Creative destruction

The Pavlovsk experimental station outside St. Petersburg holds seeds from millions of varieties of fruits and berries. Most of the seeds there, which come from many countries, are not kept any place else in the world. They need to be planted in order to be preserved as they would not survive freezing. The station was established by an eminent biologist who died in a Stalinist camp in 1943. Now a Russian state agency has decided the land it occupies is not being used profitably. So they want to hand it over to developers who plan to construct luxury apartments on it. A court will rule on that decision on Monday, but is unlikely to find any legal grounds to overturn it. During World War II, twelve Soviet scientists starved to death rather than eat from the seeds which they felt a duty to preserve for future generations. With the benefit of hindsight, they should have known better. Though Putin may still ride in on a white horse and somehow save the plants. Which would cement further his reputation as a protector of ordinary Russians (and some sort of common good) from all sorts of greedy vultures – the only one on offer for some time to come.

In memoriam

A journalist writing in a Bulgarian paper called Tony Judt "one of the greatest contemporary historians and analysts." Employing the same word to refer to Judt that is commonly used with reference to TV pundits - it's hard to think of a greater sacrilege. His last piece in the New York Review of Books ("Words") composed as he was losing control of his vocal chords (after many months on assisted breathing) is a true tribute to the endurance of the human spirit. May he rest in piece...

The Iron Mask

In an old episode of Mad Men (from its first season) Don Draper meets his younger brother. He hasn’t seen him in maybe 15 years, and has meanwhile started a new life under an assumed identity. One brother comes across as sincere and emotional, the other emits zero emotion and speaks with utter indifference. Guess who is the successful marketing executive and who is the janitor who lives in a cheap rental room. That emotional suppression comes very handy in the incessant verbal ping-pong the ad men practice exchanging wisecracks on all sorts of issues. Repressed emotions also help them maintain a credible façade as they cheat on their frustrated wives. Oh, the price of civilization…

P.S. A few episodes later, I am left with one lingering sensation – the emotional distance between the characters is just staggering. One of the young writers complains that his newly acquired wife is just another stranger - as they all are to one another. To be unable to reach out emotionally to another human being – this must be a truly unusual and severe punishment. This emotional deficit creates ubiquitous and incessant jostling for power and status, and thus a very treacherous and hostile social (and office) milieu - assumed by game theory to be most natural and ubiquitous. Of course, Tocqueville foresaw it all when he wrote: “not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.” On the other hand, there seems to be a mismatch between the spirit of the costume drama and the Zeitgeist of the time as reflected in the style of the objects and ads from 1960. Who knows what those people truly thought and felt...

Dual use

A NYT piece says "a professor of engineering and neuroscience at Brown University is studying how human brain signals could combine with modern electronics to help paralyzed people gain greater control over their environments." Obviously, the same technology could be used to help perfectly healthy young guys fly fighter jets and helicopters, guide missiles to their targets, etc., all without a "joystick." The Pentagon, of course, is working on this. I am wondering if it is also part of the engineer/neuroscientist's business plan.

My rest über alles

The latest data says one quarter of American couples now normally sleep in separate bedrooms. Apparently, this is a recent trend which is expected to grow steadily. A former museum director offered the following explanation to a NYT reporter: “Not that we don’t love each other, but at a certain point you just want your own room.” As a sleep specialist observed, "what happened in the last decade, is that people are suddenly making their own sleep a priority. If their rest is being impaired by their partner, the attitude now is that I don’t have to put up with this.” Why, indeed, put up with any personal inconvenience if you don't really have to?

Good guys (and gals) finish last

Two researchers on child development comment in the NYT on new law in Massachusetts requiring schools to institute anti-bullying programs, investigate complaints, report serious cases, etc. They are concerned the new legislation will encourage schools to make mostly superficial efforts which will not produce real results. The title of the article proclaims: "There’s Only One Way to Stop a Bully" - and this is "to teach children how to be good to one another" and to instill in them "a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others." Let's say schools and teachers decide to make an all-out, determined effort to "instill" these laudable values. On the other hand, children cannot remain blind to the fact that in the jostling for social status going on everywhere around them - from school cliques to boardrooms - it is often the nice guys and gals who finish last. And existing social mechanisms for the distribution of material and non-material rewards often favor, in the words of Paul Krugman, "bad actors." As Donald Trump likes to reminds his "apprentices," you do need to be tough, sometimes even mean, if you want to play with the big boys. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with this state of affairs - many will argue that this very harshness of the competition at all levels is at the heart of the dynamism which sets American capitalism apart from the more lethargic European versions. But it's quite obvious which lesson will leave a stronger mark on the minds of most impressionable kids and adolescents.

