The End

To all,
As of the start of second semester, I will no longer be speaker of the Whig Party (I've been elected President of the Senate). With that, I must relinquish control of the Whig Party Blog to my successor, Zayn Siddique (who I'm sure will do an excellent job). It has been an honor to write for you. Best, DER

Looking Good

sexytime and voter preferences

First off, I must apologize for the long delay that has accidentally crept up on me; although I’ve been very busy, I recognize that this is no excuse for my ridiculously low post count. That said, tonight I want to talk about physical appearance. Being good looking is a tremendous advantage; those described by their peers as handsome or pretty have been shown to receive huge boosts in everything from lifetime earnings (10-15% higher) to mate selection (this one seems obvious) to general lifetime wellbeing. More disturbingly, parents have been known to display a bias in favor of their better-looking offspring. Indeed, the instinct to give the comely the benefit of the doubt is a deeply engrained one; in his book Blink author Malcolm Gladwell suggests that there are powerful evolutionary reasons for this bias, such as the fact that being symmetrical improves ones reproductive chances or that good looks are generally correlated with good health, which suggests that if one must prioritize scare resources among a group it should go to the healthy (and thus the handsome).

Within the context of democratic politics, the handsomeness heuristic has had a tremendous impact. Although the correlation between handsomeness and electoral success is not entirely linear (one can be “too hot” to be taken seriously), those who look senatorial or congressional tend to win at a significantly higher rate than less attractive opponents. Indeed, in tests where control groups were given only sound free video clips of two candidates in a race they were able to pick the winner the majority of the time on looks alone. To see a recent example of this, one need look no further than the fact that nearly every serious piece on Mitt Romney sees fit to mention his looks as a key reason for his competitiveness in the race (usually mentioned just after his gigantic sack o’ cash). Furthermore, it seems likely that the impact of appearance will only increase as time goes on; with the introduction of new forms of media like youtube and new higher resolution television standards it seems likely that the impact of looks on political discourse will only continue to increase.


i'd tap that...


Up to this point, it seems as though I have made a wonderful argument against democracy. After all, if those in a democracy will vote based off irrational heuristics such as this, what chance is there that we will ever get a government that will function effectively? Of course, there are motives that could be taken to mitigate this bias; for example, if campaign financing was limited then perhaps the role of attractiveness would decrease as more voters decided based on policy and fewer looked to physical stature.

But that said, I believe that although the tendency to choose the more handsome candidate may seem ridiculous, it may have its own sort of logic. When one elects a politician they elect them not to serve in a vacuum but rather to interact with others. For congressmen, this means one must be persuasive among 434 other individuals who are as greedy and self-centered as oneself. Ditto senators. Because of this, if good-looking people really are viewed as more trustworthy, competent, or friendly, then even if the bias has no merit, it may make sense to act on it because others will likely share this bias. Put another way, if everyone thinks your dashing congressman is a swell guy, then it gives him much more leeway to advance your interests. Politicians deal with human beings, not computers, and bearing this in mind it may actually make sense on a limited scale to trade intellect for looks in selecting a candidate. Obviously, as is true with any tradeoff, one can take this too far (senator Rhianna, anyone?). That said, the very fact that a rational, intelligent person may recognize the good in picking a handsome representative suggests this bias may not be as inane as it seems.

And on the presidential level, the benefits of attractiveness are particularly salient. Tucker Carlson once described the president as America’s “orator in chief”, a description that I believe has tremendous merit. Despite the powers of office the president’s role is a relatively limited one, since he must contend with an active legislature and a gigantic bureaucracy. As such, the freedom a given president has to radically redefine America is fairly limited (though one can make a good argument that the Bush administration has changed things far more than most). Yet if the president’s power of policy is normally somewhat constrained, his influence over the public discourse is fantastically powerful. When one elects a president they elect a man who will be in their living rooms for the next four years, someone who will constantly be seen as a symbol of the United States and its government to the people of the world. In many important ways, the president is thus the nation’s most important actor; he is chosen to play a specific role and present a very specific image. Put another way, from the perspective of the average American the president’s primary role is to “be presidential”, to embody what they think a president ought to be. Indeed, if one thinks back to American presidents who are hailed as great, one finds that very often their policy successes pale in comparison to their ability to instill confidence and hope and to “be presidential’ in times of national crises. Because of this, if looking the part allows one to better fill this vital function then it is fair to say that looks are a relevant criteria in choosing a commander in chief.

