Social Mobility

A hundred years ago, there was comparatively little social mobility. Among the working classes there were many people with high levels of ability - intelligence, initiative and confidence; meanwhile, the upper classes were stuffed with idle dimwits. The First World War was characterized by thousands of pointless deaths, ordered by chinless wonders.

Over the past sixty years, many able and hard-working individuals from unprivileged families have attained social status and economic prosperity. Meanwhile, some formerly wealthy families have slipped down the socio-economic ladder, as a result of folly or misfortune.

As a result of this increased opportunity for social mobility, the distribution of power and wealth, although far from perfect, is perhaps very slightly better aligned to merit than it had been. And although there are many injustices and anomalies, with too many arrogant idiots in powerful positions, and there is still discrimination against talent in some areas, society has undoubtedly benefited from taking its leaders from a much broader pool of talent, women as well as men.

The question now arises - is there an unlimited supply of talented people in the under-privileged sectors of society? Should we expect levels of social mobility to remain constant? Should we expect mediaeval institutions like the British Army, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the House of Commons, the BBC and Northern Rock to take a fixed proportion of their intake from under-privileged sources?

Meanwhile, the people who climbed the ladder fifty years ago might wish to pull the ladder up behind them, making sure that their own bright and beautiful children and grandchildren get to the front of the queue for the best universities and the best jobs. However, since some of these parents got where they are today by ability and hard work, as well as good fortune, it is just possible that a few of these children might be pretty talented anyway.

I have no doubt that there are still many able and hardworking people from underprivileged backgrounds, who could play an extremely valuable leadership role in society, and I have no wish to discourage them or deny them the opportunity to fulfil their potential. But given the large number of able and hardworking people who have already moved from the working classes into the middle classes, it is possible that the amount of potential talent remaining in the working classes may be slightly less than it was a generation or two ago.

It is also conceivable that ability and hard work are socially determined. Indeed, one of the reasons why well-off parents send their children to expensive schools is because they believe that this will provide an environment in which hard work is rewarded, thereby bringing out their children's latent ability.

Actual social mobility may be clustered - it may make sense for waves of talented people to move upwards together, as they did in large numbers into many professions after the Second World War. Clustering may not be fair to everyone, but it may produce satisfactory outcomes for large numbers of people.

So this is a complex and highly charged political topic, which touches some raw nerves on both sides of the political spectrum. Enter one brave academic: Bruce Charlton, who is Reader in Evolutionary Psychiatry at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, has recently suggested that the low numbers of working-class students at elite universities was the "natural outcome" of IQ differences between classes.

I have not seen the evidence from which Dr Charlton draws this conclusion, and I have been careful not to make any such sweeping assertions myself. All I wish to say here is that social mobility is a more complex phenomenon than most politicians are willing to admit, and that educational policy based on a over-simplistic and linear notion of social mobility and distributive justice may be fundamentally flawed.

Cameras and Trust

Here's a side-thought arising from something I said in my previous post on the Purpose of Anonymity.

"Obviously this ban [on camera phones in election booths] doesn't actually prevent voters from selling their votes - votes were being bought and sold long before cameras were invented - but the lack of photographic evidence reduces the economic efficiency of the transaction."

In some societies, nearly everybody has a mobile phone, and nearly every phone can take crude photographs. And while people often leave proper cameras at home, except on special occasions, most people carry a mobile at all time. This has led to a heightened expectation of photographic evidence - including evidence of wrong-doing. For example, gang members recording antisocial behaviour (such as "happy-slapping" - a physically violent form of bullying framed as slapstick) to boost their social standing within the gang.

The same technology can of course be used for more praiseworthy purposes: for example, to record interviews and video diaries from areas where traditional journalism is constrained and independent journalists are banned. The smuggled pictures and video perform the function of samizdat.

As it happens, both happy-slapping and samizdat are subversive, although in very different ways. But the justice system also relies on photographic evidence: older readers may remember the "twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one" taken by Officer Obie in evidence against one Arlo Guthrie for littering on Thanksgiving [source: Alice's Restaurant (lyrics) (track)]. And then of course there are surveillance cameras ...

But this widespread expectation of photographic evidence devalues oral testimony. We don't trust words as much these days: if there aren't any pictures, it probably isn't true. In the past, even bribery and corruption relied on trust, because there wasn't any alternative; the camera (or rather the way society increasingly uses cameras) undermines trust.

Purpose of Anonymity

This post is an edited and extended version of my comments to Robin Wilton's post The Department of Perverse Consequences.

