New Year's Resolutions 2010

Last year I did two life-style experiments, positive thinking and habit-building.

The positive thinking experiment was quite simple. It starts with putting a rubber band on my wrist. Then, whenever I think a negative thought--any kind of thought that states a problem, attacks a person or things, or generally focuses on the negative aspects of something--I move the rubber band to my other arm. Any kind of negative thought could be turned positive by looking at it from another point of view--suggesting a solution to the problem, focusing on a person good points or how to better use something that has poor qualities in one sense, etc. The goal was to go two weeks without switching the rubber band. I never made it to two weeks, and after making it to a week and a half once and then switching regularly for a while, I realized that I was no longer thinking about the experiment at all and gave it up. In retrospect, it would have probably gone better combined with my second life-style experiment.

The habit-building experiment was also simple, but quite powerful. I chose a habit I wanted to work on--cleaning up my work/living area for a few minutes a day--and then boldly reported on it by email to a bunch of family and friends for a month. That turned out quite well, and I managed to clean up my home and workplace a lot. Although I don't strictly clean up for a few minutes a day anymore, my work desk is incredibly spartan still with just a notepad, a pen, and a few sticky notes for important memos. My home has started to get messier over the last few months, but I'm resolved to reassert my cleanliness at our new apartment.

Which brings me to my new life-style experiment New Year's resolutions.

1. Report on my progress with New Year's resolutions publicly, on this blog and by email.
2. Wake up 10-15 minutes earlier and use that time to stretch and enjoy the morning (a prelude to a hopefully even earlier rising time in the future).
3. Take the time to reflect on my accomplishments, challenges, troubles, and the direction of my life.
4. Spend time with friends.

Resolution 1 will be involved in all of the others, so I really only have 3 resolutions to accomplish this year. I plan to work on each resolution slowly and build up to it over time instead of just jumping in a trying to make it a complete part of my life from this day forward.

Waking up a few minutes earlier will be really hard unless I start going to bed a little earlier, so step one for me will be going to bed by 12pm at least 3 times a week. I'll give myself a month to get into this habit.

Reflecting on my accomplishments, etc. takes time, so I will similarly try to write a single line here on this blog and in email each weekday (I don't do much computer on the weekends) about some aspect of my life.

Spending time with friends is something I've really put off doing a lot since my kids were born because I feel extremely obligated to be at home on the weekends to play with the kids and let Hitomi have a rest, and also to hurry home at night so that I can see the kids before the go to bed (and hopefully help put them to bed). But, having no personal life outside of home isn't always fun and I definitely need to enjoy the company of other people once in a while. So, my first step will be to not immediately say no when people invite me out, and also to get in touch with an acquaintance who I've been wanting to get to know better.

Wish me luck!

The Importance of Setting Specific Goals

To achieve happiness in life, it is of the utmost importance that we correctly identify our values so that we know what we are trying to achieve and have a reasonable way to evaluate our actions to see if they are helping us to achieve those values. In much the same way, when we try to achieve a short-term goal, we must clearly identify what result we want to achieve, and set a specific time-limit on its achievement. Both of these steps are absolutely essential for creating success, and if either one is missing the chance for success drops significantly.

When setting out to accomplish something, we must know what it is we wish to accomplish. By stating directly in words, either verbally or in writing, what it is we wish to accomplish, we set a specific goal that will help us to identify steps likely to help us achieve that goal and give us a standard against which we can measure the success of particular actions. For example, simply stating that one wants to get in shape is a poor goal, because there is no specific way to measure whether or not one has been successful. On the other hand, stating that one wants to be able to run five kilometers without stopping gives a specific standard against which one can measure progress.

A side effect of creating an effective method to measure progress is the creation of a built-in motivation system. When one can see movement towards the goal, and especially when the goal is close, it is easier to work past difficulties and force oneself to overcome hurdles. Without that sense of progress, it is much easier to be overwhelmed by difficulties encountered along the way.

There is a part of setting specific goals that deserves special attention because of its importance. In being specific about a goal, one should be sure to set a specific time-frame. That is, one must set a specific deadline for the achievement of a goal. As experience shows, a looming deadline is an incredible motivator, allowing one to create more output in a few hours than in all the many hours or days spent previously. The reasons for this are simple. A deadline forces one to focus on what is essential. No time is spent on side issues, any distractions are banished, small problems are simply bypassed, and the core, fundamental elements receive 100% of the attention. By focusing on what really matters, it is often possible to produce more, better results in less time.

