WWCF: Gridless Power or Wireless Power?

Which will come first?

Gridless Power (household power commonly generated on site)

or

Wireless Power (batteries or battery-like power sources that largely self charge)

Both of these would be very big advances as respective cords are cut. For gridless power the aesthetic benefits would be dramatic gains all by themselves. Imagine a world where we are nostalgic for overhead power lines. The telephone pole as romantic as horse-drawn buggies. But don't forget the benefits of blackouts and brownouts being as foreign as breadlines are to us today. Whether the target of terrorists or ice storms (take a guess which one has taken out more power supply in the past 10 years), the centralized power system creates a dependency and hence vulnerability that we would certainly like to avoid.

In wireless power this could include simply batteries with life something like 100x greater than currently available. But imagine your iPhone actually charging from the motion it undergoes while in your pocket. Or perhaps from heat in the air. Or moisture--maybe water isn't the kryptonite of the mobile phone. 

Gridless power doesn't have to be solar; although, that is a big likelihood. You don't have to be a super genius like Tesla to imagine wireless electricity. And yes, these two overlap quite a bit--it seems. Sometimes things similar in concept end up being quite different in practice.

My WAG is wireless beats gridless in terms of large-scale affordability and consumer penetration by at least a decade. The economies of scale at work in the grid are quite powerful forces. The abundance of natural gas strengthens the inertia for the grid considerably. 

Saving football from itself

Football is at a major inflection point. These don't come along often. The first one of this nature was at the beginning of the twentieth century when Teddy Roosevelt "saved" football by urging rule changes. In 1905 there were reportedly 19 fatalities from playing football. Following that season an intercollegiate conference, forerunner to the NCAA, established radical changes for safety's sake. The NCAA would continue in this capacity, in-sport rule-making body, for another 50 years or so before becoming the cartel it is today.

Other inflection points have been the creation of two-platoon football the first time in 1941 ending in 1954 and the second time in 1965 and the widespread racial integration of the sport in the 1970s.

Today the inflection point is again safety related. The sport is getting more physical and more dangerous as society is getting less tolerant of violence and wealthier--meaning the value assigned to safety and health are growing. Just as when the highest scoring offense meets up against the lowest point allowing defense, something's got to give. If not, this could be the end.

Here is a spitball list of some potentially safety enhancing changes to the game. Perhaps changes like these would be enough to save football. To many traditionalists, myself included, these may seem quite unpalatable. But the truth is change of some kind has to come. We can continue to dance around this if we want to, but we might be left behind. Some aspects of football as we know it today probably will someday look totally removed from the real world--the actions of imbeciles with everything out of control.

• Get rid of the intentional grounding rule.
• Outlaw all blocking below the waist.
• Outlaw any tackling or blocking where the one tackling or blocking leaves his feet.
• Extend the automatic ejection rule for "targeting" (one that I applaud except for the poor decision to not allow the 15-yard penalty portion to be reviewed as the ejection decision is reviewed) to horse-collar tackles or facemask infractions to include helmet and head tackles. For facemasks, perhaps bring back the idea of a difference in severity by including the ejection for more severe facemask infractions.
• Outlaw zone defense including perhaps not allowing any defender to start play farther than 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage.
• End kickoffs and punts--force fourth down attempts. 

Let's keep it suboptimal

Last week while visiting the wonderful city of Seattle, I spotted a delivery truck with an unfortunate message painted broadly across its side. The truck was a produce delivery truck and the message was apparently an intentional advertising slogan. It read, "Let's Keep It Local!" I didn't have time to take a picture. Presumably based on the other advertising art this is a local fruit and vegetable company.

I have to admit my first reaction was a little hostile. My thoughts were: Will they sell to me? What if I plan to take it back to Oklahoma? At the Pike Place Market I purchased an extra honey crisp apple and mango with the intention of taking them home. What a shame it would be if those purchases had been prohibited based on my intentions to eat them abroad. But I'm sure the localizers do not care about my consumption venue, or that I can peel an apple in one long, curry strip. It is only the production origin that concerns them; I can imagine them saying. But that just leads to more questions:

• You're okay with exports, but you don't like imports? 
• So, you're saying you'd like to have your apple cake and eat it too? 
• Does it concern you that such a scheme will lead to your own wealth being reduced? 

Did I lose them with that last one? It is the mantra of the local movement that by "keeping it local" we keep both sides of the exchange--notice the "we" here, and remember there is no "we". We is an arbitrary fiction. It implies at some point people stop being one of "us" and start being one of "them". Such xenophobia is not just morally unhealthy. It is economically destructive--itself a moral wrong.

