Over the years I have heard a variety of proposals and strategies for achieving a more peaceful and harmonious world. I have worked for some of them, and I can't think of one I have been opposed to. Yet I find myself with some critical thoughts.
Violence covers a spectrum from what goes on between friends and family, up through larger groups to the question of violence between nations. There is a widespread sense that this constitutes a single thing, an aspect of life that calls for a single approach. Between family and friends, within workplaces, within a group such as FUSN, the proper methods to eliminate violence include personal ones. Adopting a more peaceful inner state is important. Teaching nonviolent conflict resolution, learning about appropriate ways to manage anger, and empathy with others' points of views -- all are important.
But people often say that these transformations are the way to work towards nonviolence in the world of international relations. "Peace: Let it begin with me." "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
I disagree. At the level of national and international politics, these are not what matter. The idea of a Department of Peace perplexes me, and I feel ambivalent about the draft UU proposal: "Should the Unitarian Universalist Association reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war to resolve disputes between peoples and nations and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means?" Does the journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step? Or are we trying to reach the moon by climbing a mountain?
As I left grad school in 1982, I was deeply concerned about the possibility of war, in particular nuclear war between the US and the USSR. In an attempt to take action, I became impressed with the late Randall Forsberg, and worked for her for three years. Randy was a principal author of the Nuclear Freeze, a movement which swept the nation and forced Reagan to take a more peaceful approach to the USSR than he otherwise would have. Randy was a radical, passionately committed to peace and justice, but the Freeze proposal was very moderate: not to forswear all violence or even military action, but simply to stop building new nuclear weapons if the USSR would agree to do the same. Her genius was to find a moderate first step that ordinary folks could embrace. That's the kind of proposal we need to find. The ordinary person is, I am afraid, left scratching his or her head and looking puzzled at those who want to forswear all violence, now.
The way to international peace is by a series of steps in the real world, the peaceful resolution of one conflict, and then perhaps another. With luck, this will transform the world into a place which Americans perceive as somewhat less dangerous, allowing them to consider a less violent posture or solution to the next crisis. Few Americans like war, they just feel it may be necessary to stay safe.
A personal commitment to a more profound nonviolence is useful for the goal of eliminating the (often fairly subtle) violence within FUSN and our own families, but if intended as a way to international peace, it is mostly a distraction.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Pinker's "The Blank Slate"
I have just read a book by Steve Pinker call "The Blank Slate". It was written in 2002, so it won't be news to people who follow such things. But I find Pinker's observations on our social condition to be some of the most incisive that I have read.
He treats a series of issues that he identifies as "hot buttons" (politics, violence, gender, children, and the arts). There is a great deal more to the book, but I find those parts the most interesting. I am inspired by Pinker's beliefs here, but it is possible that I am not reflecting his opinions in all respects.
He argues that greater consideration should be put on innate differences than is typical in modern culture when addressing social issues. I will take as an example the idea of innate differences in intelligence among people, though the form of the argument is similar for the other hot button issues:
In the conventional liberal view, all children start with equal intelligence, and given the proper environment we could all emerge as highly intelligent. The liberal view is also that people who disagree with that view should be condemned as racists. Their main reason is that in the past, those with morally repugnant views (such as Nazis) alleged innate differences in defense of racist policies. That is (rightly) an emotionally charged issue, which (understandably) can make it hard to move towards looking dispassionately at what the alternative suggestion actually is.
The alternative view starts with science. Nazis made allegations of innate differences without any evidence, and Cyril Burt faked data to defend his belief in the innate superiority of upper class British children. Real science has shown that those were false. But science has also given overwhelming evidence for the heritability of intelligence (more precisely, for a large chunk of the differences in intelligence between individuals within a group).
But Pinker has no patience for morally repugnant policies. He argues that our moral stance should rest on firmer ground: people all have equal value and must have equal rights and opportunities because they are people, not because they have equal (or even "as good") genetic backgrounds.
While I am impressed by Pinker's analyses, I have also learned over the years to be cautious about accepting any view until I have heard and considered the best arguments that people on the other side of the issue have to offer. My initial efforts to find opposing views on the web did not turn up anything I found very impressive, but I am interested in what others may know.
He treats a series of issues that he identifies as "hot buttons" (politics, violence, gender, children, and the arts). There is a great deal more to the book, but I find those parts the most interesting. I am inspired by Pinker's beliefs here, but it is possible that I am not reflecting his opinions in all respects.
He argues that greater consideration should be put on innate differences than is typical in modern culture when addressing social issues. I will take as an example the idea of innate differences in intelligence among people, though the form of the argument is similar for the other hot button issues:
In the conventional liberal view, all children start with equal intelligence, and given the proper environment we could all emerge as highly intelligent. The liberal view is also that people who disagree with that view should be condemned as racists. Their main reason is that in the past, those with morally repugnant views (such as Nazis) alleged innate differences in defense of racist policies. That is (rightly) an emotionally charged issue, which (understandably) can make it hard to move towards looking dispassionately at what the alternative suggestion actually is.
The alternative view starts with science. Nazis made allegations of innate differences without any evidence, and Cyril Burt faked data to defend his belief in the innate superiority of upper class British children. Real science has shown that those were false. But science has also given overwhelming evidence for the heritability of intelligence (more precisely, for a large chunk of the differences in intelligence between individuals within a group).
