May 31, 2010
Satisfied Wehr in the World "customers"?
If you want to brighten my day, you can send me a photo of you or a friend or a random stranger or the family pet reading this blog (preferably with an amusing expression) so that I can add it to this page.
Traveling this week
I will be in Chicago until Friday. Posting, commenting, and emailing may be light.
In the meantime, please vote on my next post if you have not already. Last I checked, the voting was tied (but I won't say between which two).
In the meantime, please vote on my next post if you have not already. Last I checked, the voting was tied (but I won't say between which two).
Q & A with Hubdub founder Nigel Eccles
Hubdub was a play-money prediction market where users engaged in a competition of sorts to "predict the news". CrunchBase has a more eloquent description:
Hubdub was one of the most popular prediction market sites, but the site closed in April after a 2.5 year run. However, some Hubdub fans are in the process of developing an open source substitute at news-guru.com. Intrade remains the most popular real-money prediction market.
I used Hubdub for a few months and I have a long-standing fascination with prediction markets and collective intelligence (so much so that I am considering starting a site with a similar aim myself), so I was eager to ask Hubdub's founder, Nigel Eccles, a few questions. Nigel graciously agreed to respond, and his answers are below. Thanks, Nigel!
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Q. Is it correct that your reason for closing Hubdub was to turn your scarce attention to FanDuel which was performing better and you felt had more potential? If so, my question is why – broadly or specifically – do you think Hubdub did not perform better and why do you think it did not have more potential?
A. That is correct. Lots of people loved playing Hubdub but its only means of monetization was through ads. You need millions of users to make an advertising business work and Hubdub didn't have that.
Q. Can you give me a sense of the ongoing costs to run Hubdub? What were the primary cost drivers? Do you see any reliable way to reduce these costs?
A. The main direct costs were category editors (about $1,500 per month) and server costs (about $250 per month). On top of that there was application maintenance time. You could definitely reduce the category editor costs if you use a community model.
Q. What worked (surprisingly) well with Hubdub? In other words, what features or improvements ended up being really good decisions?
A. Leaderboards, commenting
Q. In hindsight, what were the major things you would have done differently?
A. Related news stories never really worked that well. I would have done it on Facebook given another go.
Q. I assume you would be willing to sell Hubdub. What in your estimation is a reasonable asking price?
A. There are significant packaging and transaction costs for us so we have set the price at a minimum of $100,000.
Q. I'd like to get your thoughts on the role of money – real vs. fake vs. none – in predictions. In your estimation, how problematic are the following disadvantages resulting from requiring betting (with either real or fake money) on predictions?
Quibbles over the truth / starting values / appropriateness of question
Easier with play money
Paying people to moderate
With play money you can use a community model
Inability to bet on questions which don’t have clear answers (e.g., how many barrels of oil were spilled in the Gulf?)
Can do with play money. You could use something called a Keynsian beauty contest for that.
Reluctance to bet on outcomes which will not happen until far in the future
No easy solution to that with play or real money.
Reluctance to bet on questions which are especially hard to answer
Again no easy solution
Q. Do you think the inaccuracy of using no money is worse than the combination of the above disadvantages? In other words, I am wondering why you think money (real or fake) is better than no money.
A. You need to have some currency otherwise users do not care how they predict. Having a currency drives the accuracy. There is a paper which compares accuracy between real and play money markets. You should Google for it. [I believe he is referring to Emile Servan-Schreiber's paper.]
Q. Any other thoughts or comments on Hubdub or prediction markets more generally that you'd like to share?
A. I think prediction markets are still very interesting however I think their most valuable application is within narrow fields not horizontal markets like Hubdub.
Hubdub.com is a platform and community that combines the value of user-generated news aggregation with passionate prediction markets. It tracks only the stories that people decide are worth creating a market around. Successful predictors make the leaderboard in topics such as Technology, Politics and Sports, which they can link back to their blogs, sites or profiles on social networks.
Hubdub was one of the most popular prediction market sites, but the site closed in April after a 2.5 year run. However, some Hubdub fans are in the process of developing an open source substitute at news-guru.com. Intrade remains the most popular real-money prediction market.
I used Hubdub for a few months and I have a long-standing fascination with prediction markets and collective intelligence (so much so that I am considering starting a site with a similar aim myself), so I was eager to ask Hubdub's founder, Nigel Eccles, a few questions. Nigel graciously agreed to respond, and his answers are below. Thanks, Nigel!
---
Q. Is it correct that your reason for closing Hubdub was to turn your scarce attention to FanDuel which was performing better and you felt had more potential? If so, my question is why – broadly or specifically – do you think Hubdub did not perform better and why do you think it did not have more potential?
A. That is correct. Lots of people loved playing Hubdub but its only means of monetization was through ads. You need millions of users to make an advertising business work and Hubdub didn't have that.
Q. Can you give me a sense of the ongoing costs to run Hubdub? What were the primary cost drivers? Do you see any reliable way to reduce these costs?
A. The main direct costs were category editors (about $1,500 per month) and server costs (about $250 per month). On top of that there was application maintenance time. You could definitely reduce the category editor costs if you use a community model.
Q. What worked (surprisingly) well with Hubdub? In other words, what features or improvements ended up being really good decisions?
A. Leaderboards, commenting
Q. In hindsight, what were the major things you would have done differently?
A. Related news stories never really worked that well. I would have done it on Facebook given another go.
Q. I assume you would be willing to sell Hubdub. What in your estimation is a reasonable asking price?
A. There are significant packaging and transaction costs for us so we have set the price at a minimum of $100,000.
Q. I'd like to get your thoughts on the role of money – real vs. fake vs. none – in predictions. In your estimation, how problematic are the following disadvantages resulting from requiring betting (with either real or fake money) on predictions?
Quibbles over the truth / starting values / appropriateness of question
Easier with play money
Paying people to moderate
With play money you can use a community model
Inability to bet on questions which don’t have clear answers (e.g., how many barrels of oil were spilled in the Gulf?)
Can do with play money. You could use something called a Keynsian beauty contest for that.
Reluctance to bet on outcomes which will not happen until far in the future
No easy solution to that with play or real money.
Reluctance to bet on questions which are especially hard to answer
Again no easy solution
Q. Do you think the inaccuracy of using no money is worse than the combination of the above disadvantages? In other words, I am wondering why you think money (real or fake) is better than no money.
A. You need to have some currency otherwise users do not care how they predict. Having a currency drives the accuracy. There is a paper which compares accuracy between real and play money markets. You should Google for it. [I believe he is referring to Emile Servan-Schreiber's paper.]
Q. Any other thoughts or comments on Hubdub or prediction markets more generally that you'd like to share?
A. I think prediction markets are still very interesting however I think their most valuable application is within narrow fields not horizontal markets like Hubdub.
May 30, 2010
The problems with happiness as a goal (part 2)
In part 1, I clarified the definition of hedonism and mentioned two problems with pursuing happiness (as I define it) as a goal: (1) some positive emotions compete with one another, and (2) negative emotions are there for a reason.
Maximizing or minimizing any emotion or set of emotions seems arbitrary and kind of missing the point. Arbitrary because why pick joy over curiosity or curiosity over joy? And missing the point because all emotions have a biological purpose -- to motivate us to learn or explore; to arm us against the threat of danger; to signal that things are going well or not going well. Viewed this way, emotions are not an end but a means to an end. Here is the important point: Emotions are better viewed as signals than as outcomes. (Like money, I’d add.)
Serious complications can result from treating emotions as outcomes. Take for example the gratitude journal, whose purpose is to increase feelings of gratitude and thereby a general rise in positive affect. A gratitude journal can be effective in achieving this goal, no doubt, but its effectiveness depends heavily on context. There was a study (which I read about in NurtureShock) that revealed that for most kids gratitude journals have unintended negative consequences. Most kids have a strong need to feel independent, and gratitude journals, by forcing these kids to notice how dependent they are on their parents, made them feel more gracious, yes, but also led to a slew of negative emotions. Pursuing happiness as a goal gets mighty complicated when by pursuing and achieving a positive emotion you become, on the whole, less happy.
