• Collin Marshall, Marketplace of Ideas radio, Jan 28.
• Debate with M. Moldbug, Foresight 2010, Jan 16.
• Colin McEnroe, Connecticut Public Radio, Jan 15.
• Phil Bowermaster, Fast Forward Radio, Dec. 22.

Added 9Feb: Moldbug vid here; Marshall transcript here.

Suppose player P stands to make $X from decision D. In our chess example, he might have a side bet, paying $X, that White will open with P-KB4. Therefore, the question is: what will be his expected loss, $Y, from buying enough P-KB4 bets that White opens with P-KB4?  If X is greater than Y, manipulating the market (ie, moving it intentionally) is profitable. …

Professor Hanson … addresses this problem in three ways.  First, he constructs a model in which Y is infinite and X is finite. … Second, he does sociological experiments with undergraduates. He sets up these markets such that Y is greater than X. …  Third, he finds actual markets in which actual manipulations fail. …  None of this goes even a millimeter toward proving what needs to be proved – namely, that in all markets, Y is always greater than X. …

Honestly, I think the greatest difference between my perspective and Professor Hanson’s is just that I have much higher standards. His entire argument proceeds from the position that, since government today is so bad, anything that could be somewhat less bad is worth a look. … Don’t people buy decisions now? Well, gee, they sure do. So there you go.

For me, government safety is like airplane safety. Not only do I want a watertight proof that Y is greater than X, I want two or three parallel and independent proofs. At least one of them will probably turn out to be wrong. Professor Hanson is a professor, and thinks like a professor. I’m an engineer, and think like an engineer.

I am also a student of history. … the European writers of the Victorian era, whose aristocratic governments worked much better than ours, and were thus appalled by government failures which to us seem trivial and not worth mentioning.

In the debate, I suggested we start by trying fire-the-CEO markets, and only gradually rely more on them in CEO decisions as such markets collect good track records.  Moldbug seems to accept wide trading in ordinary stock markets because he doesn’t think any decisions depend on them, but strongly advises against allowing non-employees to trade in fire-the-CEO markets, due to manipulation concerns.  But even a track record showing that firms which followed market advice do better on average than firms that do not would not persuade him.

In fact, Moldbug the “engineer” says no data anyone could collect in the lab or in any organization smaller than a nation would be relevant, and even with nations he doubts we’d see hidden manipulation. Nor does any data collected in the last century test his belief that the best governments are single rulers running city-sized polities with iron fists and complete discretion.  It is not even clear what prior data makes his case – apparently it can’t be summarized in any concise form; you have to just read dozens of books and have a feel for it.

Not only does Moldbug know such iron fists would rule best, allow emigration, not cheat their investors, and never ever accept manipulator payola, he apparently knows this deductively, as a noble philosopher, not like data-addicted corrupt pansy social scientists.  And he has no interest in improvements in the status quo below his philosopher-deduced-best pinnacle.

What more can one say to such a person?

Book projects I wish my other colleagues would pursue. …  Tyler Cowen should write that I call a “book of answers” with the working title Social Intelligence: What I Know About People That You Don’t. The key point of departure: The goal of the book is not to “get readers to ask themselves questions,” but to convey definite answers that Tyler defends without irony.  If you think this goes against his nature, I’ve seen him do this many times first-hand – just not in print.

Yep.  If you want to predict what real people will do, or explain why they do what they do, I know of no better person to ask than Tyler Cowen.  There’s no great rush, and Tyler has many other ways to spend his time, but the world will suffer a great loss if Tyler does not publish his concrete penetrating insight in a coherent organized form.  I’m not at all sure the world will reward him on net for such honesty, but it would still be his greatest contribution.  (Bryan’s advice for me here.)

Sarah Hrdy … questioned “whether sociobiology should be taught at the high-school level … The whole message of sociobiology is oriented toward the success of the individual. … Unless a student has a moral framework already in place, we could be producing social monsters by teaching this.”

Also:

Cynical descriptive conclusions about behavior in government threaten to undermine the norm prescribing public spirit. The cynicism of journalists – and even the writings of professors – can decrease public spirit simply by describing what they claim to be its absence.

Many say we are better off training kids to help others, even if we have to lie and suggest most folks do this.  Nietzsche said “society encourages self-sacrifice because the unselfish sucker is an asset to others.”  But this theory suggests local temptations to defect; I would want your kids, but not mine, to be taught to help others.  Instead, however, we see parents pushing their own kids to be taught idealism.  Why?

One reason I think is that moderate idealism is an attractive feature of potential associates; it suggests they will be helpful and cooperative to associates. For example:

Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head. Georges Clemenceau

We expect high idealism from college applicants, less from grad school applicants, and far less from older job applicants.  So while we expect folks to slowly learn the cynical truth about the world, and we expect smarter folks to learn faster, those more cynical than their cohort are seen as untrustworthy, while those more idealistic are seen as impractical or stupid.  I wish I could find the source, but I once heard that a far larger fraction of Harvard law admitees than graduates planned to do public interest law.

This theory says students and parents have a common interest in being seen as learning age-appropriate idealism.  But an experienced high school teacher explained to me last weekend why young students have an even stronger desire to be taught idealism: students strongly prefer teachers they can personally trust, and students see cynical teachers as untrustworthy.  That hadn’t occurred to me, and not only does it make sense in general, it makes sense of one of my failures.