But Pinker has no patience for morally repugnant policies. He argues that our moral stance should rest on firmer ground: people all have equal value and must have equal rights and opportunities because they are people, not because they have equal (or even "as good") genetic backgrounds.
While I am impressed by Pinker's analyses, I have also learned over the years to be cautious about accepting any view until I have heard and considered the best arguments that people on the other side of the issue have to offer. My initial efforts to find opposing views on the web did not turn up anything I found very impressive, but I am interested in what others may know.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Philosophy of traffic
In our FUSN group the question arose of whether left turn on red was ever permitted. It is, usually, when from a one-way street onto a one-way street. You can look at the Wikipedia (yay!) article titled "Right turn on red". I was intrigued by one of the later paragraphs in the article at the time I am writing this, though I imagine it may disappear because it is not very encyclopedia-ish:
"A very curious question involving legal moves under a red light signal is why it is illegal to go straight under a red light if the vehicle involved is traveling straight on the through road of a 3-way (T-shaped) intersection. ... The theory behind the legality of turning right on red or turning left on red from a one-way street onto a one-way street is obvious. It prohibits a vehicle from crossing a lane of traffic, but allows a vehicle to enter a moving lane of traffic if there are no obstacles. That theory is consistent with allowing a vehicle traveling on the through road at a 3-way (T-shaped) intersection to travel straight under a red light if it is safe to do so. In such a circumstance, the vehicle can turn no further right than going straight."
I have thought this for some time.
One legal point that intrigues me is whether turning right on red is required when it is clearly safe to do so. Drivers behind you will express their opinion, but that is a different matter. Presumably one could get a ticket for blatantly and habitually failing to go forward at a green light, but my intuition is that this is not true of turning right on red.
The social institution of right turn on red does have some undesirable effects. At some intersections, there is very rarely any traffic to wait for, and drivers who take a route repeatedly will come to count on it. They perhaps come to less than a full stop at the intersection, and then if they are surprised to see some traffic, tend to proceed anyway because they are emotionally committed to it. I interpret the law (or at least the ethics) to be that if another driver has to slow down at all, the right turn on red was not appropriate. In this it differs from a stop sign. We all know that in heavy traffic, you can't actually wait until the intersection is totally clear before turning right, because that will never happen. With right turn on red, you do know the intersection will clear because those red lights eventually turn green, however briefly.
At one important level, I believe that there is no harm in treating all red lights as stop signs, regardless of what lane you are in or what direction you are going to turn. If you really can verify that you aren't going to interfere with other traffic, it is safe, isn't it? I know that I have sometimes spent interminable minutes at a red light of some grand intersection late at night when there is not another car in sight.
At other levels it isn't a good idea. Some laws are routinely broken. Highway speed limits are a dramatic example. There are other cases where custom weakens and erodes compliance. Some of you may be familiar with the off ramp of the Weston Newton exit from the Pike. Two lanes approach the right-straight part of the intersection (a third lane for going left-straight is beyond a divider). My recollection is that in the late 1980s, everyone stopped and treated it as a true red light and did not interpret going ahead as a right turn. But over the years the situation has evolved to the point where almost all drivers not only turn right after "stopping" from the right of those two lanes but also from the left -- which I believe is not legal anywhere. I find it annoying at times when I'm in the westbound Washington Street traffic, though I have to admit that mostly it is a safe maneuver. But if proceeding in any direction from a red light became common I think it would be unsafe because it can require quite a bit of skill. Those drivers who are less skilled would feel "peer pressure" to go in situations they really cannot determine to be safe. Admittedly, negotiating traffic around Boston in many areas during peak times requires even more skill though composed entirely of fully legal maneuvers. Less confident drivers often avoid those situations, and treating all red lights as stop signs would expand the situations they would have to avoid and increase the danger when they didn't. I was intrigued to hear that the laws against drivers in the 16 to 18 year range carrying other teens are secretly a relief to some teen drivers, who really don't feel up to that sort of stress and pressure. I suspect one reason right turn on red is permitted is that it doesn't require much skill to determine whether it is safe to proceed.
Some of you may be familiar with the Newton Corner intersection where Washington Street crosses the Pike to the north, at which point going straight would lead to Galen Street. The same logic from the West Newton exit could lead to drivers in the leftmost lane stopping and then proceeding to the left, and stopping once again at the next light before heading onto the Pike westbound. I'm glad it hasn't happened (it hasn't happened, has it?).
I have sometimes pondered that there are three separate reasons to avoid questionable maneuvers in driving. It is (1) unsafe, (2) rude, or (3) specifically illegal. It is remarkable to what extent those three criteria vary independently.
"A very curious question involving legal moves under a red light signal is why it is illegal to go straight under a red light if the vehicle involved is traveling straight on the through road of a 3-way (T-shaped) intersection. ... The theory behind the legality of turning right on red or turning left on red from a one-way street onto a one-way street is obvious. It prohibits a vehicle from crossing a lane of traffic, but allows a vehicle to enter a moving lane of traffic if there are no obstacles. That theory is consistent with allowing a vehicle traveling on the through road at a 3-way (T-shaped) intersection to travel straight under a red light if it is safe to do so. In such a circumstance, the vehicle can turn no further right than going straight."
I have thought this for some time.
