Impossible Conundrum: State Secrets and Journalism

Intelligence Squared is out with its newest debate, asking the question: should freedom of the press extend to state secrets? This is one of these impossible "gray-area" questions that has no empirical answer because it deals with a tricky philosophical trade-off. Of course governments (and businesses, for that matter) need some level of secrecy to operate effectively. But clearly decisions regarding what stays secret should not be made solely by the organization in question, because their individual incentives (social status, turf, etc.) might not line up with what's best for society. It's a complex question with a lot of dimensions--perfect for this format.

The debate gets pretty spicy near the end, but never loses its intellectual heft. Enjoy:

Social Science for the Masses

I try to listen to podcasts fairly regularly, because I love the medium. They tend to be short, snappy, and can fill previously unused time with rewarding intellectual stimulation. I also get a lot of my book recommendations from podcasts: many non-fiction authors will do radio shows as part of their publicity process. It's fun to hear thinkers engage in verbal thrust and parry as well; too often writing is the only means of communicating information for academics and public intellectuals.

Recently I've discovered a fantastic new podcast: EconTalk hosted by Russ Roberts, an economist at George Mason University. Episodes consist of incredibly substantive interviews of scholars discussing social science topics. The podcast manages to snag lots of eminent thinkers (past guests include Gary Becker, Cass Sunstein, Nassim Taleb, and William Easterly) as well as more obscure researchers who have lots to say but access to few popular communications mediums (besides perhaps blogging). The quality of the interviews is probably the best I've ever heard (sorry Tom Ashbrook), and despite the host's strong libertarian leaning, the intellectual discourse is fair and sincere.

Archives on iTunes go back several years, and they're definitely worth combing through to pick out topics of particular interest. Philosophy Bites, a similar podcast dealing with philosophical questions, is also a fascinating way to hear academics share their insights.

Patent Pending: Syllaberry

By now some of us might be familiar with Bananagrams, a simple Scrabble-like word game that for some reason has a banana theme. Because of its success, several other fruit-themed word games have popped up: Appletters and Pairs in Pears. I won't comment on the quality of the game mechanics, but I will say that 'bananagrams' is a very clever name. 'Appletters' is much clumsier, and 'pairs in pears' is just plain rotten. Here's my suggestion/prediction for the next fruit-themed word game: Syllaberry (a play on syllabary). Instead of having an alphabet-based game where letters are the basic unit, Syllaberry could involve manipulating syllables in some way. Just a thought.

Heavyweight Non-Fiction

Most non-fiction books that cover conceptual topics (like science or social sciency stuff) can usually be split into two groups, those written by experts (like academics) and those written by non-experts (like journalists). Over the past six months or so, I've noticed a trend in my non-fiction book selection: I've become less and less discriminatory regarding the author's level of expertise. I've pretty much been selecting books based solely on how much the topic interests me. Once I realized this, I reflected a bit on which books really affected me and which ones didn't. My conclusion? Academic heavyweights write better books. [note: I'm only talking about widely-circulated popular non-fiction books; real academic textbooky books are in a different category altogether]

Experts writing about a topic within their field of research start off with an initial stock of credibility in my eyes, while journalists or other lightweight non-fiction writers have to earn that trust. Heavyweight authors tend to fill their pages with more original and creative ideas, probably because they have actual academic contributions from which to draw on. Lightweights, by contrast, are not direct knowledge-producers and must restrict themselves to analyzing and synthesizing existing research. Often this results in more novel topics and book titles for the lightweights (they've got to find the gaps), but it also means the topics are less ambitious and more marginal.

Malcolm Gladwell might be the best example of a lightweight author: great writing, clever and fascinating topics, tons of cool little analyses and observations. But if I compare his books with those written by actual experts in the research fields from which he draws upon, there's no comparison. Nudge by legal scholar Cass Sunstein and economist Richard Thaler gives a much better overview of behavioral economics and unconscious decisionmaking than does Blink, while Bursts by graph theorist Albert-Laszio Barabasi provides a much deeper and more rigorous understanding of social cascades than does The Tipping Point. 

