Category Archives: Politics

When the Data Don’t Match Your Beliefs

By now, you’ve no doubt seen (or at least heard about) Karl Rove — noted Republican strategist — challenging the decision of the network for which he is a contributor (Fox News) to call Ohio for President Obama. If you haven’t, it’s worth checking out. This example is a good display of the data not matching one’s beliefs. While Rove has had experience with networks calling states prematurely, based on the data, all the networks were pretty confident in awarding Ohio for President Obama.

Cognitive biases are not unique to Karl Rove — we all have them. Similarly, there is also a tendency to discount data that does not fit one’s previously held beliefs. This past week, I finally cracked Jim Collins‘ new book: Great By Choice. I really liked Good to Great (and even included the story of the Stockdale Paradox a few months ago!)

Within the first 10 pages of the book, Collins’ writes about “entrenched myths” and “contrary findings.” That is, as part of Collins’ (and his team’s) research, they found that some previously held beliefs did not hold true when looking at the data. In case you’re interested, I’ve included them below. Take a look:

Entrenched myth: Successful leaders in a turbulent world are bold, risk-seeking visionaries.
Contrary finding: The best leaders we studied did not have a visionary ability to predict the future. They observed what worked, figured out why it worked, and built upon proven foundations. They were not more risk taking, more bold, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons. They were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.

Entrenched myth: Innovation distinguishes 10X companies in a fast-moving, uncertain, and chaotic world.
Contrary finding: To our surprise, no. Yes, the 10X cases innovated, a lot. But the evidence does not support the premise that 10X companies will necessarily be more innovative than their less successful comparisons; and in some surprise cases, the 10X cases were less innovative. Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card we expected; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.

Entrenched myth: A threat-filled world favors the speedy; you’re either the quick or the dead.
Contrary finding: The idea that leading in a “fast world” always requires “fast decisions” and “fast action”—and that we should embrace an overall ethos of “Fast! Fast! Fast!”—is a good way to get killed. 10X leaders figure out when to go fast, and when not to.

Entrenched myth: Radical change on the outside requires radical change on the inside.
Contrary finding: The 10X cases changed less in reaction to their changing world than the comparison cases. Just because your environment is rocked by dramatic change does not mean that you should inflict radical change upon yourself.

Entrenched myth: Great enterprises with 10X success have a lot more good luck.
Contrary finding: The 10X companies did not generally have more luck than the comparisons. Both sets had luck—lots of luck, both good and bad—in comparable amounts. The critical question is not whether you’ll have luck, but what you do with the luck that you get.

 

There Is No Fiscal Cliff: A Lesson in Metaphor

If you live in Washington, DC, you most certainly hear and read about the “fiscal cliff” on a daily basis — especially as the “impending doom” inches closer. If you don’t live in DC, you’ve probably still heard/read about the fiscal cliff because there are national implications. I wonder — did you stop to think about the “fiscal cliff?” That is, does the metaphor accurately represent what it is that we’re talking about?

From Matt Yglesias:

A salient fact about non-metaphorical cliffs is that falling over them is generally irreversible. If the cliff is high enough that falling off of it would kill you, then if you fall off you’re going to die and that’s the end of it. The “fiscal cliff” by contrast isn’t like that at all.

And from Steve Kornacki:

That’s not a good way to understand what we’re facing. The reality is that the “cliff” is really more of a slope. A gradual slope. It works like this:

If nothing happens between now and the end of the year, then on January 1, the Bush tax cuts will expire, the alternative minimum tax will reach further down the income ladder, and payroll tax rates will revert to 6.2 percent. (They’re 4.2 percent now — that was part of the big Obama tax cut that no one ever seemed to notice or give him credit for.)

But — and this is the critical point — this won’t all happen at once.

It’s not like John and Jane Taxpayer will wake up on January 1 and be socked with a bill for $3,000. Only the payroll hike would go into effect right away.

It would be months before most taxpayers were actually hit with higher income tax rates or the AMT [Alternative Minimum Tax].

