Superfreakonomics

Superfreakonomics (2009) by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner is a sequel to their 2005 Freakonomics book which was a best seller. I’ve read the first book and thought it was good and thought I’d have a look at their sequel. It’s a very impressive sequel, it is as good as the original a feat that very few best-selling authors manage. That said, it’s not perfect. It provides some very well outlined interesting ideas that show how economic thought can be applied to various situations.

The first chapter is on prostitution and looks at how prostitutes are responding rationally to demand. It makes points about how pimps can help and how the great competitor to prostitution and what has seen a greater reduction in prostitution than ever before is women’s liberation and the appearance of sexual relations outside marriage.

The second chapter looks at suicide bombers and how their education levels are really. It also points out just how effective terrorism can be. They end this chapter with a speculative look at how data mining could find suicide bombers.

In chapter 3 they look at altruism and the story of Kitty Gevovese. This amazing story was about how 38 people were meant to have seen a woman get murdered outside their apartment block but none took action. The chapter also looks at how behavioral economics really works and the bias that is introduced in these experiments. It’s a very interesting section that shows the limitations of this kind of economics. They also intersperse this chapter with facts on disease and medicine and how these systems can be organised.

Chapter 4 is the controversial chapter on Global Warming. Here they accuse many environmentalists of acting like religious zealots rather than reasonable human beings. The response of such environmentalists to this chapter was wonderfully ironic in that they acted like religious zealots, condemned the book and the writer and gave the book invaluable free publicity. The chapter is damaging to people who think that cutting C02 emissions is vital. They got the Carnegie institute climate modeller Ken Caldeira’s views about geo-engineering AND then got him to read the chapter and approve it which he did. Then when the Green inquisition formed to condemn the book Caldeira did recant, but his honesty and his approval beforehand had undermined the zealots case. The chapter actually centres around Nathan Myhrvold and his company IV ventures and a number of other very smart people who believe that global warming is happening, that humans have contributed, C02 is significant contributer, but that cutting C02 output is the wrong way to go to enhance humanity’s welfare. The solution proposed of sulphur emissions may well be worth trying. It may be more speculative than the book presents however.

Chapter 5 is a fine shorter chapter on how monkeys can quickly grasp economics and trade currency for treats and then trade it with each other for other things. They also quickly learn about other qualities of property. It’s a fun way to end a fine book.

The book is well worth a read. It may offend some people with Green sensibilities but even quite a few such people, including Tim Harford of More or Less and The Undercover Economist have read the book and liked it a great deal. For people who are interested in economics and the world in general it’s a fine, pleasantly short and crisp read.

4/5.

Bladerunner and Avatar

Bladerunner (1982) and Avatar (2009) are both successful science fiction films. Both are superb in terms of production. Both have depth in the way they assess and look at various themes. Avatar is the most successful film to date in terms of non-inflation adjusted global release box office figures.

It should also be noted that this combined review has spoilers.

Bladerunner tells the story of Deckard who hunts down human clones called replicants. The story details his tracking down of replicants who have escaped from the off world colonies and who are then being tracked down. The setting is Los Angeles in 2019. In the film it is constantly raining and Los Angeles is a dark metropolis that is overcrowded and is presented as being crime ridden. Bladerunner provided the look for cyberpunk with its dark, dystopian future of a city and a world that is decaying.

Bladerunner explores the themes of what makes something human. Would a sufficiently complex being have similar drives and morality to human beings? This theme is derived from the book on which Bladerunner is based, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? by Phillip K Dick. Dick explored this theme a number of times in his work. Dick was a very good science fiction writer but unfortunately not a particularly good writer. His dialogue is often stilted and his characters are often two-dimensional. Bladerunner does a better job of exploring the theme than does Dick’s book.

Avatar tells the story of Jake, a paraplegic marine who is dispatched to Pandora to help a mining operation deal with the natives of the planet that resist the mining operation and do not want their planet mined. The film mixes live action with CG to incredible effect. It is also in 3D. The film looks simply stunning. The natives are larger than humans and the planet has many dangerous, poisonous native creatures that kill humans. Jake inhabits the body of a genetically engineered creature that is like the natives of the planet. There is a small scientific team that does a similar thing. Jake is selected because his twin brother was some hot shot scientist who was going to undertake the mission but died. This is done so that an everyman can be placed in the Avatar. As a plot device it works quite well. Jake then goes native and defends the natives as the mining corporation and their military wing seek to extend their mining.

The film explores the ideas of native rights, corporate greed, the military and environmental themes.

