In further discussion about whether constitutions were good, necessary, the devil's work, etc., a somewhat strange issue popped up: no one seemed to agree upon what makes for good governance. There seemed to be no convenient way to compare countries. When the best categories you can come up with are "Pretty Successful, Hasn't Exploded Yet" and "Hell hole" you really have hit a road block in the debate.
Thinking upon this further, there does seem to be a bit of a gap in even agreeing upon what government's prime metrics should be, much less how to measure them.
Should government try to maximize freedom? Even if you can agree upon that (and strangely that is not always possible) defining freedom is a little difficult. Measuring whether US or UK is more free is far more so.
Is the mark of a good government a strong economy? That should be easier to measure, but as it turns out isn't too obvious either. You can use per capita GDP, but then can you say a poor country that is growing quickly has a better or worse government than a relatively rich country that grows slowly? Maybe the poorer nation is fantastically governed, and just needs time to catch up. Throw in the fact that GDP isn't even a good measure of wealth, and how easily economic numbers can be cooked by less honest regimes and that is no longer a good estimate.
People sometimes cite crime statistics, or health care, or some other factors, but those suffer many of the same problems as GDP. Crime rates might be useful on a city by city, county by county level, but at the national level you run into problems of categorization, differences in demographics, and even just straight cultural differences that cloud the issue. Health care is no less awkward. The UK and most other nations measure life expectancy differently than the US, due mostly to how they treat death in the first few days of life, and that makes direct comparison remarkably difficult if you don't know all the subtleties and correct for them.
In the end, the best way to compare that I can think of is to look at net immigration between two countries. If more people are moving from Country A to Country B than from B to A, you can probably assume B is considered to be a little better across all possible criterion. This also has the advantage of being a pretty clear number, with data over time. One can argue that this is because of B having a better economy, less civil strife, or just looser immigration laws, but everything but immigration laws can perhaps then be bundled into "outcomes people wants from their government." (In fact, maybe looser immigration laws too.) If people want a multitude of different things from the government of the territory they choose to live in, perhaps it is best just to look at what bundles of those things they choose, and then consider why some bundles are chosen over others.
Showing posts with label Woj-Talks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Woj-Talks. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Social Norms and Apathy
Last Monday Woj over at Bubbles and Busts and I got into a bit of a debate after class. Then Tuesday we started again, after clarifying "What were you actually saying Monday?" After a few minutes we started talking past each other again, so obviously it is time to take this to the internets!
The trigger to this long and confusing discussion was the Federal ban on Intrade just after the last election. (Nov. 26 the CFTC sued Intrade for letting US citizens bet on things, see here.) My offhand comment was that, paranoid as it sounded, it was quite a coincidence that this happened right on the heels of Intrade's markets calling the US presidential election correctly, so maybe it was a result of politicians not liking anyone accurately gauging their chances of winning. Woj replied that everyone makes predictions from polls and the like, and those didn't get shut down. My theory (entirely unsubstantiated, mind you) is that most polls are wrong, either due to normal error or strong bias, and really offer very little value to someone making a decision on whether to back a candidate. If you are trying to make a point about a candidate's chances there is always one poll or another you can quote to make it. However, Intrade has the prestige of betting markets, which are known for being more accurate than straight polls over all. It is possible it is too strong a signal to be ignored, and doesn't allow enough wiggle room around it. (The literature on betting markets illustrates many cases where folks don't want accurate forecasts so they can do what they want with less constraint.) The other point in the theory was that at the least, if pols wanted to get rid of ALL predictions of success, they would have to censor news agencies which would whip a large number of people into a frenzy, but shutting up Intrade just required shutting citizens out of an online betting market, which people apparently believe the government has the right to do.
That's when things got hairy.
Woj and I argued back and forth on this, most of which is lost to me now because I didn't understand his disagreement, and I don't think he understood mine. At this point I will digress into spelling out clearly what I meant.
Social norms are strange things. Rules generated by humans in general don't need to be internally consistent, and often just don't make sense as a result. In this case, my position is that the social norm may be that gambling is not inherently wrong, but also that the government has the right to make it illegal (or regulate it, whatever.) At first glance this doesn't make sense, as if the general social rule is that something is ok, why would society also agree that the government can make it not ok? It is not because people are crazy. It is because whether or not you should do something is not attached to whether or not you can, or should be allowed, to do something.
Our classmate Derek provided a good example upon which I will elaborate: If your neighbor puts some really ugly pink flamingo lawn ornaments in his front lawn, you might grumble and hate that he did it, but you can recognize that he has the right to do it. You don't go over and kick them down or call the HOA/police on him, or whatever else you might do if he didn't have the right to put them out, such as you might if he put them up in your yard.
