Showing posts with label changing my mind resolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label changing my mind resolution. Show all posts

Friday, December 31, 2021

Chokeholds Reconsidered - 2021 New Year's Resolution Fulfillment

I fulfilled my perpetual, annual New Year's Resolution in 2021 by changing my mind on the desirability of banning police chokeholds. 

The list of improvements we could make to reduce police state abuses is long. However, one specific policy that I no longer endorse is to ban police chokeholds in all circumstances. It is my view that banning chokeholds for police is a net negative as that leads to more violence including more deadly violence but also the use of batons and other instruments that can inflict long-term damage. 

Forbidding chokeholds negates the ability for a single even well-trained officer to subdue a violent noncompliant subject without using deadly violence. I came to this conclusion after listening to this Sam Harris interview with Rener Gracie, master of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu whose grandfather invented it and who has trained police officers around the country. 

This is not to say that chokeholds should be used often or without extreme reservation. It also is not to say that chokeholds are in any way a non-violent police tactic. Yet completely taking this tool away seems likely to cause more harm than good.

This does reinforce and speak to my bias that banning things is a bad, blunt-force instrument. The world is more complicated than that. And unintended consequences almost always result from such actions.


BONUS: Additionally I changed my mind on my reaction to treating kids with Adderall, et al.  I still think we over prescribe drugs to kids in these circumstances for selfish reasons and we don’t have nearly enough tolerance for deviations from a desired norm—quiet, obedient children. But the dose makes the poison and there are very legitimate uses of dangerous things including of course many drugs. I thank Scott Alexander and his post on how much drugs problematic drug users actually use for changing my mind.

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Yes, Master - 2020 New Year's Resolution fulfillment

You may not remember the before times, but I do. Way back then I had a conviction in a belief, that while I still do hold it, I must admit I was wrong to hold so strongly. I fulfilled my perpetual, annual New Year's Resolution in 2020 by changing my mind on just how easily willing people are to submit to authority when in a state of fear. Let me explain.

Although I am a student of history and well aware of the many cases of a populous submitting to the king, the conqueror, or the soothsayer promising protection for only the price of precious liberty and self-determination, I foolishly and naively did not connect that reality to my view (hope) for the current world. Time and place again throughout 2020 did I find that view shaken and proven faulty. 

There were recent, stark clues that should have told me the line would not hold. 9/11 and the terrorism threat of the early 2000s was but a hint of how quickly and thoroughly people would yield liberty and self determination in the midst of fear. In that case we traded away freedom for security and as the predictive aphorism goes got neither--just theater and blunt rules with unintended consequences and predictable government excess and abuse. 

Likewise in the financial and economic challenges of the last 25 years we saw populist calls for regulation and takings. We got both repeatedly and with greater gusto in each pass. Captured interests worked hard to draft the legislation and interpret the rules to favor vested interest and the status quo. The experts gave us bailouts and promises to never again . . . allow the wealthy and the powerful to face devastating losses. 

And then came a pandemic. I expected tyrannical nations would react harshly. I expected better from the nations of the free. The Higgsian ratchet is a powerful and reliable effect. This is true because FOOL (Fear Of Others' Liberty) and FOOM (Fear Of Others' Mistakes) are dominant forces in times of great stress. 

I believed that people, not just free people but all people, would gradually and eventually strongly resist and rebel against coercive, dictatorial edicts that did not just seem but were proved to be ineffective, unjust, inconsistent, and in many cases counter productive. While resistance occurred, I was and am still shaken with how little was offered. 

Perhaps I am being too harsh on myself. To be clear I am not advocating nor saying I expected violent resistance. That is not required to stop what we have seen. The popular will alone prevents or enables power from corrupting to this degree. So maybe people are making a practical tradeoff that I am not appreciating. To make a small example, masks and mask policies are often just a wink and a nod letting us go about our lives. In this fashion they are akin to Robin Hanson's example of the public drinker's brown paper bag.

