Human Computers and the Space Race

     Hidden Figures (2016) [D: Theodore Melfi. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, et al.] Three black women, Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) working at the Langley Research Centre  as computers (human calculating machines) figure prominently in the calculation of the  numbers needed to plan and fly the first US manned flights into space. This history was until recently known to very few people.
     The movie does a good job of telling their story. Sensibly, I think, it focuses on the work they did, with enough backstory about their families, and references to the racial tensions that a few years later erupted into the civil rights movement, to give some sense of them as real people.
     The movie shows us what it’s like to do a good job. Like Sully, it’s about people doing their best, managing to achieve their goals despite the social and psychological constraints that burden us all, and some more than others. The movie makers knew how to convey the tension of actual and incipient failure, and the relief and joy of success. The human interactions are touched on lightly. One thing that comes across very well is the awareness that small errors could kill, and small errors are inevitable when calculating results based on numbers with built-in measurement uncertainty. We also see that professional pride and competitiveness may endanger the people who rely on those calculations to keep them safe. A rocket is a slow-burning bomb. Riding one into near-Earth orbit is always dangerous.
     I liked the movie. It’s depiction of Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary is perhaps a tad too self-congratulating (I think the sheer grind of being black in a segregated State was glossed over, not to mention the fear of random harassment or worse), but on the whole the movie had the ring of truth. Above all, it's a movie about work. The "hidden figures" faced obstacles that many, perhaps most of us, would not have even tried to overcome, but they did. They did so because they wanted to do the job right. Their greatness lies in their refusal to let anything get in the way. The greatness of the white characters, especially Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) the team leader, is that they shared that passion for getting it right.
     It’s a feel-good movie for sure. It takes us back to the days when America tried to be the best it could be, and when we formed the memories that make us pine for the days of greatness. ***½

2020 02 24: Katherine Johnson died today.

Mystic Landscapes

[At the Art Gallery of Ontario, extended to February 12 2017]
     An educational show, arranged to lead the viewer through a contemplation of how landscape and landscape painting may satisfy spiritual longings. As such, it works, but I was far more interested in the pictures themselves than in the curator’s notions of mysticism and spirituality. So I did not listen to the audio guide (free), and avoided reading the introductory comments in each room.
     So then, as a collection landscape pictures, how well does it work? Variable. You will see Canadian and other impressionists, Harris of course,  some modern emulators of medieval and renaissance painting, abstract and realistic pictures, expressionists, in short a pretty good survey of styles. I was especially impressed by the large paintings of Eugène Jansson (here’s one), and a dark landscape by Schiele, which was not easy to read, but had a powerful effect on me. The disfigured landscapes painted by war artists also moved me. There were two Monet haystacks, they look like cupcakes.
      Besides Jansson, a number of other painters were new to me. The last room, about “cosmic forces” or something like that, showed brightly lit pictures mounted on dark walls. It felt gimmicky to me, but two small Georgia O’Keeffes and a couple by Arthur Dove (new to me also) were satisfying.
      The show is worth seeing. The thesis of the show is a good excuse to bring together a wide range of styles. The opportunity to see artists that most of us would otherwise ignore, tyrannised as we are by the concept of importance, is a bonus. Some pictures ****, most ** or ***, the show as a whole ***½

King Donald

Wow! It looks like Trump and I agree on one thing, anyhow: The US President is an elected monarchy. That perception isn't mine, but I agree it's the best way to understand a head of government who is also a head of state.

But Trump is a but fuzzy on the concept, to put it politely. His claim that the President has a "sovereign prerogative" shows he thinks a King has absolute power. No mere judge may criticise, let alone set aside, an executive order.

I doubt very much that Trump came up with phrase by himself. So who's the power behind the throne, pulling the strings?

Politics 101: Proportional voting

The kerfuffle has died down, but I suspect that the rage of the extremist supporters of proportional voting will resurface during the next election in 2020. (2017-02-27)

Right now, there’s a kerfuffle about Justin Trudeau’s backtracking on changing Canada’s electoral system. He promised that 2016 would be the last election using first-past-the-post or  plurality voting. Some form of proportional representation would replace it.

A lot of people don’t like plurality voting. We have three strong parties: Conservative, Liberal, and New Democratic, each with regional strengths and weaknesses. The Green Party regularly gains 3 to 5% across all ridings (1), and wins in one. In addition we have the Bloc Quebecois, a purely local party, but which has won large numbers of Quebec seats in the past. Each major party wins majorities in some seats, and all have widely varying regional support. The Liberals tend to win in the East, and the Conservatives in the West. The NDP is mostly urban.

The result is that national support between 35 and 40% is enough to form a government. (2) If enough people vote their support rather than their opposition, we tend to get minority governments, in which no Party holds a majority of the seats.

People give various reasons for thinking this is an unfair system. Chief of these is this observation: with roughly 40% support and a roughly 60% voter turnout, about 25% of voters voted for the government, while 75% voted against it. It seems manifestly unfair that only one in four voters determine who governs. Worse, the distribution of seats does not reflect popular support. What about the values and views of those whose vote was cast differently? They will not be heard, it seems. What about people who voted for a losing party? Their vote doesn’t count, it seems. So why vote?