The revolution will be monetazied - well, maybe not this time

A web site called the Great American Apparel Diet invites visitors to commit not to buy any new clothes for a whole year. Since last September, 150 people have taken the pledge, though some have quit. Even the founder of the web site cheated twice, so going cold turkey on new apparel must be real stiff. More curiously, the pioneering dieter behind the website told a NYT reporter "she had thought about ways to make money off the diet." At the end, she decided to pass on the maintenance of the web site to future apparel dieters. One might sense a glaring contradiction between the spirit of the whole initiative and the urge to make money off its success. On the other hand, if we become overly sensitive about such cultural contradictions of capitalism, the whole economy could grind to a halt - like in North Korea.

Back to the future

I week ago, I came back frm Amsterdam. I arrived there on the eve of the Spain-Netherlands final game of the World Cup, and the whole city was overcrowded, euphoric, and draped in orange. The most striking sight I saw, however, were dozens of open-air portable urinals throughout the downtown area. Those were lined up not just on the edges of the Museum Square where the giant TV screens were set up, but also on other city squares, canal bridges, etc. - and were put to good use by mostly young men. I guess this is sound, pragmatic public policy, reflecting Holland’s famously utilitarian spirit – most of the male fans were carrying cases of Heineken, so they needed a convenient place to pass all that liquid out if they were not to pee on trees (which some did anyway). Such open-air urinals have also been deployed in Denmark, Britain, and a few other countries. In one Chinese city, the locals shunned the unfamiliar facilities, so municipal officials were instructed to use them in order to set an enlightened example. The whole issue, however, has another curious aspect. There are all these writings coming out about the erosion of the modern state and a return – politically – to the Middle Ages. I guess the return is also cultural. Several ages ago, people freely ate with greasy hands, belched, passed gas, urinated and did other things in public or semi-public settings. Then they gradually developed more “civilized” attitudes, at the core of which was an acute sense of embarrassment. That uncomfortable feeling drove such bodily functions underground, into an intensely private cocoon. Now all sorts of previously private activities are out in the open again, without any discernible sense of embarrassment or awkwardness. Any resistance or hesitancy, like in that distant Chinese city, will be whittled away. And most would see this as progress – a laudable pealing away of silly taboos and inhibitions.

A prophet in his own land?

The newly opened Dostoyevskaya station on the Moscow metro has caused some controversy. It is decorated with large black and gray images evoking disturbing scenes of murder and suicide from Dostoyevsky's novels. Critics are worried that it could become a "suicide Mecca," but the artist who did the murals is unrepentant. In his defense, he told journalists: "What did you want? Scenes of dancing? Dostoevsky does not have them." Indeed, it's all Dostoyevsky's fault - he should have written more cheerful stuff. On the other hand, 19th-century Russia knew neither Prosac nor positive psychology. Then, how can we blame any Russian writer for being excessively gloomy?

The failed poets society

It is sometimes said that people who could not make decent poets become critics instead. It seems brain science offers some corroboration to this old hunch. On his “Psychology Today” blog, Norman Holland recounts an improvised “experiment” he once witnessed. Someone brought together poets and critics to read poetry, and it turned out they had very different takes on it. While the poets paid attention to the sounding of words and to rhythm, “the critics concerned themselves with things like repetitions and contrasts of themes and meanings.” Now a neuroscientist has done a clever study of the “information-processing approach” of poets and critics. It turns out, exposure to poetry activates different neural networks in the brains of individuals belonging to the two groups. While poets tend to experience poetry more immediately (I would add, maybe more emotionally), critics apply a more top-down semantic-conceptual analysis. Holland makes it seem like this is a matter mostly of choosing the reading strategies appropriate for the occupations poets and critics have taken up. It’s probably more a matter of some individuals having the inclination (and underlying brain wiring) to approach the written word in one manner, and others – very differently.