I recently finished The Information by James Gleick (a lightweight), and I was stunned by the complete lack of creativity and original thinking. Marketed and publicized as a deep inquiry into the concept of "information," the book was merely a cobbled-together assortment of different scientific histories (a chapter on linguistics, one on logic, electrical engineering, early computers, etc.). The Hidden Reality by physicist Brian Greene delivered in a single chapter the most fascinating and unorthodox expression of the concept of information I've ever read. So don't be seduced by clever topics or good newspaper coverage (journalists surely promote their own). It's time to get picky and get smart. Read heavyweight non-fiction.

Some Thoughts on BitCoin

There has been a lot of buzz lately about BitCoin, a new alternative "currency" that exists entirely online and without any sort of central authority. Previous electronic currencies have been hindered by theft and double-counting, but BitCoin seems to have solved these problems by using a clever peer-to-peer interface. The Economist has a pretty comprehensive description of some of the technical details of BitCoin, but to get the basic gist here's a totally biased marketing video:



Although BitCoin is certainly an interesting idea, it has some pretty massive flaws:

Bitcoin does not have a central bank capable of printing and lending bitcoins; it has an "algorithm" which through some convoluted mechanism allows bitcoins to be "mined". Essentially it randomly allocates bitcoins to early adopters. This is a very good system for early adopters (free money!) It is a nonsensical system for a real currency, not to mention being obviously unscalable (what happens when everyone tries to mine bitcoins all day long?). To solve this second problem, the supply of bitcoins is algorithmically limited, which is again good for early adopters. But that brings us to...

The macroeconomic qualities of BitCoin make it extremely vulnerable to a depression-like collapse of demand, where everyone wants to hold onto BitCoins and not spend them. Add to that the riskiness of convertibility (exchanging BitCoins for U.S. dollars, for example) and the notion of BitCoin-as-a-game-changer seems ridiculous.

But many critics (and supporters) are getting too sensationalistic about BitCoin's scope and prospects. If you look at BitCoin in the context of other alternative currencies it's clear that this asset exists merely to promote and foster certain social or philosophic values. Some alternative currencies, like Ithaca Hours, promote local community. Some have built-in time horizons for spending or rapid value-loss in order to limit saving and boost consumption. BitCoin is merely an experiment that fits nicely into the quickly-emerging anti-authoritarian, tinkering, globalized, open-source anonymous internet civilization. Although fascinating, ultimately BitCoin is not nearly as important as the political fight to keep all internet transactions (denominated in major currencies) tax-free.

Check out this great EconTalk podcast about BitCoin.

Luckovich

What's Your Ideal Country?

Check out this fascinating tool by the OECD that matches your preferences over big life categories (quality of health, quality of government, community, etc.) to countries doing well in those areas. I got Canada, but the test didn't include a climate dimension, which would shift my results dramatically (towards the equator). There also isn't any sort of freedom dimension (economic, political, religious, etc.), which seems to be a pretty important value for most people.

Neologism Watch: Spandrel

Okay, so this isn't really a true neologism, but every so often I'll run across a word or idea that instantly clarifies something I didn't even know I was confused about. Typically this means unifying some set of diverse concepts, or providing a crystal-clear framing of some complex theoretical notion. A good example is the idea of the meme. Recently, I've observed a concept popping up that is potentially quite epic in its utility and scope: the spandrel.

Originally an architectural term for the triangular-shaped space between the outside of an arch and some other boundary (corner, pillar, another arch, etc.), spandrels were appropriated by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and geneticist Richard Lewontin in a fascinating (and quite readable) 1979 paper on evolutionary biology. In it, they define spandrels as "the class of forms and spaces that arise as necessary byproducts of another decision in design, and not as adaptations for direct utility in themselves." A casual observer might see the highly ornamented spandrels of a Renaissance cathedral and conclude that they were designed and constructed specifically for artistic reasons. In fact, the space was simply left over by architectural necessity, and later endowed with purpose.

Although employed primarily in evolutionary biology, other fields can clearly benefit from a succinct and clever term for forms arising as byproducts rather than as adaptations or from planning. Are dreams a neurological spandrel? Did language arise as a cultural spandrel? Are the 10 (or 11, or 26, or whatever) dimensions proposed by some models in theoretical physics just mathematical spandrels? In evolutionary biology, certain species' maladaptive characteristics that had long confounded trait-based theories were easily explained using spandrels. What other sorts of behaviors or characteristics might be best conceptualized as spandrels?

