Monthly Archives: September 2009

Against This Med Reform

By Robin Hanson · September 7, 2009 11:00 pm · Comments (36)

Obama will to try to save his med reform effort by getting more involved; he won’t leave it all to Congress anymore.  Some encourage him to stand tough for a public option (i.e., a cheap widely available government run insurance plan), while others say:

Obama still has a chance with his speech on Wednesday to wrest control of this monster, but he’ll have to return to his original mission of lowering costs and making insurance portable and fair (no preexisting condition disqualification).

But while most controversy has been on the public option, it is probably time for me to explain my opposition to that less controversial no-pre-existing-condition reform.  My basic complaint is that I’m pretty skeptical about the health value of medicine, at least at the usual spending margin, and I’d like more people to become skeptics.  But this reform would take away the huge financial reward for seeing the light and being a skeptic, because this reform would take a huge step toward nationalizing the med industry.  Let me explain. Continue reading "Against This Med Reform" »

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Alternate Free Speech Histories

By Robin Hanson · September 6, 2009 9:30 pm · Comments (34)

1907: [US] Congress bans direct contributions to candidates from corporations.

1947: Congress expands restrictions by barring corporations and unions from using funds from their general treasuries to support candidates, which would include advertising to help a candidate, for example.

That history may soon change:

More than 100 years of restrictions on corporate support of political candidates will be at stake next week when the [US] Supreme Court considers … casting aside previous rulings that uphold laws restricting corporate support of political candidates.  The court ruled in 1990 that corporations, because of their “immense aggregations of wealth,” possessed a unique ability to drown out the voices of individuals in the nation’s political conversation. That precedent was reinforced in 2003 when the court upheld the federal campaign finance law that limits the electoral influence of corporations, unions and special interest groups.

Politicians are grateful to and beholden to whomever convinces voters to elect them.  This is an inescapable feature of democracy; whoever can persuade voters becomes a power behind the throne.  Once upon a time some sort of pundits persuaded US voters that non-media firms are too persuasive; if those firms were allowed to try to persuade voters they would succeed in doing so and gain power thereby.  And this was somehow bad.  So voters let politicians ban non-media firms from trying to persuade voters in elections.

The pundits who are still allowed to try to persuade voters still do so, and they are now the powers behind the throne.  They continue to convince most of us that we should not be allowed to listen to non-media firms, regarding elections or off-label drug uses.  We believe those we are allowed to hear when they tell us that we should not be allowed to hear the corrupting voices of certain others.

But what if history had gone the other way?  What if it had been regular firms who had persuaded us that we should not be allowed to listen to the corrupting influence of activists, interest groups, academics, or media pundits?  Those now familiar voices would instead have been silenced and we would now instead be persuaded by firms, not only regarding elections but also regarding who can be trusted to have a voice in elections.  We might again have believed those we were allowed to hear when they told us we should not be allowed to hear the corrupting voices of certain others.

The more plausible is this alternative history scenario, the more you should wonder how sure you can be that your history is right and that alternate history would have been wrong about who should be allowed to persuade voters.   Yes humans may be biased to listen too much to certain sources, but you should expect the sources you are now allowed to hear to be biased to point the accusing finger at other sources, and not themselves.

In a third alternate history, all these voices would be allowed to persuade voters in elections.  And some sources would end up being the most persuasive in this scenario, earning their position as the biggest powers behind the throne.   Standing outside all these different histories, what reason do we have to think that these sources that would win in a full open contest do not deserve to be heard?

Added:  In another alternate history firms were allowed to persuade voters, but only in Latin or Esperanto.   Communicating well takes effort; allowing talk but forbidding effort to talk is pretty much forbidding to talk.

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Seeing Red

By Robin Hanson · September 5, 2009 10:30 pm · Comments (25)

Seeing the color red apparently has large influences on our behavior.  Referees award more points to competitors wearing red, who win more competitions.  Test takers scored worse if their subject number was written in red, women wearing red are asked on dates more, and so on:

“There is now good experimental evidence that red stimuli are perceived as dominant and that they cause negative effects on performance in those viewing them,” Barton says. “It is plausible that wearing red also makes individuals feel more confident, although this hasn’t yet been tested.” …  Mandrills, the world’s largest species of monkey, use colour as a means of conflict management. In males, red faces, rumps and genitalia act as a status symbol, communicating fighting ability. “The brighter red a male is, the higher his testosterone level and the more aggressive he is,” … Other primates use more subtle variations in facial redness to signal dominance. Rhesus monkeys, for example, become redder in the face in the mating season.