Of course, there is a philosophical problem with this; isn’t it unfair to judge people on their looks? Isn’t it wrong to blame people for what they can’t control? Perhaps so. Yet as philosophers such as Peter Singer have pointed out, many other ranking mechanisms that seem more, well, fair, such as intelligence or personality trait, are randomly and arbitrarily assigned at birth in the same way that looks are. To give these other heuristics more moral consideration than looks would be a fallacy, since we didn’t choose those either. Naturally, one could argue that personality can be affected or altered by hard work, but so, too, can looks. Candidates can (and have) gone to significant lengths to improve their appearance, just as less affable politicians have worked hard at developing a new, friendly persona (think Eliot Spitzer). Naturally, this may not seem promising to someone so ugly that nothing can be done to improve them, but if said person had intelligence at the same level no one would think twice about precluding him from the political arena.

At this point, I feel that I must take a step back and consider the ramifications of treating looks as valid to leadership and political success. This is a heretical proposition, one that contradicts two decades of politically correct education and PBS Kids morality. But if one believes that this position cannot possibly form the basis of an effective society or culture, she would be well advised to look to the Greeks and Romans. In the Western tradition the importance of looks was on a par with that of other attributes like skill, dexterity, or intelligence, and maybe, just maybe, with good reason. If nothing else, by giving physical appearance a publicly acknowledged value in discourse these cultures avoided the hypocrisy that comes with announcing to the world that looks are irrelevant while choosing business leaders, politicians, and lovers on the basis of how they look.


ancient greeks, here depicted chasing young boys

Finally, I would like to close with a bundle of disclaimers. So, in no particular order:
1. Moral worth or value should NEVER be assigned based on looks (or intelligence, or any other attribute we cannot control)
2. Handsome people are NOT necessarily good politicians
3. Ugly people can be great politicians (see James Carville)
But in writing this post, my intent is not to describe how humans ought to be but rather how they are, and once one acknowledges that our governments must operate in a web of human interactions, the rationality of making looks a priority rapidly becomes apparent. Stay classy, DER


* Disclaimer: Author is an INCREDIBLY shallow person, and will go to enormous lengths to justify this attitude as acceptable. To date, he has proven fairly convincing.

Voting Away the Planet

can democracy save the environment?

Tonight I would like to write about climate change and democracy. This will not be an optimistic post. Stripped to its bare minimum, democracy is a decision making apparatus. Although democratic government has come to be associated with other important ideas (such as the protection of liberty and the value and dignity due every citizen), at its core it’s a way for people to make choices. The general theory behind democratic politics is that the aggregate self-interests of the polity will combine to make better decisions than any sort of central planner or dictator. Historically, this has been a fairly effective system. It is said that democracies almost never go to war with others (though democratizing countries are often belligerent) and that they rarely have famines. Because of this, at first it seems as though if any system can deal with the difficulties of climate change, it would be liberal democracy.

But although democracy is generally a fairly effective mechanism for making decisions, there are a few types of decisions that it cannot handle well. First off, most people are pretty bad at internalizing costs that occur far into the future and so bias present concerns against later ones. Indeed, one of the reasons why we consider the state justified in paternalistic regulation of some vices is that it is assumed people can’t calculate harms that are far removed from present reality. Second, people aren’t generally great in making intuitive calculations with very large numbers or risks that are catastrophically large. When people ride without seatbelts its usually not because they expect they will die but rather because they are irrationally sure that they will not. Finally, people are far more likely to be drawn to tangible, tactile issues over vague, theoretical concerns. Known as the availability heuristic, this cognitive bias suggests that the more easily a real, vivid example can be brought to mind the more probable a situation is.

Of course, each of these biases is grounded in human evolution. Ultra-long term planning skills are not particularly useful to apes roaming the forest, while prioritizing some distant future over present concerns would likely end in starvation. The availability heuristic is no disadvantage in a world where the greatest dangers (predators, steep falls) were easily imaginable and could be taken from experience. Likewise the calculation of very large numbers would never be necessary on the savannah, and so would not prove genetically useful.