One legal point that intrigues me is whether turning right on red is required when it is clearly safe to do so. Drivers behind you will express their opinion, but that is a different matter. Presumably one could get a ticket for blatantly and habitually failing to go forward at a green light, but my intuition is that this is not true of turning right on red.
The social institution of right turn on red does have some undesirable effects. At some intersections, there is very rarely any traffic to wait for, and drivers who take a route repeatedly will come to count on it. They perhaps come to less than a full stop at the intersection, and then if they are surprised to see some traffic, tend to proceed anyway because they are emotionally committed to it. I interpret the law (or at least the ethics) to be that if another driver has to slow down at all, the right turn on red was not appropriate. In this it differs from a stop sign. We all know that in heavy traffic, you can't actually wait until the intersection is totally clear before turning right, because that will never happen. With right turn on red, you do know the intersection will clear because those red lights eventually turn green, however briefly.
At one important level, I believe that there is no harm in treating all red lights as stop signs, regardless of what lane you are in or what direction you are going to turn. If you really can verify that you aren't going to interfere with other traffic, it is safe, isn't it? I know that I have sometimes spent interminable minutes at a red light of some grand intersection late at night when there is not another car in sight.
At other levels it isn't a good idea. Some laws are routinely broken. Highway speed limits are a dramatic example. There are other cases where custom weakens and erodes compliance. Some of you may be familiar with the off ramp of the Weston Newton exit from the Pike. Two lanes approach the right-straight part of the intersection (a third lane for going left-straight is beyond a divider). My recollection is that in the late 1980s, everyone stopped and treated it as a true red light and did not interpret going ahead as a right turn. But over the years the situation has evolved to the point where almost all drivers not only turn right after "stopping" from the right of those two lanes but also from the left -- which I believe is not legal anywhere. I find it annoying at times when I'm in the westbound Washington Street traffic, though I have to admit that mostly it is a safe maneuver. But if proceeding in any direction from a red light became common I think it would be unsafe because it can require quite a bit of skill. Those drivers who are less skilled would feel "peer pressure" to go in situations they really cannot determine to be safe. Admittedly, negotiating traffic around Boston in many areas during peak times requires even more skill though composed entirely of fully legal maneuvers. Less confident drivers often avoid those situations, and treating all red lights as stop signs would expand the situations they would have to avoid and increase the danger when they didn't. I was intrigued to hear that the laws against drivers in the 16 to 18 year range carrying other teens are secretly a relief to some teen drivers, who really don't feel up to that sort of stress and pressure. I suspect one reason right turn on red is permitted is that it doesn't require much skill to determine whether it is safe to proceed.
Some of you may be familiar with the Newton Corner intersection where Washington Street crosses the Pike to the north, at which point going straight would lead to Galen Street. The same logic from the West Newton exit could lead to drivers in the leftmost lane stopping and then proceeding to the left, and stopping once again at the next light before heading onto the Pike westbound. I'm glad it hasn't happened (it hasn't happened, has it?).
I have sometimes pondered that there are three separate reasons to avoid questionable maneuvers in driving. It is (1) unsafe, (2) rude, or (3) specifically illegal. It is remarkable to what extent those three criteria vary independently.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Thoughts on "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I like this book, and agree with its main points. You can find those by searching for "Black Swan" on Wikipedia. Having said I like the book, my comments below start with a few complaints.
Complaint 1. I don't really like the analogy of the black swan from which the book takes its title. Taleb's idea is that biologists used to say that swans had to be white, and if it wasn't white, it wasn't a swan. Then a species of black swan was discovered in Australia. He claims this is an example of a new, totally unexpected event. Everyone knew that Australia existed before, so I doubt anyone was very surprised that when they studied a new place they would find a differently-colored bird. If there are swans on Alpha Centauri, I don't think we have strong predictions about what color they should be. The more surprising black swan events are ones where people believed they understood why a situation not only was a certain way but that it had to be that way. I don't think anyone claimed that there was something about whiteness that was essential to the workings of the bird -- everyone knew it was basically an accident or the result of some mundane force of natural selection. I suppose "black swan" is a pleasing image, amenable to succinct explanation, and has a few properties of what he's getting at.
Complaint 2. Taleb comes across as not very nice, and not very mature in the area of human relationships. The book is full of cheap shots and fantasies about doing bad things to the people he doesn't like. He believes experts and economists and so forth dispense worthless advice, and I bet he's pretty much right. It sounds like he has (figuratively) jumped up and down and shouted this at them for some time, and they not only don't switch careers, they become defensive or go on the attack against him. But there's nose-thumbling -- with very little compassion and very little tolerance. It's very hard to give up your career and watch your earnings plummet, and all people will go through great psychological contortions to justify keeping on as they are. The advice all the rest of us give and get is to not childishly belittle our opponents. On the other hand, he has gotten as far in spreading his message as writing a bestseller. Possibly being mean gets attention, and readers might accept his ideas once he has their attention. Ironically, he suggests in a few places that he views religion as a positive thing, but he hardly shows many religious virtues, Christian or other.
Complaint 3. At one point he describes what happens when people are asked to make estimates of some number, and give a range describing their certainty. On average people are far more confident than they should be. Perhaps 50% of the people are wrong about the number being within a range they were 90% confident it would be within. He then addresses the exceptions. Some people, he notes, will give a ridiculously wide range. If asked for a 90% confidence interval of how many lovers Catherine the Great had, they might say between zero and 10,000. He says they are just not playing the game, and they might as well say so. But there is also the possibility that they are attuned to black swans, that they are taking seriously the possibility that there is some important factor they aren't aware of or haven't considered. (Even 10,000 could be a different lover every day for 30 years). It's unfortunate to dismiss people who actually agree with his point. (None of the numbers above are from the book, but they are good enough to make the point.)
