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 work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
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...
Skip School, or Skip Career?
In Don't Go to Grad School, Penelope Trunk argues for skipping grad school because it will not help your career:
"This is why millionaires have stopped leaving their money to their kids—it undermines their transition to adulthood. But instead of making the transition, you are still in school, pretending things are fine. The problem is that what you do in school is not what you will do in a career. So if you love school, you’ll probably hate the career it’s preparing you for, since your career is not going to school."I've got four honors students planning their "transition to adulthood" right now, so seeing them exposed to this advice gets my attention. I agree that schools offer terrible career preparation, but I'm not so sure they waste the time of people who enjoy and can afford them. I am also skeptical of Penelope's advice not to seek a career doing what you love. I think Penelope's understanding of adulthood is growing old-fashioned (it reminds me of slavery).
I used to think my kids have to get a good job, because I will die before they do, and therefore I can not feed them forever. That logic breaks down as labor efficiency goes up: Technological advances (not just robots) will allow a single human to accomplish the labor of two, or three, or four, or one hundred humans. Eventually, that means 99% of us won't need to work, and, let's face it, at least 1% of us are workaholics who will happily support the rest.
College admission officers tell my kids that tuition is balanced by higher life-long earnings, but those calculations are based on historic availability of jobs. I expect higher-paying jobs to continue to be awarded to applicants with higher education, but I also expect increased efficiency to make those jobs more scarce. I can understand risking debt for a chance to avoid a bad job, but there is a third option: Don't get a career at all. The day is coming when work will be optional, and my kids are welcome to bide their time living with me in the meanwhile.
You can argue that our next golden age is not so close at hand. You have a lot of control over whether it is or not--you participate in deciding how much we invest in automation, and how much of a market we create for unnecessary labor (e.g. labor devoted to fighting--think lawyers, advertisers, security officers, etc.). I think about half of the American labor market is devoted to unnecessary labor right now. If enough young people boycott the labor market, however, you may be more inclined to accelerate automation, and to reserve labor for necessary tasks. We could get very efficient very fast, if we wanted to.
Anticipation of a golden age puts pressure on employers to pay for education. Even Penelope Trunk would not object to education paid for by employers. If employers instead expect job applicants to get educated before they apply, then they will find more and more talented young people disqualifying themselves by following Penelope's advice. Industry can function with less, but missed opportunities are wasteful, and an economy run by the less-talented would be a market failure.
Reserving the final jobs for the elite matters, because the people with the last jobs will make important decisions: How will they ration resources among the other 99%? Will they penalize the fools who took on college debts they were not fit to pay? Will they penalize people in careers that disappeared early? Will they penalize people who hoarded careers expected to disappear late? Or will they penalize people who lived with their parents, and hoarded no jobs at all?
Penelope Trunk seems to think there are rules to career planning, but social change is so accelerated that those rules are no more reliable than those of love and war. If skipping school is a viable option, I'd say skipping career is a viable option too. I want my kids to be happy, and there's no time like the present. If you like school, go to school. If you like a career, work. If you don't like either, find something you do like to do. I've got good kids--if they do what they love, the world will be better off.
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.
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.
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.
Pareto Principle vs. Butterfly Effect
A pyramid scheme is an employment situation in which your personal income is basically a fraction of your personal sales and of the incomes of any other employees you have recruited. It is called a "pyramid" because employees can get abnormally high income by recruiting employees who recruit employees who sell (i.e. building a hierarchy). Standard employers similarly pay top-level executives abnormally high, but do not transfer as much risk to low-level employees. Pyramid schemes are criticized as "paying in lottery tickets" because it is all too often the case that an employee earns less than they need--a very sad story much less likely to happen with a fixed minimum salary.
In 1906, Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 80% of the peas in his garden came from 20% of the pods, and theorized a connection to the fact that 80% of the land is owned by 20% of the people. Whether you use an 80/20 rule or a 90/10 rule, the Pareto principle basically posits that equality is a fool's dream: most profits will inevitably come from a minority of workers and customers, so managers should maximize profits by targeting the elite. Pyramid schemes are basically a way of maximizing profits by avoiding the risks of hiring non-elite. Sadly, people who create pyramids, instead of standard employment, either don't understand pyramids or else fully expect it to result in very sad stories for many people at the bottom of the pyramid.
