Scott Adams's Blog, page 338
October 9, 2012
Democracy, Capitalism, Internet
Benjamin Franklin said, "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." We're still waiting for that to happen, but it looks inevitable to me, thanks to the Internet.
As the presidential election season in the United States has proven once again, facts are fuzzy, truth is optional, and poor people will vote against their own best interests. We have fact checkers, but they don't always agree with each other. Voters default to voting the party line. But that could change.
It is one thing for a fact-checker to say candidate X told a lie. That seems to have no impact on voters whatsoever. On some level everyone understands the election process to be about persuasion not truth.
But suppose another level is added to fact-checking. This new level allows each voter to get specific predictions of his or her individual net worth under each candidate's plan. These predictions would be based on odds and use an expected-value formulation. That just means a 25% chance of making $100 is valued at .25 x 100 = $25. That's a common way to approach predictions that have uncertainty.
The prediction model would take into account the odds that congress would thwart any particular plan, the odds of war, the odds of technological advances, and even the odds of the candidate dying in office.
Now let's say the model crunches all the numbers and lets an individual voter input his specific income, location, age, family size, mortgage, education etc. to see how he will fare under candidate Y's presidency versus candidate X. Armed with that information, the citizen votes for the candidate that is predicted to do best for him personally. At that point, Ben Franklin's prediction comes true and the Republic crumbles.
I know, I know. A model so complicated would necessarily be unreliable. But remember the accuracy bar is set extraordinarily low. Today most voters have no idea which candidate will serve their personal interests best. A model that improves on random guessing by 10% would be the best information around.
Presumably the model would show that poor people can come out ahead in the short run by voting for candidates willing to tax the bejeezus out of anyone rich enough to own a home. People being people, I think the poor would vote for their best short term outcome even if the model predicted dire consequences ten years out. Hence, the end of the republic.
Democracy and capitalism are quite compatible as long as voters have poor information. If you put the Internet in the mix and allow it to evolve, sooner or later voters will have better information and the republic will collapse.
If it bothers you to see politicians lie, take a moment to consider the alternative. When voters have accurate information, it is game over for the republic. That's not me talking; it's the guy who helped invent the republic.
As the presidential election season in the United States has proven once again, facts are fuzzy, truth is optional, and poor people will vote against their own best interests. We have fact checkers, but they don't always agree with each other. Voters default to voting the party line. But that could change.
It is one thing for a fact-checker to say candidate X told a lie. That seems to have no impact on voters whatsoever. On some level everyone understands the election process to be about persuasion not truth.
But suppose another level is added to fact-checking. This new level allows each voter to get specific predictions of his or her individual net worth under each candidate's plan. These predictions would be based on odds and use an expected-value formulation. That just means a 25% chance of making $100 is valued at .25 x 100 = $25. That's a common way to approach predictions that have uncertainty.
The prediction model would take into account the odds that congress would thwart any particular plan, the odds of war, the odds of technological advances, and even the odds of the candidate dying in office.
Now let's say the model crunches all the numbers and lets an individual voter input his specific income, location, age, family size, mortgage, education etc. to see how he will fare under candidate Y's presidency versus candidate X. Armed with that information, the citizen votes for the candidate that is predicted to do best for him personally. At that point, Ben Franklin's prediction comes true and the Republic crumbles.
I know, I know. A model so complicated would necessarily be unreliable. But remember the accuracy bar is set extraordinarily low. Today most voters have no idea which candidate will serve their personal interests best. A model that improves on random guessing by 10% would be the best information around.
Presumably the model would show that poor people can come out ahead in the short run by voting for candidates willing to tax the bejeezus out of anyone rich enough to own a home. People being people, I think the poor would vote for their best short term outcome even if the model predicted dire consequences ten years out. Hence, the end of the republic.
Democracy and capitalism are quite compatible as long as voters have poor information. If you put the Internet in the mix and allow it to evolve, sooner or later voters will have better information and the republic will collapse.
If it bothers you to see politicians lie, take a moment to consider the alternative. When voters have accurate information, it is game over for the republic. That's not me talking; it's the guy who helped invent the republic.
October 7, 2012
How Many Are You?
I will stipulate at the start of this post that I might be insane. That will save you the time of pointing it out in the comments.
Lately I've been contemplating the dual nature of my brain. When I think about almost anything, I do so in the format of a conversation with myself, in full sentences. But what exactly is happening when one talks to oneself?
People don't multitask well. You can't commit the same part of your brain to two distinct tasks at the same time. At best it's sort of a packet situation (excuse the geeky reference) in which you do one thing for a short burst, then quickly switch to the other, then back. It might look like multitasking but it's just quick switching.
It can seem like multitasking when you use one part of your brain for habit-based stuff such as walking while using another part of the brain for talking. That works because walking and talking don't draw on the same brain resources.
So what is happening when I talk to myself? As far as I can tell, the part of me doing the talking has full mental capacity while forming words, and yet I also seem to have 100% ability to listen to myself. Why doesn't the concept-comprehension part of my brain get confused when it is talking and listening at the same time?
Now you might say the listening-to-myself part is an illusion because I can't form sentences in my mind without understanding in advance what they will mean. In a sense, the listening is naturally integrated with the process of forming a sentence in the first place. That's clearly part of the explanation. But it feels as if something else is going on.
The part of my mind that seems to be listening to the other part talking is also doing some filtering and judging. I form my thought into a sentence, experience the sentence in my mind as if it had been spoken, and evaluate it for effectiveness after my mind hears it. That last step, where I evaluate and often reject my own thoughts has the feel of an entirely different person. It feels like a pitcher and a catcher. The pitcher might have the more active function, but the catcher is sending hand signals and performing a key function too.
