ON Anger

John Phipps has turned against the Paulson bailout plan. He sees it as doomed because of anger at inequality, the resentment of financiers getting big bucks, then being rescued.

For some reason my thoughts turned to the late 60's, when some inner-city blacks were very angry, angry enough to riot and burn down their neighborhoods.

Treat Your Employees Like Dogs

At the cost of forever blowing any reputation I might have as a boss, let me point to this post on Amazon daily, about 10 rules on dealing with dogs. (After each rule the writer explains and amplifies.) Naturally, I thought of employees:

1. A dog is a dog
2. All dogs think in terms of packs
3. Dogs don't understand English
4. Dogs are not spiteful
5. What makes some dogs aggressive
6. Body language is a dogs primary mode of communication
   
7. You can teach an old dog new tricks
8. Bad behaviors may be natural, but they don't have to be normal
9. What is the right way to discipline a dog
10. Do dogs sense the world differently than humans

Her bottom line is essentially: put yourself in the dog's paws and look at the world through the dog's eyes in order to know how to deal with it. Good advice for people, too. Advice usually ignored by the politicians and the public when they deal with their employees--the bureaucrats, who seem to be less than dogs.

Disinformation

Shankar Vedantam is back, reporting on interesting research on how misinformation may still have an effect after it's corrected. I'm dubious of the reported difference between conservatives and liberals in this regard--my beginning position is they're both human, and both would operate similarly: i.e, my enemy is a bad, misinformed, lying s.o.b. But it does make one think, particularly someone who is as into politics as I am. One reason I do try to somewhat balance the blogs I read, despite the dangers to my blood pressure.

John Sides at the Monkey Cage provides URL for the research.

Slips of the Tongue

I've never been particularly articulate, tongue-tied and shy is more like it. So I tend not to laugh at people who misspeak, with the possible exception of the current President, for whom I like to find excuses to laugh at.

I'm also interested in how the brain works, so this analysis of recent miscues, with links to past analyses of past errors on both sides of the aisle was good reading. Hat Tip: Eugene Volokh

Truth Telling--How Do You Do It

Howard Kurtz has a long piece on David Carr, the NYTimes writer who published an excerpt from his new book in the NYTimes Magazine yesterday: This is the way he starts:

David Carr's latest subject is a pathetic human being, a thug, a manipulative jerk who uses people and puts his own kids in danger.

The New York Times media columnist is writing about himself.

I recommend both the Kurtz piece and the Carr article.

The issue is both, what limits, if any, do you place on telling the truth about yourself and, do you know the truth? Carr's answers are "none" and "no".

On Being an Outsider

The Post tomorrow carries a piece by a Princeton grad, black and female, who is now a Post reporter, discussing her and perhaps Michelle Obama's experiences at Princeton (just stumbled across it).

It struck a cord--she found herself not in the in-group (i.e., the rich preppies) and therefore became more conscious of her blackness. I had a similar experience almost 50 years ago. Not that I was black, but I was a farm boy from upstate NY in a college whose tone was set by urban New York City dwellers. It made me more conscious of being an outsider. But since I wasn't a member of a recognized minority, I was pushed out, not into another group.

Megan and the Drivers

Megan McArdle has a controversy going over people who ride bicycles in the city and exactly how much they should obey traffic laws. A bit amusing, as I remember the "law and order" folks back 40 years ago and [unfairly] attribute their views to modern-day libertarians and conservatives.

On a more serious note, the problem with speeding in cars and jaywalking as a pedestrian and exploiting the confusion surrounding the definition of a bicyclist is it's the liberal fallacy, or maybe the rationalist fallacy: the person believes their intellect and grasp of the situation is right and infallible, not allowing for Murphy's Law. (Of course I speed and jaywalk, even though I'm a bureaucrat I'm also human. I'm just saying, particularly for an older person, life has many surprises.)

Habits Are 45 Percent of Life? Incredible

That's the factoid buried in a NYTimes story on the importance of habits in everyday life, and how big companies manage to instill new habits in the American consumer. The thrust, though, is the importance of developing new habits in developing countries, such as the habit of washing one's hands after using the toilet. (I'm disappointed there was no comparison of the relative difficulties of teaching this habit in Ghana, versus in hospitals to doctors.) The discussion of the manipulation is disturbing, but the need for positive habits is unquestionable, which makes the story very interesting.

