My reason for blogging was at least significantly in order to improve my writing.
What I understand of the process of improving skills, though, as you all know, is that it is significantly through practice that the improvement happens. However, practice isn't the whole picture. Rather, practice, with feedback and focused improvement constitutes the business of improving.
380 posts and 8 months since I started blogging seriously ... I have written a lot more words than I have in the last several years. I mean...I wrote a lot, and it increased over the year, as y'all know. However, I've only been doing (really) half of the business of writing. As that Paul Graham article I linked a while ago suggested, writing ought to be somewhere between 1:2 and 1:10 writing vs. editing. And I've (as is obvious) skimped on the editing part.
I resolve, therefore, to spend time editing the blog posts. Rather than writing and posting, I will plan to write, save, and then later edit and post. Of course not all blog posts will follow the pattern...some will be sufficiently succinct as to be edited very quickly, and some will be less edited from needs of urgency. But most posts, moving forward, should be somewhat less raw than the ones of this year.
Happy new year to all.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Building on the mistakes idea
Kenneth Anderson, at Volokh, writes about a major idea that academics (like me) tend to miss.
Execution >> Design.
What you plan doesn't matter if you can't get it done.
What you plan also doesn't matter if the people will get it done with no plan.
What you plan only matters at the margins, when better planning will make a difference, and when execution is already in the bag.
Unsurprisingly, this all builds on the ideas of Hayek (distributed intelligence works, centralized intelligence doesn't), and my favorite topic of expecting mistakes.
Execution >> Design.
What you plan doesn't matter if you can't get it done.
What you plan also doesn't matter if the people will get it done with no plan.
What you plan only matters at the margins, when better planning will make a difference, and when execution is already in the bag.
Unsurprisingly, this all builds on the ideas of Hayek (distributed intelligence works, centralized intelligence doesn't), and my favorite topic of expecting mistakes.
Even funnier climate news to end the year
Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is measured to be not rising for last 150 years? (HT: Instapundit)
On errors
Supporting my basic hypothesis that error is the standard from which other options come, slashdot links to a story in Wired.
Money Quote:
Money Quote:
Although the researchers were mostly using established techniques, more than 50 percent of their data was unexpected. (In some labs, the figure exceeded 75 percent.) “The scientists had these elaborate theories about what was supposed to happen,” Dunbar says. “But the results kept contradicting their theories. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to spend a month on a project and then just discard all their data because the data didn’t make sense.”
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Dave Berry
As is customary, summarizes the year appropriately (HT Instapundit --> TaxProf ).
Only big item I didn't see was Climategate.
Only big item I didn't see was Climategate.
Appreciation
VIII. The quest for beauty drives a lot more than we admit.
To a real extent, my core proposition for living life is:
Suck the value from whatever life hands you.
The actual situation you are in matters very little compared to your approach to the situation.
In rich, 1st world lives, this is especially true.
While some (~50%) of your happiness is genetic, and outside your control, only 10%ish is situational. The rest is what you do with it.
I have, for an awfully long time, proposed that one should approach people by first looking to figure out what (not whether) it is that this person does or is that is magnificent. The rest of one's approach should be strictly secondary, unless one is entering a situation that requires substantial self-protection. As per my discussion on focus, you will find it. And it will be beautiful.
I'm inclined to explore further how my appreciation leads to my politics (hard-core anarcho-capitalist)...but let's suffice it to say: I love finding excellence and brilliance. Human excellence is among the most beautiful things I see in the world. And I wish to exalt said brilliance, and to reward it, and especially to nurture it, and to ask and help the unreasonably good to become better. And to allow areas to flourish in which individual brilliances find new places to shine. And so any system that does not exalt and encourage greatness is one which I find particularly despicable. Unfortunately, only largely unfettered, anti-corporatist capitalism does that...so I have a strong negative emotional reaction to most political systems.
To a real extent, my core proposition for living life is:
Suck the value from whatever life hands you.
The actual situation you are in matters very little compared to your approach to the situation.
In rich, 1st world lives, this is especially true.
While some (~50%) of your happiness is genetic, and outside your control, only 10%ish is situational. The rest is what you do with it.
I have, for an awfully long time, proposed that one should approach people by first looking to figure out what (not whether) it is that this person does or is that is magnificent. The rest of one's approach should be strictly secondary, unless one is entering a situation that requires substantial self-protection. As per my discussion on focus, you will find it. And it will be beautiful.
I'm inclined to explore further how my appreciation leads to my politics (hard-core anarcho-capitalist)...but let's suffice it to say: I love finding excellence and brilliance. Human excellence is among the most beautiful things I see in the world. And I wish to exalt said brilliance, and to reward it, and especially to nurture it, and to ask and help the unreasonably good to become better. And to allow areas to flourish in which individual brilliances find new places to shine. And so any system that does not exalt and encourage greatness is one which I find particularly despicable. Unfortunately, only largely unfettered, anti-corporatist capitalism does that...so I have a strong negative emotional reaction to most political systems.
Focus
I couldn't figure out where to put it properly in my summary post, so I leave it as an additional item.
VII. Focus is important. I am awfully close to the Randian mystical free will-ism which suggests that the (only?) choice available to us is the choice to focus or not. To become more or less aware. Of course, I'm not a Randian mystical free-will-ist. Rather, I take the only position that actually makes sense: compatibilism, with agnosticism on questions about relativistic 4D spacetime making "could have been different" moot vs. quantum many-worlds interpretations. But this isn't about Randian mysticism. It's about focus.
Focus, while I'm being all Objectivist, is the action of narrowing one's attention. To some extent, ability to focus is a more important (crappy article) skill than raw IQ. It's (for the low % of cases where it's justified) the reason to use Ritalin, concern over ADHD, etc.
The important feature of focus for me, though, is that focus is largely voluntary. Not only can one choose whether to focus, the world does not hand you on a silver platter an answer to where you would be most productive to focus. You also have to decide where to focus. But where to focus is a values question, and thus is impacted by your goals, and therefore your ethics.
I will repeat that...what you know, and what you learn, and what you figure out are all determined by what you care about beforehand. The choice of what to focus on preceeds information collection. Which partially undermines my epistemological position.
Segueing into disagreement...I would like to illustrate the process of changing peoples' minds:
FREE WILL
I have changed my mind on quite a few positions over the years...and among the most interesting of them is that Randian free-will position.
I was a determinist, then I was a free-willer, then a determinist again, and finally a compatibilist, over the course of about 6 years.
The shift from determinist to free-willer came when I decided that the objectivist free willers were right that priority of evidence was important. I observe free will directly, and hard determinacy of the world is a much subsidiary conclusion. In the face of the two competing conclusions, the direct observation has precedence.
The shift from free-willer to determinist came when I decided that a coherent picture of the world, which is necessarily founded on evolutionary explanations was more important than the observation of free will. Flatlanders can observe two dimensional shapes, without the shapes being 2D.
The shift to compatibilist came when, in reading Dennett, he clarified that the free will argument and the determinist argument were not talking about the same topic.
2/3 of the changes of opinion were changes in the weight I gave to arguments...not changes in either my data or my logic chains.
VEGETARIANISM
I have been vegetarian, I think twice, for periods of about 6-9 months each time.
I became vegetarian the first time because of the strong anti-red-meat health propaganda that existed in the early 90s. And also because I lived in California. The second time, in the late 90s, it was because a huge proportion of the particularly thin people I knew were vegetarian, and I was trying to manage my weight a bit.
The most interesting thing I noticed there was that as I became more involved with the vegetarianism, I observed that my attitudes about the importance of various reasons for being vegetarian changed. The anti-animal cruelty thing got larger. The pro-health thing got larger. And the weight thing too. As I shifted away from vegetarianism, the objections to vegetarian health benefits, and vegetarian anti-cruelty items grew as well. Roughly, my attitudes about the importance of various items tracked my activity, rather than vice versa.
Overall, this suggests that strategies of changing peoples' minds by pushing arguments are nearly 100% doomed to failure. Indeed, it turns on the head the typical logician's point of view that arguments must be mustered to demonstrate truth. Rather, to convince people of things in real life, one must appeal to importance, not to truth. Most likely someone already knows all the arguments on both sides. And that, my dear reader, is done by means of emotion (as it should be) 9 times out of 10. This, by the way, is a case where almost every smart person I know is 100% wrong...and the much less intelligent preachers, politicians, and other leaders are 100% right.
One must, in order to change someone's mind, convince them that some topic that they already know all the arguments around is more (or less) important than they currently think it is. For What It's Worth (FWIW), this also implies that your opinions are probably nowhere near as well founded as you think they are.
Examples: I advocate free-market athiest policies rather loudly.
IF I were convinced that dealing with the poor of TODAY was of utmost importance, as a friend of mine was by walking through Indian slums as a child, then I would likely have to substantially change my perspective on all sorts of things, as I would first try to determine how to solve the problem (Government), and second try to square that belief with my other beliefs, and watch as my other beliefs slowly shifted towards a more government friendly position.
IF I were convinced (I'm notably closer to this position [but still very distant] than from the last) that foundations of civilization were doomed NOT just by government incentives pushing for fractured families, but by the general push towards libertinism in the culture, I could potentially see myself shifting to a MUCH more conservative viewpoint. Anti-polyamory, anti-gay marriage, and anti-immigration. And if I did that, I'd probably slowly shift to a point where I thought that the noble lie of religion was an improvement over atheism, at least for the general public. And who knows how much of that cognitive dissonance I could stand before I morphed into a lightly religious churchgoer.
VII. Focus is important. I am awfully close to the Randian mystical free will-ism which suggests that the (only?) choice available to us is the choice to focus or not. To become more or less aware. Of course, I'm not a Randian mystical free-will-ist. Rather, I take the only position that actually makes sense: compatibilism, with agnosticism on questions about relativistic 4D spacetime making "could have been different" moot vs. quantum many-worlds interpretations. But this isn't about Randian mysticism. It's about focus.
Focus, while I'm being all Objectivist, is the action of narrowing one's attention. To some extent, ability to focus is a more important (crappy article) skill than raw IQ. It's (for the low % of cases where it's justified) the reason to use Ritalin, concern over ADHD, etc.
The important feature of focus for me, though, is that focus is largely voluntary. Not only can one choose whether to focus, the world does not hand you on a silver platter an answer to where you would be most productive to focus. You also have to decide where to focus. But where to focus is a values question, and thus is impacted by your goals, and therefore your ethics.
I will repeat that...what you know, and what you learn, and what you figure out are all determined by what you care about beforehand. The choice of what to focus on preceeds information collection. Which partially undermines my epistemological position.
Segueing into disagreement...I would like to illustrate the process of changing peoples' minds:
FREE WILL
I have changed my mind on quite a few positions over the years...and among the most interesting of them is that Randian free-will position.
I was a determinist, then I was a free-willer, then a determinist again, and finally a compatibilist, over the course of about 6 years.
The shift from determinist to free-willer came when I decided that the objectivist free willers were right that priority of evidence was important. I observe free will directly, and hard determinacy of the world is a much subsidiary conclusion. In the face of the two competing conclusions, the direct observation has precedence.
The shift from free-willer to determinist came when I decided that a coherent picture of the world, which is necessarily founded on evolutionary explanations was more important than the observation of free will. Flatlanders can observe two dimensional shapes, without the shapes being 2D.
The shift to compatibilist came when, in reading Dennett, he clarified that the free will argument and the determinist argument were not talking about the same topic.
2/3 of the changes of opinion were changes in the weight I gave to arguments...not changes in either my data or my logic chains.
VEGETARIANISM
I have been vegetarian, I think twice, for periods of about 6-9 months each time.
I became vegetarian the first time because of the strong anti-red-meat health propaganda that existed in the early 90s. And also because I lived in California. The second time, in the late 90s, it was because a huge proportion of the particularly thin people I knew were vegetarian, and I was trying to manage my weight a bit.
The most interesting thing I noticed there was that as I became more involved with the vegetarianism, I observed that my attitudes about the importance of various reasons for being vegetarian changed. The anti-animal cruelty thing got larger. The pro-health thing got larger. And the weight thing too. As I shifted away from vegetarianism, the objections to vegetarian health benefits, and vegetarian anti-cruelty items grew as well. Roughly, my attitudes about the importance of various items tracked my activity, rather than vice versa.
Overall, this suggests that strategies of changing peoples' minds by pushing arguments are nearly 100% doomed to failure. Indeed, it turns on the head the typical logician's point of view that arguments must be mustered to demonstrate truth. Rather, to convince people of things in real life, one must appeal to importance, not to truth. Most likely someone already knows all the arguments on both sides. And that, my dear reader, is done by means of emotion (as it should be) 9 times out of 10. This, by the way, is a case where almost every smart person I know is 100% wrong...and the much less intelligent preachers, politicians, and other leaders are 100% right.
One must, in order to change someone's mind, convince them that some topic that they already know all the arguments around is more (or less) important than they currently think it is. For What It's Worth (FWIW), this also implies that your opinions are probably nowhere near as well founded as you think they are.
Examples: I advocate free-market athiest policies rather loudly.
IF I were convinced that dealing with the poor of TODAY was of utmost importance, as a friend of mine was by walking through Indian slums as a child, then I would likely have to substantially change my perspective on all sorts of things, as I would first try to determine how to solve the problem (Government), and second try to square that belief with my other beliefs, and watch as my other beliefs slowly shifted towards a more government friendly position.
IF I were convinced (I'm notably closer to this position [but still very distant] than from the last) that foundations of civilization were doomed NOT just by government incentives pushing for fractured families, but by the general push towards libertinism in the culture, I could potentially see myself shifting to a MUCH more conservative viewpoint. Anti-polyamory, anti-gay marriage, and anti-immigration. And if I did that, I'd probably slowly shift to a point where I thought that the noble lie of religion was an improvement over atheism, at least for the general public. And who knows how much of that cognitive dissonance I could stand before I morphed into a lightly religious churchgoer.
Summary
As the year draws to a close, I am drawn to summarize my views of the world in a single post, for readers who might be new to this site.
