Metaphorically Speaking

According to my Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, a Merriam-Webster, “metaphor” has two meanings:

1: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in the ship plows the sea) ; broadly: figurative language – compare SIMILE 

2: an object, activity, or idea treated as a metaphor

My copy was copyrighted in 1973.  The current definition can be checked at 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metaphor

I had trouble in school with metaphors.  They don't come labeled with "like" or "as".  Donald J. Trump is smart.  He went to Wharton.  He probably considers metaphors staples.

Black Lives Matter and all that Jazz

“The nation exhibits a growing sense of futility as it repeatedly attacks deficiencies in our social system while the symptoms continue to worsen. Legislation is debated and passed with great promise and hope. But many programs prove to be ineffective. Results often seem unrelated to those expected when the programs were planned. At times programs cause exactly the reverse of desired results.”

I heard someone say that they wanted to be the last generation that experienced racial bias.  I say, “Wait your turn!”

The opening paragraph is from a paper by Jay W. Forrester, "Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems", which appeared in Technology Review, Vol. 73, No. 3, Jan. 1971, pp. 52-68.  A reprint of this paper complete with figures is/was available for $4.00 from

Publications Ordering System Dynamics Group E60-383 MIT
Cambridge, MA 02139 U.S.A.

Reference item # D-4468

In the old days, Loyd's of London https://www.lloyds.com/ would provide insurance for all kinds of things.  The shootings of the policeman in Dallas shows that the specifics of the local situation does not protect a community from violence generated by the "national mood" or whatever. 

I would like to see a law that protesters have to purchase a liability policy which covers all expenses of the event. 

Your simplistic solution will not work - Barack Hussein Obama

Some of us learned this in the 1960s and 1970s.  One of my favorite papers is:

Jay W. Forrester, "Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems", 
Technology Review, Vol. 73, No. 3, Jan. 1971, pp. 52-68.

It's first two paragraphs are:

"This paper addresses several issues of broad concern in the United States: population trends; the quality of urban life; national policy for urban growth; and the unexpected, ineffective, or detrimental results often generated by government programs in these areas.

"The nation exhibits a growing sense of futility as it repeatedly attacks deficiencies in our social system while the symptoms continue to worsen. Legislation is debated and passed with great promise and hope. But many programs prove to be ineffective. Results often seem unrelated to those expected when the programs were planned. At times programs cause exactly the reverse of desired results."

The lessons which should be learned from this include:

1. The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions
2. Donald J. Trump's proposals should be subjected to simulation by currently available decision support tools.

An updated version of the paper is available at http://static.clexchange.org/ftp/documents/system-dynamics/SD1991-04SDandLessonsof35Years.pdf

Retrenchment 1969 - 1971

Several things happened simultaneously during the time identified here as the "retrenchment" period. 

First, large aerospace cutbacks occurred, creating unemployment problems for some segments of the engineering profession. Thousands of engineers and scientists, including many Ph.D.s, lost their jobs. Many of them remained unemployed for long periods of time.  Newspapers ran articles about unemployed engineers and scientists working as welders, rug salesmen, TV repair-men, bartenders, handymen, and operators of hot dog stands.  Second, newly graduated Ph.D.s in physics, chemistry, and mathematics began having difficulty getting jobs of their choice. Also, there were more new elementary and secondary school teachers than were needed, and many could not find jobs.  Third, the 1970 census showed that the number of young people in the college-age group was going to peak in the early 1980s and would decline thereafter, casting a pall on the prospects of those who were looking forward to university teaching careers.  Fourth, the U.S. economy entered a period of economic recession, with the result that employers cut back on expenditures and postponed hiring new people. All of these events received a high level of media exposure, which produced an exaggerated and misleading picture of the employment picture for engineers.  The cumulative effects of these events on engineering education were drastic. Undergraduate enrollments plummeted but then recovered as it became apparent that the adverse publicity had been substantially misleading.

Other developments of the period were the termination of science development programs by the National Science Foundation (NSF), virtual cessation of training grants, and the emergence of an increasingly restrictive climate toward the funding of university research. The NSF published a report in 1969 stating that an oversupply of science and engineering doctorates by 1980 appeared unlikely; two years later NSF produced another report reversing its earlier opinion, this time projecting that Ph.D. production by 1980 would result in an oversupply of 40 percent for engineers. The 1971 NSF projection along with the 1966 Goals Study projection both sets of projections far overshot the mark.

Dear Progressive from Chicago

You mentioned that you taught music in Chicago for several years.  I thought if God couldn't teach the foolishness of Progressive ways in Chicago I had no hope in SW MO.

Several things have caused me to rethink my World View.  I think it is most concisely stated as “The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

I consider the justification for this worldview to follow naturally from two scientific/technical papers.

 The first is an article which appeared in the December 13, 1968, issue of Science Magazine by Garrett Hardin.  This article was a part of a movement creating Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The second is an article which appeared in MIT’s Technology Review “The Counter-intuitive Behavior of Social Systems” by Jay W. Forrester the founder of Systems Dynamics at MIT.

The first paper is known to everybody.  I was shocked to learn the limited availability of the second.  I saw it in MIT’s Technology Review.  The citation for the article is

Jay W. Forrester, "Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems", 
Technology Review, Vol. 73, No. 3, Jan. 1971, pp. 52-68.

