Posts by Berck

The System Doesn’t Work


by Berck

The following is a Facebook comment. I’m putting it here to see if I still think the same way in a few years, and Facebook is a black hole where things go to die. None of this is saying anything much I haven’t said before, but I like to go back and see what I used to think. For context, the comment that spawned it was:

I’m just amazed that Trump got elected by working/middle class folks on a campaign about catering to them and not the rich, and then passed one of the biggest tax bills for the rich ever. And then said it was a great thing for them.

I’m not surprised at all. This is the fallacy of democracy, especially our democracy. The premise is that an informed electorate will elect representatives that they believe will represent their best interests. But that’s not how it works at all.

First, the electorate is not informed. I think until this election, there was a lot of hope that the “democratization of information” brought about by the internet would lead to a better-informed populace. Instead, it’s lead a populace that better misinformed. The vast majority of Americans (including, from what I can tell from my Facebook feed, lots of people I know, both liberals and conservatives) are completely unable to distinguish fact from fiction from propaganda from click-bait. The hardcore conservatives are somewhat worse in that they truly believe that news organizations that actually work really hard to vet their stories (The NY Times, The Washington Post) are simply spewing liberal lies. But I see plenty of insanity from liberals as well. We have a large number of conservatives that believe Hillary was running a child sex trafficking ring, and liberals will believe any amount of insanity that has the word “Russia” in it.

Second, I think we all know that representatives don’t work in the best interest of the people who elected them. The best of them truly believe they’re making the country better as a whole, but spend most of their time accruing actual and political capital which they can then spend in furtherance of those (often-misguided) goals. The worst of them act solely in their own best interests.

Next, the motivations of the electorate is also a complete fallacy. In general, we vote for people that we believe are part of our in-group, our tribe. Sometimes that comes down on racial, ethnic or gender lines, but more often it’s far more subtle. But when you say that Trump got elected by a working/middle class on a campaign about catering to them, you miss their actual motivations.

They didn’t vote for Trump because they believed that they would be better off personally if Trump were elected. (I think they did believe this, it just wasn’t important.). They sincerely believed that:

(1) Hillary is a criminal who will destroy the country.
(2) Their way of life is under attack from those who are not like them.
(3) Trump is highly authoritarian, and Trump voters really, really like authoritarianism. (Don’t get confused, they call it freedom, but what they’re talking about when they say “freedom” is actually exactly the opposite.)

So, really, don’t be surprised. Trump voters are not upset because they believe the story that this tax plan is good for them, and even if it’s not, the Democrats would have done something worse. And Trump voters don’t hate the rich, and aren’t bothered by a tax plan that is a gift to the rich. They truly believe that as long as *someone* can get rich, they can, too.

I was hoping Trump would win so we could stop pretending like our system works. Sadly, we’re still pretending. Our democracy doesn’t work, and I think Trump has made it clear that it doesn’t. I’m almost as annoyed at “The Media” as Trump is, because they continue to cover Trump as though he has an actual grasp on reality when he makes it abundantly clear, every day, that he does not.

I told you awhile ago that I don’t believe it will genuinely matter whether or not Trump is elected, and I think I stand by that. Nothing much has happened except that now you’re angry instead of the Trump voters, who were angry and aren’t now.

Things that Trump has done that are bad:
(1) He’s basically decimated the workforce of every federal agency. Fortunately, those agencies were already doing a fairly terrible job, so the fact that they’re now doing a much worse job isn’t that noticeable. Thus far, I can still get a passport, send mail, and get an ATC clearance.
(2) He’s damaged what remaining foreign good will we had in a lot of places. By blocking refugees (including thousands of people who worked for the U.S military in the middle east), he’s pretty much insured that no one in the middle east will help us again on our next ill-fated quest to spread freedom. Fortunately, he hasn’t actually done anything to go spread freedom, and I’m pretty sure Hillary would have by now (since she said she would. Trump did too, but not even he knows what he says.)
(3) The refugee thing is terrible in lots of other ways. Many people that we could have helped have died, and countless more will die, because he doesn’t like Muslims. This is one point where Trump has actually managed to do real harm in ways that Hillary wouldn’t have, and Dubya didn’t.
(4) This tax bill. In the end, it’s probably going to make wealth inequality a little worse, but it’s so bad already, how much difference will this practically make? The deficit shortfalls are way worse than Hillary could have managed with a republican congress, but I’m not sure that matters in the long run. It’s still nowhere near the damage Dubya did with the unfunded wars. Since we’re never going to pay back the debt much less balance the budget, I don’t think the fallout (if there ever is any) is likely to be much different as a result of this. I do think cutting the corporate tax rate is a good thing, but doing that without compensating by raising the capital gains tax is pure stupidity.
(5) He clearly doesn’t understand freedom, and has supported, enacted, and tried to enact countless measures that are blatant violations of fundamental rights. This isn’t a surprise. It differs slightly from, say, Obama who talked the talk about civil liberties, then quietly executed american citizens by drone without due process. Hillary was pretty much in line with Obama on this, so it’s a net neutral. Still nowhere near anything on the scale of what Dubya managed with the powers he got under the Patriot Act.

