Making Decisions: Individually and Collectively
The decisions are up to us, whether we act by ourselves or together.
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Truth and Consequences
I’ve spent most of my career involved with how decisions are made. In industry, that’s been focused on working with and leading teams developing some of the most advanced decision-making technology systems and helping people use data to make better decisions. [1] In public life, I’ve served on various committees and commissions to make group decisions on topics including local land use, climate change, civil service protections, traffic and transportation, and campaign finance reform. [2]
It's been a primary focus for me; in fact, the first line of my online LinkedIn bio is: “I help people and computers make better decisions.” [3]
While I won’t go into too much technical detail here (maybe a future post…), decisions do all start with a question, one that can be answered “yes” or “no.” We might be more familiar with similar questions that race through our minds every day:
“Should I speak up or not?”
“Should I buy this rotisserie chicken or not?”
“Should I go the gym or not?”
Most of the time, these get asked and answered very quickly - so much so that we likely don’t recognize them explicitly as questions we are in fact asking and answering.
More technically, this question is called a hypothesis test (even more technically, this is referred to as a binary hypothesis test… [4]) – the decision we make is really a test between two hypotheses (we should answer our question with either a “yes” or a “no”).
A key thing to remember here is that our decisions are not certain; there is no absolute right answer or wrong answer to these questions. We’re not striving to make the right decision; we can only try to make the best decision. The world is filled with uncertainty, and we likely don’t always have all the information, yet we still need to make decisions.
So, how do we test this? First, we have some information on which we’re going to base our decisions. How likely is it that what we’re seeing is because the best answer is “yes” versus that the best answer is “no”? Well, there is a method for this.
Here’s an example. Let’s say someone says that they have a coin, and we are told that it could be a fair coin (with one side as heads and the other as tails), or it’s a biased coin (with both sides being heads).
Our question becomes “is this a fair coin (“yes” or “no”)?” To answer this, we can ask for the coin to be flipped and look at the results.
Let’s say we flip the coin once, and it comes up heads. Given this, how would you answer our question? Well, we compare how likely it is to see heads after one coin flip under each condition. If the coin were fair, there’s a 50% chance we’d see heads; if the coin were biased, there’s a 100% chance of seeing heads.
We now compare the two likelihoods into what we call the likelihood ratio [5], and we’d see that, given our observation of heads on a single coin flip, it’s twice as likely to be a biased coin than fair coin.
So, what’s your decision? Is the coin fair or biased? Is being twice as likely good enough for you to make a call? Maybe we ask for more information…
Let’s say the person flipped the coin two more times, and it came up heads in each case; now we have three coin flips in a row coming up heads. While it’s 100% likely for a biased coin to result in these results, it’s not impossible for a fair coin to end up this way; there’s a 1-in-8 chance that this happens. Our likelihood ratio is eight times more likely to be a biased coin, based on our observations.
So, are you more comfortable deciding that the coin is biased?
What if you faced a pretty big penalty for getting it wrong? For example, you might perceive a backlash by accusing the coin flipper of presenting you with a biased coin if it’s really a fair one.
What risk do you perceive if you said it was a biased coin when it really was a fair one? Or, if you said it was a fair coin, when it really was a biased one?
This is where consequences play into our decision making. If we perceive a big penalty for getting it wrong when the truth seems clear, we may decide differently to avoid the risk.
These are the two main factors that go into decision making: the truth (the most likely explanation for what we observe) and the consequences (what the decision maker perceives to be the consequences for getting the decision wrong). These two factors drive everything in decision making and are always present. [6]
Now, decision making by humans or artificial intelligence systems are certainly more complicated, but the general framework is the same. There is a question, data are evaluated relative to what we think the truth of the data tell us, and we evaluate the consequences to make our decision one way or another.
It plays into our individual decision making and the decision making in which we engage through group settings. And these two factors drive everything – there’s actually no way around it.
Decision Making in Society
While we may think about decisions being made by governments or businesses, they are really still made by people – individuals within these organizations. So, we create frameworks on how we collectively agree to come to group decisions; these frameworks are our self-governance rule sets.
In America, we fought a revolution so that we could determine – for ourselves – our own set of self-governance rules, and at the national level, this is our United States Constitution.
