Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap. It exists. It's a myth. The gender gap being a myth is a myth. Like most divisive topics, the gender pay gap's existential status seems to depend less on data and more on the publication you happen to be reading. And unfortunately, most people are too lazy to actually do some data crunching themselves, regardless of how passionate they proclaim to be about the topic.

I am very lazy myself. But I am also tired of both rah-rah men using a very personal definition of "pay gap" to claim that there is no such thing and hearing of stunts like bars charging women 77 cents for every $1 men spend*. Last week I had a fb debate with a guy who belonged in the former group, and that was the straw that broke the Aris's back. So, I've tried writing a post presenting a slightly more objective analysis than your average Guardian/Daily Mail article on the matter.

Unfortunately, the Office for National Statistics makes it very hard to gather the relevant raw data. For some inexplicable reason, there doesn't seem to be a single database with numbers on employment and wages by gender, occupation, tenure and family status. My analysis is based on the following ONS sources:

• Pay Gap Overview
• Pay Gap by Job
• 2008 Economic and Labour Market Review
• 2009 Position on the Gender Pay Gap

Based on this data, I come to the following conclusions:

The pay gap is definitely a real thing
Anyone who denies that the pay gap exists is simply delusional. Now, it turns out most people who say the pay gap doesn't exist do not exactly mean that men and women are paid the same on average. What they mean is that while there is a difference in average wage, this disappears when adjusting for women's employment preferences. This is debatable, and I will discuss it later on, but for this section, I just want to say that if you are the kind of person who says "the pay gap is a myth" when you mean "the pay gap is real but it's not because of direct discrimination", you are really, really annoying**.

Look, I get that "the pay gap is a myth" is a catchier title than "the pay gap is quite complicated". But to change the definition of words in a hunt for more clicks is dishonest. How do you expect to have constructive conversation if you refuse to use the same language as the other side? A feminist who hears you say "there is no pay gap" will (rightly) dismiss you as crazy.

For the record, here are the 2016 numbers:

Women are actually paid more in part-time jobs, but significantly less in full-time jobs, and as 41% of women work part-time vs 12% of men, on average women earn almost 20% less than men.

Note that "average" here means "median". The 2009 paper cited above shows that if the pay gap is calculated using the mean instead, the pay gap increases for both full time and part-time jobs (because there is a small number of high earners, mostly men, who skew the results).

So yes, there is an argument to be made that a significant portion of the pay gap is due to women choosing to work part-time. But even so...

The pay gap persists across almost all professions

Women seem to be paid less even when comparing full time roles in the same profession:

Up to this point, those who are upset over the pay gap have a very good case: women are paid less, and the difference is not fully explained by the type of jobs women go for, nor by their being more likely to work part time. But this is not the end of the story. 

Family Status

The data here is shakier. But what little data I have seems to point to the conclusion that family status is more important than profession or full-time vs part-time status in driving difference in pay.

The first piece of evidence here comes from the 2008 labour market review I cited. The raw data comes from the Labour Force Survey, which is a quarterly sample of 52,000 households in the UK and is self-reported (vs, e.g., collected from employers' data as is the case in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (and btw, not to blow my own horn here, but this is the level of detail you need to get down to if you want to objectively discuss such a loaded and complex topic)), so it's not like we can treat it like gospel (which is a funny saying, given that an increasing number of people treat (treats?) gospels as fiction). Still, what this data shows is that the pay gap not only disappears, but is actually negative (i.e. women earn more than men) when adjusting for marital status:

Furthermore, the pay gap increases the more children a woman has.

The second piece of evidence (and this one from the aforementioned ASHE) comes from the fact that the pay gap by age group shows negligible difference between the pay of men and women before the age of 30 (i.e. the age when most people start getting married/having children):

Of course, there are other reasons besides marital status that could be causing an increase in the pay gap later in life. For example, it could be that because hiring practices are more standardised for entry-level positions in large companies, or because competition for juniour positions drive starting salaries close to the minimum wage, discrimination doesn't really manifest at this stage, whereas it has a progressively larger impact in higher steps of the corporate ladder.

Nevertheless, this piece of evidence bolsters (but does not 100% confirm) the case that the pay gap is driven by women's preferences vs discrimination. By the way, a lot of news sources claim that discrimination accounts for 38% of the pay gap. As far as I can tell, this claim is taken from this study; however, the exact quote from the study is "38% is due to direct discrimination and differences in the labour market motivations and preferences of women" [emphasis mine]. Somehow, most liberals people seem to miss the italicised part of that conclusion.

Conclusions

So, to sum up: there is a pay gap no matter how you measure average earnings; it's consistent across industries; it's diminished when you separate full- vs part-time employees; and it disappears when you adjust for marital status or age.

So what does this tell us? I think it tells us that most people who discuss the issue, on both sides, are wrong. Those who quote the pay gap implying direct discrimination in the work place have a far weaker case than the headline 20% pay gap indicates: indeed, it certainly looks like the pay gap is to a significant extent driven by women's choices.

On the other hand, those who interpret this last statement to mean that there is no work to be done combating sexism are even more in the wrong. Instead of accepting that women choose to not pursue their careers as aggressively as men when they get married, or that women choose lower paying jobs, we ought to ask why this is.

My argument is that even if it's not direct, text-book sexism that is causing the pay gap, those choices women make that lead to the difference in pay are often themselves the result of discrimination and social pressure. I know some men people argue that women make such choices because they are innately less ambitious/more geared towards taking care of a family/poor negotiators &c; while I disagree with this, the fact is it doesn't matter: even if it were the case that most women are biologically less likely to pursue high-powered careers, the fact that society holds back those women who do so is reason enough to make policy changes.

So, in this final section I want to provide some evidence that there is social pressure on women to drop out of the work force, or be less ambitious than men. 

First of all, this study tracks social attitudes towards gender roles, and while it finds that only (?) slightly over 10% of respondents agree with the statement that "a woman's job is to look after the home and family", only 5% of respondents agree that a woman should work full time when there is a child under school age:

(To be fair, the study only surveys a few thousand people; still, it's a pretty strong indication that while most people say that in principle it's no longer solely the man's role to earn money, when quizzed further they still think a woman should prioritise home care).

According to the same study, women tend to do a far larger share of household tasks (e.g. laundry is done always or usually by women in 70% of households, while preparing meals is done by women in 55% of homes and by both partners in 27% of homes). And I am sorry, but there is no way women are biologically hard-wired to enjoy folding sheets.

Then, there's the fact that when women are ambitious or driven, they are considered pushy/bossy/less likeable. For example, Sheryl Sandberg in Lean In refers to the Howard/Heidi experiment, where Harvard Business School students were assigned to study the case of an entrepreneur named Heidi. But the professors changed the name of the protagonist in the document they distributed to half the class to "Howard". Amazingly, though all students rated the protagonist as competent, "Howard" came across as a more appealing colleague, whereas Heidi was seen as selfish and "not the type of person you'd want to hire or work for". So women are told that to be as demanding as men is a bad thing; is it a surprise if fewer of them are willing to risk being seen as selfish?

Furthermore, while it's true that women are less eager than men to negotiate, it seems they have good reasons: women are penalised more than men for initiating negotiations. In one of the experiments in the study none of you will bother reading found at previous hyperlink, women were judged to be 25% less hireable if they asked for a higher salary, whereas men were deemed only 11% less hireable for doing the same. Another experiment similarly showed that there was a significant drop in willingness to work with a woman who attempted to negotiate; the drop for men was negligible.

(Interestingly though, women who did not negotiate were seen as more hireable than men who also didn't. And while subjects were less willing to work with women who tried to negotiate, they still perceived women as less demanding and nicer than men. a) This is very bizarre - so subjects thought that women who negotiate are nicer than men who do, but are less willing to work with them - the hell? and b) funny how liberal news sources that quote this study (looking at you, New Yorker) fail to report these findings.)

And finally the fact remains that many industries and companies still treat women pretty horribly. This is wrong regardless of its effect on pay, and should be addressed on principle.

