Two emails combined...

I was not suprised by your findings. It something that I knew intuitively, but I was unsure of how to articulate or prove it. You've helped me with that.

In my time in Iraq, men continued to resist despite employment or wealth. They resisted based off feelings. These emotions ranged from pride, arrogance, jealousy, anger, and bitterness. This motive was projected towards different actors- the government, sects, religions, ethnicities, and other families. Again, it was mutually exclusive to the amount of money we handed out, services the government provided, or jobs available.

In our own country, we're dealing with a new greivance- the perceived state of the underemployed. I'm not sure how to translate this factor. It's a perception that someone is owed a better job or better wage based on his/her education, background, or talent. We violate the fundamental truth that one cannot spend more than one makes, but we demand more. It concerns me because I believe it drives into the heart of the social scientist question of "why do men rebel?"

Anyways, I just wanted to tell you that I appreciated your work, and I look forward to reading more. Currently, I'm reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Her insights are quite profound towards this discussion.

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I wrote this short essay today to assist y'all. You're doing some great work, and I can back up a portion of your quantitative analysis with a qualitative model and anecdotal evidence from my own experience. I have not published this model or my findings, and it is something that I may eventually use for a dissertation. Take some time to digest it. If my thoughts are helpful and you want to include it in a later publication, then just let me know.

Your results are neither controversial nor counterintuitive. Instead, they flow with the reason and logic of the great thinkers prior to this post-colonial, post-modern era. Moreover, the great practisioners of past small wars understood intuitively that sometimes less is more. So, keep at it .

John Nash wanted to answer the question- how does one derive a fair settlement between two hostile parties? He determined that fair value was a measure of properly dividing utility based-on perceived effort, relative value, and merit. His end result was Nash Arbitration. When applied to hostile business contracts, his method works brilliantly. When applied to hostile social contracts (divorce, labor disputes,gangs, and insurgencies), his measure is left wanting. In social contracts, fairness is a measure of both utility AND emotion.

My model expands a bit past employment and violence, but I think it may have some value to your research. It shows emotion and utility, or in this case, hearts (emotion) and minds (utility). Keep in mind, with your initial work, dudes that join insurgencies are employed just like drug dealers are employed by gangs. We just don't track those statistics.

In the most simplest of descriptions, a woman's scorn in a hostile divorce will never be resolved by simple redistribution of property, assets, or alimony. In other words, in social contracts, a fair arbitration of utility cannot reliquish emotions of betrayal, hatred, anger, or disappointment.

In the same manner, simple employment, wages earned from services provided, will not stop a man with perceived grievances from taking up arms against his oppressor, destroying his roads, or blowing himself up in martyrdom. In today's world, described by President Obama as the Age of Selfishness (Fort Hood, 2009), there is a sense of entitlement that extends past the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or property).

As is the nature of these matters, y'all will probably end this reading with more questions than answers. I left Iraq that way. Such is the endeavor of the social scientist. Let me know what y'all think. I'm in the process of leaving NPS so I'll include alternative contact information in case this email is void.