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Science/Nature

The Dangers of a Herd Mentality

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Insight from Esther Inglis-Arkell:

Going with the herd makes us feel safe, but herd behavior can go very wrong. It’s not just crowds panicking and trampling. Enough of a crowd, and enough familiarity, will let smart people make exactly the wrong choice….

When the energy of the crowd heats up, or when the herd is forced through choke points, things start to go badly. Studies show that people begin making “involuntary movements,” as the crowd around them gets more chaotic. Waves move through the crowd – often from the front backwards – knocking people off their feet and crushing them. When individuals in a crowd lose control, people get killed….

They also turn off their judgment in the presence of people – any other people. Avalanche training [for example] reduced the amount of risk to the person, but their risk of getting involved in accidents shot up when other people were around. When a group decides on a plan, they are unlikely to change it, keeping people walking along a route even when they should notice it’s dangerous. Groups also make people feel safe, letting them take more dangerous courses. When people see others, or even past evidence of others, at a site, they keep to the established path even when they were trained to know better. If other people have done it, or are doing it, it has to be okay. Supposedly, putting a person with safety training with a group will let that person guide the group out of dangerous situations. Actually, it seems that putting trained people with a group will get the “leaders” to drift with the group.

And that’s the problem with herd behavior. There are plenty of ways that people risk themselves, but most of them involve the people knowingly taking the risk. When herd behavior takes over, people don’t realize when they are taking risks. They stop analyzing the situation, and go with the group, with the plan, with the familiar way. That makes it easy to drift into disaster without ever being aware that they’re in danger.

Via “Going with the Crowd” Causes Us to Make the Wrong Choices @ io9.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.3.14

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Good morning.

Sunshine returns to Whitewater, with a partly sunny day and a high of sixty-three. Sunrise today is 5:56 AM and sunset 7:58 PM. The moon is a waxing crescent with twenty percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Training makes a difference, sometimes a critical one:

It’s Machiavelli’s birthday:

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (Italian: [nikko?l? makja?v?lli]; 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He was for many years an official in the Florentine Republic, with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He was a founder of modern political science, and more specifically political ethics. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language. He was Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his masterpiece, The Prince, after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility in Florence.

I’ll contend that Machiavelli’s greatest work wasn’t The Prince, but his Discourses.  The full-text of that greater work is available online and at Amazon.

It’s also, from 1898, Golda Meir’s birthday:

1898 – Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir Born
On this date, Golda Meir (nee Mabovitch) was born in Kiev, Russia. Economic hardship forced her family to emigrate to the United States in 1906, where they settled in Milwaukee. She graduated from the Milwaukee Normal School (now University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and joined the Poalei Zion, the Milwaukee Labor Zionist Party, in 1915. In 1921, she emigrated to Palestine with her husband, Morris Myerson, where they worked for the establishment of the State of Israel. Meir served as Israel’s Minister of Labor and National Insurance from 1949 through 1956 and as the Foreign Minister until January of 1966. When Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died suddenly in 1969, Meir assumed the post, becoming the world’s third female Prime Minister. She died in Jerusalem on December 8, 1978. [Source: Picturing Golda Meier]

 

Poll

Friday Poll: Slaves to Our Devices?

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Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, teased others before a meeting, in Hebrew and English, about their dependency on smartphones and other electronics advices. Netanyahu is no Luddite (he was graduated from a prominent American university, and admirers and critics acknowledge his obvious intellect).

Embedded below is a clip of his teasing, and then the question: Do you feel we’ve become slaves to our smartphones and tablets? I’ll say there’s that risk, but it can (and should) be overcome. What do you think?


Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.2.14

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Good morning.

Friday will be cloudy with an even chance of showers, and a high of fifty-four.

