Playing musical chairs is about as mature as playing tic-tac-toe.
The Corporate Sister hypothesized that black women find themselves at odds with each other because corporations supply them with too few opportunities. She compared it to a game of musical chairs in which the seats are being taken away, and the players fight over what remains, naively trusting that the seating arrangement will stabilize soon enough to make the game worth playing.
The following musical chairs theory has the same form, but suggests that the opportunities are more often designed for people of certain evaluative types (e.g., jobs for creative people vs. conservative people vs. competitive people vs. empathic people, etc.), rather than for specific race or gender, but racism and sexism impact who gets opportunities that are in short supply.
As a result, if there are more than enough people of an evaluative type to fill the legitimate social positions for that specialization (e.g., natural leaders), then minorities may be under-represented in those positions and over-represented in illegitimate roles specialized to the same type (e.g., in crime). This would create an especially deep evaluativism inside minorities, where the type lacking opportunity becomes associated with illegitimacy (e.g., women and blacks believing it would be improper for them to act like Steve Jobs).
There is much to be tested about this new musical chairs theory (e.g., are black conservatives less represented than other black populations in prisons?), but it is consistent with evidence gathered thus far. Medical doctors attempt to support the diversity of cells they encounter in the human body--they do not devise foods that only neurons can process, for example--they treat the human body as a wondrous design worthy of respect. In contrast, social engineers (politicians, business builders, etc.) attempt to re-think society from scratch. Rather than set the number of jobs of each type to match the number of people of each type, they let the "market" determine what kinds of jobs will be available.
Worse, because the market also determines salaries, the people competing to secure a high-paying job designed for a creative person, for example, may also include many non-creative people. Not only does this leave us with a bunch of unqualified people in high-paying jobs, but increases the number of people who lack an appropriate job. The highly creative white guy from a wealthy family who showed promise as a scientist ends-up as a mediocre database administrator, employed out of pity. Meanwhile, equal talents in an impoverished black woman are never recognized--she is labeled "handicapped" and left to the mercy of charity.
The root problem is that modern social engineers are even less competent than medical doctors. At least medical doctors can recognize the difference between a bone cell and a muscle cell, and can convince us that both kinds are valuable. Modern social engineers cannot tell who is pretending to be something they are not, and they have failed to convince us to value our differences (e.g., between liberals and conservatives). Until we develop such basic competencies, any social engineering is as bound to be quackery as medicine was a thousand years ago.
Yet we cannot stop social engineering. We live in a world of nations, corporations and churches, so there will be allocated numbers of chairs. The only way to avoid competition is to align the allocation of chairs with our natural design. We have accumulated a debt--the debt of getting ahead of our knowledge--to pay it off we must spend on learning. We must buy competence in social engineering.
You can think of this debt as a tax. Our leaders must pay by gaining competence in social engineering, and most would do so eagerly if only educators would offer that knowledge. Educators are less inclined to offer new curriculum, but could be hired to do so if the science were clear. Scientists, however, expect to be able to research whatever they want. Even if grants were aligned with social health priorities, many sociologists wouldn't know how to do the research. More innovative people need to be recruited to the social sciences, and they need to be given more effective research tools, such as in vivo EEG data of entire social groups.
There are parts of the world where the extended family still provides jobs, education, and conflict resolution. The game of musical chairs is less of an issue there because jobs are less defined, so the number of chairs for each specialty adjusts toward its frequency in the population. However, a creative person who serves as an artist in a tribe might have had an opportunity to serve as a scientist in a corporation. Lack of opportunities in tribes prevents fighting over them, but that is hardly a step forward.
Perhaps the major reason why other parts of the world end-up playing musical chairs is that we cling to the model set in those parts of the world. The social engineers in those parts of the world are born to their privilege, so they face no expectation that social engineering requires talent or science. Even the corporate world treats leadership as an art rather then as a science--leadership is seen less as the mundane activity of researching the nature of a society than as the glorious activity of devising an inspired vision.
The punishment we pay for failing to develop competence in social engineering comes not just as lost productivity, but also as retribution from those denied a seat. The modern buzzword for that retribution is "terrorism," though we experience the costs most in what we pay to defend ourselves from terrorism. People who have a seat do not engage in terrorism, so the only reason why we must engage in military protection is that social science is not sufficiently advanced to design a world that provides seats for everyone.
Our world spends over $250 billion on medical research each year. We should spend even more to understand social health, but instead spend less than a hundredth as much, as though expecting social leaders to work miracles (as doctors were expected to do a thousand years ago). Meanwhile, annual military spending hovers around $1.5 trillion.
Rather than recognize and regulate the game of musical chairs we are playing, we fight over the chairs.
Does that sound mature to you?
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
4 Kinds of Love
The Greeks had four different words for love: philios, storge, eros, and agape. This post is about four kinds of eros, four reasons people pursue each other romantically:
The first reason to pursue someone romantically is the same reason we pursue our family; because they are ours. When we say, "Love the one you're with," we are recommending this kind of love. When a couple has been together for a while, this can be the eros that keeps them together. It can also be what causes best friends to fall in love. Long distance is worrisome because it threatens this kind of love.
The second reason to pursue another person romantically is because you like the way that person lives his/her life and want to be a part of it. You want to be the hero behind the hero. This attracts us to people who sacrifice themselves for others, people who are (or are likely to become) parents, who have a ministry, a charitable nature, or cause. "I get you," means I can love you in this way. Modern society makes it difficult to earn such flattery at the age of first love, so it may be more likely among couples who meet later in life. Waiting for it might be foolish, however. It's fragile; no admiration lasts forever.
The third reason to pursue another person romantically is to conquer or save that person. We see a person with power--wealth, education, confidence, or sexual power--who doesn't seem to deserve it. They don't rise to the level of responsibility we think they should; in that sense they "play hard to get," and get under our skin. Our only hope of escape from this haunting "love" is to master our oppressor, so we try to bond ourselves to him/her, not out of admiration, but because of our own inability to forgive.
The fourth kind of eros is the pursuit of being pursued. It is gratitude intense enough to rise to the level of bonding. It is the kind of love we hope to win when we feed another's vanity, and perhaps the way a vain person hopes to love. It differs from the second kind of eros in that it involves admiration for what the other person does for us personally, rather than objective admiration. It shares the same fragility and gets even more competitive as we keep looking for someone else who can make us feel even more grateful...
A culture of monogamy and marriage (and arranged marriage) is biased towards the first kind of love. Given the fragility of the alternative kinds, it is understandable that we create such cultures.
The first reason to pursue someone romantically is the same reason we pursue our family; because they are ours. When we say, "Love the one you're with," we are recommending this kind of love. When a couple has been together for a while, this can be the eros that keeps them together. It can also be what causes best friends to fall in love. Long distance is worrisome because it threatens this kind of love.
The second reason to pursue another person romantically is because you like the way that person lives his/her life and want to be a part of it. You want to be the hero behind the hero. This attracts us to people who sacrifice themselves for others, people who are (or are likely to become) parents, who have a ministry, a charitable nature, or cause. "I get you," means I can love you in this way. Modern society makes it difficult to earn such flattery at the age of first love, so it may be more likely among couples who meet later in life. Waiting for it might be foolish, however. It's fragile; no admiration lasts forever.
The third reason to pursue another person romantically is to conquer or save that person. We see a person with power--wealth, education, confidence, or sexual power--who doesn't seem to deserve it. They don't rise to the level of responsibility we think they should; in that sense they "play hard to get," and get under our skin. Our only hope of escape from this haunting "love" is to master our oppressor, so we try to bond ourselves to him/her, not out of admiration, but because of our own inability to forgive.
The fourth kind of eros is the pursuit of being pursued. It is gratitude intense enough to rise to the level of bonding. It is the kind of love we hope to win when we feed another's vanity, and perhaps the way a vain person hopes to love. It differs from the second kind of eros in that it involves admiration for what the other person does for us personally, rather than objective admiration. It shares the same fragility and gets even more competitive as we keep looking for someone else who can make us feel even more grateful...
A culture of monogamy and marriage (and arranged marriage) is biased towards the first kind of love. Given the fragility of the alternative kinds, it is understandable that we create such cultures.
Predictive Deduction: Expanding the Arsenal of Science
Here's a lesson about promoting social change: Provide tools that are easy to use.
