The Curmudgeon Speaks

The Verge reports that Mr Trump has placed a gag order on scientists from the EPA and Department of Agriculture. Evidently, scientists cannot speak with the public or journalists but can continue to publish their research in peer-reviewed journals because the public would need to pay to read the results. This is really pretty strange.

Mr Trump appears not to understand science. There is no party line in science. You ask a question. You design a methodology to collect data to answer your question. Then, you communicate your results. You do try to publish, but informing the public is the final goal. Those of us who teach in science-based fields read this research to teach students.

Government scientists work for the public. They are not doing research to provide businesses an advantage. STEM teachers – this is not how it is supposed to work. To control access is unethical.

Different observations may have come to different conclusions regarding the most meaningful lessons from the Trump presidency, but here is mine. I have learned that some of those who will play the most prominent roles in the administration (Trump, Conway, Spicer) are both thin-skinned and prone to alternative facts (i.e., lies). More troubling, these are willing to spend away their credibility on trivial challenges. My reference here is to the dispute regarding how many fans showed up to the Trump parade. Why, why, why make an issue of this situation. The aerial photography and public transit data make obvious the error of your claims. The administration’s willingness to claim that no one cares about the release of Trump’s tax returns and then assume the public cares about how many watched your parade is not even plausible.

Why care? I agree with others who have observed that if we cannot rely on the truthfulness of facts that we can check how can we trust an administration to tell us the truth regarding events the details of which must be kept secret. Credibility is easy to lose.

I think Trump is using an approach something similar to what he did during his campaign. He would try out different things with a live crowd to see what worked and that would become a mantra (e.g., lock her up) or approach. As President, he has now tried ignoring the facts (removal of content from government web sites) and according to Conway using alternate facts. Time for another strategy.

I admire problem-solving, but I prefer experimentation be applied in a more ethical way.

The march of technology is relentless and likely has more to do with changes in the job market than China or Mexico. Politicians failing to describe the scope of such changes are scapegoating other countries and failing to deal with what is happening. If you order goods from Amazon, you should already know where many of these jobs are going. You should already understand the reduction in book stores and the announcements of job cuts at Macys, Sears and other department stores. Your local store may have already closed. You and I are the problem. We pay for a Prime account and then have the UPS man deliver the goods we used to purchase at the mall.

We prefer inexpensive goods (often produced elsewhere) and we prefer convenience (online purchases). Companies, if they survive, have found they need fewer employees because of greater use of technology. You can blame technology or free enterprise, but we are not going back. The present isolationism promoted by the new administration is the last gasp of an outdated system. There are many new opportunities here, but there are also new challenges. This is why education is becoming more and more important and will not be something that is ever finished for those willing to adapt.

People of North Dakota. When it comes to a college education or most anything else, trying to improve yourself by isolating yourself is typically a very bad idea. A big part of the benefit of college is meeting people who are different and have different ideas. North Dakota is far too white and far too rural and tends to have attitudes that are out of synch with the rest of the country and the world. A college experience that includes exposure to different cultures and different attitudes is valuable and prepares your kids for the jobs and the people that don’t live within the confines of your state.

You are also not going to make your universities better by making them smaller. There is a certain matter of efficiency that comes into play and ND institutions are already too small to encourage the diversity that allows for many specialties and to attract the quality faculty members needed to teach and research in these areas.

Mr Trump’s tweeting is a little hard to understand. Here is what I think. There can be significant differences between someone with experience as a boss and someone with experience as an elected leader. It doesn’t have to be this way, but the experiences can be very different. A boss may be used to getting his or her way through firing, buying, bullying, or suing. It cannot work in any of these ways for very long when you are elected.

Most folks can develop skills especially if they have a good mentor; someone to explain how things really work and provide examples. If your primary means of communicating is Twitter how difficult can improving your performance be. I will take my mentoring turn first.

Here is an example. Mr. Trump attacks Congressman John Lewis for responding to a question about whether Trump’s selection as President was legitimate. Trump’s response is included below:

Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to….

See what I mean. A leader would not respond is this way. Ignoring the issue of an argument by switching to a personal attack completing unrelated to your concern with the position of your peer is not particularly impressive. This seems to be Mr. Trump’s go to move, but the strategy is still the mark of an amateur.

