The Business Logic of Sustainability

A fascinating talk by Interface carpet company CEO Ray Anderson:



A good profile of Mr. Anderson here.

Power Players: Atul Gawande

Medicine is a curiously antiquated discipline. While the information revolution continues to transform nearly every field of knowledge, the realm of medicine remains largely set in its ways. That we finally have an outspoken physician-intellectual willing to confront this uncomfortable fact in the form of Atul Gawande causes me a great deal of internal dissonance.

Gawande--a surgeon, professor, and author based in Boston--is unequivocally providing a great service to the public and to policymakers by bringing his personal experience and creativity to bear on this important issue. But the other, more thoughtful side of me weeps at the simple fact of his existence and what it implies about the contemporary world of medicine.

Although a regular contributor to the New Yorker Magazine on many health-policy issues, Gawande is probably best known for his most recent book, The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right. In it, Gawande argues that the mundane checklist can be a powerful tool for simplifying the complexity of the world and, in the context of medical procedures, save lives. Checklists ensure that mundane but critical details (like hand-washing) don't get overlooked and that coordination occurs between stakeholders. [watch Atul Gawande describe the idea here].

Using a checklist in all medical procedures certainly seems like a good idea, and the praise heaped on Gawande's book is certainly well-deserved. But... a checklist? Really? That's the exciting, cutting-edge macro-trend sweeping the world of medicine!? Clearly there's more to this story than just a simple checklist.

Most economic sectors are rapidly shifting to computer-aided quantitative and statistical analysis as a method for generating knowledge. This replaces the old intuitive, experiential forms of knowledge (e.g. the venerable "expert", with decades of trial-and-error wisdom) that were unreliable. A while back, the cold statistical logic of randomized trials stripped physicians of their power to discover which solutions work and which ones don't. Increasingly, diagnosing medical problems is a job for computer algorithms. Yet, in many vital areas of medicine, such as surgery, this change hasn't happened. Physicians' individual intuition still holds holds tremendous clout. In this context, Gawande's checklist is simply another mechanism through which rigorous, data-driven knowledge is replacing experiential expertise.

Gawande's willingness to critically examine his own organizations and institutions is refreshing. Although medicine is at the back of the pack in eschewing unreliable experiential expertise, it's headed in the right direction. Now law on the other hand...

One Of These Things Is Just Like The Other

The Daily Show recently did a bit making fun of this guy, comparing his appearance to this cartoon character. Now, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is, admittedly, a funny-looking fella. But Mr. Stewart's joke was off the mark. Although better than other comparisons I've seen (seriously, some just don't make sense), this one really takes the cake.

Quote of the Week

"There is a long history of public discussion across the world. Even the all-conquering Alexander was treated to a good example of public criticism as he roamed around in northwest India around 325 B.C.  When Alexander asked a group of Jain philosophers why they were neglecting to pay any attention to the great conqueror (Alexander was clearly disappointed by these Indian philosophers' lack of interest in him), he received the following forceful reply:

'King Alexander, every man can posses only so much of the earth's surface as this we are standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, traveling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others! . . . You will soon be dead, and then you will own just as much of the earth as will suffice to bury you.' "

From Identity and Violence by Amartya Sen (who quotes from Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography by Peter Green)

The Thinking-Man's Shooter (continued)

Watch this intense gameplay video from the newest BioShock game, would you kindly? The third installment of the series, BioShock Infinite shares several obvious symmetries with the previous two games. Yet the stunning originality and intellectual brilliance that characterized the original have clearly returned in this immersive, politically-charged first-person shooter.

As I've previously noted, BioShock 2 disappointed due to its much-too-obvious theme of collectivism. The original BioShock, although terrifyingly beautiful and technically superb, really impacted me because of its path-breaking focus on extreme libertarianism gone hellishly awry. The core identity of the BioShock series is a complex plot based on a political philosophic concept. Selecting a theme for the third game was always going to be challenging because the concepts in the first two games were drawn from a single philosophical idea, namely the libertarian-collectivist political spectrum. BioShock Infinite necessarily had to blaze a new trail by establishing a fresh political theme.

And they've done it: tea-party conservatism applied to its logical end. Our hero journeys through the floating city Columbia, a hellish amalgamation of jingoism, racism, anti-immigrant xenophobia, theocracy, originalism, exceptionalism, homophobia, and gun-obsessed militia culture. In keeping with the series' stylistic trends, clever visual flourishes abound (this time in the form of political campaign posters, rather than business advertisements) and a strong architectural theme exists (early 1900s America instead of 1960s art deco). As before, a heavy steampunk influence really spices everything up.

Another important observation is the introduction of a new symmetry in the series. The first two games were set in a dark, underwater city. In Infinite, we explore a bright, floating city kept aloft by dirigibles, with multiple structures interconnected through a network of rails. This polarity of below-ground and above-ground fantasy is intellectually rewarding, further testifying to the creativity and depth of the BioShock series. Can't wait!

