Tag Archives: Politics

Superforecasting – Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner

“The consumers of forecasting–governments, business, and the public–don’t demand evidence of accuracy. So there is no measurement. Which means no revision. And without revision, there can be no improvement.”

For the last few years, I’ve been a participant in a study. Each week, I log in to an online platform, and try to predict the future. I make predictions about geopolitical events – from the value of the American dollar to the likelihood of drone strikes in Iran or deaths in the South China Sea – and estimate how confident I am about my prediction. I do okay. I’m proud to say, though, that the team I’m a member of outperforms professional intelligence analysts with the U.S. military, who have access to classified information.

Predicting the future is a useful skill. It’s also one we’re awful at: previous work by Tetlock found that experts were, on average, slightly worse than chance at predicting the future. Monkeys with dartboards would be better. For the last few years, the American government has been funding research into using the wisdom of crowds to predict the future. The team I’m a member of is led and organized by Tetlock and his fellow researchers, and it has been very successful – so successful that after two years, halfway through the study, the other teams were all shut down.

Superforecasting is a book about that team, and about the top members of it (I’m nowhere close, if you’re interested). It’s interesting and well written – for me the addition of Dan Gardner, who has written some great other books, has made it much more readable than Tetlock’s previous writing. In the end, it ascribes much of the success of superforecasters to a method that can be learned: a way of analyzing problems and carefully testing our beliefs and biases to try to make sure we are as accurate as possible.

A useful skill, and an interesting book. We may not all become superforecasters, but we can all learn some skills to improve our ability to analyze events and predict outcomes.

Disclosure: I read Superforecasting as an advance reader copy. You can read more reviews, and pre-order a copy on Amazon for when it comes out on September 29th, here: Superforecasting.

Unfinished Business – Anne-Marie Slaughter

“I want a society that opens the possibility for every one of us to have a fulfilling career, or simply a good job with good wages if that’s what we choose, along with a personal life that allows for the satisfactions of loving and caring for others.”

Ann-Marie Slaughter lit a fire with her publication of ‘Why Women Can’t Still Can’t Have It All’ in the Atlantic, arguing that women who manage to be mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. She suggested that there are limits – in time, energy, fertility, and desire – that are unavoidable, and that no one can do everything. She speaks from experience: she gave up a high-powered job under Hillary Clinton as secretary of state to return to a less demanding (though still very impressive) job as a professor at Princeton.

In her forthcoming book, she extends this argument, suggesting that though there are some unavoidable limits on humans, society also imposes a lot of artificial ones. She argues that most jobs can be sorted into caring or competitive roles: investment banking might be competitive, but sectors like healthcare and education are more about caring. Society underrates caring jobs, she argues, and those jobs have also traditionally been the responsibility of women. If we are to achieve a better society, we need to increase the value we place on those caring jobs, whether it is childcare or senior care, and also make the workforce more flexible to accomodate more mixing of options, allowing part-time work, more parental leave, and other arrangements. Society, she says, has unfinished business when it comes to workplace arrangements and to social norms.

It’s a solid point, and I quite like her almost Buddhist discussion of limits. Her analysis of the psychology of caring vs. competitive jobs can sometimes feel a bit trite, though: it’s well out of her area of expertise, and isn’t as strong as the similar discussion in Friend and Foe, for example. Still, she’s engaging with an important issue, and one that in the U.S. in particular is often dismissed. Things like parental leave programs can help give children that crucial good early start, and most countries could do with thinking it over a little more. In a sense, it’s a nice complement to Sandberg’s Lean In: Lean In describes how to do well in the world as is, whereas Unfinished Business seeks to suggest how the world should change.

Disclosure: I read Unfinished Business as an advance reader copy. You can read more reviews, or pre-order the book, on amazon: Unfinished Business. It is released September 29th.

The Geek Manifesto – Mark Henderson

“Precisely what politicians think is less important than how they think”

David Tredinnick, MP in the UK House of Commons, is concerned that the cycles of the moon affects surgeries, pregnancy, and hangovers (though he doesn’t mention werewolves). He has attempted to expense around 750 pounds on astrology software, and is a fan of homeopathy as a treatment for various conditions (including malaria), also known as medicine for which there is no evidence. Unfortunately, he also has a seat on the House of Commons Committee that oversees the Ministry of Health. Members on both sides of the aisle have expressed similar views, at best seeking to use what David Halpern calls ‘spray-on evidence’ to justify it, evidence that you pick after you’ve decided what you think.

