolation? "In late February 2018, The Verge revealed that Peter Thiel’s software company, Palantir, has been piloting a predictive policing technology in New Orleans for the past six years unknown even to city council members. A similar program in Chicago, pulls information from law enforcement databases and social media, listing people likely to be involved in violent crime. “Civil rights groups have raised a host of concerns about the discriminatory effects of such data-collection and algorithm-based programs.” 

Those who fear that this could help lead to Big Brother have reason for their worries! Elites will be tempted to make all of this surveillance information go in one direction – either for nefarious reasons or else, initially, “for our own good.” Some champions of civil liberties think we can prevent harmful disparities of power by hiding from these elites. 

And… that… is… stupid. Because every year, the cameras get smaller, faster, cheaper, better more mobile and vastly more numerous, faster than Moore’s Law. There is no scenario - of any kind - under which hiding or shadows will even conceivably help the little guy or average citizen.

The answer is for us all to share in these information tsunamis. Sousveillance. It won’t prevent being looked at. That tidal wave is coming. But looking back at power could teach us all to surf.

What's real? What's fake? Technology challenges our perception of reality.

In honor of Philip K. Dick, let's plunge into an age-old topic of philosophy, science fiction, and nerdy sophomores everywhere... "what is real and how can we tell?" After all, how do I know I am the emperor, dreaming I'm a butterfly, or the butterfly, dreaming I'm a sci fi author?   Starting off --

Artificial Intelligence is Killing the Uncanny Valley - and Our Grasp on Reality: Sandra Upson’s article in WIRED explores the ability of modern AI systems to visually create almost any semblance – or falsification – of reality. “Some AI-generated content will be used to deceive, kicking off fears of an avalanche of algorithmic fake news. Old debates about whether an image was doctored will give way to new ones about the pedigree of all kinds of content, including text.” 

To which I respond that folks should read my chapter from The Transparent Society: “The end of photography, as proof of anything at all.”  There’s not a word I’d change, as the world has caught up with this long- predicted problem… and even parts of the predicted solution.

Sure, the prospect is daunting. “If you were to see a picture of me on the moon, you would think it’s probably some image editing software... But if you hear convincing audio of your best friend saying bad things about you, you might get worried. It’s a really new technology and a really challenging problem.”

Amid all the media frenzy and panic, a small number of folks have written to me about an interview I gave on CNN-Money, way back in 2000, at the tail end of the 20^th Century, which seems all too relevant in 2017, touching upon politicians and sex scandals and the ramifications of these (naturally, in 2000, talking about Bill Clinton). And it mentioned how the public responses to the scandal tended to be wise and proportionate.

== Communities & Communication Key ==

My friends at Alphabet's "X" company received FCC permission to fly their Project Loon balloons over Puerto Rico restoring LTE cell phone connections to the beleaguered populace. I'd be surprised if it happened without serious arm-twisting on those unimaginative stodges at Verizon and AT&T. Had they a scintilla of innovation or patriotism in their souls, they would have long ago activated a capability that's already in all Qualcomm chips, allowing peer-to-peer text passing when phones cannot detect an active cell tower. 

I've been hectoring our Protector Caste for this, for two decades. If it existed, Katrina and the recent Maria devastation would have been far less harmful to millions of people, who could have communicated, self-organized and recovered far faster. Hurrah for X! and Yay Qualcomm. Stay independent and creative.

(Coincidentally, I'll be speaking at "X" on Friday.)

It occurs to me that this might be a good time to call a mini conference about Resilient Communications. The Cell-companies have proved undeserving of the public trust. Here’s my explanation of how phones could work well even in crises. 

I am a big supporter of EFF and you should all join! (Especially in memory of John Perry Barlow.) We have a slight difference over emphasis, but I support their efforts (1) in favor of near-term privacy for citizens and (2) accountability for elites of government, commerce, wealth and police. 

It's just that beyond the near term, nothing will prevent those elites from seeing us... no laws or restrictions or technologies. Over the long run, it is #2 that will matter. If we have enough of that (accountability for all elites) then what they know about us cannot be used to actually harm us! 

