Category Archives: Politics

Warren Buffett gives away almost all he has to charity. Bravo!

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Warren Buffett will give almost all of his fortune – one of the greatest in history – to charity.  Most most will go to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to accelerate its fantastic efforts towards global health and education.   Buffett, the Sage of Omaha and arguably one of the world's sharpest businessmen, will join the Gates' on the board of a foundation already credited with saving over a *million* lives.

I'd guess that this amazing convergence of wealth and entrepreneurial style development will go down as a pivotal moment in history, and it is wonderful and inspiring to see the mega rich turn to mega philanthropy.

Dr. Schneider! Just say NO to alarmism. Alarmism misdirects resources.

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Later …. Wait, I think I'm being too hard on Schneider who later qualified the quote below to apply only to soundbite decisions when getting interviewed… ]

He apparently did not mean it to be as broad and sweeping as it sounds below]. However, I do think the quote reflects the current behavior of many scientists who are choosing to accept alarmism because it suits their needs.

My initial post:

A great intellectual frustration for me is trying to understand why super bright, well informed people who all subscribe to the idea of rational, scientific inquiry often disagree – sometimes violently – about the interpretation of well studied phenomena. I now think the answer can be found by noting how our pesky human intellectual inadequacies combine with our "tribal" tendency to agree with our friends and challenge our enemies, especially when we are under personal attack. This in turn focuses attention on a "too narrow" spectrum of information and people, which in turn leads to faulty analysis or suspect statements – even by very competent intellects.

Stephen Schnieder is an internationally respected Stanford climatologist and biologist and a key author of the IPCC report which is the key Global Warming reference work. He's also one of the harshest critics of Bjorn Lomborg and his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist". Back in 1996 Schnieder got to the heart of the challenge of mixing science and politics in the statement below and his answer to critics who often accuse him of alarmism based on the following statement he made in an interview:

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. [bolding added]

Yikes Dr. Schneider – please JUST SAY NO to effectiveness if it is going to compromise your honesty – that should not be an ethical bind for a scientists who should be held to a higher standard of honesty.

I sure don't like his idea that "offering up scary scenarios" somehow serves the long term best interests of the public. It sure looks like Schneider would support Al Gore's alarmism as an important part of getting the public to act on an issue many hold very dear (reduction of greenhouse gases in the hopes of stopping global warming), but I think a more functional view is that the role of science should be to offer the unvarnished truth, and to *challenge* alarmists and political or economic vested interests when they report facts selectively or inaccurately. Only with accurate analyses can we allocated resources most effectively to the myriad problems of earth.

The irony of it all is that global warming alarmists cite potential human death catastrophes from global warming, yet simply ignore the *fact* that there are many human catastrophes going on *right now* in many parts of the globe. Before you ask me to focus my attention and hundreds of billions of dollars of tax money on the (slight) possibility that global warming will rise sea levels 20 feet, I ask you to focus your precious attention, and a few dozen billion, on the easy to solve problems of the world like clean water, intestinal disease, and malaria. Deal?

What is YOUR LIFE worth to the Dept of Transportation? About 2.7 Million.

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This cost allocation study Notes that the EPA is willing to spend almost twice what the Dept of Transportation is willing to spend to keep YOU alive. The numbers seem old so there may be some adjustments, but interesting is this:

In policy and regulatory analyses, EPA uses a value of $4.8 million to represent the cost of a premature death. This value is the mean of estimates from 26 studies dating back to the mid 1970s that have attempted to place a value on the cost of premature deaths. Estimates from those studies range from $0.6 million to $13.5 million, reflecting the large uncertainties in trying to estimate the public's willingness to pay to avoid premature death.

The Department of Transportation has adopted a value of $2.7 million per premature death, based on a comprehensive 1991 study by the Urban Institute

People are reluctant to accept this type of "dollar valuation" analysis even though it's commonplace in legal settlements and is a VERY APPROPRIATE way to allocate public funds. Note that the 4.8 million dollars the EPA spends to save a life would save thousands of lives if spent in alternative ways. One can argue that the complexity of this type of analysis undermines the rationale behind using this "lives for dollars" game, but it's a weak argument. Yet even with this appropriate method of trying to allocate dollars to lives and then allocate them most effectively, we tend to apply funding in odd ways and squander billions due to political budgeting.