Goal setting is a skill that is largely untaught today. Learning to set and take advantage of good goals will give better results in trying to achieve those values which matter most to us, and in many cases allow more time to spend on achieving other values as well. I have made my it personal new year's resolution to take advantage of goal setting in achieving both long and short term personal values, and I am already reaping the results.

Capitalism, Socialism, and Greed

Recently, I was talking with a friend of mine about politics and economics, and he said to me, "A system based on greed will inevitably be corrupted. Capitalism is an iterated prisoner's dilemma in which the most likely win is in betrayal", where betrayal in this case means using the influence acquired through accumulated wealth to tip the system in your favor. In response to him, and all others who feel that capitalism is an untenable system because people's greed will inevitably ruin the system, I wrote the following letter.

Although it saddens me greatly that greed is a more common trait in man today than rational self-interest, the truth of this statement can little be denied. Indeed, in those who do not act in accordance with greed, it has been my experience that they do so due to fear or apather mare often than to moral principle. However, though this factmay weaken any free market, private property system, it weakens any socialist system even more. This is because greed weakens socialist systems in the same way it weakens capitalist systems--the greedy attempt to influence the system to their advantage, and it also weakens socialist systems in a way which does not affect capitalist systems--the greedy have little motivation to engage in productive economic activity under socialism. Regarding the latter point, in a system in which reward is not proportional to productivity, the greedy will have little motivation to wkr hard as this will not satisfy their greed. That is to say, under socialism, most of the product of their work will be taken away and given to those who did not work as hard, so there is less compelling a reason to work than in a capitalist system, which allows people to keep the entire product of their labor. Regarding the former point of influencing the system, the distribution of goods must be decided in some way, as it is impossible that either goods or needs will ever be evenly divided among the people. Under socialism, regardless of the specific mechanism used to determine the distribution, there will be some person or group of people who have the power to decide how goods will be distributed, and eventually someone will assume that role who is willing to use that power to advance his own ends. And so, the situation you feared under capitalism, in which some person or group of people would acquire the power to affect the distribution of wealth, is a necessity of the alternative! Needless to say, the mixed economy is no different from the socialist state except in the extent to which the greedy man can manipulate the system from within rather than participate in the system directly.

What We Tell Our Kids

Note: Unfortunately, this is only a first draft and there is a lot of editing I would like to do, but I want to get something up, so I'm going to post it as is.

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The other night my wife and I were talking about how to convince our two year old son not to throw things. A week before that, we needed to put a quick end to pinching his baby sister, and we're still trying to get him to stop lying on his back and kicking the walls. All kids do things they shouldn't, either because they are dangerous or destructive, and as parents we have to make them stop as soon as possible.[1] Parents try all kinds of approaches with greater or lesser consistency and greater or lesser success. From my personal experience and my observation of other families, I've noticed there are three main, verbal strategies for getting kids to listen: just saying no; giving a simple reason that can satisfy kids, but which may not be true or complete; giving the full and honest reason not to do that.[2] Regardless of which strategy parents choose, almost all choose, very few parents have really considered the implications of what they are saying to their children.

Giving children an untrue, or irrelevant, reason to do or not do something is the worst possible choice. It is unfortunate that this strategy also has some of the best short term results. Because the reason is easily understandable, the child is satisfied and agrees to act appropriately. Unfortunately, as the child grows older, this strategy will start to backfire as the child realizes that the reasons given often don't make sense. In this case, the child will either stop trying to understand and just do what he is told, forfeiting his own powers of reason, or, if he is strong willed, rebel against what he correctly identifies as an attempt to control him. Neither outcome is likely to satisfy parents, but because that outcome is generally years in the future, many parents either avoid thinking about it or simply don't realize what is waiting for them.

A lot of parents who would otherwise choose differently, myself included, when tired, or frustrated, or angry, or exasperated, fall back on just saying no. I think its safe to say that we all realize this isn't the best choice in terms of immediate results, as kids tend to forget our anger quickly, or long term effects, as we all want our children to learn to control their emotions. But there are also times when we are calm and understanding and still choose to tell our children no without an explanation. I think it is fair to say that this a reasonable choice as long as it is not overused, and we also choose to give goods reasons (see below) when our children are able to understand them. If we always say no without an explanation, we are teaching our children that they must listen to an arbitrary authority; that there is no reason not to do something (or to do something) except that someone else says they shouldn't (or should). As they get older, and they start thinking about things more on their own, it means they will have no way to determine in advance whether or not a particular act is acceptable except by asking or, more likely, guessing. Unfortunately, guessing what other people will and will not find acceptable, aside from being really difficult, is not an appropriate method for choosing actions in the real world. Without a more solid moral system in place, children will be unable to succeed in pursuing their values as they grow older and move into adulthood.