Likewise, as a society you don't have to agree with a given bit of legislation to accept that the government had the right to pass it. You can accept that the government has the right to set speed limits on its roads without agreeing with the level.
Now, in speaking with Woj, I stated that the government's banning of Intrade and the resulting deafening silence could be taken as evidence that the social norm is in fact that the government has the right to regulate and ban organized gambling. This might have been a bridge too far. Woj made a good point that just because you don't see people voting officials out of office or marching on the capital wielding pitch forks doesn't mean that the social feeling was that the government has the right to ban gambling. After all, most people are ok with the idea of poker night for the guys, online poker (which is banned now), and even public figures like Brian Caplan openly betting other economists about certain predictions. Oh, and what is the stock market other than a bunch of people gambling? That's all true, but... things are about to get long. Longer.
1: There is absolutely nothing inconsistent with people breaking the law in small, individual instances and yet thinking the legislature had a right to pass the law. Again speeding/traffic violations. Based on my driving experience, most people exceed the posted speed limits on highways, as well as most other places, and at least in NoVA turn signals are treated as totally optional. However, I feel very confident that most people would think me crazy for asserting that therefore there should be NO speed limits enforced. Historically, most people have when I suggest that.
2: It is possible people consider organized gambling businesses something that need to be regulated, but not small scale individual gamblers. In fact, this seems to be the norm. We also like to regulate super market produce, but don't worry too much about our neighbor who sells stuff out of her garden. This gets back to the previous post about how most people don't think the rules apply to them, or even exist. Humans are strange like that, possessing a certain schizophrenia when it comes to things between people they know and strangers. Your neighbor who is not a professional farmer and just grows tomatoes for a few extra bucks, she's fine, but that guy who makes his living based on whether or not his thousands of tomatoes are good and safe to eat, we had better hire someone to keep an eye on him!
3: Then there is how the great mass of indifferent people affect things. Indifference is actually fairly important here, so I will take a moment to discuss it.
There are five possible states a person can have regarding another's right to do something: strong agreement, weak agreement, total indifference, weak disagreement and strong disagreement. The strong/weak modifier simply denotes whether you are willing to take action to affect that right one way or the other. So for instance, I am strongly against the notion that my neighbor has the right to take my tv over to his house without asking; should he try, he will find locks installed, and probably some lead coming his way should those not do the trick. On the other hand, I am weakly in agreement with his right to play loud music in his car; I wouldn't call the cops on him, yet if someone else did I wouldn't go out and defend his right to deafen himself, I would probably just shake my head and think about what a silly situation it is.
The interesting thing is that weak preferences behave differently from strong. In establishing social norms related to "Does someone have the right to do something" weak and indifferent positions are functionally the same as strong agreement. Functionally is the key word there. If I put up a pink flamingo in my front yard, and the whole neighborhood does nothing but grumble a bit, it is functionally identical to everyone agreeing that I have the right to do so but not liking that I did. Society behaves exactly as if they agree that I have the right to do it. This is important, because if I am not certain if it is ok to do, all I can go on is society's reaction when I do, and if they all act as if it is fine, even if it isn't, the consensus for the next guy considering gaudy lawn ornaments is "Huh, apparently that's fine."
In establishing social norms, inaction in individually enforcing the rule is the same as agreeing that it need not be the rule. Enforcing need not be driving someone out of town on a rail; something as simple as shunning or just commenting on how ugly that plastic bird is are the usual tools. The key is that a large percentage of people need to individually do it for it to matter. A few pushy people attempting to enforce a norm alone are just annoying if they are a small percentage of the group.
Government, however, is power wielded by the few pushy people. The social norm that government has the right to pass legislation on a matter only requires weak/indifferent preferences. However, when deciding policy politicians treat the indifferent as if they don't exist. The only ones that matter are those who will act upon and express their preferences in a way that will affect the politicians. This is why relatively small interest groups have such seemingly disproportionate power in government. The NRA wields tremendous power not because they have a lot of members, but because they can get a large number of people to stop simply grumbling and actually go out and vote for or against a candidate. Politics is largely controlled by the people who really care about given issues, and the rest who only provide opinions don't matter. The only thing that matters is whether or not enough people care about an issue one way or another for politicians to get away with it.
