I Am NOT a Politician – The Non-Virtuous Cycle.

Here’s my rant on the rabbit hole of internet-based algorithmic faith.

 I’ve been a long-time reader of the economist Paul Krugman who for many years regularly contributed columns to the New York Times on economics, (very) often shading into politics. I am no fan of the 2nd Bush, who in my opinion should never, ever be forgiven for, together with his enablers Rumsfeld and Cheney, sending a decent man, General Colin Powell, to the UN with a bunch of glossy 8 x 10’s purporting to show weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That aside, I kind of felt Krugman was a bit hyperbolic in his criticisms of Bush, and the Republican economics of the time. Nonetheless, time and numbers told the story, mostly in Professor Krugman’s favor.  As a scientist I find it vexing when a Nobel-prize winning know-it-all (and an economist at that!!) turns out to be mostly right most of the time (and can even issue a slant-wise mea culpa when he misses the mark). At some point you have to give in, and believe this guy knows his stuff. As a scientist who takes seriously the role of jaded skeptic, it's a pretty small cadre of folks who I would say really ‘know their stuff’.

So, here’s the thing. Since Krugman has retired from the NYT, he is still writing pieces on Substack. Somehow a link to one of his Substack pieces ended up in my personal email inbox. So, I clicked on it. The article was short, and to the point, a critique of tariffs. Then when I looked at my email a few hours later, there were additional offerings from Helen Cox Richardson (IMO, another ‘knows their right stuff’ person), Jim Acosta, and a couple of others. Then, within 48h, 80 the 100 emails that arrived in my inbox were exhortations to follow a ‘treasure trove’ of posts.  I think, or assume, these are all coming from Substack, and clearly intended to pique my interest in what other like-minded folks are saying. I feel I am being led down a rabbit-hole, and one that I could see willingly giving into, since I expect I am on the right side of 0 – 100 scale bell curve in terms of sharing the political view of these folks, with 0 being the most rapid MAGA types and 100 being well to the left of AOC.

I did click on one of the emails, and with one convenient additional click, it took me to a conversation between a woman and Jim Acosta (long-time CNN journalist). It was very weird, each was sitting in a room in their homes in comfortable clothes, having an intelligent conversation about how The Convicted Felon v2 sycophants are so much more sycophantic than the crowd from Round 1 -- a point that I totally agree with.  Nonetheless, on the chat forum imposed on the screen was a constant stream of folks commenting, mostly inane things, and often saying how scared they are about things, and some weird little thing that was spewing heart emojis all over the comments. While the repartee was insightful, the whole scenario was absolutely bizarre, and then going to my email, and seeing I could spend all my waking hours firmly ensconced on my side of the political Bell Curve was actually quite terrifying. Were I to succumb to this barrage, I suspect that within two or three days, I would be adding my own inane comments, and spewing heart emoji’s. In the spirit of objectivity, it’s easy to do the thought experiment of wondering what’s going on over on the left side of the bell curve, where I expect the vitriol is hyperbolic and conspiracy theories rule, the only interesting bit of curiosity would be whether the emoji’s were poops or hearts.

It brought home in exponential terms the power of algorithms to focus political debate along a narrow path that defocuses the wide variety of opinions shared across the electorate. So, here’s a simple point, get your head out of your algorithm and live life! Sample along the Bell Curve, and not in the narrow range you are most comfortable with! I suppose by having my own blog site I could accused of creating my own little algorithmic bubble. Of course, the beauty of having a blog no one reads is that I worry nary a hair on my head about this.