Almost 5000 dead and counting

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No, not from the Indonesian earthquake – indeed a terrible tragedy. Global warming? Ha – not even the most alarmist proponents make this claim. Nope, not from terrorism, which tragically took perhaps 5 or even 10 lives today despite *trillions* of dollars spent fighting wars and providing security across thousands of first world venues.

Malaria killed the 5000. Today. And yesterday. And tomorrow. 1-3 Million per year with some indications the count has been historically too low on this disease.

But let's not worry about Malaria because the cost to dramatically reduce transmission is …. $2.50 for nets that protect people while they sleep. $5.50 for the really good nets that can protect people for 5 years.

More death news you won't see on CNN or FOX. Yet today (nor yesterday or the days before) I didn't see anything on CNN or FOX about this ongoing life and death battle with parasitic diseases where the death toll eclipses that of *all wars ever fought for all time*.

CNN did, however, have a long report lamenting the fact that that about 100 people per week die waiting for organ transplants. We better get to work on that, because why spend $2.50 for a net to save a kid's life when you can spend $250,000.00 giving a rich guy a extra few years?

Save the world, ignore global warming

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As I noted before I actually admire and respect Al Gore for his passion regarding the environment and his sincerity about creating a better world. However I wonder if his global warming alarmism is misguided.

Here is a short and articulate summary by the controversial "skeptical environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg of the view that Global warming is happening but that those suggesting dramatic measures are proposing we waste time and innovation better spent on problems we *can* solve.

Personally, I'm incredibly frustrated by how *every source I've read* suggesting global warming remedies fails to even attempt a cost benefit analysis when this should be a key concern due to the overwhelming costs associated with, for example, Kyoto Protocol implementation.

Lomborg suggests:
… in a curious way, global warming really is the moral test of our time, but not in the way its proponents imagined. We need to stop our obsession with global warming, and start dealing with the many more pressing issues in the world, where we can do most good first and quickest.

Lomborg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" suggests that many of the sacred cows of the environmental movement, including Global Warming, are supported more by political and ideological rather than scientific and mathematical motivations.

Lomborg has been villified in some scientific circles and if I can get permission I'll post some very interesting correspondence I had with the editor of Scientific American, which challenges Lomborg in what I feel are more personal rather than scientific ways. Lomborg's critics are notoriously vicious with ad hominem attacks on Lomborg rather than attacking his math and scientific assumptions. I'd suggest this is a strong indication that we should be paying more attention to Lomborg's analyses of pressing global concerns and that we should be careful to review the motivations of ALL of those involved in the global environmental debate.

Wikipedia on Global Warming – an excellent summary

EPA's Global Warming Site
Cooler Heads Coalition – industry funded I think. Note the paper about Terraforming Mars using injected greenhouse gasses! These guys seem to LIKE global warming!

Clear vs Artistic thinking

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I wonder if a reasonable way to broadly categorize people's thinking is dividing folks into TWO groups?.  "Clear thinkers"  tend to apply reason, logic, and the experimental method, accept new information as it comes to them, change their mind when evidence demands it, and generally seek out information even when it contradicts their position.  

The second group is much larger and in fact more representative of the forces that shaped humans over time, and tends to think "tribally" (Groupthink, conformity, dogma, prejudices,alliances) and "emotionally".   I'm starting to call this "artistic" thinking, which is often more interested in the outcome of the analysis than the analysis itself.      For artistic thinkers facts are collected with the outcome in mind rather than to support or disprove their working hypothesis.   Focus is narrowed to those things that support the story line.

What if we all agreed for a few years to apply a combination of rational analysis, experimental method, and highly optimized government spending using things like risk and reward analysis rather than political and emotional analysis?

We could solve a lot of problems by accepting more risk/danger in areas where we now demand far too much safety or quality standards.

naaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! 

Global Warming, or Global Alarming?

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Tim O'Reilly's looking forward to the upcoming film by Al Gore about Global Warming.
It's called "An Inconvenient Truth" and premiers very soon.

I respect Al Gore for many reasons, but I'm concerned by what appears to be a "propagandistic" rather than "scientific" lean to this film (this is based on clips and comments by those who have seen the film). I do not think Gore is a clear thinker on this topic and sees himself more as a "prophet".

If we focus on addressing the many global problems like health and economies of the developing world we can get a spectacular return on the investment of mental and monetary capital. Collateral advantages will be reductions in terrorism and a huge boost in good will and personal satisfaction.

