Friam Digest, Vol 38, Issue 3

[Phil Henshaw-2]

I prefer the possibility that the curve is unique to this occasion,
but don't doubt that many presidents get elected on false promises
that then cause disappointment.   Maybe here it's the other way
around.  That at 9/11 the American public let Bush into commiting to a
war he couldn't handle, even as the public's belief in retaliation was
in rapid decay.   The point more being that seeing these long regular
complex creative processes in consistent measures is about the best
information we have about them.   It's not the holy grail, but it's a
start.

> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > I'm very pleased you also see the curve as reflecting a pattern in
the
> > phenomenon of public trust
> I said it was reasonable to posit that.  Also reasonable to posit
other
> things to find the model that explains the most while assuming the
> least, e.g. that `trust' is something all people seek, and thus some
> kind of universal explanation for human inclinations.
> > I think you're right on to observe that
> > the decay pattern started *prior* to any of the big mistakes that
later
> > confirmed it.    One thing that might produce that pattern is
excessive
> > original expectations, that we may have had 'irrational
exuberance' for
> > things we thought we could do about 9/11 and as a community, we
held on
> > to the desire to retaliate even as our ability to believe it
possible
> > kept getting steadily harder and harder...  
> >  
> Actually I meant the period prior to 9/11.  There appears to be a
> downward trend there too.
>
> A contrasting hypothesis being roughly "Things go bad for typical
> presidents in this democracy, it's just a question of how fast."  
Put
> another way, that intensity of presidential criticism scales with
time,
> automatically as a general collective protection mechanism.  As
> cumulative deaths in Iraq are necessarily only increasing, and
> popularity is going down steadily, it's no surprise to see a
> correlation.  (And they say this.)  I find the volatility and change
> plots in the paper more convincing correlates of Iraq-related
events,
> e.g. figure 6 and 8.  And really not a big difference in Table 2
> comparing change in log gas price vs. cumulative U.S. deaths in
Iraq /
> 1000.  It would be interesting to see what they find should they
look at

> local trend models, as they indicate they want to (page 20).
>
> Marcus
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>

--
Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: sy at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com