Fundamentally, I believe epistemology is the core of any reasonable approach to understanding the world, with metaphysics serving as a secondary foundation. In those categories, I am an empiricist-realist. All we know, we start learning from our dozen or so senses. We formulate sense data into less and more complicated models of the world, and the best processes look an awful lot like Randian concept formation. Fundamentally, if you can't bring it back to something you can touch (or otherwise sense), then you don't know what you're talking about. As an aside, it is very important also to address the extent to which focus and topic choice impact awareness. Blind men, elephant, etc.
The epistemology thus constructed leads me to several core observations about the way life works, most of them being mathy insights.
Because of I-A (Politics), II-A, IV, and especially V, I am a libertarian/Anarchist/competitve government advocate. I think that it is obvious that government (elected or not) does not serve the governed well (I-A Politics), makes lots of hard-to change mistakes (II-A, and Hayek), and decreases growth rates massively, primarily by favoring large institutional players (IV). Also, because (especially) of (I-A Politics), I see government as significantly hurting the poor/weak in the long term, and really really hate that. And perhaps worst of all, I think excess regulation de-incentivizes both excellence, and the kind of excellence that helps others.
I have, for most of my working life, been in education, which is where I got VI-success factors from. Recently, I have shifted my focus to process management, with a focus on mistake prevention/minimization and gradual improvement(II-A). And I am heavily into education as a process. I am strongly of the opinion that the best way (by an enormous margin) to not make as many or as bad of mistakes is to make smaller decisions and to iterate, as discussed by Action Learning, Agile Software, Lean Manufacturing, the OODA loop, The Counterinsurgency manual, Sun Tsu, Engineering product design, and every other intelligent process I've seen. However, there are tremendous numbers of other approaches as well, at varying levels of effectiveness. Group processes are often tremendously powerful, but require much care to not go tremendously wrong. Statistical processes also rock.
I have a personal theory that one can effectively measure the net quality of any system (over time) by measuring instead the quality of the feedback system. Better, Faster feedback = better system. And it's nearly universal.
I further believe that a tendency to equate what is natural with what is good is among the larger dangers facing human cognition today. However, the contrary danger to this distrust of the natural, be it natural skin care products or natural evolution, is overtrusting the intellect over history and instinct: the notion that we are smart enough to have solved all the problems. Much serious thinking (scientific method, statistics, economics, evolution, game theory, software design) goes pretty heavily against natural intuitions...and the answers from the aforementioned disciplines is much more highly predictive than intuitional predictions. At the same time, complex models of complex systems ( like Macroeconomics, Climate Science, and policy design) are so heavily unreliable that darts may be better, even though they are cloaked in the respectability of serious thinking. Furthermore, since most science is played inside a animal-politics status game.
And I think that is a decent summary of the Aretae position.
Fundamentally, I believe epistemology is the core of any reasonable approach to understanding the world, with metaphysics serving as a secondary foundation. In those categories, I am an empiricist-realist. All we know, we start learning from our dozen or so senses. We formulate sense data into less and more complicated models of the world, and the best processes look an awful lot like Randian concept formation. Fundamentally, if you can't bring it back to something you can touch (or otherwise sense), then you don't know what you're talking about. As an aside, it is very important also to address the extent to which focus and topic choice impact awareness. Blind men, elephant, etc.
The epistemology thus constructed leads me to several core observations about the way life works, most of them being mathy insights.
- The math behind evolution, game theory and praxeology has necessary consequences, and it's everywhere, and no more disputable than 2+2=4. If A and B, then C. It's not even science, it's math, and applies to any system that looks even a marginally like the ones we have. Indeed, it is between hard and impossible to imagine (similar) systems to which evolution and Praxeology do not apply.
- Pretending some systems (education, medicine, politics) are not fundamentally governed by these fundamental rules is a good way to pretend, but a bad way to understand.
- Human beings are deeply animal (see evolution).
- Everyone makes lots of mistakes. Because our brains are evolved as a set of loosely federated independent modules that work of glorified heuristics, and they only pretend to be controlled by the conscious mind. And because our social instincts override our rational thoughts 9 /10 times.
- Ways to make fewer mistakes is among the great problems of human activity. Group consensus is among the most powerful tools we have, when not derailed by other social animal behavior. Science, experiment, and statistical analysis is another.
- There are innumerable ways to bypass reason in both self and others. Most other-bypassing involves treating people as if they were mostly missing a rational faculty...like a dog to be trained. Most self-bypassing involves wanting something, and then relying on intuitions (which conveniently work out how you want). Government officials, scientists, reporters, and doctors are NO LESS susceptible to these self-deceptions as others. Sales people and marketers use them regularly on you.
- However, Skinner had to starve his rats to train them. Using boring reward/punishment doesn't work as simply as folks would like. Motivational structure design really ought to be an academic specialty.
- We as humans vary genetically as much as my shih tzu and my great dane do. And who our parents are matters, and ditto their parents. This applies to emotional, psychological and mental traits as well as physical ones.
- Bayesian statistics and probabilistic truths and error bars are the only reasonable way to understand the world. Anyone who is thinking in terms of certainties or point estimates on anything much more complicated than 2+2=4 is just wrong. X has a 80% chance of being between 20000 and 40000 is at least a reasonable format for thinking about the problem. However..."we cannot know" without the statistics/error bars behind it is just stupid.
- Correlary: The other side of EVERY debate has an insight that you aren't taking seriously enough. Finding it is likely to be worth your time from an understanding point of view, if not a debate point of view.
- Compound growth is more important than everything else in the medium to long term. I want our children in 2045 to have per capita incomes that are closer to $500,000/yr (at 8% growth) rather than $70,000/year (at 2% growth). This applies in other topics as well (technology advance). I also believe that in general, the costs of regulation to growth are simply not handled. Regulation almost universally increases stagnation, increases the market power of existing players, and decreases innovation, which decreases real growth. Since this kind of mathy compound growth basically incomprehensible to the people's monkey-brains, it is massively undervalued.
- Correlary: This implies all sorts of stuff, if you take it even moderately seriously. The questions start to be about how the singulitarians and the nanotech folks can possibly NOT be right, not the other way around. Compound interest violates intuitions.
- What is normally understood to be ethics falls mostly in the category of prudence (run the iterative game theory and see), and agree with Albert J Nock about also separating out manners and legal behavior as separate from ethics . Also, fundamentally, the Greeks and Buddhists got it right in the focus on inwardly directed virtue-ethics, with only mild doses of consequentialism and deontology. Hence the title of this Blog. I am also moderately impressed with the research on ethics, such as Jon Haidt's 5 moral dimensions, with CARE of others (weak/sick/young/poor) being a major component of ALL ethics.
- Both learning and success in just about everything both come down to a very small number of factors.
- Practice/Hours/Perspiration/Stick-to-it-iveness (but only really with immediate feedback that is acted upon)
- Talent (mostly IQ in mental tasks)
- Self esteem in the Nathaniel Branden sense, or self-efficacy in the Albert Bandura sense.
- Willingness/ability to defer gratification
- Personality, mostly conscientiousness and openness to experience -- which may be 100% correlated with Practice and IQ respectively.
- Process quality -- my current obsession
- Luck -- perhaps the most overlooked success factor.
Because of I-A (Politics), II-A, IV, and especially V, I am a libertarian/Anarchist/competitve government advocate. I think that it is obvious that government (elected or not) does not serve the governed well (I-A Politics), makes lots of hard-to change mistakes (II-A, and Hayek), and decreases growth rates massively, primarily by favoring large institutional players (IV). Also, because (especially) of (I-A Politics), I see government as significantly hurting the poor/weak in the long term, and really really hate that. And perhaps worst of all, I think excess regulation de-incentivizes both excellence, and the kind of excellence that helps others.
I have, for most of my working life, been in education, which is where I got VI-success factors from. Recently, I have shifted my focus to process management, with a focus on mistake prevention/minimization and gradual improvement(II-A). And I am heavily into education as a process. I am strongly of the opinion that the best way (by an enormous margin) to not make as many or as bad of mistakes is to make smaller decisions and to iterate, as discussed by Action Learning, Agile Software, Lean Manufacturing, the OODA loop, The Counterinsurgency manual, Sun Tsu, Engineering product design, and every other intelligent process I've seen. However, there are tremendous numbers of other approaches as well, at varying levels of effectiveness. Group processes are often tremendously powerful, but require much care to not go tremendously wrong. Statistical processes also rock.
I have a personal theory that one can effectively measure the net quality of any system (over time) by measuring instead the quality of the feedback system. Better, Faster feedback = better system. And it's nearly universal.
I further believe that a tendency to equate what is natural with what is good is among the larger dangers facing human cognition today. However, the contrary danger to this distrust of the natural, be it natural skin care products or natural evolution, is overtrusting the intellect over history and instinct: the notion that we are smart enough to have solved all the problems. Much serious thinking (scientific method, statistics, economics, evolution, game theory, software design) goes pretty heavily against natural intuitions...and the answers from the aforementioned disciplines is much more highly predictive than intuitional predictions. At the same time, complex models of complex systems ( like Macroeconomics, Climate Science, and policy design) are so heavily unreliable that darts may be better, even though they are cloaked in the respectability of serious thinking. Furthermore, since most science is played inside a animal-politics status game.
And I think that is a decent summary of the Aretae position.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Will rants
Here. Main point: Senate is not too slow, it was designed that way in order to make it hard for a moderate majority to push their convictions down the throat of a moderate minority.
Obama HC part 2, in response to a comment
Mark Horning posts on similar topics on his blog. While the general direction is good, I want to correct a few misconceptions that people who have not worked in the insurance industry may not understand.
1. Most large employers are self-insuring. Insurance companies just do the paperwork, and processing, all risk is born by the company itself. I personally know that Walmart, for instance, is managed by Blue Cross of Arkansas (come 2010), for ALL it's employees. BCBSAR processes the claims, and at the end of the month/week, Walmart cuts a check for the actual amount of claims paid out plus a Per Member Per Month fee of somewhere between $15 and $50.
2. The state lines bit is also mostly bogus for large employers. Mostly, a single insurance company handles all their insurance across state lines. Maybe some multi-state, but small employers have this problem, but the large ones don't at all. I believe BCBSIL handles all of McDonalds corporation.
3. Purchasing insurance across state lines is problematic due to the varying patchwork of regulations from state to state. It would effectively be a pre-empting of states rights to make insurance regulations, as high regulation states would lose lots of insurance business. Is it good for the feds to violate state rights in this place? I'd like it for sure, but I don't know how to justify it constitutionally.
4. Tort reform is a minor issue. Sure, $1/4M annual policy does add up, but...the big issues are incentives and regulation based.
1. Most large employers are self-insuring. Insurance companies just do the paperwork, and processing, all risk is born by the company itself. I personally know that Walmart, for instance, is managed by Blue Cross of Arkansas (come 2010), for ALL it's employees. BCBSAR processes the claims, and at the end of the month/week, Walmart cuts a check for the actual amount of claims paid out plus a Per Member Per Month fee of somewhere between $15 and $50.
2. The state lines bit is also mostly bogus for large employers. Mostly, a single insurance company handles all their insurance across state lines. Maybe some multi-state, but small employers have this problem, but the large ones don't at all. I believe BCBSIL handles all of McDonalds corporation.
3. Purchasing insurance across state lines is problematic due to the varying patchwork of regulations from state to state. It would effectively be a pre-empting of states rights to make insurance regulations, as high regulation states would lose lots of insurance business. Is it good for the feds to violate state rights in this place? I'd like it for sure, but I don't know how to justify it constitutionally.
4. Tort reform is a minor issue. Sure, $1/4M annual policy does add up, but...the big issues are incentives and regulation based.
- Incentive for individual to spend less is missing. Solution: HSA/MSA/Singapore style thing
- Medical competition heavily restricted. Solution: Trust-busting AMA, allowing independent Nurses/Bachelors of Medicine, Independent demi-physicians, independent surgeons, etc.
- Drugs regulation is a mess. Solution: Abolish FDA, or at least dramatically curtail their mission. # dead to artificially slow deadlines is HUGE compared to number hurt from under-regulation, and FDA n-tuples the cost of drug development, which is where the real innovations tend to come from.
Obama healthcare plan
Apparently I was wrong about a big part of the Senate plan. It seems that the Obama plan's tax on "Cadillac Policies" is indeed a substantial move in the right direction, and is (perhaps) likely to control costs.
We all know that incentives matter, and basically, when you remove the direct link between payer, consumer, and decider, then costs spiral and quality measures suck. Almost exactly what we have with today's medicine. Also, what we have with Postal service, and our education system at every level.
A tax on Cadillac care will quickly come to apply to a lot of plans, thus decreasing the amount of care provided by employer health insurance. And since Employer-provided health insurance is one of 2-3 BIG problems with increasing health care costs, this should actually hard-core bend the cost curve. Of course, Unions are massively opposed to the Cadillac plans tax, so it's unlikely to survive reconciliation, but even with nearly a trillion dollars of pork, the added-on feature of CPT means that the plan seems to actually be something that would bend the cost curve.
Doesn't mean that I like it, but that component looks substantially better than anything else even on the table. Not as good as McCain's plan to repeal the Employer Provided Health Insurance tax-Exemption, but marginally positive. Now if only we could get rid of the other 1000 pages and $1T spending, this bill might be useful. Or do nothing, wait for republican control of House in 2010, and then expand HSAs further.
We all know that incentives matter, and basically, when you remove the direct link between payer, consumer, and decider, then costs spiral and quality measures suck. Almost exactly what we have with today's medicine. Also, what we have with Postal service, and our education system at every level.
A tax on Cadillac care will quickly come to apply to a lot of plans, thus decreasing the amount of care provided by employer health insurance. And since Employer-provided health insurance is one of 2-3 BIG problems with increasing health care costs, this should actually hard-core bend the cost curve. Of course, Unions are massively opposed to the Cadillac plans tax, so it's unlikely to survive reconciliation, but even with nearly a trillion dollars of pork, the added-on feature of CPT means that the plan seems to actually be something that would bend the cost curve.