But although this trio of heuristics may have perfectly logical roots, it means that many of the complexities of the modern world elude the gut reaction of our primate brains. Take, for instance, global climate change. Today few in the scientific community doubt that human activity is increasing the planet’s temperature, and that if left unchecked this change could have disastrous consequences worldwide. Unfortunately, because global climate change deals with a risk far in the future, because it involves tremendous numbers and most of all because it will be fairly intangible to the average voter until far too late, democracies have yet to embrace the sort of changes needed. Of course, some argue that this paradigm is shifting fast, with more and more people saying that global warming concerns them. And indeed, a 2006 poll showed that 49 percent of people called global warming very or extremely important to them personally, with an additional 10 percent claiming it was somewhat important. On face, this looks like a fantastic development that proves that democracies can, in fact, address the problem. After all, 59 is greater than 50, and any coalition greater than 50 gets to make the rules. But the problem with this sort of survey is it doesn’t force people to choose. Since there is effectively no cost to saying that one finds a given topic “important”, it is likely that many will do so. Yet when voters go to the ballot box and face actual choices between addressing the nebulous, distant, and transnational threat of global warming or the daily, tangible realities of roads, hospitals, and schools, they will almost invariably opt for the latter. Indeed, this lack of political will holds not merely in the United States, but also in the so-called “green” nations of Europe, almost of all which are on pace to exceed their Kyoto quotas.


evolution is working against us

More importantly, though, even if everyone followed Kyoto to the letter, the impact would almost immediately be washed away by the exponential economic growth of the developing world. In a timely column on climate change and global growth in today’s New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman described two cities which he has visited this week, Doha, Qatar and Dalian, China. What unites these two metropolises is that in the past decade they have seemed to spring up almost overnight. Friedman observes

In Doha, since I was last there, a skyline that looks like a mini-Manhattan has sprouted from the desert. Whatever construction cranes are not in China must be in Doha today. This once sleepy harbor now has a profile of skyscrapers, thanks to a huge injection of oil and gas revenues. Dalian, with six million people, already had a mini-Manhattan when I was last here. It seems to have grown two more since — including a gleaming new convention complex built on a man-made peninsula.

But this sort of growth has a dark side to it; namely the fact that as living standards soar worldwide in the age of globalization emission rates are keeping pace. And so because:
a. There are so many people in the developing world
b. Everyone wants to live like an American

The result is that even if rich liberal democracies DO get it together in some slight way, it won’t be enough. Or to quote Friedman’s dark conclusion:

Hey, I’m really glad you switched to long-lasting compact fluorescent light bulbs in your house. But the growth in Doha and Dalian ate all your energy savings for breakfast. I’m glad you bought a hybrid car. But Doha and Dalian devoured that before noon. I am glad that the U.S. Congress is debating whether to bring U.S. auto mileage requirements up to European levels by 2020. Doha and Dalian will have those gains for lunch — maybe just the first course. I’m glad that solar and wind power are “soaring” toward 2 percent of U.S. energy generation, but Doha and Dalian will devour all those gains for dinner. I am thrilled that you are now doing the “20 green things” suggested by your favorite American magazine. Doha and Dalian will snack on them all, like popcorn before bedtime.

so says friedman


Against this backdrop, quibbles about Kyoto seem positively picayune. A sea change is needed, and for the reasons delineated above a sea change will never happen.

But although democracies all suffer from the sorts of crippling biases described and thus seem unlikely to voluntarily make the sort of drastic changes that may be needed, undemocratic organizations and groups have shown a tenacious willingness to adapt. Though it is counterintuitive, big business in the US is actually turning around fairly quickly with regard to climate change. Because a corporation’s leaders are largely trained precisely to avoid the sorts of fallacies that mislead voters and to think in the long term, and because they don’t have to balance nearly as many interests as the modern nation state, they have also been ahead of governments in many key ways. (For an interesting example of this, look no further than everyone’s favorite empire-corporation, Wal-mart ). Realizing that carbon emissions are a serious problem, many far-sighted CEOs are already drafting strategies and preparing detailed plans to operate in a post-carbon economy. Although obviously not all companies are on board, the corporate sector nonetheless furnishes examples of how fast a large organization can adapt to new ecological norms when it takes the long view and reads the writing on the wall.

