Monthly Archives: November 2009

Are You Pro Slavery?

By Robin Hanson · November 19, 2009 4:30 pm · Comments (68)

“Quick, what is your position on life vs. death?  For life and against death, right?  So you would never ever allow anyone to take any action that would lead to a higher chance of death, right?  Like say driving on the freeway instead of staying in bed?  What, you would let someone drive instead of staying in bed?!  You prefer them to die rather than live?  Away you horrible daemon!”

Silly, right?  Yes of course life is usually much better than death, but it is not arbitrarily more important than any other consideration; it does not win in every possible circumstance. But now consider “slavery,” are you for or against that?  Absolutely against? Really? In every possible circumstance?

What about prison, aren’t prisoners slaves?  How about military conscription; aren’t draftees slaves?  How about children having to obey their parents, and go to school to obey teachers?  When you sign a contract, get married, or volunteer for the army, and thereby bind your future self, aren’t you enslaving that future self? Continue reading "Are You Pro Slavery?" »

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Execution Dignity

By Robin Hanson · November 19, 2009 10:20 am · Comments (27)

A state-sponsored execution is filled with ritual, from the agonizing countdown to the grim hour to the prisoner’s last meal. That final repast is such a curious display of compassion under the circumstances. Don’t let the man die hungry, as if that would be an indication of a truly uncivilized electorate. Or is the last meal a grudging willingness to let the convicted man have the tiniest bit of control over how he will exit this world? …

But the prisoner is allowed no control over what he will be wearing. He cannot add any final footnote — no matter how microscopically minor — about how history will remember him. … He cannot choose to die in a sober suit … [or] wear some disconcertingly blase garb that would allow him to mock the proceedings. …

Prison uniforms have always existed to rob a convict of his individuality, his power and all but the thinnest shred of dignity. … As a culture, we need to know that the death row inmate died with his dignity intact — at least a bit of it. Observers felt compelled to note whether Muhammad showed any emotions. … As a society, dignity is inextricably linked to appearance. … We needed to know that while he was robbed of control, individuality and the ability to torment, he was not fully stripped of his self-respect. He was not forced to perish in some clownish costume.

More here.   Hmm, interesting.  We allow executed folks the dingy dignity of choosing a last meal, last words, and perhaps execution method, and we choose for them clothes, background sounds, and ambiance that aren’t too humiliating or painful.  But we will not allow them a choice of clothes or musical accompaniment.  Or a fan club nearby.

We want to assert our higher status, but as with animals, we do not want to seem to enjoy their pain.  This is of course not about the prisoner at all (who we are killing); it is about us signaling our good features to observers.  We do this not just in executions, but more broadly in our entire system of criminal law, and at great expense.  Let me explain. Continue reading "Execution Dignity" »

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Evolving Diverse Fragility

By Robin Hanson · November 18, 2009 2:00 pm · Comments (25)

Over the last 50,000 years humans have evolved many fragile features – features that in the wrong situations fail badly, but in the right situations gain greatly.  Apparently, in previous environments the cost of failure was too high to tolerate such fragile features, but our larger denser societies somehow magnify the gains while minimizing the losses, enough to make such features useful.

I’m not entirely clear how this works, but it does suggest even more diverse fragility in our future, and the importance of supporting such diversity.  Some details:

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people. …

Researchers have identified a dozen-odd gene variants that can increase a person’s susceptibility to depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, heightened risk-taking, and antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors, and other problems—if, and only if, the person carrying the variant suffers a traumatic or stressful childhood or faces particularly trying experiences later in life.

This vulnerability hypothesis, as we can call it, has already changed our conception of many psychic and behavioral problems. …  Recently, however, an alternate hypothesis has emerged from this one and is turning it inside out. … Yes, this new thinking goes, these bad genes can create dysfunction in unfavorable contexts—but they can also enhance function in favorable contexts. The genetic sensitivities to negative experience that the vulnerability hypothesis has identified, it follows, are just the downside of a bigger phenomenon: a heightened genetic sensitivity to all experience. … Continue reading "Evolving Diverse Fragility" »

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Broken Symmetries

By Robin Hanson · November 17, 2009 10:45 pm · Comments (39)

Broken symmetries offer powerful insights in social science.  When we treat differently two things that a theory says should be treated similarly, that is often a strong clue that theory is missing something important.  In particular, when a normative theory says we should treat two things similarly, that we actually treat differently, that suggests we do not actually follow this normative theory.