If you eat your own apple cake, you then won't have one left over. If you (import and) eat mine, you still have yours. All I ask is that you give me something you value less than the cake but that I value more than my cake. Like perhaps a Locks tour from Elliott Bay to Lake Washington. This is the essence of gains from trade. These gains expand as the market expands--as more of "them" become "us". 

Highly linkable

Back from bi-coastal travel with a backlog of blogs to write. Let's start with some links to get us caught up:

What is probably most amazing about this is that we don't find it as amazing as it is. (HT: Steven Landsburg)

Art Carden is demanding action "FOR THE CHILDREN" a la, Helen Lovejoy, in this first of what will perhaps become an on-going series (there have been three posts in this meme so far).

The United States is incredibly and perhaps paradoxically wealthy.

Caplan shows how Game of Thrones makes the case for pacifism.

The EA Sports proposed settlement in the on-going legal battle between college players and the NCAA cartel is a both a win for the players as well as a win for consumers as pointed out by Sports Law Blog's Rick Karcher. Probability of a strike or other work-stoppage demonstration is rising. A couple of years ago it was rumoured that a team in the NCAA March Madness tournament was planning on a demonstration including perhaps refusal to play if they made the Final Four. The team was eliminated in the Elite Eight round.

Posts like this one make me understand why I relate to Scott Sumner. Perhaps I should discount somewhat my agreement with his views on monetary policy fearing I have an unconscious bias.

Is the magnitude of U.S. gun violence evidence of civil war warranting international intervention? I think not so much. This article is hyperbolic and the arguments within fallacious I believe.  I found the biggest problem with the lumping of suicide deaths by firearms, accident deaths, and violent crime deaths. Those are quite different subjects. Attacking firearms is attacking the particular method and not the underlying conditions. Crimes aided by guns and accidents are the cost side. The benefit side, crimes reduced or prevented (including government-committed) and the joy of gun ownership, is completely ignored. But the article was thought-provoking, nonetheless.

WWCF: Social condemnation of hunting or human combat?

Which will come first?

Social condemnation of sport hunting

OR

Social condemnation of human combat sports

By social condemnation I mean when will we be past the point where being a hunter or being a fan of a human combat sport is acceptable in polite (general mixed) company. Yes, there is an underlying assumption here that the long-term trend is toward these ends. At some point the argument over rabbit season versus duck season will be moot--it won't ever be either. 

I think these come in degrees as they are long-term developments with stages for each. We need some ground rules on which will represent the true tipping point. First let's look at the levels we must consider.

For sport hunting I see it as a gradual outlawing by the spot an animal represents on the food/intelligence chain:

1. Apes, monkeys, dolphins, whales, dogs, cats, . . .
2. Elephants, lions, tigers, bears, oh my, . . . 
3. Deer, ducks, turkeys, fish . . .

For human combat I see it as a gradual abandonment if not outlawing by the apparent brutality of the sport:

1. Olympic-style wrestling
2. Boxing
3. MMA, cage fighting, etc.

We are already somewhere between 1 and 2 for sport hunting and nearly past 1 for human combat. Consider point three in this list in regard to sport hunting (this would represent a proxy as noted in the next paragraph), and consider how wrestling continues to be on the ropes. Here is my test for WWCF: when five state legislatures outside of New England pass broad legislation outlawing or highly limiting most items of the third type. We've already noted how politicians follow rather than lead. I feel it safe to say if this legislative test is passed, the overwhelming majority of voters must agree with the position. Alternatively, we might get to WWCF through other means such as the market for selling human combat evaporating. 

Note that sport hunting does not include harvesting of fish, lobster, elk, or other game for mass consumption on a secondary market. Hunting a deer and eating it, though, is sport hunting still whether or not the deer's head ends up on the wall. 

I think the key here is considering when does general public opinion pass what I will term a social acceptability threshold. At some point activities that were once common (e.g., smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco, sexual harassment in the workplace, etc.) become beyond the pale. In the other direction eventually behavior once thought uncouth (e.g., interracial marriage, tattoos, etc.) become acceptable. I believe a large driver of this is the number of people engaging in the particular activity. 

In 1955 about 55% of men and 28% of women smoked. By 1990 the rate for men was equal to the 1955 rate for women while the rate for women had fallen about a fifth to about 23%.

For sexual harassment in the workplace note that female labor force participation may be the critical driver. Positively correlated with the LFPR trend would be female advancement in the workplace--probably with a lag due to the time it takes for the greater numbers of women to be experience-eligible for advanced positions as well as both active and institutional discrimination factors. When Don Draper was running things, the female portion of the labor force was about 33%. By 1990 it was nearly half (45%). 

