Via Melanie, a quick and fun meme. Things I've done are in bold.
1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band (I once played with my brother's band in a low-key way, but I wasn't "in" the band.)
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (and that's a streak I'm going to keep up)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France (I hadn't expected much, but I found her more intriguing in person than in photographs)
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb (but I've milked a cow, which seems much more iconic)
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (and I fainted afterward, and missed a class, and screwed up someone else's plans. I haven't donated blood since.)
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper (when I was pretty young, at a Christmas parade)
85. Read the entire Bible (most of it)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous (I guess it depends on your definition of famous)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Now that is Employee Appreciation
It's not unusual to receive a box of cookies or chocolates or something from your boss as a "holiday present". Mine just plunked one of these down next to me.
Now there's someone who understand the rigors of our work.
Now there's someone who understand the rigors of our work.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Rationality and the "Paranormal"
Ross Douthat links to a post by John Derbyshire over at Secular Right responding to a recent survey finding that belief in God, heaven and hell is near universal and belief in angels, demons, ghosts and UFOs is quite common, while only 47% of the US believes in evolution. (Let's leave aside, for now, the question of whether it makes any sense to compare "belief" in a scientific theory with belief in God.)
Derbyshire asks:
However, I think part of the real difference here is that people have strongly different ideas about how unlikely it is to experience something that is non-material. For some people, the idea that the sun danced at Fatima or that late stage cancer could completely vanish as a result of miraculous means is so unthinkable that even if one receives multiple testaments to such a thing having happened, one concludes that there must be some completely unknown (or highly unlikely) physical explanation which is what "really happened."
But the difference is not so much between people who look for "real explanations" for things and people who don't, but rather between people who discount all non-material explanations and those who don't.
Needless to say, there is still plenty of room for disagreement. I've often had fellow Christians relate to me small "miracles" which I would tend to assign as simply being coincidences. But again, that's a difference primarily attributable to my placing a different likelihood on supernatural intervention in certain issues than some other people do.
One of the primary charges often leveled against religious believers is that they are irrational -- but I think the key difference to understand here is that believers in various forms of non-material creature or phenomena do not fail to understand cause and effect, or fail to look for rational explanations, it's simply that their ideas of what is a possible cause for a given effect are difference from those of the committed materialist. Whether the materialist's commitment to all phenomena having material explanations is justified by anything other than choice is less clear to me.
Derbyshire asks:
What do people actually mean by any of this? Do they actually conduct their lives on the working assumption that the next stranger they meet may be an angel, a ghost, Satan, or a UFO crewman? (Ans: Obviously not.) How many could give a coherent account of the theory they reject? (Ans: Vanishingly few.) What does “believe” actually mean in this context? (Ans: Nothing very functional.)Douthat's answer is, I think, very much on base. He concludes:
But if you want to understand what, if anything, a person means when he says he believes in demons or angels or ghosts, the simplest baseline answer is this: He means that if confronted with an encounter or an experience that seems demonic or ghostly or angelic and asked to rationalize it, he will be inclined to give credence... to the possibility that the encounter is, in fact, what it appears to be.I think this is one of the basic areas in which materialists and non-materialists talk past each other a great deal. There's a sort of creation myth of mythology, religion and folklore that moves about in secularist/materialist circles (perhaps given that these are materialist circles we really should use Dawkins' terminology and call it a meme) that all forms of "superstition" are in fact attempts explain how the world works. Thus, belief in God is really just an attempt to explain "how things got here" in the absence of scientific knowledge on the topic. Belief in angels or demons or ghosts or any number of folkloric characters is simply a way of explaining phenomena which people didn't understand the physical causes of. Or perhaps a way of reading causation into something which is actually random -- an over-active sense of pattern recognition.
However, I think part of the real difference here is that people have strongly different ideas about how unlikely it is to experience something that is non-material. For some people, the idea that the sun danced at Fatima or that late stage cancer could completely vanish as a result of miraculous means is so unthinkable that even if one receives multiple testaments to such a thing having happened, one concludes that there must be some completely unknown (or highly unlikely) physical explanation which is what "really happened."
But the difference is not so much between people who look for "real explanations" for things and people who don't, but rather between people who discount all non-material explanations and those who don't.
Needless to say, there is still plenty of room for disagreement. I've often had fellow Christians relate to me small "miracles" which I would tend to assign as simply being coincidences. But again, that's a difference primarily attributable to my placing a different likelihood on supernatural intervention in certain issues than some other people do.
