Blog

When Does “Diversity” Live Up to Its Hype?

Posted inBusiness2 Comments on When Does “Diversity” Live Up to Its Hype?

My blog-friend Tim Sullivan, when he was an editor at Princeton University Press, every so often sent me a book he had finished working on, including Scott Page‘s book The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for awhile, unread. Bryan Caplan just took a look and came away impressed:

Contrary to many slanted summaries, The Difference doesn’t show that "diversity is good"; it carefully analyzes the conditions under which diversity lives up to the hype.

News flash: It turns out that one of the key conditions is individual competence. If you gather a diverse group of smart, informed people, they make each other better in a long list of ways...At the same time, however, Page shows that gathering the world’s ninnies and predicting "collective wisdom" is wishful thinking.

Sounds fascinating. I’ll be reading it soon.

On a somewhat related note, Bob Sutton has written interestingly on the ups and downs of group brainstorming.

Links from Around the Web

Posted inWeb/Tech4 Comments on Links from Around the Web

Quick links, cheap shots, bon mots…

1. Snopes.com calls "subliminal advertising" a myth — it is not effective, let alone even exists in the way people think it does. The scientist who conducted the study which gave rise to the term forged all his results.

2. Felix Salmon writes two terrific posts on saving vs. spending that every 20-something should read. Here’s part 1, here’s part 2. He confronts the typical advice that a young person should save as much money as possible and specifically start saving for retirement to take advantage of compound interest. He says it’s when you’re young that a little money can go a long way (ie, $100k usually means a lot more to a 25 year-old than a 40 year-old). I would add that when you’re young you should try to accumulate unique experiences and expose yourself to bulk, positive randomness while the cost of failure is low…even if this means delaying a long-term investment strategy.

3. David Zetland over at Aguanomics shows his colors as a pragmatist: "When 95% of the population knows more about long showers than food production, you have to be careful about asking them to reallocate water. That’s why most of my policies proposals are extensions and modifications of the status quo — not revolutionary ideas — e.g., complete water privitization with distribution of water vouchers to citizens." Here here. It’s tiresome to hear high level gripes about how dysfunctional some domain is (water rights in the west or public education in the U.S. to name just two) and then the cries for a utopia that will never happen given the existing political framework. The atomic bomb cannot be used. For issues that involve interest groups (read: everything) we must reform we what we have, make some compromises, and iterate toward the ideal.

4. Cal Newport reminds us that "traditional" jobs, while often skewered in the self-help blogosphere and how-to business literature, can in fact be fulfilling for many.

5. Slideology – the presentation blog of Nancy Duarte et al, the team which designed Al Gore’s global warming PowerPoint.

6. Bobby Fischer video interview from when he was in his 30’s. This is the somewhat famous clip of Fischer on a park bench. The end oozes a delicious self-confidence: "Even when I lost to Spassky I was still better than him…I’m not afraid of him – he’s afraid of me but I’m not afraid of him."

7. Never ever ever talk to a cop about a crime even if you’re innocent. This has been making the rounds. It’s a 45 minute video clip of a law professor explaining how even the smartest most innocent people incriminate themselves by talking to a cop. It’s worth watching.

To Find Good, Underrated People, De-Emphasize Popular Filters

Posted inPhilosophy23 Comments on To Find Good, Underrated People, De-Emphasize Popular Filters

People who earn the label “hidden gems” are hidden because they lie unturned after a popular, blunt filter is applied to a population. To find good, underrated people, de-emphasize popular filters.

If you want to find a woman to date, try not to filter in favor of big breasts, for example, since this is a popular filter. People watch MTV, demand goes up, supply goes down — competition for big breasts in the real world is fierce. And this really isn’t that good a filter, anyway. Physical beauty can take many forms. Cultivate an attraction (yes, I do think there’s some choice) in a less popular physical feature. For women, an analog is height — figure out a way to like short men and you’ll trade up big time on other important factors like personality.

