Sex ID

I have long suspected that I have a slightly female-slanted brain given my natural grasp with languages. This test from BBC proves that my hunch was not without grounds: I indeed have a somewhat female brain. It's official now :-)

This reminds me of Jung's work on anima and animus:

We are all really bisexual in nature.....The anima is the female aspect present in the collective unconscious of men, and the animus is the male aspect present in the collective unconscious of women. Together, they are refered to as syzygy. The anima may be personified as a young girl, very spontaneous and intuitive, or as a witch, or as the earth mother. It is likely to be associated with deep emotionality and the force of life itself. The animus may be personified as a wise old man, a sorcerer, or often a number of males, and tends to be logical, often rationalistic, even argumentative.

The anima or animus is the archetype through which you communicate with the collective unconscious generally, and it is important to get into touch with it. It is also the archetype that is responsible for much of our love life: We are, as an ancient Greek myth suggests, always looking for our other half, the half that the Gods took from us, in members of the opposite sex. When we fall in love at first sight, then we have found someone that "fills" our anima or animus archetype particularly well!

So if I piece together my test results and Jung's theory, the strong anima inside me would mean I have more incentive to look for my personified other half than an average man. But unfortunately Jung's theory stops short of providing much practical guidance: will she be a young and spontaneous girl, a witch, or a mother figure? They are quite different, ain't they? :-)

Is technology blunting our communication skills?

Here is the artile from wired: Ah, A Warmth of Human Contact.

[Although Email and IM] make communicating across time and distance a breeze, it's still the quality of the communication that counts.

It's a paradox of the technology that even as the world shrinks, our actual communication skills are eroding. Instant communication encourages superficiality in the way we talk to each other.

If I've been slighted, I'd prefer a face-to-face apology, or even waiting a few days to receive a handwritten, heartfelt note
sent by traditional post, rather than a glib, "My bad, dude," e-mailed as a knee-jerk reaction by someone whose three-second attention span has already absolved him, in his mind, of any further responsibility by the time he hits Send. It's too convenient. It trivializes the act of contrition.

I rely heavily on IM and email to do my work and I can surely say that my writing has gotten sloppier due to the convenience and time presure. Could that be another reason to keep blogging where at least I gather my thoughts first and then try to present them in a somewhat more organized way?

God Delusion

From YouTube here is the interview of Richard Dawkins on his new book: God Delusion. I am willing to give spirituality and irrationality a role in our life, but there is no need to turn the science on its head for any religious purpose.

Btw he is an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University.

Economics and Democracy

This is always an interesting topics. Two books coming out recently on this matter have quite different views.

Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy By Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. Their view is that democracy is a compromise between the elites and the citizens, both will be better off with this arrangement.

A Free Nation Deep in Debt: The Financial Roots of Democracy By James MacDonald. The argument here is sort of evolutionary: states exist to fight wars and the winners survive. And the most effective way to finance wars is through democracy. Quite provocative, but it's backed up by a lot of historical accounts.

I am of course in the latter camp. People can always come up with noble reasons for democracy and the like, but I am always skeptical towards those ex post explanations, survival is always the first priority, and only the fittest fights its way to be the dominant.

Here is the original post from Economist's View.

Proof that girls are evil

Joke of the day....

Best sentence I read yesterday

This was a popular link on del.icio.us (In case you are not hooked up to it yet)yesterday, titled Five Tips to Increase Your Likeability:

People that always have to be correct are insecure.

Out of the 5 points, I think I am faring pretty well on Positive Attitude, Provide Value, and Eliminate Judgements, sub par on Control Insecurities, and really bad at Conviction.

I would have taken these tips more seriously before, say six months or a year ago. Now I'd come up with a list tips that will increase your respectability rather than likeability. It's far more harder to make other people to respect you than like you. Here goes my short list(I don't pretend I do well on these points at all, from that sense it's better called a wish list):

Five Tips to Increase Your Respectability:

1. Respect other people's preferences, in turn they will respect yours.

2. Be generous. You don't have to get even on every particular thing, and things will even out in the long term. If you can't be generous, at least be fair.

