THE MISANTHROPIC ITCH

It goes on and on and on! Why, I ask is there such a desire to limit; to limit access to information, to limit access to knowledge, to limit the use of resources, to limit the desire to help some? Why? I think thinking is falling off the cliff! We skirt about the edges of real knowledge and then rush to make streets without plans and build buildings sans codes. All hurried in an attempt to harness the powers of persuasion, for deep in that persuasion lies the lonely seed of power.

"The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man" -Malthus T.R. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Some decades ago an English cleric and scholar had the wild idea that resources on this planet are finite and that the population boom will ultimately outstrip the resources leading to famine and chaos. His heart was in the right place, but his conjecture as it turns out was misplaced. The human capacity to change the future is limitless. What we can imagine we can create. 

Think about the Star Trek tricorder and your iWatch or iPhone already can measure the human body metrics. 

Think about flying and from the Wright Brothers “Wright Flyer” 

we arrive at the latest “Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2” that flies at 13,000 mph (2011).

 Think about the limited fossil fuel reserves and out comes the “Shale Fuel” horizontal fracking technology, Solar and Wind power. Think about food and associated changes of “crop rotation” and fertilizer use leads to a 35% reduction in land use for more crop yields. Think about the movies in the theaters to now having one on demand on your favorite tablet computer wherever you go. Think about vinyl records and now stream the latest music on demand to a receiver in your pocket. So Malthus was errant and from that error, unfortunately grew a boatload of tyrants that decreed “One child policy” as in China under their Chairman Mao, Eugenics in California and Nazi Germany and the start of the bleeding heart Aid packages to third world nations. Malthusian vogue of crying catastrophe was when the population had barely touched 3 billion on this planet. Now for those keeping score it is at 7.1 billion. The destitution seen in some countries is not for want of food, but for want of desire to cultivate for it. The tyrants remain powerful and the citizenry depends on the tiny subsidy to keep them relatively content. Meanwhile heart-rending photos are flashed across the globe of children drinking from the polluted lakes to entice others to donate to the cause, while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. However through all the talk about “preventative checks” of population control, Malthus, himself was against “Poor Relief” and was more in line with Adam Smith’s philosophy.

Speaking of what the U.S. Aid package, has done to those poor countries? It has made the citizenry poorer and made their leaders rich! Check it out. De-incentivizing the human mind is a crime of unparalleled proportion. It subjugates, it takes the yearn out of the Yin and sets up a multitudes of frustrations. Eventually in pursuant to such goals, one runs out of other people's money! 

The corpus of the entire thought remains an elegantly designed Utopian mystery. Proponents of the “welfare state” stand erect and demonize those that speak against it. Power and influence is a strong motivator for those standing in between the “giver” and the “taker” and articulating the heartlessness of those who point out to the chinks in the window pane.  Indeed for these few and well-entrenched society members the more citizens that can be forced to fill the roster sheets, the better it is. However as the cartoon suggests, eventually the society crumbles as a whole. Since 1968 the United States has paid out $43 Trillion towards ending the "War on Poverty" and the problem has worsened! From boundless opportunities to Weber's bureaucratic rationales, we have arrived at today.

Unfortunately this Malthusian itch has gotten steeped into the medical elite and the policy wonks that has created new and enriched tortured data-sets to show the similar "virtue" in medicine. “Less is More” is one of those itches and another is “Choosing Wisely.” Both are dream't up in the philosophy of the Malthusian backers. Using “Bleeding heart” technology and “futuristic shocks” as a correlational variables they have devised a path to control the limitless human endeavor of innovation. Even the new innovative movements are designed towards the power to limit. If screening of diseases leads to early diagnosis and successful intervention, they use the power of statistics to claim “harm!” If the appropriate treatment is costly then convoluted algorithms define need. If the physician orders tests to determine the real need in an individual then he is at odds of running afoul with the “Choosing Wisely” program.

And here is the kicker...Whereas in national meetings the pontificating experts claim, "Don't just stand there, do something!" as in give an antibiotic to a diagnosis of pneumonia in the first 4 hours, in another breath state, "Don't do something, just stand there," implying as in screening for prostate cancer and breast cancer that screening leads to harm. This schizophrenia in the elite is a daunting jungle to traverse and if you are a patient, there is no help on the way!

The buy-in from the physicians is less than stellar so the pith and moment of the movement is to convince the public to read their E-manual to basically give up the pursuit of living for the betterment of the society after a certain age.

Forced limiting childbirth is like snuffing the potential of innovation. Is that progress?  Are we progressive? Enabling entitlements limits desire/incentive and escalates the status quo. Is that progress? Are we being progressive? Limiting use of resources is to guide the principle that the future is bleak and therefore unsustainable. Is that not proven wrong over the past 1000-years? Man was bipedal, walked a few miles, then used beasts to travel further and now travels thousands of miles without breaking a sweat. That is progress!

Data is the new buzz word. We define our very existence based on data. In fact data has reached such an unparalleled position in our society that we simply say, “data suggests…” and all is received and accepted. Population data science is tortured to “best fit” in an individual, even if it has no relevance. Life has become a virtual Amazon jungle with colorful creatures that create strange and enticing sounds to woo and capture the spirit of the yielding.

We now live in an ocean of data that keeps getting deeper and deeper. We use data sciences and torture statistical methods to create an artificial reality that does not exist. We package that as the future and sell it to the hard-working populace that has little time to spend in thought and to the easily fooled. As Emanuel Derman, a professor of financial engineering at Columbia University states, “Statistics…is neither purely a language nor purely a science of the natural world but, rather a collection of techniques to be applied to test hypotheses.” He goes on to say, “Let us not get too enamored of the data science, whose great triumphs so far are mainly in advertising and persuasion.”

Did I say persuasion?

Oh my!