Sustainability And Collier And Ending The Homo-Defictus Age

Paul Collier is an economist with a vision of raising the economic viability of people at the bottom of the world's scale of wealth - 4 ways to improve the lives of the "bottom billion".

Around the world right now, one billion people live in poverty because of a simple piece of bad luck: they were born in a poor or failing country. What can be done? Economist Paul Collier lays out a bold, compassionate plan for closing the gap between rich and poor -- and makes the case that we must. Watch this TED talk >>

Accomplishing this goal will take in part Chris Luebkeman' vision, director of Arup, a global design, engineering, and urban planning firm calling for ending the "Homo-Deficitus Age," in which we spend and use more than we have. It will also take an optimistic engagement of the future.

Several hundred million Chinese residents are expected to move from rural areas into cities over the next quarter-century. Dongtan, in Shanghai, will be one of those destinations. Arup is working with local officials to add the necessary homes and infrastructure while integrating sustainable practices and technology. Dongtan is designed to generate its own energy, using a variety of sources, from wind to recycled trash. Public transportation will run on hydrogen fuel cells. The city's three villages will be surrounded by land reserved for farming.

Arup built the Bird's Nest for the 2008 Olympics and other icons of global architecture. Their approach to this effort brings to mind the work of William McDonough of William McDonough & Associates who will be working with Arup on some of the China projects.

diigo tags: community-planning, design, cities, architecture

Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution gives us further insight into Collier on the Food Crisis

Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion was my pick for best economics book last year (not written by a dear friend), it was smart, hard-hitting and unconventional. Collier hasn't lost his touch as a great comment, more like an op-ed, on the food crisis over at Martin Wolf's Economic Forum illustrates.

diigo tags: economics, poverty, global, economicpolicy

The challenge is how to implement these changes on a global basis.While many may be working towards this lofty goal, one major institutional resource in this effort has been MIT.

We can't afford to think of business as the enemy. Businesses in many cases are realizing the importance of sustainability more quickly than the public sector which too often defines its view by outdated political philosophies. This video provides a great deal to think about.

MIT World » : Implementing Sustainability Strategies ---

• ABOUT THE PANEL DISCUSSION:
  Companies sometimes regard sustainability as “metaphoric low-hanging fruit,” says moderator Peter Senge, and reach for a few easy targets to achieve cosmetic improvements. His three panelists describe how their corporations are attempting to embrace sustainability as more than just another high-profile, low-impact initiative that “goes right into an overloaded bucket.”

  "Environment is not a special, short-term project, not a fad or flavor of the month," says Balta. IBM pursues opportunities in and out of the company, including "making brown green:" reducing waste in its business and industrial processes around the world; designing intelligent networks to improve the efficiency of electrical utility operations; developing systems for mitigating traffic congestion in cities; launching a Big Green innovation business unit; and creating an Eco Patent Commons, enabling users the free and unrestricted use of IBM technologies that help solve environmental challenges.

  "We're trying to find the sweet spot between social, economic and environmental areas that define sustainability, because at the end of the day if any one of those three legs of the stool aren't available then the model itself falls down." says Mark Buckley.

  British Telecom is tackling three interdependent areas, says Kevin Moss: sustainable economic growth, climate change and creating a more inclusive society.
  

  diigo tags: sustainability, environment, business, management, leadership

Intentions Words Actions Of the Brain By The Brain For The Brain

This weblog started with a bias towards behavioral economics when it began its philosophical inquiry into the dismal science because of my undergraduate degree in Research Psychology and well established inclinations. Psychology has a tendency though to focus on the individual as in the question asked by Gary Marcus.

Does your brain have a mind of its own? by Gary Marcus on May 4, 2008 at latimes.com

Why can't we stick to our goals? Blame the sloppy engineering of evolution.

How many times has this happened to you? You leave work, decide that you need to get groceries on the way home, take a cellphone call and forget all about your plan. Next thing you know, you've driven home and forgotten all about the groceries.

