[FRIAM] labels

Sat Oct 10 12:38:13 EDT 2020

Thaniks, EricS for reading and commenting on the Amy Interview  I am such a benighted, naïve, stupid, optimist.  I can imagine that if she were an Obama nominee, I would be saying, “We have a good one here!”

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2020 3:47 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] labels

Yes, and not only Ugh.

The two places this bothers me as a category error are:

1. It conflates writing the rules of the game and being a player in the game.  Shubik used to harp on this: that the government’s role as the declarer of monetary policy, and as the participant in fiscal policy, were roles at different levels, game designer versus large atomic player.  The category isn’t quite as clean here, in that a rule targeting balanced affiliation isn’t exactly the same as playing for one side.  It is a bit more like certain monkey societies, in which the problem-solver steps in on the side of whoever is being attacked to lessen the asymmetry.

But it still feels like it has a related problem, of defining an outer law (constitution or statute for structure of the court) in terms of a non-legal convention (the particular parties and how they are non-formally categorized and weighted in the society at this time), and that feels completely unstable against drift.  

A more mechanism-design-y thing would be to revisit whichever Federalist Paper it was that talked about the destabilizing role of parties, never imagining the technologies for coordination that would be available to them 230 years later, and ask what the mechanism update is to the constitution in a world where instabilities toward consolidation are so extreme.  Kind of the same spirit as revisiting capitalist property rights laws when a warehouser and distributor can come to own the whole economy.

2. In the Coney Barrett talk that Nick circulated, she made an important point that should be true, even if we could argue that it is a smokescreen that isn’t true in reality.  She says “liberal/conservative” in regard to the interpretation of constitutional law are different categories from “liberal/conservative” as political affiliations.  She probably even believes it, though I expect that her SCOTUS decisions will magically align with the political axes 100% of the time, and one must ask how that happens to always be the case.  

Of course, the question is whether it is all disingenuous.  Thomas Edsall had a decent article in NYT a few days ago on originalism/living-text definitions, that was right on the thread we were on.  It is interesting that the opponents of each side make _exactly_ the same accusation toward it: that the side they are criticizing has no real method and is a program for rationalizing whatever outcome the judge wanted politically.  To the extent that that is true in substance, if obfuscated in appearance, then Coney Barrett’s claim that they are different categories is a falsehood.  One wonders then at what level of argument one could force her to acknowledge that error.

Eric. 

On Oct 9, 2020, at 11:18 PM, Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com <mailto:eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> > wrote:

--- reconfigure (expand) it from 9 to 15 but
*balance* the Left/Right ideology (I think he proposed 5/5) and then  ---------

Note that one thing both parties agree on is that we should conceive politics as utterly and completely a choice between the two of them. God forbid that we conceive of judges using any other dimensions. In fact, let's enshrine it in law that we must forever focus on exactly whether we have a "balance" of "left" and "right". Ugh!

On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 4:48 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com> > wrote:

Ha!  I refer to the last bit as "ok fine, TWIST my drinking arm!" when
someone offers to buy me one...   the only one to twists my drinking arm
this last six months has been Mary... and Maybe Stephen and his circle
on "ZoomGrappaNight".

I don't like the language around "packing the court".   I don't think
"reconfiguring the court" is the same as "packing the court".   Clearly,
the (not so) loyal opposition to the Dems *would* pack the court...  add
6 more justices and make sure they are ALL conservative leaners.   Pete
Buttegeig was the first to speak of this in my earshot, and HIS version
sounded pretty reasonable...   reconfigure (expand) it from 9 to 15 but
*balance* the Left/Right ideology (I think he proposed 5/5) and then
leave it to the Justices themselves to fill the remaining 5 (through
some arcane process?).    What the Republicans have been building up to
for decades is "packing the courts".   

Checks and balances are tricky, as is depending on social norms and
standards, but I think it might be "as good as it gets", at least for
the time being.

- Steve

On 10/8/20 1:36 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> Ha! That was the essence of one of the 538 panel member's phrasing suggestion for Kamala Harris in response to Pence's question about packing SCOTUS. The elaborated version was: "Because confirming Barrett, NOW, is such a horribly wrong thing to do, we have no choice BUT to pack the court." ... I.e. now look what you made me do. That was my dad's favorite phrase to justify whatever abuse he chose to mete out that day. He once ran over my bicycle with his truck. I *made* him run over my bike because I left it laying in the driveway. It's a running joke with my fellow drinkers who *regularly* FORCE me to drink more than I should. There is no free will. I live to serve.
>
> On 10/8/20 11:28 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Look what you made me do,

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