Complaint 4. He makes a key distinction in the book between "mediocristan", where things follow predictable distributions and stunning surprises don't occur (height, weight, longevity), and "extremistan", the realm of black swans (individual wealth, book sales, etc.). I think it is a valid and useful distinction. He admits at one point that for him personally, mediocristan is not very interesting, and what he values in life is in the excitement of extremistan. Self-consciously or not, this is reflected in the very terms he chose. I for one prefer to live in the more predictable realm. If I were picking terms to reflect my values I might call it "harmonistan" or "calmistan" instead of "mediocristan", and might call the other place "wackistan" or "chaoticstan" instead of "extremistan".
Observation 1. A substantial part of the evidence in the book is the failings of human reasoning and intuition, most of which I had run across recently in reading an introductory psychology textbook ("Psychology", 2004, David G. Myers). But changing the world often does involve repackaging old ideas in different ways, hoping to find one to get people's attention. The book is something of a bestseller, so it's on the right track of making these truths more widely known.
Approval 1. I did especially like his section on silent evidence, quite in line with thoughts I have had for some time (see my earlier post "When the news is bad for you"). A cute instance is his consideration of the belief among gamblers that people have beginner's luck, something a clear-thinking person would be inclined to attribute to superstition. He observes that people who started out gambling and had bad luck quite probably stopped gambling, and it was initial success that got people hooked so that they are among the peers that a gambler considers. The ones who had bad luck initially are off doing something else.
Approval 2. He denigrates the economic advice of others and repeatedly implies he has a better idea. I think he quite possibly does. His investment philosophy is buried in the book, but when he finally gets to it he easily describes it in very few words. The gist is to place most of your assets in a very safe vehicle such as T-bills. Put the rest in a variety of highly speculative ventures, because while there's only a small chance that any one of them will pay off, the one that does could give a huge benefit. He doesn't like the more conventional strategy of looking for a fairly good rate of return balanced against some risk because our estimates of the risk are way too low. Brief answers are often the best, especially when a primary contention is that other people think they know too much.
Approval 3. He notes that he grew up in Lebanon in what was a peaceful, stable place, until suddenly the entire world he knew fell apart with the civil war of 1975. He implies that some people try to dismiss his work by saying his thinking is the result of his own personal trauma. I am inclined to accept the factual gist of that observation but frame it differently. His early experience has opened him up to see unpleasant truths that most of the rest of us are not primed to see.
Approval 4. I am fully with him in one key respect. A great deal of the time, the right answer to interesting questions is: "I don't know."
Complaint 1. I don't really like the analogy of the black swan from which the book takes its title. Taleb's idea is that biologists used to say that swans had to be white, and if it wasn't white, it wasn't a swan. Then a species of black swan was discovered in Australia. He claims this is an example of a new, totally unexpected event. Everyone knew that Australia existed before, so I doubt anyone was very surprised that when they studied a new place they would find a differently-colored bird. If there are swans on Alpha Centauri, I don't think we have strong predictions about what color they should be. The more surprising black swan events are ones where people believed they understood why a situation not only was a certain way but that it had to be that way. I don't think anyone claimed that there was something about whiteness that was essential to the workings of the bird -- everyone knew it was basically an accident or the result of some mundane force of natural selection. I suppose "black swan" is a pleasing image, amenable to succinct explanation, and has a few properties of what he's getting at.
Complaint 2. Taleb comes across as not very nice, and not very mature in the area of human relationships. The book is full of cheap shots and fantasies about doing bad things to the people he doesn't like. He believes experts and economists and so forth dispense worthless advice, and I bet he's pretty much right. It sounds like he has (figuratively) jumped up and down and shouted this at them for some time, and they not only don't switch careers, they become defensive or go on the attack against him. But there's nose-thumbling -- with very little compassion and very little tolerance. It's very hard to give up your career and watch your earnings plummet, and all people will go through great psychological contortions to justify keeping on as they are. The advice all the rest of us give and get is to not childishly belittle our opponents. On the other hand, he has gotten as far in spreading his message as writing a bestseller. Possibly being mean gets attention, and readers might accept his ideas once he has their attention. Ironically, he suggests in a few places that he views religion as a positive thing, but he hardly shows many religious virtues, Christian or other.
Complaint 3. At one point he describes what happens when people are asked to make estimates of some number, and give a range describing their certainty. On average people are far more confident than they should be. Perhaps 50% of the people are wrong about the number being within a range they were 90% confident it would be within. He then addresses the exceptions. Some people, he notes, will give a ridiculously wide range. If asked for a 90% confidence interval of how many lovers Catherine the Great had, they might say between zero and 10,000. He says they are just not playing the game, and they might as well say so. But there is also the possibility that they are attuned to black swans, that they are taking seriously the possibility that there is some important factor they aren't aware of or haven't considered. (Even 10,000 could be a different lover every day for 30 years). It's unfortunate to dismiss people who actually agree with his point. (None of the numbers above are from the book, but they are good enough to make the point.)