This obviously takes a evolutionary/biological approach, but using the prevalent analogy of brain as computer there is also the programing needed to make it interact with other brains. That programing would seem to be language, though to what degree it is hardwired/genetic or software/environmental learning is still something to be far better understood.

Study finds some thoughts really do require language Posted on: February 14, 2008 3:17 PM, by Dave Munger Category: Language • Reasoning • Research

I don't need words to think about the shape of a car, or how to throw a football, or the taste of a chocolate chip cookie. In fact, things like that are probably easier to think about without using language. That's why the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis -- that language is necessary for conscious thought -- doesn't hold up. But even if language isn't required for some domains, it's still possible that it is required for certain types of mental processes. It may even be required for some thoughts that aren't obviously related to language.Some research suggests that understanding the thoughts of others -- having a theory of mind -- is one such process. Many children who are late in learning language are also late in developing a theory of mind. This story illustrates the classic theory of mind test:

• Mouse nibbles cheese.
• Mouse puts cheese under box A
• Mouse leaves room
• Cat enters room, moves cheese from box A to box B, and leaves.
• Mouse returns.
  

• Where does Mouse think the cheese is?

Raising the question, does understanding false beliefs of others require language? The "answer" is at the original post

David Munger goes on to write about Ashley Newton and Jill de Villiers who developed a very clever experiment to test this question.

Newton and de Villiers say there are a number of aspects of language processing that could be responsible for interfering with the false-belief test, but it's quite clear that some sort of language processing is necessary in order to reason about false beliefs. So while language isn't a requirement for all thought, it most definitely appears to be a requirement for some thought.

So how does this apply when we move outside the psychological laboratories and experiments? This weblog has been contemplating the many-to-many interactions of sociology and social-grouping that the web helps to make more apparent. With Web 2.0, it is possible to draw the lines. With economics, the lines would seem to be harder to specifically determine until after the fact, though models can be created for useful and often practical approximations.

Andreessen on The Psychology of Human Misjudgment via Marginal Revolution by Alex Tabarrok on 3/28/08

Professor Tabarrok provides access to the, "Great insights from two legendary entrepreneurs" - Marc Andreessen and Charlie Munger author of The Psychology of Human Misjudgment.

Mr. Anderson: Mr. Munger's magnum opus speech, included in the book, is The Psychology of Human Misjudgment -- an exposition of 25 key forms of human behavior that lead to misjudgment and error, derived from Mr. Munger's 60 years of business experience. Think of it as a practitioner's summary of human psychology and behavioral economics as observed in the real world.

Mr. Munger: ...almost everyone thinks he fully recognizes how important incentives and disincentives are in changing cognition and behavior. But this is not often so. For instance, I think I've been in the top five percent of my age cohort almost all my adult life in understanding the power of incentives, and yet I've always underestimated that power. Never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes a little further my appreciation of incentive superpower.

What the Marginal Revolution post does, to my mind, is put the individual question raised by Gary Marcus to a human species level of inquiry, not as individuals within the species but as a biological organism whose survival depends not only upon its interaction with the environment but its interaction with itself.

Good Intentions:Biofuels / Bad Consequences: Worse Than Gasoline And Better As Food?

One technological development with the worthwhile intentions of helping to improve the environment and to lessen the economy's dependency on foreign oil was the move from petroleum based fuels to biofuels. Unfortunately, as there so often is, there are unintended consequences.

One debate is centered around Food versus Fuel. Some sample articles are included in this online folder. It is not the purpose of this post to take a side, but to understand better the challenge in realizing what is necessary to create benefit without unintentionally creating harm elsewhere or at the very least to have a net benefit.

The Economist raised the issue for this weblog's consideration.

This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks.

BusinessWeek Magazine also reported on the Food vs. Fuel debate.

Corn is caught in a tug-of-war between ethanol plants and food, one of the first signs of a coming agricultural transformation and a global economic shift. Ever since our ancestors in the Fertile Crescent first figured out how to grow grains, crops have been used mainly to feed people and livestock. But now that's changing in response to the high price of oil, the cost in lives and dollars of ensuring a supply of petroleum imports, and limits on climate-warming emissions of fossil fuels.

