Cold War Continues in North Korea

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Summary
North Korea is an interesting country that is largely (socially) isolated from the rest of the world. VBS Co-Founder Shane Smith managed to get into the country during their increased allowance for tourists to watch the Mass Games (the latest one was called "Arirang").

The videos are long, but fascinating.
Enjoy.

Part 1

(Video: VBS)

Part 2

(Video: VBS)

Part 3

(Video: VBS)

Rules, Discretion, Appeals & Audit

Summary
Many decisions in life require a delicate balance of trade-offs in order to get the best results. Recent examples highlight the need to restore such balance to everyday policies especially for so-called "Zero-Tolerance" policies.

(Photo: Wikimedia)

Commentary
Schneier wrote a nice article on zero-tolerance policies which he refers to as "zero-discretion" policies. He brings up the recent story of the cub scout who brought a camping utensil to school as an example of an unbalanced policy gone awry.

Zero-discretion policies stem from the need to avoid inappropriate discrimination, that is to be "fair". To that end, no discrimination-- no matter how warranted-- must be allowed. You know you're dealing with a zero-discretion policy when the enforcer of the policy agrees with you, but "those are the rules, I can't do anything about it."

Schneier recommends a four-pronged solution:

1. Rules - Start with the rules & procedures.
2. Discretion - Throw in a dash of discretion to taste.
3. Appleals - Add plenty of opportunities for people to appeal.
4. Audit - Stir occasionally to ensure smooth consistency.

In short, provide some room for interpretation (discretion), and then make sure that that room doesn't get abused (appeals & audit).

Meta
What are some examples of situations where you've encountered "zero-tolerance" policies?

Arrow's Impossibility Theorm

I seem to be posting a lot about paradoxes recently. I'll probably take a little break from paradoxes after this one.

Summary
In 1951, Kenneth Arrow demonstrated that it is not possible to have a "fair" voting system that satisfied the following three criteria (imagine the group is voting on which fruit to eat: apples or pears):

1. If every voter prefers apples to pears, then the group prefers apples to pears. (Sound familiar? It's called Pareto efficiency.)
2. If every voter prefers apples to pears, then even if bananas are added to the set of options, the group will still prefer apples to pears.
3. There is no dictator.

This is known as Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.

(Photo: Wikimedia)

Commentary
The actual details of the theorem are interesting, and I refer you to Wikipedia (for those who are interested). There are situations, however where item 2 (where we added bananas) doesn't hold: imagine the game rocks-paper-scissors. In such a case, adding an alternative transforms the straightforward choice into a cyclic choice. I sometimes see this scenario when people compare different aspects of multiple candidates' platforms (or when they're choosing which car / laptop / soap / pants to purchase).

Sometimes, the trade-offs are hard; but sometimes they're impossible.

Dan Bull Sings Open Letters

Summary
Dan Bull, a musician, has written an interesting open letter to Lord Mandelson on the subject of disconnecting people from the Internet on the basis of alleged copyright violations. Below that, I include his previous open letter to Lilly Allen on a similar subject.
Enjoy.

(Video: YouTube)

(Video: YouTube)

Fairness: Equity, Equality and Relative Need

Conjecture
When people discuss "fairness" they are actually referring to either equity, equality or relative need. Or (like children) they mean "it's not what I want."

Definitions
Equity is how a checkout line (queue) works: people line up and are served in order. This is also know as "first-come, first-serve." Notice that we don't randomly select among the customers waiting to be served (equality) nor do we order the customers by the number of items in their cart (relative need).

(Photo: Wikimedia)

Equality is how a one-ticket-per-person raffle works. Assuming the winning ticket is chosen at random, the probability of winning is the same for each ticket-holder. We don't award the prize to the first person who buys a ticket (equity), nor do we award the prize to whomever wants or needs it the most (relative need).

Relative need is how an emergency room works. If Alice is waiting to have a splinter removed and Bob needs immediate surgery, the relative needs of Bob take priority over the needs of Alice and Bob is served first. While in some cases, we'd process patients in the order in which they arrived (equity), it seems rather arbitrary to select patients at random (equality).

Example
A simple example is affirmative action. Both sides of the debate tend to complain about "fairness," yet both refer to different policies. One side demands equality or equity, while the other wants a policy of relative need. Of course, such realizations do not solve the problems involved, but they do clarify the locus of dispute.

Meta
How do we decide which policy of "fairness" to apply in a given situation?