Corona Virus, Jars of Jelly Beans and Top Down Government
It is interesting if
you haven’t seen it, how when you take a large group of people and ask them to
guess how many jelly beans are in the jar there are wildly divergent guesses ranging
from extreme over estimations to extreme under estimations. But if you add the group’s
guesses together and create an average, the
average is surprisingly accurate. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfh-k9P8ZPI
Complexity theory
addresses diverse autonomous agent systems spontaneously self-organizing into a
coherent whole with no overseer or guide like eusocial bee hives or ant
colonies (almost a faint hint of intelligent design wouldn’t you agree?- Prv.6:6-10).
The more highly complex a system the more exponentially powerful and
unanticipated properties emerge.
Floridians are acutely aware of the emergent weather phenomenon ‘hurricane’ from the seemingly not so powerful and complex ‘air pressure and water temperature’ and the apparently disconnected ‘easterly wave’ from Africa. These self-organized hurricanes are very difficult to predict as meteorologists demonstrate each hurricane season. Floridians might be more attuned to the realization that the experts are many times wrong.
Floridians are acutely aware of the emergent weather phenomenon ‘hurricane’ from the seemingly not so powerful and complex ‘air pressure and water temperature’ and the apparently disconnected ‘easterly wave’ from Africa. These self-organized hurricanes are very difficult to predict as meteorologists demonstrate each hurricane season. Floridians might be more attuned to the realization that the experts are many times wrong.
This brings me to an article critical of the Governor of Florida related to his response to the Coronavirus outbreak. My point is not
to analyze a left leaning article from any particular liberal rag, or to defend
any particular politician, but to point out the basis of criticism being used
to assess politicians score cards on the Covid-19 outbreak response. (* see below) Apparently
the more aggressive the response in subjugating free citizens the more virtuous
the politician. The greater degree of ‘jack booting’ from ever higher leaders ‘the
more obvious it is they love and care for us’. This manifestly is the criteria here
for rating governors responses, with California’s governor Newsom at the top
and New York’s Cuomo a close second, even the abomination Whitmer of Michigan is near the top. I hope you will not be so incensed at this characterization of the suspending of
our bill of rights just yet and not objectively consider what I’m saying. We
should be emotionally stable enough to hear someone with an opinion, express an idea and not reject it ad hominem.
So, the criticism of the
FL governor was partly that he didn’t provide enough leadership in instructing the
mayors and county officials in what they should do. ‘Obviously’ without top
down leadership people in smaller communities can’t self-organize. This is
similar to the criticism of President Trump in not taking as an aggressive role
over the states. Attorney General Bill Barr in a recent interview (https://video.foxnews.com/v/6148219528001#sp=show-clips)
when asked about the suspension of the rule of law and protection of liberties during
a pandemic stated (start about 6:30 mark) “One of the things I think the president
has done very well here, is to use the strength of the federal system. Where
certain decisions should be made in Washington perhaps, but also allowing each
state to adapt to the situation that confronts it and make their own choices. And
that’s a form of protecting liberty; the federal system is a form of protecting
liberty. To have the government closest to the people make those decisions.” Basically
the idea “that government is best which governs least” (whoever said it first). This idea echoes French philosopher Charles de Montesquieu on limiting
government. Mark Levin’s book Ameritopia has a chapter (ch.8) on Montesquieu
and government governing least. He writes “Montesquieu also believed that
republican government does not work well over large regions, for the people are
too diverse, their interests are too dissimilar, and their connection with the government
is too distant.” He proceeds to quote Montesquieu, “It is in the nature of a republic
to have only a small territory; otherwise, it can scarcely continue to exist.” (pg.137)
Now the rich heritage of political philosophy should not be
expected to reside in any particular epidemiologist per se. Which brings up
another facet of top down government of a complex system such as the American
society. The reintroduction of the Platonic ‘rule by philosopher kings’ after
the Darwinian revolution caused the progressive era zeitgeist (e.g. The Growth
of America- Chapter 3, Clarence Carson). The rule by intellectuals and state (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qhUTH8BLOs ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KdQ2P9N8H8) became the new scientific way to govern. Now besides this non-sequitur of ‘because
we are evolving, this or that moral system should follow’ (there is no moral
’should’ in science- science identifies what is not what should
be), there is the additional ambiguous fallacy of attributing to the parts
those characteristics of the whole system. For example ‘this entire building is
very heavy, therefore each brick is also very heavy’. Or like mistaking the
university for a particular student and thinking ‘because the university of
students study a host of disciplines therefore does this student of that university
studies all those disciplines’. Or ‘this intellectual in one field of expertise is
smarter than the collective whole of individuals in the society’. There is the
problem the Austrian school of economics emphasizes with regards to economic central planners being incapable of accurately deciding all the things millions of
people do every day in business and personal financial affairs. The jelly beans
in the jar might have something to add. Instead of having experts guess how many beans are in the jar we should have a feedback loop from the local populace. Perhaps that government closest to the
people can more accurately make decisions for those people. Which is to say
maybe universally treading upon God given rights isn’t the best localized
response to a crisis. Let’s let state and local governments respond and see
what emerges as valuable. This is not a false dilemma of ‘either enact sweeping
federal government mandates or let everyone die waiting to get into a hospital’.
When dealing with
such a complex system as our economic and civil union and one begins
legislatively poking at it in a grandstanding, virtue signaling manner such as
politicians are proficient at, they might be destabilizing the system into a
critical state poised for a phase transition that is completely unpredictable
and unanticipated. The prudent thing may be to decentralize the decision making
to the states, and also the governors allowing local authorities to give more feedback and not propel the country into a critical
state by wrecking the economy and lives of its citizens with ‘one size fits all’
mandates from the ‘high and wise overlords’. Who deem it apparently necessary to
let criminals out of jail and threaten church goers with arrest. Or who deem liquor stores ‘essential’ but obedience to God in assembling with his saints in
worship as ‘non-essential’ and subject to dispersing by the barrel of a gun. (They
bear not the sword in vain you say? Churches should consider these ideas here) We better recognize as the people who put these officials (state and local as well) in power, when they manifest their lust for power. We better note them well and remove them from their station at the next voting opportunity. I pray we are not getting what we deserve. (1 Tim.2:1-2)
Maybe a complex system
that self organizes by intelligent design doesn’t need to us to “make us a king to judge us like all the nations”.
(1 Sam.8:5) I would guess that when the people of God cease from the Holy Ghost
given and first amendment recognized admonition of “Not
forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but
exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
(Heb.10:25) and draw back in unbelief, God may not be well pleased (Heb.10:38-9).
The prophet Samuel was grieved at the people’s request. And “the
thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel
prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto
Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee:
for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not
reign over them.” (1 Sam.8:6-7) This followed with the surrender of
liberty for security by the people of Israel (8:11-18). And I fear in our day as
in his “the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but
we will have a king over us; That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may
judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” (v19-20) And the
people want a strong centralized government to save us from the coronavirus war. (WW2
comparison- https://www.schiffradio.com/bubble-behind-the-virus/ ; https://mises.org/wire/calls-central-planning-covid-19-panic-are-calls-war-socialism-old)
*Apparently the FL Governor and leadership proved the better course:
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