Mathematicians (and many others but in slightly different contexts) speak of "metrics" and "metric spaces" as alternative ways of measuring what is commonly called the distance between points A and B. Basically, it comes down to the fact that you can judge the distance from, say, your house to your mother's house in a variety of ways:
- in miles (or kilometers)
- in the time it takes you to get there
but also by...
- how tired you are when you get there (if you are walking).
- how many bus stops lie between your house and your mother's house (if you're taking the bus and don't like having to stop all over the place)
A math metric should always have a few certain "obvious" properties. For example, the metric distance between points A and B should be the same as between B and A. That's plausible, right?
Well, it's certainly true for point 1, above. But points 2 and 3 fail the test because your mother may live on a hill (and the time may depend on whether you leave at morning, noon, or night, etc.). If we assume that the number of bus stops in one direction is the same as it is in another, then point 4 passes the test.
In case 4, assume there are only two bus stops: one at your house and one at your mother's. Then in the "bus metric" the distance between your house and your mother's is the number 2.
It's kind of fascinating (and useful) because two points can be close in one metric and far away from each other in another.
As mentioned in the beginning, we have similar "non-mathematical metrics" in our everyday lives. One person's measure of success or intelligence may not be another person's. A prime example I've heard is that in some American Indian tribes, intelligence was measured by who could weave the best baskets. If you didn't know how to weave at all, your mind was just a blank slate.
Moving to politics, throughout the primary, Hillary Clinton proposed several "alternative measurements" for what constitutes a win....
Hillary's argument: Obama and I ran the 100m (6+ / 0-)
race and he won on time, but I'm really sure the crowd was cheering for me louder.
What actually got me started on this diary was this comment by pvlb:
Don't even get me started on the (11+ / 0-)
Family averse nature of the US.
From the lack of paid maternity leave (up to 2 years in some European countries), to universal health care, to subsidized child care staffed by degreed professionals, to reasonable amounts of paid vacation annually (starting at 4 weeks in a lot of countries), to virtually no-cost education through University, to life expectancy, to infant mortality etc. etc. etc. the US compares abysmally to other industrialized nations.
We 'have' to have two earner households, because otherwise we could not afford to even think about having a family, and yet having the family keeps us from BEING a family.
I try not to think about how fucked up the US is in this regard, because when I do, my blood pressure just goes nuts.
Never get the mothers too angry.
by pvlb on Fri Jun 06, 2008 at 05:49:29 PM PDT
Here's the problem: the current U.S. government uses a different measurement "i.e. metric" in defining the term prosperous and powerful country.
Imo, U.S. prosperous and powerful:
1. bombs and bullets overflowing arsenals, bases all over the world.
2. other countries look at you in fear and awe
3. all authority centered behind a Commander-in-Chief "father figure"
4. etc.
I believe military personnel are first and foremost people just like everyone else. That means I support the military not when I send them off to battle to die (duh) but when I give them healthcare and a college education and affordable food prices, among other things.
My own version of a prosperous and powerful country:
- All points listed by pvlb, above, including the following items:
- Takes good care of it's prisoners. Somewhat unsure, but wasn't it Nelson Mandela who said you can judge the soul of a country by how well it treats it's prisoners? To the last sentence I would add by what percentage of its population it chooses to lock up behind bars as the U.S. beats out every other country in the world in this regard (not just the "Western, industrialized ones").
- Is confident in itself to the extent that it isn't worried about attacking every last guy riding a donkey somewhere who says "Down with America!". These guys have children and cousins (and great-great-grandcousins if you know what I mean) who often have absolutely nothing to live for as it is. Killing them just spawns recruitment because a poor teenage boy whose father and role model has been killed may find he suddenly does have something to live for: I'll leave it to your own imagination to decide what for.
Ever wonder whether Osama's metric for destroying the US is not to actually level our country, but to change our Western way of lives to match that of fundamentalism? If that's so, then I guess the joke's on us. It's also strangely logical: Why eliminate someone when you can have a partner in crime?
Bridging a gap between two political parties. I understand conservatives generally like to lower taxes and liberals like to raise taxes to pay for "Commi junk like universal health care". Don't let the conservatives frame this issue as simply as above! Going back up to pvlb's point about maternal leave, conservatives will say: You've got to raise taxes to pay for it (note: the quick answer to this is that "no, you just have to bring the troops home"). Not so fast: taxes may have to be raised, but we as progressives should be more than willing to give lucrative tax benefits (effectively lowering taxes for corporations) to companies who provide their employees maternal (and preferably some paternal) leave.
I look forward to reading your own metrics for progressive, prosperous, powerful in the comments.