A very important fact, indeed

I agree with Yuval Levin, from his EconTalk podcast, about a simple point and an important fact:

I think Conservatives today don’t often enough make the simple point: that, when it comes to economics the market system that we are advocating has been the best thing that has ever happened to the poor in human history. And has dramatically reduced extreme poverty around the world and is still doing it right now; has been the way in which the needy and the vulnerable have been lifted up. It’s worked far better than anything else we’ve every tried, far better than anything the Left has tried to do economically. And that should matter. That’s a very important fact.

I hear this point made on occasion in left/right debates by the right. I find it interesting at how quickly it gets swept under the rug by the left. It’s usually with a red herring like, “but capitalism has its problems, too.” What I find interesting is how uninterested the left is in examining this important fact.

It goes back to the Levin quote in the previous post, “…the left takes for granted a thriving economy that just comes in the background…”

This very important fact, in fact, was key in dislodging my liberal thinking. Before it was pointed out to me, I too, took the thriving economy for granted.

But, when it was pointed out to me, it was eye opening. Rather than sweeping it under the rug, I went silent and thought, if that’s right, how could I be against it? Isn’t it achieving the very thing that I say I want?

Levin went on to say:

Beyond that, the kind of society we are arguing for is a society that for very solid reasons we believe is grounded in a way of life that helps advance the moral good. A way of life that helps people build the sort of lives they want. That makes government more effective at solving problems that people confront. That gives people the room to build the lives they want and protects them from the worst risks that they might confront in modern life, rather than a society that says: This is the way, and you have to do it. Which, again and again, this is how the Left approaches the life of our society: centralize, consolidate, exercise authority to push people into the right grooves.

I couldn’t help to think of this quote when I read this Wall Street Journal op-ed on the politics around the federal nutrition standards for school cafeterias.

The nutrition mandates from 2010 First Lady bill centralizes nutritional choices for school lunches to “push people into the right grooves.”

Bottom up links

In this Freakonomics podcast, Steven Levitt discusses his work with companies whose managers resist experimentation to test their beliefs.

In one example, he couldn’t convince a company to stop running newspaper ads in any market to see if that would have an effect on sales. But, they discovered that an intern neglected to buy ads in Pittsburgh one summer. It had no effect on sales. But, the company still buys ads.

In this EconTalk podcast, Yuval Levin made what I expected to be a dull conversation about Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, very interesting. On this, especially, I agree:

I think that there’s a way in which the Left takes for granted a thriving economy that just comes in the background and the question is how to distribute the goods. We have to make the argument that that thriving economy–which makes possible the thriving life of this society–has to be sustained. And it’s a function of certain attitudes toward law and order, of certain kinds of rules, certain kinds of liberties that have to be defended, both because they are right and because they are good. Conservatives are nowhere near good enough at making that kind of case.

Failing sucks, get over it

The Wall Street Journal published an adaptation of Admiral William McRaven’s commencement address to the University of Texas about life lessons learned at Navy SEAL Training that is worth a read.

Here are a couple prescient lessons.

Get over failing:

Several times a week, the instructors would line up the class and do a uniform inspection. It was exceptionally thorough. Your hat had to be perfectly starched, your uniform immaculately pressed and your belt buckle shiny and void of any smudges.

But it seemed that no matter how much effort you put into starching your hat, or pressing your uniform or polishing your belt buckle, it just wasn’t good enough. The instructors would find “something” wrong.

For failing the uniform inspection, the student had to run, fully clothed, into the surfzone and then, wet from head to toe, roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand. The effect was known as a “sugar cookie.” You stayed in that uniform the rest of the day—cold, wet and sandy.

There were many students who just couldn’t accept the fact that all their effort was in vain. That no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right, it was unappreciated.

Those students didn’t make it through training. Those students didn’t understand the purpose of the drill. You were never going to succeed. You were never going to have a perfect uniform.

Sometimes, no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform, you still end up as a sugar cookie. It’s just the way life is sometimes.

If you want to change the world, get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward.

More on failing, don’t afraid of “the circus”, in fact it’s how you respond to failure that may build your success in the future:

Every day during training you were challenged with multiple physical events. Long runs, long swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics—something designed to test your mettle.

Every event had standards, times that you had to meet. If you failed to meet those standards, your name was posted on a list and at the end of the day those on the list were invited to a “circus.”