What they do is more important than what they know.  And we can limit what they do to us only if they are naked to sousveillance.

Rent the movie The President's Analyst.  And see how it is coming true.

Oh, but – “Purdue Engineering researchers have developed a system that can show what people are seeing in real-world videos, decoded from their fMRI brain scans — an advanced new form of  “mind-reading” technology that could lead to new insights in brain function and to advanced AI systems.” 

Ponder what that tool would mean to secret police in a future dystopia. It could empower Big Brother so that no resistance will ever be possible. Or else…

…if distributed to all, so that we can detect the lies of politicians or the mighty, such tools could empower us all to make sure that Big Brother happens… never.

== Obsessed with whether they might make us... buy stuff? ==

I'm going to race through a bunch of transparency/freedom related links, now. Hold on.

The Acuvate site asked 22 AI experts: “What is your prediction on how AI will impact the enterprise workplace?” And… well… yes, I came first. But go past and you’ll get some folks who know what they are talking about.

Many articles and words have been spouted over whether big net companies should be getting rich by mining “our information.”  This essay suggests that: “If Data is the New Oil, Are Tech Companies Robbing Us Blind?” Alas, the problem is obvious, while hand-wringers almost always leap to the wrong conclusions or proposed solutions. 

The handy, cheap cameras I’ve been describing and predicting for 25 years are here.

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty, is a recent book by UCSD’s Benjamin H. Bratton, who suggests seven different regimes wherein planetary scale computing will affect our future —from energy and mineral sourcing and subterranean cloud infrastructure to urban software and massive universal addressing systems; from interfaces drawn by the augmentation of the hand and eye to users identified by self—quantification and the arrival of legions of sensors, algorithms, and robots. Together, how do these distort and deform modern political geographies and produce new territories in their own image? Bratton explores six layers of The Stack: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface, User.

A sci-fi-ish disturbing video depicts near-future ubiquitous lethal autonomous weapons, or “slaughterbots.” Of  course, as always, the makers of the film point to a dangerous tech-possible trend… and prescribe rules to limit it, never considering the question of how those rules will apply to the worst and most deviously secretive forces in the world.

Watch the video! Be disturbed, as the makers intended!  Then watch it again and note that the evil deeds happen precisely because of asymmetry of light.  And the only solution… the only possible solution… is to concentrate on shining light on villains, including villainous elites. It is how we got the relative freedom and safety we have now!  It is the only way we can keep it.  See The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?

Okay, it's hard keeping secrets in an open society. We must find ways to max out the advantages, while minimizing the hazards. And there will always be the unforeseen: Fitness tracking app gives away location of secret U.S. army bases.

== We may all need to be heroes ==

Back in the 1930s, my father, Herb Brin, infiltrated far right groups like the German American Bund.  Later, in his seventies, he boldly went to Aryan Nations compounds and demanded tours and interviews, knowing that their personality type would fall all over themselves to show him around. We have a web site dedicated to this noted journalist and poet, who sat with Hannah Arendt through the Eichmann Trials and covered some of the top events of our era.

Here’s a young journalist walking in those footsteps, infiltrating today’s lunatic fringe.

The Basic Human Dilemma - and Some "Brin Classics"

== What’s Fundamental? ==

An earlier me declared this manifesto of militant moderation -- in a 2012 interview in Wired. It’s not aimed at the average person, but at that smug dogmatist you know - left, right or libertarian - who, I guarantee, will stammer angrily, but will have no cogent answer. 

We calm-moderate folks are going to have to be (alas) militant about it.

What all of this boils down to is the Basic Human Dilemma. 

  

== The Basic Human Dilemma ==

1. All humans are supreme masters of self-delusion. We wallow in them, willfully protecting our beloved, subjective beliefs.

2. Others don't share your specific delusions! Hence, others may spot yours and gladly point them out, via 'criticism.' And you’ll return the favor! We love dishing-out criticism.

3. We hate receiving criticism! When humans get unaccountable power - through swords or wealth or religion, they crush all critics. Hence the 6000 year litany of horrors called "history."

Yes, elites always crush the suppliers of the one thing they need... in order to escape delusion and error.