The other articles in the folder take sides regarding the issue but not merely for or against. Other possibilities are explored including technological ones. Mongabay.com, one of the articles in the online folder, informs us that,

Bruce Dale, an MSU chemical engineering and materials science professor, notes that ethanol can be made from cellulosic materials, like farm waste, instead of corn grain.

Now more hurtles appear for this technology of best intentions.

Wired Science on via Wired: Top Stories reports that Studies Say Biofuels Worse Than Gasoline

According to two studies published this week in Science, when all relevant factors are accounted for, biofuels produce more greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels.

The same issue was reported on in the Los Angeles Times By Staff Writer Alan Zarembo.

The conversion of forests and grasslands into fields for the plants offsets the benefit of using the fuel, researchers find. Greenhouse-gas output overall would rise instead of fall.

The rush to grow biofuel crops -- widely embraced as part of the solution to global warming -- is actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions rather than reducing them, according to two studies published Thursday in the journal Science.

This follow the same path as other stories in this weblog of attempting to fijavascript:void(0)
Publish Postnd solutions to problem but not fully understanding all of the ramifications, especially concerning healthcare

. I don't see it the same though as Alex Tabarrok does as,

The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system.

Rather I see it as multiple complex systems competing, or more as limited humans trying to place their narrow intentions on a disinterested world. Good intentions not withstanding, the question of actual benefit still remains and it will likely still be difficult to ascertain whether the final outcomes were unintended or not.

Unintended Consequences Or Not?

Dorf on Law: Unintended Consequences?

While the nature of Unintended Consequences may perhaps be agreed upon, the determination as to when the term is to be applied is less certain.

Columbia Professor Michael Dorf has a different perspective on the actual root causes of the apparent consequences of the ADA laws cited by Freakonomics in their post Toward a Better Understanding of the Law of Unintended Consequences. He quotes Washington University of St. Louis Law Prof. Sam Bagenstos from a 2004 article in the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law:

In particular, I find quite plausible the argument that the 1990-1991 recession pushed an unusually large number of people with disabilities out of the workforce and onto the SSDI rolls--an argument pressed by the economists John Bound, Timothy Waidmann, David Autor, and Mark Duggan--though it is difficult empirically to disentangle that phenomenon from the effects of the ADA. Moreover, whatever the ADA's short-term effects, it seems likely that the statute's net long-term effects on employment or people with disabilities will be positive.

Professor Dorf goes on then to say:

Dubner and Levitt could be forgiven for not reading all of the relevant law review literature; they are after all, not legal academics or lawyers, and disciplinary boundaries are often substantial. But even if they were unaware of the Bagenstoss piece, surely they must know of the whole book on the subject that Bagenstoss was reviewing, as it is very much a work of economics.

In addition to the factors Bagenstoss cites, one might also note---though Dubner and Levitt fail to do so---that discriminating against disabled persons at the hiring phase is also illegal.

The original post on Unintended Consequences? at Dorf On Law goes further into both sides of the argument via the comments section.

Andrew Gelman, also at Columbia University, who also commented on both the Freakonomics post and a related one by Alex Tabarrok , put forth the idea that,

the concept of "unintended consequences" is so appealing that I think it's often applied to settings where the consequences actually were anticipated and intended, at least by some of the parties involved.

Although hindsight is supposed to be 20-20, it can be difficult to say after the fact what the relevant factors were and whether or not they were intentional. There are other issues now ongoing in the world where the question of consequences is once more being raised and the question of intention can be put forward now. However, even when intentions are known and supposedly for the best by all involved, the consequences can still be far from desirable.

Looking For Loopholes In Law of Unintended Consequences

Stephen J. Dubner of Freakonomics wrote Toward a Better Understanding of the Law of Unintended Consequences on 1/25/08.

We recently published a column describing a few instances of the law of unintended consequences — specifically, what happens when well-meaning legislation winds up hurting the parties it is designed to help.

I thought it was a pretty good column. But I see now where it could have been better. Alex Tabarrok, writing on Marginal Revolution, , addresses the law of unintended consequences per se,

Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution cites Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science which had the post on What kind of law is the Law of Unintended Consequences?

