What is Evil?

My Poised Pen

On Fairness

Secular Sermonette: More effective altruism

My Stream-of-Consciouness, Free Associations on the word, ALONE

If All Workplaces Were Unionized: a thought experiment

Maximally Effective Altruism

Holiday Musings

Utilty: My guiding principle

Everyone has a foundational principle from which everything flows. Mine is utility: what will make the biggest positive impact on me, on my sphere of influence, on the world. My PsychologyToday.com article today expands.

Merit: A now undervalued value?

Not so long ago, it would have seemed absurd to describe merit as “undervalued.” Merit has, for time immemorial, been venerated.

Alas, today, demographic factors sit aside merit in allocating taxpayer and non-profit spending as well as in hiring, promotion, and college admissions.

My PsychologyToday.com article today makes the case for why decision-making based on pure merit, of course, fairly considering people of all races, genders, etc, is ultimately wisest.

Compassionate Conservatism: No, it's not an oxymoron

The term “compassionate conservatism” was one of President Bush’s slogans but as my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer my own version and so take all blame and credit for it.

Utilitarianism: A Philosophy to live by?

 Most of us want to live a life in which we make a difference. To that end, it helps to have a guiding principle, something we keep in mind as we make major life decisions. One worthy principle is utilitarianism.I explore it in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Days of Our Work Lives: An unvarnished look at work today: Part I: David's Saga. Episode 15: Giving Wisely

Days of Our Work Lives

Part I: David's Saga

Episode 15

Giving Wisely

In the previous episode, David and Susan had quite the fireside chat: from whether work-life balance is overrated to whether their mismatched sex drives could be fixed. In the end, they changed the topic to something easier: trying to figure out a wise way to volunteer.

David opened the discussion: "The foundational question is whether it's better to serve the neediest, which is what pulls at your heartstrings, or to serve those with the greatest potential to profit, like when medics on the battlefield triage, allocating their limited resources to the people they're most likely to save."

"But when there are people starving in Africa, can you justify helping gifted kids in America?"

"Actually, yes. Help the gifted and you're more likely to create a ripple effect. The gifted have the most potential to be wise leaders in government, nonprofits, companies. They're the ones with the best chance of curing cancer, of preventing me from getting a third heart attack, or any heart attack."

"I can't ignore the most vulnerable. Do you really think Jesus was misguided when he said, "Whatever you did for one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did for me?"

"Fine. You serve the least among us and I'll serve the most among us and you'll feel good about yourself and I'll have done more to improve humankind."

Susan realized she wasn't going to get anywhere with David, so she switched from strategy to tactics. "I think I should volunteer at a nearby public school that has mainly poor kids."

"You're going to give them singing and piano lessons? That won't do squat to get them out of poverty."

"Well, what if I directed a play there, a musical, maybe something political like Rent or Les Mis after school. Even you've always said that theatre can be transformative."

"True, hearing those lines again and again penetrates. And the teamwork and the poise, and it's so motivating. I've never seen kids work as hard as when working on a play."

"And not just the actors: the set builders, the prop person, even the ushers. Okay, I'm going to try to find a school that will let me do it. I still have a teaching license so maybe some school will."

"I think a principal with half a brain would be thrilled."

"Okay, David, what are you going to do to volunteer?"

"Like I found out at work with the single-payer bill, you can make a big difference by volunteering for some government lobbying group. Government has huge power, especially today."

"True."

"Yeah, but that's my day job. I should do something different. Maybe something local so I can see the benefit, like create a Mentor Match website where adults and gifted kids could sign up to mentor kids."

"Yeah, but is Sage Valley the place on earth with the greatest need, excuse me, 'the place you can make the biggest difference?'"

"Touche."

"How about this? I try to raise say $100,000 from any fat cats I can find and then issue a challenge to the membership of the Society for Neuroscience--that's 46,000 of the world's leading brain scientists. Something like, "The first scientist who can reliably predict IQ from a genome or brain scan would win the $100,000 prize.'"

"Why that?"