A friend recently asked me for a link to my first online book, Predictive Deduction: Expanding the Arsenal of Science. It is still publicly accessible, but has fallen into the junkyard of ideas--the Internet Archives (click here to donate to this amazing service).
Developing this work took some of the best years of my life. My friend remembered when it was proudly displayed in the open; it was one of the reasons he wanted to become my friend. It was used in 1999 to make predictions that are coming to fruition today, including Google glass and the irrepressible unemployment rate. Nonetheless, there was a very good reason why this work ended-up in the junkyard, and there is a lesson to be learned, so I'd like to give a more practical account than I did in my post, Saving the World.
In addition to friendships, this work landed me an internship in a think-tank where I was given an opportunity to demonstrate my predictive method, and then to train senior engineers to apply it themselves. Their assessment was that the method appears to produce something valuable, but is too difficult to learn. They recommended that I figure-out how to build a computer to implement it.
Well, some ideas are too expensive for one person to develop alone. These ideas die unless a bunch of other smart people find the humility to abandon their own ideas and instead devote their lives to helping the self-proclaimed genius. There are a bunch of problems with this fantasy, so we need to generate less expensive ideas.
My current work on evaluative diversity is probably not as awesome as predictive deduction (although it may help society reach a point at which fewer ideas need to be discarded); however, anyone can take the GRIN Self-Quiz, and you don't need to be a scholar to appreciate it.
Have I learned my lesson? We'll see...
A friend recently asked me for a link to my first online book, Predictive Deduction: Expanding the Arsenal of Science. It is still publicly accessible, but has fallen into the junkyard of ideas--the Internet Archives (click here to donate to this amazing service).
Developing this work took some of the best years of my life. My friend remembered when it was proudly displayed in the open; it was one of the reasons he wanted to become my friend. It was used in 1999 to make predictions that are coming to fruition today, including Google glass and the irrepressible unemployment rate. Nonetheless, there was a very good reason why this work ended-up in the junkyard, and there is a lesson to be learned, so I'd like to give a more practical account than I did in my post, Saving the World.
In addition to friendships, this work landed me an internship in a think-tank where I was given an opportunity to demonstrate my predictive method, and then to train senior engineers to apply it themselves. Their assessment was that the method appears to produce something valuable, but is too difficult to learn. They recommended that I figure-out how to build a computer to implement it.
Well, some ideas are too expensive for one person to develop alone. These ideas die unless a bunch of other smart people find the humility to abandon their own ideas and instead devote their lives to helping the self-proclaimed genius. There are a bunch of problems with this fantasy, so we need to generate less expensive ideas.
My current work on evaluative diversity is probably not as awesome as predictive deduction (although it may help society reach a point at which fewer ideas need to be discarded); however, anyone can take the GRIN Self-Quiz, and you don't need to be a scholar to appreciate it.
Have I learned my lesson? We'll see...
Moral Diversity
You've seen the pattern: First humanity discovered the inappropriateness of discriminating on the basis of caste and noble bloodline. Then it was religion, then race, then gender and disability. Now it's species and sexual orientation--what's next? Blind to our own bigotry, we seem to discover it form by form, calling each recognition a new stage of social advancement. Witnessing such a pattern, we have to expect that there are stages beyond what any society has yet recognized, forms of discrimination yet to discover. What is the next social frontier?
The title of this blog tells you that I am putting my money on moral diversity (a.k.a. "evaluative diversity"), gadflies being a moral type. Analysis of scripture from diverse cultures shows that we have been labeling particular approaches to evaluation as "wrong" for thousands of years. When Lawrence Kohlberg developed the first measure of moral diversity, about fifty years ago, he called the orientations "developmental stages," explicitly discriminating against people with orientations he deemed lower. Lind's Moral Judgment Test (MJT), still a major measurement tool today, is designed around the assumption that certain moral types (especially that of gadflies) are forms of incompetence. Only recently have we begun to gather scientific evidence that proclivity for these approaches is built into our genes and our physiology, just like race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Like sexual orientation, moral orientation can be hidden. As with biodiversity, the protection of moral diversity requires oppressing the empowered. These facts make moral discrimination politically difficult to regulate. Yet moral diversity is so valuable that natural selection forces societies to split almost evenly into at least four different moral types. That means everyone in a viable society is in a moral minority. We can segregate ourselves, but we will find ourselves discriminated against when we venture beyond our silos. For example, conservatives will feel out-of-place at liberal parties, flower-children will feel out-of-place in boot camp, soldiers will feel out-of-place providing childcare, and lovers will feel out of place in a cutthroat negotiation. All of those people and situations are valuable to society, so we must learn to accept diversity.
I have great hopes for the benefits we could realize by adding moral diversity to the list of forms we protect.
Nations which enter the next stage of social advancement will enjoy great rewards for the political challenges they overcome. They will rise above all other nations. Their higher social advance will attract higher technological and economic advance. And here's the kicker: While previous stages of social development have been specific to diversity among humans, moral diversity applies to artificial intelligences as well. Different machines have different moral orientations. As computers take greater roles in society, they will be most able to flourish in societies which manage moral diversity. Thus, nations with less social progress will find technical progress working against them.
The title of this blog tells you that I am putting my money on moral diversity (a.k.a. "evaluative diversity"), gadflies being a moral type. Analysis of scripture from diverse cultures shows that we have been labeling particular approaches to evaluation as "wrong" for thousands of years. When Lawrence Kohlberg developed the first measure of moral diversity, about fifty years ago, he called the orientations "developmental stages," explicitly discriminating against people with orientations he deemed lower. Lind's Moral Judgment Test (MJT), still a major measurement tool today, is designed around the assumption that certain moral types (especially that of gadflies) are forms of incompetence. Only recently have we begun to gather scientific evidence that proclivity for these approaches is built into our genes and our physiology, just like race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Like sexual orientation, moral orientation can be hidden. As with biodiversity, the protection of moral diversity requires oppressing the empowered. These facts make moral discrimination politically difficult to regulate. Yet moral diversity is so valuable that natural selection forces societies to split almost evenly into at least four different moral types. That means everyone in a viable society is in a moral minority. We can segregate ourselves, but we will find ourselves discriminated against when we venture beyond our silos. For example, conservatives will feel out-of-place at liberal parties, flower-children will feel out-of-place in boot camp, soldiers will feel out-of-place providing childcare, and lovers will feel out of place in a cutthroat negotiation. All of those people and situations are valuable to society, so we must learn to accept diversity.
I have great hopes for the benefits we could realize by adding moral diversity to the list of forms we protect.
- First of all, moral discrimination is probably one of the most harmful forms of bigotry. Suddenly finding your caste, race or gender changed might be a shock, but it won't destroy you--finding your moral sensibilities replaced, in contrast, is a discovery that you've entirely lost your freewill.
- Second of all, it seems likely that most people spend a substantial portion of their time evaluatively in the closet, so ending moral discrimination would directly benefit even more people than ending other forms of discrimination.
- Third, social flourishing likely requires moral diversity. Little would be lost if all people were of the same caste or color, but a society composed purely of a single moral orientation would be like an ecosystem composed purely of plants--it would consume itself.
Nations which enter the next stage of social advancement will enjoy great rewards for the political challenges they overcome. They will rise above all other nations. Their higher social advance will attract higher technological and economic advance. And here's the kicker: While previous stages of social development have been specific to diversity among humans, moral diversity applies to artificial intelligences as well. Different machines have different moral orientations. As computers take greater roles in society, they will be most able to flourish in societies which manage moral diversity. Thus, nations with less social progress will find technical progress working against them.
Would Political Transparency Entail Moral Elitism?
Former director Michael Hayden suggested screening NSA recruits to exclude employees like Edward Snowden. This is possible because attitudes about things like transparency are not mere opinions that could change after being hired--they reflect our genes and brain structures, and that means we can recognize people like Snowden using brain scans and gene tests before hiring them.
Such screening raises some issues:
I agree that liberals have a lot more to offer outside of the NSA--in the arts and laboratories of invention, for example--so I see value in an NSA which hires mostly conservatives. The reason I support screening of NSA applicants is to maintain a minimum of diversity (i.e. diversity quotas), to ensure that it would contain minorities who would do exactly what Edward Snowden did: limit its power. For the government to hire people like Snowden is like deploying soldiers into war zones--it is necessary, despite the inevitability of personal sacrifices, civilian casualties, and unforgivable errors. Power must be challenged.
