The Hive Mind

A New Social Media Angle?

I like this story from NPR:

So You Think You're Smarter Than A CIA Agent

Basically, a test was run on everyday Americans to see if they could predict world events as well as your average CIA specialist.  Surprisingly, a small elite, comprising 1% of all those tested, was 30% more accurate.

The immediate reaction most people will have to this apparent comeuppance is to think, "Yeah, we don't need eggheads in Langley throwing darts at the wall to decide what's going to happen in Chad.  But is predicting the future what the CIA does?  Or is it knowing who to contact, where, and what to say or not say?

A good case could be made for both understanding the world and dialing back our 'experts'.  Reading through 'comments' in the story linked to above gives one a taste for both sides.

What I find intriguing, though, is that ordinary people, with a little googling, find they're actually quite good at knowing where fate is headed.  For example, will Scotland vote to leave Great Britain?

What if a website offered anyone who wanted it a chance to predict, opine and advise?  Participants would also look at others' opinions and advice and rate them.  Rankings within various subject areas would advance those who showed a natural talent.

For example, if you were asked to predict which TV shows were likely to endure.  Or which rookie ballplayer was bound for stardom.  Or how many tickets would be sold for a given play, you would eventually find a subject that you did well in.  Or if you were giving advice to people, you might find that you excelled in a certain specialty like relationships or pet problems.

Ideally, the website would pay their 'experts'.  The further you advanced, the more you'd be paid.

This would have the effect of bringing together the best minds on a given subject and focusing them on problem-solving.  We'd be one step closer to the hive mind.

Update: This site comes fairly close.

Asking The Right Questions

Surveys That Don't

As you may have read, recent surveys seem to indicate that the ACA, or ObamaCare, is not popular, with roughly 45% approval and 55% disapproval.  However, when one asks those being surveyed why they disapprove, there's something like a 15% segment of the population that thinks the ACA doesn't go far enough, and that 'Medicare-for-all' or 'single-payer' insurance is the only way to go.  When re-examined in this light, the ACA is mildly popular, 45, 40, 15.  Furthermore, this accounts for why surveys find there's no appetite for repealing ObamaCare; basically, the 45 and 15 are of one mind on that account.

This pattern sheds a light on American politics in general.  When asked if they're Conservative, Moderate or Liberal in their politics, Americans split something like 30, 50, 20.  But that's the wrong question.  For one thing, Conservatives adhere to labels, and to regimentation, as a rule, so there probably are about 30% of Americans who are Conservatives.

On the other hand, the opposite of conservative is actually progressive.  If you like the way things were in the past and try to hang on to that, you're likely a conservative.  If you see history moving towards justice, inclusiveness and expanding horizons, you're likely a progressive.  The trouble with asking where progressives place themselves on a conservative --> liberal continuum is that most progressives want to be where the 'sweet spot' is; where the most progress can be made.  Sometimes this means being moderate; other times it means pushing hard for what's right.

Here's an example.  The Obama presidency has been criticized for being too harsh when it comes to the War on Drugs.  Some liberals would have the president move much faster to lighten penalties, allow for treatment instead of prison, etc.  What this critique ignores is the danger in moving too fast.  A political party can be rolled up and tossed out of the White House like an old, holey rug, once a majority of the public settles on a narrative that views presidential policy as unwise.  In this regard there are no second chances and a swing to a Republican presidency risks a major relapse (no CO and WA recreational marijuana, most likely).

In other matters, progress can be sudden.  ObamaCare is a good example.  If one examines the play-by-play, the ACA was the sweet spot.  A 'public option' that would have competed with private insurers was just out of reach (Senator Joe Lieberman of CT was the needed vote that got away).  But to have solid medical insurance is something quite wonderful if you're one of the tens of millions who've already benefitted and will likely sign up in coming years.  

Perhaps only a plurality of voters support ObamaCare, but that's because they were asked the wrong question.  The right question would instead be: Was it possible for ObamaCare to have been more to your liking, given the Congress we had in 2010?

The Worst Kind of Conservatism

What's 'Conservative'?

This past year the good people of Quincy, where I live, elected a new, Republican mayor after many years of Democrats at the helm.  

Mayor Moore, a young, energetic man, first came to my attention by going door-to-door to all the homes in his city ward, drumming up support, first for his aldermanic election, and then for his mayoral race.  

This enthusiasm followed him into office, where he advocated transparency and accountability, promising that residents would get a report card on the workings of their government.  This admirable politics was accompanied by a privatizer's zeal, economically speaking, notably the scuttling of a stalled investment in hydro-electric power on the Mississippi river.  A developer had offered to pay the city a large annual sum in exchange for a 40-year lease on two hydro-electric dams.  Moore thought this wasn't government's role and let a $5 million investment, that had hit repeated snags, go.  

I soon thereafter read in the local paper that he had focused his privatizer's attention on the city's trash/recycling budget, and applying the same political philosophy, suggested that private contractors be asked to bid on what had traditionally been done by city workers.