The film has received some interesting reactions. On the right some commentators have seen it as pushing Gaian environmental themes. Others on the right have seen it as pushing themes of the importance of respecting private property. It does touch on all these themes. Very few, if any commentators have noted that there is irony in Avatar in that it is a huge film all about profit that allegedly anti-profit. Wall-E has a similar inadvertent irony.

The reason for comparing these films is to contrast how they deal with their characters and story. In Bladerunner Deckard is a complex character for whom there is a huge, quietly made reveal. In Avatar the lead, Jake undergoes an entirely predictable path. Each time something happens to Jake the film is telegraphing what will happen later. In part this is quite clever, such as the use of a mobile lab. At other times when there is a ’super’ dragon creature that chosen ones ride it is pathetically obvious what is going to happen.

Bladerunner is a sophisticated adult film. Avatar is a family film with a plot and themes set out to be appreciated by 8 year olds as well as adults. This limits Avatar. Both have their place in the world. There are fewer Bladerunner type films made because they don’t do nearly as well at the box office. They may also be better suited for books and television.

Bladerunner 4/5 Avatar 3/5.

Krakatoa

Krakatoa (2003) by Simon Winchester is a book that combines the writers knowledge of asia, history and geography to give a very interesting view of one of the most extreme natural phenomenon that humans have witnessed. Winchester is a deservedly successful writer and Krakatoa is a good book, although not as gripping as some of his other books.

Winchester sets the stage for the book by giving an introduction to the geography and how the Wallace Line separates the part of Indonesia that has Asiatic species with the part that has Australasian and Asian species. This line reflects the boundary between tectonic plates. The book also goes into detail about the colonial history of Indonesia, the Dutch and English colonisation of the area and the history of the moment.

The book goes over how the Dutch started the trade with Indonesia and then set up outposts and began to colonize the area. The story of the Dutch East India Company or VoC is impressive and contributes to the setting of the scene for Krakatoa. At the time of Krakatoa the world was just becoming linked, steam powered ships were reducing transport costs and times and communication had radically improved with the laying of submarine cables allowing news to travel in hours rather than months. These submarine cables were enabled by the discovery of gutta-percha which is a tree growing in South East Asia that enabled the cables to be insulated.

The story of the eruption is well done. Krakatoa erupted in a number of phases before the explosion that destroyed the island and Winchester goes over the story of each eruption in some detail. Winchester is a good story teller and the history and geography are things that he knows in detail. The book here is at it’s best.

Winchester also includes a section on how there was a revolt in 1888 in Indonesia that Winchester states was partly driven by Islam. Winchester believes that the Islamic practices of Indonesia were more tolerant than those of the Middle East. He also makes the point that the Dutch rule had become harsh and included crippling taxes and serfdom and that the volcano’s eruption and the subsequent loss contributed to the insurrection. He also makes the point that shortly afterward the Dutch rule became more benevolent.

Krakatoa is a good read. It’s not quite as good as The Map that Changed the World or  Book bomb and Compass . Those books form a tighter narrative as they give a view of ideas and history and of a particular person and project. Krakatoa’s more diverse subject nature means it isn’t as well tied together. It’s still well worth a read and for anyone with an interest in history or geology or Indonesia it’s very much worth a look.

3.5/5

An Appeal to Reason : A Cool Look at Global Warming

An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming (2008) by Nigel Lawson is a surprisingly good book about possible responses to anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The book is short, crisp, well written and provides a good view of  a certain type of skeptic position. He accepts with some doubt the scientific predictions of AGW and sea level rise from the IPCC’s 2007 report but argues that the socio-economic position for action is weak. He supports, like Bjorn Lomborg, increasing funding for alternative energy research rather than emissions reduction.

Lawson is a good author to write the book. He was the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy during the Thatcher years and was involved in the dispute over coal mining. He then became Chancellor of the Exchequer and was involved in Thatcher’s privatisation policies. So Lawson has a thorough understanding of energy policies and economics and knows how politics works.

Lawson first looks at the science, where he accepts that C02 contributes to AGW, although by how much he is unsure. This is not far from the IPCC position given that the IPCC does make falsifiable predictions but rather puts forward scenarios. He suggests that the science of climatology has been captured by what he describes as ‘alarmists’ and how they control what goes in to the report and attempt to stifle criticism. He also questions the post 1990 paleo-climatology that substantially lessened the amount of climate variability that had been accepted as normal. With the Climategate Scandal unfolding his views look prescient. But he largely accepts the ranges for temperature and sea level rise that the IPCC puts forward.