Professor Forrester had a long and distinguished career at MIT.  In 1956, Forrester moved to the MIT Sloan School of Management where he is currently Germeshausen Professor Emeritus and Senior Lecturer. In 1961, he wrote about the expanding effects down the supply chains due to fluctuations in demand, thenceforth known as the "Forrester effect" or Bull whip effect.   In 1982, he received the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award.  In 1995, he was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum for his perfecting of core memory technology into a practical computer memory device; for fundamental contributions to early computer systems design and development. In 2006, he was inducted into the Operational Research Hall of Fame.

Forrester is the founder of system dynamics which deals with the simulation of interactions between objects in dynamic systems. Industrial Dynamics was the first book Forrester wrote using system dynamics to analyze industrial business cycles. Several years later, interactions with former Boston Mayor John F. Collins led Forrester to write Urban Dynamics, which sparked an ongoing debate on the feasibility of modeling broader social problems.

The urban dynamics model attracted the attention of urban planners around the world, eventually leading Forrester to meet a founder of the Club of Rome. He later met with the Club of Rome to discuss issues surrounding global sustainability; the book World Dynamics followed. World  Dynamics took on modeling the complex interactions of the world economy, population and ecology, which understandably met with much misunderstanding (see also Donella Meadows  and Limits to Growth).

 Forrester has written several books, articles and papers. Books, a selection:

·         1961. Industrial dynamics. Waltham, MA: Pegasus Communications.

·         1968. Principles of Systems, 2nd ed. Pegasus Communications.

·         1969. Urban Dynamics. Pegasus Communications.

·         1971. World Dynamics. Wright-Allen Press.

·         1975. Collected Papers of Jay W. Forrester. Pegasus Communications.

Articles and papers, a selection:

·         1958. "Industrial Dynamics--A Major Breakthrough for Decision Makers.", in: Harvard Business Review, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 37–66.

·         1968, Market Growth as Influenced by Capital Investment.

·         1971, Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems. Also available online.

·         1989, System Dynamics and the Lessons of 35 Years.

·         1991, The Beginning of System Dynamics.

·         1992, System Dynamics and Learner-Centered-Learning in Kindergarten through 12th Grade Education.

·         1994, Learning through Systems Dynamics as preparation for the 21st Century.

·         1996, System Dynamics and K–12 Teachers.

·         1998, Designing the Future.

·         1999, System Dynamics: the Foundation Under Systems Thinking.

A fellow graduate student at Wisconsin, Gerald O. Barney, went on to work for the Center for Naval Analyses and took a sabbatical at MIT.  The good Chinese leader learned about the methodology. Democratic Capitalists believe in Free Markets.

Both groups know of the counter-intuitive behavior of social systems 

Varieties of Democratic Welfare Capitalism

A.      The conservative regime is most often found in Catholic countries and stresses job protection and high wages in order to allow a male breadwinner to be the sole support of his family.

B.      The social democratic regime is found in the Nordic countries stresses government provision of social services and income supports to create a more egalitarian society and allow (some say require) both men and women to work.

C.      The liberal version is found in the United States and, to a lesser degree, in other Anglo-Saxon countries and tries to offer government support for those who can’t work in the job market.  It generally has looser labor laws that make it easier to hire and fire people.

Lecture 35, Course Guidebook for “Thinking about Capitalism”, Jerry Z. Muller, The Catholic University of America, The Great Courses #5665, 2008, page 143.

Italicized parenthetical was added by me.

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/science/social-sciences/thinking-about-capitalism.html

Gosta Esping-Anderson Model

Solomon Kullback

Solomon Kullback (1907 – 1994) was an American cryptanalyst and mathematician, who was one of the first three employees hired by William F. Friedman at the US Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1930s, along with Frank Rowlett and Abraham Sinkov. He went on to a long and distinguished career at SIS and its eventual successor, the National Security Agency (NSA). Kullback was the Chief Scientist at the NSA until his retirement in 1962, whereupon he took a position at the George Washington University.

 

-------------------------

 

When I was working for BDM (now contained in Northrop  Grumman), I had the title of Deputy Directory for Technical Guidance - Operational Test and Evaluation.  Our major project was supporting the Army's OTEA (Operational Test and Evaluation Agency).  A member of our staff was working on a doctorate in statistics under Solomon Kullback at George Washington University.  The student was using a manuscript prepared by S. Kullback.  Somehow I got a copy of the manuscript.

 

A staff member told me that an analyst at OTEA disagreed with one our sample sizing results.  I knew enough to know that if one of our results was wrong then all of our results were wrong so I checked it out.

 

Our methodology was not wrong.  I met with the analyst from OTEA.  Some face saving terminology was used.  I don't remember what it was.

 

I purchased a copy of Mathematical Theory of Communication by Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver (I liked Weaver's part best).  The book was published by University of Illinois Press.  The paper and/or the book were published in 1948.  I bought my copy in the early 1970s.

 

I got into information theory via Shannon's book and Kullback's manuscript.  I have found mathematical probabilities to be simple for me.

 

While talking with my brother's wife's brother, I couldn't remember Kullback's name.  I said that he was in Army communications.  Wikipedia  says he was with the Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) and its eventual successor NSA.  I had no idea that Kullback retired as Chief Scientist of NSA in 1962.

Kullback's statistics and physics entropy have a lot in common.