Campaigners are eloquent on the dangers that threaten anonymity and privacy: administrative inquisitiveness, gratuitous leaks, fraud. But what exactly is the purpose of anonymity and privacy? What are the benefits to the individual and to society? Indeed, does society benefit in any way from anonymity and privacy, or does this debate expose a fundamental conflict of interest between society (so-called "public interest") and the individual?

Here's the example from Robin's blog: anonymity of voting in elections. Robin mentions the fact that camera phones were banned from the polling booths in the recent Italian elections. Obviously this ban doesn't actually prevent voters from selling their votes - votes were being bought and sold long before cameras were invented - but the lack of photographic evidence reduces the economic efficiency of the transaction.

In this example, anonymity has a specific social purpose - to protect voters from improper influence, and to protect the democratic system from being bought by the highest bidder. In other words, it is a security mechanism, whose purpose is to counter certain specific forms of vulnerability and abuse.

If anonymity is merely a security mechanism, it is a means-to-an-end rather than an end-in-itself. Any claim of the form "security mechanism X protects against vulnerability Y" raises a number of questions of effects and effectiveness.

• How effective is X at protecting against Y?
• What alternative mechanisms could be devised to protect against Y?
• What other effects does X have?
• In particular, how does X-preventing-Y affect the wider sociotechnical system?
• Overall, does the prevention of Y provide sufficient justification for X?

And it is not obvious that anonymity is the only or best way of protecting individual voters and the electoral system from bribery and corruption. After all, we often protect systems against bribery and corruption by a security mechanism that appears to be based on exactly the opposite principle: transparency and openness. There is also an apparent conflict between the principle of anonymity and the principle of non-repudiation - the "stand-up-and-be-counted" principle. So why is anonymity appropriate for some situations, and transparency and non-repudiation for others?

We can try to answer this question by looking at the other effects of anonymity. One likely possibility is that anonymity makes it easier to change your mind, because you don't have to explain or justify your change of mind to other people, whereas delegates who are publically committed to a political position need to construct an elaborate rationalization before they can change position or party. Anonymous elections can therefore respond more quickly to the tide of public opinion, and elected politicians get a more rapid judgement from the electorate. It is of course debatable whether this is a Good Thing or not.

On this argument, anonymity is not just a security mechanism, but a system feature that affects the dynamic behaviour of the electoral system in an interesting way.

In this post, I have talked purely about the possible social benefits of anonymity. Obviously there may also be arguments for anonymity in terms of individualism, but for the time being I'll leave those arguments for Robin and others to articulate ...

Subversive Technology?

Some technologies are apparently neutral.

For example, the Internet and other media are supposed both to promote and to undermine the interests of the State and Big Business. Witness Rupert Murdoch and the Chinese Government.

Cameras can be used as mass surveillance devices, or to invade the privacy of "private" individuals (including so-called "celebrities"). They can also be used to read private notes by public servants, and many innocent snap-happy tourists have been suspected of terrorist reconnaissance.

And clocks. "I was your slave, now you are mine, I am Time."

But even if a given technology can be used in both ways, it may still lean more one way than the other. Are some technologies genuinely subversive; if so, how have they been allowed to exist?

Further Reading

• BBC News: Secret Cabinet briefing notes accidentally revealed by a housing minister
• Scribe: Teleleaks and Versions of Reality
• Robin Wilton: The Law In All Its Majesty; Two Shots, Two Feet
• Bruce Schneier: Security Risks of Street Photography; Taking Pictures from a Train; Tourists, Not Terrorists
• Wikipedia: Sousveillance

What's in a name? CCTV

Scribe has just sent me a link to a story from The Register called School crossing guards join CCTV panlollycon [30 April 2008].

I share Scribe's unease at the proliferation of cameras for various often ill-considered purposes. But a few weeks ago, I was with my son, using the zebra crossing outside his primary school with the aid of a lollipop lady. A driver ignored all of us and drove past, in clear breach of safety and the Highway Code. If I had been quick enough to get out my mobile phone and snap his number plate, I probably would have done. What me, inconsistent?

Meanwhile I wonder about the increasing use of the term CCTV to refer to systems that are not closed-circuit, but feed into an open-ended ecosystem of discipline-and-punish. The purpose of CCTV has extended from monitoring to include deterrence and penalty, and in the process it has ceased to be "closed circuit".

What I find particularly interesting here is that it illustrates the way technologies can so easily (and almost invisibly) start to be used "off-label" - in other words, breaking out of their initial context and purpose, without people even noticing that this has occurred. This isn't just semantics; if we pay attention to language, we can sometimes spot real shifts in the way certain effects are produced.

