In the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) today, the court upheld the individual mandate provision today viewing it as a tax. The ruling stated that while Congress could not require people to buy insurance, Congress could tax people who did not buy insurance.
From another perspective, instead of looking at the individual mandate as a tax on those who do not buy insurance, it is a tax break for those who do buy insurance. This would be similar to tax breaks people receive for going to college, donating to charity, and buying a home. Obviously Congress cannot require people to attend college, be charitable, or invest in the economy, but it certaintly can reward people who do.
On a related note, it seems that proponents of the legislation are now using the term "Obamacare" to describe the ACA. I do not know if this started today, or recently. I may just notice it now because of the ruling. But it is interesting how a seemingly negative word that conservatives used to delegimitize the ACA has now been adopted by advocates to label and further their cause.
Stevens’ criticisms of political science in her NY Times OP-Ed were not criticisms of political science per se; rather, they were criticisms of the scientific process in general. It is a frustrating process. It would be nice if we could identify all the causes of a particular outcome after doing a limited amount of research. But it actually takes time to identify causes of any natural or social phenomenon. We often develop models that only partially reflect the real world- these models will inevitably give us inaccurate predictions. But those inaccurate predictions give us an opportunity to re-evaluate what we think we know about the world. They allow us to encourage us to (1) find better ways to quantify “qualitative” concepts, (2) develop and use better statistical models that meet the realities of the outcomes we are examining, (3) determine whether we left something out of our analyses, and (4) determine whether we included things in our model we should not have. In other words, poor predictions tell us we need to do more research.
Just because a research program does not lead to all the answers we were looking for does not mean the program is a waste of money. I cannot imagine applying this same logic to other sciences. For example, between 1878 and 1880, Thomas Edison worked on over 3,000 different theories trying to develop an efficient light bulb. He learned 2999 wrong answers until he discovered 1 workable answer. Then other researchers continued to do work on the light bulb and made improvements. And ultimately that is what the goal is- to continue to do research until we find workable answers. The same logic applies to medical research. Doctors still do not know all the causes/cures for several deadly diseases/viruses, and several cancers. Does this mean we should stop funding their research? Quite the contrary- we continue to fund their research in hopes that one day we do find the cures. In short, science is a collaborative and cumulative process. Bad results and poor predictions are stepping stones to better theories, refined hypotheses, fuller data, and better predictions.
Phil Arena has a very cool post up wherein he explores a potential alternative to the ubiquitous CINC score for measuring military capabilities. This strikes me as something that is long overdue. And there are a couple of things that I like about the measure just from taking a quick glance at it. First, given that China just launched its first aircraft carrier, which is actually a refurbished Soviet carrier if I recall correctly, I think the notion that China has already surpassed the US in terms of military capabilities is a big pill to swallow. Second, just glancing at his figures for European powers during the late 19th century, Phil's measure looks more noisy, which in truth is kind of what I'd actually expect to see. The CINC measure makes there appear to be a lot more stability than I would expect to come along with a period where many of these European powers are vying for access to colonial possessions, foreign markets, etc. Furthermore, there were definite differences in terms of how each of these countries allocated their military resources. England certainly had the dominant navy during the late 1800s, but countries like France, Germany, and Russia had advantages in terms of their ability to field ground forces that the British just didn't possess.
As Phil mentions, the measure may need some further development, but I still think this is really neat.
At the Duck of Minerva, Josh Busby has a post on the gap between political science research/IR and the policymaking community. I don't have a whole lot to say about the specific content of Busby's post, aside from the fact that I think this is an interesting an important debate to have. (Also, please note that the links in the quotations were provided in Busby's original post).
In Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (not to be confused with their most Excellent Adventure), the duo are killed and sent to Hell. On their way to an eternity of punishment, Death gives them the ability to escape their fate if they can best him in a game of their choosing. The wager seems to be an obvious one to take: If you lose, you are stuck in hell for eternity; if you win, you can leave. However, if you do not play the game, then you are still stuck in Hell without the ability to leave. In a previous dialogue (not shown in the above clip), Death boasts that he has never lost a game.
If Death really never lost a game, it is reasonable to assume he has played billions of such games (assuming billions have encountered him and wanted to leave). A variety of games are likely to have been proposed including athletic competitions (perhaps the most common up until this point in history), strategic games with full information, and even gambles. Given this, Death would have to be some sort of super athlete that makes the right move every time (perfectly rational), and wins all lotteries. Even in fair lotteries, Death could only win so many coin tosses in a row before it appears the game is rigged in his favor. As an aside, it is likely that no single player would know that he has played coin tosses before and won so many in the past, but his boast out to tip players off. Thus, unfair lotteries biased in favor of the condemned are likely to still be skewed in their actual results for Death.
