Show Notes for Episode #40

Coming soon to Zulu Radio: yours truly, as one of 5 rotating djs, spinning hip-hop, r&b, and funk. Listen every Saturday 10pm to midnight on KBCS 91.3 fm Bellevue/Seattle or online at KBCS.fm
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Did you know that Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10% of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.  Zeitgeist Colorado. C-O [dot] zeitgeistmovement [dot] com

The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion.

The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals. "When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority," said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer.

"Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame."

Once the social networks were built, the scientists then "sprinkled" in some true believers throughout each of the networks. These people were completely set in their views and unflappable in modifying those beliefs. As those true believers began to converse with those who held the traditional belief system, the tides gradually and then very abruptly began to shift.

"In general, people do not like to have an unpopular opinion and are always seeking to try locally to come to consensus. We set up this dynamic in each of our models," said SCNARC Research Associate and corresponding paper author Sameet Sreenivasan. To accomplish this, each of the individuals in the models "talked" to each other about their opinion. If the listener held the same opinions as the speaker, it reinforced the listener's belief. If the opinion was different, the listener considered it and moved on to talk to another person. If that person also held this new belief, the listener then adopted that belief.

"As agents of change start to convince more and more people, the situation begins to change," Sreenivasan said. "People begin to question their own views at first and then completely adopt the new view to spread it even further. If the true believers just influenced their neighbors, that wouldn't change anything within the larger system, as we saw with percentages less than 10."

The research has broad implications for understanding how opinion spreads. "There are clearly situations in which it helps to know how to efficiently spread some opinion or how to suppress a developing opinion," said Associate Professor of Physics and co-author of the paper Gyorgy Korniss. "Some examples might be the need to quickly convince a town to move before a hurricane or spread new information on the prevention of disease in a rural village."

The researchers are now looking for partners within the social sciences and other fields to compare their computational models to historical examples. They are also looking to study how the percentage might change when input into a model where the society is polarized. Instead of simply holding one traditional view, the society would instead hold two opposing viewpoints. An example of this polarization would be Democrat versus Republican.
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Listener Rebecca C emailed this to us:

"The real deficit lies in the lack of integrity and intelligence in our public officials, and in the ignorant, apathetic public who has allowed this to go on for at least the past half century; this includes financial professionals who, like lawyers, have refused to lift a finger to get at the real root of the problems we are facing.  John  and I did go thru the WA State Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).  while trying to stop the backdoor forced vaccinations bill in the WA state legislature this February; we found that the state not only had a major conflict of interest, with well over a half billion dollars of our money invested in vaccine manufacturers, but also had major investments in the WA State-based transnational/national corporations; whom they refuse to tax in order to maximize their profits thru those of these untaxed corporations.

These corporate taxes, if paid, would erase the current alleged state budget deficit five time over! Furthermore, our governor and state legislature in their great wisdom have, for the second year in a row of this contrived global economic depression, put the public state bank that could have helped solve the alleged state budget deficit in short order on ice.  This was to allow possibly the most corrupt bank in the US, the Bank of America, to continue stealing our money while committing economic genocide on the most vulnerable among us by deliberately cutting public services".

My research:
The budget only covers a small portion of the State's financial condition. There are a group of funds not part of the budget process. The complete list of funds and budgetary requirements are found in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).  This report depicts the complete financial status of the State. The budget only covers a portion of the financial resources of the government. The CAFR usually has four categories: Governmental Funds, Proprietary Funds,  Fiduciary Funds, and Component Units.

The State of Washington at the State-level has approximately $20.28 billion of the taxpayer's money it is not using, i. e. surpluses equal to $3,326 for every man, woman and child in Washington or $13,304 for a family of 4. This does not include all the additional surpluses that exist in the school districts, cities, or counties in Washington. What are these surpluses we refer to?

Government surpluses, as used in this report, are funds that are not required or needed for the operation of all government operations, funds, accounts, agencies, etc., directly or indirectly, for the year(s) covered by the budget which is usually one year. Theoretically, at the end of every fiscal year, governments should have little or no cash/investments on hand. But what we have found is that most governments have huge amounts of cash and investments on hand at the end of the fiscal year. And somehow these cash and investments are not being recycled back through the budget process the next year, but are being held year-after-year.

A Government Can Have a Budget Deficits/Shortfalls and Financial Surpluses At The Same Time: This is the most deceiving topic that governments, politicians, and the news media have conveyed to the public about governmental financial matters. In realty, a government can simultaneously have a budget shortfall and a financial surplus of the taxpayers' money.

The budget only covers a small portion of the State's financial condition. There are a group of funds not part of the budget process. The complete list of funds and budgetary requirements are found in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). This report depicts the complete financial status of the State. The budget only covers a portion of the financial resources of the government. The CAFR usually has four categories: Governmental Funds, Proprietary Funds, Fiduciary Funds, and Component Units. 

Governmental Funds involve activities of the government including most basic services such as environmental resources, general government, transportation, education, health and human services, and protection of persons and property. Most of the cost of these activities are financed by taxes, fees , and federal grants.

Proprietary Funds are used when a government charges customers for the services it provides, whether to outside customers or to other agencies with the state. For example, Enterprise Funds, a component of proprietary funds, are for activities that provide goods and services to outside (non-government) customers, which includes the general public. Fees, charges for services or goods, assessments, fines, licenses, etc. are the major revenue sources.  

Fiduciary Funds are activities in which the state acts as a trustee or fiduciary to hold resources for the benefit of others. These funds are pension trust funds, investment trusts, and agency funds (which are for assets held for distribution by the government as an agent for other governmental units, other organizations, or individuals).

Component Units reportedly are legally separated organizations for which the government is financially accountable. Usually fees, charges for services or goods, assessments, fines, penalties, licenses, etc. are the major revenue source.  The budget, as commonly known to the public, only involves the Governmental Funds and may not even include all of the governmental-type funds.

The remainder of the Funds shown above are not part of the budget and are commonly called "off-budget" items. Normally, next year's budget consists only of next year's estimated revenues and next year's estimated expenditures. Previous years' revenues not used (spent) are normally not considered in the next year's budget.