Perhaps at some point I will have to awkwardly admit I do not have a tattoo. 

As for my prediction, I say that human combat has a shorter shelf life than sport hunting. This despite the fact that in the former behavior the participants are willing and compensated whereas in the latter behavior this is the case only on one side--and the other side doesn't just lose but dies. Alternative methods for population control of pest animals such as deer might accelerate the trend for outlawing sport hunting. But as we get wealthier and healthier, dangerous activities like human combat sports become more costly. This trend I believe dominates.

Boardwalk Stillwater

This is really a story about prohibition. And prohibition is at its heart a story about economics.

When you make something illegal that is demanded, you get a black market. In this case the thing demanded is successful college football. The prohibitions are on free-market transactions that connect those providing value, college football players, and those who are consuming the value provided, college football fans. When value cannot fully be reflected between suppliers and demanders, externalities exist—in this case positive externalities meaning the market is undersupplying college football along some dimensions*. The market abhors externalities and is only prevented from erasing them by transactions costs that outweigh the benefits. Transactions costs cast shadows upon markets. When those transactions costs are high enough, the communication process revealing gains from trade can break down significantly. Hence, black-market transactions take the place of open-market transactions.

Black markets have two significant downsides: they aren’t as efficient as open, free markets and they come with baggage (technically speaking, negative unintended consequences). Notably in the second case, black markets incentivize suppliers who aren’t as sensitive to the transactions costs as the typical supplier. Additionally, black-market transactions take on forms that are both less efficient in an economic sense and less sensitive to the standards the original prohibitions attempted to uphold. To wit: Gangsters are successful because they are more willing and able to break the rules and the rules attempt to prevent what otherwise would come to be.

The local response has been predictable in nature and course but surprising in intensity. The clan has been attacked, and all members are called to unquestioned defense. I believe most of the response track has followed something similar to the stages of grieving, and I predict it will continue in such a fashion.

First has come Denial. This couldn’t be true because I don’t want it to be can be read between the lines of many responses. Some examples have been along the lines of: “The players making the accusations are disgruntled former troublemakers,” “There are no documents revealed proving these payments happened,” “One of the authors is an OU alum who dislikes OSU.”

Next will come Rationalization. I expect the group response to be along the lines of: “This happens everywhere, why single us out?” “Most of this isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things,” “These events are taken out of context; it isn’t that bad.”

Next will come Acceptance along with Anger (I said similar to the stages of grieving, not mirroring it). Expect both some contrivance and sorrow along with a few scapegoats offered up. Eventually, though, someone significant must be to blame, and that person or group of persons will have to pay. Remember, I’m not saying what the NCAA or general public response will be. I am predicting the response from inside the community affected.

As for the response from general public opinion, the Oklahoma State brand has been badly tarnished. The labels these accusations will bring will not easily or quickly be erased. Assuming the accusations are completely true, which I do not, but I do believe they are largely and substantively true, I have already found and expect further to find interesting inconsistencies. There is what sounds bad given our mores: marijuana use along with other drugs, sexual arrangements, payment of college athletes for work performed (playing football well) and work not performed (housework, construction, etc.), and academic leniency and fraud. And then there is what does not sound so bad again given our mores including what is absent in the accusations: alcohol use, athlete exploitation, and unrealistic academic expectations. It is like our social norms on toleration and prohibition were determined by coin flip.

Take us home, Radiohead.

*There is nuance here. The aggregate supply of college football may be sufficient or excessive due to subsidies but at the same time there are specific shortages. For example, it could be that resources aren’t reaching their optimal use by being underemployed—football quality is too low at Oklahoma State and is too high elsewhere.

Highly linkable

One of the greatest economists ever, Ronald Coase, passed last week. He was 102 years old. He was still an active, working economist. His two great contributions, The Nature of the Firm and The Theory of Social Costs, fundamentally changed the field. In these he established the importance of transactions costs within firms and how that leads firms to be authoritarian and how assignment of property rights matters in a world of social costs when transaction costs are not zero. These are likely the first and second most cited papers in the history of economics. Here is a good summary of Coase's work and here is an appreciation written upon his passing. Both are well worth reading.

Malcolm Gladwell does an expertly crafted job in this The New Yorker piece pointing out the tension between the general social distaste for athletic differences equalized by certain means (chemical and biological therapies) and the general acceptance of athletic differences generated by natural or surgical means. The contradictions defy good reasoning.

At Advanced NFL Stats John Morgan shows how to lie with statistics. Just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it.