It makes me wonder if the part of my brain that controls my speaking functions is tied to the same higher thinking part of my brain that my hearing/comprehension is connected to. In other words, is the part of my brain that knows that a chair is, and how it is used, connected to both my speaking and my listening parts of my brain? Or do I have two completely different areas in my brain that both understand the concept of a chair, but one connects to my speech center and the other is connected to my hearing and comprehension centers? How else could the hearing part of my brain sometimes disagree with the speaking part?
For purely practical reasons we count one human body as one "person." That makes sense for all sorts of legal and economic purposes. But it sure doesn't feel as if I have only one person in my head. It feels like a conversation between two friends.
Like most people, I'm also capable of holding opposing views simultaneously. One part of me argues that something is a good idea while the other firmly disagrees. I don't experience that situation as one mind that is sorting through the data. It feels like two people having a debate. Stranger yet, there might be a third me observing the debate and being a judge.
I often wonder if people who don't mind being alone - and I am one of them - have a more distinct feeling of the "other" in their own head. I'm never lonely when the two of my personality are having an interesting conversation in my head. But sometimes I lose the feeling of the other, or get bored with it, and then the loneliness can be overwhelming. Fortunately there are also real people in my life so the cure is always nearby.
My question for today is this: Do you feel the presence of two people who are both you at the same time? And if so, do you enjoy being alone more than most other people do?
My hypothesis is that people who can't feel the presence of another entity in their minds have a hard time being alone.
Lately I've been contemplating the dual nature of my brain. When I think about almost anything, I do so in the format of a conversation with myself, in full sentences. But what exactly is happening when one talks to oneself?
People don't multitask well. You can't commit the same part of your brain to two distinct tasks at the same time. At best it's sort of a packet situation (excuse the geeky reference) in which you do one thing for a short burst, then quickly switch to the other, then back. It might look like multitasking but it's just quick switching.
It can seem like multitasking when you use one part of your brain for habit-based stuff such as walking while using another part of the brain for talking. That works because walking and talking don't draw on the same brain resources.
So what is happening when I talk to myself? As far as I can tell, the part of me doing the talking has full mental capacity while forming words, and yet I also seem to have 100% ability to listen to myself. Why doesn't the concept-comprehension part of my brain get confused when it is talking and listening at the same time?
Now you might say the listening-to-myself part is an illusion because I can't form sentences in my mind without understanding in advance what they will mean. In a sense, the listening is naturally integrated with the process of forming a sentence in the first place. That's clearly part of the explanation. But it feels as if something else is going on.
The part of my mind that seems to be listening to the other part talking is also doing some filtering and judging. I form my thought into a sentence, experience the sentence in my mind as if it had been spoken, and evaluate it for effectiveness after my mind hears it. That last step, where I evaluate and often reject my own thoughts has the feel of an entirely different person. It feels like a pitcher and a catcher. The pitcher might have the more active function, but the catcher is sending hand signals and performing a key function too.
It makes me wonder if the part of my brain that controls my speaking functions is tied to the same higher thinking part of my brain that my hearing/comprehension is connected to. In other words, is the part of my brain that knows that a chair is, and how it is used, connected to both my speaking and my listening parts of my brain? Or do I have two completely different areas in my brain that both understand the concept of a chair, but one connects to my speech center and the other is connected to my hearing and comprehension centers? How else could the hearing part of my brain sometimes disagree with the speaking part?
For purely practical reasons we count one human body as one "person." That makes sense for all sorts of legal and economic purposes. But it sure doesn't feel as if I have only one person in my head. It feels like a conversation between two friends.
Like most people, I'm also capable of holding opposing views simultaneously. One part of me argues that something is a good idea while the other firmly disagrees. I don't experience that situation as one mind that is sorting through the data. It feels like two people having a debate. Stranger yet, there might be a third me observing the debate and being a judge.
I often wonder if people who don't mind being alone - and I am one of them - have a more distinct feeling of the "other" in their own head. I'm never lonely when the two of my personality are having an interesting conversation in my head. But sometimes I lose the feeling of the other, or get bored with it, and then the loneliness can be overwhelming. Fortunately there are also real people in my life so the cure is always nearby.
My question for today is this: Do you feel the presence of two people who are both you at the same time? And if so, do you enjoy being alone more than most other people do?
My hypothesis is that people who can't feel the presence of another entity in their minds have a hard time being alone.
October 3, 2012
Presidential Debate 2012
I apologize to my international readers who don't follow American politics, but as Emergency Backup Leader (EBL) I feel it is my duty to give my opinion on last night's presidential debate.
I didn't watch the entire debate but I tuned in just in time to watch Mitt Romney use the President of the United States as a bar rag. I wondered if I was the only viewer who was thinking that one of the worst public speakers of all time was drop-kicking one of the best speakers of all time, but I see today that most pundits agreed on two points:
Romney lied 500% more than President Obama.Romney totally won the debate.
That tells you everything you need to know about the value of presidential debates. Sure, the fact-checkers weighed in afterwards, but by then the damage was done. Truth is literally an afterthought in politics, and apparently overrated.
The thing that impressed me most about Romney's performance is that he invented an entirely new class of political lie that I have named the pre-flop. It's a vast improvement over his old flip-flopping ways. With the traditional flip-flop the thing you say today is the reverse of what you said in the past, and that can bite you in the ass. The pre-flop is a brilliant innovation that combines the flip and the flop in the same pledge. Allow me to paraphrase the debate to illustrate.