The Constitution lays out the structured system of “checks and balances” [7] to restrain the use of power to prevent its abuse. If one branch of government exceeds its authority under the self-governance rule set, the other branches can check that authority.
It protects us all from the abuses of tyranny, since this was the driving force for declaring our independence from England nearly 250 years ago [8]:
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”
The U.S. Constitution also requires that states “shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” [9] which is one where “the people hold power, but elect representatives to exercise that power.” [10]
James Madison wrote about this and its importance to maintaining a long-standing self-governing republic [11]:
[W]e may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it
At the state level, in California, the state constitution states that “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require.” [12] This is our self-governance rule set within the state, which also gives cities the power to become charter cities and create their own local self-governance rule sets. [13]
Flouting these constitutions means declaring war against the very people who are governing themselves. This isn’t some “second American revolution” [14][15] where we’re fighting against a tyrannical king; if it is a revolution at all, it’s a revolution against ourselves and our own self-governance.
Currently, the Trump Administration seems to be fighting against the very Constitution itself by refusing to fund Congressional authorized programs and agencies. [16]
Article I gives the Congress the power to appropriate monies, and they determine by law how it is to be spent. While the President can veto a bill that he doesn’t like, once it become law, the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” [17] Unless the law specifically grants such authority, the President can’t take money appropriated for one thing, refuse to spend it on what Congress laid out in the law, and redirect it to be spent on something else that Congress did not approve.
The refusal to spend monies appropriated by Congress under the law is generally referred to as “impoundment,” and it’s not a constitutional power the President has.
The Supreme Court in Train v City of New York [18] upheld an appeals court ruling that the Executive overstepped its authority by not spending the funds as allocated by Congress. In 1972, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 were passed by Congress, but was vetoed by President Nixon. Congress promptly overrode the veto, and, within a month, the President directed that states receive less money than the Act required. This impoundment was found to be unlawful, as the Supreme Court found that there was “no congressional intention of giving the Executive discretionary control over the rate of allotments.” [19]
Adam Serwer of The Atlantic is probably on point about how legal supporters of the current President believe he has this impoundment power: [20]
They don't think the presidency has these powers, a democrat was president less than a month ago and they didn't think he had them. They just think America should be a dictatorship where they rule forever.
Examples of previous Presidents impounding funds appropriated by Congress are raised to back up this executive authority, but an article by UC Law San Francisco professor Zachary S. Price counters this theory. [21] Debunking a memo written by the current Office of Management and Budget General Counsel Mark Paoletta [22][23], Price writes about the memo [24]:
Its historical analysis is misleading and its bottom line is mistaken. The President cannot disregard statutory mandates to spend funds, and under current law agencies normally must spend the amounts that Congress appropriates for them…
Though the report offers a survey of historical impoundment practice to support this conclusion, its analysis makes a fundamental mistake: Essentially all the examples it relies on were consonant with governing statutes, not contrary to them.
Presidents have wanted the constitutional ability to do what some state governors can do – vetoing certain elements from a bill that they don’t like while approving the rest. Since this power lets a governor to strike parts of a bill line by line, it’s generally called a line item veto. [25]
However, the President has no such authority under the U.S. Constitution – they either must sign the bill into law or veto the bill in its totality; in fact, Congress did pass the Line Item Veto Act in 1996 to grant the president that authority [26]; however, the law was struck down in 1998 by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. [27]
In the 6-3 opinion striking down the Line Item Veto Act, Justice Antonin Scalia in a separate opinion reiterated the limits on executive impoundment without Congressional authorization [28]:
Scalia noted that “[c]ertain Presidents have claimed Executive authority to withhold appropriated funds even absent an express conferral of discretion to do so,” and that although “President Nixon, the Mahatma Gandhi of all impounders, asserted at a press conference in 1973 that his "constitutional right" to impound appropriated funds was "absolutely clear." … Our decision two years later in Train v. City of New York, 420 U. S. 35 (1975), proved him wrong…”
Further, Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel memoranda from 1969 (penned by then-Assistant Attorney General William H. Rehnquist, who would later become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) [29] and 1998 [30] indicate that “[t]his Office has long held that the ‘existence of such a broad power is supported by neither reason nor precedent’” and “[t]here is no textual source in the Constitution for any inherent authority to impound.”