All this points to the fact that, as I said earlier, there is still lots of work to be done. Recent policies such as requiring companies to disclose the difference in pay between their male and female staff cannot hurt, but they're not sufficient. I think the policy that would have the biggest impact in reducing the pay gap is increasing paternity leave and making it an acceptable career choice for men.

Note that just instituting a joint-parental leave policy, whereby parents would be free to choose how they want to split paid leave between them, would not do (although I personally would certainly welcome it and send my wife back to work while I'd stay at home, reading, watching films and playing video games with take care of our children): OECD data shows that the longer the parental leave, the higher the pay gap.

This is probably because when couples are given the choice of how to split parental leave, most will have the woman take most of it.

No, what we need is fixed, take-it-or-leave-it leave periods for both men and women (e.g. 1-2 months each, non-transferable, so that if the man doesn't take his, it's lost). This study (whose statistical methods fly way over my head) finds that both men's and women's future earnings decrease when they take paternity leave. So "forcing" couples to split the "burden" of raising children would go a long way towards eliminating the pay gap (and interestingly, women's future earnings actually increase (vs just staying flat) when their husbands take paternity leave, while the opposite effect does not occur (though again, my knowledge of statistics is not good enough to evaluate these statements)).

Also, companies should be more understanding of trailing male spouses - P&G is very good at this (they've accommodated two personal requests for me to follow my wife's career), but from what I've heard other companies are more likely to be understanding of women following their husbands than the other way around. 

Finally, male and female staff should learn to track their gender bias (both the study I linked to above and the Heidi/Howard case show that women are just as likely as men to discriminate against other women) when recruiting or managing employees (I for one have built an Excel model tracking all the interviews I conduct to check whether I show any biases. Happy to report I don't seem to have one, at least when it comes to gender:

).

* the reason this kind of thing bothers me is that it's overly simplistic, passive-aggressive and likely to alienate lots of men people. Proponents of such antics claim they are good because they raise awareness. They do not. People will read such articles, have a chuckle to themselves and move on. Those who believe sexism exists will keep on believing it without looking into the details; those who don't will feel annoyed and become more entrenched in their views. If you want to affect change, you need to understand a problem's root cause - and crying out "sexism" without nuance won't achieve anything.

**

Pay-gap deniers' logic & linguistic manipulation applied in other domains:

"There is no such thing as obesity; just people who eat a lot."

"Lung cancer is a myth; it's just that some people smoke and therefore develop growths."

"I am not firing you; it's your own incompetence that means you can no longer work for this company." And so on.

Culture in China

China, a year later. I haven't written on life here in a while, because I quickly ran out of interesting/fun things to report. But now, having worked and talked with locals a bit more, I am beginning to form a mental image of China's culture - and one I do not much like, but that is interesting to write about.

My interpretation of the country's history is that the cultural revolution succeeded in its explicitly stated goal of destroying the Four Old - Customs, Culture, Habits and Ideas. The destruction of old artifacts, the suppression of customs, the persecution of intellectuals and the restriction of free speech were all very successful in eradicating anything the people could use as a framework to think about morality, aesthetics, social norms and behaviours. As a result, the Chinese were left with a blank slate, a void that they have been trying to fill with whatever they can - mostly commercialism and consumerism.

You see this attempt to fill the void everywhere: in their adoption of the commercial aspect of religious holidays, like Halloween and Christmas; in the explosive growth of foreign religions; in their attempts to Hollywoodify their films; in their adoption of and preference for Western fashion; in their habit of naming random things after famous Western people; in their construction of faux-European buildings; in their selective and sort of emotionally empty attempt to revive old customs; and so on. To give just one example of the latter, a couple of weeks ago the Chinese celebrated the Lantern Festival (which although it has been celebrated since ~200BC was banned after the cultural revolution and revived again later on). My wife and I went to a party, where someone asked the Chinese people there what the festival was about. The only one who knew was my wife, who had read the festival's history on Wikipedia.

(Not that I blame them on this one - there are many stories about the origin of the Festival but one of them goes as follows: one day, the Emperor's favourite counselor witnessed one of the palace's maids about to commit suicide. He asked her why she wanted to kill herself, and the girl replied that she never had a chance to see her family and she was sad. The counselor decided to help her. But did he go to the Emperor and say "hey, there's this little girl and she was literally about to kill herself, maybe we should give her leave to go see her parents"? No, where's the fun in that? He set up a fortune telling booth in town, and started telling everyone God was about to go Sodom and Gomorrah on them. He also told them God would send a red fairy with further instructions. He then had the maid dress as a red fairy and tell everyone the town would burn on the fifteenth lunar day (how exactly this furthers the maid's agenda is unclear). The Emperor asked him (the counselor) for advice, and the counselor suggested that everyone cook his (the counselor's) favourite food, launch fireworks and hang red lanterns outside their houses to trick God into thinking the city was already on fire so that he (God) would leave the city alone. The Emperor followed this advice, had everyone light lanterns and everything was well. Oh, and the maid's family came to the palace to see the lanterns and was reunited with the maid. So yeah...it looks like the counselor's only match in coming up with incredibly convoluted schemes to achieve something exceedingly simple is Wile E. Coyote.

(In general, either there is a much more significant cultural understanding aspect than I thought when it comes to narrative structure, or ancient Chinese story tellers did not deem it necessary to imbue their characters with basic logic - for example, in the ancient epic "The Three Kingdoms", the "good guy"'s chief general defeats a rebel leader something like 9 times, each time sparing him, letting him go and specifically instructing him to raise a new army to fight a new war. Why? Because reasons. (Also: how good the good guy, Liu Bei, is is debatable: at one point he seeks refuge in a hunter's house. The hunter, not having any game, butchers his wife and feeds her to his guest telling him it's wolf meet. Later, Liu Bei walks past the kitchen, sees the wife's corpse and realises what happen. But instead of feeling sick or guilty or anything like that he is touched, and rewards the hunter with money and praise.)

(Then again, the undisputed champion for wtfesque narrative is Bram Stoker, who in addition to his well known masterpiece also wrote a lesser known gem called "The Lair of the White Worm". The story is that two Englishmen believe an impoverished noblewoman is an ancient dragon, because their pet mongoose attacked her and her house is at the site of ancient Mercian legends. So of course the only logical conclusion is that she is the fabled White Worm who has evolved over the millennia to look like a human because that's totally how evolution works. They actually turn out to be right, and the lady/dragon takes turns at trying to brutally murder them and inviting them to tea. They (the Englishmen) politely accept her invites because to refuse a lady's invitation in Victorian England is unthinkable, even if your host is a primordial monster. At the same time there is a nobleman who tries to telepathically murder an innocent girl just so that he can test his psychic powers. The girl also refuses to avoid seeing her aspiring murderer because what would society think is she were rude to him?)))

But anyway, digressions aside, this is a serious matter. Cultures evolve, but at any given point in time, people have their past as a starting point to think about their future. Let's say you are interested in philosophy. Before you even go to university, you have some grasp of the ideas in philosophy - morality, virtues, political systems, the nature of reality &c. Then you go to university where you are taught by people who have been thinking about these topics all their lives.

But now imagine that you are not allowed access to any information; that you are not allowed to even discuss any of these topics. That anyone who does discuss these topics is exiled or worse. That any books on these topics are banned. That from one day to the next, these topics just stop existing. And that this goes on for 10 years, so that at the end of the decade, no-one really knows anything about these matters.

What do you do in this case? All your links to the past have been severed. You have no framework, no references, nothing to go on. Consider art: I am far from an expert on the matter, but when my wife and I visited the National Museum of Art in Beijing, we had the feeling that the paintings, while technically good, were insubstantial attempts to copy Western (or in fewer cases traditional Chinese) art. It was like artists were told "this is what art looks like, go make something like it" - there was no self-expression, no effort to evolve the medium, just an attempt at imitation of what others are doing.