To be fair, this same argument might be levied against Snowden and the rest of the political transparency crowd. What kinds of politicians would survive political transparency? Would it be a diverse group, or would such an environment select for certain genes? I think it would select. Even if only 25% of voters care enough about authority and purity to respond to political transparency by voting against moral non-elites, that would be huge compared to modern voting margins. As it turns out, such people are conservatives, so political transparency would lead, ironically, to a screening very much like what Hayden proposed.
I suppose liberals might rally around exposed less-pure adulterers, flip-floppers, and compromisers, but representation for the immoral majority is not a viable platform. Any real political transparency would have to show that anyone supporting such a candidate is really just trying to hide their own corruption. Thus, political transparency would accomplish the same result as requiring genetic tests to qualify for elected office, or to vote.
Exclusive election of conservatives does not need to entail discrimination, however. Modern conservatives do not support withholding the vote by race or gender. If they likewise accepted the theory of moral ecology (i.e. that society benefits from diverse approaches to morality), then elected leaders would hire employees with diverse genes (e.g. both conservative and liberal), and would involve them in decision-making such that society would be protected from the problems of a purely-conservative government.
I think the question of whether political transparency would destroy our nation is a lot like the question of whether the invention of tools will destroy our planet. Tools make humanity the dominant species on Earth, and whether that will destroy our planet or not will depend upon whether we recognize the value of other species. By "recognize" I don't mean something as trivial as publishing scientific evidence and blog articles, I mean being willing to make personal sacrifices for the sake of diversity. That is far more difficult, but it is a possible social reform.
Such screening raises some issues:
- People do not choose their own genes, so filtering job applicants based on genes would set a precedent very much like filtering based on race.
- These different gene types roughly correspond to what people call "conservatives" and "liberals", so Hayden's proposal basically means turning control of U.S. intelligence over to a political group (as in the USSR experiment with communism).
I agree that liberals have a lot more to offer outside of the NSA--in the arts and laboratories of invention, for example--so I see value in an NSA which hires mostly conservatives. The reason I support screening of NSA applicants is to maintain a minimum of diversity (i.e. diversity quotas), to ensure that it would contain minorities who would do exactly what Edward Snowden did: limit its power. For the government to hire people like Snowden is like deploying soldiers into war zones--it is necessary, despite the inevitability of personal sacrifices, civilian casualties, and unforgivable errors. Power must be challenged.
To be fair, this same argument might be levied against Snowden and the rest of the political transparency crowd. What kinds of politicians would survive political transparency? Would it be a diverse group, or would such an environment select for certain genes? I think it would select. Even if only 25% of voters care enough about authority and purity to respond to political transparency by voting against moral non-elites, that would be huge compared to modern voting margins. As it turns out, such people are conservatives, so political transparency would lead, ironically, to a screening very much like what Hayden proposed.
I suppose liberals might rally around exposed less-pure adulterers, flip-floppers, and compromisers, but representation for the immoral majority is not a viable platform. Any real political transparency would have to show that anyone supporting such a candidate is really just trying to hide their own corruption. Thus, political transparency would accomplish the same result as requiring genetic tests to qualify for elected office, or to vote.
Exclusive election of conservatives does not need to entail discrimination, however. Modern conservatives do not support withholding the vote by race or gender. If they likewise accepted the theory of moral ecology (i.e. that society benefits from diverse approaches to morality), then elected leaders would hire employees with diverse genes (e.g. both conservative and liberal), and would involve them in decision-making such that society would be protected from the problems of a purely-conservative government.
I think the question of whether political transparency would destroy our nation is a lot like the question of whether the invention of tools will destroy our planet. Tools make humanity the dominant species on Earth, and whether that will destroy our planet or not will depend upon whether we recognize the value of other species. By "recognize" I don't mean something as trivial as publishing scientific evidence and blog articles, I mean being willing to make personal sacrifices for the sake of diversity. That is far more difficult, but it is a possible social reform.
Six Facts With Which to Humble Oneself
Is humility a gift? If so, how could one give it? I am convinced that we need humility like we need food and shelter.
When conflict is an essential element of a collaboration, it can be resolved only through humility. For example, eagles and mice are collaborators in an ecosystem, but the ecosystem requires that eagles kill mice. If the conflict between eagles and mice were resolved through victory by either (i.e. through an end to the killing or an end to the escaping), their ecosystem would be destroyed, and both species would lose, so a different kind of resolution is required, one that accepts lack of both victory and defeat. That kind of resolution is humility.
Human humility stems from awareness of humbling facts. In a way, humbling facts empower us, since we need humility in order to participate in something larger. However, they are not obsolesced by awareness of alternative possibilities; any valid reason to be humble is sufficient. Thus, the same facts arise over and over again in both modern and ancient texts.
Different people are humbled by different facts, so I am offering here a balanced set of six humbling facts, one blog post for each:
I gave these facts to my family and friends for Christmas (they did appreciate them), but I was really just passing along a gift I had received myself. I hope posting them online will help you to pass them along to your loved ones as well.
Next >
When conflict is an essential element of a collaboration, it can be resolved only through humility. For example, eagles and mice are collaborators in an ecosystem, but the ecosystem requires that eagles kill mice. If the conflict between eagles and mice were resolved through victory by either (i.e. through an end to the killing or an end to the escaping), their ecosystem would be destroyed, and both species would lose, so a different kind of resolution is required, one that accepts lack of both victory and defeat. That kind of resolution is humility.
Human humility stems from awareness of humbling facts. In a way, humbling facts empower us, since we need humility in order to participate in something larger. However, they are not obsolesced by awareness of alternative possibilities; any valid reason to be humble is sufficient. Thus, the same facts arise over and over again in both modern and ancient texts.
Different people are humbled by different facts, so I am offering here a balanced set of six humbling facts, one blog post for each:
- Unaided individuals are inadequate in both power and virtue.
- Pure reason is inadequate because our language is inadequate and because we fail to recognize our errors.
- We need reformers; inherited norms change across generations.
- Individual pursuit of measurable extremes (like pleasure, power, security, and prestige) backfires by escalating desire/competition.
- Proper rules include some which cannot be disambiguated, thus forcing empathy/exploration.
- Role-models are social gadflies, challenging social barriers and norms of empathy.
I gave these facts to my family and friends for Christmas (they did appreciate them), but I was really just passing along a gift I had received myself. I hope posting them online will help you to pass them along to your loved ones as well.
Next >
Estimated Time of Intellectual Disability (E.T.I.D.)
Your "E.T.A." is the time when you are estimated to arrive, so I am coining the term "E.T.I.D." for the time when you are estimated to qualify for Social Security benefits on the basis of intellectual disability. As of 2010, the U.S. Social Security Administration has been publishing statistics on the number of people who receive such benefits, people to whom the government sends money each month because their I.Q. is too low to earn money for themselves. In 2010, the E.T.I.D of 141,701 U.S. citizens had already been reached. That number raised to 476,083 in the next year. If it continues to increase 335% per year, the E.T.I.D. for people with average I.Q. will occur in 2016.
That seems unlikely--we need more than two data points--but I want to tip my hat to the Social Security Administration for continuing to track this statistic. Intellectual disability is already the leading justification behind non-worker Social Security benefits (accounting for about 46%). The I.Q. cut-off to qualify for intellectual disability benefits may be fuzzy, but, at the extreme end, we find adults unable to take an I.Q. test, because, like babies, they have not yet learned any language. As adults, responsibility for their care shifts from their parents to the Social Security Administration, who refers to them as "Adult Children." Our society cannot simply abandon these people to die, nor can we expect their parents to outlive them.
Toward the middle of the fuzzy cut-off, we find adults who require help--perhaps they are unable to read beyond the third grade level--but who are able to work as animal caretakers, laundry workers, building maintenance workers, library assistants, data entry clerks, mail clerks, store clerks, messengers, cooks, printers, assemblers, factory workers, photocopy operators, grocery clerks, sales personnel, hospital attendants, housekeepers, statement clerks, automobile detail workers, or clerical aides. I get this career list from this employer's guide to the American's with Disabilities Act (ADA), a document which clarifies that it is legal to create jobs which require higher I.Q. (e.g. robotics engineer), and thus to discriminate against intellectual disability.
