Monthly Archives: February 2011

Fear As Scapegoat

By Robin Hanson · February 7, 2011 7:50 pm · Comments (5)

In November I said we malign fear because it shows low status:

Political pundits like to accuse opponents of a “politics of fear”, or of hate. … Why do we embrace and accept our own fears and hates, even as we suggest that others’ fears and hates are bad signs about them? One obvious explanation: relative to low status folks, high status folks have less occassion to fear or hate. … Complaining that your opponents have a “politics of fear” or hate is really just complaining about their low status. (more)

We also unfairly blame fear when people die in crowds:

In the literature on crowd disasters, there is a striking incongruity between the way these events are depicted in the press and how they actually occur. In popular accounts, they are almost invariabluy described as “panics.” The crowed is portrayed as a single, unified entity, which act according to “mob psychology” – a set of primitive insticts (fear, followed by flight) that favor self-presevation over the welfare of othres, and casues “stampeded” and “tramplings.” But most crowd disasters are caused by “crazes” – people are usually moving toward something they want, rather than away from something they fear, and, if you’re caught up in a crush, you’re just as likely to die on your feet as under the feet of others, squased by the pressure of bodies smashing into you. In disasters not involving fire, panic is rarely the cause of fatalities, and even when fire is involved … research has shown that people continue to help one another, even at the cost of their own lives. (more)

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Aliens Not So Strange

By Robin Hanson · February 6, 2011 7:45 pm · Comments (17)

If the Martian life form transpires to be eerily similar, this might only show that Life … in reality has very few options. … No sentient forms weaving their existence in vast interstellar dust clouds, farewell to bizarre filamentous species greedily soaking up the intense magnetic fields of a crushingly oppressive neutron star and on even Earth-like planets no forms that we might as well call conceptualized pancakes. … Contrary to received neo-Darwinian wisdom, life on Earth at any level of organization—from molecular to societal— will provide a remarkably good guide as to what ought to be ‘out there’.

So argues Simon Conway Morris, from inside view considerations. I think he’s mostly right, but based on an outside view.

Here it is: when relevant parameters can vary by large magnitudes, the most common type of thing is often overwhemingly more common. For example, processes that create and transmute elements vary greatly in their rates. So even though there are over a hundred elements in the periodic table, over 90% of all atoms are hydrogen, so the odds that two randomly selected atoms are the same element is >80%.

Similarly, since the influences on how many eyes a human has vary greatly across eye numbers, most humans have the same number of eyes: two. Most humans do not have the same last name, however, since rates of gaining or changing names do not vary by huge factors.

The same principle applies to life. Life might have evolved in a great many kinds of environments, based on a great many sorts of elements, and using many types of organization. To the extent that some environments are far more common, or are far more supportive of high rates of biological activity, most biological activity in the universe should occur in the few most common and supportive environments. Similarly if some elements or organizations are far more supportive of biological activity and innovation, most life should use those elements and organization.

I expect cosmic environments to vary enormously in both volume and in support for biological activity. I also expect some types of elements and organizations to be far more supportive of biological activity and innovation. I thus expect most life to be based on similar elements and organizations, to originate and be active and innovative in places similar to where our life orginated and is most active and innovative.

This view is supported by the fact that the assumption that life originates via the entropy of sunlight hitting “dust” predicts many cosmological parameters. In ’08 I reported:

This causal entropic principle so far successfully predicts dark energy strength, matter fluctuation ratio, baryonic to dark matter ratio, and baryonic to photon matter ratio! … A simple reading of the principle is that since observers need entropy gains to function physically, we can estimate the probability that any small spacetime volume contains an observer to be proportional to the entropy gain in that volume. … Exclud[ing] entropy of cosmic and black holes horizons, … ignor[ing] future observers getting far more efficient and aggressive in using entropy, … they estimate that, aside from decaying dark matter, near us most entropy is made by starlight hitting dust, and most of that is in the past.

Our life probably started from sunlight hitting “dust” (including planets). More quotes from Simon Conway Morris: Continue reading "Aliens Not So Strange" »

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Strictness Aids Hypocrisy

By Robin Hanson · February 5, 2011 8:30 pm · Comments (20)

Long ago in traffic school the teacher asked us all how fast we’d gone over the speed limit.  The lowest answer was five miles an hour – it was a black resident of East Palo Alto who had been driving in Palo Alto. Many of us nodded knowingly. Palo Alto is a rich community with unusually low speed limits, and East Palo Alto was its poorer neighbor.  Many of us suspected that the Palo Alto police were especially vigilent against speeding violations by black visitors from East Palo Alto, and that especially low speed limits helped them to discourage East Palo Alto folks from visiting Palo Alto.