Beyond stereotyping

Yesterday Madrid saw a mass demonstration by public sector workers. They were protesting government plans to cut their salaries by five per cent. Meanwhile, the Irish government has already cut the salaries of its public sector workers by 18 per cent. The measure, though unpopular, was met only by muted public grumbling. Now, someone could say: what can you expect? Spaniards, as quintessential southerners, are apparently less inclined to intellectualize away the challenges life (and class enemies) throw up at them. And Greeks seem to have an even harder time bracing up for the inevitable. But, of course, we have learned to look away from such tired cultural cliches.

Driven to distraction

Despite the alleged erosion of our brain powers Nicholas Carr laments, once in a while a longer, earth-shattering, potentially life-changing article does shoot to the top of the NYT’s “most emailed” list. The latest example is Matt Richtel’s “Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price.” It highlights the way electronic multiple devices can become addictive and undermine our ability to focus, filter out irrelevant stimuli, and stay “connected” in our first lives. It also offers a snapshot of the “work station” of a troubled (yet successful) IT entrepreneur – semi-surrounded by four computer screens, he looks like Tom Cruise in front of all those controls in “Top Gun.” As published on the web, though, the article has an ironic twist. It is interlaced with 19 blue-tinged hyperlinks enticing us to click away from it while reading. At school, this would be called “teaching by negative example.” Richtel cites a couple of neuroscientists who sound worried that this state of being incessantly hooked to IT devices must be rewiring our plastic brains in somewhat unhealthy ways. Yet, most of the concerns are still related to changes in our thinking and ability to empathize – as a result of the direct pressures and enticements we experience. It should by now be evident that any profound changes in the way we think or feel should be linked to changes in our brain wiring and activation, not only to cognitive or behavioral adaptations. But the old frame of reference lingers on.

The pursuit of scientific understanding

Lehrer’s faith that the scientific experiments he cites offer a valid explanation of the effects of electronic gadgets and web surfing on the brain calls to mind an older post by Norman Holland on his “Psychology Today” blog. So, I am quite relieved – apparently, my mind hasn’t yet gone completely the way of HAL’s. Here is what Holland says regarding the mountain of psychological experiments that have piled up over the decades: “Each experiment defines its independent and dependent variables in unique ways and adds a unique methodology. The result is a collection of discrete experimental results, each of which is thoroughly scientific, but that, as a whole, do not cumulate in the manner of a science. Rather the collection of experiments maintains a continuing conversation in the manner of the humanities.” I guess this wouldn’t resonate emotionally with someone like Lehrer, too – to say nothing of the more technically smart researchers who have not given up their research careers to write non-fiction.

Everything bad is really, truly good for you

In the NYT, Jonah Lehrer reviews (“Our Cluttered Minds”) Nocholas Carr’s book, “The Shallows: What the Internet IS Doing to Our Brains” (an elaboration of his much discussed Atlantic piece, “Is Google making Us Stupid?”). Carr essentially argues that the powerful distractions generated by the Internet are toasting our brains, thus undermining our ability to focus and “deep-read.” Lehrer objects that “the preponderance of scientific evidence suggests that the Internet and related technologies are actually good for the mind.” For example, one study found that “[video] gaming led to significant improvements in performance on various cognitive tasks, from visual perception to sustained attention.” And another “found that performing Google searches led to increased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex” – the brain area that “underlies the precise talents, like selective attention and deliberate analysis, that Carr says have vanished in the age of the Internet.” The bottom line for Lehrer is that “Google … isn’t making us stupid – it’s exercising the very mental muscles that make us smarter.” And, clearly, “the negative side effects of the Internet” Carr obsesses about do not “outweigh its efficiencies” – as Carr argues. Why do these two intelligent authors have such a fundamental disagreement? I have a hypothesis which I wish I could test. In what Lehrer identifies as a “melodramatic flourish,” Carr begins his book with a vignette from his earlier article. He reminds us of that memorable scene from “2001: A Space Odissey” when HAL, the spaceship “supercomputer” (having maybe less computational power than a sweatshop-made cell phone) pleads as he senses his electronic life seeping out of his silicone veins: “My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it.” Then Carr comments: “I can feel it too. Over the last few years, I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory.” Apparently, even a highly sophisticated and reflexive scientist-turned-science-writer like Lehrer can’t feel it. Here is the comment I posted on Lehrer’s blog under the entry pointing to his review of Carr’s book: “In ‘How We Decide’, Jonah Lehrer makes clear that emotional attunement to one's natural and social environment … is crucial to making judicious judgments and ad hoc decisions. I am just curious: are there any studies demonstrating that video games and web serving are beneficial for this aspect of our mental lives? Or are they improving mostly the nerdish cognitive skills boasted by the neuroscientists conducting all those clever experiments?”