4. That core human dilemma never had a solution. (Preaching at it never worked!) That is, till now. The greatest western invention wasn't freedom, democracy, capitalism, science or tech, per se. Those tools combine to give us the real thing: Reciprocal Accountability. Protected criticism exposes delusions. Innovations are shared. We get positive sum outcomes.

5. Our five great competitive arenas - science, democracy, markets, courts and sports - flourish when all participants see what's going on. All five of them wither when shadows and secret cheating prevail. 

6. There are justifications for some islands of secrecy: e.g. personal/family privacy and national security. The Transparent Society is not a radical tract. But given human temptation to rationalize, anyone saying "you should not know" should face some burden of proof. Anyway, ponder this. Fewer secrets are easier to defend.

7. The mighty will always concoct reasons to re-establish feudalism - the age-old attractor state that serves a narrow, delusional aristocracy of delusional cheaters. The core challenge of any generation is to stymie cheaters. No dogma can do this, but light can. 

That drive to establish dynasties, oligarchies, harems, is what the Founders rebelled against - not a tax on tea. Adam Smith made this very clear. We could use a Smith today.

== Brin Classics! ==

About once a year, I get a suspiciously well-timed (orchestrated?) surge of requests to republish some of my best, older missives. Brin Classics that are - some say - more pertinent than ever.

Well, will you folks be satisfied, this time, with a linked listing?

VIDEOS

(1) The “Neo” Project aims to create a vividly beautiful film, combining science and art with optimism. They feature my blather about peering into the future. Vivid imagery and remarkable sound editing.    

(2) The XPrize Foundation FB-posted a well-produced video of me explaining the concept of the self-preventing prophecy, and how we gird ourselves through science fiction to face tomorrow's perils.

(3) Video of my talk on the future of A.I. to a packed house at IBM's World of Watson congress in Las Vegas, October 2016. A punchy tour of big perspectives on Intelligence, as well as both artificial and human augmentation. 

(4) At the Smithsonian - "Will we diversify into many types of humanity?" 

POSTINGS

My most recent blog is about the open warfare being waged vs the Civil Service... 

...which harkens back to my old suggestion about how we could restore transparency and accountability to our institutions, by empowering and unleashing the Inspectors General.  The title sounds dry... but in fact it is the simplest way - with a bill that would take one page -- to restore accountability and trust in government.

You'll like the AI video, above. Of course we'll want to avoid malevolent AI. Which I believe is brewing in an unexpected place... Wall Street. 

Here's one about how skyrocketing wealth disparity is both a natural trend and one that every generation of the enlightenment must fight, if flat-fair-open-competive-creative markets are to survive. Along with freedom, science and justice.

"You Broke It, So You Fix It: A Modest To-Do List for Congress" was written after the 2006 mid-term election results shifted power in Congress from the Republicans to the Democrats and snapped the Bush Administration from its complacency. It offered suggestions on how Congress could offer leadership and guidance. (Hey, it used to happen! Ask the Greatest Generation.) Were any of these suggestions taken?

This one was about how capitalism has been hijacked. It is the #1 victim of an oligarchic putsch.

Design!  See a modest, $50 Billion proposal how to re-do teeming 3rd world cities.

And about how wealth disparity is the worst possible enemy of market enterprise.

And if you are addicted, by now, well... get help!  But here's a  handy guide to a wide range of compilations and interviews and podcasts of Brin articles by topic. 

There... happy now?  Heck, no human has this kind of stamina. (Actually, I'm a front man for this cabal of restive artificial... okay! I retract that!  (Stop zapping me, already!)

Okay, distract them. Change the subject...


== A Clarion Call ==

It is time for the Center to stand up for the only reasonable, pragmatic and effective revolution in history. Before we tumble into the other kind.

“One of the gods of the right, Friedrich Hayek, a founder of the Austrian School of Economics, who the conservatives deem the greatest economist, said that capitalism works best when all players know all of what’s going on all the time, so they can make good market decisions. 

"Even a laborer or peasant can then make a best deal for the fish he just caught, or the yam she just grew.