Woj at the time pointed out that voting hardly matters, only a tiny fractional amount, in deciding most elections. This is true, but meaningful action in this case is not limited to voting. Often writing letters to congressmen actually helps a bit, or writing a blog that people actually read (not mine), starting organizations to focus people into action, and all sorts of other behaviors that affect how politicians act. Of course, sometimes democracy fails and you have to start rioting and killing politicians like has been popular in the Mid East lately (where democracy will probably fail again.) That's the problem with government: it takes pretty big behaviors on the part of the citizens to limit what politicians can get away with once things get rolling in that direction. Indifference in this dimension gives the government the effective right to do things, and then only those who really care matter, and in any given field those are the tiny minority.
So, it stands to reason that the government would ban Intrade participation because they can without expecting any real push back, even while ignoring news program pols, because if they did ban news program pols those organizations would beat said politicians about the head and neck with the 1st Amendment. (Of course McCain-Feingold limited what people could say about politicians while those politicians were running for office, and that was ok, so who the hell knows.)
Does government acting in a certain way without obvious backlash then act as evidence of a populace with the social norm that government has the right to act that way? I would say yes, if only functionally. If not functionally, one has to then wonder what the effect of social norms is on government if any given norm may or may not actually apply.
The trigger to this long and confusing discussion was the Federal ban on Intrade just after the last election. (Nov. 26 the CFTC sued Intrade for letting US citizens bet on things, see here.) My offhand comment was that, paranoid as it sounded, it was quite a coincidence that this happened right on the heels of Intrade's markets calling the US presidential election correctly, so maybe it was a result of politicians not liking anyone accurately gauging their chances of winning. Woj replied that everyone makes predictions from polls and the like, and those didn't get shut down. My theory (entirely unsubstantiated, mind you) is that most polls are wrong, either due to normal error or strong bias, and really offer very little value to someone making a decision on whether to back a candidate. If you are trying to make a point about a candidate's chances there is always one poll or another you can quote to make it. However, Intrade has the prestige of betting markets, which are known for being more accurate than straight polls over all. It is possible it is too strong a signal to be ignored, and doesn't allow enough wiggle room around it. (The literature on betting markets illustrates many cases where folks don't want accurate forecasts so they can do what they want with less constraint.) The other point in the theory was that at the least, if pols wanted to get rid of ALL predictions of success, they would have to censor news agencies which would whip a large number of people into a frenzy, but shutting up Intrade just required shutting citizens out of an online betting market, which people apparently believe the government has the right to do.
That's when things got hairy.
Woj and I argued back and forth on this, most of which is lost to me now because I didn't understand his disagreement, and I don't think he understood mine. At this point I will digress into spelling out clearly what I meant.
Social norms are strange things. Rules generated by humans in general don't need to be internally consistent, and often just don't make sense as a result. In this case, my position is that the social norm may be that gambling is not inherently wrong, but also that the government has the right to make it illegal (or regulate it, whatever.) At first glance this doesn't make sense, as if the general social rule is that something is ok, why would society also agree that the government can make it not ok? It is not because people are crazy. It is because whether or not you should do something is not attached to whether or not you can, or should be allowed, to do something.
Our classmate Derek provided a good example upon which I will elaborate: If your neighbor puts some really ugly pink flamingo lawn ornaments in his front lawn, you might grumble and hate that he did it, but you can recognize that he has the right to do it. You don't go over and kick them down or call the HOA/police on him, or whatever else you might do if he didn't have the right to put them out, such as you might if he put them up in your yard.
Likewise, as a society you don't have to agree with a given bit of legislation to accept that the government had the right to pass it. You can accept that the government has the right to set speed limits on its roads without agreeing with the level.
Now, in speaking with Woj, I stated that the government's banning of Intrade and the resulting deafening silence could be taken as evidence that the social norm is in fact that the government has the right to regulate and ban organized gambling. This might have been a bridge too far. Woj made a good point that just because you don't see people voting officials out of office or marching on the capital wielding pitch forks doesn't mean that the social feeling was that the government has the right to ban gambling. After all, most people are ok with the idea of poker night for the guys, online poker (which is banned now), and even public figures like Brian Caplan openly betting other economists about certain predictions. Oh, and what is the stock market other than a bunch of people gambling? That's all true, but... things are about to get long. Longer.
1: There is absolutely nothing inconsistent with people breaking the law in small, individual instances and yet thinking the legislature had a right to pass the law. Again speeding/traffic violations. Based on my driving experience, most people exceed the posted speed limits on highways, as well as most other places, and at least in NoVA turn signals are treated as totally optional. However, I feel very confident that most people would think me crazy for asserting that therefore there should be NO speed limits enforced. Historically, most people have when I suggest that.