Romney: My economic plan is (blah, blah)
President Obama: Economists say your plan will increase the deficit by $5 trillion.
Romney: I keep telling you that I won't do anything that increases the deficit.
See? The flip-flop is built right into the campaign promise. It's an unmistakable wink to independent voters that he plans to be a pragmatist. Pragmatism looks like flip-flopping because it requires opinions to change as the situation and the available information change. It also means you'll lie to get elected, but it's just a strategy, and everyone does it, so don't worry.
I think Romney has a hypnotist for an advisor, or at least someone skilled in the dark arts of psychology and influence. I just watched him repeatedly lie to me and came away thinking he'd be a good choice for managing the economy. I'm not saying he actually would be a good choice, but he did something impressive: He made me think he wouldn't cut taxes at the same time he told his base he would. As a trained hypnotist myself, I rank his debate performance as breathtakingly brilliant. (Seriously.)
Meanwhile, President Obama was learning the hard way that the worst time to have anniversary sex is right before a debate. He looked a bit too relaxed. I think he should have lit a cigarette, taken a long puff, exhaled, and told the crowd that Romney would do for the country what the President just did for the First Lady. That would be totally bad ass. Then he could toss in a zinger about how awesome the sex was right after killing Bin Laden. I think we all know that evening was ear muff time for the Secret Service.
Jim Lehrer, who apparently died several months ago, moderated the debate. The pundits have been harsh on him today. But who else do you hire for the first debate? Do you hire someone who works for a Republican news network or someone from a Democrat news networks? Apparently the debate producers scoured the United States and decided that the only non-partisan left was a cadaver.
This is a good time to remind you that I don't support either candidate for president because neither of them meet my minimum standards, which frankly aren't that high. And I'm not convinced that voting for the lesser evil is better for the country in the long run than supporting low voter turnout which could create an opportunity for a third-party candidate someday.
I'm looking forward to the second debate.
I didn't watch the entire debate but I tuned in just in time to watch Mitt Romney use the President of the United States as a bar rag. I wondered if I was the only viewer who was thinking that one of the worst public speakers of all time was drop-kicking one of the best speakers of all time, but I see today that most pundits agreed on two points:
Romney lied 500% more than President Obama.Romney totally won the debate.
That tells you everything you need to know about the value of presidential debates. Sure, the fact-checkers weighed in afterwards, but by then the damage was done. Truth is literally an afterthought in politics, and apparently overrated.
The thing that impressed me most about Romney's performance is that he invented an entirely new class of political lie that I have named the pre-flop. It's a vast improvement over his old flip-flopping ways. With the traditional flip-flop the thing you say today is the reverse of what you said in the past, and that can bite you in the ass. The pre-flop is a brilliant innovation that combines the flip and the flop in the same pledge. Allow me to paraphrase the debate to illustrate.
Romney: My economic plan is (blah, blah)
President Obama: Economists say your plan will increase the deficit by $5 trillion.
Romney: I keep telling you that I won't do anything that increases the deficit.
See? The flip-flop is built right into the campaign promise. It's an unmistakable wink to independent voters that he plans to be a pragmatist. Pragmatism looks like flip-flopping because it requires opinions to change as the situation and the available information change. It also means you'll lie to get elected, but it's just a strategy, and everyone does it, so don't worry.
I think Romney has a hypnotist for an advisor, or at least someone skilled in the dark arts of psychology and influence. I just watched him repeatedly lie to me and came away thinking he'd be a good choice for managing the economy. I'm not saying he actually would be a good choice, but he did something impressive: He made me think he wouldn't cut taxes at the same time he told his base he would. As a trained hypnotist myself, I rank his debate performance as breathtakingly brilliant. (Seriously.)
Meanwhile, President Obama was learning the hard way that the worst time to have anniversary sex is right before a debate. He looked a bit too relaxed. I think he should have lit a cigarette, taken a long puff, exhaled, and told the crowd that Romney would do for the country what the President just did for the First Lady. That would be totally bad ass. Then he could toss in a zinger about how awesome the sex was right after killing Bin Laden. I think we all know that evening was ear muff time for the Secret Service.
Jim Lehrer, who apparently died several months ago, moderated the debate. The pundits have been harsh on him today. But who else do you hire for the first debate? Do you hire someone who works for a Republican news network or someone from a Democrat news networks? Apparently the debate producers scoured the United States and decided that the only non-partisan left was a cadaver.
This is a good time to remind you that I don't support either candidate for president because neither of them meet my minimum standards, which frankly aren't that high. And I'm not convinced that voting for the lesser evil is better for the country in the long run than supporting low voter turnout which could create an opportunity for a third-party candidate someday.
I'm looking forward to the second debate.
October 2, 2012
Selling an Idea - Update 1
See my prior post for background.
Today I had a long call with a highly experienced investor who asked to hear the idea I talked about -- but didn't describe -- in my prior post. He agreed that the idea is new - as far as we both know - but he will do some research to be sure. He also agreed that if it were implemented correctly it has the potential to be transformative to the entire world, economically and otherwise. Apparently I did not exaggerate its potential size. It also sounds, at least on the surface, to be doable.
Like anything, the hard part is in the details. All of the technology for this idea exists off the shelf, but nailing the user experience would be key, and not easy.
There was much discussion about how an investor could guarantee me an undiluted 5% equity position into the future when that sort of arrangement might handcuff future funding options. We reached an understanding on how to deal with that risk, but I won't go into it here.
