Author Archives: sanhei

Putting your money where your mouth is in policy debates

Climate change deniers should put their money where their mouth is by buying property in low-lying coastal areas or investing in drought-prone farmland. Symmetrically, those who believe the Earth is warming as a result of pollution should short sell climate-vulnerable assets. Then everyone eventually receives the financial consequences of their decisions and claimed beliefs. The sincere would be happy to bet on their beliefs, anticipating positive profit. Of course, the beliefs have to be somewhat dogmatic or the individuals in question risk-loving, otherwise the no-agreeing-to-disagree theorem would preclude speculative trade (opposite bets on a common event).

Governments tend to compensate people for widespread damage from natural disasters, because distributing aid is politically popular and there is strong lobbying for this free insurance. This insulates climate change deniers against the downside risk of buying flood- or wildfire-prone property. To prevent the cost of the damages from being passed to the taxpayers, the deniers should be required to buy insurance against disaster risk, or to sign contracts with (representatives of) the rest of society agreeing to transfer to others the amount of any government compensation they receive after flood, drought or wildfire. Similarly, those who short sell assets that lose value under a warming climate (or buy property that appreciates, like Arctic ports, under-ice mining and drilling rights) should not be compensated for the lost profit if the warming does not take place.

In general, forcing people to put their money where their mouth is would avoid wasting time on long useless debates (e.g. do high taxes reduce economic growth, does a high minimum wage raise unemployment, do tough punishments deter crime). Approximately rational people would doubt the sincerity of anyone who is not willing to bet on her or his beliefs, so one’s credibility would be tied to one’s skin in the game: a stake in the claim signals sincerity. Currently, it costs pundits almost nothing to make various claims in the media – past wrong statements are quickly forgotten, not impacting the reputation for accuracy much.

The bets on beliefs need to be legally enforceable, so have to be made on objectively measurable events, such as the value of a publicly traded asset. By contrast, it is difficult to verify whether government funding for the arts benefits culture, or whether free public education is good for civil society, therefore bets on such claims would lead to legal battles. The lack of enforceability would reduce the penalty for making false statements, thus would not deter lying or shorten debates much.

An additional benefit from betting on (claimed) beliefs is to provide insurance to those harmed by the actions driven by these beliefs. For example, climate change deniers claim small harm from air pollution. Their purchases of property that will be damaged by a warming world allows climate change believers to short sell such assets. If the Earth then warms, then the deniers lose money and the believers gain at their expense. This at least partially compensates the believers for the damage caused by the actions of the deniers.

Book-like screen arrangement

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Office computer screens are mostly kept in the landscape orientation, but are usually used for documents, which are in the portrait format. Modern screens can be rotated to portrait mode, which makes reading print-view documents easier, or at least allows a larger fraction of the document to be displayed. Taking this one step further, for markup languages (XML, LaTeX) or programming, it is often helpful to see both the code and the compiled output side by side. This may be displayed on one large split screen in landscape orientation or two vertically oriented screens in a book-like arrangement, as in the following image.

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Why princesses and princes are described as attractive

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The bards and scribes who recorded events for posterity received their income essentially in the form of tips from the rulers and the rich, so had an incentive to flatter, describing their patrons as more attractive, virtuous, brave, etc than they really were.

In addition to the exaggeration of their actual attractiveness in reports that have reached us, the children of the wealthy probably really were more beautiful than the poor. Richer youth were better fed and cared for, thus had fewer developmental abnormalities (e.g. bent legs from calcium deficiency) and diseases. The poor were malnourished, lived in dirty conditions and were subject to violence, therefore were more likely stunted, stank and had skin diseases, missing teeth and scars. The latter two distinctions in looks have to a lesser extent lasted to the present day, for the same reason.

Attractiveness consists of the visual, audible and olfactory signals of a fit mate (healthy, fertile conspecific), because organisms evolved to consider fit mates attractive. In times when most people were malnourished and diseased, a well fed and healthy rich person would have been much fitter than most, thus a preferred sexual partner for others.

On the other hand, conditional on surviving to adulthood, the poor likely had better immune-related genes, because they were under stronger selection pressure. Poorer people also experienced more infections, thus acquired stronger immunity to more diseases if they survived. Then conditional on equal looks, a person from a poorer background would have been a fitter mate. Also, the ruling class intermarried to keep wealth in the family, so were inbred (hereditary diseases among European royalty are an example consequence). For these two reasons, it is not surprising that the rulers and the rich found some poor people sexually attractive, specifically the outwardly healthiest-appearing among those who reached maturity.