The problem isn’t limited to the UK, of course. The Geek Manifesto argues that there is an opportunity to improve the situation: to force politicians to actually care about evidence and science, instead of ignoring it. Henderson doesn’t care what politicians think, or what side of the aisle they’re on: he cares that they use evidence to support their opinions, and base their judgments on facts and studies, not guesses and assumptions. The answer is to mobilize the geeks of the world, which he would define as those who care about evidence, and use them as a voting block to force evidence-based policy. Hence, Geek Manifesto.

Most of us would agree, I suspect. Unfortunately, he underplays how difficult it can be to rely on data even when it disagrees with our assumptions. He even falls into the trap on occasion, suggesting that teachers shouldn’t be accepted based on school performance, when the data does suggest teacher intelligence and ability does matter in student outcomes. Finding and using information that disagrees with us is something we all struggle with, potentially most of all intelligent people, because they are so good at convincing themselves why a study might be biased or wrong. I don’t know how to fix that, but I know it’s a challenge.

The Economics of Enough – Diane Coyle

“For more than a generation Western governments have been borrowing on a large scale from their own citizens but increasingly also from foreigners in much poorer countries. The cost of these promises will be piled onto taxpayers as yet unborn or too young to vote.”

At the moment, we appear to be leaving future generations a rather bad hand. Public debt seems to verge on the unsustainable, and the number of things they’ll to pay for, whether cleaning the environment or reducing inequality, seem to be increasing. Axel Weber, previously president of Germany’s Bundesbank, once joked that in face of spiraling debt, future generations “are doing the only thing they can. They’re avoiding being born.” One of the less common explanations for Europe’s demographic crisis.

A fairly basic law says that what cannot go on forever will stop. Whether it is climate change, public borrowing, inequality, or deteriorating social capital, says Coyle, we’re in the midst of a number of unsustainable trends, ones that can and must change. That means measuring things properly (as she discusses in depth in another book, GDP: A Short History), and making decisions as if the future matters, indeed as if we should leave the next generation with at least as much capital as we inherited.

In the end, Coyle is hopeful: by curbing our instinct to demand ever more, and making sure we think about the consequences for the future of our decisions today, she says, we can do a lot to leave future generations in a good position. This also means facing basic trade-offs, though, instead of pretending they don’t exist and borrowing to avoid them: she suggests, for example, that we should pick any two of efficiency, fairness, and freedom, but that not all three can be achieved simultaneously.

It’s not a new message, perhaps, but it is an important message. We could do a lot more to care for future generations (some days, it might be fair doing anything would be an improvement, Elon Musk excepted). Coyne mixes some practical suggestions with philosophical discussion, and if it doesn’t quite feel like she’s cracked the problem, she’s at least thinking about the right things.

To Sell is Human – Daniel H. Pink

“Selling in all its dimensions — whether pushing Buicks on a car lot or pitching ideas in a meeting — has changed more in the last ten years than it did over the previous hundred.”

You probably believe you have a job that isn’t sales (unless you are in sales). Perhaps you think you’re a university professor, a doctor, a machinist, or an electrician. That’s all well and nice, says Pink, but you’re kidding yourself. Almost all of us spend a large chunk of our time convincing other people to do things – as teachers, we convince students to learn, or as office workers, we convince our coworkers to help on our projects or our bosses to listen to our ideas. Despite the bad name of sales, says Pink, this isn’t a bad thing. In the modern world, salespeople can no longer rely on asymmetric information to bamboozle their clients: instead, in an age of free information, they have to rely on actually working in the client’s interest.

It’s an interesting point, and an interesting book. I’m not quite convinced, though. I agree we all spend a lot of our time convincing others of things, but I’m not sure that’s a modern phenomenon: I suspect that’s been true in almost any age. Man, said Aristotle, is a political animal, after all. I’m also not sure sales doesn’t – in part – still deserve its bad name. It’s true, the internet means you can look up a used car as well as the salesman, but even when the information exists, finding it isn’t easy given how much else is out there. Salesmen still have an advantage because they curate information, even if they aren’t the sole holders of it.

The book also has a bunch of cute stories, as these books often do. The first ‘elevator pitch’, for example: the man who figured out how to make elevators safe for people needed a way to convince them it worked, so he built an elevator at a world fair, hoisted it up, and cut the cable. To the gasps of the crowd, it plummeted…until the automatic brakes kicked in and stopped it. I’m not sure I agree with the book’s thesis, but for a quick summer read, it’s light, entertaining, and interesting.

GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History – Diane Coyle

“Environmentalists believe it leads to an overemphasis on growth at the expense of the planet, “happiness” advocates think it needs to be replaced with indicators of genuine well-being, and activists such as those in the Occupy movement argue that a focus on GDP has disguised inequality and social disharmony.”