Given these constraints established by the movie, the question for the viewer becomes obvious: What game would you choose to play against Death?
After some pondering, the optimal game would be one of private information--where the player can control elements outside of Death's control. As such, Death's ability to win depends on his ability to guess what the player has chosen. Given this proposition, then it appears that Bill and Ted stumbled upon the right course of action in their initial choice: Battleship. In a world where you are playing the best strategy possible without cheating, the average win using a decent algorithm averages 40 moves. If we posit that Death plays perfectly strategically without knowing what the players know, then there is room for the other player to do better than Death. So, Bill and Ted knowing he would put his ship in the J row may work out as a better strategy given their glimpse into Death's psychology. Clue, again, affords them room for private information in guessing which character committed the murder of Mr. Body. Twister, on the other hand, I lack a convincing interpretation as it is clearly a game of athletics. Perhaps Gymnasts have not challenged Death before. Though, of course, I am sure the script was written with the idea of seeing an ancient mythological being playing modern games against two relatively airheaded dudes and not with a mind towards game theory.
Given this understanding of how to beat death, and while Bill and Ted succeed in finding the right path to victory, they allow too much for error. If Death can lose at games of private information, then the best strategy is to make it a game of asymmetric private information instead of a symmetric one (technically, a symmetric, asymmetric information game) like Battleship. Simply, offering Death a game of "Guess What Number I Am Thinking Of" and making the possible set of numbers contain all numbers would make Death's ability to guess the number indistinguishable from zero. The game is much less fun, but the certainty it provides makes it an optimal choice given the symmetric alternative. For this solution to be accurate, then it means that either people have never played an asymmetric information game against Death, that his strategy was superior to his opponent's in stategy previous games and could overcome the information asymmetry, or, perhaps, he was simply boasting to dissuade would-be challengers. Also, this is what happens when you leave Comedy Central on during the day while doing house chores.
So it's official...ish. It's official-ish. Or maybe not. The BBC reports that the UN Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, Herve Ladsous, seems to be the first official to publicly describe the Syrian civil war as a civil war, as opposed to something moving ever closer to that oh so elusive place. However, the article also notes that others have pushed back against this description (big surprise). Officials from the Syrian Foreign Ministry are opting to describe the conflict as follows:
Talk of civil war in Syria is not consistent with reality... What is happening in Syria is a war against armed groups that choose terrorism.
So they don't quibble with the use of the word "war," but simply the notion that what Syria is experiencing is of the civil variety. Coming from Syrian officials, however, I get it, and I don't really find this to be terribly surprising.
What I'm curious about is how this comment by a UN official will impact the way other public officials talk about the Syrian civil war, henceforth. Last week I wrote about how there has been a widespread reluctance among US, UN, and other policymakers to refer to the Syrian conflict as a civil war. Here's a piece at the NY Times from yesterday addressing the same issue. Barbara Walter and Elizabeth Martin offer some suggestions as to why that might be, and I've offered a few of my own followup thoughts here.
Will more senior officials publicly rebuke Ladsous for comments? Label them "premature"? "Hasty"? Will there be some sort of domino effect, whereby Ladsous' comments make open the door for other policymakers to start using the label? Perhaps there is something to be said for the label arising from the "bottom up" so to speak. Though, I'm not entirely sure that Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations constitutes coming from the bottom. Still, perhaps now that someone with "expertise" in this area (almost like a scientist or something) has used the label, higher level officials will feel that they have cover to use the term. Whereas if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were to trot out the term first, it could seem more "political" in its derivations?
Of course, this is all an exercise in aimless musing. Thoughts?
Over at the new Political Violence at a Glance blog, Barbara Walter and Elizabeth Martin address a question that I raised last week regarding the reluctance of policymakers to label the Syrian conflict a civil war. Walter and Martin raise three/four points in particular (I may be lumping something together here) to help explain this behavior, but I have a couple of further questions/comments.
Well, maybe not years. And LL Cool J references aside, while perusing my usual news outlets this morning I've found that in the wake of what is reported to be a fresh massacre, Syria is again a common theme in the headlines (see CNN, BBC, FP). More after the jump.
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