With bids revealed, town hall meetings were held in order to gauge public opinion.  The citizens of Quincy were not happy.  The shock of seeing the flat rate that everybody would be asked to pay, compared to the progressive rate that had effectively been payed (the richer pay more taxes and so, in effect, pay more for pickup) was too much.  There was also the key issue of recycling.  Since Quincy sells garbage bag stickers that must be placed on each trash bag set out for collection (the .50¢ per bag helps defray costs), the tradition had been that those who recycled more paid less than those who threw their aluminum cans out with their broken dishes.  Moore's privatizing would remove this incentive to recycle.

The matter remains unresolved as of this writing, but does expose the difference between real and phony conservatism.  

A true conservative, whether Democrat or Republican, immediately sees that recycling should be encouraged and progressive taxation is preferable to a flat rate.  It's only the 'conservative', more interested in toeing the party line (privatization is always the better answer), that would question the conserving of resources, not to mention asking everyone to pay their fair share in affordable taxes.

The most likely resolution to the issue, among those proposed so far, is to raise the price of trash stickers to either $1.00 or $1.50 a piece to encourage even more recycling (the price has not been raised in over 20 years).  This would make the trash/recycling process solvent.  It would, however, diminish tax progressivity, as pickup would be funded partially or wholly with stickers instead of predominantly with tax revenue.  So, perhaps the $1.00 price for stickers is the answer.

What Is Brain Power?

Am I Already Losing It?

You may have recently read about a scientific paper arguing that older brains are slower than younger because they've had so much more material to sift through, not that they're necessarily losing brain power in nosedive fashion as they age.  

And if you did hear of such a paper, and you're older, you, like me, probably let out a sigh of relief.  The original paper and a summary by National Geographic.

What precipitated the paper were studies that showed how older brains lose the speed at which younger brains can retrieve random words or numbers.  But what Michael Ramscar, a linguistics researcher at the University of Tubingen, in Germany, did to come up with his finding was to create computer simulations of relatively full and empty brains, then compare the difference in processing speed.

Not surprisingly, the fuller brain simulation took longer, and Ramscar then had his finding.

But what all that ignores is context.  Here's an example: I open the garage door, fish for the car keys in my pocket, then realize I've 'forgotten' them in the kitchen.  The first thing most people do is feel beaten down by old age and let out an anguished 'argh'.  The first thing I do is examine my reasons for being on my current path.  Why am I getting in the car?  Almost invariably I'll take my 'forgetfulness' as an omen, or sign that, to again use this example, I didn't really want or need to go anywhere.  Maybe I was asked to get groceries and hadn't had time to remember that I planned to cook something from the garden.

So, imagine a test of brain power that doesn't focus on retrieval speed, but instead asks for contextual awareness.  Let's say 20-year-olds and 60-year-olds are given a day of the year, a time of day, a relationship, and asked what would make a good gift from among a list of a dozen possibilities.  I bet such a test would find older brains more adept at picking out the likelier gift.  That's because they've had more practice.

Possibly, what we'd be measuring is not just 'practice', but the migration of brain activity from one lobe (focused on strength and speed of processing) to the integration of lobes (both the former, strength/speed and the other, contextual timeliness) as an individual ages.  

If this is the case, 'forgetfulness' is what we do to attempt to force one lobe to integrate with the other.  And sometimes the result can be jarring--especially if we pay no heed to the little hints we provide for ourselves--in the above example, we might think of watering our garden when fishing for our car keys.  Or, we have an 'accident' on the way to the grocery store, as our 'forgetfulness' provokes all out mutiny.

There's also real mental decline in some middle aged and older brains.  We all probably know or have heard of people who really are losing it.  In these cases medical science is hot on the trail of drugs to stave off the worst.  I predict, however, that most mental loss, up to a certain age, is simply the loss of purpose in life.  And if I'm right, I wouldn't be surprised if 'purpose' is another name for the way we integrate our two brain lobes into a fruitful singularity.   

Anonymous Safety

Why Not Accountable Anonymity?

1 recently read Pacific Standard's cover article, by Amanda Hess, on a woman's experience being harassed online (warning, very troubling).  This got me wondering about internet anonymity and whether an "I'm anonymous, sure, but I'm legit" email service might be possible.

Let's say you want to hide your real identity for legitimate reasons.  What if there were an 'anonymous' address site charging $50 a year, that had a reputation for kicking out those who abused their anonymity.  The site would do this using your annual fee to respond to complaints sent in regarding unacceptable behavior.  

Perhaps there could be a software function built into the site that legitimizes or rejects complaints merely by matching a flagged message with a data set of actual sent messages and then looking for telltale words.  There would be no privacy in this, of course.   Once you sign up, you're inherently allowing the site to read your emails. but it's voluntary and results in...privacy...with a pedigree.

There'd have to be a group acting as judges who'd read complaints, once they were confirmed, and then decide on whether to issue a warning, or suspend an account, if a line had in their opinion been crossed (site policy would of course have to be spelled out in detail).  

As the site acquired a name and reputation for itself, potential trouble-makers would be dissuaded from using the site (since they'd risk losing their entry fee, or perhaps a deposit, once expelled), and the site's fee would likely then prove self-sustaining. 