The Statistical Modeling ... blog is maintained by Andrew Gelman, Aleks Jakulin and Masanao Yajima.

This weblog linked to the original Freakonomics post back in October and has further considered the concept of unintended consequences with regards to the healthcare programs of the Gates Foundation and other related organizations.

Andrew Gelman does a u-turn on the citation back to Alex Tabarrok.

P.S. Interesting comments below. Also, Alex Tabarrok has further elaboration:

The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system. The political system is simple, it operates with limited information (rational ignorance), short time horizons, low feedback, and poor and misaligned incentives. Society in contrast is a complex, evolving, high-feedback, incentive-driven system. When a simple system tries to regulate a complex system you often get unintended consequences.

I can agree with the concept of complex and evolving but would argue that we only know in hindsight what the system is evolving into. There may be high-feedback for the system as a whole but we don't have full access to that total system information so the problem of limited information remains. The alignment of incentives is also something it seems to me that is determined only after the event and can involve complex interactions which are often not always apparent. I also have problems with the implied concept that there is some overall arching system out there which is true and correct and our little political/economic systems are poor and inadequate copies. We also need to look at the alternative options that Andrew Gillman provides, "examples of intended consequences that actually happened? Or unintended consequences which, although unfortunate, were minor compared to the intended consequences," including as well "unforeseen adaptations".

There are a number of expanding links related to this subject running through the posts and comments and it's interesting to see the difference in approach between the economist and social scientists.

Reading to Discovery, to Know, to Understand

One past web journey included a Marginal Revolution post by Alex Tabarrok that pointed to Nepal It’s a blog world, which included a number of useful connections by the writer Ashotosh Tiwari. I can agree with him that the Marginal Revolution posts can provide an education in economics. Trouble is separating out the politically based diatribes and the fact, as somebody else pointed out, that they are impossible to keep up with. Especially, with not being focused solely on economics.

Online readings seem to come across at different levels 1. Quick review to see if it is of any interest. 2. Browse through to get basic facts and positions. 3. Reading to compare to other posts and stimulate thinking. 4. Deep reading for new knowledge and understanding of issues. The first three are usually short posts or responses which are prevalent on the web. They are necessary because there is so much interesting stuff available and one does not want to miss out. The last are full length articles and scholarly papers which take time to read and digest and are a requirement to my mind for learning. The instantaneous nature of the internet seems to discourage this approach. I have found a good deal so far to read and digest and knowing the nature of the net will likely find far more. Posting to this weblog sometimes becomes less enticing because there is more interesting things to read or watch than there is to write about. Then, to help put it all together and have it make sense, comes again the urge to write or comment, like today.

For today the video below gives a pretty good synopsis of the current economic situation

A Question of Greed and the Human Condition

My last post involved a exchange with an anthropologist. There have been a number of other posts on the Internet involving behavior and social interaction. One was pointed to by Marginal Revolution blogger Alex Tabarrok, Chimps More "Rational" than Humans . The original United International Press article is here.

My contribution to the Marginal discussion was a recent link from Scientific American Mind, Is Greed Good?

Economists are finding that social concerns often trump selfishness in financial decision making, a view that helps to explain why tens of millions of people send money to strangers they find on the Internet By Christoph Uhlhaas.

Contributions from others in the same Marginal post included Patience, Fairness and the Human Condition from the Economist.

Other articles passing by my computer screen also brought up a variety of ideas. The Business Pundit pointed to an article on Contagious Negativity and Social Media from the Journal of Consumer Research concluding that negativity is contagious. A recent Washington Post article says that the persistence of social myths such as Iraq was behind the 9/11 bombing could affect the implementation of public policy. All this would seem to put a dent in the notion of Homo economicus and indicate that we are in truth far more complicated.

However, there are other articles that would seem to indicate that there are forces in play beyond the solitary individual that creates new rules for the group, crowd or society as a whole. One example is from Cosmic Variance: Birds of a Feather which was found (8/11/09) to be recently updated with a video.