It has been known for some time that the population in most of the industrialized world is not reproducing sufficiently to replace itself. (The national populations may be growing, but that is due to immigration from the non-industrialized nations.) Almost all children survive to adulthood, but women and men have on average less than one child each (the demographers always measure this as children per woman, not children per person, but that makes a low birthrate sound like women's fault alone, or, if one favors a low birthrate, their accomplishment alone).
Progressive thinkers on the subject of population growth note that when people achieve some measure of security and prosperity, birth rates drop. They have now dropped below replacement rate. One major reason is that as reliable birth control becomes more widely available, people can plan their family size. Why do people want fewer children?
I suggest that one reason is that there are more interesting things to do. As all parents know, children are a source of great joy, but also of great exasperation and drudgery. For the poor where life itself is largely drudgery, the joy might stand out more than some extra drudgery. For those who are better off, life in general is more pleasant. Interesting careers are available to many people -- even ones we consider dull may be far more interesting than back-breaking agricultural labor. Labor-saving devices make housework far less demanding. There is leisure time and vacation time and many interesting ways to spend it. How does parenthood look against that background? At an emotional level, children are just as exasperating as ever, and the need for constant supervision remains the domain of people, not labor-saving devices. Without children, there is far more time for plain old fun, and more money to pay for the fun too. Occasional visits with a niece or nephew can allow a sampling of the fun part of parenthood.
Exacerbating this problem is America's highly child-centered culture. It is the norm for parents to spend as much time with their children each day as other commitments allow, or to drive them to out-of-home enriching experiences. When today's children reach the point of deciding whether or not to have children, what will they recall? They will recall that their parents' lives were consumed by taking care of children, and it may not be a commitment they want to take on.
People growing up in the 1950s or 1960s may remember a childhood where it was up to them to find their own toys and their own amusement. They were on their own after school until supper without parental intervention. The parents were doing their own activities in the evenings, albeit with occasional interruptions. That allowed far more time for the parents to pursue their own personal pleasures. That version of parenthood may be one that anyone, notably today's young adults, would be more likely to embark on. But it is not an option they can easily choose. If they did, they would be censured for neglecting their children.
It is true that if a person has poor memories of their own childhood, they may not want to have children either. But the main benefits of the child-centered culture to children are in their accomplishments and their safety, not their happiness. I speculate that in moving from 1950s childrearing to 2000s childrearing, parents have lost far more in autonomy than children have gained in happiness.
The counterintuitive result may be that the more effort we put into enriching our children's lives, the less likely we are to have grandchildren.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Contests of power and contests of discrimination
In World War II, we often knew where the German troops were located, but it was difficult and dangerous and a chancy matter to defeat them. Our power has grown to the point that in the initial stages of the Iraq war, we had no difficulty defeating Saddam Hussein’s armed forces. Any military target we could locate, we could destroy. We had a far more difficult time defeating them once they gave up their tanks and started using far less sophisticated weapons*. The problem has changed from one of a contest of power to a question of discrimination, in the original sense of “telling things apart”. We cannot easily defeat Iraqi fighters because we cannot easily distinguish them from the Iraqi population, which we do not want to destroy. The situation was almost the same in Vietnam.
The same progression has happened with our nonhuman foes. It has been some time since we had a raw contest of power with lions, tigers and bears. We have no trouble defeating them (so little, indeed, that such animals became endangered species). We can exterminate smaller foes such as rats and bugs in our houses, and the main difficulty is how to avoid poisoning the human residents at the same time. In the wild, the problem is how to avoid poisoning the rest of the ecosystem. Our most serious foes today are bacteria and viruses. It is easy enough to destroy them, as we do every time we sterilize medical instruments. The problem is destroying them while preserving the human bodies they live within. The most difficult discrimination problem is cancer, tissue that is so similar to us that it IS us, a small part run amok.
*This is a description of how things are, not how they should be. In writing dispassionately about how to destroy targets in Iraq, I am not addressing directly the question of whether that is a good idea. I do not intend this essay as a prescription for doing anything differently, just perhaps a slightly differently way of looking at things. But this perspective can be brought to bear on various other human conflicts too.
The same progression has happened with our nonhuman foes. It has been some time since we had a raw contest of power with lions, tigers and bears. We have no trouble defeating them (so little, indeed, that such animals became endangered species). We can exterminate smaller foes such as rats and bugs in our houses, and the main difficulty is how to avoid poisoning the human residents at the same time. In the wild, the problem is how to avoid poisoning the rest of the ecosystem. Our most serious foes today are bacteria and viruses. It is easy enough to destroy them, as we do every time we sterilize medical instruments. The problem is destroying them while preserving the human bodies they live within. The most difficult discrimination problem is cancer, tissue that is so similar to us that it IS us, a small part run amok.