Introducing Baxter, one of Time Magazine's "Top 25 Innovations of 2012". Baxter is a robot designed to eliminate jobs, starting with the easy ones. Equivalent to an unskilled laborer willing to work for $1/hour, Baxter is expected to neutralize the economic justification for foreign sweatshops--Baxter will do the sweating locally--but, according to Inc. Magazine, Baxer is also expected to eliminate 30 million U.S. jobs. That's already 20% of U.S. jobs, but add the truck and taxi driving jobs to be eliminated by the Google car, and the personal assistant jobs to be eliminated by Siri, etc., and our current 8% unemployment rate sounds really mild. I'm glad to see those jobs go--I wouldn't wish jobs from the ADA list on anyone. Also, assuming inventors in our society are limited by the costs of building and distributing their inventions, we can expect the elimination of these jobs to increase invention, to spur a new golden age by freeing the creative class from having to work with the disabled.
But, on the other hand, labor costs are not what keep the intellectually disabled from being inventors, and blaming education is misleading--the impracticality of education is the defining characteristic of intellectual disability. When we talk about retraining the American workforce for a new job market, we aren't exactly talking about teaching calculus to people who require more than a lifetime to learn even to speak, but we are talking about educating people for jobs that require higher I.Q., and that simply isn't feasible, especially if I.Q. requirements rise faster than humans can learn--it's yet another example of politicians unable to sell reality. We can either relinquish human identities (and morals) by turning humans into cyborgs, or we can put more and more human beings on Social Security. Privatization of Social Security will seem less plausible as intellectual disability replaces old-age as the leading benefit reason. For example, my most recent patent application replaces medical scribes, clearly a job for above-average I.Q. As the I.Q. requirements continue to rise, we will find that even the creative class is not competent enough for the jobs of the future.
Parts of the process of assembling Baxter robots will likely be performed by Baxter robots (oblivious to the fact that they are reproducing). The idea of similar machines actually improving their own redesign is often taken to imply a technological "singularity," a point in time when machines will surpass humans as the most intelligent beings on Earth. Most experts say this will happen in the 21st century; Ray Kurzweil pegs the date at 2045. I think it is more compassionate to forecast E.T.I.D. than to forecast the date of the singularity, because each person feels the crisis at a different time. More and more people are reaching their E.T.I.D. every day, hundreds of thousands in the last year alone, and there is something inhumane about thinking we've got thirty years before we need to start caring.
That seems unlikely--we need more than two data points--but I want to tip my hat to the Social Security Administration for continuing to track this statistic. Intellectual disability is already the leading justification behind non-worker Social Security benefits (accounting for about 46%). The I.Q. cut-off to qualify for intellectual disability benefits may be fuzzy, but, at the extreme end, we find adults unable to take an I.Q. test, because, like babies, they have not yet learned any language. As adults, responsibility for their care shifts from their parents to the Social Security Administration, who refers to them as "Adult Children." Our society cannot simply abandon these people to die, nor can we expect their parents to outlive them.
Toward the middle of the fuzzy cut-off, we find adults who require help--perhaps they are unable to read beyond the third grade level--but who are able to work as animal caretakers, laundry workers, building maintenance workers, library assistants, data entry clerks, mail clerks, store clerks, messengers, cooks, printers, assemblers, factory workers, photocopy operators, grocery clerks, sales personnel, hospital attendants, housekeepers, statement clerks, automobile detail workers, or clerical aides. I get this career list from this employer's guide to the American's with Disabilities Act (ADA), a document which clarifies that it is legal to create jobs which require higher I.Q. (e.g. robotics engineer), and thus to discriminate against intellectual disability.
Introducing Baxter, one of Time Magazine's "Top 25 Innovations of 2012". Baxter is a robot designed to eliminate jobs, starting with the easy ones. Equivalent to an unskilled laborer willing to work for $1/hour, Baxter is expected to neutralize the economic justification for foreign sweatshops--Baxter will do the sweating locally--but, according to Inc. Magazine, Baxer is also expected to eliminate 30 million U.S. jobs. That's already 20% of U.S. jobs, but add the truck and taxi driving jobs to be eliminated by the Google car, and the personal assistant jobs to be eliminated by Siri, etc., and our current 8% unemployment rate sounds really mild. I'm glad to see those jobs go--I wouldn't wish jobs from the ADA list on anyone. Also, assuming inventors in our society are limited by the costs of building and distributing their inventions, we can expect the elimination of these jobs to increase invention, to spur a new golden age by freeing the creative class from having to work with the disabled.
But, on the other hand, labor costs are not what keep the intellectually disabled from being inventors, and blaming education is misleading--the impracticality of education is the defining characteristic of intellectual disability. When we talk about retraining the American workforce for a new job market, we aren't exactly talking about teaching calculus to people who require more than a lifetime to learn even to speak, but we are talking about educating people for jobs that require higher I.Q., and that simply isn't feasible, especially if I.Q. requirements rise faster than humans can learn--it's yet another example of politicians unable to sell reality. We can either relinquish human identities (and morals) by turning humans into cyborgs, or we can put more and more human beings on Social Security. Privatization of Social Security will seem less plausible as intellectual disability replaces old-age as the leading benefit reason. For example, my most recent patent application replaces medical scribes, clearly a job for above-average I.Q. As the I.Q. requirements continue to rise, we will find that even the creative class is not competent enough for the jobs of the future.
Parts of the process of assembling Baxter robots will likely be performed by Baxter robots (oblivious to the fact that they are reproducing). The idea of similar machines actually improving their own redesign is often taken to imply a technological "singularity," a point in time when machines will surpass humans as the most intelligent beings on Earth. Most experts say this will happen in the 21st century; Ray Kurzweil pegs the date at 2045. I think it is more compassionate to forecast E.T.I.D. than to forecast the date of the singularity, because each person feels the crisis at a different time. More and more people are reaching their E.T.I.D. every day, hundreds of thousands in the last year alone, and there is something inhumane about thinking we've got thirty years before we need to start caring.
How to be Intelligent about Elections
Like the Sex-Talk, I think schools delegate important parts of the Election-Talk to parents. Here's my go at it:
In addition to the right to vote your conscience, you have the right to keep your opinions private or to discuss them. Since it bears no minimum age or citizenship requirement, you might expect this second decision to be less important, but it might actually be more critical to determining our future. To what extent will our community respect minority views? To what extent will we remain divided and isolated? The answers to such questions will be determined by when/if/how we talk about politics. If you think only about who to vote for, and never about whether to share your opinion or not, you've thrown half of your vote away.
Intelligent voting also includes awareness of the potential impacts of your vote:
1. Impact on Your Future Wealth: One candidate may be less likely to make avoidable mistakes than another, or less likely to be manipulated by people you didn't intend to elect. Different candidates may favor different members of our community. Thus, your vote could impact both the wealth of the entire community, and your personal wealth relative to the rest of the community.
2. Impact on The Rules of Politics: Politicians are constantly innovating, testing what they can get away with--can I get away with negative campaigning? How much can I spend on political advertising? Is it acceptable to delay legislation so as to make an incumbent look bad? Is it acceptable for a President to behave like a doctor, trusting experts to determine what we really need, rather than prioritize demands we express in polls and markets? By punishing or not punishing candidates, elections set precedents which constrain politicians just as much as a constitution does.
3. Impact on Our Image: What people believe about us as a community is determined somewhat by how we vote. For example, will a substantial part of our electorate vote for candidates who are liked in other countries, or will we seem entirely insensitive to foreign opinion? Do you want our state to be known as a "swing" state? Do you want us to be known as people who don't care enough to vote?
The more you've seen of politics, I think, the less you expect to control your wealth through your vote. You've seen candidate after candidate fail to keep promises, sometimes despite their best efforts--no one can predict what challenges the winner will face over their term. The cure for voter apathy may be to remember the other two kinds of impact.
Another cause of voter apathy may be doubt that one is well-enough informed. The amount of money and effort spent on campaigning might lead you to believe that some wealthy/powerful force expects to be able to manipulate your vote, and anyone that wealthy/powerful probably has good research to inform their expectations. It's no fun being a puppet, so you ignore the election.
But, for every potential voter clever-enough to leave voting to the better-informed, there is someone else too dumb to realize they are being manipulated, so fleeing manipulation serves only to dumb-down the electorate, and make manipulation that much easier. Therefore, vote. Make every effort to see through the tricks--tune in to the big speeches and debates where candidates can't tailor their messages to different audiences. Then, even if you are so confused that you have to flip a coin, vote anyway, if only to make the manipulators pay through the nose for their treachery. The truth is that attempting to manipulate an election is risky--no one can predict what challenges the winner will face over their term--so if we keep it sufficiently expensive, the manipulators will lose (on average), and the voters will win in the long-run.