Prediction: if the series continues its political symmetry thing, we'll be in for a real treat with BioShock 4. Think about it--what's the logical opposite of tea-party conservatism? Environmentalism, multiculturalism, redistributionism, appeasement, moral relativism, etc. What the extreme logical extension of liberal democracy is, I'm not sure, but crafting a dystopian vision from these colorful ingredients sounds. . . fruitful. Think Bioshock 4: The End of History and the Last Man.

Information Nexus

1. Neal Stephenson on Innovation
2. The Conquest of Cold
3. Short story: The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clark
4. How climate change became a 'liberal hoax'
5. The 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time

Republican Rejig

The Republican party in the House of Representatives is undergoing some interesting changes, as newly-elected ultra-conservative lawmakers exert their influence. Establishment Republicans (including the House  leadership) proposed $30 billion in cuts for a stopgap seven-month budget; after a public fuss by tea party conservatives, this figure was pumped up to a whopping $100 billion. An important point: those cuts exclude non-discretionary spending (like Medicare and Social Security) and defense, which leaves a narrow segment of government spending that encompasses many low-budget, high-impact programs.

Republicans, by focusing on such a small part of total federal spending, reveal their cynicism. Instead of genuinely tackling our fiscal problems (by cutting defense, reforming tax policy, and confronting entitlements), they are using the language of deficit reduction to advance a purely ideological agenda. If Republicans were serious about fiscal reform, would eviscerating the EPA, eliminating Americorps, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and high-speed rail construction really be a top priority?

When the freshman Republicans arrived in Washington, I was both mortified and hopeful. Although morally impoverished in many policy areas (such as addressing inequality), their philosophical pureness gave me hope that some structural fiscal problems might finally be tackled with intellectually honest solutions. Unfortunately what happened was that the Republican leadership acquiesced to the politically digestible demands, but turned tail and ran when it came to confronting the more challenging issues of defense, entitlements, and taxes. This may have been a shrewd move politically, but such cowardice on the part of House leadership strips the ultra-conservatives of their one redeeming quality. Good thing they didn't get the Senate.

Patent Pending: The Toolbox

Everyone knows animal crackers--those fun little cookies shaped like various circus animals that come in a box designed to look like a circus cart. A snack manufacturer could make a successful new product by attempting variants on the animal cracker theme. Picture this: the "toolbox," an exciting assortment of small cookies shaped like various common tools (hammer, drill, hard hat etc.) and sold in a paper box designed to resemble a generic toolbox (or tool belt, for that matter).

Animal crackers provided young kids with a great opportunity to learn names of animals while having fun and consuming calories. If the US government can't get past its institutional sclerosis on issues ranging from climate change to inequality, teaching kids about hand tools can't start soon enough.

Exotopia

There's been a lot of buzz lately about the startling discovery by NASA's Kepler orbital observatory of six new extrasolar planets (or exoplanets) orbiting a single star. Further tentative results suggests evidence for over a thousand more exoplanets. Although this type of discovery inevitably spurs talk of aliens and the search for extraterrestrial life, exoplanets are most valuable for what they can tell us about Earth and our own biological origins. Up until now, all of our science (perhaps excluding physics and chemistry) has been based in observational evidence from the only location we've ever had access to: the Earth. The emerging field of comparative planetology unleashes the power of comparative analysis on our most vexing scientific questions: where did we come from? How common is life? How unique is our own geologic and chemical situation? Access to many diverse exoplanets allows us to control for variables in a way that was previously impossible, opening up new avenues for scientific inquiry.

The future of exoplanet science will be a long, gradual process, but investments in deep-space science should be a global priority for several reasons. The long-term survival of the human race crucially depends on migrating into space in order to establish resilience against catastrophic risk; inhabiting only one spaceship (the Earth) puts all our eggs in one basket, so to speak. Secondly, comparative planetology and deep-space inquiry will have spill-over effects in other areas of science (such as geology and biology) that will generate concrete benefits here on Earth. Thirdly, the sci-fi nature of exo-science will surely awe a new generation of youngsters, creating interest in science and re-establishing NASA's unique position as a government entity with vast cultural influence. Inspiration matters. Finally, scientifically demonstrating the insignificance of Earth and human existence will aid in a re-alignment of policy priorities on a global level: establishing a species-wide identity will assist in better risk-management and decisionmaking in issues varying from global climate change and ecological destruction to catastrophic risk mitigation.

Carl Sagan once said, "the universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." Perhaps so, but the knowledge and promise contained within the vastness of space is undoubtably a positive resource. The fact is this: if the human race has a future, it lies in space. Let's get started.

Luckovich

The Demise of the Many-Sided Politician

In Identity and Violence, Nobel Prize-winning polymath Amartya Sen argues that a major source of violence in the world is the illusory belief that individuals belong to a single, over-arching identity. In fact, Sen contends, individuals have many identities (race, gender, ethnicity, country of origin, religious affiliation, job, vegetarian, etc.) that are used in different contexts, and which may or may not conflict. Problems arise when people are placed (either by themselves or by others) into a single category, reducing "multidimensional human beings into one-dimensional creatures". Compromise and coalition-building become much more difficult in a one-dimensional world, facilitating friction and violence.