Ditto for the big, scary spending cuts you’re hearing about, which will be phased in over the year, and even into future years.

And why is this important?

Because it means there’s time after January 1 for Congress and the White House to reach a deal — lots of time.

I’ve written about the importance of words, but when it comes to instances like this, the words we use are even more important. The fact that so many of us are constantly using this metaphor to discuss the impending changes to America‘s fiscal policy makes the metaphor that much more entrenched. And by extension, that also makes those people who only hear about these changes in passing that much more frightened (by the metaphor).

So, when you hear dramatic metaphors, especially from politicians, be sure to look into the details to decide whether someone’s using hyperbole to scare the public.

Oh — and in case you’re interested, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

The greater danger is that misguided fears about the economy going over a “fiscal cliff” into another Great Recession will lead policymakers to believe they have to take some action, no matter how ill-conceived and damaging to long-term deficit reduction, before the end of the year, rather than craft a balanced plan that supports the economic recovery in the short term and promotes fiscal stabilization in the intermediate and longer run.

Why It’s Important to Disclose Conflicts of Interest

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed an increasing number of columnists/authors/reporters/personalities disclosing potential conflicts of interests. Firstly — THANK YOU! I very much appreciate it when I’m reading something to know that the information I’m reading may be coming from someone who has a bias. It’s okay to be writing about something/someone close to you, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I later find out that the person writing about topic X has a vested interest in how topic X does and the person didn’t have a note about it in the article.

Part of the problem with people not disclosing possible conflicts of interest is because they may not know or think that it’s a problem. I think that’s a problem, but it can be hard to change someone’s morals.

I wonder if there will be some sort of multiplier effect. That is, the more that people disclose the possible conflicts of interest, the more that other people begin to disclose conflicts of interest. There is the possibility that there aren’t actually more people disclosing conflicts of interest and I just have happened to catch a sample of article that had more disclosures than another sample might have. Regardless, my question about the multiplier effect still stands. If we start to be more open about our affiliations, will that then cause other people to be more open about their affiliations?

I don’t have an answer, but I’d like to think that the answer would be yes. What do you think?

An Evening of Historic Proportions

Last night was a historic night. It was the first time in the history of social media that I was “locked out” of Twitter. Okay, probably not the historic event you thought I was going to cite, but it did happen.

While I was busy tweeting and retweeting last night, I didn’t even consider that I would hit the “daily update limit” — but I did. The irony is that just before I sat down at my computer to begin watching the coverage (on TV and online), I saw a tweet from someone who was speaking for @TheStalwart — who had just hit the daily limit and thusly wouldn’t be participating in the “Election Party” on Twitter last night. It was a bit strange last night — to — in a way — be excluded from the excitement on Twitter, especially just after the networks were calling the election.

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All kidding aside, last night was a historic evening. Since the United States is such a major player on the world’s stage, there is certainly interest around the world in the person who holds the office of the President of the United States. As you can see from the graphic on the right, some may say that the rest of the world was happy with the result of last night’s election.

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There’s just one more thing I want to share in this post and it does have to do with history. After Pres. Obama was declared the winner by most of the networks, his Twitter account tweeted a photo that has been retweeted more than any other tweet in the history of twitter — and it’s still going! It surpassed the record (somewhere in the 200,000’s or the 300,000’s last night), but in looking at the tweet a few minutes ago, it’s almost up to 750,000 retweets. That’s a lot of retweets! In case you haven’t seen it yet, I’ve included it below:

 

 

Can the Discourse in American Politics Be Saved: The Lost Art of Democratic Debate

I came across a tweet earlier this morning that linked to a TEDTalk given by Michael Sandel in 2010. I’ve written about Prof. Sandel’s course “Justice,” so naturally, I was interested to see his TEDTalk. The title: “The lost art of democratic debate.”

Of course, given the election tomorrow and the absurd hyper-partisanship in the US right now, I thought it would be interesting to hear what Prof. Sandel had to say, even though it was something he said 2 years ago. Ironically, 2 years ago, Congress was still at odds with each other (over healthcare). There’s still discussion about healthcare in the US.