*This is a description of how things are, not how they should be. In writing dispassionately about how to destroy targets in Iraq, I am not addressing directly the question of whether that is a good idea. I do not intend this essay as a prescription for doing anything differently, just perhaps a slightly differently way of looking at things. But this perspective can be brought to bear on various other human conflicts too.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
A Darwinian Left
In a previous post to this list about Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate" I jumped straight to hot-button issues concerning innate differences among humans without laying out his more fundamental observation, which is that we humans have profound innate similarities. I liked this summary by another author of where I think the recognition of innate human nature leaves us:
"We should not:
Deny the existence of human nature, nor insist that human nature is inherently good, nor that it is infinitely malleable.
Expect to end all conflict and strife between human beings, whether by political revolution, social change, or better education.
Assume that all inequalities are due to discrimination, prejudice, oppression or social conditioning. Some will be, but this cannot be assumed in every case.
We should:
Accept that there is such a thing as human nature, and seek to find out more about it, so that policies can be grounded on the best available evidence of what human beings are like.
Reject any inference from what is 'natural' to what is 'right'.
Expect that, under different social and economic systems, many people will act competitively in order to enhance their own status, gain a position of power, and/or advance their interests and those of their kin.
Expect that, regardless of the social and economic system in which they live most people will respond positively to genuine opportunities to enter into mutually beneficial forms of cooperation.
Promote structures that foster cooperation rather than competition, and attempt to channel competition into socially desirable ends.
Stand by the traditional values of the left by being on the side of the weak, poor and oppressed, but think very carefully about what social and economic changes will really work to benefit them."
I also thought this was apt:
"Wood carvers presented with a piece of timber and a request to make wooden bowls from it do not simply begin carving according to a design drawn up before they have seen the wood. Instead they will examine the material with which they are to work, and modify their design in order to suit its grain. Political philosophers and the revolutionaries or reformers who have followed them have all too often worked out their ideal society, or their reforms, and sought to apply them without knowing much about the human beings who must carry out, and live with, their plans. Then, when the plans don't work, they blame traitors within their ranks, or sinister agents of outside forces, for the failure. Instead, those seeking to reshape society must understand the tendencies inherent in human beings, and modify their abstract ideals to suit them."
The quotes above are from a short book by Peter Singer, "A Darwinian Left" (1999). Although I do not agree with everything he stands for, I thought those passages were excellent.
Adding my own take on one key point, I would note that Darwin and evolutionary science say not one iota about how things ought to be, only about how they are. It's very hard to know the ultimate source of our values and goals; they are the product in some fashion of our culture, our history, our ideas, and our human nature. But it is neither correct nor desirable to give "human nature" any special status in that list. Where "human nature" matters a great deal is when we contemplate transforming our society. It lets us estimate the chances of success in meeting our goals, allowing us to make wise compromises between what we would like and what is possible.
"We should not:
Deny the existence of human nature, nor insist that human nature is inherently good, nor that it is infinitely malleable.
Expect to end all conflict and strife between human beings, whether by political revolution, social change, or better education.
Assume that all inequalities are due to discrimination, prejudice, oppression or social conditioning. Some will be, but this cannot be assumed in every case.
We should:
Accept that there is such a thing as human nature, and seek to find out more about it, so that policies can be grounded on the best available evidence of what human beings are like.
Reject any inference from what is 'natural' to what is 'right'.
Expect that, under different social and economic systems, many people will act competitively in order to enhance their own status, gain a position of power, and/or advance their interests and those of their kin.
Expect that, regardless of the social and economic system in which they live most people will respond positively to genuine opportunities to enter into mutually beneficial forms of cooperation.
Promote structures that foster cooperation rather than competition, and attempt to channel competition into socially desirable ends.
Stand by the traditional values of the left by being on the side of the weak, poor and oppressed, but think very carefully about what social and economic changes will really work to benefit them."
I also thought this was apt:
"Wood carvers presented with a piece of timber and a request to make wooden bowls from it do not simply begin carving according to a design drawn up before they have seen the wood. Instead they will examine the material with which they are to work, and modify their design in order to suit its grain. Political philosophers and the revolutionaries or reformers who have followed them have all too often worked out their ideal society, or their reforms, and sought to apply them without knowing much about the human beings who must carry out, and live with, their plans. Then, when the plans don't work, they blame traitors within their ranks, or sinister agents of outside forces, for the failure. Instead, those seeking to reshape society must understand the tendencies inherent in human beings, and modify their abstract ideals to suit them."
The quotes above are from a short book by Peter Singer, "A Darwinian Left" (1999). Although I do not agree with everything he stands for, I thought those passages were excellent.
Adding my own take on one key point, I would note that Darwin and evolutionary science say not one iota about how things ought to be, only about how they are. It's very hard to know the ultimate source of our values and goals; they are the product in some fashion of our culture, our history, our ideas, and our human nature. But it is neither correct nor desirable to give "human nature" any special status in that list. Where "human nature" matters a great deal is when we contemplate transforming our society. It lets us estimate the chances of success in meeting our goals, allowing us to make wise compromises between what we would like and what is possible.
Local peace vs Global peace
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.
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.
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."
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