Long-term, the site's reputation might encourage other e-mail services to follow suit, and effective on-line policing might be had, all on a voluntary basis.

White Squirrel 8-second Video

We Walk So Plain

Earlier this year (the afternoon of Halloween) I saw our friend here scampering about out in the front yard. 

So, I opened the door, quietly, and held up my phone for a few seconds.  Luckily, the squirrel made a preparatory hop or two before one long dash, which was unfortunately all the video I took.  

The sight of a white squirrel seems to coincide, in my experience, with the advent of a mystical experience: an epiphany out of the blue. 

The first white squirrel I ever saw was first spotted by my brother on January 1st 2000.

Are you ready for a miracle?

Where's the White Squirrel now?  We think he was here for our nuts.  So, next year we're hoping to see our friend once again.

Gamified Labor 'On The Clock'

My Own Pace

In June of 1991 I began my career as a rural letter carrier, working for the Post Office.

And what a lucky break that was.

Why lucky?  Rural carriers (as opposed to city carriers) are paid a daily salary based on the difficulty of their route.  Routes are periodically evaluated to determine how many boxes and miles are involved, and how much mail carried.  Mileage, boxes and quantities of various kinds of mail are fed into a spreadsheet that generates an expected number of hours a day.  But whether rural carriers take more or less time to deliver on a given day, they're paid for that evaluation.  Which means that work can become a game, with efficiency king.

What do I mean by efficiency?   Work is not recreation.  It is not what we would choose to do if we weren't being paid to do it.  So, the mind's natural reaction is to imagine ways to minimize work.  This is being efficient.  The unnatural reaction most work pushes us towards involves doing the least amount of actual work in the greatest amount of time; being inefficient.

We all know the psychology involved in being inefficient.  If waiting in the doctor's office, for example, the desire for time to pass is greater than the delight in exploring the present.  Work is similar.  If paid by the hour, there's no natural incentive to minimize work.  In fact, if our workload is increased when we're more productive, efficiency actually works against us.  Likewise, if paid by the hour to do a specific task, like fix a sink or toilet, the 'natural' reaction is to prolong the task.  Which means that because most people are honorable, they're constantly fighting the headwind of their own self-interest.

Placed in this context, a rural carrier's evaluated pay system, since it harmonizes the interests of worker and management, is wonderful indeed.   But there's more!   I've found that as a worker on the lookout for efficiencies I learn to be awake to opportunity, and this rubs off on home life, and some might say, on personality in general.  And this, in turn, allows us as humans, potentially, to progress.  When we're generally more aware and conscious of the choices we make, we all benefit.

If we can find a way to use 'evaluated' pay in other lines of employment, then, the game is afoot.

All of us have likely been in a Post Office, have stood in line, and been waited on by a postal clerk.  And most of the time we're likely too busy with our own experience to imagine what it's like to work behind the counter.  But for a moment, let's stand in a clerk's shoes and pretend that each transaction we complete, whether it's selling stamps, mailing a package or answering a question, is automatically recorded electronically.  Our 'transactions total' for the day is then compared to an evaluation based on engineered time studies that determine how long a particular duty takes.  If we complete 100% or less of our evaluation, there's no effect on our paycheck.  Anything over 100%, however, is added to paid vacation, which we use at a later date at our discretion.

We're motivated!  If we keep customers moving through the waiting line by seeking out efficiencies, we win.

Yeah, but what about the quality of our work?  Wouldn't we naturally want to rush customers through and treat them as mere figures on a flowchart?  Not if our evaluation included the quality, as well as the quantity of our work.  Mystery shoppers, who evaluate the postal window experience, have long been used by postal management to keep track of work quality.

And how does management benefit?  Simple, because many attempts by clerks to reach the 100+% zone would abandon 80 and 90% for 90 and 100%.  Plus, fewer hours are needed, if eight clerks can do the work of nine.

Would this work for other lines of employment that don't have a computerized record of every transaction?  Maybe.  It certainly could work for individual post offices, many of which are currently micro-managed from above.

Examples of management bloat in modern bureaucracy are not hard to come by.  Top-down yes-sir toadying is the bane of effective operations.  The antidote is localized decision-making.  And in an age of computerized analysis, where all statistics, including the mighty bottom line, are at a manager's fingertips, it should be a simple matter of setting guidelines, and progressively elevated expectations, then getting out of the way.  For the US Postal Service, this could mean that an individual postmaster who improves, overall, on a mix of performance measures is given greater autonomy.

This wouldn't be a namby-pamby lack of supervision (fewer periodic 'inspections'), but rather, things like allowing unions to self-regulate (keeping office-wide statistical records that are used to reform and reward); small-bore, but significant revenue sharing (bonuses for consistent improvement); and dramatic media --> community outreach (maybe contests to earmark a share of bonuses to charity and so encourage the use of post office products).

For all its attractions, the gamification of labor will likely take a while to catch on, so the more likely, early adopters, will probably have to convince the otherwise skeptical by example.  The Postal Service with its intense, internal record-keeping seems a likely place to start.