Where Lawson puts his case most strongly is that he says that the economics of AGW is such that it makes little sense to try and enact treaties and to introduce emissions trading schemes. He points out that using normal discount rates of 1 percent or more it does not make sense for the relatively poor world of the early 21st Century to try and do things for the world of 2100 and beyond that is likely to be much richer. He also points out that the adverse effects of the AGW are the weakest part of the IPCC report. The suggested increases of extreme weather events are very dubious and the claims of rises in infectious diseases are not nearly up to standard. He rightly slams the Stern Report as being simply a government justification of policy. He points out that more acclaimed AGW economists such as Nordhaus and Schellenberger have very little regard for the report.

Lawson describes how the treaties up to the writing of the book such as Kyoto have largely been failures and have relied on tricks to look reasonable. He suspects that future agreements will have trouble. Again, with the collapse of the Copenhagen Conference Lawson looks vindicated.

Lawson’s book is impressive. It is to the point, well thought out and clearly delineated. It is very impressively short at only about 120 pages. There were some printing errors in the copy I read, which had correct Celsius values but incorrect Fahrenheit values which was unfortunate. The book would also have benefited from some graphs of the numerical arguments. But for anyone who is interested in what the ‘lukewarmer’ skeptics think this book is a good overview. With the failure of Copenhagen and the unlikelihood of 67 votes in the US Senate to ratify a global treaty on global warming it will be interesting to see if any countries pick up on the ideas put forward by Lawson and Lomborg.
4/5

Economics – Making Sense of the Modern Economy

Economics – Making Sense of the Modern Economy 2nd Edition (2006) edited by Simon Cox is an interesting collection of essays about the modern economy written by contributors to The Economist.

The book is split into 4 parts. The first on The new Liberalism and the case for globalisation. The second on imbalances in the global financial setup. The third is called The arteries of capitalism and is on finance, central banks and global capital. The book concludes with a chapter called Worldly philosophy on the uses and abuses of economics.

The book is really dense. It’s heavy going. Each essay make a point and backs the points up with statistics and numbers. Think of it as a collection of the heavier going parts of The Economist.

The first part goes over the numbers on how globalisation is making the world richer. It makes the case fairly and points out that a fair bit of the evidence is reasonably circumstantial however there is a quite a large volume of it. It’s no cheer leading but solid argument for globalisation being a force for good.

The Second Chapter is very interesting with comment on the current issues in world finance. The US’s lack of saving and China’s surplus is given a lot of treatment. This issue is one of the things that has driven the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and it’s also clear that the issues have not gone away.  There are also chapters on the perceived under-performance of the Japanese and German economies.

The Third Chapter on finance and banking is interesting and heavy going. It’s useful reference material.

The final chapter looks at modern economics and it’s applications. A list of promising young economists is made up, one of which is Steven Levitt who has since risen to fame. The government of Zimbabwe is looked at as well as how economists are modelling government.

The book is an interesting view of issues in modern economics, finance and the world economy.

3.5 / 5

Moneyball

Moneyball ( 2003 ) by Michael Lewis is a really fine book about how carefully using numbers can improve things, in this case the performance of a baseball team. Lewis was a bond trader who wrote the also excellent Liar’s Poker .The book is well written, has an interesting subject and has had a real impact on the way baseball is managed and played. There is also going to be a film based on the book coming out in 2011.

The book looks primarily at the Oakland Athletics (A’s) and their general manager Billy Beane. Baseball has no salary cap so teams have payrolls that differ by 3-4 times. This season the New York Yankees paid their team 209 million while the Oakland A’s paid their players only 47. There is a full list on wikipedia . Given such huge differences the A’s had to find a way to be more efficient with who they select and how they play.

Baseball is a game with a plethora of statistics so it an ideal game for objectively working out which players and teams are really good. However, the way that it has traditionally worked is largely hit and miss. In particular the purchasing of new players tended to focus on how athletic players were rather than their effectiveness. Ironically, the sort of player that has traditionally been picked is someone like Billy Beane himself, who was a prodigious athlete and was expected to perform brilliantly in the major league baseball but instead went on to have a mediocre career.

Sabermetrics, which is the analysis of baseball through careful statistics grew rapidly in the 1970s. Bill James started publishing a book called The Bill James Baseball Abstract. This book was bought by many people who would go on to better analyze how baseball worked. Baseball had statistics since the 1800s but these didn’t measure things that led to being able to predict who would do well. Sabermatricians with computers and modern statistical techniques were able to make better predictions. Rather than attempt to use these techniques major league baseball ignored and ridiculed them.

Billy Beane was the general manager of the A’s. The general manager is the person who hires and fire the team. Beane adopted sabermetric techniques. They worked well, allowing the A’s to perform far better than their payroll would suggest they could.