Doesn't mean that I like it, but that component looks substantially better than anything else even on the table. Not as good as McCain's plan to repeal the Employer Provided Health Insurance tax-Exemption, but marginally positive. Now if only we could get rid of the other 1000 pages and $1T spending, this bill might be useful. Or do nothing, wait for republican control of House in 2010, and then expand HSAs further.
More on Talent
Chicago streets
After many years of construction, Chicago has cleaned up its underground passages.
Currently, I walk 16 blocks when going from work to the train (and 6 more to get home from there).
However, I found recently that on cold days (feels like sub-zero Farenheit), I can make it from Work to the train by walking only 5 of those blocks above ground. Kinda funny.
Currently, I walk 16 blocks when going from work to the train (and 6 more to get home from there).
However, I found recently that on cold days (feels like sub-zero Farenheit), I can make it from Work to the train by walking only 5 of those blocks above ground. Kinda funny.
Monday, December 28, 2009
MIght have to stop
My series on the Important ideas in economics.
Why? Because it seems that someone more qualified has already done the same thing (HT: the author).
Real fast, his 10 are (summarized by me):
1. Economics applies when there is scarcity, and you have to make tradeoffs.
2. Opportunity cost is the only reasonable way to think about cost.
3. Economic thinking is mostly on the margin (cost/value of 1 more)
4. Incentives matter
5. Trade is win-win for the parties involved.
6. Central Planning sucks (use markets when you can).
7. Market failure is real (but as per Masonomics, this does not imply that government intervention can solve).
8. GDP matters
9. Inflation is usually a government printing press problem.
10. Inflation + Unemployment are related.
Why? Because it seems that someone more qualified has already done the same thing (HT: the author).
Real fast, his 10 are (summarized by me):
1. Economics applies when there is scarcity, and you have to make tradeoffs.
2. Opportunity cost is the only reasonable way to think about cost.
3. Economic thinking is mostly on the margin (cost/value of 1 more)
4. Incentives matter
5. Trade is win-win for the parties involved.
6. Central Planning sucks (use markets when you can).
7. Market failure is real (but as per Masonomics, this does not imply that government intervention can solve).
8. GDP matters
9. Inflation is usually a government printing press problem.
10. Inflation + Unemployment are related.
Big 5
So...it's well known that the Big 5 personality traits are the best current descriptor of personality. What may be less well known is that there are 2 meta-traits that map fairly well to the Big 5.
Stability (vs. Instability) and Plasticity (vs. Rigidity): A popular treatment of the topic shows up here.
Mostly, stability means: Impulse control. Plasticity means: tries new stuff.
Very interesting stuff.
Stability correlates:
1. Tried to stop using alcohol or other drugs. (-.29)
2. Drank alcohol or used other drugs to make myself feel better. (-.29)
3. Swore around other people. (-.27)
4. Hung up the phone on a friend or relative during an argument (-.27)
5. Lost my temper (-.26)
6. Spent an hour at a time daydreaming. (-.26)
7. Yelled at a stranger (-.25)
8. Rode a motocycle. (-.24)
9. Awakened in the middle of the night and was unable to get back to sleep (-.24)
10. Became intoxicated. (-.23)
Me:
Never done 1,2,7
Done some things only in the distant past: 6, 8, 9, 10
Done other things only rarely: 3,4,5
I expect I'm in the bottom 5% of people on everything but #3 and historically, 8.
Plasticity Correlates:
1. Was consulted for help or advice by someone with a personal problem (+.33)
2. Planned a party. (+.31)
3. Attended a public lecture. (+.30)
4. Told a joke. (+.28)
5. Gave a prepared talk or public recital (vocal, instrumental, etc.). (+.28)
6. Spent an hour at a time daydreaming. (+.26)
7. Wrote a thank you note. (+.26)
8. Wrote a love letter. (+.26)
9. Attended a city council meeting. (+.25)
10. Entertained six or more people. (+.24)
Used to do 1,3,8 frequently
Still do 4, 5 very often (I'm a teacher-type).
Enjoy doing 2,3,10, but don't have many chances to.
7 is not terribly common, but I do it sometimes for authors whose books I particularly like.
6,9: No.
12, maybe.
Stability (vs. Instability) and Plasticity (vs. Rigidity): A popular treatment of the topic shows up here.
Mostly, stability means: Impulse control. Plasticity means: tries new stuff.
Very interesting stuff.
Stability correlates:
1. Tried to stop using alcohol or other drugs. (-.29)
2. Drank alcohol or used other drugs to make myself feel better. (-.29)
3. Swore around other people. (-.27)
4. Hung up the phone on a friend or relative during an argument (-.27)
5. Lost my temper (-.26)
6. Spent an hour at a time daydreaming. (-.26)
7. Yelled at a stranger (-.25)
8. Rode a motocycle. (-.24)
9. Awakened in the middle of the night and was unable to get back to sleep (-.24)
10. Became intoxicated. (-.23)
Me:
Never done 1,2,7
Done some things only in the distant past: 6, 8, 9, 10
Done other things only rarely: 3,4,5
I expect I'm in the bottom 5% of people on everything but #3 and historically, 8.
Plasticity Correlates:
1. Was consulted for help or advice by someone with a personal problem (+.33)
2. Planned a party. (+.31)
3. Attended a public lecture. (+.30)
4. Told a joke. (+.28)
5. Gave a prepared talk or public recital (vocal, instrumental, etc.). (+.28)
6. Spent an hour at a time daydreaming. (+.26)
7. Wrote a thank you note. (+.26)
8. Wrote a love letter. (+.26)
9. Attended a city council meeting. (+.25)
10. Entertained six or more people. (+.24)
Used to do 1,3,8 frequently
Still do 4, 5 very often (I'm a teacher-type).
Enjoy doing 2,3,10, but don't have many chances to.
7 is not terribly common, but I do it sometimes for authors whose books I particularly like.
6,9: No.
12, maybe.
To disagree with luminaries
As usual when I disagree with brilliant folks like Tyler Cowen, you ought to take my disagreement in careful doses. Though, my knowing that might mitigate a little.
Tyler writes "What are the odds that the best chess player in the world has never played chess?"
The Gardner theory, which is apparently moderately accepted by Tyler Cowen, is that people have built-in specialties. I disagree.
To get into the elite ranks of any skill, there are certain entry criteria. With Basketball, it involves height, coordination, general athleticism, vertical leap, and perhaps some other stuff that myself, the non-BB expert doesn't know. On the other hand, once you've passed the entrance criteria, most of the rest of it is effective practice. And only a little bit of the top-tier expertise comes down to specific talent.
In terms of being the best, there are effectively entry criteria (for the rank), and then persistence and general talent (Athleticism in basketballers) takes you most of the rest of the way, and then specific talent takes that final hundredth of a percent.
IF that's the model of expertise, then Tyler's question is silly. Or, more likely, I don't understand something that he wrote.
Tyler writes "What are the odds that the best chess player in the world has never played chess?"
The Gardner theory, which is apparently moderately accepted by Tyler Cowen, is that people have built-in specialties. I disagree.
To get into the elite ranks of any skill, there are certain entry criteria. With Basketball, it involves height, coordination, general athleticism, vertical leap, and perhaps some other stuff that myself, the non-BB expert doesn't know. On the other hand, once you've passed the entrance criteria, most of the rest of it is effective practice. And only a little bit of the top-tier expertise comes down to specific talent.
In terms of being the best, there are effectively entry criteria (for the rank), and then persistence and general talent (Athleticism in basketballers) takes you most of the rest of the way, and then specific talent takes that final hundredth of a percent.
IF that's the model of expertise, then Tyler's question is silly. Or, more likely, I don't understand something that he wrote.
WoTD
Word of the day:
Democratic Fundamentalist -- Bryan Caplan
Singular vs. plural: Bah!
The phrase is beautiful because it turns on it's head a common phrase: "Market fundamentalist", and because it points directly at the absurdity of the basic (broken) democratic process for regulating consensual activity.
Bryan's post, after the brilliant turn of phrase, also does a masterful job of economically analyzing this book and pointing out a pile of places where the government is simply making the process of positive fertility control MUCH worse. More detailed analyses like this would be fabulous.
Democratic Fundamentalist -- Bryan Caplan
Singular vs. plural: Bah!
The phrase is beautiful because it turns on it's head a common phrase: "Market fundamentalist", and because it points directly at the absurdity of the basic (broken) democratic process for regulating consensual activity.
Bryan's post, after the brilliant turn of phrase, also does a masterful job of economically analyzing this book and pointing out a pile of places where the government is simply making the process of positive fertility control MUCH worse. More detailed analyses like this would be fabulous.
Marketing Agile
So...one of the difficulties with Agile is that it's hard to market. Many managers and project managers want to run projects as if they are building projects, in a sequential or waterfall fashion.
I was just reading a book, Decision Traps, and I found something useful.
People have a tendency to frame decisions in one metaphor or another. I suggest challenging the decision-maker's metaphor. The normal reason people use a waterfall approach is (a) because someone told them to, or (b) because they envision building a software project like building a house. If the reason is (b), then there is room to shift their opinions.
The question:
Is building a piece of software more like:
Agile fits better than traditional methods with designing a new car, and fighting in a battle (No plan survives contact with the enemy). The best car companies also use Agile (Lean) in their building of new cars. And the construction people laugh at software people's rigid plans and say you can't build large projects that way. Drug discovery doesn't work in a waterfall fashion, and being a doctor only works that way if the patient is KO'd and there are no complications.
Agile also fits better with Basketball, Soccer, and Hockey than do Waterfall approaches. Baseball also, in terms of reactiveness.
So...if you're doing software development...the only metaphors that really work for the traditional way of doing software are: Football + Construction. And even construction doesn't work that well.
Next time you get into the Agile discussion, maybe try pick-a-metaphor...and then note that in almost every metaphor you can pick, Agile is preferred to Waterfall.
I was just reading a book, Decision Traps, and I found something useful.
People have a tendency to frame decisions in one metaphor or another. I suggest challenging the decision-maker's metaphor. The normal reason people use a waterfall approach is (a) because someone told them to, or (b) because they envision building a software project like building a house. If the reason is (b), then there is room to shift their opinions.
The question:
Is building a piece of software more like:
- building a house
- building a new car
- designing a new car
- Discovering a new drug
- fighting in a battle
- Being a doctor
- Football
- Basketball
- Baseball
- Soccer
- Hockey
Agile fits better than traditional methods with designing a new car, and fighting in a battle (No plan survives contact with the enemy). The best car companies also use Agile (Lean) in their building of new cars. And the construction people laugh at software people's rigid plans and say you can't build large projects that way. Drug discovery doesn't work in a waterfall fashion, and being a doctor only works that way if the patient is KO'd and there are no complications.
Agile also fits better with Basketball, Soccer, and Hockey than do Waterfall approaches. Baseball also, in terms of reactiveness.
So...if you're doing software development...the only metaphors that really work for the traditional way of doing software are: Football + Construction. And even construction doesn't work that well.
Next time you get into the Agile discussion, maybe try pick-a-metaphor...and then note that in almost every metaphor you can pick, Agile is preferred to Waterfall.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Cowen on Programmers
On one topic about which I know (I think) substantially more than the polymath Tyler Cowen, he comes out in agreement with me, and commenting on the thing that makes programming different:
On measures of programmer problem-solving ability, it is well known that 90th percentile programmers tend to be on the order of 10x as productive as 10th percentile programmers AT THE SAME LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE. And that's not talking about the top 1%, or the top 0.1%, of which I know a few. Productivity differences are humongous. The difference between a bunch of meathead programmers, and a top 1% guy is the same kind of difference you'd get if a team of 10 guys could build a house in a month, but one guy finishes it in a week solo, using 80% less materials, but it's more insulated, sturdier, and there's additional hidden features that make it easier to build an addition later.
The difference isn't a little, it isn't a lot. It's barely comprehensible. Of course, I watch for this in my job, as I do ALL the tech interviews for my software group...but the numbers here are insane. If you're looking for programmers...you are in general better off hiring 2-3 programmers at top 5% skill, and paying them triple, than 15 programmers at average skill, and paying them normal. All you need is someone who can tell the difference, so as to be able to pick the right guys.
On measures of programmer problem-solving ability, it is well known that 90th percentile programmers tend to be on the order of 10x as productive as 10th percentile programmers AT THE SAME LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE. And that's not talking about the top 1%, or the top 0.1%, of which I know a few. Productivity differences are humongous. The difference between a bunch of meathead programmers, and a top 1% guy is the same kind of difference you'd get if a team of 10 guys could build a house in a month, but one guy finishes it in a week solo, using 80% less materials, but it's more insulated, sturdier, and there's additional hidden features that make it easier to build an addition later.
The difference isn't a little, it isn't a lot. It's barely comprehensible. Of course, I watch for this in my job, as I do ALL the tech interviews for my software group...but the numbers here are insane. If you're looking for programmers...you are in general better off hiring 2-3 programmers at top 5% skill, and paying them triple, than 15 programmers at average skill, and paying them normal. All you need is someone who can tell the difference, so as to be able to pick the right guys.
Christmas links
Bryan Caplan on family at the holidays:
"Unless your family is truly dysfunctional, there's probably more than enough kindness to go around. The main remaining source of friction is lack of respect - the stubborn refusal to admit that when other people want your opinion, they will ask for it.* Don't hide behind the kindness of your motives; saying "I'm only trying to help!" doesn't make your disrespect any less odious."
Libertarian Roderick Long defends anti-scroogism:
Generosity is an unmitigated good, but:
"But are welfare rights in the interest of the poor? The poor need welfare, all right; but do they need welfare rights? A hungry person needs something to eat; and you can't eat a right to food. On grounds of generosity and compassion, therefore, a system that guarantees a right to food, but isn't too successful at supplying actual food, is surely less desirable than a system that reliably suplies food but recognizes no right to food. Only a belief in the omnipotence of coercive solutions and the impotence of voluntary solutions could justify the assumption that welfare rights are necessary and sufficient for actual welfare."