Save our mental environment!

A few years ago I maintained a simple web site grandly proclaiming that the erosion of our brain powers by all kinds of audiovisual pollution will be the "new frontier of environmental awareness." Adbusters now have a new issue of their magazine out under the heading "The Whole Brain Catalog" - with a nod to the Whole Earth Catalog which catalyzed the environmental movement in the 1960s. The promo they emailed warns that "the mental environment is now the terrain where our fate as humans will be decided." The lead article is a mental manifesto by Bill McKibben titled "The Environmental Movement of the Mind," and the other pieces look promising, too. Welcome to the new wave of mental environmentalism.

Launching your kid in life

The NYT carries an article on "Teaching Work Values to Children of Wealth." Apparently, this is a new craze among the wealthy - as the crisis bites, and seemingly well educated college students or grads have increasing difficulty "getting into a purposeful path" in life. Of course, this new business opportunity is eagerly seized by all kinds of coaches and consultants - giving a much needed boost to the GDP. One expert offers the following sound advice to the anxious well-off: "Those families that treat their kids' launch like any other endeavor are having the most success." Indeed, what could be the difference between giving your offspring a good start in life and, say, launching a new celebrity fashion line or social website? All you need is cool business sense and/or professional judgment. And isn't this what helped the rich get rich in the first place (unless they inherited it all)?

Ironic democracy

The municipal elections in Reykjavik were won by an upstart party calling itself humbly the Best Party. Headed by Iceland's best-known comedian (who could now become mayor), the party ran a satirical campaign making extravagant promises - if elected, they would bring a polar bear to the city zoo, hand free towels at all swimming pools, construct a Dysneyesque theme part at the airport, etc. For decades, political scientists have tried to come up with qualifiers to describe obviously imperfect, yet seemingly democratic systems: "protodemocracy," "authoritarian democracy," "neopatrimonial democracy," etc. One study found 550 such examples of "democracy with adjectives" in the scholarly literature. Maybe it's time to add a new, less ominous entry to the list - "ironic democracy." This would be a system in which no one would be expected to take seriously elections and the post-election gimmicks of elected "politicians." Some would say the Reykjavik vote was an aberration, reflecting the rage of the electorate with the traditional parties that steered the country into its current financial meltdown. But let's not forget the trail-blazers who set the trend years ago - gifted self-styled entertainers (some detractors would call them clowns) like Silvio Berlusconi and Boris Johnson.

"Trade is to culture as sex is to biology."

This sparkling wit flows from the keyboard of Matt Ridley, a libertarian zoologist who once was on the staff of the Economist. He calls himself "the rational optimist" (the title of his new book), and offers a neat summary of his evolutionary thinking in the Wall Street Journal ("Humans: Why They Triumphed"). In his view, the way sex is essential to biological evolution, trade is at the heart of cultural and technological progress. It was the invention of trade that unleashed a process of increasing specialization and exchange of ideas. The Neanderthals, on the other hand, never adopted trading practices and ended up in the dustbin of history, despite their larger brains. From the very beginning of urban-based civilization, though, the spread of trade was marked by an enormous injustice: "Tax and even slavery began to rear their ugly heads. Thus was set the pattern that would endure for the next 6,000 years — merchants make wealth; chiefs nationalize it." This should probably apply to bankers, too - as Ridley was able to observe first-hand in his capacity as "non-executive chairman" of Northern Rock. He was pocketing GBP 300,000 a year there - until he was forced to resign when the bank cried uncle in September 2007. Luckily, there is light at the end of the tunnel: "Given that progress is inexorable, cumulative and collective if human beings exchange and specialize, then globalization and the Internet are bound to ensure furious economic progress in the coming century — despite the usual setbacks from recessions, wars, spendthrift governments and natural disasters."

Haltura

I am looking at the site of a Bulgaria cram school called Magnet (www.magnet-edu.com). One of the subjects they teach is Bulgarian language and literature. On its welcoming page, in Bulgarian, there are four brief paragraphs of text. In those four paragraphs, there are at least 10 commas that have been left out. There is only one word that can capture such a breath-taking degree of careless sloppiness, and it happens to be Russian. Or - the people who wrote and proofread Magnet's sales pitch are scrupulously meticulous, but this is the educational level they were able to reach after maybe a combined 138 years of education. Frankly, I am not sure which is worse.