In fall 2006 I tried to create a class for non-econ honors students.  These tend to be high-test-scoring female non-science-major sophomores taking classes like Conceptions of Self, Reading Cultural Signs, and Cross-Cultural Perspectives.  My class was Reforming Social Institutions:

We will go one by one, week by week, through major institutions of modern life … [and] review the basic features and supposed functions of existing institutions, some common complaints about those institutions, and some suggested reforms.

My teaching style was mostly my usual, emphasizing discussion, and thought I balanced cynicism on current institutions with idealism on reform.  Many loved the class, but alas others hated it, and our evaluation system punishes variance.  When typical evaluations are 4 out of 5, one student saying 1 cancels three students saying 5.  So I got by far the lowest evaluations since my first year of teaching seven years before (when I was terrible).  Sample comments:

“class discussions were not related to the material and were not conducive to learning.  I would suggest a different Professor teach this course.”
“instructor has no place teaching an honors course.  Discussion topics … were brought down to an asinine level”
“too much sexual innuendo in class discussion”
“felt uncomfortable in class -> – too many sexual innuendos – felt he has interest in female students”

(I’ve never had remotely similar complaints re sex.) This seems weak personal confirmation: many kids distrust and dislike cynical teachers.  Of course another factor might be their other teachers hostile to econ-style cynicism.  At an interdisciplinary conference I once asked an English professor, half-joking, “Why do you guys hate us?”  His immediate serious reply: “You know.”

Most eulogies, introductions, reviews, etc., whether in praise or criticism, tend to discuss what a person has done mainly as clues to what sort of person they are.  For example, music reviews talk about what a new album says about how the musician has developed, instead of how that music can brighten the lives of listeners.

Very small acts are often mentioned, if they seem telling.  And we often hear that someone was head of an organization, or had a credential, without hearing much about what they did with such influence.  We often hear they were part of some project without hearing the difference they made, and the differences we do hear about are often merely due to others knowing of their association with the project.

Because the usual focus is on inferring how smart, strong, creative, caring, charismatic, determined, etc. people are, the incentives are more to do things that suggest good things about your character.  If instead we focused on describing the differences a person has actually made to the world, we would get more folks trying harder to actually make a difference.  And they would focus more on acquiring the features that produce results, instead of features that are easy to see.

And when we evaluate the difference someone made, we should correct for the opportunities they had.  For example, if they saved lives as a doctor, we should ask if they saved more than if someone else had been allowed to be a doctor in their place.  If they rose from rags to riches, we should ask who helped them along the way.  If they headed an group that did a great thing, we should wonder whether that group would have done something similar with someone else in charge.

If we praised results instead of character, maybe we will get more of both.

Added 7p: Will Wilkinson comments here.

Added:  See slides, audio (sorry about poor quality).

1. People often say “It’s not personal, it’s just business”, or “This is personal.”
2. We have laws to discourage discrimination based on gender, race, age, religion, etc., but they only apply at work, school, clubs, etc. and not to “personal” relations such as friends or lovers.
3. Law let’s us sue firms or schools that lie to us, to discourage such lies, but not only can’t we sue our friends or lovers for their lies, law prohibits blackmail, which would otherwise discourage such lies.

What are other key differences in how we treat “impersonal” from “personal” arenas?  What is the essential difference that explains these differing treatments?

My tentative theory: our ancestors had different social norms for “personal” within-tribe versus “impersonal” between-tribe behavior.  When you interacted with someone from another tribe, you had to be more careful to be neutral and inoffensive, since your whole tribe might suffer if you offended someone.

My jaw would have dropped had I been less polite. This is so amazingly wrong that I’m not even sure what a good analogy is – I’d better understand a physics teacher working on perpetual motion machines.  My nine years as a computer researcher taught me that modularity is by far our single most powerful programming tool.  Sure objects might help, but only a bit; one must attend to modularity everywhere.

Yes it makes sense for this teacher to ignore modularity if the AP exam ignores it.  And perhaps it even makes sense for the exam to ignore it since modularity tests might take lots longer than other tests.  But for someone with five years experience teaching computing at the nation’s best public high school to not even know that modularity goes way beyond objects – that seems a sad example of off-the-rails book learning.

My wife thought my complaint ridiculous, and didn’t think I should voice it within earshot of other parents.  He was a teacher after all, and I’m just a parent.  (I worry – could I be that book-learning wrong about anything I teach, relative to what practitioners know?)

This example supports the claim that it is mostly the students not the teachers who makes good schools good, and that even in computer science signaling takes precedence over learning.

Fortunately Andy’s other computing teacher seems to know what he is doing.  Andy claims he is well aware of the importance of modularity, and there is some evidence of that in the games he has written (see Rhodium Games and its YouTube soundtracks.)

I fear too many kids see the key to success as scoring on tests and classes and doing politically-correct extra-curricular activities, instead of taking on substantial projects where they learn a bit more about how things really work.  I’m somewhat (but only somewhat) glad I went to a college that was too easy for me, and that the girls showed me little interest, making me invent and pursue my own projects.