Quick Fix and White Lies

Some overweight people eat too much, and could use some help stopping eating. Nowadays you can get a pill that fills your stomach, so you feel sated. Why do we feel that there’s something wrong with this idea, or perhaps something wrong with a world in which this kind of idea thrives? Gianpaolo writes “Am I the only one preferring to go after the causes rather than the symptoms?”

What are the causes of overeating? One of the problems is that some people don’t have an effective STOP signal. So taking a pill that triggers a STOP signal could introduce an effective control mechanism [footnote]. The pill acts as a proxy for food. The brain receives a message that it interprets as “stomach full of food” – this interpretation is untrue but helps to produce a good outcome – what we sometimes call a white lie.

One reason we might be uneasy about a mechanism that is based on a white lie is that it may not be sustainable. How long is it going to take the brain to learn that the message is untrue, to distrust and ignore it? Are there situations where the brain needs to distinguish between the proxy and the real thing? What happens when the pill stops working?

From a system engineering perspective, this unease corresponds to a principle that information flows or control flows ought to be true. There are countless systems where this principle has been breached – usually to force some subsystem to do something it wasn’t originally designed for. Systems engineers are wary of the complications that can ensue from proxies and automated white lies – but also appreciate how such mechanisms provide a powerful way to solve problems quickly.

But sometimes it’s okay to have a mechanism that works for a while, even if it isn’t going to work for ever. If people are committed to changing their lifestyle – whether this involves over-eating or smoking or any other bad habit – then there may be nothing wrong with a pill that helps them through the transitional period.

Thus it seems we may sometimes combine a “quick fix” with longer term change. But there is a strong risk that some people will just take the quick fix - or even a long succession of quick fixes. and fail to do anything else. And (perhaps as a consequence of this) there are many people who object to “quick fix” solutions on principle. For example, brief therapies (such as hypnotherapy and NLP) are scorned by practitioners of psychotherapy, who hold that deep problems require lengthy intervention.

It is certainly true that some deep and messy problems require deep and lengthy and costly intervention. And it is also true that some people (especially politicians) are too easily seduced by quick fix solutions that create more problems than they solve. So it is wise to be cautious of relying on the quick fix. But the principled objection to the quick fix goes beyond sensible caution, to an outright refusal to consider its merits in any circumstances. So where does this aversion to the quick fix come from?

One possible answer can be found in Albert Borgmann’s analysis of technology; the quick fix belongs to a technologically distorted view of the world, which Borgmann calls the Device Paradigm. According to Borgmann, we expect technology to deliver things to us quickly, safely, conveniently, and ubiquitously; technology presents us with a series of devices that disconnect us from the real world of cause and effect. (The quick fix pill sets up a fantasy that the pill is all you need.) Borgmann’s answer to this is something he calls Focal Things and Practices: engaging (or reengaging) deeply with chosen aspects of the world.

Ultimately, the objection to the quick fix pill is an ethical one - not just the belief that people ought to be able to control their own behaviour without the need for pills, but the belief that there is some positive value in engaging with the world in certain ways. I feel sorry for people that need (or think they need) the stomach-filling pill, because it seems to take something away from what makes us human.

[Footnote] In terms of Donella Meadows’ “Places to Intervene in a System”, this mechanism appears to qualify either as Negative Feedback (Level 8) or Material Flow producing Information Flow (Level 6/5).

Anonymity

In a comment to my earlier post on Root Cause, Robin Wilton suggested a link between anonymity and bad behaviour.

"If all potential criminals were identifiable all the time, they would be inhibited from committing crimes ... [and therefore] if no-one has any anonymity, everyone will be law-abiding."

This proposition appears to justify a high level of surveillance, as a crime-prevention measure. It also appears to justify various forms of "naming-and-shaming". Unfortunately, the proposition is not universally true. There are apparently some people who are not inhibited - and may even be encouraged - by the possibility of being identified.

For example, "a head teacher has spoken of his shock at seeing a video clip posted on a public website of a laughing pupil hurling a rock at a classroom window". [BBC News Jan 3rd 2007 via Into the Machine] And see also "Is there shaming in naming?" [BBC News Magazine via Tomorrow's Fish and Chip Paper, with a comment from me.]

So we have two kinds of identity in competition here. There is an old-fashioned notion of identity-as-respectability, and a Big-Brother notion of identity-as-notoriety. And so if social control mechanisms are designed by and for people with a given mindset, how are they supposed to work on people with an entirely different mindset? On people who find the proposition "Big Brother is Watching You" thrilling rather than chilling?

According to Donella Meadows' 12-point framework for system intervention, changes in mindset or paradigm are among the most powerful modes of system change (leverage point 2). Old fashioned social control (including the measures enthusiastically embraced by the current Government) doesn't seem to have the requisite variety to respond appropriately to these changes.

I am not saying that people are changing their notion of identity solely in order to evade social control - paradigm shifts aren't generally amenable to such rational calculation. But it is interesting that certain changes in the prevailing notion of identity seem to have the effect of weakening or negating certain social control mechanisms. And it is conceivable that these social control mechanisms have the effect of reinforcing certain social trends, including a paradigm-shift in notions of identity.

