Developing Smokers Revisited
September 28, 2008
In a post about the prevalence of smokers in China I challenged the assumption that smoking is caused by misinformation promoted by Big Tobacco:
My skepticism has its roots in anecdotal evidence from a couple of scuba trips to Indonesia. A high number of the dive masters in Indonesia smoke. Misinformation does not seem to apply. These young men (all have been men) have a good grasp of health issues dealing with the risk of decompression sickness and poisonous stings (rarely lethal but painful) for themselves and the divers in their charge. They speak English and are exposed to westerners who preach the evils of smoking to them daily. Yet they smoke in droves.
A paper named So You Want To Quit Smoking: Have You Tried a Mobile Phone? provides another hint.
Using panel data from 2,100 households in 135 communities of the Philippines collected in 2003 and 2006, the analysis finds that mobile phone ownership leads to a 20 percent decline in monthly tobacco consumption. Among households in which at least one member smoked in 2003, purchasing a mobile phone leads to a 32.6 percent decrease in tobacco consumption per adult over the age of 15.
What I find most interesting about this paper is not the idea that cell phones can reduce smoking but that smoking and cell phones are somehow similar.
What I think is similar is that both cell phone use and smoking represent a type of public conspicuous consumption that takes place in a social setting. They are both social signals.
Wearing Your Motivations On Your Sleeve
September 14, 2008
It is common to describe someone as the type of person who “wear their heart on their sleeve”. I’ve been thinking about this idiom since reading Nicholas Carr’s post about The OmniGoogle. Carr’s piece ends with a comparison between Microsoft and Google:
Google differs from Microsoft in at least one very important way. The ends that Microsoft has pursued are commercial ends. It’s been in it for the money. Google, by contrast, has a strong messianic bent. The Omnigoogle is not just out to make oodles of money; it’s on a crusade - to liberate information for the masses - and is convinced of its righteousness in pursuing its cause. Depending on your point of view as you look forward to the next ten years, you’ll find that either comforting or discomforting.
This post is neither about technology nor economics but about the concept of motivations. Google and Microsoft are similar in that they both hold an almost unassailable position of power in terms of their core product (desktop OS and search respectively) but that Google differs in that it cares about something deeper than money and this makes them somewhat scarier than Microsoft (in Carr’s view which I think I agree with).
How can this be? How can we trust purely monetary motivations more than moral ones? I think understanding this paradox is key to certain left-vs-right divisions.
What it comes down to is whether or not you wear your motivations on your sleeve. I am not taking a left-misunderstands-the-right position here. The reverse can also be true. I believe one of the most important left-vs-right political divisions is a religious one (especially in the U.S.). It is not the belief in a higher being per se that is the root of the problem, it is potential motivations that are hidden from clear view. Small “L” liberals do not generally trust anyone that has religious motivations. The key to having faith and being accepted by people who do not share your faith is displaying a clear record of being able to demarcate the decisions you make in life from the religious doctrine you ascribe to. Catholic politicians must answer questions about contraception. Mitt Romney has to answer whether or not The Garden of Eden is in Missouri.
If you don’t know me, the question most likely going through your head right now is whether or not I am religious… it is important for you to understand my motivations when reading my opinions on the topic. And that is the point. Microsoft, with a history of self-interest based choices, can be more trustworthy than The OmniGoogle because Microsoft wears their motivations on their sleeve.
The “messianic bent” Carr describes is key. Al Gore has a messianic bent when it comes to Global Warming. We add the -ism and -ist suffixes to certain ideas to make this bent clear. Global Warm-ism and Global Warm-ist (who go to battle against Denial-ists). Hilary Clinton is a National-Healthcare-ist. Ralph Nader is a Corporations-Are-Evil-ist. Barack Obama is all of the above. Neocons are Bush-Doctrine-ists. America is imperial-ist. This new -ists are similar to the terms racist and socialist that have been proven over time to be negative forces. Like the word propaganda, the messianic -ism/-ist words are only used by people that are against the -ism or the messianic bent of the supporters of the -ism (the -ists).
If you are an agent of change, you should check your sleeves often and ensure you are -ism proof.
Individual Liberty vs. The Social Animal
September 13, 2008
David Brooks’ Op-Ed in the NY Times yesterday takes a swipe at the notion of individual liberty:
Near the start of his book, “The Conscience of a Conservative,” Barry Goldwater wrote: “Every man, for his individual good and for the good of his society, is responsible for his own development. The choices that govern his life are choices that he must make; they cannot be made by any other human being.” The political implications of this are clear, Goldwater continued: “Conservatism’s first concern will always be: Are we maximizing freedom?”