One of the primary charges often leveled against religious believers is that they are irrational -- but I think the key difference to understand here is that believers in various forms of non-material creature or phenomena do not fail to understand cause and effect, or fail to look for rational explanations, it's simply that their ideas of what is a possible cause for a given effect are difference from those of the committed materialist. Whether the materialist's commitment to all phenomena having material explanations is justified by anything other than choice is less clear to me.
Bloody stupid question
What happens if a vampire drinks contaminated blood? You just don't hear much about blood-borne disease epidemics in the vampire community.
And for your un-vampirical delection, here's this parody of Twilight (h/t Happy Catholic):
And for your un-vampirical delection, here's this parody of Twilight (h/t Happy Catholic):
Monday, December 15, 2008
Taking my temperature
Baby is three months old, so it's time to break out the charts and thermometer again. Which means I had to go out and buy a thermometer since the girls lost mine during the 24-hour fever which swept the children's ward here a few weeks ago. Whaddaya know, Wal-Mart actually carries a "family planning" thermometer, and I guess it's okay. But after having gone through three thermometers (all of which are somewhere in this house -- whoever lives here after us is going to be mystified by finding thermometers under baseboards or tucked under the carpet), I have to say that the best basal thermometer is the B-D brand which you get in the Art of Natural Family Planning kit (also available separately).
Here's what I like:
- it lights up when you turn it on.
- it stores the last temperature.
- it beeps while you're taking the temperature. (I can't stress this one enough, having had several thermometers that don't. When you're taking your temperature when you're only half-awake, any little thing to let you know the process is working is a help.)
- when you turn it off it lights up again, allowing you to read the temperature quickly without turning on the light. (And sometimes, knowing your temperature first thing allows you to plan out the rest of your day. Just sayin'...)
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Gimme
This isn't our gift-giving model around here, but this has to be one of the best examples of viral marketing I've seen.
Okay, here's a pet peeve: what is it with women buying gifts for themselves "from" their husbands? If you buy it yourself, it isn't a present. Also: what is it with couples buying themselves a joint present? That's not a present, it's a joint purchase. A present is something given.
We're not all that big on presents. I got it into my head at a young age that it was greedy to show too much interest in presents, and so I'm pretty low-key about them (both receiving and giving). In fact, it's only over these past few years that I've realized that it's not in poor taste to open a gift in front of the person who gave it to you. (I don't know where this particular hang-up came from.) It's only since I had children to watch opening presents that I've come to understand that presents aren't just about materialism.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Does a Profit Driven Business Model Corrupt?
One of the big criticisms of free market economics is that markets are driven by greed. "Why would you want to allow markets to set the price of [health care, wages, basic housing, food, education, etc.]," the argument goes, "when that means subjecting a basic humanitarian necessity of the dictates of unfettered greed?" I think this represents a basic misunderstanding of how markets work, and I'm going to try to address that in this post -- though I approach the attempt with some trepidation given the difficulties of the subject matter and the limits of the medium.
I'm going to start by conceding a point which those making the assertion I describe above may consider to prove their case: The economic view of market dynamics tends to view individual actors within a market as value maximizing agents. In other words, a market consists of a number of actors each trying to get the most possible value for the least possible expense.
Doesn't this mean that markets are driven by greed? Don't we need to encourage people to be something other than value maximizing agents?
Well, certainly, there is much more to life than what you can buy and sell, so people should never reduce themselves to nothing but value maximizing agents. However I'm going to attempt to argue that markets based on individual value maximization are not necessarily merely exercises in greed.
There are two things which must, I think, be kept in mind here. First of all, we do not all value things equally. And secondly, a market involves all sides of every transaction trying to maximize value.
The first of these points is key because the different values which we place on things result in the motivation for trade. Say that I enjoy doing carpentry while a buddy of mine enjoys doing car work. It would make sense for me to help my buddy with building book shelves and installing wood floors, while he would help me when my car needs work, because the work of doing carpentry has a higher "cost" to him than it does to me. (I enjoy it, and he doesn't. Plus I perhaps have more skills than he does, so I get it done faster and better as well.)
Since I get enjoyment from doing carpentry (and find it easy) I would not be willing to pay someone much to do it for me. But since my friend doesn't enjoy it, he would pay significantly more in order to avoid having to do the work himself. When we specialize and exchange, we both get increased value from the transaction. In essence, by exchanging what we don't want for what we do want, we create value. Is either one of us being greedy in this exchange? No. Indeed, you could argue that we're both helping each other, even though we are also both maximizing value for ourselves.