Trying to forge a path without being on one already, without a starting point, must be incredibly difficult. What's especially sad is that, bizarre story-telling aside, what little I've seen of older art is excellent. Older architecture, fashion and furniture are elegant, beautiful and at times awe inspiring. It's a huge shame that the Chinese have been reducing to trying to reproduce their past glories (for example, by creating fake antiques (because most of the real ones were destroyed during the revolution) or putting huge tacky red stickers with classical Chinese writing on their doors).

(At the moment I am trying to establish whether the same can be said of Chinese philosophy (i.e. that it was also good). Amazingly, the big bookshop in the expat area only had one copy of one book on Confucius. It's premature to make judgments based on one book alone, but so far I cannot say I've been overwhelmed - basically it's all about praising virtues like humility and kindness, but without any attempt to explain why these are important virtues. (Also includes aphorisms like "praise a horse for its virtue, not its strength"). In this sense, it looks like Confucianism is much more like a religion (i.e. trying to describe a good way of living without an analysis on why this way of life is the right one) than philosophy).

In the same way art comes across as soulless, so do revived traditions. In Europe people find meaning in their traditions, even if these are mundane things that are more secular rather than religious any more - like a meal of old family recipes on Christmas day, a walk on boxing day or attending church on Easter Sunday.  As I've written before, I think such traditions are basically a means of communication, of transferring feelings and thoughts from one generation to the next, a means of building a sense of community and belonging. In contrast, traditions here give the impression of people saying "hey, that old custom seems nice, let's do that again", in the same way someone in Europe might attend a moon party in Thailand or an Indian wedding - sure, it may be fun and interesting, but it won't have the same meaning.

That said, there is a small part of ancient culture that has survived. This has to do with belief in certain virtues such as loyalty, a particularly strong sense of duty towards family and belief in superstition (e.g. fortune telling, which is apparently quite popular even with business magnates who will consult psychics before conducting business deals - at least, that's what I was told by a journalist here!). Also food. I suppose it's almost impossible to do away with culinary traditions!

(Let me also note that while I am using the West as a comparison, I do think the West also suffers from a similar problem to an extent. Fewer and fewer people believe in God or follow a religion in earnest, but they have not found something to replace it. For this I blame academic philosophers: having done away with a religious moral framework, they have not thought it appropriate to try and talk with the average person about potential alternatives, preferring to debate pedantic details among themselves in their ivory towers. But regardless of whose fault it is, the fact of the matter is that in the West too we have people who are somewhat lost - they have some notions of what is "good" and what is "bad", but nothing to base these ideas on. I think this uncertainty, this lack of a convincing moral framework, is partly to blame for things like polarisation, increases in divorce rates, weakening sense of community and belonging, existential crises &c - in other words, people in the West have become too smart to blindly believe in God-issued tenets but not smart enough/secure enough to cope with the resulting lack of meaning in their lives. Hence people trying to combat existential angst with ideas imported from the East (Buddhism &c), pilates, spinning and so on. That's right - I trace the emergence of spinning to the decline of religion).

What I am now wondering is whether this is linked to the other notable aspect of culture here - a lack of innovative drive (one request I make when interviewing candidates is that they provide an example of innovative thinking; sadly I cannot produce their responses publicly, but trust me, some are hilarious and beggar belief). Is this lack of innovation linked to the fact that coming up with new ideas was dangerous and discouraged during the revolution? Or is this a more historical trait? (After all, even older Chinese culture seems to favour stability over progress). Either way, it looks like the educational system here trains people that there is a box whose boundaries are very clearly defined, and thinking ought to be contained within that box. Amazingly, at the same time as the Chinese are trying to emulate Western education to teach their children creativity, Western schools are trying to go the other way and emulate China!

(In my view both approaches are wrong and the truth lies in the middle. It's wrong to teach children to solve problems algorithmically/through brute force without real understanding; but it's equally wrong to teach children that there is no such thing as a wrong answer and that memorising information is useless. It's quite embarrassing that British children have no idea of history or grammar for example - apparently memorising facts or understanding the rules that govern language are too restrictive (for what it's worth, my view on the importance of grammar isn't just a result of my being a stuck-up, pedantic conservative (not that this isn't at all a factor): it has to do with the appreciation of language's beauty. When you start understanding grammar you begin to see that a communication tool that arose naturally is nevertheless ruled by a very consistent logic; furthermore, as you learn different languages, you begin to see that there are some elements that are remarkably similar among them - which has led some people to postulate the existence of a hard-wired Universal Grammar in humans. I mean, isn't this all wonderful? Don't you think people who use language without really thinking about it are missing out? It's like having your living room furnished with Picassos and Dalis and never even realising they are there, much less stopping to admire them.))

Anyway - this refusal to think out of the box has unfortunate repercussions on things like customer service or productivity. For example, you go to a hotel with a large group of people, and though there are 3 receptionists at the check in desk, they insist all three of them are needed to check in one person, regardless of the fact that there are 20 people waiting in a queue. Or you go to the underground, which has a checkpoint staffed with 8 (!!) security guards - one to scan your bags, one to scan you and 6 to just stand there. Plus another 2 guards and 5 attendants on the platform. No-one seems to question why this many people are needed in a little station far from downtown Beijing. Or you go to the Tianjin rail station, and you have to undergo a security check to buy tickets, then exit the ticket office, go to the main terminal and undergo a second security check before you can go to your platform.

Given all this, it may seem shocking the Chinese are so advanced when it comes to things like mobile payments. But thinking about it, it seems to me that the areas in which the Chinese are more advanced than the west are those that are a matter of execution and resources rather than design (e.g. bullet trains), lack of regulation or fortunate coincidences (e.g. the Chinese never developed a big credit card culture, so they moved straight from cash to mobile payments). The question is, are these sustainable? Are the Chinese destined to beat the West only as far as they can import and improve foreign ideas? Or will they adapt and do away with cultural barriers to innovation? This remains to be seen.

One final note: none of the above is to say that the Chinese aren't smart or good people. I have met many people here who are driven and excellent at their jobs and almost everyone is kind and welcoming. I am only commenting on the astonishing cultural destruction the country underwent.

(Mostly) Against MBTI-type tests

I was at a party the other day, and half-way through a debate discussion, someone asked what MBTI type I am. "INTP for sure", he said. "Off the charts T".

Actually, I think I'm the "I've looked into MBTI and I think it has 0 scientific grounding. Plus, I believe in most cases it's a counter-productive tool".

Introduction to MBTI
The MBTI is a test that purports to identify a person's "type" across 4 dimensions:

• Introvert vs Extrovert: extroverts "get their energy" from active involvement in events and activities, whereas introverts get their energy from dealing with ideas and concepts inside their heads.
• Sensing vs Intuition: people who are S are practical, pay attention to physical reality and what they can perceive with their senses. People who are N are more into abstract reasoning.
• Judging vs Perceiving: people who are J like order and control. People who are P are more flexible and adaptable. Note that this one is a bit weird, because the MBTI insitute says that people who are J in how they deal with the outside world may still be flexible "inside", and people who are flexible and adaptable in their relation to the outside world may be planful and decisive inside. I've no idea what they are trying to say.
•  and Thinking vs Feeling: people who are T like to base decisions on principles and logic in an impersonal fashion, whereas Fs like to make the best decisions by weighting what people care about.

The idea is that "seemingly random variation in behaviour is actually quite orderly and consistent and due to basic differences in individuals' preferences" - so that people will in general act according to their preferences along these four types as determined by the test. The test can be used to find a suitable career, improve one's communication in the professions, improve a relationship &c.

Now, first I will summarise the evidence that the MBTI does not do what it says it does. Then, I will argue that what it says it does is nonsense in the first place (which is why it fails to do it). Finally, I will explain why I think that even if the MBTI worked, and weren't too vague to be of any use, it would still be counter-productive on the whole.

