Kolmogorov Complexity and politics...

Submitted by giulio.ruffini on May 21, 2008 - 20:28.

Wouldn't it be great if the culture of compression had an impact in politics? What if voters rewarded efficiency and sparsity in politician's speeches? You know, if Mr Politician A were to give a talk in 3000 words, whereas Ms. Politician B rebutted with same real content in only 1000, I, for one, would vote for B!

When I went to the States as a seventeen year old starting 12th grade, I definitely experienced the so-called culture shock. It is really true, in different places they definitely do things differently, and sometimes the differences are subtle enough. One of the things I remember vividly was the hard time my english teacher gave me on homework essays.  I was told that I was too verbose: why say something in a complicated way when you can say the same in a shorter, simpler way? I had never been told that at home, and the concept was foreign. I complained that saying something in a longer way can be more poetic, carrying more meaning. Now I know that although this may be true sometimes, in general it is the wrong thing to do. Verbosity consumes time, memory and CPU in the reader's brain (which is part of the reason speeches tend to be verbose, if you know what I mean).  And, as it turned out, being concise is much harder! Take poetry, which is actually a form of extreme compression. It is the art of saying something, or more precisely, eliciting something (an image, an emotion, a qualia) using very few, well-chosen words. Not to speak of Haikus! The same phenomenon can be appreciated in other art forms. Less is really more.

Nowadays, when I write a paper the last stage is compression. I try to say it in a shorter, more concise and direct manner.  I want to transmit information, I don't want to consume unnecessary CPU.  And, although I don't know how close to the the KC limit I get, I can assure you I can reduce my prose by as much as 33% length and improve clarity with equal content.

So, next time, consider voting for austere transmission of content. And, of course, truth.