Yet my reading of my fellow man does not make me think this the case. I see people truly scared and truly allowing if not endorsing the lockdown of free lives. Acquiescence is all the permission the powerful need to take more from others. 

If I were to put it into a 2x2, it would look something like this:



Fighting for freedom is the degree to which one will actively take actions against oppression. This is offense. Resistance to coercion is the degree to which one will impede oppression. This is defense. Both play a crucial role and are interconnected in an effective and just battle for liberty. 

Coming into 2020 I put Americans in particular and people generally on the blue line. My revised belief is that the typical person is on the red line--a decided shift away from where I once thought we were.





Saturday, January 11, 2020

Disease Diagnosis - 2019 New Year's Resolution fulfillment

With the unintentional help of Alex Tabarrok and Eric Helland, I fulfilled my annual New Year's Resolution to change my mind on something. Specifically, I changed my mind:
That the runaway cost increases in higher education over the past several decades were simply due to third-party funding (spending other-people's money by the education-industrial complex (Big Chalkboard)). It turns out there is a much more elegant, though less tribally satisfying, answer: the Baumol Effect (aka, Cost Disease).
If relative productivity doesn't rise in a sector for which demand is rising, prices in that sector must rise relative to the sectors for which productivity is rising. This elegant explanation applies to health spending as well. Here is Tabarrok on the prototypical example:
The Baumol effect is easy to explain but difficult to grasp. In 1826, when Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 was first played, it took four people 40 minutes to produce a performance. In 2010, it still took four people 40 minutes to produce a performance. Stated differently, in the nearly 200 years between 1826 and 2010, there was no growth in string quartet labor productivity. In 1826 it took 2.66 labor hours to produce one unit of output, and it took 2.66 labor hours to produce one unit of output in 2010.
Fortunately, most other sectors of the economy have experienced substantial growth in labor productivity since 1826. We can measure growth in labor productivity in the economy as a whole by looking at the growth in real wages. In 1826 the average hourly wage for a production worker was $1.14. In 2010 the average hourly wage for a production worker was $26.44, approximately 23 times higher in real (inflation-adjusted) terms. Growth in average labor productivity has a surprising implication: it makes the output of slow productivity-growth sectors (relatively) more expensive. In 1826, the average wage of $1.14 meant that the 2.66 hours needed to produce a performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 had an opportunity cost of just $3.02. At a wage of $26.44, the 2.66 hours of labor in music production had an opportunity cost of $70.33. Thus, in 2010 it was 23 times (70.33/3.02) more expensive to produce a performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 than in 1826. In other words, one had to give up more other goods and services to produce a music performance in 2010 than one did in 1826. Why? Simply because in 2010, society was better at producing other goods and services than in 1826.
The 23 times increase in the relative price of the string quartet is the driving force of Baumol’s cost disease. The focus on relative prices tells us that the cost disease is misnamed. The cost disease is not a disease but a blessing. To be sure, it would be better if productivity increased in all industries, but that is just to say that more is better. There is nothing negative about productivity growth, even if it is unbalanced.
And this has very interesting implications. Tabarrok again:
  • The Baumol effect predicts that more spending will be accompanied by no increase in quality.
  • The Baumol effect predicts that the increase in the relative price of the low productivity sector will be fastest when the economy is booming. i.e. the cost “disease” will be at its worst when the economy is most healthy!
  • The Baumol effect cleanly resolves the mystery of higher prices accompanied by higher quantity demanded.
Note that this does not change my view that we have inappropriately encouraged too many people to go to college and we have pushed and pulled too many resources into that chasm. Other-people's money and wishful thinking are still in play (as this discussion with Bryan Caplan indicates). But it seems they are only contributing and potentially secondary factors.

See here for lots of brief blog posts. See here, here, and here for very good podcasts on the study.

Saturday, January 19, 2019

'Oh, you left out a bunch of stuff' - 2018 New Year's Resolution fulfillment post

What better time to wake up from my no-blogging slumber than with the annual fulfillment of my perpetual New Year's resolution?