3. Don't be jealous, never. Most of the time it's not a zero-sum game, so wish other people the best, sincerely. And in case it is a zero-sum game, see #2.

4. Keep your promise or don't promise in the first place.

5. Listen first, then talk. Understand first, then seek to be understood.

Web 2.0

You've got to check out Writely.com, it's exactly what I've been looking for:

Writely is a word processor that runs in the browser. It offers everything you'd expect from a word processor, including spell check, extensive formatting capability and support for dropping in images. Writely also makes it easy to collaborate with others. Your colleagues can log in and edit a document you started. Users can also collaborate over e-mail, and then publish the results to a blog when they're done. And, yep, it's free.

It's so cool, you can upload your word documents and eidt there and save as whatever you like, word, html, even PDF. Now I can put my work log there and access it from everywhere, it rocks!

Coolidge Effect

Bill Maher has a pretty witty line in his one of his standup specials: "For men there are only two types of women: old and new.(I am paraphrasing him)" I did not know there is a biology term for this -- Coolidge Effect, after a joke about President Coolidge, I came to learn about this while listening to an audible book on my way to work this morning. Here goes the joke:

President Calvin Coolidge and his wife allegedly visited a government farm one day and were taken around on separate tours. Mrs. Coolidge, passing the chicken pens, inquired of a supervisor whether the lone rooster was sufficient, given the many hens in the chicken flock.

"Yes", the man said, "the rooster works very hard."

Mrs. Coolidge then asked, "Really? The rooster works very hard? Every day?"

"Oh, yes," the man said. "Dozens of times a day."

"Interesting!" Mrs. Coolidge replied, "Be sure to tell that to the President!"

Some time later the President, passing the same pens, was told about the roosters - and about his wife's remark. "Same hen every time?", he asked.

"Oh, no, a different one each time," the supervisor replied.

"Tell that," Coolidge said with a sly nod, "to Mrs. Coolidge."

A joke goes a long way to help you drive home a point, I don't think I will ever forget about this term. The uncomfortable truth is that a modern man is stuck between his ancient biological scripting and modern social and cultural norms.

Evolutionary Everything

First there is evolutionary biology, which is a natural sub-field of biology. Then comes along evolutionary psychology, which to some degree is built on top of evolutionary biology. But the evolutionary approach does not stop there, evolutionary fitness makes a lot sense to me, and here comes a new book on the evolutionary perspective on woman's sexuality.

Just when you think that the evolutionism is a settled matter(at least among scientists), the evangelicals pretend(and market) as if there were an alternative approach to Darwinism: intelligent design which I think is really a neo-creationism. There is NOT, it just makes my blood boiling when I hear this phony argument.

Math

Here is what in the comments of one of Mankiw's post:

Mathematical Equations and the Real World

* Engineers think that equations approximate the real world.

* Scientists think that the real world approximates equations.

* Mathematicians are unable to make the connection....

I will add one more:

* Business folks think equations are exactly the same as real world: $1 = $1, $2 = $2, $3 = $3 ......

On Bias and Values

Interesting discussion on on bias and values on MR:

I understand procedural bias, which happens when a person throws out valuable information because he doesn't like the conclusion. And I understand ideological rigidity, which suggests that a person's view on one issue predicts his view on most other issues far too readily. I also understand that a curious and open-minded person should be absorbing enough
information to change (how much?) percent of his views every (how many?) years or so. (Is it worse if I am changing my views in predictable fashion, or should the change be a random walk?) But is it so bad for the prolific to be predictable? Am I not allowed to have a shelf life?

Janet takes a bit further:

...[V]alue judgements are hard to argue with--is green a better colour than blue? Should we have justice or peace? Thus, we all seek to make our value preferences into facts, rather than opinions.