Finally, I want to strongly recommend befriending local politicians. You might think local politicians are less important because they control fewer resources, but one undeniably important contribution they make is to be sufficiently accessible that one can get to know them personally, and discover that politicians aren't all bad--in fact, many are inspiring. To vote intelligently requires knowing that politicians can be worthy of our vote, and the only way to know that about the big inaccessible candidates is to know public servants in general. If there are no worthy politicians in your life, voting will strip you of your humanity (or constrain you to delusion). We should be sure to appreciate local politicians for allowing us to keep our humanity intact, something arguably as important as any presidential duty.
In addition to the right to vote your conscience, you have the right to keep your opinions private or to discuss them. Since it bears no minimum age or citizenship requirement, you might expect this second decision to be less important, but it might actually be more critical to determining our future. To what extent will our community respect minority views? To what extent will we remain divided and isolated? The answers to such questions will be determined by when/if/how we talk about politics. If you think only about who to vote for, and never about whether to share your opinion or not, you've thrown half of your vote away.
Intelligent voting also includes awareness of the potential impacts of your vote:
1. Impact on Your Future Wealth: One candidate may be less likely to make avoidable mistakes than another, or less likely to be manipulated by people you didn't intend to elect. Different candidates may favor different members of our community. Thus, your vote could impact both the wealth of the entire community, and your personal wealth relative to the rest of the community.
2. Impact on The Rules of Politics: Politicians are constantly innovating, testing what they can get away with--can I get away with negative campaigning? How much can I spend on political advertising? Is it acceptable to delay legislation so as to make an incumbent look bad? Is it acceptable for a President to behave like a doctor, trusting experts to determine what we really need, rather than prioritize demands we express in polls and markets? By punishing or not punishing candidates, elections set precedents which constrain politicians just as much as a constitution does.
3. Impact on Our Image: What people believe about us as a community is determined somewhat by how we vote. For example, will a substantial part of our electorate vote for candidates who are liked in other countries, or will we seem entirely insensitive to foreign opinion? Do you want our state to be known as a "swing" state? Do you want us to be known as people who don't care enough to vote?
The more you've seen of politics, I think, the less you expect to control your wealth through your vote. You've seen candidate after candidate fail to keep promises, sometimes despite their best efforts--no one can predict what challenges the winner will face over their term. The cure for voter apathy may be to remember the other two kinds of impact.
Another cause of voter apathy may be doubt that one is well-enough informed. The amount of money and effort spent on campaigning might lead you to believe that some wealthy/powerful force expects to be able to manipulate your vote, and anyone that wealthy/powerful probably has good research to inform their expectations. It's no fun being a puppet, so you ignore the election.
But, for every potential voter clever-enough to leave voting to the better-informed, there is someone else too dumb to realize they are being manipulated, so fleeing manipulation serves only to dumb-down the electorate, and make manipulation that much easier. Therefore, vote. Make every effort to see through the tricks--tune in to the big speeches and debates where candidates can't tailor their messages to different audiences. Then, even if you are so confused that you have to flip a coin, vote anyway, if only to make the manipulators pay through the nose for their treachery. The truth is that attempting to manipulate an election is risky--no one can predict what challenges the winner will face over their term--so if we keep it sufficiently expensive, the manipulators will lose (on average), and the voters will win in the long-run.
Finally, I want to strongly recommend befriending local politicians. You might think local politicians are less important because they control fewer resources, but one undeniably important contribution they make is to be sufficiently accessible that one can get to know them personally, and discover that politicians aren't all bad--in fact, many are inspiring. To vote intelligently requires knowing that politicians can be worthy of our vote, and the only way to know that about the big inaccessible candidates is to know public servants in general. If there are no worthy politicians in your life, voting will strip you of your humanity (or constrain you to delusion). We should be sure to appreciate local politicians for allowing us to keep our humanity intact, something arguably as important as any presidential duty.
Congratulations, Class of 2012
Today's graduation ceremony reminded me of a school assignment given to one of my kids this year. It was a list of questions to ask an employer, establishing a first-hand account of what employers seek in a job candidate. Bravo to the teacher who invented such a wonderful assignment!
The last question was a departure that went something like this: "What can high school teachers do to prepare students to secure good jobs?" At first, I thought this question reflected teachers' willingness to collaborate with employers to develop curriculum, but the question can run deep. There is, of course, a shallow interpretation: "How can I give my favorite students an advantage over my less-favorite students?" or "How can I give my students an advantage over those of other teachers?" But the context of a graduation ceremony reminds us that teachers care about the entire class of 2012, that they understand the future is shared by the entire class.
Asking an employer how high school teachers can aim for every student in the class of 2012 to secure a good job is very deep and bold. The question is no longer about how to give employers what they want in a job candidate, but instead about how to give candidates what they want in a job market. First of all, what are "good" jobs? Second, how is it possible to have a job market that doesn't need some workers to take "bad" jobs? Third, how can teachers empower their students to make this dream a reality?
The idea that teachers should be involved in achieving this dream may see arrogant, but I think it is appropriate. The values taught to the people who currently define jobs did not include any serious sense of responsibility to create a world in which all jobs are good. The people who create jobs today (and thus determine the quality of this huge portion of their fellows' lives) consider it reasonable for there to be undesirable jobs that need to be filled. Behind their protests that it is impossible to create a job with no "bad" aspects, employers don't actually feel any guilt about the disparity between their own jobs and jobs they would never want for themselves (e.g. custodian, button-pusher, call-center operator, etc.). In short, values are the culprit behind the jobs situation, and the only way for all students to get good jobs is for teachers to teach future job creators a different set of values, then wait for a more-enlightened generation to seize power and change the world.
For the class of 2012, this is not welcome news. You might be able to achieve the dream for your children, but it cannot be achieved for yourselves. Worse, achieving the dream requires rejecting the values of your parents; it requires being the bigger (and more courageous) person. In short, your situation is profoundly unfair: in addition to a deficit and climate change, you have inherited anemic moral norms. It may not necessitate a civil war in the military sense, but transforming moral norms requires such a change of power that "civil war" may be an apt name (perhaps an economic or technological civil war?). Of course, you can put off the war for a future generation to fight, like your parents did before you, but then you risk getting caught on the other side--fighting against your own children. That would be a war you could not possibly win.
I am not saying that I and other parents have conspired against you. You have heard us encourage you to dream bigger than we dreamed, and that encouragement was, and continues to be, sincere. But, because we lacked the courage to dream that big ourselves, we are obstacles standing in your way. To do something new, you'll have to discard the old. We are your enemy, not because we want to be against you, but because we lack the courage to be for you. Because we will not muster that courage, our right to control you is forfeit--your fight to take our power is righteous. By inheriting unprecedented crises, you also inherit unprecedented right to punish the generations who left those crises to you.
Congratulations, Class of 2012! It is not fair. It is not what you wanted. But, more than ever, the future belongs to you.
------
Post Script:
I feel fortunate that my own dad reads my blog and shares his feedback. He gave me permission to publish his reaction to the second to last paragraph above:
If we [older generations] are indeed the enemy [of younger generations] then WE must change to become friends. We must muster the courage to change. And we have that opportunity and responsibility until they bury us. The young people of today do not want to punish us. They still look to us for leadership and we must provide leadership. WE must constantly reexamine what we are doing and make changes. WE must share the baton with the next generations but we cannot pass it yet – we cannot fully let go. WE still own it (with them) and WE still can make changes.
I think these words deserve to be published. On a technical level, they seem to fly in the face of evidence that progress requires shifting power to new people not yet committed to dogma, and that values differ between generations, despite friendly intentions. I feel guilty that we give citizens with a sixty-year life expectancy no more vote than those with a ten-year life expectancy on decisions about what long-term sacrifices must be made to pay a deficit (and also that the values of the young do not dominate advertising). But, on another level, I must admit that my father's words, better then my own, reflect the love we both have for people in the generation of the class of 2012. It is important for words to be loving as well as true.
The last question was a departure that went something like this: "What can high school teachers do to prepare students to secure good jobs?" At first, I thought this question reflected teachers' willingness to collaborate with employers to develop curriculum, but the question can run deep. There is, of course, a shallow interpretation: "How can I give my favorite students an advantage over my less-favorite students?" or "How can I give my students an advantage over those of other teachers?" But the context of a graduation ceremony reminds us that teachers care about the entire class of 2012, that they understand the future is shared by the entire class.