Scientific Evaluation
Starting with the science: all of my evidence here is taken from this study, which is itself a summary. This study then finds that:

• The MBTI is based on shoddy statistics. If I tell you that people fall into two types, you'd expect that their scores in that dimension would follow two different distributions. Silly example, but if I were to say "people are either native English speakers or native Greek speakers", you'd expect the two groups' scores in English tests to be different. True, some native Greek speakers would have higher scores than some native English speakers (case in point). But the distributions would be fundamentally different, they would something like this:



This isn't what happens with the MBTI. If you plot the scores of people who are of supposedly different types, you end up with curves that overlap significantly. So people can't actually be categorised into types.
• According to MBTI advocates, a person has a fixed type. But actually, about 50% of people who take the test twice are classified as a different type to the first time they took the test, even when they re-take the test after a short period of time (a month)! So it's less "I am INTJ" and more "well, I feel INTJ today, but yesterday I was more ESTJ".
• It's not predictive. I am afraid however that this conclusion is based on an analysis method called factor analysis, with which I am not familiar, so I won't try to summarise it.

False Dichotomies

Okay. So the MBTI comes up short on the science. In my opinion, the reason it fails in the specific ways mentioned above is that the underlying theory is nonsense - with the exception of I vs E, I do not believe people are one type or the other (well, based on the evidence quoted above, this isn't a matter of belief but fact):

• Introvert vs Extrovert: while this is the most defensible dimension in the test, it's still pretty silly. I do think it's true some people need external stimulus to energise them while others don't. But to assign significant predictive power to this is wrong - for example I think the number of friends or acquaintances one has is just as much a function of environment as personality.


I self-identify as an introvert - yet I have a wide circle of acquaintances, not because I'm some party animal or uber-social person (which I'm not), but because of my career and life choices, which have seen me live in 7 cities over the past 10 years. Had I spend all my life in one city, I would likely have a small circle of close friends; as I've moved around a lot, I've made new friends in new places. Similarly for other supposedly traits of introverts or extroverts - e.g. the supposed extroverts' predisposition to acting without thinking.
• Judging or Perceiving: With the exception of control freaks or that friend you had at uni who was stoned 24/7, most people like to plan some things and not others. And how do things like strategic thinking fit here? If I have planned  my life in such a way I am adaptable, am I J or P?
• Sensing vs Intuition: in real life, we all use both abstract thinking and empirical evidence. Using exclusively one or the other is literally impossible (what good is data without abstract reason to interpret it, and on what is abstract reasoning based on if not sensory input to begin with?) - and I do not think that a tiny preference for one over the other justifies pigeonholing people. What matters far more than preference is ability to think abstractly.
• Thinking vs Feeling: apparently, an F will make decisions by trying to find out what's the best outcome for the people involved. A T will logically and consistently evaluate pros and cons. Are these two mutually exclusive? How will the F determine what's the best outcome without evaluating the pros and cons? Unless this whole dimension is about "people who make decisions following some kind of thought process" vs "people who make decisions randomly", it's another false dichotomy.

Why the MBTI is a bad idea anyway

Let's assume that all of the above isn't true - that MBTI is accurate and predictive. In this case, I have two questions:

Question 1: is it true that one type isn't better than another?

My own personal answer to this is no, that's not true. Take the last one, thinking vs feeling. Thinkers try to find general principles and apply them consistently. Feelers (?) do whatever they can to establish harmony. Okay,

1. The first description is about process, the latter about goals - so as mentioned in the previous section, the two aren't mutually exclusive. A person can aim for harmony yet have a rigorous process for determining what actions will achieve it.
2. If what MBTI is trying to say in a very roundabout manner is that thinkers like consistency and logic whereas feelers are fickle and emotional - well, the very fact that MBTI is not direct about saying this shows that they themselves realise that one of these descriptions comes across as a little bit more desirable than the other.

I could write a whole essay why consistency and logic are superior to wishy-washy notions of "there is more to the world than rationality". I do not deny that feelings matter - quite the opposite, I think life is all about our feelings and emotions. But there are circumstances where letting your feelings get a hold of you is wrong. Virtues such as justice, courage and integrity often require a person to do something that will cause them pain. A person who lets their anger or fear or envy get the better of them cannot be virtuous.

And here's the thing: to be able to know in which circumstances it's okay to wallow into your feelings, and in which it's not, you need to apply cold logic. So if the MBTI is saying that the fundamental difference between T and F is that Ts are able to do this, then I claim that Ts are more intellectually honest than Fs, and that only Ts have the potential to be virtuous (which isn't to say that all Ts are, but that Fs cannot be). So yes, in this case, T is better than F.

Does this matter? Of course it does. If you have a strong preference that means you are likely to reject virtues such as fairness, which requires unemotional evaluation of facts, you had better try to change that preference.

(The fact I am "off the charts T" is irrelevant to my reaching this conclusion. Also - I am not saying Fs are immoral; I am saying that this is what MBTI says, if their theory is taken to its logical conclusion. My own view is that there is no such thing as a T/F split).

Question 2: does MBTI preference affect one's ability to do their job?

If no, then MBTI is irrelevant in the workplace.

But if yes, if your MBTI type predicts how well you will do, then once again MBTI advocates are forced to admit that at least depending on the circumstance, some types are better than others.

What I worry about in this case is that people begin using their type to justify their or their colleagues performance. "X is overthinking stuff and doesn't make decisions. It's because he's a P". Okay, so? X had better learn to be more decisive, because his inability to do so is causing analysis-paralysis.

This is where people say "but the MBTI is good because you now understand why X is this way". In other words, "X is indecisive because X's type is P, and Ps are in general indecisive". Brilliant insight that!

Look - understanding the root cause of  problem is useful if it is possible to treat the root cause. If the root cause is an innate and unchangeable preference, there is nothing you can do about that. What you can do is learn to manage it - but if you know you are indecisive, and that you cause rework and delays, what value does knowing that you are P add? That your colleagues can now stop suspecting you of purposefully sabotaging them?

However...
The title of this post is (mostly) against these kinds of tests. If such an MBTI-type test could actually predict behaviours, then it could be used beneficially. For example, if a test predicted that a particular type of person is likely to prefer direct, even harsh feedback, that person's manager should tailor their style accordingly. Similarly if the test predicted that a particular type of person would get mortified and embarrassed if praised publicly.

Even in this case though, people should remember that altering one's behaviour in response to another person's preference would only make sense if this alteration in behaviour doesn't have other repercussions. If a person's type makes them uncomfortable when confronted in public, it doesn't mean people should stop voicing disagreements in meetings.

(Also, you could, you know, go for lunch with your colleagues and get to know them instead of relying on an overly simplistic psychometric test).

Anyway, this point is moot in the case of the MBTI - as we've seen, the MBTI is not predictive, people do not fall neatly into types (that are badly defined anyway) and are therefore likely to be categorised differently every time they take the test.

Also...
I strongly believe that theories ought to be evaluated on their own merits, not the credentials of their proponents. Having done that though, it does no harm to point out that neither Katharine Cook Briggs nor Isabel Briggs Myers were trained psychologists - and while this shouldn't be a cause of outright rejection of their work, one ought to at least be extra-critical when unqualified people propose grand theories (say, when a science fiction writer creates a new religion, especially when said religion features frozen alien souls dropped into volcanoes on Earth).

A (mathematical) critique of SYRIZA

In his Foundation series, Isaac Asimov narrates a diplomat's visit to a planetary colony of scientists. Most of the scientists are really impressed with the diplomat, and are confident in the government's support when he leaves. But one scientist is unconvinced. He tells his colleagues that the diplomat didn't really say anything, didn't make any promises or commitments. The other scientists are all like "how can you say that, he said so many things, it was great".

So the skeptic translates all of the diplomat's speeches into logic symbols, simplifies the equations that describe the diplomat's words and speeches and proves that his (the diplomat's) statements contradict each other or are arbitrary and noncommittal. The skeptic is thus able to prove his colleagues that the government doesn't plan to help them.

I want to do the same to prove with mathematical rigour that SYRIZA is staffed by people who are either incompetent or corrupt or crazy. Before I geek out, I am going to make my critique in plain English, and I will then translate it into maths.