Goldwater’s vision was highly individualistic and celebrated a certain sort of person — the stout pioneer crossing the West, the risk-taking entrepreneur with a vision, the stalwart hero fighting the collectivist foe.
The problem is, this individualist description of human nature seems to be wrong. Over the past 30 years, there has been a tide of research in many fields, all underlining one old truth — that we are intensely social creatures, deeply interconnected with one another and the idea of the lone individual rationally and willfully steering his own life course is often an illusion.
Ummmm…. I’m a little confused. I don’t see how the notion that individuals should be free to make their own choices rather than have others force choices onto them is lessened by the knowledge that humans are extremely social animals.
I don’t think I have to re-read (or re-watch) “A Clockwork Orange”. The question is not the degree to which Alex and his droogs are social, the question is whether we have a right to hold their eyes open with intrusive machinery against their will.
Flow of Expectations
July 22, 2008
Seth Godin writes a post explaining that marketers often forget to ask one critical question: Are they ready to listen? He goes on to describe a potential book selling opportunity in the early 90’s that did not pan out:
… I had published a book about a political issue. An activist’s handbook. I had 20,000 copies in my garage when I found out about a large march in Washington. I bought an outdoor booth and trucked the books down to DC. I stood on the Mall in my little booth and watched more than 250,000 people walk by in less than two hours. Every single one an activist. Every single one a demographically perfect match for my handbook. After 100,000 people had walked by and we’d sold only one book, I lowered the price from around $10 to $1 just to prove my point–that it wasn’t the book and it wasn’t the price, it was the ability of the audience to listen that mattered. This group, in this moment, was there to march, not to shop.
Most people, most of the time, steadfastly refuse to pay attention.
This is a great story that punctuates Seth’s claim that the question “are they ready to listen” is key. I’d like to generalize (and probably ruin the simplicity of his message) by claiming that the activist book selling failure at the march disrupted the marcher’s/customer’s “Flow of Expectations”.
A booth selling an activist book at a march disrupts the marcher’s Flow of Expectations at several levels. 1) carrying a book during a march is inconvenient and it is not how people see themselves marching, 2) most people have some kind of expectation of how they evaluate a book to purchase which does not involve serendipitously finding a booth during a march selling a previously unheard of book by an author they do not know, 3) reading a book requires a commitment of hours over potentially many days/weeks/months and people do not want to make that decision under tight time constraints, 4) there is a physical Flow in a march and people do not want to be left behind, 5) activists are often distrustful of profit motives and do not want to be seen as susceptible to marketing tricks, and 6) buying a book can be done at a time that does not take away from the meaning of what the marcher’s are doing.
There are probably many more disruptions in the marcher’s Flow of Expectations. Rather than asking “are they ready to listen?” we can ask “are we disrupting their flow of expectations” and take steps to minimize or eliminate the disruption.
The best case scenario is that you are enhancing the flow of expectations.
Garbage Bags and Spandrels
February 19, 2008
I love outdoor black garbage bags with the quick tie feature. Instead of a straight cut, the top of the garbage bag is cut in a curved shape so that you end up with two longer edges that are easy to grab.
Now I’m sure that quick tie was a wonderful feature on its own. Many garbage bag executives probably struggled with the idea of re-engineering their manufacturing processes to add this functionality. For me, I couldn’t care less about the extra handle-like feature. So why do I love them?
Well, having the curved cut has a positive side-effect. A spandrel in evolutionary biology terms. The curved cut allows me to easily tell the “open” edge from the sealed edge. No more pulling back and forth between the two edges unsure of which side is supposed to open.
Now I’m sure there are other ways to distinguish edge that opens from the sealed edge but it makes me happy that this minor irritation was fixed inadvertently by a feature designed with a whole different purpose in mind.
RADBags with New Opening Detection Technology. What a wonderful discovery :-)
Chimps Are Short-term Memory Machines
December 9, 2007
This is mind boggling. I read the headlines that Young Chimps Top Adult Humans In Numerical Memory and I didn’t read past the first few sentences (something about people-think-they-are-so-smart blah blah blah blah). Then I saw the video and WOWZEE. The good stuff is about 55 seconds into the YouTube video embedded below. That is just an incredibly cool short-term visual memory trick. I wonder if it is unique to chimps or whether we lost that specific ability.