2: It is possible people consider organized gambling businesses something that need to be regulated, but not small scale individual gamblers. In fact, this seems to be the norm. We also like to regulate super market produce, but don't worry too much about our neighbor who sells stuff out of her garden. This gets back to the previous post about how most people don't think the rules apply to them, or even exist. Humans are strange like that, possessing a certain schizophrenia when it comes to things between people they know and strangers. Your neighbor who is not a professional farmer and just grows tomatoes for a few extra bucks, she's fine, but that guy who makes his living based on whether or not his thousands of tomatoes are good and safe to eat, we had better hire someone to keep an eye on him!
3: Then there is how the great mass of indifferent people affect things. Indifference is actually fairly important here, so I will take a moment to discuss it.
There are five possible states a person can have regarding another's right to do something: strong agreement, weak agreement, total indifference, weak disagreement and strong disagreement. The strong/weak modifier simply denotes whether you are willing to take action to affect that right one way or the other. So for instance, I am strongly against the notion that my neighbor has the right to take my tv over to his house without asking; should he try, he will find locks installed, and probably some lead coming his way should those not do the trick. On the other hand, I am weakly in agreement with his right to play loud music in his car; I wouldn't call the cops on him, yet if someone else did I wouldn't go out and defend his right to deafen himself, I would probably just shake my head and think about what a silly situation it is.
The interesting thing is that weak preferences behave differently from strong. In establishing social norms related to "Does someone have the right to do something" weak and indifferent positions are functionally the same as strong agreement. Functionally is the key word there. If I put up a pink flamingo in my front yard, and the whole neighborhood does nothing but grumble a bit, it is functionally identical to everyone agreeing that I have the right to do so but not liking that I did. Society behaves exactly as if they agree that I have the right to do it. This is important, because if I am not certain if it is ok to do, all I can go on is society's reaction when I do, and if they all act as if it is fine, even if it isn't, the consensus for the next guy considering gaudy lawn ornaments is "Huh, apparently that's fine."
In establishing social norms, inaction in individually enforcing the rule is the same as agreeing that it need not be the rule. Enforcing need not be driving someone out of town on a rail; something as simple as shunning or just commenting on how ugly that plastic bird is are the usual tools. The key is that a large percentage of people need to individually do it for it to matter. A few pushy people attempting to enforce a norm alone are just annoying if they are a small percentage of the group.
Government, however, is power wielded by the few pushy people. The social norm that government has the right to pass legislation on a matter only requires weak/indifferent preferences. However, when deciding policy politicians treat the indifferent as if they don't exist. The only ones that matter are those who will act upon and express their preferences in a way that will affect the politicians. This is why relatively small interest groups have such seemingly disproportionate power in government. The NRA wields tremendous power not because they have a lot of members, but because they can get a large number of people to stop simply grumbling and actually go out and vote for or against a candidate. Politics is largely controlled by the people who really care about given issues, and the rest who only provide opinions don't matter. The only thing that matters is whether or not enough people care about an issue one way or another for politicians to get away with it.
Woj at the time pointed out that voting hardly matters, only a tiny fractional amount, in deciding most elections. This is true, but meaningful action in this case is not limited to voting. Often writing letters to congressmen actually helps a bit, or writing a blog that people actually read (not mine), starting organizations to focus people into action, and all sorts of other behaviors that affect how politicians act. Of course, sometimes democracy fails and you have to start rioting and killing politicians like has been popular in the Mid East lately (where democracy will probably fail again.) That's the problem with government: it takes pretty big behaviors on the part of the citizens to limit what politicians can get away with once things get rolling in that direction. Indifference in this dimension gives the government the effective right to do things, and then only those who really care matter, and in any given field those are the tiny minority.
So, it stands to reason that the government would ban Intrade participation because they can without expecting any real push back, even while ignoring news program pols, because if they did ban news program pols those organizations would beat said politicians about the head and neck with the 1st Amendment. (Of course McCain-Feingold limited what people could say about politicians while those politicians were running for office, and that was ok, so who the hell knows.)
Does government acting in a certain way without obvious backlash then act as evidence of a populace with the social norm that government has the right to act that way? I would say yes, if only functionally. If not functionally, one has to then wonder what the effect of social norms is on government if any given norm may or may not actually apply.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Changing Minds
I want to put forward a somewhat pessimistic model of people's changing views. I will call it the Cost/Company model for now.
First, I am going to assert that there are two types of people: those who have arrived at a conclusion with regards to a situation or belief, and those who have not.