GDP gets used a lot, in almost any discussion of politics or economics. It’s easy to forget it’s a recent phenomenon: the idea dates back only to the 1940s, and as recently as 1985, we really only had GDP data for around 60 countries, and that of poor quality. Only in 1999, when Angus Maddison published long-run estimates, did we actually get long-run GDP data on most countries, and even those are limited.

Today it is the rod by which all else is measured. As Diane Coyle points out, however, it is also deeply limited – some would say flawed. It counts some major sectors poorly, such as services, and omits others, such as household work: if a woman marries her gardener and stops paying him, GDP falls. The current system also gives a vast estimate of the contribution of financial services to the economy, giving that sector tremendous political influence, as in the UK: it’s not clear this estimate is reasonable, since in some ways it measures how much risk they bear, not how much value they are creating.

What’s the solution? Coyle argues that attempts to replace GDP with a new single metric won’t work: whether it’s happiness or inequality, no single number can capture the complex mix of freedom, prosperity, fairness, and the human capability to innovate and create that we believe is important. Instead, she suggests we use a dashboard approach: that using a mix of indicators allows us to measure how we are doing in a number of areas, and to tradeoff one against the other as necessary.

A sensible idea, in a sensible, well-written book. I’ve met Diane personally, and her personality shines through clearly in her writing: data-driven, clearly analyzed, and well-researched. The history of GDP may never be a summer thriller, but the book is about as light as it could be, and it covers and important and interesting topic.

Winter King – Thomas Penn

“For it is a strange thing, that though he were a dark prince, and infinitely suspicious, and his times full of secret conspiracies and troubles…As for the disposition of his subjects in general towards him, it stood thus with him: that of the three affections which naturally tie the hearts of the subjects to their sovereign,—love, fear and reverence,—he had the last in height; the second in good measure; and so little of the first, as he was beholding to the other two.” – Francis Bacon, discussing Henry VII

Henry VII is one of the lesser known kings of England. He is wedged between two notorious monarchs, arch-villain Richard III and his son Henry VIII. His legacy has also been controversial: he founded the Tudor dynasty, passing on power to his son in the first untroubled succession in more than a century. Yet there was also a lingering sense of tyranny, a monarch who was greatly feared, dominating his subjects to an unheard of extent and driving many of them into bankruptcy, while making the crown one of the richest in Europe. Shakespeare forbore to write a history play about him entirely.

Thomas Penn has written in Winter King a phenomenal biography of the man, who went from a lesser prince with little claim to the throne to the richest monarch in Europe, waited on by other kings. The story itself is fascinating: Henry VII faced challenges that sound like fiction, including multiple attempts by his enemies to take random people – in one case, a boatman’s son – and raise them to look like lost princes with a claim to the throne. As a result, he was perpetually suspicious, and oversaw an enormous spy network: one never knew when you were speaking to one of his agents.

He also developed an elaborate financial network to ensure loyalty. As suggested by John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, taxes were assessed using a simple rule: if you led a high consumption lifestyle, you clearly had a high income, and so owed high taxes. If you were frugal, you clearly had a lot of savings, and so owed high taxes. Funnily enough, taxes were quite high.

In addition, he used a complex system of bonds and fines to ensure that any subject faced immediate financial destruction if they crossed him. If you did something wrong, you got a suspended fine, triggered if you disobeyed again: if you didn’t do anything wrong, you were asked to post a bond, usually more than you could afford, that you would lose if you did disobey.

The whole book is interesting, from Henry’s sophisticated use of financial instruments to the complicated politics he reveled in. It’s also probably something you know nothing about. Highly recommended!

How to Run a Government so that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers don’t go Crazy – Michael Barber

“Increasingly, prime ministers are like CEOs or chairmen of major companies. They have to set a policy direction; they have to see it is followed; they have to get data on whether it is; they have to measure outcomes.” – Tony Blair

Laws and sausages are two things one should never watch getting made. Politics is trendy – see House of Cards, Borgen, Homeland, or any of the other political thrillers out there at the moment. What isn’t trendy is delivery, the part where the meat actually gets processed and squeezed into animal intestine. Of course, without delivery, you don’t get any sausages.

Barber presents his 57 rules for effective government programs – not advice in policy, or what you should be doing, but conditional on you knowing what you want to do, how to make sure it happens. Ironically for a man with 57 rules, prioritization is rule 1. Most of it isn’t revolutionary, but it requires a methodical and careful approach, something that is sometimes lost with all the excitement around strategy and blue-sky thinking.

