Harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable

Excellent. From Concepts and implications of altruism bias and pathological altruism by Barbara A. Oakley.

Pathological altruism can be conceived as behavior in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or others, results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable.

Saying what has needed to said for a long time. Too often good intentions and noble goals are used as the final trump in any argument to do with the commonweal. Don't examine the hidden assumptions or the past performance so long as the goals are right and the intentions are good. That's not how we build bridges, it's not how we ought to develop public policy or corporate strategies. This paper is a mere eight pages, but is clear, to the point and quotable at length. Read the whole thing.

Well-meaning but unscientific approaches toward altruistic helping can have the unwitting effect of ensuring that the benefits of science and the scientific method are kept away from those most in need of help. In the final analysis, it is clear that when altruistic efforts in science are presented as being beyond reproach, it becomes all too easy to silence rational criticism (62, 70, 72–78). Few wish to run the gauntlet of criticizing poorly conducted, highly subjective “science” which is purported to help, or indeed, of daring to question the basis of problematic scientific paradigms that arise in part from good intentions.

Examples referenced include government promotion of home ownership and foreign aid but the list of altruistically intended but objectively destructive programs could probably on its own take up the entire eight pages from Affirmative Action to Zero Tolerance.

Unconsumated reading

An interesting perspective on the ever elusive question of what constitutes a good book. The Most Begun "Read but Unfinished" (Initiated) book ever from Goodreads. 7,500 voters on some 1,200 books. This is not really about good and bad but about the prospect of books engaging a "random" reader. Take the top ten most started but never completed books as an example. All classics with great consequentiality and heavily read. But also prone to unsustained engagement.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Ulysses by James Joyce
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Holy Bible: King James Version by Anonymous
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

I am not really sure what this tells us but I find it an intriguing perspective. Perhaps: Books that are deemed inherently interesting by enthusiastic readers but which fail to sustain that initial interest.

A reluctance to engage in real world problem solving

It is interesting how one's perspective affects how you approach problem analysis. From Gender Inequality in 500 Popular Films: Examining On-Screen Portrayals and Behind-the-Scenes Employment Patterns in Motion Pictures Released between 2007-2012 by Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Marc Choueiti, Elizabeth Scofield, & Dr. Katherine Pieper. First they establish that there is an empirical pattern. Their research is based on the top 100 commercial fictional movies of 2012.

Females are grossly underrepresented on screen in 2012 films. Out of 4,475 speaking characters on screen, only 28.4% are female. This translates into a ratio of 2.51 males to every 1 female on screen. 2012 reveals the lowest percentage of on-screen females (28.4%) across the 5-year sample. Only 6% of the top-grossing films in 2012 featured a balanced cast, or females in 45-54.9% of all speaking roles. Just over a quarter of all narrators (27.5%) are female.

Only 16.7% of the 1,228 directors, writers, and producers are female across the 100 top-grossing films of 2012. Women accounted for 4.1% of directors, 12.2% of writers, and 20% of producers. This calculates to a 2012 ratio of 5 males to every 1 female behind the camera. Almost no changes are observed in female employment patterns behind the camera across the 5 years studied. Together, the findings show that the gender needle is not moving on screen or behind the camera in popular films.

They find this perplexing.

The under representation of females on screen is surprising given population and movie attendance patterns. Girls and women represent fully half of the U.S. population and buy half of the movie tickets sold. As we have stated before, females simply do not represent half of the cinematic sky. The lack of movement on screen is also somewhat unexpected, given the advocacy efforts of many non profits in the U.S. to increase the prevalence of and diversify the portrayal of girls and women across media.

That is interesting. It is also consistent with my observations that in any field subject to open and transparent competition, the likelihood of female participation in the top reaches of performance is bounded around 15-30%. The basic observation from the research, though, comes down to this - audiences apparently prefer younger actresses over older ones and they prefer to see more of them (flesh exposure) than they do of male actors. No great biological or sociological surprise there though it is interesting to see it documented.

What I find most interesting is not necessarily the facts they have provided, though that is valuable, but rather their mode of argument. They are essentially starting with a conclusion and working backwards to justify that conclusion rather than identifying a pattern, justifying it as a problem, and then focusing on solving that problem.

The authors appear to want to fix the gender disparity and they want to do it specifically by coercing film studios to pursue a specific action (hire more female directors and producers) despite "advocacy efforts of many non profits in the U.S. to increase the prevalence of and diversify the portrayal of girls and women across media" having failed to accomplish this over the past couple of decades of advocacy.