The potential investor will do some thinking and digesting and get back to me in a few days. If he passes, I will go to the next person who emailed and asked to hear it. If everyone passes, I'll describe it in a future post.
Are you curious yet?
Today I had a long call with a highly experienced investor who asked to hear the idea I talked about -- but didn't describe -- in my prior post. He agreed that the idea is new - as far as we both know - but he will do some research to be sure. He also agreed that if it were implemented correctly it has the potential to be transformative to the entire world, economically and otherwise. Apparently I did not exaggerate its potential size. It also sounds, at least on the surface, to be doable.
Like anything, the hard part is in the details. All of the technology for this idea exists off the shelf, but nailing the user experience would be key, and not easy.
There was much discussion about how an investor could guarantee me an undiluted 5% equity position into the future when that sort of arrangement might handcuff future funding options. We reached an understanding on how to deal with that risk, but I won't go into it here.
The potential investor will do some thinking and digesting and get back to me in a few days. If he passes, I will go to the next person who emailed and asked to hear it. If everyone passes, I'll describe it in a future post.
Are you curious yet?
September 30, 2012
Selling an Idea
I've written in this blog that good ideas have no economic value. It seems to me that the world has a glut of good ideas. The hard part is implementing. Patents are the exception that proves the rule; even those ideas would be worthless if the government didn't force a value on them.
So I take it as a challenge to see if I can sell a raw idea. I have a specific business idea in mind. It has the potential to change the world in a fundamental way and yet it is little more than a combination of existing ideas that are proven and successful. No inventions are necessary. This idea is in the Internet realm, broadly speaking.
Let's agree that the odds are high that someone is already pursuing this business idea. That's true with most of my ideas - at least the good ones. Whatever I noticed in the environment that triggered the idea in me is probably triggering a similar idea elsewhere. So I have to deal with that risk when I design a mechanism to sell my idea.
My model for selling my idea, while mitigating the risk for the buyer, is this: I'll accept 5% equity in the business once created. If no business is created, no money is owed.
I will limit my offer to experienced venture capital professionals. This idea probably requires a $10 million startup cost, and the buyer would have to assemble the team. The upside potential is probably similar to Amazon.com, just for sizing purposes.
If you have access to that amount of cash, and you're curious about the idea, there is no risk in asking for an explanation. Just send me a brief email explaining your interest and include a link to your firm's website that lists you as a partner. I won't ask for a non-disclosure agreement because credible players don't stay in business long if they steal ideas.
If you hear my idea and decide to pass, it costs you nothing and you will have satisfied your curiosity. I will explain my idea by email to interested and qualified parties in the same order as the requests come in. Each requestor will have two working days to accept or pass. After two days, or a decision to pass, I will move the offer to the next interested party.
I will not be involved in implementing the idea beyond describing it.
If you would like some background on the quality of my ideas in general, my blog has plenty of examples stretching back several years. At least 95% of my ideas are ill-conceived or impractical. But I usually know it. I think this particular idea falls into the inevitable category, similar to the way it was inevitable that goods would someday be sold online. There's a 100% chance that this idea will be implemented someday by someone. The value is in going first and locking in the market.
You can email me at dilbertcartoonist@gmail.com if you are interested and qualified. It is okay for you to be more curious than serious, as long as you are also qualified to invest.
I should explain my motives clearly. Obviously I wouldn't mind owning 5% of something big. That's a small part of my motivation. It wouldn't change my lifestyle.
Secondly, I'm curious how this experiment will play out. I genuinely wonder if it is possible to sell a business idea. My prediction is that it can't be done. This will be an interesting test.
Third, and most important, this idea would be deeply transformative to the entire world, in an enormously positive way. Governments would save gigantic amounts of money and economies would soar, although the economic impact could take several years to play out. One of my tricks for staying interested in life is that I like to have a few "change the world" ideas in play at any given time, no matter how unlikely they are. This fits that model perfectly. The odds of any startup working are tiny, but if this one worked, holy cow.
I'll update blog readers on whether I get any interest. I won't name names of people who respond.
If I get no responses, or no one is interested, I will describe my idea sometime next week just to get it out there.
How many of you think that qualified venture capitalists will ask to see the idea?
So I take it as a challenge to see if I can sell a raw idea. I have a specific business idea in mind. It has the potential to change the world in a fundamental way and yet it is little more than a combination of existing ideas that are proven and successful. No inventions are necessary. This idea is in the Internet realm, broadly speaking.
Let's agree that the odds are high that someone is already pursuing this business idea. That's true with most of my ideas - at least the good ones. Whatever I noticed in the environment that triggered the idea in me is probably triggering a similar idea elsewhere. So I have to deal with that risk when I design a mechanism to sell my idea.
My model for selling my idea, while mitigating the risk for the buyer, is this: I'll accept 5% equity in the business once created. If no business is created, no money is owed.
I will limit my offer to experienced venture capital professionals. This idea probably requires a $10 million startup cost, and the buyer would have to assemble the team. The upside potential is probably similar to Amazon.com, just for sizing purposes.
If you have access to that amount of cash, and you're curious about the idea, there is no risk in asking for an explanation. Just send me a brief email explaining your interest and include a link to your firm's website that lists you as a partner. I won't ask for a non-disclosure agreement because credible players don't stay in business long if they steal ideas.
If you hear my idea and decide to pass, it costs you nothing and you will have satisfied your curiosity. I will explain my idea by email to interested and qualified parties in the same order as the requests come in. Each requestor will have two working days to accept or pass. After two days, or a decision to pass, I will move the offer to the next interested party.