The first group has, as stated, decided that they know what is right in some context, having arrived there through careful thought, study, indoctrination, what have you. How they got there is not important. What is important is that they got there, and believe they are correct. In fact, they are so certain that nothing will change their mind short of a direct cost to themselves of exercising their belief. So for instance, they might believe that the minimum wage has dis-employment effects no matter the evidence you provide, but not believe that they can take a speeding cement truck to the chest.
The second group, on the other hand, has not. Usually through ambivalence, but perhaps through lack of awareness of the subject, they have no real belief attached to the matter.
Now, this would generally cause some consternation; others are always ready to lecture one on why they should think one way or the other when you admit that you don't know. As a result, members of this second group are likely to agree with whatever their current social group thinks on the matter, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the social stigma attached to disagreement.
To be clear, I suspect all humans belong to both groups simultaneously, depending on the subject and their interests in it. However, on any one subject, everyone will fall into one of the two groups.
Now that we have these models of people, let us pose a scenario. Let us suppose that you meet a random person on the street, and while waiting for the bus, strike up a conversation about some event on the news that morning. He has a differing view regarding it, and since he is pleasant and the wait is long you decide to discuss it with him. Let us call the positions 1 and 2, 1 being yours.Over time you will come to one of four general outcomes:
1: He will agree with you and you will not change, ie. you will hold combination (1,1)
2: He will disagree with you and you will not change (1,2)
3: He will agree with you, and you will change your mind. (2,2)
4: He will disagree with you, and you will change your mind. (2,1)
So, we can agree that option 4 is highly unlikely; you would have be a really terrible interlocutor to convince someone of your position and at the same time abandon it yourself. So that leaves us with either you agree because one of you changed your mind, or you just disagree and decide to talk about the local sports franchise till the bus gets there.
However, even if you get results 1 and 3, there is the possibility that either you or he did not actually change your mind, but merely agreed with the other person because it was socially acceptable. That is to say you were each other's only group at the moment, and so you said what you thought would make the group happy, not what you thought, and vice versa.
If that seems a little overly cynical, consider for a moment when the last time was when you had a debate with someone and one of you actually, really, deep down changed your mind. Not in the "Huh, I never really thought of that ever, but I guess that is true" sense of learning physics for the first time, but in the "Wow, that completely opened my mind" kind of way, where one or both of you really thought you were right, and then decided you were wrong. I am putting forth that after a point in someone's life, that NEVER happens, short direct, personal cost. Any seeming change in someone's opinion is only due to their being ambivalent and so speaking simply to please their current company.
Seem too extreme? Consider how easily most people ignore other people's points and evidence, while latching on to anything that supports their view, no matter how tenuous. Academics are (or should be) aware of this as Confirmation Bias, where you instantly accept anything that effectively tells you what you want to hear, and go out of your way to poke holes in what doesn't. Even being aware of it, it takes conscious effort to look for data that does not support your position, while data that doesn't can easily be explained away by mis-measurement or whatever.
Also, consider how often, and easily, we paint those who disagree with us as almost subhuman, being irrational, paranoid, or the like. It is difficult to acknowledge that those who disagree with us are real people, with real reasons for disagreeing, and just crazy outsiders we right minded folks should avoid.
Consider that, and now tell me that anyone's mind can be changed. Not with direct Costs; the rest is just posing for Company.
First, I am going to assert that there are two types of people: those who have arrived at a conclusion with regards to a situation or belief, and those who have not.
The first group has, as stated, decided that they know what is right in some context, having arrived there through careful thought, study, indoctrination, what have you. How they got there is not important. What is important is that they got there, and believe they are correct. In fact, they are so certain that nothing will change their mind short of a direct cost to themselves of exercising their belief. So for instance, they might believe that the minimum wage has dis-employment effects no matter the evidence you provide, but not believe that they can take a speeding cement truck to the chest.
The second group, on the other hand, has not. Usually through ambivalence, but perhaps through lack of awareness of the subject, they have no real belief attached to the matter.
Now, this would generally cause some consternation; others are always ready to lecture one on why they should think one way or the other when you admit that you don't know. As a result, members of this second group are likely to agree with whatever their current social group thinks on the matter, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the social stigma attached to disagreement.
To be clear, I suspect all humans belong to both groups simultaneously, depending on the subject and their interests in it. However, on any one subject, everyone will fall into one of the two groups.