The important point is this: Emotions act independently. By making yourself more gracious or more curious you are not necessarily providing yourself with a general rise in positive emotions (or fall in negative ones).
In my estimation, all of our emotions have a purpose, and if they have a unifying purpose it is something like to facilitate the survival of our genes. Assuming it's true that emotions are tools to ensure our (genes') survival, why, then, should anyone attempt to control their emotions?
Actually I think there is good reason to (try to) control our emotions in some contexts, and in the next post I will do a brief interlude on why I think so as well as how best to do it.
I will conclude this post by trying to condense and unify what I’ve said so far: Each individual emotion has an evolutionary role, acting as a tool for our (genes’) survival, and each emotion acts independently from the others. For these reasons, emotions are best viewed as part of an ancient (and imperfect, as I’ll discuss in the next post) feedback system to inform our behavior rather than a set of outcomes to be achieved as the result of our behavior. A subtle difference, maybe, but it has important implications.
Maximizing or minimizing any emotion or set of emotions seems arbitrary and kind of missing the point. Arbitrary because why pick joy over curiosity or curiosity over joy? And missing the point because all emotions have a biological purpose -- to motivate us to learn or explore; to arm us against the threat of danger; to signal that things are going well or not going well. Viewed this way, emotions are not an end but a means to an end. Here is the important point: Emotions are better viewed as signals than as outcomes. (Like money, I’d add.)
Serious complications can result from treating emotions as outcomes. Take for example the gratitude journal, whose purpose is to increase feelings of gratitude and thereby a general rise in positive affect. A gratitude journal can be effective in achieving this goal, no doubt, but its effectiveness depends heavily on context. There was a study (which I read about in NurtureShock) that revealed that for most kids gratitude journals have unintended negative consequences. Most kids have a strong need to feel independent, and gratitude journals, by forcing these kids to notice how dependent they are on their parents, made them feel more gracious, yes, but also led to a slew of negative emotions. Pursuing happiness as a goal gets mighty complicated when by pursuing and achieving a positive emotion you become, on the whole, less happy.
The important point is this: Emotions act independently. By making yourself more gracious or more curious you are not necessarily providing yourself with a general rise in positive emotions (or fall in negative ones).
In my estimation, all of our emotions have a purpose, and if they have a unifying purpose it is something like to facilitate the survival of our genes. Assuming it's true that emotions are tools to ensure our (genes') survival, why, then, should anyone attempt to control their emotions?
Actually I think there is good reason to (try to) control our emotions in some contexts, and in the next post I will do a brief interlude on why I think so as well as how best to do it.
I will conclude this post by trying to condense and unify what I’ve said so far: Each individual emotion has an evolutionary role, acting as a tool for our (genes’) survival, and each emotion acts independently from the others. For these reasons, emotions are best viewed as part of an ancient (and imperfect, as I’ll discuss in the next post) feedback system to inform our behavior rather than a set of outcomes to be achieved as the result of our behavior. A subtle difference, maybe, but it has important implications.
May 27, 2010
Musings on collective cognition
I apologize for the monotony on here this week. This stuff has hijacked my curiosity.
With the eight random numeric survey questions I asked the other day (results here), I was curious to see how well the 'wisdom of the crowd' -- a phrase I dislike for describing the phenomenon of errors cancelling each other out -- would work when there was no self-selection, no incentives, and discouragement of research. Especially given the small sample sizes between 35 and 39, I was not expecting the crowd -- that is, the average of the responses -- to be very "wise", and I was right...for two of the eight questions. I will get to those in a minute, but first the questions where the crowd did extremely well or reasonably well:
This despite the individual guesses often being wildly off...
How much does Roger Federer weigh, in pounds? Crowd: 177.8, Truth: 177
How fast can Usain Bolt run, in miles per hour? Crowd: 25.8, Truth: 27.4
How fast can an elephant run, in miles per hour? Crowd: 21.2, Truth: 22 to 25
The accuracy on Federer is a little spooky, but most impressive, I thought, was the elephant one. I picked the question expecting people to be biased, thinking of elephants as slow, lumbering animals, but not so! (Interestingly, 20 people guessed Usain is faster than an elephant, 15 people guessed the reverse, and 4 thought they were the same.)
And the crowd did reasonably well in answering three others:
How many hours of road travel to go from NYC to LA? Crowd: 48, Truth: 44
How much does a barrel of oil weigh, in pounds? Crowd: 300, Truth: ~250 (depending on type of oil)
How many words per minute can the average adult read? Crowd: 145, Truth: 250 to 300
A handful of people vastly overestimated the travel hours between NYC and LA. I am wondering if it is because they were thinking in miles instead of hours. After removing those outliers the crowd did pretty well.
I am guessing the crowd wasn't closer on words per minute because people were biased downward by the reference point of typing speed.
And finally, the two questions where the crowd did badly:
How much does the Golden Gate Bridge weigh, in tons? Crowd: 4,000 median, 193,000 mean; Truth: 887,000
How many gallons of oil are spilt in the Gulf of Mexico each minute? Crowd: 5,000 median, 36,000 mean; Truth: 2,042 assuming 70,000 barrels/day, 146 assuming 5,000 barrels/day
In these questions about half of the individual responses beat the median. That's as bad as it gets. (By definition of the median, no more than half of the responses will do better than the crowd.)
I suspect two different factors were at play. In the Golden Gate Bridge question, it was a problem of large numbers: our minds simply don't have a good reference base for numbers like 887,000. We can think of a car as about a ton, but asking 'how many cars worth of weight' for something the size of the Golden Gate Bridge is too much, and people in this example tended to vastly underestimate the true weight.
In the oil spill example, I think it is bias resulting from the images we've seen of a fast spewing cloud, possibly combined with the large estimates we've been hearing like 70,000 barrels/day. We have no easy way of knowing how large that spewing cloud is because we are without a reference point. I suspect that if the spewing cloud had a person next to it, the crowd would have been much more accurate. Or if I asked about how much water comes out of my faucet per minute, since that's something we can easily picture, I'd bet the crowd would be very accurate.
So what are the lessons?
I would summarize it in a long-ish statement: The crowd can be very "wise" on numeric guessing games even without a large number of responses and without high individual accuracy and without any incentives or self-selection as long as two (not unrelated) conditions are met: (1) There are no severe biases, and (2) the question is referentially in their "strike-zone", meaning they have some easy and reliable reference from which to make comparisons (e.g., Usain Bolt vs. driving a car).
Some research suggests that collective cognition works in the following way:
Collective Error = Average Individual Error - Prediction Diversity
The implication is that you can reduce collective error by increasing guessing ability or by increasing the diversity of responses/respondents. This also, by the way, assumes that incentives are in place.
I have a lot left to learn but even after my first simple experiment that model doesn't seem right to me. The individual error on the questions was very high, and the diversity of respondents was probably low because the people who answered it had self-selected into reading my idiosyncratic blog. This is all to say that you would expect the collective error, by this model, to be very high, and it wasn't at all.
---
Ideas for what to test next
I hope you all are game for some more because I feel like I am just getting started. I am looking for more factors to test. Below are some of my initial thoughts, ordered roughly by interestingness:
Complex ideas, e.g. how much faster is Usain Bolt than an elephant?
Data/Research - whether I give people data and/or encourage them to research
Independence, i.e. whether people can see each other's answers
Diversity - asking same questions to different audiences
Familiarity, i.e. how familiar people are with the subject (e.g. the weight of Roger Federer vs. the weight of my elementary school gym coach)
Anchoring - induce bias by making people think of a number to start with
Incentives - peer-based incentives vs. monetary, and closest-answer-wins vs. anyone-who-beats-crowd-wins
Self-selection, i.e. encourage people to opt out if they don't think they have a good guess
Probabilities
Predictions
Large numbers
And please let me know if you have other ideas.