I will not be involved in implementing the idea beyond describing it.
If you would like some background on the quality of my ideas in general, my blog has plenty of examples stretching back several years. At least 95% of my ideas are ill-conceived or impractical. But I usually know it. I think this particular idea falls into the inevitable category, similar to the way it was inevitable that goods would someday be sold online. There's a 100% chance that this idea will be implemented someday by someone. The value is in going first and locking in the market.
You can email me at dilbertcartoonist@gmail.com if you are interested and qualified. It is okay for you to be more curious than serious, as long as you are also qualified to invest.
I should explain my motives clearly. Obviously I wouldn't mind owning 5% of something big. That's a small part of my motivation. It wouldn't change my lifestyle.
Secondly, I'm curious how this experiment will play out. I genuinely wonder if it is possible to sell a business idea. My prediction is that it can't be done. This will be an interesting test.
Third, and most important, this idea would be deeply transformative to the entire world, in an enormously positive way. Governments would save gigantic amounts of money and economies would soar, although the economic impact could take several years to play out. One of my tricks for staying interested in life is that I like to have a few "change the world" ideas in play at any given time, no matter how unlikely they are. This fits that model perfectly. The odds of any startup working are tiny, but if this one worked, holy cow.
I'll update blog readers on whether I get any interest. I won't name names of people who respond.
If I get no responses, or no one is interested, I will describe my idea sometime next week just to get it out there.
How many of you think that qualified venture capitalists will ask to see the idea?
September 27, 2012
Gangnam Style
Okay, I've been doing my best to avoid looking at the new viral video called Gangnam Style by a Korean musician named PSY. I could tell from the headlines the video would involve some Korean guy dancing in a dorky style to bad music. How good could that be, right?
But curiosity got the best of me. I had to know what makes this particular video a global phenomenon. So I clicked, and I watched, expecting to be underwhelmed. I was wrong. It's totally awesome and thoroughly recommendable.
For me, the fascination involves figuring out what makes this video ridiculously entertaining. The music is so generic I feel as if I've heard it before. The dancing is literally laugh-out-loud funny. The star, PSY, is the very definition of extraordinarily uncool. The videography looks random and amateurish. When you put all of those bad elements together you get...awesome? WTF?
On some level I thought I was laughing at the star. But I couldn't quite commit to that point of view because something about the entire video absolutely works. Is this one of those million-monkeys-with-typewriter situations applied to Internet video? Is it pure luck that the seemingly bad elements all come together to create an awesome whole? Or is there some sort of clever genius at work? I absolutely can't tell, and that's what makes this thing so fascinating.
Remember that genius comes in many forms. I think we'd agree there's no musical genius happening with this video. But someone involved with this video imagined all of the pieces together, produced it, and hit it out of the park. Is the music video director the genius, or maybe a choreographer, or is PSY the brilliant one?
Or is it just dumb luck that the elements came together?
My best guess is that serendipity plus some sort of visual arts genius is involved.
What do you think? Is it luck or genius?
(If you haven't seen the video yet, turn up the sound and get ready to have a good time. It's a good way to start a weekend.)
But curiosity got the best of me. I had to know what makes this particular video a global phenomenon. So I clicked, and I watched, expecting to be underwhelmed. I was wrong. It's totally awesome and thoroughly recommendable.
For me, the fascination involves figuring out what makes this video ridiculously entertaining. The music is so generic I feel as if I've heard it before. The dancing is literally laugh-out-loud funny. The star, PSY, is the very definition of extraordinarily uncool. The videography looks random and amateurish. When you put all of those bad elements together you get...awesome? WTF?
On some level I thought I was laughing at the star. But I couldn't quite commit to that point of view because something about the entire video absolutely works. Is this one of those million-monkeys-with-typewriter situations applied to Internet video? Is it pure luck that the seemingly bad elements all come together to create an awesome whole? Or is there some sort of clever genius at work? I absolutely can't tell, and that's what makes this thing so fascinating.
Remember that genius comes in many forms. I think we'd agree there's no musical genius happening with this video. But someone involved with this video imagined all of the pieces together, produced it, and hit it out of the park. Is the music video director the genius, or maybe a choreographer, or is PSY the brilliant one?
Or is it just dumb luck that the elements came together?
My best guess is that serendipity plus some sort of visual arts genius is involved.
What do you think? Is it luck or genius?
(If you haven't seen the video yet, turn up the sound and get ready to have a good time. It's a good way to start a weekend.)
September 25, 2012
Air Tunnels
Suppose you built a huge tunnel with one end at a cold beach and the other end thirty miles inland. Warm air rises, so you'd be sucking in the cold air at the beach and exhaling it at the warm inland side. You would literally have a wind tunnel.
Now suppose the warm end of the tunnel has lots of little hoses distributed to individual homes that require air conditioning. Now you have air conditioning as a public utility. Every home would draw in cool air from the beach and exhale it though a sun-warmed chimney.
At night, when the homes don't need as much air conditioning, everyone shuts their hose, opens their windows and goes to bed. There's still a temperature differential because the beach end of the tunnel is always colder. So at the warm end of the tunnel a huge door slides open to allow a new direction for the air to escape, past windmill-type generators. The generators would produce electricity all night and help pay for the tunnel.
In the winter, when you want warm air, the beach side of the tunnel is sealed and a solar concentrator one mile up from the beach comes online. It uses mirrors to focus sunlight on thermal mass around the tunnel to superheat it. The warm air would travel up the tunnel to the homes. The thermal mass at the solar concentrator side would stay warmer than the air for hours after the sun went down.