Oddly, many folks feel they are excused for treating apparently similar things differently if they can point to any feature distinguishing those things:

  1. “You you do X in case A but do Y in case B, yet A and B do not differ in the features F,G,H that your theory T says are relevant for cases A and B.”
  2. “Ah, but cases A and B differ on feature R.”
  3. “But your feature R is not obviously relevant in your theory T.”

Except person 2 rarely anticipates critique 3; they seem to think it sufficient if it is logically possible that feature R may somehow be connected to the theory’s features F,G,H.

Here is an example from Bennett Haselton reviewing Steven Landsburg’s new book The Big Questions:

Landsburg:  Bert wants to hire an office manager and Ernie wants to manage an office. The law allows Ernie to refuse any job for any reason. If he doesn’t like Albanians, he doesn’t have to work for one. Bert is held to a higher standard: If he lets it be known that no Albanians need apply, he’d better have a damned good lawyer.

These asymmetries grate against the most fundamental requirement of fairness — that people should be treated equally, in the sense that their rights and responsibilities should not change because of irrelevant external circumstances.

Haselton: But I think the laws do treat all people equally, because they apply equally whether Bert is discriminating in deciding whether to hire Ernie, or whether Ernie is discriminating in deciding whether to hire Bert. The laws don’t apply equally to all roles that people play, which is the distinction that Landsburg is highlighting — but laws never apply equally to different roles, since roles are defined by what we do, and what is the point of laws, except to draw distinctions based on behaviors?

It does not seem to occur to Haselton to ask why the different role of employee vs. employer is relevant in our standard theories suggesting we ban ethnic discrimination.  He feels he is done if he identifies any difference between the two cases.

But everything is different somehow; if finding just one difference is enough to excuse treating any two things differently, one will always have excuses for any asymmetric treatment.

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Key Disputed Values

By Robin Hanson · November 17, 2009 12:20 am · Comments (36)

Some like to paint world history as an epic conflict between deeply divergent visions of civilization, which come down to disputes over a few key values.  But if so, just what are those key disputed values?  For many decades, our best data on this key value variation has been the World Value Survey:

The WVS grew out of its eurocentric origins to embrace 42 countries in the 2nd wave, 54 in the 3rd wave and 62 in the 4th wave. … The questionnaires from the most recent waves have consisted of about 250 questions, … with an average in the 4th wave of about 1330 interviews per country and a worldwide total of about 92000 interviews. …

A number of variables were condensed [by factor analysis] into two dimensions of cultural variation (known as “traditional v. secular-rational” and “survival v. self-expression”), and on this basis the world’s countries could be mapped into specific cultural regions. The WVS claims: “These two dimensions explain more than 70 percent of the cross-national variance in a factor analysis of ten indicators”.

Here is a map of the world using those two main value factors:

0valuemap

Note that similar nations are grouped together, with rich nations to the upper right and poor nations to the lower left.  Note also that the main antagonists of the most recent global conflict, the Cold War, are nearly at opposite sides; Russia and its allies are to the upper left while USA and its allies are to the lower right.  Clearly this 2D space represents key value disputes.  But what values exactly? Continue reading "Key Disputed Values" »

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Why Neglect Big Topics

By Robin Hanson · November 16, 2009 3:05 pm · Comments (12)

From an ’04 review of Robert Triver’s ’02 book Natural Selection and Social Theory:

[Trivers'] directions on writing a classic paper …:

1. Pick an important topic.
2. Try to do a little sustained thinking on the topic, always keeping close to the task at hand.
3. Generalize outward from your chosen topic.
4. Write in the language of your discipline but, of course, try to do so simply and clearly.
5. If at all possible, reorganize existing evidence around your theory.

Those hoping this advice would get them on the fast lane to their own version of parent-offspring conflict theory or a new and groundbreaking take on reciprocal altruism may find themselves disappointed.  Most of these instructions fall into the category of easier said than done, but as Trivers also notes, “it still seems remarkable to me how often people bypass what are more important subjects to work on less important ones.”