If you want to hire someone for your company, try not to filter in favor of an education credential. It reflects a person at age 17 and is the most popular mass filter of other companies, driving up the price to hire someone with a Berkeley degree. As Arnold Kling has said, “When you are a start-up, you need to find people who are better than their credentials. The last thing you can afford to do is pay a premium for credentials.” Spot talent in other ways. And fully recognize the importance of drive — I have a friend who shuns hiring Harvard MBAs because of their “coasting attitude for the rest of life.” In other words, they don’t have to prove anything to anybody and will always be able to pull down a six figure salary from somewhere if they need to. This is exactly what you don’t want in an employee.

If you want to find a smart person who has time to be your friend, try to find a bad self-promoter. The popular filter, at least in business, is in favor of charismatic personalities and clever marketers. Find the brilliant mind who’s a so-so marketer and revel in her availability.

Your additions?

Don’t Give Up, Don’t Ever Give Up

Posted inTravel3 Comments on Don’t Give Up, Don’t Ever Give Up

That’s the motto of the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research, as announced by legendary basketball coach Jimmy Valvano in his famous ESPY Awards speech in 1993 (he died of cancer soon after the speech).

I came upon that phrase — don’t give up, don’t ever give up — during my trip to Alaska last week. I spent all last week on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska where I hiked, saw some glaciers, fished for halibut, watched bears fish for salmon, and generally continued my travel trend of enjoying nature / the outdoors and avoiding cities.

Virtually everywhere in Alaska there was a sign reminding us mortal humans that we were in “bear country.” The signs presented various scenarios. If you happen upon a black bear, play dead. A brown bear, act big and fierce. If you happen upon a predatory bear of either color, and it attacks, fight back. Fight back, the sign said, and don’t give up.

In Homer, Alaska, at the Pratt Museum, there was an exhibit on sailors who died at sea. It showed how long the average person can live if alone at sea. For example, one who treads water quickly lives longer than one who swims slowly. In any scenario, the will to stay alive and not fall asleep / go unconscious can make the difference between life and death.

My last sighting of this phrase is from a hotel room in Topeka, Kansas, where I was the week before last. There was a placard about what to do if there is a fire. It had the evacuation route and then some instructions if the fire were right outside my door. Put a wet towel under the door, it said, call for help, and don’t give up.

It might seem funny to have to remind people not to give up. But I definitely believe it. Whether in normal situations or dire ones, people can underestimate their own willpower.

###

Have you filled out my quick 10 question survey for blog readers? Do so here. Thanks.

Wisdom from John Steinbeck

Posted inBooks7 Comments on Wisdom from John Steinbeck

Some of my favorite quotes from John Steinbeck’s book Travels with Charley below.

On how to attract help:

I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.

On the beauty of San Francisco:

San Francisco put on a show for me. I saw her across the bay, from the great road that bypasses Sausalito and enters the Golden Gate Bridge. The afternoon sun painted her white and gold — rising on her hills like a noble city in a happy dream. A city on hills has it over flat-land places. New York makes its own hills with craning buildings, but this gold and white acropolis rising wave on wave against the blue of the Pacific sky was a stunning thing, a painted thing like a picture of a medieval Italian city which can never have existed. I stopped in a parking place to look at her and the necklace bridge over the entrance from the sea that led to her. Over the green higher hills to the south, the evening fog rolled like herds of sheep coming to cote in the golden city. I’ve never seen her more lovely…Then I crossed the great arch hung from filaments and I was in the city I knew so well. It remained the City I remembered, so confident of its greatness that it can afford to be kind.

On what the rich and stupid do:

To cultivate an opposition to change is the currency of the rich and stupid.

On following advice:

People rarely take action on advice of others unless they were going to do it anyway.

On dog lovers (I second the thought on baby-talk):

I yield to no one by distaste for the self-styled dog-lover, the kind who heaps up his frustrations and makes a dog carry them around. Such a dog-lover talks baby talk to mature and thoughtful animals, and attributes his own sloppy characteristics to them until the dog becomes in his mind an alter ego. Such people, it seems to me, in what they imagine to be kindness, are capable of inflicting long and lasting tortures on an animal, denying it any of its natural desires and fulfillments until a dog of weak character breaks down and becomes the fat, asthmatic, befurred bundle of neuroses.

On virtue’s invisibility:

We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar gets little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.”