Complaint 4. He makes a key distinction in the book between "mediocristan", where things follow predictable distributions and stunning surprises don't occur (height, weight, longevity), and "extremistan", the realm of black swans (individual wealth, book sales, etc.). I think it is a valid and useful distinction. He admits at one point that for him personally, mediocristan is not very interesting, and what he values in life is in the excitement of extremistan. Self-consciously or not, this is reflected in the very terms he chose. I for one prefer to live in the more predictable realm. If I were picking terms to reflect my values I might call it "harmonistan" or "calmistan" instead of "mediocristan", and might call the other place "wackistan" or "chaoticstan" instead of "extremistan".
Observation 1. A substantial part of the evidence in the book is the failings of human reasoning and intuition, most of which I had run across recently in reading an introductory psychology textbook ("Psychology", 2004, David G. Myers). But changing the world often does involve repackaging old ideas in different ways, hoping to find one to get people's attention. The book is something of a bestseller, so it's on the right track of making these truths more widely known.
Approval 1. I did especially like his section on silent evidence, quite in line with thoughts I have had for some time (see my earlier post "When the news is bad for you"). A cute instance is his consideration of the belief among gamblers that people have beginner's luck, something a clear-thinking person would be inclined to attribute to superstition. He observes that people who started out gambling and had bad luck quite probably stopped gambling, and it was initial success that got people hooked so that they are among the peers that a gambler considers. The ones who had bad luck initially are off doing something else.
Approval 2. He denigrates the economic advice of others and repeatedly implies he has a better idea. I think he quite possibly does. His investment philosophy is buried in the book, but when he finally gets to it he easily describes it in very few words. The gist is to place most of your assets in a very safe vehicle such as T-bills. Put the rest in a variety of highly speculative ventures, because while there's only a small chance that any one of them will pay off, the one that does could give a huge benefit. He doesn't like the more conventional strategy of looking for a fairly good rate of return balanced against some risk because our estimates of the risk are way too low. Brief answers are often the best, especially when a primary contention is that other people think they know too much.
Approval 3. He notes that he grew up in Lebanon in what was a peaceful, stable place, until suddenly the entire world he knew fell apart with the civil war of 1975. He implies that some people try to dismiss his work by saying his thinking is the result of his own personal trauma. I am inclined to accept the factual gist of that observation but frame it differently. His early experience has opened him up to see unpleasant truths that most of the rest of us are not primed to see.
Approval 4. I am fully with him in one key respect. A great deal of the time, the right answer to interesting questions is: "I don't know."
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Good enough
I read an interesting book within the past couple years called "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less", by Barry Schwartz. I realize that it has actually had some influence on how I live my life, which is rare for a book.
When we face a problem, there are two ways to approach it: As an "optimizer", who seeks the best solution, and as a "satisficer", who seeks a solution that is good enough. Many of us, much of the time, feel obligated to optimize, by educating ourselves on the alternatives, reviewing them thoroughly, and choosing the best one according to our criteria. To the extent we fail, we feel guilty. Other people may let us know that we missed some great bargain, or the even better restaurant, and we cooperate with them in feeling that we failed.
It's worth optimizing about the big things in life: what city to live in, what house to buy, what job to take. It is worth optimizing money when it concerns large amounts -- bargaining carefully for the best price on your home or the best salary at your job. We can sometimes regret not having devoted as much attention to these questions as we should.
But for the less important aspects of life you can often find a solution that is good enough.
Consider driving to an event in a city where parking is an issue and you may have to park at some distance from the event. The density of cars parked beside the road increases as you near the event, but there are other reasons than your event for local concentrations of cars. You can't see by peering ahead where the last space is you could park in (think fire hydrants, driveways). You are likely to go just a little farther. Often you get it pretty much right. Less often you find you have passed the last available space and need to turn around and go back to those spaces you passed. Often when you get there the previously closest space is taken and you have to go back a little bit farther. This is frustrating. The satisficing solution is to park at the first space that is good enough, and not let yourself feel incompetent if as you walk towards the event you see an empty space that was significantly closer. You may have saved yourself the possible frustration of having to turn around. More importantly, you have saved time of your life spent looking for a parking space. You could be walking instead, something we generally find inherently more relaxing and in line with our values. This is especially relevant if you are the sort of person who regularly runs several miles for exercise.
Consider driving with a friend to a place you have never been before and will probably never go again. You know one way to go, but there might be a better way. You can study a map for some time, determine the route you want, and spend your trip verifying you are following the path you have charted. Or you could spend the entirety of a slightly longer trip talking with your friend.
At the supermarket you can look at the different brands and different package sizes and spend considerable time finding the best buy. Or you can just pick one and spend less of your life in the activity known as shopping.
When you vacuum your house you can dig into every corner, every time, and chase every last bit of dust. Or you might reflect that within a day or so the natural accumulation of dirt will have rendered the benefit of your more thorough cleaning imperceptible. The goal could shift from having a house that is (periodically) "extremely clean", to having one that is "not very dirty", or in other words "good enough".
Now, for all the caveats:
For some people, optimization habits are just a part of the fabric of their life and define "how one ought to live".
Successful optimization shows competence and mastery, and for many people such opportunities are not abundant.
Some people just really enjoy shopping, including getting the best deal on small items. Some inherently enjoy feeling that their house is extraordinarily clean, even if briefly. Enjoyment is good.