This illustrates a general principle: stricter rules typically enable more unequal rule enforcement. With excessively strict rules, more folks are willing to let rule enforcement slide sometimes, which creates a bigger difference in outcomes between folks who are liked vs. disliked by rule enforcers. Social groups with stricter rules need not discouarge ruled behaviors more; they may instead encourage more attention to connections and alliances to protect against rule enforcement. As in:

“Sure George technically violated the rules here, and yes he should suffer.  But George has already suffered so much, and strict enforcement of this rule would end his promising career and shame his whole family.  He’s learned his lesson, and could contribute so much more by staying in his position. Can’t we find it in our hearts to follow the spirit of the law, rather than the letter?”

My homo hypocritus hypothesis is that humans developed huge brains to manage the process of subtly evading social norms while pretending to fully support them. Since those who think themselves better at this process should favor stricter rules, people should prefer to seem to favor strict rules in order to show confidence in their abilities.  In this way the urge toward excessively strict rules may gain quite widespread support.

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Why No Job Paternalism?

By Robin Hanson · February 4, 2011 9:30 pm · Comments (46)

Parents are “paternalistic” towards their kids in many ways. Parents try to steer kids away from bad sex, drugs, hobbies, friends, and jobs. Parents warn that bad hobbies can lead to bad friends, and that bad drugs and friends can lead to bad sex and poor jobs. Parents warn that bad drugs, sex and jobs can lead to bad health. Parents encourage kids to attend school to encourage good jobs, and parents avoid neighborhoods where kids might meet bad friends.

Governments assist in many of these paternalisms. Governments require school, and prohibit sex and certain hobbies below certain ages, and they ban some drugs for all ages. But it is curious that governments don’t do more. While it seems hard to ban bad friends, it seems more feasible to limit bad jobs. Why are kids allowed to attempt to pursue mostly “dead end” careers as actors, musicians, or athletes against their parents wishes? Why are young kids allowed to take classes preparing them for such career attempts?

Choice of career correlates greatly not only with income, but also with health and happiness. If drugs and young sex are banned, and young is school required, because of such correlations, why not jobs as well? Even if some people are required to do bad jobs, a parental veto over a kid doing such a job would limit supply and raise wages until those jobs weren’t so bad anymore.

I can mostly understand wanting to let folks be free, and I can mostly understand wanting to limit kids freedom “for their own good.” I have more trouble understanding our odd mix of paternalism and freedom.  Why do we limit some things, and not others?

Added noon: The parental veto concept is just an example.  Jobs could also be limited via licenses to do or train for a job.  Most professional licensing is said to protect the customer – why not more to protect the worker?

I suspect we allow harmful acting, music, etc. careers because they raise our society’s status relative to others, and it looks good individually to approve of such activities. Most parents hope it won’t be their kids who pay the price.

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Open Border Cost <10%

By Robin Hanson · February 3, 2011 10:00 am · Comments (53)

The simplest most reliable way to help the world’s poor a lot would be for rich nations to accept more poor immigrants. While doing so would lower the price of many goods and services that poor immigrants provide, it should also lower the wages of natives who compete for similar jobs.  If rich nations completely opened their borders, how big might this reduction be?  It seems that even if 90% of the workforce were immigrants, average native wages wouldn’t fall by more than ~10%.  From a new NBER immigration lit review:

Their survey of the earlier literature found that a 10% increase in the immigrant share of the labor force reduced native wages by about 1%. Recent meta-surveys … found comparable, small effects across many studies. … The large majority of studies suggest that immigration does not exert significant effects on native labor market outcomes. Even large, sudden inflows of immigrants were not found to reduce native wages or employment significantly. Effects that do exist tend to be relatively small and concentrated among natives or past immigrants that are close substitutes. … Research on the role of immigrants in the labor market mostly yields consistent findings across countries and experiences: recent migrants have lower earnings than natives, there is partial convergence with duration of stay, displacement effects tend to be small, the most affected groups are close substitutes, etc. (more)

That seems to me a reasonable price to pay for such huge assistance to the world’s poor.