On this day in 1933, someone publishes an account of something in Loch Ness that he describes as a monster:

The term “monster” was reportedly applied for the first time to the creature on 2 May 1933 by Alex Campbell, the water bailiff for Loch Ness and a part-time journalist, in a report in the Inverness Courier.[8][9][10] On 4 August 1933, the Courierpublished as a full news item the assertion of a London man, George Spicer, that a few weeks earlier while motoring around the Loch, he and his wife had seen “the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life”, trundling across the road toward the Loch carrying “an animal” in its mouth.[11] Other letters began appearing in the Courier, often anonymously, with claims of land or water sightings, either on the writer’s part or on the parts of family, acquaintances or stories they remembered being told.[12]

These stories soon reached the national (and later the international) press, which described a “monster fish”, “sea serpent”, or “dragon”,[13] eventually settling on “Loch Ness Monster”.[14]On 6 December 1933 the first purported photograph of the monster, taken by Hugh Gray, was published in the Daily Express,[15] and shortly after the creature received official notice when the Secretary of State for Scotland ordered the police to prevent any attacks on it.[16] In 1934, interest was further sparked by what is known as The Surgeon’s Photograph. In the same year R. T. Gould published a book,[17] the first of many that describe the author’s personal investigation and collected record of additional reports pre-dating 1933. Other authors have claimed that sightings of the monster go as far back as the 6th century….

On this day in 1957, Sen. Joe McCarthy dies of liver failure:

1957 – Sen. Joseph McCarthy Dies
On this date, Sen. Joseph McCarthy died of liver failure at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. Born in 1908 in Outagamie County, McCarthy studied law at Marquette University. After graduation, he set up practice in Waupaca until WWII broke out; he spent most of the war at a desk as an intelligence officer in the Pacific Theater. Following the war, McCarthy used false and exaggerated statements about his military record to create a public image of “Tail-Gunner Joe” and launch his career in politics. On February 9, 1950, Sen. McCarthy gave his first public speech against communism. and for the next three years he and his staff investigated government departments and questioned a large number of prominent people about their political pasts.

Being accused of possible communist beliefs by his highly publicized committee ruined the careers of hundreds of individuals in government, industry, and the arts. On December 2, 1954, after he had terrorized American public figures for several years, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to censure McCarthy for “conduct contrary to Senatorial tradition.” He died less then 3 years later, spurned by his party and ignored by the media.  More than 100 picturesfrom all phases of McCarthy’s career are online at our Wisconsin Historical Images site, and relevant documents are provided at Turning Points in Wisconsin History. [Source: Oddball Wisconsin, Jerome Pohlen, 2001, pg. 33]

Here’s the final game in Puzzability‘s Lone Rangers series:

This Week’s Game — April 28-May 2
Lone Rangers
Welcome to the Daily Hitching Post. For each day this week, we started with the name of a well-known person from the days of the Old West and removed all the letters that appear more than once, leaving just the singly occurring letters. Each day’s clue gives the unique letters in order (with any spaces removed), along with the lengths of the name components in parentheses.
Example:
CHIAY (3,8)
Answer:
Doc Holliday
What to Submit:
Submit the full name (as “Doc Holliday” in the example) for your answer.
Friday, May 2
AM (5,5)

 

Animals, Nature

Rock-Climbing Bears

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Videographer Stephanie Latimer describes her video: ‘Mommas with children or cubs don’t try this at home! Endangered Mexican Black Bears (momma and cub) climb Santa Elena Canyon wall, March 21st 2014. Spotted while kayaking and shared for your nature loving, rock climbing, suspenseful satisfaction.’

Open Government, School District

The Whitewater Schools’ Recent Budget Cuts

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I wrote last week about proposed budget cuts in the Whitewater Unified School District.  (See, The Whitewater Schools’ Budget Cuts.)

Since that post, the WUSD School Board met Monday, and following that contentious meeting made modifications to proposed cuts on Wednesday afternoon.  (At each stage of this process, proposed cuts have been in the aggregate – there have been both cuts in some areas and increases in others, for a net reduction of over $200,000).

What the district and board undoubtedly (but naively) expected to be an orderly process was anything but orderly.  Those who advocate limited government (and thus fiscal restraint) can take only slight comfort from these cuts – cuts managed poorly will only increase the likelihood of a return to perpetual revenue-cap-exceeding referenda to plug budget shortfalls.

(The whole meeting has been recorded, and is available on the Whitewater Community Television website at Vimeo.) 