Multifunctional layered clothing

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Hiking websites recommend wearing layers, because these make adjusting between warm and cold weather or uphill and downhill walking simple. One thick garment would only work for cold, but taking it off when it gets too hot may leave only too thin clothing.

The same principle of layers applies for everyday clothes. My office is 12 degrees in winter mornings, so I wear two pairs of pants, sometimes two vests and a fleece. Instead of one thick pair of pants that would only suit cold temperatures, thin pants can be worn singly in warm weather and doubled up in cold.

For cycling in the cold, shorts can be worn under long athletic slacks. This principle should also work for hats – two thin fleece ski caps instead of one thick, but I have not tested it. Similarly, two pairs of socks. Although, just like with thick socks, if doubled socks make the shoes fit too tightly, then the reduced circulation increases the cold feeling.

Toe warmer making instructions on the internet suggest using the cut-off front parts of old socks. A more multifunctional option is to roll back existing socks halfway, so both the toe and the ankle part of the sock cover the toes, as in the following image.

Cut socks only work as toe warmers, but rolled-back socks can be used year round.

Volunteer work is less efficiently allocated than paid work

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In my experience, the labour of volunteers and low-wage workers is frequently wasted, just like other free or cheap resources. Unlike for expensive market work, there are no price signals to guide people to the most important tasks first. If activities are not prioritised based on how productive these are, then randomly allocating labour is likely to select work with low usefulness.

Within an organisation, competent managers of volunteers may direct them to the most productive work, but even with the best leaders managing some volunteering opportunities, it remains unclear which organisations do the most good and thus should get priority labour. There is a limited amount of work hours available, just like other resources. Even the best volunteers cannot do everything at once, so to maximise social welfare, the most helpful tasks should be done first. In market work, the employer at which a worker is most productive is generally willing to pay the most for this person’s services. Then if people follow the money, their labour gets allocated to the highest-value tasks.

Of course, markets are not perfect and the importance of some work is not accurately measured in money, but for reasonably rational agents, a noisy signal is better than no signal. Prices carry information and help efficient allocation of resources. One way to better allocate volunteer labour is to establish a pseudo-money for unpaid work: each nonprofit organisation gets a certain amount of credits initially and can spend these to “hire” voluntary workers. Credits used for one person cannot be used for another, so the organisation willing to give away the most for a given individual’s services is probably the one receiving the greatest benefit from that person. Volunteers can then use the credits offered to judge where they would be the most productive (could do the greatest amount of good).

Blind testing of clothes

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Inspired by blind taste testing, manufacturers’ claims about clothes could be tested by subjects blinded to what they are wearing. The test would work as follows. People put clothes on by feel with their eyes closed or in a pitch dark room and wear other clothes on top of the item to be tested. Thus the subjects cannot see what they are wearing. They then rate the comfort, warmth, weight, softness and other physical aspects of the garment. This would help consumers select the most practical clothing and keep advertising somewhat more honest than heretofore. For example, many socks are advertised as warm, but based on my experience, many of them do not live up to the hype. I would be willing to pay a small amount for data about past wearers’ experience. Online reviews are notoriously emotional and biased.

Some aspects of clothes can also be measured objectively – warmth is one of these, measured by heat flow through the garment per unit of area. Such data is unfortunately rarely reported. The physical measurements to conduct on clothes require some thought, to make these correspond to the wearing experience. For example, if clothes are thicker in some parts, then their insulation should be measured in multiple places. Some parts of the garment may usually be worn with more layers under or over it than others, which may affect the required warmth of different areas of the clothing item differently. Sweat may change the insulation properties dramatically, e.g. for cotton. Windproofness matters for whether windchill can be felt. All this needs taking into account when converting physical measurements to how the clothes feel.