With the eight random numeric survey questions I asked the other day (results here), I was curious to see how well the 'wisdom of the crowd' -- a phrase I dislike for describing the phenomenon of errors cancelling each other out -- would work when there was no self-selection, no incentives, and discouragement of research. Especially given the small sample sizes between 35 and 39, I was not expecting the crowd -- that is, the average of the responses -- to be very "wise", and I was right...for two of the eight questions. I will get to those in a minute, but first the questions where the crowd did extremely well or reasonably well:
This despite the individual guesses often being wildly off...
How much does Roger Federer weigh, in pounds? Crowd: 177.8, Truth: 177
How fast can Usain Bolt run, in miles per hour? Crowd: 25.8, Truth: 27.4
How fast can an elephant run, in miles per hour? Crowd: 21.2, Truth: 22 to 25
The accuracy on Federer is a little spooky, but most impressive, I thought, was the elephant one. I picked the question expecting people to be biased, thinking of elephants as slow, lumbering animals, but not so! (Interestingly, 20 people guessed Usain is faster than an elephant, 15 people guessed the reverse, and 4 thought they were the same.)
And the crowd did reasonably well in answering three others:
How many hours of road travel to go from NYC to LA? Crowd: 48, Truth: 44
How much does a barrel of oil weigh, in pounds? Crowd: 300, Truth: ~250 (depending on type of oil)
How many words per minute can the average adult read? Crowd: 145, Truth: 250 to 300
A handful of people vastly overestimated the travel hours between NYC and LA. I am wondering if it is because they were thinking in miles instead of hours. After removing those outliers the crowd did pretty well.
I am guessing the crowd wasn't closer on words per minute because people were biased downward by the reference point of typing speed.
And finally, the two questions where the crowd did badly:
How much does the Golden Gate Bridge weigh, in tons? Crowd: 4,000 median, 193,000 mean; Truth: 887,000
How many gallons of oil are spilt in the Gulf of Mexico each minute? Crowd: 5,000 median, 36,000 mean; Truth: 2,042 assuming 70,000 barrels/day, 146 assuming 5,000 barrels/day
In these questions about half of the individual responses beat the median. That's as bad as it gets. (By definition of the median, no more than half of the responses will do better than the crowd.)
I suspect two different factors were at play. In the Golden Gate Bridge question, it was a problem of large numbers: our minds simply don't have a good reference base for numbers like 887,000. We can think of a car as about a ton, but asking 'how many cars worth of weight' for something the size of the Golden Gate Bridge is too much, and people in this example tended to vastly underestimate the true weight.
In the oil spill example, I think it is bias resulting from the images we've seen of a fast spewing cloud, possibly combined with the large estimates we've been hearing like 70,000 barrels/day. We have no easy way of knowing how large that spewing cloud is because we are without a reference point. I suspect that if the spewing cloud had a person next to it, the crowd would have been much more accurate. Or if I asked about how much water comes out of my faucet per minute, since that's something we can easily picture, I'd bet the crowd would be very accurate.
So what are the lessons?
I would summarize it in a long-ish statement: The crowd can be very "wise" on numeric guessing games even without a large number of responses and without high individual accuracy and without any incentives or self-selection as long as two (not unrelated) conditions are met: (1) There are no severe biases, and (2) the question is referentially in their "strike-zone", meaning they have some easy and reliable reference from which to make comparisons (e.g., Usain Bolt vs. driving a car).
Some research suggests that collective cognition works in the following way:
Collective Error = Average Individual Error - Prediction Diversity
The implication is that you can reduce collective error by increasing guessing ability or by increasing the diversity of responses/respondents. This also, by the way, assumes that incentives are in place.
I have a lot left to learn but even after my first simple experiment that model doesn't seem right to me. The individual error on the questions was very high, and the diversity of respondents was probably low because the people who answered it had self-selected into reading my idiosyncratic blog. This is all to say that you would expect the collective error, by this model, to be very high, and it wasn't at all.
---
Ideas for what to test next
I hope you all are game for some more because I feel like I am just getting started. I am looking for more factors to test. Below are some of my initial thoughts, ordered roughly by interestingness:
Complex ideas, e.g. how much faster is Usain Bolt than an elephant?
Data/Research - whether I give people data and/or encourage them to research
Independence, i.e. whether people can see each other's answers
Diversity - asking same questions to different audiences
Familiarity, i.e. how familiar people are with the subject (e.g. the weight of Roger Federer vs. the weight of my elementary school gym coach)
Anchoring - induce bias by making people think of a number to start with
Incentives - peer-based incentives vs. monetary, and closest-answer-wins vs. anyone-who-beats-crowd-wins
Self-selection, i.e. encourage people to opt out if they don't think they have a good guess
Probabilities
Predictions
Large numbers
And please let me know if you have other ideas.
May 26, 2010
Testing when crowds are "wise" (part 1) -- the results
Before you peek at the results, you should reflect on the questions and how accurate you would expect the crowd to be.
Personally, I was astonished at how accurate the average was for some questions, and how inaccurate it was for others.
Data plus results. Numbers highlighted in green beat the crowd. Scroll to the bottom for the results.
---
(In case you missed it: Why I'm doing this)
Personally, I was astonished at how accurate the average was for some questions, and how inaccurate it was for others.
Data plus results. Numbers highlighted in green beat the crowd. Scroll to the bottom for the results.
---
(In case you missed it: Why I'm doing this)
May 24, 2010
On yesterday's 'testing when crowds are wise' post
I took a quick look at the responses this evening and I am astounded -- almost disbelieving -- at the accuracy of the average estimates. I'll explain more when I post the results but this post is for two reasons: (1) to ask you to fill out the stupid survey if you have not already -- so far there are 21 responses and I would feel much better to reach 30, and (2) to clarify why I am doing this because there seems to be some confusion...
With this survey, I am not testing individuals' "intelligence" or "wisdom" (as I have before, with results here). I fully expect individual responses to be wildly off (as my own guesses were). And these questions say nothing about "wisdom" because these are trivialities that just happen to have the property of being easily answerable with a Google search and maybe a couple punches of the calculator, which is important for what I am trying to do: I am trying to test the crowd's "wisdom" -- that is, the accuracy of the average response.
I dislike the phrase "wisdom of the crowd" to describe the phenomenon of errors cancelling each other out, but that's what it has become popularly known as so that is why I use the word "wise". But please do not confuse this as a test of your judgment.
Also, fair warning: I am feeling very inspired by the results of this survey so expect many more such surveys, and soon.
With this survey, I am not testing individuals' "intelligence" or "wisdom" (as I have before, with results here). I fully expect individual responses to be wildly off (as my own guesses were). And these questions say nothing about "wisdom" because these are trivialities that just happen to have the property of being easily answerable with a Google search and maybe a couple punches of the calculator, which is important for what I am trying to do: I am trying to test the crowd's "wisdom" -- that is, the accuracy of the average response.
I dislike the phrase "wisdom of the crowd" to describe the phenomenon of errors cancelling each other out, but that's what it has become popularly known as so that is why I use the word "wise". But please do not confuse this as a test of your judgment.
Also, fair warning: I am feeling very inspired by the results of this survey so expect many more such surveys, and soon.
May 23, 2010
Testing when crowds are "wise"
I have been wanting to learn more about when, exactly, crowds are "wise" and when they are not and then I remembered that I have a blog, and at least a few people will take my stupid surveys. So what follows is my first such test. Please don't waste your time by spending more than 10 seconds on each question. I will post the results in a few days.
(Sorry, also, to my international readers who are more comfortable with the metric system.)
(Sorry, also, to my international readers who are more comfortable with the metric system.)