Barber led Tony Blair’s delivery unit, and it’s no surprise he advocates for one in general. Basically, it’s a small team with direct access to the PM (or whoever), which is entirely focused on delivery of programs. They don’t pick what to deliver, but when it is picked, they design metrics, track data, and make sure everything is going to plan. Having a group focused on this means that data can’t just slip through the cracks, or never be tracked at all, and it’s a model that has been adopted in several places, from Malaysia to several U.S. states.

Delivery isn’t flashy, and though Barber does his best, it’s hard to keep the book interesting. It is chock-full of fun ideas, though: he hates 3 point scales, for example, because far too many people just stick in the middle. He always uses 4 point ones. Apparently, he also went through and rated every project done by the UK government by their probability of succeeding at their goals, an exercise I imagine irritated almost everyone. For someone interested in service delivery and how sausages are made, well worth a read.

Exodus – Paul Collier

“Individual migrants succeed in capturing the huge productivity gains from migration. But migrants collectively have an interest in precisely what individually is most detrimental: entry barriers.”

Some countries ban immigration entirely; some encourage it; some allow people to settle, but forbid them citizenship. The range in immigration policies spans almost the entire spectrum of possible options, and it seems unlikely all of them are optimal.

Immigration is a controversial topic, in the UK more than most. It’s also one where arguments are generally made with very little evidence on either side: it’s not impossible immigrants are good or bad for the economy/social welfare/tolerance/the social fabric, but it’s hard to know either way. With that in mind, an evidence-based look at immigration is welcome. There are a lot of good sections in Exodus, but unfortunately as whole it also has some weaknesses.

The book basically goes through the costs and benefits to the three groups affected by immigration in turn – migrants, recipient countries, and sender countries. That’s helpful, and Collier makes some insightful points on each. Overall, though, his argument is that the costs and benefits to societies from sending or receiving immigrants are probably small, and the benefits to individual migrants are huge, making at least some migration attractive. At some point, however, there might be too much immigration, given the effect on social fabric and public services.

At the extreme, the possibility of too much immigration seems plausible – purely from a population density perspective, that almost has to be true. The extremely salient question of how much is too much, however, goes entirely unaddressed. Exodus also relies on abstract models to make its points, the stock and trade of economists but something I suspect most other readers will not find convincing. Data is a better approach for this sort of controversial issue, and there the book has much less.

Overall, I think immigration is aching to be addressed in as rigorous, empirically- and evidence-driven a manner as possible, but I’m not sure Exodus is quite there. Presents a useful difference in perspective from usual accounts, but certainly not decisive.

How Much is Enough – Robert & Edward Skidelsky

“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” – Epicurus

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that in the generations to come, the increasing prosperity of the world would mean people would work steadily less: where once it took 50 hours of week to feed the family, it would only take 15, leaving more time for fruitful leisure time. That’s not exactly how it has worked out.

Why not presents an interesting problem. Three broad theses suggest themselves: because people enjoy work, because they feel pressured to, or because they want the things money can buy. The first is almost certainly true for some of the wealthy, and may explain why we see investment bankers working so hard they don’t even have time to spend the money they earn. The second has some appeal, but can’t really explain why the poor work fewer hours than the rich. The Skidelskys find the third the most compelling, however; people today might well make enough to meet their basic needs on 15 hours a week, but to afford the status goods we crave – big houses, iphones, etc. – we must work much more.

That argument, though, hinges on a distinction between what we need and what we want. That’s a tricky line to draw: humans can survive without internet access, obviously, but are they full participants in society without it? And does that make it a need or a want? Where you draw the line is going to depend a lot on your values.

The Skidelskys raise this important question, but don’t really answer it. Indeed, judging by how the first 2/3 of the book is spent, the core component of their good life is criticizing economists. Only at the very end do they outline what they see as the ‘needs’ for a good life: Health, Security, Respect, Personality, Harmony with Nature, Friendship, and Leisure.

Robert Skidelsky is the author of one of the seminal biographies of Keynes, and though I haven’t read it I’ve heard nothing but good things. In How Much is Enough, though, I find him a bit too much of an armchair philosopher: it’s clear they’ve thought a lot about this issue, but it’s not clear they know much about it. They cite Easterlin’s findings on happiness, for example, without mentioning the fact his results have been profoundly questioned: they criticize GDP without discussing the many valuable criticisms other people have made. The book asks important and interesting questions, but as a reader looking for answers and not complaints about economics, I’m not sure it was what I was looking for.