Asking an employer how high school teachers can aim for every student in the class of 2012 to secure a good job is very deep and bold. The question is no longer about how to give employers what they want in a job candidate, but instead about how to give candidates what they want in a job market. First of all, what are "good" jobs? Second, how is it possible to have a job market that doesn't need some workers to take "bad" jobs? Third, how can teachers empower their students to make this dream a reality?
The idea that teachers should be involved in achieving this dream may see arrogant, but I think it is appropriate. The values taught to the people who currently define jobs did not include any serious sense of responsibility to create a world in which all jobs are good. The people who create jobs today (and thus determine the quality of this huge portion of their fellows' lives) consider it reasonable for there to be undesirable jobs that need to be filled. Behind their protests that it is impossible to create a job with no "bad" aspects, employers don't actually feel any guilt about the disparity between their own jobs and jobs they would never want for themselves (e.g. custodian, button-pusher, call-center operator, etc.). In short, values are the culprit behind the jobs situation, and the only way for all students to get good jobs is for teachers to teach future job creators a different set of values, then wait for a more-enlightened generation to seize power and change the world.
For the class of 2012, this is not welcome news. You might be able to achieve the dream for your children, but it cannot be achieved for yourselves. Worse, achieving the dream requires rejecting the values of your parents; it requires being the bigger (and more courageous) person. In short, your situation is profoundly unfair: in addition to a deficit and climate change, you have inherited anemic moral norms. It may not necessitate a civil war in the military sense, but transforming moral norms requires such a change of power that "civil war" may be an apt name (perhaps an economic or technological civil war?). Of course, you can put off the war for a future generation to fight, like your parents did before you, but then you risk getting caught on the other side--fighting against your own children. That would be a war you could not possibly win.
I am not saying that I and other parents have conspired against you. You have heard us encourage you to dream bigger than we dreamed, and that encouragement was, and continues to be, sincere. But, because we lacked the courage to dream that big ourselves, we are obstacles standing in your way. To do something new, you'll have to discard the old. We are your enemy, not because we want to be against you, but because we lack the courage to be for you. Because we will not muster that courage, our right to control you is forfeit--your fight to take our power is righteous. By inheriting unprecedented crises, you also inherit unprecedented right to punish the generations who left those crises to you.
Congratulations, Class of 2012! It is not fair. It is not what you wanted. But, more than ever, the future belongs to you.
------
Post Script:
I feel fortunate that my own dad reads my blog and shares his feedback. He gave me permission to publish his reaction to the second to last paragraph above:
If we [older generations] are indeed the enemy [of younger generations] then WE must change to become friends. We must muster the courage to change. And we have that opportunity and responsibility until they bury us. The young people of today do not want to punish us. They still look to us for leadership and we must provide leadership. WE must constantly reexamine what we are doing and make changes. WE must share the baton with the next generations but we cannot pass it yet – we cannot fully let go. WE still own it (with them) and WE still can make changes.
I think these words deserve to be published. On a technical level, they seem to fly in the face of evidence that progress requires shifting power to new people not yet committed to dogma, and that values differ between generations, despite friendly intentions. I feel guilty that we give citizens with a sixty-year life expectancy no more vote than those with a ten-year life expectancy on decisions about what long-term sacrifices must be made to pay a deficit (and also that the values of the young do not dominate advertising). But, on another level, I must admit that my father's words, better then my own, reflect the love we both have for people in the generation of the class of 2012. It is important for words to be loving as well as true.
The Path Forward
There is a lot to debate about the path forward, but we can be sure that path will be unfair and will not involve equal responsibility. To expect fairness and equal responsibility would create an obstacle.
Fairness and responsibility are two of the universal core values (along with honesty, respect, and compassion) identified by Rushworth Kidder in his book Moral Courage. They were prominent themes in President Obama's 2012 State of the Union Address, and here's how we know that address was directed to the naive:
Fairness and responsibility are two of the universal core values (along with honesty, respect, and compassion) identified by Rushworth Kidder in his book Moral Courage. They were prominent themes in President Obama's 2012 State of the Union Address, and here's how we know that address was directed to the naive:
The public goods game is a classic economics experiment. The rules of the game go something like this:
- Each player starts with one token
- Players can put as many of their tokens in the public pot as they like
- At the end of each round, the experimenter doubles the tokens in the pot, and distributes them equally among all players
- Tokens are worth real cash at the end of the game.
For example, if everyone contributes in the first round, they end it with two tokens each. If every player always put all their tokens in the pot, each would have 1024 at the end of ten rounds. But different people play differently: 20% of us are altruistic leaders, and 20% are selfish leaders. The altruistic leaders always contribute, and the selfish leaders always maximize their personal take for each round. For example, if selfish leaders withhold their contribution in the first round (while everyone else contributes) they end it with three tokens, instead of only two. If everyone else imitated altruistic leaders, they would have about 136 token each at the end of ten rounds, and selfish leaders would have about three times that. But the 60% in the middle cannot tolerate unfairness, so altruistic leaders are the only ones who keep contributing. Altruistic leaders go broke, selfish leaders end with about thirteen tokens, and the rest an average of eight (less than 1% of their potential winnings).
The real tragedy of this experiment is not that some humans are selfish (it's only 20%), but that the 60% in the middle will let a minority block their path forward. Ending with 136 tokens is not as good as ending with 1024, but it would still be seventeen times better than ending with only eight! Most humans are good people, but also too weak to tolerate badness, and that intolerance is our doom.
So the game is modified: a new rule empowers contributors to burn the winnings of non-contributors by burning an equal amount of their own. At the end of round two, the altruistic leaders burn their own winnings to punish the selfish leaders. The altruistic leaders end the round broke, the selfish leaders end round two with the same two tokens from round one, while everyone else ends with three. From here on out, everyone always contributes. The altruistic leaders end with 561, the selfish leaders with 563, and the others with 564.
This improved result supposedly justifies the expense of prisons, but the big lesson for me is the observation that rules always turn-out to be biased, despite applying to everyone equally. The game is never fair--either empower the selfish leaders to leech off everyone else, or empower the altruistic leaders to make an unfair sacrifice--in either case, the leaders control the game. The inequity explodes from the mere fact that people are fundamentally different--that is unavoidable. The path forward is to choose which leaders to empower; what holds us back is the fantasy of aiming for equality. Anyone in President Obama's position must be aware of this science, so his State of the Union Address makes me wonder whether politicians can survive being honest.
Medicalism: No One In Charge
The 2010 IG Nobel Prize in Management was awarded to Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random. They used a computer model to confirm that when you promote people based on competence (i.e. until they stop displaying competence), you are more likely to end up with a hierarchy largely lead by people who do not display competence. This is also known as the Peter Principle.
Should we likewise expect science to produce better theories, you might ask, if we promoted theories at random, instead of based upon each theory's competence? Good question! Unlike managers, scientific theories do not climb a ladder--they either destroy all competitors or are destroyed themselves. The Peter Principle does not raise doubts about the competence of the last man standing--that person stops getting promoted, not because he/she stopped exhibiting competence, but because there was no higher position to which he/she possibly could be promoted. Thus, the Peter Principle does not raise doubts about science.
Unlike theories, however, humans are more effective when working together, recruiting their competitors rather than completely destroying them. Furthermore, while the best theories can be used everywhere, even the most competent human has limited capacity, and therefore must delegate. Capitalism nevertheless copies something from the way theories compete: like theories, new businesses aim to destroy competing businesses. The fragility of market leadership allows entrepreneurs to skip the corporate ladder, to avoid waiting for rungs to open-up. One might wonder whether this allows capitalism to circumvent the Peter Principle.
In socialism, by contrast, the only way to crush the old regime and fast-track greater competence into positions of power is through politics. In some ways, this sounds equivalent to capitalism--tricking voters isn't much worse than addicting consumers--but perhaps capitalistic success rest on a wider range of competences. New businesses can be created to leverage superior skills of science, art, engineering, socializing, beauty, foreign cultures, litigation, etc.--even politics. Socialistic economies would instead be dominated by political skills, and, because of the Peter Principle, non-political competences would be relatively lacking where most needed.
