Dealing With Our Own Irrational Selves

 

upside of irrationalityQuite the hook
As a teenager, an accident left author Dan Ariely with third degrees burns over 70% of his body. He used the still-painful aftermath to propel his studies of topics such as who people choose to date (inspired by his own scarred face and body), and how people differ in their response to pain (that he continues to suffer.) Ariely may publish in scholarly journals, but in this book he follows his own advice to engage readers on an emotional level. Using a conversational tone, this drew me in and I read every word.

This is a strong recommendation from me, because I often skim sections of books.

We are irrational and that’s human nature
Human beings are irrational and make poor decisions, like texting while driving. “Given the mismatch between… technological development and human evolution, the same instincts and abilities that once helped us now often stand in our way.”

Stock markets, insurance, education designed without regard to human nature lead individuals astray and “sometimes fail magnificently.” His field of behavioral economics figures out the “hidden forces that shape our decisions.”

He hopes readers will consider what they might do differently once they understand their own nature better, but this isn’t easy. Ariely uses the example of his own badly damaged hand as an example. Doctors advised him to have it amputated, but he refused. Twenty years later it is less useful than a prosthetic and still causes him considerable pain.

He says, keeping the hand was probably a mistake, and analyzes the biases behind his decision – loss aversion, status quo, irreversibility, and others. He also discusses what psychological factors stop him from amputating the hand today – fear of hospitals, hedonic adaptation, and rationalizing the choice. “Despite the fact that I understand… some of my decision biases, I still experience them.”

Humans are difficult to study in the wild, or even in a lab
Ariely presents his research is a very accessible form, not heavy with jargon, and there is a bibliography if you want to learn more. He acknowledges that many of his experiments are flawed and he discusses how to overcome the problems – subjects are not selected randomly but volunteer, and many are college students who don’t represent the whole population. Experimental designs are sometimes changed to accommodate the subjects.

Some studies are familiar, for example, when a person who feels their partner – assigned to split a $10 incentive between them – keeps too much, refuses the insultingly low offer, and neither gets to keep any of the $10. (Human nature will punish a cheater, and other studies show that when we seek revenge, we don’t care who we punish.) But others are new to me.

I chuckled at one test run in India (where it’s cheaper to offer financially impressive rewards) that evaluated the effects of stress on performing mental tasks. Stress was created by handing the volunteer money equivalent to many days salary and asking for its return if they failed the tasks. But subjects sometimes ran away with the money, so the protocol was changed.

How American businessmen reacted when he applied the lessons from India (offering large financial incentives actually decreases performance after a certain point) to their own salary plans is also amusing. “If we keep following our gut and common wisdom… we will continue to make mistakes.” Continue reading

Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge Update

The Denver Post had a Sunday front page article titled “Rocky Flats Ten Years After the Cleanup: A Safe Refuge?,” by John Aguilar. I commend the author and the Denver Post for an article that is balanced. There was a time when the media dominantly published the opinions of the anti-Rocky Flats activists. This article presents both sides.

I have always contended that a positive legacy of the Rocky Flats Plant is that it resulted in saving a segment of the high mountain prairie. “Just 16 miles from downtown Denver, it’s a tableau of wild beauty and one that few get to witness so close to a major metropolitan area.” The 5,000 acre Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge is scheduled to formally open to the public at the end of 2017. There has already been what was officials called a “soft opening” with one guided hike that occurred on September 25 and another that is scheduled for October 16. You can call 303-289-0936 if you want to go on that hike. The announcement was made on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge web page and said, “Join us to explore the wildlife, birds, and plants…Please be comfortable hiking up to 3 miles.” A Daily Camera article predictably adds that hikers can go, “…if they are not concerned about radioactive plutonium-239, which officials say is not a danger.”

The usual critics are cited in the Camera and Post articles with their usual warnings about why the public should not go onto the site. One said he wouldn’t let his children go there. I recommend reading the full Post article and note the assurances given by the various public officers. I’m guessing they would be proud  to show their families the beautiful place.

The Oak Ridge Story

Oak Ridge Story book coverThis book was referenced in an article provided by a friend, and it contains some extraordinarily interesting aspects for a book published in 1950. For example, the Introduction describes how the Japanese, when they were in control of Southern Luzon in the Philippines, conducted a roundup of “…persons suspected of unfriendly attitudes.” An elderly American who had lived in the Philippines for many years was questioned about his nationality. “The man replied he was from Tennessee. A perplexed look crossed the (Japanese) officer’s face. Then he decreed. ‘You may depart. You are of a non-belligerent nation. Japan has no war with Tennessee’.” The irony is that activities in Tennessee would lead to the first atomic bomb used in warfare that was detonated over Hiroshima in 1945.