A circus was two hours of additional calisthenics designed to wear you down, to break your spirit, to force you to quit. No one wanted a circus. A circus meant that for that day you didn’t measure up. A circus meant more fatigue, and more fatigue meant that the following day would be more difficult—and more circuses were likely.

But at some time during SEAL training, everyone—everyone—made the circus list. Yet an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time those students, who did two hours of extra calisthenics, got stronger and stronger. The pain of the circuses built inner strength—built physical resiliency.

Life is filled with circuses. You will fail. You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. At times it will test you to your very core.

But if you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the circuses.

Equal play time in youth sports?

Do young rec players play chaotically because they are kids or because of equal play time rules?

I “herded cats” while coaching in a rec league with equal play time rules. Rec ball is known for sloppy play. Like most, I chalked it up to the kids being young and beginners.

But, I hadn’t considered that equal play time may be a bigger part of it.

When we moved to competitive soccer, I began subbing players out who weren’t working on the fundamentals and team tactics we were teaching them in practice. I’d let them know what I saw, remind them what they should be doing instead and then put them back in at the next chance. That seemed like a competitive coachy thing to do.

I didn’t intend it as reward and punishment. I just thought it would be better than yelingl across the field, which rarely seemed to work. I figured they couldn’t hear me.

It didn’t take long and the players were telling me why I subbed them before I could say anything. “I was just kicking the ball, wasn’t I?” I thought that was awesome. I have never seen anything else get young kids to become aware of how they were playing like that.

But, I truly didn’t realize how effective this was until after a parent’s misunderstanding about how I subbed caused me to go back to equal play time to keep the peace. He thought I was punishing his child and thought they were too young to be punished.

Over the next few games the team devolved from playing their best. A parent asked, What’s happening they looked like 6 year olds in rec again?

Indeed.

That got me to thinking. What had changed? Equal play time.

What incentive do they have to work on what we taught if they got all the play time they wanted?

I went back to my subbing routine and they were playing well again within a couple games.

When game time became an entitlement, rather than doing what was best for the team, they became glory hounds or reverted back to their impulse just to kick the ball randomly.

I’ll add that over the years I coached I tried dozens of things to motivate the kids and that’s the only thing that did. 

This experience made me wonder if equal play time is a bigger cause for why rec ball is so sloppy.

Now, I’m not saying this is THE answer. This is a sample size of one, so it may not be repeatable. But, if you find yourself herding cats, give it a try and see if it works. But, also, make sure the parents buy off. I thought mine had, but when push came to shove a couple of them were bothered to see their kid being subbed out and didn’t bother to notice how quickly they were improving.

A few other things I’ll say about this…

I never sensed from the kids that it bothered them. The feedback I’d give them was low-key and calm. “Remember, I said I wanted you to try to control the ball and do something with it, like dribble to space or find a pass, right? What were you doing?” “I was just kicking it.” “Okay. Now get back in there and work on controlling the ball.”

When I think back on it, I could think of a few reasons why it worked well.

Kids love play time. Even the kids who aren’t that into soccer love to be in the game. So, it makes sense that was such a strong motivator.

The feedback was immediate. It didn’t wait until half-time, post game or the next practice when the message could get lost in translation. The players were receiving a consequence and feedback tied directly to their actions in real- time and they had full control of it. 

The kids who did what we were working on naturally got more play time because they didn’t need to be subbed off and they seemed to dig that.

This wasn’t about performance and winning. In fact, the strongest players were often the ones being subbed off more because they were the ones more likely to go off script.

I was always clear about what I was looking for in the game and when I would sub them, so it wouldn’t leave the kids guessing.

I was also clear that if they were working on these things, even if they weren’t doing them well, I wouldn’t sub them out. I’d rather lose by working on things that will make us a better than win by doing things that won’t.

The only downside was when they were all doing well, I still had to sub sometimes to get all the players in, so they did come off the field asking why they had been subbed. I was honest: “You were doing great! But, I do need to get everyone in the game.” Or, “Looks like you just need to catch your breath.”

Here’s about 90% of what I subbed players off for:

Just kicking the ball, rather than controlling it and trying to set up a good ball for the team with a purposeful dribble or pass. This one I thought was important to transition them from chasing and random kicking to feeling comfortable with the ball at their feet under pressure.

Diving in on the tackle, instead of slowing the attacker down first and then going for the ball with the full body.