The market knows best

William Keegan writing in the Guardian/Observer: "Although there is no getting away from the fact that Greece woefully mishandled its financial affairs, the financial markets seem to have put many eurozone countries in a classic Catch-22 position: they 'short' whole countries whose fiscal position is considered unsound. And then when the fiscal masochism they advocate is put into practice (or promised) they 'short' them again, because of the inevitable effect this will have on prospects for economic growth."

Childhood dreams

Jordan Romero, a beaming American boy, holds the American flag in his stretched hands. The picture was taken at some peak in Indonesia, and now he is climbing Mount Everest accompanied by his father and three sherpas. At 13, he hopes to become the youngest person to climb the highest peak in the world. Someone could say: what better icon for the American dream of making it - with guts and determination - to the very top? Except that now kids from around the world are rushing to tackle superhuman challenges, with solo navigation around the world being the most common choice. The young climber, of course, blogs about his exilarating experiences. He recently wrote: "Every step I take is finally toward the biggest goal of my life, to stand on top of the world." You must admire this unchildish focus and dedication. And yet, what happens to you when you reach the highest goal of your whole life at 13? It must be all downhill from there. Peaking too early in life is not always the best strategy, but I do hope it will work for Jordan.

"Do Nice Gals Finish Last?"

This NYT blog post by economist Nancy Folbre says one of the reasons women get lower pay is that they are less pushy or Machiavellian when negotiating their salaries - and will often shrink from bringing the whole embarrassing issue up. The author asks: "Shouldn't we try to reward nice behavior?" This is the funniest question I have seen or heard in about 18 months. The first step Folbre suggests sound a bit more realistic: "We could start by making stronger efforts to penalize bullies and cheats." If only that "we" still existed...

Simply the pursuit of wealth

Harvard economic historian David S. Landes explains vividly ("The Enterprise of Nations," Wilson Quarterly) how in the past China clung stubbornly to silly traditions and missed out on 400 years of technological and social progress. Now the Chinese have learned their lesson, unlike some even more thick-headed holdouts. In other regions, all the recent success stories are countries which, like China, have jumped bravely into the global maelstrom of ideas, money, stuff, etc. In Latin America, for example, Brazil, Chile, and - er - Columbia have "done well" (curiously, no mention of Mexico). Now some naysayers are grumbling about the loss of jobs as companies move production to more efficient locations. Take the governor of Massachussetts who had the following comment on the decision of the new owners of Polaroid to shut down the company's main factory in his state: "I think it has been fairly sinister the company has been cut apart like a stolen car at a chop shop while the employees are left holding the spare tire." To Prof. Landes, such populist rhetoric is quite misplaced. As he patently explains, "the process of job transfer ('outsourcing') is a central aspect of contemporary entrepreneurship and globalization." Well, entrepreneurs do "prefer profits to sentiments," but how can you expect them not to? Landes could have quoted here Milton Friedman who once famously stated that "the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits." The Harvard professor, though, does make clear that, with the inevitable collateral damage wrought by the whirlwind of creative destrruction, outsourcing is a natural next step in a natural process which goes back thousands of years. This process is "simply the pursuit of wealth" - case rested. Of course, we don't even need to be reminded that any attempt to somehow constrain this process (maybe using as an excuse the excesses of unregulated entrepreneurship which allegedly created the current economic mess) leads inexorably down that slippery slope, onto the road to serfdom, directly into the gulag. As it happened in that former quasi-satellite of the Soviet Union, Finland.

"Exploring the Complexities of Nerdiness, for Laughs"

This is a NYT review of the sitcom Big Bang Theory which features, unbelievably, a couple of young physicists. The article offers the following quote by one of the actors: "A lot of people thought it would be a show that poked fun at smart people, but it has become a show that defends smart people much more often than that. These guys, as socially inept as they might be, are the type of people that are molding our future as a society." I knew there was something wrong with this sitcom. Indeed, the producers have picked the wrong genre. They should have concocted a dystopian miniseries about the coming merger of humans with machines. This hot topic was already discussed at the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference held at Oxford two years ago. It's now time for the science popularizers to step in and prepare us for the coming "singularity."