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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (13259)	2/24/2006 5:24:44 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541673

"The Foolishness of Crowds: Reflections on the Ports Controversy Time for a pop quiz on one of the most controversial current events-- the sale of six U.S. port operations contracts to a firm located in a foreign country. Without the aid of resources see how many of these questions you can answer: (1) Identify the five ports that will be affected by this deal. (2) What organization is currently responsible for the security of these ports? After the deal is approved, what organization will be responsible for the security of these ports? (3) What company currently holds the contract on these ports? In what country is that company based? (4) What company will hold the contract on these ports? In what country is that company based? (For extra credit: Locate that country on this map.) map1.gif (5) Explain what functions this contract will allow the company to perform. (6) Explain the term “stevedore company” and explain why it is relevant to this issue. As a reader of blogs, you are more likely than most Americans to be an avid news watcher and generally more well-informed than the average citizen. Yet I suspect that you were unable to answer most of these basic questions. Assuming that you have a strong opinion on this controversy, what are you basing it on if not the facts? Hugh Hewitt believes that it is based on the “intuition” that the deal would make America more vulnerable to terrorist attack: “The widespread negative reaction suggests a "Wisdom of Crowds" moment that the Administration should study closely,” says Hugh, referencing a book written by James Surowiecki. While I generally respect and agree with Hugh’s analysis on political matters, I believe that he not only is wrong on this point but that it provides an example of the “foolishness of crowds.” In his book, Surowiecki outlines four elements required to form a “wise crowd”: * Diversity of opinion: Each person should have private information even if it's just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts. * Independence: People's opinions aren't determined by the opinions of those around them. * Decentralization: People are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge. * Aggregation: Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision. On this controversy, most people are not only unaware of the known facts, but are confused about what they think is relevant information. Too much emphasis, for example, is being put on the geographic location of Dubai Ports World while ignoring the task the company will be performing (stevedoring) and how it is actually carried out. Surowiecki also claims that when the members of the crowd are too conscious of the opinions of others they begin to emulate each other and conform rather than think differently. He asserts that when the decision making environment is too centralized, too divided, or too imitative, the benefits of individual judgments and private information are lost and that the crowd will not be more “wise” than the experts. This appears to be exactly what is happening in this situation. An “information cascade” based on faulty information and xenophobic attitudes skew the relevant data. Take, for instance, Hugh’s explanation of the why people are concerned about the deal: That intuition is not based on crude typecasting of all UAE citizens as potential terrorists. Rather, it seems to be based on a general understanding that (1) big, successful crimes involve either extensive surveillance and/or cooperation by an "insider," and that (2) ownership of the port operations by the UAE increases the likelihood of both. The second point appears to be based on a simply misunderstanding. The local Port Administration Authority will continue to "run" the port of public terminals while the private terminal operators will continue to run their own terminals. What DP World will be is the stevedore company that hires longshoremen to load and unload cargo from ships. The media has given the impression that the people hired by DP World will be Al Qaeda operatives shipped in from the Middle East rather than longshoremen from the local cities and states in which the ports are located. The fact is that the vast majority of the cargo handling in the six U.S. ports is done by union labor, card carrying members of the International Longshoreman’s Association. If an act of terrorism is committed by an “insider” they will not only be a member of Al Qaeda but also of the AFL-CIO. Are terrorists more likely to become dock worker simply because a DP World recently acquired the British-based firm that currently holds the stevedoring contract on these ports? Perhaps. But then the solution would simply be to institute a program of racial and/or religious profiling in order to prevent an insider from gaining a foothold in the local union. If security is truly the concern then we should simply deny union membership to anyone who fits the profile of a terrorist. We can simply say that if you are a young, male, Arab, Muslim, that you cannot get a job as a longshoreman. Resorting to such racial profiling, however, would signal to the world that Americans are—much like the people who were outraged over the Danish cartoons--irrational xenophobes who allow their emotions to replace their reason. Instead, we prefer to express our prejudice indirectly, by profiling a company based on the country of origin. (The fact that this country happens to be one of our stronger allies in the GWOT doesn’t seem to matter.) It still makes us look foolish, but at least we can be foolish as a crowd. Answers (1) New York and New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Miami, Florida; and New Orleans, Louisiana. (2) The U.S. Coast Guard; the U.S. Coast Guard (3) Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation (P&O Ports); the United Kingdom (4) Dubai Ports World (DP World), the United Arab Emigrates (5) Allows the firm to bid competitively for contracts to handle the containers and other cargoes coming off or loading on to ships. (6) A stevedore company is one that hires longshoremen to load and unload cargo from ships; this is the type of work that P&O Ports does that DP World will be taking over. Posted by Joe Carter" evangelicaloutpost.com