Now that we have these models of people, let us pose a scenario. Let us suppose that you meet a random person on the street, and while waiting for the bus, strike up a conversation about some event on the news that morning. He has a differing view regarding it, and since he is pleasant and the wait is long you decide to discuss it with him. Let us call the positions 1 and 2, 1 being yours.Over time you will come to one of four general outcomes:
1: He will agree with you and you will not change, ie. you will hold combination (1,1)
2: He will disagree with you and you will not change (1,2)
3: He will agree with you, and you will change your mind. (2,2)
4: He will disagree with you, and you will change your mind. (2,1)
So, we can agree that option 4 is highly unlikely; you would have be a really terrible interlocutor to convince someone of your position and at the same time abandon it yourself. So that leaves us with either you agree because one of you changed your mind, or you just disagree and decide to talk about the local sports franchise till the bus gets there.
However, even if you get results 1 and 3, there is the possibility that either you or he did not actually change your mind, but merely agreed with the other person because it was socially acceptable. That is to say you were each other's only group at the moment, and so you said what you thought would make the group happy, not what you thought, and vice versa.
If that seems a little overly cynical, consider for a moment when the last time was when you had a debate with someone and one of you actually, really, deep down changed your mind. Not in the "Huh, I never really thought of that ever, but I guess that is true" sense of learning physics for the first time, but in the "Wow, that completely opened my mind" kind of way, where one or both of you really thought you were right, and then decided you were wrong. I am putting forth that after a point in someone's life, that NEVER happens, short direct, personal cost. Any seeming change in someone's opinion is only due to their being ambivalent and so speaking simply to please their current company.
Seem too extreme? Consider how easily most people ignore other people's points and evidence, while latching on to anything that supports their view, no matter how tenuous. Academics are (or should be) aware of this as Confirmation Bias, where you instantly accept anything that effectively tells you what you want to hear, and go out of your way to poke holes in what doesn't. Even being aware of it, it takes conscious effort to look for data that does not support your position, while data that doesn't can easily be explained away by mis-measurement or whatever.
Also, consider how often, and easily, we paint those who disagree with us as almost subhuman, being irrational, paranoid, or the like. It is difficult to acknowledge that those who disagree with us are real people, with real reasons for disagreeing, and just crazy outsiders we right minded folks should avoid.
Consider that, and now tell me that anyone's mind can be changed. Not with direct Costs; the rest is just posing for Company.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Money in Politics
I have sort of an odd theory of political fund raising bouncing around in my head, and I want to get it down on the internets before I forget, or I babble it to someone a little more desperate for a thesis topic and they write it and get it published and I get nothing. (The former is more likely...)
There is a fairly strong correlation between who has the most money to spend on campaigns and who wins that election. On average, winners get more money than losers (as compiled here.) Now, that alone doesn't mean a lot, as there are elections that buck the trend, but ok, those with more money win more elections. Just like how basketball players who get paid more win more games.
Wait... what? That's not true. In fact, it is pretty likely the opposite, winning more games leads to being paid more. Do we know that is not true with politics as well, that the candidates more likely to win get more money?
Well, there are a few stories that would make that make sense.
If you are a business or some other actor who has a stake in the rules politicians might enact upon you, it makes sense to spend some money to support (read: bribe) a politician even if you don't particularly like him. However, it does not make sense to bribe one you think has little chance of winning; they are not likely to pay off your investment. Likewise, it then makes sense to bribe both candidates or parties if they seem about equally likely to win, or at least reasonably likely. That perhaps explains why so many with a lot of skin in the game support both parties, despite the fact they ostensibly will favor different policies.
This also explains why companies don't bother to throw cash at candidates like Ralph Nader. In a general probabilistic sort of way, even if Nader was very unlikely to succeed, if his policies were likely to be sufficiently anti-business (seems likely) it would still be worth a bit to bribe him a little if you thought it at all likely to matter. Turns out one of those probabilities is considered to be zero, and my guess is it was his chances of success.
Sort of an edge case, but this theory also explains why politicians generally are against betting markets for elections, even if they don't involve real money. Theoretically there is little reason to believe that betting on an election makes any difference at all, as terribly few are even close, and really the media probably has infinitely more effect anyway, as people who vote apparently don't care about whether their vote matters, but rather that they are supporting their team. All a betting market would do is inform those who happen to be paying attention as to what experts* think the outcome will be. Since voters can hardly be bothered to pay attention to anything more than a few weeks before the election, who cares? Only those who care enough about the election to spend money bribing potential winners. A betting market might go a long way towards lowering campaign donations to candidates who are less likely to win, taking money out of their pockets.**
Now, I don't think that most money is straight up bribes. I think a fair bit comes from organizations and especially individuals that support the stated beliefs of politicians. However, that isn't itself against the theory, and my little theory actually explains pretty well why people only donate to certain candidates and not every candidate who espouses similar beliefs: they only back the ones they think will win.***
I wouldn't be surprised to find that money does help get elected since at least you need a bit to get started and afford to run for office. However, I suspect most of the causality there is in fact the other way around, and getting more money implies those donating think you have a high chance of victory.