A few remarks:

1.  Insiders’ Processes Often Fail, Especially Against Grassroots Opposition.  No doubt, District Administrator Eric Runez and Business Services Director Nathan Yaeger spent a long time considering these cuts, as part of a months-long process.  That matters little, however, if the community doesn’t know what’s coming. 

Here’s Mr. Runez, as quoted; in the Daily Union, on the district’s process:

“It is challenging,” he said. “Quite honestly, we did have a three- to four-month-long budget process that started with community focus groups and our financial advisory committees. With all of those groups, we asked what their priorities were, particularly in the community focus groups. They came back with elementary class size and a commitment to, or a value of, the wide range of offerings that we have. It is not necessarily surprising to see such strong advocacy for the arts, but it is challenging because we are now coming to the end of our budget process and have to address some of these concerns.”

I understand Mr. Runez’s frustration, truly.  But here’s the problem: if the district ran into a parental firestorm of surprise and frustration at the end of its budgetary process, then the district’s budgetary process was inadequate. 

It doesn’t matter how many leadership teams meet, or how many hand-picked groups talk among themselves, when compared against community surprise and outpouring.  Relying on a business-as-usual approach doesn’t bring tomorrow’s success, but rather invites a return to yesterday’s failures. 

A committee, team, or focus group counts for nothing against a room full of organized parents. This week’s events only show how unrepresentative those focus groups must have been. 

I was not part of these complaints in any way, but I know very well how well-organized people in Whitewater are, through email, Facebook, text messages, etc. 

Unwillingness to appreciate that social media and networking (of whatever kind) will trump an inside-out approach is something that leaders in Whitewater still have trouble understanding. 

2.  Forget Happy Talk – Let People Know There are Challenges Ahead.  Look, Old Whitewater loves nothing more than to hear the soothing lies that there have never been and never will be any problems here.  That’s the worst possible approach.  Better to be honest and tell everyone – not just a few safe and reliable committee people – that we will have years of rough going ahead.       

The district should tell this truth to groups big and small, and send out communications to everyone with that message.  Lightning won’t strike.  The old-style, give-no-bad-news approaches don’t bring success.  They bring a room full of irritated residents.

3.  Conservatives, Do You Even Know Where You Live?  Like many others, I support budgetary restraint.  Unlike some (but not all) conservatives, this libertarian knows that this is not a red city, but a blue one; it’s not a red school district, but a district with a blue center with red areas beyond.

That sort of political environment will not support any kind of cuts, but rather ones carefully distributed and balanced between faculty labor, administrative labor, capital, and even programming.  (Here, I refer to labor positions and labor compensation, both.) 

Conservatives who are jonesing for labor-heavy cuts alone will only muck up the case for any cuts.

Here’s why: The whole district is no longer reliably red, but rather is about evenly balanced between blue and red.  (Even in a spring election, once thought to be a right-leaning election time, the last referendum passed.) 

In a district where all school board seats are at-large, a concerted effort in Whitewater could flip the entire board not just blue, but strongly blue.  Residents who think that’s unlikely are living in the past, and their error will only produce a climate hostile to budgetary restraint.

Fiscal restraint can win, but it will only win if cuts are distributed to avoid an unwelcome political reaction.  In the district, that reaction could easily mean perpetual referenda. 

4.  Communicating Directly to People.  It’s important to communicate directly, in a persuasive way. The district produced a multi-page pdf document that explained the rationales for each proposed cut.

That was a good idea. The document should have been on the district website’s main page, not tucked away in a sidebar link on the Business Services page, for goodness’ sake. 

It’s fine to seek others to carry water for the district’s message, although that’s a role I would never play (and a role which no one would be foolish enough to ask me to play). 

Still, the district tried to get its rationale out through an obliging website, and all it got was a room full of irritated people. 

It does no political good to rely on a site with writing below the standard we would expect from our own high school graduates.  Better to use the district’s own website, and to place explanations prominently – and properly expressed – on that website’s main page. 

