There isn't a thing out there, called GDP, that we're trying to
measure really well. It's a construct that shapes the way we think
about the world, and although we think we're measuring what we
observe, actually what we're doing is observing what we measure.
- Diane Coyle, in an interview with NPR's Planet Money.
In chemistry, an indicator is a molecule that changes color when the endpoint of a titration is
reached. For instance, methylene blue turns colorless when it is placed in a reducing
environment (meaning an excess of electrons in the solution that can be added on to the dye
molecule; remember that it's the electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom that determine which
wavelengths of light are absorbed and which are reflected, and therefore what color it appears to
be). Phenolphthalein turns from colorless to pink as a solution becomes more basic (around pH
8.2). These are not just trivia, or magic tricks, or even technobabble, but valuable tools--for the
people who know how to use them.
The city of Greensboro has just launched a Community Indicators project, to go beyond gross
measures like GDP to more relevant and local measures. This follows up on its Open Data
portal, the idea of which is to make public data more easily accessible, to move away from the
model of the Freedom of Information Act, which requires separate requests for specific pieces of
information. It creates a new problem, though. Simply dumping the archives onto the Internet
doesn't teach average citizens how to search through them, or how to interpret what we find.
Analysis is a skill set, not a technology.
You might remember Hans Rosling from his TED talks. The sad part is that, as he describes in
the introduction to the book Factfulness, simply giving people correct information is not enough.
The ignorance we kept on finding was not just an upgrade problem.
It couldn't be fixed simply by providing clearer data animations or
better teaching tools. Because even people who loved my lectures, I
sadly realized, weren't really hearing them. They might indeed be
inspired, momentarily, but after the lecture, they were still stuck in
their old negative worldview. The ideas just wouldn't take. . . . I
almost gave up."
--Factfulness, p. 11
Rosling died recently, but his last, best hope for education was this book, outlining the cognitive
biases that warp how we view statistics like the ones he presented in the famous animated bubble
graphs developed by his son Ola and daughter-in-law Anna. For instance, we simplify complex
distributions that show lots of overlap to averages, and then focus solely on the differences
between the averages to create "gaps." Gaps are vital ingredients for our Us/Them, Hero/Villain
narratives, so we search for them, whether they are relevant or not, and we usually find them.
Rosling takes a different approach to simplifying distributions. Of the seven billion people on the
planet, he places 1 billion in the lowest of four income groups, living on $1 a day or less; 5 billion
in the two middle groups, making $4 and $16, respectively; and 1 billion making more than $32 a
day, which includes me and probably most readers of this column. A theme of his book is that full
distributions tell us more than the endpoints--not just a quantitatively more complete picture, but
a qualitatively different interpretation. In terms of the most destructive forms of Downbelow
poverty, most of us have already made it out.
The villains of another recent book, Positive Populism, are the global elites, a much smaller group
than the billion people that Rosling places at the top of his scheme. Never mind that 100 years
ago, throughout the American South, people were shitting outside, spreading hookworm, until
the outhouse campaign started by the very rich Rockefellers. Or that John D. chose hookworm as
a cause precisely because health was a universal good, one that would improve productivity
without upsetting the economic order. Both of those things are true, but they don't make for a
clear separation into heroes and villains. This book addresses the perceived loss of status within
that top billion as the bottom billions catch up, with a refreshingly nonpartisan raft of policy
proposals, any one of which could inspire a good story. Here's a quick sampling:
Free markets in education and labor, meaning a universal school voucher system and market-based immigration for high-value immigrants (though the predictability of "high-value" is
questionable, and worth exploring in story form).
A robust, Teddy Roosevelt-on-steroids trustbusting regime, with corporations who face less
competition being more heavily regulated and taxed at higher rates. He also wants an end
to noncompete riders on employment contracts.
Strengthening families through marriage incentives, parenting education, and better training
and more autonomy for social workers.
Decentralizing power and money to local communities, and incentivizing their members to be
involved, individually and collectively, including a universal Citizen Service Corps for
Requiring politicians to recuse themselves from any decisions involving donors and to institute
open office hours like university professors.
PP author Steve Hilton also spends a good bit of time trying to paint the Chinese as his
other major villains. Personally, I greatly prefer the approach taken by journalist David
Ignatius in The Quantum Spy, where the Chinese are serious rivals--smart and
determined, but just as loyal to their own ideals as their CIA counterparts. It's also a very
nice example of a layman working hard to understand and to explain complicated technical
material to his readers.
Quantum computing is astonishingly complicated, especially for
someone like me. I'm a journalist, a novelist. I am not a
technologist. I had to teach myself the fundamentals of this. I thank
at the end of my book some real leaders in area of quantum
computing who were kind enough to talk me through some of the
- David Ignatius, Wired interview
According to The Quantum Spy, even our fastest machines can't do the kind of hacker magic that
Felicity Smoak does in seconds every week on Arrow. In that novel, a single facial recognition
search through all of Europe's traffic cam footage, using a quantum computer that probably
doesn't exist yet, takes days. So technology, by itself, is not going to solve our problems with
information overload and the cognitive biases that prevent us from using the information we have.
Channeling Rosling for a second, is that information overload problem even real? History
suggests that the underlying anxiety is not new:
It was King Solomon himself who lamented, 'of making many
books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.'
(Ecclesiastes 12:12) . . . Perceptions of an information overload
emerge when society lacks an authoritative philosophical and
intellectual paradigm through which sources of information and
knowledge can be interpreted.
- Frank Furedi, The American Prospect
In other words, we turn information into knowledge through interpretation, through discussion
and argument. Sure, we also short-circuit that process with faulty mental models and social
signals, but I would argue that a combination of tools and social conventions can help. Librarians
and archivists spent centuries coming up with ways to sort and catalogue information, and new
methods are being invented and tested all the time, like NASA's Task Load Index, which the
Mayo Clinic has been using to design better ways of serving up electronic health records.
Procedural checklists are another NASA invention that reduce the number of hospital mistakes.
There are even tools that help us to argue better, like the diagramming techniques called
argument mapping. We just need to start using them.
Randall Hayes is currently exploring India, looking for pragmatic solutions to problems of
poverty, education, and employment. Also comic book stores.
Everybody sounds smarter with a British accent.
Remember, kids--"LEO says GER"
A really nice discussion of the phenomenon, and of the Science Entertainment Exchange,
which drops scientists into productions. I am theoretically a member, but I have never
gotten the call.
There are a couple dozen stories here, but that phrase, "beyond GDP," brings up many,
many more in any search engine, including this, by one of the authors of the book Radical
Markets, about which more later.
Lots of good insights from these three NSA whistleblowers.
The book is not available through the Roslings's foundation, but tons of other teaching
materials are, including a card game.
One of the "seven basic tools of quality," introduced in Japan after WW2 to train
workers intimidated by full-on statistics in quality control.
India, where I happen to be this month, is #6 in the world for worm infections.
Click through to the Group for current updates.
Read more by Randall Hayes