One of the most interesting theories explaining the human predisposition toward magical thinking and religion involves spandrels. It goes like this: as a human, you have access only to your own consciousness (and nobody else's). That means determining which objects in the external world are also conscious (endowed with agency) is in principle impossible. As young humans develop, they learn to distinguish between inanimate objects (like rocks) and objects with agency (like other humans, or animals). For those objects with agency, we project the sensation of consciousness onto them. Usually this works out pretty well, but sometimes mistakes are made. Because the psychological machinery for projection exists, it occasionally misfires and we accidentally project consciousness onto inanimate objects or phenomena. So when a fire destroys the village but spares your hut, or when lightning destroys your hut but nobody else's, God didn't do it; rather that gut reaction is just an unfortunate byproduct of human psychology. A cognitive spandrel.

Start looking, and you'll begin to see spandrels everywhere. More often than not you'll walk away with some fascinating original insights.

Information Nexus

1. A Science of Morality?
2. A Tree Farm is Not a Forest
3. The Future of Medical Diagnosis
4. News Hour on The Great Stagnation
5. Wait... What!?

The Airline Industry

Richard Posner analyzes the industry's woes:

The airline is providing a bundled or “one size fits all” product to most of its customers, and unbundling can increase demand by enabling a better matching of price to consumer preference. But except for the tiny sliver of flyers who can afford private planes, the cost structure of the airline industry, rooted in airliner design, prevents significant quality differentiation. 

The crux of the issue is this: airlines want desperately to differentiate their products so as to compete on the basis of services (food, customer experience, etc.) instead of simply ticket price. Two factors make this difficult: 1) technological constraints (airliner design largely determines the parameters of service) and 2) a huge set of travelers who care only about price (magnified by small, low-cost carriers). Consequently, this homogeneity (and commodification) of air travel has resulted in a decline in service quality. The new Department of Transportation consumer protection regulations set minimum requirements for service but, perversely, further entrench the air-travel-as-a-commodity trend.

Incisive News Analyst

More here.

Quote of the Week

Psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer on risk literacy:

"Simply stated, statistical thinking is the ability to understand and critically evaluate uncertainties and risks. Yet 76 percent of U.S. adults and 54 percent of Germans do not know how to express a 1 in 1,000 chance as a percentage (0.1%). Schools spend most of their time teaching children the mathematics of certainty — geometry, trigonometry — and spend little if any time on the mathematics of uncertainty. If taught at all, it is mostly in the form of coin and dice problems that tend to bore young students to death. But statistical thinking could be taught as the art of real-world problem solving, i.e. the risks of drinking, AIDS, pregnancy, horseback riding, and other dangerous things. Out of all mathematical disciplines, statistical thinking connects most directly to a teenager's world.

Even at the university level, law and medical students are rarely taught statistical thinking — even though they are pursuing professions whose very nature it is to deal with matters of uncertainty. U.S. judges and lawyers have been confused by DNA statistics and fallen prey to the prosecutor's fallacy; their British colleagues drew incorrect conclusions about the probability of recurring sudden infant death. Many doctors worldwide misunderstand the likelihood that a patient has cancer after a positive screening test and can't critically evaluate new evidence presented in medical journals. Experts without risk literacy skills are part of the problem rather than the solution."

The quote comes from Edge's annual question, which brings together some of the top minds in the world to submit answers. This year's question was 'what scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?' Heady stuff for sure, but definitely worth checking out.

The Greatest Supervillains of All Time

From time to time it's fun to take a step back from the seriousness and gravity of daily world events and  enjoy the insights available to us from fictional domains. In this spirit, here's a list of some fascinating imaginary rogues:

1. Apocalypse: (X-Men) Born in ancient Egypt, he was the world's first mutant. Conquering in the name of a twisted Darwinian creed, technology from the future makes this time-traveling techno-tyrant the ultimate supervillain.

2. Ra's Al Ghul: (Batman) Hailing from ancient Arabia, this alchemist discovered the secret to immortality and used his long life to build a global organization intent on halting ecological destruction at any cost. The ideal eco-terrorist.

3. Lex Luthor: (Superman) The quintessential mad scientist, businessman, and politician. A prolific genius, Luthor exists to destroy Superman, thereby showing humanity it doesn't need alien saviors to decide its fate.

4. Magneto: (X-Men) This Nazi concentration camp survivor fights to protect the mutant minority from institutionalized bigotry and slavery around the world.

5. The Emperor: (Star Wars) He created the greatest military force the galaxy had ever seen, and nearly succeeded in exterminating the Jedi. One bad galactic tyrant.

