Month: March 2024

Message for Evangelical Voters

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Everyone seems to have written off the evangelicals as a lost cause. We hear from many directions that they regard Trump as chosen by God to lead the country from infamy to some kind of evangelical paradise. That’s despite a personal history that is anything but Godly.

However personal history is not the issue. The message to the evangelicals has got to be something much more to the point. Despite the rhetoric, the fact is Trump is NOT THEIR GUY. He’s a con man doing what he’s has always done: make money off people who have the misfortune to trust him. He and his hacks are the ones saying he’s chosen by God. He has grabbed hold of an issue that means nothing to him, so that he can pick their pockets and run the country for himself and his ilk.

He has delivered on abortion. No money in that. What is money is tax breaks to big business donors and Trump himself. He did that last time, and he has said he is going to do it again. Already last time the massive tax cuts in good times went mostly to Wall Street and left the country with a record increase in debt. Further custs would be felt in medical care costs, education costs, the environment, and Social Security. There won’t be any “winning for his people”.

He has also said that he is opposed to democracy and is going to rule accordingly. That does NOT mean he is going to run the country for you. It means that he is going to run the country for HIM, and there won’t be a single thing you can do about it. This will not be the idealized American past of peace, friendship, and family values. It will be an unChristian paradise where anything goes for the rich and powerful, with nothing for the well-being of anyone else. Unafordable healthcare, no labor or environmental protections, no future for anyone’s children outside the rich. In all his bankruptcies Trump sucked out money and screwed the contractors and vendors who trusted him.

Biden is not threatening your practice of religion or anything else about how you live. And he regards himself as President responsible for the whole country, including you. You may find that much of what he has proposed is relevant to you. There is also no threat to your continued voice in the running of the country.

Trump is NOT the unGodly warrior for Christ. God is only his foot in the door. After that there’s the lesson repeated over and over in history: enemies of democracy are no one’s friend.

Genocide is the Wrong Question

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It seems to me that the discussion of genocide yes or no in Gaza is actually letting Israel off the hook.

It’s easy to defend a charge of genocide. It’s true that the war with Hamas is still going on. It’s true that Hamas’ network of tunnels is such that it is impossible to imagine military action that doesn’t involve large numbers of civilian casualties. It’s even true that the Israelis are more or less losing the war, because they haven’t significantly reduced Hamas ability to launch another October 7 attack, and they haven’t even made much headway on those tunnels. So it’s not genocide, it’s an ongoing war of self-defense.

But that’s not actually what’s going on. When Netanyahu launched the war he certainly knew there was no chance of completely eliminating Hamas. He may have believed he could do it anyway; he may have just decided it was a good slogan. But early in the war it must have been clear to everyone that it wasn’t going to happen. For Netanyahu himself the war brought its own benefits–so he didn’t have to care–but you can’t fight a war without real objectives. And it must have been clear to everyone what those objectives had to be.

They had to be the same objectives as in the occupied zones: make sure the population knows who is boss and that massive force stands ready to crush any missteps or simply act on whim. For years that had been Netanyahu’s answer to all questions. It had worked to stop blowing up busses. It was the only achievable option for Gaza.

It’s not genocide, but it’s a war against the population. Make sure they never forget what happened to them–and that we can do it again. Absolute hell in every dimension. You don’t even have to try very hard. It’s mostly a byproduct of fighting Hamas and not caring about consequences, although blocking food trucks is a step beyond. It also serves Netanyahu’s other long-term objective–making a two-state solution impossible by hatred.

One hopes against hope there is some way to recover from this mess. That’s another subject. But it’s worth being clear about what is actually going on–and that it’s not new.

About Geopolitics

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As point of departure it’s worth asking a simple question: why after the second world war did the United States emerge as dominant, with the major powers of Europe clearly reduced to playing second fiddle? The answer is straightforward: even after recovery from the war the economic and military power represented by the US dwarfed anything that a single European could marshall. (In that it’s worth recognizing the tight coupling between economic and military power.)

So where are we today? If we compare the US to China, we’re close to being superceded as a production powerhouse and we’re certainly well-behind in population and market size (an issue for training of AI systems or for migration to electric cars). Does that mean we’re on the way out?

The answer is in how to think about it. Our economic and military unit is the US plus our allies in Europe and Asia, with an overall population and market size comparable to or greater than China’s. Like it or not they are all us. It’s important to recognize that our economic and military relationships are not benevolence–they exist to serve us. NATO in particular exists, because after World War II and still today the European allies are our first line of defense against the power of Russia. And it’s not just NATO.

The dimensions of power have changed, so that in the world of today we can’t think just domestically. At the end of the second world war, even enemies like France and Germany recognized that in the new world they had no choice but to learn to get along. We similarly need to go farther in defining bonds of cooperation. In that sense even Brexit is less important than establishing the dimensions of cooperation within the entire alliance.

In today’s world chest-beating xenophobia is suicidal (this recent article has some interesting examples of counter-productive domestic monopolies). High tariff walls translate to non-competitive industries with technology obsolescence and ultimately a lower standard of living and military weakness. Internationalism is necessary and in two distinct pieces. The working relationships with our allies are as important to get right as the working relationships between the states of the US. While those relationships are weaker, they count for market size, technology, and military power. Beyond that, relations are tougher, but there are some areas–peace, climate change, control of nuclear weapons–where it just has to happen. Ignoring those challenges is also suicidal.

Despite the messiness of everyday news we don’t necessarily live in bad or discouraging times. We just need to recognize our strengths and what it takes to leverage them. And the overriding common interest we all have in a single interrelated world.

Math for Anyone Interested

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On a completely different subject ….

Over the last few years I’ve tried to write a short book for motivated high school kids who might be interested in going beyond the basic high school curriculum. The idea was that they already know a lot more than the general public, and it wouldn’t take much to enable them to see and appreciate some famous results.

I gave it a try with four chapters: on cryptography and quantum computing, on the prime number theorem, on Galois theory, and even (most overambitiously) on Fermat’s last theorem. In all cases I tried to provide some substance but avoiding the terminology and abstraction that usually make these subjects inaccessible.

I have some relevant background. I have a degree in mathematics and taught math in college for a few years. I’ve had a technical career, more in software than in math, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to explain technical subjects to non-technical audiences. I’ve also done some high school tutoring, and I’ve worked with my children and grandchildren.

None of that says I’m fully-qualified for what I’ve tried to do. I’m posting this not because I think it’s done, but because I think some people might find it interesting, and something useful might be made of it. And I do think there is value in understanding progress in mathematics even for the age of AI.

So here’s the link for anyone interested.