In contrast to the say nothing strategy of talking to our children, the strategy of giving clear, true explanations means telling our children exactly why they should or should not do something. This means that parents are passing on their own moral code to their children. This is absolutely something all parents should do, but I must add a few caveats. First, most adults don't actually have an explicit moral code of their own. As a result, in passing it on to their children, they will almost certainly make contradictory statements from time to time. Depending on their personalities, kids may ask their parents about these contradictions or they may keep quiet and wonder about them. In the first case, unless the parent is willing to take a serious look at his or her own beliefs, it is unlikely the child will receive a satisfactory resolution to the apparent moral conflict. In the second case, there is no chance that the child will receive a satisfactory resolution. But if children must choose between two contradictory guidelines when selecting actions, they are in a worse position than if they had not been told anything at all, because whichever way they choose, they are wrong. What children are learning in this case is that the universe doesn't always make sense, and that they cannot hope to understand it--the worst possible outcome.[3]

Another important issue related to giving children accurate explanations for why they should or should not do something is the child's level of understanding. There are a lot of moral situations which are simply too complex for a child to grasp completely, and even simple situations can easily be over-explained. When choosing how to explain to a child, it is important to give as accurate an explanation as possible while remaining within the scope of the child's understanding. This can be a very difficult line to discern, but it is important to at least be aware of it.

One last point regarding quality explanations is that children just don't want to hear it all the time. Choose your timing well, when the child is not too tired, not too emotional. Don't give the same lesson over and over several times a day. Repetition is best accomplished over long periods of time, and moral training is no different. Once you've explained something to a child once, it is almost certainly best to just say no to them the next few times and only revisit the lesson after a reasonable period of time.

Kids want and need to know the reason for things. They want to know why the sky is blue and where they came from. But knowing how to act and why is one of the most important lessons they will ever learn, because in these lessons will be the material they will use to decide what values are worth pursuing and how to best pursue them. As such, all of their future happiness, their sense of self-worth, and their ability to succeed in any endeavour will in whole or part depend on the moral systems they acquire as children. As parents who want the best for our chilren, it is our duty to ensure that what we teach them will enable them to become responsible, self-regulating adults.

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[1] Kids also do things we just don't like, such as putting their feet on the dinner table while eating. We need to discourage this behaviour as well, but the issue is somewhat different and some different tactics are probably in order.

[2] The question of whether or not it is appropriate to hit a child, or whether time-outs are effective or reasonable, or whether any other form of non-verbal convincing is appropriate is a topic for another day.

[3] Fortunately, most children have a much stronger sense than adults that the universe should make sense, and they are likely to continue trying to make sense of it for many years despite the contradictory information they receive from the adults around them.

Math and Abstraction

Because I am considering a career in education, and because my university background is in math, I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about teaching math. One of the common themes I read about on the web regarding math is students' (and even teachers') confusion about what math is, and what it's for. This is especially true for more advanced math, such as algebra. Even in daily conversations about education, I often here people say things like, kids don't need to study math past arithmetic because they'll never use it, or, they will just use calculators when they're older. Statements like these show a fundamental misunderstanding of what math is.

Math, as a subject, is the study of patterns and relationships. The processes of math, such as multiplication, algebra, and geometry, are actually the tools of math. We use the tools to help us better understand the real subject matter of math, and it is important to understand that these tools are abstract--they deal with patterns and relationships only, not with the things exhibiting these properties.

Consider the following two problems from multiplication.

1. For a birthday party, you need 3 chocolates for each guest, and you have invited 5 people. How many chocolates do you need to buy?

2. Your bedroom is 3 meters by 5 meters. How much carpet do you need to buy to re-carpet your floor?

Both problems deal with the numbers three and five. However, to know that we are dealing with multiplication in both situations, we have to understand the underlying patterns. In the first case, we have 5 sets of 3 chocolates. In the second case, we have 5 sets of 3 square meters (this case also requires a conceptual understanding of measurement of area to understand what is really happening). The key in both cases is that we have a fixed number of units, which we deal with as a set, and make a bunch of copies of the set, and then count up how many units are in all the sets combined. Although these situations are quite different (one deals with physical objects, the other with arbitrary divisions of space), the relationship between the quantities is the same. By focusing on the relationship, rather than the entities, we can deal with many different problems in a single, unified manner. Multiplication is the process we can apply to find the total quantity of unites when we want to copy sets.