A President can’t just make up new self-governance rules because he would prefer not to be constrained. If we want to change our self-governance rule set, then we follow the law and the Constitution on how we change the rule; however, change of this sort is intended to be difficult to prevent the abuses of power. This is how our nation maintains its longevity and creates a culture of freedom and opportunity for everyone, not just those who believe they received a huge mandate from a narrow electoral victory.
Thus far, courts have halted the freeze on payments; [31] although, states who won their injunction are indicating that the Trump administration is defying the court orders. [32]
Anti-Democracy Forces
While we’re watching an evolving constitutional crisis at the federal level, anti-democratic forces have always been with us.
In America, elected officials should be elected. However, at the local level, those in power have sometimes chosen not to hold elections
And this has happened. Multiple times. In the same modern American city. In the 21st century. It took a law in that city to guarantee that elections are held.
That modern American city is Thousand Oaks, California, and I’ve written about these episodes in the past through these initial essays. [33]
I’m excited to bring these essays into book form, and I’ll have more information on that in a future post.
But I wanted to share this news…
Narratives
The book I’m reading or movie I’m watching
“Wilmington’s Lie” - Written by David Zucchino
For another narrative about American anti-democratic forces, I encourage you to read the Pulitizer Prize winning Wilmington’s Lie [34]
After the Civil War, Congress passed and the states ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution; these banned slavery, ensured people born in the United States are citizens, that all people are guaranteed due process of law, and that voting rights are to be protected regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” [35]
Reconstruction was enacted to ensure the states of the old Confederacy came back into the Union. It only lasted until 1877, when federal troops that had been in the South during the reunion; the South had resisted Reconstruction, imposing poll taxes [36] and literacy tests [37] to discourage Black Americans from voting. Plessy v Ferguson [38] later creating the doctrine of “separate but equal” with a 7-1 Supreme Court decision, taking over fifty years to remove this establishment of racial segregation from American legal practice.
Two years later, during this period of legalized segregation, Wilmington, North Carolina, was the location of “rare instance of a violent overthrow of an elected government in the U.S.” [39]
“This brutal insurrection is a rare instance of a violent overthrow of an elected government in the U.S. It halted gains made by blacks and restored racism as official government policy, cementing white rule for another half century. It was not a “race riot,” as the events of November 1898 came to be known, but rather a racially motivated rebellion launched by white supremacists.”
GIF Game
Bill Murray and Carol Kane in Scrooged
Notes and Sources
[1] – Mic Farris, LinkedIn bio, https://www.linkedin.com/in/micfarris/, retrieved February 9, 2025.
[2] – “About,” https://www.micfarris.com/about, retrieved February 9, 2025.
[3] – Mic Farris, LinkedIn bio.
[4] – Yury Polyanskiy, “Information Theory – Part III: Binary Hypothesis Testing,” Spring 2016, https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-441-information-theory-spring-2016/26fd180f40b6773bf19b659a4c5e8656_MIT6_441S16_chapter_10.pdf
[5] – Henry L. Van Trees, Detection, Estimation, and Modulation Theory, Part I: Detection, Estimation, and Linear Modulation Theory, John Wiley, New York, 1967.
[6] – Ibid. Though not explicitly described as “truth” and “consequences,” the technical descriptions of likelihoods and costs are laid out in Van Trees’s treatment of optimal decision theory.
[7] – James Madison, “The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments,” Federalist No. 51, 1788, https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-51-60#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493427.
[8] – Thomas Jefferson et al., Copy of Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript.
[9] – United States Constitution, Article IV, Section 4, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-4/
[10] – “U.S. Government,” U.S. Embassy in Argentina, retrieved February 9, 2025, https://ar.usembassy.gov/u-s-government/
[11] – James Madison, “The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles,” Federalist No. 39, 1788, https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-31-40#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493394
[12] - California Constitution, Article II, Section 1.
[13] - California Constitution, Article XI, Section 3(a).
