Showing posts with label choice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choice. Show all posts
Monday, 5 August 2024
Saturday, 15 July 2023
A Level Economics 4: Production Possibility Frontier
Consider an economy that produces both cars and bicycles, and it is currently operating at point A on its PPF curve, producing 100 cars and 200 bicycles. Explain the difference between a movement along the PPF and a shift in the PPF using this scenario. Additionally, discuss the implications of these changes on the economy's production possibilities.
A movement along the PPF refers to a change in production quantity of one good relative to another caused by reallocating resources within the existing production capabilities. On the other hand, a shift in the PPF represents a change in the overall production capabilities of the economy, resulting from factors such as technological advancements, changes in resources, or improvements in productivity.
In the given scenario, let's explore the implications of both movements along the PPF and shifts in the PPF:
Movement along the PPF: Suppose the economy decides to produce 150 cars and reduces bicycle production to 150. This movement along the PPF curve signifies a reallocation of resources from bicycles to cars, leading to a change in the production quantities of both goods. This movement does not expand or contract the overall production possibilities of the economy but reflects a choice to produce more cars at the expense of fewer bicycles.
Shift in the PPF: Now, imagine that the economy experiences a technological advancement in automobile manufacturing, leading to increased efficiency and productivity. As a result, the PPF curve shifts outward, indicating an expansion in production possibilities. The new curve would allow the economy to produce more cars and bicycles than before, reflecting an increase in overall production capabilities. For instance, the economy could now produce 120 cars and 250 bicycles at point A on the new PPF curve.
The implications of these changes on the economy's production possibilities are as follows:
Movement along the PPF: This decision involves a trade-off between cars and bicycles within the existing production capabilities. Producing more of one good means producing less of the other. It demonstrates the concept of opportunity cost, as the economy sacrifices the production of bicycles to increase car production (or vice versa).
Shift in the PPF: A shift in the PPF curve indicates a change in the economy's ability to produce both goods. It represents economic growth and expanded production possibilities. With the outward shift, the economy can produce more cars and bicycles than before, leading to increased consumption and potential economic benefits.
In summary, a movement along the PPF reflects a reallocation of resources between goods within the existing production capabilities, while a shift in the PPF represents a change in the overall production possibilities of an economy. Both movements along and shifts in the PPF have implications for production quantities, trade-offs, opportunity costs, and the economy's capacity to produce goods and services.
Friday, 14 July 2023
A Level Economics 3: Production Possibility Frontier
Production Possibility Frontier (PPF) is a graphical representation that shows the maximum combination of goods or services that an economy can produce with its given resources and technology within a specific time frame. It illustrates the concept of choice, opportunity cost, economic growth, and efficiency. Let's explore each of these connections with examples:
Choice: The PPF demonstrates the concept of choice by showing different possible production combinations. It represents the trade-offs that an economy must make when allocating its resources. For example, consider an economy that can produce either cars or computers. The PPF would display various points along the curve, indicating different combinations of car and computer production. The economy must decide how many cars and computers to produce, making a choice between the two.
Opportunity Cost: The PPF highlights opportunity cost, which refers to the value of the next best alternative foregone when making a choice. As an economy moves along the PPF curve, producing more of one good requires sacrificing the production of another. The slope of the PPF represents the opportunity cost. For instance, if an economy decides to produce more cars, it must decrease computer production. The opportunity cost is the lost output of computers.
Short- and Long-term Economic Growth: The PPF relates to both short-term and long-term economic growth. In the short term, if an economy is already operating at its maximum production capacity (on the PPF curve), it can only increase the production of one good by reducing the production of another. However, in the long term, economic growth can shift the entire PPF curve outward, indicating an expansion of the economy's production capacity. This growth can result from technological advancements, increases in resources, or improvements in productivity.
Efficiency: The PPF also depicts efficiency. Points on the PPF curve represent productive efficiency, meaning that resources are fully utilized to achieve the maximum possible production combination. Any point inside the curve indicates inefficiency, as resources are underutilized. Conversely, points outside the curve are unattainable given the current resources and technology.
Example: Let's imagine an economy with limited resources that can produce either wheat or steel. The PPF curve would display different combinations of wheat and steel production possibilities. If the economy is operating on the PPF curve, it might produce 100 tons of wheat and 50 tons of steel. To produce more steel, it would have to sacrifice some wheat production due to resource constraints. This trade-off reflects the opportunity cost. If the economy improves its technology or acquires more resources, the PPF curve can shift outward, enabling higher levels of wheat and steel production.
In summary, the PPF illustrates the choices an economy faces, the concept of opportunity cost, the potential for short- and long-term economic growth, and the importance of efficiency in resource allocation. It provides a visual representation of the trade-offs and constraints involved in production decisions.
A Level Economics 2: Scarcity, Choice and Opportunity Cost
Why is it necessary for all economies to make decisions regarding what, how, and for whom to produce, and what is the distinction between economic goods and free goods?