Purpose of Guerrilla

Today (2nd May) is the 200th anniversary of one of the key events of the Peninsular War, the uprising in Madrid against French occupation. Napoleon's armies were eventually pushed out of Spain and Portugal by a combination of regular forces (the British Army under Wellington) and irregular forces. We now refer to such irregular forces by the Spanish word "guerrilla", which literally means "little war". Wikipedia defines it as "bloody, spontaneous fighting"; the comma is important.

[Wikipedia: Guerrilla Warfare, Peninsular War]

For some historians, attitudes towards guerilla depends on the context. From a British perspective, fighting against the Napoleonic Empire was a Good Thing. People who are instinctively disapprove of Empire tend to look favourably on guerrilla that opposes empire.

Indeed, the traditional opposition between Guerrilla and Empire leads some people to infer the existence of Empire from the existence of Guerrilla. "People are fighting against America as if it were an Empire, therefore it must be an Empire." This is a dangerous and invalid line of argument. Any argument about the nature of America must surely be based on America's own actions and aspirations, not on the actions of its opponents.

The traditional opposition between Guerrilla and Empire may also lead to either automatic approval of all guerrilla, or automatic disapproval. But that's like saying "All War Is Justified", "My Country Right Or Wrong" or "All You Need Is Love". Grand slogans, but no substitute for intelligent thought.

America's own stance towards guerrilla is complex and context-dependent: guerilla in Vietnam or Nicaragua is not the same as guerrilla in Africa or Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Asymmetric warfare sometimes works in your favour; but as the British discovered long ago, powerful countries generally have more to lose than to gain from asymmetric warfare.

In the UK, intelligent but disaffected medical students often become comedians. In Latin America, a medical student became the glamorous face of the revolution, pinned up in countless student bedrooms, and now invoked as a fashion icon by people who have no understanding of politics or history. The purpose of guerrilla as marketing? I don't think so.

A Bit of a Dump

I may have underestimated the cleverness of BAA, when I criticized the pointless security delays at Heathrow in previous posts. BAA gets a fair proportion of its revenue from retailers in its airports, but obviously passengers aren't going to be shopping while they are stuck in a queue. So the clever trick is to delay the air crew, which delays the flights, leaving the passengers with nothing better to do than shop. Aircrew go through a separate security check, which is always understaffed, and can easily take an hour or more.

On a BBC radio programme broadcast this evening, an American Airlines executive complained bitterly about the failures at Heathrow, which he described as "a bit of a dump". [BBC File On Four, 29 April 2008] EasyJet doesn't operate out of Heathrow, so an EasyJet manager complained about Gatwick instead.

BAA of course points the blame elsewhere: it's the regulators, it's the lack of capacity, it's the job market, you've got to remember that Heathrow is more complex than other airports. As I explained in my previous post Regulated Asset Base, BAA makes more money from building new assets than by operating the existing assets cost-effectively. Indeed, this means it has a real incentive to run Heathrow and Gatwick badly, if this has the effect of persuading planners that more capacity is needed. Clever.

Statins and Supplements

Why do some people take vitamin and mineral supplements? Why do some people (usually on the advice of their doctor) take statins?

Both are thought to improve health. Supplements such as Vitamins A, C and E, together with beta-carotene and selenium, are thought to have an antioxidant effect, attacking so-called free radicals; meanwhile statins are supposed to reduce levels of cholesterol. Both free radicals and cholesterol are commonly blamed for various causes of ill-health and premature death.

Huge amounts of money are spent on both supplements and statins. In Britain, the NHS apparently sees statins as some kind of wonder-drug; Professor Roger Boyle, National Director for Heart Disease in England, hopes to increase the number of people on statins from roughly 3 million at the moment to around 6 or 7 million people. [BBC News, 2 April 2008]

Howeve, there seems to be no evidence that either supplements or statins actually increase life expectancy for the general population, although statins do appear to improve life expectancy for a small number of men (generally those who have already had heart attacks). Some research suggests that vitamins 'may shorten your life' [BBC News, 16 April 2008].

Advocates of both supplements and statins tend to shift their ground at this point. Even if it doesn't increase the length of life, which of course they don't necessarily concede, then it certainly improves the quality of life. (This is of course a much more difficult claim to disprove, since quality of life is more difficult to measure objectively, and the data are harder to come by.)

For my part, I can't see much difference between the supplement debate and the statin debate. I don't understand how people can be strongly in favour of one kind of pill, and strongly against another kind of pill, when they are produced in the same kind of factories and sold on the same kind of logic.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised if the benefits of supplements and statins aren't easy to prove. After all, free radicals and cholesterol occur naturally in the human body, and are necessary for life. The idea that you can improve health by simply taking some pill that will reduce the level of a naturally occurring substance seems to conflict with the idea of the human body as a complex, interconnected, largely self-regulating system. I am particularly astonished that many people who think of themselves as "holistic" either don't seem to appreciate the consequences of meddling with this complexity, or they imagine that popping pills can establish a better all-round balance than the body can achieve on its own.