Barton believes that red is involved in human behaviour in a similar way. “Subtle variations in redness are conveying information about dominance, vigour and confidence. In an aggressive confrontation, confident individuals flush red with anger whereas frightened individuals go pale. … Even a brief glimpse of red can change human abilities and behaviour in all sorts of ways. … What consistently impresses researchers is the fact that their volunteers rarely suspect that colour plays an important, or indeed any, role in the outcome of an experiment. … “Given that the influence of colour on our behaviour is so prevalent, it’s shocking that we aren’t more aware of it.”

Yes, shocking.  We have two main stories for this lack of awareness: accident and purpose.  Some suggest we shouldn’t expect our conscious minds to know much about how our unconscious minds work, while others suggest an inquisitive and social species like humans could not long remain ignorant about something this important without substantial pressures discouraging such insight.

This purpose story makes more sense to me.  I can see two pressures against insight here:

  1. We avoid seeing our own status moves, including reacting to red as a dominance marker.
  2. We identify ourselves as making decisions based on respectable criteria, which don’t include red effects.
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Prediction Markets As Collective Intelligence

By Robin Hanson · September 4, 2009 10:00 pm · Comments (5)

I talked for seven minutes this Wednesday at “Tap The Collective“, after six other speakers also talked for seven minutes each on various forms of “collective intelligence.”  I tried to put prediction markets (and similar mechanisms) in the context of other approaches by saying that other approaches often work very well when either:

  1. The info people contribute is verifiable, or
  2. The conclusions people draw are uncontroversial.

In these cases good tools, representations, interfaces, etc. can greatly help people join together in a spirit of constructive camaraderie to build documents, analyses, plans, etc.   People then appreciate the additions and edits of others in building a common product that all will admire.  False or misleading contributions can be quickly detected and eliminated.

The big problems for most collective intelligence tools come when the topics are controversial, and the contributions involve a lot of judgment.  For example, consider folks elaborating a schedule of which projects will be finished when, or designing a budget of which potential projects shall be funded.  Here folks are often justly concerned that many “contributions” will be self-serving attempts to make them or their groups look better or gain more resources.

Prediction markets were designed exactly these sort of hard problems – contributors know they face a risk of losing as well as gaining from their contributions.  So folks think a little more carefully about what they might say, and choose not to speak when they doubt they have something useful to say.  Prediction markets allow organizations to tap the collective to aggregate info on their most important and controversial topics.  But of course they aren’t the only or best way to support collaboration on all topics.

Cross-posted at Consensus Point.

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Ugly Thoughts On Pretty Enya

By Robin Hanson · September 4, 2009 6:00 am · Comments (28)

While Enya is one of my favorite musicians, on the rare occasions when I see what she looks like, I find myself surprised that she is so pretty.   Why?   Perhaps her handlers have done a great job of making an ordinary woman look extraordinary, but I don’t think so.

We should expect a weak correlation between beauty and musical ability in general due to assortative mating, and we should expect music labels and customers to select for musicians who excel on both criteria, producing a stronger correlation for professional musicians.   And I think I do expect these things for the typical musician.  But …

But I fear that I succumbed to the temptation to idealize my favorite musicians, e.g., expecting them to be primarily people with exceptional musical ability mainly motivated by their love of music.  But of course there is little good reason to think better of the motivations of the best vs. the typical professional musician.  And relative to the pool of talented musicians, I should expect successful professional musicians to be prettier, more charismatic, harder working, more desirous of fame, and more willing to accommodate the demands of today’s music industry.   I should expect that there are people with even better musical ability out there than I never hear of, because they didn’t have as much of these other features.   But to admit this makes it harder to idealize my favorite musicians.

I should also admit that if I have had some success as an academic, it is probably because I am some combination of prettier, more charismatic, harder working, more desirous of fame, or more willing to accommodate the demands of today’s academic industry.   There are probably non-academics out there more able than I to generate interesting intellectual insights, but rating lower overall on these other criteria.

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For Med Free Speech

By Robin Hanson · September 3, 2009 10:30 am · Comments (37)

The Post reports:

The Obama administration intensified its public campaign against health-care fraud Wednesday … as prosecutors unveiled a record $2.3 billion settlement with Pfizer.