It is necessary for all economies to make decisions about what, how, and for whom to produce because resources are limited, but people's wants and needs are unlimited. Let's break down each aspect:
What to produce: Every economy needs to decide what goods and services to produce based on the preferences and demands of its population. Different societies have different priorities and desires. For example, a country with a large agricultural sector may prioritize producing crops and livestock, while a country with a strong manufacturing industry may focus on producing automobiles and machinery.
How to produce: Economies also need to determine how to produce goods and services efficiently. This involves making choices about which production methods, technologies, and resources to use. For instance, a company may decide to adopt automated machinery to increase productivity, while another may choose to rely on human labor-intensive processes.
For whom to produce: Another crucial decision is determining who will benefit from the produced goods and services. Resources are limited, and not everyone can have everything they want. Societies must decide how to distribute the available resources among their population. This may involve considering factors such as income levels, needs, or specific social policies.
Now, let's understand the distinction between economic goods and free goods:
Economic goods: These are goods that are limited in supply and have value in the market. They are produced through the use of scarce resources and require efforts to obtain them. Examples include food, clothing, cars, smartphones, and furniture. Economic goods often involve a cost or price because they are scarce, and people have to make choices to acquire them.
Free goods: Free goods are those that are abundantly available and do not have a price attached to them. They are not scarce and can be obtained without any direct cost. Examples of free goods are air, sunlight, and natural resources like wind and sea water. Since these goods are not limited in quantity, they do not require economic decision-making for their allocation.
Understanding the distinction between economic goods and free goods helps us recognize that not everything we want or need is freely available. Economic goods require decisions and trade-offs due to their scarcity, whereas free goods are accessible to all without a price or limitation.
In summary, all economies need to make decisions about what, how, and for whom to produce due to the scarcity of resources. Economic goods, which are limited and have value, require economic decision-making, while free goods, which are abundant and freely available, do not.
A Level Economics 1: Scarcity, Choice, and Opportunity Cost:
Scarcity: Scarcity refers to the limited availability of resources compared to the unlimited wants and needs of individuals, society, and the government. It is a fundamental concept in economics that recognizes that resources are finite, and there is not enough to satisfy all desires fully. Scarcity exists because our resources, such as time, money, natural resources, and labor, are limited. This scarcity creates the need to make choices and trade-offs.
Example: Imagine a small island with a limited amount of fertile land for farming. The islanders want to grow both wheat and corn, but the available land is only enough to produce one crop efficiently. The scarcity of land forces them to choose between growing wheat or corn.
Choice: Choice is the process of selecting one option from the available alternatives. It arises due to scarcity, as individuals, society, and the government must make decisions about how to allocate limited resources to satisfy their needs and wants. Choices involve evaluating and comparing the benefits and costs of different options.
Example: Suppose an individual has $100 and must decide between buying a new video game or saving the money for a vacation. They have to weigh the enjoyment they would get from the video game against the satisfaction of going on a vacation and choose the option that they value more.
Opportunity Cost: Opportunity cost is the value of the next best alternative that must be given up when making a choice. It represents the benefits or opportunities foregone by choosing one option over another. Whenever a choice is made, the opportunity cost is the value of the alternative that could have been chosen but wasn't.
Example: Let's say a student has a free evening and can either spend it studying or watching a movie with friends. If the student chooses to watch the movie, the opportunity cost is the time they could have spent studying and potentially improving their grades.
In summary, scarcity refers to the limited availability of resources, choice is the process of selecting among alternatives, and opportunity cost represents the value of the best alternative forgone. These concepts apply to individuals, society, and the government when they need to make decisions about resource allocation in the face of scarcity. Understanding these concepts helps in making informed choices and understanding the trade-offs involved in decision-making.
Monday, 8 May 2023
Negotiation in the age of the dual-career couple
Stefan Stern in The FT
To mark the recent centenary of the Harvard Business Review, editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius dipped into the archive and found, among other things, an article from 1956 titled “Successful Wives of Successful Executives”.
“It is the task of the wife to co-operate in working towards the goals set by her husband,” the article stated. “This means accepting — or perhaps encouraging — the business trips, the long hours at the office, and the household moves dictated by his business career.”
It got worse. The husband, the piece continued, “may meet someone who conforms more closely to the new social standards he has acquired while moving socially upward; he may discard his wife either by taking a new wife or by concentrating all his attention on his business.” Yuk.
The rise of the dual-career couple has transformed the politics of marriage since the 1950s but some tensions remain. A recently published book declares: “The most important career decision you’ll make is about whom to marry and what kind of relationship you will have.”
The words appear in “Money and Love: an Intelligent Road Map for Life’s Biggest Decisions”, written by Myra Strober, professor emerita at Stanford University, and Abby Davisson, a former executive at retailer Gap, and now a consultant.