An experienced problem solver would look for the potential root causes of the disparity and tackle those root causes.

The researchers instead notice "that filmmaker gender is associated with how stories are told. Looking across the 5-year sample, films with female helmers are populated with more girls/women on screen and with less female sexualization." With that correlation in hand, they then conclude, "At least one avenue to diversifying cinematic content or reducing the risk of some negative effects (i.e., objectification) may be to hire more women behind the camera."

If we accept that gender imbalance and sexualization are problems to be addressed, then how do we go about solving the problem. What I find fascinating is that the researchers simply leaped at the first correlation they saw and proposed a coercive solution (make film studios use more female directors, producers and writers and the sexualization will come down and the female roles will go up).

But what kind of way to do problem solving is that? First, by their own numbers, even if all films were produced by females, you would still have females underrepresented and you would still have women oversexualized compared to men. So their proposed solution, even if feasible, would still not solve the problem. It looks like this is simply a make work solution for female directors and producers rather than an honest effort to fix gender imbalance and sexualization. What explains this?

I don't know. I am guessing that it is three-fold: unquestioned assumptions on the part of the researchers, lack of experience/context, and complexity and difficulty of addressing real root causes.

Everyone seems to assume that disparity is a consequence of bad thoughts and actions despite overwhelming evidence that ill intent is relatively rare and that disparities arise all the time out of positive individual actions (see the research of Thomas Schelling, nicely summarized in Seeing Around Corners by Jonathan Rauch.)

So how would you solve this problem as a responsible and accountable executive? Find the root causes and determine what can be done to influence those issues to arrive at the desired outcome. So what is the root cause? The researchers imply that the root cause is the behaviors of the studios, overlooking the most critical contextual issue. Studios exist to make money via the highly unpredictable process of film-making. Who determines success? The audience. If audiences don't buy, then film studios don't profit and they go out of business. Simple as that. So what is the audience buying? Based on the researcher's numbers, the American audience appears to be buying young female flesh. Is that a problem? Depends on your values. I could make a reasonably strong argument that it is but I would certainly come across as very traditional, patriarchal, and Victorian.

But the real issue is whether the suppliers (movie studios) are creating demand (for pretty young women) or whether they are merely the vessel existing to fulfill the pre-existing demand from movie audiences? Given that the movie industry is massively competitive and that the barriers to entry are coming down (plunging technology costs for film production and increased digital venues for distribution) and that the audience is capricious, the presumption has to be that the studios are seeking to respond to demand.

This has echoes of the War on Drugs. Should we be conducting this war at all? If the answer is Yes, Do we go after the suppliers or the consumers? And do we understand enough about the market for drugs, the details of production and supply, the sociology of drug consumption and the biology and psychology of drug dependency to be effective in mitigating or eliminating the problem? For the War on Drugs, thirty years of well intended effort says the answer to all the questions is no, we don't know enough to be effective.

I think the answer is the same for gender imbalance in movies. It is great to be able to establish some empirical parameters as the researchers have done. And to be fair, they do call a number of times for additional research. But none of the calls are to determine why the audience is under demanding of female roles and over focused on flesh.

A long ramble to say that this is interesting and potentially useful research but that the academy too often turns out studies that are bounded by poor critical thinking, undocumented assumptions, value systems that may not be consonant with the population at large, a tendency to grasp at straws that serve a pre-existing worldview and a reluctance to engage in real world problem solving.

The impact of racial and gender homophily was non-significant for either instrumental or expressive ties

Hmm. Interesting. Too small a sample and quite a nuanced study so I am somewhat skeptical even though the results are consistent with my expectations. From Homophily of Network Ties and Bonding and Bridging Social Capital in Computer-Mediated Distributed Teams by Y. Connie Yuan and Geri Gay.

To test our hypotheses on homophily and the impact of bonding and bridging ties on performance, we used a sample consisting of 32 advanced engineering design students assigned to work together on a complicated task. The purpose of this advanced class was to replicate what students would encounter in actual work settings and organizations (NASA). Therefore, we believe that the results of this study can be generalized beyond a college student population. However, the generalizability of our research is limited because the results were obtained from one single sample.

Counter to our predictions, the impact of racial and gender homophily was non-significant for either instrumental or expressive ties. However, homophily in social characteristics demonstrated a strong impact. Specifically, location was found to have a significant influence on the formation of both instrumental and expressive relations, and group assignment significantly influenced the formation of instrumental ties. These results support Bradner and Mark's (2002) earlier findings that location had a significant influence on social interactions in computer-mediated communications, and that the provision of different communication media—including rich media such as videoconferencing—to connect people from different locations did not shorten the "social distance" between them.