Editor's note:
Basic claim, all of which is empirically justified, is that state welfare is less efficient than private charity (duh), less generous, less well-targetted (duh), and further that it crowds out private welfare. (from Long) Witness Scrooge's line about Treadmill, Union workhouses, Poor Law, Prison. What scrooge has said is that he feels uncompelled to do private charity due to the amount of state charity.
And one of the strongest on-their-terms moral defenses of libertarianism:
"The "capitalist ruling class" are more likely to be lobbying Washington for special favors, protectionist legislation, and grants of monopoly privilege while their libertarian neighbors struggle to make ends meet."
"Unless your family is truly dysfunctional, there's probably more than enough kindness to go around. The main remaining source of friction is lack of respect - the stubborn refusal to admit that when other people want your opinion, they will ask for it.* Don't hide behind the kindness of your motives; saying "I'm only trying to help!" doesn't make your disrespect any less odious."
Libertarian Roderick Long defends anti-scroogism:
Generosity is an unmitigated good, but:
"But are welfare rights in the interest of the poor? The poor need welfare, all right; but do they need welfare rights? A hungry person needs something to eat; and you can't eat a right to food. On grounds of generosity and compassion, therefore, a system that guarantees a right to food, but isn't too successful at supplying actual food, is surely less desirable than a system that reliably suplies food but recognizes no right to food. Only a belief in the omnipotence of coercive solutions and the impotence of voluntary solutions could justify the assumption that welfare rights are necessary and sufficient for actual welfare."
Editor's note:
Basic claim, all of which is empirically justified, is that state welfare is less efficient than private charity (duh), less generous, less well-targetted (duh), and further that it crowds out private welfare. (from Long) Witness Scrooge's line about Treadmill, Union workhouses, Poor Law, Prison. What scrooge has said is that he feels uncompelled to do private charity due to the amount of state charity.
And one of the strongest on-their-terms moral defenses of libertarianism:
"The "capitalist ruling class" are more likely to be lobbying Washington for special favors, protectionist legislation, and grants of monopoly privilege while their libertarian neighbors struggle to make ends meet."
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Misogynistic Hypothesis
There is a question floating around the HBD(Human Biodiversity) + PUA(Pick Up Artist) + Men's Rights sphere that's been there for a while...which goes something like this:
Why do men in the Western World pursue tremendously crappy jobs that are alternately soul-suckingly corrupted office politics, mind-numbingly boring stupidity, and high-stress-high-conflict-high-speed-done-by-yesterday hurriedness? Simply...because EITHER they want to provide for the wife (who puts out) and kids OR because they want to be successful enough to attract women for sex (and kids?). Almost no other explanations are good enough reasons to do MOST jobs. A single guy feeding himself is awful cheap...especially since they don't need furniture apart from the electronics. This isn't rocket science, and I think everyone knows this.
There are a lot of trends in the modern world that point at
(A) The moderate success from working hard NOT leading to higher sexual attractiveness (Learn to be sexy gets more men than working hard).
(B) The value of being married (for men) is decreasing (divorce costs, divorce likelihood, availability of pre-marital sex, decreased value of marriage contract for men, availability of substitutes [foriegn wives, sexbots])
If these trends continue, there is clearly some point at which men basically stop working hard/hurting themselves in order to impress/care for women/kids. And at that point, society falls apart.
Why do men in the Western World pursue tremendously crappy jobs that are alternately soul-suckingly corrupted office politics, mind-numbingly boring stupidity, and high-stress-high-conflict-high-speed-done-by-yesterday hurriedness? Simply...because EITHER they want to provide for the wife (who puts out) and kids OR because they want to be successful enough to attract women for sex (and kids?). Almost no other explanations are good enough reasons to do MOST jobs. A single guy feeding himself is awful cheap...especially since they don't need furniture apart from the electronics. This isn't rocket science, and I think everyone knows this.
There are a lot of trends in the modern world that point at
(A) The moderate success from working hard NOT leading to higher sexual attractiveness (Learn to be sexy gets more men than working hard).
(B) The value of being married (for men) is decreasing (divorce costs, divorce likelihood, availability of pre-marital sex, decreased value of marriage contract for men, availability of substitutes [foriegn wives, sexbots])
If these trends continue, there is clearly some point at which men basically stop working hard/hurting themselves in order to impress/care for women/kids. And at that point, society falls apart.
Neurodiversity!!!
I've been pushing this meme for more than a decade, and now someone comes out and presents pretty serious research to support it. Click through to the NYT article as well.
My favorite bit:
"My research says that there are a lot of people who don’t ever naturally form images, and then there are other people who form very florid, high-fidelity, Technicolor, moving images"
I personally have a fabulous memory/image conjuration process for tastes and touch, but effectively none for smells and sights, and my audio-memory is pretty poor as well, excepting music. In music, I am tolerable to good at remembering lyrics, and never know the band or the name of the song. My mental landscape has NO pictures in it at all. I am fundamentally not visual. My allergies as a youth were such that my nose was effectively blocked from age 5-22, and so I learned no smells, which are normally the best sensory memory-inducers. I think, right now, as I blog, I can conjure around half-a dozen scents total from memory: Soap, cold-weather forest, cinnamon-y pumpkin pie, fresh baked bread/cookies, sweet basil, anise/licorice. OTOH, I am reasonable on the IQ-test-task of mentally rotating solids. But that mostly involves looking at something, and seeing the rest of it. How much does this explain about thinking?
My favorite bit:
"My research says that there are a lot of people who don’t ever naturally form images, and then there are other people who form very florid, high-fidelity, Technicolor, moving images"
I personally have a fabulous memory/image conjuration process for tastes and touch, but effectively none for smells and sights, and my audio-memory is pretty poor as well, excepting music. In music, I am tolerable to good at remembering lyrics, and never know the band or the name of the song. My mental landscape has NO pictures in it at all. I am fundamentally not visual. My allergies as a youth were such that my nose was effectively blocked from age 5-22, and so I learned no smells, which are normally the best sensory memory-inducers. I think, right now, as I blog, I can conjure around half-a dozen scents total from memory: Soap, cold-weather forest, cinnamon-y pumpkin pie, fresh baked bread/cookies, sweet basil, anise/licorice. OTOH, I am reasonable on the IQ-test-task of mentally rotating solids. But that mostly involves looking at something, and seeing the rest of it. How much does this explain about thinking?
BBdM part 87 + a proposed metric.
So, having finished reading Clark's A Farewell To Alms, I started on my next book, Governing for Prosperity. I wish now to rescind what I said about Clark being dense and slow to read. This book is a collection of academic-ish papers, collated into a book.
Having said that, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita presents a theory of growth and development that is moderately at odds with Clark's vision. Essentially, there is a very simple set of claims at the core of the book (or at least the part I've read):
Basic Claim:
Growth and development are entirely at the mercy of political decisions.
Outline of terms:
For any political unit, there are a group of people (or an individual) who make the decisions: Leader(s). There is also a (larger) group of people who decide which people get into the decision-maker group: the Selectorate. Inside the Selectorate, there is furthermore a winning Coalition that actually won. And there is an even larger group of people normally known as the Citizenry. Any notions about a Leader being absolute are mostly silly, as he depends extensively on at least some subset of the population supporting him voluntarily.
There are three basic approaches to governance as well: Democracy, Autocracy, and disorder.
Fundamentally:
As the selectorate & coalition gets smaller (relative to the size of the country), the stable strategy moves towards impoverishing the citizenry, and enrich the leader and coalition. If the selectorate stays large (the whole citizenry), there are some (imperfect) incentives for growth.
Proposed Metric: Market Health: Ratio of the Value to a business of $1 spent lobbying vs. $1 spent on making the business work better.
To a significant extent, as Arnold Kling likes to say, this ratio is what determines the future of a country.
Having said that, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita presents a theory of growth and development that is moderately at odds with Clark's vision. Essentially, there is a very simple set of claims at the core of the book (or at least the part I've read):
Basic Claim:
Growth and development are entirely at the mercy of political decisions.
Outline of terms:
For any political unit, there are a group of people (or an individual) who make the decisions: Leader(s). There is also a (larger) group of people who decide which people get into the decision-maker group: the Selectorate. Inside the Selectorate, there is furthermore a winning Coalition that actually won. And there is an even larger group of people normally known as the Citizenry. Any notions about a Leader being absolute are mostly silly, as he depends extensively on at least some subset of the population supporting him voluntarily.
There are three basic approaches to governance as well: Democracy, Autocracy, and disorder.
Fundamentally:
As the selectorate & coalition gets smaller (relative to the size of the country), the stable strategy moves towards impoverishing the citizenry, and enrich the leader and coalition. If the selectorate stays large (the whole citizenry), there are some (imperfect) incentives for growth.
Proposed Metric: Market Health: Ratio of the Value to a business of $1 spent lobbying vs. $1 spent on making the business work better.
To a significant extent, as Arnold Kling likes to say, this ratio is what determines the future of a country.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Conforming
Just having stopped by Steve Sailer's place, I read a quick article about James Cameron. The point was that James Cameron represents perfectly the Hollywood archetype...and that he's apparently sufficiently talented/hardworking that he would have represented the perfect archetype of wherever/whenever he lived.
Which leads to a set of interesting questions:
What opinions do you have that are like those of your friends/social circle, but different from the national or world average (or, to placate the moldbugian infiltrators, similar to your temporal compatriots but different than the historical average)?
How did you develop those opinions in common with your friends?
Of course, having read this blog a while, you have to know that I expect that almost universally, the answer is:
a. Shifted to match friends.
Of course we all have explanations for why we should have the opinions that match those of our friends. But most likely, an opinion that you share with your friends after having been converted should be treated as HIGHLY suspect. Most likely the primary reason you believe it is because you are fitting in socially. I'm sure that you can rationalize other reasons as well that will convince you that this isn't the cause. But they ain't good reasons for anyone else to believe as to why you switched.
I've seen this happen with friends and religion, both born-again and atheist, and I'm all the way convinced that it's the primary/only path to religion (this is not a claim about religion's truthiness, just about how it gets accepted). Indeed, I've watched the born-again social proof mechanism create religion in at least 2 people. Fortunately, they returned to their normal environments, and were slowly re-culturated into my less religious world. Also seen the deleterious effects that California has on people's ability to apprehend reality. Fortunately, I got out before I was permanently corrupted.
Which leads to a set of interesting questions:
What opinions do you have that are like those of your friends/social circle, but different from the national or world average (or, to placate the moldbugian infiltrators, similar to your temporal compatriots but different than the historical average)?
How did you develop those opinions in common with your friends?
- Did you shift your opinions to match those of your friends?
- Did you look for friends who shared your existing opinions?
- Is it just the general opinion that you didn't really question?
- Did you convince all your friends?
Of course, having read this blog a while, you have to know that I expect that almost universally, the answer is:
a. Shifted to match friends.
Of course we all have explanations for why we should have the opinions that match those of our friends. But most likely, an opinion that you share with your friends after having been converted should be treated as HIGHLY suspect. Most likely the primary reason you believe it is because you are fitting in socially. I'm sure that you can rationalize other reasons as well that will convince you that this isn't the cause. But they ain't good reasons for anyone else to believe as to why you switched.
I've seen this happen with friends and religion, both born-again and atheist, and I'm all the way convinced that it's the primary/only path to religion (this is not a claim about religion's truthiness, just about how it gets accepted). Indeed, I've watched the born-again social proof mechanism create religion in at least 2 people. Fortunately, they returned to their normal environments, and were slowly re-culturated into my less religious world. Also seen the deleterious effects that California has on people's ability to apprehend reality. Fortunately, I got out before I was permanently corrupted.
Some Support Against Learning Types
For my position that there is 1 right way to teach(HT: In Mala Fide). Evidence is, of course disputed by the learning types people.
On the other hand, I think I've been under-nuanced in my discussions of the topic.
My nuanced opinion.
For newbies, there is 1 useful way to learn. Get your hands dirty. If you are not getting your hands dirty, you are procrastinating, faking it, or doing the best with what you have, not learning.
For experts, there is 1 best way to learn something that is already well known to others: 2-way discussion. Anything else threatens to lose substantial content. Reading works as well, but is much slower, if much lower manpower.
Lecture is not on the list for either newbs or for experts (or in between). Talking heads are talking heads, and subject to the discovery channel effect (In education, this is demonstrated by how well you can explain a [science] topic 10 minutes after the Discovery Channel program ends)
On the other hand, I think I've been under-nuanced in my discussions of the topic.
My nuanced opinion.
For newbies, there is 1 useful way to learn. Get your hands dirty. If you are not getting your hands dirty, you are procrastinating, faking it, or doing the best with what you have, not learning.
For experts, there is 1 best way to learn something that is already well known to others: 2-way discussion. Anything else threatens to lose substantial content. Reading works as well, but is much slower, if much lower manpower.
Lecture is not on the list for either newbs or for experts (or in between). Talking heads are talking heads, and subject to the discovery channel effect (In education, this is demonstrated by how well you can explain a [science] topic 10 minutes after the Discovery Channel program ends)
ex post and ex ante
Item 1. One of my regular points: Decisions are often wrong. If you are making a decision about what to do in order to deal with the future, your action is the wrong action in many possible futures. If you are making a decision about what to do now, you action is the wrong action in many possible presents. When you make decisions, you have a good chance of being wrong.
Item 2. Group decisionmaking (future post) is likely to lead to a greater appearance of consensus than actually exists, unless you have someone socially stupid in the room, who simply is unmoved by consensus opinion.
Item 3. If you make the best possible guess before the fact (ex ante), there is a reasonable chance that you will be wrong. Fake Example: If there is a 75% chance that prediction X is true, then acting on prediction X gets you wrong 1 time in 4. And 75% is pretty good prediction rates. Far better than the average prediction rates for who will win an NFL game, for instance. More real example: As a manager, you are told that there is an 80% chance that prediction X is true. In reality, the team wasn't really statistically savvy, and instead there's only a 50% chance that it's true. Your best action is to rely on your team, and operate as if there's a 80% chance of correctness. You will be wrong every other time.