As a quick primer to the video, you may want to check out what I wrote on golf being a sport last summer.

After watching the video, I’d love to hear what you think of what Prof. Sandel has proposed. Do you think discussing the morality of ideas will make Congress less partisan and more productive?

The Pitfalls of a Political Duopoly

I follow almost 400 feeds on Twitter. While I usually don’t see every tweet from every feed, there are some that I am sure to look out for. One of those is Big Think, which often tweets links to articles on their site. These articles aren’t usually very long, so you can quickly digest the gist of it. I like it because it’s a great way of keeping abreast of different information and if you find that information intriguing, you can dive further into it.

This afternoon, I saw a this tweet:

I’ve heard Larry Lessig speak — he makes quite a compelling argument. The content of this post wasn’t anything I hadn’t already heard from him, but I scrolled down to the comments to see what people had to say. (That’s another benefit to Big Think: the commenters usually contribute something useful to the discussion.) There was one comment that I thought was particularly interesting. I’m not quite sure of my opinion, but I think it’s worth sharing with all of you. I invite you to leave your thoughts on the comment with a comment of your own below:

Well no wonder we keep failing to attain real change.  Lets ignore statistically verified and observable reality and hope and love our way to a solution?  Contrary to what telenovellas like to tell us, when doctors say there is nothing that can be done for a patient, they are usually right, not always I admit but almost always.

So what equivalent of spontaneous recovery are we going to hope for with our crooked political and economic system?  Are captains of industry going to suddenly develop social consciousness?  Perhaps the rich and powerful will all suddenly get plagues and die?  Mr. Lessig isn’t really offering us a realistic solution, in fact he is only offering us yet another of the many accurate analyses of what is wrong with our system in the hope that we hope our way to a better one.

What Mr. Lessig isn’t acknowledging is that the Supreme Court was right, we do have the ultimate say, still, as the people, in who gets elected.  There were nineteen candidates for President on my ballot this year an admitted decrease from the twenty-seven I had in 2008, but still a lot of possibilities and I know for a fact that at least fifteen of them and as many as seventeen of those nineteen candidates weren’t in the corrupt hands of the monied interests.  Some of my other choices were more limited only three to five candidates for Congress, and the State Legislature (both houses), again with a few candidates I knew to be free of the monied corruption of the major parties.  And you know what!?  When I voted for those candidates, there were no earthquakes, or tornadoes or locusts or men in black at my house punishing me for making those choices.  Duvurgers law isn’t a natural law like gravity or evolution, we need not confine ourselves to political duopoly and coercion by monied interests through strategic voting.  We do have the ultimate say, and if you confine yourself to not voting, or to only voting strategically, than you are demonstrating that perhaps you aren’t ready for real democracy.  The “aristocracy” only has power because we collectively let them have it, if the best answer you can come up with for overthrowing that power is to hope it away…. well then I would just as soon let them continue to be in charge, because your input is certainly not going to lead to a prosperous beneficial society.

“Take Back the Country” — From Whom?

Yesterday during class, I saw a tweet from Mitt Romney:

This made me a bit upset and not in a partisan way. From what I understand, Democrats used this same ‘slogan‘ in 2004 when trying to oust President Bush and send Senator Kerry to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. [If you’ll notice, the image that I’ve embedded below appears to be a sign from Occupy Wall Street, which is much more often associated with the Democratic Party.] There’s something inherently disturbing about using a slogan like this. It creates an artificial (and unnecessary) division between the people in power and the people who want to be in power.

It’s perfectly alright to disagree with the direction that the current administration is taking the country, but to use this slogan — to me — is demeaning and somewhat immature.

Disagreements are had on a daily basis, but it’s the moments following that disagreement that a person’s character shines through. If I disagree with someone, I’m not going to start a campaign and say it’s, “us vs. them,” — no — that’s not productive. That’s not mature. Instead, it would be more appropriate for me to try to find further evidence that strengthens my argument.