Because it's not politically correct to study intelligence so the government, foundations, and biotech companies aren't studying it. The $100,000 prize would incent scientists to study that very important thing."

"Why is it so important?"

"Because if we can understand the biological basis of intelligence, we may be able to develop a cure for mental retardation--a huge percentage of violent felons in prison have an IQ well below average. And that knowledge could also be used to enhance normal intelligence. While intelligence can be used for good and for evil, there's no question that a smarter populus would end up being a net good for humankind."

"Yeah, that's what the Nazis said."

"There's a world of difference between developing a drug that a person or a prospective parent could elect to take to ensure her child had normal intelligence than the Nazis who wanted to sterilize people, kill people, to create a master race."

"You're dreaming."

"After seeing that my just writing a white paper changed health care for every American, I'm in the mood to keep dreaming. You go and direct Rent, I'll go and try to raise some money."

"David, I'm actually enjoying this sort of deeper conversation. We haven't done it in a long time. How about we do it again soon, maybe even tomorrow night? Any idea what you might like to talk about?"

"How about discussing the end of jobs: What will happen as the result of all the jobs that are getting offshored or roboticized?"

"Until tomorrow."

HERE is the next episode.

Four Approaches to the Life Well-Led

Here's an advance look at my next column for the Mensa publication, The Intelligencer.

Four Approaches to the Life Well-Led 

Countless authors have opined on how to live the life well-led but their approaches seem to distill to just four: pursue happiness, serve God, serve society/the universe, and pursue balance. Here are pros and cons of each:

Pursue happiness. Obviously, making choices based on what makes you happy leads to an enjoyable life. And you can define happiness more contributorily than just eating, having sex and watching comedies. Your definition of happiness might, for example, include the contentment that comes from being productive, whether as accounts payable clerk, cancer researcher, a friend, or school volunteer providing (badly needed) enrichment for Mensa-level kids.

A limitation of the pursue-happiness approach to life is that you’re less likely to do worthy but unpleasant tasks, for example, diving into icy waters to save a drowning person or be a Mother Teresa who, to save lives, worked amid Calcutta’s sewage stench, her ankles ever bitten by scorpions. Of course, there are more common examples. I know a top hand surgeon who, because he’s been doing that for decades, would find it more fun to play guitar gigs on evenings and weekends but recognizes  he’ll make a bigger difference spending that time seeing patients than playing Grateful Dead songs.

Serve God. For many people, religion is the prime driver of people’s lives. And it’s easy to understand why:

• Many people need rules or structure for their lives. Religion provides them.
• Many people need fear and reward to motivate them to follow rules. Religion provides them, for example, heaven and hell.
• Many people need support in life’s tough times: The belief in a loving God provides that.
• Following a deity’s rules magnifies the import of one’s actions.. It’s one thing to be kind for its own sake; it’s a bigger thing if you believe it’s part of a benevolent God’s plan.

A downside of religion is that it’s too black-and-white: There’s only one way. For example, the Bible says, “Thou shalt not steal,’ no exceptions--In many denominations, a poor person who steals a drug from a corporation to save a spouse’s life is deemed destined to burn in hell for eternity. Sure, individuals can perceive what they want in religion: Some claim the Bible condemns homosexuality; others insist the Bible endorses it. Some say the Koran encourages peaceful behavior, others that it demands jihad against the infidels. But net, a God-centric approach to life suffers from a narrow definition of acceptable behavior.

Another weakness of the serve-God approach is that it urges passivity. For example, the New Testament urges surrender to God, to trust God above reason: “Be not wise in your own eyes. God shall supply all your need.” (Philippians 4:19;) “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:1: )“If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20)

Serve society/the universe. This is the utilitarian approach: Ongoing, you decide which activity will most likely make the biggest difference. In the extremis, you could rate each of your life’s hours on how contributory it was: from -100 (making progress toward developing a mutated smallpox virus so communicable, deadly, and incurable that it would cause Armageddon) to +100: (working toward being a Messiah that would inspire everyone in the world to use their greatest powers to abet humankind as much possible.)