Plain English Critique
First, let me be clear about my objective in this post: I am not about to argue that SYRIZA's intended policies are wrong. Nor am I going to argue that SYRIZA is the reason Greece is doing worse than ever (though I certainly think so). Perhaps the reason Greece is doing so badly is because of the EU or the IMF or austerity or neoliberalism or lizard people, SYRIZA would do a great job if all of the above were removed from the picture (especially the lizard people).

I am not even going to talk about the manifestly corrupt practices SYRIZA has engaged in - hiring demonstrably unqualified people for advisory positions, paying out insane amounts to public company executives when there are people literally starving in Greece &c.

What I am going to talk about is how even you are a SYRIZA supporter, even if you agree with SYRIZA's intended objectives, you ought to condemn SYRIZA because they have failed to implement these policies. I am also going to argue that this failure is inexcusable.

Thankfully, making this argument is far easier than evaluating the appropriateness of a particular goal or policy ex-ante: I just have to look at what is promised and compare it to what is achieved. Of course, I have to take into account mitigating circumstances. If the love of your life misses your appointment at the top of the Empire State Building because (60 year old spoilers) she was hit by a car, or fails to meet you at a train station because her grandmother died, it's not fair to accuse her of malice, cruelty or incompetence.

Let's start by looking at what SYRIZA promised "committed" to do (in the words of its leader) and what it delivered. I have compiled a list of key commitments outlined in the "Thessaloniki Programme", a manifesto unveiled by Alexis Tsipras just before winning the national elections, and the actions he took when in government. Each promise is colour coded based on whether it was upheld or not (in what I think is a pretty self-explanatory way (i.e. the colours' meaning is self-explanatory)).

I did not cherry pick promises to only highlight the ones he didn't live up to; I just focused on the ones I considered the most important. Feel free to read through his speech to see the full list. Now then, Tsipras promised to...

1. Restructure the debt, which he deemed unsustainable =>Not only has SYRIZA not achieved this, but Tsipras now apparently believes the debt is viable and is now arguing against the IMF which thinks otherwise.
2. Increase the Public Investments Programme budget by 4 billion => The 2015 budget was 200 million EUR lower than the 2014 budget; the 2016 budget was 350 million EUR higher than the 2015 budget - but clearly, there was no 4 billion increase.
3. Increase pensions => Haha, no. And sorry, I can't resists a bit of sensationalism: not only did SYRIZA not increase pensions, but police harassed the pensioners who protested against further pension cuts.
4. Replace memorandum policies immediately, without waiting for the outcome of future negotiations => Clearly not.
5. Provide free electricity and food and rent subsidies to 300,000 households => I can't tell whether Tsipras delivered on this. Some news sources say he did, some he didn't - so let's be charitable and mark this promise as upheld.
6. Give a Christmas pension bonus to 1,200,000 people => Delivered.
7. Cut oil tax => Nope. Oil in 2016 was about 10% more expensive driven by tax increases.
8. Cut ENFIA (property tax) => Nope. On average it went up.
9. Increase the tax-free income level to 12,000 => SYRIZA actually decreased the tax-free income level (except for families with more than 3 children).
10. Increase the minimum wage to 751 EUR for all ages => Nope.
11. Create new agency to tackle tax evasion, "very modestly" forecasting 3 billion EUR tax recovery in the first year => I do not know whether such an agency was created, though I can't find mention of it in the government's budget letter. However, the 3 billion income certainly didn't materialise: total direct tax income increased by about 800 million EUR and indirect tax income by about 1.2 billion EUR. These are driven by increases in tax rates, not tax evasion crackdown (at least, no mention of the latter is mentioned as a source of growth in the budget letter).

So. 11 promises, of which SYRIZA delivered on 2. In most cases, not only did SYRIZA not do what they promised to do, but they did literally the opposite. Then there is the matter of the referendum. SYRIZA called for a national referendum asking the Greek public's opinion on whether the government should agree to the terms of the 2015 bailout. The Greek public overwhelmingly voted "no". Two days later, Tsipras ignored that result and signed a new deal with the EU. (I suppose he was hoping that a "No" vote would scare the EU into offering better terms. When this didn't happen he capitulated).

In summary then, SYRIZA imposed more austerity measures, increased taxes, lowered the tax-free income level, cut pensions and capitulated to Europe's demands. All this after Tsipras said that he's not an "all-weather prime-minister" and that he's not glued to the prime-ministerial chair - implying that if he could not deliver on his promises he would resign.

I think that even the most ardent socialist will have to agree that SYRIZA has failed to accomplish its self-imposed goals. Let's now visit the mitigating circumstances clause. Those who are still inexplicably sympathetic to SYRIZA claim that the party and its leader had all the best intentions, and would have delivered on all their commitments, had Europe let them. They (the inexplicably sympathetic apologists) say that Tsipras has been strong-armed by the EU and the IMF. That he couldn't have done anything else.

I find this defense lacking. To explain why, let's think about what makes for mitigating circumstances when breaking a promise. Personally, I take promises very seriously. I believe a person can be forgiven for breaking a promise in extremely rare cases, only if an event that is truly material and unexpected occurs.

But let's be very clear here: traffic or a late request from your boss are not material and unexpected events that would justify breaking a promise to meet for dinner. Things like this happen all the time - and they're why you should never make promises about casual things like a dinner date. To me, a person who has integrity will carefully consider all the possible scenarios in which he would not be able to uphold a promise, and will either not make it, or will make a specific caveat in case such a scenario transpires.

Back to Tsipras, he was not literally forced to impose more austerity cuts - Germans didn't invade Greece and put a gun to his head (which would be unexpected and material to say the least). The EU and the IMF could only "force" Greece to agree to more cuts in the same way they have always done: by threatening to withdraw support, causing Greece to exit the EU and default on its debt. This threat isn't new. Tsipras made all his promises knowing that this was the EU's position. He didn't say he would do all these things if the EU and the IMF let him; he said he would do them regardless (see promise 4 above).

That he failed to consider the EU not backing down from its demands as a possibility is therefore not merely incompetence; it's not merely carelessness; it's not wishful thinking; it is lack of integrity. You can argue all you want that the EU is unreasonable, or that the IMF is staffed by incompetent and evil economists. This does not change the fact that Tsipras made promises he did not keep.

BUT. Because English is flimsy and vague and leaves room for misrepresentation, I want to now formally prove this thesis. Normal people, stop reading here. Geeks, read on.

Mathematical Proof
First, you might want to have a look at the basics of propositional logic here or here.

Now, let's start with the following premises. I have made these as thorough as I could, but if you believe I have missed a possibility in any of the implications below, please let me know.

• (A lied) => (A is dishonest) ∨ (A is crazy/does not understand the concept of lying)
• (A is dishonest) => (A is dishonest for selfish reasons) ∨ (A thinks dishonesty will serve the greater good)
• (A thinks he serves the greater good) => (the greater good increases) ∨ (A was wrong)
• (A made a promise) => (A considered likely events that would cause them to break the promise)
• (A broke a promise) => (A lied) ∨ (A faced unexpected change)
• (A faced unexpected change) => ((A had anticipated all likely events) ∧ (unlikely event occurred)) ∨ (A had not anticipated all likely events)
• Tsipras made a list of promises
• Tsipras broke these promises
• No unlikely events occurred.
• Greece is doing worse than ever (i.e. the greater good has not been served)

Based on these, we have:

(Tsipras made a list of promises) ∧ (Tsipras broke these promises)
= (Tsipras considered likely events that would cause him to break the promises) ∧ ((Tsipras lied) ∨ (Tsipras faced unexpected change))
= (Tsipras considered likely events) ∧ ((Tsipras lied) ∨ (((Tipras had anticipated all likely events) ∧ (unlikely event occurred)) ∨ (Tsipras had not anticipated all likely events)))
= (Tsipras considered likely events) ∧ ((Tsipras lied) ∨ (((Tipras had anticipated all likely events) ∧ FALSE) ∨ (Tsipras had not anticipated all likely events)))
= (Tsipras considered likely events) ∧ ((Tsipras lied) ∨ ((FALSE) ∨ (Tsipras had not anticipated all likely events))
= (Tsipras considered likely events) ∧ ((Tsipras lied) ∨ (Tsipras had not anticipated all likely events))
= (Tsipras considered likely events) ∨ (Tsipras had not anticipated all likely events)∧ (Tsipras lied)
= TRUE ∧ (Tsipras Lied)
= Tsipras Lied