Finding the best route to a particular destination could increase one's knowledge of the lay of the land, allowing faster trips when time really is important.
Sometimes it really is important to optimize on even small amounts of money, since they do add up. But it might be prudent to look at one's budget as a whole to see where larger amounts of money are at stake. You could feel that you are living a frugal life by checking out the brands, whereas ten times that amount of money is at stake in what you might have to admit are luxuries if you were forced to think about it.
For some people, it may be hard to make a mix of optimizing and satisficing decisions. Perhaps they are not only on a tight budget, but if they relaxed their buying habits in one area of life it might spread to areas that are more important. My mother, a child of the depression, sometimes washed lettuce by using a small stream of water and shutting it off after finishing each leaf before picking up the next one, though I don't think water was ever expensive or in short supply in her life. But it was part of an attitude of frugality.
There can also be an instance of the "free rider" problem. If few people were engaged in careful comparison shopping, the stores could gradually raise their prices. Being confident that all prices are "good enough" depends on optimizers who do pay attention to which store has milk that is five cents cheaper. People who carefully compare prices are doing a service for the rest of us, even if as individuals it may not be in their immediate self-interest to do so. I wonder sometimes to what extent Whole Foods is an entire chain built on customers who are satisficers with regard to price. I'm not actually feeling guilty about the "free rider" problem, since there is no looming shortage of comparison shoppers.
The next step is to be willing to go public: tell your friends that you aren't troubled that you spent a few extra dollars on something because it's not a priority for you. What you paid was good enough.
When we face a problem, there are two ways to approach it: As an "optimizer", who seeks the best solution, and as a "satisficer", who seeks a solution that is good enough. Many of us, much of the time, feel obligated to optimize, by educating ourselves on the alternatives, reviewing them thoroughly, and choosing the best one according to our criteria. To the extent we fail, we feel guilty. Other people may let us know that we missed some great bargain, or the even better restaurant, and we cooperate with them in feeling that we failed.
It's worth optimizing about the big things in life: what city to live in, what house to buy, what job to take. It is worth optimizing money when it concerns large amounts -- bargaining carefully for the best price on your home or the best salary at your job. We can sometimes regret not having devoted as much attention to these questions as we should.
But for the less important aspects of life you can often find a solution that is good enough.
Consider driving to an event in a city where parking is an issue and you may have to park at some distance from the event. The density of cars parked beside the road increases as you near the event, but there are other reasons than your event for local concentrations of cars. You can't see by peering ahead where the last space is you could park in (think fire hydrants, driveways). You are likely to go just a little farther. Often you get it pretty much right. Less often you find you have passed the last available space and need to turn around and go back to those spaces you passed. Often when you get there the previously closest space is taken and you have to go back a little bit farther. This is frustrating. The satisficing solution is to park at the first space that is good enough, and not let yourself feel incompetent if as you walk towards the event you see an empty space that was significantly closer. You may have saved yourself the possible frustration of having to turn around. More importantly, you have saved time of your life spent looking for a parking space. You could be walking instead, something we generally find inherently more relaxing and in line with our values. This is especially relevant if you are the sort of person who regularly runs several miles for exercise.
Consider driving with a friend to a place you have never been before and will probably never go again. You know one way to go, but there might be a better way. You can study a map for some time, determine the route you want, and spend your trip verifying you are following the path you have charted. Or you could spend the entirety of a slightly longer trip talking with your friend.
At the supermarket you can look at the different brands and different package sizes and spend considerable time finding the best buy. Or you can just pick one and spend less of your life in the activity known as shopping.
When you vacuum your house you can dig into every corner, every time, and chase every last bit of dust. Or you might reflect that within a day or so the natural accumulation of dirt will have rendered the benefit of your more thorough cleaning imperceptible. The goal could shift from having a house that is (periodically) "extremely clean", to having one that is "not very dirty", or in other words "good enough".
Now, for all the caveats:
For some people, optimization habits are just a part of the fabric of their life and define "how one ought to live".
Successful optimization shows competence and mastery, and for many people such opportunities are not abundant.
Some people just really enjoy shopping, including getting the best deal on small items. Some inherently enjoy feeling that their house is extraordinarily clean, even if briefly. Enjoyment is good.
Finding the best route to a particular destination could increase one's knowledge of the lay of the land, allowing faster trips when time really is important.
Sometimes it really is important to optimize on even small amounts of money, since they do add up. But it might be prudent to look at one's budget as a whole to see where larger amounts of money are at stake. You could feel that you are living a frugal life by checking out the brands, whereas ten times that amount of money is at stake in what you might have to admit are luxuries if you were forced to think about it.
For some people, it may be hard to make a mix of optimizing and satisficing decisions. Perhaps they are not only on a tight budget, but if they relaxed their buying habits in one area of life it might spread to areas that are more important. My mother, a child of the depression, sometimes washed lettuce by using a small stream of water and shutting it off after finishing each leaf before picking up the next one, though I don't think water was ever expensive or in short supply in her life. But it was part of an attitude of frugality.
There can also be an instance of the "free rider" problem. If few people were engaged in careful comparison shopping, the stores could gradually raise their prices. Being confident that all prices are "good enough" depends on optimizers who do pay attention to which store has milk that is five cents cheaper. People who carefully compare prices are doing a service for the rest of us, even if as individuals it may not be in their immediate self-interest to do so. I wonder sometimes to what extent Whole Foods is an entire chain built on customers who are satisficers with regard to price. I'm not actually feeling guilty about the "free rider" problem, since there is no looming shortage of comparison shoppers.