The book describes how John Hendrix was a devoutly religious person who lived in Eastern Tennessee at the turn of the Twentieth Century and described visions that caused people to laugh. He described a railroad that had yet to be built but was eventually built. However, that isn’t the most remarkable vision described by the “Prophet.” He described visions he had during a forty day self-imposed isolation in the woods. He emerged from his isolation to tell neighbors the valley, “…some day will be filled with great buildings and factories and they will help toward winning the greatest war that ever will be…Big engines will dig big ditches and thousands of people will be running to and fro. They will be building things and there will be great noise and confusion and the earth will shake…I’ve seen it. It’s coming.”

Many of the neighbors of Hendrix undoubtedly considered him to be hopelessly delusional, or perhaps they just passed him off as an interesting eccentric. There is no doubt his visions, perhaps by sheer luck or by actual prophesy, accurately predicted the building of massive Manhattan Project installations in Eastern Tennessee. I find the prediction that, “…the earth will shake” to be the most compelling. The detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 indeed caused the earth to shake along with other effects that killed or injured tens of thousands of people in that Japanese city. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did indeed, as prophesized by Mr. Hendrix, “…help toward winning the greatest war that ever will be…” Continue reading

Chew the Fat

There is no argument that the expression refers to casual, idle conversation, but there are several disputed sources of its origin. Wikipedia observes that there is no evidence that it came from the often sited reference of sailors chewing salt-hardened fat or Native Americans chewing animal hides in their spare time. Ditto for Inuit chewing whale blubber. The actual origin is attributed to soldiers in the British Army in India who chewed on the cloth soaked in animal fat that contained the powder and ball for loading their muskets. They chewed on the cartridges “…to pass the time and reduce nerves, and in some cases to stave off cravings for chewing tobacco.”   It was first referenced in 1885 in a book by J. Brunlees Patterson titled Life in the Ranks of the British Army in India.

Death Sentence in Colorado

I was baffled when the man who murdered twelve innocent people and wounded another seventy while they were viewing a movie in Colorado was not sentenced to death. I must say I commend the Denver Post and Jordan Steffen for publishing an article that attempts to explain the reasoning by at least one juror about the eventual life sentence. My reaction to the verdict had been that someone, or several, must have lied during jury selection that they could find for the death sentence when they secretly were not willing to do that. The Denver Post article provides some insight into the eventual outcome. My opinion is that the shooter clearly should have been sentenced to death, but reading the article made me more sympathetic to those who did not agree.

The article clearly describes the emotional impact of the trial on the jurors, or at least the impact on one who decided she could not vote for the death penalty. “She still cries when she thinks of the 12 people she never met. At night she imagines the horrors she only heard about…The gunman did not deserve a life sentence, but he also didn’t deserve to die.” I was confused when I read that last sentence, but eventually came to understand that the juror believed a life sentence was not enough punishment, but that the death sentence was too much punishment. I admit I don’t know what would be a “middle ground punishment,” but the juror needed whatever that might have been. The juror decided to speak to the press because reports indicated that a single juror spared the shooter’s life when there were three who could not agree with the death sentence. Continue reading

Hiroshima

Hiroshima book coverI’ve been told this book by John Hershey is the most famous of the many books describing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. My first reaction was to be astonished that it was so small. I won’t be so foolish to dismiss the importance of a book that has over 400 Amazon reviews with an average of more than 4 out of five “stars,” but I expected more. Perhaps I’ve read too many books that describe the horrific effects of a nuclear weapon detonation over a city. My purpose for finally reading it was to look for new information for the book I’m writing that has the working title of “Nuclear Deterrence: An Early History of The Rocky Flats Plant.” That history obviously includes the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Any history of the impact of nuclear weapons on deterrence would obviously be deficient without a discussion of the first use of nuclear weapons in war.

The book describes the situations of six residents of Hiroshima when the nuclear bomb was detonated over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The six are described as a clerk who was chatting with a coworker, a physician who had sat down to read a newspaper, a tailor’s widow who was watching a neighbor, a German priest who was reading a magazine, a surgeon who was carrying a blood sample to a laboratory, and a Methodist pastor who was unloading a cart of clothes. The first observation is that they all had, for one reason or another, turned their heads away from the location of the detonation or were a few feet beyond a window that faced the detonation. Those small accidents of history saved all of them from having their eyes destroyed. There is a description of how a contingent of Japanese soldiers was outside and all had looked up to see the single B-29 when the detonation occurred. All of them had their “eyes melted.” Continue reading