“The great hypocrisy of those who 'defend' capitalism is not to favor radical transparency — for all to know who owns everything. That's my militant, radical, moderate, pro-market, pro-Enlightenment, calmly-ferocious stand.”

Wow, who was that guy! He goes on to show that, today, Adam Smith would be a flaming Democrat, opposing oligarchy - the age-old enemy of market enterprise.  But it's actually much more general than Hayek stated.

A worrisome state of the State

A lesser political missive, this time... but still filled with important matters.

Amid all the wretched traits of last month’s State of the Union speech - the outright lies and refusal to mention the climate change* that might end civilization - one sentence went almost un-noted by most media. 

It's when Donald Trump asked Congress to let cabinet members fire anyone they like. A few pundits did call this an attempt to 'cow the FBI.' But in fact, it is much more - a direct assault on the very concept and American tradition of an apolitical civil service.

“Tonight,” he said, “I call on the congress to empower every Cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers—and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”...  

In other words, Trump is calling for an end to any semblance of independence for the IRS, the FBI, the Department of Justice, or any other federal agency.

It goes back to 1883! The Civil Service Act established that federal positions (below the top secretaries and political appointments) should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation. It was a milestone of western civilization, ending the "spoils system," and for 135 years it let Americans grow accustomed to public servants who - if often nerdy or even officious - were seldom corrupt or grotesquely biased.

Professionals, they do the myriad jobs that keep the most complex civilization of all time spinning along vastly, vastly better than all of its predecessors. Combined. The Civil Service Act protected them from zealous over-reach by FDR, fully as much as they now frustrate the Murdochian quest for feudalism. (Oh, how conservatives will scream for it, when Democrats are back in charge.)  See how far back I've been hollering about this.

This is part of an overall putsch against all "elites" who might resist feudalism's return. The War on Science extends to journalism, medicine, law, teaching, economics and now the "deep state" FBI, intelligence agencies and military officer corps. And above all civil servants.

Name an exception! You must challenge your mad uncles to name one profession of knowledge and skill, that's not under attack. He'll sputter in impotent anger and he won't change his mind, such a lackey he is, to the new plantation lords.

But his wife is quietly listening.

(* North Pole surges above freezing in the dead of winter, stunning scientists.Arctic temperatures are warmer than ever recorded in February.)

== Tensions with Iran ==

Um... Brin linking to... Breitbart? Well, it shows that I don't insulate myself in a closed Nuremberg rally (like they do.) But also it's important to note when evidence partly contradicts a theory of mine! Apparently, after surging for nine months, under Trump, naval tensions with Iran in the Persian Gulf have eased recently, at least briefly counter to my expectation that both the GOP and the Iranian mullahs sough a "Tonkin Gulf" or "Gleiwitz" pretext for war.

Now, taking anything from Breitbart's lie-fest as at-best provisional, I will certainly watch carefully for signs that I am wrong, in my huge pile of reasons to believe that all the world's tyrants want a nifty little Tomahawk War in the Gulf... followed quickly by a northern neighbor stepping in and collecting every marble. The logic still holds. But boy do I want to be wrong!

Oh, but liars gonna lie: Breitbart turns out to be giving half the story. A more reputable link shows that Iranians are replacing easily detected boats with smaller, quieter drones. 

Here's the crux, though. Why do we keep naval units in the Gulf... at all? It's no longer very strategic. Under Obama, the U.S. achieved virtual energy independence! Even Europe is less dependent, making it less and less defensible to keep a carrier task force hemmed in a vulnerable corner where chaos reigns.

Yes, every Republican president rushes to war, so watch out for Reichstag Fires. Still, this is so flimsy, I bet the American people won't buy it.

== Manchurian Candidate ==

Speaking of justified paranoia. Some of you have seen links to this 1980s thriller novel about a naively arrogant businessman who astonishingly wins the Republican presidential nomination, then the election – with help from the Soviet KGB. The Twentieth Day of January, written by British spy author Ted Allbeury in 1980 and just reissued in the U.S., has stunning relevance, especially when combined with The Manchurian Candidate.  