I find the factoid incredible, because about 95 percent of my life is habit.

Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name

John Tierney at the Times has a post on hypocrisy, taking off from McCain and Obama's reversals of positions to discuss psychologists' studies of hypocrisy. He describes an interesting tidbit--given a situation in which people are hypocrites (although acknowledging option B is fair and A is unfair, they take option A), if you keep their brain busy with another task like remembering numbers, the same people suddenly take the fair option. It's fascinating, but...

I like to think well of people, at least until I run into some road-hogging whippersnapper in a Hummer, so I'd quibble with Tierney's premise. He dings McCain for switching positions on Bush's tax cuts over a period of 7 years or so, and Obama for switching on public financing. But note both politicians are being hypocrites, if they are, over time. And we're all hypocrites over time. Is there a parent with soul so dead, who never to his kid has said, don't ever do X, when buried in his memory is all the X ever done? Forgive the poor try at poetry, but my serious point is that time changes our viewpoint. And our politicians, unlike the subjects of the psychologists studies, are making decisions in time.

• McCain can reasonably say: I opposed the tax cut in the situation in 2001 based on the information I had, in 2008 the situation is different, the future looks different, and my judgment differs.
• And Obama can reasonably say (perhaps with a tad more difficulty but remember I'm a Dem): no one, not even me or my wife, thought I'd be in the situation I'm in today; no one thought I'd have this fundraising base. I made my pledge as a means to an end, reforming our politics. My campaign has been a model for how our politics can change (no lobbyists, no 527's) and this decision is the right one to ensure my success in achieving office.

I think it's fair to accuse politicians of being windbags, of over-certitude, of selling a penny's worth of ointment as a dollar's worth of cure. And they're hypocrites, just as the rest of us are, even Mr. Tierney.

Psychology as a Science

Article in the New Yorker that's very interesting on the physiological basis for humans knowing numbers (size comparisons, arabic numerals, words). (The article is probably available only for a limited time.) A couple things of note:

• Chinese (Mandarin) has a better mapping of number words (i.e., seven, thirteen, twenty-five) to arabic numerals than does English (presumably instead of "thirteen", they say "one three") which is more efficient.
• there's at least one instance in which the hero of the piece (number researcher) made a valid prediction--he used computer chips to model how the mind operates with numbers. His modeling included a physical feature that was unknown, but was later discovered through advanced CAT scans.) The best test of a science is prediction, so psychology is getting better.
  

Lincoln's Doctor's Dog

Is supposedly the title of a hypothetical bestseller (people like books on Lincoln, on medicine, and on pets). We like pets, period. This Science Daily article is interesting, but I'm not sure I understand it.

Lonely people are more apt to see human traits in pets than non-lonely people? Okay, I can buy that.

Lonely people are more apt to believe in the supernatural? (Not sure whether that's God or UFO's or what). Maybe.

People who aren't lonely are less likely to see human traits in people who are outside their sphere?
??

The Value of Diverse Ideas

Apparently some libertarians are hoping to extend human life indefinitely. The prospect does not appeal, unless medicine can guarantee a 25 year old body and a 45 year old mind. But another reason for death is shown in this New York Times article on innovative minds:

IT’S a pickle of a paradox: As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience.

Those Fancy Jeans Go to High Income Folks

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution links to research on the changing mix of products (i.e, why we used to be satisfied with Levis, Lees, Sears and Monkey Wards jeans, but we no longer are). To summarize a summary, if you've got lots of money you're willing to spend more for "quality", you aren't price conscious. Go back to Veblen for the explanation of what "quality" mean (hint--it's not Consumer Reports quality).

[Just thought--this is a rather negative note upon which to end the year, but I won't guarantee to post again. So happy new year to anyone reading this.]

Most Ridiculous Sentence I Read Today

The fear of not measuring up as a man is highly motivating, but it is not one that motivates women.

From Volokh.com, Kingsley Browne guest-blogging on women in combat.