I think one of the biggest problems facing economists, and to some degree other social scientists, is the feeling that if you're just a little bit willing to fudge facts, you could do a great deal of good. If you'd torture the numbers just a little--not even torture, really, just waterboarding and a few stress positions--you could convince people to do what you know, deep in your heart, is
the right thing. If you produce numbers showing that tax cuts increase tax revenue, or the minimum wage increases jobs, or GDP doubles for every 10% increase in the salaries of economists--why, you could do a whole world of good.

Some good remarks in the comments:

...in the physical sciences (most of them) you can take a thousand cases that are identical except for one variable, and see what laws are true. That'll quash the debate pretty nicely. Social sciences can't hope to have anywhere near that kind of experimental precision.

...You should read "On Certainty" by Ludwig Wittgenstein. You are getting into some deep water about how people "know" things and when they are willing to discard one belief for another. Do you revise your political beliefs based on
what you read & study? Or do you test what you read and study AGAINST your political views? For most people, there's a bit of both going on all the time. You have to hold some beliefs as certain, beyond a doubt, in order to process the truth value of a new piece of information. But it's tricky, and far from logical, even for the best of us.

...Just because value judgments are hard to argue with, doesn't mean they are impossible to argue with. People who work on ethical and political theory, both inside and outside academia, think very hard about these questions and, even when they disagree, they have a great deal to say on the question...... it is also important to note that their is a distinction between *value judgments* and matters of taste. If I like corn bisque and you like clam chowder, arguments about which is better are trivial (although not useless!); it could simply be that one of us likes corn bisque, and the other likes clam chowder. But value judgments are not matters of taste.

...[s]tatistical results are best used to find if something is important, not if it is true.

Here is one thing I thought of after reading this: who is better suited to be a good social scientist? A passionate hot-head or a cold-hearted rational person? I would strongly argue for the latter. As a social scientist, economist included, you will need a lot more discipline to guard against your emotions seeping into your rational judgements. So if you know you are a emotional person by nature, go pursue a career in the fields of natural science or engineering, trust me, you will be better off this way.

DTrace

DTrace is the new tool on SUN Solaris for debugging and tuning, I am very impressed with it.

DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework for the Solaris Operating Environment. DTrace provides a powerful infrastructure to permit administrators, developers, and service personnel to concisely answer arbitrary questions about the behavior of the operating system and user programs.

A few features that really stand out:

1. Non-intrusive nature. Probes are implemented with dynamic instrumentation.
2. Efficiency. It greatly streamlines the tuning process.
3. Cost-effective. It does not cost much performance degradation on production boxes.
4. Reusability. There are a lot scripts already there, don't have to start from scratch.

In hindsight it makes so much sense to trouble shoot and fine tune systems in this way, why didn't it come out earlier? Or why didn't I ever think about this idea :-) ?

On economists

...[E]conomists make an invaluable contribution to society. Which is? To make themselves unpopular by pointing out uncomfortable truths...

This article is pretty close to Mankiw's ten principles of economics, out of which the top 4 ought to be driven home for everybody: tradeoff, opportunity cost, marginal and incentive. I'd bet that our world would be a better place if everyone really internalizes these four principles, at least we will have a lot less ignorant voters and pandering politicians. I am aware, however, that I might be asking for something not quite realistic: in essence I assume people are always making rational decisions. Apparently they are not based on my previous post.

If you believe in string theory

Here is a flash of 'String Theory for Dummies'. Well I am trying to be funny here, it's actually a promo for a serious book on string theory.

Coming from an engineering background, I would say it makes a lot sense to me, even though part of it leaves me an impression of stretching. But it's a theory, or more accurately a hypothesis, and it does not prevent me from admiring the creativity and ingenuity of the guys who came up with string theory in the first place.

Having said that, I have become to realize the downsides of my years' training in science and engineering after branching into the fields of social discipline: psychology, economics, philosophy, or religions(a interesting definition of religion is that it's a mix of cult and intellect) for that matter. Jung warned that we might have relied on science and logic too much and failed to benefit from spirituality. In other words, it might not always possible to view the universe in a rational manner, and there should be a place where human's irrationalities are explored.