In many discussions in the US, in particular regarding reading, there is a great deal of focus on the importance of race. I have long been somewhat skeptical. People define themselves on an almost infinite number of variables: race, ethnicity, gender, SES, class, culture, language, religion, cohort, family structure, etc. and which elements are most important and to what degree, I believe, change over time and under different circumstances. Trying to pigeonhole people by race and gender is too confining and likely to lead to bad decision-making.

The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man

I agree with Bernstein. The poverty of our expectations of politicians has become so extreme that we cease to note that which ought to outrage us.

We’ve Apparently Come to Admire the Petty Corruption of the Political Class by David Bernstein

I noticed two anecdotes about the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, both of which were meant to be complimentary but in fact speak volumes about the petty corruption of our political class and how inured to it we’ve become. The first was told by a friend of his who was at a conference of Jewish philanthropists in Israel with Lautenberg on 9/11. Lautenberg “used his pull as a former senator” to get everyone an early flight back to the U.S. so they could rejoin their families. The second, told by Vice-President Biden at Lautenberg’s funeral, related how Biden was once hustling to make an Amtrak train to Delaware, but was told by Amtrak staff, “don’t worry we’re holding the train for Sen. Lautenberg” (who was a big political supporter of Amtrak).

Now, as corruption goes, this is minor stuff. But I’m more disturbed that rather than the rich and powerful (Lautenberg’s friends in Israel and Biden) being embarrassed that Lautenberg (mis)used his influence to inconvenience others on behalf of himself and his friends, they tout these stories in eulogizing them, as if we should all be glad that a (former!) Senator has the “clout” to help his friends at the expense of those less connected. Bleh!

This reminds me of a purported story by and about Davy Crockett. One of those myths that gets manufactured and takes on a life of its own. Here is the background to whether the story is true or not, from Jim's Corner and further detail from Ann Toplovich.

In the case of “Not Yours to Give,” this episode of Crockett’s life was first published in the January 1867 issue of Harper’s Magazine as “Davy Crockett’s Electioneering Tour” (pp. 606-611, speech on p. 607) by James J. Bethune, a nom de plume used by Edward S. Ellis (1840-1916). (“Bethune” published another piece in Harper’s, "Walter Colquitt of Georgia" which is also about a wonderful speaker whose speeches were not recorded, except in Bethune’s later memories. Ellis was most well known for his dime novels, “Deerhunter” and other Wild West tales for boys.) The 1867 Bethune piece was reprinted by Ellis in his 1884 edition of The Life of Colonel David Crockett, but it does not appear in his original 1861 book on Crockett (available at GoogleBooks). Clearly, Ellis could not have heard Crockett give a speech that took place 12 years before Ellis/Bethune’s birth.

It appears to me that many of the elements of the story are documented but it is a story that was embellished over time, likely by Crockett himself and by others. So the final version is almost certainly less than true but also certainly more than false and that's a pretty wide gap in between.

Here is the most complete version I can find on the web, which is an edited version of the original essay in Harper's magazine.

You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state

Milton Friedman once said in a lecture,

you cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state

and argued that you have to resolve the inconsistency between the two equally desirable goals.

From Walter Russell Mead it is clear that we are, decades later, still unresolved: Germany to Deport EU Citizens.

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich announced Friday that the government would begin deporting poor Bulgarians and Romanians who had moved to the country to take advantage of the generous welfare benefits. According to Spiegel:

The issue was prompted by complaints from German communities claiming that an increasing number of people are arriving from Romania and Bulgaria with the help of organized gangs, obtaining a business license and applying for benefits a few months later under the pretences that the business has been unsuccessful.

Friedrich says that those who are found defrauding social services will be expelled from the country, despite the fact that they are granted the right to work and travel throughout the member states as citizens of the European Union.

Trade-offs: A welfare state is a powerful statement of community - we look after each other. But the more powerful the statement, the more you have to be clear - us but not you.

Cognitive tail-chasing

Reading and thinking about the Dunning-Kruger Effect makes me wonder: as barriers to entry in various fields come down owing to internet access and its enablement of disintermediation, will there not likely be an increasing population of low performing but highly passionate individuals in the bottom objective quartiles of each field who substantially overestimate their capacity to contribute to the advancement of that field.