I realize none of this is practical or economical. It just bugs me that I need to pay money to change the temperature of air in my home when there's plenty of free air at exactly the right temperature just a few miles away. And that air wants to be where I am. It just needs a tunnel.
Is there a smarter (economical) way to solve this problem?
Now suppose the warm end of the tunnel has lots of little hoses distributed to individual homes that require air conditioning. Now you have air conditioning as a public utility. Every home would draw in cool air from the beach and exhale it though a sun-warmed chimney.
At night, when the homes don't need as much air conditioning, everyone shuts their hose, opens their windows and goes to bed. There's still a temperature differential because the beach end of the tunnel is always colder. So at the warm end of the tunnel a huge door slides open to allow a new direction for the air to escape, past windmill-type generators. The generators would produce electricity all night and help pay for the tunnel.
In the winter, when you want warm air, the beach side of the tunnel is sealed and a solar concentrator one mile up from the beach comes online. It uses mirrors to focus sunlight on thermal mass around the tunnel to superheat it. The warm air would travel up the tunnel to the homes. The thermal mass at the solar concentrator side would stay warmer than the air for hours after the sun went down.
I realize none of this is practical or economical. It just bugs me that I need to pay money to change the temperature of air in my home when there's plenty of free air at exactly the right temperature just a few miles away. And that air wants to be where I am. It just needs a tunnel.
Is there a smarter (economical) way to solve this problem?
September 23, 2012
Imagination Interface
Economies are driven by imagination. We give it other names, such as consumer confidence, expectations, and forecasts. It all boils down to imagining the future. If you imagine you'll have plenty of money tomorrow, you'll spend more of your savings today. If you think tomorrow will be challenging, you hoard your cash to be safe.
Our current economic situation is often described as a lack of demand. The country has capital to invest, and savings to spend, but people aren't so sure this is the right time. You wouldn't, for example, buy a house unless you imagine property values to be heading up instead of down.
A recent study showed that you can influence how much people save for retirement by having subjects simply imagine themselves older. When you imagine an old version of yourself, it changes how you act today.
Presidential election years are especially good for imagined futures. At the moment, both the supporters of Mitt Romney and the supporters of President Obama see a brighter future ahead because both groups imagine victory, and with it the improved economy they crave. The problem is that the day after the votes are counted half of the country will turn deeply pessimistic and imagine tragedy. According to the imagination theory of economics, you'd expect stocks to zoom with optimism as we approach a close election (check!) and a deep pullback right after the election when half the country turns to instant pessimism.
The three presidents who did the best job of manipulating citizen imaginations were probably Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton. The economy was strong under each of their administrations.
President Obama is a master at manipulating our imaginations with his hope and change message. But I think Republicans have done an effective job of blunting his imagined future with their large doses of obstructionist reality and imagined drift toward greater socialism. The President's plan of taxing the rich doesn't feel like optimism; it feels more like the stranded survivors of a plane crash voting to eat the fat people first.
If society descends into chaos after the elections, for whatever reason, and I am forced into my role as Emergency Backup Leader (EBL), I'll use the country's collective imagination as my user interface to steer civilization back on course. I'll literally tell people to imagine being generous to the people in need, and imagine the wheels of commerce rolling forward. I'll ask people to remember how constipated and bloated the government was before civilization imploded and to imagine how we can learn from past problems and design a better model.
Rationalists will scoff at my methods and deride the idea of an imagination interface as new-age magic. They will compare it to the bestselling book The Secret. They will demand data-driven executive decisions, not gazing at crystals and thinking happy thoughts. I'll make all of the rational decisions that are needed, especially in cases where it will improve confidence. But I think science supports the notion that the job of a leader is to control imagination. When you get the imagination right, capitalism has all the direction it needs.
When things get so tough that only the rich have resources to spare, I'll ask the wealthy to imagine a future conversation in which someone asks what they did to help the country through its tough patch. I'll ask them to imagine remembering with pride how they intelligently opened the spigots to their capital and let it flow into the economy, boosting demand and increasing optimism when it was needed most. Perhaps some of the rich will imagine hiring more people than they needed. Others might imagine they invested in more projects than they would have normally bitten off. Some might imagine feeding the poor. It will be a source of great imagined pride - sort of a Greatest Generation thing - and an opportunity for the rich to regain respect in society.
Let's hope the economy self-corrects before I need to test that approach.
Our current economic situation is often described as a lack of demand. The country has capital to invest, and savings to spend, but people aren't so sure this is the right time. You wouldn't, for example, buy a house unless you imagine property values to be heading up instead of down.
A recent study showed that you can influence how much people save for retirement by having subjects simply imagine themselves older. When you imagine an old version of yourself, it changes how you act today.
Presidential election years are especially good for imagined futures. At the moment, both the supporters of Mitt Romney and the supporters of President Obama see a brighter future ahead because both groups imagine victory, and with it the improved economy they crave. The problem is that the day after the votes are counted half of the country will turn deeply pessimistic and imagine tragedy. According to the imagination theory of economics, you'd expect stocks to zoom with optimism as we approach a close election (check!) and a deep pullback right after the election when half the country turns to instant pessimism.
The three presidents who did the best job of manipulating citizen imaginations were probably Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton. The economy was strong under each of their administrations.
President Obama is a master at manipulating our imaginations with his hope and change message. But I think Republicans have done an effective job of blunting his imagined future with their large doses of obstructionist reality and imagined drift toward greater socialism. The President's plan of taxing the rich doesn't feel like optimism; it feels more like the stranded survivors of a plane crash voting to eat the fat people first.