*Or at least those who are willing to put their money where their mouth is, which even at very small values is a powerful mental inducement to be honest.
** Literally. Most states (I think all in fact) allow candidates to keep the remainders of their election funds after the election. Ever wonder why Al Sharpton ran for office so many times despite the fact he had zero chance of success? Here's a hint: he is now a millionaire.
*** Or they push that decision to the party heads by donating to the DNC or RNC.
There is a fairly strong correlation between who has the most money to spend on campaigns and who wins that election. On average, winners get more money than losers (as compiled here.) Now, that alone doesn't mean a lot, as there are elections that buck the trend, but ok, those with more money win more elections. Just like how basketball players who get paid more win more games.
Wait... what? That's not true. In fact, it is pretty likely the opposite, winning more games leads to being paid more. Do we know that is not true with politics as well, that the candidates more likely to win get more money?
Well, there are a few stories that would make that make sense.
If you are a business or some other actor who has a stake in the rules politicians might enact upon you, it makes sense to spend some money to support (read: bribe) a politician even if you don't particularly like him. However, it does not make sense to bribe one you think has little chance of winning; they are not likely to pay off your investment. Likewise, it then makes sense to bribe both candidates or parties if they seem about equally likely to win, or at least reasonably likely. That perhaps explains why so many with a lot of skin in the game support both parties, despite the fact they ostensibly will favor different policies.
This also explains why companies don't bother to throw cash at candidates like Ralph Nader. In a general probabilistic sort of way, even if Nader was very unlikely to succeed, if his policies were likely to be sufficiently anti-business (seems likely) it would still be worth a bit to bribe him a little if you thought it at all likely to matter. Turns out one of those probabilities is considered to be zero, and my guess is it was his chances of success.
Sort of an edge case, but this theory also explains why politicians generally are against betting markets for elections, even if they don't involve real money. Theoretically there is little reason to believe that betting on an election makes any difference at all, as terribly few are even close, and really the media probably has infinitely more effect anyway, as people who vote apparently don't care about whether their vote matters, but rather that they are supporting their team. All a betting market would do is inform those who happen to be paying attention as to what experts* think the outcome will be. Since voters can hardly be bothered to pay attention to anything more than a few weeks before the election, who cares? Only those who care enough about the election to spend money bribing potential winners. A betting market might go a long way towards lowering campaign donations to candidates who are less likely to win, taking money out of their pockets.**
Now, I don't think that most money is straight up bribes. I think a fair bit comes from organizations and especially individuals that support the stated beliefs of politicians. However, that isn't itself against the theory, and my little theory actually explains pretty well why people only donate to certain candidates and not every candidate who espouses similar beliefs: they only back the ones they think will win.***
I wouldn't be surprised to find that money does help get elected since at least you need a bit to get started and afford to run for office. However, I suspect most of the causality there is in fact the other way around, and getting more money implies those donating think you have a high chance of victory.
*Or at least those who are willing to put their money where their mouth is, which even at very small values is a powerful mental inducement to be honest.
** Literally. Most states (I think all in fact) allow candidates to keep the remainders of their election funds after the election. Ever wonder why Al Sharpton ran for office so many times despite the fact he had zero chance of success? Here's a hint: he is now a millionaire.
*** Or they push that decision to the party heads by donating to the DNC or RNC.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Interactions of Levels
Alright, so why is it useful to think of rules as existing on different, yet interacting, levels? Mostly because of which take precedence and how they influence each other, but also because of how we treat them.
Precedence should be obvious, but really people have a lot of trouble with this one. Consider Natural Rules: in all cases, they reign. No rules we humans try and create can trump them; there is no clause that says "Gravity always accelerates two masses towards each other, unless the legislature of a recognized state declares otherwise."* Humans can not ignore these rules if we don't like them, only work around them. So for instance, if we decide it gets too bloody cold in Virginia in November, we don't pass a law that says it does not, but rather build houses keeping the other rules of nature in mind as to how insulation and heating works. We could pass a law, of course, but it wouldn't do anything. Similarly, passing anti-gouging laws will not make more products available during an emergency, though they often can result in the opposite.