Seeking Jobs That Pay
People who attempt to amass wealth are warned:
Nonetheless, we choose how to spend our time, feel morally obliged to make the most valuable contributions we can, and rely on the labor market to evaluate potential contributions. According to the US Occupational Wage Estimates, the highest paying (i.e. most valuable) contributions are doctor, lawyer, manager/analyst, and post-secondary teacher with mean wages about seven, six, five and four times that for a maid/cook, respectively.
Analyzed deeply, this data doesn't really tell us to prize health, justice, progress and knowledge--many workers earn low wages, despite contributing health, justice, progress and knowledge pro-bono, through non-profits, or in developing countries--rather, the market tells us that the greatest contributions one can make to society are to address the four problems mentioned above with retaining wealth. It also reports success on the fourth: the highest paying jobs are, in fact, protected by systems of credentials (even though some credentialed workers choose lower-paying jobs), and thus more accessible to people to whom the wealthy choose to give scholarships.
- It can be lost to untimely illness.
- It can be lost to taxes or legal suits.
- It can be lost to inflation and consumption.
- Those who inherit what we amass may lack our competence or values.
Nonetheless, we choose how to spend our time, feel morally obliged to make the most valuable contributions we can, and rely on the labor market to evaluate potential contributions. According to the US Occupational Wage Estimates, the highest paying (i.e. most valuable) contributions are doctor, lawyer, manager/analyst, and post-secondary teacher with mean wages about seven, six, five and four times that for a maid/cook, respectively.
Analyzed deeply, this data doesn't really tell us to prize health, justice, progress and knowledge--many workers earn low wages, despite contributing health, justice, progress and knowledge pro-bono, through non-profits, or in developing countries--rather, the market tells us that the greatest contributions one can make to society are to address the four problems mentioned above with retaining wealth. It also reports success on the fourth: the highest paying jobs are, in fact, protected by systems of credentials (even though some credentialed workers choose lower-paying jobs), and thus more accessible to people to whom the wealthy choose to give scholarships.
Teaching Ethics
To teach a class on ethics seems like a potentially unethical thing to do--what if you get it wrong? You may think you are safe if you just say, "Here are a bunch of ethical questions to consider, and here are the most cited sources in the field," but, even in that case, the structure of the class could lead students astray.
For example, the curriculum of a course on engineering ethics is expected to cover scenarios like "You are working on a product that can save hundreds of lives, and you can double its efficacy by incorporating a discovery you made while working for a former employer, but your non-disclosure agreement with your former employer forbids you to disclose such discoveries (even though your former employer will not implement them)--what do you do?" The question implies that it is an engineer's responsibility to resolve this ethical dilemma, but what if pragmatic ethics is right?
For example, the curriculum of a course on engineering ethics is expected to cover scenarios like "You are working on a product that can save hundreds of lives, and you can double its efficacy by incorporating a discovery you made while working for a former employer, but your non-disclosure agreement with your former employer forbids you to disclose such discoveries (even though your former employer will not implement them)--what do you do?" The question implies that it is an engineer's responsibility to resolve this ethical dilemma, but what if pragmatic ethics is right?
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.
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.
Skills Inventory for Kids
I'm not above using tools to help me be a better father. I have found it helpful to use personality inventories and the love languages inventory, and I developed the following skills inventory to be used in a similar way:
I like to take my son or daughter out for breakfast one-on-one, have him/her fill-out the inventory, and then we discuss the results together. Inventories are an ice-breaker and they help me understand what makes each of my kids unique--the skills inventory helps me coordinate with them on "growing up".
The weakness with this tool as it stands is the lack of age appropriate language (my kids ask, "What's that supposed to mean?")--you can download this as an editable Word file and fix that problem, but I have found it useful even as it is.
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