We didn't start the fire? Yes, we did!

I don't make friends. And I piss off friends that I manage to make.  All because I want honest conversations, and it turns out that how much ever people are educated and worldly and sophisticated, well, unlike me most are good at making unprincipled tradeoffs as long as their objectives are met.  What an awful loser I am!

I would love to talk with rabid Barack Obama fans about his use of social media, given all the brouhaha over trump and bannon dealing with cambridge analytica.

Keep in mind that I am no trump sympathzier--I have not only been anti-trump from the day he announced his candidacy, I have banished from my social life trump voters, including friends and neighbors.

Back when Senator Obama launched his candidacy, he and his campaign worked the social media, which was a new thing at that time.  A couple of days after his historic election, the NY Times reported:

For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet.
“Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post.

We set out on a new election campaign approach--the internet and the social media.

The highly organized Obama team correctly figured that "the electorate could be seen as a collection of individual citizens who could each be measured and assessed on their own terms."

After the voters returned Obama to office for a second term, his campaign became celebrated for its use of technology—much of it developed by an unusual team of coders and engineers—that redefined how individuals could use the Web, social media, and smartphones to participate in the political process. A mobile app allowed a canvasser to download and return walk sheets without ever entering a campaign office; a Web platform called Dashboard gamified volunteer activity by ranking the most active supporters; and “targeted sharing” protocols mined an Obama backer’s Facebook network in search of friends the campaign wanted to register, mobilize, or persuade.
But underneath all that were scores describing particular voters: a new political currency that predicted the behavior of individual humans. The campaign didn’t just know who you were; it knew exactly how it could turn you into the type of person it wanted you to be.

"Turn you into the type of person it wanted you to be."  That is from a 2012 essay in MIT Technology Review.  Political advertising had been successfully weaponized. PhDs were writing algorithms to microtarget voters.

Few events in American life other than a presidential election touch 126 million adults, or even a significant fraction that many, on a single day. Certainly no corporation, no civic institution, and very few government agencies ever do. Obama did so by reducing every American to a series of numbers. Yet those numbers somehow captured the individuality of each voter, and they were not demographic classifications. The scores measured the ability of people to change politics—and to be changed by it.

Yep, every American was reduced to a series of numbers, who could be influenced by well-targeted ads.

We had started down a slope that was soon bound to end up in the hands of evil.  JFK mastered the television medium, yes.  But then it was also the same television through which another election was swung with the notorious Willie Horton ad. 

Yes, the trump team committed flagrant fouls. Egregious ones.  But, most people are sports nutcases and they will easily understand the following comparison: It is not uncommon in team sports for coaches and players to intentionally commit fouls in order to win games.  I find it deplorable. But, that is how it is done in sports and in politics.  And, often, fans cheer when their team commits those fouls and win games, but jeer when the opponent does that and wins.  As Michael Kinsley put it in the context of John Kerry being swift-boated: "People tell pollsters they are sick of nasty politics, then they respond to it every time."

The problem is not that fouls are committed, but that people--even the religious ones--have bought into the bottom-line:  "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."

To Swift-Boat or Not

The other day I was watching Michael Kinsley on C-Span and could not but think, yet again, that there is no way a Parkinson's will slow down this guy's quick-thinking brain. I do wish that he did not have to deal with Parkinson's this young at least. But, we have no control over those matters--at least, not yet.

I this column in TIME, Kinsley comments that: History shows that any candidate who relies on the voters to punish a swift-boater is going to be disappointed. People tell pollsters they are sick of nasty politics, then they respond to it every time."

I suppose for candidates it comes down to a variation of something like a prisoner's dilemma: what if the other candidate resorts to a Willie-Horton and I am caught unprepared? The presidency is after all too big a prize to let slip .... which is why candidates are often tempted to commit fouls that will impede the other candidate's success. Read my column on fouls to give.

Sportsmanship should supplant foul ethics

Published in The Register-Guard, May 27, 2008

Flicking through the television channels the other day, I paused at a basketball playoff game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Utah Jazz, which was such a close one that it eventually was settled in overtime.

The commentator made interesting remarks that are quite the norm in such contexts, analyzing who was in foul trouble and how many fouls each team had “left to give.”

Fouls left to give? There is no more talk of sports promoting sportsmanship, camaraderie and cooperation. Instead, it is about “fouls left to give” until players are ejected.

Increasingly, fouls and penalties are no longer results of players’ accidents or mistakes. Coaches and players systematically exploit this as a loophole with the sole intention of restricting the opponent’s performance.

It is not uncommon to see a basketball player intentionally grabbing an opposing team’s player if that will prevent a sure two points.

It is so often used against Shaquille O’Neal that we now have the sports jargon, “hack-a-Shaq.” A football cornerback might commit pass interference if it appears that without that penalty the wide receiver might coast into the end zone for a touchdown.

The manner in which fans respond to these fouls indicates that they, too, see it as legitimate maneuvering.

I wonder, then, if involvement in athletics might end up doing more harm than good. What will children learn if their coach teaches them to grab the player in order to prevent an opponent from scoring? Is the lesson to focus on winning at any cost, fully understanding that they have “fouls to give”?

It is bizarre that we have zero-tolerance policies in educational settings, even as we could instruct the same children that they have “fouls to give” on the playground.

It is no stretch to argue that this notion of “fouls to give” is becoming common in society.

The havoc that Enron brought upon its employees, shareholders and the rest of the world was nothing but a reflection of its decision-makers’ thinking that their transgressions were within their “fouls to give.” Professionals advise corporations on how to exploit loopholes in the law — a variation of fouls to give.

Political campaigning is along the same lines: Candidates or their surrogates intentionally commit fouls, then pay appropriate penalties and carry on, because, hey, that is how the game is played.
As an academic concerned about more than mere curricular issues, I am always perturbed when students and colleagues commit fouls. You can, therefore, imagine my sheer delight with the recent softball incident in a game between Central Washington University and Western Oregon University, where I teach.

In case you missed that news item: A lot was at stake because the winner of that game qualified for the regionals. With two on base, at the plate was a diminutive graduating Western senior who had never homered in her life. She hit her first home run ever, then badly injured her knee at first base while making her way around the bases.

Two fielders from Central carried her around the bases, which counted as a home run for Western. The gregarious Central team went on to the lose the game, while Western moved on to the regionals, and won the first round there, too.

It was a remarkable story of sportsmanship and offered an absolute contrast to the “fouls to give” calculations that are otherwise the norm.

In the spirit of using athletics to forge a greater sense of humanity, imagine the following scenario, which might sound as if it is coming from another planet. Well, given that I am from India, it might well be an alien thought!

The next academic year, when the Oregon Ducks play hosts to Pac-10 football teams at the loud and boisterous Autzen Stadium, it will almost always be a midday or late afternoon game. That means that there will be ample time for the Ducks to play a different type of host again: to sit down with the visiting team and have dinner after the game. The bands from the host and visiting teams can play a few numbers as entertainment for the evening.

An outrageous idea, I realize. But what a powerful message it can convey, particularly to the youth! The university even can make a fundraiser out of this, splitting the proceeds with the visiting teams.

It would be a huge step in the right direction. The focus, after all, is on the common cause of developing one’s skills and learning and playing the game to one’s fullest. I can easily imagine that such an attitude will quickly lead to players and spectators alike relearning the forgotten idea that there is no place for “fouls to give.”

In my book, nice guys never finish last, but are winners all the time.