Okay. So we formally proved that, if we accept that someone with integrity carefully considers what promises he makes, and that failure to do this constitutes lying, then Tsipras lied. But let's take this further:

Tsipras Lied
= (Tsipras is dishonest) ∨ (Tsipras is crazy)
= ((Tsipras is dishonest for selfish reasons) ∨ (Tsipras thinks dishonesty will serve the greater good)) ∨ (Tsipras is crazy)
= ((Tsipras is dishonest for selfish reasons) ∨ ((the greater good increases) ∨ (Tsipras was wrong))) ∨ (Tsipras is crazy)
= ((Tsipras is dishonest for selfish reasons) ∨ (FALSE ∨ (Tsipras was wrong))) ∨ (Tsipras is crazy)
= (Tsipras is dishonest for selfish reasons) ∨ (Tsipras was wrong) ∨ (Tsipras is crazy)

So there you have it. Officially proven: either Tsipras is dishonest because he wanted to gain power and fame, or he was dishonest because he thought this would somehow serve Greece but was disastrously wrong, or he is literally crazy.

Greece and the IMF

In case you missed it, Greece is on the news again. I wasn't going to write anything about it, because the situation seems so clear to me that I thought that anyone who disagrees with me on this one is either literally crazy or just doesn't know the facts. I genuinely thought that intelligence or political ideology had nothing to do with it anymore.

But I was wrong. A friend, who is neither stupid, nor uninformed, nor (I think) literally insane, told me today that she hates the IMF's approach towards Greece. Now. Everyone who knows me knows that I am not empathetic. I am rarely able to really put myself in someone else's shoes and experience their feelings. But I genuinely (as in, not just saying so for dramatic effect) feel empathy for the IMF staff. Even before this discussion with my friend I had played this scenario in my head, and felt the frustration, bewilderment and total confusion I am sure the IMF analysts are experiencing:

I imagine I am an IMF agent analyst. I look at the following data:

• GDP declining year on year since 2008.
• Debt % of GDP at 177%.
• Unemployment rate at 25.6%
• Declining tax revenue since 2008
• 35% increase in suicides in 2015.

So I go to my meeting with the EU and Greece, and I say "hi guys. Sorry to say this, but things aren't looking very good. I think things aren't really working out". I expect agreement on this, and so without pause I get ready to discuss possible solutions, but before I have a chance to move on, I am interrupted by the EU:

"What are you talking about? Greece is making tremendous progress. I really feel the turnaround is just around the corner".

I am taken aback. "But where do you see that? Because Greece is doing worse in literally every single statistic I could dig - from its economy to corruption levels."

"That may be," Greece jumps in, "but Greece has had it up to here with being the scapegoat for Europe."

I am even more confused at this non-sequitur, but I answer, "I am not trying to make Greece the scapegoat. I am trying to say your debt is unsustainable, which you guys have been saying for years. So now that I agree with you, you are saying I am the bad guy?!"

"Yes, because you at the IMF want us to make further cuts."

"No, we do not! We have very clearly said that we do not want more austerity! In fact, we have said time and again that we want less austerity than the EU, we want a surplus target of 1.5%, not 3.5%."

"But you ask for more measures."

"First, what we are saying is that if you and the EU agree to a 3.5% target, we want to see what measures will get you there. Second, our main point is that you need to re-balance your economy, make Greece a business-friendly environment. Stop driving away companies; stop randomly changing contract terms you have already agreed on; increase your retirement age, it's insane that 75% of people retire early."

And here the scenario ends, because I can genuinely not imagine what possible response could be given to this. "No, we changed our mind, the debt is suddenly manageable"? "No, we are anti-austerity, but insist on a 3.5% target"? "No, we are suddenly pro-austerity and a 3.5% target is fine, but we don't want to explain how we'll achieve it"? I mean, what?!

~ ~ ~ ~

I think one of the reasons for the acrimonious debate in Greece is that the word "austerity" is too vague to describe policy. Austerity in general means to cut spending. But not all spending is the same. Spending on doctors and nurses and teachers is essential; paying 2 public company "executives" 200,000 each before privatising it? Funding another public entity with 1 million EUR even though it was no purpose? Less so.

This is what really drives me insane - that you have pundits and experts and Krugman talking about things they (self-admittedly) do not understand. It seems that the common sense we employ in our daily lives goes out of the window when we talk politics. When my boss tells me to cut costs, she expects me to use judgement: if I went to her and said "I had a great idea for cutting costs - I fired all the engineers! The downside is we can't make anything, but costs have definitely gone down dramatically", she would, in turn, fire me. No-one would turn and say "aha! cutting costs is a bad business practice".

So to conclude: I suspect that most people dislike the IMF because they associate it with "austerity" and they associate "austerity" with the poverty and desolation in Greece. But Greece has not endorsed in spirit the steps the IMF has advocated. It has haphazardly cut vital services without liberalising its economy. It has failed to curb tax evasion, and based on what I see when I go back, has probably driven people to it even more. Saying austerity is a bad concept (and by implication, the IMF is a bad institution) because Greece is in a bad way is sort of like saying the original Star Wars were terrible because of Jar Jar Binks.

EDIT: My friend says she hates the IMF because they are not really trying to help Greece, because by their own admission their past recommendations haven't worked out, because their assessment of the debt is all over the place, because their "experts" are not really that expert &c.

I am not an economist, and she is, so I am happy to take her word that the IMF doesn't have a great track record, or that their experts are overpaid and not very good at their jobs (then again, most people say the same about all economists).

But none of this addresses my specific concerns in this case. Even if all that's true, it's undoubtable that Greece is not making progress, that the debt is not sustainable, and that cutting infrastructure spending while maintaining insane pensions, privileges and tax evasion and discouraging investment are not sustainable policies.

Against googling stuff

​Tonight's google search history: "baby elephant yawning", "do elephants have tongues", "do whales have tongues", "do wales have tongues", "do lobsters have tongues" and "what is the point of a tongue". This all started with me wondering aloud whether elephants have tongues.

In seriousness though, our technologically-enabled ready access to data means we spend far less time pondering on things (as touched upon in HIMYM). I think this is not as good a thing as it seems at first.

First, it means that we are losing our ability to reason in the absence of data. If we didn't have a computer, Jessi and I could have started thinking about whether elephants' evolution would mean they have tongues. What factors would lead to an animal growing a tongue? What function does a tongue serve? &c. Tech enthusiasts argue that with so much data at our fingertips, we can devote our considerable brain power to thinking - but thinking is all about making inferences and deductions, and if you no longer need to deduce anything because you can just look it up, how will you train yourself to think?

Second and sadder, this ability to just look up the answer to any question is killing off imagination. What would happen if I didn't kill off the stream of consciousness that began by my wondering whether elephants have tongues by looking up the answer? (to be more precise, Jessi suggested we look it up. I was perfectly happy to just wonder). It could have led to all sorts of interesting thoughts - for example, if I were interested in writing fiction (which I am), I could have come up with a story about an elephant who has a tongue, but doesn't know that all elephants have tongues because elephants's mouths are hidden by their trunks and so spends his life thinking he is a freak. This would be a surreal enough premise to amuse a potential reader while also functioning as an allegory for people being tormented by insecurities that they believe are unique to them - hence making the point that society might be better off if we were all a bit more open about our vulnerabilities, that these vulnerabilities are only debilitating because they are hidden.

Maybe you think this premise isn't all that great. Well, it's a great deal greater than, say, the ugly duckling, whose whole moral isn't "looks don't matter" (which is a bad moral itself, but it's at least more defensible than its actual moral which is) but that "looks do matter, but some people might be late bloomers, so don't reject that geek's invite to the prom because he might one day become Tony Stark". But anyway, even if that particular premise isn't good, I am sure lots of people who would be more capable than me of coming up with a good story are slowly poisoning their imagination with their smartphones and tablets.