If that were true, then you would expect to see increasing accusations against the top performers of the field, the accusers trying to make the case that their marginal contributions are being overlooked because the field is rigged, is dominated by insiders, is biased against outsiders, etc. Anything to justify their low performance.

While annoying in fields with objective measures of performance and excellence, such disruptive accusations in fields less measurable would be especially vulnerable to self-doubt and reflection. Self-doubt and reflection are not bad things in themselves but are a waste of time in response to self-serving accusations. I think we already see that wasted responsiveness in some subjective fields as art and writing. It then becomes especially important to find objectively measurable proxies for excellence in order to keep conversations focused on productive issues rather than allowing an endless cycle of cognitive tail-chasing.

Knowledge transfer and error

Fascinating. From Little Poem, who made thee? by Thomas Pitchford.

A poem written by a contemporary American author is being taught in schools across the United States and England as the work of one of Britain’s most famous scribes. This innocent verse is escaping the detection of experienced educators because an error exists in a lesson plan circulating many web sites, from loosely monitored forums to highly reputed and authoritative resources including some run by government agencies.

Teachers searching the Internet for examples of poetry to use in their instruction are finding a poem entitled “Two Sunflowers Move into the Yellow Room”. A great number of the suggested web sites claim the poem was written by William Blake. Rather than being composed around 200 years ago, it was written by the poet Nancy Willard for her 1981 book A Visit to William Blake’s Inn which won America’s highest award for children’s literature, the Newbery Medal. This book shows Ms Willard’s appreciation for the work of Blake and her poems make many allusions to his verse, in this case “Ah Sunflower, weary of time” from Songs of Innocence and Experience. Ms Willard’s prowess as an author is easily proven from her large amount of published works, collection of awards and career as a teacher of writing, but attributing any work from the 20th century to one of the best known and most studied poets of two centuries previous is a sizeable blunder. So, how did it happen?

The error began in 2001 on Oracle Education Foundation’s web site ThinkQuest, a collection of online educational resources designed by students from around the world. A group of students contributed a project called “Poetry as We See It” which defines certain elements of poetry and gives samples to illustrate those concepts. As stated in their introduction, the boys and girls looked for older poems which would no longer be subject to copyright law. Amongst books with works by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson and Robert Louis Stevenson, the students found Ms Willard’s homage to Blake. But, as attested to on their bibliography and a page of examples (see following images), they thought the poems were actually written by William Blake.

What is the prevalence of this error? Seems to be perhaps 25%. But the prevalence is not perhaps the most notable thing about it, but rather the pervasiveness. The error is on the web but it is also in classrooms and in research papers. It has passed beyond the ability to easily filter it out.

This is a fascinating gleam into the distributed processes of culture, academia, epistemology, knowledge transfer, etc.

It will mean what the words say! An oath is made of words!

From The Man For All Seasons, Act Two of the play.

ROPER We don't need to know the wording-we know what it will mean!

MORE It will mean what the words say! An oath is made of words! It may be possible to take it. Or avoid it.

Brought to mind by yesterdays post, To pretend to know something about a character when the novel is silent about it is to reveal something about ourselves, not about the novel
We need Thomas More today. In an increasingly complex, often mystifying, society, we often get along by leaving plenty of gray areas and unspoken assumptions. Oftentimes this works. Even though we may lose sight of the fact, it is still true that sometimes the words do have to mean what the words say.

To pretend to know something about a character when the novel is silent about it is to reveal something about ourselves, not about the novel

From On the existence of fictional characters by D.G. Myers. Wonderful to unexpectedly come across a mind with whom you have affinity and to whom you can so easily extend respect.

The demand for memorable characters has caused all sorts of mischief. Readers shut the covers of a novel and find that an image of a character is stuck in their minds. They are left with the strong impression, which gradually settles into conviction, that the character has an independent existence. Like lovers in a medieval tapestry who shake their limbs and step out of the tapestry into unwoven actuality every night when mere mortals are asleep, great characters in fiction are not confined to the pages of their books. As Gass observes, the one thing all theories about them have in common is that “characters are clearly conceived as living outside language.”

But this is a delusion, a fallacy. No matter how much we enjoy imagining how things might turn out for our favorite characters—Emma’s marriage to Mr Knightley, Huck’s adventures in the Indian Territory, Jim Dixon’s new job in London—we have no way of knowing. We are only amusing ourselves. Fictional characters are creatures of words; they are wholly determined by the language in which, like clothes in a washer, they are soaked. To pretend to know something about a character when the novel is silent about it is to reveal something about ourselves, not about the novel.