It might be argued that children do not need to understand such abstractions. Regarding this objection, when children are first learning multiplication, not only do children not need to understand the underlying abstraction, they should not be taught it in any way. They should always start with a specific, concrete situation which they can preferably work with using physical media. This is vital for them to get an idea of what is really going on. Once they have firmly grasped how multiplication works in one concrete situation, they can be introduced to another situation where multiplication applies. If they have truly understood the first situation, they will mostly be able to understand the second quickly, and I would argue that most children will automatically make at least a part of the connection at some unconscious or conscious level. However quickly or easily children learn the second situation, once they have mastered it they will be ready to learn the underlying abstraction. They must wait until this time because you can't make an abstraction from one thing. An abstraction, by definition, combines the essential characteristics of two or more entities or concepts. However, this step is also essential. If students do not make this integration, then in order to be able to handle just these two situations, they will need to memorize multiplication twice (or those parts which they weren't able to integrate themselves). Furthermore, in order to apply multiplication to new situations, they will effectively need to learn multiplication again. This is especially true when they start applying multiplication beyond the whole numbers. However, if they learn the abstraction, and learn to apply it (the next step in their development in multiplication), they will be able to apply multiplication in any situation with very little new learning being needed. Even subjects in multiplication which are traditionally very difficult, such as multiplying fractions, become simple once the underlying structure can be connected to the abstraction the children already hold. Learning to multiply fractions becomes learning what a fraction is and what it means, a task they will have to do anyway.

As with this example from multiplication, all of math is the study of relationships and the processes that can be used to manipulate and gain insight into those relationships. Math is essentially a subject of abstraction. It focuses on the underlying, fundamental characteristics and does not deal at all with the superficial features of its subject matter. Until teachers and students alike can grasp this key point, math will continue to be considered a difficult subject and those who manage to grasp the truth despite the confused teaching they received will continue to be considered gifted in math. The mathematically gifted of today are gifted only in the sense that a man with two legs is a gifted walker when compared to a man with no legs--he is an ordinary man among cripples.

Employee Reward

From time to time I come across an article talking about how some company has restructured to allow employees to be more flexible. These article generally describe how the company no longer has specific working hours for employees; the employees are now responsible for making sure the work they are assigned gets done, and how and when they do it is up to them. Although I expect the changeover to be slow, I think we will see more and more businesses adopting a similar model as time goes by.

In the early days of the industrial revolution, most employees were simply operating machines. Their productivity was determined by the machine they were operating, and there was little they could do to increase or decrease productivity. Under these kinds of conditions, hourly wages made the most basic kind of sense. The company could easily calculate the value the employee brought in as a function of how long that employee was at the factory. Factory jobs today, as well as many other jobs, such as restaurant work, or customer service staff at a shop of some kind, continues to be true to this model.

Today, an increasingly large part of the population is involved in a very different kind of work. The change is more noticable in some fields than in others, but basically any job that can be done at a desk falls into this new category. Desk jobs, as I will call them, are generally jobs that deal with processing information or creating new information. Although most companies continue to work as if they could, it is not really possible to measure the output of these workers using a clock. That's because, unlike workers in a factory, the productivity of an information worker is not bound by outside sources. In a factory, two workers working the same machine will tend to get very similar results because there is very little need for them to exercise that most important of human faculties, their minds. Information workers, on the other hand, are working exclusively with their minds, and so the productivity will be vastly different between two workers based on ability, and can even be hugely different between one day and the next for a particular worker.

Considering the difference between an information job and a factory job, how can an employer properly compensate employees for their output? In some fields, like sales, commission is an excellent way to make sure that the top employees are getting the top benefits, but in other fields, such as marketing, there is no simple way to measure the effectiveness of individual employees. In many cases, I would not be surprised to find that certain employees are twice as effective or more as other employees, though I doubt there are many cases where pay reflects that. And so, we come back to the model I mentioned briefly at the beginning of this post: assign goals and let the employees figure out how to handle them.