Let’s dispose of the unfairness argument immediately. There is in fact no fair voting system. Several mathematical proofs and demonstrations show that all systems can (and therefore sooner or later will) produce results that most voters do not like. Some will do so most of the time.

Plurality with three or more strong parties magnifies the difference between popular support and distribution of seats, which practically guarantees voter dissatisfaction.

Ranked voting tends to favour second and third choices, practically guaranteeing weak support for the government. Weak support translates into dissatisfaction very quickly.

Runoff voting, like plurality, magnifies the difference between popular support and seats won, since it masks low support for the eventual winner.  Like ranked voting, it guarantees weak support for the government.

Proportional voting almost always results in minority governments, which usually require formal or informal coalitions. Coalitions magnify the power of minority views and values, and of single-issue parties, which tend to be extreme. (3)

In short, all voting systems will skew the vote one way or another. They all cause different kinds of mismatch between what people want and what they get.

So the question becomes not, What kind of voting system do you want? but rather, What kind of skewed voting or unfairness can you accept, and why? And the complementary one, What kind of unfairness can you not tolerate, and why?

I do not like “proportional representation”, as its supporters usually term it. I have two reasons, the magnification of extreme views, and the magnification of the power of the Party.

Proportional representation encourages the formation of parties with extreme views. Three or more strong parties will result in minority government. That forces collaboration and even coalition. That’s a good thing, and if politics were on the whole a process for reasonable people to figure out what they want to do and how to do it, I’d have no qualms. But politics is about power, and in the pursuit of power people are not reasonable. To achieve a working majority, the government may have to act on extreme views from one or more small parties to ensure the votes it needs. If it can’t do that, there’s instability. (4)

I don’t like extreme views. They are always held by a minority, thus not only do not reflect the majority view, but always oppose them. Holders of extreme views are generally incapable of admitting the validity of different ones, not even those that are similar. That’s a recipe for trouble, of political and civil divisions, and, too often, bloodshed. Any voting system that gives extreme views more effective power than their numbers warrant is bad. (5) Proportional representation encourages people with extreme views to form Parties, knowing that the odds are that they will get at least a seat or two, and with luck may use those few seats to exert influence on the coalition.

Proportional representation always means slates of candidates, one way or another. (6) Slates are determined by Parties. This means that the power of the Party machine becomes stronger. The Party machine does not like local control of candidate selection, since that makes it easier for a group of  determined local voters to frustrate the will of the Party. Slates make it easier for the machine to prevent that.

I prefer the plurality system, despite its flaws, because it magnifies local control, and it forces all parties to appeal as best they can to the average voter, the so-called mushy middle. There we find a variety of political views and values, ideas that often contradict each other, and the human inconsistency that makes collaboration not only possible but necessary. Parties that have to appeal to that mushy middle don’t drift too far to the left or right. When they begin to do so, they are replaced by the other party.

Bottom line: I don’t mind that Trudeau backtracked on his promise. If I had to choose another system, I’d go with runoffs. Ranked voting does not predict run-off voting, which forces the voter to think twice, which tends to change people’s minds.

Notes:
(1) A riding is an electoral district. We elect “Members of Parliament” who sit in the House of Commons. We do not elect Senators.
(2) The Party that wins the most seats forms the government. If it has less than half the seats, it’s a “minority government”.
(3) Neither the Bolsheviks nor the Nazis won a majority of seats before they came to power.
(4) See Italy, which changes its government about every 18 months.
(5) See Israel. Most Israelis want peace with the Palestinians, but the government is hamstrung by extreme right-wing nationalist parties whose votes it needs.
(6) Slates are ranked by the Party. If your Party wins 10 seats, you’ve voted for the top 10 members of the Party list, whether you want them all or not.

Update 2020: Trudeau called an election in 2019, and achieved a minority, largely because the Conservatives had a gormless leader in Andrew Scheer, and because regional loyalties in Quebec and the West outweighed national ones. The Green elected three members, a major win for them.
     Scheer tried to look like your friendly barbecuing neighbour, but couldn't convince enough people that he enjoyed a beer. He actually looked like the hustling insurance salesman he claimed to be but wasn't. The knives came out almost immediately. Scheer also "won the popular vote", which is true if one ignores the fact that the lemming-like mass-vote for the Conservatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan made up that surplus "popular vote."
     The current covid-19 pandemic has given Canadian leaders the opportunity to act, and to look like they know what they're doing. Both Trudeau and Doug Ford (Premier of Ontario) surprised by their competence and caring. The Conservatives could have placed themselves as supportive, caring, and constructive critics of Trudeau's measures, but instead fell back on whinging about debt. The two seekers for the party leadership have not made much of a positive impression on non-Conservatives, and probably not even on Conservatives.
     Would proportional voting have made much of a difference to the current Parliament? Possibly, depending on the system adopted. That heavily regional "popular vote" win would have given Alberta and Saskatchewan too much power over the rest of Canada, which would increase the regional divisions. I doubt that a Conservative government would have rushed to create the financial supports created by the Trudeau Liberals with Bloc and NDP support. It's significant that Doug Ford, a small-c conservative by instinct, praises the co-operation between his Conservative Provincial Government and the Federal Liberals.