The problems with happiness as a goal (part 1)
I recently spent almost six uninterrupted hours writing a stream of thoughts about problems with hedonism, the meaning of life, and many things in between, and it turned out to be, I think, surprisingly coherent. At first, six hours felt like a troubling amount of time to spend on anything, but looking back, I don't regret the time spent at all: It took me only 1/4 of one day to string together many seemingly random bits of evidence in what I think is a compelling case for how (not) to live one's life.
I will present an edited version to you in pieces, once a week, a Sunday sermon perhaps, and then post the whole mother at the end. The first piece is below.
---
One of my favorite lines, and one I sympathize with very much, is from Ludwig Wittgenstein (first heard in John Lloyd's TED talk): What we’re here for, I’ve no idea...but I’m pretty sure it’s not to enjoy ourselves.
I am always hesitant to try to explain the logical foundations of my beliefs because I know that beliefs are unconscious organisms and that by trying to bring them to the surface you are at best fishing for evidence in order to paint an incomplete picture and at worst trying to paint a complete picture with incomplete evidence and ending up with a deeply flawed and incoherent piecing-together of unrelated and oftentimes contradictory evidence. However, it is easier to argue against what is false than it is to argue for what is true, or as Buckminster Fuller said, "you discover what is by uncovering what isn't." My first task will be to argue against what seems to be the default Western worldview: the idea that we are here to enjoy ourselves, or the less extreme version that a good and reasonable approach to life is to maximize the happiness of either ourselves or the group.
I want to be clear that these thoughts are mostly for me. I am only presenting a selection of evidence that I find persuasive, not trying to convince anyone of anything. You'd do much better to study philosophy and science than to read this. With that preface out of the way...
The problems with happiness as a goal
The definition of happiness is broad and abstract to the point that the word is hardly useful. There are positive emotions and there are negative emotions. I suspect most people whose goal is happiness are just trying to maximize the frequency and intensity of positive emotions -- everything from joy to satisfaction to curiosity (even though curiosity is not the same thing as happiness) -- and minimize the frequency and intensity of negative ones.
One problem is this: Some of the positive emotions are in direct competition with one another. For example, feelings of joy and pleasure often come at the expense of gratification and fulfillment because achieving the latter typically requires painful sacrifice and limits on the former. This, I think, is a serious problem with happiness as a goal -- you need to decide which of the positive emotions you are aiming for, and you have to pick ones that are not in competition with one another.
A related problem is this: Negative emotions are there for a reason. Fear is a response to threats of danger. Stress mobilizes your energy to do things you are not ordinarily capable of. There is even evidence that moderate forms of depression have the advantage of focusing you on the problem at hand, making you more likely to solve it.
I'm just getting started. More to come next week...
I will present an edited version to you in pieces, once a week, a Sunday sermon perhaps, and then post the whole mother at the end. The first piece is below.
---
One of my favorite lines, and one I sympathize with very much, is from Ludwig Wittgenstein (first heard in John Lloyd's TED talk): What we’re here for, I’ve no idea...but I’m pretty sure it’s not to enjoy ourselves.
I am always hesitant to try to explain the logical foundations of my beliefs because I know that beliefs are unconscious organisms and that by trying to bring them to the surface you are at best fishing for evidence in order to paint an incomplete picture and at worst trying to paint a complete picture with incomplete evidence and ending up with a deeply flawed and incoherent piecing-together of unrelated and oftentimes contradictory evidence. However, it is easier to argue against what is false than it is to argue for what is true, or as Buckminster Fuller said, "you discover what is by uncovering what isn't." My first task will be to argue against what seems to be the default Western worldview: the idea that we are here to enjoy ourselves, or the less extreme version that a good and reasonable approach to life is to maximize the happiness of either ourselves or the group.
I want to be clear that these thoughts are mostly for me. I am only presenting a selection of evidence that I find persuasive, not trying to convince anyone of anything. You'd do much better to study philosophy and science than to read this. With that preface out of the way...
The problems with happiness as a goal
The definition of happiness is broad and abstract to the point that the word is hardly useful. There are positive emotions and there are negative emotions. I suspect most people whose goal is happiness are just trying to maximize the frequency and intensity of positive emotions -- everything from joy to satisfaction to curiosity (even though curiosity is not the same thing as happiness) -- and minimize the frequency and intensity of negative ones.
One problem is this: Some of the positive emotions are in direct competition with one another. For example, feelings of joy and pleasure often come at the expense of gratification and fulfillment because achieving the latter typically requires painful sacrifice and limits on the former. This, I think, is a serious problem with happiness as a goal -- you need to decide which of the positive emotions you are aiming for, and you have to pick ones that are not in competition with one another.
A related problem is this: Negative emotions are there for a reason. Fear is a response to threats of danger. Stress mobilizes your energy to do things you are not ordinarily capable of. There is even evidence that moderate forms of depression have the advantage of focusing you on the problem at hand, making you more likely to solve it.
I'm just getting started. More to come next week...
May 20, 2010
"Ministry reaches homeless by listening"
Raleigh's Love Wins Ministry featured in today's News & Observer.
A couple of quotes I liked:
And:
I really admire what Love Wins is doing. You can follow their blog here.
I am proud to say that the founder and director, Hugh Hollowell (not Holloway, as the article goofs multiple times), is a reader of this blog. I had the good fortune to have coffee with him once, and I came away very impressed. I don't like to use words like 'intelligent' to describe someone, but he is certainly well-read, consuming books at a Tyler Cowen-like rate. Plus, he is an excellent writer, and he writes one of my favorite blogs, Hugh's Views.
One of my favorite posts of his was apparently lost when he upgraded the blog. I hope he won't mind me copying it from my RSS reader:
A couple of quotes I liked:
"If we have a goal, it's relationships," said Hugh Hollowell, 37, the ministry's founder and director. "All the good things that happen happen through relationships."
And:
"A lot of homeless work is predicated on the idea that 'We know how to fix you,'" Hollowell said. "A lot of social services are in the personal trainer mode. We're in the people mode. We think they're valuable because they exist."
I really admire what Love Wins is doing. You can follow their blog here.
I am proud to say that the founder and director, Hugh Hollowell (not Holloway, as the article goofs multiple times), is a reader of this blog. I had the good fortune to have coffee with him once, and I came away very impressed. I don't like to use words like 'intelligent' to describe someone, but he is certainly well-read, consuming books at a Tyler Cowen-like rate. Plus, he is an excellent writer, and he writes one of my favorite blogs, Hugh's Views.
One of my favorite posts of his was apparently lost when he upgraded the blog. I hope he won't mind me copying it from my RSS reader:
My Dad is the sort of guy who knows lots of people. I am not sure where he got this trait - he was an only child who grew up in the middle of nowhere, the son of a single mother - but somehow he ended up with it. I spent a lot of time in sales, and knew lot of folks who like to “network”, but Dad is the real deal. He really knows these people - he knows their wives, their kids, who married whom - he thrives on that. He was not gathering names or prospects so he could sell them something; he genuinely cares what they have to say. And it did not matter how wealthy or how poor they were - they always get the same treatment from Dad. When I was about 15, I got a job bagging groceries at the grocery store in the small town we lived near. I remember Dad telling me it was a good job because I would meet lots of people. I made a comment about how I was meeting lots of the important people in town - the banker, the lawyers, etc. He sat me down, knelt down and looked me in the eye and said, “Son, they are all important. Never forget that”. I never have.
What's wrong with sittin' (or what's *right* with standin')?
In response to yesterday's post on how to build a reading stand, my friend Robert asked What's wrong with sittin'? The short answer is not much. The long answer is a lot of things:
Some research says that too much sitting leads to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. You'll notice they do not say how much of an increased risk because in all likelihood the answer is unimpressively little. (A few numbers are given in this much shorter article.)
But the kicker to the research is this: Sitting for long periods is bad for you irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously. It's not simply that sitting is correlated with inactivity, it's that sitting (for long periods of time) is bad in itself.