The serve-society approach has value even if your sphere of influence is small. For example, a ditch digger can decide whether, during a break, to have a cigarette or to teach a novice how to dig a ditch more easily. In turn, that novice will not only dig more efficiently but be equipped to teach others. The ditch digger has also, without preaching, shown the novice the value of giving, which makes that novice more likely to give to others. And those others, in turn, are more likely to give to others in this generation and in generations to come. So even a ditch digger’s impact can be significant enough to be worth the effort.

An even loftier variation on the serve-society approach is to serve a universal/cosmic good. For example, some people believe efforts to equate resources among people is a cosmic justice. Others believe that furthering meritocracy is more just.

But whether serving society or the universe, you can enhance your utility by focusing on what few others can or will do. For example, I champion the intellectually gifted at a time when government and non-profits focus on redistributing to “the least among us.” That way, I feel I make a bigger difference than if I focused on popular causes I believe in such as abortion rights, where my efforts would add a mere grain of sand onto a beach.

A downside of the serve-society/the universe approach to life is that it leads to a less pleasurable existence. That approach gives no brownie points to fun. Sure, adherents to the serve-society model may sometimes deviate from it and watch that silly sitcom but when life is done, devoted serve-society people die having experiencing less pleasure than do others.

And for some people, focusing so much on doing good for others could lead to burnout and, ironically, to doing less good than if they were moderate. However, based on the people I’ve known, you’re unlikely to burn out even from a lifetime of long workweeks as long as you’re working on something of value, are good at it, and have a measure of control over your work tasks. I’ll be 64 in June, been working 60+ hours a week for my entire life, and feel as energized as ever.

Another downside of the utilitarian approach is that an individual can do only so much. With seven billion people on the planet, your likelihood of making a big difference is small. Nevertheless, it strikes me that a life aimed at even minor contribution is better than rationalizing that you should pursue a pleasure-centric life because your potential for impact, in the largest scheme of things, is modest.

Strive for balance.  Many people believe their best shot at the ideal life is to work moderately and play moderately, dividing your time among serving yourself, God, and society. Or as many of our parents say, “Moderation in all things.”

The downside of that is that it assumes all those goals are of equal value. Can one say that a week on the beach is as valuable as a week mentoring Mensa kids?

Now it’s your turn.  In light of the above (and anything else,) do you want to write a word, sentence, and/or paragraph summarizing how you plan to live the life well-led?

"Redistribution as better than Utilitarianism:" The media's core assumption, which cries out for questioning

Philosophers like today's hot Richard Rorty, whom the New York Times called, "One of the world's most influential contemporary thinkers" insist we develop wise judgment by seeing have-nots' pain: films, reading, and, of course, through life experience.

But does that not lead society to irrational decision making? For example, even if a film ostensibly documents a real-life event, it hand-picks one that's extreme, designed to increase people's willingness to redistribute resources from those most likely to innovate, create jobs, etc., to those least likely.

Worse, most such films (and indeed much mass media news) are mockumentaries, selectively reporting and/or exaggerating the truth to obtain the desired audience reaction. And of course, in acknowledged fiction, whether on film or in novels, authors so often deliberately create situations specifically to manipulate the audience into behaving in that redistributive way.

That's not a problem if one accepts today's standard postulate among today's mainstream intelligentsia: that redistribution/egalitarianism is a fundamental truth, an axiom, the place from which one starts.

But what if a person's fundamental postulate is the currently out-of-favor utilitarianism: in which the world should be willing to accept inequalities to the extent that, net, the quality of life for the world's people is better.

Such people believe the post-modern position (as expressed by the likes of the intelligentsia's current rock stars Habermas, Derrida, Quine, Rorty, etc.) is immoral, resulting in far greater pain to the world. And those utilitarians are particularly annoyed at such movies and novels because they selectively report, create straw-man opposition, exaggerate, and even outright distort historical fact to manipulate their audience to buy that philosophy of how resources should be expended.

