<commit_before>---
layout: page-fullwidth
title: "#ABetterBernieOrBust"
subheadline: "Thinking Through A Simple Modelof Revolution"
meta_teaser: "The #ABetterBernieOrBust pledge:"
teaser: "The #ABetterBernieOrBust pledge: 1) If the percentage of #ABetterBernieOrBust pledgers among likely Democratic voter exceed Clinton's projected margin of victory in the main election versus Trump, I pledge to #BernieOrBust and vote Green or write-in Bernie. 2) If the percentage of #ABetterBernieOrBust pledgers among likely Democratic voter does not exceed Clintons projected margin of victory in the main election versus Trump, I pledge to vote Clinton in the main election..."
header: no
image:
    thumb:  homepage_typography_thumb.jpg
    homepage: homepage_typography.jpg
    caption: Image by Antonio
    caption_url: "http://www.aisleone.net/"
categories:
    - design
---
<!--more-->

In the small world of a simple mathematical model, revolutions always start from the actions of two classes of people: those who have so much privilege that the cost of a failed revolution are negligible, and those who so underprivileged that all-or-nothing is a survival mechanism, even when the odds of failure are astronomical. 

To begin, let's assume a couple facts about how revolutions happen. First, let us assume that the probability of a successful revolution, **p**, is a function of the number of pledged revolutionaries, **R**. In the context of #BernieOrBust, let this be the number of people who will either vote green, write Bernie in, or just sit at home, rather than vote Clinton. If, by some fantastical stroke of genius, all Bernie supporters could coordinate and agree to not vote Clinton in the main election, such a threat would likely be enough to sway the unpledged delegates to vote Bernie at the Democratic convention (really, we should only need 10-15 percent of Bernie supporter to make such a pledge, in order for loss of democratic votes to be sufficient to exceed Hilary's projected margin over Trump... but I'll leave the numbers to someone else). The only problem here is getting such a massive number of people to coordinate, and do so in a way that is convincing enough to carry political weight. #BernieOrBust, of course, is an attempt at implementing such a coordinated effort, but one that is currently unlike to achieve much. Why? To answer that question, let's turn to the next assumptions our model.

Let us assume that there is some cost, **c**, if a revolution fails, and some benefit, **B**, if the revolution succeeds. Finally, let us assume that individuals in the society are heterogeneous in terms of how much privilege, **Q**, they have. Lets declare that there is some level of privilege, **Q'** below which people will do anything to avoid falling. Let's say that rich, white, young, male progressives have a lot of **Q**, so much so that even if the revolution fails and the pay the cost of failure, **c**, they are really not much worse off. **Q-c** is still a ton of privilege. Lets also note that some people might have so little **Q** that they are below **Q'**, so they can only reach **Q** by gaining **B** from a successful revolution.

So when people talk about #BernieOrBust "throwing underprivileged people under the bus", they should be more clear. If #BernieOrBust fails, then yes a lot of people will suffer from it, especially people with **Q** such that **Q'+c>Q>Q'**. But, if #BernieOrBust isn't tried, then we are throwing all of those people with **Q<Q'** under the bus, and these people, by definition, are *more* underprivileged. 

Before I gave #BernieOrBust a lot of critical thought, I was #BernieOrBust all the way. I am also a financially-stable (sort of), white, young, male progressive, and I was driven by the hope of achieving something great (seeing a president like Bernie in my lifetime); I didn't really take the time to consider the consequences of #BernieOrBust failing, because to me those consequences were for the most part inconsequential (this is being blind to privilege, and this was ignorant of me). In my defense, though, I was thinking a lot of those with **Q<Q'**, for example, people with family in Palestine that are horrified by Clinton's APIC speech, but I didn't give enough thought about how #BernieOrBust could be re-imagined to protect those with **Q'+c>Q>Q'** from consequences if #BernieOrBust doesn't work.