If society descends into chaos after the elections, for whatever reason, and I am forced into my role as Emergency Backup Leader (EBL), I'll use the country's collective imagination as my user interface to steer civilization back on course. I'll literally tell people to imagine being generous to the people in need, and imagine the wheels of commerce rolling forward. I'll ask people to remember how constipated and bloated the government was before civilization imploded and to imagine how we can learn from past problems and design a better model.
Rationalists will scoff at my methods and deride the idea of an imagination interface as new-age magic. They will compare it to the bestselling book The Secret. They will demand data-driven executive decisions, not gazing at crystals and thinking happy thoughts. I'll make all of the rational decisions that are needed, especially in cases where it will improve confidence. But I think science supports the notion that the job of a leader is to control imagination. When you get the imagination right, capitalism has all the direction it needs.
When things get so tough that only the rich have resources to spare, I'll ask the wealthy to imagine a future conversation in which someone asks what they did to help the country through its tough patch. I'll ask them to imagine remembering with pride how they intelligently opened the spigots to their capital and let it flow into the economy, boosting demand and increasing optimism when it was needed most. Perhaps some of the rich will imagine hiring more people than they needed. Others might imagine they invested in more projects than they would have normally bitten off. Some might imagine feeding the poor. It will be a source of great imagined pride - sort of a Greatest Generation thing - and an opportunity for the rich to regain respect in society.
Let's hope the economy self-corrects before I need to test that approach.
September 19, 2012
Motivation Drug
Warning: This blog is written for a rational audience that likes to have fun wrestling with unique or controversial points of view. It is written in a style that can easily be confused as advocacy or opinion. It is not intended to change anyone's beliefs or actions. If you quote from this post or link to it, which you are welcome to do, please take responsibility for whatever happens if you mismatch the audience and the content.
---------------------------------
Studies show that people have different levels of intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is another way of saying a person's body chemistry is such that it produces enthusiasm for doing hard work and creating great things. I predict that someday a drug will be able to mimic or stimulate whatever body chemistry produces intrinsic motivation. When that drug is developed - and I predict that it will be, or maybe it already exists - could it ever become legal and widely prescribed?
For a drug to become legal it needs to be safe, and it needs to address a real medical problem in a way that benefits society. Let's assume this motivation drug produces the same body chemistry that any naturally-motivated person enjoys. That sort of drug seems safer than introducing entirely foreign chemistry to a body. It would probably be no riskier than testosterone injections or other hormone therapies, meaning there would be some risk, but not enough to keep it off the market.
The next hurdle involves labeling a lack of motivation as a medical problem. I think that would be the easy part. Any pharmaceutical company that creates such a drug would spend huge amounts to get that designation. And their argument would be solid. A lack of motivation can ruin a person's life as well as the life of anyone who is economically linked to that person. That's a strong argument. The definition of a medical need is fairly flexible.
Obviously some unmotivated people are influenced by their circumstances more than their body chemistries. It's hard to feel motivated if you're surrounded by people who feel doomed, look doomed, and tell you that you are doomed too. Still, we see highly motivated people emerge from just about any form of poverty. So we know that chemistry - if it is just right - can overcome environment. As a practical matter, it might be cheaper and easier to tweak the motivational chemistry of people who are in bad circumstances instead of trying to fix their circumstances and hope that's enough to stimulate their natural motivation.
I can also imagine Republicans and Democrats being on the same page and supporting such a drug. Republicans think poor people lack motivation, so a motivation pill would fit right into their ideology. Democrats tend to go where the scientific consensus leads (evolution, climate change), and if science says unmotivated people can be helped by a prescription drug, why not?
This idea is easy enough to test. I believe the medication for ADHD acts like speed (and feels like motivation) for people who don't have ADHD. Just pick a poor community and put a random sample of volunteers on the drug and see what happens. If the drugged kids get better grades and the drugged adults increase their incomes compared to peers, and they have no worse side effects than ADHD patients, you have everything you need to allow doctors to prescribe the drug off label.
I think you'll see some version of this happen after science finishes chipping away at the glorification of free will, and society starts to understand itself as a bunch of moist robots that sometimes need chemical tuning.
September 18, 2012
Quote Approval
In a New York Times opinion piece, David Carr worries that the practice of quote approval is diminishing the news. In recent years, government and business leaders often agree to interviews only on the condition that they have approval over their quotes. The reason for that condition, obviously, is to scrub out any accidental truth-telling that sounds bad when taken out of context. The problem for the media is that a large amount of what qualifies as "news" is nothing but quotes taken out of context. If you take that away, it's bad for business.
Consider the news this week about Mitt Romney's comments at a fundraiser. He said, "I don't care about them" when talking about the 47% of voters who pay no federal income taxes. Taken out of context it sounds like a rich guy saying he doesn't care about the poor. But in its proper context it's nothing but smart campaign strategy. According to Romney, the people who depend on government support have made up their minds to vote for Obama, so it makes more sense for Romney to focus his campaign message on the undecided folks. Who would argue with that? I assume President Obama's campaign is also focusing on undecided voters while ignoring hard-core conservatives that have made up their minds.
Also in the past week, a quote from 1998 is surfacing in which Obama said he supports wealth redistribution "at least at a certain level." Out of context it sounds like he wants to take money from people who work and give it to those who don't. In its proper context it means he supports the current tax system which gets most of its revenue from the rich and uses it to create opportunities for the poor, through education, and other social programs. Almost every citizen supports wealth redistribution "at a certain level" just by supporting public funding of schools.