This slogan that is used in political campaigns remind me of Integral Theory. If I think about spiral dynamics, this particular slogan seems like it’s targeted at the “lower” end of the spiral (beige, purple, and red). Given that there are certainly folks at this level of development in the US electorate, this could be considered a “smart” strategy of political campaigns that employ it.

That being said, I almost want to say, “you should know better,” in that using these kinds of tactics are what continues to keep a country divided and hyper-partisan!

 

 

The World — as we know it — is in its Infancy

After watching this week’s Crash Course: World History on decolonization and nationalism, I have a newfound understanding (respect?) for the current state of the world. I used to think, ‘my goodness, humans have existed for so long, why are we still fighting?’ This presupposes that the makeup of the world had stayed relatively the same. And this, of course, is wrong.

According to modern scientific thought, humans have been around for 200,000 years. I always thought that with our being around for so long, we would have ‘figured it out’ by now and would be “nice” to each other. After reading Wilber and delving into Integral Theory, it adds a unique lens on why some groups of people are different from other groups of people, with regard to their development. Still, that wasn’t enough for me to “get it.” I still thought that development should have “happened” such that we treat each other better.

It wasn’t until I watched “Decolonization and Nationalism Triumphant” yesterday afternoon that I realized how young the world is in its current form. At most, we’ve existed in this way for about 70 years. Crazy, huh? When it’s put in those terms, that’s less than a lifetime! It starts to make more sense that certain conflicts haven’t yet settled and that there is still a desire for guns.

Why We Lie, Cheat, and Steal: The Truth About Dishonesty

I’ve just finished the 5th week of my 4th year of graduate school. For folks that have been in graduate school this long, there’s usually a development of research interests. Because of the nature of my time in graduate school (1 year in a PhD program, 1 year completing my first Master’s, and now into year two of an MBA), I never really had to declare my research interests or choose a dissertation topic. Though, for my first master’s, I did have to write a final paper. That final paper was on a topic that, if I were asked, would probably appear on a list of my “research interests.” It was on intuition and decision-making. Ironically, I’m working with a professor at George Mason University to test whether or not one can improve the conditions for one’s intuition (in the context of decision-making).

If I were to list another research interest, I’d have to say that it’d be on the topic of ethics or morals. Ironically, during my time as an undergrad, I worked on a research project with a psychology professor where we were examining (among other things) people’s moral judgments. I’ve had an RSA Animate talk bookmarked for about two weeks and I just finished watching it — I think you’ll enjoy it.

It was given by Dan Ariely on the content of his new book: The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves. Ariely is also the researcher I referenced a few months ago when I was talking about the research on American’s perceptions and misperceptions of wealth inequality. I’ve pulled a few important quotes from the video:

“The magnitude of dishonesty we see in society is by good people who think they’re doing good, but in fact cheating just a little bit, but because there’s so many of them — of us — it has a tremendous economic impact.”

“You can’t go and say to yourselves, chef really want their food to be eaten. And it’s really owned by a conglomerate that is really not that good. Some things lend themselves to a much higher degree of rationalization.”

“At some point, many people switch and start cheating all the time. And we call this switching point the ‘what the hell’ effect. It turns out we don’t have to be 100% good to think of ourselves as good. But if at some point you don’t think of yourself as good, you might as well enjoy. And many people, by the way, report this same thing with diets.”

“Your motivation influences how you see reality.”

Solutions for Racism: How Race Affects Voting

A couple of days ago, I saw a that linked to a from a few years ago. It was a TEDTalk from someone who I (and many others) hold in high regard: . Silver runs the blog for the New York Times. He gained popularity in 2008 after he every US Senate race and just about all the electoral votes. He has a very sophisticated model that takes into account an assortment polls, along with economic data. He’s just come out with a that I can’t wait to read. If you’re interested in statistics, prediction, or forecasting, I highly recommend it!

Anyways — today, I wanted to share the TEDTalk that I just watched. As the title of this post suggests, Silver is talking about how race affected voting in the 2008 election. Somewhat surprisingly, he also raises some possible solutions to these problems. I hope you’ll take 10 minutes and watch!