Innocence or Insight

A very interesting article on the tradeoff between innocence and insight: Innocence Versus Insight: (From the link on MR), it's worth a few minutes to click on the link.

There seems to be a fundamental tradeoff between innocence and insight. This tradeoff occurs at both personal and social levels. Adam and Eve are said to have lost their place in Eden because they ate from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil;" their knowledge cost them their innocence and comfort. Our insight often comes at a similar price.

Innocence seems to be a potentially attractive kind of ignorance. Apparently, in many social contexts ignorance can be a good thing, in part because helps to preserve idealism. Idealism is a simplified view of the world that supports optimism about the abilities or motives of oneself, one's associates, one's groups, and of related social processes.

...[I]n societies with strong arranged marriages, the marriage relation is more innocent. Married people there have not had several deep and perhaps sexual relations before they are married. This supposedly helps spouses become more deeply attached to each other, with fewer threats from other past or future or concurrent relations. This attachment comes at the cost of less exploration, which presumably means partners are not as well matched with each other.

...[S]omeone who has had little contact with other nations or cultures might find it easy to innocently presume that his nation and culture are superior. Because of this, in some places those who travel may be suspected of being less loyal to associates and the local community, and of being more at risk of adopting disapproved foreign attitudes and customs. In other places, travel may be celebrated, because those who travel more show they have more social contacts, wealth, and knowledge of the world, while those who travel less appear dull and timid.

...[W]e can see that idealism, a simplified optimistic vision of abilities and motives, can help one to become more deeply attached to associates and groups. This innocence often comes at the expense of insight however, and people often prefer to signal that they have the ability to gain insight.

...[T]here are always things we could do which would teach us more about ourselves, our local associates and community, and about how much we approve of local customs and mores. If we take such actions, we may gain the benefit of insight, but we may run the risk of seeming less attractive and attached to our associates, and of becoming less bound to common mores.

Inquiring minds want to know. Innocent minds might not want to know.

My natural bias is in favor of insight at the cost of innocence, or mayby I pretend to be this way? The puzzle is that I have a very inquisitive mind and at the same time that I tend to be optimistic toward life and the outside world.

Did Bush lose support of (mainstream) economists?

There was a commentary in Washington Times about the upcoming book by Ryan Sager: "The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party." :

The gist of the book is that the coalition of religious conservatives and libertarian free-marketeers is breaking apart. ... The traditionalists, infused by evangelical religious fervor, have taken that wing of the party far beyond its historical roots. In the past, traditionalists were ... highly tolerant of those nonreligious conservatives who derived their ideology from natural law or free-market economic principles.

The traditionalist-libertarian coalition was also a political marriage of convenience. Neither group commanded sufficient votes to defeat the liberals, who were dominant from the 1930s to the 1970s. Since liberalism was abhorrent to both groups, they were able to make common cause.

[T]he libertarians were empowered by the collapse of Keynesian economics in the 1970s. ..[W]hen inflation became a serious problem in the 1970s, the Keynesians really had no good explanation for it or a cure. In this intellectual vacuum, libertarian economists like Milton Friedman gained credibility and influence by arguing tight money was needed to stop inflation.

The Keynesians also had little to offer when economic growth slowed... This opened the door for the supply-siders, who advocated tax rate reductions to stimulate growth. ...By 1980, these different strands of the conservative coalition united behind Ronald Reagan, who skillfully pulled them together underthe Republican tent. By 1994, the coalition was strong enough to gain control of Congress, and Republicans truly became the nation's governing party for the first time since 1932.

Mr. Sager argues that George W. Bush has effectively destroyed this extremely successful political partnership by siding with the traditionalists and ignoring the libertarians. He threw a few tax cuts at the latter, like bones to a dog, but at the same time endorsed a vast expansion of government spending that will soon lead inevitably to tax increases.

I tend to think most mainstream economists are by nature libertarians, so in that sense I would say Bush has lost support of them. Probably a notable exception is hard-cored supply sider like Larry Kudlow, but I have to admit my bias against supply siders that they are taking an intellectual refugee by avoiding the debate between (New) Keynesians and New Classicals in the dynamics of short run aggregate demand.