I used to strongly believe that “real-world” experience as a substitute for learning through formal study was over rated. There are two significant ways I have changed my mind. I now believe:

  1. Most learning done in school is learning in name alone. For the vast majority of people very little is truly understood and retained much less applied in life.
  2. Because of biases, failure to update/challenge conventional wisdom, poor feedback loops, and long cycles for knowledge updating, there is a chasm between the received wisdom and truth--what we could/should know but basically do not.

Bryan Caplan’s work as summarized in his book brought me around. This one has some irony. I probably shouldn’t be surprised that an esoteric, theoretical academic would be the one to set me free since my bias was built upon a disdain and rejection of those who (I still believe) unduly criticize and dismiss book/school learning and “theory”. I still highly value idealistic university education (at least in theory). I just now understand that experience in the world has much, much more value and applicability than I used to give it credit.

And it is not just that getting one's hands dirty learning by doing should be on equal footing. For most (see point #1 above) it is by far the primary way one should gain knowledge and wisdom and skills.

This change in view was for me a long time developing. As I remember it, the first major salvo came from Charles Murray when I read this piece. Caplan just pushed me from agnostic to full-blown evangelist.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Saving Enough for Retirement? - New Year's Resolution fulfillment post

It is time again to report on my perpetual New Year's Resolution - to change my mind about a belief I hold strongly. Happy to report that I was again successful achieving it some time last spring. As I read and reflected upon this argument against increasing Social Security expansion and this counter-conventional wisdom post (HT: Don Boudreaux), I realized I needed to challenge myself against assuming I know what "you" or "we" need to save for retirement.

Formally presented: I have overturned my long-held and thoughtlessly repeated mantra that "typical Americans are not saving 'enough' for retirement". I should have had strong reservations about this mantra as it is a bold affront to my principles to presume that I know the correct amount people should be saving (or consuming).

The heart-breaking stories of the poor not having adequate if any savings for retirement is as misleading as looking at the Forbes 400 as a barometer of retirement preparedness. We do not and should not expect a household that finds itself in the rare but tragic condition of always being in the lowest income deciles to have retirement savings. Those are the households for which Social Security, private charity, et al. are supposed to be the safety net. To analyze the potential problem, one must look at much deeper data and analysis concerning aggregates and focusing on where households actually stand. Andrew Biggs at AEI does that exceedingly well as indicated by this post (HT: again Don Boudreaux).

Make no mistake: there is government-induced crowding out and misleading, many examples of individuals with unrealistic expectations, and bad financial decisions aided largely by government-protected culprits. But the basic belief I formerly held is not substantiated.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

...writing post title...quit check of email and facebook...back to post - 2016 Resolution Fulfillment

For the longest time I have held myself out as a master multitasker. Part of this was probably because being able to do more than one thing well at one time simply has to be superior to being only a unitasker. I share Alton Brown's loathing of unitaskers in the kitchen. [bonus points if you know the one unitasker he allows in the kitchen]

But I have had a volte–face: I now believe that multitasking is a bug rather than a feature. (I still share Alton's view regarding kitchen gear.)

My wandering mind is not the juggling Jedi I hold it out to be. Rather it is a bungling, distracted toddler that needs to concentrate for best results. As with all things of this nature it is a matter of degree along a spectrum rather than an absolute dichotomy. And to that end I have moved decisively from the position that multitasking is desirable (i.e., good performance at multiple tasks done in concert is possible) to the position that unitasking is desirable.

How well something can be done is directly proportional to how singularly it can be focused upon. Adding complexity is not an efficient way to use up slack resources (spare brain power, excess stress aptitude, extra time, etc.). It is simply a way to make the success in the original task less likely.