The book takes a both/and rather than an either/or approach to the issues surrounding professional and domestic life. The authors reject an artificial notion of “balance”. Instead there are necessary, hard-headed but human trade-offs. “If you want lives that are not just two individuals pursuing career aspirations separately, then it takes a lot of negotiation and a lot of discussion, and compromise,” Davisson explained when I met the authors in London.
Strober led a course called “work and family” at Stanford’s graduate school of business (SGSB) for several decades until her retirement in 2018. She was one of the first female faculty members there on her appointment in the early 1970s.
“If I had proposed my course at the business school would be called ‘money and love’ instead of ‘work and family’ I would have had some pushback,” she told me. But wasn’t this in California in the days following the “summer of love”? “The business school was not buying that then either!” she noted.
Perhaps inevitably, in a book written by a business school professor and graduate, there is a checklist or framework to help the reader make better life decisions. These are the five Cs: to clarify what is important; to communicate effectively with a partner (or potential partner); to consider a broad range of choices, avoiding crude either/or decisions; to check-in with a sounding board of friends and family; and to explore the likely short-term and long-term consequences of any big decisions.
Actions will count as much as the thought processes that precede them.
Davisson said: “The mental models that we have, particularly from our parents, are incredibly powerful.” If you don’t see what an equal partnership looks like in your home, she added, it might be hard to imagine one.
“I have two boys,” she said, “and they see my husband as the head chef. They think it’s funny when I cook . . . They will have this model of us sharing the workload. All the home responsibilities do not fall on one person.”
During the Covid pandemic, employees, parents and carers had their roles blended as they worked from home and tried to keep family life going. For some that has been an opportunity to more equally share the domestic workload, for others it has made the mythical work/life balance harder to achieve.
The authors say more is needed. “We need to invest in excellent childcare,” Strober said. “This is something business leaders need to be thinking about.” Davisson added: “We see birth rates falling, people not wanting to fund the cost, and then we wonder why people are not having more children.”
Although Strober’s course was greatly valued by students — with men, incidentally, making up 40 per cent of participants — SGSB chose not to continue it after her retirement.
That risks the business school reverting to a too narrow focus on money and how to make it — without thinking about the human factor.
Strober is all too familiar with that split. She cites the 18th-century philosopher Adam Smith’s two books: The Wealth of Nations, which covers free markets and the workings of the economy; and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which focuses on social cohesion and relationships.
“Most people only know about The Wealth of Nations,” said Strober. “It’s too bad that he separated out those two books. Had he blended the discussion of wealth with the discussion of altruism we might not be quite so separated on them.”
We need both money and love. “Having money isn’t worth it unless you also have love,” Davisson said. And Strober’s final piece of advice? “The trick is to find someone to be your life partner who has the same philosophy as you do.”
To mark the recent centenary of the Harvard Business Review, editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius dipped into the archive and found, among other things, an article from 1956 titled “Successful Wives of Successful Executives”.
“It is the task of the wife to co-operate in working towards the goals set by her husband,” the article stated. “This means accepting — or perhaps encouraging — the business trips, the long hours at the office, and the household moves dictated by his business career.”
It got worse. The husband, the piece continued, “may meet someone who conforms more closely to the new social standards he has acquired while moving socially upward; he may discard his wife either by taking a new wife or by concentrating all his attention on his business.” Yuk.
The rise of the dual-career couple has transformed the politics of marriage since the 1950s but some tensions remain. A recently published book declares: “The most important career decision you’ll make is about whom to marry and what kind of relationship you will have.”
The words appear in “Money and Love: an Intelligent Road Map for Life’s Biggest Decisions”, written by Myra Strober, professor emerita at Stanford University, and Abby Davisson, a former executive at retailer Gap, and now a consultant.
The book takes a both/and rather than an either/or approach to the issues surrounding professional and domestic life. The authors reject an artificial notion of “balance”. Instead there are necessary, hard-headed but human trade-offs. “If you want lives that are not just two individuals pursuing career aspirations separately, then it takes a lot of negotiation and a lot of discussion, and compromise,” Davisson explained when I met the authors in London.
Strober led a course called “work and family” at Stanford’s graduate school of business (SGSB) for several decades until her retirement in 2018. She was one of the first female faculty members there on her appointment in the early 1970s.
“If I had proposed my course at the business school would be called ‘money and love’ instead of ‘work and family’ I would have had some pushback,” she told me. But wasn’t this in California in the days following the “summer of love”? “The business school was not buying that then either!” she noted.
Perhaps inevitably, in a book written by a business school professor and graduate, there is a checklist or framework to help the reader make better life decisions. These are the five Cs: to clarify what is important; to communicate effectively with a partner (or potential partner); to consider a broad range of choices, avoiding crude either/or decisions; to check-in with a sounding board of friends and family; and to explore the likely short-term and long-term consequences of any big decisions.
Actions will count as much as the thought processes that precede them.
Davisson said: “The mental models that we have, particularly from our parents, are incredibly powerful.” If you don’t see what an equal partnership looks like in your home, she added, it might be hard to imagine one.
“I have two boys,” she said, “and they see my husband as the head chef. They think it’s funny when I cook . . . They will have this model of us sharing the workload. All the home responsibilities do not fall on one person.”
During the Covid pandemic, employees, parents and carers had their roles blended as they worked from home and tried to keep family life going. For some that has been an opportunity to more equally share the domestic workload, for others it has made the mythical work/life balance harder to achieve.
The authors say more is needed. “We need to invest in excellent childcare,” Strober said. “This is something business leaders need to be thinking about.” Davisson added: “We see birth rates falling, people not wanting to fund the cost, and then we wonder why people are not having more children.”
Although Strober’s course was greatly valued by students — with men, incidentally, making up 40 per cent of participants — SGSB chose not to continue it after her retirement.
That risks the business school reverting to a too narrow focus on money and how to make it — without thinking about the human factor.
Strober is all too familiar with that split. She cites the 18th-century philosopher Adam Smith’s two books: The Wealth of Nations, which covers free markets and the workings of the economy; and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which focuses on social cohesion and relationships.
“Most people only know about The Wealth of Nations,” said Strober. “It’s too bad that he separated out those two books. Had he blended the discussion of wealth with the discussion of altruism we might not be quite so separated on them.”
We need both money and love. “Having money isn’t worth it unless you also have love,” Davisson said. And Strober’s final piece of advice? “The trick is to find someone to be your life partner who has the same philosophy as you do.”
Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Every Decision is a Bet : Life is poker not chess - 2
Abridged and adapted from Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary defines ‘bet’ as ‘a choice made by thinking about what will probably happen’. ‘To risk losing (something) when you try to do or achieve something’ and ‘to make decisions that are based on the belief that something will happen or is true’.
These definitions often overlooked the border aspects of betting: choice, probability, risk, decision, belief. By this definition betting doesn’t have to take place only in a casino or against somebody else.
We routinely decide among alternatives, put resources at risk, assess the likelihood of different outcomes and consider what it is that we value. Every decision commits us to some course of action that, by definition, eliminates acting on other alternatives. All such decisions are bets. Not placing a bet on something is, itself a bet.
Choosing to go to the movies means that we are choosing to not do all other things with our time. If we accept a job offer, we are also choosing to foreclose all other alternatives. There is always an opportunity cost in choosing one path over others. This is betting in action.
The betting elements of decisions - choice, probability, risk etc. are more obvious in some situations than others. Investments are clearly bets. A decision about a stock (buy, don’t buy, sell, hold..) involves a choice about the best use of our financial resources.
We don’t think of our parenting choices as bets but they are. We want our children to be happy, productive adults when we send them out into the world. Whenever we make a parenting choice (about discipline, nutrition, parenting philosophy, where to live etc.), we are betting that our choice will achieve the future we want for our children.
Job and relocation decisions are bets. Sales negotiations and contracts are bets. Buying a house is a bet. Ordering the chicken instead of vegetables is a bet. Everything is a bet.
Most bets are bets against ourselves
In most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. We are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing. Whenever we make a choice we are betting on a potential future. We are betting that the future version of us that results from the decisions we make will be better off. At stake in a decision is that the return to us (measured in money, time, happiness, health or whatever we value) will be greater than what we are giving up by betting against the other alternative future versions of us.
But, how can we be sure that we are choosing the alternative that is best for us? What if another alternative would bring us more happiness, satisfaction or money? The answer, of course, is we can’t be sure. Things outside our control (luck) can influence the result. The futures we imagine are merely possible. They haven’t happened yet. We can only make our best guess, given what we know and don’t know, at what the future will look like. When we decide, we are betting whatever we value on one set of possible and uncertain futures. That is where the risk is.
Poker players live in a world where that risk is made explicit. They can get comfortable with uncertainty because they put it up front in their decisions. Ignoring the risk and uncertainty in every decision might make us feel better in the short run, but the cost to the quality of our decision making can be immense. If we can find ways to be more comfortable with uncertainty, we can see the world more accurately and be better for it.
Wednesday, 13 April 2022
Friday, 18 February 2022
Friday, 4 February 2022
Tuesday, 14 December 2021
Tuesday, 6 April 2021
On Gujarat's Love Jihad Bill
Mr. Mustafa raises a valid point about a woman's right (Hindu in this case) to choose who she wishes to cohabit with in a marriage. And therefore it follows that no one else should be allowed to influence this absolute right of Hindu women. However, this claim can be true only in the case of independent women who can carry on despite the failure of their choice. Women who have exercised their absolute right in choice of their mate should not expect their families (whose opinion they may have ignored) to rally around and provide for them when their choices fail them.
Please write in your comments on this matter.
Wednesday, 27 January 2021
Covid lies cost lives – we have a duty to clamp down on them
George Monbiot in The Guardian
Why do we value lies more than lives? We know that certain falsehoods kill people. Some of those who believe such claims as “coronavirus doesn’t exist”, “it’s not the virus that makes people ill but 5G”, or “vaccines are used to inject us with microchips” fail to take precautions or refuse to be vaccinated, then contract and spread the virus. Yet we allow these lies to proliferate.
We have a right to speak freely. We also have a right to life. When malicious disinformation – claims that are known to be both false and dangerous – can spread without restraint, these two values collide head-on. One of them must give way, and the one we have chosen to sacrifice is human life. We treat free speech as sacred, but life as negotiable. When governments fail to ban outright lies that endanger people’s lives, I believe they make the wrong choice.
Any control by governments of what we may say is dangerous, especially when the government, like ours, has authoritarian tendencies. But the absence of control is also dangerous. In theory, we recognise that there are necessary limits to free speech: almost everyone agrees that we should not be free to shout “fire!” in a crowded theatre, because people are likely to be trampled to death. Well, people are being trampled to death by these lies. Surely the line has been crossed?
Those who demand absolute freedom of speech often talk about “the marketplace of ideas”. But in a marketplace, you are forbidden to make false claims about your product. You cannot pass one thing off as another. You cannot sell shares on a false prospectus. You are legally prohibited from making money by lying to your customers. In other words, in the marketplace there are limits to free speech. So where, in the marketplace of ideas, are the trading standards? Who regulates the weights and measures? Who checks the prospectus? We protect money from lies more carefully than we protect human life.
I believe that spreading only the most dangerous falsehoods, like those mentioned in the first paragraph, should be prohibited. A possible template is the Cancer Act, which bans people from advertising cures or treatments for cancer. A ban on the worst Covid lies should be time-limited, running for perhaps six months. I would like to see an expert committee, similar to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), identifying claims that present a genuine danger to life and proposing their temporary prohibition to parliament.
While this measure would apply only to the most extreme cases, we should be far more alert to the dangers of misinformation in general. Even though it states that the pundits it names are not deliberately spreading false information, the new Anti-Virus site www.covidfaq.co might help to tip the balance against people such as Allison Pearson, Peter Hitchens and Sunetra Gupta, who have made such public headway with their misleading claims about the pandemic.
But how did these claims become so prominent? They achieved traction only because they were given a massive platform in the media, particularly in the Telegraph, the Mail and – above all – the house journal of unscientific gibberish, the Spectator. Their most influential outlet is the BBC. The BBC has an unerring instinct for misjudging where debate about a matter of science lies. It thrills to the sound of noisy, ill-informed contrarians. As the conservationist Stephen Barlow argues, science denial is destroying our societies and the survival of life on Earth. Yet it is treated by the media as a form of entertainment. The bigger the idiot, the greater the airtime.
Interestingly, all but one of the journalists mentioned on the Anti-Virus site also have a long track record of downplaying and, in some cases, denying, climate breakdown. Peter Hitchens, for example, has dismissed not only human-made global heating, but the greenhouse effect itself. Today, climate denial has mostly dissipated in this country, perhaps because the BBC has at last stopped treating climate change as a matter of controversy, and Channel 4 no longer makes films claiming that climate science is a scam. The broadcasters kept this disinformation alive, just as the BBC, still providing a platform for misleading claims this month, sustains falsehoods about the pandemic.
Ironies abound, however. One of the founders of the admirable Anti-Virus site is Sam Bowman, a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute (ASI). This is an opaquely funded lobby group with a long history of misleading claims about science that often seem to align with its ideology or the interests of its funders. For example, it has downplayed the dangers of tobacco smoke, and argued against smoking bans in pubs and plain packaging for cigarettes. In 2013, the Observer revealed that it had been taking money from tobacco companies. Bowman himself, echoing arguments made by the tobacco industry, has called for the “lifting [of] all EU-wide regulations on cigarette packaging” on the grounds of “civil liberties”. He has also railed against government funding for public health messages about the dangers of smoking.
Some of the ASI’s past claims about climate science – such as statements that the planet is “failing to warm” and that climate science is becoming “completely and utterly discredited” – are as idiotic as the claims about the pandemic that Bowman rightly exposes. The ASI’s Neoliberal Manifesto, published in 2019, maintains, among other howlers, that “fewer people are malnourished than ever before”. In reality, malnutrition has been rising since 2014. If Bowman is serious about being a defender of science, perhaps he could call out some of the falsehoods spread by his own organisation.
Lobby groups funded by plutocrats and corporations are responsible for much of the misinformation that saturates public life. The launch of the Great Barrington Declaration, for example, that champions herd immunity through mass infection with the help of discredited claims, was hosted – physically and online – by the American Institute for Economic Research. This institute has received money from the Charles Koch Foundation, and takes a wide range of anti-environmental positions.
It’s not surprising that we have an inveterate liar as prime minister: this government has emerged from a culture of rightwing misinformation, weaponised by thinktanks and lobby groups. False claims are big business: rich people and organisations will pay handsomely for others to spread them. Some of those whom the BBC used to “balance” climate scientists in its debates were professional liars paid by fossil-fuel companies.
Over the past 30 years, I have watched this business model spread like a virus through public life. Perhaps it is futile to call for a government of liars to regulate lies. But while conspiracy theorists make a killing from their false claims, we should at least name the standards that a good society would set, even if we can’t trust the current government to uphold them.
Why do we value lies more than lives? We know that certain falsehoods kill people. Some of those who believe such claims as “coronavirus doesn’t exist”, “it’s not the virus that makes people ill but 5G”, or “vaccines are used to inject us with microchips” fail to take precautions or refuse to be vaccinated, then contract and spread the virus. Yet we allow these lies to proliferate.
We have a right to speak freely. We also have a right to life. When malicious disinformation – claims that are known to be both false and dangerous – can spread without restraint, these two values collide head-on. One of them must give way, and the one we have chosen to sacrifice is human life. We treat free speech as sacred, but life as negotiable. When governments fail to ban outright lies that endanger people’s lives, I believe they make the wrong choice.
Any control by governments of what we may say is dangerous, especially when the government, like ours, has authoritarian tendencies. But the absence of control is also dangerous. In theory, we recognise that there are necessary limits to free speech: almost everyone agrees that we should not be free to shout “fire!” in a crowded theatre, because people are likely to be trampled to death. Well, people are being trampled to death by these lies. Surely the line has been crossed?
Those who demand absolute freedom of speech often talk about “the marketplace of ideas”. But in a marketplace, you are forbidden to make false claims about your product. You cannot pass one thing off as another. You cannot sell shares on a false prospectus. You are legally prohibited from making money by lying to your customers. In other words, in the marketplace there are limits to free speech. So where, in the marketplace of ideas, are the trading standards? Who regulates the weights and measures? Who checks the prospectus? We protect money from lies more carefully than we protect human life.
I believe that spreading only the most dangerous falsehoods, like those mentioned in the first paragraph, should be prohibited. A possible template is the Cancer Act, which bans people from advertising cures or treatments for cancer. A ban on the worst Covid lies should be time-limited, running for perhaps six months. I would like to see an expert committee, similar to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), identifying claims that present a genuine danger to life and proposing their temporary prohibition to parliament.
While this measure would apply only to the most extreme cases, we should be far more alert to the dangers of misinformation in general. Even though it states that the pundits it names are not deliberately spreading false information, the new Anti-Virus site www.covidfaq.co might help to tip the balance against people such as Allison Pearson, Peter Hitchens and Sunetra Gupta, who have made such public headway with their misleading claims about the pandemic.
But how did these claims become so prominent? They achieved traction only because they were given a massive platform in the media, particularly in the Telegraph, the Mail and – above all – the house journal of unscientific gibberish, the Spectator. Their most influential outlet is the BBC. The BBC has an unerring instinct for misjudging where debate about a matter of science lies. It thrills to the sound of noisy, ill-informed contrarians. As the conservationist Stephen Barlow argues, science denial is destroying our societies and the survival of life on Earth. Yet it is treated by the media as a form of entertainment. The bigger the idiot, the greater the airtime.
Interestingly, all but one of the journalists mentioned on the Anti-Virus site also have a long track record of downplaying and, in some cases, denying, climate breakdown. Peter Hitchens, for example, has dismissed not only human-made global heating, but the greenhouse effect itself. Today, climate denial has mostly dissipated in this country, perhaps because the BBC has at last stopped treating climate change as a matter of controversy, and Channel 4 no longer makes films claiming that climate science is a scam. The broadcasters kept this disinformation alive, just as the BBC, still providing a platform for misleading claims this month, sustains falsehoods about the pandemic.
Ironies abound, however. One of the founders of the admirable Anti-Virus site is Sam Bowman, a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute (ASI). This is an opaquely funded lobby group with a long history of misleading claims about science that often seem to align with its ideology or the interests of its funders. For example, it has downplayed the dangers of tobacco smoke, and argued against smoking bans in pubs and plain packaging for cigarettes. In 2013, the Observer revealed that it had been taking money from tobacco companies. Bowman himself, echoing arguments made by the tobacco industry, has called for the “lifting [of] all EU-wide regulations on cigarette packaging” on the grounds of “civil liberties”. He has also railed against government funding for public health messages about the dangers of smoking.
Some of the ASI’s past claims about climate science – such as statements that the planet is “failing to warm” and that climate science is becoming “completely and utterly discredited” – are as idiotic as the claims about the pandemic that Bowman rightly exposes. The ASI’s Neoliberal Manifesto, published in 2019, maintains, among other howlers, that “fewer people are malnourished than ever before”. In reality, malnutrition has been rising since 2014. If Bowman is serious about being a defender of science, perhaps he could call out some of the falsehoods spread by his own organisation.
Lobby groups funded by plutocrats and corporations are responsible for much of the misinformation that saturates public life. The launch of the Great Barrington Declaration, for example, that champions herd immunity through mass infection with the help of discredited claims, was hosted – physically and online – by the American Institute for Economic Research. This institute has received money from the Charles Koch Foundation, and takes a wide range of anti-environmental positions.
It’s not surprising that we have an inveterate liar as prime minister: this government has emerged from a culture of rightwing misinformation, weaponised by thinktanks and lobby groups. False claims are big business: rich people and organisations will pay handsomely for others to spread them. Some of those whom the BBC used to “balance” climate scientists in its debates were professional liars paid by fossil-fuel companies.
Over the past 30 years, I have watched this business model spread like a virus through public life. Perhaps it is futile to call for a government of liars to regulate lies. But while conspiracy theorists make a killing from their false claims, we should at least name the standards that a good society would set, even if we can’t trust the current government to uphold them.
Monday, 25 November 2019
Do you take hours to make a simple decision? You may have Fobo
Fear of missing out has a more anxious sibling and could stop you going to social events – or buying your Christmas turkey. Here’s what is behind fear of better options explains Coco Khan in The Guardian
Recently, Mike Hall, 48, a management consultant based in Winchester, decided to get ahead with Christmas preparations. “Do I buy the free range bronze turkey for 10-12, or 12-14, even though there are only seven of us for Christmas Day?” he wondered, attempting to tot up all the different variables. “What about leftovers? Should I buy two turkey crowns instead? And which ones?” Such granular decision-making went on and on, until eventually he gave up in exhaustion. He has not yet bought a turkey.
Indecision when the decision is simple, or the options all acceptable, is the defining characteristic of “fear of better options” – or Fobo – a social phenomenon coined by Patrick McGinnis, a US venture capitalist and the man known for coining the term Fomo, or fear of missing out. Fobo can occur everywhere from minor decisions – what to watch on TV, what to eat for dinner – to more significant ones such as whether to take a new job. Whatever the case, a Fobo-afflicted person may find themselves overwhelmed by the possibilities of what might be (some call this “analysis paralysis”) even when no outcome is guaranteed, and when some of those options aren’t even on the table.
A common example may be figuring out what to do on Friday night. Sure, the invitation to hang out with work colleagues is convenient and guaranteed to be enjoyable, but there is another party across town where something even more fun might be happening. Then there’s someone on Tinder who floated Friday night as a possible date, while your flatmates are heading to a restaurant opening.
Someone with Fobo is likely to hold back on commitment, or commit then cancel.
“I bail at the last minute, all the time” says Aoife O’Donaghue, 24, a recent graduate based in Edinburgh. Such dithering can be exhausting for friends and family who depend on someone for a firm commitment, and bring stress to the person themselves.
FacebookTwitterPinterest A Fobo-afflicted person may find themselves overwhelmed by the possibilities of what might be (posed by model). Photograph: Carl Smith/Getty Images/fStop
For O’Donaghue, it’s always the smallest decisions she has the hardest time making. She describes a time at university where she was trying to figure out where to study - the library or a cafe. “I was thinking, ‘Will I work better in one place? Would I like a cup of tea? Will there be enough seats?’” O’Donaghue describes working herself up over this for 15 minutes until she had a stress-induced stomach ache. “I ended up going to the library, and then to the cafe. So it didn’t even really matter” she laughs ruefully.
So what’s going on? McGinnis, who has been researching Fomo and Fobo over several years for his forthcoming book, and for his podcast Fomo Sapiens, argues that Fobo is not necessarily a new human behaviour. “These feelings are biologically part of who we are. I call it the biology of wanting the best. Our ancestors a million years ago were programmed to wait for the best because it meant they were more likely to succeed.”
But the mass introduction of sophisticated technology and the internet has accelerated Fomo and Fobo into a common social behaviour. After all, we are now able to easily compare ourselves with each other (thus producing feelings of Fomo) and overwhelm ourselves with choice (producing Fobo).
“Go on Amazon to buy a pair of white shoelaces and you have in excess of 200 choices, whereas 50 years ago you would go to Woolworths and choose between three,” says McGinnis. “So that’s the context. The other factor – which is more emotional – is that Fobo is driven by narcissism, because when you have Fobo, you’re putting your own interests well before anybody else’s, which leaves all the people around you on hold.”
“Harvard is a place unlike others in terms of the amount of opportunities you have – classes, social events, interviews – at your disposal,” he says. “I came from a simple background – a small town in New England – and when I arrived I found it extremely overwhelming. I wanted to do everything – which is Fomo – but at the same time, I wasn’t willing to say no to anything and just choose one thing, which was Fobo. I would wait until the last minute to see if a better option came along. And I realised that that was a pervasive behaviour at Harvard because of it being a choice-rich environment.”
This is the main difference between Fomo and Fobo. Anyone with a smartphone looking over the often manipulated and unrealistic lives of others on social media might feel Fomo. But Fobo, according to McGinnis, is an issue for the privileged.
“Fobo is an affliction of affluence,” says McGinnis. “To have Fobo you must have options. So the richer you are, the more powerful you are, the more options you have. That’s when you start to feel it.”
McGinnis doesn’t believe that Fobo is restricted to the individual either – large corporations can be affected by it (“a multinational with access to big data can always find a reason to justify not doing something”), and so can countries.
“I have come to believe that the Brexit situation is Fobo. Fobo is the inability to choose between one of many acceptable outcomes. You may not like Brexit but there are plenty of acceptable ways it could be structured, without going to no deal. But any time Mrs May brought a proposal to the Commons, she couldn’t get a vote because all of the MPs were waiting for a slightly better option.”
On the individual level, though, O’Donaghue is not entirely convinced. “I’m a privileged person, compared with other people. But I don’t think the things I’m choosing between are very luxurious. I’m talking about choosing dinner, or what’s on the telly. Maybe my problem is one of overthinking.”
Decision-making is a complex mental procedure involving several of the brain’s executive functions, that is, the key cognitive processes your brain uses to control your behaviour – from planning to managing impulses. People with conditions such as ADHD and autism, where executive functions can be impaired, may find themselves struggling to choose between options.
But is Fobo just an easy-to-swallow euphemism for something more serious or taboo, such as an anxiety disorder?
Nicky Lidbetter, chief executive of the charity Anxiety UK, doesn’t think so. “It is possible for anxiety to be experienced around many different issues, of which a fear of choosing the wrong option in regards to big life decisions may be one,” she says. “Fear of a better option, however, is more likely to be linked to or a trigger for a pre-existing anxiety condition as opposed to being sufficient to warrant being categorised as an anxiety disorder in its own right.”
So for those without pre-existing conditions, what exactly is everyone afraid of? What is the “fear” in Fobo?
McGinnis says it is a “fear of letting go”. “In order to choose something you must let go of another thing and it’s the fear of having to mourn the road untaken. So we would rather not decide at all and keep all of our options open.”
There is some psychological foundation to this. Some psychologists have found that when it comes to decision-making, people can be split into two groups: “maximisers” or “satisficers”. Maximisers are people who make a choice based on maximum benefit later on, while satisficers (a portmanteau of “satisfied” and “sufficed” first coined by the Nobel laureate Herbert Simon in 1956) will make choices based on a modest criteria.
Maximisers, for example, may pay more for a bigger car than they actually need in case they want a bigger one in future, whereas a satisficer is likely to pick the car that is good for now. Maximisers set themselves high standards and are disappointed when they fail to reach them, lingering on what was lost rather than what they have. Both have been the subject of many studies, but one from 2011 conducted by a team led by Joyce Erlingher from Florida State University and published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences aimed to explore whether “maximisers show less commitment to their choices than satisficers in a way that leaves them less satisfied”. That is, are maximisers more likely to be unhappy with their choice, once they finally land on it? Their conclusion: a resounding yes. “Maximisers miss out on the psychological benefits of commitment,” the authors say. “Current research is trying to understand whether they can change. High-level maximisers certainly cause themselves a lot of grief.”
Perhaps then, those with Fobo are simply maximisers facilitated by contemporary technology, or perhaps contemporary technology is turning more of us into maximisers. Or maybe people just don’t really want to do half the things they say they do.
Whatever the case, for McGinnis, correctly identifying this phenomena and giving it a name is crucial in changing these behaviours, which he sees as being “destructive”.
“It’s my view that Fomo isn’t all bad because Fomo can be that little whisper in your ear that we should try something different. If you see your friend starting a business on the side, or you see your friends going on a vacation to Malta and you feel Fomo, that’s a cue to try something else and open up your perspective. So a little Fomo is fine. But Fobo is not good.”
O’Donaghue however, is not so concerned about tackling her Fobo. “I think its an inherent part of my personality,” she says. “People get used to you being like that if you’re good friends.”
Neither is Hall. “It’s part of who I am, I have always been this way” he says. “Last year, it took four attempts and three hours for me to buy a turkey, looking across M&S, Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s. In fact, it got so late, they couldn’t even deliver it by the time I chose one.” But he is confident he will get this year’s turkey soon. He has already decided which one.
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