Sitting Winds
December 6, 2007
An RSS summary reads
Fall sitting winds down with Alberta legislators sitting around the clock.
And for the life of me I can’t parse that sentence. What on earth are “sitting winds”? Mind you, I have trouble with generic news headlines, especially Sports ones involving ducks and predators. The trick here is that “winds” is not “blowing winds” but “unwind with a book”. Here is the article if you care about the Alberta legislature. Sitting winds. Sheesh.
Oh, by the way. The headline was “Alberta’s Marathon Sitting Continues”. Crystal clear.
Ear Bites and Broken Brains
December 5, 2007
In 1997 Mike Tyson did the unthinkable to Evander Holyfield in a boxing match:
Suddenly, with 40 seconds left in the round, the fight takes an ugly and ghastly turn: Tyson gets Holyfield in a clinch, rolls his head above Holyfield’s shoulder, spits out his mouthpiece, and then in an inexplicable and gruesome move, crunches down hard with his teeth on Holyfield’s right ear and bites off a chunk.
Everyone in the stadium is mortified, unable to grasp what they have just witnessed. As Tyson spits out the chunk of Holyfield’s ear, a bewildered and perplexed Holyfield pushes Tyson away, then hops up and down in a frenzied pain, and spins around in a circle in stinging agony.
Gruesome yes and very much against the rules of boxing. The irony, for me, is that losing part of an ear is non-consequential compared to the permanent brain damage boxing can cause. Imagine you are in a hypothetical torturer’s chair, he gives you the option of having part of your ear painfully bitten off or receiving multiple severe blows to the head that will cause your brain to impact the inside of your skull so violently that it will swell and eventually cause permanent brain damage. Hmmmm…. sounds like a no-brainer to me (no pun intended).
Now this is not a rant against boxing but an observation of the power of feeling someone’s pain. The problem with brain damage in boxing is that there are no obvious signs of discomfort, no hopping around the ring, no open wounds gushing blood. We empathize with the chomped ear. Long term brain damage is something we can understand but it does not have the same visceral impact.
This kind of visceral empathy is the mainstay of the nightly news and is used by humanitarian organizations in their plea for donations. Carnage and suffering. Visceral imagery rules.
Libertarian Interventionists
November 26, 2007
Bryan Caplan at EconLog asks Why Did So Many Libertarians Support the [Iraq] War and tries to put the apparent contradiction into historical context.
Plenty of libertarians were against it, of course. But if you remember how integral isolationist/ non-interventionist foreign policy was to the libertarian idea back in the ’70s and ’80s, the libertarian reaction to the Iraq War (and the War on Terror generally) has been quite astonishing.
You might say that libertarians changed their mind because Islamic fundamentalism is such a serious threat. But it’s a lot less serious than the Soviet threat. And back when the Soviets still ruled eastern Europe, the standard libertarian foreign policy prescription was to pull out of NATO, Korea, and Japan. Similarly, you might say that Islamic fundamentalism is so ideologically repugnant to libertarians that they were willing to make an exception. But from a libertarian perspective, Marxism-Leninism is even worse, isn’t it?
In my view, libertarian thought does not lean to either an isolationist (anti-Iraq War) or interventionist (pro-Iraq War) side. Libertarians generally believe in a kind of Golden Rule: an individual has the right to do whatever they like as long as their actions do not impinge on the rights of others. What we often forget is that the Golden Rule does not specify the appropriate action to take when an individual breaks the rule.
How to deal with individuals, or groups of individuals, that break the Golden Rule is at the heart of the issue. As a libertarian, do you ignore or confront individuals that deny others their individual rights and freedoms. What about despotic rulers of sovereign nations? What about despotic rulers that commit genocide within the borders of their sovereign nations.
Iraq was a “problem from hell” (to borrow terminology from Samantha Power) before 9/11. Libertarian interventionists believed that bringing liberty to an oppressed people was a good thing. Libertarian isolationists believed that such pursuits were pure folly.
I think all libertarians believe that people around the world will benefit from an increase in individual rights and freedoms. The hard part is determining the best course of action/inaction required to increase liberty and that is the root cause of the apparent libertarian dilemma.
Repugnant Transplants
November 16, 2007
Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution has an emotional post about Repugnant Repugnance.
Many people find the idea of selling human organs for transplant to be repugnant which is why Roth argues that we should focus more on improving efficiency through kidney swaps. I’m all in favor of swaps and have also suggested that one argument in favor of no-give, no-take rules is that they are ethically acceptable to more people than organ sales.