Let's try this with an example which is more often seen as showing greed. I bought a coat yesterday for $69 (50% off) which was, according to its tag, made in Vietnam. I'd long delayed buying a coat, even though the last one I bought (nine years ago) was pretty seriously worn out, because I was put off by the expense of the coats I was seeing. If you grit your teeth and jog fast from your car to the building you're headed for, you can get by a long time in Central Texas without a coat, and the thought that the $150-$250 that many of the coats I was seeing cost would feed our family for a week or two, or buy winter clothes for all the kids, or cover car repairs, or any of another of other items on the list of household expenses. Now, if the wages for coat makers in Vietnam were such that it was impossible to buy a coat for less than $300, I certainly would not begrudge them a better lifestyle, however I almost certainly would have continued wearing my shabby old coat and dashing about in shirtsleeves and put off buying the coat for another year. And that decision of mine (and of others like me) would mean that there would be a reduction in the demand for coats. Which in turn would impact those who make coats.
The current cost of coats thus represents a balance. I want to cover other household expenses before my own needs. Coat sellers want to sell more coats and grow their business. Coat makers want higher wages. Unemployed Vietnamese workers living near coat factories want jobs, and are willing to get them by offering to work for slightly less than others who are already skilled in coat making. All of these demands are weighed and balanced through millions of individual transactions in the coat market. And everyone gets as much of what they value as possible given the demands of everyone else.
Some of the people involved in this complex interweave of desires may indeed be profoundly greedy, but in a sense, it doesn't matter. Whether they are greedy or simply trying to take care of their families by balancing the many demands upon them, the result is a balance between the demands of everyone involved.
The idea behind markets is that given that hundreds, thousands, or millions of people are often involved in a complex economic supply chain, it's far easier and more efficient (and thus in the long run, better for all involved) if to a great extent prices are negotiated through free exchange of goods and labor rather than through seeing prices or wages where they "ought" to be -- because given a sufficiently complex situation the sum of the knowledge of all the individual actors involved is much greater than the understanding of any given regulator could possibly be.
Still, isn't it a problem to have a market full of people thinking only of their own profits? Wouldn't it be better to have community organizations whose whole purpose is to benefit everyone involved?
A couple weeks ago I had an extended conversation with someone over whether credit unions were morally superior to banks. His argument essentially was, "The express purpose of a credit union is to provide value for its members, to whom it is directly accountable. A bank, on the other hand, is accountable to its stockholders, so it is always going to put the interests of its customers second to profit."
If this were the case, it seems to me, then people would invariably keep their money at credit unions, buy their food at co-ops, etc. Because while a credit union and a bank have different business and ownership models, the services they provide are pretty much the same: They loan money in return for interest, and they pay interest out to depositors.
People with savings will naturally want to get the most interest that they can without sacrificing the security of their savings, so they will check around at a couple of different banks and/or credit unions and put their money in the most advantageous place. Similarly, borrowers will shop around for the lowest possible interest rate.
If the community-owned model of credit unions always provided greater value to depositors and borrowers, then they would get all the business and banks be left on the sidelines. And yet, we know that this is not the case. Why not?
I think that more than anything else it boils down to incentive. A bank is constantly incented to stretch itself in order to both win more customers by offering high interest to depositors and low interest to borrowers, and also to make those bets pay off in order to make money for the stock holders and bonuses for the employees. As such, the management and employees at a for-profit bank are strongly incented to take good risks, avoid bad risks, and find new ways to make that extra basis point of profit. (A basis point is 1/100th of a percent, and it's the sort of thing that a lot of work is put into making when you deal with consumer financing.)
The community owned, not-for-profit enterprise, on the other hand, is primarily incented towards stability. At this particular moment in history, when a lot of banks recently made bad bets based on poor forecasting, focusing on stability definitely has its upside. However, because a community owned enterprise is incented towards stability while a for-profit enterprise is incented towards risk and innovation, the result is that a for-profit enterprise will often provide goods and services at similar or lower cost than a not-for-profit, while at the same time paying out a small operating profit to its owners. By providing people with the incentive of additional gain, for-profit enterprises encourage the creation of more value than communally owned enterprises.
One final example: Let us consider two grocery stores in a small neighborhood. One of them is a community owned co-op. As a member, you are a part owner and you help elect the governing board which sets policies and hires employees. Any reductions in costs are handed back to the members in the form of lower prices. The other is a family owned grocery, and that family keeps all the profits which are made.