And of course there are TED Talks on the subject. The Instant Gratification Monkey will make you laugh as it indirectly touches on my position. This one really gets to the multitasking points about the 6 minute mark--so feel free to shop on Amazon while it plays in the background until that point.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Perfectly Unperfect

A new year begins, another challenge arises to fulfill my perpetual annual resolution. Here is how I achieved it (changing my mind on a strongly-held belief).

I have always had perfectionist tendencies. For a while when I was younger, they were quite strong. I beat them back. But the tendency remained. And I reconciled that with the belief that it was a positive quality. That striving for perfection, in good measure, was an enhancement to achieving my goals. 

The better I've come to understand failure, the more I have doubted perfectionism. I now no longer belief it is a positive quality. My aha moment came last year while reading Megan McArdle's book, The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success. (Imperfection confession: I haven't finished the book yet. My reading discipline is far from perfect.)

The better you are at something the naturally higher-quality your work will be. Trying to make it perfect is a waste of time. Striving to be perfect is a fool's errand. Generally if editing requires more resources than the original creation, then the endeavor was a failure to begin with.

Effective is underrated. "Easy to Fix" is generally far better in all respects than "Hard to Break". 

Don't get me wrong; working hard is a virtue. Striving for improvement even after much has already been achieved is a desirable quality--when well balanced against the cost. Perfectionism is a different animal. In fact it is an alien to both this world and this universe. It is simply the drive to get more than can be expected. It is alchemy masquerading as practice. 

PS. As a corollary I have also always had completionist tendencies. However, in that case I've known for quite a while that it is a negative quality, but I've struggled to have the resolve to fight it. Tyler Cowen is a role model to follow in this regard (check out the transcript (or listen) at 19:01). It was listening to Penn Jillette's podcast Penn's Sunday School last year that got me thinking a lot about completionism. Penn is a classic example as he will readily admit. He says visiting a museum with him is torture because he insists on reading each and every display fully. 

Thursday, January 1, 2015

2014's Resolution Fulfillment

It is time again to check on how I did in fulfilling my annual resolution. One word: success. Let me explain exactly how I mean.

Ever since the first skybox suites were installed in Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, I've held steadfastly that they were not for me. My time as a student (7 years) solidified this belief as I wanted to feel and breathe the atmosphere. And even as a graduate, I continued for a season to sit among the students before migrating back to the upper-west side stands 14 years ago (the area in which I sat before college going back to the age of about 7).

While the upper-west seats were a bit sterile after my days in the student section, they were still in the elements of both weather and populace. Upgrades in recent years to include new, more glamorous suites did not sway my belief. It wasn't about a rejection of luxury per se; it was somewhat about staying true to the experience (I might as well be at home for being in a suite) and a lot about NOT being like or around those in the suites. On this latter point, there are three facets.

The first problem is these people tend to be snobs. This is perhaps the biggest single issue I have with the suites. The second problem is my perception that those in the suites don't actually watch the game much. It is easy to become distracted by the booze and the food and the conversation. The people in the suites might as well be at some pool party.

The first two problems relate to the third problem. Being in them is like playing some kind of game, but the rules don't make any sense to me. They're being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up. You cannot have alcohol in the stadium at OU. In fact there are strict rules about alcohol throughout the publicly-owned, state university. But you can have it in the suites. So the guy sitting in the blazing heat or blistering cold can't have a beer, but the guy asking the attendant to adjust the thermostat can sip a bourbon.

Getting back to the resolution--what has changed? As surprising as it was for me, at some point this football season I reversed my position on where I would prefer to sit. This change of heart was gradual at first and then sudden in completion. To be sure I was not seduced by the lure of even better improvements to come. In fact there are perhaps as many amenities for the regular seats as their are for suite people in the latest plans. And it is not just that I can see the advantages of suites; I would actually prefer to be in one under certain conditions. Namely, those conditions include I don't have to endure the problems I still have with suite people.