And if you think I am going to reveal the answers to the questions above, you have totally missed my point. I will say though that google doesn't appreciate my sense of humour in finding that whales sounds like Wales amusing.

Against meritocracy as a political system

A friend outlined a proposal for keeping populism in check: he suggested that only the legislative branch ought to be elected, with the judicial and executive run by appointed experts. His idea is that these appointed experts would have the power to veto legislative action that they would deem potentially catastrophic.

In the wake of Brexit, Trump, Tsipras, Le Pen &c, I suppose many people have similar thoughts, so I decided to explain why I think this is a bad idea (also, it's much easier typing this on a keyboard vs debating on whatsapp).

First, I want to challenge the notion that experts operate differently to populists. My friend said policy should be made by adults who base their decisions on evidence, not emotion; I agree, but I do not think experts are much better than the average person at doing that:

a) Academics, elites and intellectuals have all too often been on the wrong side of history (women weren't admitted at Cambridge until 1869, and were only allowed to become full members of the university in 1948; Yale changed its admission policy in the 1920s to reduce the number of admitted Jews ; plenty prominent scientists have held racist views, such as James Watson; &c).

b) Scientists are just as prone to bias as anyone else. Only 6-8% of social sciences professors identify as conservatives, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans 8 to 1. This would be fine, except that researchers tend to let their political leanings influence their research:

1. They mistake their values for objective truth (e.g. one research team found (and I am oversimplifying here a bit) that conservatives make more unethical decisions than non-conservatives, but whether these decisions were ethical or not were evaluated from a liberal perspective! In other words, research that says "conservatives are more unethical" was basically "conservatives are not liberal".)
2. They focus on research that reinforces their narrative and avoid research that contradicts it. E.g. there was (apparently) for a long time a surprising lack of empirical research into the accuracy of stereotypes; and when research was finally performed (by conservative academics), it actually found that stereotype accuracy is one of the strongest effects in sociology. Similarly, there has been far more research in prejudice against right wing-targeted groups (e.g. ethnic minorities) than in prejudice against left wing-targeted groups (e.g. devoted Christians).
3. Researchers are actually more prone to confirmation bias than non-academics, since it seems that confirmation bias is positively correlated with IQ.
4. Academics are hostile towards those who hold different political views to the extent of discriminating against research that discredits their views. In one experiment, researchers produced two papers, identical in all respects except their conclusion: one showed that leftist activists were less mentally healthy than average, and the other showed the opposite. They then asked other psychologists to rate the two papers. Liberal psychologists rated the second version as more publishable; less liberal ones showed no such bias. Furthermore, most social psychologists explicitly say they would discriminate against conservative job candidates.

c) If science were purely evidence-based, the source of funding for a particular study shouldn't correlate with the study's result. Yet studies show that source of funding correlates with results that favour the funding body's interests. For example, one study found that 65% of pharma industry-sponsored studies produced results in favour of new drugs, vs 40% of independent studies. Wikipedia has an article on funding bias. Whole research fields have been influenced by sponsorship - such as the sugar industry managing to downplay the role of sugar in heart disease, blaming fat instead.

So, I think this all shows that scientists and academics are far from infallible: they can be prejudiced, biased and corrupt just like everyone else.

Second, it's a bit suspicious that people like the idea of meritocracy only when it leads to outcomes that agree with their own intuitions. For example, I am pretty sure that lots of people I know who dislike populists, and to whom this idea of meritocracy appeals, would still consider the Supreme Court to be in the wrong if they strike down Roe v Wade - even though the Supreme Court Justices are amongst the best legal scholars in the world.

Third, and most important, even if it were the case that experts were perfectly honest, scrupulous and unbiased, even if it were the case that people would respect expert judgement, it would still be a mistake to give absolute power to a small group of people. Maybe this group is good; what about their successors? The good thing about democracy is that it is mutable: if we make a mistake now, we can reverse it later. If you move to a system where a group of people can veto anything they don't like, the only way of changing it is violence and revolution.

Finally, I am constantly shocked at the degree of arrogance people who call for such systems are displaying. When I said this to my friend, he replied, "how am I being arrogant? I didn't say I should be the one to rule". True, but the whole call for meritocracy comes from believing that the crowds have got it objectively wrong; that some of us, the better educated ones, know better. I find this hard to stomach.

Evaluating Trump's Presidency

In the interests of objectivity and the scientific method, I suggest the following: come up with a list of metrics by which you will evaluate Trump’s presidency in 4 years. Rules:

a) Be fair: we all know Trump will most probably appoint a conservative Justice. It’s not fair to judge an entire presidency by one such action.

b) Make sure your criteria are sufficient to judge a presidency: if, upon finding out that Trump has done more or less well with respect to the criteria you have set, you cannot go looking for new criteria by which he has not done well and vice-versa – unless…

c) Trump does something objectively horrible that you hadn’t accounted for in your criteria – e.g. he deports all Muslims or turns out to be literally the Antichrist.

It turns out creating such a list of criteria is heavy work. First, it's difficult enough identifying metrics that provide a reasonably complete view of a country's performance. Second, it's not always easy to find data. Third, setting a target is a bit arbitrary.

So, this task being harder than I thought, and myself feeling lazy, I haven't put in this as much work as I should. Nevertheless, I have put together a few metrics that I think are okayish. In terms of targets, for the most parts I've benchmaked Trump vs Obama. In those areas where Obama has done well, I've set Trump's target to match Obama's performance. In those areas Obama has not done well, I've set Trump's target to either maintain the status quo, or if he has claimed that he will bring back the good old days etc, I've set his target to, say, 2012 levels.

In some specific cases, I've set sort of unfair targets for Trump, but he's had it coming. So, for example, it's not sufficient for him to reduce the crime rate in the USA, because that's already been happening; but since Republicans have been complaining that people feel less safe, he has to convince the population that they are safer.

Anyway, here we go:

Economy

• GDP CAGR of 2%, with 4% in his final year. Source: World Bank
• Debt no higher than today ($19.9 trillion). Source: US Treasury
• Unemployment rate at 4% (vs 4.8% today). Source: US Bureau of Labour
• Labour Force participation at pre-crisis level, i.e. 66% (vs 63% today). Source: As above.
• Bottom 10th percentile of households income growth. Note: the bottom 10% of households earns less now than in 2009, whereas the top 10% earns about 7% more. Source: Census Bureau

Race & Gender Equality

• Female income % male income at  83% vs 79.6% (maintain past 4Y CAGR). Source: Pay Equity
• Black household income % white income at 61.4%, flat vs today. Note: black households earn less as a % of white households than they did in 2009. Source: Census Bureau (link above).
• % of blacks with >=4 years highschool = % of whites. Source: Census Bureau
• % of blacks with >=4 years college at 24.5% (+2% vs today). Source: as above
• Blacks' trust in the police at 2012 level, i.e. 36% vs 30% today. Source: Gallup

Crime

• Violent crime rate down 0.9% per year. Source: FBI
• Rate rate flat vs today. Note: the rate has been increasing over the past 3 years. Source: as above.
• Level of concern about violent crime down to 2010 level, i.e. 42% vs 53% today. Source: Gallup

Education

• PISA score back at 2012 level. Source: PISA

Ochlocracy

Polybius wrote that ochlocracy is the culmination of a society’s progression through different political systems, succeeding democracy. Following Brexit, a lot of liberals now seem to think that we are on the verge of transitioning from the latter to the former.

I agree that our society is beginning to see signs of ochlocracy – but Brexit has nothing to do with it. Brexit was, in fact, decided in accordance with perfectly democratic principles. Elected representatives voted to hold a referendum; the population voted in accordance with established procedures, free from coercion or intimidation; and the government is currently trying to implement the outcome.