Not Seeing the Bubble in Front of You

I like John Phipps, but I have to conclude his crystal ball has a bubble in front of it. In this post
triggered by the inability to buy a $300,000 combine, he says:

" In every bubble (which this well could be) the secret was to bet heavily early, and I think this is still early because we are not sure it's a bubble yet."

I think he's wrong--when most people agree it's a bubble, it's too late. (See the tech bubble, see the housing bubble.) It probably made sense to buy farmland in 2005, maybe even 2006, but not in 2007. (I keep remembering the state specialist in Iowa who almost bought a farm too far in 1979.)

John Tierney Explains South Carolina Politics

In the NY Times, John Tierney reports on a study of the impact of gossip on judgments. The bottomline, when it comes down to it, we believe gossip despite the evidence of our eyes. Or, more accurately, gossip sways our decisions even though we know the full story. (Of course, the study was a bit unrealistic--we rarely are in situations where we know we know the full story.) The only positive bit--positive gossip had as much power as negative gossip.

Maybe this explains the recent reports on the Obama is a Muslim urban legend, or the anti-McCain gossip in South Carolina in 2000--the gossip persists and spreads because we're tuned into it as intrinsically valuable, not only do some of us believe it, but it's worth passing on.

The Human Animal, as Seen by Today's Times

From Joseph Nocera on how even Nobel-winning economists aren't rational investors:

Having watched the way investors have behaved since the Crash of ‘87, I’ve come to believe that most human beings are simply not hard-wired to be good investors.

On changes at Macy's (dropping coupons and upscaling lines):

But the changes amounted to “too much, too fast,” Mr. Lundgren acknowledged in an interview. It turns out that men, in particular, are creatures of shopping habit. They want to go to the local department store and find the Dockers where they have always been. [Duh]

From a front pager on what happens to small trusts when the original people are not around and big banks and law firms take over:

With no family members to encourage gifts to the original donor’s favorite causes, the banks and lawyers have wide latitude to change the way the trusts operate and to decide which charities will receive grants.

Banks can reduce gifts and increase the foundation’s assets, thus increasing their fees. At the same time, banks and lawyers stand to gain personal influence and prestige by selecting new charities.

How To Prove Your Intelligence

There's two ways to prove one's intelligence:

• Point out all the problems with a position or proposal, all the reasons it won't work and nothing should be done.
• Figure out how to do something, particularly something that someone else says can't be done. Do so even if it requires a Rube Goldbergian contraption.

I'm particularly fond of the second strategy myself.

My Two Selves

This article by Shankar Vedantam outlines research on our two selves. He leads off with the paradoxes, including that of Sen. Vitter with prostitutes at the same time he was pushing bills on abstinence.

Studies have found that, for some reason, an enormous mental gulf separates "cold" emotional states from "hot" emotional states. When we are not hungry or thirsty or sexually aroused, we find it difficult to understand what effects those factors can have on our behavior. Similarly, when we are excited or angry, it is difficult to think about the consequences of our behavior -- outcomes that are glaringly obvious when we are in a cold emotional state.

Rings true for me. Even though my addictions in life have dwindled, get between me and my Starbucks and I'm pure emotion. I often think the same applies for sports and politics--we become irrationally attached to our team, our positions, and can't apply reason. I know the Redskins won't reach the Super Bowl this year, but I'll still believe. I know George W. is a worthy person (but I immediately ask: "worthy of what?") I hope I'm mostly "cold" on this blog.

People Self-Justify

Shankar Vedantam has a piece in today's Post talking about social psychology. The idea is that, if I injure you, that's incompatible with my self-image, so I'll justify it by saying you weren't really hurt, not that bad, and you really deserved and you're really a bad person or maybe you'll learn from it. And, having worked the injurious act into a web of meaning, I'll soon forget it. Whereas, if you injure me, I'm going to remember it for a long time as something totally unjustified, that I didn't deserve, that shows you're mean, etc.

The psychologists are pushing the theory in connection with Bush (as in, he had to commute Libby's sentence because Libby is a good guy doing good work so couldn't deserve it).

I think it's a reasonable theory. I certainly remember the kids who taunted me in first grade about not being able to pronounce my "ch's", so my "chicken" came out "sh*tken", to the great delight of everyone except me. Showed me forever that people are no damn good. :-)