A classic example of this fallacy is Samuel Huntington's famous "Clash of Civilizations" thesis, or more recently, the premise that the U.S. is at war with Islam. Yet even arguments opposing such outright idiocy often fall prey to the same corrosive reductionism. To say that "the true nature of Islam is moderate and thus should help us fight terrorism" is faulty; Islam contains an internal fractal diversity of many unique identities, including radical militancy.

"The question we have to ask is not whether Islam (or Hinduism or Christianity) is a peace-loving religion or a combative one . . ., but how a religious Muslim (or Hindu or Christian) may combine his or her religious beliefs or practices with other features of personal identity and other commitments and values (such as attitudes to peace and war)."

Humans have the profound ability to choose their plural identities, even though choice is sometimes constrained by context and malfeasance. The illusion that individuals have only a single identity is frequently exploited by sectarians for the purpose of confrontation and galvanization.

Applying this analysis to the current state of political dysfunction in the U.S., we find that the problem is not an over-subscribed affiliation to any party or philosophy. Rather, it is party-identity as the all-consuming, over-arching partitioning that eliminates any other identities (region, state, gender, previous occupation, etc.). The solution is not "moderation" in our politicians and public, but rather the realization and promotion of other distinct identities and dimensions of value. Much of our legislative sclerosis is fundamentally a coalition-building problem, and thus the encouragement of plural identities among politicians, perhaps through institutional reforms, would surely enhance the fitness and dynamism of our government.

Critique of Capitalism

A fascinating argument by a Marxist political philosopher:

Part 2

The section on growth (in part 2) is particularly interesting, and is a decent example of a steady-state (or de-growth) critique of capitalism. Psychology and education are brought in to great effect. Economic life has such all-pervasive reach nowadays (everything is defined in its terms), and its strange to see it put back in its box, so to speak, by defining it in such a discrete way (referring to "capitalists", for example). It's either old-fashioned, or healthy. Maybe both.

Power Player: Donald Saari

University of California Irvine mathematician Donald Saari is somewhat of a rockstar in the world of social choice theory, a field of mathematically rigorous political science concerned with the aggregation of individual preferences. The most common application of social choice theory is in the study of voting systems. I'm posting an utterly fascinating lecture by Donald Saari (a version of which I attended a few years back) that is a pretty accessible introduction to the field. Check it out here.

I'm on record as supporting the Borda Count, an alternative voting system that I believe is superior to our current plurality-rule regime. Although the Borda Count is not without flaws, it more accurately reflects the will of the voters. Lurking biases within the most critical mechanism of our democracy are too important for us to ignore.

Neologism Watch: Mesoeconomics

The field of microeconomics deals with buyers and sellers, while macroeconomics studies aggregate supply and demand. But what about economic activity between levels? 'Mesoeconomics' seems to be a vaguely-defined, catch-all term for the analysis of structures lying in this middle-ground.

There appears to be much confusion about which economics sub-fields fall within mesoeconomics. Game theory is often categorized as mesoeconomic, yet economics can no more claim game theory as its own than it can statistics or differential calculus; these are methods, and by convention academic disciplines are defined by the topic of study, not the tool.

Two fields that fit my conception of mesoeconomics are organizational economics and urban economics. Although concerned with different things (firms and location, respectively), both share the interesting quality of studying the threshold between individual actors and collective market action. Let me explain.

Organizational economics studies the threshold between firms and markets: why does some economic activity occur within a firm, and some occur between firms, in markets? Similarly, urban economics studies the threshold of urban agglomerations: why do some firms choose to locate within a city, while others don't? Why do some cities grow, and others shrink? These 'threshold' questions, tackling mechanisms through which small translates into large, are at the core of mesoeconomics.

What's The Opposite Of Catastrophe?

Discover Magazine is out with a fascinating article about the current state of nuclear fusion energy research. Generating energy via nuclear fusion is seen as a holy grail for the human race--it produces no radioactivity or carbon emissions, and is fueled by hydrogen extracted from seawater. Unfortunately, the technology is about 20 years away, and has been for about 50 years.

I recently finished Catastrophe: Risk and Response by Richard Posner, a book about high-impact, low-probability events and their treatment within governing institutions. While Posner focuses only on bad, "catastrophic" events like bioterrorism and asteroid collisions, many high-impact, low-probability events are beneficial. An unexpected research breakthrough, say, in the field of nuclear fusion, could cause untold global benefits. For lack of a better word, we can call these beneficial, improbable events positive black swans.

Just as our governing institutions are ill-suited for dealing with catastrophic events, so too are they incapable of properly assessing the rewards of positive black swans. Our political and policy structures abhor uncertainty, and greatly discount future costs and benefits. This results in over-exposure to catastrophic risks and under-exposure to positive black swans. Policy and funding priorities more influenced by risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and expected utility calculations could supply a corrective.

Question: What is a better name for beneficial high-impact, low-probability occurrences? I can only think of 'miracle,' which is a somewhat religiously loaded term. This macro-concept is simply begging for a cleverly-titled non-fiction book to be written about it. Somebody get me Malcolm Gladwell's phone number...