Overcoming Bias

Scope Insensitivity

Once upon a time, three groups of subjects were asked how much they would pay to save 2000 / 20000 / 200000 migrating birds from drowning in uncovered oil ponds. The groups respectively answered $80, $78, and $88 [1]. This is scope insensitivity or scope neglect: the number of birds saved - the scope of the altruistic action - had little effect on willingness to pay.

Similar experiments showed that Toronto residents would pay little more to clean up all polluted lakes in Ontario than polluted lakes in a particular region of Ontario [2], or that residents of four western US states would pay only 28% more to protect all 57 wilderness areas in those states than to protect a single area [3].

Against Admirable Activities

Christians often say, "Love the sinner but hate the sin."  I say, "Love the signaler but hate the signal."  We all want to be respected, by ourselves and others, or at least not despised or ignored.  So we fill our lives with activities that could get us more admired, such as pursuing our career, practicing our art or sport, tending our beauty, developing our style, being loyal to our friends and family, caring for the downtrodden, becoming more informed about current events, and so on.

These admirable activities help us to develop and show our admirable qualities.  But since admiration is in part relative, my looking more admirable comes in part at the expense of others looking less admirable.  So there is in part an arms race quality to admirable activities, which suggests we do too much of them from a global point of view.

Unfortunately, our minds were not built from a global point of view.  We are instead built to admire admirable activities, in addition to admiring the people who do them.  We admire drawing, singing, sporting, writing, joking, helping, and so on, and we support policies that encourage these activities.  We like our families, churches, clubs, companies, cities, and nations to subsidize such activities.  Parents push their kids toward more admirable activities, such as music over video games.  And nations subsidize science, sport, and arts that will impress other nations. 

This support urge can make evolutionary sense.   A group that coordinates to help its most noticed members look more admirable may be more admired as a group, to the benefit of all group members.  But at a global level we all suffer from admiring admirable activities, much like trees suffer by working to grow tall enough to see the sun past other trees. 

Yes, the optimal level of admirable activities may usually be above zero, and yes other considerations may suggest we do too little of some activities.  But we are too eager to believe such considerations exist.  For example, many will tell you that we should subsidize art because it promotes peace or innovation.  Overall, we try too hard at admirable activities, relative to just enjoying the less-admirable pleasures of life, and we are biased to neglect this problem.  For humanity's sake, please, take five, and chill.

Resolving Your Hypocrisy

Self love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.  ... Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.    La Rochefoucauld.

Humans are hypocrites.  That is, we present ourselves and our groups as pursuing high motives, when more often low motives better explain our behavior.   We say we invade nations to help them build democracy, rather than for revenge or security.  We say we marry to help our partner, rather than to gain sex or security.  We say we choose our profession to help others, and not for prestige or income.  And so on.

Comedians live by ridiculing such hypocrisy, but "cynics" who complain without such wit and style are despised.  In contrast, we are attracted to the innocent who naively believe our hypocrisies.

Noticing the hypocrisy in others usually makes us feel morally superior.  After all, we are know we are not hypocrites; "I can look inside myself and and see my sincerity."  But eventually experience and intelligence force some of us to face the likelihood that we are no different.   At this point we can resolve our hypocrisy two ways: we can start really living up to our high ideals, or we can admit we don't care as much as we thought about those ideals .   

Gifts Hurt

Two weeks ago Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution called me a Scrooge for pointing out that "helping" professions don't help more.  So this Christmas day, let me Scrooge again by pointing out the dark side of gifts.   It is not just that gifts can be worth less than they cost; the problem goes deeper.  In Friday's Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer explained:

The roundsman is the guy who, with the class huddled at the bed of a patient who has developed a rash after taking penicillin, raises his hand to ask ... whether this might not instead be a case of Schmendrick's Syndrome ... The point is for the prof to remember this hyper-motivated stiff who stays up nights reading journals ... the roundsman, let's call him Oswald, ignores at his peril, is that this apple polishing does not endear him to his colleagues, ... The general feeling among the rest of us is that we should have Oswald killed. ... There's always an Oswald.  There's always the husband who takes his wife to Paris for Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day? The rest of us schlubs can barely remember to come home with a single long-stem rose. What does he think he's doing? And love is no defense. We don't care how much you love her -- you don't do Paris. It's bad for the team.

Gift-giving is in part a contest, to show how much more you know and care about someone, relative to others.  And what that someone gets, in part, is having everyone see how loved they are, relative to others.  If you succeed and make yourself look good, you make other givers look worse by comparison.  And if your recipient looks loved, other recipients look less loved by comparison. 

"All is fair in love and war" they say, and this sort of love is a lot like war; when you gain, others lose.  But while we usually feel at least a little bad about the harm we cause in ordinary war, we are smugly proud of the harm we cause in this war of love that is gifts.   

The world may gain some benefits from people feeling they can trust their associates.   But even so, I'd guess most gifts produce a net harm.   

Enjoy your spoils of war this Christmas day.  :)