Introduction to Half Sigma

My last blog, The Calico Cat, was probably classified as a Republican leaning blog. But I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the Republican party now exists to primarily serve two constituencies: (1) the wealthiest 1%; and (2) the Christian Right. Since I’m not a member of either group, I don’t see the point of continuing to identify as a Republican.

The Democratic Party, as much as it would like to claim the mantle of representing the average American, usually represents a bizarre web of special interests and political correctness.

I also gave up on being a libertarian. Pure libertarianism just doesn’t work because, when left to themselves, people pursue agendas to benefit themselves at the expense of society. The extremist ideas favored by the Libertarian Party and the people who post over at the Mises Economics Blog ignore human nature and are just too stupid to support.

Then there is the fact that everything Ayn Rand wrote was just plain dumb. (At least her two huge novels were dumb, I never read her other stuff.) One day, maybe I’ll write an essay about why Galt’s Gulch, the society envisioned in Atlas Shrugged could never work. Or why a guy like Howard Roark (the protagonist in The Fountainhead) is doomed to failure in any society with more than two people in it.

Therefore, given the failed philosophies of Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians, I’ve created this blog, Half Sigma, based on the new politics of common sense.

Why Half Sigma? Perhaps you’ve heard of six sigma, a term from manufacturing that’s supposed to represent only 3.4 defects per million. Why not name my new blog six sigma? Besides the obvious problem that the sixsigma.com domain name was already taken, the less obvious issue is that no one is right all the time when it comes to politics or the social sciences.

Half sigma represents 38% of the normal distribution (assuming half a sigma on each side of the median). Being right 38% of the time, while seemingly humble, is actually pretty darn good when each problem has several solutions. Half sigma reminds us that we don’t live in a world where all the questions are true/false, even though our two party system unfortunately leads some to believe that.

When have I been wrong? Well, I was completely convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destructions. I was wrong about that. (Of course, if Collin Powell said that Saddam had WMD, why should I have disbelieved him?)

I also thought that getting a law degree from Arizona State University was a good idea. Boy was I wrong about that!

Comments

[Scott S]

Can you expand on this:

"I also gave up on being a libertarian. Pure libertarianism just doesn’t work because, when left to themselves, people pursue agendas to benefit themselves at the expense of society."

Society being nothing more than a collection of individuals sharing a geography (and under the same government), and libertarianism (in any form I'm aware of) believing in the protection of individual rights - including contract violations - I'm not sure where you get the above ideas. People *always* act in their self-interest (which doesn't preclude people from helping others), and government is not immune from any corruption issues when people have power over others. So it seems any problems one may have with letting people have freedom, goes doubly so for any claims that government should tell people what they may or may not do.

I'd be interesting in a blog entry that explains your distaste for libertarianism further.

By the way, I came across your blog via Mises.org, where you recently commented to an article.

[Half Sigma]

Scott asks a worthy question. I promise that if you keep reading my blog, the problems with libertarianism will eventually be revealed.

[David Rossie]

"Half sigma represents 38% of the normal distribution (assuming half a sigma on each side of the median). Being right 38% of the time, while seemingly humble, is actually pretty darn good when each problem has several solutions. "

When the number of possible solutions increases, shouldn't the likelihood of being correct increase as well? Just a friendly nitpick... Anyway, do you mean to say that you're correct roughly one third of the time, or that you agree with the political "consensus" one third of the time?

And I'm with Scott; I'd like to see why libertarianism is unworkable.

Your blog looks interesting. As long as you don't adhere to the half-sigma solution for all issues (where being middle of the road on most issues is your political philosophy), I can see where you would fill a niche in the blogosphere that currently lacking representation. Open-minded thought is crucial, as are different methods. I think libertarians are much more open-minded in many ways than are the majority of R's and D's, but as a consequentialist I sympathize and wish to work with thoughtful approaches that use varying methods and philosophies, where we libs can be fairly rigid individually.