Why? NYT's Opinionator:
OK, so there's that. Not unrelated is the calories thing:
Another reason why I am biased toward standing is because Seth Roberts found that standing, especially on one foot, helped him achieve noticeably better sleep, waking up feeling "really good". I cannot say I have noticed the same thing, but I never had a problem with sleep to begin with, praise Buddha. (And, weirdly, now you can track my sleep patterns on Fitbit, you stalker.)
I'll give you two other little reasons why I prefer standing while reading:
1. I enjoy massaging the soles of my feet with tennis balls while standing.
2. Unlike sitting and reading, it's not easy to fall asleep while standing. Sitting and reading is a good thing to do when you're ready for bed.
So maybe after reading this post -- especially the part about premature death and the like -- you'll want to stand more often. If so, great. Just don't be too serious about it because having anxiety about sitting too much is likely to be at least as harmful as sitting too much.
And a word of advice: If you want to change your behavior, knowing that sitting is bad (or standing good) is not enough. Facts and statistics rarely cause lasting changes in behavior because they do not appeal to our emotional core. What appealed to my emotions (in fact, it was one of the first posts on this blog) was 2 seconds of a video here, showing the striking contrast of a cloudy vial of blood taken after a sitting meal versus a much clearer vial of blood taken from the same person after a standing meal.
And, by the way, I'm no standaholic. Most of my reading is done sitting at the computer. And even reading books, I spend more time reading in bed or reading sitting outside than I do reading standing up.
I'll leave you with two views from my favorite reading location, sitting:
Some research says that too much sitting leads to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. You'll notice they do not say how much of an increased risk because in all likelihood the answer is unimpressively little. (A few numbers are given in this much shorter article.)
But the kicker to the research is this: Sitting for long periods is bad for you irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously. It's not simply that sitting is correlated with inactivity, it's that sitting (for long periods of time) is bad in itself.
Why? NYT's Opinionator:
The answer seems to have two parts. The first is that sitting is one of the most passive things you can do. You burn more energy by chewing gum or fidgeting than you do sitting still in a chair. Compared to sitting, standing in one place is hard work. To stand, you have to tense your leg muscles, and engage the muscles of your back and shoulders; while standing, you often shift from leg to leg. All of this burns energy. [...]
But it looks as though there’s a more sinister aspect to sitting, too. Several strands of evidence suggest that there’s a “physiology of inactivity”: that when you spend long periods sitting, your body actually does things that are bad for you.
OK, so there's that. Not unrelated is the calories thing:
If you sit for 30 minutes, you will burn 33 to 63 calories (for 110-lb. up to 216-lb. individuals). But standing for 30 minutes means burning 39 to 78 calories. So standing yields around 12 to 30 more calories per hour. For a full day of work (8 hours), standing might mean 96-240 more kcals used.
Another reason why I am biased toward standing is because Seth Roberts found that standing, especially on one foot, helped him achieve noticeably better sleep, waking up feeling "really good". I cannot say I have noticed the same thing, but I never had a problem with sleep to begin with, praise Buddha. (And, weirdly, now you can track my sleep patterns on Fitbit, you stalker.)
I'll give you two other little reasons why I prefer standing while reading:
1. I enjoy massaging the soles of my feet with tennis balls while standing.
2. Unlike sitting and reading, it's not easy to fall asleep while standing. Sitting and reading is a good thing to do when you're ready for bed.
So maybe after reading this post -- especially the part about premature death and the like -- you'll want to stand more often. If so, great. Just don't be too serious about it because having anxiety about sitting too much is likely to be at least as harmful as sitting too much.
And a word of advice: If you want to change your behavior, knowing that sitting is bad (or standing good) is not enough. Facts and statistics rarely cause lasting changes in behavior because they do not appeal to our emotional core. What appealed to my emotions (in fact, it was one of the first posts on this blog) was 2 seconds of a video here, showing the striking contrast of a cloudy vial of blood taken after a sitting meal versus a much clearer vial of blood taken from the same person after a standing meal.
And, by the way, I'm no standaholic. Most of my reading is done sitting at the computer. And even reading books, I spend more time reading in bed or reading sitting outside than I do reading standing up.
I'll leave you with two views from my favorite reading location, sitting:
Justin Wehr in online wedding competition!
Not me, sadly, but I have a Google Alert for my name that rarely updates and I was surprised to see some dude of roughly the same age make the news in Toledo, Ohio, the place of my birth and my home for the first 15 years of my life. (Also the proud home of now local committee seat holder Joe the Plumber, and nearly the home of the Toledo 'Peckerheads'.)
Anyway, congrats to the real Justin Wehr. I say 'real' because it's not quite my real name.
Entrepreneurship: The commonest of drives requiring the rarest of traits
Alain de Botton in The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work: (emphasis added)
And:
A striking number of us (that is, we who have yet to become who we are) are apt, in our private moments, to express our understanding of how the world could be altered for the better by picturing to ourselves various businesses we would like to start. In our more self-indulgent moods, we may even entertain detailed musings about what the awning should look like above the shop or how the advertisements for the new service ought to be phrased. These pleasing and all-consuming daydreams appear to spring from those very same aspects of our personalities which led us as children to delight in running a grocery store out of a corner of the kitchen or to open a hotel in a cardboard box in the garden -- as though there was some sort of innate and enduring human impulse to lend entrepreneurial form to certain of our deeply held enthusiasms and insights.
And:
Entrepreneurship appears to be almost wholly dependent on a sense that the present order is an unreliable and cowardly indicator of the possible. The absence of certain practices and products is deemed by entrepreneurs to be neither right nor inevitable, but merely evidence of the conformity and lack of imagination of the herd. Yet the milieu also demands that its protagonists develop a hard-headed awareness of certain intractable financial and legal truths, as well as an accurate sense of what other human beings are actually like. The field seems to require a painfully uncommon synthesis of imagination and realism.
May 19, 2010
How to build a reading stand [pics]
I have whined before about the lack of options for standing desks, so I took matters into my own hands and built an incredibly sophisticated piece of furniture myself. Here's how to do it:
1. Bring down two folding thingy-majigs from your attic or closet.
2. Unfold and stand one on top of the other.
Ta Da.
Ideal for people 6 feet and 2 inches tall who do not mind guests giving you funny looks and asking huh?
And, miraculously, it has not toppled over in the ~5 months I have been using it.
Things you'll need:
Book.
Spare books. For when you feel your interest subsiding.
Two thingy-majigs.
Book holder. Very useful, very often.
Bookmarkers. I use receipts and business cards.
Coaster. So as not to stain the thingy-majigs.
Notebook & pen. In fact, you should have this with you at all times.
Watch. It's good to know how long you spend on things. Time how long the first chapter takes you to read, multiply by the number of chapters, and ask if it's likely to be worth your time. A 200 page book takes me on average 7-8 hours to read. The watch serves as my nudge to be willing to put less-than-worthwhile books down.
1. Bring down two folding thingy-majigs from your attic or closet.
2. Unfold and stand one on top of the other.
Ta Da.
Ideal for people 6 feet and 2 inches tall who do not mind guests giving you funny looks and asking huh?
And, miraculously, it has not toppled over in the ~5 months I have been using it.
Things you'll need:
Book.
Spare books. For when you feel your interest subsiding.
Two thingy-majigs.
Book holder. Very useful, very often.
Bookmarkers. I use receipts and business cards.
Coaster. So as not to stain the thingy-majigs.
Notebook & pen. In fact, you should have this with you at all times.
Watch. It's good to know how long you spend on things. Time how long the first chapter takes you to read, multiply by the number of chapters, and ask if it's likely to be worth your time. A 200 page book takes me on average 7-8 hours to read. The watch serves as my nudge to be willing to put less-than-worthwhile books down.
May 18, 2010
Best uses of my time this week
Roughly in order...
Writing for almost six uninterrupted hours on the problems with hedonism, a better approach to life, and related musings. It will be turned into a long series of posts.