Neglect of important subjects is remarkable if we assume academics mainly seek intellectual progress.  But it makes a lot more sense if we realize academics are not Bayesian:  Academics change their beliefs only when a sufficiently impressive work appears to earn that respect, even if that work provides little info.  And the more apparently important is the topic, the more impressive a work must be to change beliefs.

So a paper suggesting academics change their opinion on a very important subject will be held to a higher standard of impressiveness.  It must use more impressive math, data, analysis, or have a more prestigious author.  “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is true, but not so much for evidential reasons.  Academics whose contributions might be informative but cannot rise to this higher impressiveness standard are well advised to stay away from important topics.

These academic blindsides in principle offer an opportunity for bloggers to contribute to intellectual progress via thoughtful posts that add info but are not impressive enough by academic standards, and via drawing reasonable conclusions from these and other unimpressive sources to which academics refuse to listen.  But if blogger customers will not actually pay much for such progress, it is not clear bloggers will bother.

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Contrarian Excuses

By Robin Hanson · November 15, 2009 7:45 pm · Comments (73)

On average, contrarian views are less accurate than standard views.  Honest contrarians should admit this, that neutral outsiders should assign most contrarian views a lower probability than standard views, though perhaps a high enough probability to warrant further investigation.  Honest contrarians who expect reasonable outsiders to give their contrarian view more than normal credence should point to strong outside indicators that correlate enough with contrarians tending more to be right.

Most contrarians, however, prefer less honest positions, like:

  1. “They Laughed At Galileo Too“  Many contrarians seem content merely to point out that contrarian views have sometimes turned out to be right.  Have they no higher aspirations?
  2. “Standard Experts Are Biased” Yes of course we can identify many biases that plausibly afflict standard experts.  But we can also see at least as many biases that plausibly afflict contrarians.  No fair assuming you are less biased just because you feel that way.
  3. “We’ve More Detail Than Critics” Some contrarians say that only explicitly offered detailed arguments and analysis should count; it shouldn’t matter who agrees or disagrees.  And since advocates usually offer more detail in support of their specific arguments than critics offer in response, they automatically win.  They may not have written up their arguments in a standard or accessible style, or published them in standard places, or even submitted them for publication.  But by their “how much stuff we’ve written/done” standard, they win.
  4. “Few Who Study Us Disagree” Some contrarians accept that who agrees or disagrees matters, but say only those who have reviewed most available detail should count.  Since critics have less patience than advocates for studying advocate detail, advocates win.  If many critics do read and reject them, advocates can just add more detail and then complain critics haven’t read that.  If critics do read more advocates can complain critics aren’t of the right sort, e.g., not enough math, sociology, or whatever.  There is usually some way to define “valid” critics so they are outnumbered by advocates.

If you want outsiders to believe you, then you don’t get to choose their rationality standard.  The question is what should rational outsiders believe, given the evidence available to them, and their limited attention.  Ask yourself carefully:  if most contrarians are wrong, why should they believe your cause is different?

(Inspired by this recent argument with Eliezer Yudkowsky.)

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Why Academics Aren’t Bayesian

By Robin Hanson · November 15, 2009 8:45 am · Comments (30)

Bryan Caplan asks Why Aren’t Academic Economists Bayesians?:

Almost all economic models assume that human beings are Bayesians, … [but] academic economists are not Bayesians.  And they’re proud of it!

This is clearest for theorists.  Their epistemology is simple: Either something has been (a) proven with certainty, or (b) no one knows – and no intellectually respectable person will say more.  If no one has proven that Comparative Advantage still holds with imperfect competition, transportation costs, and indivisibilities, only an ignoramus would jump the gun and recommend free trade in a world with these characteristics. …

Empirical economists’ deviation from Bayesianism is more subtle.  Their epistemology is rooted in classical statistics.  The respectable researcher comes to the data an agnostic, and leaves believing “whatever the data say.”  When there’s no data that meets their standards, they mimic the theorists’ snobby agnosticism.  If you mention “common sense,” they’ll scoff.

I’ve argued that the main social function of academia is to let students, patrons, readers, etc. affiliate with credentialed-as-impressive minds.  If so, academic beliefs are secondary – the important thing is to clearly show respect to those who make impressive displays like theorems or difficult data analysis. And the obvious way for academics to use their beliefs to show respect for impressive folks is to have academic beliefs track the most impressive recent academic work.