But just as I don't want to associate with my stereotypical view of who frequents a suite, I have grown quite tired of being around the typical fan. So basically I want to watch a game in person with people of my choosing. What has soured me on those in the stands? One word: ignorance. I am tired of the following (to be sure, I have been guilty of each of these myself at one time or another):

  • People who think the other team and their fans are evil, dumb, undeserving, rude, or any other negative quality rather than basically equivalent to themselves as a whole and on average. 
  • People who indignantly and vocally question every thing short of perfect success.
  • People who don't know the rules of the game--to a ridiculous fault. You do not have to be an expert, but appreciate what you don't know.
  • People who always think they are getting screwed by the refs.
  • People who think good coaching consists of yelling, getting mad, "giving them a good butt chewing" at halftime, etc.
  • People who think that good player play includes never fumbling (the ol' try harder approach to solving a random phenomenon), never being out-manned or out-talented, and perfection in all its many other forms. 
  • People who support concussions for players. Oh, they never say it that way. The way they express it is to become visibly irate when one of their players is flagged for an illegal hit. Apparently, dangerously injurious behavior is "part of football"--at least it is when one's own player is applying the hit.
  • People who cheer this. It is theft in the least, and it is potentially criminal negligence that could lead to severe injury or death. For the unfortunate person on the ground the impact would be about the equivalent of having a football thrown at his head at 70 miles per hour from a few feet away.
I could go on and on, but it would get even more petty and unfair. Perhaps it is not them; it is me. But regardless it seems that after 176 home games attended in a row, I have changed my mind on where I would prefer to sit. Now to just come up with spare $100,000 a year or so to pay for my preference ...

Monday, January 20, 2014

2013's Resolution Fulfillment

My ever on-going resolution was fulfilled twice over in 2013. In the first case I blogged about it here. That is where I changed my mind that there is potentially an economic case to be made for state action to encourage or even mandate recycling.

The second case came from this EconTalk involving among other things The Code in sports. I was rather naively opposed to something that seemed so brutish and reasonless as The Code. To me it was a ridiculous way to justify violence in hockey and promote silly traditions in baseball. I was wrong.

You might notice that Dr. Mike Munger is at the center of both resolution fulfillments. I guess great minds are open-minded and listen to other great minds and when those other great minds make a convincing case the former great minds adapt their views . . . or something like that. In any case it shouldn't be too many resolutions from now that I've finally got my mind right.

Dr. Munger will be the keynote speaker this week at the CFA Society of Oklahoma's Annual Forecasting Dinner. If you're in the Tulsa area Wednesday night (Jan. 22nd), come join us at the DoubleTree downtown.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

New Year's Resolution

Last year my New Year's Resolution was to change a strongly held personal belief. I definitely changed my mind about quite a few things, but one stands out as truly qualifying: I changed my belief about the direction and implications of Federal Reserve policy. Basically, I adopted Scott Sumner's view that The Fed has been too tight in monetary policy, despite the phenomenal explosion in base money, reversing my previous view that The Fed was recklessly expanding the money supply with an accommodative policy that was creating an imminent threat of significant inflation. As a corollary to this change came an understanding that this tight-money Fed action was a significant contributor to the financial crisis and recession and slow recovery.

My thinking in choosing this resolution is my belief that we all tend to error in not changing our minds enough, not challenging the beliefs we hold, and not being open minded in general. This is the major contribution of Freakonomics to the human race. We need to do more self-critical thinking. Much of what we believe is to some degree factually wrong or weakly understood often to the point of being shallow drivel.

To continue and expand the progress, my New Year's Resolution for 2013 is to either 1. Change or significantly modify a strongly held personal belief or 2. Find a completely new and significant rationale in support of a strongly held personal belief. 1 is preferable to 2, but having both keeps me searching and thinking more.

On a blog-specific note, I seek to expand upon my Nov. 10, 2012 declared intention of referencing a movie in every blog post. I will expand the allusions to books, television, and other art forms. Coming up with just movie references was stretching my Swiss-cheese brain to its limits. These leaps are getting harder.