Created a spreadsheet of my "icons" and rated each on how much I envy, respect, and admire them. (Might post the results later.) Then searched for patterns in who I envy, respect, and admire the most.
Created a comparison table of my start-up idea compared to similar sites.
Writing, revising, revising, and revising again a letter to prospects.
Reading Alain de Botton's book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.
Reading Henry Ford's book My Life and Work.
Marc Andreessen talks at Stanford about entrepreneurship. (~1 hr)
Coming up with a list of prospects, collecting information on them, and reflecting on advantages and disadvantages of each.
How to talk yourself into something: "Will I" > "I Will".
A good description of how cells work. (It's good to be reminded ofwho what you are from time to time.)
I was not impressed at first, but now that I reflect on it, Charlie Rose's commencement address.
To the Best of our Knowledge podcast on cavemen, particularly the last segment about cooking. (~1 hr)
Reading Trout Fishing in America.
James Surowiecki's 2005 talk at a conference on the wisdom of the crowd. (~30 m)
Reflecting on how people judge competence. My tentative conclusion is that voice matters more than anything.
Seth Godin Mixergy interview on topics from his book Linchpin. (~50 m)
Typing up old notes.
This post.
Writing for almost six uninterrupted hours on the problems with hedonism, a better approach to life, and related musings. It will be turned into a long series of posts.
Created a spreadsheet of my "icons" and rated each on how much I envy, respect, and admire them. (Might post the results later.) Then searched for patterns in who I envy, respect, and admire the most.
Created a comparison table of my start-up idea compared to similar sites.
Writing, revising, revising, and revising again a letter to prospects.
Reading Alain de Botton's book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.
Reading Henry Ford's book My Life and Work.
Marc Andreessen talks at Stanford about entrepreneurship. (~1 hr)
Coming up with a list of prospects, collecting information on them, and reflecting on advantages and disadvantages of each.
How to talk yourself into something: "Will I" > "I Will".
A good description of how cells work. (It's good to be reminded of
I was not impressed at first, but now that I reflect on it, Charlie Rose's commencement address.
To the Best of our Knowledge podcast on cavemen, particularly the last segment about cooking. (~1 hr)
Reading Trout Fishing in America.
James Surowiecki's 2005 talk at a conference on the wisdom of the crowd. (~30 m)
Reflecting on how people judge competence. My tentative conclusion is that voice matters more than anything.
Seth Godin Mixergy interview on topics from his book Linchpin. (~50 m)
Typing up old notes.
This post.
May 17, 2010
Food & dining spending by city, age group, and income [infographics]
I was surprised to see Raleigh and Durham check in at numbers 4 and 5. I cannot be helping Durham's ranking because last year I spent (according to Mint) about 1/3 of the Durham average ($983 on dining out + $2,895 groceries = $3,878), right on pace, I suppose, if I add a couple of tots to the household.
Food spending in the biggest US cities
Food spending by age group, income, and household
May 16, 2010
Charlie Rose NC State commencement address [audio + excerpts]
Some excerpts are below, or you can download the audio which runs 14:41 but can safely be listened to at 2x speed.
---
The nine word commencement speech...
Know yourself. -Socrates
Control yourself. -Cicero
Give yourself. -Christ
Victory goes to those who work the hardest. Take the risk and the responsibility. Explore the unknown, and never, never, never give up. If you can do those things, you can write your own future.
The most important story in your life is the story you have already started writing. You are the writer, you're the star, you are the director, you are the producer. You control the narrative, and you can change the ending, if you want to. If you badly want to change it, you can.
Here are a few suggestions for your story:
Define yourself. Don't let anyone else tell you who you are. Promise me today that no one -- but you -- will define who you are. No one will put a ceiling on you because of race, religion, economic status, and, yes, gender and age.
You define your success. Not society. Not your teachers. Not even your parents. And certainly not a commencement speaker.
You define your passion. Find your passion, and go after it. Give it space. Give it great breath. Feed it and nurture it and free it. It will make your life an adventure.
And at the same time, as you go on that adventure, you must define and connect with your values. Know what you stand for -- the rock hard place beyond which you don't go, because it destroys you. Without a personal honor code, you will be without a rudder. With it you will have something to hold onto when you are tested or when you are tempted.
A journey of a thousand miles, as you know, begins with the first step. Start today. Don't spend your life getting ready. If you want to be a writer, write. If you want to be a painter, paint. If you want to be a scientist, do research. If you want to be an entrepreneur, start a company.
There are these realities, though... First, luck will play a role. Being at the right place at the right time can matter. [...] The second, be prepared. Be prepared always. But know this: No matter how prepared, how smart, and how strong, the unexpected will come. There will be tests and setbacks, rainy days. Also know this: As you take your first steps along this journey and make choices in your life, it'll be a bigger disappointment not to have tried. Or as someone once said, "at the end of your life you will regret more when you said 'no' than when you said 'yes'."
In all of it, people matter. People matter. Relationships matter. Friends matter. [...] Friendship is one of those amazing relationships of life. Serve it and live it and nourish it, enjoy it, honor it, and maintain it. And let nothing petty interfere with it. In life you will find there are times that the only voice that comforts you will be that friend who understands you, and the bond can get you through the darkness to celebrate the night.
This too -- especially this too: Don't forget that there are some amazing people here with you. They have helped you get here. They worked hard, they saved, they prayed, and they spent endless hours just to be able to sit here with you, to share this time with you. This is their day too. [...] Let them share their pride with you. Let them share their dreams with you, because you are on the way to fulfilling their dream. This is an important step.
As Steve Jobs said in a famous commencement speech, "stay hungry, and stay foolish."
###
Related:
"What's the best advice you've ever been given?"
Marty Nemko posts excerpts from CNBC's 10 Best Graduation Speeches
Bill Watterson commencement address
Steve Jobs commencement address
---
The nine word commencement speech...
Know yourself. -Socrates
Control yourself. -Cicero
Give yourself. -Christ
Victory goes to those who work the hardest. Take the risk and the responsibility. Explore the unknown, and never, never, never give up. If you can do those things, you can write your own future.
The most important story in your life is the story you have already started writing. You are the writer, you're the star, you are the director, you are the producer. You control the narrative, and you can change the ending, if you want to. If you badly want to change it, you can.
Here are a few suggestions for your story:
Define yourself. Don't let anyone else tell you who you are. Promise me today that no one -- but you -- will define who you are. No one will put a ceiling on you because of race, religion, economic status, and, yes, gender and age.
You define your success. Not society. Not your teachers. Not even your parents. And certainly not a commencement speaker.
You define your passion. Find your passion, and go after it. Give it space. Give it great breath. Feed it and nurture it and free it. It will make your life an adventure.
And at the same time, as you go on that adventure, you must define and connect with your values. Know what you stand for -- the rock hard place beyond which you don't go, because it destroys you. Without a personal honor code, you will be without a rudder. With it you will have something to hold onto when you are tested or when you are tempted.
A journey of a thousand miles, as you know, begins with the first step. Start today. Don't spend your life getting ready. If you want to be a writer, write. If you want to be a painter, paint. If you want to be a scientist, do research. If you want to be an entrepreneur, start a company.
There are these realities, though... First, luck will play a role. Being at the right place at the right time can matter. [...] The second, be prepared. Be prepared always. But know this: No matter how prepared, how smart, and how strong, the unexpected will come. There will be tests and setbacks, rainy days. Also know this: As you take your first steps along this journey and make choices in your life, it'll be a bigger disappointment not to have tried. Or as someone once said, "at the end of your life you will regret more when you said 'no' than when you said 'yes'."
In all of it, people matter. People matter. Relationships matter. Friends matter. [...] Friendship is one of those amazing relationships of life. Serve it and live it and nourish it, enjoy it, honor it, and maintain it. And let nothing petty interfere with it. In life you will find there are times that the only voice that comforts you will be that friend who understands you, and the bond can get you through the darkness to celebrate the night.