Some alternatives:

Don’t respond at all if what you have to say makes you look thin-skinned and probably having some of the same concerns.

Attack the argument and not the person. If you can challenge the position that the late announcement by Comey followed by the even later “never mind” or the Russian release of the stolen emails had no impact on voters, explain how this would work.

I withdraw my second recommendation. I can think of no way to actually sell this position. I think stay off Twitter makes the most sense.

Your turn. Take a tweet and offer suggestions.

The proof of influence argument drives me crazy. How, looking back on an historical event, do you proof influence? Given the very strange nature of this past election, the popular vote going to the losing candidate, and the narrow margin of victory, the concerns as to what influenced the decisions leading to the outcome will not go away.

This reminds me of the philosopher’s question regarding whether a tree falling in a forest with no one around makes a sound. Logic would suggest that it does, but it is true that there is no way to know.

Social scientists would likely do some study to determine whether a given variable may have been influential. So, for instance, if you could find naive individuals and divide them into two groups. You could ask one group to rate Mr. Trump on 10 point character scale. You could have the second group read the most recent two-page story describing Mr. Trump’s experience with Russian prostitutes and then have this group rate Mr. Trump’s character. If you found a difference in the ratings would you consider that reading the story had an influence?

Not fair. That story was not true (or at least we do not know it was true). Neither, it turns out were speculations of evidence of wrong-doing that were generated by the late Comey letter regarding Clinton’s email. It does not mean that what turned out to be false was not influential when first released.

Thinking about my thought experiment I must say I am not certain that the ratings of character would change. Given what everyone had already seen and heard in Trump’s own words  I guess I am not certain that adding another story would matter.

I was thinking about the latest Buzzfeed and CNN news regarding soon to be President Trump. I can understand why Mr. Trump and Republicans are quick to challenge these descriptions as unsubstantiated. The situation sounds very much like the trick a foreign government would pull in order to threaten a politician in a Tom Clancy thriller.

I must say I don’t really know what to believe anymore, but I think I understand why these tawdry descriptions are getting so much play. Mr. Trump’s behavior during the campaign and other indisputable revelations that shared his previous behavior led everyone to have to deal with his character flaws. He is sexist, racist, and a bully. I can only conclude that his supporters were willing to ignore such traits because they believed his promises of a rosy and carefree future.

A little thought experiment. Should the Russian prostitute story have featured President Obama as the leading character would anyone have seriously believed what they were reading? I just don’t see this as possible – even among the haters. With Trump, the scenario seems consistent and very believable. It might even seem a thing he would brag about to friends.

This is the thing about character. What others believe about our core values provides a context for interpreting our present and portrayed behaviors. I cannot say the things described by Buzzfeed and CNN happened, but what was described would not seem “out of character”. If you brag about grabbing women in an inappropriate way, descriptions of other sexual perversion do not seem that far fetched.

There is one interesting irony in this situation. Presently, you have Mr. Trump complaining about conspiracy theories portraying him in a negative and exploitable way. This reaction from someone who promoted the theory that Mr Obama was not qualified to be President because he was not born a U.S. citizen, that the father of Ted Cruz was involved in the assassination of JFK or that Hillary Clinton was involved in the killing of Seth Rich.

Remember that experession about sowing and reaping? How did that go again?

We have spent time in Russia (my wife has been there several times) and we have Russian friends who now live here and some who still live in Russia. This was posted to Facebook by one of our friends. I offer it here for a couple of reasons. The notion that we can somehow operate in isolation is foolish. We also know first hand that the opinions of the Russian people are just as diverse as the opinions in this country. I am guessing the Russian are far more reserved about expressing themselves. I purposefully avoid sharing the opinion I am aware of because I am concerned as to how voicing some of these comments would be perceived in Russia.

To my knowledge Facebook does not do translations (I am not a big fan). I have asked our friend to explain how this was perceived in Russia.

Here is the government report on Russian hacking. I encourage you to take the time to read the summary and contrast your understanding with what we have been told by Mr Trump. The key judgments section is pretty clear as to who did this and why. Do you interpret the document in the same way as the president-elect?

I think Mr Trump would do well to avoid Twitter. His tweets make him seem impulsive and thin skinned. I understand that he portrays himself as a different type of leader. If this is telling it like it is, this style seems immature and self-absorbed and a character style not likely to encourage confidence.