Rarity Value

In today's WSJ there is an article "Model's Chinese Looks Were an Instant Hit Everywhere but China", it's about the rise of a traditional-Chinese-looking model Du Juan:

When Du Juan entered a modeling contest in China in 2002, the 5-foot-11 Shanghai beauty wasn't favored to win. She looked too traditionally Chinese.....With her stereotypical Chinese looks -- almond-shaped eyes and porcelain skin -- Ms. Du just didn't seem to stand out.

Ms. Du is the face of a paradox in the fashion industry as it expands its global reach. In China, where the luxury-goods market has recently exploded, many consumers have come to associate Western fashion brands with the European and American models -- Caucasian mainly -- who appear in their ads and in fashion magazines. As a result, "Chinese people tend to like models with Western-ish looks: wide eyes, high nose and slender figure," says Su Mang, editor in chief of the Chinese edition of Harper's Bazaar. "The Western look is rare and different from what we see every day."

In Europe and the U.S., by contrast, China, and all things Chinese, have suddenly become fashionable. "China is a trend," says David Wolfe, a creative director at the Doneger Group in New York. "We're on the brink of seeing our fascination with China move mainstream." The buzz is growing as fashion industry executives see China as not only intriguing and mysterious to Westerners, but also a center of manufacturing and a promising market.

Ms. Du's big break came last October, when she appeared on the cover of French Vogue for a special issue on China......The discovery of Ms. Du spread fast......Asian faces had been a rarity on Western runways, in magazine features and ad campaigns....

The economics behind this phenomena is rarity value, or simple supply and demand. For that matter the pretty girls in China(usually associated with some elements of Westernish looking) should stay put in China and be better off this way. With the same token, the plain ones would have more incentive to go abroad.

The Benefits of Writing

I often joke that there are more bloggers out there than the people who read blogs, and there is some truth in it: more and more people are starting to dabble with blogs even though they know that their audience is close to nonexistent. Yes I am talking about average Joe here, not some big name celebrity. For those famous people, blog is increasingly a tool they have to depend on to play the influence game.

So why would an ordinary person like you and me spend time blogging? Some say blogging makes one's life better: if you know you will blog about something, you will try a bit harder to make it better, be it an experience, a relationship, an endeavor, etc.

I think a deeper reason can be that there are a lot of benefits associated with writing, especially expressive social writing, and this is supported by empirical studies. From my own experience, I can attest that writing does make my thoughts much more lucid and organized, just like explaining something to others(especially lecturing and teaching) helps you a lot to crystallize the ideas in your mind.

Go bloggers!

Envy

There have been heavy discussions on inequality and envy. It started with DeLong's comments on Krugman's NY piece on the inequality of income distribution, and Greg picked up from there, and Cowen and Tabarrok piled on. While I admire(not envy :-) ) economists' sharpness in making excellent points, I become more aware of the very nature of economics -- a social science with a bunch of tools and frameworks.

Here are some highlights:

Greg:

......people derive utility from comparisons with others. In this case, making the rich poorer raises others' welfare, even if their material standard of living is unchanged.

I must confess that I do not have a good retort to the argument. This is all the more problematic because there is some evidence that having rich neighbors reduces a person's self-reported happiness. (See Luttmer and Weinzierl.) But I am uncomfortable making envy a basis for public policy.

Cowen:

Envy tends to be local. Few Americans resent Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. The real definition of a wealthy man is one who earns more than his wife's sister's husband.

I guess it all comes down to a couple of fundamental questions:

1. What's economic price we have to pay to maintain the relative social harmony by the progressive taxing? In other words, what's the right progressivity that will keep the poor from rioting and keep the rich investing?

2.Specifically in this case, who is to blame for this externality? The rich or the envious? I tend to tell myself that it's not a zero-sum game, but at the same time I strongly believe things in their relative terms. Go figure.