Wikipedia doesn’t offer a precise definition of the term, so let me explain quickly what I think it means: ochlocracy in my view refers to mob rule, whereby a group of people impose their will and influence policy through aggression, bypassing the rule of law and established rules, policies & procedures. Ochlocracy does NOT refer to efforts to have direct democracy or policy-making through referenda, nor does it refer to the election of populist leaders.*

But as I said at the beginning, I do see signs of a transition to ochlocracy – and ironically, the “ochlos” I fear is not the majority that voted for Brexit, but the extremely aggressive, oppressive and abusive liberal minority. Let’s look at a few examples:

a) In 2015, Yale students cornered and abused Nicholas Christakis because of his and his wife’s argument that students should not be adverse to being challenged, eventually leading to their resignations.

b) In 2013, a programmer at a conference joked with the person sitting next to him about “forking” and “dongles” (technical terms). A woman sitting close to them overhead and tweeted a picture of him it with the caption “Not cool. Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles. Right behind me”. The tweet went viral, generated controversy, and the programmer was fired. The woman herself was fired a few days later, as her tweet generated backlash too.

c) Again in 2013, Justine Sacco tweeted a joke about how she can’t get AIDS because she’s white just before taking off from Heathrow. By the time she landed in Cape Town, she had received tens of thousands of abusive tweets, which led to her being fired from her job.

d) In 2015, the University of York cancelled a planned “Men’s Day” aiming to highlight issues affecting males (such as higher suicide rates) after a number of students & members of staff penned a letter suggesting that such an event would “amplify existing, structurally imposed, inequalities”.

e) In 2015, the judge presiding over “People v. Turner” handed out a lenient sentence to Brock Turner. The backlash that followed led the judge to refuse to hear more criminal cases.

f) Following the documentary series “Making a Murderer” in late 2015, more than 100,000 people signed a petition to the President to pardon Avery – although thankfully, in this case, this public reaction didn’t have an effect.

Now, to be perfectly clear, I am not making an argument as to the legitimacy of the arguments in each case (though I do have strong views for cases a – d). Nor am I suggesting people shouldn’t be able to protest or argue for their positions. What I am saying is that when people disagree with a particular person, or policy, or action, their protest should aim to have that person, policy or action reviewed and evaluated in accordance to due process; instead, what we see is an angry public demanding that due process be by-passed. In each of the cases above, the people on the opposite side of the protesters were not granted fair evaluation. People lost their jobs or were pressured to change their careers regardless of how good they were at them. The men’s day cancellation was led by 200 people; more than 3,000 launched a counter-petition to reinstate it (unsuccessfully (?!)). And the public requesting Avery’s pardon is so ignorant of the relevant legislation that they did not realise the President does not have the power to pardon him.

I could give so many more examples – accused rapists convicted by the public before their case is even heard, speakers dis-invited and refused platforms, academics fired from their positions or physically attacked for holding controversial views &c. THIS is what ochlocracy means. And it is far more worrying than Brexit.

* I want to be very clear on this – some people have effectively claimed that policy-making through referenda is ochlocracy because people are called on to make decisions which they are not qualified to make, and that true democracy in today’s world is representative democracy. This definition of ochlocracy is flawed in many ways:

a) It’s just begging the question – how come we can claim the average Briton is poorly qualified to vote on the EU, but qualified to vote for a representative, when different representatives advocate for wildly different policies, all very difficult to evaluate? On what criteria are citizens meant to vote for representatives if not based on their policies, which they are not educated enough to understand?

b) The system where the best qualified rule is not democracy, but aristocracy… rebranding aristocracy as democracy because it’s sounds less elitist is disingenuous.

c) Such a definition would qualify Switzerland as an ochlocracy – and given that the term is a pejorative, few people would agree with such a classification.

Finally, saying that the election of a leader unpopular with the elite constitutes ochlocracy is, well, unbelievably elitist and arrogant even for me.

Against Irony

Irony is central to the zeitgeist of my generation. And I think it is high time we all realise that what started as healthy cynicism and rejection of hypocrisy is now an insidious concept that is damaging our art and relationships.

Whereas irony used to be used to expose insincerity in others, it is now used to hide our own true feelings. And it is pervasive: you see irony in clothing (“Of course I don’t like this t-shirt; it’s ironic”), in film (“it’s almost like the studio couldn’t afford another x-man”), in TV (Frank Underwood mockingly breaking the fourth wall) and in common figures of speech (the ever-so-slightly mocking “aww” when we witness something sweet (because God forbid that we genuinely seem touched) or the “I’m not going to say x/y/z” which is of course nothing but a way of saying x/y/z at the same time as recognising that x/y/z is a trite thing to say – hence killing two stones with one bird: saying what you wanted to say in the first place while shielding yourself from the criticism that saying what you wanted to say is hackneyed or unpopular).

My thesis is that irony is like a drug or alcohol: in small doses it’s fun. In large doses it desensitises (reports that in very large doses it kills are unsubstantiated, unless “kills” is used metaphorically). We have taken irony so far that to talk about something in earnest, to believe in an ideal (or to even use the words “believe in an ideal”) is uncool. It’s lame. It’s taking things too seriously. It’s “wow, this conversation is getting too serious, what did you guys do over the weekend?”

I have several problems with this: a) at its core, most irony today is a pathetic defence mechanism. If you pretend to take nothing seriously, no-one can hurt you. If you never expose what matters to you, you are shielding yourself from ridicule or contempt. This is hypocritical: your ironic demeanour screams “I don’t care about anything” but its whole raison d’etre is that you care too much that others might reject the real you*. Which links to my second concern, that b) if you hide those things you care about, you are inoculating yourself against harm but also against meaningful relationships. Sure, you may have a network of friends with whom you share a laugh – but you know deep down that these people don’t really know you, they don’t know the things that really matter to you. They only know the ironic, taking-nothing-seriously persona you’re projecting. And c) if everyone is afraid to acknowledge that some things are important to them, art dies, it becomes jejune and tired. Art is supposed to explore beauty and find meaning – if our starting point is that to acknowledge beauty might open us to ridicule, or that to find meaning is naïve, art will end up a formulaic activity (the same Marvel movie for the 20th time or yet another Oscar-baiting biopic) or a misguided attempt to shock and provoke. Finally, d) this whole thing is self-perpetuating: we cannot tolerate people who are earnest, because they make us feel uncomfortable. They are so radically different (and usually happy); so to justify our own way of being, we must reduce them – label them geeks, nerds or naïve fools.

Of course, this is an exaggeration. No-one is ironic all of the time, and we all have people to whom we open up, who really know us. But it’s not as exaggerated as you might think – if you think about your own friends or self, you will find many examples of all the behaviours above – you will see you know people who are thoughtful and idealistic in private, but only joke around and dismiss their own ideals as naïve in public or friends who dismiss others because they are passionate about something seemingly silly (English grammar, dungeons & dragons or comic books for example).

I am not the only one who has an issue with this – people far smarter than me have raised the same objections to irony. But it’s telling that their criticism of it has been, in a meta-head-explosive kind of way, ironic – e.g. Matt Stone and Tray Parker have written a South Park episode where Randy can’t stop being ironic and DF Wallace wrote a massive post-modernist book to criticise post-modernism (at least, that’s what I got out of it). Perhaps they felt they could have a bigger impact this way – they realised that a heart-felt (another uncool expression, btw) message would be cynically dismissed.
So, to conclude: I am not saying we should all stop being ironic. Like I said, in small doses, irony is funny. Let’s just tone it tone it down a bit; let’s stop overusing it. Let’s stop pretending we don’t care about anything, and stop mocking those who are enthusiastic about something. And please, please, let’s stop killing interesting conversation with “this is getting serious, let’s talk about the weekend, tgif”.

* I can’t resist taking a dig at Deadpool: its whole self-referential and self-depreciating narrative serves exactly this purpose. In fact, Deadpool epitomises everything I think is bad about modern culture – not only does it (attempt to) negate its own weaknesses by pre-emptively referencing them by breaking the fourth wall (“Ryan Reynolds isn’t a good actor”, “the plot is clichéd”, “there aren’t even good cameos”) but it explicitly makes the one genuinely nice, kind character (Colossus) look like a moron.