But on a government scale, it may be possible that the only political mechanism that could possibly prevent ecological collapse is not a democratic one. For this, one may look to China. Let me begin by saying that China’s environment, as it stands today, is a disastrous mess. In my two months in Beijing I rarely saw blue sky, and when I did it was because of government cloud seeding helicopters that had artificially altered the weather. Yet because China is ruled by a small cadre of politicians who are nothing if not long term thinkers, the environment has become a major priority. Furthermore, if global warming or other ecological disasters require radical societal change, China has the institutional tools (and lack of democratic checks) to make it happen. Factory pollutes too much? Shut it down without compensation. All buildings need super-low emissions? No pesky workers rights lobby. People can’t internalize the long term, intangible risks of global warming? No biggie; they can’t vote.

Which brings us to today’s conclusion. It is essential that we in liberal democracies strive to think in the long term, strive to combat global warming and other such policy challenges aggressively and above all else seek to make good choices. Because if democracy doesn’t give us the right political answers to questions that will define our future as a species, a system we like far less just might.

Reset?

master chief during happier times

With the imminent release of Halo 3, I thought that I’d focus today’s post on videogames and military policy. During my Halo glory days I read quite a few gaming magazines, and even then I noticed that each and every one was chock full of military recruitment advertising. On the whole, this seems quite logical. Teenage males, who comprise the core demographic of the videogaming world, are also the primary target of military recruiters. Additionally, by presenting themselves in the context of the videogame world, such ads create a sort of implicit syllogism; namely 1) videogames are fun 2) the army is like a videogame 3) joining the army would be fun. Playing off of the success of such ads, in 2002 US military created a videogame of its own, America’s Army. Praised for its authenticity and generally thought to be, well, fun, the game has been downloaded upwards of 5 million times and has recently been followed up by a sequel. Which isn’t to say that America’s Army has been entirely without controversy.

One line of attack is that the multimillion dollar program is an egregious waste of time and money, particularly at the same time that real live American troops are fighting and dying on the battlefield. Yet although this objection has a sort of visceral appeal to it (you’re spending our money on WHAT?!?) the fact is that the 15 million dollars invested in the creation of such tools is a drop in the bucket compared to the 4 BILLION dollars spent each year on military recruitment, to say nothing of the 439.3 billion dollars of annual Department of Defense expenditures. Furthermore, as stated above, the program seems to have netted some results in terms of getting people interested in the military, and it seems likely that improving the simulation would yield even better results.

A far more compelling objection, however, comes not from economics but rather from ethics. As many are quick to point out, the implicit message of videogames about war is that war is itself a videogame. To critics, this carries two significant harms. First, by showing that violence is a fun experience, such games could hypothetically desensitize youngsters to the point that killing no longer carries any moral value. This is a case of fiction being mistaken for reality. Second, and more importantly, such critics argue that videogames will dupe recruits into thinking that fighting in a war carries no costs. Once in war, such soldiers will realize that the struggle they face is hardly child’s play. As one eloquent proponent of this view writes:

Sure, the game shows soldiers die in war -- thus the "death animation." But it doesn't show the thousands more who live forever maimed, with one arm, one leg or no limbs. It doesn't show the agonizing rehabilitation that often follows. It doesn't show the mental anguish of seeing a buddy killed in front of you, or having to shoot the enemy when you can look into his eyes.

A clear case of reality being mistaken for fiction. In this view the army is unacceptably misrepresenting the reality of warfare to dupe the young into the ranks of the armed forces. Those who hold such views have often engaged in creative and sometimes harrowing protests. For example,Joseph DeLappe of the University of Nevada has recently engaged in a so-called "online gaming intervention, which involves logging onto the America's Army multiplayer server and using the text messaging system to broadcast the names of real men and women killed in Iraq. Yet although such objections seem persuasive on face, they actually fail to take into account historical and scientific perspectives. When such evidence is accounted for, both fall.