Investing in alleviating human causes of global warming has no clear path to success, yet the costs are simply staggering.

Tim replied to my concerns, which I posted over at his blog. I love the internet for letting little old me, and thousands of others, actively engage with some of the world's best and brightest. Whatever one's views on the *most* pressing problems, certainly the collective application of innovation has the power to bring us the solutions.

Joe —
I see you've read The Skeptical Environmentalist. And I certainly agree with Bjorn Lomborg that there are other pressing problems where there is a great return on investment. But it also seems to me that many of the things that would be required to help with global warming could have enormous payoff. Critics talk about enormous costs, but it seems to me that the costs of the current way of doing things are always hidden.

A great example of this is railroads vs. automobiles. There's always been a huge debate about rail from the north bay down to San Francisco, with critics talking about the $150 million projected cost as a subsidy. But no one talks about the tens of billions of dollars of subsidy represented by the creation and maintenance of the highway system. Railroads are expected to carry their costs and described as uneconomic because they need subsidies, but the automobile industry managed to get much larger subsidies baked into the economy and hidden so that they no longer even appear as subsidies.

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I agree with Tim that some hidden economic subsidies are not always identified in discussions, but Economists do talk about and study these relationships. Unfortunately these observations are almost always buried in the politically/emotionally motivated budgeting processes. Political budgeting is not rational budgeting.

He's also right that greenhouse alleviation *might* have a big payoff, especially from things like alternative energy innovations that we might not explore unless we tackle global warming more aggressively. Still, the benefits seem so very unclear that I'd rather have the government spend my money on alleviating the abundant clear, present, and (most importantly) CHEAP-to-fix dangers like global health and poor education. (I'm against much of the excessive military and security spending as well as potential global warming big spending.)

I'd even suggest that the positive technology spinoffs from $250,000,000,000 towards global health and development would simply dwarf those from that investment in Greenhouse gas alleviation (or military or first world health care, etc, etc).

The Elegance of Efficiency. More Mediocrity NOW!

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I'm smashing up some concrete steps so I can repair them by pouring fresh concrete, and noting that the previous fellow (or hardy concrete pouring gal c1911-1950) did not have the benefit of Quickrete premixed bags to which I just add water, mix in wheelbarrow, and pour.  

They probably had limited concrete expertise as I'm finding big chunks of rock, no rebar material (metal to help strengthen the hardened concrete), and even a glass bottle buried in the steps.  Even I wouldn't toss in a bottle…but….

But the point is that that hardy concoction worked well for many, many decades.   It was a mediocre job but it was the RIGHT job.   Probably close to the same project lifespan as if they'd had the world's BEST concrete people working on the project – and even if the BEST concrete people's job would have lasted forever, it's likely somebody might have come in to remodel or otherwise destroy the "perfect" job.

The moral of the story is that in most cases the "perfect" job is NOT THE BEST THING TO DO!  In almost all endeavors it's better to have much higher levels of mediocre production than a modest level of high class production. 

"But would you want a doctor who is removing your spleen to believe in your principle of mediocrity?"  You ask, expecting me to say …. "that is an exception".

 It's not an exception and neither is national defense spending, which is absurdly expensive partly for political reasons but mostly because mediocrity is not valued highly enough in this venue either. 

I say we need MORE mediocrity in almost ALL things, especially those where risk aversion is most expensive such as national defense and offense, health care, and social security – our triple threat national budget breakers.  

Most of the world lives (and dies) with very modest levels of health care.  Here in the luxury world we can live a few years longer thanks to super advanced medical procedures, though most of  us squander those benefits with lifestyle decisions like smoking, overeating, and poor excersize habits.

The case for the massive interventions and high level expensive healthcare options we insist on in the first world is not only questionable from a practical standpoint due to very low ROI for high level interventions – it's questionable from a moral one – at least until the majority of people in the world have *basic* health care.

“With enough money … current technology could compute the billions of neurons in the brain”

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Thanks to Politech for pointing out this remarkable attempt to Blueprint the Human Brain using high speed computing.   I'll be very surprised if we can't duplicate human style thinking within a generation.  In fact I'm optimistic that machines will so far exceed our abilities that many complex problems will have solutions available to us as part of this process.  I'm not nearly as optimistic that we'll accept/implement these solutions.   Many pressing global problems are solvable NOW, but the forces of ignorance, selfishness, and politics prevent the implementation.