Item 4. Well known psychological fact: If a person makes a prediction beforehand, and turns out to be wrong, that person will change their memory of their beliefs to correspond with their current validated view, and honestly believe they have been right the whole time. Therefore, peoples' memories of their frequency of being wrong are wildly low.
In reality, the absolute best possible decision beforehand leads to failure some reasonable percentage of the time. However, people like to blame other people for oversights, and so often the fact that the decision failed is used to indict people who were wrong.
This means that any real decision making should be assuming a serious level of risk of being wrong. And a serious Cost Benefit Analysis against the likelihood of being wrong. Best example I can think of...that I've been arguing for about 8 years now.
Circa 2002:
Iraq has some sort of alliance with Al Qaeda: 75%
Iraq is developing a WMD Scheme: 80%
Iraq violated UN Security Council resolutions (primary given reason for war): 90%
Probability of neither WMD or AQ alliance = 5%: 1 in 20. Great odds that we ought to be fighting them (leave aside discussion of war in general), even without the primary justification of the security resolution
Now:
Iraq had some sort of alliance with Al Quaeda: 15%
Iraq had some sort of loose anti-US contact with Al Quaeda: 50%
Iraq had/was developing some WMD: 15%
Iraq had really violated UN SC resolutions : 80%
Thus, the official reason for the war was still mostly justified, but the unofficial reasons we would want to go to war were down to 49:1 against.
Ex ante, the war appeared to be justified, at least to all the major politicians on both sides of the aisle. Ex post, less so. So there's all this scramble to shift positions (like Kerry): I was against the war before I was for the war.
Was it the best decision, given all we know now? Not likely.
Was it the best decision, given standard statist "us" crap at the time of the war? Seems as if it was.
Of course, that doesn't fit the political narrative right now, so the simple minded prefer to accuse Bush of conspiracy, small-mindedness, and incompetence, rather than just being a standard politician, of roughly average presidential intelligence, who made a very justified mistake.
Regardless whether it is emotionally satisfying to maintain simplistic views of "enemy" politicians, one should at least maintain the distinction between ex post errors and ex ante best guesses. Because people are often in both categories.
Item 2. Group decisionmaking (future post) is likely to lead to a greater appearance of consensus than actually exists, unless you have someone socially stupid in the room, who simply is unmoved by consensus opinion.
Item 3. If you make the best possible guess before the fact (ex ante), there is a reasonable chance that you will be wrong. Fake Example: If there is a 75% chance that prediction X is true, then acting on prediction X gets you wrong 1 time in 4. And 75% is pretty good prediction rates. Far better than the average prediction rates for who will win an NFL game, for instance. More real example: As a manager, you are told that there is an 80% chance that prediction X is true. In reality, the team wasn't really statistically savvy, and instead there's only a 50% chance that it's true. Your best action is to rely on your team, and operate as if there's a 80% chance of correctness. You will be wrong every other time.
Item 4. Well known psychological fact: If a person makes a prediction beforehand, and turns out to be wrong, that person will change their memory of their beliefs to correspond with their current validated view, and honestly believe they have been right the whole time. Therefore, peoples' memories of their frequency of being wrong are wildly low.
In reality, the absolute best possible decision beforehand leads to failure some reasonable percentage of the time. However, people like to blame other people for oversights, and so often the fact that the decision failed is used to indict people who were wrong.
This means that any real decision making should be assuming a serious level of risk of being wrong. And a serious Cost Benefit Analysis against the likelihood of being wrong. Best example I can think of...that I've been arguing for about 8 years now.
Circa 2002:
Iraq has some sort of alliance with Al Qaeda: 75%
Iraq is developing a WMD Scheme: 80%
Iraq violated UN Security Council resolutions (primary given reason for war): 90%
Probability of neither WMD or AQ alliance = 5%: 1 in 20. Great odds that we ought to be fighting them (leave aside discussion of war in general), even without the primary justification of the security resolution
Now:
Iraq had some sort of alliance with Al Quaeda: 15%
Iraq had some sort of loose anti-US contact with Al Quaeda: 50%
Iraq had/was developing some WMD: 15%
Iraq had really violated UN SC resolutions : 80%
Thus, the official reason for the war was still mostly justified, but the unofficial reasons we would want to go to war were down to 49:1 against.
Ex ante, the war appeared to be justified, at least to all the major politicians on both sides of the aisle. Ex post, less so. So there's all this scramble to shift positions (like Kerry): I was against the war before I was for the war.
Was it the best decision, given all we know now? Not likely.
Was it the best decision, given standard statist "us" crap at the time of the war? Seems as if it was.
Of course, that doesn't fit the political narrative right now, so the simple minded prefer to accuse Bush of conspiracy, small-mindedness, and incompetence, rather than just being a standard politician, of roughly average presidential intelligence, who made a very justified mistake.
Regardless whether it is emotionally satisfying to maintain simplistic views of "enemy" politicians, one should at least maintain the distinction between ex post errors and ex ante best guesses. Because people are often in both categories.
Health Care Reform
The new consensus, as narrated by Scott Summers:
And especially this:
"According to the Wall Street Journal, the new bill effectively outlaws HSAs,..."
"You might think HSAs are a side issue; after all they only cover 4% of workers. Yes, but they covered only 1% in 2006. The medical industrial complex is made up of very smart people. They currently rake in 16% of GDP, and the percentage is rising rapidly. They weren’t going to stand by and allow the adoption of a system that spends only 5% of GDP in Singapore."
We lost. They won.
We are:
Progressives who favor a single-payer system
Libertarians who favor HSAs
Moderate economists who favor cost control to free up money for other societal goals
They are:
Doctors
Pharmaceutical companies
Hospitals
Private prepaid health plans (for some odd reason referred to as “insurance companies”)
Medical device makers
And many other special interest groups
And especially this:
"According to the Wall Street Journal, the new bill effectively outlaws HSAs,..."
"You might think HSAs are a side issue; after all they only cover 4% of workers. Yes, but they covered only 1% in 2006. The medical industrial complex is made up of very smart people. They currently rake in 16% of GDP, and the percentage is rising rapidly. They weren’t going to stand by and allow the adoption of a system that spends only 5% of GDP in Singapore."
Health Care Reform
The Fat Lady has not yet sung.
However, the bill that appears to be coming down the pipe was predicted by the public choice people. And not really anyone else in the prediction game. Look...a health care bill that does nothing to make things better for consumers, but a lot to make things better for insurance companies. How many more examples will it take before people notice that legislation is basically predictable via public choice, and not via normal "citizen-benefit" models of legislation.
However, the bill that appears to be coming down the pipe was predicted by the public choice people. And not really anyone else in the prediction game. Look...a health care bill that does nothing to make things better for consumers, but a lot to make things better for insurance companies. How many more examples will it take before people notice that legislation is basically predictable via public choice, and not via normal "citizen-benefit" models of legislation.
Taboo: Violence
I am a highly non-violent person. I don't like anything that causes pain to anyone, and I verge on pacifism emotionally.
At the same time, I think that violence is massively under-rated in the modern world. What follows is a survey of places in which violence is underrated.
At the same time, I think that violence is massively under-rated in the modern world. What follows is a survey of places in which violence is underrated.
- I am not at all convinced that emotional pain (engendered by words) is better than physical pain (engendered by contact).
- Much conflict between people is a conflict between people with a comparative advantage physically and people with a comparative advantage verbally. Any system that prevents the person with a comparative advantage physcially advantages the person with the verbal advantage. This benefits geeks / intellectuals like me. It also benefits wives who are verbally abusive to a much-stronger husband.
- Much punishment of children now has long-lasting punishments (grounding), and emotion-/approval-based scolds. I do believe that there is good evidence that short-term immediate physical pain (spanking on the spot) is notably better at inculcating aversive learning/response. Also, I'm inclined to believe that the emotion-based scolds are worse, net, for the child. If one isn't trying to deter future behavior, why the hell are we punishing at all.
- Punishment of Criminals is currently done via long term, humane containment. This is costly to the state, and relatively pleasant for the criminals. Singapore finds Caning to be a viable option for the maintenance of public order. In many cases, I am inclined to prefer humiliation/physical (non-damaging) punishment to incarceration. Caveat: I don't trust the state to define crimes, but overall, the benefits of physical punishment over incarceration are huge.
- Discussions of the acceptability of violence are Taboo. Almost no one is willing to discuss them, except by dismissal.
- As an obvious claim...in a conflict, the side with greater willingness to use violence tends to win. Criminals win conflicts with non-criminals most of the time. Increasing a society's willingness to use violence (particularly against criminals) should decrease violent crime.
QoTD
Wasn't today, but:
Arnold Kling says:
A point that I keep making about higher education is that it is, like the Harvard-Goldman filter, a form of recursive credentialism. To get certain jobs, you need certain credentials. And the most important credential of all is that you must signal your support for credentialism.
Arnold Kling says:
A point that I keep making about higher education is that it is, like the Harvard-Goldman filter, a form of recursive credentialism. To get certain jobs, you need certain credentials. And the most important credential of all is that you must signal your support for credentialism.
One Line ideas
Over the weekend, I linked to Russ Roberts' defense of Hayek. While I basically agree with Russ about Hayek, that's not terribly interesting. I can say, though, nearly everyone whose book I read that has brilliant things to say about the way things work recently (Thomas Sowell, Vernon Smith, Herb Gintis, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The GMU Economists) references Hayek as having either the insights that they found their work on, or insights that make their work possible. The level of brilliance of people who rely on Hayek is absurdly high.
But that's not what I want to talk about. Russ closes with a paragraph that says:
"
These are pretty simple ideas. When you give people the one sentence version or paragraph version they nod and tell you they agree with the essence of the idea. But I find these ideas to be quite deep. They are easy to understand but very difficult to absorb.
"
Aretae opinion: This is true FAR more than anyone tends to believe.
One sentence versions are not actually understood. Basically ever. 2:1 says that for any 10 moderately complicated ideas, a 1-sentence summary will have NO salubrious statistical effect on their actions. Most likely, the summary will cause either worse action, or no effect.
One needs detailed understanding, built from getting the hands dirty, before one can make an intelligent claim about darn near anything. Of course...doing is not the same between disciplines, so the relative pain of learning how to design a new widget is much greater than the pain of learning math or basic Microeconomics.
What you DO is what you understand. What you read is stuff that you are perhaps prepared to understand, but you fundamentally don't know what you're talking about.
But that's not what I want to talk about. Russ closes with a paragraph that says:
"
These are pretty simple ideas. When you give people the one sentence version or paragraph version they nod and tell you they agree with the essence of the idea. But I find these ideas to be quite deep. They are easy to understand but very difficult to absorb.
"
Aretae opinion: This is true FAR more than anyone tends to believe.
One sentence versions are not actually understood. Basically ever. 2:1 says that for any 10 moderately complicated ideas, a 1-sentence summary will have NO salubrious statistical effect on their actions. Most likely, the summary will cause either worse action, or no effect.
One needs detailed understanding, built from getting the hands dirty, before one can make an intelligent claim about darn near anything. Of course...doing is not the same between disciplines, so the relative pain of learning how to design a new widget is much greater than the pain of learning math or basic Microeconomics.
What you DO is what you understand. What you read is stuff that you are perhaps prepared to understand, but you fundamentally don't know what you're talking about.
On getting stuff right
As regular readers might know, I'm semi-obsessed with the fundamentality of error. We all make mistakes all the time, and a huge portion of the problems we live with are issues wherein error is simply not handled.
The link I shared to Paul Graham on writing illustrates this beautifully, in an example, but the example is applicable to everything. If people assumed that life works this way, things would be much better:
Paul's essay is encapsulated by his preface:
"In the process of answering an email, I accidentally wrote a tiny essay about writing. I usually spend weeks on an essay. This one took 67 minutes—23 of writing, and 44 of rewriting."
This is fundamentally the way life works. When you do something the first time, it isn't right. Roughly, it isn't ever right. As a software guy, I believe I've written roughly ONE 200+ line program that compiled without errors. I've NEVER edited an essay I've written, and not found a substantial number of changes that I might like to make. That includes the 3rd, 4th, and 7th edits. Software designs (unless copying something boring) are always wrong, and usually significantly. Engineering product designs go through up to a dozen-ish prototypes. Lesson plans suck the first time you try them. Only 5 or 50 tries later do they work well. I'm writing software for education. I'm on my 5th rewrite...not quite from the ground up but pretty close, and it may leak down so it's a full rewrite. When I cook, I change the recipe for at least the first dozen times I make a meal.
I simply have trouble understanding why anyone thinks that this isn't the normal way things work.
Wild speculation:
Is it school? Do we give people problems that they can get right the first time, and so teach people that the kinds of problems that actually occur in the real world are simple enough that you can find correct answers on a first try?
Is it maturity? Is it that so much learning in people occurs in a pre-formal operations congnitive development state, and so people are stuck in thought processes where the ambiguity inherent in the world is not well-liked.
Fundamentally, of all the strategies available for avoiding error, this is the most likely to make a difference: Expect you'll be wrong on the first try, and likely several after that. Plan around reasonable chances of error.
The link I shared to Paul Graham on writing illustrates this beautifully, in an example, but the example is applicable to everything. If people assumed that life works this way, things would be much better:
Paul's essay is encapsulated by his preface:
"In the process of answering an email, I accidentally wrote a tiny essay about writing. I usually spend weeks on an essay. This one took 67 minutes—23 of writing, and 44 of rewriting."
This is fundamentally the way life works. When you do something the first time, it isn't right. Roughly, it isn't ever right. As a software guy, I believe I've written roughly ONE 200+ line program that compiled without errors. I've NEVER edited an essay I've written, and not found a substantial number of changes that I might like to make. That includes the 3rd, 4th, and 7th edits. Software designs (unless copying something boring) are always wrong, and usually significantly. Engineering product designs go through up to a dozen-ish prototypes. Lesson plans suck the first time you try them. Only 5 or 50 tries later do they work well. I'm writing software for education. I'm on my 5th rewrite...not quite from the ground up but pretty close, and it may leak down so it's a full rewrite. When I cook, I change the recipe for at least the first dozen times I make a meal.