Those are the major things, and really, in perspective, it’s just hard to get that upset about them. I do think that the United States (and, in fact, humanity as a whole) is not on a sustainable path. That said, I think it’s a very slow decline and Trump is such a small part of the big picture that it’s just not worth getting upset over.

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Greta Gerwig


by Berck

I’m not really a fan of Fresh Air. I think that asking already-famous people to bloviate is sort of the opposite of fresh air. But I accidentally caught a portion of this interview today, and it contains some of my favorite moments of interview, ever. It starts at 20:00, the rest is not that interesting.

It contains a beautiful moment where Greta Gerwig (who I really, really love) manages to answer a question by turning on Terry Gross in a way that neither she, nor I listening, saw coming. It’s such a beautiful moment of answering a tough question by getting your interviewer to answer it herself that I was just blown away.
Also, for the record, I’ve been thinking about Louis CK a lot lately, and I think Terry Gross explained exactly how I feel.

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Focus RS Track Day


by Berck

At work yesterday, a message from the front range Miata club hit my inbox mentioning that there was a cheap last-minute track day at Pueblo. I get these all the time, but for the last 5 years or so all the tracks in the area have decided to not allow Miatas on the track without a rollbar. I’m not putting a rollbar in my street Miata because I’m not going to wear a helmet on the street, which means a rear-end collision might kill me. Then I remembered we have a new Ford Focus. Jonah said she wanted to do it with me, so I signed up.

Since I’d decided to do the track day with about 24 hours notice, I did exactly zero preparation and the car is completely stock. After all, Ford says it’s good on the track for 30 minutes as-is, right? Showed up with about 2,300 miles miles on it (still the factory fill oil, even), and the OEM Cup 2 tires with 42/39 PSI cold. Figured I’d err on the high side with pressures on these tires hoping that would prevent them from chunking apart. Ambient temps were in the mid-60s, the track is a 2.2 mile road course with a dozen corners. 91 octane fuel, since that’s all we can get out here in Colorado.

I spent most of the first 30 minute session coming to grips with the fact that it had been 8 years since I’ve been on a track and my mediocre skills were quite rusty. 25 minutes into the session, I got the AWD Off message, and drive mode went back to normal. If the oil temp gauge can be believed, the oil temps were up to about 280F. Since I’d never previously seen it climb over halfway, I was surprised how quickly it got up there. Figuring that 25 minutes was nearly Ford’s 30 minutes, and about time for a cooldown lap anyway, I wasn’t too upset with the performance. Checked tire pressures and they’d climbed to about 56PSI. No pyrometer or anything fancy, so I bled them off to about 44PSI all around, figuring that was probably still slightly higher than I’d want for maximum grip, but would keep me from sidewall roll.

Jonah drove the next 30-minute session, and as she’s a complete track novice who took it pretty easy, the oil temps stayed around 3/4 and the AWD didn’t disconnect. The next session, things got a lot more interesting. I was finally getting back in the groove and pushing the car to the limit. I had a blast discovering that it while it completely understeers off the throttle, I can, instead, get on the gas and the AWD system will work its magic and the car goes around the corner like I actually had some skill. I drove in track mode both with ESC in “sport” and completely disabled. I almost never got the tail to hang out, partly because it wants to understeer, partly because even when I’d think I was at the limit, full throttle at the apex wouldn’t upset it at all. There were dozens of situations where my (sometimes-intentional) gorilla-like driving absolutely would have spun my Miata, but didn’t phase the RS and its magical computers at all. Sadly, 19 minutes into that third session, AWD off appeared, and I wasn’t having any fun in FWD.

I pulled into the pits, restarted, and the message went away. Selected track mode and headed back out. Managed another half-dozen laps before I ran out of fuel.

I felt silly, but fortunately I was able to coast to a convenient place to pull off. The fuel gauge read 1/2 when I started the session, so I was sure that I’d be able to get through the session just fine, since I’d managed two in the first half tank. Sadly, that gauge isn’t even close to linear. When the warnings came up that I had 0 miles to empty, I ignored it figuring that like my Miata, the fuel gauge was completely inaccurate on the track. The miata will read empty even with well more than 1/4 tank because the fuel is getting sloshed around so much. The RS, it turns out, reads bang on. I managed another lap after “0 miles to empty” before it quit. Thinking maybe the inlet had simply come unported, I tried to restart after coming to a stop. Nope, nothing. So, the good news is that the fuel gauge works on the track, and that it won’t quit before it actually runs out, but boy does it suck down fuel.