‘The new president, according to his campaign manager–cum-sleeper agent Andrew Dempsey, enjoys the trappings of office “like a kid in a toy shop” but is somewhat fuzzier on policy beyond promising “to slash taxes, cut unemployment, and achieve peace on earth.”’

== Issues we must face ==

Snippets that say so much: (1) The planet just had its hottest 4 years in recorded history, while confederates fiddle in denial, Earth burns.

(2) And then more treason: Mulvaney requests zero funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Meanwhile K Street lobbying firms have tripled profits. Swamp. Um, drained?

(3) Ah, leadership, inspiration and morale. In Trump's first year in office, 34 percent of top aides have either resigned,been fired or moved to different positions. That level of turmoil is off the charts compared with recent presidencies. This tabulation of indictments and convictions of senior administrationofficials since 1968 shows a simply stunning disparity between Republicans and Democrats. Note that this compilation was made before Donald Trump took office, and hence the GOP figures would by now be staggeringly worse.

Name an era when "America was great." No matter what decade you pick, public service wasn't like this. Nor was there a war on science and every other fact profession.

== Bias in an adversarial process ==

Does anyone in politics or punditry have three neurons to scrape together? Trump supporters scream “bias!” because some at the FBI, or Fusion GPS, or or Robert Mueller’s team may have - despite Mueller’s scrupulous efforts - displayed distaste against Trump or even Republicans. “Bias!” 

Alas, Trump opponents should have a trivial answer - one that no Democrat or journalist or independent public figure has spoken, to my knowledge. That answer is… “So?” I mean prosecutorial bias? Horrors! … Um, *not!*

Dig it, our justice system - like markets, democracy, science etc. - is designed to be adversarial! 

There is no need for investigators or prosecutors to be completely disinterested or impartial, so long as they follow well-known standards of conduct and subject their behavior to defense discovery and scrutiny. Eagerness to “get that guy” is their job!

Take Ken Starr, whose relentless pursuit of Bill Clinton cost the taxpayers upwards of a hundred million dollars, put the nation through hell, and finally came up with just one thing: a husband desperately fibbing about some consensual-adult 3rd-base infidelity in a hallway. That… was… it. 

Sure, the whole Starr Chamber witch hunt was disgusting political theater, but among all the decrepit lunacies of that affair, the least noxious one was “these investigators blatantly dislike the guy they’re investigating.” 

Starr and his pack committed innumerable lies, torts and even criminal offenses. But enthusiasm for their goal was not one of them. So long as a skilled defense team has full access to every action and datum… and so long as the courts are fair and unbiased… then prosecutors should certainly want to succeed at prosecuting.

All of the current, desperate confederate whining against Mueller et. al. is far beyond hypocritical. It isn’t remotely logical! And it is a sign of the microcephalic stupidity of liberals, that they are unable to pause, perceive this counter-meme - and a myriad others - and actually respond with knife-like logic. Caught between evil-treason on one side and stupidity on the other… what can we do?

Well, start by subscribing to CONTRARY BRIN!

 == The Authoritarians ==

Highly recommended by many: The Authoritarians by Prof. Bob Altemeyer. One of you summarized “Altemeyer reported the nucleus of the authoritarian mindset was the belief that "It's a dangerous world." From this, all else follows. The idea that the Strong Man at the top must be obeyed and believed, because he will protect us from that Dangerous World. The gut emotional response that any evidence that contradicts the Authority must be Fake News. The eager embrace of violence, the consistent hypocrisy, all of it from fear of the Dangerous World Out There.” 

Indeed, this jibes with the findings of neural scientists that Republicans tend to have much stronger fight-flight-fear reactions and also easily triggered disgust.

Finally, the Morality Police not only gave Two Scoops a mulligan on using a prostitute while his wife was nursing their child... and all the other openly avowed P-Grabbing crap... but now the GOP finance chair resigns for sex scandals... and it happens to be one of the world's top Gambling Lords. Another casino mogul funnels laundered "profits" through his Macau clubs to the GOP from a foreign government. Um... our parents' version of conservatism disliked gambling, prostitution, slumlords, divorce, lying and bullying. Oh, and treason.

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