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Why Tax The Rich?

By Robin Hanson · February 2, 2011 8:30 am · Comments (49)

Worried about the deficit? Scott Adams has some suggestions:

In the television industry .. I learned a technique that writers use. It’s called “the bad version.” When you feel that a plot solution exists, but you can’t yet imagine it, you describe instead a bad version that has no purpose other than stimulating the other writers to imagine a better version. … With that technique in mind, I will describe some bad versions of how society might go about the job of convincing the rich to accept higher taxes on themselves. …

Anyone who pays taxes at a rate above some set amount gets to use the car pool lane without a passenger. Or perhaps the rich are allowed to park in handicapped-only spaces. … Gratitude. … The government makes it a condition that anyone applying for social services has to write a personal thank-you note to a nearby rich person who, according to a central database, hasn’t lately received one. … Give the rich two votes apiece in any election. (more)

Why do we tax the rich?  If it is just because the rich have lots of money, and we need more money, then we should be pretty eager to take up something like Scott’s suggestions. Such policies could help us get lots more money at a relatively low cost to ourselves. But if we tax the rich more to lower the status of the rich, so they don’t loom as high above us, we are more likely to dislike Scott’s suggestions. Yes such policies lower the income status of the rich, but they might more than compensate via other very visible status markers.

Seems pretty clear most folks hate Scott’s suggestions.  Making status motives a better explanation that revenue motives.  Are you ok with admitting that?

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Indirect Charity

By Robin Hanson · February 1, 2011 9:00 am · Comments (22)

Listening to a recent talk on African development by Karol Boudreaux, I noted that in general we here have two very different channels of influence on them there:

  • Direct – For some things we do, our main declared purpose is to influence them. Eg., World Bank, USAID, or GiveWell.
  • Indirect – Many things we do for other purposes also end up influencing them. Most such policies can be adjusted slightly to better help or hurt them there. For example, governments have policies on trade, immigration, war, and terrorism. Businesses choose where to open branches, where to buy supplies, whether to make job tasks easier to outsource, and how easily products can convert to foreign use. Individuals choose where to live and work, where to travel, and what products to buy.

When we do relatively little overall to help them, but have many interactions with them, it is probably more cost-effective to help them indirectly, by adjusting our other interactions. For example, lowering import tarriffs and immigration restrictions would helps Africans at a far low cost to us than most direct donations. Yet direct donation activities usually get far more attention in most discussions of what we here can do for them there. Why?

Obviously direct help is eaiser to explain and understand, and this should bias our efforts to some degree. But the idea of adjusting indirect policies isn’t that hard to explain – I think most folks get it after a brief explanation.  Yes, sometimes it can be hard to tell whether more of something helps or hurts them. But there are many others where the sign of the effect is pretty clear.

A better explanation is that it is too easy for observers to attribute your indirect policy adjustments to non-altruism motives. Your support for more open immigration could be attributed to your free market or cosmopolitan inclinations, and your consuming African music could be attributed to music tastes. Your opening a new branch of your business in Africa might be attributed to your greedy exploitation. Your donations to Oxfam, in contrast, are harder to attribute to non-charity motivations.

Now some do try to market consumer items as good ways to show your charity to them there.  Fair trade coffee is an example.  But it requires the “helpful” items to have close “less helpful” substitutes, so your paying extra can be interpreted clearly as charity, and not as preferring one kind of product to another.  In which case your extra payments for the “helpful” versions become much like direct charity payments.

Related personal examples are giving presents to friends and family at birthdays and holidays. The cheapest way to help such folks is to just be a little nicer to them during the rest of the year. But such behavior is easy to attribute to selfishness. If we go out to eat with them, for example, maybe that is just because we enjoy their company. So to send clearer loyalty signals, we go out of our way to take actions that are personally costly, like giving presents.

When spending any given amount to help others, you have a choice:

  1. Actually help a lot, but be mostly unable to take social credit for your help, or
  2. Help a lot less, but do so clearly and visibly, so you can take social credit.

You know what most folks do. Are you really much different?

Added: Katja had a related post exactly one year earlier.

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Open Thread

By Robin Hanson · February 1, 2011 7:00 am · Comments (8)

This is our monthly place to discuss related topics that have not appeared in recent posts.

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