[14] – Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Curt Devine, Majlie de Puy Kamp and Rene Marsh, “‘Second American Revolution’: The team behind DOGE’s government overhaul,” CNN, Febuary 7, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/07/politics/musk-doge-staffers-federal-government-downsizing-invs/index.html
[15] – Elon Musk [@elonmusk], X, February 5, 2025, https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887258455037387257
[16] - Shannon Pettypiece, Julie Tsirkin, Garrett Haake and Berkeley Lovelace Jr., “Trump's funding freeze creates widespread confusion,” NBC News, January 28, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-federal-funding-freeze-widespread-confusion-rcna189581
[17] – United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/
[18] - Train v. City of New York, 420 U.S. 35 (1975), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/420/35/
[19] – Ibid.
[20] - Adam Serwer [@adamserwer.bsky.social], X, February 9, 2025, https://bsky.app/profile/adamserwer.bsky.social/post/3lhqlimj53225
[21] – Zachary S. Price, “The President Has No Constitutional Power of Impoundment,” Yale Journal of Regulation, Notice & Comment, July 18, 2024, https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/the-president-has-no-constitutional-power-of-impoundment-by-zachary-s-price/
[22] - Mark Paoletta and Daniel Shapiro, “The President’s Constitutional Power of Impoundment,” Center for Renewing America, September 10, 2024, https://americarenewing.com/the-presidents-constitutional-power-of-impoundment/
[23] - Bart Jansen, “Donald Trump names Mark Paoletta general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget,” USA Today, December 9, 2024, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/12/09/trump-mark-paoletta-general-counsel-office-management-budget/76203176007/
[24] – Price, “No Constitutional Power of Impoundment”
[25] – “Line-item veto,” Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/line-item_veto
[26] - “Line Item Veto Act,” Public Law 104–130, 104th Congress, April 9, 1996, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-104publ130/pdf/PLAW-104publ130.pdf
[27] - Clinton v City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998)), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/524/417/
[28] – Ibid.
[29] – William H. Rehnquist, “Presidential Authority to Impound Funds Appropriated for Assistance to Federally Impacted Schools,” Office of Legal Counsel, December 1, 1969, https://www.justice.gov/file/147706/dl
[30] – Charles J. Cooper, “The President’s Veto Power,” Office of Legal Counsel, July 8, 1988, https://www.justice.gov/file/150991/dl
[31] – Nate Raymond, “US judge temporarily blocks Trump from freezing federal funding,” Reuters, January 31, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-judge-blocks-trump-freezing-federal-spending-22-states-2025-01-31/
[32] – Nate Raymond, “US states tell judge Trump not fully following order blocking funding freeze,” Reuters, February 6, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-states-tell-judge-trump-not-fully-following-order-blocking-funding-freeze-2025-02-06/
[33] - Mic Farris, “Democracy in Thousand Oaks: Why Democracy?,” , November 27, 2022, https://www.micfarris.com/articles/democracy-in-thousand-oaks-why-democracy.
Mic Farris, “Democracy in Thousand Oaks: The Integrity of Elections,” December 4, 2022, https://www.micfarris.com/articles/democracy-in-thousand-oaks-the-integrity-of-elections.
Mic Farris, “Democracy in Thousand Oaks: The Right to Vote,” December 12, 2022, https://www.micfarris.com/articles/democracy-in-thousand-oaks-the-right-to-vote.
Mic Farris, “Democracy in Thousand Oaks: The Meaning of Representation,” February 12, 2023, https://www.micfarris.com/articles/democracy-in-thousand-oaks-the-meaning-of-representation.
[34] – David Zucchino, Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, New York, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020.
[35] – United States Constitution, Thirteenth Amendment, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/
United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/
United States Constitution, Fifteenth Amendment, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-15/
[36] - “Poll Taxes,” National Museum of American History, Smithsonian, https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/american-democracy/online/vote-voice/keeping-vote/state-rules-federal-rules/poll-taxes.
[37] - “Literacy Tests,” National Museum of American History, Smithsonian, https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/american-democracy/online/vote-voice/keeping-vote/state-rules-federal-rules/literacy-tests.
[38] – Plessy v Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/163/537/
[39] – David Zucchino,“Wilmington's Lie (WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE): The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy,” Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/Wilmingtons-Lie-Murderous-White-Supremacy/dp/0802128386
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