To figure out how to build a better #BernieOrBust, let's think about how the #BernieOrBust revolution happen:

1) Those severely underprivileged with **Q<Q'** and their very privileged allies with **Q>>Q'+c** declare that they are #BernieOrBust.
2) The rest of the population is then forced into some calculus... To join the revolution, or to oppose/ignore it. A given person might look at their own state **Q**, and then ask the question: given the number of current revolutionaries, and thus probability of a successful revolution, should I join the revolution? In other words is the gain of **pB** (if the revolution succeeds) worth risking the loss **(1-p)c** if it fails?
3) As more people join the revolution, **p** increases, and in doing so it further incentivizes others to join the revolution, by increasing the expected gain term and decreasing the expected loss term. 
4) From here, three things can happen. i) #BernieOrBust fizzles out before it grows popular enough to make any significant difference in voter outcomes (the BAD). ii) #BernieOrBust grows barley big enough to split the Democratic vote, so it is ignored by the Democratic establishment, and Trump wins, (the UGLY). Or, iii) #BernieOrBust grows huge, and leads to Bernie winning a challenged convention (the GOOD). It should be noted, that as it stands: the BAD is likely, the UGLY is unlikely but possible, and the GOOD is a fantasy.
5) The issue is that in a population like the United States, with a massively skewed privilege distribution, we find that we get to a point where a great majority of the people just are not willing to risk #BernieOrBust, because the cost of failure for them are just too extreme. This is the range of Bernie supporters with **Q** such that the cost of failure of #BernieOrBust would lead to an unacceptable situation, **Q-(1-p)c<Q'**, for the current **p**. For a lot of people, **c**=Trump is too scary to fuck with.
<commit_msg>Update 2015-11-16-typography.md<commit_after>---
layout: page-fullwidth
title: "#ABetterBernieOrBust"
subheadline: "Thinking Through A Simple Modelof Revolution"
meta_teaser: "The #ABetterBernieOrBust pledge:"
teaser: "The #ABetterBernieOrBust pledge: 1) If the percentage of #ABetterBernieOrBust pledgers among likely Democratic voter exceed Clinton's projected margin of victory in the main election versus Trump, I pledge to #BernieOrBust and vote Green or write-in Bernie. 2) If the percentage of #ABetterBernieOrBust pledgers among likely Democratic voter does not exceed Clintons projected margin of victory in the main election versus Trump, I pledge to vote Clinton in the main election. 

In conjunction these two pledges should also make #ABetterBernieOrBust much more palatable to moderates than #BernieOrBust, increasing the likelihood of us being able to build a critical mass of supporters to make it work. The #ABetterBernieOrBust pledge draws on the same principle for organizing coordination that lets things like Kickstarter work. We know ahead of time that a sufficient level of investment is need to make a project feasible, and any investment in that project is wasted unless it reaches a critical threshold. This frequency-dependent feedback stops small investments from ever accumulating, because the initial investments are very risky bets. However, by forming a collective agreement prior to investment, that funds will only be dispersed if the targeted funding goal is reached, destructive frequency-dependent feedback is cut-off and a mutually beneficial coordination dilemma is easily solved..."
header: no
image:
    thumb:  homepage_typography_thumb.jpg
    homepage: homepage_typography.jpg
    caption: Image by Antonio
    caption_url: "http://www.aisleone.net/"
categories:
    - design
---
<!--more-->

In the small world of a simple mathematical model, revolutions always start from the actions of two classes of people: those who have so much privilege that the cost of a failed revolution are negligible, and those who so underprivileged that all-or-nothing is a survival mechanism, even when the odds of failure are astronomical. 