See my earlier post on Big Brother. And see Scribe's post on The Polarizing Effect of Surveillance.

Root Cause

In some versions of systems thinking, we are urged to see "the big picture" and look for "the root cause". Consultants and other practitioners often describe themselves and their practices as "holistic". 

Other versions of systems thinking open our eyes to the possibility that there may be many different big pictures, many different root causes. Given this possibility, we may be wary of the "holistic" label, because it is sometimes attached to a fixed way of constructing big pictures and finding root causes, rather than an open-minded appreciative system. 

In my previous post on Bullying, I contrasted two possible interventions

• dealing with a single manifestation of bullying
• dealing with the "root cause" of bullying

Using ID cards to prevent (some instances of) bullying is hardly dealing with the root cause of bullying. (Unless you believe that it is the lack of ID cards that somehow causes bullying in the first place.) In terms of Donella Meadow's 12-point framework for system intervention, the ID card introduces an additional information flow (leverage point 6) that enables an additional control or constraint (leverage point 5). 

There are two problems with the "root cause" approach to solving complex problems. Firstly an epistemological one - it encourages us to imagine that there might be a single identifiable thing called "the root cause". And secondly an ethical one - understanding causes is sometimes interpreted as providing excuses for the perpetrators. 

If we wish to understand bullying, we may observe that many bullies have a history of being bullied themselves, and so we may come to feel some sympathy for the bullies as well as for the victims. If we see bullying as a chronic problem, we may wish to look for systemic long-term solutions rather than merely quick fixes, and this may include providing some healing for the historic pain suffered by those who are currently inflicting their pain on other people. 

If we imagine there is a single root cause, and it is a Good Thing to tackle root causes, then healing may come to take precedence over punishment and retribution. We live in a society where the criminal sometimes seems to get more care and attention than the victim. 

Some people go to the opposite extreme. The purpose of toughness is to send a clear message - bullying will not be tolerated. Anything that smacks of sympathy for the perpetrator may dilute this message, and may therefore encourage bullying. 

But if we see bullying as a many-headed monster, with no single root cause, it may make more sense to institute a diverse cultural anti-bullying programme with a tough combination of preventative and remedial (redemptive) action. 

Some people (from both ends of the political spectrum) are convinced they know what is morally right, and therefore have no need for practical knowledge of what really works.

But in my view, the moral problem and the epistemological problem and the practical problem are inextricably linked. How many causes, how many effects? If we pay proper attention to the causes of bullying, what effect does this actually have? What is the real purpose of toughness?

Wikipedia: 12 leverage points appreciative system root cause

Related posts: Anonymity (January 2007)

Female Pleasure

Does female pleasure have any purpose? Someone has just written a book on the subject, and there are people all over the blogosphere getting very excited about it.

Press Stories: God's Gift to Women, New York Times, Proof of God,
Chat: Babble
Bloggers: Alina Stefanescu, Brothers Judd, Lorraine Berry,
Weird: The Sacred Purpose

Some biologists including Stephen Jay Gould have thought that female pleasure has no evolutionary purpose. (A similar argument might apply to male pleasure: it is arousal that triggers reproductive activity, not the subsequent pleasure.) However, sociobiologists such as Desmond Morris have suggested it could be a reward for pair bonding.

From a POSIWID perspective, there are two main lines of enquiry. Firstly, it's not difficult to imagine that sexual pleasure might make a difference to the behaviour of at least some women, with both biological (reproduction) and social consequences. Perhaps it's easier to detect social effects than biological ones, although some scientists have suggested biological effects as well (including the upsuck theory).

Secondly, it's possible to observe a range of social arrangements (including various forms of repression and violence) whose effect may be to reduce the biological and social effect of female pleasure. For example, if a woman is encouraged to remain "pure" until she marries and "faithful" afterwards, then her sexual experience will be insufficient to affect her choice of husband. And various forms of coercion and violence interfere with the woman's power to choose when to conceive and with whom.

At the other extreme, in a society where young people can experience safe sex with many partners before settling down, the biological and social importance of female pleasure may also be reduced. By the time the woman is ready to choose a steady mate, she may have been fortunate enough to experience a great deal of sexual pleasure, but that doesn't mean she is going to make this the sole criterion for her biological or social choices.

In other words, the power of this particular POSIWID may be affected by the social context. It is an individual and collective choice whether we allow this pleasant biological reflex to control our behaviour. These choices have certainly changed in many countries over the past fifty years.

Let us now analyse this social change in systems terms. From the 1960s onwards, changes in contraceptive and reproductive technology have permitted changes to sexual values, resulting in modified sexual behaviour, which weakens the POSIWID that upheld the old social system. This is a complex change spannng several levels of Donella Meadows' intervention model.

Update: See new post on oxytocin and trust.

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A further challenge to the evolutionary biologists comes from The Riddle of the Sphincter - Why do women who have anal sex get more orgasms? by William Saletan, (Slate 11 Oct 2010). Salatan identifies many possible explanations for this phenomenon, which certainly seems to contradict the simplistic account of female pleasure which evolutionary biologists seem to favour.