On the other hand, we don't expect the world to be that bad. We expect scientific advance to change the world, even if no competent entrepreneur or politician champions that advance. We expect our response to the theory of global warming, for example, to be settled by experiments, not by the competence of green start-ups or Al Gore. Likewise, Justin Bieber confirmed our expectation that good music can break-out even before being endorsed by businesses and politicians. In other words, we expect to see an economic system of a third kind, one in which ideas compete against ideas, and winning ideas constrain competition among humans. We expect the Peter Principle to be resolved because the competition for power among humans becomes meaningless--truth and goodness are recognized on their own merits, and they, rather than the people in charge, decide the path of our economy.
This alternative to socialism and capitalism deserves a name. I call it "medicalism", because medical theories are the ideas likely to constrain our economy first. For example, every politician and entrepreneur must ultimately succumb to the evidence that smoking causes cancer. None can be competent enough to champion smoking. I expect similar research to overwhelm our economy faster and faster as the Internet makes research more accessible. Today smokers face fees (at least in terms of insurance premiums), and I expect similar fees to arise for other health inefficiencies, more and more, until our lives become pretty much ruled by medical research (instead of by corporations or political parties).
Medicalism is a better answer to the Peter Principle because it is far less costly to have a theory, rather than a corporation or political party, supplanted. Supplanting a corporation or political party entails putting many people out of work, at least some of which are bound to be scarred by the experience. In comparison, rolling-out the next round of medical research might be as subtle as rolling-out an operating system security update. Moreover, as it becomes clear that climbing the corporate ladder does not bring power, promotions may be based less upon competence than upon health factors--something approaching the randomization strategy that performed best for Pluchino, Rapisarda, and Garofalo.
Should we likewise expect science to produce better theories, you might ask, if we promoted theories at random, instead of based upon each theory's competence? Good question! Unlike managers, scientific theories do not climb a ladder--they either destroy all competitors or are destroyed themselves. The Peter Principle does not raise doubts about the competence of the last man standing--that person stops getting promoted, not because he/she stopped exhibiting competence, but because there was no higher position to which he/she possibly could be promoted. Thus, the Peter Principle does not raise doubts about science.
Unlike theories, however, humans are more effective when working together, recruiting their competitors rather than completely destroying them. Furthermore, while the best theories can be used everywhere, even the most competent human has limited capacity, and therefore must delegate. Capitalism nevertheless copies something from the way theories compete: like theories, new businesses aim to destroy competing businesses. The fragility of market leadership allows entrepreneurs to skip the corporate ladder, to avoid waiting for rungs to open-up. One might wonder whether this allows capitalism to circumvent the Peter Principle.
In socialism, by contrast, the only way to crush the old regime and fast-track greater competence into positions of power is through politics. In some ways, this sounds equivalent to capitalism--tricking voters isn't much worse than addicting consumers--but perhaps capitalistic success rest on a wider range of competences. New businesses can be created to leverage superior skills of science, art, engineering, socializing, beauty, foreign cultures, litigation, etc.--even politics. Socialistic economies would instead be dominated by political skills, and, because of the Peter Principle, non-political competences would be relatively lacking where most needed.
On the other hand, we don't expect the world to be that bad. We expect scientific advance to change the world, even if no competent entrepreneur or politician champions that advance. We expect our response to the theory of global warming, for example, to be settled by experiments, not by the competence of green start-ups or Al Gore. Likewise, Justin Bieber confirmed our expectation that good music can break-out even before being endorsed by businesses and politicians. In other words, we expect to see an economic system of a third kind, one in which ideas compete against ideas, and winning ideas constrain competition among humans. We expect the Peter Principle to be resolved because the competition for power among humans becomes meaningless--truth and goodness are recognized on their own merits, and they, rather than the people in charge, decide the path of our economy.
This alternative to socialism and capitalism deserves a name. I call it "medicalism", because medical theories are the ideas likely to constrain our economy first. For example, every politician and entrepreneur must ultimately succumb to the evidence that smoking causes cancer. None can be competent enough to champion smoking. I expect similar research to overwhelm our economy faster and faster as the Internet makes research more accessible. Today smokers face fees (at least in terms of insurance premiums), and I expect similar fees to arise for other health inefficiencies, more and more, until our lives become pretty much ruled by medical research (instead of by corporations or political parties).
Medicalism is a better answer to the Peter Principle because it is far less costly to have a theory, rather than a corporation or political party, supplanted. Supplanting a corporation or political party entails putting many people out of work, at least some of which are bound to be scarred by the experience. In comparison, rolling-out the next round of medical research might be as subtle as rolling-out an operating system security update. Moreover, as it becomes clear that climbing the corporate ladder does not bring power, promotions may be based less upon competence than upon health factors--something approaching the randomization strategy that performed best for Pluchino, Rapisarda, and Garofalo.
College as Crack-house
Granting disciplinary degrees is a shady business made necessary by academia's failure to sell its legitimate purpose. Instead of convincing society to finance great thinking, many institutions make money by addicting employers to the use of academic degrees as tools for screening job applicants, and then charging students to pass the screens.
Many academics admit that this business model exists, but do not take responsibility for it. Institutions that provide substantial financial aid may even try to shift blame to other institutions, as though giving away addictive drugs for free would not create a market for them. However, even the well-endowed institutions can no longer stop structuring their degrees as job-screening tools. If you doubt that you've sold the soul of higher-education, I dare you do way with career-oriented degree specializations (especially "business", "medicine" and "law") and to set caps on how many students you can admit who are preparing for new careers.
Career-training (including in business, medicine and law) is more efficiently delivered on-the-job:
- On-the-job training is up-to-date. Especially in careers that use changing technology, much of what one learns in a four-year degree quickly becomes obsolete.
- On-the-job training permits career change. Declaring a major for a four-year degree implies intention to work in that area for more than four years, right? But the Bureau of Labor reports that Americans change career area every 18 months, and a variety of sources suggest they should.
- On-the-job training need not require remembering. A great deal of the effort made in four-year degree programs rests on the assumption that students will remember what they learned, but research suggests most is forgotten in just two years. (see Bacon, D. R. "How Fast Do Students Forget What They Learn in Consumer Behavior? A Longitudinal Study" Journal of Marketing Education December 2006 vol. 28 no. 3 181-192)
- On-the-job-training is relevant to the job. Businesses say that the most relevant parts of a four-year degree are critical thinking and problem-solving skills, but college students are directed to learn many other things as well, and 36% learn nothing relevant.
Especially considering the need to retool the labor force to meet job crises, on-the-job training is important, and the market for that kind of education can only be hurt by the implication that academic degrees provide career preparation.
Research institutions have additionally contributed to the problem by delaying in their duty to create what John Smart calls the conversational interface. Essentially this involves teaching computers, so they can teach humans (thus allowing the integration of learning and work 24/7). It involves every discipline. Academics may have other interests they would like to pursue, but leaving this project to IBM's Jeopardy-winning Watson team is like leaving food patents to Monsanto: where monopolies are intolerable, academics must take sufficient ownership for progress to render patent law unnecessary.
I'm not sure the American people get it. Academia should play a very important role in society, and financial incentives should align it with that role, rather than distract it into providing ineffective career-training. We pity countries whose wealth relies on the export of addictive narcotics, yet America considers the export of higher-education a key part of its own economic strategy. When higher-education is reduced to a product, it really isn't so different from an addictive narcotic. This business is costing us our security, the nobility of academia, and the efficiency of our economy.
Assessing and Developing Religious Capabilities
In 1993, the Dalai Lama said, “Each religion has its own philosophy and there are similarities as well as differences among the various traditions. What is important is what is suitable for a particular person. We should look at the underlying purpose of religion… All religions make the betterment of humanity their primary concern. When we view the different religions as essentially instruments to develop a good heart—love and respect for others, a true sense of community—we can appreciate what they have in common. . . . Everyone feels that his or her form of religious practice is the best. I myself feel that Buddhism is best for me. But this does not mean that Buddhism is best for everyone else.”
This idea, that the primary purpose of religion is to meet social, psychological and emotional needs, is offensive to many people, including me. However, I take seriously the idea that the social impacts of religion are important enough to pursue, even if it requires putting other purposes aside for the moment. How seriously do you take this idea?
The RAND Corporation is known as our nation’s original think tank. On May 14, 1948, RAND (a contraction of the term “research and development”) separated from the Douglass Aircraft Company of Santa Monica, California, to become an independent non-profit devoted to solving our nation’s most complicated problems. This organization has since made significant contributions to the development of our space program, military strategy, computer technology, the internet, international policy, analytic methodology and the field of economics. To date, twenty-four RAND researchers have been awarded Nobel prizes covering all areas but medicine and literature.