As we watch movies, read novels, consume "news" in print, TV or the Internet, shouldn't we question their usual fundamental postulate--that redistribution is an inherent good?

To explore both sides of this critical question, one could do worse than to read the two essays that comprise the slim book, Utilitarianism: For and Against.

"Making a Difference:" A Foolish Fad

Everyone's trying to "make a difference." Even right-wing advertisers like American Express are jumping on the "make-a-difference" bandwagon.

Sounds good, right? Not to me. "Making a difference" is code for redistributing fiscal and human resources from the haves to the have-nots. Still sounds good, right?

Not to me. For example, let's say a financial or intellectual "have" decides to devote money and time to a "make a difference" initiative, say, to the cause du jour: environmentalism: trying to cool the globe or restore some swamp (oops, wetland) to a more pre-human state. Do you think he'd make more of a difference doing that or devoting his time and money to providing a program for intellectually and/or emotionally gifted kids: those with the greatest potential to cure our diseases, create an ever more helpful iPhone or Google, or revolutionalize (finally) education? For me, it's not even close--especially when most funds for gifted programs have been redistributed to programs for special education and other at-risk students.

Another example: Let's consider a literacy program. Its students, by definition, have long struggled in learning to read. Even extensive, expensive, one-on-one tutoring will raise their average reading score only modestly--at best, say from a third to a fifth grade level. That will have only a minor impact on that person's ability to be even self-sustaining. Even assuming that government-run literacy program were run efficiently (dubious,) a have who invested time and money on that would likely be of less benefit to society than if he had invested the money and time in high-ability kids.

Let's turn to career. Let's say there's a pair of identical twins. One chose a "make-a-difference" career like social work, teaching the at-risk, or administering a government or nonprofit program for the have-nots. The other twin chose a career, for example, developing a better search engine, car engine, disease cure, or even something more mundane, more accessible to more people, like selling items that offer good value to the consumer: Whirlpool appliances, Toyota cars, or even no-iron cotton. Do you honestly believe the "making a difference" twin would actually have made a bigger difference?

No doubt, this essay evokes an "ugh" response, especially from liberals (oops, "progressives.") That visceral response will likely be followed by a slightly more intellectualized version of "ugh," labeling me "elitist," "mean-spirited," or some such.

I challenge such readers to put aside their reflexive response and instead try to be really honest with themselves: If your goal is really to make a difference, wouldn't you--beyond a humane level of investment in all humans--invest your time and money not on those with the greatest deficit but on those with the greatest potential to profit?

Alas, most of us cannot resist fads--we'll feel compelled to "make a difference."

Some of My More Potent Career Advice

I was musing on what's been working with my clients. Here are three goodies:

Think, "Is this time-effective?" Have a voice on your shoulder always whispering in your ear, "Is this activity time-effective?" Should I do it less perfectionistically? Should I not do it at all or delegate it?

Keeping the time-effectiveness mantra in mind will get you more done, not just because you'll spend less time on many tasks but because you'll procrastinate less--If you're perfectionistic, tasks are long and painful--Who wouldn't want to procrastinate such tasks?

Consider the largest perspective. That helps me in many contexts. For example, when deciding what projects to take on, I ask myself, "What activity will yield the greatest good?" (That's the utilitarian philosophy, my core guiding principle.)

Considering the largest perspective also keeps me from overworrying. When I worry whether I've managed my cash flow during tax season well enough to avoid bouncing a check--say, to the IRS--I say to myself, "What's the worst that can happen? How important is that in the cosmic scheme of things?"

Considering the largest perspective also keeps me from overpreparing. For example, in prepping for a radio show, I keep in mind that it is but one of thousands aired at the same time and that the show will soon vanish into the black hole of forgotten radio shows past.

The final tip doesn't relate to career but it's too short to devote a whole post to, so, here it is:

Buy a category-killer stock on bad news. Toyota is arguably the world's finest carmaker. The day after its sticky-accelerator problem was announced, I bought Toyota stock at 72. In a week it had risen to 80, which is where is stands now. 10% gain in a week? Cool.