I've been interviewed several hundred times in my career. When I see my quotes taken out of context it is often horrifying. Your jaw would drop if you saw how often quotes are literally manufactured by writers to make a point. Some of it is accidental because reporters try to listen and take notes at the same time. But much of it is obviously intentional. So much so that when I see quotes in any news report I discount them entirely. In the best case, quotes are out of context. In the worst case, the quotes are totally manufactured.
I've also been in a number of interviews in which the writer tried to force a quote to fit a narrative that's already been formed. The way that looks is that the writer asks the same question in ten different ways, each time trying to lead the witness to a damning or controversial quote. It's a dangerous situation because humans are wired to want to please, and once you pick up on what a writer wants you to say, it's hard to resist delivering it. That looks like this.
Writer: What is your opinion on leprechauns?
Famous person: I don't have one.
Writer: So you wouldn't say you like leprechauns?
Famous person: Probably not.
Writer: Probably not what?
Famous person: I wouldn't say that about leprechauns.
Writer: Wouldn't say what?
Famous person: I wouldn't say I like them.
At that point the writer has his quote about leprechauns: "I wouldn't say I like them." The context will be removed later. The manufactured news will say that a famous person is a racist leprechaun-hater. The evidence is that he said so in his own words.
If that sounds like an exaggeration, you probably haven't been interviewed several hundred times. If any famous people are reading this, I assume they are chuckling with recognition.
The cousin to the manufactured quote, and even more dangerous, is the interpreted quote. That's when a person with low reading comprehension, or bad intentions, or both, misinterprets a quote, then replaces the actual quote with the misinterpretation. That path might look like this:
Original quote: "Some men are rapists. Society needs to punish them."
Morph One: "He says men are rapists."
Morph Two: "He says all men are rapists by nature."
Morph Three: "He excuses rape because he says it's natural."
One of the lessons I learned the hard way is that you never mention a topic in an interview that you fear might be misinterpreted. When I'm asked about my family upbringing, for example, I usually just say it was "normal" and try to change the subject. When I'm asked my opinion about other cartoonists, I usually say I don't comment on other peoples' art.
Quote approval is certainly bad for the news industry because it reduces the opportunities for manufacturing news and artificial controversies. But on balance, I'd say quote approval adds more to truth than it subtracts.
Consider the news this week about Mitt Romney's comments at a fundraiser. He said, "I don't care about them" when talking about the 47% of voters who pay no federal income taxes. Taken out of context it sounds like a rich guy saying he doesn't care about the poor. But in its proper context it's nothing but smart campaign strategy. According to Romney, the people who depend on government support have made up their minds to vote for Obama, so it makes more sense for Romney to focus his campaign message on the undecided folks. Who would argue with that? I assume President Obama's campaign is also focusing on undecided voters while ignoring hard-core conservatives that have made up their minds.
Also in the past week, a quote from 1998 is surfacing in which Obama said he supports wealth redistribution "at least at a certain level." Out of context it sounds like he wants to take money from people who work and give it to those who don't. In its proper context it means he supports the current tax system which gets most of its revenue from the rich and uses it to create opportunities for the poor, through education, and other social programs. Almost every citizen supports wealth redistribution "at a certain level" just by supporting public funding of schools.
I've been interviewed several hundred times in my career. When I see my quotes taken out of context it is often horrifying. Your jaw would drop if you saw how often quotes are literally manufactured by writers to make a point. Some of it is accidental because reporters try to listen and take notes at the same time. But much of it is obviously intentional. So much so that when I see quotes in any news report I discount them entirely. In the best case, quotes are out of context. In the worst case, the quotes are totally manufactured.
I've also been in a number of interviews in which the writer tried to force a quote to fit a narrative that's already been formed. The way that looks is that the writer asks the same question in ten different ways, each time trying to lead the witness to a damning or controversial quote. It's a dangerous situation because humans are wired to want to please, and once you pick up on what a writer wants you to say, it's hard to resist delivering it. That looks like this.
Writer: What is your opinion on leprechauns?
Famous person: I don't have one.
Writer: So you wouldn't say you like leprechauns?
Famous person: Probably not.
Writer: Probably not what?
Famous person: I wouldn't say that about leprechauns.
Writer: Wouldn't say what?
Famous person: I wouldn't say I like them.
At that point the writer has his quote about leprechauns: "I wouldn't say I like them." The context will be removed later. The manufactured news will say that a famous person is a racist leprechaun-hater. The evidence is that he said so in his own words.
If that sounds like an exaggeration, you probably haven't been interviewed several hundred times. If any famous people are reading this, I assume they are chuckling with recognition.
The cousin to the manufactured quote, and even more dangerous, is the interpreted quote. That's when a person with low reading comprehension, or bad intentions, or both, misinterprets a quote, then replaces the actual quote with the misinterpretation. That path might look like this:
Original quote: "Some men are rapists. Society needs to punish them."
Morph One: "He says men are rapists."
Morph Two: "He says all men are rapists by nature."
Morph Three: "He excuses rape because he says it's natural."
One of the lessons I learned the hard way is that you never mention a topic in an interview that you fear might be misinterpreted. When I'm asked about my family upbringing, for example, I usually just say it was "normal" and try to change the subject. When I'm asked my opinion about other cartoonists, I usually say I don't comment on other peoples' art.
Quote approval is certainly bad for the news industry because it reduces the opportunities for manufacturing news and artificial controversies. But on balance, I'd say quote approval adds more to truth than it subtracts.
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