A fellow track rat came to my rescue with a couple gallons of fuel and it started right up. Ran another 2 sessions with stupid-expensive 104 octane race fuel from the track (I’ll come prepared next time). Didn’t notice any extra power compared to the 91. I kept getting faster and the AWD system kept disconnecting.

Also: the stock brakes did a lot better than one might expect stock brakes to do, but were not at all up to the task. I was averaging about 110mph at the end of the straight, but eventually had to quit doing that because I couldn’t count on the brakes. Pretty significant fade after about 15 minutes, and then pedal would start to go squishy. I’m guessing Ford fills it with pretty mediocre fluid that starts to boil pretty easily. When I got to the track, the brake pedal was rock solid, but it’s pretty squishy now, which is typical after fluid boils even a little. I’ll be flushing it out and replacing with ATE Type 200 tomorrow.

I definitely won’t go back to the track with stock brakes. The Cup 2 tires actually did really well. They were thoroughly melted, but no signs of chunking or delamination, and held up really well. They were a lot noisier than I like out of track tires, but it was rather communicative. You definitely know there’s a lot more they have to give if they’re not screaming. I’d definitely be fine using them on another track day. Sadly, the requirement for 18″+ tires makes this way more expensive than it needs to be. I like $100/tire R-compounds.

In a lot of ways it’s a great car for a track novice. Jonah did everything wrong on her first session from completely missing the line, missing braking points, DEEP trail braking, and the car just let her do it. I was initially terrified, but eventually started laughing. It’s nice to have the confidence that it’s not going to kill you, on the other hand it’s a bit harder to explain to a newbie what she’s doing wrong when the car covers for her so well!

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Koch Brothers


by Berck

I just finished listening to Freakonomics’ two-part interview with Charles Koch. (I found part II much more interesting than part I.)

I was somewhat dreading listening to these, figuring I had a pretty good idea of what Charles Koch would have to say, given the sort of candidates he’s donated to. I was mostly wrong. I was very surprised to find out that he and I actually have very similar political views on most issues. He identifies as a classical liberal, as do I.

He believes that freedom is very important. He’s generally pro-immigration, pro free trade, anti politician, and possibly above all, anti special interest. He’s anti war on drugs, and, in general, espouses fairly liberal views on social freedoms, though it’s clear these issues are not at all important to him.

I’d generally believed the idea that Koch brothers spend most of their money in support of their own interests. Suurprisingly, they loudly advocate for causes and positions that would, in fact, cost them lots of money.

So I’m left a bit dumbfounded at the list of politicians the Koch brothers have backed. Take, for instance Scott Walker. Scott walker is anti-abortion, pro foreign military involvement, anti immigration, anti same-sex marriage. These positions are in direct contradiction with the stated positions of both Koch brothers.

The closest I can come to reconciling their statements and the candidates they’ve backed is simply that social issues aren’t at all important to the Kochs. David Koch, in an interview with Barbara Walters, said in response to a similar question, “What… I want these candidates to support a balanced budget. I’m very worried that if the budget is not balanced, inflation could occur and the economy of our country could suffer terribly.”

So it’s not that we disagree on most of the issues, but I do think we seriously disagree about the priorities. I don’t think that liberal economic policies are anywhere near as terrible as he does, and he doesn’t think that socially conservative policies are anywhere near as terrible.

Fundamentally, while we both rate freedom as the most important thing, I think we actually disagree about why it’s important. I view freedom as a necessary first principle, without which we cannot possibly get anything right. Koch believes that freedom is not just a good in its own right, but in fact, a *sufficient* good.

Take, for instance, his position on global warming. He believes that it might be a problem in the future, and he thinks innovation is our best way to solve the problem. He believes that all the regulation enacted to date to address the problem is merely symbolic and will do nothing to actually solve it. I agree with him up to this point. But then we diverge. He believes that we can achieve the necessary innovation by simply “removing regulatory obstacles to innovation”, and solutions will, somehow, magically flow forth.

I disagree entirely. I don’t believe that there is regulation hindering innovation. Furthermore, I believe the exact opposite: regulation is one of the best ways to achieve innovation! How did we get awesome LED lights that work better than incandescent bulbs and are now affordable? Regulation that outlawed incandescent bulbs. Sure, there was a terrible period where all we could get were awful CFL bulbs. But now we have awesome LEDs that provide higher quality light at lower power for cheaper long-term prices than incandescent bulbs. This never would have happened so fast without the regulatory pressure.

Furthermore, I think it’s just absurd to think that freedom will solve all our problems. We need freedom in order to solve them, but freedom alone isn’t going to do it.

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