This too -- especially this too: Don't forget that there are some amazing people here with you. They have helped you get here. They worked hard, they saved, they prayed, and they spent endless hours just to be able to sit here with you, to share this time with you. This is their day too. [...] Let them share their pride with you. Let them share their dreams with you, because you are on the way to fulfilling their dream. This is an important step.
As Steve Jobs said in a famous commencement speech, "stay hungry, and stay foolish."
###
Related:
"What's the best advice you've ever been given?"
Marty Nemko posts excerpts from CNBC's 10 Best Graduation Speeches
Bill Watterson commencement address
Steve Jobs commencement address
May 14, 2010
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
A mother, as part of her quest to put together an "album of advice" for her graduating son (love that idea), emails the Freakonomics guys. Dubner's answer is a good one, presented neatly in a fishing narrative no less.
I love it when big-time bloggers post questions like this because of the hundreds of comments to comb through for gems of wisdom. I spent ~15 minutes weeding through 102 mostly underwhelming comments, and pulled out the 7 below that I thought were meaningful enough to save for posterity.
P.S. - I am going to the NC State commencement tomorrow morning just to hear Charlie Rose's address. From watching his interviews over the past couple of years, the man seems profoundly wise. I am just hoping his advice is not given too much in the form of I have spoken to many great people and they have all said... I only want to know what he thinks. I am relying on him and his bullshit filter. Don't let me down, Charlie. Anyway, expect some notes or maybe even audio next week.
---
A man celebrating his golden wedding anniversary when asked the secret to the success of his marriage: Every morning I look in the mirror, and I say to the reflection, ‘You’re no bargain.’
Your business idea will either make money or lose money. Whichever it is, it’s best to know by the end of the first month.
Your brain works very hard to fool you into believing that you are smart, wise, and that you make good decisions. So whenever you are trying to make a difficult decision or solve a difficult problem and the evidence points to a conclusion that pleases you, be especially skeptical.
“It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
The hardest thing to do is to start. Discipline is easy once you have momentum. Make a habit of doing rather than not doing.
Your quality of life, especially your mood, is intimately connected to three things: sufficient sleep, a healthy diet, and sufficient exercise. Try not to compromise more than one at a time.
If you wait for the perfect time to do anything then you’ll end up doing nothing.
I love it when big-time bloggers post questions like this because of the hundreds of comments to comb through for gems of wisdom. I spent ~15 minutes weeding through 102 mostly underwhelming comments, and pulled out the 7 below that I thought were meaningful enough to save for posterity.
P.S. - I am going to the NC State commencement tomorrow morning just to hear Charlie Rose's address. From watching his interviews over the past couple of years, the man seems profoundly wise. I am just hoping his advice is not given too much in the form of I have spoken to many great people and they have all said... I only want to know what he thinks. I am relying on him and his bullshit filter. Don't let me down, Charlie. Anyway, expect some notes or maybe even audio next week.
---
A man celebrating his golden wedding anniversary when asked the secret to the success of his marriage: Every morning I look in the mirror, and I say to the reflection, ‘You’re no bargain.’
Your business idea will either make money or lose money. Whichever it is, it’s best to know by the end of the first month.
Your brain works very hard to fool you into believing that you are smart, wise, and that you make good decisions. So whenever you are trying to make a difficult decision or solve a difficult problem and the evidence points to a conclusion that pleases you, be especially skeptical.
“It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
The hardest thing to do is to start. Discipline is easy once you have momentum. Make a habit of doing rather than not doing.
Your quality of life, especially your mood, is intimately connected to three things: sufficient sleep, a healthy diet, and sufficient exercise. Try not to compromise more than one at a time.
If you wait for the perfect time to do anything then you’ll end up doing nothing.
May 12, 2010
A better use for a border fence
People playing volleyball using the border fence between Arizona and Mexico, 1979. From Slate (Hat tip: Mark Larson)
The thing that has made humans "successful" (or powerful or whatever)
Here are some of your responses. The best answer was "those little swords they put in BLTs." (Thanks, Ken.) The best serious answer, I thought, belonged to wheninrome15 (row #5). A selection:
There was an interesting diversity of responses including things like "the encapsulation and expression of priorities" (Nice, Bob. row 6), selflessness, tools, long distance running (interesting! row 10), persistence, and behavioral flexibility.
By far the most common response was language. My opinion is that language is closely related to our greatest strength, but that is not much of a strength itself. (Besides, language often leads to problems because of the illusion that communication has taken place.) In some of your articulations of why language matters, I think you identified what really matters. Bob (row 6) called it "effective collaboration" and row 12 called it "institutional intelligence". I call it "collective intelligence", and define it broadly as groups of individuals doing things collectively that seem intelligent. (Definition stolen from an interesting paper called Harnessing Crowds.)
To try to be less abstract and hand wavey, I see the primary components of collective intelligence as coordination and cooperation, the division of labor, and collective cognition. Collective intelligence is mostly the product of our ultra-sociality, a trait we share with ants, bees, wasps, termites, and only one other mammal: naked mole rats. Judging by the relative "success" of these species, ultra-sociality appears to be highly adaptive. Toss in the capacity for language, reasoning, abstract thought, empathy, intentionality, love & compassion, and future-mindedness & goal-setting and you begin to see the recipe that has made humans so powerful. While all of these factors matter, they would be considerably less valuable without the foundation of ultra-sociality / collective intelligence.
Collective intelligence is apparent in the almost magical series of events that takes place in a market system. For a beautiful illustration, read Leonard Read's essay I, Pencil, a work that has become a sort of Libertarian manifesto. The essence is that no man can create even a simple pencil by himself -- it requires the coordinated effort of countless individuals, the division of labor, and a price system.
I believe the internet's greatest potential lies in the ability to harness collective intelligence. More on that soon, I hope.
It would seem that the thing that has made us powerful is our ability to build on past advances. The ability to create something that not only survives our deaths, but indeed had nothing to do with our lives to begin with. Knowledge isn't a fundamental property of humanity, but a propensity to build on it is.
Our advantage is the joint ability to create and communicate knowledge. But at the same, it should be noted that neither invention nor communication are the exclusive territory of humanity. Perhaps there is a threshold of ability, above which learning accelerates, and below which learning stagnates.
There was an interesting diversity of responses including things like "the encapsulation and expression of priorities" (Nice, Bob. row 6), selflessness, tools, long distance running (interesting! row 10), persistence, and behavioral flexibility.
By far the most common response was language. My opinion is that language is closely related to our greatest strength, but that is not much of a strength itself. (Besides, language often leads to problems because of the illusion that communication has taken place.) In some of your articulations of why language matters, I think you identified what really matters. Bob (row 6) called it "effective collaboration" and row 12 called it "institutional intelligence". I call it "collective intelligence", and define it broadly as groups of individuals doing things collectively that seem intelligent. (Definition stolen from an interesting paper called Harnessing Crowds.)
To try to be less abstract and hand wavey, I see the primary components of collective intelligence as coordination and cooperation, the division of labor, and collective cognition. Collective intelligence is mostly the product of our ultra-sociality, a trait we share with ants, bees, wasps, termites, and only one other mammal: naked mole rats. Judging by the relative "success" of these species, ultra-sociality appears to be highly adaptive. Toss in the capacity for language, reasoning, abstract thought, empathy, intentionality, love & compassion, and future-mindedness & goal-setting and you begin to see the recipe that has made humans so powerful. While all of these factors matter, they would be considerably less valuable without the foundation of ultra-sociality / collective intelligence.
Collective intelligence is apparent in the almost magical series of events that takes place in a market system. For a beautiful illustration, read Leonard Read's essay I, Pencil, a work that has become a sort of Libertarian manifesto. The essence is that no man can create even a simple pencil by himself -- it requires the coordinated effort of countless individuals, the division of labor, and a price system.