As to the first objection, the notion that videogame violence will desensitize people to real violence, scientific evidence seems highly ambivalent. As game theorist Eric Zimmerman explains, entering the videogame realm places players into a “magic circle” of sorts, in which it is understood that the normal rules of reality are temporarily rescinded. Put another way, most people know that games aren’t real. This theoretical outlook has been validated by empirical evidence, which has yet to produce any solid proof that playing violent games actually translates into committing violent acts.

And as to the second, the notion that such tactics are uniquely unfair, I would argue that the existence of cultural artifacts that glorify warfare and the soldiering life are as old as the Western tradition itself. From Homer to Halo, one finds a plethora of cultural artifacts that could be construed as not accurately reflecting warfare. In light of this fact, it seems that the particular scrutiny heaped on videogames that promote warfare seems somewhat unfair. From my perspective it seems as though a movie, book, or epic poem can promote battle as persuasively as a game. Moreover, the entire point of military recruitment IS to put a positive spin on the realities of warfare. As such, it remains to be seen why the use of somewhat unrealistic videogames is any more morally odious than the use of uplifting 30 second commercials or the newsreels of the 1940s. At this point, it seems wildly inconsistent to attack videogames while ignoring other forms of art or expression. Obviously, some would purport that videogames are qualitatively different in that they are interactive, but I would argue that in earlier ages popular fiction or movies held no less influence over the young of the era. If the soldiers recruited today don’t know the full picture on the ground, their ignorance pales in comparision to the jolt the young men of Europe received when they gleefully rushed toward World War I. Indeed, given the realities of a strong anti-establishment and anti-government ethos among our generation, it seems unfair to deny the military this tool in terms of reaching recruits in the xbox era.

virtually harmless


Of course, this is not to say that military recruitment is always perfect (or scrupulous). Yet the harms presented by offering videogames seem comparable to the harms of tv commercials or internet banner ads. Put another way, unless one is willing to call for an end to all military advertising, it is philosophically inconsistent to call for an attack specifically directed at gaming.

The broader point here, though, is that videogames ought to be treated on a fair playing field with other media. Whenever a new information technology enters wide use it has been hailed as the downfall of civilization. So far, all such predictions have proven incorrect. Some videogames are trashy, violent, and without merit, but so too are some movies, books, and plays. As such, it seems that a paradigmatic shift is needed away from attacking gaming as an institution and toward considering each game as an independent work on a par with any other text in society. Getting from here to there, however, will take a great deal of time, but such changes are already in the works. What is most remarkable about the military recruitment videogame is thus not that it is an egregious or unethical tactic but rather that it reflects the growing mainstream acceptance of videogames as a useful tool, an attitude that will doubtless gain great purchase in the decades ahead. Stay safe, DER

Images

I had originally planned a long, upbeat post to mark my return, but this week I have been haunted by the image above, photographer Nina Berman’s “Marine Wedding”. The groom, former Marine sergeant Ty Ziegel, was serving in Iraq when a suicide bomb attack left him trapped under a burning vehicle, melting his features beyond recognition. The bride is his high school sweetheart.

Our present war often seems unreal. Perhaps this is because in the youtube era no media event ever seems truly real; more likely it is because with the advent of an all volunteer army only a relatively small segment of America’s population bears the ghastly brunt of our Iraqi endeavor. Sometimes, it takes images like the one above to remind us that despite the distancing effects of modern media, the costs of the war in Iraq are very, very real. I have no political commentary or witticisms to offer tonight; the image speaks for itself.

Safe Returns

boundless columnist and american hero daniel rauch

After weeks of secret negotiations, the People's Republic of China has agreed to free me in exchange for the right to make unlimited bootleg copies of High School Musical 2. Once again, market solves...


BOUNDLESS is back. Expect new posts starting tommorow...

Breaking Up is Hard(ish) to Do

To the readers, friends, and enemies of Boundless Rationality,
You've been great, and we've had a lot of fun together, but I think we need some time apart. It's not you, it's me. I really hope we stay friends, and I just know that someday, we'll be able to put all of this past us. You're a great readership, and someday I'm sure you'll make some blogger very happy. Always yours, DER



just please don't key my car



* In all seriousness, Boundless Rationality will be off until late August due to the author's stay in the People's Republic of China. If he is not back by then, he is most likely dead.