"A cache of a thousand Obligations"
I did not invite it, but the thought occurred to me the other day; How linearity has changed human society. Simply put applications of linearity have increased our productivity and assets, in mechanical things.
Take for example the automobile industry, from the Ford Model T to the Porsche Panamera is a series of incremental improvements. The Model T had a 177 cu in (2.90 L) inline 4-cylinder gasoline engine, producing 20 horsepower. The Porsche Panamera twin turbo V8 engine (8-cylinder engine) produces 500 horsepower. Quite the change! Of course, there were a host of improvements in safety and ride comforts that evolved during the ensuing 110 years, not forgetting the 0 to 60mph in 4 seconds.
Another example of linear increments in design and efficiency is the aircraft industry. From the Wright Brother Flyer (WBF) to the modern-day Lockheed Martin YF22 (Raptor) or YF35 (Lightning) are examples of advancement.
In both these cases humans experimented and learned from their mistakes, and there were many. Aerodynamics is played out in 3 dimensions and minor mistakes are magnified manifold.
Humans have discovered through time all different ways to crash an airplane. But each accident is studied for the benefit of the future pilots and passengers. Issues related to metallurgy, how much a metal is able to withstand the heat and internal pressures of generating thousands of pounds of thrust in a self-contained power plant? From a 180-pound weight engine in the WBF aircraft
to the modern GE CF90 high bypass jet engine that produces 127,000 pounds of thrust, or in simplistic terms, has a whole lot of horses in it.
Artificial Intelligent models based on a small set of variables are wonderful in aircraft control, take the Autopilot capabilities that can manage to keep an aircraft on a decided flight path from 200 feet above the runway and back to the runway in zero, zero visibility in Category III ILS approach. Add that to the Autoland feature and the aircraft will also come to a stop on the runway. That was a giant leap in engineering. The mechanics in the mechanism are written codes based on linear behavior of IFTTT. These are obligations easily met and validated. They are based on mechanics and artificial mechanisms. There is no blood coursing through the veins or electrical spark weaving its way jumping across neural sheaths via the axons. No these are gyros and actuators and bearings and valves that have strict specified instructions and modes of action.
Linearity then is the hallmark of advancement in mechanical things. You have a hypothesis, develop the proof of concept (POC), experiment with it in different conditions and environment until all the boxes have been checked and then let the public partake in the new shiny asset. Things fail and as they do, more studies from the loss are determined and modifications ensue for an incrementally better product. Simple, QED.
Humans being humans, will interpret from one industry and try to lay claim on another. The classic example being economics. There are a boat-load of economists sailing in the vastness of this ocean, who determine the future of the monetary and fiscal policies. They use “data” from the markets and human behavior (called behavioral psychology) and determine what lies in the future. Market actions are tied to human behavior therefore study one and the other shows itself easily. Or so it seems. And just like a coin flip, these experts are lords for a quarter basking in the sparkle of the moment, having guessed correctly. And, in the toilet, the next when they fumble. The reason they flub is to correlate the linear mathematical models that have helped create machines that live by the rules of metallurgy, mechanics and run time, to the waffle-zone of human behavior. As any investor or trader in the markets knows, past performance does not guarantee future results. Yet these intellectuals don’t learn well. They just keep upping the ante with new books and promises all based on a single good call, basking in the sunshine of the survivorship bias. But then who am I to contradict the messages from up on high. Some books claim their author made millions from $2000 while others keep upping their net asset values for the blaze and glory of one up-man-ship. What matters if a homeless goes hungry for the night. Here is the link again... https://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/jun/29/economists-wrong-fed-report-flaws-meaning
As if that was not enough, there is a large cohort of individuals some schooled in medicine and others in business and others in high places of finance who have deemed it necessary to apply the same science to our health. Imagine the hubris in that. And, you know what they have come up with? A more formal idiocy of juxtaposing caring with cost containment. They have tied the mechanics of machines into the workings of humans. What could go wrong with that assumption? One wonders? Their continued gambit as mentioned, is based on cost containment and their first salvo is …
The Depart of Population Medicine at the Harvard Medical institute