I believe the internet's greatest potential lies in the ability to harness collective intelligence. More on that soon, I hope.
May 11, 2010
May 10, 2010
Henry Ford on creativity vs. productivity
There are far too many assumptions about what human nature ought to be and not enough research into what it is. Take the assumption that creative work can be undertaken only in the realm of vision. We speak of creative "artists" in music, painting, and the other arts. We seemingly limit the creative functions to productions that may be hung on gallery walls, or played in concert halls, or otherwise displayed where idle and fastidious people gather to admire each other's culture. But if a man wants a field for vital creative work, let him come where he is dealing with higher laws than those of sound, or line, or colour; let him come where he may deal with the laws of personality.
That's the industrialist I know and love -- productivity over "admiring each other's culture". Love that quote.
Although I appreciate the sentiment, I don't agree that fine arts are limited to the realm of idle and fastidious culture admirers. Even when intended solely for amusement, the fine arts can have serious utility. I dare say there is not a single person who would not benefit culturally, spiritually, financially from an added dose of that fuzzy concept we call "creativity".
An example of creativity's utility is my experience with Trout Fishing in America, a book in which Richard Brautigan defies all conventions in what seems to be a mission to amuse himself with language. I praise DELL PUBLISHING CO., INC. for taking a chance on this book and allowing the minds and imaginations of a few lucky readers to be taken to places they have never before experienced. An added benefit of the arts is the sense of awe and inspiration one feels witnessing the capacity for human aesthetic and creative expression.
Where I do agree with Ford is this: There is an optimal level of fine art exposure. If you spend all your time admiring other's culture, you will soon grow bored. And idle and fastidious. And poor. Because our lives are so interconnected I do feel compelled to do more than amuse myself -- to be productive. But that is a philosophical topic for another day.
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Henry Ford on experts and impossibility
Henry Ford on experts and impossibility
Written 88 years ago in his book My Life and Work:
The book has so far been a very worthwhile read. I am continually surprised by how innovative some of the concepts seem even for today. (But there are also sprinklings of old-time prejudice. More on that soon...)
None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible.
I refuse to recognize that there are impossibilities. I cannot discover that any one knows enough about anything on this earth definitely to say what is and what is not possible. The right kind of experience, the right kind of technical training, ought to enlarge the mind and reduce the number of impossibilities. It unfortunately does nothing of the kind. Most technical training and the average of that which we call experience, provide a record of previous failures and, instead of these failures being taken for what they are worth, they are taken as absolute bars to progress. If some man, calling himself an authority, says that this or that cannot be done, then a horde of unthinking followers start the chorus: "It can't be done."
The book has so far been a very worthwhile read. I am continually surprised by how innovative some of the concepts seem even for today. (But there are also sprinklings of old-time prejudice. More on that soon...)
May 7, 2010
Evolution of Facebook privacy default settings
An interactive visualization from Matt McKeon. (Hat tip: Ben Fry)
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Previously:
Facebook growth chart
Facebook now the fourth largest country (I think 3rd now)
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Previously:
Facebook growth chart
Facebook now the fourth largest country (I think 3rd now)
May 6, 2010
May 4, 2010
Science News Big and Small
I love that these stories came out on the same day.
1. New cryo-electron microscope able to 'see' atoms for first time
2. New evidence goes against prevailing galaxy formation scenario, suggesting that the Milky Way 'fell' together
1. New cryo-electron microscope able to 'see' atoms for first time
2. New evidence goes against prevailing galaxy formation scenario, suggesting that the Milky Way 'fell' together
Sources of marital wisdom
As the obnoxious little brother I am, I nearly sent my sister a list of reading material to advise her on her soon-to-be marriage. But why should she take seriously the advice of her brother, 3.5 years her junior, with no skin the marriage game? She probably shouldn't, but that won't stop me from trying. Here is the list I would have sent her:
1. Elizabeth Gilbert's book Committed provides a good cultural and historical perspective on Western marriages packaged in an entertaining narrative that I am sure Meg will enjoy. For the abbreviated version, check out one of these two interviews: One with Diane Rehm (~1 hr) or another with Q TV's Jian Ghomeshi (20:45).
2. A 17-lecture psychology course on Academic Earth called Communication and Conflict in Couples and Families. I found lectures 7 through 16 to be most important.
3. Peter Salovey's 70 minute lecture called Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love, described as follows:
4. Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis, while providing little direct advice on how to have a happy marriage, is the best book I have found for a definition of what the good life is and advice on how to get there. In fact, this is probably the most important item on the list.
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Dearest reader, what am I missing? What is the best source of marital wisdom you have encountered that my sister (and I) should know about?
1. Elizabeth Gilbert's book Committed provides a good cultural and historical perspective on Western marriages packaged in an entertaining narrative that I am sure Meg will enjoy. For the abbreviated version, check out one of these two interviews: One with Diane Rehm (~1 hr) or another with Q TV's Jian Ghomeshi (20:45).
2. A 17-lecture psychology course on Academic Earth called Communication and Conflict in Couples and Families. I found lectures 7 through 16 to be most important.
3. Peter Salovey's 70 minute lecture called Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love, described as follows:
Peter Salovey (Professor of Psychology and Dean of Yale College) introduces students to the dominant psychological theories of love and attraction. Specific topics include the different types of love, the circumstances that predict attraction, and the situations where people mistakenly attribute arousal for love.
4. Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis, while providing little direct advice on how to have a happy marriage, is the best book I have found for a definition of what the good life is and advice on how to get there. In fact, this is probably the most important item on the list.
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Dearest reader, what am I missing? What is the best source of marital wisdom you have encountered that my sister (and I) should know about?
May 3, 2010
Three on College
1. Grade Inflation: (From Timeplots)
2. Effort Deflation: (From Marginal Revolution)
3. Coming melt-down, as seen by Seth Godin.
2. Effort Deflation: (From Marginal Revolution)
Using multiple datasets from different time periods, we document declines in academic time investment by full-time college students in the United States between 1961 and 2003. Full-time students allocated 40 hours per week toward class and studying in 1961, whereas by 2003 they were investing about 27 hours per week. Declines were extremely broad-based, and are not easily accounted for by framing effects, work or major choices, or compositional changes in students or schools. We conclude that there have been substantial changes over time in the quantity or manner of human capital production on college campuses.
3. Coming melt-down, as seen by Seth Godin.
May 2, 2010
Shout Outs
Happy birthdays to my mom and my lady. (I would say happy birthday to my dog, too, but he has thus far shown no interest in reading this blog.)
My big sister Meg has been trying to "make" this blog for awhile, as in doing something cool enough to be worthy of a Wehr in the World mention. She considered but ultimately decided against sporting a wehrintheworld.blogspot.com endorsement during her half-marathon -- too bad because that might have done it.
But this weekend she officially earned her first mention. She did something that caught us all by surprise: She wooed somebody (her boyfriend) into getting down on one knee and making certain lofty requests -- such as to agree in principle to agree in principle (when the time comes) to spend with him, if not eternity, then at least until death does them part, although not in those words, exactly -- and, after a few ARE YOU SERIOUS's, she said yes. Congratulations to Megan and Chris! We are excited for you.
From left to right: Chris, Megan, Dad, Mom, JW, E
My big sister Meg has been trying to "make" this blog for awhile, as in doing something cool enough to be worthy of a Wehr in the World mention. She considered but ultimately decided against sporting a wehrintheworld.blogspot.com endorsement during her half-marathon -- too bad because that might have done it.
But this weekend she officially earned her first mention. She did something that caught us all by surprise: She wooed somebody (her boyfriend) into getting down on one knee and making certain lofty requests -- such as to agree in principle to agree in principle (when the time comes) to spend with him, if not eternity, then at least until death does them part, although not in those words, exactly -- and, after a few ARE YOU SERIOUS's, she said yes. Congratulations to Megan and Chris! We are excited for you.
From left to right: Chris, Megan, Dad, Mom, JW, E
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