Both the co-op and the grocery will only have customers if they provide good groceries at low prices. Sure you could label the grocer as being motivated by "greed" in everything he does, because if he find that he can price cereal $0.05 higher per box he gets to keep the money -- or if he's able to buy honey directly from a local bee-keeper he gets to pocket the 5% markup that a distributor would have taken.
And yet, in order to make his family money, he needs to provide customers with good products at low prices. While his business model may be centered around making a profit, if he doesn't do just as good of job of meeting the food co-op's mission of "Provide the community with good food at great prices while maintaining a warm, personal atmosphere" he won't have customers and won't make a profit. So while you could argue that his ultimate incentive is to make a profit, the only way he can achieve that goal is to give himself the personal goal of providing the community with good food at great prices.
Meanwhile, the fact that he directly benefits his family when he finds a way to save $1000 here in cost negotiations and make $500 there where the competitive environment allows him to raise prices incents the grocer to work harder and take more calculated risks than the managers of a community owned food co-op would be. After all, a $2000 increase in monthly profits might mean a great deal to a family grocery store, but in a food co-op that $2000 would be spread out across the monthly food budgets of hundreds of families in small savings on each item until it became impossible to notice.
Because ownership assigns the benefits gained from cost savings, increased efficiency, demand generation and optimal pricing to a small enough number of people for them to have a compelling interest in putting a lot of work into improving those numbers, for-profit enterprises can succeed in producing more value for more people, and have just as much incentive to keep their customers' interests at heart as not-for-profit "community owned" enterprises.
I'm going to start by conceding a point which those making the assertion I describe above may consider to prove their case: The economic view of market dynamics tends to view individual actors within a market as value maximizing agents. In other words, a market consists of a number of actors each trying to get the most possible value for the least possible expense.
Doesn't this mean that markets are driven by greed? Don't we need to encourage people to be something other than value maximizing agents?
Well, certainly, there is much more to life than what you can buy and sell, so people should never reduce themselves to nothing but value maximizing agents. However I'm going to attempt to argue that markets based on individual value maximization are not necessarily merely exercises in greed.
There are two things which must, I think, be kept in mind here. First of all, we do not all value things equally. And secondly, a market involves all sides of every transaction trying to maximize value.
The first of these points is key because the different values which we place on things result in the motivation for trade. Say that I enjoy doing carpentry while a buddy of mine enjoys doing car work. It would make sense for me to help my buddy with building book shelves and installing wood floors, while he would help me when my car needs work, because the work of doing carpentry has a higher "cost" to him than it does to me. (I enjoy it, and he doesn't. Plus I perhaps have more skills than he does, so I get it done faster and better as well.)
Since I get enjoyment from doing carpentry (and find it easy) I would not be willing to pay someone much to do it for me. But since my friend doesn't enjoy it, he would pay significantly more in order to avoid having to do the work himself. When we specialize and exchange, we both get increased value from the transaction. In essence, by exchanging what we don't want for what we do want, we create value. Is either one of us being greedy in this exchange? No. Indeed, you could argue that we're both helping each other, even though we are also both maximizing value for ourselves.
Let's try this with an example which is more often seen as showing greed. I bought a coat yesterday for $69 (50% off) which was, according to its tag, made in Vietnam. I'd long delayed buying a coat, even though the last one I bought (nine years ago) was pretty seriously worn out, because I was put off by the expense of the coats I was seeing. If you grit your teeth and jog fast from your car to the building you're headed for, you can get by a long time in Central Texas without a coat, and the thought that the $150-$250 that many of the coats I was seeing cost would feed our family for a week or two, or buy winter clothes for all the kids, or cover car repairs, or any of another of other items on the list of household expenses. Now, if the wages for coat makers in Vietnam were such that it was impossible to buy a coat for less than $300, I certainly would not begrudge them a better lifestyle, however I almost certainly would have continued wearing my shabby old coat and dashing about in shirtsleeves and put off buying the coat for another year. And that decision of mine (and of others like me) would mean that there would be a reduction in the demand for coats. Which in turn would impact those who make coats.
The current cost of coats thus represents a balance. I want to cover other household expenses before my own needs. Coat sellers want to sell more coats and grow their business. Coat makers want higher wages. Unemployed Vietnamese workers living near coat factories want jobs, and are willing to get them by offering to work for slightly less than others who are already skilled in coat making. All of these demands are weighed and balanced through millions of individual transactions in the coat market. And everyone gets as much of what they value as possible given the demands of everyone else.