Except this “fraud” is suggesting to doctors that they do things that it is completely legal for them to do:

Pfizer Inc. agreed to a $1.2 billion criminal fine, the largest in U.S. history, and a felony plea by a subsidiary to close an investigation into what government lawyers described as fraudulent marketing of drugs.  … “When a drug is marketed or promoted for non- authorized, so-called off-label uses, any use not approved by the FDA — as was the case here — public health may be at risk,” Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli said at a news conference in Washington. … Doctors can prescribe medicines for off-label conditions — uses not approved by U.S. regulators. Drugmakers aren’t allowed to promote medicines for those purposes.  Proceeds from the settlement will go to U.S. government health agencies. … The False Claims Act, dating to the Civil War, lets people file fraud claims on behalf of the government. Six whistleblowers will share $102 million of the settlement.

Alcohol companies would similarly be prosecuted for marketing “fraud” if they paid for ads truthfully telling people that most studies find that moderate alcohol drinkers are healthier than those who consume no alcohol.  Of course it is legal for such firms to pay academics and pundits to say such things – such firms just aren’t allowed to say such things directly.

U.S. citizens do not have free speech regarding health and medicine.  Academics and pundits mostly have free speech about such things, and individuals may speak freely if they don’t pay to do so.  But otherwise we have decided that health and medicine are too important to allow free speech – with free speech people might be persuaded to disagree with the authorities.

In contrast, I am persuaded that the usual arguments for freedom of speech apply well to health and medicine.  And I certainly don’t think we should use the word “fraud” to describe people saying true things that it is illegal for them to say.

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Lost Charity

By Robin Hanson · September 2, 2009 9:00 am · Comments (29)

This Obit made me sad:

Alex Grass, 82, who founded Rite Aid and built it into one of the nation’s largest drugstore chains, died Aug. 27  … By the time he stepped down as the company’s chairman and chief executive in 1995, Rite Aid was the nation’s largest drugstore chain in terms of total stores and No. 2 in terms of revenue. …

Grass was a philanthropist who contributed to civic, health and educational organizations. His legacy includes a $14.5 million medical building named after him at PinnacleHealth’s Harrisburg Hospital and $1.5 million to establish the Alex Grass School of Business Leadership at Harrisburg Area Community College.  Mr. Grass also contributed $1.5 million to the University of Florida, where he earned his law degree, to establish a chair for its Center for Jewish Studies and build a new law school building.

When we look back on people in the past and what they did that we are thankful for, creating innovative products, processes, and organizations should come out near the top; that is mainly what made us rich.  And on that count Alex Grass is a hero.

But when folks like Alex spend their later years trying to “do good” with the millions they were paid for actually doing good, they usually end up pissing it away.  We already have too much medicine and academia, because such things are mainly wasteful signals.  We didn’t need and shouldn’t be thankful for more hospital wings or lecture halls.  Imagine how much more good could have been done instead via millions spent trying to make more innovative products or organizations.

Of course most innovations attempts fail, and that wouldn’t have looked so good for Mr. Grass.   I’m sure those hospital wings and lecture halls came with grand ceremonies attended by folks in his social circle, saying what a great guy he was.  And I expect people in his social circle are more likely than most to actually use those hospital wings and lecture halls; he was showing loyalty to his clan by buying such things.

But when I think of all the good that could be done by philanthropists who actually wanted more to do good than to look good, it makes me sad.  At it doesn’t make me sympathetic toward the tax deductions and other social support our society offers for these wasteful signals.

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Open Thread

By Robin Hanson · September 1, 2009 10:00 am · Comments (24)

This is our monthly place to discuss appropriate topics that haven’t appeared in recent posts.

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Disgust Works

By Robin Hanson · September 1, 2009 6:00 am · Comments (4)

A feeling of disgust re contamination keeps people well:

Both disgust and contamination sensitivity likely evolved to protect us from infectious disease. Paradoxically, disgust may be reduced by frequent exposure to disgust-inducing cues — cues most likely to occur in disease-rich environments. In this study, we examined whether more frequent or recent illness might act to reverse this process. To test this, we surveyed 616 adults, obtaining illness frequency and recency data, disgust and contamination sensitivity, and a variety of control measures. Heightened contamination sensitivity was associated with more frequent infectious illness, but not with recency of infection. We also found that participants who had heightened contamination sensitivity and who were also more disgust sensitive had significantly fewer recent infections. These findings suggest that frequent illness may up-regulate contamination sensitivity potentially counteracting the effects of exposure on disgust. More importantly, these data provide the first direct evidence of a protective effect of contamination and disgust, against infectious disease.

People may over apply their disgust at times, but they probably also under apply it at other times.  Given what they know about what can infect them, they may well get their disgust level about right.

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