The book itself is interesting, Lewis wanted to write a book about baseball in general but decided that Beane and the A’s were much more interesting. The irony is that the methods the A’s adopted have since been adopted around the league so the A’s advantage is lessening. But it does make for a fine story.

The book is highly recommended for anyone with any interest in how stats can be used or in sports and ideally in both. Lewis is a fun, engaging writer. It’s a good story, well told about an interesting subject.

4.5 / 5

In Defense of Global Capitalism

In Defense of Global Capitalism (2001) by Johan Norberg is a thorough, thoughtful, fact backed justification for globalisation and capitalism. Norberg puts forth the thesis that the problem with globalisation and capitalism is that some countries are yet to adopt it. Norberg is a good, clear writer and he goes through his arguments well. He starts off by saying how he went through an anarchist phase before becoming a liberal.

Norberg’s main argument is that the recent historical record indicates strongly that countries that trade freely are the ones that grow. He says that this is the best way to enrich people, make their lives longer and healthier and better. He also says that the idea of ‘fair trade’ is untenable as what is ‘fair’ is subjective and that free trade is fair because he believes that people only trade when both parties get mutual advantage. Norberg looks at South American to show how planned, highly protected go. He omits the fact that there was also high growth in some countries that had fairly high levels of protection like Australia in the post war period.

Norberg spends a little time on looking at why free markets do so much better than planned ones, he mentions the information that is created by markets and the efficiency of people choosing what works for them rather than someone who supposedly knows better who is often further away from the decision.

He looks at the criticisms of the market, the race to the bottom idea, and disposes of them by pointing out that instead there is more of a race to the top as people look for efficient societies with good infrastructure and highly trained workers that, coupled with capital, generate the most wealth.

The book is strong, ultimately what it says has such strong backing from the way things have worked out that it’s hard to argue with. But showing people what works often isn’t as popular as a polemic that decries the state of the world. It’s not a bad book, but it’s not brilliant. It’s a good antidote to silly books like No Logo and a good source for data on how things have improved.

3 / 5

The Map that Changed the World

The Map that Changed the World (2001) by Simon Winchester is a fascinating historical biography. The book tells the story of William Smith who single-handedly created the first Geological map of Britain. It is another book where Winchester writes a fine biographical story of a person who made a huge contribution to a field and who led an interesting life.  Smith also, remarkably created this map on his own. This contrasts with the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and other great compendiums of knowledge that were the work of sizable teams.

Smith was born in 1769 and was the first son of a black smith. He was born into a radically changing and improving world. Technology, science and capitalism were freeing humanity from poverty and oppression. It was a world where belief in the West said that the world was 6000 years old. Smith’s father died when he was brought up by his Uncle and Aunt. On their farm in Oxfordshire there are pound stones of a fairly regular size that are that size because they contain a fossil.

Smith became a surveyor after meeting Edward Webb who was surveying in Smith’s area. In order to move goods and in particular coal around canals were being dug all over Britain. Surveyors were in great demand and good surveyors could make quite a bit of money. Smith became a good surveyor and went around the country surveying. He also examined the rocks and formations where ever he went. He struck out on his own and went freelance, but also incurred significant debt in the beginnings of what was to ruin him in future.

After some time surveying Smith had become so interested in the new science of geology that he started to do geological maps, the first he did was one around Bath. After this he wanted to do something grander and indeed began a map of the whole of the British Isles. Eventually a bounty was offered by Sir Joseph Banks and the Royal Society to complete this which Smith did.

Unfortunately by the time Smith had completed the map he had also incurred significant debt which caused him to have to go into debtors prison. He was then released but was unable to make much of an income. But after a short time the huge contribution his map made to Geology was recognized and he was awarded the first Wollaston Medal for Geology and managed a reasonable retirement.

The book is really well done. Winchester skillfully interleaves the changes in Britain, the changes in science, the geology of Britain and the life of William Smith and the host of interesting characters around him. Winchester also has quite an interest in geology and this comes through well. A fine read.

4/5

Irrationality

Irrationality (1992) by Stuart Sutherland is an absolutely superb book. The book goes through common ways that people act irrationally. It’s compact, well written and witty.

Sutherland was an experimental psychologist who clearly understood his subject and had seen just how poorly people make many decisions. He goes through how we make decisions badly in groups, because of sunk costs and because of our inability to look at numbers carefully and properly. Most of the 20 or so chapters looks at a particular aspect of irrationality and there are a few points summarizing the chapter at the end.There is also a chapter on the paranormal which doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the book. It does, however, provide some nice examples of people failing to be rational.