Nevertheless, I think Roth assumes too quickly that repugnance is a constraint to be respected rather than an outrage to be denounced and quashed. People’s repugnance at inter-racial dating or homosexual sex is no reason to prevent free exchange - the same is true for organ donations. Repugnance itself can be repugnant.
Is it not repugnant that some people are willing to let others die so that their stomachs won’t become queasy at the thought that someone, somewhere is selling a kidney?
I think Alex’s posts are some of my favorites as he is not shy about wearing his repugnance on his sleeve :-) Nonetheless, organ transplant policies and irrational biases (repugnance being one form) are complicated.
For a long summary of organ transplants (yet succinct given the complexity of the issue) see Tom Slee’s post Juicy Kidneys and his review of Kieran Healy book Last Best Gifts where he concludes:
Healy convinced me that the big issue is not the economists’ issue — of markets versus altruism — but is the sociologists’ issue of coping with complex incentives in large-scale industrial organizations, and that alone was worth the price of the book.
I agree with Tom on this one. Well not the “large-scale industrial organizations” part . Hopefully Tom doesn’t mind my mental paraphrase substituting “overcoming innate biases” for the Chomsky-esque stuff :-) I believe it is important to recognize our innate biases and sometimes in rare situations it is appropriate to create incentive systems to overcome these biases.
As another altruistic health example consider the practice of fecal transplants as a superbug treatment. I think its hard to argue that the repugnance in this case is an “outrage to be denounced and quashed” especially since I’m positive that some (most?) of the repugnance comes from the recipients who benefit from the altruism. I’m guessing that a funny commercial or even mainstream media coverage like the CBC’s will do more to overcome the repugnance than heavy-handed approaches.
Developing Smokers
November 12, 2007
There are 350 million smokers in China (vs. 540 million non-smokers). After years of hearing public health warnings against smoking and the legal fights against big tobacco companies it makes you wonder why people in developing countries take up smoking in the first place.
I think there is a common belief in the west that smoking is caused by 1) misinformation, and 2) companies that exploit this misinformation. The misinformation/exploitation explanation may very well explain the smoking numbers in China but I have some reservations.
My skepticism has its roots in anecdotal evidence from a couple of scuba trips to Indonesia. A high number of the dive masters in Indonesia smoke. Misinformation does not seem to apply. These young men (all have been men) have a good grasp of health issues dealing with the risk of decompression sickness and poisonous stings (rarely lethal but painful) for themselves and the divers in their charge. They speak English and are exposed to westerners who preach the evils of smoking to them daily. Yet they smoke in droves.
There seems to be some kind of psychological bias in place that accounts for this behavior.
Stress Free Pricing
November 8, 2007
One of Pogue’s Imponderables is the following question:
Why doesn’t someone start a cellphone company that bills you only for what you use? That model works O.K. for the electricity, gas and water companies —and people would beat a path to its door. [And I don’t mean prepaid phones, where once again you’re paying for calls you haven’t even made yet.]
Economist Tyler Cowen says the most likely answer combines price discrimination with consumer misjudgment.
I think the answer is that people try to maximize their preferences while minimizing the amount of stress induced by thinking about it. Stress free brain cycles is the goal. A fixed monthly plan that fits most of your calling needs reduces stress when the monthly fee does not impact your cash flow. If you have problems paying your monthly bill then prepaid cards will reduce your stress. The service provider also tries to minimize stress in their organization (meeting payroll and/or shareholder expectations).
People prefer stress free pricing.
Us vs. Them
October 17, 2007
Paul Krugman, op-ed columnist for the New York Times wishes he said that.
Ezra Klein on the McCain health care plan, which — like all the other health care plans being proposed on the Republican side — basically says that the problem is that people have too much insurance, so they get too much Lhealth care:
It’s like if I tried to make food cheaper by encouraging you to diet.
I’m not exaggerating. Here’s what Mitt Romney said about what ails American health care, in his slide show:
-The tax code creates an incentive for over-insurance and over-use of the health care system
-Individuals don’t get the value they would otherwise prefer
-Leads to excessive, unnecessary health care spending
Actually, it is more like making people more selective at a buffet by charging them for what they eat vs. charging them an all-you-can-eat price. I don’t think the principle is as far fetched as Krugman’s “I’m not exaggerating” comment might make you believe.
Regardless, this is not a post about U.S. health care reform. When an economist uses “Us vs. Them” arguments rather than rational discussion what hope is there for the rest of us? Where are all the on-the-other-hand economists that we hear the jokes about?