Consider a group of people all with fairly similar, fairly specific duties. Given any group, it is inevitable that some people will be better at any given task than others, but as they are all doing the same thing, it is very difficult for a company to pay one person more than the others. What a company can do is assign those workers specific tasks, say get it done, and then let each worker deal with it in his own way. Assuming they all just work on it until they are done, the best workers will finish early and go home, and the less skilled workers will take longer, perhaps much longer. In some cases, the unskilled workers may end up working longer than they did originally, because there is no magic clock that says they can go home now, regardless of the state of their work. Although all the workers are receiving the same salary, the top workers are now receiving a lot more money per hour. Furthermore, there is no reason to suppose anyone will just work on their assigned work until it is done and then take the rest of the day, or the week, off. All the workers now have flexibility in their working schedule. They can have a leisurely breakfast with their families, or take afternoon karate classes. Again, the best workers get more flexibility, because they finish the work in less time. So, by setting up such a system, the company has given the top workers a huge bonus, without paying them anything extra. It has also given all the workers an incentive to work harder and faster. The experience of many companies has indeed shown improved output when this kind of system is implemented.

This kind of system is not applicable to all types of jobs, even information related jobs. But as companies continue trying to become more and more competitive, and to attract the best employees, those companies which most accurately reward their employees for their output will tend to come out on top, all other things being equal. The corporate mindset is very deeply entrenched in society, and so I expect the change will be slow, but as I see more and more articles about companies trying this and other models, it is becoming clear that more people are realizing that accurate employee reward is important for both employer and employee alike.

The Importance of First Premises

The other day I did something a little uncharacteristic of me; I posted a comment on a blog in response to a post about a very controversial topic--abortion. This is uncharacteristic of me because I usually find such arguments both simplistic, as the other party can marshal no reasonable support of their position expect their convictions, and antagonistic, ultimately coming down to personal attacks rather than making reasoned arguments for or against a particular position. I made the exception on this particular day because the blog poster (hereafter called my debate partner, for the other side of a debate is rightly a partner in exploring ideas) had started from a position of reason, backed up her position with fairly good arguments, and seemed open to a reasonable discussion of the points she had raised. In retrospect, although I didn't get what I really wanted--a thorough discussion of the topic--I did gain a lot of insight into why such arguments are usually so fruitless.

My debate partner had a lot of important moral positions which serve as background to the conversation, including a belief in the rights guaranteed by the American Constitution and the ideas of the Declaration of Independence, particularly the right to life, liberty, and property. Her stance on abortion was that it was wrong because it was taking the life of what was scientifically defined as a human being (even at the earliest stages of pregnancy, which is true as far as I know), and if rights are to apply to anyone, they must apply to all humans equally. I responded that forcing the mother to carry the child to term violated her right to liberty (she is forced to act against her will) and property (she must give up a lot, economically, to bear a child). In return, I was told that the mother forfeited her rights when she engaged in sex knowing that it coud lead to child birth.

After a couple futher comments on each side, her final position was that rights entail responsibilities, and those responsibilities can curtail our rights. My final position was that rights cannot be abridged in order to guarantee other people's rights (eg. you can't kill one man so that another might live), and all rights are on an equal level (eg. life, liberty, and property). These were the final positions because at this point I was told that because we hold different premises, there was no point in continuing the conversation. I was blown away. It seemed to me we had finally gotten to the main point of the conversation, and I was shocked that someone could claim there was no more to discuss.

To give her the benefit of the doubt, I could assume that my debate partner had rational reasons for her positions that she felt were unassailable and she didn't want to waste her time explaining them to me. However, the original intent of her blog post was the importance of fighting against abortion rationally. If she wasn't willing to look at the first premises that gave rise to her argument, she couldn't be claiming to be rational at all, but merely to be bolstering arbitrary positions using a rational covering.

It took me a while after the shock had worn off to realize what had really happened. She had claimed to be interested in arguing against abortion rationally, but in reality she had decided what the outcome was to be before she started applying reason to the argument. This is a very common fallacy today, and one which can often only be exposed by a careful examination and probing of the original argument until the base premises are exposed. Unfortunately, most people are interested in reason per se, but only in using it to support their preformed convictions. It is for this reason that most online debates are so fruitless--no one wants to look at first premises. In fact, is suspect, most people are not even aware of their underlying premises. And so, although I will likely dabble further in online discussions, I will start by addressing the underlying premises. If my partner refuses to consider the deeper premises of the argument, I will calmly bow out.