I simply have trouble understanding why anyone thinks that this isn't the normal way things work.
Wild speculation:
Is it school? Do we give people problems that they can get right the first time, and so teach people that the kinds of problems that actually occur in the real world are simple enough that you can find correct answers on a first try?
Is it maturity? Is it that so much learning in people occurs in a pre-formal operations congnitive development state, and so people are stuck in thought processes where the ambiguity inherent in the world is not well-liked.
Fundamentally, of all the strategies available for avoiding error, this is the most likely to make a difference: Expect you'll be wrong on the first try, and likely several after that. Plan around reasonable chances of error.
Appreciative Thinking and epistemology
Many people have the silly notion that the way philosophy proceeds is from metaphysics to epistemology, on to ethics, aesthetics, and politics.
Smarter people understand that epistemology must be prior (or at least co-evolved), as you can't make any claims about metaphysics without an epistemology to stand on.
The point that is almost never understood is that epistemology very often relies on ethics&aesthetics.
What we know is based, not on abstract considerations, but on choices we make (about what to attend to). The choices we make about what to know are about what is important. And the question of what is important is an ethical choice.
FWIW, this explains roughly everything about disagreement:
Political disagreement is often explained by differences in what people are willing to accept as evidence. This makes sense if "what is important" is prior to "what is true".
Status-serving beliefs that are blatantly not true are easily explained if decisions about good come before decisions about true.
Cross-group rivalries go here rather well.
Claim: the excercise of "What does position X handle better than my position?" should not only (almost) always come up with something relevant, but should also temper your disagreements.
Example:
I'm solidly libertarian.
Conservativism is much better than libertarianism at supporting institutions (family, work-ethic) that promote many libertarian goals, than any position I can get seriously behind.
Liberalism is much better at handling the problems of today's poor than any position I am comfortable with.
To not acknowledge that there's a (usually serious) value in the other positions is not only mistaken, but also leads to unhappiness.
Smarter people understand that epistemology must be prior (or at least co-evolved), as you can't make any claims about metaphysics without an epistemology to stand on.
The point that is almost never understood is that epistemology very often relies on ethics&aesthetics.
What we know is based, not on abstract considerations, but on choices we make (about what to attend to). The choices we make about what to know are about what is important. And the question of what is important is an ethical choice.
FWIW, this explains roughly everything about disagreement:
Political disagreement is often explained by differences in what people are willing to accept as evidence. This makes sense if "what is important" is prior to "what is true".
Status-serving beliefs that are blatantly not true are easily explained if decisions about good come before decisions about true.
Cross-group rivalries go here rather well.
Claim: the excercise of "What does position X handle better than my position?" should not only (almost) always come up with something relevant, but should also temper your disagreements.
Example:
I'm solidly libertarian.
Conservativism is much better than libertarianism at supporting institutions (family, work-ethic) that promote many libertarian goals, than any position I can get seriously behind.
Liberalism is much better at handling the problems of today's poor than any position I am comfortable with.
To not acknowledge that there's a (usually serious) value in the other positions is not only mistaken, but also leads to unhappiness.
Appreciative Thinking expanded
Earlier, I referenced Seth Roberts' post on appreciative thinking. As predicted, Tyler likes it. But the idea is sufficiently important, and sufficiently connected to education that I have to write a bit more about it.
According to Seth:
To learn appreciative thinking is to learn to appreciate, to learn to see the value of things.
In a prior post, Seth cites a received email that says:
"Part of Buddhism I think is that gratitude is the secret to happiness."
This may be one of the most under-comprehended ideas in life. Your assessment of the world is the primary determinant of how happy you are. Furthermore, given that most situations are not black or white, but rather pleasantly zebra-striped or rhino-coloured, you have the option of which aspects of the world to focus on. And by option, I mean, it is barely under your immediate conscious control, but highly responsive to habitual behavior.
Seth gives an example of how people read an academic paper. Most people are taught to approach it with "Critical Thinking". This really means looking to see what's wrong. Seth correctly suggests that "Critical Thinking"'s benefits are massively over-rated, and that one will often get more value out of "Appreciative Thinking", which is looking to see what's right or excellent or brilliant.
The difference:
People who are at the moment approaching life from a Critical Thinking perspective will find somewhat more of the non-obvious flaws in any idea-set. This, however, leads to unhappiness.
People who are at the moment approaching life from an Appreciative Thinking perspective will find somewhat more of the buried excellences, and provocative directions in any idea set. Further, this leads to happiness.
While I don't want to suggest, even for a moment, that Critical Thinking is unnecessary, or even not good. I do want to suggest that for any person even likely to be reading this blog, the error is far more likely to be a surplus of Critical Thinking and a deficit of Appreciative Thinking than the other way around.
This applies to one's life, papers, books, ideas, political positions. To the extent that one goes looking for flaws, one can find them. They're everywhere. To the extent that one goes looking for excellences, one can find those as well. And the difference in how the world looks is huge.
According to Seth:
To learn appreciative thinking is to learn to appreciate, to learn to see the value of things.
In a prior post, Seth cites a received email that says:
"Part of Buddhism I think is that gratitude is the secret to happiness."
This may be one of the most under-comprehended ideas in life. Your assessment of the world is the primary determinant of how happy you are. Furthermore, given that most situations are not black or white, but rather pleasantly zebra-striped or rhino-coloured, you have the option of which aspects of the world to focus on. And by option, I mean, it is barely under your immediate conscious control, but highly responsive to habitual behavior.
Seth gives an example of how people read an academic paper. Most people are taught to approach it with "Critical Thinking". This really means looking to see what's wrong. Seth correctly suggests that "Critical Thinking"'s benefits are massively over-rated, and that one will often get more value out of "Appreciative Thinking", which is looking to see what's right or excellent or brilliant.
The difference:
People who are at the moment approaching life from a Critical Thinking perspective will find somewhat more of the non-obvious flaws in any idea-set. This, however, leads to unhappiness.
People who are at the moment approaching life from an Appreciative Thinking perspective will find somewhat more of the buried excellences, and provocative directions in any idea set. Further, this leads to happiness.
While I don't want to suggest, even for a moment, that Critical Thinking is unnecessary, or even not good. I do want to suggest that for any person even likely to be reading this blog, the error is far more likely to be a surplus of Critical Thinking and a deficit of Appreciative Thinking than the other way around.
This applies to one's life, papers, books, ideas, political positions. To the extent that one goes looking for flaws, one can find them. They're everywhere. To the extent that one goes looking for excellences, one can find those as well. And the difference in how the world looks is huge.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
3 links, 3 ideas
- Seth Roberts talks appreciative thinking. This is huge. May be Seth's best idea, and that's saying a lot. Nearly no one understands this properly. I might nominate Tyler Cowen to get it for real. Wow!
- Paul Graham (HT: Ben Casanocha) writes about writing. This applies far beyond writing. The Casanocha post is also good, but misses something important. The rest of the information is missing, even when Summers clarifies.
Seth RobertsDavid Henderson(oops. oops.) Russ Roberts comments nominally on Hayek, but covers the difference between one-line ideas and a real understanding of them. It's almost the seeing vs. doing distinction.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Book: A farewell to alms
Gregory Clark's book, A Farewell To Alms, is long and complicated. At just about 400 pages, he roughly argues that our understanding of the economics of modernity sucks. We simply don't know why the industrial revolution happened. He does bring out several essential points in great detail, though.
England experienced stronger selection pressures than anywhere else. Effectively, in England between 1200 and 1800, the originally poor mostly died off, replaced by newly poor decendents of the rich. He spends several chapters describing this. And for every factor I saw, he underestimated the proportion of rich in the population. Undocumented bastard children were notably absent from his discussions it seem, and those clearly flock to the rich. Riches were a better determinant than title of reproductive success. Strong selection pressure for rich people led to people who had the mental/emotional characteristics to be rich: Envious, Smart, Gratification-deferring. Other places didn't have the same selection, and thus the Industrial Revolution came to England first. Of course, this means that wealth doesn't happen, unless you have the right (industrious, motivated) people.
Aside #2: Clark's history brings up the extent to which almost everyone talking is trapped in the now. The big question is how did we get so darn rich, and how did it get so well-distributed. Normal human state of affairs for at least the last 5000 years is massively larger real differences between the rich and the poor, and subsistence level survival for everyone except the rich. Very very important to not screw this one up, and go back to the old system.
Aside #3: Economists are odd. They measure consumption in $, not in quantity. If you buy 3lbs of $10/lb steak, and 2lbs of $3/lb sausage, while I buy 10lbs of sausage, the economist will claim (with a straight face) that you bought more meat. That's basically because you spent more money on your meat than I did, and if you had wanted to, you could have bought what I bought. As an economist, any other way of looking at it seems to fall apart, but it's still weird for less dismal folks. However...there's one fascinating result that falls out of this. The rich are STILL buying more kids than the poor. Roll THAT up and smoke it.
I do not recommend the book for anyone who is not very into dry facts and figures. The argument itself is about 30 pages of material. The support for the argument takes the other 375. On the other hand, the positions he takes are an essential part of the debate, and anyone unfamiliar is underinformed on the topic. I thank Isegoria greatly for turning me on to the book.
- Basically all of growth is productivity growth, and most of productivity growth is expertise growth in the workers (the rest is fancier machines).
- More than 100% of the value of the industrial revolution forward has gone to workers. The return on capital has not improved (still ~5%), and the returns to land have shrunk. Labor captures the entire surplus and then some. And the people most benefitted are the unskilled workers.
- Aside for him, fascinating for me. Shipping costs NOTHING. Really. $0.09 to ship a pair of jeans from an arbitrary point on the globe to you...given container ships, trucking efficiency. Shipping costs nothing. Think about it.
- Most of the difference between 1st and 3rd world living standards has to do with the quality of labor here vs. there. Same machines, same supervisors, same company...India vs. US you had 6x productivity per worker in England in cotton mills for an effectively unskilled task, in the 60s/70s.
England experienced stronger selection pressures than anywhere else. Effectively, in England between 1200 and 1800, the originally poor mostly died off, replaced by newly poor decendents of the rich. He spends several chapters describing this. And for every factor I saw, he underestimated the proportion of rich in the population. Undocumented bastard children were notably absent from his discussions it seem, and those clearly flock to the rich. Riches were a better determinant than title of reproductive success. Strong selection pressure for rich people led to people who had the mental/emotional characteristics to be rich: Envious, Smart, Gratification-deferring. Other places didn't have the same selection, and thus the Industrial Revolution came to England first. Of course, this means that wealth doesn't happen, unless you have the right (industrious, motivated) people.
Aside #2: Clark's history brings up the extent to which almost everyone talking is trapped in the now. The big question is how did we get so darn rich, and how did it get so well-distributed. Normal human state of affairs for at least the last 5000 years is massively larger real differences between the rich and the poor, and subsistence level survival for everyone except the rich. Very very important to not screw this one up, and go back to the old system.
Aside #3: Economists are odd. They measure consumption in $, not in quantity. If you buy 3lbs of $10/lb steak, and 2lbs of $3/lb sausage, while I buy 10lbs of sausage, the economist will claim (with a straight face) that you bought more meat. That's basically because you spent more money on your meat than I did, and if you had wanted to, you could have bought what I bought. As an economist, any other way of looking at it seems to fall apart, but it's still weird for less dismal folks. However...there's one fascinating result that falls out of this. The rich are STILL buying more kids than the poor. Roll THAT up and smoke it.
I do not recommend the book for anyone who is not very into dry facts and figures. The argument itself is about 30 pages of material. The support for the argument takes the other 375. On the other hand, the positions he takes are an essential part of the debate, and anyone unfamiliar is underinformed on the topic. I thank Isegoria greatly for turning me on to the book.
Hardwiring
Roissy, PUABlogger extraordinare, links to a whole pile of science that supports the genetic/intrinsic view of the way life works. In short...facial beauty is NOT in the eye of the beholder, breast-gawking is good for men, ou can judge a book (person) by it's cover (at least in part), and men's and women's brains respond differently to stimuli.
QOTD
From a couple days ago:
My wife (summarized):
I know, you're an idea critic. Only problem is, they don't get paid as well as food critics.
My wife (summarized):
I know, you're an idea critic. Only problem is, they don't get paid as well as food critics.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Odd places to find philosophical agreement
More than once in the last several months...and maybe here on the blog as well...I have said:
Look...there's the world, and there's your model of the world.
Parmenides was almost right...what you can say about the world is: It Is.
Almost everything else we say is about our model.
There is 1 additional component we can add to statements the world: My model did or did not predict the behavior of the world.
However, just like the brilliant QM epistemology...if you don't see it, you don't know.
We don't care, though because the Kantian Ding an such doesn't matter at all.
All we care about is results. (how fast did the cannonball drop off the leaning tower)
Imagine my surprise when I find the impressive Scott Sumner agreeing with me.
"
[Universe shrinks by 95% with abolition of dark matter]
I suppose some of you out there will insist that the universe did not really shrink, but rather that we have developed a new theory of reality. When will you guys realize that there is no such thing as “reality.” I used to argue with my philosopher friends that dark matter and dark energy were merely social constructs, ideas that were useful to scientists. And they kept insisting that these ideas mirrored reality; that you could zip out to distant galaxies and shovel buckets of dark matter into a barrel.
Please don’t take me for one of those left-wing post-modernists who believe knowledge is socially constructed for ideological reasons. I am a pragmatist, and believe science is a fundamentally pragmatic enterprise. We invent concepts (like dark matter) that prove useful. Perhaps in the distant future the remaining 5% of the universe will no longer prove useful, and we’ll discard that concept as well."
"
Different words. Same idea.
Look...there's the world, and there's your model of the world.
Parmenides was almost right...what you can say about the world is: It Is.
Almost everything else we say is about our model.
There is 1 additional component we can add to statements the world: My model did or did not predict the behavior of the world.
However, just like the brilliant QM epistemology...if you don't see it, you don't know.
We don't care, though because the Kantian Ding an such doesn't matter at all.
All we care about is results. (how fast did the cannonball drop off the leaning tower)
Imagine my surprise when I find the impressive Scott Sumner agreeing with me.