The next step is to be willing to go public: tell your friends that you aren't troubled that you spent a few extra dollars on something because it's not a priority for you. What you paid was good enough.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
How to treat the terminally unconscious
How should we treat a person who is terminally ill and terminally unconscious? For people who believe in an afterlife, considerable attention makes sense, since some sort of essence of the person remains until the time of death before moving on in some fashion. Even for some who don't believe in an afterlife, special attention makes sense as part of customs or traditions.
What about those who don't believe in an afterlife and have no reason within their family customs to give special attention to an unconscious dying person? What do they owe ethically or morally to the unconscious dying person as a person? Beyond basic physical comfort, I suggest the answer is: nothing.
I think large parts of our society do not accept this as a valid position. This was driven home to me when my mother died in November. She was in the hospital on what everyone knew would be her last day. She was profoundly unconscious, not responding to music, voices, or touch. When she was conscious in the few days before that, she had given no sign of recognizing individual family members. She had had a progressive and serious dementia for the past two years.
My father had decided that he did not want to be there on her last day, based on his understanding of the situation. If he thought she would recognize him and he could be of some comfort to her, no one could have kept him away. But he was certain this was not true, so he did not want to go.
In the nursing facility where he lives, a nurse essentially bullied him until he agreed to go to the hospital. Perhaps "bullying" is a strong word, but it had that effect on a man who was frail, grieving, and under the best of circumstances shies away from conflict. She told him that my mother could hear him even if she couldn't respond and that he would regret it later if he didn't go. She would not accept repeated "No thanks" or "I'll think about it". Hopefully most people will agree that she went too far, but I think far too many people believe that she was right. He went to my mother's bedside for an hour or two, but found it an upsetting experience without any benefit.
My father has since expressed dismay that family members were summoned to her bedside at a time when she was terminally unconscious. He feels it was gruesome and disrespectful. I don't share his feeling that it was gruesome or disrespectful to her, though if I had known I would have tried to respect his wishes. I do share his feeling that there was no benefit to her from anyone being there -- for all intents and purposes there was no "her" to benefit from anything any more. He had not been present when his own mother died, and when asked if he regretted that, his answer was an unhesitating "No".
My mother never wavered from atheism in her long life. Her will stated her body was to be cremated in the least expensive manner possible. My father has been an atheist since he was in college and has been quite sure there is no afterlife. There is no doubt in my mind that my father loved my mother as much as one person can love another. It is just his view that when her mind was fully gone, she was gone.
Why is this not acceptable? I can think of various reasons why those who believe in an afterlife would have difficulty with this view. As an aside, the staff took some time alone with my mother to tend to her physical needs just a couple hours before she died, and when they were done the small TV on its swinging arm was against the wall, at a discrete distance and a discrete volume, tuned to a Catholic mass. I personally didn't mind.
There are many people at FUSN who like me might say they believe in something unknown to science, or in a connected web of all existence, or some similar sense of spirit. But I think relatively few would say they believe in an afterlife where a person's personality and memories are preserved. I think that at a moment of contemplating a loved one's death it is understandable to waver from that conviction, and to be open to the possibility of something profound and spiritual going on in a literal sense. Some might consciously or not find themselves acting on a variant of Pascal's wager: if I behave as if this person has a soul and is present to the end, there is nothing lost in any event but much to be gained on the off chance there is.
What I ask is for respect for those of us who feel confident that nothing spiritually momentous is happening at the end of life for a person who is unconscious. That respect should include not assuming we are unloving or cowardly or in denial.
What about those who don't believe in an afterlife and have no reason within their family customs to give special attention to an unconscious dying person? What do they owe ethically or morally to the unconscious dying person as a person? Beyond basic physical comfort, I suggest the answer is: nothing.
I think large parts of our society do not accept this as a valid position. This was driven home to me when my mother died in November. She was in the hospital on what everyone knew would be her last day. She was profoundly unconscious, not responding to music, voices, or touch. When she was conscious in the few days before that, she had given no sign of recognizing individual family members. She had had a progressive and serious dementia for the past two years.
My father had decided that he did not want to be there on her last day, based on his understanding of the situation. If he thought she would recognize him and he could be of some comfort to her, no one could have kept him away. But he was certain this was not true, so he did not want to go.
In the nursing facility where he lives, a nurse essentially bullied him until he agreed to go to the hospital. Perhaps "bullying" is a strong word, but it had that effect on a man who was frail, grieving, and under the best of circumstances shies away from conflict. She told him that my mother could hear him even if she couldn't respond and that he would regret it later if he didn't go. She would not accept repeated "No thanks" or "I'll think about it". Hopefully most people will agree that she went too far, but I think far too many people believe that she was right. He went to my mother's bedside for an hour or two, but found it an upsetting experience without any benefit.
My father has since expressed dismay that family members were summoned to her bedside at a time when she was terminally unconscious. He feels it was gruesome and disrespectful. I don't share his feeling that it was gruesome or disrespectful to her, though if I had known I would have tried to respect his wishes. I do share his feeling that there was no benefit to her from anyone being there -- for all intents and purposes there was no "her" to benefit from anything any more. He had not been present when his own mother died, and when asked if he regretted that, his answer was an unhesitating "No".