So it won’t do to have beliefs bounce around with every little common sense thing anyone says, however informative those may be.  That would give too much respect to not-very-impressive sources of common sense. Instead, beliefs must stay fixed until an impressive enough theorem or data analysis comes along where beliefs should change out of respect for it.  Academics also avoid keeping beliefs pretty much the same when each new study hardly adds much evidence – that wouldn’t offer enough respect to the new display.

Relative to the Bayesians that academic economic theorists typically assume populate the world, real academics over-react or under-react to evidence, as needed to show respect for impressive academic displays. This helps assure the customers of academia that by affiliating with the most respected academics, they are affiliating with very impressive minds.

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Humans Are Evolving

By Robin Hanson · November 14, 2009 10:20 am · Comments (27)

The team studied 2238 women who had passed menopause and so completed their reproductive lives. For this group, Stearns’s team tested whether a woman’s height, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol or other traits correlated with the number of children she had borne. They controlled for changes due to social and cultural factors to calculate how strongly natural selection is shaping these traits.

Quite a lot, it turns out. Shorter, heavier women tended to have more children, on average, than taller, lighter ones. Women with lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol levels likewise reared more children, and – not surprisingly – so did women who had their first child at a younger age or who entered menopause later. Strikingly, these traits were passed on to their daughters, who in turn also had more children.

If these trends continue for 10 generations, Stearns calculates, the average woman in 2409 will be 2 centimetres shorter and 1 kilogram heavier than she is today. She will bear her first child about 5 months earlier and enter menopause 10 months later.

More here. And this is just for the few parameters tested in this study; no doubt many more features are evolving as well.

Our culture respects taller thinner women who wait longer before having kids, but in fact we are evolving short heavy women who have kids earlier.  Shades of Idiocracy – in many ways we are evolving to become less of what we now respect.

In principle humans could implement strong central regulations to ensure that they evolved to become the sort of creatures they respect, at least regarding a few features of regulatory focus.  But it is far from clear that we are willing, or even able, to achieve this.  And it is far from clear to me that we would be better off achieving such far ideals. Perhaps short plump early moms are happier, after all.

Of course I expect that within a century the main dynamic will be even faster robot evolution, but the same principle will apply – without strong central coordination they are unlikely to evolve to become what we or they most respect.

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Vegan Compromise

By Robin Hanson · November 13, 2009 2:40 pm · Comments (56)

How is it that Americans, so solicitous of the animals they keep as pets, are so indifferent toward the ones they cook for dinner? The answer cannot lie in the beasts themselves. Pigs, after all, are quite companionable, and dogs are said to be delicious. …

How would you judge an artist who mutilated animals in a gallery because it was visually arresting? How riveting would the sound of a tortured animal need to be to make you want to hear it that badly? Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals.” …

“Almost always, when I told someone I was writing a book about ‘eating animals,’ they assumed, even without knowing anything about my views, that it was a case for vegetarianism,” he says. “It’s a telling assumption, one that implies not only that a thorough inquiry into animal agriculture would lead one away from eating meat, but that most people already know that to be the case.”

More here.  She’s right: we will not tolerate folks watching animals tortured for entertainment, as in movies or cock-fights, but we will tolerate animals being tortured for food, for meds, or perhaps lipstick.  We care far more about our pets than our food, even if they are very similar creatures.  And we know deep down that the usual sorts of principles most folks endorse do not support this behavior.  We are hypocrites.

Those with strong self-images as principled intellectuals have two outs:

  1. Become vegetarians, to make our acts match our words.
  2. Change our principles, to make our words match our acts.

Rather than warring to the death for one side or the other to win such a conflict, I prefer to seek compromises between our near and far selves.  Let us seek principles that can account for most of our acts, then try to change the other acts to conform with such easier principles.  My tentative resolutions:

  • We don’t care much about most animals, even smart ones.
  • It is a bad sign about someone that they would be enjoy watching animals being tortured.  We prohibit such watching to make our society look “civilized” to other societies.
  • We are kind to our pets to show others we are loyal to those loyal to us.  Fido has always been there for us, so we will be there for him – up to a point at least.
  • We are willing to spend only modest sums to make food animal lives a bit more enjoyable.  We should spend such sums, but not go overboard.

More interesting quotes from that article: Continue reading "Vegan Compromise" »

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