Security and Surrender
If we reach a point at which our government becomes corrupt, a point at which it becomes wise to invest in lobbying and campaign advertising, because that's what works, here's what we might notice:
1. Votes would be bought through trickery, rather than through bribery. Psychologists such as Donald Kinder have established that most Americans vote for what they think is in the best interest of the group over their own personal self-interest. To buy votes would require complicating the situation (long bills, unintelligble financial derivatives, etc.) enough that voters cannot tell what is right, and then using economics to control what voters cannot.
2. Legislation would have multiple faces. The popularity of a balanced budget amendment, for example, might reflect a national desire to be fair to future generations, but some might support it to reduce fairness—they might consider it practically impossible for government to save for a rainy day, and therefore expect the amendment to allow disaster to weaken government's ability to limit corruption in business.
1. Votes would be bought through trickery, rather than through bribery. Psychologists such as Donald Kinder have established that most Americans vote for what they think is in the best interest of the group over their own personal self-interest. To buy votes would require complicating the situation (long bills, unintelligble financial derivatives, etc.) enough that voters cannot tell what is right, and then using economics to control what voters cannot.
2. Legislation would have multiple faces. The popularity of a balanced budget amendment, for example, might reflect a national desire to be fair to future generations, but some might support it to reduce fairness—they might consider it practically impossible for government to save for a rainy day, and therefore expect the amendment to allow disaster to weaken government's ability to limit corruption in business.
Balance for Staying Fat
Religion is important. I've even heard that some scholars define one's "religion" as whatever is important to them (e.g. making money can be a religion). So attempting to prevent public schools from teaching about religion is odd and probably unstable.
Chris Crutcher wrote an award winning book of teen-fiction that is taught in many public schools, despite its apparent religious bias (see Cap City Liberty: Breaking News: Belleville School Board Votes Unanimously to Keep Challenged Book in English Curriculum). As a parent, I want my kids to appreciate the perspectives of people with diverse religious biases, so I like the fact that Crutcher broke the rules. However, I also see something valuable in the rules he broke, and to salvage that value, I think we need parents to write their own versions that present other biases. Here's mine (conservative evangelical).
Crutcher couldn't be expected to teach teenagers to appreciate every religious view, and we can't expect my one story to completely balance his. But wouldn't it be great if Wikipedia had links to a full range of versions of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes? Crutcher linked his site to my story, and said he'd like to know about many more. Please start writing!
Chris Crutcher wrote an award winning book of teen-fiction that is taught in many public schools, despite its apparent religious bias (see Cap City Liberty: Breaking News: Belleville School Board Votes Unanimously to Keep Challenged Book in English Curriculum). As a parent, I want my kids to appreciate the perspectives of people with diverse religious biases, so I like the fact that Crutcher broke the rules. However, I also see something valuable in the rules he broke, and to salvage that value, I think we need parents to write their own versions that present other biases. Here's mine (conservative evangelical).
Crutcher couldn't be expected to teach teenagers to appreciate every religious view, and we can't expect my one story to completely balance his. But wouldn't it be great if Wikipedia had links to a full range of versions of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes? Crutcher linked his site to my story, and said he'd like to know about many more. Please start writing!
TED Talks
Hopefully, readers of Gadfly Dad already know about TED Talks, but I need to post the link just in case.
Each video is 18 minutes or less, and designed to change the world all by itself. The TED braintrust includes some of the most successful gadflies of our day. They have done an excellent job of soliciting and filtering world-class content. The categories have expanded from just Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) to also include business, science and global issues. You can sort them by how often they are viewed, emailed or commented upon, and by nine different ratings.
Watch one right now in an area that interests you. If you've already seen one, go watch another. Challenge is good for you.
Each video is 18 minutes or less, and designed to change the world all by itself. The TED braintrust includes some of the most successful gadflies of our day. They have done an excellent job of soliciting and filtering world-class content. The categories have expanded from just Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) to also include business, science and global issues. You can sort them by how often they are viewed, emailed or commented upon, and by nine different ratings.
Watch one right now in an area that interests you. If you've already seen one, go watch another. Challenge is good for you.
Let's Clarify the American Dream
Immortality is a long shot, I admit; but somebody has to be first. – Bill CosbyWhen the Media, the fourth branch of American government, forces political candidates to clarify their promises and exposes contradictions among those promises, they keep politicians honest. But they also force voters to be honest with themselves—we need to realize when our expectations are unrealistic, when the kind of candidate we want simply doesn’t exist. I think the Media should attack not only candidates this way, but the American Dream itself, to bring America back to reality.
If the American government has a social contract with Americans, a "Dream" it offers, part of it must be in the phrase, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It isn’t in the Constitution—it’s in the Declaration of Independence—but that doesn’t really matter. A social contract, promise or dream is less about what was signed and more about what expectations we hold, and the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is pushed around so much, we can’t help but form expectations around it.
So let’s demand that our government clarify its promises regarding “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Let’s make sure we are all rallying around the same flag.
Pied Piper
I wrote, arranged, and produced this musical comedy before I became a dad. Good thing: thinking about kids in the middle-ages, how kids can inspire despite the worst circumstances, brings me close to tears now that I have kids of my own.
I wrote this as part of my own crusade against cults (just as idealistic as the crusade in the story). Splitting the action across a dozen leads helped keep the focus on the cult dynamics (rather than on individual characters), but readers should be warned that this makes it more difficult to track the plot (having physical actors helps). In that sense, this is an anti-story.
I wrote this as part of my own crusade against cults (just as idealistic as the crusade in the story). Splitting the action across a dozen leads helped keep the focus on the cult dynamics (rather than on individual characters), but readers should be warned that this makes it more difficult to track the plot (having physical actors helps). In that sense, this is an anti-story.
Growing Together
I thought of this book as my dissertation, a chance to write for the sake of learning, to advance original thought, and to establish a specialization (in my case, practical philosophy).
Each chapter offers something I want for my kids:
The questions are religious, so I tried to appeal to all faiths, including atheism; I supported every answer with both science and scripture. That might have contributed to the ineffectiveness. Feedback also suggested that people don't like to move through these ideas so quickly (maybe people slow down in interfaith situations).
Each chapter offers something I want for my kids:
- How can we become wise?
- How can we become truly free?
- How can we have the deepest love?
- How can we be at peace with one another?
- How can we gain spiritual experience?
- How can we discover purpose in life?
The questions are religious, so I tried to appeal to all faiths, including atheism; I supported every answer with both science and scripture. That might have contributed to the ineffectiveness. Feedback also suggested that people don't like to move through these ideas so quickly (maybe people slow down in interfaith situations).
Personality and Culture
Here's a theory of personality that has a good evolutionary explanation and also explains typology of culture. Bottom line: you aren't stuck with the personality you've got, but it usually won't be to your benefit to change.
Personality has often been portrayed as an arbitrarily assigned characteristic, as though one’s personality were thrust upon her against her will or pulled from a grab-bag. I think it is rather a specialization like running-back or blocker, comedian or romantic lead—our genes may give us a predisposition towards one specialty over another, but, in the end, we play whatever roles need to be played.
The specialties most often associated with personality are rigor vs. open-mindedness and listening vs. experimenting. One cannot be rigorous and open-minded at the same time, nor can one simultaneously both listen and create something new. It is possible to be a generalist, practicing all four to equal degrees, but when a team needs rigor it is better served by a specialist who has given-up on open-mindedness. The same is true of the other specialties. Since individuals cannot achieve what teams can and we serve teams best as specialists, we often specialize.
Personality has often been portrayed as an arbitrarily assigned characteristic, as though one’s personality were thrust upon her against her will or pulled from a grab-bag. I think it is rather a specialization like running-back or blocker, comedian or romantic lead—our genes may give us a predisposition towards one specialty over another, but, in the end, we play whatever roles need to be played.
The specialties most often associated with personality are rigor vs. open-mindedness and listening vs. experimenting. One cannot be rigorous and open-minded at the same time, nor can one simultaneously both listen and create something new. It is possible to be a generalist, practicing all four to equal degrees, but when a team needs rigor it is better served by a specialist who has given-up on open-mindedness. The same is true of the other specialties. Since individuals cannot achieve what teams can and we serve teams best as specialists, we often specialize.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)