6. David Xanatos: (Gargoyles) Machiavellian businessman obsessed with obtaining immortality. A curiously thoughtful self-made man, this supervillain is perhaps the most complex.

7. Hush: (Batman) A childhood friend of Bruce Wayne's, Hush secretly coveted the death of his parents and the resultant wealth and freedom. When Wayne received this blessing instead of him, Hush swore vengeance.

8. Q: (Star Trek) The archetypal trickster god, this omnipotent intellect delights in manipulating the Enterprise crew.

9. Alpharius: (Warhammer) The youngest of his bio-engineered brothers, this planet-conquering general takes a resilience-based, ecological approach to combat strategy. Sometimes disappearing for weeks at a time simply to test the individuality and adaptability of his lieutenants, Alpharius is a man of secrets.

10. Mr. Sinister: (X-Men) Originally a human geneticist in Victorian England, Mr. Sinister made a Faustian bargain with a higher power resulting in the loss of his family. He now exists to destroy that which created him.

Jones

The Paradox of Wilderness Intervention

Let's face it, wilderness managers are damned if they do, damned if they don't. When it comes to designated wilderness areas like state parks, active intervention (fire suppression, invasive species control, etc.) means injecting artificiality into systems where artificiality is anathema. On the flip side, however, lack of intervention means important values like native biodiversity, ecosystem function, and ecosystem services, could be lost forever. In Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change, editors David Cole and Laurie Yung look at this problem through the lens of several competing wilderness management approaches.

Historically, early approaches to management focused around the notion of "naturalness," but this concept proved to be too vague. Early laws enshrined the language of "naturalness" and caused havoc: its many definitions meant implementation was often arbitrary and ill-coordinated. Additionally, new anthropological research into the impact of early human cultures demolished the idea of a historic "primitive state." Modern ecology, with the adoption of dynamic equilibrium models, destroyed the notion that nature exists in a "natural" equilibrium or climax state. Add to this the global reach of human impact and it's very unclear what our specific management goals are regarding wilderness areas.

Four "post-naturalness" approaches attempt to categorize the different facets of "naturalness":

1. Hands-Off Approach: This is just what it sounds like: not taking any conscious action that manipulates, controls, or hinders the conditions (e.g. habitat), components (e.g. species), or processes (e.g. fire) of an ecological system. Let nature roll the dice. This approach is an alternative to being locked into managing a rapidly-changing system not fully understood. It encourages scientific humility, eliminates the risk of unintended adverse consequences (of intervention), and provides unmanipulated control data. However, this approach may increase the risk to specific elements of biodiversity, and result in the loss of cultural resources (archeological sites, etc.) and property.

2. Ecological Integrity Approach: In this approach, managed intervention is justified in order to maintain ecosystem health, biodiversity, sustainability, etc. Managers must set up specific goals such as: retaining a large population of native species, selecting and monitoring viable indicator species, mixing disturbance regimes (fire, herbivory) over time and area, and ensuring productivity and decomposition operate within limits for system persistence (not too much entropy, example: clear-cutting, bark beetles). This approach is very dependent on the effective operationalization of goals (measuring the right things).

3. Historical Fidelity Approach: Maintain a connection to the past; pass legacy of natural and cultural heritage. Restore past conditions wherever possible. In this approach, species that were historically the most abundant, iconic, or charismatic are the species most critical to ecosystem function (as opposed to keystone species or species that are least redundant). In addition to cultural and philosophical justifications, animals have evolved to fit niches and thus their survival potential is reduced if future environmental conditions deviate too much from the past. A challenge to this approach concerns the inherent dynamism of ecosystems.

4. Resilience Approach: This approach targets an ecosystem's ability to adapt to change, specifically "the capacity of a system to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes." Instead of pursuing specific landscape or ecological objectives, managers should focus on the core goal of sustaining functional, adaptable systems. Ecosystem qualities that typically enhance resilience are diversity and modularity (ecosystem sub-systems are coherent and loosely-connected so that if one fails, others can persist and rebuild).

Each approach has a certain naivete, yet also an understandable appeal. By being so narrow in scope, the trade-offs between approaches are revealed, making comparisons much easier. Clearly some mixture of all four approaches is currently being implemented, by design or by default, which is warranted. However I do believe the resilience framework shows the most promise considering the level of global ecological decline.