Keeping an open mind and intellectual honesty

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„Keep an open mind” is often used as an argument against science, or to justify ignoring evidence more broadly. Let’s distinguish two cases of keeping an open mind: before vs after the evidence comes in. It is good to keep an open mind before data is obtained – no hypothesis is ruled out. In reality, all possibilities have positive probability, no matter how great the amount and quality of information, so one should not dogmatically rule out anything even given the best evidence. However, for practical purposes a small enough probability is the same as zero. Decisions have to be made constantly (choosing not to decide is also a decision), so after enough scientific information is available, it is optimal to make up one’s mind, instead of keeping it open.
Intellectually honest people who want to keep an open mind after obtaining evidence would commit to it from the start: publicly say that no matter what the data shows in the future, they will ignore it and keep an open mind. Similarly, the intellectually honest who plan to make up their mind would also commit, in this case to a policy along the lines of „if the evidence says A, then do this, but if the evidence says B, then that”. The latter policy resembles (parts of) the scientific method.
The anti-science or just intellectually dishonest way of “keeping an open mind” is to do this if and only if the evidence disagrees with one’s prior views. In other words, favourable data is accepted, but unfavourable ignored, justifying the ignoring with the open mind excuse. In debates, the side that runs out of arguments and is about to lose is usually the one who recommends an open mind, and only at that late stage of the debate and conditional on own weak position. Similarly, “agreeing to disagree” is mostly recommended intellectually dishonestly by the losing side of an argument, to attempt to leave the outcome uncertain. This is an almost logically contradictory use of “agreeing to disagree”, because it is mathematically proven that rational agents putting positive probability on the same events cannot agree to disagree – if their posterior beliefs are common knowledge, then these must coincide.

Volunteer parking wardens may benefit the environment

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Reducing the utility from car use and ownership motivates substitution towards other forms of transportation, which benefits both the environment and public health. One way to cut the convenience of driving is enforcing parking regulations, because drivers have to park further from their destination when the option of illegal parking becomes less attractive. Parking at a greater distance also makes people walk more – a minor health benefit.

Enforcing speed limits and other traffic rules that slow cars down increases the time cost of driving. This may reduce wear and tear on vehicles and roads, which benefits the environment.

An implication of is that people who want to reduce global warming or improve public health should become volunteer parking wardens and traffic police by reporting parking violations, speeding and dangerous driving (preferably with photo or video evidence from phones or dashboard cameras).

A possible countervailing effect of the enforcement of parking rules occurs if the illegally parked cars obstruct the movement of other cars enough to motivate some people to switch away from driving. Then stopping the parking violations may open the road up enough to encourage more use of cars, with an overall negative environmental and health effect. Similarly, if reckless drivers make the roads unsafe enough to reduce others’ car use, then making traffic civil again may attract risk-averse people back to driving. However, in most developed countries, illegal parking and the ignoring of rules of the road is not severe enough to deter driving significantly, so better enforcement is likely to reduce car use.

Slowing traffic down may increase congestion and emissions per kilometre travelled if there is little substitution away from driving. Again, in developed countries public transit and cycling are usually feasible options. Of course, some people always find excuses not to use these, and in remote rural areas public transit may indeed be economically unreasonable and distances may really be too great for bikes. Electric bikes are then an option. These increase the range of travel with less pollution and congestion than cars.

Political parties claim inconsistent patience

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If the stated preferences of politicians are taken at face value, then they have inconsistent patience across different policy areas. Left-wingers want to invest in education, infrastructure and prevention of climate change. These investments have a present cost and a long-delayed benefit, which suggests patient preferences (high discount factor, low discount rate). On the other hand, the left wants to increase borrowing, redistributive transfers and government spending in general, which have a current benefit (including electoral, but focus on societal for now) and a future cost. Preferring a current benefit and a future cost implies impatience.

For right-wing parties, these preferences are switched (impatient on education, climate, but patient on redistribution), so their inconsistency is the mirror image of the one described above. In summary, both sides of the political divide claim policy preferences that simultaneously imply patience and impatience, which suggests motives other than societal benefit. One way to reason about these other motives is described in https://sanderheinsalu.com/ajaveeb/?p=1015

M-diagram of politics

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Suppose a politician claims that X is best for society. Quiz:

1. Should we infer that X is best for society?

2. Should we infer that the politician believes that X is best for society?

3. Should we infer that X is best for the politician?

4. Should we infer that X is best for the politician among policies that can be `sold’ as best for society?

5. Should we infer that the politician believes that X is best for the politician?

This quiz illustrates the general principle in game theory that players best-respond to their perceptions, not reality. Sometimes the perceptions may coincide with reality. Equilibrium concepts like Nash equilibrium assume that on average, players have correct beliefs.

The following diagram illustrates the reasoning of the politician claiming X is best for society: M-diagram of politics In case the diagram does not load, here is its description: the top row has `Official goal’ and `Real goal’, the bottom row has `Best way to the official goal’, `Best way to the real goal that looks like a reasonable way to the official goal’ and `Best way to the real goal’. Arrows point in an M-shaped pattern from the bottom row items to the top items. The arrow from `Best way to the real goal that looks like a reasonable way to the official goal’ to `Official goal’ is the constraint on the claims of the politician.

The correct answer to the quiz is 5.

This post is loosely translated from the original Estonian one https://www.sanderheinsalu.com/ajaveeb/?p=140