Some of the people involved in this complex interweave of desires may indeed be profoundly greedy, but in a sense, it doesn't matter. Whether they are greedy or simply trying to take care of their families by balancing the many demands upon them, the result is a balance between the demands of everyone involved.
The idea behind markets is that given that hundreds, thousands, or millions of people are often involved in a complex economic supply chain, it's far easier and more efficient (and thus in the long run, better for all involved) if to a great extent prices are negotiated through free exchange of goods and labor rather than through seeing prices or wages where they "ought" to be -- because given a sufficiently complex situation the sum of the knowledge of all the individual actors involved is much greater than the understanding of any given regulator could possibly be.
Still, isn't it a problem to have a market full of people thinking only of their own profits? Wouldn't it be better to have community organizations whose whole purpose is to benefit everyone involved?
A couple weeks ago I had an extended conversation with someone over whether credit unions were morally superior to banks. His argument essentially was, "The express purpose of a credit union is to provide value for its members, to whom it is directly accountable. A bank, on the other hand, is accountable to its stockholders, so it is always going to put the interests of its customers second to profit."
If this were the case, it seems to me, then people would invariably keep their money at credit unions, buy their food at co-ops, etc. Because while a credit union and a bank have different business and ownership models, the services they provide are pretty much the same: They loan money in return for interest, and they pay interest out to depositors.
People with savings will naturally want to get the most interest that they can without sacrificing the security of their savings, so they will check around at a couple of different banks and/or credit unions and put their money in the most advantageous place. Similarly, borrowers will shop around for the lowest possible interest rate.
If the community-owned model of credit unions always provided greater value to depositors and borrowers, then they would get all the business and banks be left on the sidelines. And yet, we know that this is not the case. Why not?
I think that more than anything else it boils down to incentive. A bank is constantly incented to stretch itself in order to both win more customers by offering high interest to depositors and low interest to borrowers, and also to make those bets pay off in order to make money for the stock holders and bonuses for the employees. As such, the management and employees at a for-profit bank are strongly incented to take good risks, avoid bad risks, and find new ways to make that extra basis point of profit. (A basis point is 1/100th of a percent, and it's the sort of thing that a lot of work is put into making when you deal with consumer financing.)
The community owned, not-for-profit enterprise, on the other hand, is primarily incented towards stability. At this particular moment in history, when a lot of banks recently made bad bets based on poor forecasting, focusing on stability definitely has its upside. However, because a community owned enterprise is incented towards stability while a for-profit enterprise is incented towards risk and innovation, the result is that a for-profit enterprise will often provide goods and services at similar or lower cost than a not-for-profit, while at the same time paying out a small operating profit to its owners. By providing people with the incentive of additional gain, for-profit enterprises encourage the creation of more value than communally owned enterprises.
One final example: Let us consider two grocery stores in a small neighborhood. One of them is a community owned co-op. As a member, you are a part owner and you help elect the governing board which sets policies and hires employees. Any reductions in costs are handed back to the members in the form of lower prices. The other is a family owned grocery, and that family keeps all the profits which are made.
Both the co-op and the grocery will only have customers if they provide good groceries at low prices. Sure you could label the grocer as being motivated by "greed" in everything he does, because if he find that he can price cereal $0.05 higher per box he gets to keep the money -- or if he's able to buy honey directly from a local bee-keeper he gets to pocket the 5% markup that a distributor would have taken.
And yet, in order to make his family money, he needs to provide customers with good products at low prices. While his business model may be centered around making a profit, if he doesn't do just as good of job of meeting the food co-op's mission of "Provide the community with good food at great prices while maintaining a warm, personal atmosphere" he won't have customers and won't make a profit. So while you could argue that his ultimate incentive is to make a profit, the only way he can achieve that goal is to give himself the personal goal of providing the community with good food at great prices.
Meanwhile, the fact that he directly benefits his family when he finds a way to save $1000 here in cost negotiations and make $500 there where the competitive environment allows him to raise prices incents the grocer to work harder and take more calculated risks than the managers of a community owned food co-op would be. After all, a $2000 increase in monthly profits might mean a great deal to a family grocery store, but in a food co-op that $2000 would be spread out across the monthly food budgets of hundreds of families in small savings on each item until it became impossible to notice.
Because ownership assigns the benefits gained from cost savings, increased efficiency, demand generation and optimal pricing to a small enough number of people for them to have a compelling interest in putting a lot of work into improving those numbers, for-profit enterprises can succeed in producing more value for more people, and have just as much incentive to keep their customers' interests at heart as not-for-profit "community owned" enterprises.
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