"
[Universe shrinks by 95% with abolition of dark matter]
I suppose some of you out there will insist that the universe did not really shrink, but rather that we have developed a new theory of reality. When will you guys realize that there is no such thing as “reality.” I used to argue with my philosopher friends that dark matter and dark energy were merely social constructs, ideas that were useful to scientists. And they kept insisting that these ideas mirrored reality; that you could zip out to distant galaxies and shovel buckets of dark matter into a barrel.
Please don’t take me for one of those left-wing post-modernists who believe knowledge is socially constructed for ideological reasons. I am a pragmatist, and believe science is a fundamentally pragmatic enterprise. We invent concepts (like dark matter) that prove useful. Perhaps in the distant future the remaining 5% of the universe will no longer prove useful, and we’ll discard that concept as well."
"
Different words. Same idea.
Arnold Kling in 1 sentence
Reihan Salaam presents what is perhaps the best short summary of the extremely moderate, strongly anti-government position (in Arnold Kling's book):
"No clique of technocrats, whether trained at France's École Nationale d'Administration or America's Goldman Sachs, is capable of managing the complexity of a modern market economy."
"No clique of technocrats, whether trained at France's École Nationale d'Administration or America's Goldman Sachs, is capable of managing the complexity of a modern market economy."
Question for the readers
I had an email discussion recently in which some Smithsonian magazine articles were referenced.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/
Looting of Cultural artifacts in Mali.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/
Nasty boring beetles threaten Northeast US hardwood supply.
The email pointedly suggested that these were instances of market failure.
I have 2-3 answers to each one, but with a rather strong libertarian contingent in my readership, I was wondering if I could pester the commentariat to "solve" the problems from a libertarian Point of View(PoV).
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/
Looting of Cultural artifacts in Mali.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/
Nasty boring beetles threaten Northeast US hardwood supply.
The email pointedly suggested that these were instances of market failure.
I have 2-3 answers to each one, but with a rather strong libertarian contingent in my readership, I was wondering if I could pester the commentariat to "solve" the problems from a libertarian Point of View(PoV).
Will Wilkinson on a roll
- Inequality 1: We are happier in a good neighborhood, poorer than our neighbors, than in a worse neighborhood, and richer than the neighbors.
- Inequality 2: Inequality is no big deal says Dean of Social Sciences at NYU, but social redistribution is basically a good idea.
- Health Care Bill: referencing Fables. Quoting IOZ, allegorizing the health care bill: "Basically, everyone starts out with a big pot of delicious hearty soup, and then all the residents of the village stop by and scoop out all the good stuff, and what’s left is a half-full pot of rancid water and a hunk of rock. Delicious! Or, at least,better than nothing."
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Links
- Tyler links to cool octopus stuff.
- Megan McArdle goes Robin Hanson on Copenhagen: "Mostly, this always seemed like an opportunity to eat caviar and hobnob earnestly."
- Arnold Kling explains financial regulation in a way that makes outsiders like me think they understand.
- Robin Hanson goes super-Robin Hanson on status-grubbing. The first commenter responds as optimistically as one can.
Distillations, Originals, or ?
Tyler yesterday commented very insightfully on an Arnold Kling post which both links to a deeper Dan Klein paper (pdf), and riffs of Bryan Caplan's 5-blog-post quip about Hayek.
Bryan indirectly votes for distillations.
Kling agrees.
Tyler, as is customary, gives multiple answers, but loosely agrees in many cases.
Klein votes for the originals.
Unsurprisingly, I'm going to disagree with a whole gaggle of excellent thinkers by going orthogonal.
Learning is fundamentally not not done by reading. Learning is done by doing.
If you haven't done the math, you don't understand relativity, and should kindly shut up.
If you haven't wrangled some quantum equations, you are unqualified to talk about what it means. The fact that you can read a book DOES NOT mean that you understand a darn thing about it.
If you don't cook (frequently), you don't know enough about cooking to comment.
Ditto Knitting, Writing software, solving economics problems, coaching, teaching, doing wiring, doing plumbing, playing poker, etc. The business of doing is a prerequisite for understanding what you're talking about.
Most topics in life are hard. Most stuff in life has MANY layers of complexity that you can't see if you're not in the trenches.
If you want to understand Physics...you can't READ Feynman. You have to do the damn exercises, just like he did in his famous relearning.
If you want to understand education, it isn't enough to read Montessori or Piaget or Dewey or Englemann. You also need to get your butt into a classroom, and try to teach.
We have this silly notion that you can understand a topic by reading about it. In reality, you can improve your understanding of a topic, gained from doing it, by reading about it.
Learning is built by putting examples together and extracting theory from them. Fundamentally, it's all inductive, all the way down. (I'm with Will, and against the philosopher consensus on a priori knowlege).
If you don't have the concepts down at a concrete level, you don't have a foundation to build your other concepts on. If you don't have the experience doing, you don't have the ability to actually understand beyond, because you're building on vapor. Castles on clouds are lovely and everything, but they ain't real solid.
So...should you read originals, or distillations?
Either one, with a time sensitivity. I'm closest to Tyler's view above.
But you shouldn't bother until you've spent some time in the trenches DOING whatever it is you're reading about. Because the insights of the masters are simply unavailable to folks with too little practice.
Bryan indirectly votes for distillations.
Kling agrees.
Tyler, as is customary, gives multiple answers, but loosely agrees in many cases.
Klein votes for the originals.
Unsurprisingly, I'm going to disagree with a whole gaggle of excellent thinkers by going orthogonal.
Learning is fundamentally not not done by reading. Learning is done by doing.
If you haven't done the math, you don't understand relativity, and should kindly shut up.
If you haven't wrangled some quantum equations, you are unqualified to talk about what it means. The fact that you can read a book DOES NOT mean that you understand a darn thing about it.
If you don't cook (frequently), you don't know enough about cooking to comment.
Ditto Knitting, Writing software, solving economics problems, coaching, teaching, doing wiring, doing plumbing, playing poker, etc. The business of doing is a prerequisite for understanding what you're talking about.
Most topics in life are hard. Most stuff in life has MANY layers of complexity that you can't see if you're not in the trenches.
If you want to understand Physics...you can't READ Feynman. You have to do the damn exercises, just like he did in his famous relearning.
If you want to understand education, it isn't enough to read Montessori or Piaget or Dewey or Englemann. You also need to get your butt into a classroom, and try to teach.
We have this silly notion that you can understand a topic by reading about it. In reality, you can improve your understanding of a topic, gained from doing it, by reading about it.
Learning is built by putting examples together and extracting theory from them. Fundamentally, it's all inductive, all the way down. (I'm with Will, and against the philosopher consensus on a priori knowlege).
If you don't have the concepts down at a concrete level, you don't have a foundation to build your other concepts on. If you don't have the experience doing, you don't have the ability to actually understand beyond, because you're building on vapor. Castles on clouds are lovely and everything, but they ain't real solid.
So...should you read originals, or distillations?
Either one, with a time sensitivity. I'm closest to Tyler's view above.
But you shouldn't bother until you've spent some time in the trenches DOING whatever it is you're reading about. Because the insights of the masters are simply unavailable to folks with too little practice.
Tyler on AGW solutions
A. Tyler asks questions about global warming here.partly as a response to A John Tierney post. The topic is tying carbon taxes to whether the earth is warming, by measuring it. Tyler's prediction, which is vindicated in the comments, is that AGW proponents are more likely to object. I respond on the second page of the comments thusly:
Tyler,
I'm with Jason.
As per a prior post of mine, there are a lot of questions around climate change. Whether the earth is getting warmer is not even the most important one.
1. We might ask instead whether we prefer the world warmer or colder, net.
2. @Jason properly asks whether human activity, and specifically CO2 is significantly contributing to the warming.
3. We also would need to know whether our activity had any reasonable chance of making a difference (without India/China buyin).
4. Isn't it almost guaranteedly better all around to try to tech-solution in the future and focus on growth now?
Tyler,
I'm with Jason.
As per a prior post of mine, there are a lot of questions around climate change. Whether the earth is getting warmer is not even the most important one.
1. We might ask instead whether we prefer the world warmer or colder, net.
2. @Jason properly asks whether human activity, and specifically CO2 is significantly contributing to the warming.
3. We also would need to know whether our activity had any reasonable chance of making a difference (without India/China buyin).
4. Isn't it almost guaranteedly better all around to try to tech-solution in the future and focus on growth now?
Monday, December 14, 2009
More Best Ways
So...I'm reading Robin Hansen, and I see the lovely line: Bayesian Truth Serum. Of course, that's a link, which leads to another link (pdf), which discusses predictive validity.
The question is
" How can we efficiently filter for and give more weight to unbiased experts and good ideas without appealing to authority, seniority, or majority?"
The answer is:
Roughly, people were asked a set of questions.
For each of those questions, people were also asked to estimate others' frequency of responses.
The people were incented for being correct, in order to diminish error (which worked).
Finally, items were weighted especially highly if the actual frequency of people's beliefs was higher than the estimated frequencies.
This has most of the advantages of $weighted opinioning, but does not disadvantage minority opinions as much. Everyone knew the Housing market was heading to a crash due to overvaluing housing since 2003-ish...but no one knew when, and so the majority opinion bubbled until it popped. This method seems to avoid chasing majority opinion as a simple $weighted market does.
Great fun.
PS. This is my new "Best Way". I am fundamentally now a majoritarian, with a shocking (for me) claim that trusting one's own opinion tends to lead one to error. My last 3 posts on epistemology have been pushing social epistemology over trusting one's own opinions.
At the same time, I don't trust bet-weighted majoritarianism for costless, low cost, or hidden-cost opinions (most philosophical questions, most democratic questions, most questions about education for most people), and opinions that have status value (Anthropogenic Global Warming [AGW], Marxism, Human Neuro-Uniformity [HNU], and God have status value, regardless who you are...just the status goes in different directions).
The question is
" How can we efficiently filter for and give more weight to unbiased experts and good ideas without appealing to authority, seniority, or majority?"
The answer is:
Roughly, people were asked a set of questions.
For each of those questions, people were also asked to estimate others' frequency of responses.
The people were incented for being correct, in order to diminish error (which worked).
Finally, items were weighted especially highly if the actual frequency of people's beliefs was higher than the estimated frequencies.
This has most of the advantages of $weighted opinioning, but does not disadvantage minority opinions as much. Everyone knew the Housing market was heading to a crash due to overvaluing housing since 2003-ish...but no one knew when, and so the majority opinion bubbled until it popped. This method seems to avoid chasing majority opinion as a simple $weighted market does.
Great fun.
PS. This is my new "Best Way". I am fundamentally now a majoritarian, with a shocking (for me) claim that trusting one's own opinion tends to lead one to error. My last 3 posts on epistemology have been pushing social epistemology over trusting one's own opinions.
At the same time, I don't trust bet-weighted majoritarianism for costless, low cost, or hidden-cost opinions (most philosophical questions, most democratic questions, most questions about education for most people), and opinions that have status value (Anthropogenic Global Warming [AGW], Marxism, Human Neuro-Uniformity [HNU], and God have status value, regardless who you are...just the status goes in different directions).
The reasonable assumption
...was that I was confused.
I read Timothy Sandfeur's critique of Hayek on Cato Unbound, and was immediately confused. As far as I could tell, Mr. Sandfeur was thoroughly confused. But as per the maxim Malice < Stupidity < Ignorance < My ignorance (MSIM), I should be worried that it is my error rather than the author's. Absent that, I have to assume that Cato picked someone who just doesn't get it to write the critique.
Perhaps my readers can assist me?
Mr. Sandfeur makes four points in his article:
Fundamentally, the issue around spontaneous order is that we are (all) likely to be wrong, either now or in the future. All the subsidiary points are reflections of this idea. Mr. Sandfeur seems to be missing the point by assuming that our positions are correct. Suppose instead we say that the essay relies on the critic's assumption of correctness in his assessments, and that the assumption is unjustified. To answer in the terms of error:
When even conservative attorneys don't understand Hayek, we have a real problem. I'd rather it were me who was misunderstanding, but I don't see it yet.
I read Timothy Sandfeur's critique of Hayek on Cato Unbound, and was immediately confused. As far as I could tell, Mr. Sandfeur was thoroughly confused. But as per the maxim Malice < Stupidity < Ignorance < My ignorance (MSIM), I should be worried that it is my error rather than the author's. Absent that, I have to assume that Cato picked someone who just doesn't get it to write the critique.
Perhaps my readers can assist me?
Mr. Sandfeur makes four points in his article:
- The difference between spontaneous order and constructed order is somewhere between highly fuzzy and non-existent.
- Hayek's case against constructed order is between weak and missing
- Hayek makes it hard to recognize injustice: "it is the system working"
- Hayek makes it near impossible to reform injustice by militating against constructed order.
Fundamentally, the issue around spontaneous order is that we are (all) likely to be wrong, either now or in the future. All the subsidiary points are reflections of this idea. Mr. Sandfeur seems to be missing the point by assuming that our positions are correct. Suppose instead we say that the essay relies on the critic's assumption of correctness in his assessments, and that the assumption is unjustified. To answer in the terms of error:
- Spontaneous order are those cases in which when we discover our errors, we can (moderately) easily exit the old equilibrium. Constructed orders are those in which we cannot.
- The case against constructed order is that it forces (likely wrong) directions, and does not adapt, thereby becoming horribly inefficient (the economist's critique)
- In reality, many (not all) injustices turn out to be not-unjust upon further, deeper, slower examination. As per my thinking recently...it is not that we should not ever recognize the unjust...just that we should look beyond the obvious for reasons. We are more likely to be wrong than the collective wisdom of ages.
- Most reforms cause unanticipated consequences, many of which are worse than the injustices themselves. This mitigates for being very careful and very slow. Hearing crashing in the woods behind the house does not mean you should shoot your shotgun that way. You are very likely, in that case, to do damage to something you didn't mean to hurt. Instead, wait, learn, observe, load a slug or two in case it's a bear. And don't do anything unless you see it.