My mother never wavered from atheism in her long life. Her will stated her body was to be cremated in the least expensive manner possible. My father has been an atheist since he was in college and has been quite sure there is no afterlife. There is no doubt in my mind that my father loved my mother as much as one person can love another. It is just his view that when her mind was fully gone, she was gone.
Why is this not acceptable? I can think of various reasons why those who believe in an afterlife would have difficulty with this view. As an aside, the staff took some time alone with my mother to tend to her physical needs just a couple hours before she died, and when they were done the small TV on its swinging arm was against the wall, at a discrete distance and a discrete volume, tuned to a Catholic mass. I personally didn't mind.
There are many people at FUSN who like me might say they believe in something unknown to science, or in a connected web of all existence, or some similar sense of spirit. But I think relatively few would say they believe in an afterlife where a person's personality and memories are preserved. I think that at a moment of contemplating a loved one's death it is understandable to waver from that conviction, and to be open to the possibility of something profound and spiritual going on in a literal sense. Some might consciously or not find themselves acting on a variant of Pascal's wager: if I behave as if this person has a soul and is present to the end, there is nothing lost in any event but much to be gained on the off chance there is.
What I ask is for respect for those of us who feel confident that nothing spiritually momentous is happening at the end of life for a person who is unconscious. That respect should include not assuming we are unloving or cowardly or in denial.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Mundane thoughts on New Year's Eve
1. Many of us out of habit will write "2007" when January rolls around instead of "2008". One trick I developed several years ago was to focus less on remembering the year itself than devising a rule that was good for all time: "'January' and 'February' mean 'danger!', 'caution!', 'careful!'".
2. When walking and you are not sure whether the ground is slick or not, you can rotate the ball of your foot slightly with each step, which shows the slipperiness without needing to move your foot back and forth and thus change weight distribution and risk falling.
3. Sometimes when eating a cracker or other item whose consumption is likely to create small crumbs, you can reduce or eliminate the number of crumbs by inhaling slightly as you bite. You have to inhale very slightly, of course, so you don't get crumbs in your lungs. If you do this and succeed, you might feel a tiny increment of esteem at your skill in managing to avoid both crumbs and danger. No one with any sense would write this, because someone will try it, inhale crumbs and sue me.
4. You will receive solicitations to contribute to worthy causes in rough proportion to the number of organizations you have given money to in the past. Instead of considering each request as it comes, you can place all the requests in a pile, and go through it only once a year. You can decide at that point how much you would like to give in total, how much to various categories, and how much to different organizations. Exceptions suggested for friends, children, and national emergencies.
5. There are unintended consequences. When I was reviewing the draft announcement to the FUSN list of my mother's death, I suggested email as an alternative to a physical condolence card, hoping to make people's lives easier. But I hadn't considered at the time that the very fact that the email condolence was easy would make people reply by that means who would not have sent a card. In greater detail: People range from those who feel a close connection with me to those who feel no connection. Up to some point along that line, people would feel the effort of sending a physical card was justified by the closeness they felt. Since sending an email is so much easier, there is a class of people who would not send a card but would feel that their closeness justified an email. The email is easier, to be sure, but still requires composing a message of the right length and content. For those people I made their lives harder, not easier. Thank you, one and all, for your expressions of condolence. For those of you who were further down the scale of closeness, who thought a condolence-like thought but didn't feel enough closeness to cross the email threshold, thank you too! Any condolences I might receive by either method as a result of this message will be other unintended consequences. I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
2. When walking and you are not sure whether the ground is slick or not, you can rotate the ball of your foot slightly with each step, which shows the slipperiness without needing to move your foot back and forth and thus change weight distribution and risk falling.
3. Sometimes when eating a cracker or other item whose consumption is likely to create small crumbs, you can reduce or eliminate the number of crumbs by inhaling slightly as you bite. You have to inhale very slightly, of course, so you don't get crumbs in your lungs. If you do this and succeed, you might feel a tiny increment of esteem at your skill in managing to avoid both crumbs and danger. No one with any sense would write this, because someone will try it, inhale crumbs and sue me.
4. You will receive solicitations to contribute to worthy causes in rough proportion to the number of organizations you have given money to in the past. Instead of considering each request as it comes, you can place all the requests in a pile, and go through it only once a year. You can decide at that point how much you would like to give in total, how much to various categories, and how much to different organizations. Exceptions suggested for friends, children, and national emergencies.
5. There are unintended consequences. When I was reviewing the draft announcement to the FUSN list of my mother's death, I suggested email as an alternative to a physical condolence card, hoping to make people's lives easier. But I hadn't considered at the time that the very fact that the email condolence was easy would make people reply by that means who would not have sent a card. In greater detail: People range from those who feel a close connection with me to those who feel no connection. Up to some point along that line, people would feel the effort of sending a physical card was justified by the closeness they felt. Since sending an email is so much easier, there is a class of people who would not send a card but would feel that their closeness justified an email. The email is easier, to be sure, but still requires composing a message of the right length and content. For those people I made their lives harder, not easier. Thank you, one and all, for your expressions of condolence. For those of you who were further down the scale of closeness, who thought a condolence-like thought but didn't feel enough closeness to cross the email threshold, thank you too! Any condolences I might receive by either method as a result of this message will be other unintended consequences. I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
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