In the case of Social and Governmental Rules, the case is actually a bit more fuzzy. While neither can change Natural Rule, they both do affect each other. Generally this seems to happen in the direction of Social Rules dictating Governmental Rules, as tenants of the former become codified with enforcement procedures in the latter. In fact, many of the same tendencies between Natural Rules and the human rules apply within the types of human rules. Generally legislation that has no social analogue simply does not get enforced. Consider sales tax laws among those ordering from out of state, or the various sodomy laws in most states. Whether people are unaware of the laws or simply don't care, neither gets enforced often. In fact, generally when such cases of Governmental only rules get enforced it is in an uneven manner, directed against an individual or minority group that those in power wish to target for some unrelated punitive reason.**
However, unlike the one way effect of Natural Rules on human rules, Governmental Rules sometimes do affect the Social Rules they overlay. It is not unheard of to meet people who consider anything illegal to be wrong because it is illegal, with little regard as to whether that legislation itself is right or wrong. Even beyond that corner case, however, long durations with certain rules and systems in place tend to make people begin with the presumption of their rectitude. The US Drug War has been going on for decades, and while on a pure cost/benefit basis it is obviously a huge net negative on society it remains a popular point for politicians and ending the prohibition of even marijuana has been a long and arduous battle. Similarly, one finds many references to how in times past the idea of taking charity was abhorrent to many people, and those who needed to were ashamed to do so. Right or wrong, after many years of governmental welfare and unemployment programs it seems to be no more shameful than a traffic ticket.***
That's probably enough for now; anything I would add would take away from the mechanics to dynamics post, which is rapidly snowballing.
*Well, there might be, and we just don't know which definition of state is recognized...
** I will mention this later when talking of dynamics.
*** No doubt this is partially also due to the feeling among those that worked before receiving unemployment that they paid for the insurance aspect. However, those receiving SSI or other benefits probably can not make this argument, and in either case it is not entirely relevant to the argument that society's feelings toward the practice have shifted.
Precedence should be obvious, but really people have a lot of trouble with this one. Consider Natural Rules: in all cases, they reign. No rules we humans try and create can trump them; there is no clause that says "Gravity always accelerates two masses towards each other, unless the legislature of a recognized state declares otherwise."* Humans can not ignore these rules if we don't like them, only work around them. So for instance, if we decide it gets too bloody cold in Virginia in November, we don't pass a law that says it does not, but rather build houses keeping the other rules of nature in mind as to how insulation and heating works. We could pass a law, of course, but it wouldn't do anything. Similarly, passing anti-gouging laws will not make more products available during an emergency, though they often can result in the opposite.
In the case of Social and Governmental Rules, the case is actually a bit more fuzzy. While neither can change Natural Rule, they both do affect each other. Generally this seems to happen in the direction of Social Rules dictating Governmental Rules, as tenants of the former become codified with enforcement procedures in the latter. In fact, many of the same tendencies between Natural Rules and the human rules apply within the types of human rules. Generally legislation that has no social analogue simply does not get enforced. Consider sales tax laws among those ordering from out of state, or the various sodomy laws in most states. Whether people are unaware of the laws or simply don't care, neither gets enforced often. In fact, generally when such cases of Governmental only rules get enforced it is in an uneven manner, directed against an individual or minority group that those in power wish to target for some unrelated punitive reason.**
However, unlike the one way effect of Natural Rules on human rules, Governmental Rules sometimes do affect the Social Rules they overlay. It is not unheard of to meet people who consider anything illegal to be wrong because it is illegal, with little regard as to whether that legislation itself is right or wrong. Even beyond that corner case, however, long durations with certain rules and systems in place tend to make people begin with the presumption of their rectitude. The US Drug War has been going on for decades, and while on a pure cost/benefit basis it is obviously a huge net negative on society it remains a popular point for politicians and ending the prohibition of even marijuana has been a long and arduous battle. Similarly, one finds many references to how in times past the idea of taking charity was abhorrent to many people, and those who needed to were ashamed to do so. Right or wrong, after many years of governmental welfare and unemployment programs it seems to be no more shameful than a traffic ticket.***
That's probably enough for now; anything I would add would take away from the mechanics to dynamics post, which is rapidly snowballing.
*Well, there might be, and we just don't know which definition of state is recognized...
** I will mention this later when talking of dynamics.
*** No doubt this is partially also due to the feeling among those that worked before receiving unemployment that they paid for the insurance aspect. However, those receiving SSI or other benefits probably can not make this argument, and in either case it is not entirely relevant to the argument that society's feelings toward the practice have shifted.
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