5.  One Shouldn’t Make Changes to a Program without Speaking with Teachers and Parents of Students.  Making changes to the music program – or any other program – without talking to teachers, students, and parents interested in that program is just embarrassing. It’s insulting to them, a transgression against open government, and threatens the prospects for future fiscal restraint. 

6.  Notices of Non-Renewal.  Suggestions from the board to consider issuing and perhaps later rescinding non-renewal notices are bad suggestions.  One shouldn’t play with labor that way – one should be sure before one acts.

Don’t take my word for it — Brad Pitt (as Billy Beane) holds the same view:

There’s good that can come out of this kerfuffle, if the district and the board make adjustments in their approach. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.1.14

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Good morning.

Thursday will be a day of showers and a high of forty-eight.

The Landmarks Commission meets tonight at 6 PM. Also at 6 PM, there’s a scheduled meeting of the Fire & Rescue Task Force.

Today is the anniversary of the official opening (from 1931) of the Empire State Building:

….The construction was part of an intense competition in New York for the title of “world’s tallest building“. Two other projects fighting for the title, 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, were still under construction when work began on the Empire State Building. Each held the title for less than a year, as the Empire State Building surpassed them upon its completion, just 410 days after construction commenced. Instead of taking 18 months as anticipated, the construction took just under fifteen. The building was officially opened on May 1, 1931 in dramatic fashion, when United States President Herbert Hoover turned on the building’s lights with the push of a button from Washington, D.C. Coincidentally, the first use of tower lights atop the Empire State Building, the following year, was for the purpose of signaling the victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt over Hoover in the presidential election of November 1932.[29]
….

Only two years later, the building survived an ascent from a giant primate, as seen in this archival footage:

On this day in 1786, a famous Wisconsin brewer is born:

1786 – Brewer Jacob Best Born
On this date Jacob Best Sr. was born. Best founded the Best and Co. Brewery in Milwaukee. In 1889, the brewery was renamed the Pabst Brewing Co. [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography,  1960].

Here’s Puzzability‘s Thursday game:

This Week’s Game — April 28-May 2
Lone Rangers
Welcome to the Daily Hitching Post. For each day this week, we started with the name of a well-known person from the days of the Old West and removed all the letters that appear more than once, leaving just the singly occurring letters. Each day’s clue gives the unique letters in order (with any spaces removed), along with the lengths of the name components in parentheses.
Example:
CHIAY (3,8)
Answer:
Doc Holliday
What to Submit:
Submit the full name (as “Doc Holliday” in the example) for your answer.
Thursday, May 1
PGE (3,7)

City, Good Ideas, New Whitewater, Open Government

‘Best Practices, Fair Treatment, Transparency’

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Writing about the city requires reading the public documents of local government, even if one chooses not to write about what one’s read.  Reading and observing come well before writing.  

Daily observation inclines an observer not to the immediate, but the distant – one takes a longer view of things.  

Along the way, sometimes one reads something that’s a harbinger of our city’s future.  

While reviewing the Common Council packet for Tuesday’s scheduled meeting, I saw a resident’s application for a prominent commission.  At the end of the application, in her own hand, she wrote that she hoped to continue her work toward “best practices, fair treatment, and transparency.”  

One day, resting on that present hope, we will have a new and better city. If we were to have a motto, ‘best practices, fair treatment, and transparency’ would be a good one.  

That’s not this time, but a future one.  From now until then will require hard and relentless work.  We will find, I’m sure, that ‘kind words and a real good heart‘ will not be enough.  

To bring about a better, fairer, more transparent city will require of us what Nietzsche felt necessary of an advocate — “A very popular error: having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions.”

We’ll have that better city (I’ve no doubt), but it will require tenacity.

Nothing less will do.    

School District

Note on the Whitewater Schools’ Budget Cuts

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I’ve received emails asking if I’ll comment on the Monday, April 28th WUSD board meeting, during which dozens of residents spoke in person about proposed budget cuts (among other topics). 

I will write about the meeting and cuts, but I’ll wait to see if the district’s board modifies the current proposal. 

There’s a lot to consider – on its own – about the process, but it’s well-worth waiting to see the outcome before doing so.