Not marking the other team’s most dangerous scoring threat. This was responsible for another 20-30% of the goals against.

Don’t get caught in the justice trap

I enjoyed this post from David Henderson on EconLog about why businesses hire employees and that it is worthwhile to avoid the justice trap.

Henderson quotes good advice from Jeffrey Tucker:

Sincere apologies and genuine admissions of error and wrongdoing are the rarest things in this world. There is no point at all in demanding apologies or in becoming resentful when they fail to appear. Just move on. Neither should you expect to always be rewarded for being right. On the contrary, people will often resent you and try to take you down.

How do you deal with this problem? Don’t get frustrated. Don’t seek justice. Accept the reality for what it is. If a job isn’t working out, move on. If you get fired, don’t seek vengeance. Anger and resentment accomplish absolutely nothing. Keep your eye on the goal of personal and professional advancement, and think of anything that interrupts your path as a diversion and a distraction.

And perhaps a bit more powerful from Walter Oi regarding Japanese internment camps in World War II:

…the Japanese-Americans were treated unjustly, but that the best thing to do for them was to move on and not create a new government program.

I agree. It is very easy to get caught in the justice trap and dwell on how you have been wronged, but that isn’t the least bit productive. Get over it.

Signals v Causes: Rome

This gave me a chuckle, from this week’s EconTalk with Charles Marhon about what makes a strong town:

I like to point out that Rome didn’t get the Colosseum and then build Rome. The Colosseum was the byproduct of centuries of success. And you know, you can look and say Rome was successful because they had a Colosseum. And go out and build a Colosseum and then say, why isn’t Rome appearing here?

I recommend the podcast. Marohn makes a lot points that I am sympathetic to.

He thinks we’ve gone overboard on infrastructure due to the belief that more is always better for growth.

Because of that thinking (similar to thinking on housing and education) and distorted incentives (we don’t directly pay for all that infrastructure) we’ve pushed into the diminishing returns part of the curve and cities that have built infrastructure to try to stimulate growth (rather than build to keep up with growth) are getting to the point where they may not be able to pay their bills.

Socially wasteful?

As a long-time debate aficionado, it seems to become rarer and rarer that I come across a debate that I haven’t heard yet and makes me think. I came across such a debate between Steve Landsburg and Don Boudreaux about socially wasteful spending.

It goes something like this:

Company A has a product that produces value for society, let’s say $100. Company B faces a decision to make a competing product that is slightly better and would add marginally to the overall value for society, let’s say $10. So, Company B’s product would produce value of $110.

Company B faces an incentive to invest more than the marginal improvement in societal value, $10 in this case, because it can also attract Company A’s customers.

So, maybe Company B invests $50 to produce $10 more in value for society, because it can attract the some or all of the $100 of value already served by Company A’s product.

On net, society is worse off because a $50 investment has been made to produce $10 of value, for a net loss of $40. Landsburg says the $50 is socially wasteful spending, though he admits that the simple example doesn’t capture all the complexities of the real world, like the possibility that the $50 investment accidentally produces more than $50 of value.

But, I think his main point is that this incentive to make socially wasteful investments is, perhaps, one weakness in the normal feedbacks of capitalism.

I’m having a hard time fitting the real world onto the simple example, where there is uncertainty, risk, prudence, competition, different value propositions for different people and such.

Experts vs Trial and Error

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Nina Teicholz casts doubt on the ‘conventional wisdom’ that saturated fat causes heart disease (thanks to The Pretense of Knowledge for the pointer).

Of course, Gary Taubes laid out much of the same story line in his book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. I mention it here and here.

Teicholz mentions President Eisenhower’s heart attack. She didn’t mention the additional detail that Taubes provided. His doctor cut his cholesterol intake and his cholesterol levels went up.

Teicholz, perhaps, summarizes the beginning of the Type II diabetic and obesity trends when unreliable health studies were used to guide the American diet:

As Harvard nutrition professor Mark Hegsted said in 1977, after successfully persuading the U.S. Senate to recommend Dr. Keys’s diet for the entire nation, the question wasn’t whether Americans should change their diets, but why not? Important benefits could be expected, he argued. And the risks? “None can be identified,” he said.

This is where I’ve gained much appreciation for what Nassim Taleb identified as the expert problem, as he describes here.

The Universe, Mapped

I’m eagerly awaiting new, detailed images of the mapped universe. I suspect that it may look like this: