Let's have our cake and eat it too

Whenever a business does something that is inconvenient for its customers or employees, the public seems to believe there is no other reason for it rather than greed and/or general malice, and politicians seem to share that belief. The new bill imposing high fines on airlines that keep passengers waiting on the tarmac for more than three hours is evidence of this fact. Apparently, the bill writers believe that the airlines do this sort of thing just to be mean to passengers.

Whenever something happens that causes lines to form on the runway, no one really knows beforehand exactly how long it would take for a taxiing aircraft to take off. The reason that overly long tarmac waits have been happening is because airlines would risk keeping some flights on the runway in the hopes that they could take off in some reasonable amount of time, and sometimes the risk would't pay off and the aircraft would be stranded on the runway for a time long enough to warrant cancelling the flight. Imposing prohibitively high fines ($27,000 per passenger) for taking those risks will mean that, when things get crowded, airlines will simply cancel more flights. Because it doesn't look like overall air traffic will get less intense any time soon, we'll see much more cancellations happening whenever weather gets bad. And then, perhaps, politicians will start talking about the need for legislation forbidding airlines to cancel flights.

It's also astonishing that one of the most important culprit of the air traffic congestion is not facing any outrage or negative publicity. That culprit is the FAA: the government. One of the biggest reasons that air traffic is so overcrowded is the fact that the FAA uses an ancient radar system: it's over 40 years old and cannot possibly deal with current air traffic volumes. But no, it's all the fault of the greedy airlines who keep you waiting on the tarmac just because they can.

Graphing the entire Western philosophy in two dimensions

(Click to enlarge.)

An amusing case of hindsight bias

Hindsight bias is a propensity to see events that happened as much more predictable that they could possibly have been before they had actually happened. Here's an example from ancient history: team Romania during 1998 soccer world cup in France. After winning their group in the first round stage of the competition, and before their first knock-out game with Croatia, the entire Romanian team dyed their hair yellow (see picture below).

The team then proceeded to lose the game 0-1 which ended the tournament for them. I remember reading tons of articles in sports press at that time saying that everyone should have seen Romania's loss coming because, since Romanians were paying so much attention to unimportant things such as dying their hair yellow it was obvious that they weren't focused enough on soccer.

Does anyone have any doubt that, if Romania happened to win that game and advance, those very same journalists would afterwards be writing about how everyone should have seen Romania's win coming because a vivid display of unity such as everyone dying their hair yellow was a strong indicator of how focused and dedicated their team really was?

On who's protectionist, who's racist, and who's just plain dumb

Not long ago in American history accidents of birth were considered legitimate grounds for employment discrimination. Political platforms contained phrases like: "Federal contracts, whenever possible, should be performed by white workers." Politicians demanded tax incentives to reward firms for hiring whites instead of blacks or showing other kinds of favoritism. Those same politicians endorsed "Right to Know" legislation to alert consumers when products were produced by the "wrong" kind of workers. They embraced slogans like "Buy white!"

When I say this kind of thing was commonplace "not long ago," I really mean not long ago. Except for one minor and morally insignificant difference, I got all of the above from John Kerry's Web site. The only change I made is this: Where Kerry said "American," I substituted "white."

(...)

I hold this truth to be self-evident: It is just plain ugly to care more about total strangers in Detroit than about total strangers in Juarez. Of course we care most about the people closest to us-our families more than our friends and our friends more than our acquaintances. But once you start talking about total strangers, they all ought to be on pretty much the same footing.

This is economist Steven Landsburg's argument from his great book More Sex Is Safer Sex. I happen to agree with it; but, agree with it or not, I don't think it's all that hard to understand. Apparently it is, however, if you're John Gibson of the Fox News Network. Here, via Landsburg's blog, is a clip showing an interview that Gibson had with him about this very argument. It is an absolutely breathtaking display of stupidity on part of the interviewer. Now I know it isn't exactly news to say John Gibson is an idiot, but just listen:

First, Gibson says something to the effect that the Detroit workers whose jobs he cares about aren't all white, they're also black and Hispanic--and thinks this is a counterargument to what Landsburg is saying. In other words, Gibson reveals on national television that he doesn't understand the concept of an analogy: he simply cannot comprehend that statements "Protectionism is racism" and "Protectionism is just like racism" actually mean different things. (He also suggests that the difference between those statements is insignificant. This again clearly indicates that he doesn't understand it; if he did, he couldn't possibly think it was insignificant. Suppose Gibson were presented with the following two statements: "John Gibson slept with John Gibson's wife" and "A man just like John Gibson slept with John Gibson's wife." Would he think those were different? Would he think the difference was an important one?)

Then, when Landsburg asks him to clarify the moral difference between discriminating based on race versus discriminating based on nationality, Gibson is unable to answer, and says he's not answering because the question "doesn't deserve an answer."

Rewind and listen to this phrase again. It doesn't deserve an answer. Gibson seems to honestly believe that "because I say so" is a legitimate argument in a discussion.

Now you may say that Landsburg holds his belief that it's equally ugly to discriminate based on nationality as it is based on race as "self-evident," so he's really no better than Gibson here: he doesn't have a supporting argument, either. But you'd be wrong; the difference is that Gibson is making an existential statement. Gibson is of course entitled to think it's self-evident that nationality and race are morally different categories; but if that's the case, he is still required to be able to explain exactly what he thinks that difference is. Not only is he unable to do so; he seems to be unaware that it's even necessary.

I am going to make an analogy now, so if you happen to be John Gibson, you should probably stop reading now. Suppose I tell you that I hold it as self-evident that there is no such thing as elephants. If you think otherwise, you won't be proving me wrong by saying "Well, I think it's self-evident that there is." You'd be proving me wrong by taking me to the Bronx Zoo and showing me an elephant.

To sum it up, I am fairly sure that I've talked to six year olds who could argue better than this guy.

If you wish to depress yourself further, read Landsburg's post in its entirety, especially emails that he got from some Fox viewers after that interview. What's especially amusing to me about those is how often Landsburg is called a liberal (meant as an insult). Anyone who knows his political writing knows that Landsburg is actually very far from being a liberal. To people writing those emails the thought that someone may oppose trade protectionism and not be a liberal seems an impossibility. Why? Because, since protectionism is a conservative value and liberals oppose conservatives, then if you're against protectionism you must be a liberal... or something. I don't know; you tell me.

An absolutely incredible fact

That makes you realize just how much life expectancy has exploded in recent days:

Of all the people in human history who ever reached the age of 65, half are alive now.

More such facts here. Hat tip to Tyler Cowen.

Income per capita level at which dogs get leashed

As countries move from low to higher income per capita levels, people who live there start leashing their dogs. This happens at GDP per capita levels that are surprisingly similar across societies. The cutoff seems to be about $10,000. Below that, almost all dogs run around free. If it's much lower than that, they're starving, too; if it's just below, they look well-fed--but still do not seem to belong to anyone. When income exceeds ten grand per (human) head, all those stray dogs suddenly get leashed.

One of the great mysteries for social science to tackle.