Sources

Wikipedia on Cholesterol: Cholesterol is a lipid found in the cell membranes of all animal tissues. ... Most of the cholesterol in the body is synthesized by the body and some has dietary origin. ... Biosynthesis of cholesterol is directly regulated by the cholesterol levels present, though the homeostatic mechanisms involved are only partly understood.

Wikipedia on Free Radicals: Free radicals play an important role in a number of biological processes, some of which are necessary for life. ... The body has a number of mechanisms to minimize free radical induced damage and to repair damage which does occur.

Wikipedia on the Statin Controversy: Some scientists take a skeptical view of the need for many people to require statin treatment. Given the wide indications for which statins are prescribed, and the declining benefit in groups at lower baseline risk of cardiovascular events, the evidence base for expanded statin use has been questioned by some researchers. A much smaller minority ... question the "lipid hypothesis" itself and argue that elevated cholesterol has not been adequately linked to heart disease. These groups claim that statins are not as beneficial or safe as suggested.

Wikipedia on Antioxidants: Despite the clear role of oxidative stress in cardiovascular disease, controlled studies using antioxidant vitamins have observed no reduction in either the risk of developing heart disease, or the rate of progression of existing disease. This suggests that other substances in fruit and vegetables (possibly flavonoids), or a complex mix of substances, may contribute to the better cardiovascular health of those who consume more fruit and vegetables.

[all articles accessed 16 April 2008]

Fundamental Programming

While browsing through some BBC News items for the previous post on the Purpose of Hormones, I came across the fascinating work of one Dr Nick Neave, of Northumbria University.

Dr Nick, who writes popular articles in the Daily Mail, and is regularly consulted by the science journalists on the BBC News website, believes that women are fundamentally programmed to depend on men. (Footnote for geeks: can anyone tell me the difference between fundamental programming and any other kind of programming? No, I thought not.)

• "Sorry, but women are dependent on men." [Daily Mail, 4th December 2006]

Dr Nick studies gender differences. His serious research indicates that women are better at finding things, but he is happy to say something quite different when a journalist prompts him for a stereotype about women drivers.

• Some evidence of a female advantage in object location memory using ecologically valid stimuli [Human Nature Vol 16 No 2, June 2005]

• Spatial skills such as map reading and parking may be difficult for some women because they had too little testosterone in the womb. [BBC News 24 January 2005 via BastardLogic]
  

Dr Nick has also studied sexual attraction

• "Females, like males, are always looking to enhance their reproductive success by trading upwards." [BBC News, 16 August 2005]

• "A male face with some attributes of both masculinity and femininity is attractive. ... Women kind of like your macho-but-sensitive type." [Times Online, 20 August 2003]
  

Dr Nick, who is an expert on testosterone, suffers from male pattern baldness. Wikipedia reveals that this form of hair loss is related to hormones called androgens, particularly an androgen called dihydrotestosterone (DHT).


Dr Nick Neave, Northumbria University

Purpose of Hormones

Lots of stories on the BBC News website about hormones and their effects. Is this because it is a popular subject for research, or a popular subject for science journalism?

Effects on sexual attraction

• Feminine males 'more attractive'
• 'Hormonal' women most attractive
• Women's choice of men goes in cycles
• Asymmetrical men 'are a turn-off'
  

Effects on parenting

• Sex hormone 'higher in single men'
• Becoming a father 'civilises' men
• Secret of paternal bond
  

Effects on health

• Masculine men 'are healthier'
• Sex hormone could help mental health
  
• Sex hormone blamed for forgetfulness (misleading headline - actually it's a lack of the hormone that is said to cause forgetfulness)
  

Effects on business

• Hormones 'may fuel market crises'
• Sex hormone 'controls fear and desire'
  

Other effects

• Bad driving linked to hormones
• Hormones make women safer drivers
  

Most of these stories are related to testosterone, oestrogen and/or progesterone. The stories come from a range of sources, and sometimes contradict one another. The explanations overlap and sometimes conflict. See my previous post on Face Values Applied to Love Game.

It would seem (not surprisingly) that hormones have some effect (albeit confusingly), at least on reproduction. So it might make sense to infer the purpose of these hormones from these effects. For expertise in these matters, the BBC generally turns to one Dr Nick Neave.

Dr Nick Neave, a psychologist at Northumbria University, told the BBC News website that a fall in testosterone was nature's way of ensuring men behaved in a "civilised" and non-aggressive way around newborn offspring. [BBC News 9 November 2005]

The purpose of a system is what it does (POSIWID).