To begin, let's assume a couple facts about how revolutions happen. First, let us assume that the probability of a successful revolution, **p**, is a function of the number of pledged revolutionaries, **R**. In the context of #BernieOrBust, let this be the number of people who will either vote green, write Bernie in, or just sit at home, rather than vote Clinton. If, by some fantastical stroke of genius, all Bernie supporters could coordinate and agree to not vote Clinton in the main election, such a threat would likely be enough to sway the unpledged delegates to vote Bernie at the Democratic convention (really, we should only need 10-15 percent of Bernie supporter to make such a pledge, in order for loss of democratic votes to be sufficient to exceed Hilary's projected margin over Trump... but I'll leave the numbers to someone else). The only problem here is getting such a massive number of people to coordinate, and do so in a way that is convincing enough to carry political weight. #BernieOrBust, of course, is an attempt at implementing such a coordinated effort, but one that is currently unlike to achieve much. Why? To answer that question, let's turn to the next assumptions our model.

Let us assume that there is some cost, **c**, if a revolution fails, and some benefit, **B**, if the revolution succeeds. Finally, let us assume that individuals in the society are heterogeneous in terms of how much privilege, **Q**, they have. Lets declare that there is some level of privilege, **Q'** below which people will do anything to avoid falling. Let's say that rich, white, young, male progressives have a lot of **Q**, so much so that even if the revolution fails and the pay the cost of failure, **c**, they are really not much worse off. **Q-c** is still a ton of privilege. Lets also note that some people might have so little **Q** that they are below **Q'**, so they can only reach **Q** by gaining **B** from a successful revolution.

So when people talk about #BernieOrBust "throwing underprivileged people under the bus", they should be more clear. If #BernieOrBust fails, then yes a lot of people will suffer from it, especially people with **Q** such that **Q'+c>Q>Q'**. But, if #BernieOrBust isn't tried, then we are throwing all of those people with **Q<Q'** under the bus, and these people, by definition, are *more* underprivileged. 

Before I gave #BernieOrBust a lot of critical thought, I was #BernieOrBust all the way. I am also a financially-stable (sort of), white, young, male progressive, and I was driven by the hope of achieving something great (seeing a president like Bernie in my lifetime); I didn't really take the time to consider the consequences of #BernieOrBust failing, because to me those consequences were for the most part inconsequential (this is being blind to privilege, and this was ignorant of me). In my defense, though, I was thinking a lot of those with **Q<Q'**, for example, people with family in Palestine that are horrified by Clinton's APIC speech, but I didn't give enough thought about how #BernieOrBust could be re-imagined to protect those with **Q'+c>Q>Q'** from consequences if #BernieOrBust doesn't work.

To figure out how to build a better #BernieOrBust, let's think about how the #BernieOrBust revolution happen:

1) Those severely underprivileged with **Q<Q'** and their very privileged allies with **Q>>Q'+c** declare that they are #BernieOrBust.
2) The rest of the population is then forced into some calculus... To join the revolution, or to oppose/ignore it. A given person might look at their own state **Q**, and then ask the question: given the number of current revolutionaries, and thus probability of a successful revolution, should I join the revolution? In other words is the gain of **pB** (if the revolution succeeds) worth risking the loss **(1-p)c** if it fails?
3) As more people join the revolution, **p** increases, and in doing so it further incentivizes others to join the revolution, by increasing the expected gain term and decreasing the expected loss term. 
4) From here, three things can happen. i) #BernieOrBust fizzles out before it grows popular enough to make any significant difference in voter outcomes (the BAD). ii) #BernieOrBust grows barley big enough to split the Democratic vote, so it is ignored by the Democratic establishment, and Trump wins, (the UGLY). Or, iii) #BernieOrBust grows huge, and leads to Bernie winning a challenged convention (the GOOD). It should be noted, that as it stands: the BAD is likely, the UGLY is unlikely but possible, and the GOOD is a fantasy.
5) The issue is that in a population like the United States, with a massively skewed privilege distribution, we find that we get to a point where a great majority of the people just are not willing to risk #BernieOrBust, because the cost of failure for them are just too extreme. This is the range of Bernie supporters with **Q** such that the cost of failure of #BernieOrBust would lead to an unacceptable situation, **Q-(1-p)c<Q'**, for the current **p**. For a lot of people, **c**=Trump is too scary to fuck with.

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