Population Medicine, in other words “One size fits all.” Or, given a set of studies in a small number of people, why not scale it to the general population of 7.2 billion people (strictly speaking in the U.S. but spreading globally at the speed of similar thought). Forgetting ePluribus Unum for the moment, they have shifted into the cost-containment assembly-line of bureaucrats and administrators who team to determine what is good for the individual patient rather than the determination of the individual’s physician. The new dictum for the doctor is, “Review the computer data, check the box and the computer will spit out the best generic medication” their codified language is, “best bang for the buck.” If the doctor were to deviate from that, then all hell can break loose for the poor soul, both in the court of law and tattle-tale(d) by the insurer to the Medical Licensing Authorities. Fines, Suspension and Revocation of the privilege of managing patients (license) is the determined penalty. Oh, I am remiss in not laying that foundation; there is a person on some of the Licensing Boards from the Insurance company keeping the members of the Board abreast of who is following the guided dictum and who is deviating (and costing the Insurer more money) and therefore must be brought to his or her senses. One is reminded of the Latin phrase “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Physicians these days are encouraged to follow the population-based guidelines. These guidelines are based on some variable and some flawed data under the guise of Evidence Based Medicine. Unfortunately, the “Evidence” mentioned here is the shifting sand. In the days of yore, past actions and treatments were soon ignored for their faults or lack of efficacy and newer managements were acted upon by reasonable and wise physicians. Not so in these days. Wisdom is found only on the computer screen. If the guidelines laid out are not followed, then the Insurance agency has the whipping power to deny care and it frequently does to the detriment of the individual patient. If multiple denials are enacted upon, soon the Licensing authorities are placed on alert and the parrots start chattering.
Another ongoing onslaught, and becoming more widespread on a day to day basis, in healthcare is the use of statistics. Using minor deviations from the means of means (average of averages) in small subsets of patients, is to claim success with marginally beneficial but extremely expensive drugs. With this slight of hand, large sums of money flow the pharmaceutical industry’s way. But as human behavior would wont to, gaming in statistics is a game for the throne. Becoming a CEO and staying as one, there is a lot of pressure to perform and maintain the million-dollar salaries and bonuses. This is a slight of hand that slights the lives of the many. A selfish thought transmuted into harmful action. A few live in luxury and the many weep in solitude.
For posterity's sake here is the link again... https://www.axios.com/the-sky-high-pay-of-health-care-ceos-1513303956-d5b874a8-b4a0-4e74-9087-353a2ef1ba83.html
Outside of human greed, the question still falls into that bucket of “why would you?” I mean why would you use a linear mathematical modelling template and ascribe it to human behavior, health and disease? Some say, it is inevitable that Artificial Intelligence will be upon us and make us more productive? And they claim life will be wonderful. Perhaps so, but there are a lot of sunrises before we ride into the “Matrix” sunset. Artificial Intelligence works best when it deals with a single variable or two. Throw the human brain, filled with desires, wants and actions, into the warp drive and AI will jettison itself like the ejecta from the neutron star, taking the human race with it. Some debate the benefits of logit a non-linear regression model cures these ills. Linear Regression models and Logit models are different they say. Yet, they are all arrived at from the same premise of a few variables in a small subset of individuals; to prove a conjecture (with the oft glorified p-value). What matters if a patient goes without proper care, without proper medicine, without the protective eye of a physician? The argument of non-linear regressions as the focal point as an argument is vacuous at best. There is no form to feel. It cures no ills. It only raises the specter of the probable. Regressions are based on past data and forecast the potential of the future. Check your weather forecast for tomorrow and then experience it, you will know what I mean. A 20% chance of rain sometime turns into a wind-blown storm. A one-inch snowfall turns into two feet of unplowed streets. Ah, the butterfly wings! And by the way, the large arrays of parallel servers used for weather forecasting filled with algorithms are at work 24/7 whirring and whizzing away at peta-bytes of recent past weather data. While I am at this, let me spell out this little gem…The Artificial Intelligent models are created by software designers who are biased towards their own tiny, imperceptible bent. So human bias is always the suspect in all these probabilistic decisions meted out in percentages by the hardware. There is no restraint of culture, habit or nuance only the chips and the digital dust. Ultimately what Henri Poincre’ once said is true, “An outrage against common sense.”
As humans we have a cache of a thousand obligations thrust upon us and this cache is constantly being revised and burdened, just like the Windows program in PCs. More lines of code are being constantly added to the software without much pruning. More is thrust upon us from up on high than can be borne by any pair of shoulders. And yet the hits keep coming. The more lines of codes the more hang-ups and ultimately you get, “I’m sorry Dave, but I can’t do that.”
As John Steinbeck once said, “Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story.”