When even conservative attorneys don't understand Hayek, we have a real problem. I'd rather it were me who was misunderstanding, but I don't see it yet.
Unnatural Juxtaposition
A couple ideas flowing together has me scratching my head to see if it explains a lot.
1. Gregory Clark says: historically, folks bred more...meaning selection for those traits that made folks rich (merchant traits).
2. Jane Jacobs says: 2 systems of morality: trading/conquest.
3. Arnold Kling says: Trade for real is very recent...before that, it was just plunder.
Together these say:
Market-style, treat-others-impartially systems are new, and humans do (and should) think of them as unnatural. For (roughly) ALL of human recorded history, there has been a sultan/emperor/king/pasha/etc. who tells you what to do. For ALL of human unrecorded history, there was a tribe who collectively made decisions, based largely on tribal social dynamics. In all 2 million years of human social history, there was either a boss who decides or a tribe who decides, or sometimes some combination (English Common Law). The capability of the human intuition to wrap itself around a system that is only 250 years from proposal should be awful low.
On the other hand, the explanatory system is amazingly good. Only hope is that the governmental folks who don't understand the decentralized order don't kill it with their tinkering.
1. Gregory Clark says: historically, folks bred more...meaning selection for those traits that made folks rich (merchant traits).
2. Jane Jacobs says: 2 systems of morality: trading/conquest.
3. Arnold Kling says: Trade for real is very recent...before that, it was just plunder.
Together these say:
Market-style, treat-others-impartially systems are new, and humans do (and should) think of them as unnatural. For (roughly) ALL of human recorded history, there has been a sultan/emperor/king/pasha/etc. who tells you what to do. For ALL of human unrecorded history, there was a tribe who collectively made decisions, based largely on tribal social dynamics. In all 2 million years of human social history, there was either a boss who decides or a tribe who decides, or sometimes some combination (English Common Law). The capability of the human intuition to wrap itself around a system that is only 250 years from proposal should be awful low.
On the other hand, the explanatory system is amazingly good. Only hope is that the governmental folks who don't understand the decentralized order don't kill it with their tinkering.
Hockey Stick Graph
No, the other one.
In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark points out that economic growth, from the dawn of humans near 2 Million BC up to roughly 1800, was a flat line, with a per capita growth rate of zero. Basically, before Malthus, Malthus (and Ricardo) was right. Advances in productivity brought about advances in population, but not advances in standard of living. An example might compare England to Japan. Because England was more dirty, it had a higher disease rate, thus a higher mortality rate, and thus a higher standard of living. Japan, contrarily, was cleaner, and thus closer to subsistence farming. Also odd: Rapacious plundering by the royalty has nearly no effect on the Malthusian standard of living.
However, the graph, as we know, did not stay flat forever. Sometime near 1800, the standard of living started to go up. And after 2 Million years of no growth, the standard of living has gone up by a factor of ~15 in 200 years. I haven't finished the book, so I am not going to go into his argument about why we're so rich, but instead, I'll choose to marvel at it.
Our richness is such an anomoly in human history, we need to take a moment to appreciate it. And even better, we need to try to understand it. Every great thing we now have in terms of how we go about living our lives, be it our warm houses, or our not-regularly-hungry lives, owes its existence primarily to whatever it was that made us transition from No growth up to our current living standards growth rate, doubling every 50 years since 1800. And as always, I think it should/must be our primary purpose politically to ensure that this continues.
In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark points out that economic growth, from the dawn of humans near 2 Million BC up to roughly 1800, was a flat line, with a per capita growth rate of zero. Basically, before Malthus, Malthus (and Ricardo) was right. Advances in productivity brought about advances in population, but not advances in standard of living. An example might compare England to Japan. Because England was more dirty, it had a higher disease rate, thus a higher mortality rate, and thus a higher standard of living. Japan, contrarily, was cleaner, and thus closer to subsistence farming. Also odd: Rapacious plundering by the royalty has nearly no effect on the Malthusian standard of living.
However, the graph, as we know, did not stay flat forever. Sometime near 1800, the standard of living started to go up. And after 2 Million years of no growth, the standard of living has gone up by a factor of ~15 in 200 years. I haven't finished the book, so I am not going to go into his argument about why we're so rich, but instead, I'll choose to marvel at it.
Our richness is such an anomoly in human history, we need to take a moment to appreciate it. And even better, we need to try to understand it. Every great thing we now have in terms of how we go about living our lives, be it our warm houses, or our not-regularly-hungry lives, owes its existence primarily to whatever it was that made us transition from No growth up to our current living standards growth rate, doubling every 50 years since 1800. And as always, I think it should/must be our primary purpose politically to ensure that this continues.
Weather
Chicago is weird.
This year, we skipped summer, and fall and spring just butted up to one another for an 8 month warm/cool season. There was that cold week in early October: 30s. Now for the last 2 years, it's snowed first precisely on my daughter's birthday, December 1st. This year, contrarily, it waited until the 6th or so to snow, and was still only near 30. Then last Wednesday, it got cold. 2 degrees, with a windchill near -20 when I was walking to work. I had to switch out of my fall gear and into my light winter weather gear. But now it's back up. It's been between 25 and 40 ever since...and the sled hill captivated the kids for all of Saturday afternoon.
This year, we skipped summer, and fall and spring just butted up to one another for an 8 month warm/cool season. There was that cold week in early October: 30s. Now for the last 2 years, it's snowed first precisely on my daughter's birthday, December 1st. This year, contrarily, it waited until the 6th or so to snow, and was still only near 30. Then last Wednesday, it got cold. 2 degrees, with a windchill near -20 when I was walking to work. I had to switch out of my fall gear and into my light winter weather gear. But now it's back up. It's been between 25 and 40 ever since...and the sled hill captivated the kids for all of Saturday afternoon.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Precautionary Principle
Simply, it stinks. But there are a lot of reasons why it stinks, and those are worth elucidating. Fortunately, Ilya Somin @ volokh has done most of the heavy lifting for me, and I just need to link (HT: Instapundit). On the other hand, there are other critiques of the precautionary principle that are somewhat less logically elegant (it's self-refuting is awfully elegant), but which I have in the past liked better.
Max More of the Extropians once formulated the proactionary principle, to contrast with the original.
Also, the precautionary principle tends to be used in favor of restricting innovation. As someone who (like Ilya Somin) is mostly interested in compound growth, this is very very bad, and lands people invoking it usually on the side of the Stasists, and opposed to my intellectual kin, the Dynamists.
No one consistently applies the precautionary principle in life, either...just in areas where they are phobic or trying to tell someone else what to do. See...driving.
Most interesting, as an economist, the cost of any action is primarily the opportunity cost. If you do X, instead of Y, you are opting against all of the value of Y. The precautionary principle is indifferent to value gained. So long as the world is effectively zero sum, this may be ok. But because the world is NOT zero-sum, but usually positive sum, this is atrocious. If you have a 1% chance of losing $1000...it makes sense not to pursue a 99% chance of gaining $1. It makes a lot less sense to pursue a 99% chance of gaining $10,000.
Max More of the Extropians once formulated the proactionary principle, to contrast with the original.
Also, the precautionary principle tends to be used in favor of restricting innovation. As someone who (like Ilya Somin) is mostly interested in compound growth, this is very very bad, and lands people invoking it usually on the side of the Stasists, and opposed to my intellectual kin, the Dynamists.
No one consistently applies the precautionary principle in life, either...just in areas where they are phobic or trying to tell someone else what to do. See...driving.
Most interesting, as an economist, the cost of any action is primarily the opportunity cost. If you do X, instead of Y, you are opting against all of the value of Y. The precautionary principle is indifferent to value gained. So long as the world is effectively zero sum, this may be ok. But because the world is NOT zero-sum, but usually positive sum, this is atrocious. If you have a 1% chance of losing $1000...it makes sense not to pursue a 99% chance of gaining $1. It makes a lot less sense to pursue a 99% chance of gaining $10,000.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Why school?
Once upon a time, I spent a lot of time thinking about the purposes of school.
With yesterday's discussion, as well as Robin Hansen's new post from yesterday, I should elaborate.
What values does school support?
In a distinctly not priority-determined list:
1. Impart knowledge.
2. Babysitting
3. Status for parents
4. Signalling of dilligence/persistence
5. Signalling of base IQ
6. Signalling of obedience/conformity
7. Propaganda/creating uniform culture. (Horace Mann, why we have schools at all)
8. Verify knowledge. (testing)
9. Create social context with peers.
10. Keep kids (mostly) out of workforce.
11. Impart skills (different from knowledge -- includes Cowen's autism stuff)
12. Generate conformity/obedience (duh).
13. Impart habits (including mental habits).
14. Separate people into tracks. (tracking, elite schools, etc.)
15. Allow wide exploration of future options. (justify broad curriculum & not 3Rs)
16. Prepare for future. (good education theory)
17. Bring more of world under self-control. (Montessori def).
With yesterday's discussion, as well as Robin Hansen's new post from yesterday, I should elaborate.
What values does school support?
In a distinctly not priority-determined list:
1. Impart knowledge.
2. Babysitting
3. Status for parents
4. Signalling of dilligence/persistence
5. Signalling of base IQ
6. Signalling of obedience/conformity
7. Propaganda/creating uniform culture. (Horace Mann, why we have schools at all)
8. Verify knowledge. (testing)
9. Create social context with peers.
10. Keep kids (mostly) out of workforce.
11. Impart skills (different from knowledge -- includes Cowen's autism stuff)
12. Generate conformity/obedience (duh).
13. Impart habits (including mental habits).
14. Separate people into tracks. (tracking, elite schools, etc.)
15. Allow wide exploration of future options. (justify broad curriculum & not 3Rs)
16. Prepare for future. (good education theory)
17. Bring more of world under self-control. (Montessori def).
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
It's not often
That I say, without hesitation, that the very smart guys at econlog and marginal revolution are wrong. However, I'm willing to say it now. And that's particularly interesting because Bryan and Alex disagree with one another on this point.
Alex is concerned that education can be implemented via lecture-remotely. Alex is very simply wrong about what constitutes value in education. Value in college consists of:
How much work did you do is FAR better of a predictor than professor quality on learning. And so...star lecturers, dear Dr. Tabarrok, do not matter a bit.
The ever-insightful Dr. Caplan is wrong in a different way.
He is stuck in the book/abstract model of learning, as opposed to the action model of learning. Incentives matter, and marginal value matters a lot. The marginal cost and in particular the marginal weirdness factor of online colleges is dropping rapidly. 10% in 10 years is easy. The question for me is 50% in 20 years? Bryan's complacency reminds me of the newspaper industry 15 years ago. How many folks in 1994 realized that the business model of the newspaper industry would be dead in 15 years? Education is in the same spot now as the newspaper industry was back then. There are glimmers of a path that makes the model obsolete. But the fundamentals are thoroughly rotten, and there is room to exploit them. Someone, soon(and if I'm lucky, me) will build a different model of education that massively improves upon the current one. And college will in 15 years, be in the same dire straits that newspapers are in now.
The decline will start (has started -- death count: 2) with small, low marginal value, undergraduate liberal arts colleges, and then leak into community colleges and low-tier state schools. As soon as it leaks into schools with masters/doctoral level programs, the university financing models fall apart entirely, as undergraduates finance huge portions of the education system. High schools as holding pens will be impacted later, as the new model is accepted more. Harvard, other high-endowment doctoral programs, and other high-prestige programs will remain (anyone with several Nobels/equivalent on staff). But the prestige difference between Podunk State and UoPhoenix is not large, and indeed may not even be positive for Podunk State.
Second part of the decline is that evaluation systems will improve. Both IQ tests (Wunderlich) and Personality tests (Big 5-conscientiousness) are legal in many hiring decisions. Someone who tests well on real, deception indexed conscientiousness and IQ will be worth hiring out of high school instead of hiring a college grad at some level of test quality. Indeed, if Dr. Caplan takes his own education signalling posts seriously, he should be expecting some level of verifiable test quality to break the system, with some lag.
Alex is concerned that education can be implemented via lecture-remotely. Alex is very simply wrong about what constitutes value in education. Value in college consists of:
- Contacts.
- Signalling.
- Practice.
How much work did you do is FAR better of a predictor than professor quality on learning. And so...star lecturers, dear Dr. Tabarrok, do not matter a bit.
The ever-insightful Dr. Caplan is wrong in a different way.
He is stuck in the book/abstract model of learning, as opposed to the action model of learning. Incentives matter, and marginal value matters a lot. The marginal cost and in particular the marginal weirdness factor of online colleges is dropping rapidly. 10% in 10 years is easy. The question for me is 50% in 20 years? Bryan's complacency reminds me of the newspaper industry 15 years ago. How many folks in 1994 realized that the business model of the newspaper industry would be dead in 15 years? Education is in the same spot now as the newspaper industry was back then. There are glimmers of a path that makes the model obsolete. But the fundamentals are thoroughly rotten, and there is room to exploit them. Someone, soon(and if I'm lucky, me) will build a different model of education that massively improves upon the current one. And college will in 15 years, be in the same dire straits that newspapers are in now.
The decline will start (has started -- death count: 2) with small, low marginal value, undergraduate liberal arts colleges, and then leak into community colleges and low-tier state schools. As soon as it leaks into schools with masters/doctoral level programs, the university financing models fall apart entirely, as undergraduates finance huge portions of the education system. High schools as holding pens will be impacted later, as the new model is accepted more. Harvard, other high-endowment doctoral programs, and other high-prestige programs will remain (anyone with several Nobels/equivalent on staff). But the prestige difference between Podunk State and UoPhoenix is not large, and indeed may not even be positive for Podunk State.
Second part of the decline is that evaluation systems will improve. Both IQ tests (Wunderlich) and Personality tests (Big 5-conscientiousness) are legal in many hiring decisions. Someone who tests well on real, deception indexed conscientiousness and IQ will be worth hiring out of high school instead of hiring a college grad at some level of test quality. Indeed, if Dr. Caplan takes his own education signalling posts seriously, he should be expecting some level of verifiable test quality to break the system, with some lag.
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