There is so much in the book that is worth thinking about, there are so many good examples of just how we consistently go wrong. There are fine quotes, such as “intuition is that strange instinct that tells a person that he is right, whether he is or not”. There are examinations of how evidence was systematically ignored, such as by the US commanding General at Pearl Harbor. The book’s conclusion also looks at why we think the way we do. Sutherland makes the point that for most of human existence quick decisions under pressure were life and death ones. He points out that drawing up tables of probability is a bad strategy for dealing with lion attacks. But the way our brain evolved to serve us under those conditions means that in the radical new world of civilization we have to consciously think about our actions in a way that doesn’t come naturally to us.

This book was from the library but is so good that I’ve just ordered it.

4.5 / 5

Connections

Connections (2007) by James Burke is a superb book about the development of science and technology. Burke was Oxford educated and has an MA in Middle English. He became a science reporter and was the BBC’s chief reporter on the Project Apollo mission. He was a reporter on the Tomorrow’s World program and learnt how to make science and technology interesting. He also had a deep understanding of European History. He made the documentary video series of Connections in 1978 in the tradition Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation and Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man. Connections the book is the adaption of the video series to print. Connections looks at how technology and science developed historically. Each chapter in Connections looks at a modern technology and then traces its development from the past. Burke is brilliant at finding a story that runs through these developments.

Burke’s video series allow him to use his voice, actions and video footage to emphasize the points that he is making. In the book Burke has to write and provide illustrations. He does both well. Video is more spectacular, but with a book the reader can go back and forth over things more easily. Burke makes the point that much technological innovation has not been commissioned by Research and Development offices and planned. Instead an invention somewhere, for instance in weaving technology through paper patterns has led to machinery for automation that led to automated counting for the US census that led to the punch card for computing. Some technological innovation has been directed by government and has come from theoretical underpinnings. The development of improvements in navigation through accurate clocks that worked from springs rather than from pendulums is one example. In modern times atomic power and weapons and the delivery systems for them, the jet aircraft and the missile and rocket, are another.

Science, engineering and mathematics is not taught as it was developed historically and instead tend to be taught axiomatically from the most rigorous start possible. Academics also have a tendency to put forward a view where it is ideas from academies that are then developed by practical people. This may be the case recently for some inventions, such as the transistor and atomic bomb, but for much technological development it has not been the case. Connections makes this case.

Connections has 10 Chapters:

1) The Trigger Effect – that traces the breakdown of the US electricity network to the beginning of agriculture and introduces the book.

2) The Road from Alexandria – that goes from the extraction of gold in North Western Turkey in millenium before christ to the atomic bomb.

3) Distant Voices – Starts with the nuclear fusion and fission and then jumps back to The Battle of Hastings and the stirrup and then returns to the present with the  development of the telephone.

4) Faith in Numbers – Starts with telecommunication and electro-magnetism and jumps back to the monasteries and then goes to the development of punch cards.

5) The Wheel of Fortune – Starts with the computer from the punch card and then goes back to early astronomy and finishes with the development of factories.

6) Fuel to the Flame – Starts with tools and factories and then goes back to Medieval Warm period and the cooling that went for several hundred years and then goes through developments that led to the car and the internal combustion engine and mentions early aircraft development.

7) The Long Chain – Starts with the jet engine and then goes back to Holland being the world’s leading trading and financial power and then moves through history to the invention of PVC.

Eat, Drink and Be Merry – Starts with plastics and then leaps back to the development of credit and then the history of muskets and then to the development of refrigeration and rocketry.

9) Lightning the Way – Starts with the Moon Landing, mentions the accelerometer then goes back to forts, cannon and then on to television.

10) Inventing the Future – Summarises the book and talks about how history neglects technology and why we should look at the history of technology.

The book is very clever in the way each chapter sets up the next. The jumps that occur when going backward are natural. The history that Burke looks at is fascinating. The view if euro-centric but does include Arabic mathematics and credits China with inventions that were critical to Western Science and technology, that of the compass, gunpowder and paper and the printing press. But as modern science has developed from European science it is not unreasonable to concentrate on their development. Burke does allude to the Needham Question. It was interesting to see the Medieval Warm period, which since 1995 has been disputed by some paleo-climatologists as being regarded simply as historic fact.

The book also provides an interesting view in contrast to that of A farewell to Alms on development before the industrial revolution. Burke clearly sees life as getting better for many people. He does brush on Malthusian views but describes technology progress as proceeding apace. Burke discusses the impact of the plague and the resultant labour shortage on technological development. Burke also provides short views into finance and talks about banks, providing a view into what The Ascent of Money would explore. This is to be expected, Civilisation and The Ascent of Man also overlap.

The book is fantastic. For anyone who is interested in history or technology it’s a great read. For those interested in both it’s a must read.

4.5/5